![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cocktails365.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/08\/2009-02-27-professor_farnsworth.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGood news, everyone!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I’ve come up with a way for you to hear these columns in Professor Farnsworth’s voice!<\/p>\n
Also, it turns out that this is the last TMQ of the season<\/a>! Yes, no bad predictions review this year: just the Super Bowl column and then silence until draft time.<\/p>\n After the jump…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Luck (Lady, not Andrew) was the key factor in both New England’s Super Bowl wins and losses. 507 words down. Undrafted free agents continue to rule, at least in TMQ’s head. And the Football Gods are still punishing Bill Belichick. Grind that axe, Gregg!<\/p>\n Amanda’s the nicest looking pharmacist we’ve seen in a while.<\/a><\/p>\n Sweet and sour: Chase Blackburn’s interception, New England’s 12 men on the field penalty (killing the Victor Cruz fumble), and the final Giants touchdown (“Ultimately it didn’t work, but was unquestionably the correct call.”). And did Belichick throw away a timeout on a pointless challenge?<\/p>\n From the Department of Un-Freaking-Believable: TMQ devotes 4,116 words (out of a 10,135 word column: roughly 40% of the total word count) to…arguing how unrealistic police procedural TV shows are<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is a mix of good points and totally off-base stuff. Off-base examples: “The departed parent is always the father.” Counter-examples: “Castle”, “Crossing Jordan”, and I’m sure I could come up with additional “dead mom” shows. (“Unforgettable” has a dead sister, and, if I remember correctly, a mother with Alzheimer’s.) ” the protagonist of ‘Life on Mars’ was a detective who traveled in time”: assuming that Easterbrook is talking about the original BBC series, that’s a dramatic oversimplification, almost to the point of being wrong.<\/p>\n Points well taken: “In 2011, an American was more likely to die in a hospital of pneumonitis than be murdered.” “…today’s CODIS contains far less information than TV crime shows suggest.” “In 2010, one New York City officer in 700 fired a weapon in the line of duty. On TV, officers fire their weapons almost daily. A recent NYPD report showed a total of 236 bullets fired by all police in 2010, less than one shot per day across a city of 8 million people.” (We bet Ramarley Graham<\/a> wishes the number was even lower.)<\/p>\n “Bad enough that scenes of helpless people being tortured to death, as in ‘Saw’ and similar movies, are now presented as entertainment in suburban shopping malls. One must make an active choice to attend such a movie. The spread of graphic violence as entertainment to prime-time television via the modern procedural, shows that are beamed into every home, is another matter.”<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n We are on TMQ’s side in this. We hate, hate, hate<\/strong> these new high-definition TV sets that turn themselves on, tune in to the most graphic police procedural currently broadcasting, and then lock the controls until the show is over so you can’t change the channel or turn the TV set off. And worse yet, they don’t even come with devices that let you block your kids from watching inappropriate content<\/a>!<\/p>\n So about that Super Bowl thing: “…in this season of wild tactics, the Super Bowl was a bowl of vanilla ice cream”<\/a>.<\/p>\n Creep.<\/a> We wonder how we missed the Obama administration elevating the Small Business Administration to a cabinet level agency. We also wonder how we missed the Constitutional justification for the existence of the SBA in the first place.<\/p>\n Wow. The NCAA did something right. Sort of. Under pressure from the Obama administration. Maybe. Specifically, the NCAA has now given colleges the option to offer multi-year scholarships<\/a>. This does shift some power to players, but TMQ suggests schools will use the “discipline problem” excuse as a workaround. (“Big-college use of the privacy dodge is getting out of hand, considering almost all college students are, legally, adults.” And adults aren’t entitled to privacy?)<\/p>\n (Speaking of college athletes and privacy considerations, here’s an interesting item from Jimbo<\/a> related to the NYT<\/strong>‘s coverage of Patrick Witt<\/a>.)<\/p>\n We are a little amazed that the University of Akron has $200,000 a year to give to Jim Tressel.<\/p>\n TMQ thinks Madonna is a marketing genius.<\/a> WCD is inclined to think her moment has passed. We’ve heard very little talk about her actual performance; most of what we’ve heard has been MIA and the stray finger. And her latest movie seems to have sunk back into the swamp from whence it came.<\/p>\n State standings.<\/a> Hookers (no blow). “Only 13 of the 44 starters were the same as when the Patriots and Giants met in the Super Bowl four years ago.” One wonders if that says something about the physical demands of football; a point TMQ doesn’t make. Random Super Bowl observations.<\/p>\n Readers write: let’s mine the asteroids<\/a>. Quite. Belters<\/a> unite!<\/p>\n Adventures in officiating: if the defense commits a substitution penalty at the end of the game, shouldn’t time be added to the clock? Why wasn’t Justin Tuck called for removing his helmet? And you can’t get “down” off Ahmad Bradshaw. (But you can get down off a duck. Thank you. We’ll be here all week. Tip the veal and try your waitress.)<\/p>\n And we’re at the end of another season of TMQ and TMQ Watch. Before we go, we’ll perform our annual ritual of throwing a bone TMQ’s way. Actually, we’re pretty interested in almost all of his book recommendations<\/a> this year. (Our one quibble is with the Julian Barnes novel; we’re not huge literary fiction types, though we have been known to read a Pynchon or two.) We’re also interested in Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide<\/a><\/strong>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=stainles-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0525952535\")