Netflix thinks I might also like:

In the order suggested (plus one fake—can you guess which?):

Journalist Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale) turns Washington on its ear when she outs a casual acquaintance (Vera Farmiga) as a CIA agent. 

Three years in the making, this profile of Nike SB reveals a side of each skater few people ever see: candid, uncensored—and completely fictional. Of course, with this team, the cameras also capture the best skateboarding on the planet. 

Through intimate one-on-one interviews, celebrity journalist Rona Barrett learns the secrets and dreams of Hollywood legends such as Cher, Raquel Welch, Robin Williams, John Travolta, John Wayne, Burt Reynolds, Richard Dreyfuss and many more.  

This musical compilation covers two decades of garage punk and 1960s-style rock, showcasing musicians ranging from cult favorites the Gun Club and Link Wray to more recent bands Saturn V and Empress of Fur. 

When elderly orphanage caretakers lose their lives through odd suicides and accidents, inspector Charles Bingham (Christopher Lee) and forensics expert Sir Mark Ashley (Peter Cushing) investigate the situation and unravel a diabolical conspiracy involving sadistic cult members. 

Stock market millionaire Chris Thorne (Chevy Chase) and investment lawyer Diane Lightson (Demi Moore) are headed to Atlantic City when they take the wrong exit off the New Jersey Turnpike. 

This documentary follows the journey of Garrett Kroschel, an animal-loving teenager raised in Alaska.

An aging marshall (George Kennedy) battles an eastern dandy (Glen Campbell) for rights to a gold mine—until both are distracted by the arrival of a young widow (Meredith Baxter-Birney).

It's so obvious to see what links all of these pictures together, isn't it? It's your inability to tell Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing apart. (Hint: One of them played Dracula. No, wait. They both did. One was in Star Wars. No, wait . . .)

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Please let me know if you will or will not be playing hoops at St. John's tomorrow. We tip off at 8:00 a.m., as usual.

No free lunch

OK, first question:

 

The president of KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN is AUSTRALIAN? WTF?!

 

Nice job, KFC. The very first thing I heard about your overwhelmingly successful promotion is that it's CANCELLED.

 

Oh, sorry: Not cancelled. I just have to visit a KFC, request a rain check request form, fill out the form and return it postmarked yesterday, after which you'll send me a rain check request confirmation form, which I will have to hand-carry to my local KFC regional franchise relations office, have stamped by Blanche, then scan and submit electronically to www.nochickenforyou.com. Then just sit back and wait for my voucher approval form, which will be valid sometime between Halloween and the Super Bowl, based on ZIP code.

 

WTF?!? Did anyone, at any point in planning this promotion, not say, "Wow, what if lots and lots of people respond this?" Didn't you run a basic best-case response scenario? "Say, Jenkins, I'm running some back-of-the-envelope calculations here, and it looks like if we get a 0.0021% response rate, we could have to give away 12 million chicken breasts. Lemme bounce that off Phil in accounting, but I think that puts us in government bailout territory."

 

Guys: If you can't fulfill the offer, DON'T RUN THE !#$%^&* PROMOTION. Ummmmm . . . test market, maybe? Say, run in Waukegan and Moline first to get a read? Just a thought.

 

Congratulations, KFC. Your entire marketing department was just granted instant tenure at the University of WTF.

(Hat tip: Dowding)

Return of the Chucker

No, not Chuck Kloos (we wish). Loved this item from ESPN.com earlier this week. Enjoy—and let me know if you will or will not be playing at St. John's tomorrow. We tip off at 8:00 a.m., as usual. (Hat tip: Dowding)

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Return of the Chucker

Ray Allen is a shooter. Paul Pierce is a scorer. And Ben Gordon?

He's a chucker. Bless his unconscionable soul.

No hesitation. No remorse. Nooooo ..... yes! Beyond the fantastic finishes and gasping, shorts-tugging effort from both squads, the best thing about the ongoing Boston-Chicago NBA playoff series has been Gordon's emergence as a full-blown, bonafide chucker—species: chuckimus maximus—the sort of fire-and-forget player whose definition of a good shot is the one he's about to take.

The sort of player basketball can't do without.

We're taught to despise chuckers. For being selfish. For gumming up the flow of a pass-first, me-last game. For being pickup teammates from hell. And yet: chuckers are wildly entertaining (rookie Kobe Bryant). They make big shots (Nick Van Exel, Chuck Person). They get paid big money (think Cedric Ceballos, perhaps the greatest garbage time scorer in league history). They even win (Allen Iverson, definitely the greatest chucker of all time, almost Tommy-gunned his way to a championship). And all the while, the thrill is ours as much as theirs. In their dedication to—ahem—"volume shooting," in their insistence on launching the rock with the discretion of a jet-powered catapult, Gordon and Co. are vicarious stand-ins for everyone who ever put up and tore down a Nerf hoop, for anyone who ever spent a hour shooting baskets in their driveway.

Deep down, chuckers are us.

Late in the fourth quarter of Tuesday's Celtics victory, Gordon dribbled toward the right baseline, picked up the ball and staggered forward on his pivot foot, effectively out of options. The score was tied at 91. The clock ticked down. For a second, Gordon half-heartedly looked to pass; he then jacked up a leaning, one-legged non-jumper with a defender on his hip, a preposterously ill-advised shot that left color commentator Doug Collins incredulous.

"What is he doing?" Collins exclaimed.

Swish. The ball dropped through the net. What was Gordon doing? The same thing the rest of us wish we could.

—Patrick Hruby, ESPN.com Page 2