Life ain't easy for a blog named Sue...

DON’T JUST STAND THERE—PANIC!!!
Leave it to our wonderful mass media—TV news in particular—and public officials to create mass hysteria and paranoia about this swine flu thing coming out of Mexico.  Call me cynical all you want, but I see this as nothing but media-generated panic over nothing.  I work with physicians, and one of them told me yesterday that it’s not that big of a deal and these kinds of outbreaks (of any virus) aren’t uncommon every day.  But by gosh, the media will have you believe that this latest swine flu crisis will bring down the U.S. economy, and tell you to lock your house and keep the kids inside.  By dingies, this might even drive down the price of oil.  Really?  I hope to hell it does!  And I fail to see how walking around in public with a mask on is going to make a lick of difference, no more so than duct-taping your windows shut wouldn't have protected you from dirty bombs like the Bushies were advising us to do about four years back.  Mark my words, this’ll all be forgotten in a week or two.

REST (RUST?) IN PEACE, PONTIAC
As expected, General Motors is doing away with its Pontiac brand name as part of its restructuring plan.  As a co-worker of mine pointed out, why not drop GMC instead?  After all, GMC trucks are basically Chevy trucks with a different badge on them anyway, so why do we need both?  I’ve always thought that was a bit redundant...

THE SPECTRE OF SPECTER
In his typical grandstanding style, Republican Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter announced he’s switching parties.  The Democrats should be less-than-thrilled.  They’d be better off with Phil Spector…

FEELING DRAFTY?
The annual exercise in overkill known as the NFL Draft took place over the weekend.  I know this sounds odd coming from a mondo football fan such as myself, but ESPN’s overblown coverage of the draft is laughable, particularly the "experts" they trot out every year like Mel Kiper, Jr. and Todd McShay, whose mock drafts are a mockery and have all the accuracy of the 10-day forecast on the Weather Channel.  Kiper contradicts himself constantly, like when a player was picked sooner than expected in the first round (I forget which one) and ol’ Mel proclaimed something like, "I really like this pick—he has great potential," yet he had that same player graded at only a C+ in his pre-draft analysis.  If you liked him so much, Mel, then why only an average grade?  The rest of the ESPN talking heads made my head spin with all their jibber-jabber and prognostications that I finally turned off the TV and waited for the results in the morning paper instead.  I could only take so much of ex-Chefs head coach Herm Edwards’ insightful comments like, "He’s a player!" and "He can play!"  No shit?  Even more laughable were the local bars staging these Draft Day "watch parties" all around town.  As the Almighty Carlin once said, "It’s like watching flies fuck!"

As for the Chefs, I was mildly underwhelmed by Scott Pioli’s shakedown cruise as GM and head drafter, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt because after years of Carl Peterson’s ineptitude at judging football talent,  I think we have someone who knows what he’s doing.  I’d like to think that, anyway…

D’OH!
"I say watch for a San Jose Sharks-New Jersey Devils Stanley Cup finals in late May."—B. Holland, April 14, 2009

Well, so much for that prognostication, as both San Jose and New Jersey are out of the Stanley Cup playoffs already.  The Sharks’ first-round flameout is becoming an annual rite of passage, and it makes no sense that the #1 team for the entire season can’t get past a #8 seed (the Mighty Quacks of Anaheim) that just barely made the playoffs on the final day of the regular season.  As for my Devils, their departure from the postseason is a bit more mysterious, not to mention heartbreaking.  They had Carolina by the balls with two minutes left to go last night and let them get away with two goals in the span of 48 seconds.  Guess I’ll root for the Chicago Blackhawks now, since they haven’t won the Cup since the Kennedy Administration…

THE FLATULENT ONE STRIKES AGAIN!
K.C. Star sports columnist Jason Whitlock once again proved what a moron he is by recommending that the fledgling Kansas City Royals acquire Barry Bonds to bolster their anemic offense:   "He’s been railroaded by the commissioner, a publicity-seeking federal prosecutor and the hypocritically self-righteous segment of the baseball media…While virtually every other steroid cheater continues to play the game without incident or much backlash, America’s home-run king is being treated like a heavyweight champion with the audacity to conscientiously object to the Vietnam war."

First off, how crass it is to compare ol’ Bare with Muhammad Ali, and second off, at the risk of sounding like the race-baiter Whitlock is, I bet ol’ Jason wouldn’t be campaigning so vociferously for Bonds if he was white.  Third off, I’d much rather lose with the current Royals squad than win with a bitter 45-year-old clubhouse cancer like Bonds.

WHY SHOULD I CARE?  WHY SHOULD I CARE?
Much hoop-de-doo was made last week about Perez Hilton ripping on Miss California’s opinions about gay marriage.  Did I miss a memo—why is this so important?  Are the political opinions of some blonde airhead in a bathing suit trying to impress the judges suddenly worthy of serious scrutiny?  And now for the really tough question—who the hell is Perez Hilton anyway?  It sure don’t take much to be famous these days…

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #112
"Do You Know What I Mean?"—LEE MICHAELS (1971)  "She just left me yesterday…"  Or try it my way:  "She just slapped me yesterday…"  No doubt, this was Ernest P. Worrell’s favorite song.  Ain’t that right, Vern?

MOVIE REVIEW: THE READER
I finally got to see Kate Winslet in The Reader this week on DVD.  This one’s kinda hard to describe without giving away the plot twists, so I’ll refrain from doing so, but suffice it to say it was not a bad film.  Not one that I would want to watch over and over again, mind you, but one which definitely held my interest throughout.  Kate gave a great performance, although I wasn’t too keen on her unconvincing German accent, which reminded me of Meryl Streep’s equally-unconvincing Italian accent in Bridges Of Madison County, which in turn was as unconvincing as Mr. Tudball’s toupee on "Carol Burnett Show".  And I was enjoying the sex scenes immensely until Winslet raised her left arm and revealed what amounted to a mini-Z.Z. Top beard in her armpit!  While I’m well aware that German women generally don’t shave their underarms, and I do give the producers points for realism here, I’m still compelled to say this anyway:  Ewww!  This turned me off every bit as much as the tattoos and nipple piercings on Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler last week.  All in all, I give the film about a 6.

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER AT THE BOX OFFICE?
I’ll be real interested to see how the new Star Trek flick fares when it hits the theaters next week.  I’m kind of an odd breed of Trekkie, as I never have much cared that much for the original TV series, but I do like the theatrical releases (Wrath Of Khan, Search For Spock, et al).  My older sister was a big fan of the original show, but I was more of a "Lost In Space" kid at the time, and "Star Trek" always seemed rather bland to me.  I’m warming up to the old show now as I track through it on DVD, but it still comes off to me as rather dry at times, but then again, they could only do so much with ‘60s TV special effects and sets.  William Shatner’s over-emoting never helped any, either.  Personally, I think there should’ve been more regular female characters on ST besides just Lt. Uhura, and I don’t understand why they gave up on the Yeoman Rand character, for instance—she was a hottie.

One thing I’ve never gotten about any of the space-based Sci-Fi franchises ("Star Trek", "Lost In Space", Star Wars, etc.):  how come humans are impervious to the laws of gravity while on board their spaceships?  Why don’t they ever float around weightless like the Space Shuttle crew does when they aren’t strapped in?  And ain’t it amazing how almost every single alien life form they encounter speaks English?  And how every planet they land on has an atmosphere suitable for humans to breath in, too?  Yes, I know, suspend your disbelief and shut the hell up already!

As for the new ST flick, I’ll wait until it comes out on DVD—I refuse to pay 10 bucks to listen to rude people, ill-mannered children and cell phones going off at the overcrowded clusterfuck movie theaters.  I much prefer my comfy sofa for watching big-time flicks…