Thursday, February 07, 2008

Super Giant Tuesday..... Expialadocius!

We'll get to more of our Giant lovefest in just a moment... but first... some thoughts on Super Tuesday.

Personally I didn't decide till the very end that my vote would go to... Barack Obama. Yep, even though I recently compared his Presidency to starting Johan Santana on Opening Day at Shea (or Citi Field) after one year in the minors, I couldn't bring myself to vote for Hillary. I went to the voting booth... my first time voting in my new district since I moved last year.... and as the woman in front of me was given her little voting ticket, she informed the voting booth registrar that she was actually an Independent. "Well" said the Registrar...."In New Jersey, an Independent can't vote... and we don't have you registered as an Independent so actually you can vote". "Well" said the woman.... "Then I will have to go to Town Hall and change my registration, and then I'll come back..." And as she walked off with an odd sense of triumph, I wisecracked..."Yeah... hurry back so they can tell you that you can't vote!..."

Welcome to New Jersey!!

First of all, I didn't vote for Hillary because she is the NY Junior Senator and she should have been at The Giants Ticker Tape Parade on Tuesday. I know she is campaigning.. but this is an important event... and Governor Spitzer was there as was Senator Schumer. And as for New Jersey's politicians.. why wasn't Governor Corzine at Giants Stadium for the big celebration Tuesday afternoon? Corzine was too busy to attend that event.. but had enough time to go to The Skylark Diner in Edison for a Tuesday Night Hillary Clinton Supporters Party,... just a few short miles away from Route 440 where he is planning to plunk down some toll booths! By the way, The Skylark is THE best diner in NJ since the late lamented Clairmont that used to be on Route 3 until the late 80s.

My other reason I was annoyed at Hillary...., on Monday Night when Eli Manning got stuck at the airport in Arizona and couldn't make it to NYC in time to appear at an already delayed taping of Letterman, Hillary got an extra segment. And that is where she really went wrong when she started talking about the Mortgage Crisis and totally got mixed up on a very basic concept that she should have understood. She told Dave that she wanted to change the mortgage industry so they would get rid of prepayment penalties that change the interest rates of people who pay off loans early.

Huh?

Is Hillary confusing sub prime adjustable rate loans with Prepayment penalties? A prepay is just what it says.. the bank is paid a penalty fee if the loan is paid off early. The rate doesn't change... what rate is there.... the loan is paid off!! There's a zero balance! What do these banks in Hillary-land do... Charge 10% on a 0 dollar loan?? Did she encounter a prepayment penalty when she loaned her campaign a few million from her vast personal fortune? In reality she had her facts crossed and got mixed up with a sub prime loan but if she is getting this kind of easy stuff mixed up enough that I can catch it at 1220 AM .... will she get her facts mixed up when she is negotiating lenghty peace treaties in the Middle East??... Or giving Air Force Jets attack signs to bomb Iran??

Now that the Super Tuesday voting is done.... Obama and Hillary are back to Square One with no clear decisive winner, and the fight goes on. Ultimately, it might be a matter of who is mentally and physically stronger to maintain the 7 day a week grueling campaign pace in our society of people who are itching to skedoodle from their office as 5 o'clock approaches on a Friday afternoon!

The Republicans are making asses of themselves as usual. Rush Limbaugh bellows that likely nominee John McCain is not "conservative enough" by his lofty standards. Then he gets a letter from fellow Viagra user Bob Dole telling him how wonderful McCain is... and the voters seem to think so too as Mitt Romney is now out of the race. It's too bad. I think back to 1986 when The Mets beat The Red Sox in the World Series and I recall a great idea of a campaign commercial with Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner.

"Hi this is Bill Buckner reminding you to Vote Romney For President - because everyone in America could use a good Mitt!!"

And speaking of World Champion Sporting Events where New York brought heartbreak to Boston...


The other Super part about Tuesday was that wonderful Parade... the first time a football team has been honored with a Ticker Tape Parade in New York City!! I stayed home most of Tuesday to watch it. I went to work afterwards and watched some of the Giants Stadium rally on Channel 4's website. The parade was pretty cool. I mostly watched Channel 4 with Darlene Rodriguez and Len Berman although I would have liked to have seen Carol Anne Riddel instead since a Rodriguez-Riddell pairing would have been quite the eye candy. The Parade was hastily arranged as apparently was the Coverage. Reporter Tracy Strahan speculated that she might be the 2nd most famous Strahan.. forgetting all about Michaels estranged wife who probably rooted for The Patriots on Sunday! Rob Morrison interviewed random Giants on the floats totally clueless about who he was speaking to at any given time... but all in all the whole day was excellent.. although I still have no idea why Whoopi Goldberg was there to warm up the audience. Huh?? Why not get someone from WFAN the flagship station of the NY Giants like a Steve Somers or Chris Carlin or somebody from Fox Sports? Whoopi? She was just as confused as The Channel 4 reporters and thankfully her appearance on stage was very short.

The speeches were entertaining... Tom Coughlin still hasn't loosened up.. Im sure Chris Snee who is his son in law has some interesting anecdotes from Coughlin family dinners. Schumer, who unlike Hillary, was there, gave the typical political silly speech even producing a unanimous declaration voted on by all 100 US Senators including Obama Supporter and Bostoner Ted Kennedy. As if all the Senators really voted?? Governor Spitzer was actually rather entertaining... but Michael Strahan tossed Tiki aside as THE Coughlin-era Giant who will have a HUGE broadcasting career with his incredibly hysterical speech which included that hysterical Stomp on the faces of those Patriots... (who by the way really had a fantastic season finishing at 18-1). Poor Eli Manning had to follow that act.. he might as well have just gotten up there and whistled the theme to "The Andy Griffith Show".

By the way since it was also Primary Day... there was an interesting twist to all the police blockades at The Parade. If a person needed to cross the street to vote.. they were allowed to bypass all the blockades to get across...literally walking right across the street of the parade route!

A couple of other notes from the game before we eventually return to our regular format. I forgot to mention that I was pleased to look at Patriot's punter Chris Hanson's tuchis all night as long as he was kicking the ball back to The Giants. Heck there was more Chris Hanson ass in that game than a Dateline NBC Predator Special! . Oh is that a different Chris Hanson??

And finally, in regards to today's first clip... just to address a question raised here a few weeks ago by a buddy of mine whether Eli Manning was worth 4 draft picks. (In that column he questioned in 2006 why the media didn't criticize The Giants for the deal) He defends his point quite articulately in this video... which was made just moments after the game ended and before Eli got the MVP.

Making such a comment at the end of 2006 was just a tad premature. And what happens if San Diego goes on an incredible run and starts winning a bunch of Super Bowls? Will Manning's one be good enough? Or does he have to win more than one? 2? 3? Personally, I am quite happy with Eli no matter what happens from hereon in... He was losing by 4 points in The Super Bowl with less than a minute left and he had the guts to get his team to the end zone. He told Letterman last night in his rescheduled appearance that he would prefer to be down by 4 instead of 3 where all he would need was a field goal to tie. He won all those road games at the end of the season... including playoff road victories in Dallas and Green Bay, the supposed Kings of The NFC. He might have that "Aw shucks" sweet boy look but the man is a warrior and I don't care how many guys they gave up... I believe The Giants made a fantastic trade and I doubt I will ever change my mind. Just making that drive to knock off the almost immortal Patriots from their undefeated perch is good enough for me!

By the way getting my buddy to agree that '06 was too premature to judge the trade was a peace treaty that even Hillary Clinton couldn't broker... although she may have thought we were talking about The Johan Santana trade which really slipped under the radar as Giant fans going to Shea in April will inquire...

"Santana?? When did we get Santana??"



CLIP OF THE WEEK NUMBER 1....

Here is my buddy the Manning basher just moments after The Super Bowl. Look how giddy I look... I was calmer at my own wedding!!



CLIP OF THE WEEK NUMBER 2

Here is that legendary STOMP with Michael Strahan!

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