Yes, Yes, Ya'll. We Don't Stop.

Yo, yo, yo, the Singapore Media Development Authoritay is in the hizzay, beotch! Step to us and we'll cane yo' ass, stank ass hiz-oh!

Happy Wednesday! Today we learn how to rhyme words like "R&D" with "cup of tea," drop dope lyrics such as, "like an LCD screen, you get a clear picture," and appreciate that Asians can not only fly and shoot fire out of their hands, they can also rap! All from the group that recently decided to ban a video game in Singapore for alien lesbian sex - fo' shizzle.

Me so efficient!

Sean Taylor and Michael Wilbon

Well, today has seen the tragic and infuriating end to the Sean Taylor shooting saga. As a Redskins fan and a Sean Taylor fan, it merely serves to extend what I referred to earlier as one of the worst weekends of sports in my memory.

Here's what nationally syndicated columnist and PTI host Michael Wilbon had to say in a chat about what he tastefully calls "the latest strange episode relating to Taylor"!

McLean, Va.: Will your opinion of Taylor change if this does not turn out to be a random incident (e.g. home invasion)?

Michael Wilbon: No ... people's opinions are shaped by the way they've grown up, the way they see the world, what they know about the world the person in question grew up in, etc. Sean Taylor isn't the only guy I know who fits his general profile. I've known guys like Taylor all my life, grew up with some. They still have shades of gray and shouldn't be painted in black and white...I know how I feel about Taylor, and this latest news isn't surprising in the least, not to me. Whether this incident is or isn't random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it. He ain't the first and won't be the last. We have no idea what happened, or if what we know now will be revised later. It's sad, yes, but hardly surprising....Everybody's circumstance is different. But it always seemed to me that Sean Taylor loves his life and the way he's living and has no instinct to change...

Now, I'm far too lazy to scroll down in my blog and see if I've hit on this before, but I do not like Michael Wilbon. He's no Tony Kornheiser, and is on a very short list of the nation's top blowhards (I believe he resides just to the left of Lou Dobbs there). Wilbon tends to turn everything that happens, good or bad, into a broader societal issue. Sean Taylor certainly lived somewhat of a thuggish life early on, but all indications are that he had changed, and dramatically.

Wilbon's thought on that, however, was this:

Columbia, Md.: What makes you think that Taylor was still embracing his old ways? Everything we have heard from the Redskins and Portis is that this is a new Sean. Apparently the birth of his child really helped to straighten him out. Is this contrary to what you know?

Michael Wilbon: Sorry, but I'm not in the habit of having companies with their own public relations agenda tell me about black men and what they feel or don't feel. Pardon me if I'm not that easy.

Hahahaha, well, thank God he's not easy.

Now, I'm not suggesting that there aren't greater societal issues corresponding to this incident (for example, Jemele Hill of ESPN.com notes that this just adds to the statistic that the leading cause of death for African-American males aged 15 to 24 is homicide), I'm just saying this is not the right time to get into it, and Wilbon is certainly not the right person to do it. I've read Kornheiser and Wilbon's columns since I was about 11, and I've always noticed that Kornheiser has always been able to keep a sense of humor and perspective about him, while Wilbon tends to let his emotions get ahead of him. I certainly empathize with his concerns about the consequences of a thuggish lifestyle, but to suggest that Sean Taylor had it coming is not just insensitive, it's wrong. No one ever "has it coming" (outside of Muslim extremists and Michael Moore), but more importantly people certainly can change. For every Michael Vick who continues to hang out with his boys from home, there is a Sean Taylor who decides that his old life is not conducive to his success as a player, companion, and father. Sean Taylor did not have this coming, and it is a terrible tragedy that hopefully, one day, Michael Wilbon and his ilk can accept as something that was certainly not deserving.

R.I.P. #21

Why Don't You Make Like A Tree...

From The Telegraph...

Tree man 'who grew roots' may be cured
By Matthew Moore

An Indonesian fisherman who feared that he would be killed by tree-like growths covering his body has been given hope of recovery by an American doctor - and Vitamin A.

Dede, now 35, baffled medical experts when warty "roots" began growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident.

The welts spread across his body unchecked and soon he was left unable to carry out everyday household tasks.

Sacked from his job and deserted by his wife, Dede has been raising his two children - now in their late teens - in poverty, resigned to the fact that local doctors had no cure for his condition.

To make ends meet he even joined a local "freak show", parading in front of a paying audience alongside victims of other peculiar diseases.

Although supported by his extended family, he was often a target of abuse and ridicule in his rural fishing village.

But now an American dermatology expert who flew out to Dede's home village south of the capital Jakarta claims to have identified his condition, and proposed a treatment that could transform his life.

After testing samples of the lesions and Dede's blood, Dr Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland concluded that his affliction is caused by the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a fairly common infection that usually causes small warts to develop on sufferers.

Dede's problem is that he has a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system, meaning his body is unable to contain the warts.

The virus was therefore able to "hijack the cellular machinery of his skin cells", ordering them to produce massive amounts of the substance that caused the tree-like growths known as "cutaneous horns" on his hands and feet.

Dede's counts of a key type of white blood cell are so low that Dr Gaspari initially suspected he may have the Aids virus.

But tests showed he did not, and it became clear that Dede's immune condition was something far rarer and more mysterious.

Warts aside, he had enjoyed remarkable good health throughout his life - which would not be expected of someone with a suppressed immune system - and neither his parents nor his siblings have shown signs of developing lesions.

"The likelihood of having his deficiency is less than one in a million," Dr Gaspari told the Telegraph.

Dr Gaspari, who became involved in the case through a Discovery Channel documentary, believes that Dede's condition can be largely cleared up by a daily doses of a synthetic form of Vitamin A, which has been shown to arrest the growth of warts in severe cases of HPV.

"He won't have a perfectly normal body but the warts should reduce in size to the point where he could use his hands," Dr Gaspari said.

"Over the course of three to six months the warts should be come smaller and fewer in number. He will be living a more normal life."

The most resilient warts could then be frozen off and the growths on his hands and feet surgically removed.

Dr Gaspari hopes to get the necessary drugs free of charge from pharmaceutical firms. They would then be administered by Indonesian doctors under his supervision.

Still intrigued by the origins of Dede's peculiar immune condition, the doctor would like to fly him to the United States for further examination, but fears the financial and bureaucratic barriers would prove too difficult to overcome.

"I would like to bring him to the US to run tests on where his immune condition has come from, but I would need funding and to get him a visa as well as someone to cover the costs of the tests," he said.

"I've never seen anything like this in my entire career."

One Disgruntled Weekend

So, in the course of 24 hours, this is what I, as a Washington area sports fan, was subjected to:

Virginia Tech 33, Virginia 21 (football)
Seton Hall 74, Virginia 60 (basketball)
Memphis Grizzlies 124, Washington Wizards 118 [Also, Arenas out for 3 months]
Tampa Bay Bucaneers 19, Washington Redskins 13 [Also, Sean Taylor GOT SHOT IN THE GROIN...]

Virginia lost the football game primarily because, as the Washington Redskins of college football, our terrible secondary refuses to cover anybody, instead playing a light Cover-2 that allows unchecked 15 yard passes throughout the game. Also, Jameel Sewell, like Jason Campbell, far too often makes hasty passes when he should just use his natural running ability and scramble for a first down. But, what can you do? The Disgruntled Girlfriend yesterday remarked that, hey, 9-3 is a pretty good season. I quickly corrected her and said no, it's not. We lost to two horrible teams, and the only decent team we beat turned out to be Connecticut. It was at best a mediocre year. Sorry, I have low standards as a UVA fan, but this was pretty unbearable. Al Groh's not out of the woods with me yet. Of course, he'll probably get ACC coach of the year.

The UVA basketball loss to Seton is too terrible to even talk about. We can beat Arizona on the road but not Seton Hall on a neutral court.

Finally, the Wizards are the Wizards, and the Redskins are the Redskins. What can you do? Allow me to be among the first to suggest the unsuggestable - perhaps it's time for a coaching change for the Redskins. I hear Bill Cowher's available.

Anyway, so this weekend has me seriously considering a sports suicide - completely eschewing all sports watching, sports following, and sports caring. It's just getting too difficult to emotionally invest myself in these stupid games where these stupid teams make stupid mistakes and stupid lose. It drives me crazy that Boston-area fans right now are having an orgiastic feast while my teams, pretty much throughout my sporting life, have consistently let me down. Though I followed sports religiously through baseball and football cards throughout my 80's childhood, my loyalties were primarily directed towards individual players, as opposed to specific teams. My team loyalties, for some reason, emerged in 1991 - when, following a move down to Savannah, Georgia, I started following the Atlanta Braves, the Washington Redskins (the Falcons were, and always will be, utterly unloved in the state of Georgia), and the Washington Bullets.

From 1991 on, this is what I've gotten:
-Exactly one good year from the Redskins (thanks to this guy)
-The best regular season team, and worst playoff team, in baseball
-The Washington Bullets/Wizards

My college years found me residing at my beloved University of Virginia, where despite regular NFL draft picks (Tiki and Ronde Barber, Thomas Jones, Heath Miller, Matt Schaub, Wali Lundy, Patrick Kerney, etc.), the football team has consistently underachieved. Then, of course, there was the Pete Gillen basketball era - which saw numerous police arrests, an utter breakdown in discipline, and zero NCAA tournament wins. Thankfully, Dave Leitao seems to have turned things around, but, then there's that Seton Hall loss.

I've never, ever, experienced the sheer joy of a dynasty. I've never, ever, felt like any of my teams was going to blow out an opponent. I've never, ever, felt confident in a championship run. I feel like the dealer is constantly hitting 21 against my hard 20's. It's utterly, completely frustrating.

So, as of now, consider me on sports suicide watch.

(P.S. This is, of course, not to belittle the enormity of actual suicides, which is of course a very serious matter. Just wanted to head that off at the pass...)

Turkey Lurkey Dickle

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Unless, of course, she's a Robo-Bitch...

Fellas, you ever want to just shut off that talkie girlfriend/wife/post-op transvestite lover of yours after you've given her a good rogerin'?

Ladies, you ever wish your man/butch lesbian girlfriend named Rosie would just pleasure you and then do some chores around the house?

Well, hope you can wait until 2050!!

So, This Isn't Really Funny, But...

With all of the ridiculous bullshit that's happened at and with my two rental houses, one thing had been conspicuously absent. That one thing happened this past week.

On Saturday, I met with the parents of one of my tenants, who, a few days before, had apparently tried to commit suicide in spectacular fashion - driving his car, sans seatbelt or identification, at full speed down the street into a busy intersection. He crashed the car, luckily not into someone else, totalling the car, but sparing himself physically. Evidently this was the second attempt he's made in the past year (once before he moved into my place, which was news to me), and he is now expected to stay six months in a mental health facility.

As he was paid up through the month, from a landlord perspective this isn't going to create any problems. I'll get someone else in his room (arguably the best of the rooms in the house), and that will be that. But, especially in a week in which someone else close to me apparently tried to slit their wrists, it's a bit of a drag. I'm glad that the tenant survived and is ok, at least physically, but this is all getting just a bit too ridiculous. I kind of feel like Jim Carrey in "Truman Show," when he realizes something is odd.

Anyway, sorry about the unfunny post.

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start

Have about 10 minutes to kill? Check out this Nintendo 8-bit system themed quiz!!

I scored 13 out of 25 (average score, according to the site, is 45%). I'm most proud of answering the question about Super Mario Bros. correct.

Because YOU'RE my number one

Have you noticed that TV commercials are really bad lately? I have, and I've noticed that they seem to fit into four general categories:

1.) Elitist (aka "You can't afford this, so we'll make you feel bad about it")
Remember the Grey Poupon commercials? What made this commercial work was that it presented this gourmet dijon mustard as a product for elite tastes, but when you got to the supermarket, you learned that you, yes you middle-classer!, could afford it. Maybe one day YOU would be the one saying, "But of course" to mustard! Not to mention it's some damn good mustard.

But lately, I've noticed the opposite has occurred. First of all, I'm not sure why Mercedes and Cadillac and BMW are even advertising, much less during reruns of Seinfeld at 7:38 PM on a weekday. But clearly it's to rub their balls in our face. Except for a brief stretch of Tiki Barber driving over the Brooklyn Bridge in his Escalade, the drivers of these cars in these commercials ("When you turn your car on, does it return the favor") are all clearly upper-class white pricks. Also, they're smugly driving at a speed that betrays their lack of concern for anything else on "their" road. I happen to live in an area with a lot of Mercedes and Beamers driving around, and they are, by far, the second worst group of drivers around.

2.) You're a Bad Person Because...
a.) You pay for items with cash instead of a Visa card
b.) You don't drive a Hybrid
c.) You didn't get her jewelry from Jared's
d.) You got caught by "To Catch a Predator"

3.) Insult to Our Intelligence
The best, number one, example of this is the set of Apple IPhone commercials. First, we get the pilot (or flight attendent?) who claims he averted a long delay by checking weather patterns on his IPhone, while the air traffic controllers are apparently distracted by a blow job fest or something. My neighbor is a pilot, and I asked her about this. She laughed and totally called shenanigans on that. She confirmed what anyone with half a brain knows - if the weather's cleared up, uh, yeah the controllers got that. Second, we get the NY/Jersey guido wearing a t-shirt with sleeves short enough to show that his guns are unholstered, so, you know. Anyway, he starts talking about how the IPhone is saving him from having to carry around his usual accoutrement, which apparently includes a cell phone, a PDA, a douche for his man-gina, a purse, a second purse, man-makeup, keys to his Camaro (because you know that's what he's driving), a sock to stuff down his pants, and his giant ego. Thank God for this one device which takes care of all of those tasks AND allows him to retain his pretentiousness! Huzzah! This one's my favorite, though...



The other good example of this is the set of commercials in which we discover that Walmart is saving the world from high gas prices, keeping families together, and protecting this nation from terrorists. I'm not anti-Walmart at all, but, seriously, I've tried, and I just can't follow their logic on this one.

4.) Completely Unwatchable
a.) Verizon's "You're My Number One"
b.) Really, any phone commercial
c.) Taco Bell's "Cha!" Rules of Life/Pizza Hut's "How to eat a pizza, son"/KFC "I hope dad doesn't try to cook again, IDIOT!!" [All three owned by the same company]
d.) Domino's Oreo Beard Commercial....just kidding, that one's still awesome.

Virginia is now 1-15 in the State of Florida

Damn. Way to...um...Groh.

UVA 48, Miami 0 AT the Orange Bowl.

Bring on Tech. Wahoo-wa.

Perhaps It Was An Ill-Advised Purchase

So, today is Day 846 of The Great Real Estate Investing Experiment. I thought it would be fun to reflect on the two plus years of this, and what I've had to go through. In that time, I've endured:

-2 house purchases
-2 failed house sales
-1 major housing downturn
-Roughly $80,000 in combined housing value drops, due to said housing downturn
-20 different tenants
-4 of which were mentally unstable and/or substance abusers
-1 of which was a phantom pooper
-4 water leaks causing extensive damage
-Including two in the past week
-Two sets of carpet replacement
-Two sets of hardwood/laminate replacement (one of which was due to one of the aforementioned water leaks)
-Two grease fires...in the same house...in the same kitchen...by two different tenants...within a month of each other...both made somewhat worse by their attempts to stop the fire by throwing water at it...the worst possible thing you can do with a grease fire
-0 condo association meetings attended
-2 condo fee increases agreed upon by those who actually attended those meetings
-1 pest problem
-1 of which was caused by the filthy, disgusting tenants and their filth

All of which has resulted in:
-1 Disgruntled Investor

The C Stands for Crap

So I'm watching the Patriots-Colts game on Sunday, and aside from the terrible "Because You're My Number 1" Verizon commercial and the commercial about the idiots who didn't know they were Swedish, the one that stuck out most to me was the preview for the new "Beowulf" movie.

The Beowulf movie, as you probably know, is done entirely in CGI animation. This has become the new trend in special effects. It's supposedly a step up from hand-drawn animation, and is supposed to be as realistic as possible without it being...well, realistic.

I think CGI has set back special effects at least 30 years. Movies that rely on it look like video games from the late 90's, with exaggerated facial expressions and mouth movement that doesn't quite sync up with what they're actually saying. Even the Hall of Presidents at Disney World did a better job at both of these things! Hell, even Chucky Cheese did a better job at that!

Anyway, to prove my point, I would like to present a few examples to show how we've gone from robotics and animatronics that looked real to this lazy weird shit CGI.

Example 1: Sharks

Alright, I'm starting off with kind of an unfair example, but I think it's funny.

Exhibit A is Jaws. You might have heard of this indy film about a shark that terrorizes a beach, directed by a little known director named Steven Spielberg (before he became Senor Spielbergo). Here's Jaws - a mixture of real shark footage and a robot shark - attacking Brody in a cage.



This was 1975, and was made for a very non-Speilbergian budget of $7 million (a lot, but not nearly like what they spend now). The shark looks real, and more importantly, Spielberg doesn't fluff it up with gratuitous shots of a menacing CGI shark. It's a mixture of robo-shark and quick cuts of Brody in the cage. It's pretty awesome.

Fast-forward to 1999. As Dave Chappelle said (as Samuel Jackson), "Deep Blue Sea? They ate me! A fucking shark ate me!" And so I present, Exhibit B:



Which shark looks more real? The one made 25 years prior. Still, that was a pretty fucking funny scene when Sammy L. gets eaten by the shark.

Advantage: Robot/Real Shark

Example 2: Turtles, Ninja

How awesome was 1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie? Fucking awesome, that's how awesome. When I was a little kid and saw this movie for the first time in the theatres, I lost my shit. But, it was so friggin' great, I stayed in that theatre in my shitty pants and sat through to the end. I had previously seen "Howard the Duck" and my expectations for this movie, even at the tender age of 10, were pretty low. But, holy shit, they actually had four actors in turtle suits doing ninja moves and it looked like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from the comics. I believed that I was seeing four turtle ninjas kicking ass. Then again, I was 10, but still. Here's the original trailer for the movie.



Holy shit look at Shredder! God that's a great movie.

So, this is somewhat controversial, since my friend Kyle says he loved this movie, but what I've heard from most people about 2007's "TMNT" is pretty mixed, and the major complaints are similar to mine. Here is an argument between Raphael and Leonardo about who's better...



...and then they fight. I'd have put it in here, but then you'd have to wait forever for it to load. Again, this one is difficult because they do look turtle-ish, and you can see the advantages of CGI in this, but at the same time, you get the over-eggagerated facial and body expressions. Also, is this film trying to be a cartoon or a Beowulf-like live action shot in CGI? Plus, if it is supposed to be a cartoon, then where is the improvement over the awesome 1990's cartoon series? Is the CGI really worth it here? The jury's still out on that I think.

Advantage: Somewhat of a wash, but since it's my blog, the 1990 movie wins.

Example 3: Aliens

In 1979, and later in 1986, the "Alien/Aliens" movies created quite possibly the best special effect in film history by producing the most real looking alien (based on all of the aliens I've seen personally, of course) ever. Honestly, I don't even need commentary on this, here it is (might be slow-loading, and it's kind of long, but nonetheless worth watching):



Absolutely ground-breaking for that time, and it continued to get better as they picked up UVA grad Stan Winston for the sequels. All robots, all real.

As opposed to...this...



Not real at all.

Advantage: UVA

And finally, Example 4: Dinosaurs

CGI...



vs. LIVE ACTION!!!



Advantage: Clearly, live action. That dinosaur boss on the TV show was one mean ol' guy.

In conclusion, the point I'm trying to make is that CGI tries too hard to seem real, but generally doesn't get it right. In small doses, it works, but puppets, robots, and elaborate costumes will always win out.

1990 represent!

This Blog Is Going To Rip Off At Least 56 Others

So, UVA football beat Wake Forest 17-16, despite Al Groh's best efforts, bringing us to a respectable 8-2 and first place in our division/conference/division again. Miami, who is currently stuck in Bizarro World, is terrible, and we get them next. We should beat them, but then again, we should have beaten NC State and Wyoming (which, like Golden, isn't really a state). Then we get an utterly beatable VA Tech team in Charlottesville.

This has arguably been the worst season of UVA football in recent history. Let me explain.

My first two years at UVA as a student were the last two years of the George Welsh coaching era. If you like not going for it on 4th and a centimeter in enemy territory, and instead punting into the end zone, then you clearly enjoyed the George Welsh era. He was replaced by Al "My son beat Florida State!" Groh, a former NFL by-default head coach who owns a Super Bowl ring. Hopes were immediately high.

However, Coach Groh soon found an affinity for North Carolina, specifically the Continental Tire Bowl, where we found ourselves most years, happily beating West Virginia or Pittsburgh most of the time. Hooray!

But then last year we didn't make any bowls at all. That's what happened in the Welsh era! Heeeyyy!

So, then this year happened. Looking at our early season schedule, it quickly became apparent that it was formed with a 11-1 finish in mind. I mean, Wyoming?!?! Yeah, we got that.

Then, we visited Laramie, Wyoming.

So, the calls for "Groh Must Go" began. Also, from me.

UVA fans were faced with a not unique dilemma. Hope for the best (like, for example, 8-2), or hope they tank. Like the 2006 Celtics, we thought, this might be the way to get rid of Doc Rivers...I mean Al Groh.

Then, we're 8-2. At worst, we'll finish 8-4 and make a non-Boise based bowl. And, really, that's pretty likely. We should beat Miami. We should beat Tech. But, with the Cardiac Cavs, who knows?

Regardless, despite AD Craig Littlepage not exercising Groh's option year last year, it'd be a surprise if we don't get Al "Mike, who beat Fla. State, says go for it on 4th and a long 2 when a field goal would put them away" Groh back.

If we beat Miami, then Va. Tech, then Boston College in the championship game, then some SEC school in the BCS bowl, then, OK, Groh can stay another year.

But, is that really going to happen?

Shit, at least we shouldn't end up on a blue field again. Right?