Four years ago, the Giants were facing the Packers in the NFC Championship. I was in the Poconos on a ski trip with a bunch of friends. A few of us were in a Reebok outlet and saw that they had some Giants jerseys on sale. Tony and I decided we should get some to wear during the game. The only ones they had were Jeremy Shockey (a much-maligned tight end who was injured and wasn’t going to be playing) and Mathias Kiwanuka (linebacker out of Boston College). Neither of us wanted the Shockey jersey so, despite my hate for all things Boston, I bought the Kiwanukae jersey.

That night, the Giants shocked the Packers in overtime to head to Super Bowl XLII. Now, I’m not crazy. I don’t believe that the Giants won because we wore our jerseys but when it comes to sports, I get very superstitious. I wore my jersey during the Super Bowl two weeks and we all know how that turned out.

Fast forward to Sunday, I decided to wear my jersey while running the Carlsbad Half Marathon. Afterwords, the jersey was quite stinky. When we got back to the house, we rented in San Diego, we threw all our running clothes in the wash. While watching the Giants play the 49ers in the NFC Championship, I was a little more confident than I was four years ago so I wore my Giants Super Bowl Champions T-Shirt instead.

After three quarters, the Giants were behind 14-10. Eli Manning was getting pummeled by the Niners’ front four and couldn’t get the offense going. I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to the dryer, grabbed my jersey and put it on over my t-shirt. Again. I’m not crazy. I don’t think wearing that jersey would be the difference between the Giants winning and losing but I know that, if the Giants lost, all I would be thinking (after “Cindy’s brothers are never going to let me live this down”) is “I should have been wearing my jersey.”

A few minutes after I put my jersey on, the 49ers Kyle Williams muffed a punt, the Giants recovered and later scored a touchdown. Ultimately. the Giants beat the 49ers 20-17 with an overtime field goal by Lawrence Tynes (who hit the game winner four years ago vs. the Packers).  The first text I got after the game was from Tony: “The jerseys strike again!”

I don’t know where I will be watching the Giants face the Patriots in the Super Bowl but I do know what I’ll be wearing.

After having a rough go of it during the Long Beach Half Marathon, I had one goal this time around: comfort. While running Long Beach, I definitely pushed myself to run fast (or as fast as I was running during my training) and that ended up wearing me out early in the race. When I started training for this race, I decided to focus more on running at a comfortable pace and trying to avoid setting speed goals. If it felt like I was getting tired, I would just slow down but not stop.

A few weeks before the race, I started to get pain in both of my feet. It felt like plantar fasciitis. I also had foot pain before Long Beach but this time it didn’t affect my training too much. It mostly hurt when I woke up in the morning and if I stayed still for too long. So running actually made me feel better. Regardless, after my last long run, I stopped running a week before the marathon to give my feet a break.

The morning of the race I decided to wear my New York Giants jersey. Since I was in California, I wanted to represent for my team. Also I thought it would provide me with extra motivation. I wouldn’t want to suck while wearing this jersey lest I jinx the team.

Lori and Cindy lined up with Wave Three while Elena, Nathan and I were in Wave Five. I learned my lesson from Long Beach. Even when she’s running slow, Cindy’s pace is too fast for me. I ran slowly with Elena and Nathan for half a mile until I decided to pick up the pace. I kept slow and steady as I had planned. When the hills came along, I slowed down to a pace where I didn’t feel like I was pushing too hard. I knew that there were hills on this course according to the elevation details posted on the website but I swore there were going to be more downhills. It just felt like we kept going up and never got the benefits of going down. Despite that, I still felt really strong. I just focusing on the songs on my iPod Shuffle.

Around mile 10, I finally had to stop and walk for a bit. During my training, if I wanted to stop running, I would ask myself, “Why do you want to stop?” Today I had my answer: my pinky toes REALLY hurt. I don’t know what the problem was but I guess my shoes were too loose and my toes were rubbing against the edge. I thought I’d never be able to get the same momentum again. Then I saw the 2:20 pace runner pass me. I hadn’t seen her since mile three. I didn’t realize she was so close. After that, I took off after her. I really wanted to beat my Long Beach Half Marathon. I did stop to walk again but after mile 11, I never saw her again.

I finished the race at 2:19:17. Eventually, I met up with Cindy (her race report) and Lori than Elena, Nathan and David (who just completed his first full marathon)*. After spending an hour in parking lot traffic (ugh), we headed back to the house we all rented in San Diego and relaxed with burgers and football.

I beat my Long Beach finish by a few minutes. Aside from my toes, I felt good about the race overall. I don’t know if I could run a full marathon but I started contemplating it so I guess that’s a good sign.

Also, the Giants won but that’s another post.

* Not pictured, Adriana who also ran the full marathon.

First of all, I was surprised how much I missed basketball. When the season started, I couldn’t be puled away from keeping track of the Knicks via League Pass. Whenever I got the opportunity, I would take advantage of the NBA League Pass two week free trial to watch the new Knicks. Before the season started, I had all but decided to purchase League Pass but something happened during that free trial.

The Knicks sucked.

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming. While it was great to acquire Tyson Chandler via free agency so SOMEBODY would try to play defense, having to give up Chauncey Billups was a big deal. If he hadn’t been hurt during the playoffs against the Celtics, I think the Knicks had a chance to win at least two of those games. Going into the season with Toney Douglas and Mike Bibby (coming off a NBA Finals where everyone begged Erik Spoelstra to take him out of the starting lineup) as our point guards should have raised a bigger red flag. But I couldn’t imagine how bad it would have gotten.

The opening day defeat of the Celtics raised expectations that maybe this was a good team but now we know the truth, the Celtics just weren’t very good. The Knicks aren’t just losing these games. More times than not, the Knicks are falling behind by double digits early and have to play catch up. Without a true PG, the offense never gets going. To say that defense has always been a problem for the Mike D’Antoni-coached Knicks would be an understatement but the solution was always “as long as we score more points than the other team, it doesn’t matter.” Well, now that we can’t, it DOES matter. Amar’e Stoudemire looks lost without someone to do a pick and roll with. Because of the deficits, the Knicks throw whatever game plan they had out the window and see if Carmelo Anthony can shoot us back into the game. Tyson Chandler has been getting better on the defensive and offensive end but he can’t do it alone. Iman Shumpert has been a bright spot as a rookie but sometimes he buys into his own hype and shoots more than Amar’e. Landry Fields might want to see if Modells will take him back.

I used to think that the Knicks were losing to bad teams.  Now I’ve come to accept that the Knicks ARE one of those bad teams.

I find it laughable every time someone says “Wait until Baron Davis is healthy”. While I am a fan of Davis, I don’t see plugging him into the team as the end-all, be-all solution. For starters, we don’t know which Baron Davis we are getting. Are we getting the Golden State Warriors Baron Davis who carried that team to a first round upset of the top seeded Dallas Mavericks in 2007 or are we getting the Clippers/Cavaliers version who carried himself to the International House of Pancakes? We’re putting all our eggs in the basket of a player the Cavaliers didn’t want.

After last night’s defeat, I found myself missing the old Knicks. Not the 90′s Knicks that we’re perennial playoff contenders (although I do miss that defense), I miss the pre-Carmelo Anthony Knicks. They weren’t great either but this team was more Mike D’Antoni’s speed. The ball movement was fluid. Raymond Felton had a good rapport with Amar’e. They didn’t have elite talent like Carmelo Anthony but that team looked like they ran plays on offense. I always hated the Carmelo trade. Not because I didn’t want Carmelo but we should have gutted the entire team in the process. I would have rather taken out chances getting him in the offseason than trading away Felton, Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler. Even if we ultimately didn’t get him, we would have been a possible destination for Dwight Howard or Chris Paul. I ever think the pre-Carmelo team with just Tyson Chandler added would be better than this one.

Short story long, I did not order NBA League Pass because I couldn’t bear to watch this team. At least not yet. Maybe with Baron Davis running the point, Mike D’Antoni will figure out how to coach this team. Maybe Chandler and Amar’e will find out how to co-exist in the paint. Maybe Carmelo will run the pick and roll with Amar’e (which seems like a no-brainer but rarely do we see it). Maybe James Dolan will fire D’Antoni and Phil Jackson will leave whatever zen retreat he is on to restore glory to Madison Square Garden.

Or maybe the Knicks will just continue to suck. Sadly, I find this one more likely.

Young Adult is one of those movies that I didn’t hate but didn’t love either. I thought the performances were good particularly Charlize Theron as reprehensible and (likely) mentally unstable Mavis Gary trying to reconnect with her married high school ex. Patton Oswalt as her former classmate and unlikely friend Matt Freehauf was also pretty good. Sometimes it’s hard for me to take Oswalt seriously because when he talks, I automatically think about his comedy sets but in this film, I got over it pretty quickly.

I appreciated that the movie never tried to make Mavis sympathetic. She was a horrible self-centered person at the beginning of the movie and (spoiler alert) she leaves her hometown pretty much the same way (with a few dents in her armor). The only problem is that doesn’t make for much of a movie. You want to credit director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody for making a movie that defies the movie convention that your main character has to change and grow but, after watching this, I now see why this convention exists.

Dialogue-wise, this was probably the least Cody-esque film she’s done. With a few exceptions, if you hadn’t told me she wrote this movie, I wouldn’t have known which is really the nicest thing I can say about a Diablo Cody script.

Dear Bill Walker,

It’s bad enough that beyond Tyson Chandler, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Antony, the Knicks’ roster look like a bunch of community center castoffs – always calling “next.” It’s bad enough that Mike D’Antoni’s offensive strategy appears to be shoot as many three pointers as possible (the earlier in the shot clock, the better) and when that doesn’t work, pass the ball to Will…I mean Carmelo and hope he can bail the team out (‘Melo will be dead by the All-Star break). No, Bill.  You apparently traveled back in time to the 90′s, got twists put in your hair and made it back in time for the season.

What were you thinking?

You look like one of the Kris Kross‘ kids grown up.

You look like an extra in a Geto Boys video.

You look like Prop Joe‘s illegitmate son.

Every time you step on the court, I groan.

I blame your friends and family.  If someone loved you, they’d cut your hair while you slept.

I imagine you can’t go into a barbershop because they might actually die of laughter, so you need to shave it all off and start over.

Please.

Sincerely,
A loyal but troubled Knicks fan

Click comic to enlarge

The fall television season of 2011 will be remembered for Homeland. It was easily one of the best first season of a show I’ve watched from start to finish. I debated doing a post about my top ten TV shows of 2011 but got lazy. I couldn’t decide whether Homeland or Breaking Bad would take the top spot. I thought nothing could top the fourth season of Breaking Bad but some of Homeland’s individual episodes (particularly “The Weekend” and “The Vest”) are up there with the best episodes of the year (another post I was too lazy to write).

Ultimately, my top ten TV shows of 2011 without any elaboration are:

1. Breaking Bad
2. Homeland
3. Louie
4. Parks and Recreation
5. Justified
6. Game of Thrones
7. Community
8. Boardwalk Empire
9. Sons of Anarchy
10. Parenthood

Sunday

• Bob’s Burgers (FOX, 3/11) – I didn’t watch that much last season but it was one of my favorite series to watch on my iPad or laptop before I went to bed.
• Californication (SHO, 1/8) – This show never changes so there’s nothing else I can say about it.
• House of Lies (SHO, 1/8) – I don’t know anything about this show except that it stars Don Cheadle and Kristen Bell and that’s all I need to know.
• Luck (HBO, 1/29) – Dustin Hoffman on a weekly basis?  I’m in.  I just hope this is Deadwood David Milch and not John from Cincinnati David Milch
• Shameless (SHO, 1/8) – What a crazy show. I’m curious to see the BBC version it’s based on.
• Sherlock (BBC, 1/1) – Yes, I’m admitting I’ll be watching through less than legal means but I can’t wait until March to see the second season.
• The Walking Dead (AMC, 2/12) – Sigh. Now I know how my parents felt when I brought home bad grades. I was capable of so much more. So is this show.

Monday

• Alcatraz (FOX, 1/16) – This show looks kinda corny but I tend to give shows with Lost alumni (Jorge Garcia co-stars) one episode.
• Being Human (SyFy, 1/16) – The first season ended strongly. I still think the UK cast has better chemistry and handled the angst of being monsters/ghosts better. The US version is still too upbeat.
• Castle (ABC, 1/9) – I think I fall asleep during this show every other episode but I always go back to see what I missed.
• Gossip Girl (CW, 1/16) – After episode 100, I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
• How I Met Your Mother (CBS, 1/2) – This show is on double secret probation.
• Smash (NBC, 2/6) – Since I gave up on Glee, I’m hoping this can fill the void of weekly singing. The cast looks amazing so I have high hopes.

Tuesday

• Justified (FX, 1/17) – Season two of Justified was so good in every aspect (acting, plot and guest actors), I can’t even begin to think how they could possibly top it.
• New Girl (FOX, 1/17) – I know I gave up on blogging about this show but I got tired of writing the same thing over and over again. I’ll revisit it eventually but I will say this. Schmidt is taking over the show.
• Parenthood (NBC, 1/3) – The best thing I can say about this season is I don’t even mind Julia and Joel’s storylines.
• The River (ABC, 2/7) – I don’t know if Cindy is going to watch this adventure/horror show with me but I can’t help but be intrigued by the trailer.

Wednesday

• Happy Endings (ABC, 1/4) – This barely missed making my top ten shows of 2011 list. I laugh every time I watch and the cast has great chemistry.
• Modern Family (ABC, 1/4) – They’ve gotten better with mixing and matching the cast but now they’ve decided to make Claire super-shrill. I’m debating whether to write a separate piece about this show’s problem with women.
• Touch (FOX, 1/25) – Can I accept Kiefer Sutherland in a non-Jack Bauer role? I honestly don’t know.

Thursday

• 30 Rock (NBC, 1/12) – It better be good since we’re losing Community so it can come back.
• Archer (FX,1/19) – The “Heart of Archness” miniseries was a great start to the season
• The Big Bang Theory (CBS, 1/12) – I’m glad that we’ve moved away from Leonard dating. His relationship with Priya was killing the show and the character.
• Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 1/12) – Will someone have a TV intervention for me to stop me from caring about this show?
• Parks and Recreation (NBC, 1/12) – Still the best comedy hands down.
• The Office (NBC, 1/12) – Is it me or does this season really suck, like season one bad?
• Undersupervised (FX, 1/19) – I don’t kow anything about this show but it’s on FX so I’ll watch it at least once.
• Up All Night (NBC, 1/12) – I’m glad this was moved to Thursday because frankly, I kept forgetting it was on Tuesdays and missed a few episodes.

Friday

• Chuck (NBC) – NBC cares so little about this show that it has been running new episodes during the holidays. Which is a shame because it’s been having a pretty good final season.
• Fringe (FOX, 1/13) – I don’t know how I feel about the direction of this season especially since this might be the last season. Aside from Peter these aren’t the versions of the characters we care about so I’m not as invested. i keep waiting for things to revert back to normal.
• Portlandia (IFC, 1/6) – It was pretty hit or miss but when it’s good, it’s great. This Battlestar Galactica skit has me anticipating the new season.
• Spartacus: Vengence (STARZ, 1/27) – Yay for blood and violence!

TBD

• Awake (NBC) – This is the show I have been looking forward to since seeing the trailer last summer so I’m extremely disappointed that it’s been delayed indefinitely. I just hope we get to see it in Spring and not in a Summer burnoff.
• Community (NBC) – It’s going to come back but what about next season. If they would just make Community available on Netfix Instant Watch, I guarantee it would see an uptick in ratings.
• Game of Thrones (HBO, April TBD) – The show started slow but once I became more familiar with the characters, the better the show got. It all culminated in one of the most shocking deaths in a debut season (if you didn’t read the source material). I hope I can finish the first and second books before this season starts.
• Mad Men (AMC, March TBD) – I feel bad for Jon Hamm.  After Damien Lewis’ performance in Homeland and with another strong season from Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad, he’s never going to win the best actor Emmy.  NEVER.

What shows are you looking forward to in the new year?

I’ve had a fun, life-changing first year in California. Here were some of the highlights:

I went to Disneyland for the first time.

I met one of my favorite comic book authors ever, Jamie Hernandez, co-author of Love & Rockets.

I ran my first race, the Great Race of Agoura Hills 10K

I cheered on Cindy while she ran the Los Angeles Marathon.

Cindy and I got engaged! (my story/her story)

We went camping at Yosemite.

I attended Suzzy & Terry’s wedding in Napa where I got to see some friends from New York

We hung out in San Francisco.

I “ran” the Long Beach Half Marathon.

I went back to New York to spend time with friends and family.

Cindy and I took our engagement photos with Michael Fletcher.

With my own wedding and those of two of my closest friends, 2012 is going to be a hectic year. I hope I’m ready for it.

Before you ask, no I haven’t read any of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series nor have I seen any of the Swedish adaptations starring Noomi Rapace.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a pretty standard whodunit with two exceptions: some graphic scenes/imagery and the performance of Rooney Mara as cyber heroine Lizbeth Salander. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to help solve the disapperance of his favorite niece Harriet 36 years earlier.  Blomkvist later hires Salander, who went above and beyond the call of duty in her background check of him, to assist him in solving the mystery.

The movie doesn’t really get going until almost 90 minutes in when Lizbeth and Mikhail team up.  Until then, we are treading water with Mikhail slowly figuring out what might have happened to Harriet and learning about Lizbeth.  Mara plays up Lizbeth’s antisocial aspects well.  She never says or does  any more than she has to at any given moment.  She’s on guard with everyone (for some with good reason).

There’s a few sexual assaults in the film and, as they were playing out, I began to think (maybe hope) that the crimes wouldn’t be shown, only implied (maybe with sound behind a door or something).  Then I realized that I was watching a film by David Fincher (Seven, Zodiac, Panic Room) and that we would see whatever the MPAA would let us.

There are two main stories going on - Blomkvist’s libel case and the case of Harriet – with Lizbeth slowly making her way into both.  If the film had just been about Lizbeth and the mystery, it would have been one of the better movies of 2011 but the parts of the movie dealing with the Blomkvist story brings it down.  The last 15 minutes or so feels like a tacked-on epilogue.  I’m sure the story is prominent in the book (and I hope it’s interwoven better) but in the film, it is kind of a boring way to end after the action at the Vanger estate.

That said, I hope that Fincher, Craig and Mara are back for The Girl Who Played with Fire, the next story in Millennium trilogy.

One side note: it bothered me that Daniel Craig was unwilling to commit to an accent.  Despite being named Mikael Blomkvist, Craig stuck with his natural British accent.  Plummer did a slight German accent and Mara flirted with something resembling a foreign accent but Craig basically said, “No.  Mikael’s British now.”