Operation Shut Down

You may be asking yourself, what the bloody hell is Operation Shut Down? Well my mind has officially begun "Operation Shut Down" and I thought I should get a few thoughts out of my head now before all is lost to tomorrow's mind numbing meeting. For those who don't know "Operation Shut Down" was a phrase coined by Pirates baseball player Derek Bell who in 2001 had a horrible year, batting .173. Well come spring training there came word that he would be competing for a starting job. His response is as follows.

"Nobody told me I was in competition. If there is competition, somebody better let me know. If there is competition, they better eliminate me out of the race and go ahead and do what they're going to do with me. I ain't never hit in spring training and I never will. If it ain't settled with me out there, then they can trade me. I ain't going out there to hurt myself in spring training battling for a job. If it is [a competition], then I'm going into 'Operation Shutdown.' Tell them exactly what I said. I haven't competed for a job since 1991."

Ever since then many people, usually due to the Jim Rome Show, begin "Operation Shut Down". Since Operation Shut Down has begun I will be release a few thoughts that I have in my head that spans last Friday to today.

•Friday as I drove north towards NJ/PA I somehow got stuck in Fredrick for two hours. This has never happened to me before when I took this route, sure 270 can be a bitch, but it’s usually fine once you enter Fredrick. I finally discovered that those assbackward goat fuckers were literally stopping, I mean a full on stop, to look at an accident. This accident wasn’t bad, there was no blood, no bodies and the cars were on the side of the road. These chicken fuckers were stopping for a fender bender and making my trip extend from just under five hours to seven hours.

•When taking a new route to somewhere never get off at the point you THINK is the right way. It tends to take you in a boomerang and you end up wasting even more time.

•The more, or I should less, I watch the pro wrestling on TV the more I realize just how much Chris Jericho is needed to be our very own personal savior. Why he doesn’t realize this I don’t know, but I hope he will hear the prayers soon.

•One of the secretaries I work for needs to stop deleting shit. I am tired of having to constantly put stuff on her machine because she’s deleted shit.

•We may have lost Nate Clements to the Niners, who overpaid just to get him to go to Cali instead of his home state of Ohio, but we we still have Steinbach. I also really like the two other signings we made, it will definitely help out depth which was really hurting last fall.

•Kickball is starting to pick up steam and it feels good to have it finally back in my life, I’ve missed it like an addict misses his fix.

•March Madness this year will have more surprises then ever before, mark my words.

•This is 300 week, I don’t know if I can really put into words how excited I am at this point. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this excited for a movie and I almost went naked to Sin City.

Oscar Oscar, who will win?!

Yes, last night was an event that my mother and I used to bet on, watch and enjoy together for the majority of my life. It was the night of the Academy Awards, a night full of glamour, celebrities and heavy trophies given to folks who deserve them. Well, that's what they tell you during the commercials at least. If we really think about it it's a night of bad dresses (least last night was), sometimes an entertaining host (two years in a row of good hosts, who knew that was possible), and awards so heavy folks kept putting it on the floor.

There were some pleasant surprises (Alan Arkin winning won yay team), some expected wins (God Save The Queen And All That), and a few disappointments (Pan's Labyrinth not winning best Foreign Film let alone Best Picture is a crime). Judging by the results of this year and the past few years I think I can successfully predict what next year's winner will be in the main categories.

Best Supporting Actor will be an old actor who has had a decent career for over twenty years.

The Actress awards will be split between an old actress (likely British) and an upcoming actress who has only done a few GOOD movies but plenty of stinkers (bonus points if they stared in sequels to an 80s franchise).

Best Actor will be a political statement of some kind, be it the first person of that nationality to win the award or his movie was somehow politically themed (bonus points for playing someone of having some kind of physical defect).

Best Picture will be some kind of Ensemble piece that doesn't really have any right to win, but will take the award none the less. The Best Director will be whoever directs this movie.

If you don't believe me, look up the winners for the last five years, in almost every case (with a few exceptions) that has been the case. Expect this formula to come into play next year where I will go undefeated next year in the major categories. I would hope that Stephen Colbert would host the Oscars, but Hollywood has a hard time some time laughing at itself, as seen as the problem they had with the humor of Jon Stewart. I thought Ellen did a great job last night, said just the right things and brought her type of humor to the event. It was also nice to see Carrie Fisher once again writing for the Oscars.

A few other thoughts about last night's Oscars:

I wonder how many conservatives felt revolted when Melissa Ethridge kissed her wife and thanked her WIFE in her acceptance.

Jennifer Hudson blew Beyonce out of the water with her voice, sadly there was no Jay-Z to cry to about being upstaged once again.

Will Ferrell plus Jack Black plus John C Reilly equals comedy GOLD. Sadly only one half of the D was present.

Who the fuck had the smart idea of having the choir of people who wish they were as good as Larvell Jones. If you would have taken that out of the program the show would have been over by midnight.

On the other hand, those white screen dancing folks we're fucking money.

I would have saved time and money and forgot about both of those segments and just had a beat boxer there to do the themes from the films up for Best Picture.

Forest Whitaker should have won the award for being in Bloodsport alone.

Clint Eastwood will die the fuckin man, then he will become a zombie and still be the fuckin man.

It took me an hour to realize the crazy bald man they kept showing was Jack.

Al Gore should use all this momentum, he should use this since people have seen that he is more then just a politician to take his rightful place as President of these United States.

Finally folks, one none Oscar related deal. I spent the morning reading these and if you're a fan of comics and have wondered what the Civil War is all about give it a good read. My favorite parts are the lines for Wolverine and what they do to the Punisher.

Thoughts on Hump Day

Yes, work continues to be busy this week so sadly not too many updates today. So I'm merely going to give you a few quick thoughts while I sit here during lunch.

24-We all knew Morris was going to be the Engineer, the only way it could have been better would have been...well, let us just say there would have been a reading rainbow.

24-Powers Booth as the Vice President, Roark is now the Vice President, just as Frank Miller predicted. I'm sad that Leland Palmer isn't in this season, so far, but he's been appearing everywhere lately so that keeps me happy. Hell, last night he was on SVU.

Heroes-We all knew Claire's father was going to be, which makes her crush on someone just a lil bit West Virginian. Though, since they already had Sulu I would have loved to seen her father been someone from TNG like Riker or Picard.

Lost-It comes back tonight, does anyone else remember anything else that happened the last time we saw it other then a surgery, sex, and a smoke house?

Paul Bremer-Even the crazy ass astronaut who wore a diaper 900 miles to go all Marv on another woman think's you're completely and utterly fucked. I don't need to mention why, if you're reading blogs I'm sure you've heard about Northstar and the TONS of cash elsewhere.

ECW-Monty Brown needs to be the leader of the "New Breed", not Elijah Burke. I like EB and all, but come on; Monty is a Main Eventer where EB is a high mid-carder at best. Plus, Snitsky needs his hair back. He looks like a MS version of Kane with everything shaved off.

Wonder Woman-Joss is off the project, good, he can go back to doing what he does best, and turning his TV shows into movies. Joss, we expect an Angel/Buffy movie now...so get off your ASS! Also, if you want to delay that by stopping by Smallville and taking over for that we'll approve of that as well.

Supernatural-So Sam is going to turn into a killer this week...almost reeks of revealing Laura Palmer's killer too early.

Work-This place is fucking clown shoes.