14 November 2009

avert your eyes!

Starting today, I believe, two of the new Nike Pro Combat football uniforms are going to be featured in "rivalry games." Tech and TCU are the first intrepid teams to don these "uniforms" in real games, and I am curious to see the fan reaction to these ghastly/weird looking unis. Tech's isn't horrible, but I must say that TCU's make me want to gouge my eyes out. The whole thing with the "spiky extensions of our cranium" and "blood shooting" and "super fast frog agility" or whatever is pretty terrible; it seems like some intern at Nike was researching what the hell a "horned frog" (actually not a frog?) is, and saw that it can shoot poisoned blood out of its eyes when threatened... whereupon some middle manager decided to run with it and - zap! there it is in the uni! Awesome!

---- oh it appears that in the middle of writing this post, Ohio State's terrible uniform has also gone live on the site ----
---- never mind, it was just their t-shirt, that also comes with an overwrought explanation ----

Anyways, here is a link to a site where you can see most of the features of all the uniforms. Texas' is probably one of the best, as it doesn't change the uniform all that much from their already clean, classy look. FSU and LSU are the clear losers here, with FSU looking like some kind of mutant version of the Atlanta Falcons uniform and LSU looking like they swapped uniforms with UW. Not so fantastic. The linked site does a pretty good job of poking fun at the other aspects of the unis, so I will leave it to them to eviscerate Nike for this fairly ludicrous campaign.

12 November 2009

weekend in preview

Welcome to the new, freewheeling Thursday feature, Weekend in Preview!


Because we all know the weekend starts tonight.


What to watch out for this weekend...


Sport: Actually no too much going on here for my teams of choice. Mercifully, the Knicks will be sparing the world of their horror this weekend. It turns out you can’t blow a 1st half lead when there will be no second half... or any game for that matter! Woop! The Blueshirts will play the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, Ottawa being the capital province of Canada, apparently. That’s why their name is the Senators. To think the Rangers are so named because some Texan owned them once... terrible! In other, non-shitty New York area, team news we have some pretty good football games on our hands. Peyton is going to take on Mr. Brady in what NBC would have us believe to be some kind of armageddon of football - in Week 10 no less! I think it should be a good matchup, but really, nothing will silence the debate between who is the better out-and-out quarterback until we can see them in some kind of one on one deathmatch... where the winner is the crowned the best and the loser, well, dies.


Cinema: Speaking of armageddon, that disaster (of a?) movie 2012 comes out on Friday. It seems like reviews are mixed so far, so maybe I shouldn't judge it too harshly ahead of time. One thing I know for sure is that I am not going to fork over any of my hard earned dough to see it in the theater. Why? Well mainly because I don't need to see it to know generally what is going to happen: the main character is going to have some hardship (the world is ending), will probably reconnect with some old flame as a result of this conflict (the world ending will have that effect on you, see also Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day), and he will either sacrifice all (a la Bruce Willis in Armageddon (3rd use so far!)) to save the world, or just do it in some kind of half believable fashion (see Independence Day again). I will save my 12 bucks ($20 if you include the movie-sized Twizzlers and large Diet Coke that are REQUIRED) and probably get 1.5 pounds of Wegmans asian cookery and watch whatever is on cable. Win.


Beer: Is it just me, or did the fall ales this year have too short of a run on store shelves? Just as I was getting into my Sam Adams Octoberfest groove, I can't get it anymore. What gives? Well, I am on a quest to get some new beers in my repertoire this weekend. Those on the hit list include: Brooklyn Pennant Ale '55; Rogue Shakespeare Stout; and some sort of pumpkin ale. If I can manage all three in significant quantity... well kudos to me, I will be in for another weekend I probably won't remember much of. Let's shoot for one or two...


Whimsy: I plan to fully dedicate at least 40 minutes of my weekend exploring the YouTube channel of the fine folks who brought you Auto-Tune the News. Its... fantastic!


Alright, its time to stop previewing and start... viewing?


10 November 2009

tuesday museday

After that brief post fail, I bring you the true tues muse:

  • So my beloved Merengues fell to AD Alcorcon today (1-0, 1-4 on aggregate) in what was at times a spirited defense of the Bernabeu. As I was telling some friends today, while the loss is disappointing, it must be viewed in the larger context. While this loss may sting (as it came at the hands of a team with roughly 1/400th of the value of Real), it is not by any means a defining moment of the season, or a sign that the Galacticos project is doomed. The team had one bad game (the 0-4 loss at Alcorcon) and could not manage to score 4+ goals on a team that has not given up many throughout their whole campaign. This season does not, and never has, rested on how well the team did in the Copa Del Rey. Imagine for a moment, if at the end of the season the team had come in second in the league, crashed out of the Champions League, yet won the Copa. Would that season be considered a "success" by the fans, the front office, and the media? Heavens no. At best the King's Cup is a cherry on top of a season for Madrid, and at worse its a distraction from other competitions. The Champions League is the stated aim of this Club, and the season truly hinges on success and progress there.
  • In other painful sporting news, my beloved New York Football Giants lost a heartbreaker to the Marmalard-powered Chargers. Just imagine if Lawrence Tynes had decided to participate in that field goal attempt on the Giants' first drive? All other things being equal, that would have put the difference at 9 instead of 6 heading into that final Chargers drive, changing the entire complexion of that game and rendering Tom Coughlin's gutless playcalling moot. / tears flow freely for what is shaping up to be a lost season for the GMen.
  • Mad Men had an utterly awesome finale! What a bonus after that dreadful JFK penultimate episode. I honestly did not see the Jerry Maguire-esque turn of creating a new firm coming until it did. And the necessary return of Joan? Perfect. I really don't know what I am going to do with myself until next August when Season 4 starts up.
  • I am actively looking for the proper chocolate syrup concoction to add to my coffee to make my everyday lattes into mochas. Any suggestions / is this a really unhealthy move on my part?
  • Finally got caught up on FlashForward and I must say that I like what I am seeing from the show... **SPOILER ALERT** I was sad to see the suicide of Al, and would really hate to see some shit still happen to that chick he was supposedly trying to save. Maybe he will return to guide Demitri from the other side... and speaking of Demitri, does anyone buy his relationship with Zoey? Their relationship is probably the least believable part of this whole show, one that supposes that everyone on earth blacked out for 2+ minutes by some strange phenomenon cooked up by evil(?) Brits, mind you. Something has got to change here. Can Demitri run off with Janis and be her baby daddy or something? And finally... I am really into Sonya Walger right now in a cougar-prey kinda way. Dr. Benford can perform on me any time...