THIS I would pay full price for.

It's hard to remember now, but Jurassic Park was huge when it was first released. Spielberg took a book about nerds talking about science* and turned it into a fun movie about dinosaurs. Too bad he screwed up the sequel.

Now I got to find Weird Al's parody of Jurassic Park. Hopefully I'll find it at youtube.




* - I've read three Michael Crichton novels and I'm beginning to think that he writes novels just to hype chaos theory. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it's funny for some reason.

Nerdy Post of the Week

I'm going to be busy for the next few days. So just enjoy this cartoon for now. It's about fan fiction.

Here



By the way, February is coming up, and fans of this blog knows what that means.

This Week In Entertainment (1/29/08)

My Pick of the Week may have already been a Pick of the Week. I won't check, but I'm selecting The King of Kongs: A Fistful of Quarters on DVD.



I'll finish this later today.

Update: And I'm back. Let's finish this.

Also out on DVD is Daddy Day Camp, which I only mention to mock Cuba Gooding Jr. How's the career going Cuba?

One of the many Hercules collections: It's The Steve Reeves Collection! This includes Giants of Marathon uncut.

Die and Let Live sounds like a really gloomy James Bond film. Maybe they remade it for a younger audience.


On the Wii is Bomberman Land. I thought this was going to be the Wii's Bomberman, and was annoyed by the lack of online play. Than I realized it was basically another collection of mini-games.

Dear Wii Game Developers, STOP DOING THAT!


And that's it for this week. How about that?

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (1/27/08)

I watched a couple Rifftrax this weekend. Fellowship of the Ring and Spider-Man. Both were ok, and Spider-Man was a little better. I still have Star Wars Episode 3 waiting. (And the last Film Crew DVD, which I have yet to watch.)


I took my own advice and started playing the Tomb Raiders in order, only I'm not doing it as a marathon. Right now I'm up to the Oil Rig levels in the second Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider 2 was good, but lacked something that the classic first had. Plus it had those damn spiders.

I just ordered The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. I have no idea why I don't already own a copy. I rented it once and liked it, especially any scene with Animala. I should write about it sometime. Can't wait for the sequel.




By the way, since I haven't done this in a while.

Currently reading: Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Previous read: Time's Black Lagoon

Not to be rude...

but why!?!?!! Why is Mike Nelson punting on the Batman and Robin Rifftrax? That's the one movie I was anticipating, so why is it being written by fans? And why is it being charged full price? I know it's still being performed by Mike, Bill, and Kevin, but if they aren't going to write it, what's the poin? When I saw posts about fans writing a rifftrax, I thought said fans were going to make their own dumb Rifftrax and post it for free. I would pay maybe a quarter for this Rifftrax, maybe fifty cents if the reviews are good. Still, if I wanted to hear a fan Rifftrax, I would go to the Rifftrax forum more often. I barely go to that or the CT forum as it is.

I don't get it. Part of the fun of a Batman and Robin Rifftrax would have been listening to the guys' disgust at the movie, but now they're just reciting lines written by some nerds. Couldn't they have experimented with another movie?

It makes me want to...I don't know.

Something I forgot to mention yesterday.


Rhino is no longer the company that will release MST3k eps. Now It's Shout! Factory, which previously released The Film Crew tetralogy. The last Rhino release will be the rerelease of MST3k Volume 10.

This calls for some cautious optimism! Rhino has only released about four random episodes per year, and for sixty dollars each. I would have been glad to pay that much back in the late nineties, but when the first volume came out I had already bought several of these episodes on VHS, so my DVD collection is incomplete to say the least. Rhino has also frustrated MSTies by having polls for which episodes to release and promises of extras, which never led anywhere. Flash game aside, I don't think that Rhino's heart was into it.

Shout! Factory, even if it has an annoying name, seems like an interesting up an coming company for nerds. Besides The Film Crew, they also were the ones that released the Super Mario cartoons that I loved as a kid. I was hoping they would release season one in a single package but I just read this. I have my doubts, but I look forward to their first release. Please Shout!, don't disappoin me.

Rhino, I would like to thank you for releasing about 30-40 episodes for us MSTies to own. Shout! Factory, I hope you keep that up and exceed Rhino's efforts. Thank you both.

Quantum of Solace Villian Revealed!

Oh, by the way, Quantum of Solace is the name of the 22nd Bond movie.

As a fan of Bond, I'm glad that the next movie is going to be a direct sequel to Casino Royale. That was a very good movie. I'm crossing my fingers on this film. Still, when reading about the film, I came upon the odd inspiration for the villian.

Dominic Greene is suppose to be a cross between Tony Blair and Nicolas Sarkozy. Americans are familiar with Blair, but I think you have to tell them that Nicolas is the president of some useless country where cars are burned every night. The actor promises us that Greene is going to be worst villian ever. So just for the sake of comparison:




Goldfinger: Attempts to blow up Fort Knox with a nuke so his pile of gold will jump up in value. Also, the laser thing. Ouch.




Blofeld: Head of SPECTRE who tries to take over the world through terrorism, revenge, and extortion. Kills Bond's wife.




Greene: THIS GUY!

The Time Tube

So now we know the answer to a question I raised in my The Oozing Skull review. It's not really a feature of Cinematic Titanic, which I assume won't have a backstory. It's just a container that will contain all the movies that CT will riff. It's called the 500 Film Movie Riff Project, and after it's full the CT team will bury it for future people to dig up.

My first thought while I was reading this post was 500?! Seriously? I would be happy if there were 100 episodes of CT. That would mean that the project was a success and there were plenty of films for them to license. But 500? They'll have a maximum of 12 before this year is over. I can only assume that 500 was just a number they picked. I'm glad that they're this enthusiastic, but it's not the least bit realistic. (And do DVDs really last that long? They're better than tape, but I've read about DVDs not working after a while.)

Wait, it's made of styrofoam and they're going to bury it? Heh, that ought to piss off the right people. I fully approve of that. Still, it's too bad it's not an evil butterfly that will burst out of its cocoon and eat Joel once the project is canceled. That would have made a great ending, and something Rifftrax could never do!

This Week In Entertainment (1/21/08)

Today's Pick of the Week is Adventures of Lolo 2, for the Virtual Console. I love a good puzzle game when they have a goal to solve. This game is worth 500 Wii poins.


On DVD we have the fourth Saw movie. Get ready for more sadistic traps and non-linear story telling.

The only thing about The Game Plan that interests me is the fact that Disney released it. It's a movie about a star player who now has to take care of his out of wedlock child. Someday Zombie Walt will attack the people who took over his empire.

McCauley Culkin was huge when I was a kid, now he's starring in unknown movise about orgies. Wow. Also, I enjoyed this part of the amazon synopsis: "they soon find that true love and lasting relationships (at their core) are ultimately about more than sex and breakfast." GET OUT!!! NO WAY! That's deep, man.

On the Wii is No More Heroes. From what I've heard, this game was so violent that they had to replace the blood with coins, or something. There may not be too many M rated games on the Wii, so keep an eye on this.

Also out on the Wii is Endless Ocean. For some reason, I thought this was an rpg, but it's really a scuba diving game. Scuba diving isn't that exciting, but maybe the programmers know what they're doing.

On the DS is Sonic vs Mario in the Olympics, just in case it's any better than the Wii version. I haven't played either yet.


Edit: DUH! I forgot to see the movies coming out in theaters this week. And we got a number worth commenting on.


First up is Meet The Spartans, another nail in the coffin of spoof movies. Who makes the damn movies? I like the Leslie Neilson movies of the nineties. Does someone have a grudge against Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker?

Stallone returns in Rambo (4). Hopefully this movie includes an apology for helping the Taliban get into power at the end of the third movie.

“He hacked into my car’s computer.” Untraceable is about a master hacker who has a website which tortures people based on how many hits it gets. How can this movie not be a winner with the above quotes?

Lastly, what should have been the Pick of the Day. It's U2 3D, a 3d concert starring U2. I actually own four U2 albums, which is four more than most bands can boast.

Tork's Picks Championship Weekend

I pick Pats and Packers. These are the two I want to see in the Superbowl.

However, with my luck it'll be the Chargers and Giants.

I have no idea what's going on with the Chargers. I'm terrified by the fact that Norv somehow won a close, big game. It just doesn't make sense. If the Chargers beat the Patriots, I don't know how I'm going to deal with it.

Let's hope the Patriots take care of business Sunday, and let's hope we get a good Superbowl out of this. As much as I hate them, I'd like to see the Patriots win it all just to shut up the Dolphins. I guess we'll see.

Cinematic Titanic: The Oozing Skull

I got my copy of the first episode of The Oozing Skull on Tuesday, and I finally watched it yesterday. Let me share my jumbled thoughts.

In case we have to recap: Cinematic Titanic is like MST3k but instead of three guys on the bottom, we have four guys and a gal on either side of the screen. All are former MST3k writers. There are skits, but we never leave the movie. Instead the movie is paused and we watch one of the performers do something.



From top left to top right we have J. Elvis Weinstein, Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, Frank Conniff, and Trace Beaulieu. They're all in silhouette like the good old days. From time to time we see special guests appear and there are a couple of lifts so Trace or Josh can interact with the movie a little. There are no special features on the DVD.

Got that? Probably not because I rushed the explanation, but if you're here you most likely already know what CT is. Now onto our feature presentation.


Cinematic Titanic's first outing is about a 1972 film called Brain of Blood. It was directed by Al Adamson who somehow escaped the MST3k treatment. Al is responisible for other fine movies like Frankenstein vs Dracula. Many of his movies involved the word blood. However, when it came time for the CT folks to license this movie, the name was changed to The Oozing Brain so people won't confuse the uncut DVD with this one. Not that CT is sold in stores.

The movie is about some weirdos who want to transpant the brain of the dictator of some Middle Eastern country into a new body. The inject a serum into his dying body and wrap him up in tin foil before shipping him to America. Just watching the actors move the dictator's body around is enough to tell you why this movie was chosen as an experiment...I mean, subject. Sorry, gotta watch that.

The cast of characters include a mad scientist, a midget, a blonde who is apparently an Al Adamson bit character (and how sad is that?) and what appears to be the cousin of that monster from The Brain That Wouldn't Die. The latter character, Gor, is given a poinless backstory during a scene that I might suggest was only cooked up to pad time. Just saying. In case you're interested, some hillbilly was playing with a lame looking toy. After getting violent during a game of keep-away, two other hillbillies pour car battery acid on him. Yuck. Definitely an unpleasant scene.

So these people sit around in a lab keeping the dictator alive. Of course, the lab has a dungeon for a basement. Naturally, Gor is sent to kidnap bodies for a replacement. For some reason he kidnaps a brunette for no reason I can remember other than they needed a love scene later in the movie. Said brunette has the slowest reactions in the world, because she gets bitten by a big spider on her arm long before she does anything. Even if this spider lowered itself from somewhere she couldn't see, would spiders really be so daring? I'm arachnophobic as you can get, but I don't buy that.

There's some hero in this movie, but maybe not. I didn't quite catch if he was originally a part of the goons or was some guy who somehow knew about the whole oooooozing skull thing. His job is to get into boring chases (by foot or by car) and to start an unnecessary love scene with the brunette. If you watched the post-Night of the Living Dead movies of the seventies, you already know their fate.

There's a twenty minute scene where Gor, our sorta heroes, the mad scientist, the blonde, and some kid all run around in a giant field. At least it felt like twenty minutes. The blonde gets so bored that she tosses a blonde manikin off a cliff while she plays tag with Gor. Oh, and the dictator is inside Gor, I think. I didn't quite catch who was in Gor but I'm sure it was the dictator, even if he couldn't control himself.

What else I could tell you about the plot wouldn't be worth it. Seriously, not much happens in the movie. (I wonder if CT was unkind to it by editing out key scenes, but from what I read about Dracula vs Frankenstein, maybe not. And Imdb does say that it was only 87 minutes long, so maybe we got the movie uncut. EDIT: Except The OOOOOOOOzing Skull is 80 minutes, so never mind that.)


The movie was made when movies were starting to get more bloody and gory, and it does provide us a bloody operation scene. Luckily for me, it's more goofy than gross. The blood doesn't look like blood at all, and the brain can't be taken seriously after it's plopped into a bowl and connected to electrodes. (How many times have they done that in movies?) I was worried there would be a lot more gore after watching the CT trailor, but I was more icked out by the midget than the operation.

So The Oozing Skull is a passably bad movie, even though it's not my preferred brand of cheese.


Now, how about our second direct "spin off" of MST3k?

It was good. Real good. I would give it a C+, I think. That may not sound like much, but I would take a C MST3k project over most things. I think if they hammer out a few things the grade would easily be in the B range. I liked this effort, but I expect them to improve future CTs.

When you start the dvd, we get the theme song playing with various scenes of the film shown. We get a quick countdown before our performers enter and take their places. This is a bit jarring because I was waiting for a brief back story before the exper...movie started. Instead we jump right into the riffs. I know, it's just a direct-to-dvd show, I should just relax, but I think it would help if they made up some reason why these five come together. Even rifftrax has an intro where Mike and all talk to Disembaudio. The original CT website led me to believe that this was going to have a scifi feel to it, given the time tube or whatever it is. Heck, look at the home page and tell me that this effort isn't begging for a poinless back story for nerds to debate. I'm crossing my fingers that a future episode or a post by one of the cast members will enlighten us.

While the big attraction of this effort is that it has silhouettes (and rifftrax doesn't! nyeh nyeh), it doesn't just end with five people at the sides. I mentioned the lifts from earlier, but we also see a couple people popping up to add to the jokes. This idea wasn't ignored by MST3k but it may give the writers a chance to play with the fans expectations of what may pop up next. We'll see how that goes.

Our five performers are all veterans, even if Frank and Mary Jo only riffed during a fifth of an MST3k episode. The big worry here, I think, is about chemistry. With three people, it's much easier for jokes to bounce off each other. Unfortunately I can't say much about this because I was just listening to the jokes individually. Still, I don't think this will be too much of a problem. Mike, Kevin, and Bill are superior, but I never felt that there were too many people in the theater and they seemed ok with each other. There weren't any laugh out loud moments, but there were plenty of good riffs and I never felt like there were any dead spots. My only problem is that Trace doesn't stand out. I'm so use to his several versions of Crow that his normal voice either blends in with Joel or Josh. I might end up staring at his side of the screen to see if he's moving.



Here's some of my favorite moments:

Joel: The Mod Squad IN COLOR! (standard MST3k joke, but) Oh, I'm old. (puts his head on his shoulders)

????: Is that a really small desk, or is he wearing wooden pants?

Josh??: Hemisphere Pictures! We’ve got half a mind to make a movie!

The part where the heroine tries to escape and they sing These Boots are Made for Walkin'. I couldn't do that justice by describing it. It just worked.

The end where they make fun of the flashback by redoing the earlier skits.

("Nothing but ashes.") Frank: Nothing But Asses? That was on Cinemax last night.




This was a good first effort and I hope that the next eleven (they licensed 12 films) are even better. Unlike a certain cartoon, Rifftrax and CT are great for MST3k fans.

You load 16 tons...

What do you get? Another year older and deeper in debt. Go figure.



Anyway, I forgot that this blog is a year old today. Check back to an earlier post about my feelings about that.

Thank you all 3 of my readers!

Webcomic Review: 1/0

One Over Zero, also known as 1/0 or Undefined is an interesting webcomic I discovered after someone posted a link to it at the Jabootu forums.

This is a chomic where various characters are created either by stealing from other webcomics or from other characters. The unseen author often speaks with his characters. While this happens in a ton of webcomics, the author tends to have more philosophical discussions as opposed to cheap jokes about not being able to draw. The fourth wall and religion are often discussed. There are 1000 comics in total, and there is a definite end.




The Good

The early comics are the best part, because at that time the author focused more on jokey comics. He even had a character called The Running Gag.

The early comics also had an amusing idea where new characters were created out of old ones. Observe.

Again, early on a main character named Junior was so sure that he was trapped in an elevator with an old Arab woman.

At one poin, everyone goes on strike, and the author is forced to make several comics where nothing happens. I should accuse him of being lazy but it is amusing to see characters stare at you vacantly for several strips.

The ending is very satisfying. This is good because since there is no fourth wall, the characters are well aware that they only have X comics left to go.



The Bad

Not necessarily bad, but the turning poin of the comic is when one of the characters can no longer see beyond the four walls. At this poin he and the son he later creates becomes atheists and believe that any one who believe in the fourth wall and the author need to be converted. Or deconverted, whatever. Again, this is not bad per se, and it does make the comic unique, but this character's fight with another one tend to bog things down. I still preferred the comic when it was funny instead of interesting.





The Ugly

Jar breeze! Also, wait till you see what they live on.




The Rest

The comic periodically has rain fall, which I find neat.

My favorite characters are Junior the eyeball, Petitus the gloomy mud thing, and Terra the sorta lesbian earthworm.

The rampage towards the end of the comic was genuinely shocking.



Summary

This is the first webcomic I reviewed which isn't video game related, so maybe my readers can actually give it a shot.

This Week In Entertainment (1/14/07)

I don't know when I'll finish this so just take a look at my Pick of the Week. I'm more excited at the idea of a Puppy Bowl 4 than a Superbowl 42.


Update:

Track of the Moon Beast? Oh wow!

I'm not sure if I've seen Earth vs the Space Saucers, but I'm sure it's the kind of cheese I like.

At first I thought The History Channel was stretching it by this thing about playing cards. When I learned that the special was not about poker tips but rumored stuff like the Mason influence on the cards, I knew that they were stretching it in a different way.


In theaters, the only thing interesting is Teeth, and by interesting, I mean freaken nuts. It seems to be about a woman who is Hollywood's idea of someone who vows to be chaste, until she finds out she has vaginal dentata. I wouldn't even mention this film but I saw a few short clips in an ad at Rotten Tomatoes, and apparently she becomes a sexual monster. Or something. I don't think like Hollywood people. I read that this was originally a NC17 movie. I'm going to now weep.


On the Wii Virtual Console is Pac-Attack. I would say it is one of the lesser Pac-Man games, but it isn't really a Pac-Man game. Baby Pac-Man is a lesser Pac-Man game. This is a weak Tetris game with Pac-Man characters.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (1/13/07)

All my respect for Tony Dungy is gone and so is my lack of respect for Coughlin. Funny how that works.


I beat Bonk's Adventure today. I didn't think it would be so short but it only has five levels. It was ok, but I hope the sequel has more.


I should have worked today, but I didn't. I ended up watching the Dallas game. I'll be busy tomorrow catching up.


I will get my hands on my Cinematic Titanic dvd soon, but I won't be able to watch it until I get a break. We'll see if I write anything about it.



Those guys I talked about in the previous post probably didn't even come close to their goal. All I know is that they were 24 hours in and still stuck on Majora's Mask. Plus, the feed kept failing and they ended up showing a lame Wii review show, over and over. Oh well.

Sitting a marathon.

I saw an interesting, if a bit depressing thing at my favorite Nintendo blog, GoNintendo. Some guys announced somewhere that they were going to beat four 3d Zelda games in a period of 48 hours. I've seen them play, and while it was an ok idea, it makes me wonder about my generation.


Anyway, marathon gaming. I've played tons of games in my life, but have I ever marathon gamed? Probably the closest I've done that is when I rented Chrono Trigger, where I played 23 hours in a 3 day rental period, but I'm starting to think that I exaggerated that feat.

I do sympathize with the idea of playing several similar games back to back. There were days where I would come home from school and decide to play all the Mega MAn games I had back to back. I don't recall if I was capable of doing that in one day, and I'm sure once I owned the fifth I had to use another day or so.

Another series I used to love playing through was the Tomb Raider series. Too bad the games kept getting increasingly bad. Once I owned the fourth one I think I stopped playing the series in order. I always collect the secrets for the middle two games but didn't bother with the first and fourth.

Still, while I wasted a lot of free time playing these games, I never played them in a marathon way. When they started having stories of Asian people dying from whatever straight hours of playing, I was a bit incredulous about the stories. EEven I can't play a game for more than 20 hours straight. My mom, when I was a younger game player, would force me to take a break every hour to stretch and focus my eyes elsewhere. But even after she stopped enforcing that, I still didn't have problems eating or sleeping. Maybe I would wait a long time before finally going to bed, and maybe all I ate was a bowl full of doritos, but I don't get how these guys can play themselves to death.

Still, I do have a webcam and a ustream account. And I'm always looking for ideas to steal so I have more blog material. So here's my idea of marathon things I could do.


I could beat the entire classic Mega Man series in 9 hours. Mega Man and Bass and the GBs don't count.

I could beat the entire Tomb Raider series (7 current console versions only) in a week.

I could beat every Final Fantasy from 1-10 in a month.

I could watch every episode of MST3k in 16 and a half days.

I could read every Discworld novel in a year. I don't need that much time, but I'm a slow reader in more ways than one.


This list will get bigger when I get more ideas.

MST3k is a cool show.

Whoo, MST3k! GREAT SHOW!


In other news, I have no material for today. I'm just tired.

Tork's Picks Week 18

I'll take
Green Bay over Seattle
New England over Jacksonville
Indianapolis over San Diego
Dallas over New York Giants

This Week in Entertainment (1/07/07)

My Pick of the Week is another Virtual Console game. It's Startropics, a game I got because it was featured in two issues of Nintendo Power. It's an interesting Zelda-ish game about a boy who fights with a yo-yo. 500 Wii Poins.


On DVd this week is the entire Sweating to the Oldies set! Even the disappoining third one!

It's 3:10 to Yuma, a movie with a stupid title and probably nothing more.

I've never seen this iteration of Scooby Do, but can you believe there's almost as many Scooby episodes as Simpsons episodes? That's mind-blowing.

All-Star version of Family Feud. And by that, we mean various B-stars from sitcoms from the sixties and seventies.

One of the greatest movies of all times! Not because I've seen it, but because it gave us the Overdrawn at the Memory Bank episode of MST3k.

How many Superfriends series were there? I think they could mark these things better.




On the Wii is Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity. Uhh, didn't they already release this for the GameCube? Is Sega really trying?

Also out is the Wii's version of Harvey Birdman. Since it's a Phoenix Wright rip-off, it would only be fair to call objections by thrusting the remote towards the screen.

Sunday, Lazy Sunday (1/06/07)

I'm going to be so busy this month. I'm going to do the usual updates, but that's probably it. I shouldn't even be doing this. I should be working. But nooooo, I like to fall behind in my work. Oh well.


I thought I had more to say, but I don't. What a poinless post.



Monday morning edit: I remembered at least one thing I was going to mention.

I was thinking about joining a MMORPG lately, probably WOW since it's so popular. I was thinking about doing it just to see what it's like and maybe to make fun of it on my blog. I probably won't do it since I don't have the free time a teen has, but I still have a lot of free time so who knows?


I hope to get The Oozing Skull (from Cinematic Titanic) soon. It's suppose to ship on Wednesday. Hopefully the CT guys can figure away for the DVD making company to make and ship these things faster. I hope they at least make a dozen episodes.


I've seen some sites mention the possibility that the state of California might control the thermostats in CA homes. Of course, I'll have to take their word for it, since I can't read legalese. I guess the clf-bulbs weren't enough.

Not That-Sport-That-Shall-Not-Be-Mentioned

I've gotten complaints about my last few posts, so I decided to make this post as an apology.

























Hey, wait a minute! He didn't complain! No more pictures for you!

Ideal Superbowl

Like my nightmare situation, I get hit by a speeding vehicle.* Instead of dying, I'm just unconscious for a couple weeks. When I wake up, I find that the Redskins are heading to Green Bay, and someone has a copy of Dallas's humiliating defeat on DVD for me.


Washington reaches Superbowl 42, and face off against the Patriots. It's the battle of two franchises whose Superbowl record is 3-2! Belichick vs Gibbs seems like a great match, until the game starts.

Campbell gets the start after recovering from his injury and completes almost every pass he throws. The occasional incompletion happens whenever he chucks a football at a reporter that compares him to Doug Williams because Jason is "teh black." Brian Mitchell unretires and returns four kick returns for touch downs. This allows him to pad his stats so Devin Hester won't break his record for probably another year.

Sean Taylor leads the defense by becoming a zombie. Hey, why not? If he's going to be mentioned every few seconds by every media-type, why not actually play?

The game MVP is unretired Art Monk, who has the greatest game ever just to prove how stupid the Hall of Fame selection committee is.

Joe Gibbs retires because the job was sucking the life out of him. Later in the year he becomes a third party candidate for president due to write-in votes by Skins fans. This nonsense somehow leads to a good candidate winning the presidency. Don't ask me who or how. I think I'm letting my topic get away from me.

Bill Simmons is so devastated that he stops pretending that anybody cares about the NBA.







*- or the Redskins win tomorrow, thus setting up a week of agonizing about the Dallas game. This scenario will not be good for my heart.

Nightmare Superbowl

If I die sometime between now and early February, here's what I'll watch in hell.


The Redskins will sneak by the Seahawks tomorrow 6-5, even though they only gained 10 yards total on offense. Then they will travel to Dallas and the media will talk about how good the Skins have been lately and how vulnerable the Cowboys are. Aikman and Buck will do commentary for that game.

After the biggest playoff win ever, Dallas cruises by Green Bay after Brett Statpadder's arm falls off.



Meanwhile, the Colts somehow beat the Patriots. No offense against Peyton Manning and the Colts, but this is the poin where I stop watching football games and ask for more harsh punishments. I even make up stuff so my eternal damnation will distract me from Superbowl 42, which will have commentary by Aikman and Buck. The over-under for Aikman saying that he's "impressed" by Romo is about 50.

NFL Playoffs 2008

Since the games start tomorrow, let's take a look at the teams. I'll list them in order from least likely to win it all to most.




12) Tennessee Titans (10-6)

First Opponent: @ San Diego

Why they might win this week: See Head Coach Re: San Diego

Why they might win it all: Hey, Jeff Fisher snuck into his one Superbowl appearance by magic, so why not?

Why they won't win it all: In the NFL playoffs, shaky QBs will kill a team. Is there any QB shakier than Vince Young right now? He threw almost twice as many interceptions as touchdowns. Not good.




11) New York Giants (10-6)

First opponent: @ Tampa Bay

Why they might win next week: See my thoughts on Tampa Bay

Why they may win it all: Hey, the other Manning won one, right?

Why they won't win: Remember what I just said about shaky QBs? (I remember a couple years ago when people started to wonder if Eli was the clutch Manning. Seems funny now, doesn't it?)



10) San Diego (11-5)

First opponent: Titans

Why they might win next week: Even Norv Turner can win a first round playoff game against a weak team with a terrible QB.

Why they might win it all: They have some talented players who might be motivated after their humiliating lost to New England last year. Also, does Jerry Jones have ties to the mafia?

Why they won't win it all: Uhh, their head coach is Norv Turner. Did you know that he's the first and probably only head coach to lose a playoff game when the opponent was starting a rookie QB? Who was Shaun King? Shaun King?!

In conclusion, Norv sucks.



9) Washington Redskins (9-7)

First opponent: @ Seattle

Why they might win next week: Gibbs has yet to lose a first round playoff game. Seattle isn't that great a team. I didn't pay attention to them, but I was baffled by some of their losses. And Holmgrem is a suspect coach in my books.

Why they might win it all: Does 17-6 mean anything to you? It's Joe Gibbs' record in the post-season.

Why they won't win it all: Uhhh, they aren't a very good team. Trust me on that. I know fans are biased towards their team and exaggerate everything, but they're 9-7 for a reason. Also, Todd Collins deep in the playoffs? Yikes.



8) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (9-7)

First Opponent: Giants

Why they might win this week: Eli

Why they might win it all: Gruden pulled it off somehow in 2002, so why not?

Why they won't win it all: Can you even name the other three teams in Tampa Bay's division? I thought about this question a week ago, had to look it up, and yet I still can't remember the answer now. Tampa Bay has the same record as the lousy Skins and yet they get a home game.

Also, while I haven't paid attention to the team at all this season, Tampa Bay was very suspect in their game vs the Skins. The Skins turned the ball over five times and still almost beat the Bucs. Admittedly, Garcia was hurt, but that brings up another poin. If Garcia gets hurt, the Bucs's back up is Bruce Gradkowski. They are doomed.


7) Jacksonville Jaguars (11-5)

First opponent: @ Pittsburgh

Why they may win next week: I haven't really followed either team. I guess because the Steelers lost a few head-scratchers and to the Jaguars this season.

Why they might win it all: I have no clue.

Why they won't win it all: I have no idea. I haven't paid attention to this team since Leftwich was their QB.

I bet they would go to the Superbowl if they were in the NFC.




6) Seattle Seahawks (10-6)

First opponents: Redskins

Why they will win this week: The. Skins. aren't. that. good.

Why they might win it all: They. Are. In. The. NFC.

Why they won't win it all: It depresses me that Green Bay and Seattle will cancel each other out while Dallas will face Tampa, New York, or Washington.

Again, I site the Holmgren factor.

I'm sure the Jaguars are better but Seattle has a better shot at the Superbowl.



5) Pittsburgh Steelers

First opponent: Jaguars

Why they might win this week: Experience. Ben has a ring somehow.

Why they might win it all: Again, experience. Although I have no idea how the current coach compares to Cowher.

Why they won't win it all: Like Jaguars, they're cursed to play in the far, far superior AFC. Usually I'm a traditionalist when it comes to the playoff format, but this year makes me want to consider a seeding system that eliminates conferences.



4) Green Bay Packers (13-3)

First opponent: Seahawks, Buccaneers, or Giants

Why they might win it all: See head coach Re: Dallas


Why they won't win it all: First off, they cost themselves the number one seed by losing the Bears. Damn you, Bears! May you be cursed to be nostalgic about that one stupid Bears team for another 20 years.

Also, their QB is, what, 80 years old?



3) Indianpolis Colts (13-3)

First opponent: Jaguars, Chargers, or Steelers

Why they might win it all: Peyton proved that he could be clutch every once in a while. He's also the second best QB in a league of horrible QBs. Also, no QB who led the league in yards has won a Superbowl. You know the Colts are telling themselves that right now.

Why they won't win it all: I just don't see the Patriots losing to the Colts in a rematch. I really don't. Just the revenge factor alone is enough.




2) Dallas Cowboys (13-3)

First opponent: Redskins, Giants, or Buccaneers

Why they might win it all: Remember the Colts/Pats game early this year where a ton of calls went Indy's way? Well... Plus, they have an easy NFC conference while the AFC is going to beat up on each other.

Why they won't win it all: When this season started, I was hoping that the combo of Wade Phillips and Tony Romo would sink this team. Somehow, they got the first seed, which depresses me. Still, Romo and Phillips. The Botched Snap and The Music City Miracle. Seriously, something has to give.

I know I shouldn't say this because the Cowboys might kill my Skins a week from now, but I always laugh when I get a good look at Romo's face.



1) New England Patriots (16-0)

First opponent: Steelers, Jaguars, Titans

Why they will win it all: Brady. Belichick. The fact that they have a monster o-line and a damn good defense. Did I mention that they're 16-0?

Why they might not win it all: Karma payback for the whiny fans who threw a fit after Belichick was caught with his video equipment. Jeez, how dare the media react negatively after a head coach got caught breaking a rule!!!!!!!!!

Tork's Picks: Wild Card

I'll take Seattle over Washington,
Pittsburgh over Jacksonville,
New York Giants over Tampa Bay,
and San Diego over Tennessee.



More thoughts later this week.

Tork's Blog Person of the Year for 2007!

And the winner is.....Tad Tadlock!




Congratulations!



Runner up: Elizabeth Hasslebeck whose actions caused the banishing of an illerate bully from daytime television (and the discussions of a lot of blogs.)

Yeah, yeah...

This blog is almost a year old now. On January 15th of last year I registered for the blog because I was worried that "Tork_110" was going to be taken at some poin. Seems like a silly thing to worry about, but I wasn't going to let some Tork-wannabe take it.

I was prepared to make the blog mostly about video games, but a stray comment from a friend caused me to go in another direction. That's the "post something, anything once a day" direction. That's what you got for the first few months. I eventually invented a few features so I could make it through the week. I haven't made fun of C64 demos in a long time and I haven't written any essays in a while, which is too bad because I enjoyed those, even if they were one joke repeated over and over.

Unfortunately I seemed to burn out in May, and by June one of my worst traits took over. My laziness prevented me from coming up with anything new. June was a dark time for this blog, as you can see since I only did 10 updates that month. I started an idea that should have filled space but has had surprisingly few results, and my attempt at a wacky movie idea in a throwaway post had already been done. I hate that latter post, but I don't want to delete anything.

In July I made a bit of a comeback, thanks to Lita. Her idea was simple, but it gave me something to do for an entire month. I revisited the idea of doing something a day during December, and these were the best two months I had since April.

In the months between I did better than June, but there were a few false starts. In August I had an idea for a sports-themed webcomic, but I wisely abandoned it. I also gave the best possible review anyone could have given for the new MST3k.com site, and I'll never live that one down. Oh well. On the plus side, I took one single trip to King's Dominion and stretched it out for two months worth of material. Too bad it isn't open now or I could reach March with no lack of posts.

I'm going to miss 2007. I thought it was awful for the first several months, but that was mostly because of constant political debates. Thanks to the internet, the media is omni-present so hearing about debate after debate was soul-crushing. But sometime around September I started enjoying the year. I think by than the media mellowed out a bit. Too bad this is an election year and I'll be back to gritting my teeth very soon. Can I freeze myself for several years?

Let's hope that 2008 is kind to us, and let's hope that I don't get lazy when it comes to updating this blog. You know, lazy like I've been for the last few days? Let's hope that doesn't happen to often.

Don't forget to pick up those tacky 2008 sunglasses. There's only a few more times where those glasses will work. Unless you're missing an eye. See ya!