8. General "Thunderbolt" Ross
vs.
9. Carnage
16. Dormammu
vs.
1. Thanos
Let the voting begin.......
Purchase of the Week I am Currently Super Stoked On
Sunday afternoon Ashley and I headed into the Spokane Valley Mall hoping to find a cheap replacement for her cell phone that had taken a trip through the washing machine. The good news, it was a success, we found a cheap "Go Phone" that works on her network for only ten dollars. Not pretty but it will suffice until her contract comes up for renewal.
The great news came afterward when I begged my way into the sports wear shop for my usual discouraging venture expecting to discover, once again, that being 3,500 miles from Miami means that there will be no Dolphins gear in site. However, the helpful attendant found out I was a Dolphins fan and took to feverently hunting down any Phin gear he could find in my shop. To my great surprise, there was actually quite a bit of it. I don't know how often you visit Pro Image, but you will likely come to a quick realization that virtually all clothing items will price themselves out of your consideration for purchase. This left me with only a few selections, most were hats, which I have plenty of already. I settled on a freezer stein. A panic buy, I know, but after all the merch trotted out in front of me and my usual struggle to find anything I had to buy something and this fit my budget.
I don't know how other people feel about freezer steins but my general feeling has always been that you pay a lot for a cup that takes some actual work to be useful, is hard to clean, and is really pretty ugly excluding the treasured team logo on the front. I instantly felt the dreaded buyer's regret that so commonly plagues me. Then I got home and used.
I was wrong.
God forgive me, I have errantly misjudged these creations for so long.
I waited about four hours and poured a Coke into the cup after it had proper time to freeze and do you know what I discovered? These steins get so cold that when I pour my soda into it, it will actually freeze my soda into a sort of Coke slush, and Coke slush is prehaps the greatest tasting thing in the world. These normally obscenely difficult beverage to create is now mine to behold whenever I want and that makes me more happy than any human has the right to be over a drink.
I am in a somewhat desperate need to find ways to enjoy my days off. I had previously had a tradition to fill my Slurpee jug up every week but that just isn't doing the job. My new tradition: Zip's for lunch. I have always been a Zip's fan but I have found the secret to making my meal great. I now bring a tupperware container with me, pump my own fry sauce into it (instead of paying for cups of it) and then take my meal home with ample amounts of sauce that I don't have to eat in a lonely, dirty fast food restaurant. Until now I have been sticking with the classic two Papa Joe's for lunch, next week I switch it up but I'm not sure what to. The Pizza Burger or the Boss?
College Football Madness (Or Lack Thereof)
Let's be honest here this college season has been quite a letdown so far. College football has surpassed pro football in my mind thanks to the chaos that it offers in the way of upsets and underdog stories that can't be seen in the pros. This season, the lack of that beloved chaos has me suddenly looking back at pro football on Sundays as the highlight of my sports week once again. So far what has been the biggest upset? Baylor over 2-2 TCU? Auburn over South Carolina? Illinois over Arizona State? These three games have to be near the top of the list and you may have noticed none of them really feel like a big upset. I look at the way the season is going and I feel like at least six teams will finish undefeated, and three teams (Boise State, Clemson, Wisconsin) won't even be challenged again in the regular season, with six more teams (Oregon, Stanford, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Alabama, LSU) that will only be challenged by each other. I could be wrong, I hope I'm wrong, but this season feels destined to be stale.
Now, on to the top 25, and after this past weekend I think there is some more clarity on who is the best in the nation.
Also Considered: Penn State, Auburn, Washington, Iowa, SMU, Rutgers. Baylor, Virginia Tech, North Carolina
25. Florida - If QB John Brantley is out for an extended amount of time, the Gators may see more games like Saturday's than the previous four games.
24. South Carolina - Outside of the QB position, this team has top five talent, at the QB position it has bottom five talent.
23. San Diego State - The loss against Michigan was not great but as the season goes on, a loss to the Wolverines is seemingly less and less reason to doubt a team.
22. West Virginia - The Big East title will go through Morgantown, the Mountaineers are clearly a notch above the rest of the conference.
21. Michigan State - The defense is conference contender worthy, the offense needs to catch up.
20. Nebraska - I was tempted to drop them out altogether after the egg they dropped against Wisconsin but realistically, the Badgers are just good enough that the Huskers shouldn't be punished for it.
19. USC - If the defense was half as good as the offense, this would still be a top 5 team. Unfortunately for Trojans fans, it isn't.
18. Arkansas - The Razorbacks looked great erasing a big halftime deficit this week against a Texas A&M team that looks to be proving me right when I picked them to be the nations biggest dissappointment. Also, looking back a week, the Alabama loss doesn't seem so bad.
17. Arizona State - This team has all the talent needed to win the PAC-12 South, when they learn how to handle that talent and stop making stupid mistakes, this team will be scary. Right now though, they haven't yet.
16. Oregon - It's hard to look better with a loss on your record than the Ducks do right now.
15. Houston - The schedule is a joke but the Cougars have done just enough to win every week, and the schedule doesn't look to be much harder going forward. This team could legitimately run the table.
14. Texas Tech - The Red Raiders really haven't proven a thing yet but unbeaten is unbeaten.
13. Kansas State - Beating Baylor hasn't done this much for a team's reputation in probably 50 years.
12. Illinois - The Zookers playing really good football so far, most of the teams have been bad, but the win over Arizona State two weeks ago shows this team has a will to win the Illini haven't shown over the past few years.
11. Texas - This week will really find out if this team is back or just the result of an easy schedule, the Sooners are up next.
10. Georgia Tech - The Yellow Jackets are just mercilessly running the ball down their opponents throats this year. The competition hasn't been top notch but the games haven't been even modestly close either.
9. Michigan - They look ready to turn the corner right now but we've said that a lot in recent years. I'm still not sold on Denard Robinson's ability to actually throw the ball downfield against the better foes in the Big 10 but only time will tell.
8. Stanford - They look as good as hyped but the best team they have played so far is UCLA. It will take more than that to crack my top five. We'll revisit the Cardinal after USC, Oregon, or Arizona State line up on the other side of the ball.
7. Boise State - Ignore the records of the teams they have played so far and you will realize that the Broncos have played a decent schedule. Georgia, Tulsa, Toledo, and Nevada have played some the hardest schedules in the country this year. That being said, an atrocious kicking game, and some spotty reciever play have this team looking a step behind the rest of the big dogs in the national title race so far.
6. Oklahoma State - This team has so far showed touhgness that no other OSU team this century has shown. Playing through weather issues and fighting back against Texas A&M in a game that previous Cowboy teams would have lost control of. The Big 12 pecking order looks pretty set this season, and the Pokes are clearly the No. 2 right new.
5. Clemson - The Tigers have looked only truly dominant one time this season but that may be all it takes. Clemson embarassed the Hokies on Saturday in Lane Stadium no less and at this point the Tigers have already won their three toughest games of the year in consecutive weeks. The ACC Championship game is already within their grasp with only two conference games under their belt.
4. Oklahoma - The Sooners have dropped three spots in my rankings this season despite looking as good as advertised, but the schedule has been all about one game, and Florida State has since made that game seem a little less impressive since that one was played. The Sooners can change some minds this week against Texas.
3. Wisconsin
Yeah, that's pretty much what the last three quarters felt like on Saturday as the Badgers cornholed the Huskers. It is hard to find a loss on the regular season schedule for this squad.
2. LSU - They have played the hardest schedule in the country to this point and with Florida coming to Baton Rouge this Saturday, the year isn't getting any easier. The top two were a tough choice, but Tigers have been just slightly less dominant so far than...........
1. Alabama - It really burns me to have to make this vote, but after this week it's hard not to. The Tide have yet to be challenged, and have played three of their four toughest regular season tests already (Florida, Penn State, Arkansas). I got the chance to watch this team play on Saturday for the first time this year, and the defense and Trent Richardson are as good as advertised (sigh).
I think it is too early in the season to put up any official Heisman standings, simply because one bad game statistically puts a player outside of the top five at their position. However, I do think we have a very defined "watch list." These players are on mine.
Boise State QB Kellen Moore, Oregon RB LaMichael James, Alabama RB Trent Richardson, South Carolina RB Marcus Lattimore, LSU CB Tyran Mathieu, Oklahoma State QB Brandon Weeden, USC QB Matt Barkeley, USC WR Robert Woods, Oklahoma QB Landry Jones, Clemson QB Tajh Boyd, Stanford QB Andrew Luck, and Wisconsin RB Montee Ball
The Dolphins Report Card
The report card will not be presented this week because I didn't see most of the game. I will say this though, here is my new philosophy on the season.
The season is over, 0-4 is too deep for good teams, much less a team with the worst defense in the league. The Reggie Bush experiment is already a failure, and lets face it, every other team in the division is decent. At this point I'm thinking 2-14 should be enough for the top pick, a new coach, and some house cleaning on the defense. At this point I want Andrew Luck more than I want to see 5 wins instead of 2.
The Wide World of Video Games
I have never been much of a gamer but this past summer I set out on a mission to do something I spent a good chunk of my teenage years failing at. I wanted to get 100% complete on the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games. I completed GTA 3 and Vice City and was feeling very accomplished. I then figured I would give San Andreas a shot as well even I felt it was a big step below the other two, simply because it was too complex.
I was right, I got to about 6% and decided I wasn't really interested in going on, I never even reached the second map of the city. I spent a few days simply trying to get around the one you start with and really couldn't manage even that. Upon doing some research I realized that beating this game would've taken in excess of three hundred hours, and I was not interested in tying all of my free time until Christmas up into it. Goodbye San Andreas, you were a good idea, but you too deep for anyone who is at least attempting to have a life.
Now this game on the other hand.....
One of my childhood favorites, I decided to give a whirl again to see if it held up. What I discovered was that it did but it certainly doesn't provide much a challenge to me anymore. I less than three days I did what I had never accomplished as a kid. I found all 100 puzzle pieces (which I had accomplished before), picked up all 1000 music notes, and then grabbed all 24 hollow honeycomb pieces. I had a blast but I wish it could have lasted longer.
Comics Corner
I have decided that ranting about football is not enough, there needs to more of a comic book presence in this blog. I'm going to try to review comics occasionally here, because I apparently need more things to criticize.
X-Men: Schism
This has been a highly hyped X-Crossover for the summer, it even got it's own prolouge series, and will lead to the end (relaunch? sigh) of the Uncanny X-Men series. For three and one half issues it felt like an X-Men story. A good one but not a special one. About half way through issue four we finally saw it become something special. I don't want to give a lot away but lets just say, how excited would you be if you FINALLY saw the Wolverine/Cyclops fight of mutual hatred that we had been waiting for since like 1982. I recommend you buy just this issue and enjoy the recap of the first three missable issues and soak up the greatness of this one. 9/10
Punisher 1-3
At the beginning of the summer, Marvel decided to give the Marvel Knights universe a kindof-sortof re-launch thing. It hasn't been huge but it has been enjoyable. The Punisher story has been great. It feels like a Punisher story, nothing cute, nothing fancy. Just a street crime story with realistic fight scenes and a very gritty, violent feel from beginning to end. My only complaint is the artwork is sometimes a bit tough to follow. Recommended 8.5/10
In the same relaunch effort we saw new Ghost Rider an Daredevil series, both have been decent, and I would recommend for fans of the characters but to avoid otherwise, at least until the series get going a bit more.
Fear Itself #6
Fear Itself was not a bad issue, but it dredged up some bad feelings of crossovers past, because nothing really happened. People hated on Secret Invasion and House of M because it felt like they both had about 4 issues in the middle that were not needed. Book Six of Fear Itself felt like that. It was well written and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the story, as matter of fact I loved the depth it added to the overall story. However, my feelings on big events like this is that if you're going to have a million crossover books, add some depth to story with them, instead of just making new poorly written vaguely related stories (I'm looking at you Fear Itself: Wolverine and Fearsome Four). Save the action for the main story. This book was greatly lacking in it. 7/10
Spider-Island: Amazing Spider-Man 666-669
This story really serves to prove how wrong Joe Quesada was about how One More Day was essential to make Spidey fun again. All Spidey needed was to not be stuck in terrible crossover stories like this anymore. Since one more day ended I can only think of one Spidey story I've enjoyed less than this so far. The story isn't awful but I really hate the artwork, and as a crossover it is an abject failure becuase all the associated mini's have been atrocious. The story focuses on a plot by the Jackal (strike 1) to give all of Manhattan spider powers. I like the concept but the writing has just fallen flat. 4.5/10
Summer Movie Season in Review
The summer blockbuster movie has now come to an end and this year had a lot to offer comic book fans. There was good and bad an I'd like to highlight the extremes of both.
Worst Movie of the Summer Award: Transformers - Dark of the Moon
Do you remember how excited everyone was for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? Do you remember the how much everyone hated the movie? If you answered yes to both questions, you have seen Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The worst part of the movie is arguably not the movie itself, it is the way it almost blatantly slaps fans in the face by repeating everything they hated about the franchises last installment, almost as if it is telling them the other movie wasn't bad but just needed some tweaking.
The movie starts out exactly the same way. It has about an hour of punchline after useless punchline, trying as hard as it can to be edgy with vulgar langauge and sexual content as if it is daring parents to walk their children out of theatre. Just like the second movie, none of this ultimately has really any bearing on the movie plot. When Megan Fox, who fans had really turned on because of her lack of any discernable acting, left the franchise Michael Bay assured everyone he was more than capable of discovering a new no-name model with questionable acting skills to replace her.
The movie ends with a one hour or so battle to the center of Chicago, assisted by special military forces with the Transformers to reach the a building that will end the battle almost assuredly.
Now, read that sentence again and replace Chicago with Egypt and building with pyramid and you have Revenge of the Fallen.
I don't know where the Transformers franchise goes from here without Michael Bay but whether it relaunches, ends, or just moves on, it will be for the better.
Best Movie of the Summer: Thor
Thor was a movie I entered with a lot of doubts, a strange directing choice, an even stranger choice to play Heimdall, and some pretty hokey looking previews. I was very happy to be wrong and at this point it looks like Marvel Studios quite simply doesn't make bad movies because they know their characters to well to make the movies poorly. Thor moves from drama to action movie over and over again over a two hour span without anything feeling forced, haphazard, or uneccesary. The acting is superb and Tom Hiddleston plays a villianous Loki so perfectly it seemed to me Ledgeresque. All this for a super hero that honestly, is no where near the top of the Marvel brands totem pole. This movie started what was a very good summer for the Marvel brand as Captain America and X-Men First Class both exceeded fan expectations as well.
Baseball? In My Blog?
Yeah, baseball. In my blog. Try as I might to hate on Major League Baseball, every fall I inevitably end up following the playoffs. This year, I was greatly aided by the brilliantly painful collapse of my hated Boston Red Sox. Sadly, the Rays didn't do anything with their opportunity, but I am still more interested in the postseason than usual, as the Yankees are the only team in that I really dislike.
TV Reviews Too?
Yeah, those too. I told you I had a lot I felt like writing about, so here goes my feeling on the fresh new television season as well.
The Playboy Club Gets an Early Ax
I have never watched this show, and it appears that I never will (not that I planned too) because two episoded in, NBC has given it the boot already. I for one am glad to see to go anyways, because it is part of a trend that I have really come to resent this fall. It is essentially the headline of the new set of shows whose only real appeal is that it is vintage and sexy. Really, it is a trend created for hipster teenage boys, and the ratings seem to reflect no one else is watching. This is the first to go and I hope that Pan-Am and the new Charlie's Angels follow soon.
Whitney
Whitney is a show that I really entered into watching this fall with pretty low hopes, mostly because the commercials were nothing but Whitney elaborating on or just re-telling jokes I had already seen on her stand-up DVD. That doesn't inspire high hopes. However, I gave it a whirl, because I think Whitney Cummings is hilarious. So far my feelings are mixed, the show is funny, but Whitney's boyfriend co-star of the show is just dreadfully unlikable. I want to enjoy the show a lot more, hopefully the season ends with a break-up and re-cast of her significant other. Rating through two episodes 6/10
Big Bang Theory
This show just keeps getting better every year and I can't wait to see what happens from here. There has been great jokes, great characters moments for almost everyone on the show already, and some very significant character growth and plot advancement in only two episodes, something rarely seen on a comedy show. This is quickly becoming my favorite show on television. Rating so far 9.5/10
The Office
The Office is another show I entered the season with pretty low expectations for. I am one of the believers that the show needed Steve Carrell to work and would flop without out him. I was wrong, dead wrong. If anything, he was holding it back, the other characters are greater, and the presence of Michael Scott had been holding them back. Andy as the new Branch Manager has been outstanding and Kevin has left me in stitches every episode. Jim, Dwight, and Pam are still having great Jim, Dwight, and Pam moments, and Erin is becoming a delight to watch each week too. Rating so far 10/10
This show has been a mixed bag so far, I loved the first episode, and didn't much care for the second one of the season. That is pretty much how this show works though, the way the show is written, it simply cannot be good every week. Rating so far 7.5/10Family Guy
Family Guy so far this season is, well, Family Guy. Ever since the show revived it has been incredibly hit or miss for me. When the show is just the show and is random, quirky, weird, and fearless, it's hilarious. When the show tries to make political statements, focus on making show tunes moments, or just tries to use some directing gimmick (like the murder mystery) episode it is just awful. Last week it was a hybrid of the two, with a lot of the show following Brian's experiment with mushrooms and was okay, the first episode was great. Rating so far 7.5/10Arrested Development
Yeah, I know the show was cancelled ages ago but this week it was announced that a short 10ish episode season would be recorded along with a movie to be aired in 2013. I quite simply can. not. wait. This probably the most underappreciated comedy of all time and is quite deserving of a second chance. News rating 20/10
Thats finally all folks. Don't forget tovote in the Marvel Madness tournament.
Carnage and Thanos.
ReplyDeleteI am shocked that you have never known the joys of a freezer mug.
Also, there is no reason to get anything at Zips other than a p-joe and a tub o fries.
Thanos
ReplyDeleteCarnage