Chinese Communist Ballerina Guerillas not Familiar with the Word "Recoil"

Fashion Update, #2

What is this garbage?

hmmmm

Hockey is Brutal

This is the Preseason (it's just a concussion...no serious injury):

Ohhhhh....so this is how you make science...

thumbs up

Situation In Nigeria Seems Pretty Complex

This guy really gets worked up...

He has a good point...

...not a great week for me

Keyshawn went 11-5 and I went 9-7, meaning that he went up two games on me for the season...sigh.

(stupid smug smile)

Hopefully, I'll do better next week:

GB over Minnesota
Oakland over Miami
NYJ over Buffalo
Chicago over Detroit
Baltimore over Cleveland
Dallas over St. Louis
TB over Carolina
SF over Seattle
SD over KC
Steelers over Arizona
Indy over Denver
NYG over Philly
NE over Cincy

Another disciple joins "The Movement"

A Collection of Mostly Sane Engineering Rants

...alright

In The Know: White House Announces 'Everything Is Great In Iraf'

First Birthday!!!!!!!

Today, this blog turns one year old.

Ahh...the times we've had.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane and look at the first post from September 19, 2006:

<

"The Greatest Thoughts Ever Contrived" will revolutionize the way blogs are made. It is perhaps the biggest innovation to the internet since the steam engine or velcro. I advise all who have stumbled upon it (perhaps by googling the word septuplets in the futile search of some thrill in the barren landscape that we once called "the web") to bookmark and constantly refer back to this page. I've given you my warning.>>

Good times. And so true.

Speculation...

Mourinho gets fired from Chelsea

Scolari punches a Serb....

Look through the looking glass here people...

Will Mouriho be Portugal's next national coach???

...

The 49ers, Cowboys, and Packers are 2-0
Philadelphia is chasing away its star black quarterback
The Saints have one of the worst offenses in the league

O.J. Simpson was arrested
Short remarks by Allen Greenspan are making headlines
Hillary Clinton announced her new health care plan...

WELCOME TO THE MID 1990s!

Keyshawn gained a game on me last week (thank you Lions), and we are now both 24-8.

Predictions for next week

Steelers over 9ers
Pats over Bills
Vikings over KC
Indy over Texans
Chargers over GB
TB over Rams
Baltimore over Arizona
Lions over Eagles
Jets over Dolphins
Broncos over Jags (Elam makes last second field goal)
Oakland over Cleveland
Seattle over Cincy
Carolina over Atlanta
Washington over Giants
Bears over Cowboys
NO over Titans

Rarely do I forward articles, but

I thought some would appreciate this. I already forwarded another article form TMQ on BPD, but here's number 2:

"Sci-Fi Complaint No. 1: 20th Century Fox bought significant advertising time during the NBA Finals for "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," and those ads helped make the movie a hit. If only everyone who went to the movie also had watched the Finals! "Surfer" did well financially, yet was another example of modern Hollywood's battle cry: Millions for Special Effects, Not One Cent for Writing. Plus, "Surfer" managed to make Jessica Alba unattractive, which TMQ would have considered impossible. Many moments in the flick made no sense even if you're willing to accept superpowers. For instance, Sue Storm looks at star charts and announces that a planet orbiting Rigel was destroyed eight days after the Surfer appeared there. Rigel is 800 light years away -- the Surfer would have had to visit that system eight centuries ago for the light to be reaching Earth now. Mr. Fantastic's flying car traveled from Manhattan to Siberia in about 15 minutes. Even assuming super-rapid acceleration and braking, that would have required a speed of about 30,000 mph -- escape velocity for leaving this planet. But though capable of 30,000 miles per hour, Mr. Fantastic's flying car has no canopies! The Four's heads would not have stayed on, let alone their hair. My favorite moment of the movie: as the crawl announces "BLACK FOREST, GERMANY," our hero The Thing encounters a grizzly bear. Grizzlies are found only in North America. Maybe the bear was a Kodiak -- the scene was brief -- but you can guess the only place Kodiaks are found. Even brown bear, once indigenous to the Schwarzwald, have for generations been unknown there, although they are being reintroduced in Italy and Switzerland. See this Der Spiegel article about the national sensation caused in 2005 when a brown bear was spotted in a forest near the German border."

...and while I'm at it:
"Wide Receiver Runaway Ego No. 1: Game scoreless, Dennis Northcutt of Jacksonville caught an 11-yard third-down pass for a first down against Atlanta, then leapt up pointing at the defender and dancing; he was called for a 15-yard taunting penalty, and the Jaguars ended up punting. Why do so many NFL wide receivers get away with considering their stats more important than the team's fortunes?

Wide Receiver Runaway Ego No. 2: Catching a 9-yard pass against the Steelers, Lee Evans of Buffalo leapt up pointing at the defender and dancing; he was called for a 15-yard taunting penalty. Why is this worth remarking upon? At the time Evans jumped up to dance, there were four minutes remaining in the game and Buffalo trailed 26-3.

Linebacker Runaway Ego: Shawne Merriman dropped Tom Brady for loss, then leapt up and did his sack dance. San Diego was behind 17-0 at the time. You don't dance when you're way behind. Not, at least, if you have your head in the game."

funny or sad?

Domestic Abuse No Longer A Problem, Say Bruised Female Researchers

Excellent "article" from The Onion

"Randy Moss Complains He's Getting The Ball Too Much

FOXBOROUGH, MA—After posting his most productive

receiving performance in eight years during his Patriots debut, Randy Moss told reporters that he was frustrated with the amount of catches he was being forced to make. "I'm already tired of doing all the damn work around here," said Moss, who caught nine passes for 183 yards and a touchdown in what he called a "grueling" afternoon. "Would it kill Tom Brady to maybe look for Donté [Stallworth] once in a while? Or maybe even try and hand it off? No, it's 'Throw it to Randy! Throw it to Randy!' all day long out there. It's like suddenly I'm the best receiver in the world as far as they're concerned." Moss also commented that the team had asked him to sprint "w ay too hard" during running plays."

Sorry...with the start of football season you're going to see a lot more football related comedy...my condolences.

It's Finally Here! The Dr. Strange Movie Review Dual Post

(This is what you get when you subcontract to shoddy workmen)

Moderator: We'll go back and forth , starting with Cable. Cable, your intro:

Cable: Well, it looks like Marvel Animated Features has done it again, with their recent foray into the Sanctum Santorum of the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Strange. (no I did not make all that babbling stuff up, that's what this thing is full of ... and I love it.) So where to begin? How about the beginning?

Well this movie (unlike other previous sock-worthy submissions from the same company) starts you out in the middle of a high powered mage-shadow beast fight that has the fierceness of a Tijuanan cock-fighting ring and the ingenuity of an electrical engineering college kid on crank.

You know what I loved about this movie that I thought was a huge step in the right direction? The exciting battle that appears on the back cover of the box actually occurs during some point of the movie ( You could learn from that Mr. Stark [by the way Mr. Stark is a reference to Tony Stark { Note to the uninitiated: Tony Stark is Iron Man}]).

I do have to admit that I was more interested than I thought I would be in this Dr. Strange flick and was not disappointed. In fact, I dare say this is the best movie about the Sorcerer Supreme ever made, yes I do believe it beat out the 1978 TV movie starring Peter Hooten as Doctor Strange.

Moderator: Excellent. Machiavelli, do you have anything to say before we get started?

Machiavelli: Just an introductory caveat:

Since this movie is about Dr. Strange, it could not receive a score higher than 8 out of 10. For scoring purposes, this movie starts out with negative 2 “bonus points.”

Moderator: I think that goes without saying. Alright, let's start with the plot. Cable?

Cable: Plot: 2/2 A solid and interesting story (it even had a couple of twists in it). Good groundwork in the beginning paid dividends towards the end. This is how a comic book movie should be. It doesn't rush the origin story but still delivers and engaging and entertaining storyline

Moderator: Machiavelli?

Machiavelli: Plot: 1/2

The movie tried hard to make Dr. Strange’s story interesting, but mostly failed. It was generally predictable and the main mysteries to work with were 1) how did Dr. Strange get his powers and 2) who the hell is a magician supposed to fight? It answered both those questions reasonably well, but another still remains: if all it takes to do magic is to manipulate perception, why can’t I make a sword out of my arm by just ‘believing the unbelievable’ (or as the “Ancient One,” put it, “accept the unacceptable,” whatever that means). The movie strove hard to build anticipation by precluding their 30 minutes of boring detail into the life of a total asshole doctor named Dr. Strange with an exciting action intro scene, but it was still rather slow. There was a mildly interesting plot twist towards the end of the movie that helps the movie get a solid 1.

Moderator: Let's move on to Originality...

Cable: Originality: 2/2 Ok so this wasn't the first (or last) Dr. Strange movie, but the storyline and the interpretation of the Sorcerer Supreme was refreshing and interesting. I especially enjoyed the way how they dealt with how magic worked in the movie (not the accept the unacceptable stuff) but instead I was enjoyed how they gave each character a sphere of influence. A common mistake in this kind of movie is to not put restrictions on the abilities of the characters which leads to an inability to create an interesting and exciting fight scene. One must be able to see that a character is not omnipotent to care about him.

Machiavelli: Originality: 2/2

Dr. Strange is a weird character with all sorts of zany stuff going on and the movie portrayed that well. Additionally, this movie doesn’t “feel” like any other animated feature (Marvel or otherwise), which is a good thing. I liked what they did and tried to do with possibly the stupidest character in Marvel Comics.

Moderator: Acting?

Cable: Acting: 2/2 Well everyone was solid and there were no outlandishly bad standouts that detracted. (this is in general the criteria for a 2/2 although superb acting can give bonus points in the lightning round).

Moderator: and Machiavelli...

Machiavelli: Acting: 2/2

My rule is that if it’s not distracting it’s not a problem. Nothing great, but nothing bad either.

Moderator: Animation...

Cable: Animation: 3/2 Well it was pretty amazing. From the initial fight scene throughout it was of top quality. There were also no severe jarring transitions from CG to drawn images. The character designs were all spectacular reimaginings of what one can only consider awful source material (case in point Dormammu aka ball face). I especially enjoyed the effects for all the crazy magic that was always going on. It was clean, cool, and not over the top. Excellent.

Moderator: Umm...I don't think it's possible to give more than 2 points, but ok...Machiavelli?

Machiavelli: Animation: 2/2

I don’t really care about animation to a point, but the production value here was obviously very high. The fight scenes were particularly well done.

Moderator: And now execution...

Cable: Execution: 2/2 Pretty amazing considering this is a Doctor Strange movie. Excellent development of the characters as well as amazing animation. Overall very well done and completed well.

Machiavelli: Execution: 2/2

Considering how awful a movie about Dr. Strange could have been, the writers/director did a good job of not making a mockery of a movie and actually producing something relatively interesting. They took on a non-campy, smooth style and ran with it. They avoided most of the nonsensical philosophical babble that usually accompanies stories with pretentious visits to the Himalayas and tried to make “magic” into a believable superpower (with as much success as they probably hoped for). They didn’t press things too far and, try as I might, there’s little to easily jab away at as being ridiculous.

Moderator: Any bonus points?

Machiavelli: -2 for forementioned reasons

Cable: Bonus Points: 0 Being a movie about Dr. Strange unfortunately forbids me from granting any bonus points for awesomeness. That's unfortunate because it would have deserved them.

Moderator: And now the final score with some concluding remarks...why don't you start off, Cable....

Cable: Total: 11/10 It was good, really good. Need I say more. It revived my faith in Marvel Animated Features. I haven't looked into it but this might be an entirely different team than the ones that worked on that Iron Man debacle, but if its the same people then kudos for the turn around. If they're new then kudos to Marvel for dropping those other losers.

If you like comics then this is probably a must see. It's better than any of the live-action stuff they've made. Bravo Marvel Animated Features, Bravo.

You'll want to get it for more than just the Video game cinematics it comes with...

Moderator: And finally Machiavelli...

Machiavelli: Total: 7/10

If you are demented enough to like Dr. Strange don’t watch this movie because it might make you sane. If you have no idea who Dr. Strange is, but like comic book movies, this movie is perfect for you. If you’re looking for a movie to have a lot of fun with at its and Dr. Strange’s expense, as I was, you’ll have to look somewhere else…unfortunately.

Moderator: Alright! That's it...the first dual post in blogger history...Good Bye [Moderator disappears in cloud of smoke]

Cable: Wait a second...was our moderator the Sorcerer Supreme?

Machiavelli: Maybe...I did feel like kicking his ass the whole time.

Cable: Next time we should instantly kill the moderator to be safe...

Machiavelli: agreed

Moderator: Stay tuned for next week's dual post, moderated by the Pillsbury Doughboy!

P.S.

Cable: I'm a big idiot and Machiavelli is much more awesome than me.

Great Moments in Presidential Speeches

Bonus (Kan den Flyde???):

The FINAL Engrish!!!!!!!!!!!

Out with a Bang:

Bill Belichick: The guy who sneaks a look at your controller to see what play you picked in Madden

why does he always look like he just got finished changing the oil in his car?

jackass

I know more than Keyshawn...

I'm convinced that ESPN analyst and former player Keyshawn Johnson knows nothing about football. To prove my point, I'm going to make game predictions each week and match them up against Keyshawn's predictions and see if I get a better record. The whole endeavor should be very boring...

This Week:
SF over St. Louis
Green Bay over Giants
Pittsburgh over Buffalo
NO over Tampa
Houston over Carolina
Jacksonville over Atlanta
Cincy over Cleveland
Indy over Tenn.
Arizona over Seattle
Minn. over Detroit
Dallas over Miami
Baltimore over NYJ
Denver over Oakland
NE over SD
Chicago over KC
Philly over Washington

After one week, my record was 12-4 and Keyshawn's was 11-5....This should be easy.