Rainman Suite

>

Bloomberg Businessweek just released its 100 Most Powerful Athletes list based on achievements on the field and marketability.  Eli Manning came in at 18th place, surprisingly the highest ranking of any New York athlete.  Eli made $27 million this year.  That’s a lot of scratch.  A lot more than he would have made in San Diego.  Plus, he’s featured in award-winning commercials like the Samsung one where he takes a picture with a guy while “Hey Soul Sister” is playing in the background.  Makes me cry every time.

Other notables on the list were big bro Peyton at #1.  Shaun White is 2nd but we’ll see what happens when it’s not an Olympic year.  Queen James was 2nd last year, but something he did over the summer made everyone hate him so he fell to 11th.  I can’t remember what he did.  Shaq somehow came in 6th place despite the fact that this wasn’t a pie-eating contest.  Derek Jeter made $31 million but fell from 26th to 33rd.  Amar’e also made the list at 58th and I’m sure his ranking will only continue to go up.  I’m surprised that Eddy Curry didn’t make the list.  He could sit on you and kill you.  That’s real power.  But for now, this is Eli’s city and as long as he keeps winning and stays a lovable goof, he’s the Mann.

Bloomberg Businessweek

>

Madison Square Garden’s #1 enemy is opening his big mouth again.    Reggie Miller, who when last I checked is an announcer and should be an objective observer, is telling Queen James to “be the best villain you can be” at the Garden.  It’s a good thing the Queen is such a coward and missed almost all his shots against The Greatest Fans In the World.  We’ve have had to endure Reggie’s constant jabbering throughout the years, eight points in 8.9 seconds, and underhanded insults on TV during our lean years.  Now he’s advising our opponents on how to get under our skin?  Reggie, you retired.  You won the same amount of titles as us.  Leave it be.  I just don’t get why Reggie Miller hates New York so much.  Did some girl from the East Village break his heart as UCLA?  Is that why he has a tattoo around his belly button, possibly the worst tattoo of all time?  If you want to help somebody out, help the Pacers.  They’re a mess.  You crushed our hearts so many times before.  Stay out of our business or I’ll headbutt you John Starks-style, jabroni.

NY Daily News

>

50 Cent is heartbroken that Chelsea Handler dumped him for hotelier Andre Balazs right before Christmas.  So now he’s doing what any poor sap would do: send her presents.  I imagine that as Chelsea was opening up jewel-encrusted chalices and luxurious bottles of cognac, her little sidekick Chuy was already preparing boxes to send them back in.  Really Fitty?  You’re a bazillionaire P.I.M.P. and you’re grovelling over Chelsea Fucking Handler?  She looks older than Joan Rivers and she’s less funny.  I know you have trouble losing your ladies to old dudes and it stings.  Vivica A. Fox went with Larry David and now Chelsea is with this rich guy.  Sack up and get over it.  You can have any video girl you want and those girls are freaks.   If you really want to get Chelsea back, you should make her jealous.  I hear that Sarah Silverman is available.

US Weekly

>

In what could be the greatest achievement in shady fried chicken places since Kennedy Fried Chicken, rap’s favorite clock-wearing hypeman Flavor Flav has opened his own fried chicken restaurant in Clinton, Iowa.  I enjoy many facts about this.  First of all, how is there a huge line outside his place?  Do all these people really want to eat at Flav’s restaurant or did they just know that TMZ was going to be there?  Secondly, if you go through the pictures you can see that his place is right next to a KFC.  Maybe not the best place to open a fried chicken place.  Thirdly, Flavor Flav has already sent black people back several years.  I don’t think running a fried chicken joint is going to help.  Finally, it appears that in the menu you can order a “baked potatoe” as a side.  At least we know that Dan Quayle will do a good job running the place.  Sure beats Chuck D.  Yeahhhhhhhhhhhh boyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

TMZ

>

The Harris Poll released a survey with information about favorite sports in the US.  It’s no surprise that football was #1 with 31% of fans saying it was their favorite sport.  Baseball was second but it’s got almost half as many fans as football at 17%.  The big news is that since the first year of the poll in 1985, football is up 7% while baseball is down 6%, the largest drop of any sport.  One would hope this is a wakeup call for MLB, but they’ve been so dense and short-sighted, it’s hard to believe this is the case.  It’s only going to get worse if games keep ending at 1AM and lasting for eight hours.  Another notable finding for me was that the NBA was behind college football and auto racing in fifth place at 6%, which I thought would be higher given all the interest surrounding LeBron.  Bball did bump up from 5% last year, but it was third at the time of Michael Jordan’s retirement at 13%.  I also like the fact that bowling beat the WNBA.  Hopefully, next year Harris will include MMA as a choice.  I feel like that could actually have a significant amount of fans, maybe even more than boxing.  Until then, it’s a football world and y’all just livin’ in it.

Sports Business Daily

>

I’ve known about Nina Dobrev since she was on Degrassi.  Yes, I used to watch Degrassi.  That also means I knew about Drake before anybody else.  How much can I bet that Drake’s gotten a piece of that pie?  Probably in the wheelchair that his character was confined to.  Nina is on The Vampire Diaries now and I’ve never seen the show, but I guess that means she’s good at sucking…blood.  Dayyyyyyyyyyyyyuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!

>

Evgeni Nabokov recently left his hockey team in Russia and turned his back on a $24 million contract to return to the NHL.  He signed a 1-year contract with the Red Wings but had to clear waivers first.  Islanders GM and former “star” goalie Garth Snow needed a netminder after backup Nathan Lawson hurt his knee on Friday, so he claimed Nabokov.  The only problem is that the Isles are the laughingstock of the NHL, so Nabokov refused to report to the team and was subsequently suspended for the season.  Not only that, but when Snow called Nabokov to inform him of the transaction, Nabokov hung up the phone.  Tres embarrassing.  You can say all you want about athletes being spoiled and having too much power, but I love it.  Who would want to play for a bad team with incompetent management that hemorrhages money and has the ugliest fans in the league?  And didn’t they sign Rick DiPietro to that 15-year contract?  How’s that working out?  On the plus side, Long Island girls are pretty slutty, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that he’s going to the 14th place team in the Eastern Conference.  We can all hope that the end result in all of this is that Gary Bettman realizes that Long Island is not a good place for a hockey team and moves the Islanders to Winnipeg or Quebec City.

Yahoo!

>

The Jersey Shore kids are heading to Italy for Season 4.  It’s perfect.  Season 3 is a tour de force, like Michelangelo’s David or Andrew Dice Clay.  Jersey Shore needs to continue forever but you need to shake things up.  The Israeli stalker.  Vinny’s giant cock.  Deena.  Miami was a great change of pace, but where else could you bring them where they were completely out of water but still belong?  Italy.  BOOM!  How long will it be until Snooki asks about the Leaning Tower of Pizza?  After a return to Seaside for Season 5, I’d like to see the kids try their hand in LA.  There are plenty of actresses willing to make a name for themselves out there.  How about the Situation at an audition?  Eventually, we need to get the kids on a tour bus and take them around the country like the final season of Rock of Love and finally TJ Lavin needs to get them on The Challenge.  I seriously can’t get enough of these kids.  Great job by MTV.  Grazie.

Entertainment Weekly

>

I don’t know what it is about the bad girls.  Kaya Scodelario plays Effy on Skins.  She fucks in school, does lots of drugs, and wears a ton of eye shadow.  I could definitely bring her home to Mom.  Accrording to Wikipedia, she recently turned 18 and has battled with low self-esteem throughout her life.  Might as well be a bullseye.  Also, she speaks fluent Portuguese.  Dayyyyyyyyyyyyyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!

>

I really enjoyed the State of the Union address.  It was solid and there was lots of comedy.  President Obama’s entrance was WWF-esque, not quite as good as the Rock’s but definitely better than Chris Masters’s.  Bill Livingood did a great job channeling Howard Finkel in his “The President of the United States!” intro.  He just yelled across the House chamber without a microphone.  I was shocked.  I’ve never seen this part before and I loved it.  Then, the Prez came out and greeted all his fans.  I would have liked a little entrance music.  Something like Hulk Hogan’s.  Obama’s handshakes really had some authority on them.  I thought he was going to bust out a multi-part handshake with Hillary Clinton like they were Will Smith and Jazz.  He even pointed out that somebody shaved their beard.  It was fabulous.

The speech was pretty standard.  Way too much clapping.  Maybe it’s like the game where you yell “penis” as loud as you can, only who can start a clap at the most inappropriate time.  Somebody started clapping after the President mentioned Facebook.  It didn’t get very far.  Applause is like tattoos on the ladies.  If there’s too much, it loses the effect.  And really, the ovations had the enthusiasm of someone rooting for a handicapped kid in a Little League game.  Put a little effort into it, guys.  I liked when the camera would cut away to a random person in the audience and for some reason CNN didn’t put their name on the screen.  I know who John McCain is and all, but I don’t watch C-SPAN on a regular basis.  Give me a little info.  The best cut was after the President said he wanted to “out-innovate the rest of the world” and then some Asian guy pops up on the screen.  Classic.  Joe Biden was also riveting.  I am fascinated by his giant teeth.  He might be the perfect Vice President.

I thought Obama was great.  I agreed with everything he said.  He talked about what people wanted and needed to hear although sometimes he goes a little too far talking about bipartisanship.  He’s kind of like a mom telling her kid about how great sharing is.  “You just gave your toy to Timmy.  Doesn’t it feel great!”  “You’re sitting next to a Democrat.  Doesn’t it feel great!”  It’s not his fault that half of Congress are idiots and would rather vote with their political party than do the right thing.  Obama takes a lot of criticism but I still think he’s the best person to run this country.  He may not be assertive enough, but the country’s in a tough spot and any President now would be having a tough time.  Obama is a very smart person and it doesn’t matter if you’re running a gas station or a country, you want a smart person in charge.  He will adapt and figure it out.  3 Stars.