A New Era

With the Pirates trades today of Jack Wilson, Freddy Sanchez, and Ian Snell, the Pirates are entering a new era. Since the new regime has taken over, it cannot be said that they have not tried to change (for the better I hope). Need some proof? Kacie and I went to this game. The Buccos won the game over the Rangers with Ian Snell pitching, here was the starting lineup:

Bautista 3B
Duffy CF
Sanchez 2B
Bay LF
LaRoche 1B
Nady RF
Castillo SS
Paulino C
Snell P

Not one guy from that game plays for the team now. McLouth was a defensive replacement for Nady. Snell pitched a complete game. Talk about craziness.

So what are my thoughts on the trades? I liked both of them today. The pitcher (Alderson) we got for Sanchez sounds like he could be a good 2-3 starter (only 20 and doing very well in AA).

Honestly, I cannot believe we got that much for Wilson. I know most people like to believe those two are superstars, but the truth is they were not that spectacular. Wilson is great at defense, average bat. Sanchez, well he can hit for a high average, but no power and he sometimes slumps like crazy. Also both are injury prone.

It is sad to see them both go, especially when you think about games where everyone of us has seen them do something amazing. I believe though, these moves can help this team into the future, and we may actually see the beginnings of a real winning team emerge.

Ancient Astronauts

As most of you know, I love to watch The History Channel. Especially when they have the pseudoscientific programs about 2012 or Atlantis. Well last night I treated myself to Ancient Astronauts. It did not let me down.

The Premise
Basically, these people believe that aliens came to earth, way back in the day, helped build all the impressive structures (pyramids), taught man some important lessons, and then left.

Where do they get all of their evidence? No clue really, most of it they just seem to make up. Needless to say, I think it's all quite silly, unfortunately some people probably believe these things

Pyramids
The big argument is that the pyramids were too complex to build by ancient man. Also, how come there are pyramids all over the world? This is the same argument used by lost civilization lunatics (when they left Atlantis they went to Egypt and build pyramids and then to Mexico...idiotic)

One of the guys on the show states that it would take one block being placed every nine seconds for 22 years to construct the Great Pyramid at Giza. That seems pretty unlikely, well let me check the math on it. The pyramid contains about 2.3 million blocks.
2,300,000/(22 years x 365 days in a year)=286 (I will round it for simplicity)
Then divide that by hours, and you get about 11.93 blocks per hour. I could drag this down to the second, but I think you get the point. 1 block every 9 seconds? Not likely, 12 blocks an hour more reasonable, still pretty tough though. I would say that you need to extend your period of building. The Egyptians say it took 22 years, but I would bet money that is exaggerated by a few years.

Also, why is it hard to believe that ancient peoples were intelligent enough to build these structures? Of course they would use a pyramid, it's the easiest way to stack large blocks. The idea that aliens did it is insulting to aliens. They had such power to come from far away galaxies and they decide to use limestone as their building material? Why not make it out of some crazy plastic/metal/liquid hybrid that you can build into the fourth dimension?

Lord Pacal's Tomb
Another fun thing they like to point to is the tomb of Lord Pacal at the Mayan city of Palenque.



That is hard to see, but I wanted to give you something that is closer to the original, than one of the drawings of it. Here is a very up close rendering. These nut jobs like to say that Pacal is in a rocket ship. That his foot is operating a pedal, and his hands are adjusting dials. The thing near his nose is the breathing apparatus, at the right (or bottom of the linked version) you can see the flames from the rocket. Sounds highly suspect to me.

I always think of what Professor K would tell us at PSU: I did not ask for your interpretation, I wanted your description. Archaeology is about the facts. Without knowing what the majority of the pictures really mean, it is hard for myself to say what it is. If Mayan experts see those motifs as being consistent with Pacal descending into the underworld, then they are probably a bit more correct, since that is something they study.

The Bible
Next they love to turn to the Bible, starting first with the Book of Ezekiel. I can understand why someone would turn to this book and say "wow, that is some weird shit going on there."

Ezekiel describes God coming to him in a chariot, which had strange winged beasts with four heads, and the chariot had wheels within wheels. Sounds just like every UFO sighting, right? Actually though, if you read Understanding the Old Testament by Bernhard Anderson, he explains this as a reference to the description of God's throne inside the Holy of Holies from Exodus, mixed with Zeke's own time spent in Babylon. Hmm, yes that does seem a bit more realistic, especially when you consider much of the Bible is written with constant references back to itself, or one of the older traditions.

The other Bible source they like to use is the Book of Enoch, which is another crazy book that was not placed into the Old Testament. The book deals with that line in Genesis that says that Enoch went with God for 300 years.

Apparently he goes and helps the angels battle some renegade angels who like to sleep with women and create giants. I wonder why this one was not rejected from the final draft? Obviously, angels=aliens, Enoch went to war with some bad aliens. He was like Will Smith "welcome to earf."

Anyways, this ran a bit longer than I expected. My apologies.

Funny Video

The video is of Kevin Smith talking about Twilight girls at San Diego Comic-Con. This is mostly for Kacie, since I always make fun of the series when I see her. Anyways, here are some of Smith's thoughts he posted on twitter as well. Quite amusing.

# Heads up to all 'tween girl Tweeters who've added me 'cause of TWILIGHT talk: I Tweet about anal with my wife alot. And it never "shimmers".about 11 hours ago from web
#
I've never read TWILIGHT, but anything that gets a kid to read and gives my daughter something to bond with her friends over is okay by me.about 11 hours ago from web
#
So many hate-filled Tweets directed at shrieking teen vampire fans. Why would you wanna chase girls away from Con? They roll with Cougars.about 11 hours ago from web
#
Oh the irony of Hall H-ers booing TWILIGHT fans. Like a Trekkie passing a JEDI fan and muttering "Loser." Embrace next gen of geeks, people.about 11 hours ago from web

Vacation Time

Today was my last day of work before my second vacation of the year. I get to go to court on Monday about the jumping, which means a good time in Pittsburgh, most likely a trip to Mugshots.

At the end of the week I am taking a little trip to the beach, just for two days. So that should be pretty fun. Other than that, it should be a pretty relaxing time. At least this time I will not be moving.

Sorry about the lack of posts this week, my work schedule was really weird. I am not putting up a GOTW this week. I know you are upset...

I recommend everyone picking up 311's new album, Uplifter. It's pretty damn good.

Okay, I cannot resist, here is the GOTW: Girls who are baseball fans. That is super sexy, and since the Pirates suck, might as well check out hot chicks...

Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow

Last night I finished reading Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmell. I started out having a real problem reading the book, I kept trying to figure out who everyone was in the context of the Iliad and Odyssey. It was not until about sixty pages in that I realized that even though the names were similar, this was not just a retelling, but instead a complete reimagining.

I was just rereading the back cover of the book, and the synopsis is not really all the close to the actual book. Unless some of this stuff happens in the second and third books, then it seems the person writing the back cover did not actually read the book itself.

These are some of my thoughts, favorite moments, predictions:

-I was upset that Diomedes dies. In the Iliad he was one of my favorite characters. It was weird to see him as a child and then killed so swiftly.

-Halysia's baby will grow up to become Achilles. It seems much of Helikaon's attributes would fit with Achilles. I think she foresees him becoming the greatest warrior, surpassing Hektor (or did I imagine that)

-I enjoy that Gemmell added in some historical "facts" as well, such as the Hittites and Egyptians and the Battle of Kadesh. Sometimes though, his dates and rulers are bit jumbled, but not a big deal.

-Gershom, also known as Prince Ahmose of Egypt is an interesting character. It will be cool to see how he gets back to Egypt in order to help free the desert peoples and lead them back to the promised land.

-Xander will travel to give the message to Zidantas' daughter Thea, they will fall in love.

-The girl that Helikaon helped saved (she thought he was the god Apollo) at the beginning will somehow come back into play. It seems silly to introduce a character, only to show how generous Helikaon can be.

Well let me know your thoughts on the book, if you read it.

The Silliest Weekend Video

I know that technically it is no longer the weekend, but that does not really matter. I do not really need to explain this video, other than watch it and tell me if it's scary how well these songs fit together...

Girlfriend of the Week

I was watching Supernatural tonight and I came to a pleasant realization: that show has some hot chicks on it. Not like super model hot, but more like "wow, I think I could bang that chick." So, this week's GOTW goes to Sandra McCoy, who played the Crossroads Demon in a few episodes.

It's That Time Again

This week and the past weekend have went by way too fast, and as you can tell there have been no real posts from me. In fact, the last post was well thought out in my head, unfortunately being up since 4 a.m. did not help out the actual writing.

Anyways, let me give you a recap of the things I have been doing this week and whatnot.

Brüno
I saw the movie over the weekend, and as you can tell it must not have been good enough to get its own post. Do not get me wrong, at times the movie was hilarious, but some of the other stuff was not all that good. It's about what I expected, if you watched Da Ali G Show, you'll agree that Brüno was the weakest character.

The highlight of the movie is the ending, watching drunken rednecks freak out about their hero being gay is hilarious (especially the fat dude who is so angry, he is close to tears.) I did not like the Ron Paul bit, they try to make him look bad, yet he reacted how many people would (even if they were extremely tolerant) if some guy started taking his clothes off and tried to seduce them.

Anyways, the movie is funny, just nothing near the level as Borat.

Poker
On Saturday night, Kacie and I went to my grandparents house to play poker. I ended up winning the final game by taking Kacie, Pap, and Gram out in one hand, allowing me to score all the money ($22, I'm rich). Yes, I may have tricked Kacie into calling, but whatever, I never claimed to be ethical.

Work
The worst thing about working at 6:30 a.m.: Getting up at 4:45. That shit sucks. Especially on Wednesday, I got up at 4 and had to be at Indiana for a meeting. I hate meetings. Sadly this is specific as I can get about the Place That Shall Not Be Named for Fear That They Will Fire Me.

All-Star Game
I sat up watching the home run derby. It was pretty dull this year. I went to bed after the first round, Berman and Morgan made me ill. The All-Star game was probably a good one, but I had to get to bed. It was ridiculous that they did not get started until after 9. Also, asking the President if he wants to stick around in the booth was annoying. He's the President, he has things he needs to be doing, not being the color man for Fox's baseball broadcasts.

The Flash
I recently read the two Flash trades that the Comic Swap included into my order. Apparently they reprint the Morrison/Millar run on the title, but were from the late 90s or something. They sucked.

Why does Grant Morrison have a thing for words that have no vowels and odd letter combos? I think he comes up with names by just randomly hitting the keyboard, like so: aoangsd and then replacing the vowels with Z,X,Y: Zxyngsd, the newest Batman villain.

You can tell Millar is helping out on the book because there are all kinds of random pop culture references in there (sadly most of them are ten years old by now, and it's hard to remember them). Oh look, Wally is sad and mourning, let's give him a goatee, longer hair, and a flannel. Pearl Jam rocks!

Powerball
I keep playing, I still have not won the jackpot. I will let you know when I do though.

This is Zaira Nara. No clue who she is, but she is hot and her name rhymes (I think)

Language of Stupidity

There are three phrases that piss me off. Before I tell you what they are, let me first explain that I completely understand that language evolves over time and sometimes popular usage becomes the actual usage. For example, everyone knows that the phrase "to pull an upset" is relatively new (after the horse Upset beat Man o' War).

I just feel that people using the incorrect term does not mean we should change the definition to fit their stupidity. I am not saying I am perfect, and hell, I know for a fact that I have used these on occasion. However, that does not make it right, and after I say these things, I usually kick myself for it.

Itch
This is one thing I know that I never say: "My back is itchy, please itch it for me." I absolutely hate this expression. If you have an itch, you scratch.

The online definition has an informal meaning, which basically allows people to be mentally challenged.

Literally
I know I have probably said something like this "she was literally 500 pounds!" You may be thinking what is wrong with that? Unfortunately, literally can be used to mean actually, but not with an exaggeration. If you are talking about a girl you banged, and unless she really weighed 500 pounds, you should not say literally.

Ironic
This word annoys me. Most people say something is ironic when they really mean it is a coincidence. For example, this is not ironic: "Oh my god, we have the same birthday!"

I believe George Carlin put it best about irony in his book Brain Droppings.

If a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck, he is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony.

That is why Carlin was a genius and I am a moron.

Not-So Silly Weekend Video

Here is the new, full length trailer for District 9. Who wants to see it with me? The movie, not the trailer...

Girlfriend of the Week

This week's GOTW goes to Starfire, who is some alien in DC Comics. Does it really matter what her powers are or where she is from? She's hot. That's why Dick Grayson likes to bang her...plus she has some kind of power where she heats up like the sun, not bad to have around during the winter, keep those energy bills down.

Stop That or You'll Go Blind!

Not a whole lot has been happening lately, so I figured I would just point out some blogs you should be reading. These are all at the side, but maybe some of you just never bother to check them out.

The first one I need to direct you to is I know nobody asked but..., written by someone I know from my days of going to Mugshots. He is a funny guy and has an opinion on just about everything happening in the world. If you know him, you can pretty much hear him saying these things. So maybe I am biased, but you should check him out.

Next is my friend James. Many of you know him, and if you remember he was the inspiration for me to start this blog. Even though he does not post often enough, every time he does post something it is great. Imagine this blog, but written by someone with talent.

Last, but not least: Schindler's Pull List. I know what you are thinking, "I have never seen this over on the side." And you are correct, the guys at batman obviously finally changed the name of their blog.

It's funny, I do not remember how long ago it was when Jason from over there started commenting on here (I thought it was one of the multiple Jason's that comment here anyways, until I clicked on his profile). For awhile I was pretty much the only person commenting, and now look at them. Getting free comics sent to them, tons of readers, a nationally syndicated radio show (okay I made that one up, but they have a pretty sweet podcast) and now a brand new blog not affiliated with any specific character. Congratulations to Nick, Jason, and Mark for such an awesome site, and for helping me waste more time on the internet.

Also, if you go there, they kept the banner they made of my site for their friends section. Jason thought it would help bring traffic here, sadly I think most people get scared and think it must be some kind of homosexual porn site.

Joker and City of Dust

I recently read Brian Azzarello's Joker and Steve Niles' City of Dust. Both of which were awesome.

City of Dust
Remember when I said that I wanted to check out more from Radical Comics? Well I finally decided to pick up another one of their books and I cannot say enough about them as a publisher.

The story follows Phillip Khrome, a police officer in the future where stories and imagination are outlawed. He was raised by the government because at a young age he accidentally turned his father in for telling him a bedtime story.

Unfortunately, someone has created some of the beasts from our older stories (vampires, werewolves, etc...) and they are preying on people. Phillip must figure out who is doing it and then learn how to stop them.

I will try not to give anything away, and just tell you that the art and writing is fantastic. If you are a fan of future dystopian society stories, this is a good one. One of the things I like though, the book does not take us down an Orwell path, showing us how bad things are for everyone. In some ways you get to see how good things are because without stories, there is no religion, but also imagination and creativity are pretty much gone...

Joker
Many people have told me Joker is an awesome book, including my friend Travis who does not even read comics. Well those people were right, and I am a moron for not picking this up sooner.

Grant Morrison always writes a creepy, very weird Joker. Azzarello goes a different route. He captures some of that Ledger Joker, but also brings back how the Joker was a guy who also ran the criminal underground in Gotham.

He gets released from Arkham and decides to take back the streets. Unlike those old stories where he had crazy plans and silly methods, this time he skins people alive, shoots random people and just scares the living hell out of everyone.

Batman only plays a small role in the book, showing up towards the end, and he gives a great line, which I will not spoil for anyone.

Anyways, let me know what you thought of either book. And, if you are reading any of the other Radical Comics, let me know how they are.

Fall of Thanes

Fall of Thanes is the final book in Brian Ruckley's Godless World Trilogy. As I said before, the books can be very dark and bloody. This one did not disappoint. Unfortunately though, it gets kind of slow for awhile, but then when it picks back up it pretty much grabs you by the throat and forces you to keep reading. There will probably be some spoilers in here.

We find ourselves in a world that is falling apart, the villain is causing almost everyone to go mad and just kill each other. Ruckley shows how everything is falling apart and how the villain is in the center of it all. For most of second book and beginning of the third book, we get the idea that one of the more powerful races will stop him.

Then we find out that he (his name is Aeglyss by the way) might be more powerful than them. At that point there seems to be very little hope. There are two characters who seem to be immune to Aeglyss' mental decay throughout the world, Kanin and Taim, polar opposites.

Kanin seeks revenge for the death of his sister, he blames Aeglyss for her death. He is so angry that he is blinded by rage and has almost the inner power to force others to listen to him by sheer will. Taim on the other hand stays away from madness because of the intense love for his wife, and his duty to protect Orisian.

My only complaint with the book would be how they dealt with Shraeve. She starts out as this badass warrior who cannot be defeated and her mind is sharp enough to not be under Aeglyss thrall. By the end though, he has control over her and she battles with Taim to the death.

Throughout the book we hear about her quickness and the quickness of Varryn, the non-human helping Orisian, it seems they are destined to battle, but then she pretty much takes him out quickly and moves on to fight Taim.

My favorite moment was the battle between Coinach (the shieldman of Orisian's sister) and Kale (the High Thanes shieldman). Coinach is younger, but is said to be very skilled. Kale is considered one of the scarier shieldmen (you probably have to be pretty hardcore to be guarding the most important person in the land).

The fight does not last very long. Coinach defeats him with ease and then delivers a pretty funny line "I had heard he was better than that." I do not know why, but that just made me laugh when I read it.

Anyways, I highly recommend the entire series to anyone that wants to read something that is dark and full of good ole bloodshed. The characters are very likable, even after they do some not so good things. The beauty is though, Ruckley is not afraid to kill them off, which helps keep you on your toes.

Girlfriend of the Week

This weeks GOTW belongs to a girl I recently saw and wished she was not an evil robot. Well I am sure she is not an evil robot in real life, well if she is I am okay with that, because she is still hot. Anyways, the girl I am talking about is Isabel Lucas. She was in the new Transformers movie, and she was definitely hot.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I went to this movie with very low expectations. I mean, lets be real here, it's Michael Bay. I know what I am getting, right? Lots of explosions, silly plot, but pretty entertaining, like the first one. Unfortunately, this one took all the crap I hated from the first one and decided to expand from there.

I was going to rant and rave about all the things I hated, but here is a nice little site that does it for me, yay for laziness!

Aside from everything that site makes fun of, the only thing I can add is that the scenes in Egypt and Petra were cool to see since I have been to both, unfortunately they decided to throw a map away. The pyramids are nowhere near Petra (about 300 miles away I think), plus the pyramids are beyond the horizon line from a large body of water, so you could not aim a gun at Devastator like that.

I also do not remember that many chickens running around everywhere when I was at either place...




While I was inside the place where they were at Petra, I never thought to blast through the wall to see if any dead robots were in there (although, I do not remember there being some weird painting in there, but that could just be my memory).

On a side note, look at that sexy guy in the last picture. That is a guy who should be running around the desert, not Shia...

My Insane Mind

So the other day I wrote a lie nice piece of fiction about getting attacked by a bear. It reminded me of something funny I did a few years ago, The Uncle Carl story...

For those of you not familiar, back before Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else there is out there, we had AOL IM. I used to put up funny away messages, sometimes movie/music quizzes, and sometimes I would do little rants. Those rants would eventually lead me to start a livejournal page, which would then lead to me writing this page. And that is the history of my blog, yay.

Anyways, one night back in January of 2005, I was about to head over to Champs because I did not feel like playing poker at my place and that was what everyone wanted to do. This was also the period in time that I knew all the bartenders at Champs (way too many free drinks) and was trying to bang at least two of the waitresses. Anyways, before I left I wrote a little away message saying something "My Uncle Carl died, heading to Champs."

I get over there and really think nothing of it. After a few beers I receive a text message from Jason asking me if I am alright. I think he is retarded and say yes (I have completely forgotten about the away message), but then a few minutes later he shows up. He wants to know if I need to talk about my uncle. I start laughing and explain to him that I have no Uncle Carl, it was a joke. As he leaves, I tell him to not say anything to anyone while they are playing poker.

When I get home, I find out that Shellie was planning on buying me a muffin basket. I had to come clean and that caused me to write this.

Needless to say, I did it again by worrying my family. Apparently they did not read the small print in my bear post, and they were frightened for my safety. I really do not think I would get home after being attacked by a bear and sit down to write a blog post about it. Okay, yes I would...

Burn Notice Season One

I finally decided to stop being stupid and watch the first season of Burn Notice. I have never seen an episode, but many people have told me to check it out. I finished watching it last night, and I must say that I am tempted to rush to the store to buy season two.

The show is about Michael Westen, a spy who has received a burn notice, which means he has been cut off. No job, no history, no anything. He is stuck in Miami (which he explains at the beginning of each episode). To make money he takes on little odd jobs, all while working on figuring out why he was burned.

Westen is a very funny character, usually giving us little bits of information such as "when breaking into a house, it pays off to make it look like you should be there or you are confused. Grab a yogurt from the fridge, that helps." Yeah, I paraphrased, but you get the idea. Watching him create lies and backstories is always amusing. Plus we get to see actual spy stuff, which is cool since you never get to see that sort of thing in a Bond movie (unless parkour and Texas Hold 'Em are spy activities).

Also, the show has Bruce Campbell. Do I really need to say anything else? Okay, how about another picture of Gabrielle Anwar, who plays Michael's ex-girlfriend...