It's that time of year!!!

Football is back! Say it with me people, WOOHOO!!! This was the annual NFL Hall of Fame weekend with the induction ceremony and football game. I skipped watching the induction ceremony because after watching Michael Irvin's speech (over and over and over again) I just couldn't handle watching more grown men cry. Sorry. I know these are great players/coaches, but other than Dick LeBeau (who incidentally, had one of the best and shortest induction speeches) I don't need to see the speeches. I can google it and see it later. That being said, the game was typical of the Hall of Fame weekend in that the starters played for maybe a series, if that, and we got to see a whole bunch of boys that probably won't be playing in the NFL again. Well, at least they got on television for a play or two.

Training camp is upon us and I can't wait to see the Jets on Hard Knocks which airs on HBO in two days. I love that series and am so glad they decided to follow around teams that aren't the Cowboys. To be fair, they haven't followed the Cowboys in a few years and that's perfectly alright with me. What would be great would be if they could just hit every team on a yearly rotating basis. Last year was the Bengals. This year is the Jets. Maybe next year the Saints? That would be awesome, but doubt that would happen. We can hope right?

One thing I must point out though about the HBO series. On the initial playing of an episode, which is at 10 pm, they don't censor anything, but if it plays during the day, they bleep out certain curse words. Really? It's freakin HBO! That's the whole point of it!!! If you don't like swearing, don't watch the cable channel. For crying out loud, it's bad enough to censor some words out (and I don't mean dropping the f-bomb on network television) on basic cable, but it's a premium
channel. What's up with that? Hopefully they don't do that this year.

I have high hopes this year for the Saints and even higher hopes for the Lions. The Saints are already hearing the talk about how they can't possibly repeat a Super Bowl appearance, let alone a win, and I'm all about them telling them what they can't do. After all, they weren't supposed to beat the Cardinals and they weren't supposed to beat the Vikings and they sure as hell weren't supposed to beat the Colts, so keep on telling the Saints what they aren't supposed to do just so they can shove it down your throats. And the Lions? Well, they've become the whipping boys of the NFL. I don't negate the fact that they have the record of worst losing season ever, but they're a new team with a coach who seems to know what he's doing and a young quarterback that's already had a trial by fire and came out not too bad. This year's draft was looking pretty good and it's the NFC North which hasn't exactly been coming up roses the last couple of seasons, the Vikings excluded. I say, go Matty and go Lions! I hope they shock the crap out of all the haters.

Training camp - WOOHOO at life.sa.laugh@hotmail.com.

Random Thoughts Update

I just read a bunch of articles regarding the Facebook brouhaha with the security settings and another about a couple of guys who built software to hack Android phones which was disseminated at the annual Hacker conference. I'm not sure which disturbs me more, the fact that people build this stuff just to see if it works, or that there's a conference where all these types of people can go to network, no pun intended. I mean, sure, the Android hacker guys said they built it to get the company to fix the system and so said the Facebook hacking dude, but really? Did you really do it to get the establishment to fix this stuff, or just for some fame and glory because now your names are all over the place? Just wondering.

My favorite quitter, Sarah Palin, has recently said that the governor of Arizona has more "cojones" than our president does. Wow. I have said it before, and I'll say it again, why do otherwise intelligent, mostly highly educated people, listen to anything this woman has to say, or worse, say that she represents the people and their opinions? I know that I'm part of the people and she sure doesn't represent my opinions. Look people, she was in office only part of the time before she quit so she could get paid. She, in my opinion, single-handedly tanked Sen. McCain's presidential campaign (because I may have voted for him, if not for her) and seems to use any excuse to get her name and face out there so she can continue to milk her 15 minutes of fame. When I look at her, all I see is a "For Sale to the Highest Bidder" sign plastered all over her face. I'm not saying that President Obama has been able to do everything he promised while in office so far, but realistically, how many presidents have? I say he's trying and he got dealt a pretty crappy card to start out with anyway. Regardless, to have the right wing conservatives blaming him for everything from the state of the economy (which was already going down the tubes before he was elected) to the oil spill in the Gulf to the immigration issues is just irresponsible. It's hard to take someone seriously that only points a finger instead of offering real solutions and I don't really consider letting the highest earners in the country keep all their crazy tax cuts a solution.

On a lighter note, True Blood roles on. SPOILER ALERT (for anyone that hasn't watched the series so far, don't read on): So now we find out that Sookie doesn't have a blood type. What? Yeah, after her lost love, Bill, drains her "accidentally" after being on the verge of death, Alcide (yummy!) and Tara rush her to the hospital where they try to give her a transfusion which just goes all wrong when her body rejects the blood they try to give her. Yeah. It's starting to get just a bit weird. Meanwhile, after feeding on her blood, Tara, being the take-no-crap-from-anyone type of gal she is (which I love about her character), kicks Bill out on the road in the middle of the day and amazingly, he doesn't burst into flames. Go figure. Plus the whole semi-dream sequence of Sookie's with the dancing people around the pond that gives some kind of crazy good elixir from it's waters. Having these weird people telling Sookie to not let Bill take her "light" and then finding out that the Queen of Louisiana vampires has been stalking Sookie for some nefarious reason, plus the King of Mississippi taking out the magistar, well, it's becoming extremely convoluted. Okay, I like the show and haven't read most of the books, but this is starting to just get to be too much. I did like that they spent a little time with Sam and his dysfunctional family. He made a very cute pit bull. And you know it's not the end of his biological parents trying to use his bro Tommy as their dog fighting meal ticket. Just saying.

We saw Despicable Me this weekend. It was cute, predictable, but cute. The little one, Agnes, just stole the show with her big eyes and cute little one-liners. It would have been much better if the women behind us didn't feel the need to insert their opinions and commentary throughout the entire movie. "Aww"-everytime they showed Agnes. "He's still floating"-when they showed a minion. "Can you believe that?" "Oh my God!" All of these nifty tidbits at full volume. If you can't shut up for an hour and a half, don't go to the movies. Wait until it comes out on DVD. I didn't pay a bunch of money to hear your voice. Rant over. Thank you.

I'm up for a phone upgrade and I'm seriously thinking about that HTC Evo but having a hard time thinking of parting with $200 for a phone. That's the new phone pricing too, not even full price for it. Crazy. My current phone is fine for talking and texting, but I can't do anything else on it and would like to be able to access FB and some websites I can't access at my work (on lunch hour and breaks of course). Is it worth it to get a fancy phone now or wait until they're cheaper, which will undoubtedly happen eventually. Guess we'll see.