Dumb Things in Sports this past year

In no particular order...

San Francisco 49ers trading Tim Rattay mid-season in order to pave the way, with no controvery, for 1st overall pick QB Alex Smith. Rattay had been struggling, and Coach Nolan probably wanted to give Alex Smith the job without having to look back, something that can be said to stymie QB progress. The whole plan blew up in his face. Alex Smith had a horrible starting debut and, to add insult to injury, was knocked out of the game and has not played since. Instead of seeing what Smith can do, Nolan has been watching Ken Dorsey and Cody Pickett quarterback his team.

Minnesota Vikings trading Randy Moss to the Oakland Raiders. It was probably a decently-founded thought, that Daunte Culpepper had turned into such a complete quarterback that he could lead this team without Moss. There was precedence, as the team did fairly well while Moss was out. Of course, the move has backfired on both players, and neither team is showing any improvement. Culpepper had double-digit interceptions before having his knee destroyed, and Moss must be biting his tongue for saying Kerry Collins is better than Culpepper.

New York Jets trading Santana Moss to the Washington Redskins for Laveranues Coles... or Coles wanting out of the conservative Redskins' offense. Santana looks like the Moss of the NFL (although he's been quieted lately), while Coles looks like Santana of 2004. So much for that conservative offense, the Jets, with the former Titans' offensive coordinator, aren't much less conservative.

"Expert Analysts" writing off the Chicago White Sox from even reaching the playoffs as close as two weeks before the end. Who's hoisting that victory right now again?

Sticking with these expert analysts, dissing Charlies Villanueva on NBA Draft Night on ESPN while he was listening. The opinions all smashed the Toronto Raptors for reaching on Villanueva, questioning his work ethic, his condition, his toughness, his shooting... well, pretty much everything. Even though the Raptors aren't winning, it's hard to blame Villanueva, who's having a Ben Gordon-like impact off the bench...

Similarly, Bogut supposedly not being tough nor athletic enough to play well in the NBA. I think his two starting games where he posted more than 13 rebounds per game (14 and 17 or something) speak for themselves. Perhaps he doesn't have the nuances down, but he's certainly looking like a high-impact player, especialy as those rebound totals are coming alongside Jamaal Magloire, also a talented rebounder...

Beating a dead horse here, but the Atlanta Hawks trading for Joe Johnson to play PG. Even Salim Stoudemire, who's not even really a PG, is probably a better true PG than Johnson. That's not to say Johnson isn't the most versatile 2guard, but the problem is, they've got Johnson, Al Harrington, Josh Childress and Josh Smith all capable of playing SG, SF and in some cases PF. Not to mention 2nd overall pick Marvin Williams waiting in the wings, as well.

Los Angeles Lakers taking on Kwame Brown as a reclamation project. Not happening. I'd been supporting Kwame Brown even when plenty others weren't, but when he skipped out on those playoff games, I realized just how much he didn't actually care, and when he badmouthed Gilbert Arenas, you know... so it's not a surprise that Brown's failing in Los Angeles.

Boston Bruins trading Joe Thornton to the San Jose Sharks. I don't know how you justify this. I don't care if you're getting three pretty decent players for more line-balance and the likes. You don't trade the face, soul and heart of your team. This is like the Capitals trading Alexander Ovechkin for three mediocre players. You just don't. You can argue that Joe Thornton hasn't even reached his peak yet, especially with the new rules in the NHL.

Think you're having a bad day? There's always worse

There are almost always people who are having a worse day.

It is time...!

The Rodent Conspiracy is starting! Gather up teeth and claws, my rodent friends, for we shall mercilessly scratch and bite our way through every non-rodent living creature!

Some very old reviews (Anime and Games)

The things I'm going to talk about are very old (Samurai Champloo, Record of Lodoss War, s-CRY-ed and Chrono Cross), so apologies in advance. I'm a bit slow on these things, you know...

First off, Samurai Champloo, by the makers of Cowboy Bebop. Hip hop meets Feudal-era Japan. While I must say the action animation was superb (I've never seen sword-fight scenes animated so well) as well as the art being top-notch (in other words, what you'd expect from a highly regarded studio that doesn't pump out serieses like a firing revolver), but the story...

CB was an episodic story, granted, just like Champloo, but SC was just so much more... random. I mean, there was an episode where they all just get high... the rapping and everything got really lame, too... it just wasn't that captivating. No surprise the series got cancelled at episode 17. The second season was slighty better, but I think the only really good part of the series was the beginning and the end. All six or so episodes. And yet the ending still sucked. You see, you watched CB because Spike was so cool. Also, you know something went horribly wrong in Spike's past, particularly as the name Julia keeps popping up. Gives a rather foreboding atmosphere underneath everything. Also, the main antagonist, Vicious, gets built-up through the entire series. That makes the ending of CB very satisfying (not going to spoil it). On the other hand, Champloo continues to mention the "Sunflower Samurai," but they never divulge a single hint about this samurai until the last episodes. There's just a sense of being lost, which I suppose is by design, but having an episodic series that's not seeming to go anywhere doesn't hold your attention. The three main characters were pretty cool, but there was just no climax scene anywhere...

Record of Lodoss War is one of the "epic fantasy" anime people refer to quite a bit. Centered around your typical village boy who desires justice and is a descendant of a fallen knight and his friends... particularly an elfmaid.

I think I would consider it much better if it weren't so typical fantasy and brought nothing new to the genre. You've got the normal human, elf, dwarf vs. dark elf, evil human and orcs/goblins plot... Evil Goddess who somehow survives when the Good Goddess does not (seem to, anyways, no mention of her anywhere), and whatever seal the geniuses put on her is ridiculously easy to break...

It was still something that was cool to watch, but really now, the story wasn't much to write home about.

They also never said anything about Parn (human) and Deed (elf) and how if they were to get together their ages wouldn't quite... work. Talk about incomplete plotlines...

I watched s-CRY-ed a while back. I actually liked it. There was this natural disaster of sorts that messed up this one island and gave a good number of people living on it this special power to convert matter into metallic things. Alters. Very character and plot driven... it follows Kazama, who's a non-registered Alter-user, which is against the law of HOLY, the enforcement organization, basically, that keeps track of Alter-users and makes sure they don't go off destroying the world. And amongst HOLY is another Alter-user, Ryuuhou, who's the complete foil of Kazama.

Not everything is what it seems is the theme of s-CRY-ed, which made it very enjoyable. They fleshed out a lot of characters, and although there are points where you just go "get on with the damn story" instead of just fighting these random nut-cases, it still moved at a fairly brisk pace. The biggest problem I have with the anime, then, is that its ending was just a "uh what?" ending... it was... decent, I suppose, but it didn't really seem like an ending, and thus was rather abrupt. Also, they put in so many characters that they couldn't manage to flesh some of them out enough fast enough. Still something I recommend watching, though.

Finally, Chrono Cross. Mad old game, but I'd never gotten my hands on it to play, even though I was such a fan of Chrono Trigger. It actually wasn't a disappointment. The story was absolutely solid. The problem? Well, frankly, it seemed very... easy... because I just hacked and slashed my way through with Serge. Also, there're so many characters that you don't get to _USE_ most of them. Three-man parties, except you've basically got Serge locked into one slot, and you'd want a dedicated healer of sorts as one of the other two, while there're like 40 or so characters in the game.

And the ending! Couldn't they have done something better? I'm bitterly disappointed at how half-assed that was... :( Ended up loving the characters so much, and they just throw you in the clouds. Was expecting a grand -aftermath- ending like CT, but noooo...

Sigh. Still was a fun play, though, but if you're the type, like me, who gets absorbed into good stories, then it can be brutally painful in the end...

The German Bitch-Slap caught on TV

Olli showed this to me today, by the way, while he was talking about how badly he got drunk last Friday. It's in German, but basically what happens is, the big guy is an owner of a brothel with like 20 something girls working for him, and he's giving a tour-ish thing of the area for a TV Station...

And then some idiot walks up to him, probably drunk or something, and the guy goes, "Do you have a problem? Go on!" Guy starts talking. "A-" *BITCHSLAP* "Another problem?" And the drunk dude just "salutes" him. Full-swing bitchslap on TV. Then the guy just keeps walking along, "Come on lets go elsewhere, I don't want to deal with the assholes here..." (t/l courtesy of Sven), "... and that there is another good friend of mine." Like nothing happened. TV crew's just recording it all, probably with a priceless look.

Christianity: evil stands atop?

As a disclaimer, I am not writing this to insult Christians or anything, particularly the Christian I know (although I don't remember which of you are Christians... >_>), so this isn't some general anti-Christian rant or whatever.

A couple weeks back I got into an argument this one Christian who felt his religion was more "right" than Islam. Filled with incorrect statements. Was talking about how Islam preached violence (not really, it is quite ANTI-violent, particularly since it was founded by merchants... militant merchants, true, but merchants nonetheless). Especially ironic because Christianity was the one that has, throughout history, been the one that brought violence TO other religions...

Of course, faced with these accusations of the horrors done by Christianity (don't forget Hitler, such a role model for Christians *rolls eyes*), he said it was simply the actions of the past. Not exactly something I was willing to let slip, but I let it slip at that time. History, after all, is something to learn from, right?

Except habits remain habits...

Over the course of my research for my Mediaeval History essay, I learned a lot about what you could argue was the beginnings of true Christian oppression. No, not the romantic anti-Christian repression by the Romans, but the centuries-long (and, arguably, still continuing) tyrannical dominance of the Christian religion.

If I'm not wildly off the mark (and excuse me if I'm slightly off, I'm not even nearly as intimate with the Bible as most Christians, obviously...), Christianity reveres the state of poverty. Spiritually, it is the most pious and closest to God, as you cannot really have the sins with poverty (for better or for worse). From what I understand, Jesus himself was a pretty poor man, so I could insert some cynical comments here about his motives. Anyways, as obvious with Cathedrals and the beautiful silk garments and intricately decorated relics and everything, that thought was thrown out the window pretty quickly. Louis the Pious was probably, frankly, the last of the true Christians. Yes, that includes most of the popes, who were absolutely obsessed with power.

Hate to say it, but Christianity seems to have been brought up by power-hungry people.

It continues all along. Christianity became, arguably, one of the most effective, influential, capitalist organizations near the first Millenia, and while its power was heavily contested and often struck down by Emperors and Kings, it stood strong and its influence was insane. Started messing around with the Gospel, too. There is nothing about marriage having to be a Church affair, after all, and that's not the only problem.

But of course, these thoughts came up in the 1100s. And whaddaya know, they were executed for heresy... or rather, having different opinions/interpretations of the Bible. They were threatening the strangle-hold of power by the Church. The clergy believed themselves to be the Special, the Blessed. And any religion other than Christianity, particularly the Pope's Christianity, is heresy.

Meanwhile you have Islam, which is quite religiously tolerant. Hmm.

This outlooks continues through history ever since then. Crusades against the heretic, satanic Muslims. Smiting down of the Jews in every way possible in Society... a fact people do not like to revisit nowadays because there're so many Jews everywhere and the Christians aren't too happy to point out that, like the Arabs, they harboured quite a few anti-Jew feelings throughout history.

Don't think it's ended, either. Plenty of examples in the 20th century and even the fledgling 21st. Hate against the communist Russians. Hate against the Islamic Middle-East. Dislike towards the Hindhu Indians. Looking down upon the Asians and the Africans.

Perhaps it's a reach to say white superiority was entirely born out of Religion, but I don't think it is. You've got scores of Americans backing up their racism with passages from the Bible, and any other interpretation, is, to the, essentially heresy. Not that they're going to burn you at stake or anything, until the 1950s they were just going to lynch you with a mob. And the largely Christian government didn't care.

Just kinda interesting how the religion with the most atrocities in its history turned out to rise to the top. Is it just a string of luck, or is it because of the atrocities?

Done! And now onto your regularly scheduled show... (Variety)

Finally finished both my English and Mediaeval History essays. Hopefully I did pretty well on them, 'cuz God knows I spent a helluva lotta time on them.

And with that, I'm back to Teh Blog. With lots of stuff to catch up on. So I'll leave some stuff for the rest of the week. How 'bout that.

First off on the roster is this news article I just got about a girl who died kissing her boyfriend. Peanut allergy. The thing is, I'd imagine the girl's family took every step possible to ensure her safety, since it's assumed she already knew about that allergy to begin with. But how in the heck do you die to peanut crumbs (or breath)? That must be some allergy... This site about peanut allergies gives no sign of the allergy being a fatal condition. I, for one, don't consider my pollen allergy a potentially fatal thing... but I guess I have to watch out?

Humza, on his Live Journal, recently mused about poems, and how they can be a refreshing read when you're not forced into them. Interesting point, but I still think they're like an inkblot test. He was talking about how "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is "eerie," while I felt it's a rather peaceful poem about a pure, calm beautiful scene.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

And yet, there are countless numbers of critics who have ripped the poem apart and built it up again in their views of what it means. After all, the "author dies after writing." Who knows (or really cares) what Robert Frost actually meant, right? Someone commenting on Humza's entry brought up the possibility that it was a poem he wrote when he was intending to die, until someone ran into him on a snowy path, something that is possible because of the "dark undertone" behind the poem.

But such a question can be posed to literature in general, I guess. What Emily Bronte meant when she wrote Wuthering Heights is unknown. But I think poems are so much a part of the author's soul... not that I think novels are not, but there's that fundamental difference, in my opinion, between stories and a piece of someone, like a poem or the lyrics to a song, that these kinds of different opinions and the lack of knowledge about what the author really thought is less tolerable, and thus it really cheapens the experience.