"...Law and Order, Cause and Effect...Six of One..."

Time for another "Increase Your Word Power".

con·tri·tion/kənˈtriSHən/
Noun: 1.The state of feeling remorseful and penitent.

Chicago (CNN) -- Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is scheduled to arrive at a Colorado federal prison Thursday to begin serving a 14-year sentence on a corruption conviction.

"This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do," he told a crowd of sign-wielding supporters outside his Chicago home Wednesday. "But this is the law and we follow the law."

i·ro·ny/ˈīrənē/
Noun:The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.

"But this is the law and we follow the law".

just.des.serts
phrase:what is coming to them; what "they" deserve

She ran over my cat, but got her just desserts when she was hit by a bus.

Word.

"...Still Giving It Six Months, Max...But, Props Where Props Are Proper..."

Despite whatever shots I've taken at Snooki since first we learned there was such a thing as Snooki (and, Lord knows, I've taken more than my share of the aforementioned shots), the girl deserves credit, at the very least, for one thing.

It requires a remarkable amount of self confidence/esteem to marry a man whose eyebrows are prettier than your own.

You go, girl.

"...Leader of The Pack, Lord Of The Flies....Potato, Patahto..."

Two sad things here.

One significantly sadder than the other.

More on that in a moment.

(CNN) – A second radio station said it was dropping Rush Limbaugh's radio program Tuesday, calling the conservative host's incendiary comments last week about a law student "unacceptable."

Pittsfield, Massachusetts radio station 1420 AM WBEC, one of hundreds of stations nationwide that carry "The Rush Limbaugh Show," dropped the program from its lineup, according to station general manager Peter Barry. He said the decision was made Monday, and was based upon comments Limbaugh made last week regarding Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, "which we found unacceptable."

Outcry over Limbaugh's comments began last week after he suggested Fluke was a "slut" and a "prostitute" for advocating broad health care coverage for contraception at a hearing on Capitol Hill

Limbaugh made the original comments Wednesday, in which he also suggested Fluke wanted taxpayers to pay for her to have sex.

On Monday, KPUA, a radio station in Hilo, Hawaii announced it would no longer carry the radio program, effective immediately.

"We are strong believers in the first amendment and have recognized Mr. Limbaugh's right to express opinions that often times differ from our own, but it has never been our goal to allow our station to be used for personal attacks and intolerance. The most recent incident has crossed a line of decency and a standard that we expect of programming on KPUA," Chris Leonard, President and General Manager of New West Broadcasting said in a statement.

The stations' decisions come as advertisers continue to drop their support of Limbaugh's program.

On Monday, AOL joined 11 other companies announcing they were removing ads from "The Rush Limbaugh Show," which is the most listened to talk radio show in the United States.

"At AOL one of our core values is that we act with integrity," the company wrote in a post on their corporate Facebook page. "We have monitored the unfolding events and have determined that Mr. Limbaugh's comments are not in line with our values. As a result we have made the decision to suspend advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Radio show."

Other sponsors dropping spots from Limbaugh's show include mattress companies like Sleep Number and The Sleep Train, and companies that assist small businesses like Citrix, LegalZoom and QuickenLoans.

One company, Carbonite, a data backup service, said feedback from customers led to the decision to remove advertising from Limbaugh's show. The company's CEO said Limbaugh's apology Saturday wasn't enough to put his company's ads back on the air.

"No one with daughters the age of Sandra Fluke, and I have two, could possibly abide the insult and abuse heaped upon this courageous and well-intentioned young lady," Carbonite CEO David Friend said. "Mr. Limbaugh, with his highly personal attacks on Miss Fluke, overstepped any reasonable bounds of decency. Even though Mr. Limbaugh has now issued an apology, we have nonetheless decided to withdraw our advertising from his show. We hope that our action, along with the other advertisers who have already withdrawn their ads, will ultimately contribute to a more civilized public discourse."

In Limbaugh's apology Saturday, he admitted his "choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir."

He added, "I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices."

Appearing on the ABC program "The View" Monday, Fluke said Limbaugh's apology was issued under pressure from advertisers.

"I don't think that a statement like this, saying that his choice of words was not the best, changes anything," Fluke said. "And especially when that statement is issued when he's under significant pressure from his sponsors who have begun to pull their support from the show."

It was not clear Monday whether other companies who suspended their advertising before Limbaugh's apology would reinstate their support following the host's apology. Calls to Sleep Number, The Sleep Train and Legal Zoom were not immediately returned.

ProFlowers, an online flower delivery service, said in a Facebook posting Sunday Limbaugh's comments were at odds with their corporate image.

"At ProFlowers, our mission is to delight our customers with fresh and long lasting flowers, and that is our singular focus each and every day," the statement read.

It continued, "Mr. Limbaugh's recent comments went beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company. As such, ProFlowers has suspended advertising on The Rush Limbaugh radio program."

On Monday, Pentagon press secretary George Little said the Defense Department had no plans to stop broadcasting Rush Limbaugh's show to service members on the American Forces Network. Limbaugh's show is part of the Defense Department's policy to broadcast shows that "reflect a wide range" of opinion, Little said.

Little said he had "not heard" of any review of whether Limbaugh's show remains suitable for broadcast after the controversy surrounding Limbaugh. Little also said he could not immediately say what the standards are for whether certain broadcasts are considered suitable by the Defense Department.

VoteVets.org, a veterans advocacy organization, released a statement from female service members calling on Defense Department to stop airing "The Rush Limbaugh Show" on the American Forces Network.

"Rush Limbaugh has a freedom of speech and can say what he wants, but in light of his horribly misogynistic comments, American Forces Radio should no longer give him a platform," the statement said. "Our entire military depends on troops respecting each other – women and men. There simply can be no place on military airwaves for sentiments that would undermine that respect."

On his radio show Monday, Limbaugh addressed the advertisers who dropped their spots from his program, telling his audience, "I'm sorry to see them go. They have profited handsomely from you. These advertisers who have split the scene have done very well from their access to you, my audience on this program."

He added, "That's a business decision and it's theirs alone to make. They've decided they don't want you or your business anymore."


First sad thing.

Any foolish belief that Limblow's "apology" was sincere gets dashed on the rocks of hope with that last quote, the not even thinly veiled "I talked out of my ass, but the advertisers leaving my show is really about them not liking you anymore...".

The second, and even sadder, sad thing.

There is now, always has been and always will be no such thing as bad publicity.

Rush Limbaugh didn't become the number one radio talk show host in America without an awful lot of people who respect, believe in and zealously follow a guy who talks out of his ass.

He's not going anywhere, kids.

How sad is that?

"...Rush...From The Latin, "Blowhole".......

A valid point, especially when offered up in the swirl of social commentary can often be a complex amalgam of nuance sketched on a palette tinted with a thousand shades of gray.

Every now and again, though, usually when soaked in common sense, a valid point is as obvious and irrefutable as a rock hitting one smack in the forehead.

To wit...

Rush Limbaugh is a moron.

And anyone who takes seriously anything that Rush Limbaugh has to say from this point forward is, also, a moron.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/03/rachel-maddow-rush-limbaugh-birth-control-sandra-fluke_n_1318354.html?ref=media

Sorry about that rock thing.

A little ice will help.

"...And You Read Your Emily Dickinson...And I, My Robert Frost...And We Note Our Place With Bookmarkers...In This Week's Issue Of TV Guide..."

Emily Dickinson would have been a world class television critic.

(For those whose exposure to poetry and/or poets has been limited to more contemporary purveyors as Hoops and YoYo, here's a link to Emily's bio...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson)

Admittedly, the lady had game when it came to rhyme and verse.

But she was, apparently, also possessed of a prescience regarding the eventual evolution of network TV.

A pudding full of proof momentito.

Simon Cowell's Syco Entertainment production company is partnering with couple Jada Pinkett-Smith and Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television to launch a new reality competition that will search for the world's best deejays.

The format of the new international TV series, which is being produced by Sony and co-produced by Syco and Overbrook, has been in development for over a year. Broadcast partners in the U.S. and U.K. will be announced soon, according to the partners.

"We have been working on this show for over a year and we wanted to partner with the right people. As soon as I met Jada and Miguel from Overbrook, I knew they would be our ideal partners. DJ's are the new rock stars, it feels like the right time to make this show," Cowell, who also executive produces The X Factor and America's Got Talent, said in a statement.

Pinkett-Smith said she's excited to feature a new type of talent on reality TV different from its usual singers and dancers.

"This show will comb the world to find a new breed of talent," the actress explained. "I am happy to be creating it alongside Simon Cowell, the Sony team, and my partner Miguel Melendez, on behalf of the Overbrook family."

"We are thrilled to be working with Simon Cowell and our partners at Overbrook on what we know will be a tremendously successful global format," Andrea Wong, President of International Production for Sony, added.


Never a fan of the reality show concept, I suppose any critical comment I have to make here should include an asterisk.

Because, obviously, as evidenced by their success, reality shows have found themselves a willing and waiting audience.

There is, of course, a wonderful, sub-textual case to be made for the idea that the popularity of reality shows can be traced right back to the intrinsic human urge to peek into other people's lives and/or windows.

You say realism.

I say voyuerism.

Potato, patahto, tomato, tamahto.

Prurient predilections aside, I think it only fair to admit that the concept did, in fact, generate interest, even excitement, upon its inception, if only because it was new, different, something out of the ordinary.

Kind of like Taco Bell serving breakfast.

At some point, though, the novelty, as novelties will, begins to wear off and, with a few, rare exceptions, the appeal, having reached the top of the curve, begins a pretty rapid (read: screaming) descent toward the ground.

Kind of like Taco Bell serving breakfast.

Nothing succeeding like success, though, it's inevitable that with each new day will come yet another new idea, usually from those who have, to date, profited most from ideas already executed.

Which brings us to "the world's best deejays".

An idea whose time has come...if only to offer unimpeachable proof that the concept really is, honest to God, running out of ideas.

Nothing succeeding like success, though, with each new day comes yet new possibilities that there might still be life left in the genre', that the final, even close to resembling the last desperate drops of intelligence might still remain to be wrung out of the satellite dishrag and sprinkled over an ever thirsty, voyeuristic viewing audience.

Evidence, alas, to the contrary.

Still, all things are possible. The best might be yet to come.

One can only hope.

Which is why Emily Dickinson would have been a world class television critic.

"Hope is the thing with feathers...that perches in the soul..."

"...You Can't Have Classic Comedy Without Class..."

Here's two thoughts you don't automatically connect every day.

Mary Tyler Moore.

Armpits.


(By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times Television Critic)

In recent months the name Mary Tyler Moore has been bandied about with unexpected regularity bordering on reckless abandon. This is not just because she recently made her first TV appearance in many moons on pal Betty White's show "Hot in Cleveland" or because she proved at last month's televised fete for White's 90th birthday that she can still rock a white pantsuit or even because she is receiving this year's Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award on Sunday.

Instead, Moore's name keeps coming up because 42 years after she helped create the single-gal comedy genre, a slew of female-centric shows hit the networks, raising hopes that a new version of the classic and still-resonant "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" would emerge. (It hasn't.)

By midseason, critics were blatantly holding up the new to the old. "No Mary Richards" was how several chose to characterize the fictionalized version of comedian Chelsea Handler in her new show, "Are You There, Chelsea?" Well, no, obviously not, since Mary was a well-dressed, carefully coiffed professional woman trying to balance a career and a meaningful personal life and Chelsea's show is centered on a bartender/drunken skank

If anyone involved hopes Moore herself is watching, I'm here to tell you that's she's not. "Oh, I don't watch any of them," she said recently from her office in New York. "Why would I? That story has been done, and I think we did it pretty well. I don't need to watch another version."

Perhaps to see the new gals break a few taboos?

"Taboos?" she asks with a laugh, "there aren't any taboos anymore."

It's difficult to argue with her when "2 Broke Girls'" Max (Kat Dennings), the character who may come closest to Mary Richards (she is hard-working, talented and yet insecure), insists on saying "vagina" so often one assumes there is a special bell that rings in the writers room every time she does.

"The Mary Tyler Moore Show," which debuted in 1970, both satirized and captured the era's widespread and seismic change. Mary Richards, having bravely broken up with the med student she supported for two years, is now trying to make it on her own, with the help of her newsroom buddies and best friends, the tough-talking Rhoda (Valerie Harper) and the dithering modern parent Phyllis (Cloris Leachman).

There had never been a character, or show, like it. On top of the shaky new independent women it portrayed, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" joined groundbreaking shows like "All in the Family" in addressing timely and often serious topics in a comedic way — and by providing a template for what would eventually become modern TV's beloved dramedy.

"Comedy shows were getting more and more real," she says. "It was a funny show but not really a comedy like the old comedies." She credits the writers, including Jim Brooks and Allan Burns, with elevating the show to its iconic heights, something she doesn't think the networks are interested in doing these days.

"Carol Burnett and I were talking about how you couldn't do the shows we did because the union fees have skyrocketed and the writers and the cast make it so expensive," she says.

She and Burnett had reunited for the Betty White celebration where Moore also met up with her other "Mary Tyler Moore" co-stars, including Leachman, Harper, Ed Asner and Gavin MacLeod. They don't see one another often, she says, because "they're all Westies and I live in New York," but they remain like a family — she came out of retirement to guest star on White's "Hot in Cleveland," spoofing her Mary-good-girl-Richards persona and turning Asner's famous Lou Grant line — "You got spunk. I hate spunk" — on its head.

She enjoyed the experience and admires White and Leachman for staying in the game. "Betty always did have more energy than any of us," she says, "and Cloris, what's great about her is she always does a role that's completely different." But she's pretty content doing what she's doing. "I have a nice life, a good marriage [to Dr. Robert Levine] finally.

Which doesn't mean we should count her out. "If a really good part came along, a good script, I'd consider it," she says. She's a fan of "The Good Wife." What about playing Diane's (Christine Baranski) aunt or something? "She's great," Moore says of Baranski, adding with a very Mary Richards laugh, "yeah, yeah, I'll mention it to my agent."

One inherent challenge in writing, and/or lamenting, about any current state of culture as compared to any past state is the inevitable knee jerk "old fart fogey" factor. The theory that gray hair and an assumed lack of "hip" automatically disqualifies anyone over the age of say, 40, from pointing out the flaws in any contemporary cultural contribution.

Put in a less Roget's manner..."Whitney" is some funny shit, old person, and "Mary Tyler Moore" is like, so, a hundred years ago."

The fly in that ointment, or flaw in that observation as the case may be, is that it unavoidably throws out the baby of legitimate criticism with the water of ancient rivers.

And, as with religion and politics, it's almost always an exercise in futility trying to convince someone of an opposing point of view by employing conventional methods of convincing someone of an opposing point of view.

In situations like that, or this, I find it helpful to rely on more unconventional methods.

Like armpits.

Hence...

Mary Tyler Moore.

Armpits.

Resisting the temptation of getting drawn into a point by point debate on the comedic merits, or lack, of one generation's performers versus another's, let's focus on the real issue.

It's not about comedic.

It's about iconic.

Personal preferences, generational tastes, individual sensibilities all notwithstanding, I think it a pretty fair, balanced and age group neutral safe bet that, come fifty years from now, neither Chelsea Handler nor Whitney Cummings (and while we're at it, let's throw in Kathy Griffin as additional empirical proof that this is really not about age) are likely to be featured in a major media article trumpeting the pending celebration of their "Lifetime Achievement Awards" from SAG or anyone/anything else, for that matter.

Fair enough?

Okay. Now, that concession aside, I will concede that comedy, subjective little scamp that it is, has always been and always will be, is righteously, and rightfully, fully in the mind's eye of the beholder.

In other words, they're not a thimble of mirth, let alone my cup of tea, comedically speaking, but I sincerely understand that there are people who think that Chelsea Handler, Whitney Cummings, Kathy Griffin (and while we're at it, let's throw in Will Ferrell in "Land Of The Lost" as additional empirical proof that this is not really about gender, either) are genuinely funny.

Just as genuinely funny as was that one kid that we all shared, at least, one class with in middle or high school who kept us in silly stitches with their comedic genius for making fart noises...

...with their armpits.

And, fair being fair, we all totally remember that comedic genius made those noises.

We just don't remember their names.

"...Coming This Fall To NBC....The Wacky, Fun Filled Adventures of The Caligula Family!..."

Props to Reader's Digest, it's time for "increase your word power".

rib·ald/ˈribəld/
Adjective:
Referring to sexual matters in an amusingly rude or irreverent way.

Example:

“Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding”
― Betty White

This is, as my father's generation would offer, one funny broad.

For those who would like to repeat that analogy but might have a little problem with the R rated nature of the V word, though, I have an alternate suggestion.

Coming up right after this.

With every generation comes certain rites of passage. Benchmarks and/or milestones that, while inevitable, are only apparent as they are experienced.

Usually, these moments come in some form of "that was/this is'. Or as it has been phrased in a more pedestrian fashion, "in my day...".

And, again, in those cases, most often it's about music or art or movies or something/anything that brings into sharp and unavoidable focus the contrast between what "was" and what "is".

Believe it or not, for example, it was not so long ago that The Rolling Stones, for example, were considered to be Satan's own spawn and the music/presentation they offered was, in the eyes/ears of that generation's parents, almost certainly a one way ticket to eternal damnation.

Today, of course, the Stones are just some old guys who are fondly remembered by that generation and, at best, politely tolerated by today's generation.

Believe it or not, for example, it was not so long ago that sitcom characters could not share a bed, even if married. Check out any TV Land rerun of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" or, even "I Love Lucy" and you will see nary a double, let alone queen or king, bed to be found in said boudoir.

Today, of course, a sitcom featuring a robust rumpy pumpy requires nothing more than two individuals, regardless of gender, ready to ride whether they have a saddle or not.

Let alone a bed.

And believe it or not, it was not so long ago that the idea of skipping school for a day and wandering around the city in a "borrowed" car was considered such an outlaw adventure that an entire feature film portrayed just such an escapade, becoming a classic example of youthful rebellion.

Even going so far as to...wait for it....treat a snotty maitre'd with disrespect.

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off".

He was a righteous dude.

From my admittedly lofty, albeit Ben Gay scented, perch of elder statesman status, I reminisced today that I was an impressionable elementary school student growing up assuming that Rob and Laura and Ricky and Lucy were blissfully happy regardless of how much space they had to negotiate to procreate, a young teen in danger of losing my immortal soul by being in Sympathy For The Devil, via Mick and Keith and a young man with young kids of my own when Ferris and Cameron and Sloan made a ruin of Rooney with their adolescent antics.

And, now, here I am, still in relative possession of my faculties and bearing witness to a world filled with Kourtneys and Khloes and Kims (oh, my).

Not to mention Gagas and Sitches and Snookis. (on Donner and Blitzen).

Not to mention "Family Guy" that makes "The Simpsons" come off like "Ozzie and Harriet".

And chuckle though I might at the wisdom and obvious wit of the wonderful Ms. White, I believe, as mentioned earlier, I can offer up a more "family friendly" option for retelling the aforementioned ribaldry in such a raucous fashion.

Having been inspired, as it turns out, by fifty years, give or take, of witnessing the continued cultural pushing of the envelope.

To wit...

“Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow an envelope. Those things can take a pounding”

"...Made You Look... Quote, Unquote..."

Nothing gets the day going like a hefty mug of half caf and a splash of the "old switcheroo".

The former I brewed myself.

The latter was a headline cooked up by an AP writer on Yahoo's homepage.

"Kids try to bury big family secret in 'Yosemite'..."

Being, simultaneously, sentimentally attached to many of our national parks and naturally, even morbidly, inclined, along with my fellow mere mortals, to enjoy a modest modicum of murderous mayhem in the morning, I laid into that link and braced myself a little for what I was sure would be a prurient presentation of patricide.

Only to discover that the advertised "kids" "family" and "secret", et al were merely components of a new off-Broadway production entitled....wait for it....

...'Yosemite'.

Okay, having worked in, and around, the creative arts for most of my life, I'm as totally down as down can be with the concept of marketing a piece, be it musical or theatrical and whatever little tricks or gimmicks one might employ to get the attention of the already mentally overloaded mass audience.

And having done what some would offer was way more than my fair share of radio through the years, I'm not only hip to, but, if I do say so myself, pretty damn accomplished at what is colloquially known as "the tease".

So, while I wasn't particularly bunged about having been mistaken about my initial impression of what that headline would reveal, a couple of pickable bones did make an appearance.

First, I really do like a well executed tease as much as the next guy.

The key phrase there is "well executed".

This one seems to have reached just a teeny weeny bit over the line marked "reaching".

And even allowing for the little "wink wink" that provided a clue in the headline, the placing of the word 'Yosemite' in quotation marks indicating that all was not going to be what it was "advertised" to be, I'd still vote for "reaching" when it came to the aforementioned well executed "tease".

Second, I'm not familiar with the writer here, Jennifer Farrar, except that she, obviously, writes for the Associated Press, but having re-read the piece a time or two, my honest impression of her editorial style is that she is either...

a) ...writing her "reviews" while distracted by a phone call, TV program or fire drill.
b) ...writing her "reviews" by typing while she reads right out of a book entitled "1001 Cliche Theatrical Review Phrases".
c) ...the most promising talent to be found in her eighth grade journalism class.
d) ...all of the above

Third, whatever else the advent of the Internet has, or has not, positively contributed, to date, to mankind, one thing is crystal clear.

It ain't done nobody no good no how when it comes to advancing the evolution of social commentary and/or discourse.

Evidence of offered opinion to be found by...

a) reading Farrar's "review"
b) reading the less than erudite "observations" of the majority of those viewing the review.

Not singly but, most succinctly, exampled with the contribution of Sidney from Sacramento, California.

...I was expecting a story about Yosemite. Maybe some nice pictures. What a waste of time...

Aw, come on, Sidney. You got pulled into the old switcheroo.

No harm done. Show a little sense of humor.

Buffy Cary, on the other hand, seems to have gone completely off the deep end.

No quotes on deep end either.

...Kathryn Erbe is SUCH an amazing actress....

"Actress" ?

"...Thank Heaven The Commandante' Didn't Have Access To The Scoreboard..."

Here's two names you don't often see linked together.

Antonio Banderas.

Billy Cundiff.

Link and explanation momentarily.

(Yahoo Sports) No one has provided more information on Billy Cundiff's miss than Stefan Fatsis, author of "A Few Seconds of Panic," a book about his brief stint as a backup kicker with the Denver Broncos in training camp. For Deadspin, Fatsis has talked with Cundiff and has his own uniquely qualified perspective on the yank.

To summarize — and you should go read the whole thing — Cundiff has a specific routine he follows when the Ravens get into field goal range. On first down, he does one thing. On second, something else. Third, something else. Unfortunately, the Patriots scoreboard had the down wrong, which threw Cundiff out of whack.

On Sunday, during what would be the Ravens' final set of downs, Cundiff completed his first-down prep and checked the scoreboard: second down. He ran through his routine and looked up at the scoreboard again: third down.

Then, suddenly, chaos on the sidelines.

Coaches were screaming—from the opposite end of the field to where Cundiff was thinking his third-down pre-kick kicker thoughts—for the field-goal unit. The play clock was ticking and Cundiff, as per normal, was back from the sideline and farther from the line of scrimmage than his teammates. As he was not expecting to go in yet, he had to run to get into position for a game-tying kick.

So there it is. The scoreboard was wrong, Cundiff was rushed, and his mechanics on the kick went goofy. I don't pass this along as any kind of an excuse for Cundiff — you can decide for yourself if his miss is excusable or something that even needs excusing — but it's an explanation.

Here's another question, though: Is it possible that the Patriots did this on purpose? Did they have their scoreboard operator display the wrong down, to mess with Cundiff's routine? Ravens kicking consultant Randy Brown is wondering that same thing. Via CBS Philly, Brown said to Angelo Cataldi on WIP in Baltimore, "I don't think you can rule anything out in New England, can you?"

It seems like a tremendous stretch to me. Since it's the Patriots, some level of dishonesty and underhandedness will be assumed, but I'll be surprised and more than a little impressed if it's somehow uncovered that they hatched a scheme with knowledge of Billy Cundiff's pre-kick routine and a scoreboard operator as a confederate.

I'm much more likely to believe it was an honest mistake. The Ravens thought they had a first down a few plays prior, when Anquan Boldin fumbled the ball out of bounds. They didn't. The ball was placed at the spot of the fumble, not the spot where it went out of bounds. The Ravens themselves were confused about the down, and it's far easier to believe that the scoreboard operator was, too.


I suppose since I am, and have never been, neither a trained athlete nor more than just a casual football fan/follower, some slack cutting should be offered on my part when it comes to getting my head around the idea that Billy Cundiff's job is, apparently, more complicated than I would have imagined.

Upon reading of Cundiff's intricate and borderline Sheldon Cooper-esque pre-kick routine, though, I have to confess the first name that popped into my head was...Antonio Banderas.

In the first (and in my o, best) of the two "Zorro" films that Banderas made, there is a wonderful scene where the Banderas character, Alejandro, the, as yet, untrained, untried "Fox" to be is asked, by the wise, but wizened and world weary "Fox I", Don Diego, if he, Alejandro, knows how to use a fencing sword.

With a charming look of both surprise and "duhh", Alejandro replies "the pointy end goes into the other man."

We live in a world of excuses.

The simple act of taking responsibility for one's actions, most especially one's mistakes and/or failings, seems to have gone the way of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the eight track tape player.

Credit where due, it's not Cundiff personally offering up any "hey, don't blame me"s here, but the fact that this article ever saw the light of day is proof enough that the mea culpa grows more obsolete with each passing generation.

This concludes the "tsk, tsk" portion of the program.

As far as the Billy/Banderas connection is concerned, though, here's the kicker.

Pun inevitable.

While I'm not so ignorant as to think that the art of place kicking is not without its nuances and subtleties nor espouse that simply because it looks easy to do that it is, in fact, easy to do, I admit that I was more than a little surprised to read the amount of detail, planning, processing, choreographing and systematizing involved in, at least, Cundiff's style of acquiring the one or three points available at the end of his toe.

The pointy end goes into the other man.

The ball gets kicked between the two poles in the end zone.

Wind, rain, snow, icy field, sloppy grass, all of these this untrained eye can see would be factors.

Which down is listed on the scoreboard?

Not so much.

"...The Skinny On Slim Down Sayonaras..."

New Year's resolutions traditionally begin on January 1.

Everybody knows that.

Here's something I bet you didn't know.

First, though...

Seen any good weight loss commercials lately?

Sure you have.

Today, after taking care of my chores and tasks like a good worker bee, I was satisfying my minimum daily requirement of syndicated reruns (today's menu features "Law and Order {SVU and non}, "Friends" and an occasional surf back over to the TCM all day birthday tribute to Ernest Borgnine), when it dawned on me that nary a commercial break had come and gone during my viewing time that did not include, at least, one appearance of Marie Osmond, Jennifer Hudson and/or some "regular folks just like you and me" cordially hawking the merits of Nutri System, Weight Watchers and/or Jenny Craig.

Being the connect the dots kind of guy I am, I began the process of processing in order to connect the dots.

This particular dot matrix shakes out like this.

Post December 25th each year, sharing time and space with the after Christmas sales hype comes the avalanche of weight loss hype in anticipation of those holiday revelers who find themselves preparing to ring in the new with more of themselves than rang in the old.

And, of course, the traditional New Year's resolve to be less a person in said new year.

Best intentions, and all that, notwithstanding, though, it's pretty much a given that the majority of folks making the majority of resolutions will, in fairly short order, be giving up on the majority of resolutions made.

It's only, like the ceremonial dropping of that Times Square ball, a matter of time.

Resolutions, for the most part, have a shelf life.

Everybody knows that.

Here's what you might not have known until now.

Resolutions also have an exact expiration date.

Judging from the sudden slew of slim down sales pitches on the screen...

...that expiration date looks to be January 24.