Howard Stern Hypocrisy Watch: Part I

Don't get me wrong. I am a huge fan of the King of Most Media ($46 million in domestic receipts for Private Parts doesn't cut it) and have been since he burst into the Philly market in 1986. And his show on Sirius is his best work to date. As good as Howard consistently is, he is also a consistent hypocrite.

Case in point is one Bianca Romijn-Stamos, Howard Stern's English Bulldog. Bianca is the one in the bottom right of the photo, ironically at a fundraiser for the North Shore Animal League, an organization dedicated to "saving the lives of pets through adoption, rescue, spay/neuter and advocacy initiatives." And, of course, as we all know, the North Shore Animal League is Beth O's cause celebre.

Which brings me to today's example of Howard's hypocrisy. If he and Beth are so concerned about the plight of homeless and abandoned animals, then why oh why did the two purchase Bianca for $2,000 from a breeder in 2002? Couldn't the King and his future bride simply stop by North Shore and take their pick of the litter? Or better yet, why didn't they go to the neighborhood "kill shelter" and rescue a poor little pooch from the gallows? Why, you ask? Because Howie is a hypocrite, that's why.

And who's this handsome devil you say? That's Hodge (aka Rocky), who Hester and I rescued from a shelter in our neighborhood - The Animal Orphanage in Voorhees, NJ. Say what you want about Hester and me, but we ain't no hypocrites.

Sirius Stiletto 2 Receiver Review (poor signal reception)

I've had a Sirius S50 receiver until just recently. It was the most persnickity piece of hardware ever. Crashing, seizing, intermittently not recording shows. A D- to its creators.

Yesterday, a lot of that changed when my wife got me the Sirius Stiletto 2 receiver (at the recommendation of my co-author Samuel Johnson). What follows is my initial review and a touch of public service/advice.

What you should know. I work in a high rise in Philadelphia so I rely on a terrestrial repeater for my office signal. With the S50, my signal was never a problem in the office. Right off the bat, the Stiletto 2 was dropping signal right and left. Totally unacceptable to a Howard Stern and Whatever addict.

So I pushed my Sirius antenna (which was attached to a Sirius Home Dock Kit SUPH1 -- more about this POS later) all over the place trying to get a better signal. The antenna didn't pick up shit. Fucking pissed off that the S50 got a much better signal--using the same antenna--I looked all over the Web for answers.

I found none but have solved or at least understand the problem. Apparently there are 4 ways to get a signal on the Stiletto. First, from the satellite. Second, through a direct Internet connection. Third, through a Wi-Fi connection. And fourth, through a terrestrial repeater. It's this fourth signal that I catch in my office because the tinted windows of my building block the satellite reception.

Oddly, the terrestrial antenna is not part of the square Sirius antenna. The Stiletto 2's terrestrial antenna is IN THE RECEIVER. So the closer I put the receiver to the window, the better the signal I receive. Problem solved, but fucking annoying that the receiver has a weaker terrestrial antenna than the S50.

Don't get me wrong. It's way better than the S50 that I had so I am happy with it. Still, here are some other major flaws:

(1) There are 2 home docking station options. 1, the SLH2, is sold out at every vendor. The other--the one I have (the SUPH1)--has no remote control so I have to be sitting on top of the player to do any function.

SUPH1



SLH2



(2) On the receiver, you can't scroll through channels without going 2 deep into the menus. (You can only scroll through the presets.) You should be able to channel scroll from the main screen.

(3) The pause "buffer" is only 60 minutes. With all the storage available, why not let the pause buffer be variable by the size available in the hard drive. Or let the user set the buffer size. I often have to pause my radio while I leave the office for more than 1 hour. It would be excellent if I could return to the office 3 hours later and pick up right where I left off.

(4) There is no way to stop the screen from dimming to save its energy. That is stupid. It's a small screen and when it's plugged in, I shouldn't have to keep tapping the screen when I want to see what's on.

All that said, the Stiletto 2 is a massive upgrade over the S50 and the blocky headphone antenna combo is great. The Wi-Fi is also fantastic.

MMA - Never Again

I have to admit it. For a while there, I was sucked into the hype of MMA. I couldn't get enough of the UFC. I lapped up all things PRIDE. I went down to the local watering hole for each of the UFC numbered pay-per-view events.

And then, one day, while watching the "Iceman" (Chuck Liddell) the poster boy for MMA, I realized that Liddell (allegedly the hardest hitting man in the UFC)
wouldn't last three rounds with a Bernard Hopkins or Antonio Tarver or even the current Roy Jones, Jr. He has mediocre (at best) boxing skills, has bad fitness, slow hand speed, poor footwork, and little defense. He just tosses wild hay makers and hopes one happens to dent the tomato can in front of him. As bad as boxing has descended over the past couple of decades, MMA has neither surpassed it, nor even approached it, not by a long shot.

Nothing could have been clearer after I watched the fiasco that CBS turned out last night. The so-called Elite XC show on prime time. It should have been called bore-fest 2008. For the most part it was oh-so-brief matches surrounded by interminable periods of talk and seemingly endless walks to the cage. You know a card sucks when the best bout was turned in by Gina Carano, for nearly obvious reasons. Although she does have some pugilistic skills, as I once quipped about women preachers, "a woman fighting is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It's not done well but you are surprised to find it done at all."

The fiasco dragged on nearly an hour past its scheduled end and was punctuated by the worst farce of a main attraction of all time - Kimbo Slice - the over hyped, old, utterly unskilled, YouTube street fighter, with all of two MMA bouts under his belt v. James Thompson who came in a loser in six of his last eight matches. The match utterly stunk. Slice was taken down repeatedly and pounded nearly into submission by a guy with absolutely no ground game. He only "won" because he managed to land a shot on Thompson's mangled cauliflower ear (nearly causing it to fall off) forcing the ref to stop the "fight."
Judging from Slice's collapse at the end of the fight and inability to speak to Gus Johnson in post-fight interview, had Thompson's ear stayed on, we would've seen Creed-Rocky 1 - only in the third round, not the 15th.

So for me, dog, it's time to say goodbye to anyMore Mediocre Athletes and focus my energies on people with actual talent in shows like "So You Think You Can Dance."

Sam Johnson