Empty Bookshelf Reviews

Category: Reviews

  • The Pittsburgh Steelers’ Trick Plays

    Each game, the Steelers come in with eight trick plays. These include end-arounds, halfback options, double-reverses, etc. In the middle of the second quarter, they used their first with great success.

    Lining up in the I formation, one of the most flexible of the offensive formations, Ben Roethlisberger, faked the handoff to the half-back who then ran to the right side of the offensive line as the fullback ran to the left all while a wide receiver from the right side ran towards the half-back. The wide receiver got the hand off, followed the fullback’s blocks to the left and got the easy first down.

    Unfortunately for the Steelers, the drive ended in an interception.

    ****

    The trick play doesn’t receive five stars if only because it didn’t result in a huge gain, just a first down.

  • The Blown Whistle on That Seahawks Incomplete Pass that was a fumble

    The Seahawks WR just caught the ball, made a football motion (a turn), and put feet down, as the steelers player hit him and the ball popped loose. Unfortunately the refs blew the whistle for an incomplete pass, blowing the play dead, and unreviewable. In my opinion the refs never get this call right, because on iffy calls like this, both teams should be able to get a reasonable image of what actually happened. The safe call here is to let them play, like in hockey or soccer in a situation like that. when the play is dead, then the team that felt ripped off could officially challenge the play and get a definitive answer. In all reality it didn’t matter in this instance though, as the ball went all the way back to the pittsburgh 10 yard line or thereabouts, and the punt recovery probably gave them better field position.

    the blown whistle on the iffy call gets no stars because the only reason for them to call a play like that dead is for the refs to save face and claim their authority on the field. Nobody likes refs though, and power plays like this don’t help their cause. This hurts both teams in the long run, because that really was a fumble, and by letting the play go through they can look at all the evidence, and not just a quickly-viewed, one sided opinion.

  • The Diet Pepsi Commercials

    Without being disgusting, I can’t imagine that “Brown and Bubbly” is the best tagline for well, anything.

    I’ll leave it at that.

    *

    One star, if only because part of marketing is getting “the people” to talk about it in any capacity.

  • Food (supplied by Primo)

    Mmm…. mozzarella, prosciutto, and other Italian words I probably can’t spell very well. The Suprimo and Turkey Diablo.

    primo.jpg

    Best sandwiches ever. 1/2 star off for a necessary lack of variety.

    ****½

  • The Steelers Offensive Line’s Lack of Discipline

    One drive, two false starts at the right end of the Steelers’ “O” Line. That’s the sort of thing that makes it so in the 3rd quarter, the commentators say, “The penalties are killing the Steelers.”

    We’ll see.

  • Using a Dance Remix of “The Hand that Feeds” During Player Introductions

    Wasn’t expecting that. Nine Inch Nails during a broadcast of something that isn’t normally vulgar (meaning using any Nine Inch Nails song other than “Closer”); that’s actually rare.

    Let’s give the music people at ABC some credit.

    ****½

  • Tom Brady Getting Booed at the Cointoss

    No review necessary

    *****

    Best. Cointoss. Ever.

  • The Opening

    Harrison Ford and a bunch of NFL stars read an adapted version of “Oh the Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss. Good Animation, good music, well read, and well edited. Interesting mood to set, a playful tone instead of a competitive one.

    ****

    The opening gets four stars for being well made, and an interesting and different take on it.

  • The Superbowl 2006 “Preview Show”

    In order to predict the outcome of this year’s Superbowl, we used the best tool in our repertoire to predict the outcome: John Madden NFL 98 for Sega Genesis. It was a tense game, filled with back and forth scoring. Nate’s Steelers came up short after a risky “going for it” on 4th down situation late in the 4th quarter.

    prediction.jpg
    Too bad there isn’t a Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes predictor…

    In typical Madden 98 form, the final score (in spite of the 5 minute quarter length) was (my) Seattle Seahawks 39 to Nate’s Steelers 32. We each had about 300 yards of total offense, though I won the battle of time of possession.

    You heard it here first: Seahawks 39, Steelers 32.

    ****½

    The “preview show” (meaning our game of Madden 98) receives four-and-a-half stars due to its close finish that we can only hope the actual game will also have. Go Seahawks!

  • The 2006 Puppy Bowl

    puppybowl.jpg
    Hey, it’s better than watching the Jets

    As a warm-up to the Superbowl, Animal Planet is offering a marathon of the Puppy Bowls from years past. For the uninitiated, the Puppy bowl is at least an hour or so of about 7 or 8 puppies running around in a miniature stadium, made of cardboard. Multiple cameras around the “stadium” show images of puppies running around, jumping on each other, or mostly just laying on the turf, all set to zany music. To make matters worse, they spared no expense on the announcing, getting NFL Films, NFL Radio, and longtime Philadelphia Phillies announcer Harry Kalas to do the deed. Also, this is a big production, probably 5 cameras, including one called the “bowl cam”, placed underneath a glass bottom of the water bowl that they drink out of. At halftime they clean up the turf with a blatantly used Bissell vacuum cleaner, and then they bring out the kitty castle for the kitty bowl halftime show. While an interesting diversion for about 5 minutes, it get incredibly boring and repetitive as the animals don’t do very much, other than walk around to wacky music and disco lighting. Also, you can buy the video here

    *½

    Puppy Bowl II receives 1.5 stars for being a pretty big waste of your pre-superbowl time. I honestly think I’d rather watch a marathon of“The OC”.