Bring On The Nets! (or the Raptors if they're lucky)

The Cavs finished off their sweep of the (starless) Wizards tonight 97-90. Lots of sweeps going down in the first round this year. They're getting knocked for kind of slinking by most of the games in this series (especially given the Wizards being without their superstar and another of their top players)... but a sweep is a sweep.

Next up is the winner of the Toronto-New Jersey series, which the Nets currently lead 3-1. You ready for the next round LeBron?


Ok, ok, take a few days off and rest the ankle. They still need to finish up that other series anyway. In the meantime, let the Pistons & Bulls start softening each other up for the finals!

Here We Go Brownies!

NFL Draft 2007! Your refreshing breath of football in the midst of the NBA & NHL playoffs and (sigh) baseball season.

Now, the Browns are pretty well known for horrendous draft picks since returning to the league. With such AWESOME first-round picks as Tim "home sitting on my" Couch, Willie "fell on a knife" Green, Courtney "ouch" Brown, Gerard "big money" Warren... and the Dynamic Injury duo of Kellen "Motorcycle Soldier" Winslow and Braylon Edwards. Jeff Faine at Center is in there somewhere too... while not as uber-bust as the other early picks, he's still got to be considered a loss.

So this year the Browns craftily managed to land themselves drafting third overall. Lots and lots of hot air was spent the past few months talking about who they'd pick... Adrian Peterson? Brady Quinn? Joe Thomas? When the time came, they played it safe and went for the area that arguably needs the MOST help for the team, picking up Joe Thomas from Wisconsin for the key Left Tackle spot. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed, but it definitely WAS the safe pick, and you can't argue that the Browns O-Line has been BAD. Still, I was bummed because this was a good pick for the future, but doesn't build any real excitement for NOW.

Then... the magic happens. Miami heads to Buckeye City and bites on Teddy Ginn WAY ahead of projections, instead of taking care of their gaping QB problem. And that means Brady slides further... and further... (they even took him off to a private room so he didn't have to deal with the "doesn't that suck" close-ups after every team that DIDN'T pick him).

And at #22 the Browns trade-up, back into the first round and land him after all. Two top-5 rated picks for the Browns in one year. NICE. And, Brady, like a champ, comes out & puts on the hat and holds up the jersey, being the last guy actually in attendance who hadn't done so at that point.

Of course, he was holding up the wrong jersey - so I had to do a little editing work for you. Not at all noticeable, I'm sure. ;)

Honestly though, I'm really happy about this - this is probably my favorite top 2 picks for the Browns since they returned to the league. They filled a much needed hole and STILL managed to get someone that we can hopefully ask to carry the franchise forward into the future. As long as he doesn't get sacked into oblivion first.

So I say, in the enternal mantra of the Cleveland sports fan, "This is the year!" ;)

Movies... Third Time's Still A Charm?

Yeah, I'm still here. Been a little busy lately, what with Amy being nasto-sick this week, and being out of the office at work Tuesday, Wednesday and half of Thursday for a training thing out in Dublin.

I DID get to hit up Tropical Bistro for the lunch buffet Tuesday (excellent as always) and finally got to try Benny's Cheesesteaks for lunch Thursday. I'd have to say I definitely enjoyed the cheese steak (I even opted for the cheesewhiz, going for the more authentic). I'm obviously no South Philly person, but at least one person who IS enjoyed it. I'd definitely go back, but given how freaking way-outta-the-way it is for me from home OR work, I don't know how often that'll be realistically.

So, in other news, after poking around in Trusted Opinion a bit more this evening, rating some more movies... that prompted me to hit-up IMDB and look for what movies were coming out this Spring/Summer/later this year that I was interested in checking out. (Those that I've already heard at least something about, of course...)

Sadly... or maybe predictably, most of them were sequels or adaptations. What's REALLY odd is the sheer number of the THIRD installments in a franchise coming out this year. While Hollywood may be "out of ideas" as the common criticism goes, they sure seem to have hit on quite a few successful franchises lately to be cracking out this maybe #3s.

Here's what made my list, roughly in order of expected release:

• Hot Fuzz
• Spider-Man 3 *
  
• Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End *
  
• Live Free or Die Hard
• Shrek The Third *
• Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
  
• The Simpsons Movie
• Ocean's 13 *
  
• Black Sheep
• Ratatouille
• Transformers
• The Bourne Ultimatum *
  
• I Am Legend

So, you'll note the FIVE starred third installments listed above. As well as a FOURTH installment (Die Hard) and a FIFTH installment (Harry Potter). I'm sure there are other movies coming out soon that I'll be interested in seeing, but scanning ahead through IMDB's coming movies list, these are the only ones that really caught my attention so far.

I also saw two OTHER third installment movies coming out this year... Resident Evil: Extinction and Rush Hour 3. I have really NO interest in seeing Resident Evil. I'm sure I'll end up seeing Rush Hour 3 at some point, but I'm pretty well Chris Tucker'd out for the time being. His shtick got old REAL fast.

What movies are you folks looking forward to seeing the rest of this year?

That Post-Marathon Glow

Well, that's been here and gone by this point. Still, I had a great time. I posted by full review on a couple different forums, including the Sci-Fi Marathon forum and Columbus Underground. Not that it's really all that in-depth, but go there for a longer recap. For the short version - attending (in our extended group): me, Dad, Gary, Hutch, Randy, Jeff, Angel, two of Jeff's friends I don't really know, and Mike F. Always a blast hanging out with everyone, and this was no different. One of the best get togethers of the year, IMO. Best & Worst:

• Best Movie I'd Already Seen: Flash Gordon. MAN, I love that movie. It's a CRIME it's out of print.
• Worst Movie I'd Already Seen: Star Trek: The Motion Picture *yawn* pan-pan-pan "here's the outside of the Enterprise" pan-pan-pan "here's the outside of VGER" pan-pan-pan "here's the audience napping" pan-pan-pan
  
• Best Movie I Saw For the 1st Time: Fido. A fun new take on zombie movies.
• Worst Movie I Saw For the 1st Time: Automatons. SWEET MERCIFUL JEBUS MAKE THE BAD MEN STOP. Someone hand me a knife - even the MEMORY of this movie makes me want to gouge my eyes out. I'm not sure, but I think they may have been trying to make some political statement? Maybe?
  
• Best Food: Fully Loaded Gateway Fries. YUM!
• Worst Food: Greek Wrap. My fault for not paying closer attention, but it contained no meat. Not bad as much as just not what I wanted.

So yeah, the Marathon's over for another year. Back to normal life. In which I STILL haven't ditched the damn cough that's been nagging at me for a couple weeks now. It got better for a bit, and most all the other symptoms are gone, but this shit is getting old, man.

Take your mind off the doldrums with some fun games:

• IndestructoTank
  
• Desktop Tower Defense
  

And if Flash games aren't your speed, see Emily Short's Interactive Fiction games. The only ones I've played at length are Galatea and Glass, but they're both very well done, immersive interactive fiction (that's a fancy way of saying "all text") games.

Psyched For The Sci-Fi (Marathon, That Is)

The 24th Annual Ohio Sci-Fi Marathon is this weekend at the Drexel Gateway theater! Noon Saturday to (roughly) Noon Sunday. I'm totally psyched.

My Dad & I have been going to the Marathon every year since the THIRD annual marathon back 1989 at the Drexel North! (Don't do the math, it doesn't work out.) Well, sadly, my dad actually missed one year, but I haven't missed one since. We cut out early a couple of the early years (I was still very prone to migraines those first few years), but we were there. We even got our pictures in the Dispatch while waiting in line one of those years at the Drexel North. To see a history of all the years, locations, and films shown, check out the Marathon History link. Suffice to say I've seen Them! on the big screen far too many times.

Over the years, we've picked up quite a few other folks for the outing - Gary (for quite some time now), Hutch, Randy, Featherstone, and many others have dropped in from year to year. We're doing our part to try and keep it alive at least!

This year's flier is here [pdf].

The (tentative/theoretical) schedule is:

Doors should open at about 10:30. Like last year we'll have a reel of pre-blast off trailers starting at about 11 or 11:15.

Noon Countdown & Blast Off
12 MONKEYS

2:30 KING DINOSAUR

4:05 THE GREAT YOKAI WAR - Ohio Premiere

6:20 Costume Contest
6:30 PUZZLEHEAD - Ohio Premiere

8:10 FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACEMONSTER

9:55 FIDO - Midwest Premiere

11:40 AUTOMATONS - Ohio Premiere

1:10 CHOPPING MALL

2:45 NIGHT OF THE COMET

4:25 MINDWARP: AN INFINITY OF TERROR

6:00 SLITHER

7:45 STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE

10:10 FLASH GORDON
Noon Presentation of Certificates to survivors (if any)

Should be a great time. Can't wait! You should join us!

Snow, South Park, Cleansing The Filthy Internets

Well, for anyone in the area, after a gorgeous start to the week with highs around 80, it SNOWED last night and earlier today. Gotta love Ohio weather.

If you're stuck inside thanks to the crappy weather, I give you yet another option for killing time. EVERY South Park episode EVER, streaming straight to you, thanks to the miracle that is the Intarwub.

Check out AllSP.com while you still can. They don't host the vids, but even still, you know this one has a limited shelf-life. This is actually one that really irks me, because if Comedy Central's "on demand" offerings through the cable company were any good (see the HBO On Demand model), I'd GLADLY watch the shows there... but instead all you get are 5 minute clips of Stewart & Colbert, and a random smattering of 1-2 episodes of each of their 4,000 shows.

If you can make it through the extreme traffic, Video Hybrid is another site worth checking out.

In case that's just all too much for you to handle, you can always head to the righteous side of the 'net:

• Believe it or not, there are actually MULTIPLE Christian-themed YouTube clones out there. Check out GodTube ... the obvious choice, but if that's not enough for you, how about GospelTube? I guess with the popularity of YouTube, endless clones like this (with targeted audiences) were inevitable, and hey - they do serve a good purpose for their niche audiences. And this isn't really a particularly SMALL niche, either.
• If watching videos and making online connections isn't enough for you, you can facilitate off-line connections through MyChurch.org - self-described as "Facebook for Churches". Somehow I don't think that means you can use it to invite everyone you know to your kegger of biblical proportions, but I suppose it WOULD help you figure out the name of the girl you hooked up with behind the pews last week...
  
• Finally, I'm sure most of you have already seen this one before, but check out Conservapedia, for "A conservative encyclopedia you can trust." Beacause one Wikipedia wasn't enough, now you get your wide-open editable, in-depth but not likely to be well-referenced information in multiple flavors of bias!

Anyways, have fun... as for me, I'm finally over the death plague acquired by way of Amy last week... though Evie was running a mega-high temperature yesterday and had to stay home from daycare today, so I would up working from home this morning while keeping an eye on her.

My Humps?

Brilliant!

Well, That's a Relief

Can I Get An ALL SYRUP Squishee?

So apparently, though the deal hasn't been finalized yet, they're working on a promotional deal which would turn some 7-11s into Kwik-E-Mart reproductions to help promote the Simpsons movie. Not only would it copy (at least some of) the look, but you'd also be able to get some classic Simpsons products, like Buzz Cola, KrustyO's cereal and Squishees!

Check it out.

All I can say is that. is. awesome.

No mention of Duff Beer, but I suppose that'd be a tough one since they're PROBABLY spinning the movie toward a younger audience.

POTC3 Trailer - W00T

May 25th is ENTIRELY too far away.

EDIT: Grrr... stupid "Pirate Player" flash nonsense doesn't embed properly, and tries to take over the whole page instead.

Go see the new trailer here , or in High Def at Yahoo.

And commence drooling.

Ron Lewis Made My Baby Cry

Well, I made Evie cry. but it was in reaction to Ron Lewis's 3 that tied the OSU-Xavier game on Saturday to send things into OT. After being down 11 with about 6 minutes left, and still being down a chunk with TWO minutes left, I'd pretty much written this one off. I definitely have to give that team credit - they rallied hard, and fought their way back. Even after I thought it was finally over (Butler misses the 3, and Xavier goes to the line with a chance to go up by FOUR)... the second free throw rolls off the rim, Harris grabs the rebound, and they drive down the court in time for Lewis to throw up the HUGE shot.

There's also video of it (official even!) over on YouTube. You have to click the link though - "embedding is disabled by request". I guess CBS and/or the NCAA doesn't want you watching their content without seeing their logos and such, despite them being littered through the video too.

But anyway, the game -- it was awesome. How could I NOT stand up and shout? Well, unfortunately Evie wasn't really ready for the standing and the loudness, and started crying... :( We got her all settled down fast enough, but I still feel bad.

Meanwhile, the Buckeyes went on a tear in overtime, and made it into the Sweet 16! Teed up for a rematch with Tennessee -- hopefully it's a good one!

Lets Go Eagles!

I don't do NCAA tournament pools (or any other kind of "fantasy" sports) for money. It's all for fun and bragging rights. Still, I do tend to pay attention and take them seriously. For the pools I'm in with friends and folks at work, I actually put in "real" picks this year.

But I couldn't resist the tradition, so I did go ahead and fill out a full bracket with my Coin-Flip Picks '07. This is purely based on the coin - no "weighting" for 1 seeds, no home-team favoritism - just flipping a coin and recording the predicted winner of each matchup.

So how'd it come out this year? Well, no #1 seeds upset in the first round this year (last year I had a 16 seed in the Final Four), but THREE #2 seeds dropped their opening games (Georgetown being the sole survivor)

The Final Four: Winthrop, Virginia Tech, Georgetown, Pennsylvania

The end result: Winthrop over Georgetown

Let's Go Eagles!

No Coffee

So I've been at work since 8am this morning. "Just in case" there was any DST-change related chaos. You know - like planes crashing into buildings, servers spontaneously bursting into flames because their clocks are an hour off, that kind of thing.

Well, the other person who was supposed to be in @ 8 is MIA.

I made myself a half-pot of coffee around 10 to keep the energy up, had a cup. Went back to get another cup a bit later, and the pot was nigh-empty. The student who came in at 10:30 had hit it up.

And the sad thing is... I can't be mad at the guy - he's here working outside our normal hours to help us cover.

But I'm sad that I have no more coffee.

News Flash: Still Winter

This just in: Though it may be March, and we may have had some nice mild temperatures last week, it is in fact still Winter in Ohio. Nice heavy flurries coming down outside ATM - though only an inch is expected to accumulate last I heard.

Best Buy admits to keeping fake rip-off site

(From Boing Boing)

Best Buy admits to keeping fake rip-off site
Best Buy has admitted to maintaining a fake version of its website for internal use at its stores. This is part of a scam where Best Buy lists cheap prices online and invites customers to come to the store to take advantage of them. When the customer gets there, a dirtbag salesman loads up the fake website and shows them that the price has "gone up" while the customer was driving over to the store and offers to sell the item for the new price.

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered the investigation into Best Buy's practices on Feb. 9 after my column disclosed the website and showed how employees at two Connecticut stores used it to deny customers a $150 discount on a computer advertised on BestBuy.com.

Blumenthal said Wednesday that Best Buy has also confirmed to his office the existence of the intranet site, but has so far failed to give clear answers about its purpose and use.

Link to full article

The crazy thing is I've actually been hit by this crap. When we were getting our video camera we checked the prices online at a few different locations, and went to Best Buy b/c it was coming up as the cheapest - only to find out that the sticker in the store was a good deal higher. When we mentioned seeing the price on the web page THAT MORNING, before coming to the store, they pulled up the web site on one of the computers there, completely identical to the one we'd seen at home EXCEPT for a higher price (the same price shown in-store).

While I admit I would've fallen for their garbage, Amy & my mom stuck to their guns, and the dude finally gave in and said if we could show a print-out of the web page we'd seen, they'd "price match" - so we printed THEIR OWN WEBSITE and brought in the proof to get the better price. But how many people wouldn't have taken the extra step?

Cartoon Nostalgia Overload

Almost a half hour of old-school cartoon openings. The only two I didn't recognize and recall watching at least once or twice were Blackstar and Heathcliff & Marmaduke (though the regular Heathcliff one I remember quite well).

Of course, there are lots more great ones that didn't make it into this, but still - some quality memories here.

OUCH.

No, seriously - OUCH.

No matter how bad your day has been, you're having a better day than Shaun Livingston did Sunday. Squeamish viewers, this is not the YouTube you're looking for.

Men's BBall: Big Ten Champions!

The "Thad Five" (and the rest of the bball Buckeyes, of course) scored a tough win today at home against the Wisconsin Badgers to lock up the outright regular season Big Ten title for the second year in a row today. It was a seriously tight game, coming down to the last minute with Ron Lewis scoring an awesome flyover block to stop Wisconsin's last minute game-winning shot.

One more regular season game to go (at Michigan), but the outright title is secured, as is (most likely) the #1 NCAA tournament seed in the Midwest... so a little bit of celebration (and some net-cutting) is well earned.

It's been a heck of a fun season to watch - and it's not even March yet!

Speechless

I... yeah... just watch.

The Meltdown, The Showdown,, The Good TV

For the 2nd day in a row the weather's been decently above freezing, which means all the snow is melting away. Nowhere near all gone yet, but it's going fast, and it's made things wet and nasty. Personally, as long as the roads are relatively clear and safe, I'd rather it stay nice and white off the road - a nice coating of snow just makes Winter feel like... well Winter. Though I have to admit it sure is nice to open the door & let the dogs out without feeling like I need to put on a coat.

Good news in the College BBall world tonight, as Michigan State upset Wisconsin (who was either #1 or #2 depending on which poll you look at). This leaves OSU a half-game ahead in the conference standings, with the opportunity to pull a full game ahead assuming we can get the job done against Penn State tomorrow night. It also both adds and subtracts a little sizzle from the big Wisconsin-OSU rematch coming up this weekend... on one hand, though the polls won't refresh before then, it's not really #1 vs. #2 anymore... but on the other hand, Wisconsin will be looking to get out some frustrations. OSU will still be looking for payback for the loss in Madison. Should be a good time - hopefully the team stays focused and plays strong!

Drew Nietzel, SUPER SPARTY!

In unrelated news, it's worth mentioning that Heroes is f-ing AWESOME. Not that it ever fell all that far, but this week's episode has flung it right back into position as possibly the best show currently on television. I mean seriously, that ROCKS. And next week's episode looks really promising. At the same time 24 remains excellent as well. The formula/repetitive nature of things is beginning to bog things down a bit, but the surprise reveal/appearance at the end of this week's ep is more than enough to leave me wanting more. And of course, there's LOST - which before the midseason extended hiatus had been on quite the slide in my opinion - just treading water/churning gears without moving forward at all - no character development, no mystery progress, no nothing. Just a little soap opera-action. Since the return, both episodes have been MUCH better, with this past week's Desmond-centric episode REALLY getting things back to what I love about the show. A lot of fun stuff there, and yes, still more mysteries introduced, but enough of a teaser-answer there and some really intriguing new questions.

Oh, and finally - in a bit of good news, they finally put the remainder of Day Break on the ABC web site. Go watch it while you still can!