Awesome Old Song of the Week (Thanksgiving edition brought to you by Crystal Pepsi): "Right Now" by Van Halen

In 1992 Van Halen released an album called For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, with 'Right Now" being far and away the most popular track.  Shortly thereafter the song was used in this commercial for Crystal Pepsi.  I remember Crystal Pepsi tasted a little weird and not really all that much like regular Pepsi, or even cola in general; which is probably why they stopped making it after less than a year.



So what does this have to do with Thanksgiving?  The above ad spawned a hilarious Saturday Night Live commercial parody for "Crystal Gravy."


Gravy by kronosposeidon

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Sprint's James Earl Jones and the guy from Entourage commercials are pretty funny

This is my favorite, and I totally understand the one guy getting annoyed with the other for not following proper protocol:










There is also another spectacular one that I wrote about the other day on CelticsLife, in which a guy attempts to sell his Celtics pajamas on ebay.  Until I watched all of these in a row I didn't even realize what the point of them was; Sprint trying to convince you that everything you do is important to them.  I guess that goes along with my theory that commercials don't really work, especially considering the fact that I can't even remember which company the other series of cell phone ads that I like so much are for.

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Happy Thanksgiving, and the one-year anniversary of the worst play in NFL history

Thanksgiving Day, one year ago, this happened:





Here's what I said about that game at the time, and my reaction to ESPN unjustly ending Mark Sanchez's reign atop the "worst of the worst" after just 40 weeks back in September.


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The NBA's Eastern Conference is so bad that the Celtics might be good

Jordan Crawford: Surprisingly good point guard

Yesterday I had my second article published on Yahoo Sports, entitled "Boston Celtics: NBA Draft Lottery Favorite or Playoff Contender?"  Here's the 37 second summary:

The Celtics are 6-10, but they are only one game back of the final playoff spot, and also just one game behind the Raptors (6-8) for the division lead.  Boston has played a very tough schedule so far, 16 games in 27 days, with 10 of their first 16 on the road.  It's about to get a lot easier.  Eleven of their next 15 are at home, and 9 of those are against sub-.500 teams.  If they go 7-8 in that span they'll be 13-18 at the end of December, about the time Rajon Rondo should be coming back.

Unless several East teams start playing a lot better, the C's will remain on the cusp of the postseason race into January.  If they're still in the mix after playing nearly 40% of the season without Rondo, you'd have to imagine they'll continue to be once he returns.  So until Danny Ainge decides to start trading away players for future draft picks and expiring contracts (the subject of my first Yahoo Contributor Network article), you can expect Boston to stay in playoff contention for the foreseeable future. Sorry tank fans, I know that's not what you want to hear.

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50% of what I said about the Patriots last week was 100% wrong

Pass interference?  Who the (expletive) knows...

Last Tuesday I wrote that there were two reasons why I wasn't very upset about the Patriots potentially get robbed of a victory in Carolina on a pass interference penalty in the end zone that wasn't called on the game's final play.

The first was because I figured New England was pretty much locked into the #2 spot in the AFC either way.  But as it turns out, I was completely wrong on that one.  After Kansas City lost at home to the Chargers and the Pats beat Denver, if New England had gotten that W against the Panthers they would now be tied with the Chiefs and Broncos at 9-2, and in line for the #1 seed (although you can't really look at sports that way, if they hadn't been so angry about the Carolina game would the Patriots have been motivated enough to come back from the 24-0 deficit to the Broncos?  Everything may have happened differently).

Letting that one go, I have even greater confidence in the second part of my argument, that it's basically a toss-up once the playoffs start who wins the Super Bowl.  The more I watch the NFL the more I believe most close games are decided not by the teams on the field, but by which penalties the refs feel like calling that day.  Personal fouls, holding, pass interference, etc., can all be found or ignored on practically every play, and in turn dictate the outcomes.  If a single call that might be argued in either way was made differently on eight occasions (in contests decided by one score or less), the Pats could be anywhere from 11-0 to 3-8 right now.  Unless somebody wins all their playoff games in blowouts, the officials will be the ones to determine who becomes champion.


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Awesome Old Song of the Week (Patriots/Bill Belichick edition): "Wind of Change" by the Scorpions

Manning didn't seem to enjoy the weather much.

Last night Tom Brady was a spectacular 17-23 for 201 yards and 2 TD's over the two quarters he played going up against a brutal wind in Foxboro (and an even more amazing 12-14, 163 yards, and 2 TD during the ridiculous 3rd quarter rally).  Peyton Manning, not so much: Denver's QB was 9-18 for 75 yards, 1 TD, and 1 huge INT throwing into the wind.  It was such a factor that after winning the overtime coin flip Bill Belichick chose to take the wind and hand Manning the ball, something that last happened in the NFL 11 years ago to the day (oddly enough), and led to Marty Mornhinweg eventually getting fired when his Detroit Lions lost on the first possession.

The obvious choice here was clearly Bob Seger's "Against the Wind," but the Scorpions' 1991 hit fits my Awesome Old Song of the Week profile much better (early '90s, pop, hair band ballad, etc).



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AOL should be embarrassed by their front page story

I still use an @aol.com email address for junk mail (it's perfect for when you sign up for something you don't care that much about which requires an email, but you don't really feel like giving them you're email), so every now and then I go to the AOL home page to check it.  When I visited there earlier today, here's what I saw:

I know all about writing headlines designed to suck people in and get more page views, I do it all the time (including on this very post, is that hypocritical?  Hmm, maybe... I hope not).  But this is beyond pathetic.  "Hey want to know the bizarre way this person died?  We'll tell you about it, but not until you click here first."  That's just gross, especially as the top story (see the "1 of 30" at the bottom of the picture) for a gigantic website.

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