I listened to their newest single, “Fly With Me”, and loved it.  I expanded onto a few other songs and found a decent few.  I really like “Lovebug” and “Live to Party” is decent.  “Fly With Me”, however, is one of those songs that gives me goosebumps whenever I listen to it.  I can really feel the passion in the music.

My new found respect for their music does not take away from the fact that I hate Nick Jonas and his voice.  Kevin and Joe are fine but Nick irks me.  His voice is so weird… he has this stupid slur thing that he does that really bothers me.  I really prefer when Joe sings but he always gets stuck with the lame songs that don’t get a lot of air time.

Another issue I have is the hype.  Their fans are out of control and I’ve heard numerous times that they are “the next Beatles”.  That’s ridiculous.  I’m on record as not being a Beatles fan and I catch a lot of crap for saying that their music is overrated but their impact is undeniable and the Jonas Brothers have no shot at matching that.  The hype really bothers me because they don’t really have their own style.  The Jonas Brothers have some good songs but they don’t have that unique style that when you hear one of their songs come on, without spoken word, you know immediately who it is.  “Fly With Me” reminds me a lot of newer Coldplay with the horns and strings accompaniment.  “Poison Ivy” definitely has a strong Weezer feel to it and makes me think of “Beverly Hills” every time.  I hate to make the comparison but early Jonas reminds me of early Beatles… very simple love songs with little bells or whistles.

While I will continue to be critical of them, due mostly to the overhype, I must admit that they are extremely musically talented and have my attention.  I have to give credit to their TV show, JONAS, for my slight change of heart.  If that show hadn’t come around, I would probably still be touting my blind hatred of them.

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With last night’s loss, the Cavs failed to make the Finals and meet their end of the bargain in the epic Kobe vs LeBron matchup that we were all supposed to be “witness” to.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise.

A lot of people are crowning LeBron as the best player in the league (he’s not, Kobe is) and the next Jordan (Oscar Robertson is still the greatest of all-time but I won’t argue this now).  He has a ways to go to warrant either one of those titles.  First off, he has to win a title to even be in consideration.  Kobe has 3.  It is irrelevant that Kobe had Shaq for all 3, Jordan had Pippen, who wasn’t as good, but is still considered one of the top 50 players of all-time.  This brings up my next point.  LeBron should not be expected to win it.  His team is dreadful and he has no help, the “do it all by yourself” strategy went out of style when the Pistons won in 2004, besides, how many teams won it with one superstar and a bunch of stand-ins?  This leads to my third point.  To be the best, you have to make your teammates better.  Jordan made guys like Paxson, Kerr, and Kukoc all better players.  He even helped advance Pippen’s game to the next level which allowed him to be a top 50 player.  Kobe is galvanizing good players like Pau Gasol with stand-ins like Vujacic, Shannon Brown, and Luke Walton and making them all better than they actually are.  LeBron has yet to do this.  He’s a excellent scorer, and excellent rebounder, and an excellent assist man, but he isn’t making his teammates better.

A team is as good as the sum of its parts.  I once again reference back to the 2004 Pistons who had the greatest team that I’ve ever seen play.  They took down a team with 4 Hall of Famers (Kobe, Shaq, Gary Payton, and Karl Malone).  The reason they won is because they had 10 man rotation with legit players who all played as a team (they were bringing guys like Mehmet Okur and Mike James off the bench).  Cleveland doesn’t play as a team.  LeBron takes the ball and does with it what he wants.  I’m not saying he’s a mole but they need to get him off ball more.  Until the other guys feel like they aren’t 4th fiddle to LeBron being 1, 2, and 3, they won’t get better.

I guess Nike is gonna have to refine that puppet commercial to have Kobe talk about his 4 rings… unless Dwight Howard has something to say about it.

5.     Heart attack at the Academy Awards – I want to walk on stage, accept an award for Best Actor/Picture/Director, and keel over.  Of course I’d rather just win it and walk away fine.

4.     Drowning in a pool of Jell-O – Jell-O is awesome.  Drowning is not.  However, drowning in a pool of Jell-O might be pretty awesome.  It would have to be the kind without the gross film on top though.

3.     Hurling myself at a falling bomb – I could save a bunch of people’s lives who were about to be blown to pieces by a bomb, and go out with a bang.  This is like the opposite of being disintegrated by an atomic bomb.

2.     Fighting a pack of lions – Lions are pretty sick.  If I had to fight of a pack of lions and die doing it, that would be pretty intense.  It’s a plus if I can use snakes as whips to fend them off.

1.     Epic Space Battle – This is one of my dreams… to die in an epic space battle.  Whether I’m fighting aliens on the surface of a foreign moon or engaging in a high speed space craft chase/laser fight, I’d gladly die if it was in a space battle.

All seemed well.  He retired a Packer, they had a successor, and he was off for 5 years until his Hall of Fame induction (which he deserved).  Then he ruined it.  He came back.  This wasn’t like Jordan’s first comeback where he still had serious gas in the tank.  This was full on Washington Wizards Jordan, in football form.  He went to the Jets and everyone loved him.  Sure, they blasted him during the media circus of the offseason, but the gunslinger was back.  The Jets start out 8-3 and something great happened.  A friend of mine predicted they would go to the Super Bowl.  This set me off.  The year’s of hatred mixed with the pure fact of his downfall set me off.  I promised my friend that the Jets would not make the playoffs.  I guaranteed it.  They didn’t.  Favre threw more interceptions than touchdowns down the stretch and the Jets faltered.  They missed the playoffs and Favre retired.  But I knew better.  I knew that this man who fancied himself a football god would not lie back and let the sport move on without him, but I prayed that he would stay away.

Then the Jets drafted Mark Sanchez and did the unthinkable.  They released a retired Favre from his contract.  This freed him up to go to the one team that he wanted to go to.  The one team that could rip the Packers’ hearts out and stomp on them.  The Red Sox to the Green Bay Packer’s Yankees.  The Minnesota Vikings.  I prayed that Coach Childress and the rest of the organization would not make this move.  Then, the news broke.  Childress was going to meet with Favre.  It was going to happen.  My worst nightmare.  A washed up version of the most hated quarterback in my lifetime coming to my team to destroy them.

Brett Favre is not the best.  He is not a top 10 quarterback all-time.  He is not even a shade of what he once was.  If he comes back, he will be no better than the 30th best quarterback in the league.  He is an arrogant, self-centered, low-accuracy gunslinger with a god complex.  He is a diva.  He is an attention whore.  He will suck every piece of attention away from every other deserving player in the Vikings’ lockerroom.  Favre is a virus.  He is a cancer.  Ask Kerry Rhodes what Favre did for the Jets?  Ask Thomas Jones what Favre did for the Jets?  He tore them apart.  He is completely incapable of being humble and allowing others to take credit.  He is a lowlife who doesn’t deserve to be on an NFL roster.  I would sooner take Brad Johnson back than take this overrated filth.  Nevermind all the torcherous moments he put the Vikings through.  Nevermind what he did with the Jets last year.  Look at the simple facts, he is a diminished star, and an overrated one at that.  He belongs in Mississippi cutting grass and fishing.  He should be spending time with his family.  The point is, he is selfish.  He can’t step out of the limelight for 2 seconds without needing another glorious tan.  If he comes back, I sincerely hope we lose every single game with him under center.  I would rather go 0-16 than see the look on his arrogant, smug face if we were to accomplish even the most menial of regular season tasks.

I want Brett Favre out of the NFL forever.  I want him out of sports forever.  In fact, the next time I want to hear his name is in 40 years or so on Sportscenter when they announce his death.  I would rather go deaf than hear the name Brett Favre uttered ever again.  I would rather go blind than ever see Brett Favre in an NFL uniform again.  When he is 65 and finally retired for good I promise you I will be the happiest man on the planet.  Brett Favre, stay the hell away from the Minnesota Vikings.

The Orlando Magic are a finesse team outside of Howard.  They do nothing but shoot threes, and when they’re falling, they’re among the best in the NBA.  When they’re not falling, they lose.  When the threes aren’t falling, that is a prime time to throw the ball inside to Howard and let him work the post.  If he makes a few inside shots, it’ll free up the wings for Rashard Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu, and company.  However, they always seem to forget that Howard exists.

The Magic go through stretches (sometimes quarter long stretches) where they somehow “forget” to get the big man the ball.  He is their best, most efficient, and most impossible to stop threat.  He’s almost an instant two whenever he touches the ball within 10 feet of the basket.  A good case of this is last night’s Eastern Conference semi-final game between the Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic.  the Magic forged a massive 28 point lead in the mid-third quarter.  There was less than 20 minutes left in the game and they allowed the Celtics to pull with 3 points with less than a minute to go.  During the course of this comeback, I did not see one play run through Dwight Howard.  All the points that he scored were off of offensive rebounds, although I did not catch every play.  This is ridiculous.

Part of this should be attributed to coach Stan Van Gundy.  The lesser of the Van Gundy brothers is a choke artist, ask Shaq.  If you read my article on the top 10 most annoying people in active sports, you know how I feel about Van Gundy.  Regardless, he has accomplished nothing as a coach save for making the playoffs with some stacked Miami Heat teams and Orlando Magic teams.  He is calling the game, he should be in Rafer Alston’s ear (and Jameer Nelson’s, when he gets back) about getting the ball to Howard.

Another part of this, unfortunately, is Dwight Howard’s demeanor.  Howard is a nice guy, a fun-loving guy.  He’s not the type to demand the ball, even when it’s obvious that the ball should be in his hands.  He’s not that type of leader.  An interesting note, in contrast to this, his post-game interview today suggested to me that he may be taking a step towards that role as a vocal leader who will demand the ball.

The Magic need to incorporate Dwight Howard into the offense more consistently to be a true contender, otherwise they’ll end up as nothing more than an afterthought, as usual.s

I say dying sport with disappoinment.  Boxing was once an American tradition and is now a relative after thought.  Heavyweight boxing is all but dead and buried, I can only name 2 or 3 heavyweight boxers.  With boxing on life support, why would they put it on PPV?  They should be airing it on ESPN or ABC to try and draw in new fans.  I am not really a major boxing fan, although I do appreciate the sport.  I follow the major fights, such as last night’s Pacquiao v. Hatton fight.  If some of these matches were on cable or satellite TV, I would definitely give them a try.  Taking boxing off of PPV and putting on normal channels would be a good way to increase the fanbase.  Younger generations, like mine, don’t know a time when boxing was truly great.  Seeing boxing might encourage more people to take up the sport.

Another, more economical, reason to take boxing off of PPV is that people don’t want to pay $50 for a fight that has no guarantees.  It’s one thing to say to someone, this game is going to be 4 quarters, guaranteed.  Even then, it would be hard for me to fork over $50.  When you say to someone, this might go 12 rounds or someone might get knocked out in 30 seconds, that person has no clue what they are getting with their money.  To me, a 30 second knockout isn’t worth $50.  A 12 round epic might be worth it, but it’s not worth the risk.

Whoever is in charge of the sport should really look into getting a TV deal similar to what MMA did with CBS.  I would love to see a Pacquiao v. Mayweather Jr. fight on TV without paying.

5.     J.R. Smith, SG, Denver Nuggets – J.R. Smith is a guy that I’ve had a good feeling about for awhile.  He’s made a huge emergence this year playing next to Chauncey Billups, who pretty much made that whole team better.  Smith has the ability to shoot 3′s with great efficiency, he can get hot from the field and take over a quarter, and can throw it down with the best of them.  I like his balanced game and his potential for the future.

4.     Chris “Birdman” Anderson, PF, Denver Nuggets – Another Nugget makes my Friday Five list just ahead of his teammate.  Normally, I don’t like these comeback stories involving drugs and alcohol because I feel that these guys put themselves in the bad situation that they recovered from.  However, Birdman is too likable.  When I think of white basketball players, I think of shooters, PGs, and clumsy bigmen.  Birdman is a tattoed freak who throws it down like The Human Highlight Reel.  I also got to see him play the Sixers a few years back when he played for New Orleans, he entertained in pregame.

3.     Rajon Rondo, PG, Boston Celtics – I have to admit, I like the Celtics (not as much as my beloved Pistons).  I’ve always like KG and Ray Allen and I really appreciate how Paul Pierce never gave up on Boston even through all of the bad years, it shows character.  In a team full of future HOFs, I think Rondo is carrying that team right now.  Rondo is diverse, scrappy, a tad dirty, and incredible to watch.  Allen and Pierce have been sketchy in this first round series against Chicago so far but Rondo has been there for them every game.  Right now, I have to say he is the best PG in the league.

2.     Shaquille O’Neal, C, Phoenix Suns – The Big Cactus, Shaqovich, The Big Aristotle, Deisel, whatever you wanna call him, Shaq is possibly the most lovable player in professional sports.  He’s hilarious.  I’ve subscribed to the Phoenix Suns YouTube channel just to see what he has in store next and his Twitter updates are hysterical.  He’s always good for a classic soundbite after a game and, oh yeah, he’s one of the greatest basketball players of all-time.

1.     Joe Johnson, SG, Atlanta Hawks – He may not be displaying any clutch ability in the playoffs right now (although his Hawks are up 3-2 to Miami) but he’s still my favorite player right now.  He comes across as a nice, fun loving guy who can play with the best of them.  I remember when he left Phoenix for Atlants, I thought he was crazy.  Now who looks smart?  Johnson can shoot, drive, and has a little post game as well (like yours truly).  Mostly, I just like the way he seems to get the better of LeBron when they play.

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Sometimes, though, you don’t have a true vested interest in a game or series.  Sometimes you just look at two teams and say, “I really hate this team, so I’ll root for the other.”  This is the case whenever the Packers, Cavaliers, Yankees, Buckeyes, or Duke Blue Devils play.  Sometimes, such as in Super Bowl XLII, I am rooting for one team for historical purposes.  The Patriots were 18-0 going into that game.  I had been lucky enough to attend the 16-0 win at Giants Stadium.  I am a Tom Brady fan and I am still a Moss fan from his days in Minnesota.  I wanted the Pats to win so bad that when they lost, I literally felt sick to my stomach.  I wanted to see history.  I wanted to see Moss, who had been my favorite player, win a ring.  I wanted Mercury Morris to shut the hell up.  That game is one of the greatest games ever played.  It was amazing.  However, during the game, I couldn’t recognize that because I was so caught up being a fan.  Over a year removed from it, I can look back and appreciate it but there’s nothing like appreciating it in the moment.  I appreciated the Red Sox comeback in 2004 while it was happening and I can remember the sustained amazement.  Whenever I think about that Super Bowl, I remember how sick I felt that history slipped through their fingers.  It’s hard for a fan to look at things from outside of their own hopes.  Sometimes, being a fan might not be the best thing.

10.    Stan Van Gundy – The lesser of the Van Gundy brothers is one of the most whiny coaches in sports.  He constantly blames his team for his stupid playcalling.  When you have the best center in the game, Dwight Howard, and you only draw plays up for Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis from beyond the arc, you deserve to lose.  And guess what Stan… it’s your fault.  Shaq was right about this guy, he’s a choke artist.

9.     Sidney Crosby – Hockey’s golden boy is just as whiny as Van Gundy.  He may be the golden boy but this is hockey, nobody wants a golden boy.  Alexander Ovechkin is a real man.  He goes out there and hits people, scores goals while sliding on his stomach, and leads his team back from a 3-1 deficit in a best of 7 series.  Crosby can keep crying about Ovechkin’s attitude, it ain’t gonna change the fact that he’s a cry baby.

8.     LeBron James – Overhyped, overrated, over confident.  LeBron is all these things.  For some punk who was crowned “King James” straight out of high school and was basically given the keys to the NBA Ferrari at age 18, he has so little respect for the game.  When you hit a 15 foot jumpshot in the first quarter of a regular season game, you don’t need to pound your chest like you won Game 7 of the Finals.  Don’t get me started on the pregame crap and the Heineken parody.

7.     Hank Steinbrenner – I hate the Yankees.  I hate George Steinbrenner.  I really hate Hank Steinbrenner.  He never shuts his mouth, ever.  Joe Torre led that franchise to prominence after years of mediocrity and Hank has the audacity to fire him for making the playoffs?  What the eff?  He complains when the Yankees don’t start the year 30-0 and decides to call out all of Red Sox Nation by saying that the term “Red Sox Nation” is a joke.  Shut it, Hank.

6.     “The Rivalry” Fans – This is for both Yankee and Red Sox fans, myself (a Sox fan) included.  Shut up.  Baseball, believe it or not, does not revolve around you.  The MLB will in fact play a World Series if one of your teams is not in it.  Yankee fans are so quick to despise their team because they miss the playoffs once in 13 years and Sox fans think they’re royalty now that Boston has 2 titles in the past 5 years after an 86 year drought.  Idiots.

5.     Trent Dilfer/Tim Hasselbeck – The two former quarterbacks working for ESPN as analysts (if you can call sitting the bench being a former quarterback).  Neither one of these chuckle heads is entitled to say a damn thing about a current NFL QB.  They both have an extreme bias towards my boy Tarvaris Jackson, as evident by them bringing up how bad he is with neither Jackson nor the Vikings anywhere near the topic of conversation.  Ray Lewis won you that ring Dilfer and the only reason Tim is relevant is because his brother is a good QB and his wife is on The View.  College Football Live, gents.

4.     Minnesota Vikings Fans – The only thing worse than two clowns on ESPN blindly bad mouthing Tarvaris Jackson is the Vikings’ own fans doing it.  I am the president and only member of the T-Jack fan club.  I have yet to see one Vikings fan who does not want Jackson out of the state.  They praise Sage Rosenfels for coming in despite his turnover numbers being worse than T-Jack’s.  These are some of the most ignorant fans out there, they don’t even like their own team.

3.     Raphael Nadal – Nadal annoys me beyond all reason.  The capri pants.  The stupid headband.  The unnecessary long hair and ridiculous over-the-top celebrations.  I hate this guy.  I can’t even explain it, he just bothers me.  Roddick is a professional.  Federer is a professional.  Djokovic is a professional.  This guy just looks like a complete tool.

2.     Cristiano Ronaldo – This guy annoys me as much, if not more, than Nadal except I can explain this one.  He is a bigger cry baby than Sidney Crosby, he whines more than Stan Van Gundy, and he flops more often than Vlade Divac.  Seriously, Cristiano Ronaldo should look into trademarking the term “flop”, he might have a case since he does it so damn often.  He cries when things don’t go his way.  He’s everything that annoys America about soccer.

1.     Brett Favre – At the beginning of the blog post I said “active sports figures”, Brett Favre is not technically active… that’s why he’s on this list.  Forget the countless times he has ruined my afternoon (or season) as a Vikings fan.  Forget the way people faun over him like he’s Joe Montana and Jerry Rice combined (not even close).  He just soaks in all of the media attention.  The only reason he came back last year was to bask in the glory of his own arrogance.  He is not the best QB of all-time.  He’s not even top 5.  Maybe not top 10.  This guy is a bigger menace than swine flu.  Please, Brett, for the love of God, stay away from the NFL forever… especially my Vikings.

Is dog fighting illegal in the United States?  Yes.  Was Mike Vick involved in dog fighting?  Yes.  I’m fine with people being upset with Vick, calling him a bad role model, and saying that he should go to prison.  I’m not fine with people treating him like a soulless serial killer who should be either executed or put away for life.  The original backlash when the story first broke was outrageous and, quite frankly, superfluous.  The backlash now has settled down, but is still excessive.  My point is, people treat an animal life like multiple human lives.

First of all, I have to say, I believe that dog fighting (and cock fighting for that matter) are wrong.  However, I believe it is a cultural thing.  For instance, cock fighting is both legal and extremely popular in the Dominican Republic.  People in the Dominican are no less morally upstanding than we are, but they enjoy cock fighting.  This does not excuse Vick’s act, which is illegal in the States, but it does provide a partial excuse, in my opinion, for his moral decision making.

People treat animal cruelty cases with more raw emotion than they do with human cases.  If Vick killed a man, the outrage would be far less than it was when the dog fighting case broke out.  Look at the Ray Lewis murder case.  Hardly anyone outside the world of sports will remember that now but everyone knows Mike Vick because he was responsible for killing dogs.  Ray Lewis was found innocent and Vick was found guilty, but it is still relevant.  Outside of the family of the victim, human murderers are not usually looked at with extreme contempt unless they are serial killers.  People in animal cruelty cases, as evident with the Vick case, are viewed in a similar way to serial killers.

The fact of the matter is, people consider killing dogs to be as bad as killing humans and this is why the outrage toward Vick is so great.  This is only warranted if you believe that the life of a dog is equal to the life of a human.  I do not believe that.  Call me heartless, call me an elitist, call me whatever, that is what I believe.  God gave man dominion over the earth and its creatures.  We are more intelligent and more evolved than dogs, or any other known animal for that matter.  If you believe in the food chain, which I don’t see how you can’t, you should agree that a human life is more valuable than the life of a dog.  It’s the circle of life.

A lot of people may find major fault with this thought process.  A lot of people will give you the whole act about how all creatures are equal and deserve the right to life and all that.  It’s ridiculous.  People can say that but I guarantee you they’re gonna go home and eat a piece of chicken, steak, or beef that came from a dead animal that was bred to be slaughtered.  And if you get a vegan or vegetarian who doesn’t eat meat for that very reason, you can bet they’ve stepped on an ant, squashed a spider, eaten some vegetable (plants are alive too), or used some germ killing solution for something.  Shaolin monks who use brooms to brush small creatures out of the way so they don’t step on even the smallest of animals are just about the only people who can gripe about animal cruelty for the traditional reasons.

You can bet that people are going to throw a huge fit because Egypt just recently ordered all of their pigs to be slaughtered due to swine flu.  It’s just the way people are.  I just don’t believe that an animal’s life is worth as much as a humans.  This does not mean that I condone testing make-up on hamsters or wasting the life of an animal for frivolous reasons, I don’t.  Animals, like all living things, serve a function for the earth.  If we need to eat animals to survive, than so be it.

This brings me back to dog fighting.  Dog fighting is killing animals for a frivolous reason.  That is why I don’t condone it.  However, it should not elicit the type of response towards Michael Vick that is usually reserved for serial killers.  It is a minor federal crime, Vick was found guilty, he is serving his time, let it go.  When he gets out of prison, he is out of prison for a reason.  Let the man continue his life without the unnecessary outrage.