Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Contender Finale
Wednesday
May 25, 2005
The season (and like series) finale of The Contender was exciting last night. The live match went seven rounds, with "The Latin Snake" Sergio Mora beating Peter Manfredo Jr. in a brutal match that went to the judges. Mora played the rudo role, including taunting Manfredo's father, who was at ringside. WWE, take note. You don't need any ridiculous storylines to get people interested. Keep it simple, make the match matter, throw in a little family emotion (but without them doing run-ins or anything dumb like that) and you can put on a great show.
Also, I failed to mention yesterday just how good the finale of 24 was on Monday night. Two hours of compelling TV. There was a bit of unintentional comedy when Jack Bauer put on sunglasses to go incognito as he walked into the sunset to end the show, but they did a great job with everything. The next season returns in January 2006.
The Spurs beat the Suns last night to go up 2-0 in their series heading back to San Antonio. After what happened in October 2004, I'm not going to start writing trash talk until what's done is done with the Spurs (my favorite NBA team, dating back to when they drafted David Robinson in 1987). Then again, I don't dislike the Suns, who are a fun team to watch. It's not like the Red Sox, who I despise. If it was Spurs/Lakers, it would be a different story. Regardless, no jinxing or
MacCullough factor from me.
Normally flash movies on the internet end up being more of a waste of time than they're worth (in my opinion), but one that a friend of mine (who might not want to be identified in this forum in connection with this) sent me is damn hilarious. It's worth checking out: click here to see it. Titled The Nightly Potato, it's a great parody of contemporary TV, particularly the news biz.
|  | "Can you make change for a ten thousand dollar bill?"
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Following up on what I wrote yesterday... did you know who appeared on the $10,000 bill? It was someone you probably have never heard of: Salmon P. Chase. Who? According to answers.com, Chase served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury for the first three years of Abraham Lincoln's term. Lincoln then appointed him to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; as Chief Justice, Chase presided over the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. He also served as Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator from Ohio.
But still, that gets you on the $10,000 bill? The other high value bills ($500, $1,000, $5,000 and $100,000) were all presidents: William McKinley, Grover Cleveland, James Madison and Woodrow Wilson, respectively. Speaking of higher currency bills, I wonder if the $500 will ever be brought back due to inflation, or if the government would prefer to keep the cap on $100 to limit the off-the-books transactions that it can't tax?
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