Movie Review - Spectre

  After our dinner at Rancho Adelinas (you can see the review here), Kathy and I headed to the movie theater to see the new James Bond movie Spectre which is the fourth in the series with Daniel Craig playing 007. The first two Bond movies featuring Craig portrayed Bond as more of an action hero than a super spy and I thought they were great. The last Bond movie Skyfall was one of my least favorites with Bond in ‘McGyver’ mode as he fought off an army of spies and soldiers in his childhood home in the Scottish highlands with some paperclips and a car battery. I also didn’t like the heavy emphasis on Bond’s childhood and past. When I watch a James Bond movie I like to see action, adventure, and witty dialog and Skyfall was short in all three areas while long on pontifications about how James Bond became James Bond.

  I had high hopes for Spectre with the expectation that since the origin sagas had been told and the familiar cast of characters like ‘Q’, MoneyPenny, and ‘M’ already introduced in Skyfall this movie would be long on Bond action and short on Bond angst. We sat down in the theatre with three dozen or so other movie goers and the movie began.

  I don’t want to give too much of the movie away and I don’t think I am by saying the first 15 or so minutes are as action-packed as one would expect from a James Bond movie with 007 hunting down a terrorist threat in Mexico City while the streets are packed with a ‘Day of the Dead’ parade. The parade allows for plenty of weird skeleton costumes and panic in the streets when Bond’s confrontation with the bad guys lead to a building being demolished and a fight aboard an out of control helicopter dipping and diving perilously close to the crowd while Bond and his companion take turns being almost thrown out of the helicopter that travels every direction including straight up and straight down. This opening action was almost as good as the chase through the African town in Casino Royale.

  What struck me the most about Spectre was how it seemed mix the classic Sean Connery Bond with Daniel Craig’s action oriented take on the character. Craig was certainly channeling some Connery smooth when he seduces the widow of the man he killed to get some information about the criminal organization that he worked for. Did I mention that the seduction occurred the evening of her husband’s funeral. There was also a Conneryesque fight on a train where a physically outmatched Bond fights a massive hitman and only escapes via a conveniently placed rope wrapped around his adversary’s neck and some beer kegs which the hitman follows off the train. Once the train fight is over we get to see Bond in Craig mode as he and his latest love interest lustily go at each other after she was professing hatred at Bond for exposing her identity less than a half hour beforehand.

  Another element that came straight out of a Connery movie was when the villain of the movie captures Bond but instead of killing him like any pedestrian super-villain, decides on an insidious plot to strap him to a chair and drill holes in his head to gradually take away pieces of his mind with a device he no doubt specifically designed for that purpose. Naturally Bond escapes only to captured, hooded, zip-tied, and held in a truck under the watchful glare of two massive armed guards. As the truck doors open, the Daniel Craig Bond appears and takes out both guards in hand to hand combat while hooded and zip-tied.

  Writer John Logan and director Sam Mendes continued their use of Bond’s past as one of the main plot drivers with the main villain using the resources of his global empire to not only take over the worlds information systems but also to revenge a childhood grudge against Bond by revealing he was behind the deaths of the former ‘M’ and Bond girl Vesper in the previous movies. Thankfully these tidbits of Bond’s past served to give the movie nudges in particular directions and not become the entire story.

  The only thing I didn’t like about this movie was the portrayal of MI-6 (the spy agency that employs Bond and runs the ‘00’ license to kill program) and the one of the most ineffectual agencies ever. This group had no clue that the mysterious ‘Spectre’ organization even exists and has so little intelligence on the members of their own group or the mysterious ‘C’ that is taking over the entire worlds intelligence gathering through the ‘Nine Eyes’ initiative that everyone is shocked when some of them turn out to be agents of ‘Spectre’. I would have enjoyed more of a battle of wits between two highly competent organizations instead of MI-6 waiting for Bond to save the day.

  Spectre is a great spy/action movie and the best of the Daniel Craig James Bond movies. It looks like the franchise has found a way to integrate the smoothness the character should have with the action oriented slant Craig brings to the role. Craig is signed on for one more Bond movie and then it may be time for a new Bond to appear. With a few ups and downs along the way the Bond franchise is still going strong and it appears the proper formula has been found to mix the secret agent and action genres. James Bond movies are over 50 years old. When I think of long lasting entertainment franchises only Star Trek comes to mind as a rival to James Bond. Both franchises have had reboots, cast changes, and went dormant in the movies for a period (Bond was movie less from 1989-1995 and Star Trek from 2002-2009). Star Trek is different in that it has ensemble casts and had multiple television shows. I can’t imagine James Bond ever being a television show but I can easily see it being one of the binge-watch type of shows that gets released all at once on a Netflix or Amazon Prime. Marvel and DC comics have shown the profitability of combining movies and television shows and I think it’s only a matter of time before the Bond franchise follows suit and cashes in with a television series.

  You may not have noticed but my computer aided basketball predictions went 4-0 on Friday to boost my record to 9-2 and my mythical winnings to $680. This has prompted me to add a 'Donate' button so the readers that are profiting from my basketball predictive prowess can throw a tip or two my way. The formula I'm using has a decided bias towards road underdogs which is a hard way to make a living in my opinion. The road dogs in Friday's games could have gone either way with the Timberwolves, Hornets, and Trailblazers all trailing by more than the point spread at some point in the last five minutes. My program went 2-3 over the weekend and has spit out five picks for tonight's games with four more road teams being picked. I want to see this formula in action a bit more so I won't be risking my bankroll on tonight's games but I will publish the computer predictions for information purposes only. My program likes Indiana getting 5 at Chicago, Boston getting 4.5 at Houston, the Thunder getting 2 at Memphis, Dallas giving 8.5 at Philadelphia, and the home Spurs giving 12 to the Trailblazers. The lines are from the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page and I want to stress again that I am not playing tonight's games, mythically or otherwise.

Dinner Before a Movie

Welcome to Rancho Adelinas in beautiful downtown Marshalltown located conveniently next to the Villager rooming house...

  When Kathy and I take our beagles and occasional guest bloggers Daisy and Baxter on their evening walk we always pass the corner of N. Center and State streets. There have been very few changes to this corner in the 21 years I’ve lived in Marshalltown. The northwest corner is the police station and city hall parking lot which diagonally keeps an eye on the southeast corner’s ‘Corner Tap’ bar which has been suspiciously closed the past few weeks after being sold and having a grand reopening less than three years ago. The southwest corner used to have the library until it moved a few blocks away using money from a tax levy which the supporters promised if passed would allow the library to be open on Sundays which it has never been but a new tax levy was passed last week which the library promised would allow it to be open on Sundays which it has not been yet. The building received a $618,618 grant from the State of Iowa I-Jobs to convert it for use as the town’s Parks and Rec office and the City Council chambers which created 10 temporary part time jobs (I wrote about it here).

  The northeast corner of N. Center and State streets has seen a flurry of activity this year. There used to be a rundown building that contained a trophy store. There was an older man running the store and while I did use him to occasionally relabel older trophies his process couldn’t compete with the online trophy stores. The old man also had the U-Haul franchise and then a Ryder Truck franchise running out of his tiny parking lot until his death a few years ago. At that point the tiny rundown building was empty until this spring when we would occasionally see some workers refurbishing the building. A new concrete parking lot was laid down, an addition put on the newly gutted and rebuilt existing building, a lawn was created with fresh sod, and a fence put up to presumably keep the rabble from the Villager rooming house next door from wandering over.

  I assumed that the building would house an ethnic grocery store since there are four Mexican grocery stores and two Myanmar stores within four blocks of the corner of N. Center and State streets but I assumed wrong. Over the summer a sign went up proclaiming the building to be the new home of ‘Rancho Adelinas’ which would serve “Real Authentic Mexican Food” (Are there any restaurants that serve ‘imaginary authentic’ or ‘real fake’ Mexican food?). Slowly but surely the restaurant began to take shape with a dumpster and a large street sign making their appearance and the grand opening was announced for October 30th.

  I hadn’t been to a Mexican restaurant in years. Kathy and I used to go to the El Portal restaurant that is in a strip mall by the K-Mart until we went there one Valentine’s Day. We arrived and were seated by the drafty back door which sent occasional bone chilling blasts of freezing air right through our table where we were given a bowl of chips, some salsa, water for Kathy, and coke for me. We ordered some food off the menu and waited. And waited. And waited some more. After about an hour of freezing and rationing our dwindling supply of chips (no refills were offered) we left. Kathy has gone back to El Portal on occasion but I won’t step foot in the place. When I helped St. Mary with the Fall Festival we had a final meeting in 2011 at the Mexico Antiguo restaurant a few blocks from our house on Main Street. I had a bowl of Sopa de Mariscos (Seafood Stew) and it was awesome! The soup was spicy without making my eyes water and there was something different in every bite with shrimp, fish, octopus, clams, and crabmeat. We went to Mexico Antiguo on occasion until they closed a year later and I haven’t gone to a Mexican restaurant since unless you count Taco John’s which I don’t.

We sat in a large eating room with plenty of tables and selected from a large menu of choices.

  Kathy and I decided to go to Rancho Adelinas last Friday night and then catch a movie afterwards. We took Daisy and Baxter past the restaurant on their evening walk as usual and made our way back home. After putting the beagles in the kitchen we took the two minute drive to Ranch Adelinas and arrived at 6:15. The restaurant had one big room with booths, round tables, and square tables and a smaller row of tables on the other side of the restaurant near the bar with the kitchen in the middle. As we waited by the sign asking us to wait to be seated three of the waiters/waitresses were engaged in an animated conversation but after about two minutes the manager came out of the kitchen and joined the conversation which broke up quickly and Kathy and I were soon sitting in a booth.

  Once we were seated things happened pretty quickly. We got our water and some overcooked chips with two kinds of sauce; a mild red sauce and a hot green sauce. I say sauce and not salsa since there were no chunks of anything. The menu had all the familiar items and while everything seemed a dollar or two more than I remembered. Could it be that the price of food in Mexican restaurants had gone up in the past few years just like all the other staples of modern living like coffee and beef stick treats? Without thinking too much I went straight to the soup section and ordered the fish soup. If I had been looking more carefully I would have ordered the seven seas soup since that more closely resembled my El Antiguo favorite.

  Kathy doesn’t eat meat and normally gets a Mexican food staple with beans replacing any meat item. After getting over the shock of having the waiter call her 'Sir', she asked the waiter for a burrito with beans instead of the meat and a small chess quesadilla. The waiter had to ask the manager how to write up the ticket which only took a couple of second and our orders were on our way while we ate the chips and sauce. The big room we were seated in was very clean and quiet even as it filled up during the dinner hour and in ten minutes our food had arrived.

Looking at the pictures, Kathy's burrito and quesadilla may seem more appetizing than my fish soup but appearances can be deceiving.

  I ordered fish soup and I got plenty of it. Before me was a big bowl of soup with a fish in it! The fish was cut into three pieces and floating in the red broth with a few chunks of carrot and celery to keep it company. I broke the fish into more pieces. There were a few patches of skin but thankfully no fish head or fish eyes staring back at me. Kathy’s burrito looked huge but filled mostly with rice and lettuce and very little beans. He small quesadilla was good but she didn’t think it was worth the $4 it cost.

  As for me I liked the fish soup. The fish tasted good and the broth was just like Mexico Antiguo‘s- spicy but not enough to make me reach for some bread or water. The only problem I had was that every mouth of fish came with a mouthful of bones. I didn’t care much for having to pull bones out of my mouth all the time but I got used to it.

  We quickly paid $24 for our meal and were off to the movie. I think $24 is a little high for a dinner for two considering that there were no drinks involved – not even a soda but I liked the restaurant and Kathy and I were full enough that we didn’t feel the need to spend $10+ on movie popcorn and drinks. Rancho Adelinas is only a week old and hopefully the next time we head that way they will have figured out how to get the bones out of the fish soup, put more beans in the bean burritos, and not call my wife 'Sir'. I wouldn’t call give the restaurant an ‘A’ but it was a long way from failing either. Sticking with my grading system I’d give it a B- and an occasional place in our restaurant rotation which is almost completely occupied by the Buffet King all you can eat Chinese buffet just a couple of blocks away.

  Last week's basketball picks proved to be fishier than my soup as I went 1-2 to trim my season record to 5-2 and my winnings to $280. I was a game late on the Pistons fatigue on their West Coast swing and the inconsistent Wizards rewarded me with more in-consistence by getting blown out my the Celtics. This week I am using the assistance of my basketball prediction program. The season is so young there isn't enough data to rely and my program has spit out 3 road underdogs and a home favorite that I will go with for my mythical bets of $110 to win $100 using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page for entertainment purposes only with no real money being wagered.

Charlotte Hornets at Chicago Bulls
The Bulls have had 4 days off to get ready to avenge their 25 point loss to the Hornets 10 days ago. The Hornets have won 4 of 5 games and have lost only one game this year by more than 10 points. Charlotte is getting 7 points in this contest and I agree with the computer that they will cover the spread if not win outright.

Minnesota Timberwolves at Indiana Pacers
The Timberwolves lost to the defending champion Warriors last night in a game that was close for the first 40 minutes and are traveling to Indianapolis to take on the Pacers who are on a 2 game winning streak with 2 days of rest. I think playing the Warriors last night will make the Pacers look slow to the youthful Timberwolves. I'll take the 'Wolves to cover the 7 point spread against Pacers.

Portland Trailblazers at Memphis Grizzlies
I am less sure about this game than the first two. The Grizzlies have been moribund so far this year and are on a 4 game losing streak but their bulk inside should bother the smallish Blazers who are riding a three game losing streak of their own. I like the fact that the Blazers won the matchup between these two teams two weeks ago in Portland and will take them and the seven points.

Philadelphia 76ers at Oklahoma City Thunder
Once again the 76ers are barely competitive and have lost their first 8 games this year while the Thunder rebounded from a 3 game losing streak with two straight blowout wins. A complicating factor will be the absence of Thunder all star Kevin Durant with a hamstring injury but I consider the Thunder to be a far superior team even without Durant and think only giving 13 and a half points to be a discount at home.

Beagle Birthday Reflections

It's that special time of the year to give the Broken Pawn over to America's favorite beagle bloggers - Daisy and Baxter

Hi Everybody! It’s Daisy…  and Baxter with another blog for our readers. It’s about time Hank let us write another blog Daisy.  I’ll say! I didn’t mind Hank writing on and on about playing chess in Minnesota because he won $65 dollars that he can use to buy us beef stick treats.  But then he went to South Dakota to play chess and he didn’t win any money to buy us beef stick treats but he still kept writing about playing chess and how the chess tournament was in a zoo and he saw zoo animals and there were a bunch of stuffed animals.  How boring. There’s no need to write about zoo animals and mounted animals when Hank lives with the two most interesting animals in the world.  Really! Who?  That’s us you silly Baxter! HELLO!  Oh yeah, I forgot how interesting we were for a second. 

Here we are eating premium dog food out of a can in our new coats. I blend into the background in my camo coat so well you can hardly see me!  There I am at the duck pond in my new heart coat!

Maybe some of our readers didn’t know that we had our birthday yesterday! Happy Birthday Daisy!  Happy Birthday Baxter! We turned five years old and thanks to all our fans that sent us birthday wishes and presents. What was your favorite present, Baxter?  That’s easy! My favorite present was premium dog food out of a can! YUM! I love premium dog food out of a can. It’s so moist and meaty.  I like premium dog food out of a can also but my favorite present was my new coats. In the spring Kathy got me a new hot pink leash and it just didn’t make the statement I wanted with my brown coat. My new coats are both pink and match my leash. One coat has a dog bone pattern for everyday wear and the other has hearts and a stylish button for a sassy yet refined look.  I got two new coats too! One is blue and the other is a camouflage coat. When I walk down the street in my camo coat I could be an action hero like Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal! 

Steak! YUM!!

Steven Seagal is so dreamy! I love his ‘Under Siege’ movies where he plays Casey Ryback the master chef and human killing machine!  Yeah. It’s too bad Steven Seagal didn’t send us a birthday card or a specially prepared meal. YUM!! I love specially prepared meals.  I was so sad Steven didn’t send us a birthday card but Kathy’s friend Amy gave us a steak this year!  That’s right! She said her family was cooking steaks and one was a little tough so she gave it to us! YUM!!! I didn’t think it was tough at all. YUM!!  A couple of months later she sent us another steak. They were both very tasty and we wish Hank and Kathy would take the hint and feed us steak on a regular basis. HELLO!  YUM! I love steak. YUM!  And don’t forget our friend Becky from down the block. She got us five giant Jack Links beef sticks!  YUM!! I love giant Jack Link’s beef sticks. We even got to see Becky’s mom Marilyn yesterday!  Marilyn and Bill and Abby the Cairn terrier live down the block next door to Becky. We visit with them when the weather is warm. Bill and Marilyn are really old and don’t like the cold weather so we won’t see them much until spring.  That’s why it was extra special to see Marilyn yesterday. 

It was so difficult to do everyday things wearing that stupid collar...  I didn't have to wear a collar all year so I could concentrate on more important things...

It sure has been a great year with steak, plenty of walks, and lots of beef stick treats, Daisy!  That’s very true Baxter, but don’t forget we had some difficulties along the way this year.  That’s right! I had to get my teeth cleaned and I accidentally bit Hank on the leg when I was trying to protect him from the crazy looking husky that got loose by the Depot liquor store.  I had some cosmetic surgery this year. I had a big wart under my chin removed and while I was at it I decided to have some skin tags removed.  Don’t you want to tell everyone where your skin tags were, Daisy?  Not especially. I had stitches and had to wear a collar for two whole weeks in the summer. It was so uncomfortable but I made the sacrifice for all my fans who want me to look as good as possible.  The skin tags were on your rear end. The vet had to shave your behind…hee…hee…hee. You sure looked funny.  Well thanks for sharing Baxter! As long as we’re sharing let’s be sure to mention that you bit Hank on the back of his leg while you were cowering behind him, not protecting him.  WAS NOT!  WAS TOO!  WAS NOT! I was trying to bite the husky and Hank got in the way.  OK. Baxter. Have it your way…sigh 

There was one thing we didn’t get for our birthday that I really wanted, Baxter.  What’s that Daisy?  I wanted to see more recognition for dogs in general and beagles in particular. I hardly ever see any dogs on television when Hank watches his shows.  What about the German Shepard on The Last Ship, Daisy?  He is a fine specimen but the German Shepard on Fear The Walking Dead didn’t make it past episode two and the only dogs on The Walking Dead were shot by Sasha!  And then Rick and the rest of the crew cooked the dogs and ate them! YUCK! 

Maybe if dogs had a better profile Harry the cockatiel would stop making fun of us.  Why is Harry making fun of us Baxter?  Harry says that there aren’t any professional baseball or football or basketball teams named after dogs but there are tons named after birds like the Falcons, Seahawks, Blue Jays, Hawks, Orioles.  I did hear him chattering about the Pelicans, Ravens, Eagles, and Cardinals but I didn’t know he was making fun of us. I wonder why there aren’t any pro sports teams named after dogs. There are plenty of college teams that are named after dogs but they're all Bulldogs for some reason.  It’s really kind of embarrassing. Even fish have sports teams named after them like the Dolphins!  Well Baxter I know what I want for my next birthday!  What’s that Daisy?  There’s a football team in Washington that has to change their name because it’s so offensive.  You mean the Redskins? I thought they were named after red skin potatoes. I love red skin potatoes! YUM!!  No Baxter, they aren’t named after red skin potatoes. For our next birthday I want to name the Redskins the Washington Beagles!  Then I know what I want for my present, Daisy!  What’s that?  I want Direct TV’s NFL package so I can watch the Washington Beagles play.  That’s a great present, Baxter. Then Hank can watch the games with us and we can share his snacks like pretzels and chips and salsa!  Oh Boy! I love pretzels and chips and salsa! YUM!! 

Wait 'till next year...  Can we get a picture of pretzels or chips in here? YUM!!

Pancakes Past and Present

  I was working at home a few weeks ago when the doorbell rang. Daisy and Baxter started howling and barking and I got up from my computer, settled down my noisy pair of beagles, and answered the door. It was Roger the young man from around the corner. Roger has a disability that makes him talk slow but I’ve rarely seen anyone work harder. He has a day job doing manual labor and does odd jobs for at least a half dozen people around the neighborhood. I can see Roger mowing lawns, clearing brush, shoveling snow, or some other odd job nearly every weekend.

Welcome to last Saturday's Matins Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast! My neighbor Roger is in the picture on the left wearing the red shirt.

  I assumed something was wrong because Roger had never rang my doorbell before but Roger was selling tickets to the Matins Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast on October 31st and wanted to know how many tickets I wanted.

  I’m not much of a pancake person. Over 35 years ago I was a dishwasher, busboy, and short order cook in the International House of Pancakes in Elizabeth New Jersey. On my first weekend one of the busboys showed me the ropes by taking me into the walk-in cooler and showing me this big pan of pudding that we were supposed to scoop into bowls when asked by a waitress. The busboy took the plastic off the pudding tray and proceeded to use his fingers to spoon two handfuls of pudding directly into his mouth.

  My ‘trainer’ offered me the opportunity to enjoy some pudding with my own hands while he was licking his fingers off. I declined at which point my companion’s freshly pudding-less hands used a big plastic spoon to smooth out any telltale finger marks before scooping out a bowl of pudding for the unsuspecting customer.

  The IHOP didn’t get any better when I learned the ropes of short order cookery. Once a top of a hamburger bun got burned so the cook grabbed a spare bun – OUT OF THE GARBAGE! Another time it was discovered that a big tub of tuna salad was left out overnight so the head cook promptly mixed it together with more tuna salad, whipping the two concoctions with such expert fervor that the crusty parts of day-old unrefrigerated left over tuna salad was undetectable to the naked eye.

  It should come as no surprise that the International House of Pancakes was closed by the Elizabeth Board of Health and couldn’t reopen until a week later when the owner (the Union County Sheriff) either paid off or threatened the right people. Some corporate IHOP types from Pennsylvania came to inspect the restaurant since in addition to being closed by the board of Health was the most unprofitable restaurant in the territory. They took a big hose and sprayed it under the grill late one Sunday when I was working. Three rats that were larger than some cats I’ve seen were rendered homeless by the cascading water and scurried out the emergency exit.

  Even though the IHOP pancakes sold so fast there was hardly any way for the cooks to gross them out I’ve never been a big pancake or IHOP fan and prefer restaurants like the Waffle House where I can see my food being made. I have good company in my distaste of pancakes. 9 time NBA championship coach Red Auerbach wouldn’t let his players eat pancakes on the day of a game. Auerbach once caught star guard Sam Jones eating pancakes on game day and fined him 25 dollars. Jones said that as long as he was getting fined he would finish his pancakes until Auerbach said the fine was $25 a bite!

  My dislike for pancakes is not shared by Kathy and the Matins Kiwanis is a respected service organization so I fished out $12 and bought two tickets for the pancake breakfast. Since the pancake breakfast ran until 12:30 we decided to skip our weekly Saturday lunch at Taco John’s and get our pancake breakfast instead.

  After our weekly excursion to the second hand stores to look for additions to Kathy’s Christmas Candle collection we headed to the Veteran’s Coliseum, host of the pancake breakfast, arriving around 11am. When we drove past an hour earlier we saw a line of people waiting to get in and nowhere to park around the building but now the coliseum was empty and there was plenty of parking. We handed in our tickets and went straight to the front of the pancake line.

The pancakes were kept surprisingly warm by the Styrofoam plate covers while the sausage met my approval and the approval of my beagles when I brought a link home for them.

  I saw Roger among a large group of volunteers making pancakes and sausages, cleaning up tables, and moving supplies to the front lines. Each Styrofoam plate of pancakes was covered with another Styrofoam plate. I thought that the pancakes were going to be cold but soldiered through the line. Kathy doesn’t eat meat so I got four sausage links instead of two and we saved one for Daisy and Baxter. We each got three pats of butter and I got a coffee. The ‘orange juice’ was really an orange drink that looked like a pitcher of melted butter which made Kathy pass on the ‘orange juice’.

  Kathy and I sat down in the now fairly empty coliseum and commenced to eating. I was pleasantly surprised that the pancakes were hot enough to allow the butter to melt on them. We covered our pancakes with maple syrup and talked while watching all the activity around making a pancake breakfast run. There was a DJ playing loud 1970’s music (this told me the target audience was old people with hearing aids) but he thankfully turned the volume down after a few minutes.

Kathy loves orange juice but she stuck to water this time around.

  The pancake breakfast was better than I thought. Even though I can’t say I’ve become a pancake fan I will probably go again next year if Roger tries to sell me some tickets and if the event ever becomes beagle friendly I’ll double my support and get four tickets instead of two.

  If the Kiwanis wanted to raise some real money all they had to do was follow my basketball predictions for this season as my 4-0 record has me 400 mythical dollars to the upside and thinking about adding a 'Donate' button so the gamblers in my readership can leave me some 'tip' money. Except for the Heat and Nuggets, no team is playing a back to back game which removes one of my favorite things to look for in a bet. Nonetheless I am going to press my luck and wager on using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page and as usual for entertainment purposes only with no real money being wagered.

Phoenix Suns at Detroit Pistons
Detroit won their first three games in fairly impressive fashion but had shooting woes in Tuesday's game at home against the Pacers and now embark on a six game western road trip. Phoenix followed an opening night blowout at home against Dallas by winning three out of four with the only loss against the Clippers on the road. I think the Pistons will struggle on their road trip and will pick the Suns to cover the four and a half points and make me $100 on a $110 bet.

Washington Wizards at Boston Celtics
The Wizards followed an inexplicable home loss to the Knicks with an equally inexplicable home win against the Spurs. Tonight the Wizards go up against the Celtics in Boston. The Celtics have lost three of their first four games this season and I expect their struggles will continue against the Wizards who I will bet $110 to win $100 and cover the one point spread.

Atlanta Hawks at New Orleans Pelicans
The Pelicans have followed last years playoff season with an injury plagued preseason and have lost their first four games this year. I predicted the Hawks would struggle to win 50 games this season. I looked pretty smart when the Hawks lost their season opener at home to the Pistons and less so when they followed the loss with a five game winning streak. The Hawks are favored by three which I think is rather low and will bet $110 on the Hawks to cover to win $100.

The State of Sports Podcasts

  After five months of inactivity, Bill Simmons finally returned to podcasting last month with the appropriately named ‘Bill Simmons Podcast’. Simmons’ new podcast has his usual breezy commentary on the NFL and NBA with his friends Cousin Sal, Joe House, and Jack-O. The commentary is the backdrop for sports bets Simmons and company are planning or the triumphs and travails of Simmons’ preferred Boston teams and teams from his adopted Los Angeles home.

  I missed being able to listen to Simmons and having him back podcasting is like hanging out with a familiar friend that has been away for a while. There was one problem with Simmons’ return. Since I only make my long commute to West Des Moines for work two days a week instead of five I now had too many podcasts and not enough hours to listen to them. In the past six months I had replaced Simmons’ B.S. Report with the CBS Eye on Football podcast and ESPN made up for the absence of Simmons by increasing the podcasts of the Grantland.com sports and pop culture site that Simmons created for them. The Zach Lowe Report was on more often and the Jalen Rose/David Jacoby podcast increased to five times a week from once a week to reflect the assignment of Rose and Jacoby to a nighttime slot on ESPN Radio.

  This was too much to listen to already and the start of a new NBA season meant an increased frequency of the CBS Eye on Basketball podcast which is a must listen for me. I was about to have to make some difficult choices when Simmons hired away some of the writers he originally brought to Grantland.com. This is part of a trend of Grantland writers finding new employment following the departure of the site’s founder. How did some writers changing jobs affect me? Bill Barnwell and Rober Mays of the Grantland NFL podcast used part of their October 13th podcast to say farewell to their departing colleagues. That part of the podcast was edited out by Grantland editor-in-chief Chris Connelly. This led to a boycott of sorts and there was no Grantland NFL podcast for two and a half weeks. More podcast reductions came when ESPN’s radio broadcast of the baseball playoffs and World Series pre-empted the Jalen & Jacoby radio show at least three times a week so there were few podcasts from them during October.

  Last week the Grantland NFL Podcast resumed and with the baseball season coming to an end (meaning five Jalen & Jacoby podcasts a week) I was finally going to have to face my difficult listening choices but ESPN announced Friday afternoon that they were suspending operations of Grantland.com. The announcement said they were going to be folding the Grantland content into ESPN’s other digital properties but when Simmons departed ESPN last May the company affirmed its commitment to Grantland and that it could stand on its own with or without Simmons. That ‘commitment’ lasted only five months and ESPN recently laid off 4% of its workforce. I can’t see the Grantland podcasts continuing on another ESPN property unless they are generating revenue in and of themselves which I doubt they ever did.

  I always thought ESPN was the biggest moneymaker in sports broadcasting and they may well be but in researching this post I saw that ESPN lost over 3% of its subscriber base at the same time as its rights fees for baseball, football, and basketball live broadcasts have skyrocketed. With over 90 million subscribers paying their cable systems for ESPN programming in addition to ad revenue I have to assume that ESPN is still a huge moneymaker but the thing to remember is that ESPN is owned by the Disney megacorporation and is expected to not only make money – they must make the amount of money their corporate masters command or heads will roll. Corporations understand far better than governments that when revenues decline expenses must be slashed in order to balance a budget which is more complicated for a company like ESPN whose budget includes their profit.

  At the time Simmons was removed from ESPN programming I wrote that it was because of his comments about the NFL, one of ESPN’s most valuable business partners. I may have been too hasty. If ESPN knew they were going into cost cutting mode it would make sense to remove some of their higher priced talent. Simmons was making $5 million a year at ESPN and while that would maybe cover one half of one NBA game that the network is paying $1.5 billion annually to broadcast every little bit counts and live sports broadcasts is an ESPN hallmark much more than Bill Simmons. ESPN has constantly created television personalities via their Sports Center shows like Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann, Rich Eisen, Chris Berman, etc... With few exceptions ESPN has watched most of these personalities move on to other networks to cash in on their Sports Center created fame and ESPN has the gone on to create the next generation of personalities through Sports Center.

  I would never pay to listen to a podcast and I even fast forward through the ads so if ESPN, Bill Simmons, and CBS are creating these podcasts to make money from me they are out of luck. Now that baseball season is over for five months I have 5 Jalen & Jacoby podcasts and 10 CBS and Bill Simmons podcasts a week loaded into my iPod for me to listen to. This represents around 15 hours of listening for five hours of commuting. For now I’m listening to a couple of hours of podcasts in the morning during work which takes on the quality of background noise like a radio instead of providing entertainment during an interminable commute. I try to save the CBS Eye On Basketball podcasts for the commute because I find them the most informative with the Jalen & Jacoby podcast next in preference. Choosing what to listen to during my commutes and what to have as background noise was a difficult decision but I’m glad that I’m able to have so many quality podcasts to make to decision difficult.

  In my last post I ripped Iowa State Cyclone football coach Paul Rhoads and the Cylones promptly proceeded to make me look like a fool with a 24-0 shutout of the Texas Longhorns. Luckily my basketball predictions were anything but foolish as I went an easy 3-0 with only the Grizzlies-Pacers game needing a little divine intervention as the Grizzlies came back from a double digit third quarter deficit to a double digit win to cover the spread. I see several promising games on tonight's schedule but only one game I choose to wager on and risk my $300 profit. As always I will be placing my mythical bets using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page for entertainment purposes only with no real money being wagered.

Milwaukee Bucks at Brooklyn Nets
What was expected to be a promising season for the Bucks has started as a disaster with a humiliating home blowout to the Knicks and last night's blowout in Toronto sandwiching a respectably close loss tot he Wizards. Tonight the Bucks head to Brooklyn to take on the 0-3 Nets who have looked equally abysmal. Both teams will undoubtedly thinking this game is their chance to finally get a win and even though the Nets are better rested I will pick the youthful Bucks to run the Nets ragged. I'll take the Bucks on a $110 bet to take the road win or at least cover the point and a half spread and win me $100.