Yeah, that ai pretty cool

A couple of new items have been posted over on Ain’t it Cool? News.

The first is the opening Q and A session with readers and Bruce Willis.  While the first round didn’t sparkle as much as the first round of the Sly Stallone Q and A for me, it was still very cool. A must read for any Bruce Willis fan. I’m assuming AICN/BW are doing twenty days of ten questions each just like they did with Sly. You can check out their website everday or if you are really lazy, I’ll probably post a link to them all once they are all up on AICN.

The other cool bit of info is the posting of the Rambo clip. From what I read, it looks pretty B.A. (I’m at work and the system doesn’t allow for online video at all). So, if you get a chance, check that out. They said it will only be up for a limited time.

My Generation

“Talking ’bout my generation.”

Growing up, I remember there was a debate over what to call my generation. There were the baby boomers from post WW2 America. After them came Gen X.

Eventually we started getting called Gen Y. (What happens in two more generations? Do we start back with A and add a number – Gen A1? A whole generation named after a steak sauce?). We were told that we weren’t included in the whole Gen X thing. So, we got our own generation. The Y’s. We were the tech-savvy kids… or something stereotyping us like that.

Anyway, I was looking at an article on MSN about how people in different generations save. It broke down the generations as follows:

18-25 = Gen Y

26-41 = Gen X

42+ = Baby Boomers

Wait, What?!

How did I all of the sudden jump from one generation to another? Does this mean I’m no longer hip and youthful? Am I no longer tech-savvy? When I turn 42 will I become a Baby Boomer?

I think the real answer is that there is no real generation definitions. They are just arbitrary age ranges that change year to year. So, look out you young, hip 24 and 25 year olds. In the up coming couple of years you are going to be joining the ranks of the old man, greed is good, yuppie, Gen Xers.

NBA Suspension Analysis

In case you missed it (how is that even possible?), Amare Stoudamire and Boris Diaw were suspended for 1 game for leaving the bench during an altercation. Robert Horry was suspended for starting the altercation by needlessly decking Steve Nash into the scorer’s table.

Before we get into the real analysis, let me say that the suspensions are pretty fair. The league has there set rules about leaving the bench. Amare/Boris broke the rules and they get hit with the automatic 1 game suspension. With Robert Horry, I probably would have gone a little bit bigger and said, “your season is over.” But I can’t argue with the 2 game suspension. It is the right amount of time. Now on to the suspension fallout analysis.

According to every sports news website, these suspensions mean the Spurs will walk to a NBA championship. They say that with out Amare (one of their top players) and Diaw (a solid role player), the Suns have no chance to win this series.

What? Really?

Steve Nash is going to play with such a high intensity that Amare/Diaw will probably be barely missed at all. Nash can dominate the game like few others… and the Spurs just pissed the hell out of him. I’d be more inclined to say watch out Spurs. This is the NBA equivalent of Pearl Harbor. The Spurs have just woken the slumbering giant.

Out of everyone in the NBA, here’s the list of players I would least like to see my team flagrantly foul:

1) Kobe Bryant – You know he’ll just end up throwing 60-80 points on you each game for the rest of the series.

2) Steve Nash – He is one of the few players who can dominate a game at PG.  If he’s angry you could be looking at a 20+ point/20+ assist night.

3) Stephen Jackson – Well, this one is for a different reason than the other two, but I think you understand.

That’s pretty much it for my list. You can argue for Kevin Garnett and I might be willing to let D-Wade slide, but Nash is still going to be #2 on the list. (Unsurprisingly, Michael Olowakandi comes in at dead last on the list).

So, the Spurs nail one of the most dangerous grudge players and now everyone thinks they’ll have a cake walk. I guess we will see about that.

Heroes Theoretical Idea

I was just thinking about Heroes a couple of minutes ago.

Right now we know that the next season (or “volume”) of Heroes is being called “Generations.”

From what we know, next season is going to deal mainly with the older generation of the heroes family (i.e. George Takei, Mama Petrelli, Mr. Linderman, maybe Sylar’s mom, and so on).

I am going to focus on the Patrelli family. Okay, we’ve got Nathan who has the power to fly. We have Mama Patrelli who has no known powers. From what I remember, Papa Patrelli was “special” and that lead to him going crazy or committing suicide (I’m not exactly sure on this point. I do recall something like this earlier in the season and that’s why Nathan and Mama were really worried about Peter). Finally, you have Peter who has the ability to absorb other peoples’ powers and has been known to be able to dream the future.

Isn’t it odd that Peter has more than one base power here? The ability to absorb and the dream thing?

I started thinking, what if Peter wasn’t actually born with the ability to dream the future, but instead absorbed it. But from who?

Well, seeing as though the powers in Heroes seem to be hereditary and the fact that Papa Patrelli was “special,” maybe Papa had the power to dream the future.

Then Peter has only really had the power to absorb and happened to inadvertantly absorb his father’s power.

Also, if Papa had the power to dream the future, maybe that was what lead him to going nuts or whatever happen. Honestly, if you saw a vision of one of your sons becoming a sell-out politician and the other becomes a nuclear bomb that wipes out NY (at least that’s how the dream probably would have played out) how would you react?

I know I could be completely wrong and I know I am spending too much time thinking about a TV show, but I thought the idea was too good not to post.

What do you think?

Last Night’s Warriors’ Game

Last night the Warriors lost to the Jazz, 101-115.

This series is officially over after last night’s game.

I can make this statement confidently because of a couple of reasons:

1) In order to win the series, the Warriors would have to win 2 games in Utah. I doubt if they can even win one.

2) Last night was one of the worst refereed games of the post-season… and all the bad calls/missed calls were going IN FAVOR of the Warriors. The refs handed the W’s the game, and they still lost. That alone makes the rest of the series moot.

3) The difference in the paint. Yes, we all know about Boozer. I told you before the series that he was going to have a field fay on the W’s. But that’s not the real issue. The issue is that whenever the W’s penetrate, they get near the basket and there is 3 defenders around them. Then they run into whatever big man is under the hoop and throw the ball up in the air. When the foul isn’t called, the W’s are left with an airballed lay-up that goes right into the hands of Boozer/Kirilenko/Okur/whoever was defending the driving player. On the other hand, when the Jazz drive the lane with Deron “Worst Haircut Ever” Williams, the W’s that are nearby all go for the blocked shot and leave Boozer/Kirilenko/Milsap open for the rebound. Great rebounding will always slow-down/stop a run-and-gun offense (i.e. you can’t run unless you have the ball. The W’s can’t get the ball against the Jazz’ great rebounding advantage).

Out of these three problems, number 2 was the biggest nail in the series’ coffin for me. You get all the breaks possible from the refs and still blow the game. Just terrible.

The one upside, though, is this series loss has knocked a bunch of people off the band wagon. So, I can continue to root for my team with out having to defend my non-band wagon jumping.

Gambit

According to this article, some dude from Lost is in negotiations to play Gambit in the next X-men movie.

Gambit was my favorite from the 90’s cartoon series, so I like the idea of including him in the mix.

Besides that, the last movie kind of crapped out the franchise’s future. I mean, besides Wolverine, is there anyone left?

- Everyone hate Storm

- Rogue has been the weakest mutant throughout the whole series. She needs to steal the flight and strength superpowers.

- Cyclops/Jean Gray are dead.

- The Professor is supposedly gone, unless you buy into the after-credits clip on X3.

- We are dangerously close to adding Bishop to the cast – He pretty much single-handedly destroyed my interest in the 90’s cartoon series.

So, while this is kind of good news, it reeks of desperation to keep the franchise alive. Overall, I think it might be a bad move.

Lend me your ears… or something like that.

Going off of Chris’ suggestion, I recently joined Rhapsody to listen to 25 free songs per month.

So far, I am digging the service. I’ve been combining it with the digital music channels on my cable package to hear music that I hadn’t previously heard.

For the most part this strategy has been working out. Probably my favorite artist I’ve found from this technique is Eliot Morris.

Seeing as though I am starting to expand my musical horizons, do you have any artists that I should check out (note that I am mostly into A) Classic Rock B) Early 90’s alternative rock C) Folk-y Pop – ala John Mayer, Coldplay, etc)?

Another Movie Idea

The other night I thought of another idea for a movie premise.

I only have the beginning thought of. So, this isn’t really a plot outline. But here’s what would kick the movie off.

A man is doing some ego searching (i.e. looking up his own name) on google or another search engine. He has a pretty unusual name (it has to be from this movie to work. [i.e. John Smith would get way too many hits]). While searching through the list of sites, the man comes across an old newspaper article that has been uploaded onto an online database. When he looks at the article and photo, he realizes that he is in the article and picture. The man, baffled by this revalation, goes out in search of answers.

So, what do you think? Would that be a watchable movie premise? Any suggestions on how to improve the premise or plot points to incorporate?

NBA Marketing Genius

Yesterday was Game 1 of the Jazz vs. Warriors playoff series. Seeing as though I root for the Warriors, I wanted to watch the game. Living on the East coast though, I knew I would be able to see the end of the game.

So, I stayed up until the listed starting time of 10:30 PM. At this point the Bulls were still still getting rocked by the Pistons. Around 10:45 the Warriors/Jazz game is finally on TV.

Yeah, 10:45 and I have to be up at 6:50 AM the next morning. So, I start watching the game. Half way through the first quarter, I have to shut it off and go to sleep.

So, who’s bright idea was it to have the game start so late? East coast fans get to see the first quarter at best; they definitely can’t watch the whole game.

Now, I know that the west coasters will whine that if the game starts earlier they will miss the beginning because they are still driving home. Then they will say we can just DVR the game and watch it the next day.

That is just stupid. What’s the most important part of any basketball game? The last quarter. The rest of the game doesn’t really matter that much. So, when scheduling a game, should we have half the nation miss the first half of the game (i.e. start the game earlier) or should we have half the nation miss the end of the game (i.e. use the current start time)? A no brainer.

As far as the DVR/Tivo arguement, it just doesn’t work well. Here’s the reasons why:

1) The games always run over the alotted time. ALWAYS. So, DVRing a game means you are going to miss out on the end. What’s the point of that?

2) When would we be able to get to watch the taped game? The next day after work. Is there any chance that a basketball fan would not check the scores/ESPN home page over the course of an entire day? Nope, none.

3) The DVR scenario works a LOT better with the games starting earlier. The west coasters could set the DVR to tape. Then, when they get home the game is probably about a quarter in. Then they watch the game from the beginning and fast forward through any commercials. By the fourth quarter they should be watching it live.

The only real argument for having the games later is so more people can be in attendance at the games. A really valid argument, but who takes precedent, the people who can attend or the vast majority of people who would watch the game on TV?

Here’s the thing to note, though. Look at the NCAA March Madness tournament. When are the majority of those games played? Right, during the day. Yet that tourney is one of the largest spectacles of the year (up there with the Super Bowl).

It seems that if the NBA were to schedule the games earlier, people would work it into their schedules to enjoy them. Whereas, if you play them later you are forcing people to add awake hours to their schedule. It is easier to rechedule the time you had already planned on being awake than it is to try and change your sleeping habits.

Popular Mechanics… for Kids

The latest movie I rented from Netflix was a tv series called Popular Mechanics for Kids.

I know what you are thinking and no I’m not mental.

First, I do enjoy seeing how things work. The episodes I rented had to do mostly with theme parks and circuses (Is that the proper pluralization of circus? [Is pluralization a word?]). As you know, I like theme parks and I worked in a circus (non-performing) for a while. So, it made a little bit of sense to rent it based on the topics.

But the real reason I rented the show is because of the cast. It is hosted by a couple of kids each episode (the kids change in and out of hosting duties). The hosts for the episodes I rented? None other than Jay Baruchel and Elisha Cuthbert. Yeah, the dude from Undeclared and The Girl Next Door. How can you not rent that? (By the way, this might be the all-time best cast of kids who went on to be famous; another host girl was in Stick It as well as several other movies).

It’s worth checking out. If you have kids, it might be worth buying… just don’t show them what Elisha Cuthbert went on to do until they are older.