Yanks ‘Reverse the Curse’ in Six Games

After suffering through nine, agonizing years without a World Series title, the New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 7 to 3 in last night’s deciding Game 6.  Breathe a sigh of relief today, New York.  The curse is over.

One has to look all the way back to the year 2000 to find when the Bronx Bombers last ascended the Major League Baseball throne.  Bill Clinton was still President, Limp Bizkit was at the top of the charts and YouTube didn’t even exist yet.  Considering such a lenghty drought, it was no surprise that fans suspected dark forces were somehow at work.  Many blamed the so-called “Curse of the Brandbino,” a reference to the Yankees’ release of pitcher Brandon Knight in 2001, the year the team coincidentally lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in a stunning ninth inning collapse during Game 7 of the World Series.  Following another failed trip to the Fall Classic in 2003 and a handful of other disappointing seasons, it seemed that all hope was lost…

Until last night.

Thanks to the heroics of old and new Yankee greats like Hideki Matsui, Mark Teixeira, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera, the Bombers are once again World Champions, a fact in which I thoroughly revel.  But I don’t revel for my own sake.  No, I revel for the sake of people like my six-year-old niece who never witnessed the Yankees win a championship in their lifetime.  After all, the game of baseball is a kid’s game at heart.

DJ Hero: Because White People Weren’t Lame Enough Already

For years, those who liked the hip hop music had to sit and stew in their laceless Adidas Superstars while their metal head friends rocked out to Guitar Hero.  Luckily today there’s DJ Hero, giving us all the opportunity to bastardize yet another music genre.

DJ Hero provides the thrill of dropping beats for your favorite rappers while saving you the poverty, violence and despair of growing up in the Marcy Projects.  Using the buttons and sliders on the turntable game controller, players will have to mix tracks and samples as well as perform scratches and crossfades when prompted by the on-screen graphics.  There’s also a mysterious and nonsensical “euphoria” button, which players can depress to score extra points.  (Yeah, ’cause I remember how Jam-Master Jay would always rock that euphoria button in all those old Run-DMC videos.)

Now I know a lot of people like these “Hero” games because they’re fun at parties, but before you go out and buy DJ Hero for your next kegger, just remember this:  If you thought listening to some douchebag butcher the intro to “Enter Sandman” was painful, hearing your friend fuck up the scratch solo at the end of “Baby Got Back” surely will be ten times worse.

God Attempts to Put Cleveland Browns Out of Misery, Infects 12 Players with the Flu

A dozen starters on the Cleveland Browns missed practice on Wednesday due to what the Associated Press reports as “flulike symptoms.”  Team officials say it’s probably not the dreaded H1N1 Virus, but with the way things have been going for the Browns, I think it’s time to bust out the Tamiflu.

With 12 players questionable for Sunday’s game against the Packers, Browns Head Coach Eric Mangini needs to plug up a lot of holes in the lineup, and fast.  My suggestion: recruit a zany, ragtag band of semi-pro players á la The Replacements (starring Keanu Reeves).  They won’t win many games, but, man, it’ll be wacky.

The Weather Channel Takes 27 Years to Realize Weather Is Fucking Boring

The Weather Channel has announced it will experiment with airing movies on Friday nights, beginning October 30th with a run of The Perfect Storm.  (Normally I would say this is a good idea, but I think I would actually rather watch a barometer than Mark Wahlberg.)

Also in the queue are March of the Penguins, Deep Blue Sea and Misery.  Yes, Misery.  Yes, that movie where Kathy Bates tortures James Caan for an hour and a half.  Why is The Weather Channel playing it?  Oh, you know, it’s got a snowstorm at the beginning, so I guess that qualifies it as “weather-themed.”  For that matter, why not air Forgetting Sarah Marshall?  That one takes place in Hawaii.  It’s sunny in Hawaii.  Sun’s weather too.

Fail.

‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’ #2 Children’s Book Adaptation at Box Office

More than a month into its release, the big screen version of the timeless kid’s classic Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs raked in $8.1 Million over the weekend, providing a welcomed alternative for parents who deemed Where the Wild Things Are “too good” for their children.

Bereft of all feeling and CGI’d to shit, Cloudy… explores the old childhood question, “hey, what if one day food started falling from the sky and there was nothing we could fucking do about it?”  More importantly, there are no monsters, which is good because monsters scare children and could never be used as poignant metaphors for overcoming one’s fears.

In Detroit, Even Marathons End in Tragedy

About two weeks ago, I ragged on Detroit for the late season demise of the Tigers, as well as its general, ever-persistent bad luck.  Now the Motor City has yet another reason to mourn.  According to officials, three participants in Sunday’s half marathon (yes, half marathon) collapsed and died.  The deceased were all men as old as 65 and as young as 26.

I’m still awaiting confirmation from The Vatican on this, but I do believe this officially makes Detroit the new Sodom and Gomorrah.

Balloon Boy: Worst Child Non-Tragedy Ever

UPDATE: Police in Fort Collins, CO say this whole thing was a publicity scam perpetrated by the boy’s parents, who were in talks to create their own reality show. Score one for skepticism, kids!

What’s happening in this country?  It used to be that kids would get trapped in wells, fall into wild animal enclosures and get abducted by transients – you know, entertaining, worthwhile stories of life and death.  But what do we get now, in 2009?  A story about a boy trapped inside an experimental helium balloon who was never actually in the experimental helium balloon in the first place…Oh, and his family was on that Wife Swap reality show…twice.  Give me a break.

Television news anchors across the dial were all in a tizzy, salivating at the prospect of a six-year-old boy careening to his death live on the air.  However, little did they know that young Falcon Heene was safe and sound back at home, hiding away in the garage after his father scolded him for horsing around inside the balloon just moments before it mysteriously untethered and floated up into the Colorado sky.

Falcon’s brother, California Condor (or whatever douchebag hippie name the parents gave him), mistakenly told the dad that Falcon was still inside the balloon when it took off, leading to a two-hour search and rescue attempt that involved police caravans, military helicopters and a shit load of “OMG Balloon Boooy!!!” Facebook status updates.

So what’s a family doing with an experimental helium balloon anyway? According to the Associated Press, the boy’s father, Richard Heene, “had been working on a low-altitude vehicle that people could take out of their garages and use to hover over traffic.” The family also spends their time chasing hurricanes and looking for extra-terrestrials.  And did I mention they were on Wife Swap…twice?

If Nixon had a file on Lennon, I really do hope Obama has a file on these people.

My Most Popular Post: 90210?

More than a year ago, I posted an article titled, This Week in Un-Necessity.  In it, I trashed the new 90210 series, writing:

“If you couldn’t stomach watching a group of spoiled Gen X teens from California in 1992, wait until you try sitting through a show about a group of spoiled Millennial teens from California in 2008. The show’s only saving graces? Tori Spelling isn’t involved…”

Apparently, said article is a top hit for “90210″ on one of the major search engines, as it has recently become the most viewed entry on this website.

So there you have it.  ANGELINA FAUXLIE: The internet’s leading source of anti-90210 snark.

T.I. Wins Two BET Awards While in Prison, Tupac Not Impressed

Despite being incarcerated on a federal gun charge, Clifford “T.I.” Harris, Jr.  was able to snag honors for Best Collaboration and Album of the Year at the 2009 BET Awards, taped on Saturday.

I’d hate to get all “back in my day” on a brother, but here goes.  Back in my day, rappers had a lot more than just prison sentences threatening their success.  Hell, Tupac Shakur released five albums and sold 10 million copies while he was fucking dead.  Now that’s an accomplishment.

So, T.I., don’t expect us to be all that impressed with your BET awards.  I assure you, Tupac isn’t either.

Twitter is a Balanced Ecosystem of Irreverence

If you thought Twitter was just a free-for-all of nonsensical and insignificant ramblings without any kind of oversight, think again.  It’s actually a living, breathing entity that maintains just the right amount of batshit craziness at all times.

Case in point:  Miley Cyrus inexplicably deleted her Twitter account on Thursday, depriving the world of such engaging tweets as “It’s 1:30 in the morning and I still can’t sleep. P.S. I am REALLLYY craving Panera Bread” and “I wonder if when ’sleeping beauty’ wakes up she has morning breath?”  The situation was bleak, as it seemed we would never again be invited into the mind of such a damaged celebrity.

But alas, it was soon announced that Tracy Morgan had created a Twitter account of his own!  Within a few short hours, the Twitter faithful were once again treated to deliciously insane non sequiturs like “my dickhead is shaped liked a darth vadar helmet. my dick is so fat it looks like r2d2″ and “…I’m on the street turning good girls bad and getting them pregnant!!!”

So you see, friends? The Twitter gods giveth and the Twitter gods taketh away…and then the Twitter gods giveth Tracy fucking Morgan.