The Ryan Leaf Story, Plax and other tidbits

Hopefully everyone enjoyed my favorite holiday as much as I did. There were 56 people at the Thanksgiving dinner I attended, which was a new personal record. It was also the first time I spent the day with a family that was not my own. I gave it a B+. Great food, lots of fun, but there are only so many videos you can watch of other people's families/childhoods before you go crazy. Here's the news:

-I found this today and I can't wait for "Leaf" to make it to DVD or Hulu. I can imagine Ryno flipping out on the writer/director after a few conversations as he mentioned. Everyone remembers this classic flipout, right?

- Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg at a club last weekend, I'm sure you all have heard by now. Mediamen, bloggers, and water cooler analysts have been talking about this early this week, all with their own opinions. I think what's lost in the shuffle is how down Antonio Pierce is. He wasn't there to cause trouble, he might not even have known that Plax had a gun on him, but what did he do when it went off? Rushed him to the hospital and got rid of the piece. That's exactly what I'm looking for in a friend/teammate. Does anyone give him props? Aside from the New York Times, nope. Now the police are focusing on his actions after the accidental shooting. Poor guy, he was just trying to be a good friend.

- Stephon Marbury and the Knicks have still not agreed to end their relationship and are reportedly 'far apart financially.' Donnie Walsh needs to just pony up and get rid of him. It might even be wise to pay him more than he is owed this year just to get him away from the team since he is only causing trouble and refusing to play.

- I had a birthday yesterday and I got all sorts of well wishes, songs, pats on the back and even a couple of presents and a cake. I appreciate all the calls, cards, e-mails and texts. It does make me think of something an old coworker told me a couple years back. He said "congratulations, you were born, call me when you do something yourself." His name was Cheeks and he had a good point. Why do we give presents to the person who was born? They didn't do anything really, but their parents did all the work. Maybe on birthdays we should give presents to the mom and dad of our friends and save the gifts for self-earned honors like promotions, graduations, marriages and so on. From this day forward, that's what I vote for. Let's do that for everyone except me, keep the love coming this way on December 1.

-Jesse