A Bit of This and That

Now that I'm finally recovering from the pain of Schumi's retirement (about which I will blog later, when I'm little less sentimental) I thought I'd get back to normal life:

So when I was trawling through the internet looking for Schumi tributes, I found this:

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER was the most lustful, the most ravenous, the most metaphysically ambitious sportsman of his generation. He made millions, but did not drive for money. He won thousands of admirers, but cared nothing for adulation.

As anyone who endured his hawkish glance and witnessed his visceral competitiveness will testify, Schumacher was driven by a passion for Formula One that bordered on obsession.

And a jolly good thing, too. Where would sport be without vehemence? Where would be the grandeur and the heroism, the joy and the heartbreak? Give me a warrior who craves victory for its own sake any day rather than the tepid careerism exemplified by so many British sportsmen, whose puny ambition is slaked by a few measly drops from the National Lottery Sports Fund.

This is what journalism is coming to? About the only adjective the author missed is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Rule number one: A tribute should not look like a thesaurus. (I must add, however, that I do agree with the sentiment).

I also had a bit of a shock when I read this:

Raul wanted to quit Madrid, president says

Not too long ago I had blogged about how much I appreciated Raul's loyalty to Real Madrid. To read this headline was a real slap in the face... until you actually read the story, and realise that Raul was willing to stop rather than drag his team down. This warms me all the way down to my toes, the idea that in modern football team loyalty is still paramount for atleast some people.

It also seems that Martin Scorcese will, yet again, lose out to Clint Eastwood. Reviews of both The Departed and Flags of our Fathers are largely positive, but Flags is being hailed by all critics as a masterpiece in film, while praise for The Departed is more along the lines of good genre entertainment. I haven't seen either film, ofcourse, but here's hoping they both find their way to the cinemas before the Oscars, so I wont have to resort to Bittorrent.

Veronica Mars holds its own in the ratings (infact, they went up last week). CW, please, please, please let me hear about that full-season order. Heroes has got a full-season order, and it is becoming more and more interesting. Hiro remains the best character on the show, and even though the series as such is definitely not even the best of the new shows, there's something about it that has hooked me. I must also say a word about Friday Night Lights, which, as someone who does not give a flying f*ck about american football, I find engrossing. The art direction is beautiful. Studio 60 is still good, but Sorkin really needs to let someone else write the fictional sketches on the show; they get less funny every week.

The other two new shows I'm watching are The Nine and Ugly Betty. I'm really enjoying both. The Nine has too much fancy camera-work and atleast one character I really don't like (Egan), but the cast is top-notch and there are moments that it has that just suck me back in every episode. Ugly Betty is wonderful. Its warm, and amusing, and campy. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it has Vanessa Williams as the big bitch.