Daniel Tschetter, Be a Man

Sometimes its worthwhile discussing something on the best nothing. In this case, something disgusting, disheartening, and repulsive.

The back story from cbc.ca...

A concrete truck driver charged with killing five people in a Calgary rear-end collision testified that he's a longtime recovering alcoholic who's had a "couple of slips here and there."

Daniel Tschetter, 51, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of manslaughter, five counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count of obstruction in the deadly crash in December 2007.

It's a horrific story, a whole family wiped out in an instant. This is not a simple story of an accident gone bad. What makes this so disgusting is this guy has come up with every excuse in the book to account for his actions.

In short, his defense is that because his wallet may have been lost or stolen, because he was a recovering alcoholic, because he was in a rush, and because he had to worry about gages in his truck, he should be excused from any responsibility for driving a heavy vehicle erratically, speeding, not yielding to warning lights of an upcoming red light, running a red light, and killing a family of five.

Oh, and let's not forget he had a slew of past traffic violations and had been fired from a previous job for these digressions.

And the cherry on top, unbelievable:

He recalled wanting a drink of water, so he reached under his seat and took a drink from a bottle, before realizing it was vodka, Tschetter said.

...

Tschetter said he returned to his truck, climbed to the top and threw the bottle of vodka into the drum, because he didn't know what to do if people saw him with the container.

"What do I say, what do I do?" he testified.

Under questioning by his lawyer, Balfour Der, Tschetter explained the vodka bottle was in the truck so he could offer drinks to staff at concrete suppliers to get to the front of long lineups.

Excuses. You don't kill five people and go "oops, my bad." You take fucking responsibility. You don't make shit up about accidentally drinking vodka. You would have to think everyone is out of their fucking minds to believe that. Batshit crazy. Who is going to know what a bottle of vodka is or isn't. That's right, an alcoholic. He would have had to crack the seal on it (assuming it wasn't already open, which he would have to claim it wasn't). I feel insulted by this comedic testimony.

And the lack of responsibility after trying to hide the evidence doesn't stop there. He refused to submit to a breathalyzer. Was he worried about blowing .08 after a sip of vodka? It might not be fair, but I'm not on the jury, I'm going to read between the lines.

It makes me sick to my stomach I read about new developments in this story. And it makes me even sicker to hear that this jackoff Daniel Tschetter is trying to worm his way out of it.

Follow-up to Quagmire look-a-like mania

Most dashes in a blog post title ever.f

I'm going to piggyback onto Brett's "who looks like Quagmire" post and add another Premier League name.

Here he is, David Wheater:

I Swear to a Deity...

If I see that stupid effing Enterprise Rent-a-car (for my trip? sounds expensive!) commercial again, I'm going to go on a rampage. Or maybe just curse at the TV more. But seriously. Twice in one commercial package? On Hockey Night In Canada? Is the marketing business struggling that much they can't pay for new commercials or nobody wants to buy commercial time?

Fuck! I mean, I will NOT rent a car from that company which I will not dignify with a name any further. Ever! And if I ever see that lady in the middle of the street... I won't say hi. probably.

I fell asleep last night with my contacts in. I know. Who does that? You'd think I would realize it by seeing the clearness of the inside of my eyelids. Hey, I don't normally see that vein! I wonder if my dreams were more vivid. Everything is usually so blurry looking back on it in the morning, maybe that's just my poor far-sightedness. Unfortunately, I don't remember thinking when I woke up: oh, that recurring 3 armed monster I always see is just a bicycle. Jeez, I've been pissing myself in bed for that? Maybe if I dreamed about optometrist appointments more often, the bed wouldn't be so dewy in the morning.

Then the worst part is peeling the things off in the morning. It feels like I'm giving myself laser eye surgery with my fingers instead of lasers. Except afterward, my vision is worse, not better. And I don't smell burnt cornea.

Speaking of good eyesight, Dwayne Roloson deserves props this morn. I would say 3 props. 3 props for Roloson. I don't know what the average props given is when they are. Maybe 3 is low. So whatever the average is, Dwayne deserves more than that.

51 saves last night to preserve a victory that the skaters in front of him tried so desperately to foil. Granted I only saw from 4-2 on, the Oilers took penalty after penalty. Awesome game and massively important for the Oilers in the standings. But seriously, Roloson played his 30th game in a row, which is no small feat for a 39 year old goalie. In fact, this playoff push is starting to look like 2006. Roloson even dropped his stick last night, a common occurrence back in that Cup run. And the Oilers are currently paired with Detroit in the playoff standings like 2006. Just sayin...

I'm watching the England Slovakia soccer friendly right now. England have gone through two strikers in the first half and now have a volleyball player playing center forward. Good old England though, too good to actually give a shit and trying hard to give up their one goal lead.

The interweb's latest fetish, hurray!

Leia Ponies.

Things I Miss- Vol. 1

Welcome to "Things I Miss" Volume One. Alex's recent posting of those Barca highlights down below prompted me to watch the whole game replayed tonight on Setanta. Before the game started, they had a feature of the last time Barcelona and Malaga played eachother. It featured a Ronaldinho penalty.

Now. The penalty itself was unremarkable. It was smashed high into the roof of the net, but still...it's just a penalty. What was remarkable, however, was the joyous buck-toothed grin that followed. It reminded me of a simpler time. A time when Edgar Davids played for Barcelona. A time when I didn't have cable. A time when Ronaldinho was still lazy at training but nobody cared or called him fat because he was fucking amazing.

So. Tonight. For all your viewing pleasure, the thing I miss is...

Ronaldinho making people look retarded, smiling the whole time. Enjoy.



Okay...so this video is kinda weird. I didn't wanna mention it until you'd watched it. Hopefully you have. My favorite sequence is what I like to call the "Barret" trifecta. Yes, that's "el barret", "el triple barret" and (lest we forget) "el grande barret". Or maybe my favorite is the "El Vaselina"- a porn title waiting to happen. But then, that's facing some stern opposition from the heartfelt tribute to hugging at the end. Ah...it truly was a simpler time.

But seriously folks. I was looking for a genuine "Ronaldinho Sings His Greatest Hits" type thing for this post, but this was just too good to pass up. Still, I don't want you to feel cheated, so here you go. For real this time. And just to re-iterate the whole "Ronaldinho was once fucking amazing" thing, this collection is from just one season: 2004-2005. Accompanied, of course, by circa 1992 dance music.

Punch-Out!! Wii

The level of my excitement about this is truly disturbing.

Use that star, bitch!

Also, is it just me or is Mac's lower jaw hanging off at the end of this clip? That's cool. Kids like "darker" these days.

Oh wait, it's just a band-aid.

Darn.

Missing siblings

Liverpool's Albert Riera, meet your long lost brother: Family Guy's Quagmire.

Barca magic

Some of the most beautiful, flowing soccer you will ever see. Barcelona 6 - Malaga 0. And Messi could have had a hat trick.

Me playing soccer

Honest to God, this is an accurate and sad representation of me playing soccer last night.

Watch Kid Cant Kick Ball on CollegeHumor

University Dream Torture

This is so true, you can't even believe it. I wake up feeling like the world has been lifted off my Atlas-ian shoulders.

Windows Vista, Go To Hell

There's always something stupid happening with our Windows Vista laptop. Problems that stump not only Heather, but me too. And every time my mind instantly wanders to that fateful decision to rule our a mac because it would be too hard to get accustomed to for Heather. Granted, we typically don't have any issues with our win XP box, so really, Vista is the source of the problem.

Last night, Heather put pictures from our camera onto said Vista laptop. She then created a folder where she wanted to move the pictures to. The folder with pictures and the new folder were both created by Heather. She had full permissions for both folders. She is an administrator on the laptop. But somehow, Vista would not let her move or cut/paste the folder with pictures in it to the new folder. It accused her of needing administrator permissions to move it, which were denied.

I was finally able to move the folder with pics in it by copying it and pasting in the desired folder. I then had the same problem deleting the original folder with pics in it due to administrator permissions. And so, here is the genius of Vista. I could delete all the photos in the original folder and then delete the folder itself, without any complaint. But before, I couldn't just delete (or move) the folder with pictures in it.

Genius! Way to go Microsoft. Good luck convincing anyone to get Windows 7 and abandon XP. Better yet, good luck avoiding the masses converting to Apple fanboys.

A little musical comedy for y'all

BAT FIGHT with Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell

"High as F@%k" Music Video - watch more funny videos

BBC apologises after Match of the Day pundit compares football tackle to rape

You can read the whole article here.

Fair enough. It's a retarded saying. I know there is no intent to trivialize rape when Alan Pardew says "He absolutely rapes him" but that's the whole point. The word rape has lost all it's meaning in this context already. If the word that society uses to connote one of it's most heinous acts becomes bereft of impact...then brotha! I don't know what to tell ya! But, you know, that's how it is.

It's a bit hard to blame Pardew here. After all how many times have you heard (or even used) this saying. Allow me, if you will, to get cerebral on yo' ass.

I think there's a real case to be made here that certain words used in certain contexts really do carry an entirely separate meaning from when the word is used in its original context. Allow me to elaborate.

Let us take, for example, the word "gay". When you didn't like the movie, and so when asked by your friend, "Did you like the movie?" you said "That movie was gay", did you (honeslty, in your mind) conceive of the film as a literally homosexual film? My guess is that you just thought it sucked balls. (But of course, when I say you thought it sucked balls, I don't really mean that in your mind the film literally wants to, has, or is right now sucking on some guys balls, I just mean that you thought it was simply an unenjoyable movie).

You see what I'm getting at?

In the case of the word "gay", while it's fair to argue that the widespread use of "gay" as a general pejorative is a pretty shitty comment on society, I think that it's also fair to argue that the sentiment behind the comment as used above has nothing cognitively to do with homosexuality. In this case it can be argued that the word "gay" bypasses all of it's original specificity, retaining only the empty pejorative aspects of it's meaning.

If we transpose this to the case of Pardew's comments, it is not, I should think, insignificant.

Lets go back to Pardew and his use of "rape". Is it a somewhat distressing development that the word rape has become disarmed of significance to the point of being used to describe a tackle in a football match? Without a doubt. But the fact is no one has ownership over language. Language grows and shifts in whatever way society grows and shifts. The use of "rape" in the context of the above article is hardly unique to Alan Pardew. I'm sure we can all attest to the fact that "rape" is a fairy widely used (if rather insensitive) saying in regards to sporting events when describing a blatant foul.

So.

Is Pardew trivializing rape when he says "he absolutely raped him"? Well...yes, in as much as he's validating a previously established, context-specific word-meaning which has it's origins in a rather insensitive metaphor with one of humanity's most horrible acts.

But does Alan Pardew really mean to trivialize rape when he says "he absolutely raped him"? I don't think so.

And isn't it the thought that counts?

Exposing a Diver: This dude

What you look to gain from diving due to an official's flag is beyond me. Maybe you don't like the guy and think that maybe the ref will give the linesman a red card? Seriously. I'll bet that made that player's Mom cry when she saw that.

Why I laugh?

Two Handed Bowler

No, this isn't a joke clip, I read about this on ESPN and it isn't April 1st. This is an actual two handed bowler from Australia.

Wheel of Fail...

is the appropriate title of this youtube clip. And here I thought we were going to get to laugh at some stupid moron, when instead we get to laugh because we are immature, the way God intended.

#19 Jason Spezza

What I find so amusing about this is that the ref, instead of just announcing the number of the offending player, decides to also identify him by name. I've never seen that before. It's like he was trying to specifically embarrass him or shame him, which I suppose is deserved. Especially when you so deviously try and get away with it like Spezza does.

Does the ball boy get an assist?

Like to see Totti do this with his balls on the line.

P.s.

Totti doesn't smile. Ever. For anything.

What 55,000 Melbourne Victory fans sound like.

A couple weeks ago (sorry took me this long to find adequate video on YouTube) the Melbourne Victory followed up their A-League Premiership by winning the playoffs to become Champions for the second time in three years. Yes, I am a Melbourne Victory member. And yes, I was there for the grand final. This is the goal that brought us our second title. Next year, Asian Champions League. Fuck. Yeah.

Not a bad goal either.

Ovechkin magic

This is a few weeks old now.

Concacaf Champions League: Montreal Shits The Bed

First things first, the backstory:


For there to be 55,000 people out to watch soccer in the middle of hockey season is one of the most amazing things ever. Though soccer is the most played sport in this country, it receives very little attention and more bad news seems to revolve around the sport than good (see Canadian Mens Soccer team). In fact, I wouldn't be so sure that the national team has never had that many spectators, not in recent history anyway.

The additional thing that makes this a cinderella story is that Montreal is a USL team, a division below the MLS, and they beat out Toronto FC of the MLS to become Canada's representative in the CONCACAF Champion's League. Then they made even bigger news to make it out of the group stages. Then, of course, they went on to blank a top Mexican side 2-0 in the home leg of the semifinals as seen above.

Though that lead would still be precarious going south to play the Mexicans at home, up to this point it was nothing but good news for soccer in this country. Just this week there was discussion that Vancouver was a front runner to become a MLS franchise. Even Montreal and Ottawa have been in that mix. This is great news for the development of domestic players, to have something to aspire to right here in Canada.

Then, on Thursday night, everything went horrible wrong. I couldn't find any English highlights, so this will have to do, I'll explain the story below.



Since Montreal won the first game 2-0, Santos needed to win by at least 2-0 to force extra time and had to win by more than 2 goals to win the two leg competition. But if Montreal scored, which they did, they would become the only team to have scored an away goal over the two games. Which means that if the score over the two games was tied, then Montreal would go through to the semifinals because the team having more away goals has the tiebreaking advantage. So when Montreal went up 2-1, shockingly, this forced Santos to need to win by at least 5-2.

All was going well. They carried that lead into half time, so they could prepare to prevent 4 goals in the second half. Easy right? What followed left me feeling like shit yesterday just thinking about it. First off, Montreal left two strikers on the pitch to start the second half, and if I remember correctly, they didn't sub one off until they were down 3-2. And the guy that came off, Roberto Brown, looked disinterested for most of the second half.

Then CBC started to bring out the jinx. In a completely disgusting fashion, they started to announce the dates for the semifinal for Montreal IF they won, with 15 minutes left in the game! Then, Jason Devos, former national team member, concluded victory with 2.5 minutest left. WHY!? Why the fuck would you do that!? Montreal was in dire straights trying to defend for most of the second half and was restricted to clearing the ball out of their box. Anything could have happened. Then it did.

With 2 minutes left, Santos scored, leaving them 1 goal shy of winning the tie. Montreal weathered their next push, and with about 30 seconds remaining in extra time, they cleared the ball out of their half. I don't know who it was, but an Impact player had the ball on the left wing with 2 midfielders stretched across the field, wide open. This winger proceeded to pass the ball straight to the forehead of the central midfielder, which needless to say he couldn't control. 15 seconds later the ball was in the back of the Montreal net again, game over.

Montreal's defending all game was amateur at best, but when you are withstanding a full court press and there is 30 seconds to go in a game and you have the chance to clear the ball, the last thing you do is gift it back to the other team. All the Impact winger had to was play a nice easy ball to Sandro Grande in the midfield and the game was over. And this guy knew he fucked up big time because he instantly grabbed his head, announcing to everyone, "What the fuck did I just do?" Amateur and embarrassing.

So there you have it. Unprofessionalism at its best by both CBC and a bunch of soccer players + coach which, if anyone is like me, has seen a chance to ride the wave of a great Canadian soccer story slip by. And made a team the laughing stock of the soccer world.

I want to cry.

Shaq is an ass

But this is just gamesmanship. And he is the expert on it. Love him.

McNugget Meltdown

From wpbf.com ...

Now, after becoming an Internet sensation for calling 911 three times to report an emergency after McDonald's had run out of McNuggets, a Fort Pierce woman said Wednesday she is embarrassed by all the media attention.

"I'm embarrassed to show my face in public," Latreasa Goodman told WPBF News 25's Alexis Rivera one day after her McNugget meltdown was first reported.

Goodman, 27, was issued a written notice to appear in court for misusing the 911 emergency communications system.

...

"The manager just took my money and won't give me my money back, trying to make me get something off the menu that I don't want," Goodman said in one of the 911 calls. "I ordered chicken nuggets. They don't have chicken nuggets, and so I told her, 'Just give me my money back,' and she tells me I have to pick something else off the menu. She is not going to give me my money back, and she don't have the right to take my money."

Oh, you crazy Americans. Your craziness is so entertaining.

Sask in the news

CNN has an article on Saskatchewan being the economic powerhouse that it is.

Agree To Disagree

Conan and Mr. T

I love Conan, and though I didn't shed any tears for his last episode on Friday, I cried my eyes out.

Conan O'Brian & Mr. T Celebrate Fall Foliage Day

Kaboom over-dub

Here's another over-dub from the guy/guys who did the Magic Putty one. Still hilarious.

Oh no! Someone ate spaghetti in the shower again!

Kaboom! Re-Dub!! - watch more funny videos

Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman

He's either coked up or dying or something.

link to the video

Cabbie and Gerry Dee at all star game

Random artifact of past awesomeness

It was just on Max (aus music channel). I felt the need to share.

Now that's politics!

Kobe... Cabbie...

Uma... Oprah...

Gerry Dee with Young Stars

Executive Pay Cap removed from US Stimulus bill

From Huffingtonpost.com...

I shouldn't be surprised by now. But I still was when I read the article this morning in the Washington Post explaining that the cap on executive pay has been removed from the stimulus bill.
...
I want to know -- no, I demand to know -- who killed this provision? Who argued for taking this cap on executive pay out of the stimulus bill? Do we have a free and strong press in this country? Or are they in on it, too? If not, then find out who did this to us.
...
We're wasting our time here. Just nationalize the damn banks already. Almost all of the top economists are now in agreement that we should take this step. The people who put the money in are the people who own the company -- that's how capitalism works. I'm a die-hard capitalist. I don't want the federal government owning banks for an extended period of time. But what's worse is to continue letting these bankers rob us of our money day in and day out while we sit around like fools.

We buy it, we own it. Kick the clowns out. Run it for a limited amount of time while we stabilize the credit markets. And then sell them off in the free market. Instead of begging the bankers to loosen up credit, we take the banks and do it ourselves.

At the very least, it is unconscionable to get rid of these pay caps. On what grounds do these people think they deserve millions of dollars for bankrupting their companies? How is that capitalism? That's not capitalism, that's cronyism. They pay the politicians, the politicians pay them. They have perverted the whole system.
...
My favorite joke is when people say if we don't continue to pay these clowns millions of dollars they will take their talent elsewhere. I literally laughed out loud after writing that. Please, have at it hoss. Take your talent wherever the fuck you would like.

Wow, that got me all riled up. Couldn't agree more. This is bullshit.

Happy V-day

I do nothing but post links to Cracked.com

Such as this little gem : 8 TV Ads That Hate Women.

Here's a taste:




Because, when a woman's driving, who the fuck knows what might happen.

A sport chat

Jagr to the Oilers? Though the rumour has been denied, these things don't come out of nowhere. However, it sounds pretty far fetched. I'm sure many teams would love to take him down the playoff stretch and the Oilers are far from guaranteed to even be in the playoffs. He would have to clear waivers if they signed him anyway and I would think someone else would pick him up (à la Wade Dubielewicz).

Zednik potted the game tying goal and OT winner last nigh against the Leafs after being down 4-1. I've always liked Richard Zednik. He is a positive player who always looks like he's givin 'er. It has to be one of the stories of the year that a guy who was 5 minutes from death a year ago comes back and produces late game dramatics to win the game. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of his throat being gashed open by a skate in a game against Buffalo. I remember reading about him asking the doctors how soon he could practice again shortly after it happened. Pretty resilient guy. Oh, and he scored one of the goals of the year a few nights ago.

Holy Robinho. He scored the nicest goal I've seen in a while. No big deal though, just dancing around the World Cup champion and FIFA second ranked Italy defence. Haven't seen him do that very often in the Prem lately.

Magic Putty over-dub

Green to White technology!

Mighty Putty Re-Dub - watch more funny videos

Awesome Goal Celebration

Good CFL style scoring celebration. Good thing the ref didn't get confused and brandish cards.

Keano

From ESPN Soccernet...

"I was chasing a dream - the team I supported as a kid, as a kid growing up you always want to play for the team you support.

"But sometimes the grass is not always greener on the other side and that's been the case. I'm back now. That is the past and I am looking to the future."

-Robbie Keane

I guess I've calmed down a tad over this move and I'm liking it more and more as time goes on. I can liken my feelings to when Ryan Smyth left the Oilers. I don't like him anymore, he's nothing, he's gone, his legend is over. But what if he came back to the Oil? Would it be the same. Could I still look at him as being the defining face of the franchise and someone that makes me proud to cheer for this team?

Loyalty in sports can be very fickle, both from fans and players. Love one day, hate the next. I think the thought of your favorite player doing the things you love to please someone else can leave such a bad taste in your mouth it is hard to wash out.

But Keane seems to have recommitted to Spurs and I'm a believer. So I'll do my part. Welcome home Robbie.

Drunk History 5

Drunk History 4 - Featuring Paul Schneider - watch more funny videos

Simple Comedy

Great Music.

HIGH-FIVE INAUGURATION! - watch more funny videos

This kid is FUCKED! If you looked up high in the dictionary, this is what you would see. This is basically a documentary of 94% of the end of my drinking escapades. I can't tell you how many times I've noticed that I have two fingers.

Best Superbowl ads

For those not living stateside for the Grey Cup equivalent adverts. Best one I've seen actually was a Canadian one for Doritos which look like an 8 year old shot it in his Dad's office. It is the first one in the following glory list.

Because I have to...

Maryland surgeons remove donated kidney through vagina
news.yahoo.com — Surgeons removed a woman's kidney through her vagina so she could give it to her ailing niece, an unusual operation they hope will encourage others to donate because it reduces pain, scarring and recovery time.

Less painful eh?

Oh, actors....

Update- This clip has by now (24 hours later) been so over-played here in Australia that seeing it on this blog might be making some of you sick. I would just like to point out that I beat the Australian main-stream media to this clip by at least twelve hours. So suck on that, Australian main-stream media. Of course those of you in North America have probably had this rammed down your throats for like 3 years now. If so, my apologies. By way of making amends, I would like to offer you an amusing audio clip. Of Christian Bale. Yelling. Ah, screw it. It's still hilarious.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This clip is pretty nuts. It's audio of Christian Bale losin' his shit entirely on some dude while on the set for the new Terminator film. My little brother used to be universally known as Harry Spaz when he was little due to the legendary magnitude of his tantrums. This is what happens when Batman has a Harry Spaz style tanty. Listen to it here.

But I only wanna talk! I swear!

WHHHHHHAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT?!

awwwwwwww, zip commmon! bebop. urbmo. whipper snipper. phhhhhhhh. this is.. you've got to. no. no. this can't. ok, really? this is beyond.. let me.. fuck! I feel faint. seriously. someone get this man a doctor. this man over here (arm extended off into the distance with a lone finger pointing right back at me). whhhhhhhh. when? shit. but, but... fuck.

Keane heads to London for Tottenham medical

Isn't coming home supposed to feel good?

Ahh...there's no place like home. Unless you're a Liverpool fan. Because home is hovering somewhere around 4th place. Forever. No matter what.

Now, my apologies must go out in advance to a certain other long-suffering contributor to this wonderful repository of wit and wisdom. For most teams, 3rd (or even 4th for that matter) is nothing to scoff at...but Liverpool is not most teams. Liverpool is (still...somehow) the most successful British team of all time, both in the league (at least until Man U most-likely tie our record this year) AND in Europe (Five times baby. Hey Chelsea, how many European Cups have you got?....oh...).

Liverpool is no ordinary club. As the sign that the players pass under says:



Breathe it in bitches. This. Is. Anfield.

I wish I was born about 15 years earlier. Oh, to witness the splendor that once was the mighty Reds.

Instead...what do I get? The modern annual tradition. Yet another mid-season collapse. From first to third in two weeks, plus two (TWO!!) draws at home against Everton in one week! That alone is enough to put me in a corner sobbing.

I work with Wayne Rooney's uncle. And he is so blue, through and through, he once joked that he was glad Wayne was injured because he couldn't play in Man U's game against Everton. His own nephew! His sister's flesh and blood! Can you imagine what it's like to go to work and encounter that guy when they've even tied Liverpool? I swear, I don't like to hate Tim Cahill. He's an Australian hero: easily the best player we've got. Scored the tying and winning goals against Japan at the World Cup! It tears at my soul!!! But yes!! Liverpool matters more to me than Australia. And I now face Tim Cahill with anger.

What do I get for this loyalty? I'll tell you.

Allow me to set the scene:

For those who don't know (which I'll assume is everyone), I live in Melbourne, Australia. Well...Melbourne is going through it's worst heat wave in a hundred years. Yesterday was 43 degrees (yes, that's celcius, and yes, that's hotter than most people set their hot tubs) and today was 45. I do not have air conditioning in my house.

So...it's really, really, really, really, like, fill-a-bucket-with-my-ball-sweat, hot. And yes, this morning, Liverpool was playing Wigan in an attempt to re-establish some form (after three consecutive draws) and to stay within touch of Manchester United (whom we could tie on points but whom also retains a game in hand). Now... having to work today, I recorded the game and managed to avoid all news of results, planning to reward myself for a hard day of pretending to work by watching my beloved Liverpool maintain their first meaningfull title challenge in as long as I've enthusiastically cheered for them.

So.

Now it's late. The wife has gone to bed. I'm alone with an icy cool gin-and-tonic (or three) watching Liverpool march out to a deserved 1-0 first half lead. The pride is swelling. I'm thinking of our match against Chelsea this weekend and how we can kill off their chances, making it a two horse race between the old foes: Liverpool and Manchester United. We're into the last ten minutes. And what happens?

I'll tell you what happens.

We give up a penalty. Mido scores. Liverpool draws. A close 2nd place becomes a struggling 3rd place and Aston Villa have us squarely in their sights.

I have to agree with this article right here. Benitez has gone insane. I'm losing patience. Big time. Why he played Lucas before Alonso I'll never understand. Without Alonso against Everton in the league, we had no passing fluency whatsoever. We bring him back for the FA Cup and we pass Everton off the park, dominating every stat accept the score sheet (which might have something to do with the fact that Keane wasn't even on the bench. Honestly WTF?)

So what does Rafa do? Leaves Alonso on the bench again, Liverpool struggle to create anything that doesn't come from Benayoun's twinkling toes and Lucas gives up a game-blowing penatly. So...here we are. Fallen to third place. A single point above Aston Villa. And playing Chelsea this weekend.

Ahhh. There's no place like home.

You're kidding, right?

From ESPN Soccernet...

Liverpool's out of favour striker Robbie Keane has been offered an escape route by Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp.

So let me get this straight. Spurs sell a bunch of players during the failed Sergio Ramos experiment and when Redknapp takes the reigns, he buys them all back? First it was Jermaine Defoe, then Pascal Chimbonda, and now there's talk of Robbie Keane! Yes, the same Robbie Keane who has flubbed his way right off the bench of Liverpool (last week anyway).

I don't know what it is, but Spurs have been the most active team in the transfer market. They seem to be linked with a move for everyone. I assume this is due to bounty left over from the sales of Berbatov and Keane. It's kind of nice, but at the same time, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't speak out against it due to the manner it is being carried out.

Harry Redknapp, Spurs' manager and transfer recipient himself last fall, has started lofting names out everywhere. He is accused of unsettling Craig Bellamy from West Ham, before he ultimately left for Man City, and who knows how many others. This is exactly what pissed me off about the transfer of Keane. As soon as Liverpool declared intent publicly, Keane was gone. What a stupid way to do business. And this happens constantly. Spurs' hypocrisy just lends credence to the fact that nothing will ever change.

I really feel for the mid/bottom-sized clubs in a transfer market. They are faced with being forced to sell their players (9 times out of ten it seems, Stewart Downing being the only notable exception recently) and though they are compensated with cash, if they go and find another star player and he performs, that player will just get poached next. Hence nothing really changes very much in the standings from one year to the next in European soccer.

It's sad.

Shameless Pulling Of Blog Material From Cracked- And You Love It

Good Lord. This is too frickin' gold. Almost all of them made me laugh out loud. Yes, I know this will probably be Dugg within an inch of its life, but I just had to share it with y'all right here. It is a list of foreign movie posters for classic big blockbusters. Just to give you a taste, this is a poster for the Steve McQueen classic Bullit. Enjoy it all right here.

Best CNN article ever

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/01/27/flight.of.the.conchords/index.html

Joker and the Curious Monkey

Someone get this man a wheelchair

Sheldon Souray eliminates Craig Weller (yeah, I don't know who he is either).

Props to GWB

Chewbacca Cabinet

John Madden Draws a Penis

Parrot banned from football ground for imitating referee's whistle

This is the story of a parrot who started mimicking the refs whistle and causing chaos.

But I have one question: who would let someone in to a soccer game with a caged parrot? Why would you want to bring a parrot? What the WTF?

If this was the lady's goal, ie. to cause havoc on the field, then why didn't she just bring a whistle and do it herself? Was it supposed to be a mascot? Good luck?

So many questions.

Money Can't Buy Me Love

Me! I'm worth 1 Gazzillion Dollars!

Oh Manchester City, how you entertain me. Or maybe I should thank Juventus. Demanding 100million pounds for Buffon? Genius.

Maybe Kaka turned them down because he found out that they tried to sign Villa, Silva, Henry and Buffon all before him. Or maybe his "god" forbade him from going. But really, who cares? At this rate, I'm expecting Blackburn to ask 1 Trillion Pounds for Santa Cruz. Why not, I say. Let the absurdity continue. For some reason I just enjoy watching Manchester City get screwed. I think it's all their hubris. Yeah...definately the hubris. Mmmmmmm, hubris.

Photo of the day

Hell, if all dogs shows were like this, I'd consider taking one in. Maybe they call this a monster dog show. Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Mamma Mia indeed.

Last night I (for some reason) agreed to watch Mamma Mia.

Three words:
Pierce. Brosnan. Singing.



I may never recover.

Admit it, you'll miss the good ol' boy.

As President-elect Obama nears becoming plain old President Obama, I think it's time to give a glance back at the wonders that were the two terms of George W. Bush. Here, I present to you, Bush: 8 Years in 8 Minutes



Ahhh...he may be the biggest f@*k-up in presidential history, but admit it, you want him at your next bbq.

The Dark Knight- NES Style, Boeeeeeeeeeey!

100 Million #'s for Kaka

Update: ESPN is now reporting that it is indeed a 500,000 pound a week contract offer to Kaka. So an update to the math goes like this: for a 5 year contract, Kaka would cost 46 million pounds a year (~83 Million $ CAD).

More insane.

---

The picture on The Score's Footy Blog pretty much sums it up. Man City are launching a brick shitting amount of money to try and land Kaka. But it looks like Kaka himself has poopoo'ed the move (oh God, I'm proud of that one), saying Jesus wants him to stay. Either that, or Italy's PM / AC owner Silvio Berlusconi would declare war on Brazil.

Despite the "facts" I state above, the truth is that 100,000,000 British Pounds have been offered for Kaka. This would smash the world record transfer fee of 48 Million Pounds paid by Real Madrid for Zidane in 2001. This is a tenth of a billion pounds. This is ~180 Million Canadian Dollars. And most of all, this is insane.

For those who don't know, this transfer fee just gets the player from one team to another. From my understanding of James Sharman's explanation, they then have to negotiate a contract with the player. Kaka's offer is being reported differently from what I've seen, either 250,000 or 500,000 pounds a week (I don't think the latter offer is correct because it is so ludicrous). If the assume the former fee, that would be 13 Million pounds a year for Kaka, or 23.4 Million CAD.

Now admittedly, baseball contract and even NBA contracts can be more ridiculous than this, but they don't come with a giant transfer fee paid up front. So if you average it out over 5 years (if that was the term of Kaka's contract), then Man City would effectively be paying 33 Million pounds a year, or about 60 Million Canadian Dollars, to land him.

Insane.

Gourcuff- Nice Stuff

Kiss My Asus!

UPDATE: Asus is in the red for the first time

Coincidence? I think not!

---

So the RMA request for the Asus Eee PC mini-laptop that I bought for our Australia/NZ trip has been replied to by Asus Customer "Care." If you'll notice in the picture below (which Asus attached to the email), there is damage to the LCD screen rendering the machine useless. What happened to it? I'll never know because I was sleeping as Heather used it during our last night in Auckland and then charged it overnight. The next morning this is what I woke up to:

There was no dropping or smashing or ramming or slamming, so I've been told. So I figured I would try getting it back into Asus' hands and maybe, just maybe, they would be like "our bad, we'll fix it for you." No, instead, they replied going "pay for this." Though this was kind of an expected scenario, given I was told in Melbourne what their policy is on LCD screens (namely: "you fucked up, pay us"), I was kind of hoping they would at least be courteous enough to tell me their policy and why I was being charged for it. Even an attempt at pretend sympathy would have been appreciated.

So the bottom line is, I have to spend another 23% on top of the price I paid for the machine to make it usable again. After I used it for a whole 10 days. After it decided to shit the bed on itself. And I don't even merit an explanation as to why.

Conclusion: I won't be buying from Asus anymore. They were my preferred motherboard manufacturer, but not anymore. I will likely, but very begrudgingly, pay them 115$ dollars (which they didn't mark as being in Canadian or US dollars) and hope to get more use out of this laptop to make it a worthwhile purchase and repair. But this has soured me so much that I recommend to spend your dollars or pounds or euros or rupees or mana elsewhere and declare that ASUS, YOU ARE OFFICIALLY ON NOTICE!

CFL ref unextraordinaire Jake Ireland comes off the board. But the reprieve will likely only last for the offseason before he starts to stick stuff in my craw again.

Man U 0 Derby County 1

What ... a ... cracka ...

Jokers, exposing a diver: Markstrom

UPDATE: YOUTUBE OFFICIALLY SUCKS. In the time it took me to write this post, all these videos got banned. I've tried to replace with whatever shit was left.

The ultimate joker/jackass, now that Avery is gone: Jarko Ruutu. How do you even play with a guy like this? He bites Buffalo brawler Andrew Peters, and lucky to escape alive.



And this, THIS! is not how you fight. This is like a baseball fight. Hilarious. Alex Semin (extra hilarious name) attempts to fight Mark Staal, by beating the back of his head.



And of course, how could any of us forget this gem. Tie your helmet up, son! You're a goalie for God's sakes. Jacob Markstrom tries to swim on the ice.

Mixed Bag

This website provides some insights on "Annoying Body Glitches," including hiccups. I was keen to see if my sure-fire cure was present. It is not. Which is kind of satisfying knowing that I am member of an elite, select few knowledge carriers. It's kind of a cult-ish feeling. A secret society whose sole rite is the vanquishing of hiccups with our mystical elixir. And though that might be overstating it a little, Peanut Butter is the true cure. As Stephen Colbert would say: Peanut Butter is the proven scientific cure for hiccups, one can assume. But it seems that this solution is not commonplace and I've rarely if ever found anyone with this knowledge. Props to Dylan and his family for discovering or sharing this with me, back in the proverbial "day."

As a side not, the one about random jerking (not that kind Kevin) before falling asleep has always been a source of amusement for me being that Heather falls asleep before I do. What I laugh at when she's sleeping can't hurt her.

--------------

I've been torrenting lately, and though I admit I have yet to perfect the art, Sasktel's high speed classic has been punishing me. Actually, it feels like Sasktel has been punishing me. Though they won't say that they have anything against torrenting, I suspect they are complacent with certain hardware deficiencies which help to make it difficult.

Their 2wire modem will grind to a halt because it's session tables / RAM get completely full due to too many established connections. I have already had them come in to add a new modem because the last one had other somewhat related issues. The new one hasn't solved anything wrt torrents though. Of course, Sasktel claims this is a hardware issue and there is nothing they can do about it. Oh, and despite one of their techs telling me that I can correct the modem from being brought to it's knees by power cycling it, I was told today that this won't really work. Thanks. So even if I remove power to my modem, it can somehow maintain knowledge of prior connections. I'd love to know how/why it does that. They recommended changing my torrent client's settings to restrict the number of connections. I'll see later today if this worked.

------------

re: Million Video Games Sellers Worldwide

As I have started up playing Duke Nukem 3d again with the new High Resolution texture package(AWESOME), I have pondered it's place in history. According to VGChartz.com, it didn't even sell a million units. This strikes me, no simile required. This is one of my favorite games of all time and a legendary PC game. Clearly PC games don't rate as well, which makes sense, but look at the other crap on there.

Nintendogs?!!! Number 7 selling video game of all time??!! What has this world come to. And there is 6 or 7 huge selling Pokemon games. I don't know anything about them, but I'm betting all they did was change the colour of the characters in the games and the title. "Pokemon Yellow, where do we go from here? Wait, I've got it! Pokemon Red/Mango Tree Fuchsia!" Oh, spoiled children and your fickle parents.

My niece received Nintendogs as a gift and she sat there playing with virtual dogs. Granted kids are hard to figure out and there are plenty of stupid video games, it's hard to not to stare with a blank look at a child telling her Nintendo DS to "sit!" Having said that, I give this to my children any day of the week before a real dog. Real dogs poop. I'm not making this up.

-------------------

In an act of self-punishment, I eagerly await Future Shop's availability of the ipod touch I'm looking for. Of course they are sold out and will be forever and I hate the place, but I have a 100$ gift card and it needs to get used. Damn it! Give me my toy!

XKCD funny

This site doesn't often make me laugh out loud, but it did this time.

Happy New Year!

Officially, I'm calling New Years day Hangover day from now on. So Happy Hangover day to everyone I guess. Hope you and yours have had a wonderful holiday season filled with cheer and an abundance of happiness stuffed full of family and friends all together in a turkey stuffing topped with love and an angel on top to christen this most cherished of times for everyone to enjoy in peace and reflection of the year that passed and the year that comes ahead which inspires optimism and wonder which is only surpassed by the awe of the gift of life itself now here within, so much about, and thusly.

Now that that crap is out of the way, let's all welcome a new contributor to this here great land of merriment and slackery:

We stayed in for New Years last night, which was probably a good thing because as I was sweeping off the front step, and we have a small step, by the time I was done the other side I started on was full of snow again. And the roads we shit holes. But it was great to see everyone out on the streets this morning powering up their big snowblowers to clear their three car driveways, burning up some fossil fuels and churning out some rpms; Augh, augh, augh (read: Tim Allen's Home Improvement sounds). Like seriously, I only saw one person shoveling, everyone else snowblowing (the guy shoveling was shoveling the street in front of his house, a practice I have never seen before and baffles my mind, but they are shoveling nazis so I'm not surprised). Is everyone that lazy? What's wrong with a little exercise and motor restraint? Having said that, someone has been taking what must be a giant snowblower or cat or something and blowing off the entire areas sidewalks. That is sweet.

Anyway, we all drank our pants off (quite literally in C-dog's case). We played Guitar Hero World Tour until 4 AM. We also played Settler's of Azerbaijan or something like that and everyone's favourite drinking game: black or red. And, AND, we revived the slap fight routine between Kevin and I. Always a crowd pleaser.

Later in the night, I was able to revive an old clayssic (sic) with some wifing. I think the picture speaks for itself. She just found out a few minutes ago that this was done to her:


But the highlight of the night was the World Junior victory against the states. And Gord Miller said it best, we may have witnessed one of the best games we've ever seen. All those years, literally since he was 13 or 14, of following Jon Tavaras is now proving worthwhile. The guy is going to set the record for most goals all time by a Canadian and maybe of any team and already has the most PP goals. He's going to go number one. You can take that to the bank.

I have to interrupt this to say that James Bond Quantum Solace sucked because my dim witted roomate thinks it was OK. I have two words for him: Fiddlesticks!

Anyway, this is on the front page of digg today and it completely echoes my sentiment that it was the save of the year with 3 hours left in it. Since we were all off the couch screaming we completely missed Pierre Maguire's reaction to it. I think the caption on the youtube page says it all:

Also, Pierre McGwire has an orgasm on air.

Oh Pierre. God bless you.

When Stevie G wants some Phil Collins, you better give him some Phil Collins

Ahh, the new year is upon us. As a Liverpool fan, 2008 had finished so nice that it was hard to imagine how 2009 could get any better. Leading the league at Christmas for the first time in 12 years, then closing out the year by flattening Newcastle away 5-1 while Cheslea dropped points against Fulham...The proverbial gauntlet had been well and truly thrown down to our would-be challengers. The red juggernaught was rolling- gaining momentum faster than a fat Ronaldo rolling down a hill (or a career...zing!).

a fat Ronaldo

What could possibly go wrong? Well...Steven Gerrard- Captain Fantastic, our talisman, the scowly-faced scouse legend himself- could, you know, decide to glass a DJ for not playing Phil Collins and promptly get arrested and charged with assault. Oh, you say. That old chestnut.

What in sweet jesus holy hell was Gerrard thinking? I can just imagine Rafa Benitez after receiving the call, his chubby little bottom lip all a-quiver, huddled under the shower, muttering "Phil Collins? But why?" to himself over and over again. He must be absolutely baffled that his captain, one of the most single-minded and committed footballers of his generation, a man so obsessed with winning the Premier League that he probably shits little mini prem trophies, could do something so retarded at all, let alone right now.

There is only one explanation.

The pressure of rescuing Liverpool from mediocrity for so long has finally broken the mighty Stevie G. With the prospect of fulfilling his boyhood dream finally staring him in the face (albeit from a long way away- he still has to squint to see it...maybe that's where all the wrinkles on his forehead come from) he's cracking up. He's having a nervous breakdown.

How else can you go from this:

to this in about 30 seconds:


Even more baffling maybe is how Liverpool as a club, Benitez himself, and the FA have all come out saying they will support Gerrard through this whole thing. Like he's the victim of a clever conspiracy to make him smash someone in the face with a glass. I mean, true...we don't really know what exactly happened yet. Maybe it wasn't him that did it. Everybody deserves a fair hearing. But maybe they should all just shut the fuck up. Seriously. Like wow, this must be a very trying time for him. Never mind the guy missing his teeth and with a new visage a-la Leatherface. If he did glass that guy, then...well...I've lost all respect for him. There. I said it.

At least until we win the title.

Confessions of a Cantakerous Mind

Random thoughts:
1. Get rid of the fucking penny for God's sake. Quit stalling, you know it's going to happen.
2. Oilers on a three game winning streak, in a playoff position prior to tonight's games with games in hand. Turn me on.
3. Claude Lemieux signed by the Ducks. Why is this not front page material? The guy is 43 and hasn't played in the NHL for five years. This is so far out of left field, it is officially in foul territory.
4. Going to get an Ipod touch. It will interfere with my special time with the Star Phoenix on the bus, but I'm sure I'll cope.
5. Can't wait for the Winter Classic at Wrigley on Hang Over day 2009. As long as there isn't interruptions to clean the ice every 2 minutes due to a snowstorm.
6. I need to make my left leg bigger.
7. Kings of Leon.
8. Torrenting brings my internet connection to its knees. Should get more bandwidth but really don't want to pay for it. Also want PVR but also don't want to pay.
9. All soccer is going all wrong. Spurs losing. Cristiano Ronaldo not scoring at will for my fantasy team. Though Edgar scored in another big fixture this year. Hope he breaks into Newcastle. Canada needs a quality centre back, at least one anyway.
10. Caught KD in our hockey pool tonight if things stay the way they are. Time to practice my sass.

MS Ctrl-C

Batman Bitch Slap

I know I've seen this before, but it is still hilarious.

Funnytacular

Ooooookay

The Hockey Song

I'm sorry, but 1940's sounding hockey theme music does not fit with TSN's hockey image. It doesn't even feel like the same song anymore. And cutting to commercial, they are sometimes using unrecognizable parts of the song anyway. It's just weird. Stop it. That's enough! I mean common.

And what's with splitting up McGuire and Gord Miller. They are like twins. And I know I'm one of the few, but I like Pierre and I thought he and Gord worked very well together. Now don't get me wrong, I've always loved Chris Cuthbert and Ferraro is great too. But why split up a good thing. It's like taking the iced out of the tea.

But no matter what, they are still head over heels better than god awful CBC. To go along with poor broadcasting production, I now have to listen to Mark Lee every Saturday. Really? REALLY?!! It was bad enough when it was just first round of the playoffs. Now I don't know what I'm going to do. I might break the mute button on the remote. And you pair him with Marc Crawford. He sounds like a pubescent teenager! It just makes me sick. They don't have the hockey song anymore, don't have much talent, Don Cherry's a douche, and it breaks my heart but Ron Maclean is starting to sound more and more like Cherry's mouthpiece every day. Where's the balls Ron? Sounds like a typical ref, letting the players call the shots and claiming he's the one whose really in charge.

But there are more optimistic things to think about tonight, Gobama.