Tubby looks relaxed

Tubby Smith was on Best Damn Sports Show Period last night. I have to say that that was the most relaxed I’ve seen him act on camera in a long time. Generally, he seems a little uptight or nervous during interviews, but he had great answers to things during the five minute interview.

A couple of things of interest were said. He stated again that he doesn’t want to go to the NBA to coach. Can we finally put that one to rest? He spoke very enthusiastically about recruiting and how much fun he’s having. Oh, and he can’t name all 16 of his brothers and sisters on the spot.

October seems so far away.

Explosions from White Dwarf Star RS Oph

APOD: 2006 July 26 – Explosions from White Dwarf Star RS Oph:

More goodness from the Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Chris Cornell + James Bond

Chris Cornell rules, therefore Casino Royale’s theme song will rule. Infallible logic.

James Bond Hype! – The latest James Bond news and rumors:
It was announced today by producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Sony Pictures Entertainment, that Chris Cornell, the singer/songwriter behind Soundgarden, Audioslave and Temple of the Dog, has written, in collaboration with Bond composer David Arnold, and will perform the main title song entitled “You Know My Name,” for the new James Bond adventure Casino Royale.

Technorati Tags: casino royale, chris cornell

Dragonlance info on Dragonhearth

Laura and Tracy Hickman produce a podcast, Dragonhearth. Mainly news about their works, plus original fiction, it is quite entertaining. Even better though, is their special edition series of podcasts that are recordings of their book signing sessions Tracy and Margaret Weis are out promoting their new book, Dragons of the Dwarven Depths.

If you are interested in the new Dragonlance movie, or Dragonlance in general, these are must-listens. In the first two podcasts, they talk about their reaction to Keifer Sutherland being cast as Raistlin, how they got started at TSR, and how the Dragonlance world was developed.

Listen here.

Technorati Tags: dragonlance, dragons of autumn twilight, margaret weis, tracy hickman

Potter DVDs to disappear

Warner Bros. plans to remove the current DVD releases of the first four Harry Potter movies off store shelves by the early part or next year. The speculation is that the move has something to do with the next generation DVD formats that few can afford or afford to be wrong about.

This raises a bigger question to me. I figure this is really about some kind of super box set that will be released about the same time as Order of the Phoenix in May 2007. How many times can studios dip into the same well? I’ll keep buying the individual releases, then buy some super deluxe HD-DVD Blu-Ray tricked out chrome nimbus edition in 2009. You?

Technorati Tags: harry potter, movies, opinion

Benchwarmers

In a totally unexpected performance, I thought The Benchwarmers was hilarious. The Benchwarmers is the story of three nerdy guys who play a baseball game against a local little league team for the right to play on the field. The story veers off to a “tournament” that pits the three-man team against teams of bully kids from around the area. The core story isn’t the funny part, so I won’t waste any more time on it.

The best part of the movie is the interaction between the three main characters played by John Heder, of Napoleon Dynamite fame, Saturday Night Live alum David Spade and Rob Schneider. The trio, along with Jon Lovitz, who plays their rich benefactor, were terrific, keeping the movie rolling along until the rest of the plot kicked in. I’ve always thought Schneider was better as a secondary character, but he held up well with a couple of other good comedic actors to help carry the load.

The was the typical dose of teenage/frat guy humor, but there were a lot of genuinely funny moments in the film. It isn’t as quotable as some of the other efforts in this genre, but the dialog was funny and fit the tone of the movie well. Another strong point of the movie was its use of well known nerd/geek memorabilia, like KITT, the Batmobile from the original Batman series, and a ton of Star Wars stuff.

If you haven’t liked and of Rob Schnieder or Adam Sandler’s – his Happy Madison production company produced the film – other movies, you will probably want to skip this one. However, it is definitely worth a rental if you thought the trailer was the least bit funny.

Technorati Tags: benchwarmers, movies, rob schneider

Michael Starr’s Love Letter to Ken Jennings

Michael Starr wrote an article for the New York Post about Ken Jennings’ love letter to Jeopardy!. Apparently, Michael took it to be a serious thing, since he described the letter as “snarky” and says that Ken is biting the hand that fed him all that money a while back.

Ken responded to the article here, by saying that Michael needs to get a sense of humor. I agree with Ken’s assessment. The article took his comments out of context and, worse, took the comments that do not portray the tone of the post to use as “quotes”. It seems manipulative, but I’ve come to expect nothing less from mainstream media outlets. Having read Ken’s blog for a while, he seems to be a nice guy. He certainly doesn’t seem to be the type of person who would purposefully say hurtful things, especially when he has a self-professed love for the target of those words. There is nothing wrong with a little humor now and then, or even poking fun at something, when done in jest.

Interestingly enough, since my original post is the 7th hit on Google when searching for “ken jennings jeopardy letter“, my lowly site has seen more traffic than almost any day in its two month history. I know, I know. You’re thinking, “How could this be? A blog with such a rich tradition surely has had more important posts than this!”. Well, no. Not really.

Technorati Tags: jeopardy!, ken jennings, television

Eureka

We just finished watching Eureka, a new SciFi Channel original series. The show was everything good sci-fi can be. It was smart, funny, and interesting end to end. There were enough elements in the plot to keep the ball rolling through the entire 2 hour (well, 1:10) pilot.

It was a little bit predictable, but I can forgive that, considering they were probably stretching an hour’s worth of plot to meet the 2 hour window it was put into. The next episode hits Tuesday at 9 PM, so we’ll see how well it plays out. Check it out!

Technorati Tags: eureka, scifi channel, television

Mental_Floss’ The 25 Most Important Questions in the History of the Universe

Neatorama » Blog Archive » The 25 Most Important Questions in the History of the Universe.:
People magazine has its 50 Most Beautiful People … Time has a Person of the Year … And mental_floss magazine – besides having tons of fascinating, cool, and juicy stories, anecdotes, and trivia – now has something that trumps ‘em both:

The 25 Most Important Questions in the History of the Universe.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

I played Final Fantasy VII many years ago. It was a lot of fun, featuring the trademark style of the series, with a great story and characters to boot. When I saw that a follow-up movie was being made, I was immediately interested. Having just finished watching the movie, here are my impressions.

If you want to watch one very long cut scene, rent Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. It was an interesting plot, but ultimately, it felt like watching a video game. The animation was fantastic, even better than Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. There was a scene early in the movie that involved some spectacular water effects. The action scenes were top-notch and smooth. There were times that the movie felt over-edited, with some serious “What the -!?” moments.

The use of sounds from the game was also well done. At the end of a particular battle, the “You won the battle” sound played as a character’s ring tone. The feel of the original game was duplicated very well. Unfortunately for me, this was the movie’s biggest downside. If you haven’t played the game, read up on the plot before you see the movie. I was constantly filling my wife in on the details of why some things were important. Even worse, I had to look a couple of things up because I couldn’t remember and the movie didn’t do a good job of explaining them.

All told, its a solid effort that fans of the series will really enjoy. For everyone else, do your homework first.

Technorati Tags: movies, final fantasy, video games

UK self-reports minor violation involving fan

UK self-reports minor violation involving fan

Ok. What kind of idiot thinks they can help recruit someone to play D1 basketball? Better yet, who thinks the NCAA can police this sort of thing when anyone can create a MySpace.com page and name themselves “UK r0×0rs l33t”. The rule is antiquated, since it doesn’t take into account that amount of anonymous communication that can occur.

Technorati Tags: Kentucky, sports

Ken Jennings’ love letter to Jeopardy!

Ken Jennings wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to Jeopardy! explaining everything that he thinks needs to be changed in the game. My favorite choice: physical challenges. Double Dare, here we come!

Technorati Tags: television

Confessions of a Car Salesman

Confessions of a Car Salesman:
Looking down at the application, it blurred in front of my eyes. Could I really do this? Could I really become a — a car salesman? Me, a law abiding middle-aged American. A — gasp — college graduate (well, barely). A writer. A person sometimes described as soft spoken and reserved? Why was I applying for a job in one of the most loathed professions in our society?

Well, here’s how a strange turn of events turned me into a car salesman.

About a month earlier I applied for a job at Edmunds.com, touting my experience as a How-To book writer. One book I ghost-wrote was about buying used cars, the other was about leasing cars. The books were published under the name of a guy who had once been a car salesman. I assumed the books qualified me to work for the fast-growing consumer-based Web site. As I saw it, I would sit in the comfort of an office and, from this lofty perch, dispense advice on how to buy and sell cars.

Netflix guilt

Well, in my case, Blockbuster Online guilt. Lifehacker has an article that references a Newsweek article talking about the guilt that some people feel when they don’t watch things as quickly as they come in. The end result, of course, is a stack of unwatched movies or whole evenings spent trying to to watch as many movies as possible.

Since we changed from Netflix to Blockbuster Online, it hasn’t mattered as much. We always use our “free” in-store rental every week, so we get what we pay for, even if we don’t watch any of the mailed discs. Typically, we get new releases when we go to the store. The mailed movies are generally things that we don’t have a strong urge to see, so we can watch when we get to it, like TV shows and movies that sounded interesting, but are not guaranteed wins for us.

The most important thing is to find a point where you’re happy with the amount you’re watching. Think about how and when you tend to watch DVD content and plan accordingly. If you’re watching less than one disc a week, it is most likely a waste of money for you.

Technorati Tags: blockbuster, netflix

Election day

I hope everyone who was eligible to vote got out there. I know most people don’t view the primary as very important, but every decision made today affects the outcome of the General Election. Remember, voting gives you the right to complain about how things are going.