Friday Randomness

PJS Note: The next part in the basketball year in review is still on it's way, but for now I'm going to launch a new installment which will run every Friday. I'll touch on smaller items that don't deserve a singular post and other random things, from movies to other good reads from the blogosphere.

** Free advice for Minnesota football coach Tim Brewster: As a public relations professional myself (yes, I'm now a paid flack after leaving the dying print newspaper business), I fully understand your desire to drum up interest in your product by any means necessary. I also understand your desire to re-brand the Golden Gophers football program. These are good goals all.

However, for you to state that you've spent the last six months working with Nike to design the program, well, that might give some the perception that you've been playing with crayons instead of figuring out how to stop an opposing offense (we do remember your first version of Gophers were an NCAA worst in this department).

There were some other minor mistakes in the introduction of these new uniforms. Timing, my friend, is everything. Having a press event at the same time that Tubby Smith received a verbal from local big man Royce White and the Vikings signed and traded for Jared Allen, well, that was poor timing. Perhaps the press availability could have been rescheduled. Obviously you'd have to come up with an excuse for this, but most of us fans, and the three reporters who attended, would understand if you were taking part in a coaching camp somewhere.

Finally, you said "As you can see, it's a clean, classic look. It's about clean. It's about sleek. It's about pride."

I have no idea what this means. The uniforms themselves? Decent. But anything is better than the gold-on-gold atrocity we saw last season. See them via a STrib video here. While I didn't mind the new unis, Marxist Gopher on the other hand ...

** You know, I have been putting off coverage of football. 1-11 was beyond painful after Brewster's penchant for bad public relations set expectations sky high and then the season ended up worse then something Jim Wacker put together. However, I guess I can look forward to Brewster's defenders coming on here and telling me I'm too hard on the guy.

** Maybe we should have some fun with Brewster. How about a nickname contest? Twins bloggers gave Carlos Gomez--geez, does this kid swing out of his shoes on every pitch--the lame nickname "Go-Go." We can come up with something for Brewster. Myself and others have previously called him "Punky Brewster," and "Brother Brewster," and while I really like the former, I'm not sure how original it is. Drop your suggestion in the comments or send me an email.

** Without uttering a word last week, Tubby Smith won another round in the public relations realm between the two second-year Minnesota coaches. We covered the verbal commitment from Royce White here. Others were impressed. CSTV says "Tubby gains huge college pledge." The hope is the White signing is a precursor for even more talent coming to Minnesota.

** Michael Rand at the STrib's RandBall interviewed Erin Andrews. Here's Part 1. And Part 2. I completely agree with everyone who likes to look at Andrews, but some of the stuff is a little nuts? Millions of hits for Youtube vids of her? Who has time for this stuff?

** Saw "Smart People" last night with Miss PJS. I'm somewhat of a movie buff. Ellen Page was in this and it was a decent follow-up for her after the success of Juno. In this she plays a smart-allecky Young Republican. It was a fairly well done movie and Dennis Quaid, who usually does nothing for me, plays the role of a bitter, widowed, know-it-all college professor well. Watchable and somewhat humorous? Yes. Must see? No. Reason to see it? Thomas Haden Church is pretty damn funny, if his usual monotone self.

** Speaking of movies, I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about the best movies of the past year. We both agreed that "Gone, Baby, Gone," was vastly underrated. Casey Affleck put on a great performance (much better than the snore-fest known as "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford).

That's it for today. I'll be back early next week with the next installment (promise!) in the Year in Review series.