Fo'

That's right, today's entry is brought to you by the immortal words of Moses Malone. Cubbies have won four straight!

I didn't get to watch or listen to the game today as I actually have a job now, but I did stay updated via my secret agent watch. Prior pitched a beauty today against the Pirates, racking up 10 strikeouts and giving up one paltry unearned run. Henry Blanco, who's bat is as inversely adept as his glove, had two RBI doubles today and Todd Walker added a two-run homer to push the Cubs winning streak to half their losing streak from two weeks earlier. Maybe they can climb out of the hole they dug before the break. Tomorrow it's Woodie, who needs a quality start desperately, against Josh Fogg in another matinee. Once again, I'll have to rely on my crack team of gadget people to keep me updated while I'm at the "office," but hopefully I'll have a Cubs win to carry me through what looks to be a dreadful adaptation of Willy Wonka that night. I was so excited for this movie a year ago when I learned it was Burton/Depp, but I'm skeptical after seeing scenes of Depp behaving badly.

So much so that I've decided to set a morning line against which remake will be worse Wonka or Bad News Bears. This is really tough, as I just watched the original Bears and it's pretty damn terrific. The new one is a mere PG-13 and can come nowhere near the political incorrectness of the original. It does have Billy Bob Thornton, which lends a sliver of hope, but there's only so much one man can do against the ratings board.

This is a tough race to handicap. On one hand, we know that Wonka is almost an entire reimagining of the original. On the other, we know that Bears has openly acknowledged that it can't touch the original in terms of shear lewdness. So the determining factor becomes, which movie do we hold dearer in our hearts? Personally, I would go with the Bad News Bears, but I think the betting public probably likes Wonka a little more. Therefore, Mike Battaglia and I have determined that Burton/Depp is the chalk at a short price of 2-5. This makes the combo of Thornton/Linklater the second choice, and thereby the longshot, at 2-1. (For those of you who don't get in to the horse racing mumbo jumbo, this means that out of seven average people who see Wonka, two will like it more than the original. Out of three good folk who see Bears, 2 will like it more than the original.) And remember, gambling is bad, don't ever do it.

ASIDE: For a recent fan of the Hi-Plains, a burgeoning pharmacist (the legit kind) who commissioned me to follow the Philadelphia Eagles in the upcoming season: It will take 12 pence and half chicken (guy's gotta eat) to follow a perennial place runner for an entire season. That means they always finish second. First off, I really don't care about the NFL and secondly, without T.O. the Eagles are done. The bitterness may stem from my one trip to Pittsburgh, where the Huskers, in near flood conditions, beat the eventual BCS Bowl qualifying Pitt Panthers without a competent quarterback and with an NFL refugee coach. Sure Nebraska didn't go to a bowl for the first time since hippies roamed the earth, but they did beat Pitt...at home.