- I can't believe the freakin' Cardinals won the World Series. Neither team really deserved to be there in the first place, but at least the Tigers were on such a hot streak during the ALDS and ALCS that they probably would've bowled over the '27 Yankees. Meanwhile, the Cardinals were busy making guys like John Maine and Oliver Perez look like October aces. Has the fact that the Cards only won 83 games been mentioned enough? People made such a big deal about a mediocre team like last year's Padres even making the playoffs, and I'm pretty sure they had more than 83 wins. Is anyone surprised that the ratings were abysmal? You had two teams that no one gave a crap about, and to add insult to injury, both teams suck. Let's just get this straight: this postseason, we had spectacular pitching performances by John Maine (rookie,) Oliver Perez (deadline trade throw-in,) Jeff Weaver (with his 6+ ERA in the Varsity league,) and Kenny Rogers (an older Jeff Weaver, at least to Yankee fans.) April can't come soon enough.

- Speaking of baseball, looks like St. Louis and Detroit finished first and second in this too.

- Continuing my analysis of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series, we study The Battle for China. Again, this film was prefaced by a disclaimer, stating that the film was only a historical document, and that anything nice we had to say about the now-Red Chinese back then was just something we said to help the war effort. A few points:

• No mention of Chiang Kai-Shek's fight against the communists, or even a mention of communists. We're supposed to believe that China was one big happy family.
• I never heard the Generalissimmo's voice until I watched this film. Wow, it was really high pitched. How did this guy control hundreds of millions of Chinamen? Oh yeah, he didn't.
  
• I guess the audience wasn't supposed to notice that every single shot of Chiang Kai-Shek had him wearing a military uniform. And they never referred to him as "Generalissimmo Chiang." And about that uniform...
• I guess the audience was just supposed to ignore that fact that the Chinese were wearing German style uniforms. As in, Nazi style uniforms. True, most people wouldn't notice the German style caps and tunics, but the German "fritz" helmets that the Chinese troops wore were unmistakably German. Not just German looking, but actual German M1935 Stahlhelms. The film failed to mention that the Chinese army had been supplied and trained by the Nazi war machine in their fight against the communists, which, again, was also ignored. Later on in the film, the Chinese army switches to American M1 steel pots, understandably.

And finally, and this point refers to the entire Why We Fight series: demonizing the Japs and the Nazis was NOT a hard sell. While the Germans were trying to demonize the "decadent" Allies for listening to jazz music and how we were racially impure, and while the Japs were trying to sell their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," we were simply stating the facts. Indisputable facts, like the Japs bombing Shanghai and Pearl Harbor, or committing atrocities in Nanking. The narrator stated that the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor because they wanted to cripple the US fleet, to put them in a better position when they make their push across the Pacific to capture oil and other resources. If you asked the Japs why they bombed Pearl Harbor, and they'd give you THAT EXACT SAME REASON. The film mentioned the Tanaka Memorial, which was a sort of a Mein Kampf-esque grand scheme for Japanese world domination, which, shockingly, I had never heard of in my years of studying World War II. As it turned out, the reason why I never heard of it because it was bupkis. It was a piece of Chinese propaganda, designed to demonize the Japs, ala Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. But again, I ask, why did they feel the need to demonize the Japs? How can an alleged war plan demonize them any more than authentic footage of them burying people alive at Nanking, or footage of dead children lying in the rubble of Shanghai? By any standard of society, what the Japs did was wrong, just like no one can argue that taking Jews, gassing them and incinerating the bodies is absolutely wrong. Even the Germans realized that it was wrong, so wrong, that most Germans had no idea that these Jews who were being taken away by the trainload were being killed, instead of simply being relocated. The Allies, despite our faults, like segregation and colonialism, simply did not have to demonize the Axis like they did us. Frank Capra shouldn't have to try to sell us on any ideas, all it had to do was show what these people were really like.

- I dressed up as the guy from Falling Down again. Most people say the glasses make the outfit work. I should try being Vince Lombardi next year.

- I'm applying for a few more pistol licenses. While the state is smart enough to not fingerprint me again, they want two references again. Two references, people who aren't related to me, who don't work for the West Windsor police department, and who have known me for the past five years. Six years ago, I used Nick and Brian as references. If I use them again, wouldn't they just say the same thing? Instead of being people who I've known for five years who aren't related to me, they're now just people I've known for eleven years who aren't related to me.

- Gary Sheffield needs to grow up. Sheff, use your head: any team that can afford to trade for you next year won't be in a crappy town, so don't worry about being stuck in KC or Pittsburgh.

- Alright, I think I can start speaking rationally about the Yankees ALDS loss. No, it wasn't entirely A-Rod's fault, no one could seem to hit those last two games. No, Chien-Ming Wang should not have been brought to Detroit to pitch Game 4 on three days rest. He's a different pitcher on the road, and besides, Jaret Wright is supposed to save the Yankees in Game 5? As the sweep of Oakland has proved, Detroit has been playing absolutely out of their minds, and I wish them the best of luck. Having spent a few years in Ann Arbor, and seeing the quite humorous suffering of the Detroit fans, they deserve it.

- So the Yankees lose on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are consumed by the debate whether or not to fire Joe Torre (I said no, no one would've been an improvement, and besides, the team was on the hook for $7 million whether or not Torre works or not) and then Wednesday, the Cory Lidle thing. And yes, I actually forgot that the ALCS was still going on.

- Re: the Lidle thing. Wow, weird. At first, I blew it off, because I knew it wasn't terrorism, it's obvious it was a tiny plane, and it was merely a residential building. But to see that it was Cory Lidle, wow, weird. My thoughts and prayers to his widow and son.

- I can't be the first person to say it, but if the Yankees had won the series, wouldn't Cory Lidle still be alive today?

- So I've obtained the soundtracks of Beyond the Sea and Walk the Line, biopics of Bobby Darin and Johnny Cash, respectively. Both feature Kevin Spacey and Joaquin Phoenix singing as Bobby Darin and Johnny Cash, respectively. Both of them seem rather competent singers, but my question is: why? Why would we get these ACTORS singing as these musicians when we can just as easily buy CDs featuring the original singers?

- With Penn State's loss to Michigan this weekend, the Curse of James Yeh lives on. Yes, it's all me. Since May 1997, when I had to write Penn State to tell them that I was reneging on my agreement to attend PSU to attend UM, and I half-jokedly wrote that I would feel awful when Michigan crushes Penn State later that year, PENN STATE HAS NOT BEATEN MICHIGAN SINCE!

- Some of you know I've got an interest in propaganda films. (Triumph of the Will was my very first Walmart/Netflix rental.) I'm currently working my way through Frank Capra's Why We Fight series, and I've finished The Battle of Russia. And boy, it is funny. Okay, I'm not saying the suffering of the Russian people or the horrors that the Nazis inflicted onto them is funny, not at all, but what is funny is the presentation. The comedy starts even before the opening credits. Because the current edition was made sometime in the 50's or 60's, right in the middle of the Cold War, there's a disclaimer saying that the film should be taken as a historic document, and that the creators don't necessarily agree with the message. So one propaganda from one decade is not in the next. Second of all, and most tellingly, in a movie about the struggles of the Soviet Union against the Nazis, there are only two mentions of Stalin, which, as strange as it could be, is totally understandable. How do you paint a good picture of Stalin to the American people? How do you encourage Americans to fight a psychotic, murderous dictator by supporting another one?
- The Departed was great, absolutely great. Lots of good actors were in it, and they were all at the top of their game. My only beef with the movie was that Leonardo DiCaprio seemed to be playing pretty much the same role that he played in Gangs of New York, a young up-and-comer who must earn the trust of a powerful criminal who he's ultimately trying to bring down. It was like Scorcese getting Joe Pesci to play the psychotic enforcer in both Goodfellas and Casino. They did a great job casting the girl too, who's pretty, but accessible. She looks like a prettier version of Sarah Jessica Parker, that's the best why I can describe it. If any of you guys have seen it, I'd like to discuss the ending, especially regarding Dignam (Marky Mark.) For those of you who haven't seen it, see it.

- More on The Departed:
- Good job on Scorcese's part not simply casting every actor with Bostonian roots. While Donnie Wahlberg would've done fine, at least we were saved two and a half hours of Ben Affleck. (Although, looking at the IMDb, one of the other Wahlberg brothers was in the film. Apparently, we didn't recognize him because he didn't have a crappy singing career.)
- So the film starred Leo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg and ... Anthony Anderson? Was he really that impressive in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle? Or Romeo Must Die?
- Is it just me, or was Jack Nicholson channeling the Joker the entire time? He even had the bloody teeth in the end. And if he's running an Irish mob, why is he named Frank COSTELLO? Isn't that an Italian name?
- This movie basically summed up everything I hated about Boston.

Me262 at the ILA2006 in Berlin (original sound)

A newly built ME-262 taking flight at a Berlin air show. It's absolutely mindblowing. The only thing that would top this would be if someone cloned a dinasaur. To be able to witness history, to watch it, and hear it, to see something that hadn't been done in 60 years, simply awesome. What must it have been like for Allied pilots to see this for the first time, a plane that looked unlike any other, that sounded unlike any other, to fly faster and hit harder than anything they had ever seen before. The people at the ME-262 Project took this historical giant of an aircraft and resurrected it, and at the same time, corrected it's flaws. I tip my hat to them.