Your Week: So Far, Soooo Good!

// First, the obvious: in terms of events that weren't on the actual field of play, this has been the best Detroit sports day of my young life. Matt Millen - long-time Wile E. Coyote to the rest of the NFL's Road Runner - was finally ess-canned today after spending the better part of a decade as a saboteur GM for my beloved Lions. Just when I thought the day couldn't get any better, Todd Jones announced his retirement via his Sporting News column (more on that below)! When's the last time a major sports city got rid of its two most maddening characters in the same day? This might be unprecedented.

// With regard to Millen (bow your head and raise one hand to the heavens). His legacy will clearly be a near-random run of personnel gaffes and PR miscues, but how will his poor reputation stand up to the test of time? In terms of modern-day sports executives, there's no question he's on the Mount Rushmore of Fecal-Quality Management. The question becomes: does he rank #1 in badness? It's hard to say. Detroiters have a bias because they remember the halfway decent Lions that graced the gridiron right before Millen. There are certainly challengers to Matty's throne of embarassment. Isiah Thomas (who's middle name is Lord, a fact that gets swept under the rug too often) definitely gives Millen a run for his money. The tandem of Rod Graves & Bill Bidwill has been very Millen-esque in Arizona. Former Detroit Tiger GM Randy Smith was also top-tier terrible. I suppose time will tell to what degree of horrible Millen's tenure will ultimately be remembered as. My friends, it's not yet the time for recollection. Now is a time to rejoice! Sing the good news from a mountain(!!!): the Lions might get back to 9-7 in only a couple years!

// I'm less excited about this next one. Jonesy. Hot Toddy. Roller Coaster. He was known by several different names, but his body of work would never be mistaken for anyone else's. In the last 3 years, Todd Jones has made me use almost as many obscenities as the big toe on my left foot, which I stub against my bed so often I'm beginning to think it's magnetic. As the closer of the Tigs, his ERA has hovered around 4.50 since the 2006 season. Think about what that means. Way more often than not, he's pitching one inning of ball. If his ERA is around 4.50, it can be construed that every single time he comes in, there's a 50% chance he'll give up a run. It was despicable. While he did rack up 75 saves between '06 and '07, the two words I would least use to describe him were "effective" and "consistent". He was only effective in boosting the other team's confidence. He was only consistent in helping FSN Detroit keep their audience even if the game was a blowout. That said, he was - in a very strange way - extremely likable. Maybe it was his southern heritage and the inherent "aw shucks" quality. Maybe it was the glory of that handlebar moustache. Maybe it was the time I heard him call into 1270 WXYT with a nice buzz going. Whatever the case might've been, I feel like Jonesy's departure is bittersweet. Yeah, he sucked at closing games, and that's not a good quality to have as a closer. But he was our guy, a true Tiger. I'll probably miss him next year when Fernando Rodney is even worse.

// Quick TV note before some links. I watched Heroes for the first time the other night. My company: my roommate (maybe the best person to watch TV with ever) and his girlfriend (longtime Heroes fan, serving as our de facto tour guide). Despite somewhat sluggish ratings, the show is still pretty popular. The weird thing for me is I can't name 5 people I know that are into it. About 10 minutes into my first Heroes experience, I found out why this is. There cannot be a more asinine show on TV. Before you think, "Well, you just don't know the storylines.", let me break it down. There's a little Asian fellow who's name is Hiro. By the way, congratulations to the writers on being clever. That must be awesome. Anyway, Hiro's power is twofold: not only can he freeze time (essentially giving him the ability to teleport), but he can also travel back and forth in time to the tune of thousands of years. My first time catching up with Hiro (who is on the show Heroes, hilarious!) saw him chasing a thief with super-speed. Her power was pretty intense; she had speed that looked like The Flash or someone of the same ilk. So, super-speed blond girl ganked something from Hiro, I forget what. Hiro uses his time-traveling ability and his time-stopping ability at the same time (nice) so he can see who this mystery speedster is. Without any explanation before or any subsequent explanation thereafter, the blond super-speed thief woman un-freezes and begins talking to Hiro. After a brief exchange, she punched Hiro right in the nose (a moment that made me smile after I realized how much I dislike Hiro). Hiro, his nose just bloodied, stays on the ground dumbfounded and looking like he just farted in a meeting or something. I wanted to give him a memo, but I didn't have a pen or paper, so I had to yell, "GO BACK IN EFFING TIME AND DODGE THE EFFING PUNCH! YOU CAN TRAVEL THROUGH TIME AND FREEZE TIME IN PLACE! YOU CAN RULE THE WORLD WITH VERY LITTLE EFFORT!" The storylines of Heroes - which raise more questions than a Shawn Kemp pregnancy - aren't the only thing keeping this show from being even respectable. The dialog between the characters is very post-1995 George Lucas. By that, I mean that the characters say a lot of things that are unnecessary and/or said in a way that's totally unreflective of how people actually talk. Bottom line: if you're not watching Heroes, don't worry about it. If you are watching Heroes, you need to reexamine some things.

// I was watching college football highlights on Sunday morning. During the recap of East Carolina versus N.C. State, a game that turned out to be ECU's first loss, there was a shot of a kid holding a sign that said ECU Streak Pauses Now. You can't pause a streak, idiot. Streaks end.

// I really hate bad commercials and/or marketing, and I make that known often. Flip that coin, playa. I love seeing a piece of good/clever marketing. Case in point. Gotta watch the whole video.

// America: The Gift Shop. I would probably buy some of these. I got a weird feeling after browsing that. Like, "Gosh, I really can't wait for our country to be good again."

// I had this article saved for a while and I actually forgot about it. I don't say this about many things: highly recommended. Entertaining AND thought-provoking. Thoughts like, "should I move out of the country?" Dig it: Remember ICP? It turns out they're still around. In fact, they have a borderline-religious following of "Juggalos" that have a massive festival to pay homage. I always associated ICP with the kids in middle school who wore JNCO jeans and had that haircut where most of the head was buzzed real tight, save for the super-long, half-inch wide strip on the top. Ahhh.... good times. Seriously, good article.

// I'm definitely not the most efficient person in the world, and I've never claimed to be. I waste an absolutely gargantuan amount of time doing "nothing". Let me clear up what I mean by "nothing". It's not "nothing" in the sense that I stand still in the middle of my bedroom for a couple of hours. Rather, "nothing" refers to the total amount of enjoyment and/or benefit I accrue from my various time-wasting activities. It's good to know I'm not alone.