I dream in TV shows

One of my favorite shows these days is called The League.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, The League is a show on the FX Network that follows the fortunes (and failings) of a group of 6 long-time friends in Chicago that participate in a fantasy football league.  They mix football regularly into their every-day lives.  Often it's football first, career and family a distant 2nd and 3rd. 

Anyway, last night I had a vivid dream about a scene from The League.  Since I've seen all the shows, I know this isn't an actual scene from the show, but it played out just like it.  So, I've decided to try and transcribe it here.

FADE IN:

               INT. KEVIN AND JENNY'S BEDROOM

               KEVIN and JENNY are in their bed having sex.

                                   JENNY

                      OH MY GOD! YES BABY!

               As JENNY screams, KEVIN has a triumphant look on his face.

               EXT. KEVIN AND JENNY'S HOUSE

                                   JENNY

                      Kevin, what the hell are you doing?!?

               EXT. GIBSON'S BAR

               PETE AND RUXIN are laughing.

                                   PETE

                      You did what?

               INT. GIBSON'S BAR

                                   KEVIN

                      (shamefully)

                      I did the Ickey Shuffle

                                   RUXIN

                      And why were you doing the Ickey

                      Shuffle?

                                   KEVIN

                      After Jenny had an orgasm, I guess I

                      got excited and decided to celebrate.

                                   PETE

                      So you did an endzone celebration

                      while you were having sex? And a

                      remarkably outdated one at that.

                                   KEVIN

                      Yes.

               ANDRE approaches with a glass of wine.

                                   ANDRE

                      What are we talking about?

                                   PETE

                      Kevin gave his wife an orgasm and

                      decided to do the Ickey Shuffle to

                      celebrate.

                                   RUXIN

                      Yeah, I'd throw a flag for

                      unsportsmanlike conduct for that.

                                   ANDRE

                      Well, I'm old school.  Just hand the

                      ball to the ref.  Act like you've been

                      there before and you plan to come

                      back.

                                   RUXIN

                      Well, that leaves Andre out.

                                   PETE

                      So, I've done the endzone celebration

                      during sex too.

                                   KEVIN

                      So, what's your sexual endzone

                      celebration.

                                   PETE

                      I pulled out a Sharpie and signed my

                      condom like TO.

               RUXIN, KEVIN and ANDRE gasp in disgust.

                                   ANDRE

                      Wait, where did you pull out the

                      Sharpie from?

               As PETE gives a sly grin, RUXIN, KEVIN and ANDRE turn and gag
               with dry heaves.

                                   KEVIN

                      That is disgusting Pete.

                                   PETE

                      WHAT!  She was from France, I thought

                      that's how they did it. Anyway, you

                      didn't seem to notice.

                                   KEVIN

                      What are you taking about? Wait, not my

                      Big Bertha?  Oh God.

                                   RUXIN

                      I did the props once, got out my cell

                      phone and made a call like Joe Horn.

                                   KEVIN

                      Who did you call?

                                   RUXIN

                      Andre's mom.

                                   ANDRE

                      Ok.  Haha.

                                   PETE

                      So, did she pick up?

                                   RUXIN

                      No, I just handed her the phone.

                                   ANDRE

                      Ok, that's not funny.

                                   RUXIN

                      Take it easy Andre, I wasn't having

                      sex with your mom.  I was having sex

                      with your sister, your mom was just

                      watching.

               ANDRE lets out a groan as the rest laugh.

                                   RUXIN

                      No, about all I can get away with is

                      doing a haka.

                                   KEVIN

                      That dance thing the rugby players do

                      before the games?

                                   RUXIN

                      Yeah, Sophia says that if I use props,

                      I'm just bringing attention to myself,

                      it's not about the team success.

               TACO creeps up behind Kevin

                                   TACO

                      Hey guys, what are we talking about?

                                   KEVIN

                      JESUS, TACO!

                                   PETE

                      Sexual endzone celebrations.

                                   ANDRE

                      Yeah, Kevin does the Ickey Shuffle,

                      Pete uses props and I just say act

                      like you've been there and you plan to

                      go back.

                                   KEVIN

                      Jeez, Andre.  You sound just like

                      those cranky old white dudes you see

                      on TV, "Football was much better back

                      in my day before helmets, cheerleaders

                      and the forward pass."

                                   TACO

                      No, no, Andre's right.

                                   ANDRE

                      Thank, you Taco.

                                   TACO

                      No problem.  If we're talking about

                      Andre's mom's endzone, I've been there

                      before.  And I definitely plan on

                      going back.

               ANDRE drops his head and lets out a groan.

Now, that's a pretty long scene.  But that was pretty much my dream.  I've tacked some stuff in some spots, but this shows just how crazy my dreams are.  Here's just a little clip from the show to give you an idea of what it's like.

An Objective Review of GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra - Negative 2 billion stars out of 5

I had incredibly low expectations for this movie and it managed to surpass it with stunning ability. Ridiculous plot, terrible acting, pathetic special effects; just plain stupid.

Christopher Eccleston plays a corporate weapons honcho that gets NATO to give him money to develop a new fangled nano-robot weapon, even though he has enough money to have built an enormous underwater city at the North Pole that even the Chinese don't know about. He also, for some reason, has a deep-seated grudge against (humans?) because his great^20 grandfather was busted selling weapons to the French and turned into the man in the iron mask. Channing Tatum (who was in love with Sienna Miller at some point because they shared a nice dance or something but they break up because he just happens to be there when Sienna's brother blows up during combat in some random east African locale, don't ask me) and Marlon Wayans (killing all the credibility he gained from Requiem for a Dream that had built up to counteract Dungeons & Dragons, White Chicks and Little Man) are tasked with transporting this new weapon to somewhere, in jeeps. With helicopter backups. Not sure why they didn't just put the weapons in the helicopter. Anyway, they get ambushed. SURPRISE, BITCH! Sienna Miller and (Korean Pop Superstar) Rain try and make off with the goodies.

GI Joe saves the day, Tatum and Wayans ask to be recruited into the wonderful world of Joe and blah, blah, blah. Its really difficult to talk about this steaming pile of dog squeeze. I just kept on thinking "Dumb", "What the F**K?" , "Is my mac and cheese done?" while watching this. I mean you have Snake Eyes versus (Korean Pop Superstar) Rain, and for some reason they consider themselves brothers. A white guy and a Korean guy growing up in Japan learning Chinese kung fu. And their "brotherhood" consisted of white kid trying to steal food, Korean kid yells at him in Korean and fights him, Chinese "master" says we gotta train this white kid while Korean kid snarls, Korean kid beats up white kid in training while Chinese "master" broods, white kid finally "beats" Korean kid while Chinese "master" claps, Korean kid sticks a sword in Chinese "master's" back. All in the space of a couple of weeks.

Stuff like this really made me proud to say I made it all the way thru this muck only turning away for a few minutes. Now I know how Sisyphus felt.

So now go buy it.

How I learned about racism

The Jeffersons. That's right, The Jeffersons taught me about the evils of racism. There was an episode called "Sorry, Wrong Meeting", where George inadvertently attends a KKK meeting in his building.  When the KKK leader has a heart attack, George is the only one in the room who knows CPR and saves his life.  When the KKK leader's son tells him that George saved his life, he says "You should have let me die".  As a little kid, I was completely freaked out.  My poor Mom wasn't able to explain racism to me.  I just couldn't comprehend the intense hatred somebody could have just based on somebody else's skin color.  Maybe it was because my best friend at the time was Mexican or maybe because I used to watch Sanford and Son, Good Times as well as The Jeffersons that I didn't think there was anything inherently strange or different about people that weren't white.  Or maybe it was a good family to teach me right from wrong.  Or maybe it was a combination of all of them together.

Here is part 2 of that Jeffersons episode.  Just try to imagine watching this as a 9-year old and that's how I felt.

Backwards thinking?

So, I've sort of avoided all this Herman Cain sexual harassment talk.  (I will be voting for Stephen Colbert again anyway)  But I was listening to the radio on the way home and heard a guy screaming about it to the host.  His exact words were "I can't believe you can believe anything Herman Cain says about this situation when he's done nothing to prove his innocence."  Very strange concept of American justice.  But I have to say these days, most people do think you are guilty until proven innocent.

My most hated movie cliches

Sure there are loads of terrible movie cliches: Nobody ever seems to reload their guns in a gunfight, Good guys will get attacked one at a time by hordes of bad guys, the bad guy having an English accent, etc.  But there are some lessor ones that really get my goat.

• If a guy dresses up as a woman, there will always be guys that try to hit on them.  No matter how terrible they look, they seem to attract guys.  I could give Tootsie as an example, but that guy was a drunk.  There was also one of the Revenge of the Nerd movies that had a terrible episode of that, but the all-time worst has to be White Chicks.  How the hell is anybody fooled by this.  They both look like that Crazy Tiger Lady.

• Whenever you have the underdog team play in the big game in a football movie, they always give up a kickoff return touchdown to start the game.  I assume they do this just to show how bad the underdog is.  But it happens all the time.  I just recently watched The Best of Times and Necessary Roughness and they both had a kickoff return for a TD to open the game.
• Whenever somebody is getting chased down by a car, they run straight down the road.  They never weave off the road or try to get behind an obstacle.  The closest I've seen to actually using logic when running away from a car was in The Terminator when Linda Hamilton is running away from the Terminator.  Of course, she mainly runs down the road still, but does try to get some cars in between her and the truck behind her.  
• A corollary to this is that whenever anybody is running away from something in a movie, they always trip and fall down.  Doesn't matter what kind of ground they are running on or what kind of shoes they have, they always go down.
• How many times have you gone out to your car on a nice sunny day and tried to start your car only for it to sputter and not start. Probably never, since this is real life, but in the movies whenever somebody is trying to escape from evil government forces or evil bloodthirsty demon hordes, the car always sputters when they try to start it.

I'm sure I have some more that I can't remember right now.

Hidden Youtube Gems - 10/10/11

I tend to wander around Youtube incessantly listening to music.  So sue me.  I have various playlists that I like to listen to whenever I get tired of Pandora or streaming radio.  I thought I would do a blog post of some of the best videos that have very few views.  I tried to keep them under 1,000 views but some might be just over.

Kowloon Walled City - "Bone Loss"

In the grand tradition of playing noisy music to piss off your parents comes Kowloon Walled City. This song, "Bone Loss", comes from their 2009 album, Gambling On The Richter Scale.  This video currently stands at 535 views on Youtube.  Surely, I can get this up to 540 by the end of 2012.

Saloon - "Le Weekend"

Now, this one is a little bit of a personal story for me.  I was in Japan once upon a time and happened upon a record store on one of my walkabouts.  I went in and started looking around.  It was a fantastic store that had tons of stuff that I wanted to buy, but knew I couldn't blow my wad too early, or try and carry all the stuff home.  So I just got a few things as I was browsing.  While I was looking around, they had a fantastic CD playing in the background that was very pop-y, trippy and generally happy sounding.  When I ask what music it was, the lady pulled out (This Is) What We Call Progress by Saloon.  They were a band that had already broken up by the time I picked up the album, but I still enjoy listening to it today.  This video is at 1438 views at this moment.

Nerdkween - "I Wish I Was Your Cloud"

Nerdkween is a singer-songwriter that performs here in Atlanta.  Her latest album, "Synergy", was put out by Stickfigure Records.  (You should definitely go the Official Stickfigure Homepage and buy one of everything)  I have no idea why this video sits at 279 views, it's a fantastic song and she is extremely talented and does her best to challenge the audience.

Elision - "Escapist of..."

 

When Krautrock isn't Krautrock.  Elision was from Germany but they are most definitely not the Krautrock made famous by Faust, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk.  They played a pretty straight forward hard-rock and loved to get sweaty.  You can listen to some more of their songs on their Myspace page.  This video is at 798 views... AND CLIMBING!

Botch - "Micaragua"

Surely, you've heard of Botch?  (yes I have and don't call me Shirley)  Now I've gotten that out of the way.  Botch were a pretty influential band that were tagged with the Mathcore label.  They only had 2 full albums in their 10 years, but they had a hell of an output anyway between their EPs and split albums.  This particular song was off the Anthology of Dead Ends EP.  For some reason, they named all the songs after countries and replaced the Ns with Ms.  This video is only at 485 views, but is sure to be pulled at some point due to the image and/or copyright stuff.

College Football Realigment, Here We...er, Wait a sec

So, in my last post about College Football realignment, changes looked to be coming fast and furious. A couple of weeks later, and it looks to have been shot down just as fast. Just like some movie I recently watched. Texas A&M (and Texas and the Longhorn Network for that matter), Syracuse and Pittsburgh are My Name Is Earl's tubby brother and sets the realignment train on its way.  It looks all set to decimate the Pennsylvania countryside until the Pac-12 does their Denzel and the SEC does their Chris Pine impression and puts the brakes on realignment.  What looked to be a sure-fire move to 16-team superconferences ended when the Pac-12 decides not to add Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas and Texas Tech.  Then the SEC refuses to add West Virginia and decides to keep Missouri waiting.

So we've gone from Unstoppable, to very stoppable.  Now, instead of being reduced to scraps, the Big 12 is still in business.  They've also decided to add another team in TCU.  I failed to mention in my last post how TCU was supposed to be moving to the Big East.  But I had already assumed that with the Big East slowly dying, TCU would bolt before it even started playing.  Turns out I was right.  (What would be really funny is if TCU bolted a dying Big East only to have to bolt a dying Big 12)   So what are we looking at now:

ACC	Big 10	Big 12	Big East	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Baylor Iowa State Kansas K. State Missouri Oklahoma OK State TCU Texas Texas Tech	Cincinnati Connecticut Louisville Rutgers S Florida West Virginia	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt

So, we still have a crippled Big East, a somewhat stable Big 12 and a 13-team SEC.  The SEC can't stay at 13 teams in its current 2 division setup, the scheduling is a nightmare.  So, will Missouri go to the SEC as has been predicted?  It would make things easy for the SEC but then the Big 12 would need to get another team to get back to 10 teams, or would they try to stay at 9?  Or will the Pac-12 try to go to 16 by stealing Big-12 teams?  Whatever happens, it looks like it won't be happening as fast as it appeared just a few weeks ago.

Short Shots, 10/05/2001

I don't know if the story of Hachikō is the saddest thing ever or the greatest thing ever. I do know that my cat was extremely interested watching the movie, Hachi: A Dog's Tale, which is an American movie about the story of Hachiko.

I really love watching movies by Darren Aronofsky but only the first time.  The guy is an incredible filmmaker but his movies are difficult to watch.   Requiem for a Dream is in an incredible movie, but I became physically ill watching it.  Those of you who have seen it can probably relate.  Black Swan is another great movie, but I tried watching it again the other night but totally tensed up watching certain parts. So I watch his movies one time and am totally blown away.  Then I end up not being able to watch his movies a second time.  Most filmmakers just try to record reality and put it on the screen, but Aronofsky has a way of enhancing reality and projecting it straight thru the screen.  And not the happy side of reality.

Today's bad marketing decision, the the McDLT.  It wasn't a bad product because it was a bad concept, it was a bad product because of bad marketing.  At the heart of it, it makes a lot of sense.  You keep the lettuce and tomato separate from the burger so the burger doesn't get it all soggy and dull while it sits on the shelf.  But they ruined it with this terrible Jason Alexander commercial.

Today's free band name: Magnetic Coffins (or The Magnetic Coffins)  Probably not the name for a country band

I'd probably be more likely to watch this American Horror Story show if they didn't try to sell it as "From the Creators of Glee".  Now, Glee is scarier than shit, but that's still a hard sell.

Can't believe people are flipping out about this Brett Favre interview.  Yeah, he was downplaying Aaron Rodgers' skills, but shouldn't that be expected?  I mean Favre is the same guy that said he wasn't paid to be a mentor for Rodgers.  Favre is the same guy that kept people guessing for 4 years about whether he was going to retire or not.  And the talking heads keep saying they are sick of talking about Favre, but then at the same time keep talking about him.  Here's a tip: quit talking about him and you won't have to talk about him.

Hank Williams Jr blew it, he should have just said he was comparing John Boehner to Hitler.

Did Kazushi Sakuraba kill Japanese MMA?

Sure, that's an intentionally deceptive and sensationalistic headline.  I've been wondering about the death of Japanese MMA lately and if there are some causes that nobody has been thinking about.  (I even have a huge blog entry that I haven't posted about an off-the-wall reason Japanese MMA is dying because it didn't really end up making sense)  Of course the often cited reasons for the demise of Japanese MMA all have some validity but there has to be more than that.  The global recession has had an effect, but the USA is doing just as bad as Japan but the UFC is still going strong here and expanding worldwide.  Changing viewer habits?  Makes sense, Japanese fans are notoriously fickle.  You just need to look at the roller coaster popularity of pro wrestling.  Yakuza involvement?  It hasn't seemed to hurt UFC having Dana White in charge.  (I'm kidding, I'm probably more pro-Dana White than most people)

So, is there something else out there that has caused Japanese MMA to slowly die.  Maybe Kazushi Sakuraba has killed Japanese MMA.  Crazy theory, but let's take a look at Kazushi Sakuraba's career.

Stage 1 (Debut - Pride 12)

  

Sakuraba moved from professional werstling to MMA and had an auspicious debut as he lost by submission to Kimo Leopoldo, who came in 60 pounds heavier than Sakuraba.  In his next 15 fights, he went 12-1-1 with one no contest.  His lone loss was to heavyweight Igor Vovchanchyn in a match that happened just hours after his legendary 90 minute victory over Royce Gracie.  During this time is when he gained legend status in Japan with victories over 4 members of the Gracie family; Royce, Ryan, Renzo and Royler.  During this time, Pride was also becoming the biggest MMA company in the world.  They had a mix of small attendance shows with big shows at the Tokyo Dome in the beginning.  Pride 12 saw 27,000 attend Pride's first show at Saitama Super Arena, the unofficial home arena of MMA in Japan.

Stage 2 - (Pride 13 - Pride Shockwave 2005)

This was the period that saw Sakuraba's decline.  He went 7-7 and had three devastating KOs against Wanderlei Silva.  He also suffered multiple injuries during this time.  His worst may have been during the biggest fight of his career.  He was in the main event of the largest MMA show in history.  Over 90,000 at the Tokyo National Stadium saw Sakuraba match up with former kickboxing great Mirko Cro Cop.  Cro Cop came in 30 pounds heavier but was also fighting just his 5th MMA fight.  Sakuraba was able to take Cro Cop down late in the 1st and 2nd rounds but was never close to finishing Cro Cop.  At the end of the 2nd round, Cro Cop caught Sakuraba with an upkick and fractured Sakuraba's orbital bone.  Sakuraba was unable to continue and lost in the main event of the biggest MMA show ever.  His only significant victories during this time were a submission of an inexperienced Quinton Jackson and a suspicious looking submission of Kevin Randleman. 

Stage 3 - (Sakuraba in Hero's)

After Pride Shockwave 2005, Sakuraba left Pride to sign with their rival Hero's, which was run by the kickboxing group K-1.  In 2 years with Hero's, Sakuraba went 4-1 with 1 no-contest.  He couldn't avoid controversy in his time with Hero's.  There was the fight against Kestutis Smirnovas, where he was knocked out thru the ropes.  But the referee decided to drag Sakuraba back in the ring and restart the fight.  Somehow Sakuraba managed to regain his senses and eventually would submit Smirnovas.  His next fight was a high-profile main event match against Yoshihiro Akiyama at the Osaka Dome on New Year's Eve 2006.  After being dominated by Akiyama, the ref stopped the fight in the middle of the 1st round.  But the fight was later ruled a no-contest after Akiyama was discovered to have applied lotion to his body to make himself more slippery against Sakuraba's submission offense.  He then rematched with Royce Gracie at the controversy riddled Dynamite!! USA show at the LA Coliseum.  Though Sakuraba lost by decision, Gracie later tested positive for steroids.  He then beat former pro-wrestler Katsuyori Shibata and the legendary Masakatsu Funaki, who had been retired for 7 years, by submission.  His fight against Funaki was that last show that K-1 had MMA fights, K-1 PREMIUM 2007 Dynamite!!.

Stage 4 - (The Dream Years)

Not only did Hero's see its demise during Sakuraba's time there, but Pride also went out of business.  While Sakuraba was planning to return to Pride for a fight against Kiyoshi Tamura, but that never happened under the Pride banner.  Pride was sold to Zuffa/UFC in the Spring of 2007 and never had another show.  Sakuraba returned to fighting with Dream, a company formed between former Pride executives and K-1.  Dream hasn't come close to reaching the heights of Pride and Sakuraba hasn't come close to replicating his successes from the beginning of his career.  His time in Dream shows his career should definitely be over.  He's 3-6 in Dream.  He has 2 wins in Dream over non-MMA fighters making their MMA debut and a victory over the mostly average Zelg Galesic. He's also been submitted twice in that time, his first submission losses since that first fight against Kimo.

If you look at the career path of Sakuraba, his career peaked at the same time as the popularity of Pride was peaking.  Even though he had bad losses before, the downward trend for Sakuraba really began when he suffered a brutal one-punch knockout at the hands of Wanderlei Silva in August 2003.

After this knockout, his career was a mix of brutal beatdown losses and victories over subpar competition.  As his career slowly faded, Pride was still the top MMA company in the world.  From their start in 1997 thru the end of 2005, Pride was the biggest MMA company in the world.  Interestingly, when Pride's decline started in 2006, the UFC began to take Pride's place as the preeminent MMA company.  It only took a year and a half for Pride to shut it's doors and be bought out by the UFC.

So, did Sakuraba really kill Japanese MMA?  It's no secret that the Japanese fans love to root for Japanese fighters.  They respect all fighters that get in the ring, but they really get behind their own.  This is obvious when you see the fanfare and interest in the MMA debuts for Japanese Judo Olympic gold medalists, Hidehiko Yoshida and Satoshi Ishii.  But for all the Japanese MMA fighters that fought over the last 15 years, the most popular was Kazushi Sakuraba.  Is it possible that Japanese fans became disillusioned by Sakuraba's deteriorating skills and started tuning out?

Or maybe Japanese MMA killed Sakuraba's career?  Maybe he felt pressured to show up to fight for his Japanese fans when his body needed a rest.  Sakuraba is well known for coming to the ring with his legs taped up like a mummy.  Maybe if he would have taken time off to let his body heal, he wouldn't have had such bad losses on his resume.

It's not just the Japanese fans that are disappointed, though.  I'm pretty sure all MMA fans cringe when they see Sakuraba fight now.  He's just a shell of his former self and it is really sad to see him fight these days.  I imagine it's similar to Willie Mays fans seeing him stumble around the outfield for the Mets or Johnny Unitas fans watching him constantly getting sacked for the San Diego Chargers.  Hopefully, Sakuraba retires and MMA fans can just remember him as a great fighter and great entertainer.

Will Japanese MMA ever return to the levels of the past?  Probably not, but maybe there's hope for MMA in Japan.  The UFC returns to Japan to hold a show at the Saitama Super Arena in February 2012.  This show will go a long towards showing the state of MMA in Japan.

Short Shots, 9/24/2001

Crazy happenings in the world of college sports, will have another post of conference realignment soon.

- So I watched Battle: Los Angeles this week.  I don't know what I was expecting (I take that back, I was expecting a piling heap of garbage), but I didn't think it was that bad.  It was a classic behind enemy lines plot line (not a Behind Enemy Lines plot line) and if it had been set in WWII or Vietnam, it would probably be better received.  Maybe people are alien-invasioned out.

- Bought a box of Fruit Pastilles today.  Yummy!  I balanced it with some chicken and peppers stir fry, so don't scream at me about my food choice.

- Watched Georgia Tech beat North Carolina in football today.  They won to go to 4-0 for the first time since the National Championship season but this team isn't that good.  They could very well be 7-0 when they go down to Miami.  That will be a tough game, then they have Clemson and Virginia Tech at home.  I'd be interested to see if the undersized offensive line and complex blocking schemes will be able to create holes against those 2 teams.  Unfortunately, they might have trouble stopping both those offenses.  After watching Clemson today, no idea how Tech will be able to hold them under 40 points.

- Also watched the New York Cosmos documentary.  Good to see my Dad playing in some of the highlights.  Not so good to see him get scored on by Giorgio Chinaglia.

- Watched the weigh-ins for UFC135.  Why the hell do they make the guys strip on stage.  Of course, they have to get down to their shorts, but damn why not do it backstage?

- Video today brought to you from the The Great White Norge.  Norway's newest supergroup, The Megaphonic Thrift playing a live version of "Talks Like A Weed King".  You can almost hear all their influences splattered throughout their music: Sonic Youth, Guided by Voices, Hüsker Dü, Superchunk, etc you can add your own.  I can't hate on them, because they make great songs.

College Football Realigment, Here We Come...

So, Texas A&M set the ball rolling, now it's at ramming speed with Pittsburgh and Syracuse applying for the ACC.  So, how will the new shape of the conferences shake out?  Driving around today, I heard a tease about an interview with Beano Cook about his thoughts on the realignment.  I missed the interview, but since that guy is still pissed about the forward pass being legalized, I don't give 2 shits what he has to say.  So, how can we take the current six BCS conference system and realign it more interestingly?

ACC	Big 10	Big 12	Big East	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Baylor Iowa State Kansas K. State Missouri Oklahoma OK State Texas Texas A&M Texas Tech	Cincinnati Connecticut Louisville Pittsburgh Rutgers S Florida Syracuse West Virginia	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Vanderbilt

Now, let's look at the alignment with the latest rumoured movement:

ACC	Big 10	Big 12	Big East	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Baylor Iowa State Kansas K. State Missouri Oklahoma OK State Texas Texas Tech	Cincinnati Connecticut Louisville Rutgers S Florida West Virginia	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt

So, as you can see, the Big East is dead as a football conference. What happens to their teams?  Let's see what we can do with those teams?

ACC	Big 10	Big 12	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Connecticut Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Baylor Iowa State Kansas K. State Missouri Oklahoma OK State Texas Texas Tech	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt West Virginia

I moved UConn into the ACC purely for the fact that if basketball is considered in realignment, that would be a natural fit. I've moved West Virginia into the SEC based on the rumors that have been swirling. Unfortunately, Rutgers, Cincy, South Florida and Louisville don't make the first cut. But since we are going to eliminate the Big 10 and make 4 conferences of 16 teams, they might find a home somewhere else. So, now to dole out the remaining Big 12 teams. (Which now has 10 teams, while the Big 10 now has 12 teams.  Nice job, people.)

ACC	Big 10	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Connecticut Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Texas Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Iowa State Kansas K. State Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oklahoma OK State Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Missouri Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt West Virginia

So, Baylor and Texas Tech didn't make the cut.  I put Texas in the ACC for a couple of reasons.  First, that is this week's rumor.  Second, I think the ACC would be the most willing to accept the fact that Texas has their own cable network.   They are quite a ways away from another ACC team but thems the breaks.  So, I have 16 ACC teams, 15 Big 10 teams, 14 Pac 12 teams and 15 SEC teams.  So, let's see who we have left to fill up the last 4 places:

Baylor, BYU, Rutgers, Cincy, South Florida, Louisville, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Boise State, TCU and Texas Tech.

ACC	Big 16	Pac 16	SEC
Boston College Connecticut Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Texas Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Iowa State Kansas K. State Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Notre Dame Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Arizona Arizona State BYU California Colorado Oklahoma OK State Oregon Oregon State Stanford TCU UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky Louisville LSU Miss. State Missouri Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt West Virginia

My last spot in the the Pac 12 came down to Boise State, Texas Tech and TCU.  I figure that the new Pac 16 would go for TCU to get into that Dallas market.  So now we've got our four 16-team superconferences, but let's go farther.  Let's turn each conference into four divisions:

ACC
Northeast	Atlantic	Tobacco Road	Southeast
Boston College Connecticut Pittsburgh Syracuse	Clemson Maryland Virginia Virginia Tech	Duke North Carolina NC State Wake Forest	Florida State Georgia Tech Miami Texas

Big 16
Heartland	Leaders	Legends	Metro
Iowa Iowa State Minnesota Nebraska	Illinois Michigan Michigan State Purdue	Indiana Notre Dame Ohio State Penn State	Kansas Kansas State Northwestern Wisconsin

Pac 16
Northwest	Mountain	UCal	Central
Oregon Oregon State Washington Washington State	Arizona Arizona State BYU Utah	California Stanford UCLA USC	Colorado Oklahoma Oklahoma State TCU

SEC
North	Missala	Midwest	Southeast
Kentucky Louisville Tennessee Vanderbilt	Alabama Auburn Miss State Ole Miss	Arkansas LSU Missouri Texas A&M	Florida Georgia South Carolina West Virginia

So, maybe controversial decisions, but I tried to keep geographies and natural rivalries consistent. Now we have 4 divisions in each conference, we can have 2 rounds of conference championship games for all the division winners. Might as well make it interesting, each division winner plays in a 4 team playoff for the conference titles and all of the conference winners play in a 4 team playoff for the National Championship.  So we now have a 16-team playoff system that looks like a 4-team playoff system. The changes will probably come fast and big in the next year or more, so I doubt that any ideas are completely off the table.  I'm sure lots of people will disagree with my ideas and choices.

Short Shots - 9/15/2011

- Most controversial movie idea ever, remake The Crush and keep everything the same but replace the 14yr old girl with a 14yr old boy.

- The ACC really needs to change the names of their divisions. I'm a fan of Georgia Tech, but I still couldn't tell you which ACC teams are in which divisions. If Texas really comes over to the ACC, I guess they'll have to change one of the names to the Longhorn Division.

- I'm sick of hearing people say that Peyton Manning is worse off with his injury because during the lockout he couldn't meet with the Colts trainers. I'm sure that Manning was visiting the best doctors in the world and what the hell do the Colts trainers know about neck surgery?

- Is Jason Bateman's character in Couples Retreat the most obnoxiously awful character in the history of cinema? Annie Wilkes in Misery has more redeeming qualities.

- Listen Scarlett Johansson, I got your back.

- I've been spamming Dana White's twitter with my idea for a sure fire lock for a Fight of the Night fight matchup. Unfortunately, it seems he doesn't respond to tweets unless the tweeter calls him a cockhair or something. I know somebody in Dana's ear will read this and help me out.

Now, go watch my damn video:

Short Shots

Just a variety of meaningless quick thoughts:

- For Love of the Game is actually a pretty good movie.

- Why the hell is The Karate Kid Remake called the Karate Kid? The kid goes to China, gets beaten down by a kid using kung fu, learns kung fu from a kung fu master, enters a kung fu tournament and wins a kung fu tournament using kung fu. So why wasn't it called the Kung Fu Kid? Stupid.

- If you are into sports gambling and you hear, "This situation is 19-0 in the last 20 years", it's probably useless. Most of these idiots trying to sell picks will say something like, "I like San Francisco this week. Road teams that won their home opener that are playing against a home favorite that lost their first game of the season as a 3-7 point underdog by more than 10 points in the first game for a new head coach are 24-1 since 1983" The more parameters you add to a betting angle, the more useless that angle is.

- I guess I can retire my #makenickdiaztufcoach twitter hashtag for a while. If the guy can't show up for a press conference for a title fight he's in, not much chance of him wanting to coach in The Ultimate Fighter.

- What happened to Anna Faris's face between Lost in Translation and her latest piece of shit romantic comedy?

- I saw the 2024 version of Laurel from the RW/RR Challenge at Publix. Not the first time I've seen a famous person's doppelganger at one of my grocery stores.

Well, that was garbage.

So the Falcons came out and laid a big, fat egg. They made the Bears, who I'd be amazed if they finish better than 8-8, look good. Turnovers, stupid penalties and terrible 3rd down conversions is a sure fire recipe for disaster. Add to the fact that teams I figured would be battling for the 1st pick in the draft Buffalo and the Bengals both won and the Falcons look even worse. At least every other team in the NFC South lost this weekend too.

Good fights last night in Strikeforce and Bellator. My man, Douglas Lima, took a punch to the back of the head right off the bat and looked out on his feet. He managed to ride it out and then dominate the rest of the fight. Lima got thru to the next round of the WW tourney but Hornbuckle lost.

In Strikeforce, Daniel Cormier managed to knock out Giant Silva.

Even with a grill like that, Silva ain't got much of a jaw. I figured that the near knockout Mike Kyle had on him might have been a lucky shot, but I guess not. So Cormier versus Barnett in the final of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. You would think Barnett would have an experience edge, but I don't remember Cormier ever really being in any trouble yet in his career. And he's managed to improve his striking every time out.

There's more MMA tonight besides Strikeforce

So the Strikeforce Heavyweight GP continues tonight, but Bellator is also running a show tonight I'll be watching.  I'm most intrigued to see Douglas Lima make his Bellator debut in the latest Welterweight tourney against somebody named Steve Carl.  Lima trains at American Top Team here in Atlanta and rampaged through MFC up in Canada to win the WW belt up there.  My spamming of Dana White's twitter feed to sign up Lima was not heeded.  Heeded?

You can catch the Bellator show on MTV2 and EPIX HD tonight. Also tonight at Bellator, Dan Hornbuckle tries to get back on track after losing 2 out of his last 3.  If you've never seen "The Handler", he's responsible for one of the most brutal knockouts in MMA history. Just go to 1:30 into the video to see Akihiro Gono decimated.

It's been a while

So this blogging thing I used to do a long time ago and quit.  Damn that short attention span twitter.  To be fair, I only recently started that mess.  So, what caused me to return, other than the fame, the money and the glory.

A movie called "MVP2: Most Vertical Primate" is the reason.  Here's a short plot summary:

"MVP 2 opens with the lovable Jack being ousted from his hockey team, the Seattle Simians, and having to hit the road after being falsely accused of league misconduct. Jack ends up in the city, where he's befriended by Ben, a homeless skateboarder, and Ollie, a skate shop owner. Jack proves to be as adept at mastering the half-pipe as he does at delivering a slap shot, and before long, he and Ben are crashing amateur skateboarder competitions all over the country."

That's right, a fucking monkey gets kicked off a hockey team and decides to be a skateboarder.  Now I don't expect anybody to follow this blog, but I would hope to whatever supreme being is out there, that more people read this than watch that dumb shit.

On a happier note, Wesley Snipes doles out some words to live by: