Dork Moment of the Day....

This is the error I recieved when I tried posting the post below:

Error 103:java.sql.SQLException: Could not allocate space for object 'BlogSettings' in database 'blogger' because the 'PRIMARY' filegroup is full.

I know what this means...It's the same error I got many times from the friggin' CEC SQL server. This is scary......

I've gone into a deep depression caused by the disgusting performance of the Packers this weekend. Nevertheless, my spirits were somewhat brightened by a second viewing of the The Two Towers the other day, which I will now give my review of.....

Let me start out by stating that I have never seen a large-scale movie get as many positive reviews as this one. After seeing the movie, I was somewhat confused because the film (at least for me) was not big on emotional impact, which seems to be the predominant criterion for a lot of of critics. I could gush on and on about all the great things in the movie (and there really are a ton of great things, but you can read about those elsewhere), but I was still in about the 3 - 3 1/2 star range until my second viewing for the aforementioned reason. However, on the second showing, I realized that this particular movie does have that impact, but it flows so well with the rest of the film that you hardly notice it. To put it in other words, the emotion isn't shoved in your face, and it doesn't linger unnecessarily. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of all is how far the film stands above any other large-scale hollywood productions that have come out recently. The whole genre seems increasingly geared towards appealing to the lowest common denominator, instead of making a movie good. The Two Towers is clearly a break from this trend, and hopefully its box-office success will convince producers to start making good movies again, instead of Extreme Ops. 4 stars.

Several items on the agenda for today:

First, a belated Merry Christmas - My lack of posting the past few days can be attributed to large family parties on Chrismas Eve and Day, and a short daytrip to Chicago yesterday (more on that some other time)

Second, I've been saying a Die Another Day review is on the way, so here it is:

This movie would perhaps best be titled "Hey, It's A Bond Movie!". This isn't really a criticism, I mean that the entire movie is pretty much a glorification and celebration of everything Bond stands for, today and in the past. It has plently of none-too-vague references to earlier movies in the series, and seems to really enjoy playing up the ridiculousness of the whole Bond idea. It's chock full of all the old standards: ridiculous cars, ridiculous women, loads of bad puns, a ridiculous (demented) villan with some kind deformity/enhancement, a ridiculous movie title that sounds catchy but doesn't make any sense, the list goes on and on. I was a bit worried a few years ago that the francise was becoming to moderized, feminized, and politically correct, which threatened to kill the series. Hovever, besides a few really awkward bits (the parasail/surfing thing, the horrible dialogue with Halle Berry when they meet in Cuba, that silly-looking gene therapy mask) Bond seems back to his hard-drinking, gun-shooting, womenizing ways. 2.5 stars.

Finally, some football picks:

PHI at NYG: NYG. Everything is falling into place for the Packers ...Tampa gets whupped, the Eagles fall to the Giants, and we ride into the playoffs with a #1 seed.

KC at OAK: OAK. KC has spunk, but I learned to always pick Oakland at home.

BAL at PIT: PIT. If the Steelers defense can't hold the Ravens in check, they're not going to get anywhere in the playoffs anyway.

DAL at WAS: WAS. Dallas games are by far the most boring things on planet earth. And yet they're "America's Team". Somebody please explain. "Game I Dont Care About Of the Week" in a landslide.

TEN at HOU: TEN. The breaking of the streak was bittersweet last week. Even when I pick the Titans correctly they still manage to screw me.

CIN at BUF: BUF. Even the revival of the Ickey Shuffle won't help now....

ATL at CLE: ATL. An imporatant game that I seem to have no feelings about. The Browns have a great ability to draw my interest elsewhere.

MIN at DET: MIN. Which Daunte Culpepper will show up is anyones guess. The Lion's pass defense will certainly try to bring out the best in him, though.

MIA at NE: MIA. Sorry Pats, but your reign is coming to an end. I just didn't know it'd happen this soon.

CAR at NO: NO. If the Saints can't win this one, they might as well start from scratch.

JAX at IND: IND. Sorry, but if the Jags can't beat the Titans when I pick the Titans, there's not much hope here.

GB at NYJ: GB. N/A

AZ at DEN: DEN. Arizona gave me a scare against the Rams a few weeks ago, but from then on the road to no more victories was clear. I told you so.

SEA at SD: SD. I'm off the bandwagon again, but I can't imagine LT getting less than 200 yards and 3 TDs on the horrible 'Hawks D.

TB at CHI: TB. Chicago's is going to use every wacky play in the book, but in this no-offense showdown tampa's D will win out. And hopefully Warren Sapp will get his head knocked off or something.

SF at STL: SF. Boy, MNF can sure pick 'em. If you look up "quitter" in the dictionary, there's a picture of the Rams. And if you look up "Bulgermania", there's a picture of me, because I invented it.

I'm very surpirsed I wasn't scooped by Chris on this story, considering his affinity for monkeys, but I guess I found it first.

On another note, I now have reviews of Lord of the Rings and Bond sitting on the queue, they will be popped off shortly.

And the squirrel story is coming, don't worry....

Finally, a correction to the post below: For that TEN at JAX game, the pick was actually TEN, as you can tell by the caption - I just forgot to delete JAX when I changed my mind.

I really have to stop living on the edge here.....

HOU at WAS: WAS. Ewwwww. Runner-up "Game That I Don't Care About of the Week". Once again hurt by the fact that no one is expected to care about the Texans.

TEN at JAX: JAX. TEN. I do this only because I know picking the Titans will guarantee a Jags win - This is my repayment to Lisa for yesterday.

DET at ATL: ATL. I can't believe that I picked the Lions to upset last week, but it's much more unbelievable that they almost won.

CHI at CAR: CAR. Ewwwww, part 2. "Game That I Don't Care About of the Week" award.

NO at CIN: NO. I'm starting to run out of Bengals jokes because I have to use one every week. So I'll just laugh. Hahahahahaha

NYG at IND: IND. The colts have to figure out what kind of team they are, while the giants already have an identity: Outstandingly mediocre.

BUF at GB: GB. No Comment.

STL at SEA: STL. The Rams have clearly decided to quit this year, as evidenced by fact that the Cards came very close to beating them last week. I can't beleive how stupid sportswriters are to declare Marc Bulger as the savior after he beats up on the Cardinals and Seahawks, while Warner has to play the likes of Philly and Tampa Bay.

SD at KC: SD. KC has apparently come back to reality, and noticed that their defense is really bad.

DEN at OAK: OAK. A game that's really too close to call. I'll take the Raiders on home-field advantage.

CLE at BAL: BAL. Both teams suck, but Baltimore sucks in a more methodical way, and, as we all know, slow and steady wins the race.

PIT at TB: PIT. C'mon Pittsburg, C'mon Pittsburg........Philly has convinced me they're going to be a power in the NFC playoffs, Tampa has conviced me that they're slightly better than Detroit.

NYJ at NE: NE. Both teams officially stunk it up last week. But the Jets were playing the Bears. Enough said.

Whew....made the picks about 5 mins before the Miami game started....Chris almost got 3 easy ones on me...

*Special thanks to Lisa for the reminder, I owe you three football picks, for whatever that's worth.

MIA at MIN: MIA
SF at AZ: SF
PHI at DAL: PHI

Greetings from Madison, Wisconsin. I've made a bit of a detour on my way back home to visit my amazing* sister. Madison beats St. Louis for coldness, college atmosphere, and hippies per square mile, but comes up a bit short in the crime and overall drearyness departments.

On an unrelated note, I saw bond the other day. A review is on the way. But let me just say here that it had the jump-kickin'-est set of preview trailers I've ever seen. You can decide wheter or not that's a good thing.

*I gave laura a choice of which adjective she wanted here

Finals are done and not a moment too soon; I was beginning to lose it there at the end. Alas, the robot that Ben and I created; with whom I had spent countless hours with during the past few weeks; did not make it out alive.

RIP Clarice

You lived only to serve. You did your job, and did it well, despite your physical limitations. And you heroicially voulunteered for an experimental brain transplant at the end of your life. The golf balls will miss you.

I must apologize for my rather extended absence. I promise I will make up for it with a retelling of the single best story I know, the infamous Squirrel Story, sometime over chrismas break. So stay tuned. As for now, the current dropoff in posts can be attributed soley to finals, which are currently consuming far too much of my time. Nevertheless, I will dutifully present my NFL picks.

In case you haven't been able to tell from the tone of the previous few sentences, I've been writing way too many papers.....

SEA at ATL: ATL. Yeah, so they had an off week. But they're playing seattle.

SD at BUF: SD. The Chargers are starting to tick me off again, but they're still way behind the Titans in that regard

NYJ at CHI: NYG. The bears on monday night last week were beyond pathetic. However, that didn't keep anyone from kissing Brian Urlacher's behind. I like how ABC decided to cut to Urlacher between almost every play while the bears were on offense.

JAX at CIN: JAX. Two teams that are both very good at finding ways to lose, but Cincy is clearly better at it.

IND at CLE: IND. This has nothing to do with the game at hand, but I really have nothing interesting to say about this game, so I'll say it here: I coined the term "Bulgermaina", and I have several witnesses who will back me up. I want royalties now. Just look here. That's right, number one on google, baby.

TB at DET: DET. That's right, I'm going against my own philosophy of never picking the Lions to upset. I hate the Bucs that much.

OAK at MIA: OAK. A game that I should be excited about but I'm really not. Mabey there's something wrong with me.

MIN at NO: NO. Last week, a couple of Vikings took "kick 'em while they're down" a little too literally. Now they wallets are $10,000 lighter.

WAS at PHI: PHI. I secretly think Washington will probably win, but I'd be condoning stupidity if I picked Steve Spurrier, and I just can't do that...

CAR at PIT: PIT. Another game I waivered on, but Pitt is fighiting for their playoff lives - that means Tommy Maddox should play well. Right? RIGHT?

BAL at HOU: BAL. Lost in the Texans win last week was the fact that gained less than 50 offensive yards. In the whole game. Really.

KC at DEN: KC. After watching KC last week, I will agree that Priest Homes is very good, but their O Line is something special. Betty Crocker could get 1000 yards behind them.

DAL at NYG: NYG. A narrow win in "Game I don't Care About Of The Week" award. BAL at HOU was eliminated because no one was expected to care about it, while AZ at STL, suffers from the fact that I really like to see the Rams play bad.

GB at SF: GB. Damn Straight.

AZ at STL: STL. You laughed when I said the Cards wouldn't win another game this year. You've got some nerve.......

NE at TEN: NE. I might as well not pick. We all know that I'm not going to get this game right.

Well, I'm emotionally spent after watching the Packers pull off a gut-wrenching victory tonight, but I can't go without one quick complaint. FOX broadcasting has some gall to introduce a Simpsons episode as "All New" when the same epsode was in fact already shown a month ago. It happened to be the halloween episode, which makes it the twice now that FOX has refused to admit that the epsode's first showing ever happened. At least they're consistent.

Football Picks, get 'em while theyre hot....

IND at TEN: IND. The Titans continue to foil me at every turn. I don't know if I've picked them right since week one. I have to pick Indy because they're on a tear, which means this is a guaranteed W for Tennessee

STL at KC: KC. Mark my words, this game has BIG blowout potential. Not Arizona-Cardinals-Whupping-Big, but close.

BUF at NE: NE. Anyone who witnessed the Pats drub the Bills earlier this year knows this game is a shoo-in.

SF at DAL: SF. Watching Dallas on Thanksgiving gave me big time indigestion. Either that or the gravy.

HOU at PIT: PIT. The Houston Texans: "We're 3 times as good as Cincy"

ATL at TB: ATL. Team I've been riding all year vs. team I hate? Hmmmm.......

NYG at WAS: NYG. Coach Steve is at it again, planning to phase out Stephen Davis in favor of someone named Ladell Betts. You have to ask, how many things of this nature can the guy get away with before people realize he's NOT the next Jimmy Johnson?

CIN at CAR: CAR. The Carolina Panthers "We're 4 times as good as Cincy, and we have Rodney Peete running our team"

CLE at JAX: JAX. I've been picking the Jags a lot recently and they've been playing like a pile of puke. If they lose here, they're going to be sent off to my "Tennessee Titans Timeout Corner".

NO at BAL: BAL. Chris beat me to this upset pick, but I still got another up my sleeve (see below)

DET at AZ: DET. We all know my feelings about the Lions, but I've also said that Arizona is done winning for the year, and I stand by that. This game also wins the coveted "Game I Don't Care About Of The Week" award, in a landslide.

PHI at SEA: SEA. The quarterback craziness ends here. This is my own "upset of the week" pick.

OAK at SD: SD. I tried jumping off the Chargers bandwagon last week, but I hit a bump in the road named LaDanian and bounced right back on it.

DEN at NYJ: DEN. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly the Jets did well enough to win about half their games this year. Has anyone else noticed that the two New York teams are both blindingly mediocre?

MIN at GB: GB. I don't know why I even waste my time writing this. We all know who I'm picking.

CHI at MIA: MIA. The Bears: "We'll cure what ails ya"

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for your loved one? Well, if they are one of the many people that think our country is going to hell in a handbasket because our commander in chief is an idiot, how about this?

Everyone except me is sick. I feel so left out.

On a plus note, we had the first significant snowfall of the year today, and I can't help being in a good mood, even though exam season is rolling around. The only downside is that the average St. Louis driver apparently has no idea that driving in snow is different than driving on a nice muggy St. Louis-style summer day. Thus, the usual St. Louis-style, "up yours!" maneuvers (running red lights, turning from the wrong lanes, generally acting like an idiot) are magnified in their stupidity and danger, so there are accidents all over the place. That's why I'm sticking to the backroads.