The Pro Football Hall of Fame has officially joined the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in the irrelevant category. Today, the 44 "I'm smarter than you" media members who vote for the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees somehow found a way to leave out the greatest Tight End (TE) to ever play the game, Shannon Sharpe, along with the 2nd or 3rd best Wide Receiver ever, Cris Carter. This is truly a joke!
I'm especially struck by this because Shannon Sharpe played 12 of his 14 seasons for the Denver Broncos. He revolutionized the way teams thought of the TE position. Prior to Sharpe, teams had TE's who could block and catch the occasional pass. When Shannon Sharpe came along, he was an offensive weapon from the TE position. He could still block, but now the team was designing pass plays for him. Defensively, the other teams had to account for him every time he was on the field, because he was a threat. If Shannon Sharpe is not a Hall of Famer, I'm not sure what a Hall of Famer is.
Sharpe won 2 Super Bowls with the Broncos and 1 with the Baltimore Ravens. The fact that he was left out today was a slap in the face to Broncos fans. We are already sensitive, because the Broncos only have 2 players in the Hall of Fame (John Elway and Gary Zimmerman), even though they have been a consistent playoff team for the last 35 years, winning 2 Superbowls and making it to 6 Superbowls. Teams with significantly less success, such as the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs have more players in the Hall, with fewer Super Bowl wins and fewer playoff wins. It's ridiculous!
I realize I'm biased towards the Broncos, but there is no acceptable reason why a franchise as successful as Denver should only have 2 players in the Hall of Fame. The only reason is some of these media guys who vote have decided that they finally have power over the jocks who picked on them in high school, so they are going to find some reason to make deserving players wait, sometimes several years, for induction.
Until the Pro Football Hall of Fame finds some voters who have a clue what a great football player looks like, the Hall of Fame is officially irrelevant!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" was a movie that I have been waiting to watch for a long time. I loved "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and was very excited for the 2nd installment. Overall, "Prince Caspian" was a good film, although, I didn't feel it was as good as its predecessor. It's a rock solid 4 star movie...of course, initially I thought "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was a 4 star movie too, but have since changed it to 5 stars with subsequent viewings.
I've read all 7 books in the Narnia series, and I enjoyed them. They were definitely geared for children. The movies seem to be more geared for adults. "Prince Caspian" is not a kids movie. I may consider letting my 8 year old watch it, but definitely not my 5 year old. I'm probably going to say 10 years or older for "Prince Caspian". It's definitely more intense "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".
What I'm enjoying about the movies is they examine areas that are skipped by the books. For example, in the books, the battles last a few pages. In "Prince Caspian" the final battle raged for 15-20 minutes. Additionally, the movie went more in depth with the natural conflict that developed between High King Peter, and Prince Caspian.
This film did take some liberties from the book that I didn't like. They chose to incorporate Aslan in a slightly different way than the book, not bad, but I liked how the book did it better. Additionally, they made Peter more whiny than he was in the book, which was annoying. Still, "Prince Caspian" was a good film, and definitely worth 2 and a half hours of my life.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Economic Thoughts from a Novice
No, I'm not an economist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Ok, not really, I slept in my own bed.
I'm reading all the dire economic news and I keep hearing that we need to get Americans back to work and spending again. I agree totally with the back to work part, and to some degree with the spending. But, do we really want Americans spending like drunken sailors again? I guess I was under the impression that people spending money they didn't have is what got us into this mess in the first place. Seems to me, that we need to get Americans back to saving and spending only what they can afford. We need to restore reasonableness to the American economy. Somewhere along the line, it became ok to get it debt up to our eyeballs with the expectation that things were never going to go downhill.
In a weird way, I think this economic downturn could be good for the American Economy. My generation (I'm 30) has never lived through tough economic times...in fact, we've had it pretty easy. The same can be said for the baby boomers, for the most part. Most of us grew up believing that we were entitled to the same standard of living as our parents as soon as we were on our own. When that lifestyle wasn't attainable (after all, it took our parents years to get there), many people financed their way into that lifestyle, with no eye on the repercussions should the economy take a downturn.
The last generation to really suffer hardship in this country was the World War II generation (my grandparents), and they were better for it. Tom Brokaw called them the greatest generation for a reason. I've never had this conversation with my grandparents, but my understanding is, you didn't buy something if you didn't have the money to back it up.
Now, I'm not saying there's no place for credit in this country. I think there's a balance that can be struck between saving every penny and financing up the whazoo! I'm advocating personal financial responsibility as the part of the recipe for getting this back to normal. As I said, I'm not an economist, but, common sense tells me that this type of saving and spending pattern would lead to a more sustainable growth for the economy long term, and more economic security for American citizens.
I'm reading all the dire economic news and I keep hearing that we need to get Americans back to work and spending again. I agree totally with the back to work part, and to some degree with the spending. But, do we really want Americans spending like drunken sailors again? I guess I was under the impression that people spending money they didn't have is what got us into this mess in the first place. Seems to me, that we need to get Americans back to saving and spending only what they can afford. We need to restore reasonableness to the American economy. Somewhere along the line, it became ok to get it debt up to our eyeballs with the expectation that things were never going to go downhill.
In a weird way, I think this economic downturn could be good for the American Economy. My generation (I'm 30) has never lived through tough economic times...in fact, we've had it pretty easy. The same can be said for the baby boomers, for the most part. Most of us grew up believing that we were entitled to the same standard of living as our parents as soon as we were on our own. When that lifestyle wasn't attainable (after all, it took our parents years to get there), many people financed their way into that lifestyle, with no eye on the repercussions should the economy take a downturn.
The last generation to really suffer hardship in this country was the World War II generation (my grandparents), and they were better for it. Tom Brokaw called them the greatest generation for a reason. I've never had this conversation with my grandparents, but my understanding is, you didn't buy something if you didn't have the money to back it up.
Now, I'm not saying there's no place for credit in this country. I think there's a balance that can be struck between saving every penny and financing up the whazoo! I'm advocating personal financial responsibility as the part of the recipe for getting this back to normal. As I said, I'm not an economist, but, common sense tells me that this type of saving and spending pattern would lead to a more sustainable growth for the economy long term, and more economic security for American citizens.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Must Watch Video
Take a look at the video on the front page of catholicvote.com.
http://www.catholicvote.com/
There's not much I can add to this video, so I won't add anything.
http://www.catholicvote.com/
There's not much I can add to this video, so I won't add anything.
Movie Review: WALL-E
I wasn't sure if I was going to like "WALL-E". How can you watch a movie about a robot who says 3 things? Well, I was surprised. Even with the lack of dialogue, "WALL-E" was a 4 star movie. We watched it as a family, and I think we all liked it. A pleasant surprise from Pixar.
I asked my boys to rate it on a scale of 1-5. David, who's 8, gave it 5 stars. Nicholas, who's 5, gave it 9014 stars. We were proud of Nicholas, because the movie is a little sad in the beginning, and usually when that happens, Nicholas quits on the movie, but tonight, he toughed it out and kept watching, and ended up loving the movie.
If you don't have kids, you're probably not going to watch this one. If you have kids, you probably will watch it, or may have already watched it. It was nice to see a G rated film for kids. Seems like every kids film is getting a PG rating these days. This is a great movie for a family movie night.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Too Many Movies
Yesterday I was talking to my mom, who regularly reads my blog...thanks mom! Anyway, in the course of our conversation, she tells me that I watch too many movies. She's probably right...however, if you think I watch too many movies, check out Nuke's Blog (see link on the right). There's a guy who watches too many movies. Sorry Nuke!
Anyway, I decided that this is a vice I, and those who love me, have to live with. I love movies...I've always loved movies. I remember one summer in high school, I saw 34 movies in the theater...usually going 2-3 times per week. We had a "cheap" theater where I grew up, so it wasn't as expensive as one might think. I just love the escapism of it...which is why I usually choose to watch blockbuster type films. I don't want to think too hard...I just want to sit back, relax and be entertained for 2 hours.
Now, I only get to the theater 3-5 times a year, but I still watch 2-3 movies (or TV shows on DVD) a week at home. Maybe the day will come when I've seen every movie I want to see, but I hope that day doesn't come anytime soon. In the meantime, I'll keep blogging about the movies I watch. After all, part of the fun of a movie is telling other people about it.
Anyway, I decided that this is a vice I, and those who love me, have to live with. I love movies...I've always loved movies. I remember one summer in high school, I saw 34 movies in the theater...usually going 2-3 times per week. We had a "cheap" theater where I grew up, so it wasn't as expensive as one might think. I just love the escapism of it...which is why I usually choose to watch blockbuster type films. I don't want to think too hard...I just want to sit back, relax and be entertained for 2 hours.
Now, I only get to the theater 3-5 times a year, but I still watch 2-3 movies (or TV shows on DVD) a week at home. Maybe the day will come when I've seen every movie I want to see, but I hope that day doesn't come anytime soon. In the meantime, I'll keep blogging about the movies I watch. After all, part of the fun of a movie is telling other people about it.
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