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No Sportscenter

Posted on September 12th, 2007 by Josh.
Categories: sports, tv.

Both ESPN and ESPN2 are playing Women’s Soccer this morning in lieu of SportsCenter and Mike & Mike. This disappoints me.

2 comments.

Bracketology

Posted on March 14th, 2007 by Josh.
Categories: sports, tv, technology.

It’s official. I love March Madness.

If I didn’t already have tickets to see Flogging Molly on St. Patrick’s Day, I would have booked a room in Vegas and spent tomorrow through Sunday in the sports books. But I do, so I didn’t.

To satisfy my bracketlust (it’s a new word, I just made it up, maybe it’ll be on urbandictionary.com by the end of the day), I’ve filled out ten eleven brackets, all with the same picks. Why ten? The prizes, man! Why the same picks? When it comes to sports and betting I can be superstitious and if I have different sets of picks, then my lack of faith will be found disturbing by the sports gods and I will be spited.

• Yahoo (via Orbital)
• Yahoo (via U-Haul)
• ESPN (via Josh Phillips)
• ESPN (via Deadspin.com)
• Facebook (Bear Down group)
• Facebook (Zona Zoo group)
• Cingular/ATT Wireless (through my phone.. and yes, it was painful to make my selections via the mobile web - can the iPhone come soon enough?)
• CNNSI
• CBS Sportsline (via Mike)
• John McCain (I’m not even kidding, I think it’s hilarious, as much as I support the guy)
• azcentral (via Dad)

Thanks to technology, I have avoided becoming this guy, and have just kicked back and let everyone else set things up. I just have to make sure my picks are right.

And now, before I go, some stats on my picks without giving too much away:

• Arizona makes it to the second round before being eliminated - if they make it to the Sweet Sixteen I’m figuratively burning my brackets in a fit of joy
• six double digit seeded teams to make the second round
• one double digit seeded team in the sweet sixteen
• two number ones and two number twos in the final four
• a number two seed wins it all

Edit: Here is my bracket. Feel free to praise/criticize.

Also, if you’re not close to a TV, never fear, CBS is streaming games online! Go here to sign up: http://www.ncaasports.com/mmod/welcome

0 comments.

Pizza Power!

Posted on March 14th, 2007 by Josh.
Categories: games, movies, music, tv.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game from 1989 came out on Xbox Live Arcade today. I was up early this morning and had time to spare, so I downloaded it and played through the first level. It was just like old times - I can see myself having a lot of fun with that game all over again.

Playing the game reminded me of the Ninja Turtles music I used to listen to as a kid. Yeah, that’s right - I had a cassette tape with songs about pizza and fighting The Shredder. I still have vague memories of the happy day that my parents made a special stop at Pizza Hut to buy me the tape. That $4.99 purchase was money well spent, as I didn’t listen to any other music for probably about a year. My mom will probably say it was longer, as the tape became permanently lodged in her Ford Tempo’s tape player.

I just had to hear it again, so after a quick google search, I found a site with mp3’s made from the tape! I started playing them in iTunes, and noticed that there is some background noise and occasional clicking from the tape player, but who am I to complain? For the most part, the quality is good enough.

I surprised myself this morning when I started singing along to the lyrics, as if it were 1990 all over again.

Click here to visit MIKEYSTMNT.COM and download them for yourself!

And yes, I am excited for the movie that comes out next Friday. I’m not expecting it to be great, but it looks like they’ve captured the spirit of the Turtles I know and love.

3 comments.

Respect

Posted on March 13th, 2007 by Josh.
Categories: sports, tv.

This morning, I came across an article in the Arizona Daily Wildcat chronicling one staff member’s experience at a broadcast/taping for WWE’s ECW and Friday Night Smackdown! shows. In short, he was given tickets to be a seat filler - filling in seats for a reserved amount that were left unsold until the day of the event and being moved to seats of some who may have left early, to keep seats accounted for on television. He didn’t seem to grasp this concept - falsely stating that tickets were given away for the reason that the event would not sell out. He then went on to criticize the product and the fans, with the all too typical college student’s “holier than thou” attitude.

After reading the article, I noticed a large amount of comments ripping on the author and defending professional wrestling. The quick moral to the story: wrestling fans are rabid and loyal - don’t mess with them, and don’t insult them - or you’ll hear plenty of backlash.

USA Network has been airing commercials lately featuring people who most would not expect to be wrestling fans. Celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Steve-O have appeared in these commercials, as well as not so famous fans like a Wall Street trader, a dentist, and a firefighter. The network seems to want to make it clear that it’s okay to watch wrestling and it’s not a spectacle for rednecks like it may have once been.

Let’s be clear - wrestling matches are not real fights. No kidding. But they’re not fully scripted matches either. What happens when a match is scheduled - writers determine who should win the match and often how the match will end. They may also include a few pivotal points in the match that are scripted. The wrestlers involved will get together and work out the details on how to do what the writers have come up with. They’ll talk over who should be dominating the fight, how long they should be dominating, and when momentum should shift. They might come up with some unique maneuvers that will get everyone’s attention and show off their abilities. Then they’ll go out and perform in front of thousands, with a basic idea in mind but coming up with many moves on the fly.

To me, pro wrestling is no different than any other TV show with a continuing storyline. Scratch that - it is different. Wrestlers do it multiple times a week in front of live audiences and broadcast on live TV. In many cases, I have to give these guys more credit for doing what they do than other Hollywood actors.

If you’re one of those who looks down on professional wrestling, then do it because you don’t enjoy the storyline. Do it because you aren’t entertained by their athleticism. That’s fine. But don’t do it because you think it’s “a fake sport” with an uneducated following.

Comedy. Drama. Athleticism. That’s what professional wrestling is about. I am proud to be part of the WWE Fan Nation.

1 comment.

WWE Raw @ US Airways Center, 3/5/07

Posted on March 13th, 2007 by Josh.
Categories: sports, tv.

About a month ago, I found out that WWE Raw would be returning to Phoenix for the first time in over two years. My brother and I have been following WWE religiously for the past year and a half after taking a bit of a break from watching. Last May, we had fifth row floor seats to the Judgment Day pay-per-view event - we had to get floor seats to Raw, as well!

I signed onto Ticketmaster the minute tickets were to be on sale. Unfortunately, I was only able to get two tickets in the lower level, but not on the floor. I purchased them, but then thought I’d take one more look to see if any floor seats had opened up. Just my luck, I got three floor seats in the twelfth row, behind Jim Ross and Jerry “The King” Lawler.

Last Monday I showed up about an hour and a half before the event, hoping to sell my tickets for at least face value. I was a bit dismayed when I found out that tickets were still available at the box office. The first scalpers I talked to gave me insulting offers for my tickets. I walked around and played offers off each of the scalpers, and walked away with 80% of what I paid for the tickets originally. If I had stuck around outside, I could have made a profit - tickets did indeed sell out, and people were eventually turned away to the scalpers.

But I wanted to get inside, grab a beer, and enjoy the atmosphere.

6:23 - Val Venis, a wrestler with a porn star gimmick, takes on Charlie Haas in the first of a handful of warm up matches. These matches are set up to get the crowd excited for the big show, and are designed to give some of the lower card wrestlers some time on WWE.com’s Heat.

6:36 - The Highlanders defeat The Navajo Warrior and The Hawaiian Lion - two wrestlers I have seen compete at Tempe’s local Impact Zone Wrestling promotion. It was cool to see a couple of local guys get some time in the ring with WWE Superstars.

6:59 - Ring announcer Lillian Garcia belts out the Star Spangled Banner.

7:01 - Raw goes live on the USA Network.

7:06 - Shawn Michaels takes on Randy Orton in the opening match.

7:23 - Maria comes out during the commercial break and promotes the “Kiss Cam” - something baseball fans will find familiar.

7:35 - Jeff Hardy gets pwnd by The Samoan Bulldozer, Umaga.

8:03 - Vince McMahon comes down to the ring to introduce the special guest referee for a match at Wrestlemania 23. In case you haven’t heard, Vince McMahon and Donald Trump are betting each other’s hair on a match between Umaga and Bobby Lashley. If Umaga wins, then Vince gets to shave The Donald’s head. If Lashley wins, then Donald gets to shave Vinnie Mac’s head. The WWE Board of Directors has decided that a special referee should be assigned to the match because of how big it is. Would it be Phoenix local, Eric Bischoff? No. What about hardcore legend, Mick Foley? As it turns out, Mick was there to referee a match, but not at Wrestlemania - he was there to officiate a race between the Phoenix Suns Gorilla and Sir Charles Barkley. That, I would pay to see. I think. Well who else could it be? Vince’s son, Shane? Nope. Turns out most of the crowd (including myself) had our guesses right, and in response to our chants of “Austin! Austin! Austin!” - Stone Cold Steve Austin’s glass shattering music hit and he came down to the ring. He immediately motioned to a man at ringside to toss him some beers from a conveniently placed cooler, which he sort of chugged - but mostly sprayed beer everywhere and poured it on himself. He did this with about a dozen beers, and sprayed some in Vince’s face, while he was at it. He never said a word, but the crowd went nuts the whole time. I wish I could throw beer everywhere and elicit a similar response!

8:20 - We bear witness to a sub par Women’s Championship match between Mickie James and the Champion, Melina. On the plus side, Candice Michelle (the GoDaddy.com girl, to everyone else) got her towel ripped off on the Titan Tron for everyone in Phoenix to see. This brief moment was replaced by a black screen in the television broadcast.

8:38 - Ric Flair and Carlito’s qualifier for a Wrestlemania match is interrupted by The Great Khali. I don’t have any pictures of Khali because I was too busy yelling obscenities at the man. He is a very tall Indian (dots, not feathers) man with very little wrestling ability. He chops and head butts and occasionally picks a guy up, but he can’t take a bump (get hurt convincingly) worth a damn and moves about oh so slowly. Frankly, he’s just another Andre the Giant wannabe, failing to captivate us just like The Giant Gonzalez and Kurrgan. Speaking of Kurrgan - he can be seen on the silver screen in 300 - he plays the Persian giant (the Uber Immortal, as he is listed in the credits). Good for him, I say. Can we send Khali off to play roles like that and stay out of the squared circle?

8:57 - The main event: John Cena vs. MNM in a handicap match. The camera stops rolling after Shawn Michaels comes to the ring to help Cena, but we get a bonus match off camera! HBK sticks around to tag up with Cena against MNM, and even delivers a double “You Can’t See Me” fist drop to the former world champs.

When all was said and done, I think we had more fun at this event than last year’s pay per view. It was a heck of a show, and everyone seemed to leave quite happy. Maybe we’ll get a Wrestlemania in Phoenix someday. Maybe…

1 comment.

Step 1 - Cut a Hole In a Box

Posted on December 20th, 2006 by Josh.
Categories: youtube, music, tv.

From the geniuses at SNL comes another great Andy Samberg performance, this time with Justin Timberlake.

Thanks to Russell for sharing this with me.

0 comments.

UnderGRADS

Posted on April 9th, 2006 by Josh.
Categories: tv.

Pete Williams, the creator of one of my favorite yet short lived shows, UnderGRADS, is now on MySpace. Why do I care, you may ask?

Well, he’s trying to rally the troops for season two. Five years after the show got the axe by MTV, there is still interest in reviving it! A major Canadian network is already in, but they need American support to get the ball rolling.

If you’ve seen the show and you’re a fan like me, click the link below and make him your MySpace friend.

Once he’s got enough friends on there, he plans to give us an email addy to Cartoon Network to flood them with demand for a new season. Adult Swim, anyone?

2 comments.

The Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia

Posted on December 24th, 2005 by Josh.
Categories: youtube, music, tv.

Check this out:

Why, you ask? It’s the latest from a comedy group called The Lonely Island. They first showed up on SNL during the Dane Cook episode in a skit about lettuce. They then appeared in another one with Chris Parnell entitled “Lazy Sunday” - which I already gave you links to above. Seriously. Funniest thing on SNL in a long time. I can’t get it out of my head.

After digging around on the web a bit, I found out that these guys have been trying to get on TV (Fox, MTV, and Comedy Central all said no thanks) but haven’t had much success until they finally landed on SNL.

Check out their website for more random clips from the trio featuring cameos by Jack Black, Kal Penn (the guy who plays Kumar), and Sarah Chalke of Scrubs fame - I love her.

0 comments.

You can’t take the sky from me

Posted on December 17th, 2005 by Josh.
Categories: movies, tv.

Just finished Serenity. Awesome end (?) to an awesome story. If you like that kind of stuff, you’ve probably already seen it, so there’s no reason for me to plug it.

Saw The 40 Year Old Virgin last night. It was all right. Definitely some pretty funny parts - but I have the same complaint as I did for The Girl Next Door: TOO LONG.

Tonight is the bachelor party for my boy, Tom.

We once had a bachelor party for Tom Dietrich. He ate the entire cake, before we could tell him there was a stripper in it!

To Tom Dietrich!

2 comments.

Autumn is here

Posted on September 22nd, 2005 by Josh.
Categories: work, tv.

I just read Gretchen’s blog, wherein she was mocking the word ‘autumn.’ I think it is an outrage that such a fine word be disregarded by the common public. Autumn. Ah, screw it.. who uses that word anymore, really?

Today I finished a three day introductory course to SAS programming. If you don’t know (and really, I don’t expect anyone to know), SAS is computer language aimed at generating reports on large volumes of data. I also just got a book about Crystal Reports, which is the same sort of thing - but it is nicely integrated into the .NET platform.. and since I’m working on a web-based app, that’s good for me. Raise your hands if any of that is interesting to you? Nobody? Yeah, I thought so.

In other news..

This past weekend and the immediate days following were tough for me. Lots of what I would’ve hoped would be needless drama. Left with a crappy situation. But one that I believe will be for the better. I’m not going to detail it for the world to know, but things are going to be all right, I’m sure.

In yet other news..

I’m sick of sitting at the computer. I’ve been doing it all day. I’m going to go work out. Then it’s O.C. time (season 3 has been subpar, by the way). Then… laundry, or something. Again, how many hands are raised? Yep, thought so.

4 comments.