Baseball scoring

Really interesting infographic about scoring in baseball since 1871. Here are some other infograpics he has done. I wish I had the time to do these kinds of things.

Positive sounds

New from Rocker-T

Limitations of There Will Be Blood

1. As a character study, its really just about the life of a character, Daniel Plainview.  If you dont particularly find his character intrinsically interesting and engaging then this movie does nothing for you.

2. Daniel Day-Lewis' portrayal of Daniel Plainview is so large that the character Eli Sunday never seems to be a true rival of his.  

The biggest reason I struggled with this film is it seems to resist traditional analysis.  For example, any time Plainview and Sunday are slapping eachother, I am asking if this is symbolic or some kind of social commentary about capitalism and religion.  Instead, it seems that what you see is what you get.  Plainview is competitive and is simply squashing out Eli Sunday, who is never really a great rival for Plainview, and hes really just squashed like a bug throughout the entirety of the movie.  He has a minor win when he gets some of Plainview's oil money, and his greatest albeit temporary triumph is when he makes Plainview admit one of his greatest insecurities, which is that he abandoned his child, although it could be argued that Plainview did what was best for the boy and sent him to a school for the deaf.

Still, if this is supposed to be a clash between two great and powerful forces, it fails, because noone who watches this movie is ever convinced that Eli Sunday poses any kind of threat or could ever hang toe-to-toe with Daniel Plainview.  Therefore, in my opinion, this movie fails to engage as the viewer is never drawn in to this rivalry, its just all Daniel Plainview mopping the floor with Paul Dano.  Alternatively, if this is an artistic choice, say Daniel Plainview takes this boy who is not even in the oil business as a threat and must squash him, Im still not engaged.  I get it, Daniel Plainview has a competition in him, he wants not only to succeed but see others fail.

If we compare this to something like Wall Street.  Gordon Gekko is a similar character to Daniel Plainview, I think.  But Gordon Gekko represents Wall Street, whereas Martin Sheen represents the blue collar working class.  Charlie Sheen is thrown in the mix, and has the dilemma and drama to work out, realizing that his old man offers real value to society, he does the right thing and brings Gekko down and saves Sheen's company.  This is the kind of symbolism that There Will Be Blood seems to consciously lack, and perhaps its more realistic.  This seems to be the case for most people who have responded well to the film, chronicling the life of this character.  For me, this does very little.  

Daniel Plainview is a self-driven, powerful, competitive by nature, greedy force who is possible the face of capitalism at the turn-of-the-century America.  He wins, but is never happy.  He gains enough money to isolate himself, but all the wealth of the world doesnt make him any happier than when he was churning the mud in the mineshaft.  

To me this is another case of, really?  Thats it?  Thats all there is to this movie?  This is a man who is all consumed by his work and all the success in the world will not make him happy.  Thanks, for Scarface retold in the turn-of-the-century America, but I'll pass.

Quote

"Oh, I don't want to work and dirty my hands like a painter's assistant."

-Leo Szilard

I need your help

So my dad and I have been doing the 40 import beer club at Brewe Has. You get a punch card and have to drink the 40 beers on the list. Not all at once, but just over time. We're four beers away and are gonna finish it up later today. We get our name on a plaque and a quote under our name. I have no idea what my quote is gonna be. I need you guys to help me think of something short, sweet, and clever/funny. Hopefully someone reads this before Noon CST today (Sunday December 9th).

The Stick Of Truth

This game is going to be so good.


South Park: The Stick of Truth - World Premiere... by SpieleReportDE

#TeamKaDeem

Have to spread the love.



Can't wait for next year...

Over 9,000 times better than Dragonball: Evolution

From the YouTube posting: "DragonBall Z -- Saiyan Saga is a non-profit trailer being made for private use, and is not intended for sales of any sort. No money is being made from this film. It is in no way affiliated with, or sponsored or approved, by Akira Toriyama, Toei, Shueisha, FUNimation,20th Century Fox or any of their respective affiliates or licensees. The content is for the private use of the viewer and should not be sold, rented, or used for any commercial enterprise in any way, shape, or form. We make no claim to any characters, storylines, names, logos or situations that are trademarked, copyrighted or otherwise protected by federal, state, international or other intellectual property law. This work is produced solely for the personal, uncompensated enjoyment of ourselves and other DragonBall Z fans.

We are two brothers who run a small video production company in the UK. We've been Producing, Directing, Shooting and editing for our company for over 5 years now and have always talked about doing a Dragonball Z Fan Film. We grew up watching DBZ and it provided many years of entertainment and enjoyment for us as we're sure it did for many of you. We, like every other DBZ fan, were sorely disappointed with Hollywood's attempt and producing a live action DBZ film. So this May we are set to shoot an extended Live action Fan trailer for the Saiyan Saga!

This trailer has been made to demonstrate the potential for live action DragonBall Z."

Dale Sveum shot by Robin Yount

Cubs manager shot by Hall of Famer Yount whilst hunting elitist birds.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/dale-sveum-accidentally-shot-robin-yount-during-recent-015427977--mlb.html

Jim Deshaies!

So the Cubs hired Jim Deshaies as the new TV color commentator. While I think he will be great, we couldn't find ANYONE with a Cubs background? I know Brenly didn't have a Cubs background either but I was hoping to finally get a guy that did.

Daves Old Porn

I recently came across a show called Daves Old Porn. It airs on Showtime on Thursdays. It's Dave Attell sitting on a couch and he watches porn from the 70's and 80's. He usually has another comedian like Bill Burr, Daniel Tosh, or Kathy Griffin watch also. They make jokes and hilarious comments. Each show has a "theme" (meaning a specific porn star that they focus on) and about half way through, they bring out the "themed" porn star to comment on their work. They even drop porn knowledge every now and then. You see tits but everything is covered by strategic VHS tapes or by Dave and his guests sitting on the couch. The best episode so far was the one with Artie Lange. God that dude is funny.

HFR 3D

Per our ongoing HFR discussion.

Do you use Viagra at work? Brandon Marshall says NFL players do

Just read this.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/bears-brandon-marshall-says-nfl-players-viagra-field-184549686--nfl.html

2012 Honda Civic

I took my car into the shop about 2 weeks ago (2000 Honda Accord with 234,000 miles on it). It's been shaking in the morning when I start it up and has been burning through coolant. I know it wasn't the water pump because I just got that replaced in January I believe. The shop checked it out and said it could either be a warped head gasket or a cracked head gasket. If it's warped, $1200. The guy didn't even give me an estimate for a cracked one :) . Since I only bought the car for $2900, there was no way I was gonna spend $1200 to fix that one issue. So I started looking into a new car. I looked at a Hyundai Elantra, Subaru Impreza, and the Honda Civic LX. Long story short, went with the Civic.

As a side note, this car has an ECO mode which helps you save fuel by changing shifting, slows acceleration a bit, makes the AC work a little less, etc. I'll be doing an experiment where I drive on an entire tank of gas with both the ECO mode ON the whole time and with it OFF the whole time to see what kind of a difference it makes. Look for that in the coming weeks. Here are some sexy pics:

Motion Smoothing

Anyone have any opinions on motion smoothing?

I have to admit I was ignorant of this technology until recently.  My disc player wasnt working so I recently watched a dvd on my laptop connected to my tv, which couldve been played by the default player Cyberlink's PowerDVD, as mentioned in the linked articles below as using motion smoothing.  Something was looking really unnatural in the way things were moving, and I was uber conscious of it.  It was driving nuts and hard to just concentrate and enjoy the film. Cut to even more recently watching tv and films on a friends new LCD and the same unnatural movement was going on that just drove me nuts.  So I flipped around the settings in the menu and found that "motion smoothing" was turned on.  I turn it off and I watch the film in its original frame rate or whatever and its not driving me mental.  

So yeah, my opinion is that its not worth it and it would make a lot more sense to watch a movie in the original frame rate.  The technology may be cool, but shouldnt be implemented as it currently exists. Opinions?

Some articles:

Motion Smoothing: 120Hz and 240Hz Refresh Rates Explained

How New TVs Display Old Content with Motion Smoothing

Skynet is real

I saw this while in my car this morning on my way to the liquor store. I guess I was the only one who realized the implications of this. This is how it starts I guess.

Now. How do we stop it?

Awards Season: Cy Young

It's that time. The time when old versus new, tried versus true, and bullshit versus horseshit comes about. I of course am talking about the baseball awards season. Let's start with the discussion of the four major awards (well two really). First there is the Cy Young award given to the best pitcher in each league and is pretty self explanatory, but then there is the MVP award given to the "most valuable player" in each league. How the hell can you determine value? Statheads are trying to do this with WAR (wins above replacement), but what the hell is a replacement level player? Old time writers and inside-the-box thinkers want to say that the most valuable player is the player whose value to his team is the highest in the MLB, while new sabermetricians want to say that the MVP is the guy with the best WAR and therefore is of the highest value. I have to say that I think both are wrong. I do not think WAR accurately reflects how good a player really is and we know that once Theo sells off everyone on the team, Darwin Barney will be the most valuable player on the Cubs simply because he will be the only one left. What you really have to look at is what kind of offensive production does your player give you and then find the most productive player in baseball and then that is the guy. Now a further problem with the MVP is that it is not inclusive to any position and it can include pitchers. This is dumb because pitchers have their own award. I only look at offensive players for the MVP. Pitchers are defensive players only. This brings me to something I want to talk about with regards to this year's results, but let's just get right into it. I will show you the baseball writers of America votes followed by the results from the THFL scoring system.

Cy Young:

NL Cy Young Votes 2012

AL Cy Young Votes 2012

THFL top 10 pitchers 2012

Can you see a problem here? Gio Gonzales isn't even in the top 10 pitchers in the THFL system, but he is number 3 in the BBWA votes? Come on man. Also, note that Justin Verlander scored about 68 more points than David Price this year, but lost the Cy Young. Verlander had a 2.64 ERA while Price had a 2.56 ERA so what is the big deal? The big deal is that Verlander pitched 27.333 more innings than Price did this year which amounts to 3 entire 9 inning games. This is a lot more baseball and his ERA is only slightly higher at 2.64. Verlander had 34 more Ks than Price as well and had 6 fewer wild pitches. I just don't see how Price could win given the numbers here except for the fact that Price had 20 Wins! Wins! That's what the writer's know and love. Poor Verlander only had 17. Now the Dickey versus Kershaw story is much closer as both had nearly identical strikeout numbers and Dickey only pitched 6 more innings than Kershaw. Dickey posted a 2.73 ERA while Kershaw had a 2.53 ERA. But again Dickey won this award because he had 20 wins to Kershaw's 14. Did you know that pitchers cannot win you games? They can only prevent losses because a pitcher is a defensive player only!!! Dumb. They (the BBWA) got it wrong.

Coming soon: the MVP award...

Benchmarking

I created a benchmark to be run in one of our simulation programs. Our "big machine" in the lab is a quad-core Xeon E5430 machine with 32GB ECC ram. I always go to cpubenchmark.net to see benchmarks based on their own passmark software to get an idea of where a CPU ranks and I think it gives a generally good idea of what to expect. There, the E5430 scores 4,095 while the AMD 8350 scores 9,378 for a ratio of 2.29x. But this is for a benchmarking suite, but what about our math heavy benchmark that should be more suited to the traditional server grade crunching machines with Xeons?

Passmark
Xeon E5430: 4095
AMD 8350: 9378
ratio: 2.29x

Simulation Benchmark:
Xeon E5430: 627 seconds
AMD 8350: 337 seconds
ratio: 1.86x

So we are sitting at 1.86x which is below the Passmark result, but I think within reason given that I am using a home-user grade cpu vs. a server-grade cpu in a mathematics contest. During the sim we do use about 60% of the RAM which is about 20 GB which is cool. I am happy with this performance. The AMD 8350 costs $220 now, but the Xeon cost about $500 four years ago. Add in the cost of the more expensive motherboard and stuff and you have quite a nice performance/cost improvement seen here.

Coming soon... overclocking results.

New PC build

I decided to build a PC for me to keep at the lab that I could remotely connect to and run my simulations on. Nothing too special because what is so special about PCs these days? Anyway the quick specs are

750W PSU
AMD 8350 eight-core CPU
32GB DDR3-1600 RAM
NZXT Phantom case

That's about it. There is a 1TB drive I had at home that I threw in and I added a cheapo graphics card just to have video output. I brought in my old Samsung Syncmaster 712n to serve as it's monitor and I have had this monitor since August 2004 before I started up at ISU so it has served me well even though it was just sitting on my desk at home. Here are some pics:

I added the front 140mm case fan since it came with my CPU heatsink as a free gift. Speaking of the heatsink, I couldn't figure out how to install it at first so I just hooked up the stock AMD cooler which performed well enough to keep the CPU from overheating during full load, but I did manage to get the aftermarket cooler (a Xigmatek Dark Knight ii Night Hawk eidtion) and it managed to knock the temps down by 30 C or so. The case is nice and I felt like this was my cleanest build ever although as always there are just so many damn cables tucked away on the backside. I am definitely going with a modular PSU next time. I may upgrade this with round SATA cables, but I am happy with it for now. The fans are 140mm IN, 2x 120mm IN, 120mm OUT, 200mm OUT and I think I am happy with this. I pieced this one together for running simulations which are extremely parallel and like multithreaded CPUs which is why I went with the 8350 from AMD. 32GB of RAM rounds it out for the sims (believe me it is necessary). Anyway, I recommend the NZXT Phantom.

An open letter to Greg Byrne

Dear Mr. Byrne,

As athletic director of the University of Arizona you surely have a lot on your mind these days. We are fighting for bowl eligibility tomorrow against Colorado and we are also opening our basketball season this Sunday against Charleston Southern, but these are only several examples of the things you have to deal with at the moment. Clearly as a "modern" AD you have to not only worry about finding coaches for our teams, but also how to market our brand. We are doing quite well in that regard with the new Pac-12 tv deal, but we can do so much more. I don't know how involved you are with the athletics website, but I hope you will give my request the proper treatment it deserves. Did you know you don't have an iCal file of the men's basketball schedule on the website? Neither did I until this evening becasue, you see, I am only a bandwgaon fan. My friend RyDub has been a fan since the days when he used to drink too much Mt. Dew and he won an Arizona jersey during some march madness competition. He is your audience. He pays your salary and I can tell you he is not happy. Do you want to know about his dedication? You can read about it here. Please call up your tech nerds and get this iCal file on the web ASAP because he can't even synchronize his smartphone to our schedule without it. What the fuck man? We have got to do better. I know you are about maximizing profits, but who profits from us not having an iCal schedule file on our website. I trust you to correct this issue because, well, even the Fighting Illini have an iCal file on their website and while the Uof I is a much better school than ours, their football team sucks. Like sucks hard.

Thanks,
Sawsheezle

Sawsheezle is just a bandwagon fan

Sawsheezle has been keeping me up to date this year on the Arizona football team with info on when and what channel each game has been on. Well, the Arizona football team got blown out of the water tonight. He stopped watching the game before halftime but I decided to keep sending him updates. He thanked me and told me he appreciated the support. I was taken aback by this. Did he think I was only watching these games because he had asked me to? Did he think I wasn't actually a fan? For shame. I have been an Arizona fan for longer than he had. Here's my story...

Back in 1996-97, Mt Dew ran a contest during March Madness where underneath each cap was a team name (It may have been a Pepsi thing but I don't remember. I know my cap was from a Mt Dew bottle.). I can't remember when they started the contest. It must've been during the regular season because how could they print all the caps and get them out after the teams have been decided? Anyway, you kept the cap all the way through the tournament and depending on how far your team made it, you got a chance at certain prizes. Underneath my cap was the word ARIZONA. Now I was 11-12 so I did not know a lot about college basketball except for what my dad watched. I kept the cap even though I remember my dad saying that he didn't think they'd even make the tournament. Still, he helped me find out their schedule and we followed them through the tourny. They won their first game and I thought "Cool." Then they won their second, third, and even the fourth. They were in the final four! Holy crap! Now here's this team I've never even cared or heard about making it to the final four. They won the semifinals and were on to the championship game. Imagine my excitement when they won the championship game. I was pumped as all hell. We mailed my cap in and waited. Then one day I get a package in the mail. Damn, what could this be? I didn't win any of the big prizes but I did win an official NCAA 1997 march madness jersey. I wore that thing all the time. I even had a pen explode in the bottom corner and tried to get it out but it didn't work. Who cares, I still wore that fucker. Unfortunately I don't own it anymore but I've always followed Arizona ever since. I've also always loved their "A" logo. I will admit though, I didn't start paying attention to their football team until Sawsheezle started going there, so he did beat me there. Anyway, that's my story.

Definitely ninja-ing this from Sawsheezle

I was recently made aware of Bear Down Podcast. It's Matt Walsh and Scot Armstrong and they discuss the Chicago Bears. I guess they've been doing this since 2009. Totally blew my mind. Here's the link.

Android 4.2 (Still Jelly Bean, BUT AWESOME!)

I may actually run stock 4.2. IT HAS TOGGLES!!!

Oh Conan

rant

The iPad mini is dumb. There is no argument there. It is 100% a cash grab. Also, way to fuck over your customers once more. After only 221 days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(3rd_generation)) after the New iPad officially launched, you've already released a "new and improved" version. God I hate you so much. But more so, the people that keep buying your crap over and over and over again.

/rant

Enjoy this funny iPad mini "commercial."

(Mark) Grace Under Fire

See what I did there with the title? No? It's cool. Anyway, Gracie got another DUI and now may be headed to jail

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/baseball/mlb/10/25/mark-grace-dui.ap/index.html?sct=mlb_t2_a4

Just Friends? What? You don't like me?

Interesting study confirming what we already knew: men and women can't be friends (single men and women that is).

Link

BJ Raji

More shit going on on the set of Community

Read this headline. Then read the story. I don't think it was fair to Chevy to word the headline this way. Why can't we just get Community back on Thursday nights?

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni38838270/

DewTour

Watching the Dew Tour and curious about the physics of the ollie.

Goddammit NBC

MadTV Fridays!

Just trying to get back in the swing of things. This video basically sums up what I see on most tv shows these days. '2 Broke Girls', 'Are you there Chelsea?', and now 'New Girl' are kind of all going this route these days. Anyway have a look.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

I know I'm not the only Tyler Labine fan on dieselfur, so I wanted to toss out a recommendation for Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.

Its a comedy that parodies horror films by presenting the point of view of two regular hillbilly types who are mistakenly assumed to be serial killers by that usual horror cliche - a group of young camping teens.  

The film also stars the immaculate Katrina Bowden, who you may recognize from her role as Cerie, the blonde bombshell receptionist from 30 Rock, or Ms. Tasty from Sex Drive.

Tyler Labine is his always lovable self.

Costarring Alan Tudyk 

As of the time this blog post went to print, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil was available on netflix instant.

Has anyone heard of this?

Apparently it's a thing. It's a Batman Live... musical? I don't know if it's actually a musical but that's kinda what it looks like. Almost like Cirqe De Soleil but with Batman theme? Here's a trailer:

We've been shitting wrong for years

Nokia 920 vs. iPhone 5 video

Just a comparison between the 920 and the iPhone 5. Nokia's phones are amazing. Too bad they are with Windows Phone. Imagine a slick android version of the 920 with Nokia's way better builds and custom apps. Their maps app is better than google's and much better than Apple's.

Gandalf 4

Oh Cutler...

I was reading Deadspin (which is a sports blog for those that don't know) and came across two Cutler "stories." One was that he recently had a child. It's kinda mean to make fun of a baby but some of the comments people are making are pretty good. Here's one: "Camden Jack Cutler was merely another unintended result of Mike Martz insisting on going deep without adequate protection." Pretty good right? Second story is a tumblr of "the most apathetic looking athlete in the history of sports." It's just pictures of Cutler with a photoshopped cigarette in his mouth. Here's an example:

Urinal Design

I love urinals. They are one of the greatest inventions ever made. That being said, I loathe using a certain urinal at my place of employment. There are a ton of bathrooms at work but my favorite one is faculty only (huge plus so I don't have to deal with idiotic kids), no one really ever uses it, and it's the closest to my desk.

The urinal in said bathroom is fucking retarded. No matter what direction you piss into the thing, you are going to get some splashback. It can't be avoided. Obviously you don't pee straight into the back of the thing, you angle it a bit so it slightly curves against the back and not straight back at you. Still sprays everywhere. The floor immediately in front of the thing is SOAKED in a urine shaped circle. Again, you can't do anything about it in it's current state. This has bothered me for quite some time.

One day (And for the life of me I can't remember where the fuck I was [And you know what, the more I think about it, this may have happened in a dream. That's how much this whole urinal issue really annoys me]), I used the bathroom at a local establishment and the urinal there was magical. It was kinda like this but the sides were higher and the hole for peeing into was smaller so to keep splashback down:

There was no spalshback! If there was, the sides would just catch it. Oh my god it was awesome. This got me thinking about other great urinal designs and these are some that I found.

These aren't bad, but sometimes your shoes get a little splash damage on them:
Fucking love these. Sure there's no privacy but there sure as hell isn't any splashback either:
This apparently is some kind of godly urinal (Looks like a vagina to me). There's more info here:

This last one is by far my favorite though. Just stand back at the edge and let it go:


Why is there no universally accepted perfect urinal? You'd think someone would create it and everyone would jump on board and buy them up. You guys have any tales of terrible urinals? I know Sawsheezle and I share our disdain for certain ones. I know he has waterless ones where he lives. I've never had to experience one of these so I don't know the horror of them.

800 club

Not joining any religious cult or anything like that, but I am now in the "800" club. This is a weightlifting thing. You add up the max weights you have done in the three lifts: benchpress, deadlift, and squat. Usually people have benchmarks like 700, 800, 1000, and 1200. Here are my lifts as of right now:


Bench: 245 (multiple reps though so I am hoping to go higher)

Squat: 245 (again multiple reps so there is potential for more)

Deads: 310 (this one is a bitch for me cause of my long arms...)

Total: 800


So I am not looking to get big by any means, but just trying to get strong. My goals for the three exercises are


Bench: 315 ('3' plates we call it)

Squat: 315

Deads: 405 ('4' plates)

Total: 1035


Again a dream. Just want to get strong without gaining weight. It is a challenge.

To The Moon

I was on Steam looking at the deals of the day and came across a game called To The Moon. Here's the description: "Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts have peculiar jobs: They give people another chance to live, all the way from the very beginning... but only in their patients' heads. Due to the severity of the operation, the new life becomes the last thing the patients remember before drawing their last breath."

I don't know about you but I think this sounds like an awesome premise for a movie. It sounds a little like a mix between Benjamin Button and Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. I'm sure we've all wished we could do one thing differently in the past. Here's a trailer:

Exclusive Diablo III 1.05 patch video!

I don't know about you, but this looks like a big improvement over the initial release of D3.

Borderlands 2 Live Action commercial

So I'm sitting around watching all the football games today and I notice a trailer. The setting seems very familiar, the characters do too. I think to myself that this is a Borderlands 2 commercial, but it's live action, not game play footage. Anyway, here's a shitty quality link (I'll update with a higher quality one when I come across it).

Streetlight Manifesto v. Victory Records

Interesting article from Billboard about Streetlight and the whole double album thing. Very fascinating battle between them and Victory records.

Here

McBain

From the golden age of The Simpsons, apparently many of the McBain clips formed a complete narrative:

Follow Me Guys!

Scotty Doesn't Know.

What the H? Movies

How did this get made?

How did they actually go through with this?

Get ready for Sept 18th

*tear*

My benchmarks

6950


660ti


Sawsheezle has a bit better processor than mine which probably explains the slightly higher scores for him. Not bad.

Some benchmarks

Got a new graphics card and RyDub and I were curious about the performance. From what I saw online this card was pretty fast. The card I bought was a Gigabyte GTX 660 ti and upgrading from a Gigabyte Radeon 6850. All settings max at 1920x1080. No optimizations/customizations made in the driver settings. Here are the results from Unigine Heaven v3.0.

660ti card

6850

660ti

You can see for this DX11 benchmark with all settings on max, vsync off, at 1920x1080 the 660ti has a little bit more than twice the performance of my 6850. I can't wait to play Borderlands 2.

RyDub. Run this on your PC and share. Same settings though for comparison.

Jelly Bean on OG Droid

I know what I'm doing tonight.

Genres and Subgenres

Part I:

So, as mentioned previously, I have been watching a lot of films as of late.  I think the more film you watch, if you want to watch straight up entertaining film anyway, the more you want to categorize the films based on genre.

(Skip this section as its largely tangential/expositional:

What makes a good comedy?  In my opinion is laughs. As long as I get laughs this movie works.
What makes a  good action movie?  Great fucking action!  If I see some sweet ass action, the plot just needs to drive me to the next good action sequence.)

Right now, most blockbuster action movies are Superhero movies.  Everyone knows what the superhero genre is, but I its a relatively recent phenomenon.  These films kind of showcase all the amazing things we can do with cgi these days, are kind of for everyone, and have a built in fan base/are easily accessible.  Still, the Superhero genre is taking forever to be an officially recognized, imo.  Anytime I look at a best action movies list, I have to see Batman, which I do not consider true action, but a subgenre Superhero.

Bottom line: There are enough Superhero movies to warrant new classification in the subgenre Superhero.  This will allow people, like me, who do not enjoy this genre to simply avoid these pandering children's vehicles.

Part II:

Did you know that swashbuckler is a pretty officially recognized genre?  This is a pretty old school genre, that isn't hyper relevant today.  The most recent examples of swashbuckler films includes Three Musketeers, Zorro, Pirates of the Carribean, and The Princess Bride.

As long as we are going to continue to acknowledge a subgenre such as swashbuckler, a term that originated in the 16th century (questionable online source), why can't we delineate Superhero movies as their own subgenre?

In addition, Netflix (which observes the swashbuckler genre) lumps Samurai films into the genre with all Martial Arts, which I think is ridiculous.  You wouldn't just lump westerns in with swashbucklers, and samurai films share traits with both of these genres.

Alternative Reggae Friday Jam!

Custom laptop builders

RyDub, Jeremy, do you guys know any companies that build laptops. Of course there are Dell and HP and so on, but I mean companies like iBuypower, Cyberpower inc., and so on. Know any other places? Just trying to get a feel for things. I really would like a laptop with 32GB RAM for my electromagnetic simulation software.

An open letter to RyDub: Borderlands 2 PhysX

I know you may be avoiding trying to see any footage from Borderlands 2, but I was wondering if you saw this PhysX demo. I am not sure if we are actually going to get anything in the physics realm running on our ATI/AMD hardware. Do you have any thoughts/knowledge about this?



It looks to me that in reality, the console version is on the left and the pc version is on the right...

Roger Ebert reviews Freddy Got Fingered

Source (from April 20, 2001)

"It's been leading up to this all spring. When David Spade got buried in crap in "Joe Dirt," and when three supermodels got buried in crap in "Head Over Heels," and when human organs fell from a hot-air balloon in "Monkeybone" and were eaten by dogs, and when David Arquette rolled around in dog crap and a gangster had his testicles bitten off in "See Spot Run," and when a testicle was eaten in "Tomcats," well, somehow the handwriting was on the wall. There had to be a movie like "Freddy Got Fingered" coming along.

This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.

Many years ago, when surrealism was new, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made "Un Chien Andalou," a film so shocking that Bunuel filled his pockets with stones to throw at the audience if it attacked him. Green, whose film is in the surrealist tradition, may want to consider the same tactic. The day may come when "Freddy Got Fingered" is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.

The film is a vomitorium consisting of 93 minutes of Tom Green doing things that a geek in a carnival sideshow would turn down. Six minutes into the film, his character leaps from his car to wag a horse penis. This is, we discover, a framing device--to be matched by a scene late in the film where he sprays his father with elephant semen, straight from the source.

Green plays Gord Brody, a 28-year-old who lives at home with his father (Rip Torn), who despises him, and his mother (Julie Hagerty), who wrings her hands a lot. He lives in a basement room still stocked with his high school stuff, draws cartoons and dreams of becoming an animator. Gord would exhaust a psychiatrist's list of diagnoses. He is unsocialized, hostile, manic and apparently retarded. Retarded? How else to explain a sequence in which a Hollywood animator tells him to "get inside his animals," and he skins a stag and prances around dressed in the coat, covered with blood? His romantic interest is Betty (Marisa Coughlan), who is disabled and dreams of rocket-powered wheelchairs and oral sex. A different kind of sexual behavior enters the life of his brother Freddy, who gets the movie named after him just because, I suppose, Tom Green thought the title was funny. His character also thinks it is funny to falsely accuse his father of molesting Freddy.

Green's sense of humor may not resemble yours. Consider a scene where Gord's best friend busts his knee open while skateboarding. Gord licks the open wound. Then he visits his friend in the hospital. A woman in the next bed goes into labor. Gord rips the baby from her womb and, when it appears to be dead, brings it to life by swinging it around his head by its umbilical cord, spraying the walls with blood. If you wanted that to be a surprise, then I'm sorry I spoiled it for you."

Wedding Fitness Weight Loss Battle Royale

RyDub and I are trying to watch our weights/lose weight and bang hotties/decent girls. We have been keeping track of our weights and have been recording them in a ledger. I have noticed that there are massive fluctuations in weight for us and believe (after a conver with mama sheezle) that this may be due, in part, to us retaining water like bastards which can lead to irregular bm's (check), constipation (check), bloating (check), feeling bad (mega check), and looking up health issue on the interweb (ultra check). Now this is probably definitely true for me since I am living in the desert, but I wanted to bring it up. I am reading that the best way to combat this is to just keap hydrated which I probably haven't been in 4 years. I always just feel different out here versus when I am back home and I think the desert has something to do with it. From tomorrow on I am going to keep track of my daily water intake. I just read on the Mayo clinic that they recommend men intake 3 liters a day. This corresponds to 101.4 oz. Since I live in the desert and work out a lot, I am going to up this 128 oz. which is exactly one gallon on days I am active. So wrapping up with some open-ended thoughts...

RyDub - Let's keep track of how much water we are drinking. Let's write it down and keep track. If we still aren't losing weight/feel better then I think it will at least help us if we wanted to begin calorie counting or something. Anyway, as with talking points, write it down! Any interest?

Weird Offensive Reggae Comedy Song

Positive sound reggae Fridays!

Here is something from Jah Levi. I just got into him recently and thought I would share. His music is hard to find on cd even though he has many albums. Very good stuff here and lots of horns.

Random videos

First one up is a trailer for a new Dragon Ball Z movie (the first in 17 years to have a theatrical release). The film is set during the 10-year time period between the defeat of Kid Buu and the 28th World Martial Arts Tournament[2] (like Wrath of the Dragon and Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!!). It is said that Trunks and Goten have a major role in the story. Goku, Gohan, Piccolo, Krillin, Vegeta, and Shenron also appear on the promotional arts for the movie. (source)


The second is Episode 4 of a documentary of sorts about comedy. This one is about Mitch Hedberg.

Way too excited for this

MVP Baseball Online (only in Korea).


So maybe there is hope for EA to bring back MVP Baseball in 2013.

Olypmic Race Walking

Yeah, so walking is an olympic event...

Lightning Bolt

Steven Seagal has his own energy drink line called lightning bolt.

He is also rumored to have an aftershave called the Scent of Energy and another, the Scent of Action.

Jean Claude Van Damme

This is Jean Claude Van Damme's first role in a feature film.  He is credited as Gay Karate Man.

Robocop

I have been watching a lot of awesome 80s action films lately.  I was watching Robocop today and he is constantly throwing/punching people through plate glass.  I cheer everytime, Paul Verhoeven, you magnificent bastard.

Positive sound reggae Fridays!

Just something to raise spirits.

Black Coffee Yeah!

Just to get you in the mood.

This is my official review of the aforementioned Aeropress.

Moka Pot

The Moka Pot is a stovetop espresso maker and makes a decent espresso like drink.  The aeropress too makes an espresso like drink. The coffee is very dark and very concentrated.  The aeropress, however, is easier to clean after use, and I think its easier to use.  The aeropress also allows for a much better control of the water temperature, since the moka pot just sits on your stovetop burners.  You are able to make coffee at the ideal temperature and your not in danger of letting it sit on the stovetop long after your drink is ready to enjoy.

French Press

The French Press is great.  It fully immerses your coffee grounds in that sweet ideal temperature, just like the aeropress.  The french press is great because it makes great coffee and its already in a nice pitcher.  An advantage of the aeropress is that it runs your coffee grounds through a microfilter, so you dont have to worry as much about the size of your coffee grounds or coffee grounds ending up in your coffee.  In addition, the french press makes coffee, not the strong espresso like drink that the aeropress is capable of.  

Aeropress

I am totally endorsing the aeropress.  It is a great easy to use design, with virtually no cleanup.  It makes a great espresso drink thats filtered and probably the least acidic of any other coffee brewing method.  In addition, you can add hot water to make a regular cup of coffee. I would, in the future, recommend not getting the moka pot and just getting an Aeropress, to be honest. I still love the french press and believe the aeropress and french press serve different purposes.

Beefcake

Love all the hot new shirtless beefcakes!

Fitness primer for RyDub

Here a couple of exercises that can transform your body. If you do them right they can build muscle and help you burn calories. They are benchpress, squats, and deadlifts. These engage a lot of your body and specifically with squats and deadlifts they are whole body exercises (deads are my favorite) and can provide good cardio while pumping.

I know RyDub's facilities/equipment is limited, but these are priority exercises if you can do them. There are also dumbbell versions too.

Benchpress


Need to be doing 135lbs. That is the bar plus one 45lb plate per side.


Squats


135lbs.


Deadlifts


Again try 135lbs.


Also, these can be done with dumbbells

One arm dumbbell rows


works back.


Dumbbell press



Planks


Try for 30sec. Then 1min. These are hard and work your core.


These are the movements. What equipment do you actually have? Let's discuss further...

Apple patents "...moving items around on the screen". Dooms android

It seems like Apple has patented just about every type of thing one can do with a touchscreen. My question is, wasn't much of this stuff implemented on old PDAs and on just a goddamned trackpad on a laptop?

http://rootzwiki.com/news/_/articles/apples-latest-patents-could-spell-doom-for-android-r977

Candy Coated Fury!

So I just setup a Spotify account (made me create a Facebook account which i wasn't happy about but whatevs) and I'm searching through artists/albums to add to playlists and whatnot. Whilst searching for Reel Big Fish, I notice an album cover I've never seen before. Candy Coated Fury is the name of the album. Apparently it came out a month ago just came out today. I'm gonna write a review before Friday.

I need to stop ....

I just watched about 10 seconds of this. Can you make it further than me?

http://tv.yahoo.com/primetime/kris-jenner-pressured-to-take-lie-detector-test-30127462.html

A Couple Meta Songs I Done Heard

http://music.mikephirman.com/track/indie

Positive sound reggae Fridays!

Wanted to share some positive sounds on Fridays! Have a listen.

Definitely ready for the Olympics

Mmmmm... Michelle Jenneke

I'm moving to Kansas City, (MO or KS)

1000Mbps internet? Sign me up.

Let's all get back together and kill the jews

Not sure if you saw louis ck on daily show on monday but it made me laugh.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Will Ferrell and ach Galifianakis invade Wrigley

Sony's newest product!

Strikeouts aren't everything

Why Aaron Cook And His Two Strikeouts Are A Nightmare For Sabermetrics

Siri can suck it

Not sure how up to date everyone is on the Android OS. 4.1 (Jelly Bean)was just released and it contains some pretty amazing voice search features. It's pretty much Google's "answer" to Siri, but really it's just showcasing the amazing amount of data that Google has access to search through for you. I've been running it for a couple days now and I absolutely love it. Best version of Android so far, but I've been saying that about every new version so that's a good sign that it just keeps getting better and better. Here's a video comparison between Siri and Google Search:


(damn, that took quite the HTML editing to get that to start at the right point AND be embedded. you're welcome)

Relativistic Baseball

Awesome discussion about what would happen if you were able to throw a baseball at 90% the speed of light.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Raising Hope

Following RyDub's model, I would also like to suggest to my fellow Furers to watch Raising Hope. Jimmy is a twenty-something kid who dreams of escaping his poor life and living with his zany family, but through a series of crazy events is left a single dad raising his six month old daughter Hope. Jimmy's parents had him when they were only about 15 and they made all of the mistakes in the book (and then some) when raising Jimmy and now they all get to try and raise Hope together. Now, it doesn't help that they aren't very smart in the traditional sense, but they all love each other and have a strong family. I recommend this show because it has several things I look for: funny plots, characters you can get behind, and long running inside jokes. Also, there is a refreshing amount of TLC in the show and this provides Sawsheezle with some family comfort when he is alone watching said show on his couch. It is my favorite show at the moment.

KeyPeele's Show

There's a new sketch comedy show on Comedy Central called Key & Peele. It stars former MadTV cast members, which I know gets capital_prototype excited, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Ian Roberts, of Upright Citizens Brigade fame, is an executive producer.

The show is actually extremely funny. Keegan and Jordan are amazing together. You can definitely tell that they are close good friends in real life. It has a lot of cameos from other comedians/great funny actors too. Ken Marino, Paul F. Tompkins, Ian Roberts himself, and even Matt Besser to name just a few. I'm currently on episode 6 and it's probably my favorite so far. Co-workers have an epic game of "you've got something on your shirt" and a guy brings some high quality $35 a piece Kobe burgers to a cookout and freaks out how they're treated like normal beef. Just started episode 7 and the guys go into a soul food restaurant and keep keep trying to "outblack" each other with their orders. Too funny.

Only thing that annoys me is that they constantly point out that white people and black people do things differently. WE GET IT! They use some standard "black/white" jokes but it's still funny. Anyway, highly suggest watching this show. I know Sawsheezle knows of it but wasn't sure if everyone else did.

You Won't Sass Me Like That When I Can Summon Wolves

By Dragon Boy Suede

Wilfred (plus titties!)

I'm watching Wilfred because apparently people go bat shit crazy for this show and I had to see it for myself. Not sure if I'll watch it past the first season but I will say that I am intrigued as to why Frodo sees a dude in a dog suit instead of a dog (only on episode 11 so far). So in episode 11 he goes on a date with Katy Mixon. Am I the only one who thinks she is so fucking attractive? To quote a song from the fine film Orgazmo, "it's probably the titties." (also, not a great pic of her, but you do see titties, albeit in a bra)

Need to reapir an MKV?

Have you ever had an MKV file that played fine on your pc, but didn't play back on your stand-alone player? Did your player say something like unsupported or corrupted file? This has happened to me before and it happened to me again when I was watching a marathon of my new favorite show (more to come on that later) and I hit a "corrupted" fiel. After some interweb searching, I tried an MKV "repair" program and it fixed it right up. I believe it just tries to repackage the file when things get a little jacked up. Well the program worked fine and I couldn't be happier. check it out below.

http://meteorite.sourceforge.net/

MadTV Fridays! Series Finale

Ok. Due to popular demand and several cease and desist letters, this will be the last MadTV Fridays! ever. To celebrate we are just giving you nothing but MadTV today! You know what they say: Mo MadTV, Mo Collins.

Who do you love more? (The Mo Collins story)


Lowered Expectations: Susan Whitfield


Lowered Expectations: Keanu Reeves


Lowered Expectations: Eddie Murphy


Mexican Star Trek


The real Terminator 3


Terminator the musical


Gay Plumber


Depressed Persian Tow-Truck Man


Whitney Screws Up the Classics


Whitney Houston Icon


Win a Date with Mandy Moore


Don't Date Pablo Francisco


NFL Sunday


The Lakers get Fabulous


Allen Iverson basketball camp


Hotel Stripper


Birthday Stripper


And that is all folks.

What a dick

So we're watching "The Nightman Cometh: Live" at work today and I start looking up the different actors on Wikipedia. I knew "the waitress" and Charlie were married but didn't know that "Dee" and "Mac" were. Anyway, not the point of this post. The point is, while looking at Charlie Day, I saw David Sudeikis (from their work together on Horrible Bosses). I then decided to look at his page. Under the personal life header, I saw that he is dating Olivia Wilde. What a dick. Here's a pic of her:

Cubs uniform malfunction...

Wow. How can it get any worse? Has anyone else heard about the Ricketts family possibly moving the team to the suburbs?

The End of the Youtube Rabbit-hole

Don't ask, don't watch.

Runner Tech

I recently took up running to try and get my fitness on/lose weight.

I purchased a digital watch so that I can track my times, see picture below.

I would be interested in hearing about some runner tech.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude

Please, stop posting fucking MADTV videos.

MadTV Fridays!

We've been away for a while now, but we are back and giving you the MadTV you demand. Today's theme is fat women.

Cindy Belmont (When sexual harassment goes fat)


Fanatas


Reality Check with Trent Lott

Black Coffee Yeah

I admire two dieselfuhrer's passion for the close shave and encourage them to pursue other activities, I would love to see that kind of intensity directed at coffee and espresso drinks.  Perhaps I must lead the way?

http://vimeo.com/40980282

Chrome

Can anyone give me a few reasons to switch from firefox to chrome?

Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom Trailers

New film by the artist Wes Anderson. Trailer Bill Murray Hosted Tour

Diablo 3 class reviews: Witch Doctor

Today's review is the Witch Doctor

The rating system is:

5/5: Very well executed. Super fun. Can't stop playing.
4/5: Very fun. Definitely enjoy playing.
3/5: Kind of fun, but just not inspiring. Will play again.
2/5: Could be good if the concept was reworked. Probably won't play again.
1/5: Doesn't work. Just horrible. Not going to play ever.

Sawsheezle's thoughts:
===========================================================================
Witch Doctor:

Active stat: Intelligence (this is what determines your damage #).

I was hesitant to play the Witch Doctor due to my profound love of the Necromancer from D2. I now have accepted that nothing will probably ever equal my love for the Necro and have started to really like the Witch Doctor. While Diablo 3 has seen an extremely massive overhaul of the skill/attributes system which I do not like (more comments later), the Witch Doctor actually plays the most like a D2 character. Every class has their own unique resource for which they use to power their skills and the Witch Doctor (WD) is the only one who still makes use of mana. Also, the mana pool for the WD grows as the character levels just like in D2 and unlike every other class in D3. The WD makes use of voodoo and some necromancy for his skills and to good effect. Most of the skills are similar to the Necromancer and you can even use a spiritual dagger or shrunken head just like in D2. You can call forth minions, but they take up your skill slots which sucks because once you call your minion it usually lives for a long time and your skill slot is just worthless while it is alive. In D2 you could use as many skills as you would like, but possibly suffered if you didn't level them up properly. Now we can only use a certain number of skills. Why? There are many skills I would never use. Why can't I just use all of the ones I want? More complaints coming later. Overall, the WD is really fun and I feel this class is "realistic" (unlike the Monk...) in the world of Diablo. You gain more mana and you can do more skills (a novel concept for D3) and it works.

Most favorite skill: Soul harvest. Gain intelligence (aka damage) by collecting souls. Awesome.
Least favorite skill: Zombie Dogs. Only three at once, a 30 second cooldown, and they die easily? F that.

Favorite thing: The WD is a Necromancer. You can blow up your zombie dogs.
Worst thing: Having minions is nice, but limits the number of spells you can use to attack.

Overall rating: 4/5

RyDub's thoughts:
===========================================================================
Love, love, love the witch doctor. From the voice actor to even the way he walks (kinda hunched over like he's stalking his prey), the witch doctor is phenomenal. It plays just about like the necromancer, which was by far my favorite class from D2. You have your zombie dogs (like the skeletons from D2), a hulking Frankenstein-esque gargantuan (like the golems), plus a spirit barrage (kinda like bone spirit). The witch doctor even gets some attacks that let it personally deal some heavy damage. Firebomb is the skill I'm referring to. You launch a ball of fire that explodes on impact. The skill is especially cool because of the animation. When it explodes, the outline of a man on fire erupts from the place of impact. It happens so quick though. I think it's really cool. I definitely agree with Sawsheezle in that once you summon your dogs or gargantuan, that skill space is now worthless. Kinda sucks.

Most favorite skill: Grasp of the dead. Lets you slow down enemies while causing damage in a specified area. You can even change runes to let it either extend the time being slowed, % slowed down, or more damage.
Least favorite skill: Spirit walk. Only good for escaping. Waste of time.

Favorite thing: Basically a necromancer.
Worst thing: Very squishy, meaning you can die very fast if enemies start to attack you directly. That's what minions are for though.

Overall rating: 4.7/5

Diablo 3 class reviews: Barbarian

RyDub and I are doing a series of daily short reviews for each class in Diablo 3. We are doing them in the order they were introduced by Blizzard (and probably conceived). We have played each class enough to make at least an initial judgement call we feel. Today's review is the Barbarian. On Saturday, I will post a more complete overall review of D3.

The rating system is:

5/5: Very well executed. Super fun. Can't stop playing.
4/5: Very fun. Definitely enjoy playing.
3/5: Kind of fun, but just not inspiring. Will play again.
2/5: Could be good if the concept was reworked. Probably won't play again.
1/5: Doesn't work. Just horrible. Not going to play ever.

Sawsheezle's thoughts:
===========================================================================
Barbarian:

Active stat: Strength (this is what determines your damage #).

The Barbarian is actually pretty fun to play. This is the only class from Diablo 2 to repeat here and I was disappointed that this class was in D3 as it was my least favorite class to play in D2. Anyway, the Barbarian is the only realistic melee class in the entire game and the end result is actually pretty good. Instead of the traditional mana pool to fuel your spells/abilities, each class has their own unique "resource" for skills. The Barbarian has Fury which is generated by each successful hit of a skill that generates Fury. Let me say that no class uses a standard attack anymore. Every attack is a skill, but now some skills generate your resource instead of depleting it. Also, the Barbarian starts with zero Fury and then maxes it out which makes sense considering you would probably max out your real-life fury during a fight and not before. The build up makes sense. What sucks is that your Fury doesn't level up with you. You are stuck at 100. In D2 you could get a weapon that would steal % mana and then you could infinitely use your skills and whatever ones you wanted. Now we can't. We are limited. Also, there are some awesome returning skills like leap, but it has a long cooldown which makes it useless to me. There is a cool "Scorpion-like" (think Mortal Kombat) skill where you skewer an enemy and bring them to you for more punishment. Way cool.

Most favorite skill: Cleave. Large AOE which I always like.
Least favorite skill: Bash. Slow and only one enemey at a time.

Favorite thing: Overall the Barbarian is just a bruiser and they didn't screw it up too bad.
Worst thing: The armor animations. I do not believe that one of the Barbarian's armors is body paint.

Overall rating: 3.6/5

RyDub's thoughts:
===========================================================================
*First off, I've played the Barbarian a bit further than Sawsheezle* Barbarian has always been one of my favorite classes. I love being right in the face of the enemy. Each hit just seems to have so much power behind it. Mana being replaced by fury is a cool addition. The warrior class in World Of Warcraft works the same way so I am very familiar/comfortable with it. The ability to equip 2 melee weapons is nice as well. One thing I do miss from D2 is that you could equip 2 2-handed swords at the same time. This is no longer the case in D3. Health orbs are vital to the Barbarian and as such, your armor will usually have "add % chance to drop health orbs." After playing the Barbarian, you definitely notice the drop in amount of health orbs for other characters. Sawsheezle said that you're limited in fury but I see it the opposite way, I see it as we have infinite fury. You're constantly generating fury as you fight. Drop below half? Just keep hitting and you gain more. Sure it tops out at 100, but you'll never need more than this at one time so it really doesn't matter.

Most favorite skill: Seismic Slam (deals damage and causes knockback)
Least favorite skill: Sprint (just makes you move faster for a little while i guess good for escaping but i find it pointless)

Favorite thing: Slashing right through enemies like a hot knife through butter.
Worst thing: Not being able to equip 2 2-handed swords.

Overall rating: 4.2/5

MadTV Fridays!

It seems like everyday is friday. Let's party like it is. That rich jewish girl Rebecca Schwartz wants us to have a good time on Fridays or so I have heard. This week's MadTV friday takes a look at love albeit controversial love. We're talking lesbians here people. Enjoy some yuks!!!

Karen's new girlfriend


Cottage Life


Just for lesbians barbershop


Broken Mountain (lesbian version)


(Les)Bionic Woman


Everybody Loves Raymond's Lesbian Cousin