Lots to talk about today, so let's get things started...

1) Happy Veteran's Day. To all the soldiers fighting in the Middle East (and the rest of the world), I hope you come home safely.

2) Saw the Paris Hilton tape yesterday. At least 3 minutes of it. It's shot nightvision-style, so it's all green and their eyes glow devilishly. It's pretty hardcore. And her parents' claim that Paris is so whacked out of her mind that she doesn't know what's going on is absolutely not true. She's completely lucid, talking to the camera and even stopping the romp for a bit to answer her ringing cell phone. Overall, fairly entertaining. Watch it if you can find it. I hope I don't get sued for showing it to all my co-workers.

3) I wish I could similarly recommend The Matrix Revolutions, which I saw on an IMAX screen last night (the link shows that only 1/3 of critics have given it a positive review, although the number should be much much lower than that... more like ZERO). I think it is probably the worst movie I've seen since the turn of the century. It is excruciatingly boring... the action is tedious... the ending is a major cop-out... nothing in this one is remotely as good as the second film, which I didn't even like very much. People laughed at the dialogue and actually booed when the end credits rolled. I usually complain that the public at large is full of idiots (not you readers, of course), and that mob mentality sucks, but in this case they were right on.

4) So why did voters deny Matsui the AL Rookie of the Year award, claiming his previous experience in Japan, when they willingly gave the award to Ichiro and ignored the same mitigating factors? It's because Matsui is a Yankee. And that sucks. Matsui and Berroa both hit .287, and Berroa had 17 HR compared to Matsui's 16. But Matsui hit 50% more RBIs, struck out 14 fewer times in almost 60 more at-bats, and walked more than twice as often, given him a much higher OBP. People say that Berroa had 21 SB vs. Matsui's 2, but that only translated into 10 more runs for Berroa... and really, what good is a stolen base if it doesn't translate into a run? I'm sick of this constant Yankee hatred from most of the nation. Based on the definition of a rookie and the criteria for the award, Matsui deserved it, and he got robbed.

I've got more, but I'll save it for another post.