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Now in our tenth calendar year!
PCR #475 (Vol. 10, No. 18). This edition is for the week of April 27 -- May 3, 2009.

MOVIE REVIEW
"X-Men Origins: Wolverine"  by Mike Smith
RETRORAMA
FX 2009: Another View  by ED Tucker
STATE OF THE NATION
State of the Nation  by Brandon Jones
SPORTS TALK
Priced Out Of The Business .... What The Hell Happened In One Year? .... Gruden Hasn’t Left .... Sprung! .... Can’t Get It Straight .... Nfl Draft Goes Primetime? .... It’s Not A National Championship .... by Chris Munger
MIKE'S RANT
I Didn't Catch The Name .... Passing On .... So Proud .... Boldly Going .... Last Week .... .... .... .... My Favorite Films, Part 2...  by Mike Smith
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Sports Talk


Priced Out Of The Business
Since the last NFL Strike, the players union (NFLPA) opened the door for multi-million dollar free agent contracts, and a generous salary minimum for all players, to where they hit a certain age they must be paid according to the scale. Is this why Derrick Brooks isn’t playing? What about Brett Favre? Warrick Dunn? Ronde is skating on thin ice too. Who wants to pay these “old guys” a lot of money (according to the scale) and only get a half of a year out of them. Seems to be only the New England Patriots are willing to go down that road, hence Joey Galloway’s signing to New England. For years, teams have assembled a unit full of big-name players, but not anymore. Using the Washington Redskins as a what not to do example, teams are reluctant to sign that big name player, and rather draft a 23 year old that’s bigger, faster, and better and only can be signed to half the money that a high profile player would make, maybe less. Now the older players are priced out of the business, it’s no longer economical, unless your Terrell Owens.

What The Hell Happened In One Year?
The Rays….. (Shaking my head), what can I say? Worst to first, first to worse. For heaven sakes, the Blue Jays are better than the Rays! WTF? These guys went from owning the city, on the cover of every sports magazine and being on the top of every SportsCenter’s news list, to being a 20 second report on the LOCAL news channels. I really don’t see why these kids are playing any different than they did last year, you could say last year was just a fluke, but in reality, there is no “magic stick” in sports, only excuses. I don’t know if these guys are just going to kick back and prop their feet up this season or if it’s just too early in the season, but seriously, these guys need to get it together. They started out in the bottom of a division they once dominated only a year ago. Hopefully they pull together, and get better. They are in the toughest division in baseball, but it’s not much tougher than last year. Half of the Yankee’s big players aren’t even playing, and it feels like we’re starting over, again. Good thing they’re not sucking like this in a brand new billion-dollar stadium on the Bay!

Gruden Hasn’t Left
His mad-scientist method hasn’t anyway. The Buccaneers drafted quarterback Josh Freeman as the #1 pick in this year draft, giving the Bucs 4 quarterbacks, again. I have nothing against Freeman, and I think he’ll be a good quarterback for the Bucs, but that’ll be after we get tormented by mind-numbing play from the other three quarterbacks. Now the Bucs find themselves with Luke McCown, Byron Leftwich, Josh Freeman, and Josh Johnson, and we don’t know who the starter is. This feels familiar doesnt it?

Sprung!
Michael Vick will get out of prison on May 20, and will serve two months of probation and work with a construction company in Virginia until July 20. This will lead to another NFL contract, and plenty of teams will be willing and able to sign him. Right now Vick has been talking the United Football League, exploring all of his opportunities, should NFL Commish Roger Goodell impose a suspension as a result of his arrest. Michael has done his time, which was a little light for the crime I think, and will now face the wrath of Goodell, and Goodell doesn’t play around with criminals.

Can’t Get It Straight
Ever since the whole A-Rod-Steroid scandal broke, A-Rod has done nothing but lie and lie his way out of interviews and news conferences because the lies make him feel better about himself apparently. But now, Selena Robert (the ESPN reporter that brought A-Rod’s steroid use to the world) has a book deal in the works, where she discovers that A-Rod committed steroid use in high school, completely contradicting his statement from when he said he only took the steroids when he was a Texas Ranger. I want to say this guy is a fraud of a baseball player, and probably is the biggest fraud of all time, but I don’t want to wear out the whole “A-Fraud” thing because I know I’m going to have to use it again. A-Rod is a narcissist, who loves himself and even has photos of himself, kissing himself through a mirror. There is no place for this crap in baseball, and A-Rod is going to destroy it. Baseball has been vigilant through the whole Bonds-Palmierro-Clemens-McNamee-Pettite thing, but A-Rod is going to bring the house down, and will find himself testifying in front of congress soon. Alex Rodriguez is the Bernie Madoff of baseball, and will soon be fully exposed, more than he’ll be able to fabricate lies for this time.

NFL Draft Goes Primetime?
After the success of this years NFL Draft, the NFL wants to move the draft to primetime TV, moving from Saturday morning to Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The NFL Draft has become the NFL’s Super Bowl of the spring, generating tv and webcast ratings, and ticket sales, plus spikes in rookies’ jersey sales. I say go for it, it’ll most likely trump what’s on primetime these days anyway.

It’s Not A National Championship
President Obama has expressed his feelings on the BCS, and if it where up to him, there will be a playoff system in NCAA Football. NCAA doesn’t see it that way though, and wants to keep the BCS alive. It’s the way NCAA Football has been doing business for years. Now congress wants to talk the NCAA. It’s also apparent the congress wants to introduce legislation that prevents the NCAA from naming a National Champion unless that team won some kind of playoff system. So basically, there will not be a National Champion in NCAA Football unless the NCAA installs a playoff system.


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"Sports Talk" is ©2009 by Christopher Munger.   All graphics this page, except where otherwise noted, are creations of Nolan B. Canova.  All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2009 by Nolan B. Canova.