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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Picks for the Week & Marvel Madness

When I blog tomorrow, I will be watching college football. Suck it offseason, I win!!
There aren't many games this week worth picking, because most teams are playing marshmallows so my picks are likely to be short.



Oregon 23 - LSU 14

Boise State 35 - Georgia 23

TCU 27 - Baylor 17

Oklahoma 55 - Tulsa 27

Miami 24 - Maryland 21

South Carolina 41 - East Carolina 21

Notre Dame 37 - South Florida 31

BYU 35 - Ole Miss 31

Colorado 40 - Hawaii 38



And of course, the season's first game.....



Louisville 34 - Murray State 7




Marvel Madness - Round 2






21. Korvac



vs.



12. Mole Man


28. Diablo



vs.



5. Dark Phoenix



20. Puppet Master



vs.



13. Fin Fang Foom



29. Skrull Queen



vs.



4. Venom

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

More Football and More Marvel Madness

College football kicks off in only two days and sitting at home on my day off without football to keep me company is really, really hard right now, because I know that come Saturday I'll be at work missing a bunch of games.

That being siad, with kickoff dedicated television available all day long on ESPNU, I am happy with how I spent my day.

To recap some of the posting over the last few weeks, here is my top 25.
25. South Florida
24. Tulsa
23. Texas
22. Arizona State
21. Michigan
20. Georgia
19. TCU
18. Michigan State
17. Stanford
16. Ohio State
15. Nebraska
14. Virginia Tech
13. Texas A&M
12. West Virginia
11. Arkansas
10. Wisconsin
9. Notre Dame
8. South Carolina
7. Oklahoma State
6. Boise State
5. Oregon
4. Alabama
3. Florida State
2. LSU
1. Oklahoma

That is the top 25 I posted, after some unfortunate training camp events, I would ammend that and drop LSU and Arkansas each 3-5 spots because of the losses of Jordan Jefferson and Knile Davis. With that exception, I am comfortable with the way it looks.


5 Things Things You Need to Know About The Upcoming Season

1. At least three teams will finish unbeaten
People can argue and debate the merits of the BCS system to determine a national champion but as long as more than two teams finish undefeated in a season, people will not be happy with the current system. The last two seasons have seen more three and five teams left unbeaten respectively, and an undefeated team has been left out of the title game for five years running now. This year, I am picking Florida State, Oregon, and Boise State to finish unbeaten, and the system will look broken again, Alabama has a great chance to be a fourth. You know how this song plays out, Boise State watches the title game.

2. Andrew Luck will not win the Heisman Trophy
To win the most prestigious award in college football, there are two things that have to happen. First, your team has to be in the national title, or at least the BCS race. Second, you have to statiscally be one of the best three players in your position among BCS conferences. Andrew Luck is a great quarterback and has all the potential in the world to be a great NFL player. However, statisically speaking, last year Andrew Luck was not one of the top three players at his position. Luck was a Heisman finalist because of how great his team was. This year, I don't believe there is any chance Stanford contends for a national title, no matter how great Luck is, he can not win games by himself and his team lost a ton of talent from a year.

3. The winner of the SEC East will be decided in week two.
The SEC East in my opinion is a two team race. Georgia and South Carolina are by far the two best teams in this conference. Now South Carolina, should be a much better team, but Georgia has serious scheduling advantadge. The Bulldogs get to skip Alabama, Arkansas, and LSU from the West this year. So if they beat South Carolina in week two, they will have to lose two games against Ole Miss, Miss. State, Auburn, Tennessee, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Florida without a South Carolina loss to lose the division. Now the Bulldogs are far from perfect, they'll drop one of those, but I don't know about two. Whoever wins this game has an enormous leg on the rest of the season. The Boise State game is big but for Georgia, the season will be defined by what happens a week later.

4. The Big Ten will be the best conference championship race in football
I'll make no debate that the SEC is the deepest conference in the land but at the top it's really a two team race between Alabama and LSU. In the Big Ten you could give about half of the conference a realistic chance to win the conference. Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Nebraska are getting all the hype but all of these teams have issues either in personel (Ohio State, Wisconsin) or in big game success (Nebraska). Michigan State, Michigan, Penn State, Northwestern, and Iowa all have enough talent to contend of the big three have some slip-ups.

5. Controversy will rule the season once again
A lot of writers are saying that after a long offseason, mired in scandal ofter scandal, the season will finally put it all to rest. I laugh at that proposition. It was during the season last year when the scandals at North Carolina and Auburn peaked and the scandal at Ohio State started. Add in the investigations that have also happened at Georgia Tech, Miami, Boise State, and Oregon, and you have seven major programs under scrutiny in under a year. Those numbers, along with the stand-by opinion of "it's not that these are the only places this is happening, it's just where it is getting caught" and I'd be hard pressed to buy that more won't come out this year. I won't speculate about who it will be, but I suspect you will hear about a minimum of three more investigations start bt bowl season.

Also, the following will continue to be true.......


Marvel Madness - Round Two

24. Sin

vs.


9. Omega Red


40. Kirigi
vs.


8. Dracula


17. Taskmaster
vs.


16. Pluto


32. Mr. Fear
vs.


1. Magneto

Monday, August 29, 2011

The Madness Rolls On

Watch out Mississippi, they have finally mastered aquatic travel.
Roll Tide?


Marvel Madness: Round Two

Today we have I think the three lowest ranked villians to make in to round two. The Enforcers, The Fallen One, and Demogoblin were all ranked 38th or below. If you are looking for a Cinderella story, it starts here.



22. Mysterio


vs.


54. Demogoblin


38. The Enforcers


vs.



59. The Fallen One


19. Surtur


vs.


14. Chaos King


30. Dark Beast


vs.


3. Bullseye

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Top 10 Hateable Heroes

I have found time to write another overdue top ten list. Today we honor the heroes that are really hard to cheer for. For one reason or another, these heroes just tend to rub people the wrong way, and are often hated instead of cheered for. Some are jerks, some are just off-putting, and some simply aren't that heroic. I am not even stating that I hate these people, I like most of thme. Regardless of the reason, these "heroes" are commonly just downright hateable.



The Top Ten Hateable Heroes

Honorable Mention: The entire cast of Heroes



10. Hawkeye
Hawkeye is easy to hate because of a mouth that just never stops running. A proud Avenger, that rarely helps his team out by doing what he needs too, Clint Barton more often insults Cap than takes his order. At one point, Hawkeye even convinced himself that he needs to lead his own team instead of taking orders from Cap any longer, and formed the West Coast Avengers.



9. Neo


There are a couple reasons to hate Neo, however, the largest one is probably just the actor portraying him. Keaneu Reeves mechanically walks through his roles in these films like a zombie in true Reeves fashion. With an expressionless face, a monotone voice, and true d-bag style pair of sunglasses that are worn even in the rain, it easy to cheer for him to just die so that the human race can simply find a better hero to save it.



8. Punisher



Hating the Punisher is not a hard thing to do, probably because he is literally the worst hero of all time. Frank Castle regularly goes to war with other heroes, simply because they try to stop him from killing villians on the spot, regardless of their crimes. Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Captain America have been his adverseries just as often as Jigsaw, Barracuda, or the Kingpin. Of course, many hate him simply for his attitude regardless of who he's fighting. Pop a cap now and ask questions never is not a real popular method of fighting crime.



7. Roadrunner



Roadrunner is easy to hate by design. After retiring from the series, creator Chuck Jones released his eleven rules for every Roadrunner cartoon. Rule #10 is as follows.



"The audience's sympathy must always remain with the coyote."



Roadrunner is easy to hate, not by his own actions, but by the lovability of his opponent. Wile E. Coyote is just easy to love and almost impossible not to pity.



6. Nick Fury



A super hero who is essentially a politician for justice is not easy to love. That has always been the case of General Nicholas Fury. For every criminal he beatdown and put behind bars, he sat behind his desk and ordered someone else to do his dirty work or to simply back off for diplomatic reasons ten times. He has made some bad decisions in the past, most recently brainwashing several heroes into sneaking into Latveria and assassinating a leader he didn't trust.



5. Derek Jeter



Derek Jeter is a rare phenomenon in the baseball world. A long, successful career with virtually no controversy in it. He has never been accused of steroid use, spent his whole career as a loyal member of one team, and established himself as a long-time respected leader of the greatest franchise in sports. He is easy to hate for the same reason. He is Yankee, there are no athletes in sports easier to hate than a Yankee, a he is as perfect and clean-cut a Yankee as there has ever been. The fact that he is not just another sellout and cheater in pinstripes makes his that much easier to hate because he was born and bred as the perfect Yankee.



4. Severus Snape



When all is said and done in the Harry Potter series, Snape is a hero, perhaps the most heroic figure in the entire series. He is also one of the most tragic characters ever created. All of that is hidden behind the fact that for 6 and 3/4 books he is a total jerk. There has rarely been a character as cold, cruel, and unfair as Snape is throughout the series. There are few villians found in any media as easy to hate as Severus Snape is.



3. Namor: The Sub-Mariner



Namor is everything that Severus Snape, added to a streak of arrogance that makes Terrell Owens seem as if he isn't sure if he is a talented football player or not. Namor rarely speaks a word that is not either praising his actions or telling someone else to mind their tongue when they speak to him. He is royalty and reminds everyone of that in virtually every panel he appears in. He also has a world class temper that has put him in fights against virtually every hero that has ever appeared in the pages of a Marvel Comic.



2. Cyclops



Cyclops is not as arrogant as Namor, not as cold as Snape, and not as manipulative as Nick Fury. So why is he above all of them on the list? Probably because even though he has been a member of th X-Men for as long as there has been an X-Men, if you ask 100 comic book fans who their favorite X-Man is, you will get 100 answers that aren't Cyclops. He is a decent fighter but not the best, has some powers but is not the most powerful, and is a bit of a jerk but is not even as good at that as needed to reach the upper echilon of Marvel Comics. Quite simply, it's not how much he is easy to hate, it's how hard he is to like.



1. John Cena



For the last seven years, John Cena has been the Superman of the wrestling world. A big, muscular, boy scout who always does the right thing. He is also the absolute bane of existence for most die-hard, old-school wrestling fans. What Stone Cold Steve Austin did before him with middle fingers and beer cans, John Cena does with neon hipster clothing, a wankster personality, and a handful of poop jokes to pander to the children in the audience. John Cena was the hottest thing in wrestling in 2005 and was cheered by fans everywhere. Pretty much every show since then, he has been booed as heavily as he is cheered. This not a hard choice to make because this hero is literally hated by half of the audience he performs for.



Marvel Madness: Round Two



10. Proteus



vs.



42. Ghost



26. Aleksander Lukin
vs.



7. Destroyer



18. Hyperion
vs.



15. Blastaar



31. Rhino
vs.



2. Galactus


A Lazy Blog with Only Some Matchups

21. Typhoid Mary

vs.

12. Harry Osborn

28. Madame Masque


vs.


5. Mr. Sinister


13. Purple Man


vs.


20. Lady Deathstrike


29. Lizard


vs.


4. Juggernaut