"That's Like Hating Corky Thatcher or Radio.."

Where have I been for almost two weeks? Hey, it happens. This is one of those weeks where we'll just bounce around topics to where it might make your head spin. There wasn't many truly huge stories happening around town, but we make it work as usual. I like it that way at times. This will be the last blog of January as one month of 2010 is about to be dusted off. In this one, the movie critiques continue, American Idol thoughts with great things from DerekHood and Corndog, Marky Mark, an update on the deathpool, Jersey Shore returns for a second season, and much more. I already have a movie held over that I watched on Saturday that I'll put on the next blog and the Toughman report will also go next week. As a little tidbit, I'll feature a bloody crowd fight from Friday that they actually had to mop the blood up with. I was a few rows in front of it. It'd be way too long for this week if I put both of those in this post. Away we go..



I'm still in the middle of my world movie tour. I've been lighting it up lately as far as seeing some of the newer features. It's time once again, you guessed it, for yet another movie. Theater time for this one and it was off to see The Lovely Bones. I still haven't seen The Book of Eli or Youth in Revolt yet, as I think both would be good. Bo from #basketball fame, one of my Chicago buddies, and esteemed movie guy himself, he has a perfect rank to mention to the fans. Perfect?? Really? 10 out of 10, yep. That's rare company indeed. Apparently so, because that's what Bo gave the movie Hurt Locker. It's getting a crazy amount of awards, but one I haven't seen yet. I might have to watch that bad boy online.

Oh yeah, the movie I meant to talk about. I haven't forgot about the readers, just wanted to pass on some good information if anyone wanted it. This was the first movie recently I've been to that had an actual crowd at. It was fairly packed, that surprised me. My boy Marky Mark was in this one, so I was at least halfway intrigued based on that. He usually does a nice job in his films. Everyone knows how great I think Boogie Nights was from 1997 (grad year, sweet, go Cougs), it's a definite top 5 movie of all time for me, honestly. This movie though? It was getting bashed online by reviews, but that didn't stop me from making the trip. It wasn't a total disaster, but I'm not going to recommend it to anyone. I wouldn't rent it to watch a second time. My boy Bo who I talked about a bit ago, he watched it online after I told him about it. He wanted to see for himself and he said it was miserable. It could've been better if it wasn't quite as long. It was a slow movie and didn't pick up for a while. Also, if you've seen the "heaven" scenes, you'll quickly see why I think people were on acid making those parts. It's more than bizarre. I thought Marky Mark played his role fine, but I was deep down wanting him to break all kinds of bad in this one and it didn't happen. Susan Sarandon, usually good in movies, they casted her horribly in this one as the grandma. The bright side is that the villain, Stanley Tucci, he was very believable in his role. Nikki SooHoo (real name) in this movie was strange. Somehow she's 21 years old, but looks about 8. As I type this part, IMDB has it at a 6.8. Time for my rating, drumroll please.. I'm going to give this 6 Sour Punch Strawberry Straws, great candy by the way, out of 10.



It's been a regular topic in the blog the past month or so, I might as well get another rambling in about it since it's still fresh in our minds. Last week was the Jersey Shore finale. They're milking this for all it's worth. The question remains, should they bring this crew back for the second season or will they bring in a brand new crew? I could see advantages both ways, but me personally, I want this crew back rather than having it be Real World style. Sure, they'll ham it up for the cameras even more since they know the drill, but they did that already in the first season and it turned out with great ratings, so I can accept that. Apparently, the crew has all agreed to rock it for season 2, we'll see more on details soon enough I'm sure. The whole Ronnie/Sammi breakup on the reunion was strange and why was Angelina even there? A few extra things to plug for ones who still can't get enough of the show now that's it's over. Podcast fans, make sure you check out one Bill Simmons' latest. The sports fans already know him as the Boston Sports Guy, but he does some great reality pods as well. His latest with the czar of reality TV, Dave Jacoby, is a must listen. You won't be disappointed, I promise, just search Bill Simmons in the pods. Also, thanks to Kasher, he found something that may never get old. You know how we all joke around with the amazing quotes from this show, right? Well, here's a soundboard that is epic. You'll have some fun with this creation: http://www.complex.com/blogs/2010/01/21/the-complex-jersey-shore-soundboard-click-on-it.

This week's two nights of American Idol weren't that great in my mind. The amount of commercials they push into that hour of TV is rough. On both nights, they showed one performer before the first commercial break. The next, you'd get maybe three or four. How can you get any kind of rhythm with that? A lot of the "singers" they showed weren't that interesting either. I'm not going to miss an episode regardless, so I guess it doesn't matter a whole lot, they still get insane ratings. The first night kept me awake though, just for the sole reason that Katy Perry was on there doing her thing, falling out of her top like she always does. Avril Lavigne though, ugh. She was scaring me in HD view. I don't get the appeal some see in her looks, but I could be in the minority. The second night's guest judges were Doogie Howser and Jonas Brother, whichever one. Doogie I thought was entertaining, but Jonas had no personality and it was like he wasn't even on the show.



There wasn't a lot to pick from, but I'll run down a few people that I thought did a good enough job to keep me intrigued for Hollywood from this week. I think the best this week was the Mexican guy whose parents were gangbangers in the mean streets of Compton. He's doing it all for his little kid and his parents are glad they are out of the hood. Of course if they break it down and give a big storyline, normally that means they're going through, but not always. This guy though, he's legit. On our message board, Corndog says that he really hates Randy Jackson. DerekHood replies with this gem: "How can you hate Randy Jackson?!? That's like hating Corky Thatcher or Radio or any other famous ritard." Derek is one of those fans of Avril though, but here's his comments on Tuesday night, another entertaining moment: "I've always thought Avril was trailer park hot, and tonight did nothing to change that for me. Katy Perry, on the other hand, was making her case for the Butt Pee All-Stars. God damn." I'm not quite sure how you get on that team or what it even consists of, but there ya go.. Also, I thought that Big Sexy and the pimpin' R&B guy who made his own song are worthy candidates to make names in the next round. I thought the girls last week were better singers as compared to this week. This week, the guys took the crown, but what do I know.

I'm not a politics guy whatsoever. I know what's going on and it's not that, but as far as arguing pointless details, count me out. I read the paper everyday and keep up with things, but eh. I much prefer local politics since you know a lot of the people and they can actually have a direct effect on your situations. That to me is interesting, maybe I'm weird. Nationally, take it or leave it. It's the same all the time with that. If a Democrat is in, the Republicans think he's the worst human in the world. If a Republican is in, the Democrats think he's the worst. Each side thinks the other is dirty and lying and it could be true, but it's somewhat amusing to me. I think it's similar to sports teams, but when it comes down to it, the majority of people have no clue on politics, and I'll risk saying it, national politics don't affect the little people as much as people make it out to be. Needless to say, I didn't watch one second of the State of the Union Address on Wednesday night, I admit. Am I un-American for that? Who knows. I vote in every single election though and have never missed in 13 years, even the wee tiny city ones that don't mean a whole lot. Nationally, I'll leave those arguments for everyone else and I'll just stand back and watch the drama.



I'll bore everyone with more exercise talk, that's what I do. I gotta fit it in somewhere. I've been researching resistance bands for a while now, but haven't made a purchase until just recently. I'm still a huge proponent of free weights and that won't cut back on that aspect, but this will provide a different type of workout and burn for muscles that might not be hit on a regular basis. I ended up buying from Ripcords and these are very good. I got them in the mail this week and love the setup already. The price isn't bad in my mind and I'm giving a big stamp of approval to try these bad boys out. You'd be surprised the tension and weight feel that they have and you can do a crazy amount of exercises with these. The good thing is that they're handy for around the house or if you wanted to take them somewhere, easy to transport. Check em out here: http://ripcords.com/ripcords-packages.html. The little kiddies will like that Jacob of Twilight fame uses these as well as a lot of military groups since they're easy to take on duty for the troops. The wrestling guys will know these things as what Scotty "Big Poppa Pump" Steiner uses in his promos backstage when he's being a goof. The football fans might know a similar product from Terrell Owens. His is a bit more expensive. I haven't tried his yet, but I might as well throw in that link too, why not: http://www.tobands.com.



Bird's Dirty of the Week: We're going with a user submission this week. I like to get everyone involved as you know already, so it's handoff time. Kristen in Florida is going to take her turn and that's the same person as Kristen in Germany. Confused yet? Good. I can explain, but we have business to take care of here instead. The link sent, Kristen says for us all to look through this person's mobile folder. There's an insane amount of pics in there. Some are way out there and revealing. It'll open your eyes for sure. Here you go, http://www.myspace.com/rawyaltie.

Bird's Video of the Week: This has been out there a bit, but it never gets old. Ninja dude goes into stance to a guy running his mouth. They laugh at the stance and then at the end, he goes Jersey Shore Ronnie style. "That's one shot kid!"



3 Quick Thangs:

1. I'll probably have another blog in before the game anyways, but I might as well throw in an early Super Bowl prediction. As usual, I'm sure I'll be way off, but that's the fun of it, right? I've doubted the Aints defense all season, but it's proven me wrong. I'm going to doubt them again and taking the Colts to win, 35-21, Manning etching another notch into his Hall of Fame career. I think it's funny (and annoying) that Brett Favre is getting more talk around this time of year than the Colts and Aints. He's done for the year and they're alive, go figure.

2. I'm old school and still like to use pencils a good bit. You need to go to the store to buy some pencils, think of that scenario. Don't worry, there's a point to this and I'm getting there. You look at a box that has every pencil unsharpened. Next to it, you see a box that has every pencil sharpened already. Now, the sharpened ones look all neat and ready to use, which they are. You're also paying, not for the pencil, but for the process to already be finished for you, so you're paying more for the sharpened ones. We're that lazy to where people get suckered in to not sharpening them on their own? I like stuff as easy as possible too, don't get me wrong, but sharpen your pencils. No clue why I thought that was worthy of a blog topic, but since I just sharpened some pencils, it was in my head. You never know what you'll see.

3. January is over, so it's time for an update on the #Balls Celebrity Deathpool. Blahah and Kasher are already on the board, incredible. Blahah is leading with 32 points as he had Ali Hassan al-Majid go down by hanging. Kasher is in with 24 points as he had Zelda Rubinstein tap out on us. There are talks of next year's league to have bonus points for how they die, but that's just a work in progress. We're demented, but yes, you're interested just like we are to see how this plays out.