funniest movie edits for network TV

I was going to make this a Top 5 Tuesday entry but had trouble coming up with 5 examples I could find video for. While I was at work today I started thinking about my favorite content edits made to movies so they can air on network TV stations. I found a few of the best ones I could think of on youtube, but not enough for a real Top 5 Tuesday, so I’ll have to delay that category’s resurrection another week.

I’ll begin with arguably the two most legendarily awful edits, the ones most frequently brought up in discussions on this topic.

The Big Lebowski: John Goodman takes a crowbar and breaks all of the windows on a nice sports car, yelling at its supposed owner, “You see what happens when you f*** a stranger in the a**?” But in TV edits, the line is heard as “You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?”

Die Hard 2: Bruce Willis has just had a fight with a terrorist on the wing of a passenger jet about to take off, and the fight ended with Willis getting kicked off the wing and falling to the ground, but in the process he manages to open the fuel door/hatch thing (do planes really have those right there?) and as the plane escapes it leaves a trail of fuel behind it. Willis takes out his lighter, says his trademark “Yippie ki yay, motherf*****!” line and throws the lighter onto the line of fuel, which eventually gets to the plane just as its taking off and blows it up. But in the TV version, Bruce Willis says, “Yippie ki yay, Mr. Falcon”, and in a voice that is obviously not that of Willis.” High comedy.

The Usual Suspects: Career criminals (played by Kevin Pollack, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, Gabriel Byrne, and Kevin Spacey) are put together for a police lineup of suspects. They are told to read the line on the card they are passed. They all take their turns reading the line, “Hand me the keys, you f****** c*********!” In the TV version, however, they all say “Hand me the keys, you fairy godmother.” That’s one of the more inspired ones I’ve ever seen.

Pulp Fiction, as you can imagine, is nearly unrecognizable when it appears on edited TV stations. There’s not really one good clip, but there is a pretty good video compiling some of the more obvious edits.

One of my other favorites was a number of Samuel L. Jackson’s lines in Jackie Brown, such as “motherf*****” becoming “my friend”, or “motherfu**ing” becoming “mutual-funded”, but I haven’t found any videos of that. And it’s late and I need sleep. If anyone can think of other good ones, feel free to mention them, or post video links.

gas prices, state fairs, parking lots, and 24

* Gas prices have really gone down lately! I drive a car that will only run on premium grade gasoline (for reasons known only to Cadillac), so I tend to pay more for mine than most people anyway, but prices have dropped for everybody. As recently as mid-September I filled up my car for $3.99/gallon. Since that time, I have filled up my car 4 times, most recently on Sunday night, and have paid the following prices per gallon: $3.85, $3.69, $3.29, and $2.89. That’s consecutive fill-ups where the price had dropped 40 cents from the previous one, and a decrease of over $1 in barely a month’s time. In fact, the last time I paid less for gas than I did on Sunday night was October 14, 2007, and I know this because dad got me into the habit of filling out a log book every time I got gas for my car, and I log the total mileage, trip mileage, and cost of the gas (among other things) whenever I fill up. Somehow, I doubt all the grandstanding liberals in the Senate will be calling for investigations and sending subpoenas to oil company execs obligating them to appear before a congressional committee and explain how they let the price of their product drop so much so fast. You can imagine the righteous fury those same politicians would be showing if the price had gone up over $1 per gallon in that short of time.

* I went to the State Fair of Texas on Sunday afternoon and had a good time. I didn’t ride any of the rides this time around, but I sampled some of the fried foods, such as fried banana split, chicken fried bacon, and chocolate-covered strawberry waffle balls. I also spent some time looking at the new cars displayed at the auto show. That was my favorite part of the Fair when I went as a 12 and 14 year old (I didn’t go to the fair again for 10 years after that), looking at the new cars and collecting the cool pictorial brochures from each of the major car makers.

I also ran across a stand that did handwriting analysis for people, where you wrote your signature on a small card, then the guy put it through some kind of scanner or computer and it would print out 10 things that your handwriting supposedly says about you. I had done that some 12 years earlier and found most of what it said to be right on, though how much of that is actually true of me and found in my handwriting and how much of it I suddenly “realize” when a computer says it’s true is up for debate. Here are the 10 things about me that resulted from my handwriting analysis, and I’d like to think they are at least 80% right:
- You are usually quick to get over disappointments.
- You have an inner shyness but cover it up well.
- You are affectionate to those close to you.
- You are able to adjust when things do not go according to plan.
- You are unusually observant and sum up situations quickly.
- You like to collect things.
- Your sincere friendliness is a great social asset.
- Missed opportunities upset you more than they should.
- You are dedicated to succeed and you pursue your objectives with zeal.
- You may have a closet that needs some organization.

The only real negative from the day was the parking fee. Now I knew going in that the parking fee in the official lots at the Fairgrounds was $10, and that there were always businesses and homeowners across the street who offered parking for slightly less. Traffic was really bad while driving over there, and when we (my brother was riding along in my car) finally exited on 2nd Avenue in downtown Dallas we immediately found guys with flags waving people into private parking lots. I wanted to keep going and follow the road until we got to the official lots, but for some reason, either by my brother’s urging or my own impatience, I changed lanes and pulled into one of the lots. There was no sign anywhere that advertised their parking rates, but I assumed the fee would be fairly minimal since it wasn’t in a fenced-in area and the lot was a good walk from the Fairgrounds entrance. But when I pulled up to the guy who was collecting money from people parking in the lot, he told me parking was $20! My jaw dropped and I came very close to uttering an obscenity and driving away, since it made absolutely no sense to me to pay twice the official rate to park in a less secure lot that was a longer walk to the gate than a spot in the official lot would have been. But before I could think to do anything else, my brother handed me a $20 bill and I parked in the spot I was directed into (on an unpaved part of the lot, no less). I was steamed about that for the next hour or so, and then even moreso when I found out that my parents (who came in a separate car) had parked just up the road in a lot that charged them a mere $5. To top it off, when they were waiting at a red light, a woman in a nearby car had rolled down her window and held out two tickets to the Fair and offered them for free to whoever wanted them, an offer mom literally jumped at, or so dad said. So the combined price for mom and dad to park and enter the State Fair was $5 (had they paid regular admission for seniors, that would have increased to $25), for myself and my brother it was $48 (we each paid the regular $14 admission price after having paid the obscene $20 fee to park).

When I returned to my car later that night, I had some words with the guy who had taken our $20 earlier in the day (I say “our” because we were going to split the parking fee but David paid for the whole thing because he owed me money for something else). I pointedly asked him where their sign was that told people how much they were going to pay to park there, and he was evasive in his answer, pointing first at a temporary sign that only said “public parking” and then at another permanent sign that had been covered up with paper, probably to hide the fact that the normal rates to park there didn’t apply during the State Fair. When I said that the official parking lots only charged $10 and I assumed theirs would be less than that, he tried to explain the $20 parking fee by saying theirs was a privately-owned lot, which still didn’t explain the ridiculousness of not only charging double what people would pay to just go to the Fair’s lots (let alone 4 times what my parents paid to park just down the street), but not advertising their fees to people and letting them know what they would pay before they went through the trouble of pulling into a lot and faced the prospect of battling traffic to leave the lot and get back onto the street if they chose to park elsewhere. The whole situation stunk and was unethical at best. They had put a slip of paper on my dashboard showing that I’d paid to park, and from that I learned that the company who owned the lot is called Parking Company of America. A google search shows there is one large company that goes by that name, as well as several smaller ones based in cities all around the country. Whether the smaller ones are franchises of the larger one, I don’t know. I did find this report from someone who said he was similarly ripped off by that company after parking in one of their lots in Dallas. When I told my story to a co-worker, he immediately guessed that the parking attendant had asked for more money than he was supposed to charge, then pocketed the extra money and given the rest to his boss. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if that was true.

The moral of this story is NEVER park in a lot owned by Parking Company of America if you can avoid it. Take my word for it, and I’m sure there are other stories just like mine and that in the link in the above paragraph.

* I began watching season six of 24 last night, going through the first three episodes. This one had hardly began before it registered high on the implausibility scale. Jack Bauer, having spent two years in a Chinese prison, is released and sent back to Los Angeles, and when we first see him he is very hairy and weak. Then he’s brought into a room where he’s allowed to clean up and change clothes, and within 10-15 minutes of screen time he’s clean shaven, bathed, dressed in a suit, and looks like he’s back to normal. Oh, and he still seems to be in good shape physically, despite being tortured and probably not well fed during his imprisonment in China. Also, the first episode begins at 6 AM Los Angeles time and it is completely dark outside when we first see Jack Bauer, then it goes from being pitch dark to being bright as noon within maybe 10 minutes. Past seasons have had this same phenomenon. It’s an interesting season so far, with plenty of tension through the first three episodes, if a bit filled with politically correct statements that seem like an obvious outreach from the Fox Network to the Muslim community for its past depictions of Muslim villains on the show. Though this is not only unwarranted, it is somewhat deceptive, since one of the Arab characters in an early episode is defended by a white neighbor from a bigoted man down the street who is angry about the terrorist attacks that we are told have killed hundreds of people all over the country in the weeks leading up to that day, but then that goes out the window as we learn that this same Arab man is working for the terrorist leader who is organizing the attacks within America.

I’m hoping to finish this season faster than I did season 5, since there is a two-hour 24 movie airing on Fox next month, which is supposed to bridge the long gap between season 6 (which ended in May of last year) and season 7 (scheduled to begin in January).

What John McCain should have said

So I watched the final McCain-Obama debate last night, and while McCain did noticeably better than he had in the two previous debates, there were still numerous times where he frustrated me either with his refusal to hit back at some of Obama’s obvious fibs, or with his inept responses to Obama’s rhetoric that squandered genuine opportunities to articulate basic conservative principles and contrast them with Obama’s big government liberalism. It’s not as if Obama didn’t leave him some openings and weak spots to attack, and with a more articulate and clear-thinking and debater, going after Obama could have been like shooting fish in a barrel. Instead, McCain did worse than bring a knife to a gunfight, he brought a gun without a full clip, or, to symbolize a tool both candidates made mention of, he could have been shooting fish in a barrel but was only armed with a hatchet.

I will never run for President and it’s quite unlikely that I’ll ever be a candidate for any other elective office, as running a campaign and trying to be all things to all people and being deathly afraid of saying something that might upset one constituency or another is just not something I have the personality for. But I could see myself as being someone who engages in policy debates, that is, discussions that are substantive and don’t rely on the sort of tit-for-tat embellishing or distorting of records that candidates will engage in during heated election years.

So, in that spirit, I’ll say what John McCain could have and should have said in response to some of Obama’s statements.

During the discussion on taxes and the economy, Obama, for the third straight debate, characterized McCain’s capital gains tax cut and business tax cut proposals as being ones that would help “some of the wealthiest corporations in America”, as if Exxon Mobil was a specifically-targeted beneficiary, when that proposal would affect all businesses, which would necessarily include the largest ones. Obama also repeated his claim that under his own tax plan, “95 percent of working families, 95 percent of you out there, will get a tax cut”, which is a patently false and misleading statistic since not every “working family” pays income taxes, and in fact only about 60% of workers actually make enough money to owe income taxes, the top 50% of income earners pay about 97% of the total income tax burden. So McCain has had multiple opportunities to point out the discrepancy between Obama’s fantastical claims of how many people will get a tax cut and the reality of how few people actually pay taxes.

And if I had been sitting across from Obama when he invoked the name of Exxon Mobil and said my plan would give them “an additional $4 billion in tax breaks”, this would have been my response when my turn came up:

“First of all, my plan covers all companies and not just the extreme example you have given. You know that, Senator, but rather than debate the merits of cutting taxes on businesses and corporations, you have chosen to engage in class warfare by trying to stir up the worst kind of resentment and wealth envy in people, and by essentially promising to punish businesses large and small that make a lot of money because they are well-run and successful. Now you mentioned Exxon Mobil and said under my plan that company would pay $4 billion less in taxes. I ask you here tonight, what’s wrong with that? Exxon is a company just as Joe’s plumbing company is, and I’m not going to discriminate against them or deny them a cut in their business taxes just because they are one of the very largest corporations in this country. Exxon employs over 106,000 people, which is roughly the population of Erie, Pennsylvania. There are a lot of people who pay their electric bills, gas bills, home mortgages, car loans, and their kids’ college tuition with money they earned working for Exxon. When you tax Exxon, you don’t tax a person named Exxon or even a group of suit-wearing executives sitting in a boardroom; you tax the customers of that company, who will probably have to pay more for that company’s product as they raise their rates to be able to pay for increased taxes, or you make it harder for that company to hire additional employees. Now, you’ll probably respond by telling the American people that Exxon can afford it because they posted a profit of over $11 billion in the 2nd quarter of this year, although what you either don’t know or don’t care to point out is that their profit margin was less than 10%, that is, they earned less than a dime’s worth of profit on every dollar they invested. That is hardly an excessive profit margin, and nowhere near as high as those regularly posted by companies such as Google and Microsoft, two companies whose profits you and your fellow Democrats have been considerably less vigorous in attacking. Google’s profit margin was over 25% last year, their profit on every dollar they invested was two and a half times what Exxon’s was, and I’ve never heard you or anyone in your party decry Google for having excessive profits, let alone threaten to “take those profits“, perhaps because its executives mainly support Democrats.

“Our business tax rate is the second largest in the industrialized world. Cutting business taxes will make American companies more competetive internationally and will give them less of an incentive to, as you put it, “ship jobs overseas”, to countries whose taxes are more business-friendly. Domestically, it will free up more money so that those companies can hire new workers, invest in new equipment and technology, or open new branches and expand into new markets, which would help create new jobs in more areas and lead to increased local sales tax revenues in more towns and cities across the country. That, Senator Obama, is how you spread the wealth around, by encouraging investment and growth, not by taking more and more tax money from companies that have been successful and profitable and have employed thousands of people whose jobs earn them income to provide for themselves and their families. Such a thing would only create a disincentive to hire additional employees, and basic economics suggests it will lead to increased prices for consumers and/or lower wages for employees of those companies.

“Joe’s plumbing business might employ only a handful of people, but his company would benefit from a cut in his taxes. There are many tens of thousands of people working for Exxon and other large and profitable companies who depend just as much on their jobs for their livelihood and whose jobs depend just as much on their company’s success as Joe’s employees and their jobs would depend on his business and its success. Are you saying that because Exxon is so large and employs so many people and earns billions in net income, that it should not have its business taxes cut along with all other businesses? And do you think that the federal government punishing their success by taking more of their money in taxes and arbitrarily redistributing it will do more to “spread the wealth around” than rewarding their success by cutting their taxes and giving them an incentive to hire more workers?”

I’m sure Obama would have loved having to answer that. McCain did mention that our business tax rate was one of the highest in the world but he didn’t press that point and he’s never disputed Obama’s false claim that he would cut taxes for 95% of workers when fewer than 2/3 of workers pay income taxes.

I also would have had some words to say in response to Bob Schieffer’s question about the negative tone taken by both campaigns, and the use of guilt by association. McCain was very defensive about comments made recently by Rep. John Lewis (D-Georgia), where he repeated a dubious claim that McCain rallies were filled with people expressing vitriolic hatred for Obama and shouting racial slurs and death threats directed toward him, and he had the audacity to compare that with the late Alabama Governor George Wallace, who fought against desegregation as long as he could and had fire hoses sprayed at civil rights protesters and other such cruel acts. (Such a comparison comes across as hyperbolic on its face, but then again John Lewis is the same man who earlier this year claimed that giving his support to Obama over Hillary Clinton was a more difficult decision than participating in the Selma march. McCain might have gone beyond simply saying he was hurt by the baseless comparison, and said something like this:

“I know Congressman John Lewis. He has served his district in the House of Representatives for over 20 years. He was on the front lines of the civil rights movement in the 1960s; he was beaten badly for participating in the Selma march, and has the scars to prove it. He is to be admired for his history with the civil rights movement. But that does not give him the right to take the idiotic speech of a few people at one of my rallies and claim that they represent all or even most of my supporters, let alone compare me and my running mate with a racist southern governor who met civil rights protesters with fire hoses, police dogs, and beatings.

“Now, to be fair, your campaign has rebutted those remarks by Congressman Lewis, who is a strong supporter of yours. While I am hurt by his statements, I will not use his support for your campaign to tie him and his comments to you, and I say this now because the story is still fresh in many people’s minds. I remember during your acceptance speech at your party’s convention when you mentioned comments made by my friend Phil Gramm and tied them to me, as if I had spoken his very words myself and approved of them. You said this a full month after I had disowned his comments and he had stepped down from his position within my campaign.

“When it comes to guilt by association, I don’t find it very useful or fair to ask a candidate to respond to or repudiate every objectionable thing said by anyone who happens to support him, let alone to tie those comments to the candidate. Campaigns can get heated, and they can get emotional. You can’t always choose your supporters and you can’t control what all of them say. But you can choose your friends and people who you associate with. I’ve been in the Senate for over two decades, you’ve been in the United States Senate for two-thirds of one term. I’ve been involved in several campaigns at the state level and the national level, and so people have a lot of statements, votes, and personal history with which to judge me by. A relative newcomer like yourself is not nearly as well known, and when there are few votes to judge your record by, I don’t think it is out of bounds to examine the kind of people you have had long associations with. You were a close associate of Tony Rezko, a convicted money launderer and corrupt businessman who gave you your first ever campaign donations and who was a member of your campaign finance committee. For 20 years you were a member of a church pastored by a man who preached racial hatred and presented a distorted gospel based on Afro-centrism and socialism. This man was your spiritual mentor and more for two decades, and while you distanced yourself from him this year, it took you twenty years to do so and you gave shifting explanations for how much of his teachings you were aware of and when you knew about them.

“If Rev. Wright were merely a pastor who had given you his public support, I wouldn’t think it the least bit consequential what his teachings were, let alone ask you if you agreed with them. Some of your supporters have tried to do that very thing with me over Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement of me, as if because of his endorsement I should be made to answer for his anti-Catholic views, as if I had expressed them myself, when I have never been a member of his church or counted him as a spiritual mentor. If Rev. Wright’s was a church you attended infrequently as you worked and lived in Chicago and served your constituents, then it might be plausible that you didn’t know what Rev. Wright stood for. But the fact is that you came to him, talked with him, became a member of his church, sat and listened to 20 years of sermons that he preached from the pulpit, you married your wife in his church, had your two daughters baptized there, and named your second book after the title of one of his sermons. You had a very close friendship with this man for 20 years and yet you told the American people that you were surprised and shocked by his much-discussed comments earlier this year, which I won’t repeat here.

“This election is as much about character and judgement as it is about our resumés and qualifications, and those who you have freely chosen to align yourself with, accept spiritual advice from, tie your political fortunes to, and used your position of power to enrich with taxpayer-funded programs says more about you, your character, and your judgement than 30 years of Senate roll call votes could have.”

Okay, that’s way longer than McCain would have been allowed to speak, and much farther than he would have gone on the attack. But I felt the need to get that out while it was on my mind. This is directed more at Obama because I feel he would do far more damage to this country than McCain would, but this is not to say I think McCain is without his faults, as he has many, some of which I’ve written about before.

Olympic coverage error

NBC just broadcast the men’s 4 X 400 meter relay race that happened “last night” in Beijing. The U.S. team won pretty comfortably and set a new Olympic record in the event, which partly atones for the U.S. track team laying an egg in a number of other track events they were supposed to be competitive in. One of the commentators apparently has a short memory though. I think it was Ato Boldon (who was formerly an elite sprinter for Trinidad and Tobago) who made the erroneous comment but it could have been Lewis Johnson. As Jeremy Wariner was running the anchor leg for the Americans, one of them said that he had anchored every mile relay team for the U.S. since Michael Johnson retired in 2000. This means he must not have seen the gold medal-winning U.S. relay team at the 2004 Athens games, because Wariner actually ran the 3rd leg in that relay and Darold Williamson, who was Wariner’s teammate at Baylor that year, ran the anchor leg.

I would expect something like that from the Dallas Morning News, but I had higher expectations for NBC, especially from someone like Boldon, who usually knows what he’s talking about. Do I have to do everybody’s research for them?

Olympic observations

- The opening ceremonies was one of the most amazing events I’ve seen in a long time. My jaw dropped several times just watching the sheer amount of imagination and technical precision that went into its staging. The organizers of the 2012 games in London will have a very tough act to follow.

- Best event so far: the men’s 4 X 100m freestyle relay (swimming). That had an amazing finish as the American team’s anchor leg swam a blistering (I’m sure a better word could be used to describe a feat done in the water) split to catch the French swimmer in the last 25 meters of the race and beat him to the wall by a split second after being behind by a whole body length for much of his turn. Had they finished 2nd, everyone’s most vivid memory of the race would have been the fact that the U.S. relay team included a black swimmer. First time I can remember seeing a non-white, non-Asian swimmer in the Olympics. I think I actually did a double take when he dove into the water on his leg of the relay. And they say black people don’t swim, or help set world swimming records. There goes that stereotype.

- Most random commentary so far: NBC swimming commentator (and 1984 Olympic gold medalist) Rowdy Gaines getting all botanical in describing the smooth backstroke of Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry, saying, “She’s like a piece of balsa wood in the water.”

- I was in my car after lunch today and heard Rush Limbaugh suggest that NBC had hired “a bunch of female directors and camera people” to work on the Olympics broadcast, because “during the events featuring female competitors, we’re not getting the same camera angles that we used to always get.” I haven’t noticed much of a difference in placement of cameras or the angles of their shots, but he may be right. For obvious reasons, Michael Phelps has gotten a lot of coverage so far, but if anything might back up Limbaugh’s (possibly facetious) assertion, it’s the fact that at some point before or after all of Phelps’ races that I’ve seen, they’ve shown a gratuitous shot of his abs that lingered a little longer than it needed to. Yep, must be those female directors. Although whoever produced the feature on him that they showed tonight had good taste, as they played Coldplay’s “Life in Technicolor” in the background.

- Earlier tonight I watched a beach volleyball match pitting the American duo of Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers against an Argentinian duo. The Americans won the match convincingly, but more striking to me was Phil Dalhausser’s resemblance to Smashing Pumpkins/Zwan leader Billy Corgan. Take a look below and see if you agree.

Phil Dalhausser

Billy Corgan

- Commercial from the past week that rates highest on the WTF? Scale:

- As a special bonus, I give you a classic David Letterman Top Ten, from a show that originally aired on June 24, 1996, about a month before the Atlanta games.

Top Ten Signs You Won’t Be Qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Team
10. Keep accidentally burning your wrestling opponents with your cigarette.
9. You need an advanced pulley system to get over the high hurdles.
8. When you hear the starters pistol, you ball up like a frightened armadillo.
7. To get you to the trials, firemen had to remove the side of your house.
6. When you started running the 100-meter dash, Bob Dole was still in high school. [Shows how dated this list is, it goes back to the year of the Clinton-Dole Presidential race]
5. Boxing opponents get their gloves caught in your stomach.
4. You train by standing in front of mirror, trying to smile like Mary Lou Retton.
3. Being 35 and still living at home with your parents not yet an Olympic sport.
2. When your relay partner tries to take the baton, you shout, “Screw you — get your own damn stick!”
1. Can’t get your a** through the parallel bars.

The Implausibility Scale

I’ve had the idea for this list for a few months now, and over that time I’ve thought of new examples, added to the list, and rearranged the order. Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general has produced decades worth of far-fetched plot twists, action scenes, and character changes, but the past few years have seen some exceptional examples, and a few films and TV series have practically turned implausibility into an art form.

I’ll admit a certain amount of inspiration for the concept came from sportswriter Bill Simmons’ Unintentional Comedy Scale. This isn’t supposed to be a conclusive or exclusive list; it’s more of a guideline about where I would rate certain scenes or sequences. The scale rates as high as 100, with the list getting steadily more implausible as it goes, and the tip top most implausible example or examples rating a 100. Ideally, such a list would work so that you would read #65 and say, “now that’s implausible, but I’d believe it before I’d believe #66″ and so on, though a lot of it is just for fun and the list doesn’t strictly follow that formula. Hope you’re entertained, and feel free to add your own examples and where you think they should rate.

I should also note that I’m picking and choosing my implausibilities here, as I’m including, for the most part, only examples that I’ve actually seen, and examples of scenes or sequences that defied logic and/or reason. Because of this I don’t include scenes from sci-fi or fantasy type movies like The Matrix, which has some far-out action scenes, but which take place in a reality not governed by normal laws of physics, and thus they make sense within the movie’s own internal logic (until the whole plot jumped the shark in the 3rd film, but that’s another topic).

I’m beginning the list at #60 and moving on from there. Fair warning: a few of the examples cited here may be plot spoilers to those who haven’t seen those films or TV shows.

——–

60: TV personality Katherine Heigl sleeping with, getting pregnant by, and ultimately deciding to have the baby of immature and unemployed pothead slob Seth Rogen in Knocked Up. Two of those three might happen, all three happening would be very unlikely.

61: Rachael Leigh Cook as the average, un-pretty girl in She’s All That.

62: Kenan Thompson scoring a goal on a lengh-of-the-ice “knucklepuck” shot at the end of the Junior Goodwill Games championship hockey game to tie the score and force overtime in D2: The Mighty Ducks. No way the shot would have flown that straight or that far, or that they could have gotten away with having him secretly change into another player’s jersey. And the Icelandic coach’s reaction is priceless (“The goalie! Nooooo!”)

63: Joshua Jackson’s character arc in the Mighty Ducks movies. In D2, he’s team-oriented and unselfish to the point of giving up his spot on the team right before the championship game to make room on the roster for a teammate who has just recovered from an injury. In D3, he’s selfish and arrogant, only wants to play as a scorer and yells at his coach who wants him to play defense.

64: Anakin Skywalker’s character arc in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I didn’t believe it for one second.

65: The dialogue in any radio ad for Just Brakes.

female caller – “Wow, you repair disc pads and brake shoes and inspect and rotate the balance on all four wheels?! That’s an even better deal than when I bought my car new!! Why do you do it, Just Brakes?”

Just Brakes repair guy – “Because at Just Brakes, we really do care.”

66: The dialogue in any radio ad for Ovaltine. (“MORE OVALTINE, PLEASE!!”)

67: 5’7” Tom Cruise as a star defensive back on his high school football team, and getting recruited by several major colleges in All The Right Moves.

68: 5’9” Jamie Foxx as an NFL quarterback in Any Given Sunday. That’s a good 3-5 inches shorter than any pro team would want their quarterback to be.

69: Sarah Jessica Parker falling for Dennis Quaid in Smart People; Amidala falling for Anakin in the Star Wars prequels; and Maggie Gyllenhaal falling for Will Ferrell in Stranger Than Fiction.

70: Luke Wilson actually being a bestselling author in Alex & Emma. In real life, the story he and Kate Hudson come up with in the movie wouldn’t have gotten a passing grade in a junior college writing course, let alone a six-figure advance.

71: “Tool Time” actually being a popular show on Home Improvement. In real life it probably would have been cancelled in under a month.

72: The impossible aerial maneuver James Franco pulls with his World War I-era fighter plane to slip behind and shoot down the plane of his ace German archenemy in Flyboys, a maneuver right out of Top Gun, I might add.

73: The Middle Eastern villains in season four of 24 conveniently speaking English when counter-terrorist agents manage to listen in on their cell phone conversations. That series could fill a list like this on its own, but I’ll be nice and only include this one example.

74: The end of the $500,000 poker tournament in the movie Maverick, where on the final hand, with the three remaining players betting all their chips, they show hands with four 8’s, a straight flush, and a royal flush, respectively. There’s no way all three of those happen at the same time, the odds are too astronomical. But I’d believe that before I’d believe…

75: Estella Warren’s improbably nice skin, hair, and makeup in the 2001 Planet of the Apes remake. Humans have been enslaved for hundreds of years and the women still have a hidden supply of lipstick? Sure…

I might also add the three-day stubble Martin Henderson sports for all of his scenes throughout the length of Flyboys. He has one of those razors that only exist in the movies, one that allows characters to always look like they haven’t shaved in a few days.

76: President Andrew Shepard’s (Michael Douglas) speech during a press conference at the end of The American President, which is full of combative and hokey dialogue no President would ever say, and even has Shepard utter the line: “You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I’m gonna convince Americans that I’m right, and I’m gonna get the guns.”

No President in his right mind would make such a statement publicly, and any who did would have next to no chance of being re-elected (at least one would hope). Also, I think the movie’s screenwriter (Aaron Sorkin) missed the irony in the President promising to “go door to door if I have to” in order to “get the guns” just minutes after praising the ACLU and calling it “an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights”, because apparently his copy of the Bill of Rights doesn’t include the 2nd Amendment. (Note: The scene is hokey, self-congratulatory, and emotionally exploitative enough on its own, but when you add the music in the background and the serious, uncritical looks on the faces of the reporters as he’s talking, it’s almost comedic).

77: Orlando Bloom’s “Who has claim? No one has claim” speech before the siege of Jerusalem in Kingdom of Heaven, which is only slightly more historically improbable than Leonidas’ “an age of freedom” speech in 300, or Joely Richardson’s “It’s a free country. Or at least it will be” line in The Patriot.

78: The boxing arena spectators in Cold War-era Moscow chanting American Rocky Balboa’s name as he fights against the Russian giant Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. A rough equivalent might be a baseball movie set in Boston where Red Sox fans chant Derek Jeter’s name.

79: Pretty much any episode of CSI (including both spin-off series).

80: Any movie where a character gets a few simple lessons or pointers on fencing or swordplay, and then becomes a near master swordsman in about 5 minutes of screen time (see: The Mask of Zorro, Kingdom of Heaven, The Last Samurai, The Count of Monte Cristo, and the hobbits in The Fellowship of the Ring.)

81: The end of Alien vs. Predator where the Predator saves Sanaa Lathan’s life and essentially joins forces with her for a short while, which goes against everything previously known about the Predators.

82: The endings of The Fast and the Furious and the 2007 version of 3:10 To Yuma.

83: Angelina Jolie as Colin Farrell’s mother in Alexander (she’s just under a year older than him).

84: Any McDonald’s TV ad that portrays the employees as young, clean cut, good-looking, always smiling, and nearly always white or black. Have the producers of those commercials ever been inside a McDonald’s?

85: Nicholas Cage and John Travolta being able to shoot and hit people or airborne objects from long distances, but frequently being unable to shoot each other even when they’re 5 feet apart in Face/Off.

86: The plot of National Treasure.

87: The plot of National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

88: Jack Sparrow and the crew of the Black Pearl turning the ship completely upside down by running back and forth across the deck in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. (There’s also the para-sailing bit near the end of the movie, which might rate slightly lower).

89: The action sequence in Live Free or Die Hard that immediately precedes this line: “You just killed a helicopter with a car!“

90: The long jungle sequence in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that includes: A. Mutt (Shia Lebouf) swinging on vines through the trees following a pack of monkeys, B. Marion Ravenwood driving a Jeep off the edge of a cliff and onto the branches of a tree, which gently lowers the vehicle onto the river below before swinging back and swatting some Russians who are climbing down the cliff, C. the Jeep (and its 5 passengers) going over 3 large waterfalls in succession without anyone falling out of the car or getting any scrapes, bruises, or concussions, and D. Indiana Jones never once losing his hat the whole time. The quantity of implausibilities in those 10 minutes piles up high enough to make it among the most implausible things ever put on film, but to save room I’ll mention them all together and take the rough average of their implausibility scale rating.

91: The Tom Cruise-Dougray Scott motorcycle joust/beach fight sequence in Mission: Impossible II. Neither character should have been able to walk (if they were even still alive) after a collision like that, which you can see at the end of this video clip.

92: In Transporter 2, Jason Statham driving up the levels of a parking garage, crashing his car through a short concrete wall at the edge of the roof, then still having the inertia to fly well over 100 feet forward through the air and land on an upper floor of a nearby building under construction. You can see it at the 4:40 mark of this video clip.

93: The scene in the 2005 King Kong remake just before Kong goes unconscious after having bottles of chloroform thrown at him. Just before this, there’s a shot of lots of men throwing ropes and a net over Kong and actually holding him down, which would seem more than a little unlikely since earlier in the film Kong had picked up and thrown a Tyrannosaurus, a dinosaur that weighed between 7 and 8 tons.

94: The bus in Speed hopping and flying over a long gap on an unfinished highway overpass and landing safely on the other side, with the speedometer somehow staying above 50 mph the whole time. The jump occurs just before the 4:00 mark in this video (warning: contains some R-rated language).

95: The entire plot of Flightplan. The villains would have needed psychic powers or a crystal ball for their plan to have worked the way it did. I’ve never seen any other movie be so interesting and then completely fall apart in the third act the way that movie did when the plot was revealed.

96: Jeff Goldblum hacking and sending a computer virus to an alien computer system from an earth-based computer system in Independence Day. Apparently, those aliens can manufacture fighter ships armed with laser guns and deflector shields and can communicate telepathically, but they can’t be bothered to update their anti-virus software.

97: Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt surviving an F5 tornado without a scratch by tying themselves to the pipes of a water well just before it passes right over them at the end of Twister.

98: In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the title character surviving a nuclear bomb blast by shutting himself inside a 1950s-era refrigerator, feeling no ill effects from the fridge being blown hundreds of feet away by the force of the blast, and not getting radiation poisoning when he climbs out of it and stands directly under a mushroom cloud and breathes the air. Who does he think he is, Chuck Norris?

99: In Wanted, the scene where James McAvoy is supposed to kill a guy in a limousine as he drives along the side of it, but finds the limo has bulletproof windows. So Angelina Jolie, working with him, drives her sports car toward McAvoy’s, then hits the brakes just as they’re about to meet, and an invisible ramp allows McAvoy’s car to shoot up off her car’s hood, fly up into the air, and flip over the limousine where an open sunroof gives McAvoy a clear shot at the guy (which he takes) before his car harmlessly lands back onto the street and he drives away. In real life, this would result in a fiery crash and the guy in the limo would speed away from the scene laughing. You can see an edited part of this scene at about the 2:00 mark of the movie’s third trailer.

100: The sequence in Transporter 2 described here by Roger Ebert:

“Seeing the reflection of a bomb in a pool of liquid under his car, and knowing that the bad guys will not explode it while they’re standing right next to it, the hero races the car out of a garage and up an incline, spinning the car neatly through the air, so that it makes one complete rotation and the bomb is pulled off by a hook on a crane, exploding harmlessly as the car lands safely. Uh, huh.
I could observe that this is preposterous, but the fact is, I laughed aloud.”

So did I, as I’d never seen anything so outlandish before. The scene is so ridiculous (and also fun in its own way) that not even comic books or video games would try something like it. On the Implausibility Scale, I don’t think it will ever be topped by any movie that takes itself the least bit seriously.

*101: I’m adding one extra example to the list, a clip from the 1985 Indian movie Adavi Donga, starring Indian movie icon Chiranjeevi. I’m putting an asterisk on it and not putting it with the others because it was probably designed as a parody, though without seeing it in its full context it’s hard to know. I saw this clip over the weekend (and posted it in a previous blog) and decided that parody or not, it completely shattered the Implausibility Scale. The brief clip involves a horse skidding underneath a large trailer (with its rider still on it) and a pursuing Jeep leaping over that same trailer at its driver’s command (apparently, vehicles in India can jump when their driver stands up slightly in the driver’s seat). It truly has to be seen to be (dis)believed.

Comments and additions are encouraged.

my running diary of the 2008 All-Star Game

The 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star Game is, for the eighth straight year, being broadcast on Fox with Joe Buck doing play-by-play duties and the increasingly useless (or if you prefer, decreasingly useful) Tim McCarver doing color commentary. Overall, this is Joe Buck’s tenth and McCarver’s seventeenth turn at filling those respective roles for an All-Star Game broadcast (McCarver also served as a field reporter for the 1984 game). According to Wikipedia, the 1980 and 1982 All-Star Game broadcasts featured play-by-play from Al Michaels and Keith Jackson, with Howard Cosell and Don Drysdale doing color commentary. Somebody needs to show those broadcasts on ESPN Classic because that would have been a lineup guaranteed to produce its share of comedy, both intentional and unintentional.

The game is being played at Yankee Stadium for the first time since 1977, and much has been made of this because of 2008 being the Yankees’ final season to play at Yankee Stadium before they move into their new $1.3 billion stadium next year. I tried to keep a running diary as it went along, and just like most of my blogs, it went longer than I intended, but in this case it wasn’t my fault, since the game went 15 innings. All times listed for the entries are Central Time.

7:44 – The first of probably several TV spots for Fringe. Out of the blurbs thrown into the ad, I’m about 10x more encouraged by seeing “from the creator of Lost” than I am about something that’s “from the writers of Transformers“. But it does answer the question, “What has Joshua Jackson been up to lately?”

7:46 – Warming up: our American League starter, Cliff Lee of the Cleveland Indians.

7:47 – First pitch to leadoff hitter Hanley Ramirez of the Florida Marlins: a fouled off fastball for strike one. Here we go!

7:48 – Ramirez strikes out on an 85 mph slider for the game’s first out.

7:50 – Philadelphia’s Chase Utley strikes out looking for the second out.

7:51 – Out number three as Houston’s Lance Berkman flies out to last night’s Home Run Derby hero Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers.

7:52 – Is any non-Universal Studios employee excited about The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor? Me neither.

7:54 – NL starter Ben Sheets of Milwaukee gets the first out on a fly ball, now facing hometown hero Derek Jeter of the Yankees, with Josh Hamilton (who hopefully will be Ben Sheets’s teammate next season) on deck.

7:57 – Hamilton strikes out on three pitches, but Jeter steals 2nd base during the at-bat.

7:59 – New York Yankee third baseman and Madonna’s alleged new main squeeze Alex Rodriguez pops out to end the inning. Speaking of the Alex and Cynthia Rodriguez saga… Do you have any idea how hot it’s been lately? It’s so hot Cynthia Rodriguez left Lenny Kravitz and has now been seen hanging out with Ice Cube.

8:06 – Cliff Lee strikes out Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun to end the 2nd inning. Lee’s line for the night: 2 innings, 1 hit, 0 runs, and 3 strikeouts..

8:13 – Tim McCarver just said Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis got the best ovation of any Red Sox player so far. Not sure if he meant that sarcastically, as all I heard on the TV was some hearty booing. Sheets strikes him out to bring up Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer with two outs and Texas Ranger Milton Bradley on second base.

8:19 – After Mauer walks, Boston second baseman Dustin Pedroia comes up to bat. McCarver says, “there is no hotter hitter in baseball right now than Dustin Pedroia”, apparently forgetting about Texas second baseman Ian Kinsler, who goes into the All-Star break with a 25 game hitting streak (the best in the majors this year), during which time he has hit .425 with a .717 slugging percentage. Kinsler has been better than Pedroia in practically every offensive category and should by all rights be starting tonight, but the fans (read: Boston Red Sox fans) voted in Pedroia as the starter. Pedroia flies out to end the 2nd inning.

8:35 – I’ve never seen a single episode of The X Files all the way through, and I didn’t watch the first X Files movie when it came out 10 years ago, but The X Files: I Want To Believe actually looks interesting based on the trailers now in rotation.

8:37 – Boring game thus far. Three innings, no runs by either side, four hits between the two teams but non longer than a single. Toronto’s Roy Halladay now pitching for the American League. He’s another ace pitcher who would be perfect for the Rangers, though they’d have to give up an emperor’s ransom in prospects to even have a hope of trading for him.

8:53 – Colorado’s Matt Holiday homers off Anaheim’s Ervin Santana for the first run of the game to lead off the top of the 5th inning. 1-0 National League.

9:10 – Derek Jeter comes to bat with runners on 1st and 2nd and two outs, works the count full on Arizona pitcher Dan Haren, but grounds out harmlessly back to Haren, who throws to 1st to end the 5th inning.

9:28 – Josh Hamilton singles to lead off the bottom of the 6th inning. This gives Joe Buck yet another opportunity to spend two minutes talking about Hamilton’s comeback from drug addiction. Meanwhile, the score is 2-0 National League.

9:31 – Hamilton steals 2nd base for the American League’s fourth steal of the game. He is stranded at 2nd though, as Cleveland’s Grady Sizemore strikes out looking on a full count and Texas’ Milton Bradley flies out to center field to end the 6th inning. This game is actually kinda boring (I know, I said that an hour ago) but we’ve seen some All Star-quality pitching.

9:41 – Joshua Winslow Groban comes out during the 7th inning stretch to sing “God Bless America”. He does a good job, of course.

9:46 – Former Ranger and current Reds pitcher Edinson Volquez takes the mound for the NL in the 7th inning, allows a quick double to Joe Mauer, then gets an even quicker groundout from former teammate Ian Kinsler. Tampa Bay’s Dioner Navarro follows with a strikeout looking.

9:53 – Boston’s J.D. Drew homers into the right field seats to tie the score at 2-2. Anaheim’s Francisco Rodriguez is warming up to pitch the 8th inning. He’s on pace to break the all-time single season saves record (he has 38 already and the record is 57), but he was pretty shaky last week during the Angels series with the Rangers.

9:59 – Oops, instead Boston’s Jonathan Papelbon comes out to pitch the top of the 8th inning. He gets some jeers from the New York crowd for his saying earlier in the week that he wanted to be the game’s closer, and not hometown favorite Mariano Rivera. Papelbon gives up a leadoff single to Houston’s Miguel Tejada and receives chants of “overrated!” He responds by striking out Florida’s Dan Uggla.

10:02 – With former Ranger and current San Diego Padre Adrian Gonzalez at bat, Tejada steals 2nd base and advances to 3rd on an errant throw. Gonzalez hits a long fly ball for an out but Tejada tags up and scores on the play to give the National League a 3-2 lead.

10:04 – Papelbon strikes out New York Met David Wright to end the top of the 8th inning. Due up for the AL are White Sox Carlos Quentin and Joe Crede, followed by Cleveland’s Grady Sizemore.

10:19 – Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria doubles off of New York Met Billy Wagner to drive in Sizemore and tie the game at 3. Up to that point, the two teams were hitting a combined 1-14 with runners in scoring position. Home Run Derby winner Justin Morneau of Minnesota comes up but grounds out to end the inning. We’re going to the 9th!

10:25 – Francisco Rodriguez walks the National League’s leadoff hitter in the top of the 9th inning. This is pretty typical of his recent 9th inning performances.

10:32 – The top of the 9th ends with Mariano Rivera striking out St. Louis Cardinal Ryan Ludwick and Cristian Guzman is thrown out while trying to steal 2nd base. Rivera relieved Rodriguez with one out in the inning to a huge hometown ovation.

10:35 – Texas Ranger Ian Kinsler leads off the bottom of the 9th inning.

10:37 – Kinsler strikes out on a breaking ball from Chicago Cubs reliever Ryan Dempster, yet another player who was formerly in the Rangers organization (they drafted him out of high school but later traded him to Florida while he was still in the minor leagues.)

10:40 – Dioner Navarro strikes out for the 2nd time, and we’re one out away from sending the game to extra innings.

10:42 – Dempster K’s J.D. Drew to strike out the side and send the game to the 10th inning, leaving Texas Ranger Michael Young, the hero of the 2006 All-Star Game, waiting on deck.

10:52 – Dodgers catcher Russell Martin works a long at-bat before singling past Ian Kinsler. Miguel Tejada singles up the middle to send Martin to 3rd base, putting two men on with only one out.

10:53 – Dan Uggla grounds into a double play to end the inning. Uggla has stranded three runners in his two at-bats. Due up in the bottom of the 10th: Michael Young, Carlos Quentin, and Carlos Guillen.

10:56 – Colorado Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook comes in to pitch for the National League. Young hits the first pitch he sees up the middle, where Dan Uggla promptly bungles it, allowing Young to reach safely.

10:57 – Quentin moves Young to 3rd base, and does himself reach 1st base on yet another error by Uggla, who is having a nightmare of an All-Star weekend, if such a thing is possible.

10:59 – Carlos Guillen is intentionally walked to load the bases for a potential force out at any base, and with no outs, Grady Sizemore is now up.

11:01 – Sizemore grounds to Uggla, who throws to home for the out, but Sizemore beats the throw to 1st base. One out, bases still loaded, and rookie Evan Longoria up.

11:03 – Longoria hits a perfect grounder to 3rd base, Cristian Guzman throws to home for the second out of the inning. Bases still loaded with 2 outs and our Home Run Derby champ Justin Morneau is up once again.

11:04 – Morneau hits a dribbler to shortstop Miguel Tejada, who scoops it and barely gets Morneau out at 1st base for the third out. That was an amazing pitching and fielding sequence by the National League

11:07 – We’re going to the 11th inning. Joakim Soria of the Kansas City Royals will pitch for the AL. He may be their last available pitcher so hopefully the game will end soon.

11:11 – I feel this is a good time to mention umpire Darrel Cousins has had a pretty big strike zone tonight. He just gave Soria two gift called strikes on consecutive low fastballs to Cristian Guzman that would probably have been called balls by any other umpire.

11:13 – Corey Hart flies out to end the inning, and we’re off to the bottom of the 11th inning. Due up: Ian Kinsler, Dioner Navarro, and J.D. Drew, the same trio Ryan Dempster struck out to send the game into extra innings.

11:16 – Kinsler gets a hit to lead off the inning.

11:18 – Kinsler tries to steal 2nd base and is called out on a phantom tag by Miguel Tejada. This is the second missed call tonight on a play at 2nd base; earlier Albert Pujols was called out trying to stretch a single into a double after Ichiro Suzuki made a great throw to second. Replays showed Pujols barely beat the tag but was called out.

11:21 – Michael Young is at bat with the winning run at second base (Dioner Navarro) and J.D. Drew on first base.

11:22 – Young hits a grounder up the middle and Navarro tries to score the winning run, but he’s gunned down on a perfect throw to the plate by Pittsburgh centerfielder Nate McLouth. Two out with two runners on base.

11:24 – Carlos Quentin grounds out to end the 11th inning. Ludwick, McLouth, and Martin (the latter two being responsible for that game-saving tag out at home plate) due up in the top of the 12th.

11:28 – After Ludwick walks, McLouth bunts and beats out Morneau’s throw to Ian Kinsler, who was covering first base. Two men on and no outs.

11:29 – Morneau fields a ball that would have gone foul had he not touched it. He gets Martin out at first base, but the other two runners advance.

11:31 – Tejada is intentionally walked to bring up the game’s official goat Dan Uggla with the bases loaded and one out.

11:32 – Uggla strikes out on a nasty curveball from Joakim Soria for the second out. Uggla’s line for the night: 2 fielding errors, 2 at bats ending with strikeouts, one double play hit into, and 6 runners stranded. Ex-Ranger Adrian Gonzalez is now up and Baltimore Oriole closer George Sherrill is coming in to pitch.

11:36 – Sherrill strikes out Gonzalez on three pitches to end the inning. Due up for the American League in the bottom of the 12th: Guillen, Sizemore, and Longoria, who are a combined 2-6 with one walk, one run, and one RBI thus far.

11:39 – Carlos Guillen doubles off the left field wall on the first pitch Aaron Cook throws him. Winning run on second base with no outs.

11:40 – Uggla nearly commits his third error, but recovers to throw out Sizemore, while Guillen advances to third base. One out.

11:43 – Longoria strikes out swinging on a sinking fastball inside. Morneau is intentionally walked to bring up Ian Kinsler with two outs and runners at 1st and 3rd base.

11:45 – Cristian Guzman makes yet another flawless play at 3rd base, fielding a Kinsler grounder and throwing him out at 1st to end the inning. This may be a good time to mention that Guzman has never played a position other than shortstop in his professional career.

11:49 – David Wright shatters hit bat on a bloop single to right-center field. Guzman is now up to bat. I’m calling it: Guzman will double to give the NL the lead.

11:51 – Okay, not quite. Guzman lays down a terrible bunt straight back to George Sherrill on the mound, and Wright is thrown out at 2nd base. Corey Hart is now up with Guzman at 1st base. I’m impressed with how Sherrill is pitching.

11:53 – Hart strikes out swinging on a high fastball. Ludwick is coming up to bat. I feel now is a good time to mention that tonight’s contest features no less than TEN current and former Texas Rangers players, Ludwick being one of them. (The others are current Rangers Young, Hamilton, Bradley, and Kinsler, and former Rangers Alex Rodriguez, Edinson Volquez, Adrian Gonzalez, Justin Duchscherer, and Ryan Dempster, and you can add to that Alfonso Soriano, who was voted to the team but was injured and not able to play.) Texas traded Ludwick to Cleveland five years ago this week, when he was only 31 games into his Rangers career. After a few very mediocre seasons with Cleveland and one year spent on Detroit’s AAA squad, he signed with St. Louis in 2007 and has hit 35 home runs and driven in 117 runs in 207 games over a season and a half. Ludwick popped out as I was typing this.

11:58 – Chicago Cubs pitcher Carlos Marmol is now in to face J.D. Drew after getting Navarro to ground out to begin the inning. Drew homered six innings ago to tie the game.

12:00 – After working a full count, Drew grounds to 2nd base, where, yes, Dan Uggla bobbles it for his third error of the night. Michael Young is up with one out.

12:03 – On a full count, Young strikes out looking and J.D. Drew, running on the pitch, steals 2nd base. Carlos Quentin is up with two outs and Drew representing the winning run. It’s a White Sox vs. Cubs matchup to possibly decide the All-Star Game!

12:05 – And… Quentin strikes out on an 83 mph offspeed pitch to send the game to a 14th inning. I need sleep soon, and it’s already 1am in New York. Just amazing pitching performances overall tonight. 16 strikeouts for the AL pitchers so far, 15 for the NL pitchers.

12:07 – McLouth gives the AL a scare with a long fly ball but it dies near the warning track in right field and is caught by Drew. Sherrill is still pitching and AL manager Terry Francona (Boston Red Sox) is desperate to avoid using Tampa Bay ace Scott Kazmir for pitching duty, as he started and threw over 100 pitches on Sunday, a fact Joe Buck has reminded us of about six times now.

12:11 – Sherrill finishes the inning unscathed. Guillen, Sizemore, and Longoria are due up. I’m calling it: the game ends this inning. Guillen is a pro, Sizemore (who is less than two months older than me) is one of the best young players in the game, and Longoria will make Tampa Bay proud.

12:18 – Arizona Diamondbacks ace Brandon Webb strikes out Longoria on a low curveball to end the 14th inning. He struck out Sizemore on an identical pitch just before that.

12:19 – They’re showing another one of those DirecTV ads with actors being plugged into scenes from past movie roles. In the past they’ve used William Shatner in a scene from a Star Trek movie, Charlie Sheen in Major League, Jessica Simpson in the Dukes of Hazard, and now we have Robert Patrick shilling for DirecTV by reprising his role as the T-1000 in a scene from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It’s hard to believe that movie came out 17 years ago.

12:25 – Scott Kazmir is in the game. He gets the first two batters out, then walks David Wright. He looks just like you’d expect a guy to look if he was two days removed from throwing 104 pitches in a game.

12:26 – Kazmir gets Guzman to ground out to end the top of the 15th inning. I mentioned earlier that there are 10 players in the game tonight who are or were formerly part of the Texas Rangers organization. Kazmir should have been the eleventh member of that group, but the year he was drafted the Rangers management passed him up in favor of Drew Meyer, who six years later has 14 major league at-bats and a career .264 batting average in parts of seven minor league seasons. Kazmir would look really good in Rangers blue right now.

12:31 – After a Justin Morneau single, Kinsler is robbed by Ryan Ludwick on a hard hit ball to shallow left field.

12:33 – Navarro gets a base hit and advances Morneau to second base. Just before this I was about to type a sentence beginning with “the hapless Dioner Navarro”. Since I haven’t been right on any calls so far tonight, I’ll try reverse psychology and say J.D. Drew will choke with the winning run on second.

12:36 – Drew walks to load the bases with one out and Michael Young comes to the plate for his fifth at-bat of the game. Most of the position players currently in the game have played a full nine innings at this point.

12:37 – Young skies a fly ball to right field. Corey Hart catches it but it’s just deep enough for Morneau to tag up and beat Hart’s throw to the plate. GAME OVER!! Final score: American League 4, National League 3. J.D. Drew is awarded the game’s MVP award. Not awarded is Dan Uggla’s richly deserved Least Valuable Player award. He’ll do better though, he’s only 28 and was playing in his first All-Star Game (he was selected to the 2006 game but did not play). He’ll probably be playing in several more of these before his career is over.

Despite not having much offense, it was a great game in the end. See you guys next year at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. And with that, it’s 1:18 a.m. and I’m outta here!

24, Lost, and MTV reality shows

I finally started watching the 4th season of 24 this week. I started watching the series on DVD about a year ago and went through the first two seasons fairly quickly. My brother borrowed them and got hooked on the show, and over the Thanksgiving weekend we took advantage of sale prices to buy seasons 3-5. I watched the third season late last year but left the fourth sitting on my shelf for several months before I finally opened it and plopped in disc 1 Sunday night. I’m six episodes in and it’s an exciting season so far, much more fast-paced than any of the first three (season 1 didn’t even begin to pick up steam until sometime between episodes 3 and 5). My only wish is that they would dispense with the whole pretense of having all the events in each season take place in a single 24 hour period, because that became pretty ridiculous after the first season.

After six episodes, I’d rate the season at least an 80 out of 100 on the implausibility scale. The Secretary of Defense is kidnapped and his secret service detail is killed, and within about 20 minutes the Islamic terrorists who have him have managed to leave Los Angeles and drive out to a secret compound outside the city. Even less likely, the very first episode begins at 7am and it still looks dark as night without even a hint of sunlight, but by the time the episode ends at 8am, the sun is shining so bright it looks like it should be noon outside. Eventually the good guys find out where the Secretary of Defense is being held and Jack Bauer goes on a daring rescue mission alone to get him, because he is about to be executed for all the world to see on the internet and an incoming group of marines won’t be able to get to the scene for 15-20 minutes we are told. They eventually do arrive on the scene, after Jack has almost single-handedly killed off a dozen or so of the terrorists around the compound, and less than 30 minutes later all the carnage and bodies at the scene have been neatly organized and Jack and the Secretary are back at CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) headquarters in Los Angeles.

So really the series has long since past the point where it should be called 36 or maybe 48 because it would take much more than 6 hours for the events that have happened so far to take place.

Also, episode six ends with the revelation that a certain character is a traitor working with the enemy (unless later events show this is not the case). At the time I was thinking, “Come on! Who didn’t see that coming?” Especially with the way the character was introduced and shown to be as duplicitous as anyone who’s shown up in that season. That, and anyone who watched all of season 1 shouldn’t be surprised at the possibility of someone at CTU being a mole. Who is doing background checks on these people for CTU? From what we’ve seen in the first four seasons, we can conclude that CTU’s background checks are only slightly better than the ones the Texas Board of Nursing conducts on prospective nurses, but worse than the ones Hogwarts conducts on potential Defense Against the Dark Arts professors.

With season 7 being bumped to next January because of the writers’ strike, I’ve got plenty of time to catch up with the 2 3/4 seasons between where I am now and where that one starts.

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Lost just gets stranger and stranger. By next week we’ll supposedly get to see how some of the survivors made it off the island, or at least we’ll see the flashforward of them landing back on American soil. Jack’s dad I think has now surpassed Ethan in the pantheon of dead characters who just keep on showing up, although Ethan was alive for much of the first season, while Jack’s dad died before the plane crash that began the series and has only been seen in flashbacks when he hasn’t appeared as a ghost or hallucination, or whatever he is at this point. Characters seem to have a hard time dying on that island. Season four has been confusing and mysterious, but I’ve enjoyed watching it, even though it’s gotten to the point that with so many characters on the show, Jack, Kate, Juliet, Sawyer, Hurley, or Sayid will sometimes go multiple episodes without making an appearance. This is atypical of past seasons, where they, along with a few others who have since died, were the heart and soul of the series.

Only three episodes left in the season now, with the last two being parts of a 2-hour season finale in three weeks. I honestly can’t wait. It’s been fun getting to keep up with the show while it airs for the first time, instead of watching it on DVD years after its first seasons originally appeared.

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I went through a period last year where I got into a few MTV reality series. I watch that network only occasionally and had never watched an entire season of anything it produced until I randomly tuned to the premiere episode of the 19th season of The Real World. I ended up watching every episode of that season. The characters were mostly annoying and shallow, but it was all edited and put together in such a way that made it oddly absorbing. The same goes for The Hills, which I caught a handful of episodes of but never followed regularly. Then there was A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, which featured lots of people who not only had no concept of love, but who also, apparently, didn’t have a real shot at it, at least not with the titular character. Why anyone would actually want a shot at love with a girl as ugly inside and out as Tila Tequila is anyone’s guess. She claims she broke up with the “winner” of the show because her hectic schedule prevented them from spending much time together, although he claimed in a (very gramatically-challenged) blog post that she never called him after the show and that nobody would give him her number, an account which, combined with a lot of factors, lead to allegations that the whole show had been a sham.

Well now there’s a second season airing, which is only a few episodes old and reportedly was in pre-production before the first season had even ended. I was taken in by the train wreck aspect of it and watched more of the first season than I’d like to admit, but have only seen a few minutes of either the first or second episode in the current one. That was enough for me. Sham or not, this is quite possibly the most morally bankrupt TV series I have ever seen. I’ll just leave it at that.

The current season of The Real World started 3 weeks ago, and I have better things to do than try and catch up with it, so I’ll probably be tuning out MTV for the foreseeable future.