Wednesday Blogging

Obi-Wan Ginobli is a monster. And the Spurs appear to be the class of the league again, despite Nash and Stoudamire doing their thing last night.

Links:

Spurs make all the plays at crunch-time again, lead 2-0 going home ….

Lebreton on the Drese/Barajas disagreement …

Rangers mum on incident …

Roy Williams Rule passed …

Williams' name has come to be associated with the new rule. He seriously injured three players with the technique in 2004:

• Tennessee Titans receiver Tyrone Calico injured both knees in a preseason game at Dallas on Aug. 30, requiring surgery on his left knee. Calico tried to play in one game before going on injured reserve.

• Baltimore Ravens running back Musa Smith went on injured reserve after a Nov. 21 tackle by Williams left him with a compound fracture of his right leg that required surgery.

• Philadelphia Eagles receiver Terrell Owens' surgically repaired right ankle and fractured leg (fibula) after a Dec. 19 tackle by Williams kept Owens out four games, including two in the postseason.

"Poor ol' Calico about got his head jerked out and his legs broke off," Titans owner Bud Adams said. "The guy who did that, it's not the first time he's done it. I think it's a good rule. It doesn't put it all on [Williams], but they just can't do what they've been doing. Some of these guys are pretty strong, and they can really hurt a guy. It's been demonstrated."

Peter King MMQB , and yes, I realize it is Wednesday…

From the “it is always somebody else’s fault” department: Junior changes crew chiefs again …If anyone was listening to their race radio when the Nextel boys rolled through our fair city, this comes as no surprise. It was obvious that there was plenty of friction between the two. I realize I make people mad when I speak the truth, but I can’t help it. Dale seems like a good guy, but his expectations are insane, and I think it makes him and his mother blame everything from the crew, the crew chief, the car, and the facility, if he doesn’t win enough. They never consider the fact that maybe the competition is better than they admit, and maybe Dale Jr, is not half as good as his daddy…Put it this way, you don’t want to be his crew chief right now.

Sports Guy pounds Dirk …

Denver reader Todd Ruff sums it up best: "After Friday night's Game 6, did Dirk officially become the Peyton Manning of the NBA?"

No question about it. Calling out Jason Terry at the end of regulation in Game 6, followed by the 0-for-5 in overtime ... I mean, the only thing we were missing was Dirk's stomping back to the bench with his chinstrap dangling from his face. What a jerk. And did anyone have less business calling out teammates than Nowitzki, who stunk offensively for a solid month and couldn't guard anyone? Who do you think was responsible for Shawn Marion's 38-16 performance in Game 6?

Today is the Day! Destiny awaits! ESPN 2, 1:30 Gerrard: 'I will lift that trophy' …

"We have to make sure we don't have any regrets at the final whistle, that we have given every drop when that time comes," said Gerrard. "This is the biggest game of our lives, so we have to give everything we have, and to come back with a winner's medal in the biggest club competition around would mean the world to me. But I will lift that trophy. I know I will. We have world-class players and, believe me, they are in the mood to do this.

"It's so important for the future of Liverpool. Imagine how much that would help us in terms of prestige and attracting top-class players, plus the financial impact it would have.

"This is the ultimate. There will be a lot of pressure to perform but you just have to deal with that. The pressure only comes in big games and that's where you want to be, but maybe there is even more on Milan. I hope they under-estimate us because, if they do, they are in for the shock of their lives."

The Liverpool Squad …

The AC Milan Squad …

19 nationalities to be represented today in European Cup Final …

Star Telegram Soccer Insider …

Recommended by a P1, the Star Wars Wikipedia Page answers all of your questions…



And now, some P1 feedback on my Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith review. If you missed it, I basically had the opinion that the movie is solid, but there are still a few things I find annoying.

- No matter how well they do it, watching these new episodes still strikes me like I am watching a Star Wars cover band. I just don’t completely buy it. I also don’t buy that Lucas had this written ahead of the original trilogy. If he did, there would not be so many holes in the script.

- I don’t like Lucas feeling obligated to intertwine every character’s past. I wish I did not know where Boba Fett came from, where Chewbacca lived, and so on. But Lucas does this to a fault. Every character is related somehow, and it all fits perfectly. What is wrong with not knowing the background of the character?

- It also annoys me that the technology now allows him to put 3,000 star ships in a space battle. Back in Star Wars, the Death Star attack involved about 10 X-wings and 10 TIE Fighters and you could follow what was happening. But now, there are so many stinking fighters in the battle that it is complete confusing chaos. All because computers allow for this.

- The Darth Vader – Frankenstein ending is a fine example of unintentional comedy. If you saw it, you need nothing further.

So with those complaints in mind, imagine all of the Star Wars fans emailing me. I received a ton, but here are a few:

Bob’s opinion of Star Wars = Good Ole Day Syndrome
Soccer Shaun

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Bob, it's a movie......just enjoy it dude. You're taking it too seriously.

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By the way Bob, why didn’t Obi-Wan remember that there were twins? Why did Yoda have to remind him in Empire Strikes Back?

Mark Morse

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Dude, you're killing me with this gripe about everyone knowing each other inthe movies. I had my own problems with Sith (the Frankenstein endingcertainly among them), but this isn't one of them.

You can't make a movie about EVERYBODY in the gallaxy! The main characters have to know each other, otherwise you'd end up with an intergalactic Pulp Fiction where everyone goes around and does their own thing and they only cross paths when someone sticks them up in a Cantina.

Actually, come to think of it, that might be pretty good. Nevermind.

Love you.

Aks

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Bob, gotta go geek on you for a minute and answer a few of the questions you had about Sith. I don't know if you've read any of the books that come after the movies, but a lot of these answers are there. Are they remarkably convenient? You bet. :)

Why is Yoda an ass-kicker in Sith, then only 20 years later barely able to get around? Yoda was already old, but physically fit. When the Emperor blasts him with the Dark Side lightning stuff it ages him considerably, just look at what it did to the Emperor.

Why does Aunt Beru age 40 years in 20 years? Life on Tattoine sucks. It's hot and dry and working on a farm makes an old person out of you fast. Life on a moisture farm just wears out a hot chick.

Why don't the Jedi know that they are about to be betrayed? Very few of the Jedi have the ability to see the future. Yoda is one of them and he senses what is going on and escapes. The Emperor is also using his own powers to conceal his plans.

Why doesn't Darth Vader think to look on Tattoine for his son? Yeah, you got me there, that one's just dumb. Maybe that little bit of good in him keeps him from looking? That's all I got.

So was that geeky enough for you? I'd write more but my mom's calling me, I gotta eat my pop-tarts before I go to work.

Oh yeah, Sith was better than Jedi. No dumb Ewoks in this one.


Joel (BaD radio Day 1 P-1)

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Heard your discussion on Star Wars ROTS a few minutes ago, wanted to
chime in on some things:

1. Billions and billions on Coruscant seems out of place compared to the original trilogy. The settings for the original trilogy: Tatooine=desert, Dagobah=swamp, Hoth=ice, Cloud City=small mining colony. Coruscant is like the New York City of the Star Wars Galaxy. But it is the only planet in the movies that featured a large population.

2. Everyone seems to know/be related to everyone else. I, too, have a problem with this. Part of what made Boba Fett cool is he was mysterious. You could say the same for Darth Vader. Explaining everybody's backstory was really not necessary. However, I'm glad to see Chewy and R2 more than the new, stupid characters like Jar Jar Binks and the Nemodians.

3. Lucas is a bigtime liberal. Gives tons of money to the Democratic Party. I don't think this is wrong or right, but there are some political undertones in this movie. As long as it has lightsabers, I don't really care.

4. Massive battle scenes. The original trilogy had the small Rebellion fighting the massive Empire. These were understood to be small skirmishes due to the small numbers in the Rebellion, although the results were huge. The Clone War was exactly that...a war. As seen in ROTS, the war was being fought on several planets. This full-scale war will naturally have more fighters. Is it harder to follow...sure. But the opening sequence to Saving Private Ryan was a bit all over the
place, as well. The element of confusion adds to the realism of the battle experience.

A fellow Star Wars nerd chiming in with my opinion. Oh, tell Dan it's
gay to think everything is gay.

Doug in Coppell
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Bob,

Couldn't agree more. Has George Lucas done a non Star Wars movie since American Graffiti? He's forgot how to write dialogue for human characters. The original movies weren't exactly known for their witty deep dialogue, but there were at least a majority of human characters relating to each other. Now, it's all computer generated action that doesn't have any substance. It seems more is better and even more is even better. Maybe it's a symptom of the video game generation. The 10-20 year old's that saw the original three just can't relate to all this junk.

Definitely a disappointing B-

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Bob, I think your nit picking a little bit on the whole Star Wars thing. I mean come on, it's a sci-fi fantasy movie. I'm a huge Star Wars fan from way back, but if I wanted to, I could probably find instability in the first three films as well. For example, at the very start of episode 4, C3-PO and R2D2 escape in the pod and on to Tatooine to meet Obi-Wan. They get captured by Jawas and sold to...Luke Skywalker. What are the chances? As far as everyone knowing everyone else, you have suspend reality.It's just like on Seinfeld. How is it that everywhere that Jerry goes in a city of 12 million people, he always seems to run into Kenny Bania or Frank Costanza, even though they live accross town. As far as the Frankenstein thing goes, I have no defense for that. Overall, I thought it was a really great movie...of course I like Titanic also, so what do I know. See Ya.

Lance

So there you go. Everyone is a SciFi expert...