An End of (Another) Era; NBA First Round Review

Today marked basketball history and the end of an era: the end of the San Antonio Spurs as an elite franchise. The #1 seeded San Antonio Spurs lost to the #8 seeded Memphis Grizzlies in 6 games, only the 4th time in NBA history a #1 seed has lost to a #8 seed, and the 2nd time since the first round went to the Best-of-Seven format. The series as a whole was never close, with the Grizzlies controlling the pace in every game with the lone exception of Game 2. The Spurs looked old, exhausted, and just tired after wasting all of their energy in the regular season just to futilely snag the 2nd best record in the league after losing on the final day of the regular season. Tim Duncan can exercise a player option this offseason, or he can let his contract expire at the end of the 2011-12 season. My prediction is that Duncan will announce his retirement after playing his worst season to date.

The Los Angeles Lakers absolutely destroyed the New Orleans Hornets in Games 5 and 6, winning in champion style by 15 and 18 points respectively. With their win in New Orleans Thursday night, the Kobe & Pau era Lakers improve to 8-1 in series clinching games, a league best. Early on, it was quite evident that Pau Gasol was suffering from a respiratory illness that affected his game, but after he made a 3-pointer in Game 3, his game returned to normal. The only two threats to the Lakers were Chris Paul and Trevor Ariza, neither of which played excellently at the same time. Chris Paul was limited to just 10 points in Game 6, proving once and for all that the Hornets are an incredibly bad team without Chris Paul, who may face a similar situation that Carmelo Anthony went through this past season. Paul's contract will expire at the end of the 2011-12 season, so it is highly likely the Hornets will trade him away to get some type of value back to start rebuilding the franchise from scratch.

In what was called the West series with the most potential for an upset, the Dallas Mavericks were not pleased at all that most analysts had written them off before the series began against the Portland Trail Blazers. They proved it too, going up 2 games to none to begin the series. However, the Blazers were down but not out, tying the series once it went back to Portland. Dallas won Game 5 at home by 10 point in an impressive showing of raw emotion, and finally won a game on the road in Game 6, their first road win since the 2006 playoffs where they blew a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals to the Miami Heat. The ghosts of '06 seem to finally be gone, but they now have to deal with the Lakers, a team that absolutely destroyed them in Dallas during the regular season.

Last year, the Orlando Magic swept the Atlanta Hawks in the 2nd round of the playoffs, after the Hawks played an incredibly lazily played series against the Milwaukee Bucks where the home team lost every game except the last one. This time around, the Hawks were the aggressors, only losing one blowout game while the others were all close, due to the Hawks' genius strategy of allowing Dwight Howard to do anything he wanted while guarding everyone else. The Magic compiled a very unusual team in the middle of the season, dumping the aging Vince Carter that originally they touted as being the final piece to the puzzle after losing to the Lakers in the '09 Finals, as well as dumping Marcin Gortat, Dwight Howard's backup, in order to get more 3-point shooters. In the end, those 3-point shooters were the exact cause of the Magic's loss, because they were atrocious with the exception of Game 5. Like Chris Paul, Dwight Howard's contract expires at the end of 2011-12 season, and could possibly be traded away to salvage value. Knowing the Magic GM, he will probably trade Howard away in order to get more 3-point shooters.

In a surprisingly close 5 games, the Miami Heat knocked out the Philadelphia 76ers. The Sixers had one hell of a season, going from selecting the 2nd overall pick in the draft to becoming the #7 seeded team in the Eastern Conference. Even more impressively, they managed to win against the Heat utilizing the Heat's well-known Achilles' Heel: game-winning/tying shots. Although the Heat did win in 5 games, every single game was close and demonstrated the mountain of weaknesses the Heat have, particularly their total lack of support at the Point, Post, and inconsistent bench play. The Sixers have a bright future ahead of them with Doug Collins as coach; they need just a couple more years to develop properly until they can become a true playoff contender.

The Oklahoma City Thunder have greatly improved since they battled the Lakers last year, becoming the #4 seed. This year, they went up against the surprising Melo-less Denver Nuggets, but it was clear from beginning to end that the Thunder were going to win the series in 4-5 games. In the Thunder's Game 4 loss, the entire fault could actually be blamed on a single person, Russell Westbrook, who took 30 shots to get 30 points, something you never want your point guard to be doing. 3 of those attempts were 3-pointers with the game on the line, which he managed to whiff horribly while Kevin Durant was wide open. The message was clear after the game and the Durantula took control of the team again in the series clinching Game 5. This series win is the first time the Thunder have won a playoff series since they were called the Seattle Supersonics. Unfortunately for the Thunder, despite being a higher seed, they now have to face the unlikely Grizzlies who managed to beat the ever-loving shit out of them during the regular season.

Similar to the Miami Heat, the Chiacgo Bulls defeated the Indiana Pacers in 5 games, but looked incredibly vulnerable in all 5 games other than the final one. They were losing at halftime in the first four games, a clear sign that whether they faced Orlando or Atlanta in the next round, that type of effort would not be enough to win any games. The final game showed some real effort finally, but the damage had been done. Carlos Boozer has failed to produce, while his fellow mutineers from the Utah Jazz have shined in Ronnie Brewer and Kyle Korver. Derrick Rose has been playing exceptionally, but the Bulls are similar to the Hornets in that they rely too much on their star to do all the work; the only exception is that Rose is surrounded by better talent than Paul. Expect a hard fought series against the Hawks that will probably go at least 6 games.

Finally (or is it firstly?), the Boston Celtics swept the New York Knicks out of the playoffs with dominating games. Although the Celtics no longer have Kendrick Perkins, are missing Shaquille O'Neal, and have received OKC's trash in Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic, they blew the Knicks out of the water in a series that was never close. Although it was apparent that the Celtics are still hurt by Danny Ainge's betrayal to Doc Rivers, the Knicks were just not ready for the big stage and need help with coaching and a true center; Mike D'Antoni is simply not a good coach in the playoffs and has no idea how to teach defense, while Amar'e Stoudemire apparently will never learn that a power forward who grabs less than 10 rebounds per game is not a power forward. The Knicks do have a future ahead of them, but it's going to require a mountain of re-tooling because so far, Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony have not been able to co-exist. The Celtics may have decisively won the series, but they face an improved Miami Heat who are out for blood.


In the end, the First Round was made up of a collective FINALLY. The Spurs finally have reached the end, the Grizzlies finally won a playoff game, the Mavericks finally won a game on the road, the Thunder finally won a playoff series, the Lakers finally got their act together, the Bulls finally won with Derrick Rose, the Hawks finally beat the Magic, the 76ers finally are coming back, and ESPN finally stopped talking about how awesome the Knicks and Heat are.

Starting this Sunday, the Conference Semifinals begin with the Grizzlies facing the Thunder, the Mavericks tackling the Lakers, the Hawks going against the Bulls, and the long-awaited clash between the Celtics and Heat. I didn't make any predictions in the first round because I think it's bad karma to bet against the higher seeds in the first round, but this time upsets are definitely possible. The teams I'm picking to go to the Conference Finals are the Grizzlies in 6 games, Lakers in 5, Bulls in 6, and Celtics in 7.

HOSTILE TAKEOVER!

Citing poor financial management and poor executive management, MLB commisioner Bud Selig announced last night that the MLB will be taking over all day-to-day operations of the Los Angeles Dodgers until a new owner can be found. Frank McCourt the (current and legal) owner of the Dodgers, has said that he will fight to keep his team, even though he is in the middle of an incredibly messy divorce with his wife, with the Dodgers the biggest bid at stake. There's disagreements over whether Frank should be the sole owner of the franchise after the divorce is finalized, or whether his wife should be the 50% owner post-divorce. In the midst of this, the Dodgers were unable to meet payroll and Frank McCourt was planning to borrow $30 million of TV time money from Fox to finance the team, but Fox declined. Instead, McCourt planned to take a personal loan from Fox in order to pay the team, a serious no-no.

If you thought that was bad, it is without a doubt, McCourt's direct fault the savage beating on opening day at the Dodgers Stadium parking lot, because he fired the head security chief in the offseason and did not bother to hire a new one. Because there is still no security chief, the LAPD has taken over being security guards.

Bud Selig is pissed, especially because the Dodgers are one of the premier legendary franchises in Major League Baseball, among the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, White Sox, and Giants. This move is actually welcomed among Dodger fans, especially because it means that McCourts might be out of the news for a while and management of the team can improve, hiring a better General Manager and raising ticket prices for example; season ticket prices dropped from $27,000 to $17,000 in just one year.

This situation is actually a first for baseball, while the Montreal Expos and Texas Rangers were both at one point owned by the MLB, both were given away voluntarily, not taken over as in the case with the Dodgers. When the Expos were owned, the MLB decided to move the franchise to Washington to become the Nationals (which are still the butt of the league's jokes) and the Rangers went to the first World Series (cannot possibly be a coincidence). People can hope that the Dodgers will go through a "magical" turn-around like the Rangers, but it's not likely to happen with their complete lack of a bullpen or reliable hitter other than Andre Ethier.

Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection

Fifteen years after Final Fantasy IV, Square Enix commemorated its first game on the Super Nintendo and one of the top 50 games of all time with two new projects: a DS remake with voice acting and new gameplay features originally planned for the SNES version but never implemented, and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, a sequel to the original that takes place 15 years later. The DS remake was received very well with its new English translation, spiked difficulty, the new Augment system that required careful planning ahead of how to customize characters, and the adjustments to the battle system that required previously easy boss fights to become much more strategic.

The After Years received mostly average to above-average reviews, but the main complaint was that it was released on WiiWare in episodic format, forcing people who were playing to pay for each episode (referred to as Tales), rather than being able to wait for the full game to be released and pay for the entire game in one payment.

Now, only some 2 or 3 years later, Square Enix has released PSP versions of the GBA version of FFIV and The After Years with updated visuals matching the PSP versions of FF1 and FF2, as well as a new story called Final Fantasy IV: Interlude. Interlude connects the stories of FFIV and TAY a little bit better and it's nice to see the characters interacting in the postgame of FFIV, which takes place about a year after the defeat of Zeromus.

The main appeal of this package is that you're getting the GBA version of FFIV (which is not that difficult), The After Years (which is serves as a decent next chapter in the story), and the new Interlude, all for $30. Interlude is as it says: it's just an Interlude and it takes approximately 2-4 hours to complete it depending on your patience. The After Years, because it has all Tales (except specific ones) unlocked from the start, allows you to take on any Tale in any order, after you complete Ceodore's Tale first.

The After Years has unexpected twists in already existing areas, plus a new feature in the battle system known as "Bands." Bands are special attacks executed using 2 or more party members each using specific attacks to create a new double/triple/quadruple/quintuple attack. If Bands sound familiar, it's because they're almost exactly like the Techs and Combos from Chrono Trigger, which the original battle director of FFIV went on to help design; the Bands system are a tribute to him. Bands are executed slightly differently from Double/Triple Techs from the Chrono series: instead of a new Band being available upon learning a specific ability, Bands must be searched for manually and a certain amount of guesswork is required. For the 3-5 person oriented Bands, it can take some time to discover each one that exists without a guide. It's very much worth it in the end since some of the more powerful Bands can break the damage limit of 9,999 without the aid of an accessory.

Story (FFIV): 10/10

Story (FFIV:I): 5/10

Story (FFIV:TAY): 8/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Presentation: 8/10
Replay Value: 10/10

Weighted Score:      8.5/10

The new "Interlude" chapter has a very lazily written story, but it does have a few merits here and there, even though no new areas are explored. TAY has a pretty good story, impressive considering Square Enix's track record in writing original stories ever since Hironobu Sakaguchi left the company after Final Fantasy XI. The big thing that really stands out in all three games is how fluid the gameplay is without any hiccups. If something bad occurs, it's because you were not prepared, not because the game is designed badly. If you've never played FFIV before, this is a must-purchase if you own a PSP. If you've never played The After Years, now is the perfect time to play it. If you've already played both, it's nice to own this because who wouldn't want to jump on spoony bards while on the go? While some might be turned off by the Final Fantasy name, keep in mind that this story was crafted prior to Final Fantasy X-2 or Final Fantasy XIII.

Houston Rockets and Rick Adelman Mutually Agree to Part Ways

Rick Adelman is near-universally referred to as the greatest NBA coach to never win an NBA championship other than Jerry Sloan. In Adelman's coaching career that began in 1989, he led the Portland Trail Blazers to 2 NBA Finals where they lost to the Pistons and Bulls and a Western Conference Finals where they lost to the Lakers, a largely forgettable run with the Golden State Warriors, taking the Sacramento Kings to the brink of an appearance in the NBA Finals, but lost to the Lakers in a Western Conference Finals that was a million times more entertaining than the actual NBA Finals, and led the Houston Rockets to the Western Semi-Finals where they gave the Lakers a run for their money even after losing Yao Ming to (what is now being seen as) a career ending injury and with an injured Tracy McGrady.

Adelman went to Houston to coach Yao and McGrady, but is now left with Luis Scola and Chuck Hayes as the "stars" while Yao is questionable to ever return to basketball and McGrady is now playing in Detroit. Today, the Houston Rockets announced that they will not be renewing Adelman's contract in what is being called a mutual agreement. The Rockets players were not pleased with this news, saying that Adelman was a great coach and deserved to stay.

Although Adelman is now unemployed, he has publicly said he is not done with coaching and has just became the most interesting "free agent" of the 2011 offseason. There are 3 coaching spots that are open at this moment: the Indiana Pacers, the Utah Jazz, and most notably, the Los Angeles Lakers. The Pacers appear to be happy with Lionel Hollins as their new coach, who has led them to a #8 seed and is currently giving the Bulls a very hard fought series in the playoffs. In Salt Lake City, nobody is happy with anything and it is very likely the interim head coach will be leaving along with the majority of the team in the offseason as they begin rebuilding. And then there's the Lakers....

Phil Jackson began the season with declaring he would be retiring at the end of the 2010-11 season regardless of the outcome and many felt that Brian Shaw would be his successor after Kurt Rambis left to become the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves. But with Adelman unemployed, the chances of the Lakers landing the best coach to never win a championship have just gone up. It won't surprise me at all if people start suggesting Adelman become the next coach of the Lakers, but Adelman's career has been characterized for guiding younger teams, not ones that have already been long established.

The 2011 NBA Playoffs Have Begun...! And It's Full of Head-Scratching Moments

The Playoffs have finally arrived, with several notable match-ups, including Boston vs New York and Dallas vs Portland. On the first day of action, we saw The Chicago Bulls struggle against the Indiana Pacers, the Philadelphia 76ers control most of the game against the Miami Heat, The Atlanta Hawks eviscerate the Orlando Magic, and the Portland Trail Blazers putting on the pressure against the Dallas Mavericks. Only the Hawks managed an "upset," even though most analysts and odds-makers are predicting the Hawks to defeat the higher-seeded Magic with ease.

The Hawks certainly proved them right; Dwight Howard scored 46 points and yet the Magic still lost by 10 points. The Magic is made of two key components now: Dwight Howard, the best overall center in the NBA, and everyone else on the team who are all known for being 3-point shooters. What the Magic have as obvious Achilles' Heels are that they have no true backup Center and only Jameer Nelson even dares to attack the basket, although she usually prefers to shoot 3's. The Hawks exploited both of their weaknesses and never bothered to seriously guard Howard and instead focus on guarding everyone else. The strategy worked perfectly and the Magic were made a mockery of despite the fact Howard scored a career high in points. If Stan Van Gundy cannot teach everyone on the team how to score a lay up, they could be in danger of being swept out of the first round by the team they annihilated in a record beatdown last year.

As far as the other teams yesterday, both Chicago and Miami managed to make great comebacks from behind, but for differing reasons. The Bulls had their comeback led by pinpoint accurate shooting and driving on all cylinders, playing like the #1 overall seed. The Heat... basically lucked out that the 76ers started playing incredibly poorly. Although Dallas led most of the game against the Blazers, Portland controlled the pace of the game throughout, causing Dirk Nowitski to have a terrible shooting night until the 4th quarter when he picked things up and closed the game.


Today came the other 4 games, which saw something unseen in the playoffs since the 80s: both the #1 Spurs and #2 Lakers lost their Game 1's. Both teams were overwhelmed by the lower seeded Grizzlies and Hornets respectively, but for differing reasons, again. The Spurs were defeated by a lack of Manu Ginobili, lost to a hyper-extended elbow on the final day of the season, and utter dominance by Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, leading the Grizzlies to their first playoff victory in the franchise's 10 year history. The Lakers were killed by Chris Paul doing whatever the hell he wanted to do and Pau Gasol never playing like he cared. Frequently, the Hornets took advantage of the Lakers' long-known weakness of transition defense, causing Pau Gasol to defend Chris Paul frequently in the 4th quarter. Although Kobe and Lamar Odom had great nights, the total lack of Pau Gasol really hurt the Lakers to the point that there is now a statistical risk of losing the series.

The Boston Celtics met the New York Knicks, a team that has not been to the playoffs, not to mention win a playoff game, in so many years that most of the people playing for the Knicks were not in the NBA yet. The Knicks gave the Celtics a great challenge and proved that they were going to just sit there and be defeated, taking the game down to to the wire until Ray Allen made a 3-pointer to take a 2 point lead with under 10 seconds left. Carmelo Anthony then missed a 3-point attempt off of excellent Celtic defense. However, it became very clear that if the Celtics want to win the series, they need Shaq to be healthy or they won't stand a chance down the stretch.

The last of the Game 1's was between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets, two teams that have generally been viewed as evenly matched heading into the playoffs. The Nuggets have been on fire since the Carmelo Anthony trade, beating almost all of the big teams and entering the playoffs with tons of excitement, despite the fact they have no star player and their team leader is apparently now Kenyon Martin, one of the least likeable players in the NBA. On the side of OKC, the lingering of an old curse hung overhead: the last time the regular season scoring champion reached their Conference Finals was Allen Iverson in 2001, where his 76ers eventually lost to the Lakers in 5 games.

The game itself was a thriller from beginning to end, with the Nuggets leading in the first half and most of the second. The game ultimately came down to Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook doing what they do best, but it came down to extremely poor refereeing that missed [CORRECTION]Kendrick Perkins[CORRECTION] tipping in a ball while holding the net to secure the Thunder eventually winning the game. Although the Thunder did win a margin high enough to compensate for the offensive interference being missed, the bucket that made it was extremely crucial towards the Thunder winning.


So yes, there was already quite a bit of drama in the opening games, with only 1 team getting an exactly as predicted decisive loss and every single one of the top 4 seeds in each conference struggling in all of their games. Who knows what's in store for the rest of the series; stay tuned for my review of the first round once all the games are finished, probably a week and a half from now.

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 - Why Part 2 and 3 Will Never (and Should Never) be Made

Atlas Shrugged Part 1 was released in theaters yesterday to unbelievably negative critical reception as well as negative fan reaction by Ayn Rand fans. For those not familiar (feel lucky), Atlas Shrugged was a giant brick of a "novel" written by Ayn Rand, the much acclaimed writer of The Fountainhead. After its success, Rand was pressured by friends and colleagues to write her magnum opus and manifesto of "Objectivism" ideas that she only briefly explored with the novel and film versions of "Fountainhead."

In order to express her ideas, Rand created a dystopian world where the government has taken over businesses and is slowly working on capturing the last vestiges of private enterprise. As it is doing so, many notable inventors, artists, and intelligent minds are mysteriously going missing, most notable of which is John Galt. Throughout the film it is revealed that these missing elite are purposely disappearing from society to bring down the government because if they cannot own their own properties, they will not let the government own them either. In doing so, society crumbles due to the total lack of influence from the elite and John Galt rises from the ashes, giving a incredibly long speech (70 pages long) basically breaking the fourth wall to have Ayn Rand spout off her views on Objectivism (the article is pretty long and has to be read to be believed) and have Galt become the leader of this new Objectivist society. Apparently, this is supposed to be a happy ending.

When Atlas Shrugged was first printed, it got incredibly negative critical reviews, but large sales. Over the years, "Atlas" has continued to be one of the worst reviewed books in American literature, yet continues to sell copies, mostly to people who identify themselves as Libertarian. Ron Paul, his son Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan are three congressmen who all identify their views as being largely taken from Atlas Shrugged and Ryan even requires all of his staffers to read the brick when they are hired. Paul Ryan has made the news lately because he has proposed a budget that would essentially turn the US into a society that Ayn Rand would always have dreamed of. His budget will never get passed though, because only 2 other people in Congress agree with him.

The film Atlas Shrugged Part 1 has spent nearly 40 years in development hell, attached to numerous directors and actors, but has finally been made! It's incredibly low budget and stars absolute nobodies as actors, so of course it's going to be awesome. The reason for not making the film as a straight adaptation of the novel is because, of course, the writers and director are in love with Ayn Rand and want each of the three parts of the books to be their own movie. However, the director has stated that if the first part does not do well in theaters (it won't), he will never direct a movie for the rest of his life.

Although, a true Ayn Rand fan would only know if the movie was good if the film made money and destroyed its competition. In short, Rand's views are that all of us are at fault for not creating empires out of our ideas and the only people worth anything in our society are people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc. I'm sure Rand would be very unhappy to hear that all those guys would love to see tax increases on themselves to aid their government.

Gran Turismo 5 - The Long Wait is Finally Over... So Much That I Forgot This Game Came Out

Gran Turismo 5 finally arrived!... Last November! Yeah, I'm late to the party, mostly because I just got a 3DTV and I was looking for games I could play. The only one that caught my eye was GT5, and I was very surprised to see that it actually finally came out. Gran Turismo 5 is the first GT for the PS3, which is somewhat disappointing because the PS1 and PS2 each had two GT releases. The main reason it looks like GT5 will be the only installment on the PS3 is because of the ability for software updates; this game came out in November and it already is on Version 1.09.

It should be noted that I have not played a GT game since GT2, so my review may be somewhat skewed.

The selection of cars is extremely huge, bigger than that of the PS1 releases, very welcomed since the PS2 releases had to sacrifice car amounts in order to push the PS2 to its limits. The feel of driving these cars is as good as ever, noted by car experts as preserving the tiny differences between cars even if the differences are so small that even car experts don't really notice any difference in real life. No two cars drive exactly the same, but some cars do drive similarly, especially if the models were manufactured to be competitors to each other.

The graphics are great in most places, notably the cars and the race tracks. Things that stand out as looking awful are trees and people, which is very bad since a virtual Jeff Gordon appears to give an introduction to the world of NASCAR to the player and every time you win a new trophy, your PIT crew appears next to your car. Thankfully, your avatar never takes off their helmet, so you don't have to be punished with some ugly monstrosity the entire playing experience. One negative on your appearance though is you can NEVER change your racing suit or helmet color unless you erase your save data.

Two big appeals to GT5 for the ultimate racing enthusiast are the ability to use the PlayStation Eye to enable head-tracking so you can get better looks at the rear view and driver side mirrors and the ability to play in 3D. Like any racing game, you can also play with a steering wheel or a rig with a brake and accelerator. I'm not insane and orgasmic about racing games, so I'm just going to stick with the 3D.

A neat feature for me personally was that the Mercedes-Benz SLK 230 '98 is an unlockable car; I own the '99 variation. The only major difference between the '98 and '99 is that the '99 and up versions featured optional automatic transmission, which I have. The SLK 230 featured in GT5 drives basically exactly how my actual car drives since all MT cars can be played as AT. Every quirk including the silly way the SLK 230 accelerates from a full stop is included, much to my delight.

Story: N/A
Gameplay: 10/10
Presentation: 8/10
Replay Value: 10/10

Average Score:      9.3/10

The graphics of people and trees are pretty big distractions keeping the game from receiving a perfect score, but the cars and race tracks have unbelievable attention to detail. Thankfully, despite Top Gear having an inclusion in GT5, only the track and wacky challenges are included and not the hosts of the show who are so incredibly British that they make casually racist remarks on their show so frequently that previous guests on the show have criticized the show for being juvenile and protected by the BBC's weak apologies.

The Battle of the News Anchor Babes is ON!

I remember when CNN vs Fox News was about unbiased journalism against conservative propaganda. Apparently, most people want to hear news with a slant, so they love to tune into Fox's opinion based shows, Fox and Friends, America Live, Your World with Neil Cavuto, Glenn Beck, The O'Reilly Factor, and Hannity. That's a hell of a lot of opinion based shows for a network that claims to be "Fair and Balanced." Those shows are all at least an hour long, America Live being 2 hours long and Fox and Friendsbeing 3 hours long. That's 9 hours of conservative slant programming, but many of those shows are broadcast more than once per day. The total amount of biased programming on Fox throughout the entire day is actually 13 hours, more than half of our oh-so-dear 24 hour day.

So what does any of that have to do with anything? Well, in CNN's effort to increase their ratings, they've attempted to make their own opinion based shows, which all fail miserably.Their latest project, Parker Spitzer, failed so hard in ratings and in host chemistry that Kathleen Parker had to leave and now Eliot Spizer remains with his own show, In the Arena, which is also not doing so hot. One of the projects that did work for a while was Rick Sanchez as the 3-5pm ET timeslot host of CNN Newsroom. Unfortunately, Sanchez just had to make some comments about CNN's executives that were anti-Semitic in nature while claiming that he has had a difficult career as a Latino journalist in English media., even though he is a light-skinned Cuban who started their career in Miami, the easiest place for someone like Sanchez to get ahead.

After Sanchez's firing, CNN replaced him with Don Lemon initially, but poor Lemon has zero charisma and flopped hard. Instead, CNN tried the Fox News formula and placed frequent Sanchez guest Brooke Baldwin as host instead. While Baldwin has thus far tried to avoid having an opinion based show, there's no denying that her place on the network has become the other cornerstone that Fox loves to have: hot babes doing the news!

The host of America Live, Megyn Kelly (yes, that's how she spells her name...), is also incredibly hot even though her opinions are fucking stupid. There's little one can do about Kelly though, she is a former attorney after all. Even though Kelly is dumb as bricks in things outside of law (and that's debatable), she is super super hot and awesome to look at. Brooke Baldwin is a super hot redhead and is on only an hour after Megyn Kelly is off the air!

It's quite a dilemma really, what to watch, actual news with a fiery hot redhead or opinionated bantering with a blonde bombshell.

I really don't even care anymore, I just get my real news sent to me from Reuters and the AP.

Update: Apparently, Brooke recently missed almost a week of work because she was diagnosed with a very mild form of skin cancer and had the tumor removed from her nose. She returned to the airwaves today sporting the cutest placed Band-Aid I have ever seen, as can be seen in this video where Brooke acknowledges her predominantly male fanbase.

The 3rd Birthday - Aya Brea's Return

After a long wait, Square Enix finally delivers the long-awaited sequel to Parasite Eve 2, The 3rd Birthday. The reason the game is not titled Parasite Eve 3 is because SE chose not to renew the licensing fee for the name "Parasite Eve;" the first game was originally a sequel to the novel Parasite Eve. The 3rd Birthday takes place in 2013, a year after monsters known as the "Twisted" appeared in New York City and started the end of civilization, eventually constructing large Twisted factories known as "Babels" in several countries around the world. At the start of the game, it is predicted that human civilization will cease in two years' time.

Fortunately for us, there lies a trump card: Aya Brea. Aya was found by an organization known as the CTI, an offshoot of the FBI, back in 2010 with total amnesia other than her name. Aya possesses the unique ability to "Overdive," the ability to transmit her psyche into people's minds at any point in the past. Using her ability to Overdive, the CTI launches a mission to save the present by saving the past.

Obviously, this ability to Overdive is derived from Aya's mutated mitochondria as shown in the first two Parasite Eve games. During the game's story, Aya remembers more about her past and is shown to be actively changing the past and leading to humanity being saved. The ending of the game is what really ruins Aya's return though. I won't spoil anything, but the game's story was just fine until the ending had to mess everything up. It won't stop a 4th Birthday from happening, but it just makes this game's story that much less valuable.

Story: 4/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Presentation: 8/10
Replay Value: 10/10

Average Score:      7.5/10


Despite the incredibly awful story, the game's gameplay is fantastic and easily the best third-person shooter for the PSP outside of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The graphics are pretty good too, but there's a little too much cartooniness and emphasis on Aya being half-Japanese by essentially just putting a blonde wig on a Japanese woman rather than actually taking the time to design a mixed-race person.

Half-Japanese, Half-Caucasian people tend to look like this.

This is an Asian face with a Caucasian nose and a blonde wig, not what a mixed person looks like.

As far as replay value, the game can easily be completed in a few hours after the first playthrough during a New Game +. The reason for this ease of difficulty is unlocking bonus features, including the ability to watch the cutscene of Aya showering whenever you want (*wink*wink*) after completing the game 50 times. The game has really good gameplay and is a really fun and easy game to play while traveling where save points are plentiful and you can repeat old missions as often as you'd like to upgrade your weapons and abilities.

Really, this game's only fault is it's incredibly stupid story and it really is a shame.

Lakers vs Mavericks? No, no, no, it's really Jason Terry vs Matt Barnes.

Two days ago, the Lakers and Mavericks played an incredibly important game that would more than likely determine the future seeding in the Western Conference. The Lakers absolutely demolished the Mavericks, supposedly their strongest competition, by 28 points, while also holding Jason Terry to 2-10 shooting whereas Lamar Odom at one point scored 3 3-pointers in a row. During the game, Jason Terry shoved Steve Blake after a hard foul and the two had a minor altercation that was little more than barking at each other. Matt Barnes came in and tried to shove Terry, but was stopped a by a referee and later involved Brandon Haywood trying to stick up for Terry against Barnes. All four players were ejected, Terry receiving a flagrant-2 foul which allowed the Lakers an opportunity for 3 free throws. In the aftermath, Barnes was suspended for a game for escalating the situation.

After all was said and done, Chris Webber took an opportunity to dig in to the Mavericks and lambast them for being such a soft team that their 6th man, a Guard, had to be the one to show physicality, but it was when the Mavs were losing by 20 points. Because of Terry's awful shooting night and the Mavericks poor performance, it was easily viewed that Terry was incredibly mad that he and his team were vastly outplayed and outclassed with no hope of ever defeating the Lakers in a 7-game series. Later, Kobe responded to a comment Jason Terry made about Kobe not being able to keep up with Dallas' younger guards. Kobe responded along the lines that Terry's hopes of becoming a TV analyst are over after making such a ridiculous statement.

Of course, Jason Terry didn't learn how to shut up and decided to just fan the flames. Terry publicly called out Barnes and said, "I call Barnes the Charminator. You know what that is? That is a guy that's soft as Charmin' toilet paper. It's not only that he's a Pac-10 guy and he's a Bruin, and so you know we hate those guys -- us Wildcats, we hate Bruins. I don't care who you are. Whenever you don that uniform, I can't stand you, other than Reggie Miller. Barnes, I remember you when you were at Golden State, you're a journeyman. You put on that Laker uniform and you turn into Jerry West, Kareem, and Worthy, and Magic. Those are the real Lakers, not Barnes."

Barnes' response? "I'm not worried about what he's talking about. In Golden State we showed how to beat Dallas. You take it right to their chin and they back down. I don't see that nothing's changed since then so hopefully we see them again."

In case you have forgotten or are not aware dear reader, the #8 seed Golden State Warriors defeated the #1 seed Dallas Mavericks in the 2007 playoffs to become the first #8 seed to ever defeat a #1 seed in NBA playoff history.

tl;dr

Jason Terry is extremely butthurt that Dallas was shitrolled by the Lakers, so much so that he has to let everyone know how much his ass hurts.

Jalen Rose Experiences MAJOR Karma Backfire

Pictured is Jalen Rose's mugshot from his DUI arrest 3 weeks ago. Well that's ok, it's not the first time someone involved in media has been arrested; the same happened to Charles Barkley a little over a year ago. However, Rose failed to report his DUI to ESPN, a serious no-no since ESPN has a policy of anchors, reporters, and analysts to report anything that might become embarrassing in the future immediately so that ESPN can deal with it in private. The DUI arrest happened around the same time as Rose's "The Fab Five" documentary was aired, which received unbelievably negative reviews for portraying the Fab Five as a much better team than they really were and for Rose continuing to call black athletes at Duke "Uncle Toms," including current Phoenix Sun Grant Hill.

Because Rose failed to report his DUI and the story was broken by TMZ, ESPN decided to pull Rose off the air. This news is absolutely fantastic because Rose no longer gets to do the Pre-Half-Post Game show, spewing his absolutely ridiculous opinions. Unfortunately, we still have to deal with Jon Barry, who infamously claimed that Kobe is too old for the Lakers to win and is now eating his words with a giant spoon.

Stuart Scott is also dealing with cancer, so he is out of action (at least for the regular season) so that's 2 down, 1 to go to get the Pre-Half-Post Game show to be decent! Now I'm not wishing any ill will towards Scott, I hope he makes a full recovery; I just wish his recovery to be as slow as possible so that he stays away from television as long as possible.

NBA Playoff Push Begins!

It's almost time for the playoffs, but for teams it seems that the playoffs have already begun. In the #8 seeds, the Indiana Pacers and the Charlotte Bobcats are in a fierce battle in the East, and the Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets are duking it out-out West. There's a few contested seeds in both conferences, which will determine which team faces whom during the first round. This is critically important because upsets almost always happen and there's more than a few teams in both conferences who look very ready to Cinderellas in the first round.

But the biggest stories for the beginning of the playoff push are the Spurs, Lakers, Mavericks, Celtics, and Heat. The Spurs have suffered two injuries in a row, to Tim Duncan and then Manu Ginobili which garnered them an extremely unimpressive 5 game losing streak, causing them to only be ahead of the Lakers by 2 1/2 games now, caused lately by a very unimpressive loss to the Boston Celtics.

The Lakers have been absolutely steamrolling their competition, only losing once to the Miami Heat since the All-Star Break. Last night, the Lakers and Mavericks battled for the #2 spot in a game that has been widely viewed as the deciding game for the #2 and #3 seeds out West. The game wasn't even close; the Lakers won by 28 points and even exposed the Mavericks for being an incredibly soft team with zero physicality. The Lakers proved with their latest game that no team can defeat them in a 7-game series and they are almost guaranteed at this point to win a 3rd straight championship.

Although the Mavericks have been the most consistent team of the decade in the regular season, they're once again showing their true colors and will likely choke in the playoffs again. After their loss to the Lakers last night, Chris Webber called out the Mavericks for being incredibly soft and having no physicality for the cheap shot Jason Terry took on Steve Blake. Although Webber was a fan of the foul in essence, he did not agree with shoving a player when you're losing a game by 20+ points and have had an absolutely atrocious shooting night. This sent the message to everyone that Terry has a short fuse when he does badly and also that the 6th man (a Guard at that) rather than a team leader had to instigate something. Webber went on to say that this was the game for the Mavericks to prove they were the real deal and shove it in the Lakers' faces, but the opposite happened and now everyone is writing off the Mavericks since now everyone knows it will be impossible for the Mavericks to defeat the Lakers in a 7-game series.

The Celtics have been on a downward spiral since the OKC trade, and it's only gotten worse with Nenad Krstic out with a possibly long-term injury, while Kendrick Perkins is playing for the Thunder. This trade with OKC has been disastrous for the Celtics in multiple ways and Danny Ainge will most definitely be fired if the Celtics fail to reach the NBA Finals. Lastly, the Miami Heat have been fairly average compared to their season, but two games stand out in particular. Miami needed an overtime to beat the 76ers, the team they are likely to face in the playoffs, and the Cleveland Cavaliers finally managed to beat the Heat by double digits, the first time this entire season the Cavaliers have won by 10+ points. The Cavaliers may have crafted a blueprint of success for teams facing the Heat, as it allowed the worst team in the NBA to beat a team known for demolishing all the bad teams.


The NBA Playoffs begin 2 weeks from now.

Dr. Phil Has No Idea How to "Fix" Generation Y

Dr. Phil McGraw is a retired psychologist, known for making many appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show and hosting his own show, Dr. Phil. Dr. McGraw has come under fire over the years for his psychological approach, which is viewed as being far too simplistic and usually ineffective. Just to make things even more complicated, he has received criticism for his own show over the years because of how he has recruited guests occasionally. Of course, just to put the icing on the cake, despite him being an outspoken critic of all pornography, whether it be softcore or hardcore, his son Jay married one of the Dahm triplets, one of the 3 Playmates of the Month in the December 1998 issue of Playboy.

Clearly, Dr. McGraw is not the best psychologist in the world, nor was he capable of raising a son with the same values as him.

Here though, I need to discuss Dr. McGraw's latest shortcoming which has been getting constant attention on his show. McGraw has long criticized "Generation Y" (or as I prefer, the Nintendo Generation) for having an inflated sense of entitlement and lack of ambition. Despite McGraw usually blaming parents for badly raising children, lately McGraw has been criticizing 15-25 year olds for their own behavior without consideration that times have changed. The most noteworthy case on his show has been "The Dr. Phil Family," a family originally at odds over the oldest daughter misbehaving, doing drugs, and having unprotected sex in high school. Since McGraw originally featured the family on the show, the daughter has gotten progressively worse, having 2 children with unknown fathers, losing custody of both children, and being addicted to meth at one point. Being hypocritical, McGraw has never blamed her parents for raising her to be a bad child, rather focusing on having her correct her own actions.

That in itself is part of McGraw's inability to understand Generation Y. McGraw criticizes our generation for being too self-entitled and unambitious, yet he expects a product of that generation to solve their own problems after being raised by the hippie generation.

The main problem with my generation is our parents. Our parents grew up in a time of uncertainty; a war was being fought in Vietnam for seemingly no reason, the President could no longer be trusted, violence was erupting over race, and women were fighting a losing battle for equality. Growing up in that era, our parents instilled us with their values, just as their parents had done for them. Except this time, we would learn to mistrust the government and all authority figures, accept casual sex as teenagers, and know that marijuana usage would not face severe consequences.

In short, Dr. McGraw blames parents for misbehaving children, but once the kids start being sexually active it's all their fault. Makes perfect sense.