This review was originally posted on Epinions.com.

After a several year lay-off in which her entire personal life was all over the tabloids, Britney Spears is back, with a new album called Blackout. Being that she was in the tabloids for reasons having to do with lots of partying, maybe Blackout is the perfect title. This new album is a definite upgrade from her previous album In The Zone. The hit song from that album, Toxic was what the entire album should’ve sounded like. Here, Spears (and her producers) take no chances. The feel on this new album is frenetic, with beats going every which a way, thundering out her voice to where she seems like a supporting actress on her own album. And that might just be the best thing about this new album.

The album is constructed in a way where it seemed each producer’s main goal was to make that Britney Spears comeback record that would put her back on the map. It was like each was trying on that glass slipper to try to be the one who was solely responsible for making the one time hit queen, important in music again. Where Spears and her producers succeed is in making her music relevant. This isn’t the same old, same old that plagued her last new studio release. Much of the music is highly danceable and it works. Producers Bloodshy & Avant give her the euro-dance pop sound. Britney’s voice has never been more tinkered with, and for this music fan, that’s a plus. With songs like Pieces of Me and Radar, it’s the music that’s important, not necessarily what she’s singing about. Her voice is given the T-Pain treatment with the vocoder and if you can get past the fact that it’s a gimmick that’s used far too much in music today, you’ll understand that it was made for her.

Read More

Even though I shouldn’t be, why am I so fond of Kim Kardashian?

And since I just mentioned her name, instead of everyone leaving to google her (because you’ll see far more of Ray J than you’d ever want to see), I’ll post a few pictures here.

She’s in Playboy next month.

Every year, my family goes all out for Halloween. It serves two purposes. For one, my family is just crazy about holidays. My mom specifically has gone above and beyond the call of duty with Halloween in the past. This year, it was Mike’s (Nak) and Kim’s party. They took over the reigns this year and this might be their party to do every year. The second reason we have Halloween parties is because my grandmother was born on Halloween. She’s the woman who gave birth to 7 boys and 7 girls and is responsible for all of this.

Mike and his wife Kim did a great job with their house. Their garage was where the music was at. They put black construction paper along the walls so that the room was really dark. Manny decided to show his son Raiden how to dance and it was like he was taken back to 1984. The dude was on fire. For a second, I thought Mike hired someone to dance as an attraction. He was that good. And Raiden was just laughing so hard.

Electric Boogaloo

I stole Eddy Zucko’s costume idea from last year and dressed as the almighty Hulkster. Eddy dressed up as Hiro Nakamura from the TV show Heroes, so that should let people know that he wasn’t dressed as a young Uncle Hank. He told me that he saw the box of his DVD set of the first season of Heroes and noticed that he had the entire outfit in his closet.

Read More

If you look above, you’ll see a new banner. It’s a great new banner in fact. Thanks to my webmaster and creative genius-like friend Carletta, in one small banner, you kind of get to see what encapsulates this blog. If only she put a picture of Ryan Seacrest in there, would it be more descriptive of this blog. But hey, there were too many guys up there, so we had to use Trish Stratus instead. And plus, that’s about the closest Young Randall will ever get to Trish in his life.

From left to right – The Coach, Double J, Uncle L, Double Bri, my wife Trish, Young Randall, the man (BWalsh), and Eddy Zucko dressed as another great man, the Hulkster.

Thanks to Carletta (C tha OG) for the beautiful banner. After writing this thing for over 6 years, you need a little shake up. I have a feeling we’ll go through many more of these shake ups.

About 4 weeks ago, I looked at the schedule and thought the game this past weekend against the NY Giants was winnable. Fast forward to last weekend, and I pretty much knew it wasn’t going to be. During that span, the Giants all of a sudden became one of the top teams in the NFC. And with Brandon Jacobs back and Plaxico Burress looking like the new Michael Irvin, there was no way we were going to win. And I didn’t even mention their defense. From strictly a front four perspective, they are crazy. I think Trent Dilfer is seeing Osi Umenyiora in his sleep and waking up in a cold sweat. If you look back at the game, the Giants offense didn’t really do all that much. But they took time off the clock, and made first downs. Brandon Jacobs looked formidable, but against a bigger defense, I’m not sure he has enough speed to be a game breaker. But he moves those sticks. With Trent Dilfer at QB, there’s not really much we can do. He’s a good leader and with a team like the Baltimore Ravens several years ago, where he doesn’t have to do much other than hand off and make third and short conversions, he’s fine. But on the 49ers, where they play from behind, need big plays in order to survive, and are hapless offensively otherwise, he’s an awful fit. Thankfully, Alex Smith is back this weekend. Let’s just hope he doesn’t play like the Alex Smith of the first 4 weeks.

My dad usually waits until midweek to send me his thoughts, but he was ready the very next day.

Would we be better off with a new coach? Offensive coordinator?  QB?  A running back with more faith?

I’d say the only one that I would answer yes to is the second one. I think it’s very obvious now that they need a shake up on offense, and the offensive coordinator is easy to point the finger at to make a change. But was it his fault that they lost to the Giants? Nope, not even close.

Offensively we were very bad. There is no getting around that.  As a coach, it is the worst feeling when your ship is sinking and no one wants to help with the bailing of the water.  I think the Niners are in mental shut down.  There is no joy in the Monster Park locker room.  It would take a Bill Walsh, Vince Lombardi, Don Shula like butt reaming to get these guys to quit making so many mistakes.

Right now, I’d take a Dennis Erickson like butt reaming. Wait, that didn’t sound right. Let’s just carry on.

I kind of like Dilfer. We saw him get a little frustrated and push A DB who tackled him.

Let’s Get That Hat Back On Trent

Read More

Since the 49ers were on a bye week, there was nothing much going on in 49ers land. It seems as if Alex Smith will be back in the near future (though one bad fall and he could be hurt worse), Vernon Davis will be back sooner, and Jim Hostler still has a job. Enough about those guys.

Last weekend, Eddy Zucko, my dad, Michele (Billy’s wife) and I watched the Dallas Cowboys play the New England Patriots. Because of the Raiders game, the game of the week wasn’t on regular television. Billy has a dish and the NFL package, so we were able to check the game out. I wanted to watch the game for a few reasons. For one, Eddy is a Cowboys fan and he wanted to watch the game. But for two, I wanted to see more of this crazy New England Patriots team. They remind me more and more of the old 49ers teams of yesteryear. Their offense is structured a little differently as they are even more of a pass dominant team than those old 49ers teams were. Randy Moss is on fire and Wes Welker is seems like he’s going to catch 100 passes this year. Their defense makes plays when it counts, but can give up some points and yardage because teams are always coming from behind. Lots of people say that the 1985 Chicago Bears were the scariest team in league history. That is probably true. They didn’t even really have to do much offensively to win. But I think the 1989 49ers were better. That team had awesome talent and played close maybe two games all year long, including the playoffs. Where will history put this Patriots team?

Read More

Great Great Man Award #1

Our second Great Great Man award winner has been in many classic movies. He’s a classic thespian with great hair. If you had to put your finger on when steroids might’ve come into Hollywood, you might point to the movie The Outsiders where our great man posed shirtless for a few seconds and women all over the world felt all tingly and snuggly. Our great great man is also supposedly a fan of big, wobbly knockers, but I haven’t been able to confirm that just yet.

Our great great man has compared a love lost to wind. He’s a dancer. He’s danced with people like Jennifer Gray and even the ever photogenic Whoopi Goldberg. His last name is used in pop culture lingo. You want to be referred to as ghost, or gone? You’re referred to by this man’s last name. He’s outdone Rupaul, Wong Foo, and Julie Newmar, all without even breaking a sweat. And most importantly, he didn’t allow Baby to be put in a corner.

Read More

I remember when the 49ers used to play in the big games. I remember a Monday Night match-up against the NY Giants. I believe both teams were undefeated. I remember mid season match-ups against the Dallas Cowboys. There were even games where the Rams were right atop the NFC West with the 49ers. Those big games are no more. The reason I was thinking about those games is because of the match-up between the Dallas Cowboys and the New England Patriots. It’s such an interesting game that I called up Billy Parker to see if Edson and me (and maybe my dad if he wants) could head over his house to watch the ball game on his dish. Billy is a huge Cowboys fan. I’m sure he was cursing Tony Romo’s name on Monday Night after the 5th interception, but he forgives and forgets. I’m sure he’s forgiven Danny White after all these years.

(In 1987, after the 49ers lost to the Minnesota Vikings and Anthony Carter in the playoffs, Billy spray pained “Sorry 49ers” on the street. I had to restrain my dad from calling the police on Billy for vandalism. Just kidding. Sort of.)

By the way, I had to mention this. I didn’t see the post game show after the Monday Night Football game, but I heard that Emmitt Smith tried to quote Jim Valvano. Valvano had cancer and was at the ESPY’s and said, “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” It was a truly inspiring moment and one that ESPN plays all the time. I guess Emmitt was so excited over Dallas’ victory (and jeez, Michael Irvin was so happy in the box that I thought he had some hookers with him) that he tried to quote Jim Valvano. Now, I’m not even going to try to figure out how you can compare a man’s fight with cancer and a football game, but supposedly Emmitt said he was going to quote Valvano and then said, “Don’t quit, don’t ever quit.” You have to love that Emmitt for being Emmitt. Great football player. Not so great speaking on television.

Read More

One of the greater YouTube videos out there today. Not only is it great that he performs a bunch of very popular and memorable songs by using the same four chords, but maybe my favorite part is his buddy in the back who is simply watching TV, and minding his own business as if he’s seen his buddy do this a thousand times.

See if you can guess all the songs he performs in the comment section below.

We’re four games in and I’ve learned two things so far. The first thing I’ve learned is not to make predictions on the games any more. The 49ers made my pick look foolish in their loss to Seattle last weekend. Secondly, this team is in bad shape offensively. Without Frank Gore running through men, their offense is predictable, short on game breaking talent, and are all of a sudden, average in the offensive line. That last one boggles my mind. Last year, the offensive line was busting open holes for Gore left and right. This year, not so much. And we all thought that with Kwame Harris no longer in the starting lineup allowing floods, that the pass protection would improve. That hasn’t been the case.

The 49ers have already lost Manny Lawson for the year and Vernon Davis and Alex Smith for the time being. After two games, they looked like a team who were lucky to be in the position they were in, but were ready to start playing better. After four games, they look like one of the most overrated teams in the league.

Rather than lament on the season in paragraph form, I decided to ask some questions.

1. How can Norv Turner be hurting both the San Diego Chargers and the 49ers? Can one man do so much damage?

The 49ers need him. The Chargers don’t. Can’t we make a trade here?

2. If you employed Julian Peterson for several years, helped him turn into a pass rushing specialist, and decided to let him go when he became too expensive, would you A) pay attention to him because he’s fast and blitzes a lot, B) forget he’s on the field and let him hit your quarterback unprotected, or C) tell him to stop pointing at his back like Rob Van Dam every time makes a play.

Let’s just say the 49ers didn’t think A was the correct answer. And they never had a chance to get close enough to tell him about C.

3. Since when did Darrell Jackson think it was cool to look like Ned The Wino from “Good Times”?

Not a good look DJack, not a good look. By the way, did we ever know what Ned The Wino looked like? If not, I’d imagine that he looked like DJack. (By the way, there are no pictures I can find on the web that do him justice.)

4. When did Mark Roman become a marketable player and why does he get his own downloadable wallpaper?

Click and see.

Read More