Further proof that the best names in the world can be found in sports; as Sports Illustrated's Peter King so greatly exemplifies:

"I think my name of the day is rookie free-agent wideout Atnaf Harris, from Cal State Northridge. The only thing I can figure is his mom was drinking a bottle of Fanta grape soda (one of the all-time great sodas, by the way, if you've never had the pleasure) in the delivery room, got groggy during delivery, and saw the reflection of the bottle in a mirror, and said: "Atnaf! I shall name him Atnaf!" Well, it's about the only thing I can think of. Nomar Garciaparra's parents named him the reverse of his dad's name, Ramon, and that hasn't worked out too badly. "

Imagine, if you will, a brand new sport. This sport is played with a basketball, using more-or-less basketball rules (and played on a more or less basketball court. Now imagine the entire area within the 3-point arc is filled with a grid of trampolines, the kind that they use to shoot team mascots towards the rim at NBA intermissions. Imagine that the entire court is surrounded by a hockey-esque plexiglass wall, and that you're allowed to "check" players on the other team (even when they're in the air) as hard as you want.

Now stop imagining. The sport is real, and it's on TNN. The sport is called Slamball, which is a pretty accurate description of what goes on most of the time. Somebody tries to dunk the ball and somebody tries to block it. The league's teams, all with creative names such as the Bouncers and the Steal, are made up of a rag tag bunch of ex-basketball players who couldn't cut it and ageing male gymnasts, all wearing a very silly looking outfits. Plus, the announcers are pure TNN; guys you'd expect to see covering one of TNN's hilarious roller derby shows or FX's wonderfully horrible Toughman show.

I cannot emphasize how much you need to watch this show. Please consult your local listings, do me a favor, and watch it for a while. If you're looking for more info (or proof I didn't make) it up, please check out Slamball's garish, flash-intensive, and content free website.

Man I love cable.

Briefly turning to network TV, I happened to watch a snippet of NBC's Dog Eat Dog (I'll post more about this show some other time. Trust me, there's plenty of material here), where a contestant was asked, "what is the largest country in the Americas?". Her answer was "Asia". I know I don't need to point this out, but I thought I'd mention:
a) Asia is not in the Americas
b) Asia is not a country

As a great man once said, "Only in America".

First of all, let me say that Chris should be punished by posting a link to a big, scary insect like he did recently. Its one thing to talk about it, but showing an oversized picture is enough to give me nightmares. I should, however, point out that the page he links to claims to be "valid for Iowa, and may or may not apply to your area". Perhaps the Missouri breed of house centipede is cuddly, loveable, and recommended for protecting small children. In any case, if I see one, I'm still going to run shrieking from the room.

Second, Lance Armstrong has once again won the Tour de France, but, more importantly, has reminded us just how spiteful the French are. As I have previously mentioned in a discussion of South Korea, countries that owe their very existence to us also have an annoying tendency to hate us.

Finally, I recently saw Austin Powers 3, on opening night, no less. I personally would never go to see a movie opening night, but somehow I always end up going to these things, at least since I've been in college. I guess we don't have anything better to do.... Well, anyway, on to the movie, which I can honestly say featured certain jokes that made me laugh so hard it hurt*. There was also a ton of truly disgusting potty humor, the kind that makes you wince and cringe as if someone's running a fork along a chalkboard (makes you squirm right now, doesn't it?) So, all and all, I spent the majority of the movie racked with pain. Honestly, though, it's a very funny, often clever, and well-paced movie that's worth seeing, although perhaps not on opening night. Plus, it's missing the slow sections that tend to plague even the best Mike Meyers movies. Be warned, however, if you didn't like the first two, the jokes this time around are almost exactly the same. Funny, but the same. 3 1/2 stars.

*Note: I can't believe I actually used this phrase in a movie review. Am I a real critic or what? Just knock off about 1 1/2 stars from all my ratings.
and I'd be perfect.

In my neverending search to find products that you, my loyal readers, may find useful, I recently stumbled upon a wonderful idea that goes by the name of Thunderwear. Thunderwear, as you might have guessed , is a type of protective clothing. However, unlike most protective clothing, Thunderwear takes the stance that "the best defense is a good offense". You see, Thunderware is underwear with a built-in gun holster. No longer do you have to fear for your safety all those times you're walking around in your tidy whities. I know you're saying, "Sure, that sounds great, but I'm the kind of person who likes to wander around in my undees with more than one gun". Well, rest assured, because there are also multiple-holster models. So make sure to check out the website (especially the FAQ page) if you have any other questions. Also, check out the graphic on the home page, which politely shows how, if you disturb people who are playing with a puppy, they will shoot you.

Note to the Thunderwear company: Please don't kill me (you crazy so-and-so's)

I made a few minor cosmetic changes to the site today. If you're upset about the "new look", you have serious psychological problems.

Also I realized I incorrectly spelt "bass" as "base" the other day. I'm an idiot.

I have a large bump on my head because my computer hates me. I'm too angry to say much else.

Site of the Day: KissThisGuy.com

I'm sure that some of you informed readers know about this site already, but in case you haven't, definitely take a trip over and visit this wonderfully funny archive of misheard song lyrics. Oh, and don't worry, the name is just a quote of one of the most famous misheard lyrics of all time (" 'scuse me while I kiss this guy" - Hendrix), and has nothing to do with guy kissing. The site is even better now that they once again are accepting submissions, which means that you can tell them your own horribly mistaken lyrics. To give you a flavor of the site, here's a sampling of some mishead versions of BTO's "Taking Care of Buisness":

Shake a can of biscuits
Taking care of bee's nests
Takin' care of Christmas
Bakin' carrot biscuits
Taking care of pigeons

(note: The best part about this line is that it's followed by the phrases "every day" and "every way")

So head on down now. It's a site we can all truly relate to.

Well, I've managed to move into my new apartment, although I picked the hottest weekend in the history of the world to do the moving, of course. In my new room, there are high voltage power lines directly outside my window, about 4 feet away from my head when I go to bed. From what I can tell, this is having two effects:

1) My monitor's picture jitters as violently as Strom Thurmond on a caffine binge.
2) I'm getting brain cancer.

Other than that, the place is quite nice. To see a picture of it, you can go here.

Today I recieved a notice informing me that Washington University, in order to better serve student's transportation needs, has changed their shuttle routes (or, more precisely, the shuttle route names). Evidently, they hired someone from Bi-State, who does the city transportation, to come up with their ideas, and this is what they came up with. I'll present you with a representative sample the old system and the new system and you can decide which one's better:

Old System:
Medical School Route - goes to the medical school
Loop Route - goes to the loop

New System:
Medical School Route and Loop Route combined - now called Gold Route
Gold Route has 3 categories:
Medical School - Every 15 mins
Loop North - Every half hour
Loop South - Every half hour

Bear in mind that the actual route is almost exactly the same. They just decided to make things a lot more complicated by calling both routes by the same generic name, "gold", which has no meaning to either original route. Someone was paid to do this. Probably a lot. Wonderful.

Note: I'm moving into a new apartment this weekend so there probably won't be much posting going on. Now stop crying and get ahold of yourself.

I mentioned our old friend Ted Nugent the other day, which reminded me of an important bit of info that I thought I should share with you. I was browsing around at Barnes & Noble the other day, when my eyes happened to fall on a title authored by none other than The Nuge. Now its time to play guess the genre of the book:

1) Autobiography
2) Humor
3) Sciene Fiction
4) Cooking
5) Hair Maintainence

Well, If you said number 4, you're right (You're also lying, but I'll let you slide this time). Yes, Ted Nugent has a cook book, entitled "Kill It & Grill It". As you might think, the book tells you how to cook animals you've just shot in your local wooded area, personal ranch or backyard. I certainly can't think of anyone more qualified to write this book than an aging, creepy, right wing rock star, can you? I'm currenly waiting for my copy to arrive, so I can put it on the shelf right next to "Jethro Tull's Favorite Cranberry Sauce Recipies"

You know who sucks?

Journey

I cannot begin to describe how much I detest their whiney, wishy-washy brand of what some people actually call rock music. That video where they're all playing air instruments inspires murderous rage. You know the one, where they're all on some dock with barrels and stuff strewn around, and one guy's playing air guitar (bad), one guy's playing air bass (worse), and one guy's playing air keyboard (quite possibly the stupidest motion ever made by a human). They all pretend to act real tough in their brightly colored garments by slamming their fists on the barrels and other dock-related objects. Steve Perry in particular does a lot of emoting, while all the other guys just look way too excited about being around barrels.

Ok, If I keep going on I'm going pop a blood vessel, but I think you get the point.

I'm so glad American Gladiatiors reruns are back on TV. If you haven't heard, check out TNN at about 1:00 in the afternoon and you're in for a treat. Even more amazingly, I can't believe The Nashville Network actually carries a show worth watching. Up to this point I saw it in the same league as TNT and USA (who should not be allowed to mock the name of our country with their their godawful lineup, but don't get me started down that road), only with more redneck squaredancing. I guess I was wrong this time. Yes, you can once again watch ugly steroid-filled professional bodybuilders beat up ugly semi-ordinary people in a beautiful vintage 80's soundstage all over again. Life is good.

Random Thoughts:

If I ever made a movie, the trailer would have to feature a part where the narrator says "They were wrong .... DEAD wrong", and then shows some guy shooting a gun.

If you were making a list of smelly things, you probably wouldn't include a beach ball. However, my girlfriend bought one the other day and it seriously filled the entire apartment with that rubbery smell you can really only get from pool toys.

I found out I like a Ted Nugent song (not Cat Scratch Fever, don't worry). I don't know how to feel about that.

I see you've played knifey-spooney before.

Time for a new movie review. I saw Men in Black II (or MIIB for those who prefer a more creative use of our language) a little while ago. I had enjoyed the first one quite a bit: it was solid, well-paced action comedy which didn't make any major mistakes. The sequel, although nothing to write home about, is very much in the same genre. In fact, it's almost the same movie. In this case, however, I really didn't mind. Although the villains, played by that one ridiculously skinny woman from one of those crime drama shows (whose name escapes me at the moment) and Johnny "jackass" Knoxville, were really flat, most of the remaining supporting cast was very good (David Cross’s character in particular stands out), as were Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. The special effects were on par with what we’ve come to expect from movies nowadays, even though they’re basically the same as the stuff that was amazing audiences a few years ago. I feel so old knowing I’m part of the last generation to remember when movies weren’t made entirely on a computer.

But enough about me. In short, the movie was nothing new, but closely following a successful formula isn't always a bad thing. 3 stars

I just realized I had accidentally double-posted yesterday. My heartfelt apologies.

Has anyone else noticed that a lot of recent scientific breakthroughs, particularly in the area of genetic engineering, have had subtly humorous connotations? Monkeys and mice, no surprise, seem to pop up the most (remember the horribly obese mouse or the mouse with an ear on its back), but there are* other great examples if you look around long enough. For example, scientists have recently created a fish that glows in the dark. Great. Did someone tell these people that glow in the dark fish already exist in nature? Not only did they create something useless, they created something useless that already exists (although it’s not useless in its original form, of course. Nature wouldn't be that stupid). Now, I'm neither condoning nor scrutinizing genetic engineering (I wouldn't touch that subject with a 15 foot pole), I'm just wondering why this was done. I can think of a few reasons:

1) It looks cool
2) For some reason jellyfish glow-in-the-dark genes are about as easy to put into animals as it is to put cheeseburgers into Gilbert Brown. Scientists have already put these genes in mice, monkeys, and just about anything else they can get their hands on.
3) Say what you will, people like to play God with their animals (what do you think selective Dog and Cat breeding is?)
4) Did I mention that it looks cool?

A lot of genetic research projects appear to be motivated by disease research or something noble like that. On the other side of things, just knowing that so much of money and effort went into something as silly as glowing fish makes even my research look important

*Microsoft Word suggested that I should change this "are" to "be". I kid you not. Evidently I have pirate grammar turned on.

Yesterday's All-Star game in Milwaukee is further evidence that major league baseball appears determined to destroy itself. Luckily things still seem to be functioning appropriately down on the farm, as evidenced in some recent promotions, such as nobody night. You really can't find this type of thing anywhere but in minor league baseball, where ANYTHING is fair game if it means getting publicity. As for the majors, there's only one man who can turn the league around now:

Vince McMahon.

XMLB here we come! Poorly-designed and ugly team logos! Players with hilarious nicknames like "HE HATE ME"! Three man broadcasting teams with a combined IQ of 85! Large traps and obstacles between bases! Players only get to wear gloves after the 7th inning! FOX's special ball-tracker technology, which puts a red dot on the screen where the ball is so you can see it at all times!

If everything goes just right, this could be as successful as the XFL.

Note to concerned readers: My connection still isn’t up – I’m here because of netzero dialup right now.

I continue to wage war against my internet service provider, which has decided that only certain, small parts of the internet will be able to be accessed from my building (this small part does not include Blogger, unfortunately, so that's why my posts have more or less dropped off). So once again, I am forced to post from work, and my sense of industriousness is only allowing me to do short, informational posts from here. I'll try to use dialup to post when I can, but I know this problem will be fixed in a few weeks at latest when I move into a different building with DSL.

It appears that my network connection has been fixed, so hopefully I won't run into any more problems in the near future. Unfortunately, I'll be leaving for the upcoming extended weekend again, so I'll be posting infrequently for the next few days, if at all.

Ok, back to business: I saw Minority Report the other day. Spielberg shows a great touch in this movie, especially in his ability to carefully control what the audience knows at any given time. It’s a director’s skill in selective information hiding that really makes a movie like this work. It seemed to me like every important revelation and plot twist was revealed to the audience about a minute before it was explicitly stated. This isn't good or bad in itself, but it functions well in this film by heightening suspense at the right time. The portrayal of what the world will be like in half a century or so is about as realistic as I've ever seen in a movie; the fact that experts in emerging technologies were consulted on what could and could not be possible is clearly evident. There are some more or less obvious plot holes, which I won't get into right now, because they really don't diminish from the script. Also, I should mention that if you have an intense fear of things being poked in your eyes (like me, I can’t even watch someone put in a contact without squirming), you’re REALLY not going to like certain parts of the movie. All and all, however, it’s very well done. 3 ½ stars.

I'm proud to announce a new measurement system for stupidity. It's very simple, and has given very reasonable results so far. To find out someone's stupidity rating, simply go to Google and type in the exact (quoted) phrase, "______ is stupid", where you put in whatever person you want where the blank is. Then individual's stupidity rating is the number of hits that come back. Here are some results:

George Bush: 32
Dan Quayle: 8
Bill Clinton: 6
Al Gore: 5

If you're really brave put your name in. You'll be surprised how many people turn out to be stupid. Have fun!

Note: My network connection is still acting flaky. I had to go on dialup just to post this. I care about you, my readers, that much.

Note to readers: My internet connection has been severely acting up the past couple days, rendering it impossible for me to post ( I'm currently posting this message from work). I have several things I've just been waiting to put up, I'm just unable to do it at the moment. I'll continue trying, however, and I hope everything will be cleared up soon. If you need to vent your frustration to somebody, I recomend Washington University Technology Services.