it's from France, but I've seen it here

I don't get to the clubs as much as I used to (they make me tired). So when a "new" dance movement comes along I generally read about it in the paper (as opposed to see it in person). Which brings us to this piece in the Guardian. Apparently there's a new dance thing happening in France, and it involves swinging your arms around. A lot. World domination is just around the corner, except...

I've seen this done before, so maybe the "new" part is that some group of straight-edge kids in extra tight jeans and appalling haircuts is getting some attention. The article points out that the club night the group loves so much started TEN YEARS AGO, although very few of the kids currently involved in the trend were going to clubs back then. If they were, they could have seen the very same thing they are doing now. But in baggy jeans.

you mean I can't say that?

Some snooker (it's like pool, but different) player somewhere is in trouble for using foul language at a press conference after being ousted in a tournament. You can read about it here, watch the video here, or just enjoy this description:

O'Sullivan then answered two questions about the match - a 5-4 defeat against Marco Fu - before asking an official: "Fuck me, how many more questions are they going to ask?" The reply comes back, "one more." While it is being asked, O'Sullivan refers to the size and shape of his penis.

Castle Crashers - Development Blog of Love

More funnies from Castle Crashers dev. team. Plus added cuteness. The blog itself was just re-org'd so that it's a lot more easy to navigate. Content remains superb.

How cute is the little owlet? I'm looking forward to the animal orb that will help me kick ass. Because that's how I do.

Image copyright theBehemoth.

Fighting the good fight: Castle Crashers

More updates from Castle Crashers:

The Castle Crashers development blog is up and running and it's fun if you like art and/or video game development.

Go here for a video of Dan Paladin doing his thing: http://devblog.thebehemoth.com/?p=48

Also here: http://www.thebehemoth.com/

I have posted about Paladin, Alien Hominid and the Behemoth chicken before. The chicken rules most of all, but you can't get him on a t-shirt. Just a polo. Or a skateboard deck.

image copyright theBehemoth.

where I've been

Metaphysically, I've been in a dispute with my former roommate about his deposit. After consulting with a lawyer, I was told, "You are right, he is wrong, and you will probably win in court. But it's only $115, so my advice is to pay him and be done with it. It's extortion, and I see it all the time. Don't let it bother you."

I'm doing well with all of that except the last part. Humorously, she had additional advice, "I'm not an expert on landlord-tenant law, so I consulted with a colleague; I'm a defender, so if you assault him, I can help you."

Nothing feels as good as paying a liar who is legally wrong and morally repugnant. If it were more money I'd go to court.

I tried to find a picture of a lying douchebag but I'm busy.

UPDATE:
I related this story to a friend, and he said, "it's surprising that your former roommate would compromise his ethics for such a pittance; how sad that's all his honesty was worth."

bracket smackdown

The results are in. As per usual I had some prescient selections (West Virginia beats Duke!) mixed in with some clunkers (Louisville losing? what?). As my HS history teacher (Mr. Fitzpatrick) told the class once after an unusually successful exam: The sun shines on a dog's ass at least once a day.

Go Bruins!

--------------------------------
ps. Here is an article about how Barry Zito is a league-average pitcher making way-above-average money. It's not that Zito is bad, it's that he's not very good. And he is the highest paid player on his team. And he can only play every fifth day. And he's not getting any younger.

The Giants and 49ers are awesome at signing free agents. And by 'awesome' I mean 'awful'.

The Swamp of Sadness: I've been there

A while back I went to see Princess Bride at the local theater. It was good times. I wrote a thing about it but I'm too lazy to add a link you won't click through. Enh, okay, here you go.

Last night I revisited The Neverending Story. Some 80's movies have held up really well (Princess Bride, Goonies, among a few others). Other 80's movies are worth reviewing if only for their unintended hilarity. Neverending Story was the latter type. It was funny, but so bad-it-was-good funny. Bad acting, bad props, bad dialog, bad animatronics, bad everything. Nothing about it was good, except to remind you that if you have 2 hours and $6.50 you should spend them more wisely on a Wednesday night. I told my friend it was a life lesson, and that she should thank me for showing her the value of her time/money.

Title of this post refers to the place that Falcor the Luck Dragon picks up Atreyu (sp?) the hero. [I felt awkward just typing that.] I was in the Swamp of Sadness at that point too, so I was kind of bummed when a big hairy claw didn't descend from the ceiling to pull me out of it.

Next week on the big screen: Point Break.
Johnny Utah and that weird love interest. What was her name? Bodie? Beadie? Brodie? Whatever.
I AM AN EFF-BEE-EYE AGENT!
effin' A, bro.

my bracket punches your bracket in the throatbone

Dooshie McTool (that's me) has filled out his NCAA Tournament Bracket (Men's Div I, if you must know).

If you want to win your office pool then this is probably not a good starting point. I have never had any kind of success with this stuff. But it's fun to have a rooting interest. And talk trash to people that had worse picks than you.

Some picks are standard every year: USC and University of Arizona (aka USC Southwest) both get bounced in the first round. That has wreaked havoc on my bracket in years past, but since U of A doesn't even belong in this years tournament (they should have taken Arizona State) and USC is playing Kansas State, I feel good about it. I expect Michael Beasley of K. State to punch his ticket to NBA millions by kicking ass and taking names, starting w/ USC. Can't wait.

If you've got a bracket, let's compare on Monday.

Black Magic on ESPN

Recommended: the ESPN basketball special Black Magic.
You can watch clips of the program here.

It was a little choppy in spots with the way they told the stories, but it was really good. I didn't have a lot of respect for some of the old timey basketball coaches or their style (slow and slower), but the program focused on historically black colleges.
What I learned:

• These cats could really ball. I take a dim view of the early game and many of its players. Frankly, most of them weren't that good and wouldn't get a look in today's NBA. Cousy is my best example; Chris Paul would eat him alive and he's only 6 feet tall. Baron Davis, all 6' 3" and 230 lbs of him, would kick his ass for real. After watching footage of these small college guys it was a shame they were kept out. It set the league back 20 years.
• Some historically black colleges/universities had innovative coaches, playing styles, etc. So they played a superior, up-tempo, modern game.
• Nicknames were much better back in the day. "Big House" Gaines. "Pee-Wee" Kirkland. Al "The Destroyer" Attles, Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, Robert Earl "Butterbean" Love, Tommy "The Machine Gun" Grant, etc.
• You could see why the pro teams had a quota system: the stiffs on the roster knew they'd be out of a job in no time because these guys could really play.

If you like basketball, I encourage you to watch it. If you can get through the part about Bob Love starting his life over without choking up then call me. But call the hospital first, because they need to re-start your cold, dead heart.

i am an international financier, part the fifth

My Kiva loan to

Karomadjon Tojiboeva

was fully repaid, so I re-allocated the funds to a small business owner in Mexico named Luis Alfonson Torres Rodriguez. He doesn't get his name in big letters b/c I didn't have to copy/paste it from the Kiva website like Ms. Tojiboeva. You care.

Read about Mr. Rodriguez and his efforts here. His loan is not yet fully funded, but he's about 1/3 of the way there. Feel free to loan him some money. I think he's good for it.

a letter of apology to my largest digestive organ

Dear Liver,
I know that I haven't treated you very well over the years. There was a time (some people call it "college") when I really kicked you around. Since then I've treated you a lot better on average, with occasional lapses in judgment leading to spending the following day in bed promising not do you like that again. Or at least not soon.

Sunday was one of those days, and I apologize. I know you work hard to detoxify the body, and that this task is made more difficult when I ingest large (and I mean XXXL-large) amounts of toxins. So great job, Liver, and please accept my apology. I'm going to give you a break this year on St. Patrick's day because you already did so much heavy lifting this weekend. I love you that much.

Happy St. Patrick's day,
-case-

(tried to get a picture of a liver but everything was copyrighted and protected. told you the liver needs protecting. so there.)

setting snarky aside: go read a book

I was all set to write a snarky post about how Blogger created youtube videos to explain how to set up a blog. Just typing that bugs me because it's so un-ironically stupid, but it's a personal issue of mine (the inability to create a blog should be some kind of idiot filter). However...

I was distracted by this fun blog about people reading. My favorite entry? The one for Paws Off, Cheddarface. Because reading is good for you.

What I'm reading right now: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. This is my third or fourth time through the book. There's so much in it that you can read it every 6 months and still find something new, or remind yourself of something you already knew. Short History is like Blink and The Tipping Point in that they are excellent introductory / gateway books. As in, books that lead you to other good books.

That was a bad idea, and by bad I mean great

Courtesy withleather.com, via Canadia (I think).

Video was down for a bit but they got it working again. By "they" I mean the withleather peoples.

UPDATE:
This video keeps getting taken down. You'll have to search the internets for "newsguy getting flipped by inner tube in the snow" and see what you can find. It is worth it. I promise.

Burnout: Paradise as reviewed by ZeroPunctuation

I think Zero Punctuation (he has a real name but who has time?) does a fine job reviewing Burnout: Paradise - language NSFW.

You can see more of his special brand of genius over at The Escapist.

this happened

so a woman was on the toilet for 2 years. i'm guessing she has some mental problems. you can read the story for yourself here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080312/ap_on_re_us/woman_in_bathroom;_ylt=AidODhCMIcafGEWREDRIC.YDW7oF

i wanted to get some pictures to accompany this story and then I realized that no, I didn't want any pictures to accompany this story.

her boyfriend brought her food and water (she didn't have water in the bathroom?). and crazy. he was definitely bringing her the crazy.

I love me some dorkout

I used to have an Xbox360. Now I have a Call of Duty 4 gaming console that also plays DVDs, handy when I rent a movie.

If/when a new game comes out that excites me enough to stop playing CoD4 I might be forced to try it. Maybe. This little gem is coming out on the PC.

I have heard that Burnout: Paradise is good, but I played the demo and it sucked donkey. So I'm unconvinced.

Post 365: How's that for some activity indication?

Courtesy Slate.com, and in celebration of blog post 365 (one post a day for a year, although we kicked off this joint back in late October 2005), here's more video.

As a special bonus I think it really captures what my blog is all about.

I tried to get rid of that lame advertisement but their kung-fu was too strong. Imagine it's not there.

From the Archives:
I thought this was funny. And Michael Irvin is still a clown.

accidente indeed

The great thing about being in foreign countries is that they don't have nearly so many safety rules and regulations. Don't get me wrong, I love living in the US, but our culture is so litigious that every person has to be protected from *every* potential harm. Any economist or actuary can explain how ridiculously inefficient this is, but from a moral standpoint it's good that we can all be glad that our risk is reduced when we drive, when we are at work, or when we go to sleep at night, etc. All of which is a nice lead-in to why these videos of people getting in accidents tend to come from places where this stuff is less of a priority. Like Brazil.

Notice how the guy in the background (on the right) gets out of the way.

we got the jeep... the chevy... the ford... pullin' the big-ass truck

this looks like it could go badly. but it doesn't.
nice work.

no good news

Nothing much good to report. Usually something fun will find me on the intarnets, but not this week. Everywhere I look it's bad news.

There is some (very) small justice in the world, though. The golfer Tripp Isenhour is in trouble with the law for intentionally killing a hawk with a golf shot. According to the report:

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — PGA Tour golfer Tripp Isenhour was charged with killing a hawk on purpose with a golf shot because it was making noise as he videotaped a TV show

Isenhour was with a film crew for "Shoot Like A Pro" on Dec. 12 at the Grand Cypress Golf course. The 39-year-old golfer, whose real name is John Henry Isenhour III, was charged Wednesday with cruelty to animals and killing a migratory bird.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 months in jail and $1,500 in fines.

According to court documents, Isenhour got upset when a red-shouldered hawk began making noise, forcing another take. He began hitting balls at the bird, then 300 yards away, but gave up.

Isenhour started again when the hawk moved within about 75 yards, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer Brian Baine indicated in a report.

Isenhour allegedly said "I'll get him now," and aimed for the hawk.

"About the sixth ball came very near the bird's head, and (Isenhour) was very excited that it was so close," Baine wrote.

A few shots later, witnesses said he hit the hawk. The bird, protected as a migratory species, fell to the ground bleeding from both nostrils.

still a long shot to make the reunion

The Pioneer High School (San Jose) class of '92 had some characters. Ronnie Ledesma was a good friend; we played basketball together (he was good, I was not) and spent many an evening drinking beer that he bought from the only liquor store that would sell to someone w/o an ID. I don't remember if he ever graduated, but pretty much anyone can graduate from public school, so he probably did. Then he moved on to bigger and better things, as shown in the video above. This is not the first time I've posted about Ronnie and his crimes, and I'm surprised he was out of jail after his previous arrest.

Fast forward to 1:48 into the video to see the footage of Ronnie cuffed and stuffed. Except for the soul patch he looks the same as ever.

fly the dork flag

Bioshock was on many gamers top 10 and GoTY lists.
this drawing was inspired by characters in the game. I think it's fan art, but I'm not sure. I got it here: http://www.thebbps.com/blog/2008/02/27/wallpaper-would-you-kindly-download-this/