Everyone Head for the Video Store!

Okay so I'm super thrilled about the coming release (July 7th, to be precise) of the movie The Unborn on DVD and Blu-ray! I had so, so, so wanted to see...

You know what, damn it. I cannot even really pretend with this one. The movie looked awful when they were promoting it back in January, and it similarly looks awful now as for the last few days and weeks I've seen seemingly endless numbers of promotions about this wretched film's imminent release. The only thing that this film has going for it is that it has some really hot girl as the lead actress and that was evidently good enough to sucker fools around the world into spending nearly $76 million to waste at least eight-seven minutes of their lives. (You see, I did my wikipedia research.)

But why am I even bringing this up now? Well, it occurred to me the other day that the movie depictions that they have made make absolutely no sense. The Unborn is supposed to be this girl's unborn twin, right? So why in heavens is this girl in her late teens to early twenties and her unborn twin some kid that is no more than about ten years old? I mean seriously, if you wanted this film to be in anyway plausible and to have a chance at garnering the coveted Cabral Williams Seal of Approval, then you had one of two choices: either have the girl haunted by some sort of fetus looking thing or have her haunted by some dude roughly her same age.

Okay, so I guess using a fetus looking thing probably would have carried too much of a gross factor with it, but come on, having this girl haunted by a fetus would have been awesome! Okay, no it would not have been awesome; it would have been stupid. But the movie as it was made was stupid anyway. The only other plausible choice was to use an actor to play the unborn twin who is around the same age as this girl. Obviously there are quite a number of dudes out there that could have filled that frightening/creepy role. Heck, it did not take me very long to find one!

More Words of Wisdom from Jeff Van Gundy

So I happened to be watching the waning seconds of game three of the NBA Finals, which had the Los Angeles Lakers trailing the Orlando Magic by four points and scrambling to score a basket of any kind to cut into the Magic's lead. The Lakers had a number of shot attempts as time disappeared with the Magic unable to gather the rebound, but then the Lakers finally scored two points to cut the lead down to two with just five tenths of a second remaining on the clock. The Magic inbounded the ball to Rashard Lewis, who was quickly fouled by Kobe Bryant, and that's when the fun began.

Okay, so the fun actually began a little bit earlier when as the officials were reviewing whether a made shot by Lewis should be a three (as originally credited) or a two, Van Gundy, in looking at the replay and seeing that Lewis's foot was actually on the three point line when attempting the shot, said something along the lines of "a player is coached to never attempt a three point shot with his foot on the line." Van Gundy was seemingly forgetting, of course, that if a player's foot is on the three point line when attempting a shot, he is in fact attempting a two point shot and not a three point shot. But this was relatively minor, and I was content to leave well enough alone until the last five tenths of a second came around.

Well, after Lewis was fouled, Van Gundy said without hesitation that no matter what Lewis should miss the second of his upcoming free throws intentionally. Now this was among the stupidest things I've heard Van Gundy say during these playoffs, though it does have competition. And let me paint the entire picture so that you can get a fuller picture for why this analysis was so stupid.

• After Bryant's foul, two tenths of a second remained on the clock.
• The Lakers had no timeouts (and I absolutely abhor this word as I think that it should more properly be times-out) remaining.
• Without any times-out remaining, the Lakers could not advance the ball to midcourt after a made free throw.
• NBA rules do not allow for a player to catch and shoot a ball with under three tenths of second remaining.
• With under three tenths of a second remaining, the only score that can be made (barring a foul of some sort prior to inbounding the ball) is a tip in attempt.
• If Lewis did make the second free throw, the Magic would be ahead by at least three points.
• Assuming the Magic were up by three points, the Lakers would have had to tip in a three point basket off of a pass launched from underneath the Magic's basket to tie the game.
• Assuming the Magic were up by four points, the Lakers would have had to tip in a three point basket off of a pass launched from underneath the Magic's basket and get fouled in the process to have a chance at tying the game.

So what happened? Well, it seems that Jeff's brother Stan, the coach of the Magic, obviously does not subscribe to the dumbass strategies of his younger brother as he evidently did not instruct Lewis to miss the second free throw. Lewis made both free throws and the Magic won the game by four. (The Lakers simply inbounded the ball and allowed the last two tenths of a second to expire.)

Jeff Van Gundy is a poor analyst in my mind because it almost seems as if he has these pre-programmed strategies in his mind that he will blurt out without actually taking the time to rationally consider the scenarios. If he had truly rationally thought about the scenario with two tenths of a second remaining, he would have realized that it was (currently) humanly impossible for the Lakers to win game three at that point (absent a foolish foul of course) if Lewis made the second free throw. (If someone really, really wants me to go over the physics of this, I can certainly do so in another post.) But Jeff Van Gundy knows basketball strategy. Good call Jeff!

The LeBron James Fake Controversy

So, some huge fake controversy has arisen lately over the fact that LeBron James left the court last Saturday night following the Cleveland Cavaliers' Eastern Conference Finals series losing game six loss without shaking the hands and congratulating the victorious Orlando Magic. People are whining aloud that James is a poor sport for not giving the Magic kudos on a job well done. And my thoughts are, of course, that all of these critics need to relax and get a grip.

Because after all, why should LeBron James give a damn what someone like Jay Mariotti thinks? And more to the point, why should LeBron James feel compelled to act in the way that someone like Jay Mariotti wants him to act? When it's all said and done, LeBron James is an adult. He is not Jay Mariotti's child (and I am kind of singling Mariotti out here because I don't think that he is very talented, but there are certainly others who have done similar whining about this non-issue) and does not have to do a damned thing that Mariotti would like for him to do.

Let's ask ourselves a few questions: Did LeBron James kill anyone? Did James injure anyone? Did James hit any traffic cops with his car? Did James hurt the feelings of the Orlando Magic players? If James did hurt the Magic players' feelings, as a result, will they be unable to play at their best in the NBA Finals? If James did hurt the Magic players' feelings and, as a result, they will be unable to play at their best in the NBA Finals, should we blame James or should we blame the Magic for being pansies? (If you so desire, please feel free to reply with your answers to these questions in the comments section.)

Okay, so I'm pretty sure that you know where I stand on this, but let me provide another example of one who has a counter opinion to my own. Alright, of course you have no idea who this author is - neither do I. However, I included this piece because of the following quote that he makes:

Professional athletes are supposed to be role models for young athletes all over the world. What is a young, aspiring LeBron fan suppose to think when he sees his idol storm off the court without shaking anyone's hand after losing?

He's probably going to side with his role model and think it's okay not to shake the winning team's hands.

Since when are professional athletes supposed to be role models for anyone? At best I think you can say that professional athletes are supposed to be role models for their own children, not yours. But let's assume for the moment that a scenario happens precisely like described above where a young athlete refuses to shake the hands of players on the opposing, winning team because he saw LeBron James refuse to do so. To the extent that there should be any "blame" assigned for this, the blame should be placed on that young athlete's parents for not teaching the athlete the "proper" way to behave after losing.

And one final point before I leave this stupid subject alone, if you are really that deeply offended by what James did, and you really feel like you have to get back at him for this horrible display of sportsmanship, I'll tell you exactly what you can do. You can stop going to his basketball games, stop watching his basketball games on TV, stop buying the products he endorses, and finally, yell and scream about how poor a sport he is and even write about how poor a sport he is. Obviously a number of people have already gotten these last couple of things down perfectly, so they only need work on the rest. Good luck, you'll show LeBron!

(Oh, and David Stern is getting involved! Fantastic!)

American Idol Season Recap

I just realized that as a result of my lack of postings over the last several months I have neglected to provide commentary on the most recent season of American Idol that you all so dearly crave that concluded on May 20th. My apologies.

Well, here goes... It was yet another season of talentless hack singers performing in a boring, glorified karaoke competition that no one in their right mind could possibly enjoy. I did not watch any of it, but I'm completely convinced that the entire season completely sucked. The End.

Dancing with the Stars Season Recap

I just realized that as a result of my lack of postings over the last several months I have neglected to provide commentary on the most recent season of Dancing with the Stars that you all so dearly crave that concluded on May 19th. My apologies.

Well, here goes... It was yet another season of D-list pseudo-celebrities performing in a boring competition that no one in their right mind could possibly enjoy. I did not watch any of it, but I'm completely convinced that the entire season completely sucked. The End.

I Hate Idiots

Okay, this is going to be a rather short post, but I had to do it. Though you could argue that it belongs on my brand spanking new politics blog, I believe that it is probably better off here. I was just watching This Week with George Stephanopoulos and there was quite a lively debate going on with his roundtable, but my local ABC news channel, channel 13, had to interrupt for "breaking news." This breaking news was apparently that the space shuttle was about to land in less than a minute in California. Really, that's breaking news? You really felt that the fact that the shuttle was going to land in less than a minute was worthy enough to have your anchors break in to the coverage of This Week to make overwhelmingly superficial commentary about a subject about which they have limited knowledge? You people are idiots.

NBA Western Conference Finals: Game One

After watching the end of game one of the Western Conference finals between the Nuggets and Lakers last night, I'm convinced more than ever that many (if not most) NBA analysts are idiots with little to no comprehension of sound late game strategy and clock management. In this case I will be directing my ire at Jeff Van Gundy, but I'm certain many other analysts have advocated for similar strategic errors in the past.

With 30.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets trailed the Lakers 101-99 and preparing to inbound the ball at midcourt. An errant pass was intercepted by the Lakers' Trevor Ariza and recovered on the Lakers' offensive side of the court with just over twenty-eight seconds to play. And so Jeff Van Gundy said essentially that since there was a four second differential between the shot and game clocks, the Nuggets did not have to foul.

I suppose Van Gundy was technically correct, the Nuggets did not have to foul. But then again, the Nuggets also did not have to try to win the game. I'm going to assume for the moment that the Nuggets were trying to win the game and lists the steps that would likely have to take place for Van Gundy's strategy to have any chance of working.

1. Nuggets do not commit any fouls (this is after all the foundation of the entire strategy).
2. Lakers do not score on the possession.
3. Nuggets rebound presumed errant Lakers shot attempt (see number 2) with 4-5 seconds remaining.
4. Nuggets successfully inbound the ball to one of their players.
5. Nuggets score basket to either tie game (2-point attempt) or take the lead (3-point attempt).
6. If time remains, Nuggets prevent Lakers from scoring and force overtime or win game.

The overwhelming flaw in this plan is that it essentially requires every step in the plan to go flawlessly if the Nuggets are going to have any chance to win. There is almost no margin for error. And the strategy is foolishly optimistic considering the fact that the Lakers have Kobe Bryant on their team, a ruthlessly attacking player who would (a) almost certainly have the ball as time wound down and (b) stood a greater than 50% of chance of scoring on the play, getting fouled on the play (Bryant being an 85+% foul shooter), or both. And then you throw in the very real possibility that the Nuggets just might not get the rebound since Bryant would likely draw help defense, potentially leaving the helping defender's man unchecked to grab the offensive rebound, and I certainly can go on.

So what did actually happen? Well, the Nuggets had a tad bit of trouble going the entire 24 second shot clock without fouling, and so ended up fouling Bryant as he drove the lane toward the basket with right around ten seconds left. So there the Nuggets were, down two points with Bryant shooting two free throws with ten seconds left where if they had fouled immediately, they could have been down two with Bryant (or even Ariza) shooting two free throws with 26-27 seconds left. And of course Bryant did hit both of the free throws to put the Lakers up 103-99 with roughly ten seconds left.

But the absurdly stupid strategy suggestions did not end with 28 seconds remaining. Van Gundy next said that the Nuggets should not necessarily attempt a three point shot when inbounding the ball, but rather should go for the best available shot. Okay, so with ten seconds left and the Nuggets down by four points, Van Gundy thought that now the Nuggets were in the right situation to start the "quick layup-quick foul-hope the guy misses at least one free throw so that we can eventually cut it to a one possession game-oh, he didn't miss, well let's start the cycle over again by taking a quick layup" strategy. This strategy is actually a decent one that can be used to prolong a game, but not when you only have ten seconds left. (It seems like the perfect strategy to employ with, oh I don't know, 28 seconds left.) Granted, with ten seconds left, there are not going to be many more times that your team finds itself with the ball. And this means that when you are down by four points, you have to score as many points as possible on each of these very few possessions. This means taking three point shots!

So the bottom line is that Chaucey Billups wisely attempted and made a three point shot (though it should not have counted since he stepped out of bounds just prior to attempting the shot), but the Nuggets did eventually come up short, losing 105-103. There's no way to know for sure if they would have won the game if using a strategy other than the asinine Van Gundy strategy (evidently adhered to by George Karl and probably a great many other NBA coaches), but they almost certainly would have given themselves a better chance.

Where is Channel 175?!

Okay, I'm back!

And what could possibly convince me to come back after a long hiatus? (I am of course excluding my brief return yesterday to write an uncharacteristically short post.) Well, we already established in an earlier post that it cannot possibly be because I have become any less lazy over the course of time. And just to prove this point, I am way too lazy to even go back to that previous post in which I mentioned that I had unequivocally not given up being lazy.

Well, to end the suspense, what has brought me back is rage. Yes, rage. You see, the other night, as in last night, I had used the remote control to turn on the television device sitting in my living room. And as I quite often do, I was using the remote control to navigate through the different channels, most of which of suck, to see whether there was anything worth watching currently airing.

And as usual, just about everything that was on television sucked, just as one might expect of generally sucky channels. And so I was left with my standby channel, one that rarely disappoints in situations such as this: The Boomerang Network.

For those who are unaware, the Boomerang Network is Cartoon Network's sister station that broadcasts cartoons from a bygone era when the creators of the programs cared about such quaint things as interesting plots, animation, good drawing, and humor. Now granted, not every one of the shows that the network chose to air possessed all of these qualities, but most of these shows certainly seem as if the creators (a) actually took more than twenty minutes to complete individual episodes of the show and (b) believed the children watching the show were more competent and attentive than trained monkeys.

But alas, I was thwarted. And why was I thwarted? Well, because in their infinite lack of wisdom, whoever it is that decides what channels I get in my cable subscription has decided to remove Channel 175 from my list. That (those) bastard(s)! I will have my revenge! I have not completely formulated the revenge plan as of yet, but rest assured, it is being formulated. I'll have more later (unless they wise up and bring back Channel 175).

The rage is back!

Rebel

Viva la libertad -- A Friend.

The Neighborhood Ball

I am back! Yes, I know that there are a fair amount of people out there that have probably missed me. No really, you don't have to admit it to me, I know that it's true. What, you may be asking, was the reason for this two-month long hiatus? Well it is because I am lazy - very, very lazy. But an equally valid question that you may be asking now is why am I writing now? You may be asking whether or not I have suddenly stopped being lazy. Is it one of your New Year's resolutions to stop being lazy Cabral? Of course you can probably answer this second question yourselves. Nonsense! Absolute rubbish! But the first question still remains, and the answer to this question is that there is a matter of incredible importance that requires my immediate attention.

And this matter concerns the recent inaugural balls that took place. Now I did watch a fair amount of the inaugural events that took place earlier in the day, but admittedly I lost interest in following what was going on closely as the hours of coverage reached into the double digits. When President and First Lady Obama were at the balls, every now and then I would look up and pay attention to what they were saying, but on the whole, I gave this portion of the programming little focus. It wasn't until Wednesday morning, January 21 that a horrible truth was revealed to me. Apparently at the Neighborhood Ball, the very first ball that the President and First Lady attended (I think) the DJ for the event was Nick Cannon... Nick Cannon?!

I just cannot comprehend this... Barack Obama, you have only a few short hours ago become the President of the United States and the first inaugural ball that you attend is DJ'ed by Nick Cannon? Okay, okay, okay, I know that there was likely at least one other thing on your mind leading up to inauguration day. You probably were not completely focused on who would be appearing at what balls on that evening, but come on, Mr. President, the ball was DJ'ed by Nick Cannon!

Perhaps President Obama is too nice of a guy; perhaps he is even a nicer guy than myself (a bit of a stretch, but you never know...), but I can imagine the following scenario taking place:

Aide: "Welcome to the Neighborhood Ball, Mr. President!"
President Obama: "Thank you so much, it is a pleasure to be here."
Aide: "If you or the First Lady should need anything at all, sir, we are here to help."
P. Obama: "I thank you; you are too kind... Wait a minute, who is that DJ'ing the ball?"
Aide: "Oh, that's Nick, sir!"
P. Obama: "Nick who? Nick Lachey?"
Aide: "No, sir, it's Nick Cannon."
P. Obama: "Wait, who's Nick Cannon?"
First Lady Obama: "Oh, I think that Nick Cannon is some D-list talent that some kids find hilarious for some reason."
Aide: "That's correct Ms. First Lady! Nick Cannon is hilarious!"
P. Obama: "Wait a minute, how did Nick Cannon get chosen? Did Biden do this? I knew I should have named him Secretary of State..."
Aide: "No, Mr. President, as you instructed, we're keeping the Vice President out of sight and muzzled. I believe it was Malia and Sasha who picked Nick Cannon."
P. Obama: "Sasha and Malia picked Nick Cannon?! That's it, they're not getting that dog now!"
F.L. Obama: "But dear, we promised. We can't have your presidency starting with you breaking promises so easily. Well, if you are going to break your promises, break the promises you made to the Republicans, not the ones you made to the kids."
P. Obama: "Hmm... You're right. The kids get to have the dog, but they're not going to see the next Hannah Montana movie."