You Can't Teach That

Let's Talk About The Tree of Life...

2011-12-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

(Caution: May contain spoilers and spoiler-like substances.)

You may or may not have heard of this one. Those of you who follow Cannes would have. It won the Palme D'Or this year, but the crowd reaction was that of loud boos and raucous cheers.

I have to admit, I didn't quite know what to make of this one. For the first half hour, nothing really happens. Then it goes into this sequence about the origins of the planet and evolution, and there's this bit with dinosaurs…it goes on and on and on and on, and I was fast-forwarding and thinking "Oh my God, this will never end!" The plot did get going eventually, and progressed nicely right up until about 45 minutes left, and then it virtually screeched to a halt again. I couldn't quite figure out what the kid's problem was anyway.

There are ties to the story of Job also that I couldn't quite get at first. Sure, the film is partly about the grieving process and why bad things happen to good people. This is brought together at the ending, when it seems that grace wins out over nature, but I think A Serious Man did a better job of navigating this theme. "Receive with simplicity everything which happens to you."

There's quite a bit of raw emotion in the screenplay. I kind of felt bad for the actors because the characters are virtually unplayable. Sean Penn has said so himself: "The screenplay is the most magnificent one that I've ever read but I couldn't find that same emotion on screen. [...] A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact."

From a technical standpoint, the cinematography is incredible. I haven't seen anything quite like it, except in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Alexandre Desplat's score, although a bit high-brow, also brings it together nicely. And readers of my movie reviews know that screenplay, score, and cinematography are the three main ingredients to a good film. So, needless to say, I'm counting myself among those who enjoyed it. But, Terrance Malick also takes being poetic and preachy to a whole new level, so be forewarned.

Vancouver Island Beer Championship

2011-07-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

So three weeks ago, I visited Victoria, B.C. for four days and during that time, I tasted 61 different beers in pursuit of the very best that Vancouver Island had to offer in terms of local beer.

Keep in mind that this competition should be taken with a grain of salt for many reasons, including:

1) Some beers were tasted on site and others were tasted using market samples, and often in differing packages

2) Beers tasted were in different sample sizes, glasses, and temperatures.

3) Only beers good enough to be identified as finalists were revisited later

4) I don't normally taste very much craft beer, but I know what I like.

That said, here are the competitors:

Canoe Brewpub, Marina & Restaurant

Beaver Brown Ale

Red Canoe Lager

River Rock Bitter

Siren's Song Pale Ale

Summer Honey Wheat Ale

Driftwood Brewery

Crooked Coast Amber Ale

Driftwood Ale

Farmhand Ale

Fat Tug IPA

White Bark Ale

Gulf Islands Brewing

Salt Spring Island Heatherdale Ale

Lighthouse Brewing Company

Beacon IPA

Lighthouse Lager

Race Rocks Amber Ale

Riptide Pale Ale

Phillips Brewing Company

Amnesiac Double IPA

Blue Buck

Centennial IPA

HopCircle IPA

Hoperation Tripel Cross Belgian IPA

Instigator 2010 Doppelbock

Krypton Rye PA

Longboat Chocolate Porter

Raspberry Wheat

Service 1904

Skookum Cascadian Brown Ale

Slipstream Cream Ale

Wheatking Hefeweizen

Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub

Blue Bridge Double Pale Ale

Casked Nut Brown Ale

Discovery Ale

Extra Special Bitter

India Pale Ale

Jameson's Scottish Ale

Lion's Head Cascadia Dark Ale

Northwest Ale

Peach Hefeweizen

Summer Ale

Tsarist Imperial Stout

Swans

Appleton Brown Ale

Arctic Ale

Buckerfield's Extra Special Bitter

Extra IPA

Oatmeal Stout

Old Towne Lager

Pandora Pale Ale

Raspberry Ale

Riley's Scotch Ale

Witbier

The Moon Under Water

Lunar Pale Ale

Moonlight Blonde Ale

Summer Ale

Tranquility IPA

Vancouver Island Brewing

Double Decker IPA

Hermann's Dark Lager

Honey Ale

Phoenix Lager

Piper's Pale Ale

Sea Dog Amber Ale

Spyhopper Honey Brown

Vancouver Islander

Fortunately, there was no beer in that list which was bad enough to be singled out as undrinkable, but there can only be one winner. Here are the finalists:

3rd Place:

Summer Ale - The Moon Under Water Brewpub

This one has only been out for a few weeks. I come never to expect greatness from a seasonal beer, but this one is different. You can never go wrong with Saaz hops, they have a place in any beer. It's a bit wheaty at first, but that goes away after the third or fourth sip. It's also just a little mouthcoating and the bitterness lingers a bit more than I would expect from something which is supposed to be a light beer. However, with a 4.2% ABV, you'd have no problem putting away 3 or 4 during the summer. The unfortunate bit about The Moon Under Water is that it's a bit out of the way and closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but the food and the beers are both good.

2nd Place:

Driftwood Ale - Driftwood Brewery

Driftwood is a place that's serious about its beer. It's a lot smaller in scale than its more established neighbours over at Vancouver Island Brewing and Phillips Brewing, and it seems they don't do as many tours either. But Kevin and Tim over there were nice enough to show us around, even though it looked like there was a lot going on at the time. Their flagship brand, Driftwood Ale, has a nice aroma of fruity hops and good quality bitterness that lingers slightly on aftertaste. Aside from that, it's fairly clean, clears quickly, and pretty dry. Something that's refreshing and easy to drink.

1st Place:

Farmhand Ale - Driftwood Brewery

Honestly, I've never had a bad Belgian ale. I'm convinced that the secret to this gem is good yeast. It reminded me of Unibroue's La Fin Du Monde at first...it doesn't kick your ass, take your name, and get you drunk like La Fin Du Monde, but it is still a little stronger than most at 5.5% ABV. You'll get oranges/coriander and cloves/spice on the nose which might convince some of you amateurs that it's closer to Rickard's White or Hoegaarden. It's more grainy/more wheaty than those two and clears more quickly as well. Maybe a little heavy for the style, but I think it works for them. Very slightly drying on the finish. I think this one will satisfy the trendy beer drinker who enjoys all the weird fruit-infused shit that passes for craft beer these days, and the beer snob/Bavarian purist of 1516 at the same time. That means this one's a winner.

Let's Talk About Cars 2...

2011-06-18T20:35:00.000-07:00

In just six days, we'll be treated to the twelfth feature film produced by the studio that makes critical and financial hit after hit. I'm talking, of course, about Pixar Animation Studios, and its latest work of art: Cars 2.

Last year, when I was doing my countdown of Pixar's feature films, I was asked if I could pick one from the library to watch, which one would I watch? Well, I chose Cars. I said it had a children's literature charm to it, despite not being terribly insightful and having braindead voice acting. However, I picked out a few more themes since then: the contrast of small town vs. big city values and some social commentary on transportation infrastructure, to name a couple. But, in short, I like it because it's fun.

I have some questions about what goes on in the Cars universe. Since many of the places in Cars resemble real settings (Peach Springs, AZ = Radiator Springs,) and the characters resemble real car models, my theory is that the characters live in a parallel dimension which is ruled by sentient machines. The machines control fully automated factories which produce the cars. How, then, are the insects portrayed as VW bugs, and why are there children? How do cars grow up? Why are the tractors and farm equipment portrayed as farm animals? These are the questions I ask myself as I lay awake at night.

Anyway, in my blog post last year, I speculated as to whether or not Pixar had jumped the shark, based on the success of Toy Story 3. Now, I have some reservations about the Cars 2:

1) In my review of Cars, I said "That Mater character really grated on my nerves by the end." Mater was around a little bit too much when I felt more of the focus needed to be on Doc and Sally, but he was still a supporting character. The way I read Cars 2, however, is that Mater is central to the plot, and it looks like Lightning is the supporting character. If this is true, it's going to drive me nuts. Your comic relief CANNOT be central to the plot and he cannot be one-dimensional. Otherwise, you end up with a Star Wars Episode One Jar Jar Binks disaster. Dan L. Whitney is the perfect voice for a backwater hick, but I have to question whether he has the range to carry a Pixar film. And while we're at it, let's talk about Owen Wilson, who was just as bad. I don't so much mind Lightning as a character, but it seemed like Owen was just going through the motions. Just listen to every time Lightning laughs; it sounds so forced. In fact, Mater actually carries Lightning through more than a few scenes. Granted, Owen was going through a serious bout of depression at the time...

2) I have to wonder if they made this film to renew all the merchandising licenses. I called Cars "Pixar's shill film," and even if you go into a Disney Store today, you'll see Cars shit everywhere. Literally, everywhere. And literally, shit! They sell Cars potty chairs and Cars diapers at the Superstore by my place. I'm dead serious. Do you see WALL-E diapers anywhere? No, you don't, even though in the grand scheme of the film, it kind of makes sense! Even Up has diddly dick for merchandise. (Granted, nobody wants to play with misanthropic old man action figures.) Cars merchandise had sales of $1 billion a mere 5 months after the film was released, so who can blame them for trying, right? They also need to promote a new theme park.

3) I think this movie panders to a small demographic. Cars was made five years ago, and its target audience was boys age 1-10. That means a sizeable chunk of Cars' original audience may be too old for this one. The Toy Story franchise was so successful because there were a lot of things to keep the adults into it, and the 3rd film also had nostalgic value for many. Cars, on the other hand, is a good movie to park your kids in front of to keep them busy for a couple of hours while you did something else. However, since the merchandise has managed to hold its own, that leads me to believe that the franchise has renewed its audience through DVD sales.

4) Doc Hudson is not in this one, and that's going to hurt this film more than you can imagine. Doc was the voice of reason who kept this film down to earth. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of over the top car jokes and a big race at the end with no emotion. Cars would have been an epic failure without him. I suppose Slinky was back for Toy Story 3 despite the noticeable difference in voice (Jim Varney vs. Blake Clark), so who knows.

5) John Lasseter was brought on as co-director very late in the game. This leads me to believe that this one suffered from the same quality issues that Toy Story 2 initially suffered from. I suppose that Toy Story 2 became infinitely better once Lasseter took over, but at the same time, Pixar could use the fresh blood. I think a lot of people thought that Lasseter was too complacent with Cars, and in some ways, it comes off as a pet project. And since Cars 2 was conceived by Lasseter when he was in Europe promoting the first Cars, this one could also have that pet project feel. Besides, the guy doesn't even need to direct anymore...he's the head of two animation studios. Why not hand it over to the next director in line?

6) The setting is one of the most appealing aspects of the film, and the real heart of the film is with the bygone town on Route 66. Radiator Springs will be mostly gone in Cars 2, as the settings include 3 different countries. So it's still very much a story of setting, but the focus will be more on the culture shock aspects. Who knows, they might find a way to make it work, but you certainly can't rest on the characters, like the Toy Story sequels did. Woody and Buzz have become timeless, classic characters. Lightning and Mater? They're more like flavours of the week.

So there you have it. The expectations for Cars 2 are very much dialled down, and I hope to be pleasantly surprised. Contrast that with Toy Story 3, where the expectations were sky high and were exceeded. Fortunately for the Pixar awards shelf, Dreamworks is putting forward Kung Fu Panda 2 and Warner Bros. is sending out Crappy Feet 2. Not exactly the best of efforts from either studio.

I'll be back with my review in a week or two.

83rd Academy Awards Predictions

2011-02-26T21:55:00.000-08:00

Last year, I was 16/24. My all-time record is 20/24. "Should win" picks are who I would vote for if I was a voting member of the Academy. "Will win" picks are who will actually take home the hardware.

Best Picture:

Should win: Toy Story 3

Will win: The King's Speech

My Pixar bias is clearly showing (or maybe that's animation bias…How To Train Your Dragon was the second best movie I saw all year and clearly Dreamworks Animation's finest work.) If you look below at my other picks, you'd think I'd have The King's Speech as my "should win." It has all the ingredients I place high value on (screenplay, score, and cinematography) and has great acting on top of that. However, I still think TS3 was the best film of the year, maybe just because I grew up with the first two films, and because it is so well-written.

I'm not going to come in here and complain like I always do that the crop of movies this year really sucked. I was quite surprised that TS3 didn't pick up the Golden Globe nomination, seeing as how the slightly inferior Toy Story 2 actually won the damn thing, even beating Being John Malkovich.

As usual, we eliminate everything that wasn't nominated for film editing (127 Hours, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, True Grit, The Kids Are All Right) and we pick one from what's left. Black Swan is too bizarre, Inception was released too early, and The Fighter had good acting, but not much else. That leaves The King's Speech and The Social Network. And really, it's as close as I can ever remember it. So The Social Network possesses the Globe and the NBR award, along with most of the awards in the critics' circles, but The King's Speech has SAG, DGA, PGA, and BAFTA power behind it. While BAFTA is inherently biased toward the British films and have made some really screwy picks for Best Film over the years, the Producers' Guild has been on the same page as the Academy for the last three years and 14 of the last 20 years. Roger Ebert said it best: "A British historical drama about a brave man struggling to overcome a disability and then leading his people into World War II looks better to the academy than a cutting-edge portrait of hyperactive nerds." I'm going against the Vegas odds and leaving the 3:2 favourite on the table in exchange for the 5:2 film: The King's Speech.

Best Director:

Should win: Tom Hooper

Will win: David Fincher

Well, if I can't have Lee Unkrich, that makes it a tough call. I really wanted to pick Darren Aronofsky, just because of how much Black Swan scared the shit out of me. I pick Hooper because he has three actors in the film with legitimate shots of winning. But my prediction is that Fincher's name will be called. Maybe I'm just hedging my bets a little bit since I'm unsure of Best Picture. It has only happened three times in the last decade where a director won and their film lost. (Ang Lee, Roman Polanski, and Steven Soderbergh) Fincher winning wouldn't bother me at all…Fight Club is one of my favourite movies of all time. Still, the smart money is definitely on Hooper since he won the DGA.

Best Actress:

Should win: Natalie Portman

Will win: Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman for that white hot lesbian scene. That's all I can say. Playing a dual personality role can be tricky, so she deserves it. I howled when Bening lost to Swank in 2000, denying American Beauty the Big 5, so I'd be happy if she got some redemption. But I do think Julianne Moore was better in Bening in The Kids Are All Right.

Best Actor:

Should win: Colin Firth

Will win: Colin Firth

It's Firth's to lose, clearly. I dare say it was the finest male performance since Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood three years ago. James Franco overacted, nobody could understand Jeff Bridges, and nobody saw Biutiful. I could watch Firth's final speech scene over and over…it's hard to imagine being on the edge of my seat for five minutes of monologue, but that is exactly what happened. Potential upset is Jesse Eisenberg. He's not entirely undeserving, but he'll only win if it so happens that the Academy is heaping praise onto The Social Network. But I don't think they will.

Best Supporting Actress:

Should win: Hailee Steinfeld

Will win: Melissa Leo

I think the category is weak this year. Hailee Stanfield belongs in the leading category. Nobody saw Animal Kingdom. My pick for Leo is risky, because for some stupid reason, people nominated for the same film split the support, even though Amy Adams deserves no votes at all. Helena Bonham Carter was just kind of there…I think she was upstaged by Rush and Firth.

Best Supporting Actor:

Should win: Geoffrey Rush

Will win: Christian Bale

This is risky. I believe that the Academy may not vote for Bale because of his tirade against some poor cinematographer while filming Terminator: Salvation, but maybe I just think that because I don't like the guy. But I never let things like that get in the way. I'm partial to drug addict loser performances, although Bale's kind of weakened in the second act. I prefer scummy characters with no redeeming qualities. Geoffrey Rush could win…we know the Academy likes him. I think he benefitted from a great screenplay more than anything.

Best Original Screenplay:

Should win: The King's Speech

Will win: The King's Speech

I'd be really surprised to see anything else win. The Academy loves a biopic, and so do I. It's pretty tricky to write stammers into a screenplay…only the Coen Brothers do it better. David Seidler is a 73 year old guy who hasn't really written anything else, but looking at the other four nominees, I don't think he has anything to worry about.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Should win: Toy Story 3

Will win: The Social Network

I should note that my string of 15 consecutive correct predictions in the writing categories came crashing down last year, because for some stupid reason, I thought the academy would pick Up in the Air over Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. So, time to start anew. Toy Story 3 has credibility as three of its four writers are past Oscar winners. Michael Arndt's screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine was one of the best in years so I'd be delighted if he were to win again. Unfortunately, there are three other all-star screenwriters nominated in this category (Aaron Sorkin and Ethan and Joel Coen.) The Coens have won twice, so maybe there's some upset potential here. But, if they couldn't beat The Hurt Locker with their script for A Serious Man then I don't know what.

The rest!

Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland

Cinematography: True Grit

Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland

Documentary Feature: Inside Job

Documentary Short Subject: The Warriors of Qiugang

Film Editing: The Social Network

Foreign Language Film: Incendies

Makeup: The Wolfman

Music (Original Score): The Social Network

Music (Original Song): "We Belong Together", from Toy Story 3

Short Film (Animated): Madagascar, Carnet de Voyage

Short Film (Live Action): God of Love

Sound Editing: Inception

Sound Mixing: The Social Network

Visual Effects: Inception

Let's Talk About How To Train Your Dragon...

2011-02-21T21:05:00.000-08:00

Hmmm...been awhile since I last wrote something. Is it a little bit odd that it's about a kid's movie? Maybe not...you may remember my Pixar series...

I watched How To Train Your Dragon because it has two nominations this year (Best Music, Origianl Score, and Best Animated Feature.) Since Toy Story 3 is a lock for Best Animated Feature, I was mainly tuned in to the musical score to see if it had any chance. If you've seen a lot of movies with me, you'll know I place high value on three things above all: the first is a good screenplay, the second is musical score, and the third is cinematography.

Let's talk a bit about DreamWorks Animations before we go on. Throughout their entire history, they've been completely hit or miss. We've seen everything from them...critical and box office disasters (The Road to El Dorado and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas,) watered-down sell-out sequels (Shrek The Third and Shrek: Forever After,) and works which were critically acclaimed (Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Chicken Run.) Needless to say, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to get with How To Train Your Dragon, seeing as how Aardman Animations wasn't around to bail anyone out this time, so I decided to forego a trip to the theatre to see it and waited almost 11 months from its release to rent it.

It would appear I owe DreamWorks an apology.

What a surprise. I was not expecting anything with a sharp script, dazzling aerial scenes that must have been spectacular in 3D, and a soundtrack which gave me goosebumps and raised the film to a whole different level. Some critics have compared the flying scenes to Avatar and have labelled this film as being "Avatar for simpletons." Could they have spent more time on story and character development? Yes, absolutely. The film didn't find it's center for a long time, but when it did, that center was so good that it's easy to see why critics went crazy for it. What's different is that the dragons themselves are given a level of complexity to the extent that I was drawing comparisons between the main character and the dog whisperer (dragon whisperer, in this case.) This is what sets Dragon apart from Avatar, which was visual glitz and glitter, but emotionally shallow. And if you look at the most difficult things to do in animation, this film had them all: humans, hair, fabric, hair and fabric blowing through the air, hair and fabric underwater...

And, if nothing else, they've pre-empted Brave, which appears to follow similar themes. Recall that Antz was released before A Bug's Life, although the latter eventually pulled ahead in box office receipts.

And wouldn't you know it...DreamWorks intends to drive the film into the ground by making not just one, but two sequels and possibly more, to the same extent that the Shrek, Ice Age, and Madagascar franchises lost all their integrity. For shame, Jeff Katzenberg, for shame.

I'll be back with my Oscar picks at the end of the week...there's still some short film homework which needs to be done.

Envisioning Villeneuve

2010-08-10T18:30:00.000-07:00

As most Edmontonians are aware (unless you have been on Mars for the past year, with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears,) Edmonton City Centre Airport is closing. This has raised a lot of questions and uncertainty for a lot of folks, especially those who work at the airport, but the one that I am asking most often is "What will happen to the small general aviation aircraft using the airport?"

The most common response I get is "Traffic can easily be accommodated at Villeneuve."

For those who don't know what "Villeneuve" is, this is Villeneuve:

If you've never been there, it's located 10 minutes from the west city limit of St. Albert on highway 633 (Villeneuve Road) or accessible north from the Yellowhead on highway 44, a 37 minute car trip from downtown Edmonton.

Having flown into many airports around Alberta and Saskatchewan during my nine years as a private pilot, it's my opinion that Villeneuve, as it exists today in the above photo, is not much to look at. The runways are short, there's no running water on site, and there's not a great deal of hangar space. The site does have a lot of potential, but if the City Centre Airport were shutdown completely tomorrow, I would have serious doubts about the long term survival of the general aviation industry in the area.

I propose completing three actions which will help general aviation stay viable and relevant in the Capital Region:

1. Expansion of Villeneuve to include the following:

-Runway 08/26 widened to 150' and lengthened to 6000'

-Runway 16/34 lengthened to 5000', intersecting with 08/26

-A category I instrument landing system on runway 26 (back course approach on 08)

-A permanently constructed terminal building, replacing the modular building which currently serves as the terminal

-Running water on the site

-ATC hours extended. Right now, tower closes at 9 PM. Needs to be open until at least 11 PM and start earlier.

In order to attract and retain businesses, the facility itself must be attractive. I believe the location of Villeneuve is a red herring; Springbank Airport is a 30 minute drive from downtown Calgary and has come along in leaps and bounds over the last five years. This is because Calgary Airport Authority is making good on its ambitious 20 year plan for the site, which aims to increase the airport's capacity to more than 300,000 movements per year.

I think closure of Edmonton City Centre Airport would face much less opposition if the city immediately reached out to Sturgeon County and Edmonton Airports and got Villeneuve going. Fixed dates, fixed assets. Saying "Here's a drawing of T-Hangars (the aviation equivalent of the 1200 sq. ft home) and a promise of someday" doesn't count. To make it viable takes effort, and the future growth plan on the Edmonton Airports webpage is not it.

One really important thing to note is that the airport is currently using only 162 of 573 hectares. This leaves a huge amount of land for future runways and other developments as needed. Given that the Edmonton City Centre Airport occupies 217 hectares, there is obviously potential to turn Villeneuve into a much bigger and better facility than ECCA.

Of course, the ILS and the ATC are up to NavCanada, which is a private not-for-profit company, but I strongly believe they'll be more willing to make the investment if Edmonton Airports makes the investment.

Do the market analysis, review other successful GA airports, hire somebody to get it done.

2. The reduction of the landing fee at YEG for aircraft with fewer than 6 seats.

Edmonton International Airport offers great services to GA aircraft already. It's too bad that these aircraft are charged a minimum fee of $50 to land at the International to take advantage of said services.

Edmonton International can also handle a large increase in traffic. In fact, Springbank is a busier airport traffic-wise, and charges no landing fee to all piston aircraft. Low landing fees encourage greater use by general aviation aircraft according to COPA which in turn pours dollars into the airport businesses and the local economy by extension. In fact, landing fees have been shown to actually decrease airport revenue. For further details, please see COPA's guide to public airports. This report also mentions Edmonton City Centre, which, in 2006 sought a move to encourage light aircraft to use the field, driving up land lease revenues. Edmonton Airports eliminated the $15/seat landed seat fee for private aircraft with six or fewer seats and eliminated the landing fee for aircraft with four or fewer seats.

I would actually like to see the landing fee for piston aircraft at Edmonton International abolished completely for a period of five years following complete closure of City Centre Airport and/or while waiting for upgrades at Villeneuve to be completed. At a minimum, I would like to see it immediately reduced and restructured to a level that is more in line with comparably sized airports throughout Canada.

3. The creation of a "General Aviation Capital Reserve Fund" by the City of Edmonton.

The City has indicated in reports that the City Centre Airport would have required $35M in capital investment in the near future for the repaving of both runways. It is important for the city to realize that it cannot shirk its obligations to provide general aviation infrastructure in the Capital Region by closing the airport. That's why I propose setting up a capital reserve fund of $35M using the proceeds from the sale of the YXD lands, which have been quoted as being worth up to $500M. Edmonton Airports has already offered tenants at City Centre $20 million toward the construction of new hangars. This new fund would be designed to complete additional general aviation capital projects at all three airports (EIA, Cooking Lake, and Villeneuve) in the region.

I know that these actions will do nothing to satisfy those who want a return of scheduled service to Edmonton City Centre Airport, but in the meantime, it will go a long way toward mending fences with an industry that believes it is misunderstood and undervalued by the city. In fact, I believe that if something to these effects had been done prior to the July 8, 2009 vote of city council, the lawsuits and the petition might not have happened.

In any case, I strongly encourage you to attend the free Fly-In and barbecue at Villeneuve on August 21, check out the facility, and let the representatives from Edmonton Airports know that you support the growth and sustainability of general aviation in the region.

Let's Talk About Inception...

2010-07-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

(Note: The post below is certified spoiler free. Not that you'd understand what the hell I was talking about anyway if you haven't seen the film)

Let's talk about the genre first: simulated reality. I admit I'm a bit partial to it. It seems to be hit and miss with the critics. The Matrix and The Truman Show were very well received, but others like The Island, Vanilla Sky, and Lost Highway were panned. And there are some noted problems with some simulated reality films: they're pretentious and overly complicated with no real insights, have inconclusive endings, and make use of deus ex machina. Inception is guilty of these, but 84% of the critics love it. Why? The plot is so dense that it loses the audience from time to time, but it's so entertaining that repeated viewings to fill in some of the missing pieces don't seem like a chore. Even if the viewer completely tunes out, it is still good enough on its own as a big, loud action movie.

For this project to work, Christopher Nolan had quite a challenge. For a science fiction film to be believable, it must create itself a set of rules and never deviate from them. However, for a psychological thriller (especially one involving dreams,) there can be no rules; the possibilities must be limitless. It walks a very fine line between creating a world of unreality, and needing the audience to buy into it. It doesn't CGI you to death (which was part of Avatar's problem) and uses just enough to make its point.

I picked up two symbols in the film that warrant discussion: chess, and mazes. The chess references are easy to spot at first glance: Robert Fischer, Jr., is of course a reference to the chess Grandmaster Bobby J. Fischer, and Ariadne picks a pawn as her "totem." The maze references are a little less subtle. The characters need to create maze-spaces in their subject's dreams so new thoughts can slip in unperceived. It's curious that the logo to Christopher Nolan's production company, Syncopy, resembles a maze, as does the logo for Legendary Pictures, the film's other studio. Then, I recalled in Greek mythology about the Labyrinth. Theseus was guided through the maze by Ariadne (Ellen Page's character's name) who provided him with a skein of thread so he could find his way out again. In logic, Ariadne's thread refers to a method of solving a problem with multiple apparent means of proceeding. Ariadne's thread is heavily used by Artificial Intelligence in game-playing situations, notably chess programs.

The choice of the song "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" is an interesting choice for a couple of reasons: Marion Cotillard, who played Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose was also in this film, and it's ironic because DiCaprio's character is filled with guilt and regret. It's the reason he's such a head-case. Some of the lyrics to the song, loosely translated, include "I am not concerned with the past, with my memories I set fire to my pains and pleasures, I don't need them anymore."

So, what's the verdict? I think it will pick up nominations for art direction, cinematography, visual effects, sound editing, and sound mixing. If it picks up a nomination for film editing (and it should…making those time-bending scenes line up must have been a holy nightmare) then it will also snag director and picture nominations to go with it. And if it were up to me, Marion Cotillard for supporting actress.

And if all else fails, know that Armond White hated it. Therefore, it has to be good.

Pixar Feature Film #5: Toy Story 3

2010-06-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

#5: Toy Story 3 (2010)

Director: Lee Unkrich

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Ned Beatty, Michael Keaton, Estelle Harris, Timothy Dalton, Bonnie Hunt, Wallace Shawn,

It is complete, dudes. And it was everything I thought it would be. Luckily, I made it through the entire film without needing the tissues, despite the fact that I almost cried watching the trailer.

Toy Story 3 has taken in $41 million on its opening day alone, which has to be some kind of record. Unfortunately, the Tomatometer rating has dropped to 99%, owing to a couple of hacks named Armond White and Cole Smithey, the self-proclaimed "smartest film critic in the word." The criticism is mostly dedicated toward the scary content in the film that deserves a PG-rating. Newsflash! Most Disney movies are scary! Snow White and the Seven Dwarves? Sleeping Beauty? The Lion King? Aladdin? Terrifying, am I wrong?

Unlike the first two films, this one is more plot focused instead of character focused. There is seemingly not much change in the characters as a result of the events and doesn't reveal a lot in the way of backstory. I thought we'd learn more about Woody. Since "Woody's Roundup" last aired in 1957, that would make Woody 53 years old. What was he doing between 1957 and 1995? I had a theory about this; that Woody previously belonged to Andy's father. That's supported by Andy's mom declaring that Woody was "an old family toy" at the yard sale in Toy Story 2. But Andy's dad has never appeared in any film, and isn't even in any of Andy's family photos. So that dashes that theory. However, the Pixar staff was clever enough to plant a YouTube commercial for Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear and distort it to make it look like a VHS recording that came from the 80s. Check it out. It had me fooled; I went in thinking this was a toy that actually existed. The prison break sub-plot is brilliant, though, and that makes it all worth it.

The voice acting is very good, but it's mostly the new characters who steal the show. Ned Beatty is terrific as Lotso, and Timothy Dalton as Mr. Pricklepants deserved a bigger role. Animator Bud Luckey also nails the role of Chuckles the Clown.

It certainly earns its place in the Pixar pantheon. It would have been easy to turn this film into an easy cash-grab. In all the ways that Shrek has gone downhill due to greed, Toy Story keeps its integrity. I'm hoping it picks up a nomination for Best Picture. I think the screenplay deserves consideration (Michael Arndt, of Little Miss Sunshine fame, as well as Stanton and Lasseter) as does Randy Newman's musical score.

I have assigned it the #5 spot, making it just slightly better than Toy Story 2, but couldn't quite match Monsters, Inc. Also, a little disappointed there was no teaser trailer for Cars 2. Come on, Pixar!

Pixar Feature Film #1: WALL-E

2010-06-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally here. In a few short hours, Toy Story 3 premieres across North America as the first midnight showings roll out. I will hopefully be out to see it this weekend, and you'll know I'm there if some nerd starts clapping and cheering when Luxo Jr. hops onto the screen. Early reviews are unanimously positive. It looks like Toy Story 3 may cruise to 100% positive ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, marking a perfect score for the whole trilogy, which would be a record that would stand for all time. At this point, I'm dying to see some risk their credibility by giving this film a bad review. Come on, critics. I DARE you.

And now, for the best Pixar movie made to date:

1. WALL-E (2008)

Director: Andrew Stanton

Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver

"Another triumph for Pixar and Andrew Stanton!" was what I wrote in my initial review of this film. And indeed, it is a great achievement for Stanton to have made the top two of the list.

Unlike most environmentally-themed films, WALL-E doesn't disappear completely up its own asshole with messages. It doesn't shove it down your throat. The ecological agenda is plain to see, but the mass consumerism in the film is because of too close a tie between big government and big business. Also, the lack of dialogue in the film allows it to transcend language barriers and make it appealing to both adults and children. The first "conversation" between WALL-E and EVE takes place 22 minutes into the film, and the first human conversation takes place 39 minutes in. There are numerous biblical references as well. EVE is named so because WALL-E's loneliness reminded Stanton of Adam. Eve has also drawn comparisons to the dove in the story of Noah's Ark.

Stanton's own definition of the film's theme is that "irrational love defeats life's programming." We see WALL-E who is cleaning up garbage alone every day for the past seven hundred years, never questioning why. EVE comes in and will initially have nothing to do with WALL-E, instead focusing solely on her objective. Stanton argues that we all fall into our ruts and habits either consciously or unconsciously to avoid messy things like having relationships or dealing with other people.

WALL-E snagged one Oscar for Best Animated Feature and had six more nominations: Best Music, Original Score, Best Music, Original Song (Peter Gabriel's "Down to Earth") Best Sound, Best Sound Editing, and Best Original Screenplay. It certainly deserved a Best Picture nomination and should have WON the damn thing, given the forgettable crop that year: Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, Milk, Frost/Nixon, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Also, the Los Angeles Film Critics named it Best Picture of 2008. However, this one has the dubious distinction of being shut out at the Annies, and is the only Pixar film to be shut out besides A Bug's Life. The fact that this happened, along with Kung Fu Panda running the table, is unholy. How could they get it so right by picking Cars over Happy Feet and then fuck it up so badly two years later? What, were they smoking crack up their asses?

So this concludes my series on Pixar. If you haven't seen all the films on this list, I would highly recommend you do so. And go see Toy Story 3. I'll comment on it once I've seen it and place it on the list.

Pixar Feature Film #2: Finding Nemo

2010-06-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

2. Finding Nemo (2003)

Director: Andrew Stanton

Starring: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Stephen Root, Geoffrey Rush, Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson

It seems as though Finding Nemo is Pixar's prestige or flagship piece, as it was their most commercially successful effort, and I believe a lot of people have seen this who maybe haven't browsed the rest of the library. Its gross was $867,893,978, which was nearly unheard of at the time for a G-rated film. It is the best selling DVD in the world with over 40 million sold. Unlike oddball films like Ratatouille and Up, this film is almost universally endearing. It really defined the classic Pixar modus operandi of a character's journey toward self-improvement; the appreciation of friends and family through venturing out into the real world. There is suspense throughout this one, but the real heart of the movie is in the message: the difficulty and importance of letting children develop their own identities. The one flaw that it has is that there are WAY too many characters. It seems like there are many who are in the film for only a minute or two. How can kids keep track of them all? Everyone knows Marlin, Nemo, and Dory, but there's also Crush, Bruce, Gill, Bloat, Peach, Gurgle, Bubbles, Jacques, Nigel, Squirt, Mr. Ray, Anchor, and Chum. Of course, Crush (voiced by Andrew Stanton) kind of steals the show, and even has his own Disneyland attraction.

And do you think I saw it in the theatres? Heck no. As a first year university student who knew everything there is to know about everything, I was still a snob against animated films. But when I rented this one on DVD, it sure smartened me up and reminded me that there is a world outside of live-action.

Finding Nemo won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature; the first win for Pixar in the category. It was also nominated for Best Music, Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound Editing. Should have been nominated for Best Picture, but there was an unusually strong field in the category that year (Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Lost in Translation, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) although it did pick up the Globe nomination. It dominated the Annies, winning 9 against respectable competition (Brother Bear and Les Triplettes de Belleville)

So, only one more left to go, and if you've been paying attention, you know exactly which one it is...

Pixar Feature Film #3: Up

2010-06-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

3. Up (2009)

Director: Pete Docter

Starring: Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson

After WALL-E, I think the already high expectations on Pixar got dialled up even more. And Up delivered. Pete Docter bested his first effort.

Up is probably Pixar's lightest and funniest. It has brilliant voice acting (especially by Bob Peterson as Dug the dog,) and is wonderfully written. Its "failed purpose" theme makes it required viewing for crabby old guys everywhere. Hell, it deserves to win based on the the first 10 minutes of the film alone. I almost spit coke all over the theatre floor when we see that Carl and Ellie are infertile. That's a bit heavy for a kid's movie, don't you think?? Despite the outrageousness of some of the plot, there is also quite a bit of emotion in this one, so I think it strikes a good balance. Up was also the first Pixar film to be released in 3D during its initial run.

Up was only the second animated film to be nominated for Best Picture. Of course, it took the category expanding to ten nominees to finally make it happen. Up went on to lose to The Hurt Locker. It did win two Oscars: Best Animated Feature and Best Music, Original Score to Michael Giacchino. It also swept the minor circuit awards shows in these categories. It was also nominated for Best Sound Editing and Best Original Screenplay. However, it was surprised at the Annies, winning only twice, for Best Animated Feature and Directing in a Feature Production. In a very divided field, it lost out to Coraline and The Princess and the Frog in 7 categories. It grossed $731,338,164, making it Pixar's second biggest commercial success.

Pixar Feature Film #4: Monsters, Inc.

2010-06-14T21:38:00.000-07:00

4. Monsters, Inc. (2001)

Director: Pete Docter

Starring: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, James Coburn, Bob Peterson, Bonnie Hunt

What a surprise this was! This being the first Pixar feature not directed by John Lasseter meant we had no idea what to expect. And Pete Docter really owns this movie. The premise of the film is just so good: that when a kid says there's a monster in the closet, there really is something there. The fact that the monsters need the screams to power their city is what makes it brilliant. And they top it off with the theme that laughter is more powerful than fear. It goes from being light-hearted, to suspenseful, and then endearing, all in the span of 92 minutes.

The voice acting here is clearly the best of the best. And really, it was a risk to cast John Goodman, who had sustained box office failures in both We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story and The Emperor's New Groove. Billy Crystal provides the hilarious comic relief and makes a great sidekick for Goodman. Steve Buscemi also provides the perfect slimy dirtbag voice for Randall. Bob Peterson, who is equally as talented as a voice actor as he is a director/screenwriter, is the voice of Roz. Even two-year-old Mary Gibbs is good, providing the voice for Boo.

Here's some trivia: Randy Newman's song "If I Didn't Have You" was the first Oscar for Pixar (not including Lasseter's Special Achievement award for Toy Story) and Newman's first win in 16 nominations. It received three more nominations including Best Sound Editing, Best Music, Original Score, and a nomination for the first ever Best Animated Feature Oscar, although it would lose to Shrek. It was also dominated at the Annies, winning only once for Best Character Animation, losing to Sen to Chihiro no kamikakusi and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. It did, however, become the eighth highest grossing animated film of all-time, earning $525,366,597.

I wonder what they'll do for Monsters, Inc. 2. I'm thinking along the same lines as Toy Story 3, where Boo is all grown up. She'd be about 12 when this film releases. But who is directing this? It's a mystery. We can confirm that it's not Docter, Unkrich, Stanton, or Lasseter. Gary Rydstrom perhaps? Bob Peterson?

Pixar Feature Film #5: Toy Story 2

2010-06-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

5. Toy Story 2 (1999)

Director: John Lasseter

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wayne Knight

Originally intended as a direct to video sequel, this one experienced serious quality issues much like the first film and was overhauled completely in 9 months. Toy Story is definitely a character story, and you have to feel something for these characters to appreciate the film. This one reveals quite a bit of the backstory of three of the main characters. Initially, Jessie was really annoying to watch, but I thought Pixar turned a major corner with Jessie's musical number. "You never forget kids like Emily or Andy…but they forget you." I really liked Kelsey Grammar as Stinky Pete in this one. (He tells Woody that Andy won't take him to college, but if you look at the trailers for Toy Story 3, that is exactly what he does. Oh yeah!)

As mentioned before, this one received 100% positive ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, so why can't I rank it any higher? Well, we're high enough on the list now that finding fault with any of these shows is becoming really difficult. So I guess Toy Story 2 is #5 just because the top 4 were a little bit better. I guess the scenes outside of Al's apartment are just a little bit slow, but that's really the only thing.

Toy Story 2 was nominated for one lousy Oscar: Best Music, Original Song for Randy Newman's "When She Loved Me." However, in one of the rare displays demonstrating that the Golden Globes are ahead of the curve, Toy Story 2 won the Globe for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy, only the second animated film to do so. Toy Story 2 also received 7 Annies. One of those rare instances where the sequel is better than the original. Hopefully, history will repeat itself in five days.

Pixar Feature Film #6: Ratatouille

2010-06-12T22:48:00.000-07:00

6. Ratatouille (2007)

Director: Brad Bird

Starring: Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, Peter O'Toole

And now, slightly better than Brad Bird's first effort was Ratatouille.

Before we go further, what's the most important aspect of making a film? Well, good writing, first of all. After that, it's editing, cinematography, and musical score, in that order. Ratatouille beats The Incredibles because the writing was just that much better.

I admit I had some serious doubts about this one when I first saw the promotional display for it in the theatre, Spring 2007. Rats don't make endearing characters, there's zero merchandising potential, and they even had to spell the name of the film phonetically on the poster, for God's sake. However, I was proven very wrong as this one made $623,707,397 at the box office.

I like this one because obviously, they were taking big risks and most of them pay off. It's basically a discrimination tale, told in a highly original format. The Linguini character is a bit bland and started to get on my nerves halfway through, but he redeems himself in the end. He's isn't nearly as bad as Mater. I think most of the dislike comes from the fact that he is the only human character without even a trace of a French accent, so that makes him even more of an outcast. Also, Michael Giacchino's musical score is one of the best around. And, I personally believe the quote at the end that "The average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so" was a direct shot at the (relatively) bad reviews that Cars received.

Ratatouille won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It was nominated for Best Music, Original Score, Best Achievement in Sound, Best Achievement in Sound Editing and Best Writing, Original Screenplay. It all but swept the Annies, winning 9, only losing in the Best Animated Effects category to Surf's Up.

I will leave you with what is probably my favourite clip from a Pixar film:

Pixar Feature Film #7: The Incredibles

2010-06-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

7. The Incredibles (2004)

Director: Brad Bird

Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson

I haven't seen this one all that much. Maybe it's because the first half the movie is a little bit slow, but well worth it to get to the second half.

Rotten Tomatoes has this classified as the 16th greatest action film of all time, but its underlying themes are what distinguishes it. "They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity" and the line that best sums it up "Once everyone is super, no one will be." I thought Craig T. Nelson was perfectly cast as the burned-out aging superhero Mr. Incredible and Brad Bird as Edna Mode was also fantastic.

Brad Bird had also directed The Iron Giant and I found that The Incredibles has a lot of the same comic book influences. Bird had brought over a bunch of collaborators from The Iron Giant who hadn't worked with the computer before, but they certainly made it work. Out of all 10 films, I'd have to say that visually, this one is my favourite. They took a "nothing is impossible" approach. They were animating hair and fabric underwater, hair blowing through the wind, human scenes…all of which are very difficult to animate. There were also 89 set pieces, triple that of Monsters Inc. There was a different degree of realism to this one.

The Incredibles won the Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Achievement in Sound Editing. It was nominated for Best Achievement in Sound Mixing and Best Writing, Original Screenplay. It was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy. It was also nominated for a record 16 Annies, winning 10.

Pixar Feature Film #8: Cars

2010-06-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

8. Cars (2006)

Director: John Lasseter

Starring: Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, George Carlin, Cheech Marin, Richard Petty, Michael Keaton

Alright, so Cars is a guilty pleasure of mine. Some would make the argument that this was Pixar's first stumble. It received by far the worst reviews out of any of the Pixar films…75% on the tomatometer, which was still good enough to be considered "Certified Fresh." I think it got a bad rap because it came after The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. Or maybe it's because it's Pixar's shill film; the merchandising alone topped $5 billion. The writing is weak (it directly rips off Doc Hollywood,) the musical score is kind of blah, and the voice acting (with the very notable exception of Paul Newman) is mediocre at best. I mean, Owen Wilson and Larry The Cable Guy were total duds. That Mater character really grated on my nerves by the end. I realize he's the comic relief here, but when you start comparing the character to Jar Jar Binks, that's when you know they way overdid it. And Holy God is this one long! 116 minutes is a real stretch for an animated feature when most kids these days have ADHD. The technology, however, advanced rapidly, as the computers used were 40 times faster than those used in The Incredibles, and 1000 times faster than those used in Toy Story.

I guess for me it has that children's literature charm to it. While it wasn't terribly insightful or original (Lightning McQueen learns some easy lessons, like winning isn't everything, nobody is poor who has friends, etc,) it was a lot of fun to watch. The bygone town on U.S. 66 setting was very appealing to me and well done.

Cars won the Annie, PGA Award, Saturn Award, and Golden Globe, for Best Animated Feature, but lost the Oscar to Crappy Feet, which was highway robbery (pun most certainly intended.) One more glaring example of the Academy being out of sync with the rest of the world! Grammy winner "Our Town" was also nominated for Best Music, Original Song. Cars was also the last film to involve Pixar stalwart Joe Ranft. It earned a comparatively modest $461,982,881 at the box office, Pixar's 3rd lowest total.

Cars 2 looks like a bit of a shitshow. Lightning and Mater involved in international espionage? How is that going to work? But, to be fair, when I first heard about Ratatouille, my reaction was something like "A cooking rat!? Fuck! Come on!"

Pixar Feature Film #9: Toy Story

2010-06-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

9. Toy Story (1995)

Director: John Lasseter

Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Annie Potts, Wallace Shawn, Jim Varney, R. Lee Ermey

I'll probably get some flak for this one since it appears in everyone else's top 3. And really now, what is my problem, given that this one is rated 100% on the tomatometer and is the AFI's 99th greatest film of all time?

One thing I did not too long ago was watch Up, and then watch Toy Story right after that. And I came to a realization: Toy Story looks like shit! There's a considerable lack of texture, some of the characters look like plasticine and some of the animation is jerky and exaggerated. Even the lip syncing isn't the greatest. But when it first came on the screen, we shit our pants. Computer animation wasn't anything new, but a feature film had never been done before. It was a huge undertaking just in terms of characters and set pieces.

And it all came so close to never happening. When an early draft was screened, Disney execs hated it so much that they ground the project to a halt and order a total re-write. Woody was originally written as sarcastic jerk because Disney had told Pixar to make the film "edgy."

Toy Story lands at 9th mostly because of the story itself. While it earned a nomination for Best Original Screenplay, I felt it to be a bit tedious during the scenes in Sid's house, and leans on the computer animation gimmick too much. The franchise is definitely made up of character stories, and they're not really well-developed until Toy Story 2, which we will get to further on down the list. The story, however, has become timeless with kids, and is just as appealing now as it was 15 years ago. But, I refuse to accept that they got it perfect on the first try, and I'm sure that most Pixar staff would agree with me. After all, zero complacency and never being satisfied with results is how they got themselves to where they are today.

Toy Story earned a special achievement Oscar for John Lasseter, and was nominated for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score, Best Music, Original Song, and Best Original Screenplay. It swept the Annies, winning eight, including Best Animated Feature, Individual Achievement: Animation (Pete Docter) and Individual Achievement: Writing (Andrew Stanton.) It also picked up a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture: Comedy/Musical.

Pixar Feature Film #10: A Bug's Life

2010-06-08T19:17:00.000-07:00

So, we've got only 10 days until the release of Toy Story 3, so here come's movie #10:

10. A Bug's Life (1998)

Director: John Lasseter

Starring: Dave Foley, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, David Hyde Pierce

We'll clear something up here right away…I frigging love A Bug's Life. Just because it came in last in this review series does not mean it was a lousy movie.

Call it second film syndrome, call it whatever, but this one just seems to lack the Pixar timelessness. I think they've buried this one underground somewhat, as it never appears in any of their trailers the way some of the other films do (i.e. "From the Creators of Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles…") I spent most of the film feeling sorry for Flik myself, and it was getting a little bit depressing. The Hopper character was also a little too badass to be real. I love going to the movies and rooting for the bad guys, but Hopper just doesn't have any redeeming qualities! Also, a grasshopper named Hopper? Andrew Stanton was coming off an Oscar nom for Best Original Screenplay and that was the best he could come up with?

One thing which hurt A Bug's Life was that Antz came out a month prior (as part of Jeff Katzenberg's ongoing feud with the Walt Disney Company) becoming the second feature length computer animated film. Antz was also critically successful, although A Bug's Life outperformed it at the box office.

Despite all this, it's got witty dialogue and contemporary humor to keep things entertaining for the older crowd, and there's plenty to keep the kids occupied for 96 minutes. There's also a substantial improvement in the animation despite only being three years removed from Toy Story. The crowd scenes were monumental achievements at the time.

A Bug's Life scored 91% on the tomatometer and picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score. It was also nominated for four Annies but lost the Animated Theatrical Feature Award to Phil "Brad" B ird's The Iron Giant. Its worldwide gross was $363,398,565, Pixar's ninth best total.

Let's Talk About Pixar Animation Studios

2010-06-07T19:43:00.000-07:00

Throughout the history of film, there have only been a handful of movies to receive unanimously positive reviews. Looking at Rotten Tomatoes.com, there are 19 movies to receive 100% positive reviews based on 50 or more reviews, and they include such classic films as The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, North by Northwest, and Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.

Toy Story and Toy Story 2 also happen to be on this list.

I try not to comment on movies that I haven't seen yet, but this, combined with the fact that Pixar has turned out the Best Animated Feature three years in a row and a Best Picture nominee last year, has expectations at an all-time high for Pixar's latest achievement, Toy Story 3. I'm also expecting a lot from Lee Unkrich who has been around Pixar since the original Toy Story and co-directed three of Pixar's better films: Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo.

Toy Story 3 starts us off 10 years after Toy Story 2, and Andy is setting off to college. All his old toys end up being donated (by accident) to a daycare. Hell, I was almost crying in the trailer when old Andy looks on Woody and Buzz as he's packing up his old toys. I saw Toy Story when it first came out in 1995, when I was 10. It's kind of the last movie I saw as a kid. The next year, I "graduated" to more mature cinema and saw Fargo in the theatres as an 11 year old. It is still my 8th favourite movie of all-time.

So, I guess for me, the Toy Story franchise has a quite a bit of nostalgic value. Last week, Unkrich put up a contest on Twitter: post a picture of your adult self with your favourite childhood toy. And I think that's really what the essence of Toy Story 3 will be. We all have a favourite toy. Some of us are still in possession of it, and some of us aren't. It's kind of like Jessie's abandonment in Toy Story 2. Whatever became of our favourite toys?

I think that this plot will produce another success for Pixar. But what's next for them? Cars 2, Brave, and Monsters Inc. 2. So Pixar will not put out an original concept until 2012; a three-year gap between Up and Brave. In light of all these sequels, and the return to the "Disney Princess Formula" coupled with the shit-canning of Newt, I think that Pixar may have jumped the shark. I'm afraid the creative juices may be drying up in Emeryville.

Nevertheless, starting tomorrow, I will rank and review all 10 of Pixar Animation Studios' feature-length productions in anticipation of Toy Story 3's North American release on June 19.

82nd Academy Awards Predictions

2010-03-07T01:22:00.001-08:00

Last year, I was 20/24 in Oscar predictions, which I'm pretty sure I'll never beat.

Best Picture

Should win: Up

Will win: The Hurt Locker

I can't say why a particular film deserves to win, but I can tell you why each one won't win. The Hurt Locker? Early release date and small box office. Avatar? All flash and no story. A Serious Man? Coens have won too recently. Up? A token pick; The Academy actually hates animated flicks. An Education? Produced outside the U.S. and lost the BAFTA. District 9? See Avatar. Inglorious Basterds? Too "trendy." The Blind Side? Too cliche. Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire? Too depressing. Up In The Air? Glib, superficial, and a total chick flick. Come to think of it, that makes it perfect Oscar bait. And with 10 nominees, that makes an upset all the more possible.

The pick is Up because not only should Wall-E have been nominated last year, it should have won the damn thing. I demand retribution for that in the form of a win for Disney/Pixar. Despite being somewhere in the middle of Pixar's list, it is one of its lightest and funniest. Up has brilliant voice acting, technical competence, and is wonderfully written. Its "failed purpose" theme makes it required viewing for crabby old guys everywhere. Hell, it deserves to win based on the first 10 minutes of the film alone.

Best Director

Should win: Quentin Tarantino

Will win: Kathryn Bigelow

Tarantino is going to be the next Marty Scorsese…I can't see him winning until he turns 95 too. Bigelow and her low-budget film beat her ex-husband and his megabucks magnum opus. Sweet revenge. Tarantino gets my nod for this year's prestige pic and a great ensemble cast performance, but the director usually has to win for the film to win it all.

Best Actor

Should win: Morgan Freeman

Will win: Jeff Bridges

We've seen this scenario before, haven't we? I'm thinking Mickey Rourke vs. Sean Penn of last year. And Bridges played basically the same character that Rourke did. I believe Clooney is a real contender. My pick is for Morgan Freeman despite playing an "Oscar-bait" role, but he won't win because he's won too recently in a Clint Eastwood film. And watch out for Colin Firth, everybody! Big upset potential.

Best Actress

Should win: Meryl Streep

Will win: Sandra Bullock

Tough call here. Sandra Bullock hasn't seemed to win over the critics, judging by the minor league awards, but I think the Academy will carry her through. Academy seems to like a comeback role, even though Streep was better. However, The Blind Side was better than Julie and Julia by a lot, so I'm torn. My gut instinct still tells me Streep will win, just as it was correct two years ago in telling me that Cotillard would upset Christie. Oh well…

Best Original Screenplay

Should win: Up

Will win: The Hurt Locker

Good field this year, and a tough one to pick. Writer's Guild was kind of all over the map this year, and I can't believe that Avatar was nominated for their original screenplay award. Gotta go with Up to support my Best Picture claim above, but I would not be upset at all to see A Serious Man win either. And since Ebert has called this one for Inglorious Basterds, it's wide open as far as I'm concerned. My streak of 14 consecutive correct picks in the writing categories could be at risk. Hurt Locker won the Guild award, but did not compete against Up and Inglorious Basterds.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Should win: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Will win: Up in the Air

Having seen only three of the films, I can only guess. I'll go with what the Guild said and pick Up in the Air to win because of the whole "unemployment bad economy" thing it has going on, which the voters seem to like for some reason. District 9? Give me a break.

Best Supporting Actor

Should win: Christoph Waltz

Will win: Christoph Waltz

Have to agree with them on something. Strong multi-lingual comedic performance combined with an extraordinarily weak field in this category make Waltz my 2010 Academy Awards Lock of the Week. Hopefully, newcomer status doesn't hurt him.

Best Supporting Actress

Should win: Mo'nique

Will win: Mo'nique

Penelope Cruz plays a crazy ex-lover so well that she should win an Oscar. Oh wait, she did. Last year. Same role. Mo'nique's character was a bit too nuts to be really convincing, but there's not much competition. If Maggie Gyllenhaal wins, I'll be livid…she was brutal in Crazy Heart and should not be nominated.

And the rest:

Animated Feature Film: Up

Art Direction: Avatar

Cinematography: The Hurt Locker

Costume Design: The Young Victoria

Documentary Feature: The Cove

Documentary Short: The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

Film Editing: The Hurt Locker

Foreign Language Film: Das Weisse Band

Makeup: Star Trek

Music (Original Score): Up

Music (Original Song): "The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)"

Short Film (Animated): A Matter of Loaf and Death

Short Film (Live Action): The Door

Sound Editing: Avatar

Sound Mixing: Avatar

Visual Effects: Avatar

Let's Talk About A Serious Man...

2010-02-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

In a year of mostly sub-par movies, A Serious Man is like a flower that grew out of a pot of dirt. It's the kind of film one gets to make after winning the Best Picture Oscar.

This one probably isn't going to make much sense unless you know a little bit about the story of Job, which attempts to reconcile the existence of suffering or evil with the existence of God. Job was blessed with wealth and family, so basically, God made a bet with Satan that allowed Satan to remove those things, and still, Job would continue to praise God. Once his possessions and children are taken away, Job's wife suggests that Job "curse God and die." Despite his difficult circumstances, he does not curse God, but rather curses the day of his birth.

Knowing this, we can find the links and similarities between Job and Larry Gopnik. Larry never curses God; this is proven in the scene at the pool with his brother, where his brother blames Hashem for all his problems, but Larry does not agree. When Larry goes to the senior Rabbi, Rabbi Marshak, or the one who is closest to God, he is too busy to see him. This symbolizes the ridiculousness of spirituality being able to answer life's questions. And of course, the tornado at the end alludes to God speaking to Job from the whirlwind, saying that He will not explain why these bad things are happening to him. "Accept the mystery," Clive's father tells Larry, when confronted about the envelope of money left on his desk. Larry also says in his lecture: "The Uncertainty Principle. It proves we can't ever really know...what's going on. So it shouldn't bother you. Not being able to figure anything out. Although you will be responsible for it on the mid-term."

There are other religious allusions as well: Larry looking from his roof to see Mrs. Samsky sunbathing nude in the backyard is similar to King David seeing Bathsheba. My own interpretation is that Mrs. Samsky is a pleasing form of the devil, trying to tempt Larry to commit adultery.

What really ties the film together nicely is the allusion to Schrodinger's cat. Very simply stated, Schrodinger proposed an experiment where a cat in a closed box was either alive or dead depending on the state of a subatomic particle. The thought experiment serves to illustrate the bizarre nature of quantum mechanics. We see this at the end, when Larry is agonizing over whether or not to accept Clive's bribe. Almost as soon as he does, he receives a phone call from his doctor indicating bad medical news.

When all else fails, know that the first five minutes (the Eastern Europe scene) explains the rest of the movie: "Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." The alternative, according to the Coens, is to curse God and die.

This can be a frustrating picture to get through at first, especially if you don't get some of the references, since the story doesn't seem to go anywhere and nothing seems to happen. But a little research goes a long way to really appreciating this one.

Let's Talk About Avatar...

2010-01-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

(Caution: May contain traces of spoilers...)

You might have heard of it. That movie with the blue aliens? James Cameron's big bad-ass $200 million comeback picture? The one that is critically acclaimed and Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh? I saw it on Boxing Day and thought I would give it a few days before I commented.

Let's get this out of the way early: the film is a technical masterpiece. The editing, visual effects, sound, sound editing, musical score...it all kicks ass. Unfortunately, watching it in the 3rd row in 3D doesn't kick ass. I was constantly swatting at the bugs in front of my face. So what's my problem? I've heard the word "revolutionary" being thrown around in reference to this picture. And that's not entirely accurate. The film makes extensive use of performance capture, which is 14 years old. The 200 people in the world who owned an Atari Jaguar would know this. Beyond that, we saw it in The Mummy, the Star Wars prequels, the King Kong remake, Lord of the Rings, Monster House, Crappy Feet, The Polar Express, and many more. James Cameron has been on the visual effects frontier before: remember when the T-1000 melts into a puddle and then reconstructs? We shit our pants! But we were also witnessing major breakthroughs in CGI. Now, Cameron finds himself 10 years behind the curve. He did make some improvements to performance capture though, like better facial expressions. But it wasn't the same, because you knew exactly how it was going on. All those Na'vi people were actually wearing body suits covered with many small sensors and performing in front of a green screen. It was better in the case of Terminator 2 when you had no idea how these effects were being created, or even in the original Star Wars trilogy, when all the alien creatures were actual physical manifestations, and the way the human characters interacted with them.

Cameron says his inspiration for the film was "every single science fiction book I read as a kid." He should have thrown in a few films too. Every time I think about it, I find more films that Avatar directly ripped off: The Matrix, Pocahontas, Braveheart, Dances with Wolves, The Core, and FernGully. It even rips off Brother Bear, which itself is a retread of The Lion King. Are we so desperate for ideas that we're now on 3rd generation retreads? Further proof that there are only 14 scripts in Hollywood.

This is one movie that you have to shut your critical self off for, or else you'll be shooting holes in the plot the whole time. The most glaring one is the unobtainium (which is slightly less valuable then nevergetium), which has anti-gravitational properties. The corporation wants this one plot of land so they can strip mine it, but the natives refuse to move because they consider it holy ground. But are there not entire mountains of the stuff floating in the sky where no natives are living? What's the reasoning here? Any sensible resource company would do anything to avoid fighting a war. It's very expensive, and bad PR.

If I were an American soldier, I would be really offended by this movie. The security personnel in this film are depicted as low-IQ morons who kill without feeling, with one exception. And the Colonel Quaritch character is so cliche and "Hoo-rah!" that I knew what he was going to say before he said it. When they are killing natives, it is depicted as a tragedy. When the natives are killing them, it's depicted as jolly good fun. That's the picture of morality that Cameron paints in this film: no grey areas. You either sing and dance in the forest with the Na'vi, or you burn their babies alive and piss on the ashes. Not exactly fair, is it? I also enjoyed the slow motion used in the battle scenes. Every war flick since All Quiet on the Western Front has done it. I thought it was a nice touch.

***SPOILER ALERT!***

To be fair, none of it would have mattered if the film had had a twist ending. I needed to be wowed in the end to make up for the previous two and a half hours. And it set itself up for a twist pretty well, in my opinion. I was expecting Jake Sully to die, or perhaps Neytiri, or maybe the Jake Sully avatar would die and he would end up going back to earth with the rest of them. Who knows. But, no, Cameron presses the religion button very hard, confirms the existence of a soul, and has it transferred to the Avatar body. There's your Deus Ex Machina to top it all off. Everything is wrapped up in a neat little package and the audience goes home feeling good.

So anyway, go see Avatar if you must, and shell out the extra couple of bucks to see it in 3D. But if you don't like science fiction or appreciate good screenwriting, you'll be in for a rough ride.

Last Post - April 19, 2009

2009-12-28T21:21:00.000-08:00

My goodness...I've really neglected this thing. Any self-respecting blog writer would have let it die already. But honestly, I don't know very many people who are still blogging. These days, it's all Facebook and Twitter, and that if you can't express what's on your mind in 140 or fewer characters, it's just not worth knowing about. Indeed, the world has moved on.

I've had a quick read through the archives of this blog and the last thing of any real substance was written in early 2008. So why am I not writing? Well, I am also guilty of the Facebook and Twitter fad, and it also occurred to me that nothing about the last two years is really worth remembering.

I stumbled across this post in the archives and thought I should provide an update: none of that stuff happened when it was supposed to. I realize I still have three days to get out of my parents' basement but I don't think I can get organized that quickly. At least my exit plan is bankrolled and is slightly more tangible now (it at least has a physical address), but the date still needs to be confirmed. As for the flying aspect, it's still on the go (my medical expires tomorrow and there's no date of getting that renewed) but very much reduced. I read that post and wondered what the fuck is the point of setting goals if you're not even going to make a half-assed attempt? Well, sometimes it's positive to take a step back and figure out what it is you really want, and flying as a career was much to risky considering what I had on the go.

I've written before about work angst. I do still work at Labatt, which I consider to be nothing short of a miracle, accounting for the rapid turnover in the last couple of years. Not only that, but I have advanced twice...now currently to a position for which I am far undereducated (my Halifax counterpart is a P. Eng) More on that later, I think.

I'm not making a promise to write more frequently, because I may not honour it, nor would I ever consider posting any of this shit on Facebook. Just know for now that I'm still alive.

Stupid music meme

2009-04-19T22:05:00.000-07:00

Read Instructions! Using only song names from ONE ARTIST/BAND, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title.
----------

1. Pick Your Artist: Steve Winwood

2. Are you male or female? I'm A Man

3. Describe yourself: No Face, No Name, No Number

4. Describe where you currently live? Dirty City

5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Shanghai Noodle Factory

6. Your favourite form/type of transportation? Night Train

7. Your favourite shape is? Arc of a Diver

8. What's the weather like? Coloured Rain

9. Favourite day of the week? Every Day (Oh Lord)

10. If your life was a TV show, what would it be called? Still In The Game

11. What is life to you? Happy Vibes

12. What is the best advice you have to give? Roll With It

13. If you could change your name, what would it be? John Barleycorn

14. Thought for the Day: (Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired

15. How I would like to die? Shoot Out At The Fantasy Factory

16. Describe your friends: Forty Thousand Headmen

17. My soul's present condition: Back In The High Life Again

2008 NFL Season Predictions

2008-09-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

Wow. It’s football season already, and time for me to make some hilarious predictions about how it’s going to go. As some of you may remember, I predicted a Dallas/Miami Super Bowl in 2006 and a New England/New Orleans Super Bowl in 2007. This year, I believe the big game will feature the San Diego Chargers taking on the Minnesota Vikings, with the Chargers winning. Mark it down.

As well, I like to say a little bit about each team, just because it’s funny at the end of the season. Occasionally, I get one right, such as my prediction that Favre would have a monster season last year and that the Chargers would finally win a playoff game. However, I also called the Randy Moss trade “questionable,” and that the Giants would finish last in the NFC East and that Tom Coughlin would be fired…

AFC East
New England – You think the Patriots played angry after being caught cheating? You just wait and see how angry they are about their 18-1 season! Can they repeat as division champs for another year? Hell yes.
Buffalo – The Bills showed flashes of brilliance last season but need consistency to make the playoffs. I like Marshawn Lynch (assuming he can stop running people over with his car) and as long as JP Losman is prevented from seeing the field, the Bills will be fine.
NY Jets – Yeah, a lot of hype surrounding the Jets these days. Favre’s not going to do that well because the Jets don’t have a running back and their defence is pretty shabby looking. Both of these items were more important to Green Bay’s winning season last year than Favre was.
Miami – I predict the Dolphins will be picking Tim Tebow at next year’s draft, and then they might be able to do some damage. I think the Dolphins will qunituple their win total from last year, but there a lot of holes on this team on all sides.

AFC West
San Diego – The Chargers had a quiet offseason, the sort of thing you’d expect from a team that lost the AFC Championship. I say they can make it there again, and win this time. No Lorenzo Neal, so I would caution against taking Tomlinson at the top of your fantasy draft. I also wouldn’t put too much stock in Shawne Merriman…his knee is going to explode at some point this season.
Denver – Who knows. Jay Cutler might be good some day. I think he still sucks, and the Broncos will struggle to make the playoffs. They have two good DB’s, but no one else who can play defence.
Oakland – There’s still a lack of receiver talent here so JaMarcus isn’t going to put up good numbers. All he has to do is hand the ball off and things will be fine for the most part.
Kansas City – Name a player on the Kansas City Chiefs other than Larry Johnson. I can’t.

AFC South
Jacksonville – Taking a bit of a risk here, but I think they’ll win the season series with the Colts this year which will be enough. Garrard doesn’t make many mistakes and is supported by a great running game.
Indianapolis – The MVP of this team is out for 6 weeks. I’m talking of course about Jeff Saturday. I assure you that Manning and Addai’s numbers are going to fall because of this. They have a bitch of a schedule to get through.
Tennessee – Not sure what the Titans are going to do this season. I know they had a horrible draft, but they kept a good chunk of their defence together and added Alge Crumpler. I think they’re a .500 team for now. It’s a shame because their D-line is probably the best in the league.
Houston – If they can get better pass protection, they might get their first winning season, but I don’t think it’s going to happen this time. Mario Williams will lead the league in sacks this year.

AFC North
Pittsburgh – Managed to keep the best defence in the league together. They also happen to have a quarterback with a 104.1 rating and the third best running game in the league.
Cleveland – At first, I picked the Browns to win the division, and then I remembered last season how terrible their defence was. I’ll give them a wildcard spot anyway.
Baltimore – Once again, the Ravens failed to assemble a passing game. They still look pretty good at DB and LB, even if they are getting older and slower.
Cincinnati – The Benglas can’t seem to keep their players out of jail. Palmer can be good, but needs the running game to open things up. Looks like a rebuilding year for them.

AFC Playoffs
(6) Cleveland vs. (3) Pittsburgh: Steelers
(5) Indianapolis vs. (4) Jacksonville: Colts

(5) Indianapolis vs. (1) New England: Patriots
(3) Pittsburgh vs. (2) San Diego: Chargers

(2) San Diego vs. (1) New England: Chargers

NFC North
Minnesota – Once again, all the pieces are there, except at QB. Good thing the QB talent is equally poor among the other three teams in this division, and that the Vikings have super back-up Gus Frerotte in case things go sour. Number one running game and number one run defence should be enough to win this division.
Green Bay – What’s lost in this QB soap opera in Green Bay is just how good the receivers and running backs are. I’ll wager that the Packers finish with a better record than the Jets.
Detroit – I enjoyed the Lions awesome roll to the playoffs last year (starting 6-2, ending 8-8, losing the second wildcard to the Skins.) Kitna is like the McCown sisters: should not start full time. Offence is full of rookies, but the defence which was dead last in the league last year looks like it got better.
Chicago – The Bears are cover-your-eyes bad this season. It won’t surprise me if they win the Tebow sweepstakes. They need him bad.

NFC South
New Orleans – This pick is kind of contingent on the Superdome not getting destroyed by another hurricane. Brees and Colston will continue to be productive, while Reggie Bush will continue to suck.
Carolina – Bit of a dark horse pick this year, but the Panthers really struggled with injuries last season. As far as I’m concerned, they still have the right people. Steve Smith just needs to stop injuring his own teammates. Muhsin Muhammed is back and put up very good numbers the last time he was here.
Tampa Bay – Their defence is older and slower, and so is their quarterback. Looks like a pretty average team.
Atlanta – Rookie quarterback + rookie head coach = last place. They cast the veterans away and got some fairly decent replacements in the draft.

NFC East
Dallas – They look good on both sides of the ball and will have good season. I think they’ll be able to match their 13-3 record from last season.
NY Giants – Super Bowl MVP or not, Eli Manning still sucks. He is a streaky player who just happened to get hot at the right time. They will get off to a fast start and then lose out in December and miss the playoffs.
Philadelphia – SI picked them to win the NFC, so they’re out. Really, there’s nothing that impressive about them, and their crappy O-line pretty much assures that McNabb’s going to get hurt again.
Washington – Rookie head coach here, so maybe next year.

NFC West
Seattle – Still have a great front seven and a good O-line which will be enough to win the division yet again.
Arizona – Warner’s starting at QB which isn’t good news. There’s not much of a running game here so they’re not going to be able to get much going.
St. Louis – Had a ton of injuries this season and should get better with the return of Marc Bulger. They do have a problem with depth though.
San Francisco – Their starting quarterback, J.T. O’Sullivan, had a rating of 48.2 last season which speaks volumes about how badly Alex Smith sucks. To make matters worse, Mike Martz doesn’t run the ball, so the 49ers aren’t going to get anything going on offence. I like Patrick Willis on defence, but he can’t do it all on his own.

NFC Playoffs
(6) Carolina vs. (3) New Orleans: Panthers
(5) Green Bay vs. (4) Seattle: Seahawks

(6) Carolina vs. (1) Dallas: Panthers
(4) Seattle vs. (2) Minnesota: Vikings

(6) Carolina vs. (2) Minnesota: Vikings

Everyone's a critic

2008-07-21T18:50:00.000-07:00

Saw this on Battle of Alberta and I thought I'd do it.

1. Worst well-regarded film: This one's easy: Lawrence of Arabia. Four hours of walking through the desert. All style, no substance, and it's AFI's #5 movie of all time.

2. Most overhyped film (note that this is slightly different from above; the first measures the absolute badness level, while the second measures the delta between reputation and actual quality): I imagine that once I see The Dark Knight, that will be the answer to this question. The fact that it's on the top of IMDb's Top 250 is a really good indication of hype. For now, the answer to this one is The Matrix.

3. Worst film to win a best picture Oscar: Most of you are probably expecting me to say Million Dollar Baby. The only reason I'm not is because it was pulled from a weak crop of films that year. In the end, I'm going to have to go with The English Patient. It beat two vastly superior films: Fargo and Shine. Just die already! Nobody cares about your time in the stupid desert!

4. Most disappointing film (ie should have been good but wasn't--Godfather III, Phantom Menace, the latest Indiana Jones atrocity) It's hard to remember a film that was supposed to be good. Generally, they fall off the face of the planet and aren't heard from much. I seem to remember that The Legend of Bagger Vance was supposed to be good, and was god-awful. I'll never go to another movie that was recommended by Oprah.

5. Worst movie, full stop. (Must have been a major motion picture release--no direct-to-video, or film festival torture tactics, please) Very tough call here. There are a lot of terrible movies out there, but a lot of them can be appreciated at some level due to their camp value. No, a truly terrible movie is one that tries to be good and then badly misses the mark. I don't think one can argue that Daddy Day Camp and Norbit ever try to be good. Therefore, my worst movie ever? Continuing with the Matt Damon theme from the previous category: Pearl Harbor.

Kevin Lowe should take notes...

2008-03-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

...from the Atlanta Falcons on how to properly re-build a team. Look at their off-season so far:

DEPARTURES
Alge Crumpler
Warrick Dunn
Dwayne Blakley
Demorrio Williams
Todd Watkins
Byron Leftwich
Wayne Gandy
Rod Coleman
Lewis Sanders
Jamin Elliott
Marcus Wilkins
P.J. Alexander
Jordan Beck

ARRIVALS
Michael Turner
Ben Hartsock
Erik Coleman
Von Hutchins
Rashad Moore
Kindal Moorehead
Simon Fraser
Tim Anderson
Alex Stepanovich
Jason Rader

Almost all of the departures are veteran players with big salaries and the arrivals (with the exception of Turner) are more or less warm bodies. By signing young free agents, GM (and former Guelph Gryphon) Thomas Dimitroff is doing two things: keeping salary cap room available and getting players who should still be at their peak if and when the Falcons get back to respectability.

There are reports of DeAngelo Hall being traded to Oakland for a second and sixth round pick, so long as a new contract is hammered out. There are also rumours that the Falcons will trade the 3rd overall pick in the draft. Both of these news items are music to my ears. For one, Hall is an overrated piece of shit and I look forward to seeing Hines Ward, after losing a shoe, beating him on a skinny post and then outrunning him to the endzone in another team's uniform. For another, Dimitroff was Director of College Scouting for the New England Patriots, and many of the players involved in the Pats 18-1 season and three Super Bowls were evaluated, scouted, and drafted by Dimitroff. The more draft picks the better; the Falcons need upgrades at just about every position (DL, DB, LB, OL, TE, QB) and it's not going to hurt them to slide down as low as 15th overall and throw a dart at the best player still available. The Falcons would have 11 selections pending the Hall trade, including the Raiders and Texans 2nd rounders, and they're also likely to pick up a 4th round compensatory selection for Patrick Kerney.

From the Atlanta Falcons Blog: "I can't imagine even the most optimistic Falcons fan is expecting much from the team in 2008. As long as no one is detained at the airport for carrying a pot-concealing water bottle or is sent to prison for murdering puppies, it'll be a successful season. And that's probably the best attitude to take. That way, if the team somehow manages to win five or six games, it'll be a pleasant surprise as the front office prepares to make another top-5 pick in a year's time."

Alberta Election Predictions

2008-03-02T00:32:00.000-08:00

Here are my predictions:
Seats
PC: 50
LIB: 27
NDP: 4
WRA: 2

Popular Vote
PC: 43%
LIB: 30%
NDP: 11%
WRA: 9%
GRN: 7%

Since poll results never give a regional breakdown, my predictions are based on the assumption that the Wildrose Alliance will play a big factor in the Liberals picking up seats in Calgary, but I have no idea how their campaign has been going there, if at all.

It's very puzzling how some people seem convinced that the Progressive Conservatives are going to lose this one. I think the NDP will keep the seats they have, but I think it would be funny to see Mason lose.

I have a prediction for each riding listed below. Some of the highlights (or lowlights, depending on your views) include Minister of Advanced Education and Technology Doug Horner losing to Ray Boudreau, Link Byfield winning one for the Wildrose Alliance, super-candidate Arthur Kent losing to Dave Taylor, and Independent Dan Backs losing his seat. And of course, we're all going to enjoy seeing Craig Chandler crash and burn.

Seems I actually know a few people running in this election:

Jason Nishiyama, the NDP candidate in Calgary-Egmont; a former cadet officer
Raj Sherman, running for the PCs in Edmonton Meadowlark; my landlord for a couple of years
While I haven’t personally met him, Edmonton Mill-Creek’s NDP candidate Stephen Anderson is engaged to a former Lister floormate of mine.

Airdrie-Chestermere: Rob Anderson, PC
Athabasca-Redwater: Bill Bonko, LIB
Banff-Cochrane: Janis Tarchuk, PC
Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock: Ken Kowalski, PC
Battle River-Wainwright: Doug Griffiths, PC
Bonnyville-Cold Lake: Genia Leskiw, PC
Calgary-Bow: Alana DeLong, PC
Calgary-Buffalo: Kent Hehr, PC
Calgary-Cross: Yvonne Fritz, PC
Calgary-Currie: Dave Taylor, LIB
Calgary-East: Bill Harvey, LIB
Calgary-Egmont: Cathie Williams, LIB
Calgary-Elbow: Craig Cheffins, LIB
Calgary-Fish Creek: Heather Forsyth, PC
Calgary-Foothills: Len Webber, PC
Calgary-Fort: Carole Oliver, LIB
Calgary-Glenmore: Ron Stevens, PC
Calgary-Hays: Art Johnson, PC
Calgary-Lougheed: David Rodney, PC
Calgary-MacKay: Tianna Melnyk. LIB
Calgary-McCall: Darshan King, LIB
Calgary-Montrose: Michael Embaie, LIB
Calgary-Mountain View: David Swann, LIB
Calgary-North Hill: Pat Murray, LIB
Calgary-North West: Dale Martin D’Silva, LIB
Calgary-Nose Hill: Len Borowski, LIB
Calgary-Shaw: Cindy Ady, PC
Calgary-Varsity: Harry Chase, LIB
Calgary-West: Ron Liepert, PC
Cardston-Taber-Warner: Paul Hinman, WRA
Cypress-Medicine Hat: Leonard Mitzel, PC
Drayton Valley-Calmar: Diana McQueen, PC
Drumheller-Stettler: Jack Hayden, PC
Dunvegan-Central Peace: Hector Goudreau, PC
Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview: Ray Martin, NDP
Edmonton-Calder: David Eggen, NDP
Edmonton-Castle Downs: Chris Kibermanis, LIB
Edmonton-Centre: Laurie Blakeman, LIB
Edmonton-Decore: Bill Bonko, LIB
Edmonton-Ellerslie: Bharat Agnihotri, LIB
Edmonton-Glenora: Bruce Miller, LIB
Edmonton-Gold Bar: Hugh MacDonald, LIB
Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood: Brian Mason, NDP
Edmonton-Manning: Peter Sandhu, PC
Edmonton-McClung: Mo Elsalhy, LIB
Edmonton-Meadowlark: Raj Sherman, PC
Edmonton-Mill Creek: Gene Zwozdesky, PC
Edmonton-Mill Woods: Weslyn Mather, LIB
Edmonton-Riverview: Kevin Taft, LIB
Edmonton-Rutherford: Fred Horne, PC
Edmonton-Strathcona: Rachel Notley, NDP
Edmonton-Whitemud: Dave Hancock, PC
Foothills-Rocky View: Ted Morton, PC
Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo: Guy Boutilier, PC
Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville: Ed Stelmach, PC
Grande Prairie-Smoky: Mel Knight, PC
Grande Prairie-Wapiti: Wayne Drysdale, PC
Highwood: George Groeneveld, PC
Innisfail-Sylvan Lake: Luke Ouellette, PC
Lac La Biche-St. Paul: Ray Danyluk, PC
Lacombe-Ponoka: Ray Prins, PC
Leduc-Beaumont-Devon: George Rogers, PC
Lesser Slave Lake: Pearl Calahasen, PC
Lethbridge-East: Bridget Pastoor, LIB
Lethbridge-West: Bal Boora, LIB
Little Bow: Barry McFarland, PC
Livingstone-Macleod: Evan Berger, PC
Medicine Hat: Rob Renner, PC
Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills: Richard Marz, PC
Peace River: Frank Oberle, PC
Red Deer-North: Mary-Anne Jablonski, PC
Red Deer-South: Cal Dallas, PC
Rocky Mountain House: Ty Lund, PC
Sherwood Park: Iris Evans, PC
Spruce Grove-Sturgeon-St. Albert: Ray Boudreau, LIB
St. Albert: Jack Flaherty, LIB
Stony Plain: Fred Lindsay, PC
Strathcona: Dave Quest, PC
Strathmore-Brooks: Arno Doerksen, PC
Vermilion-Lloydminster: Lloyd Snelgrove, PC
West Yellowhead: Robin Campbell, PC
Wetaskiwin-Camrose: Verlyn Olsen, PC
Whitecourt-Ste. Anne: Link Byfield, WRA

2007 NFL All-Loser Team

2008-01-27T16:53:00.000-08:00

The All-Pro team was announced three weeks ago, but what I like to do is honour the individuals who make the NFL the National Felons League. To make the team, one must commit a crime or otherwise be an embarrassment to the league in the year 2007. This year, the field was quite large, so I selected the worst offenders, or just the funniest or most idiotic cases. Here goes:

QB: Michael Vick, Atlanta Falcons – This man needs no introduction. He dominated the headlines and sports talk radio over the summer. Because the field of loser QB’s this season is pretty thin, Vick would have earned this spot for the water bottle incident at Miami airport. Never mind the fact that he was bankrolling a dogfighting ring…Vick was sentenced to 23 months, and most sources say that he is now broke despite the largest contract in the league and numerous endorsement deals. At the end of his career, he will no doubt be inducted into the Sports Loser Hall of Shame right next to Rae Carruth and Mike Danton.

RB: Najeh Davenport, Pittsburgh Steelers – In October, he was charged with domestic violence, child endangerment, and unlawful restraint involving the mother of his five year old son. He pleaded not guilty.

RB: Dominic Rhodes, Oakland Raiders – Went 81 in a 55 zone, failed two sobriety tests and claimed he “only had two or three.” He was given a 180 day suspended sentence and was suspended for the first four games of the season.

WR: Chris Henry, Cincinnati Bengals – A chronic rubby-dub and substance abuser, Henry was suspended for 8 games this season stemming from an incident where he provided alcohol to minors.

WR: Koren Robinson, Green Bay Packers – This boozebag was sentenced to 90 days in February for fleeing from police and served this sentence concurrently with another 90 days for a separate drunk driving case. He was reinstated in October, and collected 8 catches for 63 yards and a touchdown.

TE: Jerramy Stevens, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – He has received several reckless driving charges in the past including one in 2001 where he crashed his car into a nursing home. This year, Stevens was charged with DUI and marijuana possession. His neighbours in his condo complex have also complained that he barfs on their doors and leaves used condoms on the back porch for the kids to find.

OT: Levi Jones, Cincinnati Bengals – Involved in a casino brawl with fellow all-loser Joey Porter (see below) because Porter allegedly stole Jones’ jewellery. I can see it now...a 307 lb. tackle screaming in the middle of a casino “That’s my purse!”

OT: Khalif Barnes, Jacksonville Jaguars – Pulled a trifecta: arrested for speeding and DUI in a car with expired plates. Barnes also called the officer a “KKK devil who hates all colored people.” Barnes was sentenced to six months probation, 50 hours of community service, and had his license suspended for six months.

OG: Ross Verba, Free agent – Arrested last January for passing bad checks in Nevada and was released by the Lions in February. Who taught him how to manage his money? Darren McCarty?

OG: Claude Terrell, Free Agent – Beat up his wife while he was already on probation for beating up another family member. And I thought my family was dysfunctional. The Rams released him after the incident which is pretty serious since the Rams already had 9 injured linemen.

C: Stocker McDougle, Jacksonville Jaguars – Bounced a $1200 cheque at a plant nursery. When the owner claimed McDougle owed him interest over it, McDougle pushed the 65 year old man causing him to fall over. He is now facing battery charges.

DL: Anthony Hargrove, Buffalo Bills – Hargrove was suspended for four games in 2007 for failing a drug test. He was also charged with criminal mischief, resisting arrest, and harassment after a confrontation with police outside a nightclub.

DL: Tank Johnson, Dallas Cowboys – Shortly after being released from jail for numerous firearm related crimes (he likes to keep loaded assault rifles around children) he was arrested for speeding and was suspected of driving while impaired. He was suspended for half the regular season.

DL: Fred Evans, Minnesota Vikings – Got in a dispute with a taxi driver, then resisted arrest and bit a police officer. He was then tasered and charged with battery on a police officer, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and trespassing. He was already on probation for marijuana possession.

LB: Justin Durant, Jacksonville Jaguars – On Nov. 3, Durant was found passed out in his Escalade at an exit ramp with an open road pop sitting next to him. Then, possibly trying to compare himself to Muhatma Gandhi, he was also charged with “resisting arrest without violence.”

LB: Nick Barnett, Green Bay Packers – Charged with battery for shoving a woman to the ground who wanted his autograph at a nightclub. His antics spilled onto the field this year, as the 232 lb. Barnett claimed that 66 year old umpire Jim Quirk “assaulted” him while trying to break up a fight in a game against the Bears (Quirk was subsequently fined.) Sissy…

LB: Joey Porter, Miami Dolphins – Shot in the ass in 2003, the NFL’s second dirtiest player (Rodney Harrison is number one) was at it again, this time punching Levi Jones in the face in a casino, splitting him open. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanour battery and paid a $1000 fine and was also fined three game cheques.

LB: Odell Thurman, Cincinnati Bengals – Some depth here at the linebacker position, as usual. Boozer, user, drunk driver. Thurman was sentenced to 90 days for DUI, and was wanted for an assault, but the charges were eventually dismissed. Thurman also applied for reinstatement and was denied by Roger Goodell.

DB: Adam “Pacman“ Jones, Tennessee Titans – At a Las Vegas strip club, Pacman beat up a stripper for taking his money without his permission. Then, he threatened to kill one of the security guards. One of his entourage fired three shots into the crowd and paralyzed a man from the waist down. Jones pleaded no contest and received a one year suspended sentence and 200 hours of community service. He was also suspended for the entire season.

DB: Justin Miller, New York Jets – Punched a woman at a nightclub and was charged with misdemeanour assault. Miller won the fastest man competition at last February’s Pro Bowl, but couldn’t outrun the NYPD.

SS: Jarrod Cooper, Oakland Raiders – Tested positive for anabolic steroids, got suspended and released, and then of course the Raiders resigned him after the suspension was over.

FS: Dexter Reid, Free agent – Reid was pulled over in March when he was suspected of drunk driving, when the police found marijuana and a concealed weapon in his car. Then, in September, Reid parked in a handicap space at a Chick-fil-a while he went in to get some fried chicken. An officer told him he had to move the car or have it towed. Reid gave the officer permission to move the car. That’s when the officer found a loaded semi-automatic pistol in the car. Wow.

What I am thinking

2007-12-06T19:31:00.000-08:00

Do I have an original thought in my head, my bald head? Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn’t be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today’s the first day of the rest of my life. I’m a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my heart checked. There’s something wrong. Maybe if I were happier, my blood pressure would be normal. The dentist called again; I’m way overdue. If I stopped putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more and prove myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or joined a band? I could speak Chinese. I would be the lab technician who speaks Chinese and plays in a ska band. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short; stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real, confident. Isn’t that what women are attracted to? Men don’t have to be attractive. But that’s not true, especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. If I had money I would be happier. I wouldn't have to drive an 88 Jetta with the bumper falling off. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it’s my brain chemistry. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me: bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I’ll still be ugly though. Nothing’s going to change that.

2007 NFL Season Predictions

2007-09-05T12:11:00.000-07:00

Almost football season. I rarely do good at these things: last year, I predicted a Dallas/Miami Super Bowl. Oops! At least the 'Boys made the playoffs. On the other hand, I did predict a monster season for Drew Brees and the Saints when every sports writer was picking Carolina to easily win the NFC South. So here goes nothing...

AFC East
New England - Their additions of Moss, Stallworth and Welker are questionable given Brady's ability to make any receiver a star. That said, they're probably the most complete team in the league.
Miami - The Dolphins linebackers are among the league's best and should win some games for them. But they had a horrible draft and won't be able to depend on Trent Green and Ted Ginn Jr.
NY Jets - Pennington will likely get injured again, and they have nobody to back him up. They'll end up relying too much on Thomas Jones. Defence didn't get much better either.
Buffalo - I never know where to rank the Bills, but they lost a lot of talent this offseason. Looks like Peerless Price is a starter, and that's not a good thing.

AFC West
San Diego - I think replacing Schottenheimer with Turner was a mistake, but maybe now they'll win a playoff game or three. The Chargers don't have much in the way of receivers. I guess that's not a problem when you have Tomlinson.
Kansas City - Chiefs look decent. The only question is with Damon Huard and whether or not he can be a full time starter.
Denver - I think Jay Cutler will improve, but their front 7 won't be able to stop Tomlinson or Johnson, so they finish 3rd. Having only 4 draft picks might come back to haunt them.
Oakland - None of the moves they made in the offseason really impressed me. At least it looks like their games might actually be close this season, and they won't finish dead last.

AFC South
Indianapolis - The Colts look awful on defence, but managed to keep most of the offence together. They'll come out on top of some really high scoring games this season.
Jacksonville - Looks like Garrard's the starter so they can finally end the QB circus. Most of the other pieces are in place, except at safety.
Tennessee - Titans finished strong last season, but losing Pacman was huge. Unfortunately, they have too many other holes to fill as well.
Houston - The Texans needed more than just Matt Schaub, mainly an O-line that can pass protect.

AFC North
Baltimore - Ravens look to have the best defence in the league. All they need is a QB. McNair won't be able to take them far into the playoffs.
Cincinnati - As long as Palmer's bionic knee holds together, they should be okay. Their D is going to have quite a few problems this season. Fortunately, the division isn't that strong offensively.
Pittsburgh - Who knows with Pittsburgh. The motorcycle crash screwed up Roethlisberger in the head, so if he comes back from that, they may win the division outright. Defence looks pretty solid, except at corner.
Cleveland - Brady Quinn has looked pretty good in the preseason, but for now it's still the Chaz Frye show. Quinn won't get the starting job until it's too late.

AFC Playoffs
San Diego over Jacksonville
Baltimore over Cincinnati

New England over Baltimore
San Diego over Indianapolis

New England over San Diego

NFC North
Chicago - Rex Grossman may never get his confidence back after his Super Bowl performance. I don't think he'll be bad enough to hold the whole team back though. They probably have the best defence and special teams in the league.
Detroit - On offence, things actually look pretty good. They need to rush more with Jones and Bell, and they should replace Jon Kitna pretty soon. Defence keeps them out of the playoffs (for now.)
Green Bay - The Packers will be good in a couple of years especially on defence. Part of me thinks Favre is going to have a monster season, but 3rd place is more likely.
Minnesota - Tarvaris who? It will be hard for the Vikings to get any offence going unless Adrian Peterson's as good as everyone thinks. They should still be good against the run.

NFC South
New Orleans - Hopefully the commentators shut up about Katrina because I'm really tired of hearing about it. Anyway, they needed to upgrade their defence and they didn't, so I don't know what to say. I still pick them to win the NFC because of how crappy the competition is. P.S.: Reggie Bush and his 3.6 yards per carry can suck my balls.
Carolina - They're pretty good all around when they're healthy. Pencil them in for a wildcard spot.
Tampa Bay - I don't think Garcia will provide enough to get the offence going. They also got a lot worse on the D-line.
Atlanta - Mike Vick Mike Vick Mike Vick...even though he's gone, that's still the only thing we're going to hear about during Falcons broadcasts. Joey Joe Joe hasn't looked as horrible as I had feared, but I'm not getting my hopes up either. Offence wouldn't worry me so much if Warrick Dunn wasn't coming off of back surgery. Jerious Norwood is a capable replacement at RB though. And if the D-Line can keep off the injured list, the Falcons may not be as terrible as everyone thinks. But my realistic expectation is for them to be picking first in the draft.

NFC East
Philadelphia - The Eagles had some big losses on defence. They might have problems against the run but look pretty good against the pass.
Dallas - I think Romo is very overrated. A healthy TO may be able to do some damage. They have a pretty good looking defence and Wade Phillips as head coach was a good move.
Washington - The Redskins don't look all that bad on paper. I don't know anything about Jason Campbell, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think they did enough to improve the 2nd worst defence in the league though.
NY Giants - Eli Manning threw way too many interceptions and got sacked way too many times last season for me to take the Giants seriously. Until they fire Tom "Mr. Personality" Coughlin, they won't go anywhere.

NFC West
Seattle - Losing Darrell Jackson is pretty big, and it'll be interesting to see if Shaun Alexander can come back from such a brutal season. The addition of my favourite player (Patrick Kerney) should help things out on D.
Arizona - Leinart has some great receivers to go to, and if the D can stop the pass, they might even make the playoffs.
St. Louis - I don't get the hype about St. Louis. While their pass and run game looks solid, I think they could have real problems on defence.
San Francisco - I don't think Alex Smith is going to keep improving.

NFC Playoffs:
Seattle over Arizona
Carolina over Philadelphia

New Orleans over Carolina
Seattle over Chicago

New Orleans over Seattle

SUPER BOWL
New England over New Orleans

Say It Ain't So, Mike!

2007-08-30T17:46:00.000-07:00

When the Falcons traded Tim Dwight, their 1st round and 3rd round picks in 2001, and 2nd round pick in 2002 to the San Diego Chargers, they acquired the first overall pick in the 2001 NFL entry draft and used it on stand-out sophomore Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick. He was the chosen one. He was supposed to bring the Falcons to the promised land of Super Bowl victory. He was supposed to bring credibility and respect to the team.

In his rookie season, Vick seemed destined for great things. He passed for nearly 3000 yards, broke NFL records for rushing by a quarterback, and upset the heavily favoured Green Bay Packers in the playoffs. After missing 11 games of the 2003 season with a broken leg, Vick returned to win 4 of his 5 starts. In the 2004 season, Vick led the team to an 11-4 record as a starter, good enough for 2nd in the NFC. They easily beat the Rams but lost to the Eagles in the NFC Final. Still, he had legions of fans and could seemingly do no wrong in the eyes of Falcons fans. The expectations grew higher.

Well, Vick got himself into a bit of trouble in 2005, when a woman sued Vick claiming he gave her herpes, under the alias of Ron Mexico. The lawsuit was settled out of court. Chump change to Vick, though. He was bringing in money by the dump truck, having earlier signed the richest contract in NFL history: 10 years, $130 million including bonuses, and was bringing in good money through his endorsements.

Then, his on-field performance began to taper off. Vick's QB rating dropped in the 2005 season and admitted to "not giving his all" in the meaningless last game of the season. The Falcons finished at 8-8 and out of the playoffs. The first sign that the boy's cheese was sliding off his cracker was when he gave the sold-out Georgia Dome crowd two middle fingers following a loss to the New Orleans Saints in 2006. Vick was fined $10,000 and apologized for the incident. In January 2007, his water bottle was confiscated at Miami International Airport prior to his boarding a flight, and security officials smelled a substance in it that smelled very much like marijuana. Drug tests later came back negative and no charges were filed.

And then, the whole dog fighting thing came to light. Vick first denied that he was ever at the property and blamed his family for taking advantage of his generosity. 4 months later, after his co-defendants sold him up the river, he finally admitted to the whole sleazy story.

I don't need to point out the obvious. It's been constrained by every sports pundit that he threw away the richest contract in the NFL for his illegal hobby, so we'll just leave it at that. On top of that, the Falcons have every right to pursue the $22 million paid to him in bonuses. I have been a big supporter of team owner Arthur Blank ever since he bought the team. Vick looked him in the face and lied to him about everything and he deserves better than that. Vick has devastated a team that already had 40 years worth of failure and embarrassment under its belt. It also means that despite receiving a $6 million salary cap credit this season due to his suspension, the Falcons are still on the hook for future cap penalties, depending on what the league decides. Ergo, Vick has damaged this team not only this season, but for a further six seasons!

Not only did he let down his entire NFL team, he has damaged a campus community already devastated by the worst act of school violence in the history of the United States. As a former Hokie, Vick could have done so much to help the healing of the whole Virginia Tech campus. Much as the suddenly-winning New Orleans Saints did much to lift the spirits of that hurricane-ravaged city, Vick could have done so much as the predominant VA Tech alumnus in the NFL.

To make matters much worse, he has let down an entire generation of underprivileged children looking for role models. Vick grew up in a housing project in Newport News, VA, and now the children currently living in that neighbourhood (note that not much has changed there since Vick left) will watch yet another former resident go from the poor house to the big house. As the highest paid player in the NFL, he could have motivated so many troubled or at-risk youth to get their lives back on track, but now that would seem pretty hypocritical of him, yes?

In all this, I blame his upbringing, and that's not a knock at anyone who lives below the poverty line. Mike started life at a marked disadvantage, born to 16 and 17 year old parents, but there are so many kids who are raised in the projects under similar circumstances who have never felt compelled to do shit like this. The truth is there's something screwy with that whole family. Case in point: Mike's brother Marcus, whose rap sheet is actually much longer than Mike's; the difference being that Marcus has been charged with misdemeanors as opposed to felonies.

I anticipate the NFL will do the right thing and never reinstate him, thus making Mr. Vick one of the biggest losers to ever disgrace the already tarnished name of professional football.

Requiem for a beer factory

2007-08-02T08:40:00.000-07:00

Molson Edmonton closes.

I haven't worked there for a few years now, but I thought I'd pay it a tribute because it's the place where I got my first job. It's also the place that my dad used to work at when I was a kid. When he'd have to go in on Saturdays, I used to terrorize his office, eat cookies from a drawer in his file cabinet and dick around on his computer.

I loved working that job and was incredibly disappointed when they told me they weren't hiring a summer student for the lab anymore. But that kind of led me to where I am now, so I suppose you can file that one under "Stuff happens for a reason." Picture it like this: it was like growing up an Oilers fan, and then getting signed by the Oilers and playing a season for them. The next season, I got cut from the Oilers and signed with the Flames, where I've been ever since. This has been the key joke of my career working in the brewing industry thus far.

There were several key differences between the two companies. Molson's lab did a lot more leg work because everything was so damn far apart. The plant was pieced together in various additions over the last 100 years or so. When I got to Labatt, I was impressed at the layout of the plant, and the efficient European style of management and operation. It had its problems too, but compared to Molson, it was a well-oiled machine. The lab used more up to date technology and the union guys actually brought down samples for us. Molson's union was far more militant and I used to have to get everything myself.

So, to the Molson union, I say, well done, ladies and gentlemen, you killed the golden goose, over your new hires making $22 an hour. I make slightly more than that now, but after three years of temp work, I would have killed for $22. Maybe that's just me. I guess you guys needed those three extra sick days too.

I'm still alive

2007-06-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Facebook me. Yes. I did just use that as a verb.

I'm living anti-socially in St. Albert, my job performance is on the down cycle, my flying isn't making any progress and the Stallions are 0-2 (they've never lost two games in a row, so this is really something.) I think I'm mere inches from striking my quarter-life crisis, so I'm trying to set some hard goals for myself with respect to aviation:

April 30, 2008: Multi-engine rating
September 30, 2008: Instrument rating
December 31, 2008: Commercial Pilot License
April 30, 2008: Instructor rating
August 27, 2014: A job that involves flying planes at a somewhat decent salary

I still have to fit commercial ground school in there somewhere, and that may be all but impossible given my shift schedule. I may be forced to retire from football after this season to accomodate it; a scenario I was hoping to avoid.

With housing prices the way they are, and with no relief in site, my exit strategy from my parents' basement is totally shot, and I've had to push the deadline back to January 1, 2010, if I don't get thrown out before then. That's a long time from now, but I may need that entire time to get my shit together financially.

One Year Later

2007-05-10T23:58:00.000-07:00

Wow. Things sure turned out for the best, didn't they?

NHL Playoffs: Conference Finals

2007-05-06T13:44:00.000-07:00

1-3 in the second round, 7-5 overall.

Sabres in 7.

Ducks in 5.

That is all.

NHL Playoffs: Conference Semi Finals

2007-04-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

6-2 in my round one predictions.

(6) NY Rangers vs. (1) Buffalo: The Thrashers were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked in the first round. Buffalo won all 4 games against the Rangers, but three were one-goal games. I really like the Rangers as a potential dark horse in the finals. Lundqvist has been great, and they've been scoring a lot more as well. I didn't like how the Sabres looked against the Islanders...those 5 games didn't really look like playoff games. The Sabres should have blown them out in 4 games, even with DiPietro. I think with the advantage on special teams and goaltending, we're going to see an upset. Rangers in 7.

NYR #18 goals for vs. BUF #13 goals against
NYR #9 goals against vs. BUF #1 goals for

NYR #8 power play vs. BUF #20 penalty kill
NYR #12 penalty kill vs. BUF #17 power play

(4) Ottawa vs. (2) New Jersey: This is a tough call. Brodeur had kind of a rough start but things seem to be good now. I have no idea how the Senators goal scoring is going to go because the Penguins have no defence. Same thing with the Devils. And I don't care about the stats, Ray Emery is still a piece of shit. The Sens defence more than makes up for it though. Anyway, they stack up pretty close, so since New Jersey took the season series 3-1 I'll go with Devils in 6.

OTT #2 goals for vs. NJ #4 goals against
OTT #10 goals against vs. NJ #27 goals for

OTT #14 power play vs. NJ #4 penalty kill
OTT #9 penalty kill vs. NJ #16 power play

(5) San Jose vs. (1) Detroit: I liked the Sharks' "angry guy" thing against Nashville, it was very entertaining. I think the Sharks have a lot of momentum...they knocked off what a lot of people considered to be a Stanley Cup contender in only 5 games. I don't think the Wings will dominate the shot tally the same as in the last round because the Sharks' defence has been a little better than the Flames' recently. Nick Lidstrom against Joe Thornton will be pretty fun to watch. Detroit hasn't lost at home yet, but the Sharks are the best road team in the west. Also, the Sharks won the season series against the Wings 3-1, not too shabby. Sharks in 6.

SJ #6 goals for vs. DET #10 goals against
SJ #6 goals against vs. DET #2 goals for

SJ #2 power play vs. DET #21 penalty kill
SJ #14 penalty kill vs. DET #7 power play

(3) Vancouver vs. (2) Anaheim: I've said it before, I'll say it again...every team could use more Chris Pronger. The Ducks have what is most likely the best playoff goaltending tandem. Still, I have to give Luongo credit, he's by far the best player on the Canucks. Naslund and the Sedin sisters have been pretty quiet so far, and I don't think the Canucks will be able to score more goals against the Ducks. I gotta say, I wish I hadn't sold my purple Mighty Ducks jersey in grade 7 for 60 bucks. Ducks in 5, and reach the conference finals for the third time in four seasons. Quite good, really...it's almost New England Patriots good...

VAN #22 goals for vs. ANA #7 goals against
VAN #5 goals against vs. ANA #9 goals for

VAN #20 power play vs. ANA #5 penalty kill
VAN #1 penalty kill vs. ANA #3 power play

NHL Playoffs: Conference Quarter Finals

2007-04-10T22:55:00.000-07:00

Last year, I went 8-7 in my NHL playoff predictions so I'm trying to do better this year. I still ended up beating all the TSN experts except the monkey. This year in the East, I like the Sabres, and in the West, I like the Sharks, with the Sabres winning the Cup.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

(8) NY Islanders vs. (1) Buffalo: Buffalo came within a game of the finals last year, so not making it there again would be a major letdown. These are always dangerous series to predict...you have the Presidents Trophy winner with a ton of pressure to go all the way and the team that backed into the playoffs and is just happy to be there. But, since the Islanders have no Rick DiPietro and since they have MA Bergeron, I'll say Sabres in 4.

BUF #1 goals for vs. NYI #12 goals against
BUF #13 goals against vs. NYI #14 goals for

BUF #17 power play vs. NYI #18 penalty kill
BUF #20 penalty kill vs. NYI #12 power play

(7) Tampa Bay vs. (2) New Jersey: Crazy Lou fired Julien which is odd since the players seemed to like him. But, he gets the benefit of the doubt since it did work once before. The Lightning were horrible down the stretch, losing 9 of their last 20 games in regulation. They also made the playoffs despite being outscored. The Devils can't score goals, but I'm not about to bet against Brodeur in the playoffs. And who plays in goal for the Lightning? Does anyone know? Devils in 5.

TB #12 goals for vs. NJ #4 goals against
TB #24 goals against vs. NJ #27 goals for

TB #9 power play vs. NJ #4 penalty kill
TB #28 penalty kill vs. NJ #16 power play

(6) New York Rangers vs. (3) Atlanta: Southeast division wasn't too good this year, and it looked like Atlanta was just coasting through the last month trying to hold off the Lightning. Atlanta has scary special teams problems and I think it will be their downfall. This one is hard to predict because of Bob Hartley...he has made at least the conference finals in every one of his playoff appearances and led the 'Lanche to the 2001 Stanley Cup. But, Rangers in 6.

NYR #18 goals for vs. ATL #15 goals against
NYR #9 goals against vs. ATL #15 goals for

NYR #8 power play vs. ATL #26 penalty kill
NYR #12 penalty kill vs. ATL #23 power play

(5) Pittsburgh vs. (4) Ottawa: This is going to be an awful series. Ray Emery is a clown, the Penguins have no defence, and don't even get me started on Crosby. I guess experience will make the difference. I honestly don't know what else to say. I'm just not going to watch any of this one. Senators in 6.

PIT #4 goals for vs. OTT #10 goals against
PIT #14 goals against vs. OTT #2 goals for

PIT #5 power play vs. OTT #9 penalty kill
PIT #17 penalty kill vs. OTT #14 power play

WESTERN CONFERENCE

(8) Calgary vs. (1) Detroit

Playing Detroit in the early rounds has been a gift the last few seasons. The Wings were very soft in last year's playoffs and they will depend on Bertuzzi this year to give them the toughness they need. I think the Flames' record was held down by overtime and shootout losses and quite a few one-goal game losses especially on the road. Meanhile, the Wings record was probably inflated by playing Columbus, Chicago and St. Louis eight times. I'm concerned that the Flames' defence is going to vanish just like last year's series against the Ducks and that they've played Kiprusoff to much all season and he's going to run out of gas. But, unlike last year, the Flames can actually score goals 5-on-5, and luckily for them, the Wings power play is nowhere near what it used to be. Maybe I'm just spending too much time around people who seem to think that Kristian Huselius is a good hockey player, I don't know. Flames in 7. Unfortunately.

CGY #7 goals for vs. DET #2 goals against
CGY #11 goals against vs. DET #10 goals for

CGY #11 power play vs. DET #7 penalty kill
CGY #22 penalty kill vs. DET #21 power play

(7) Minnesota vs. (2) Anaheim: Anaheim's a great team, no doubt, but I'm going to haul out the "defence wins" cliche. The key for the Wild is to stay out of the penalty box since the Ducks scored the most goals in the league with the man advantage. I don't really know how the Wild are going to score their own goals...I'm thinking we're going to see a lot of 1-o games in this series. Wild in 5.

MIN #19 goals for vs. ANA #7 goals against
MIN #1 goals against vs. ANA #9 goals for

MIN #6 power play vs. ANA #5 penalty kill
MIN #2 penalty kill vs. ANA #3 power play

(6) Dallas vs. (3) Vancouver: This is looking like another good goalie battle. This one will depend on how far Luongo and the Sedin sisters are willing to carry the team. And while their Cloutier problem is finally gone, Vancouver could have a big problem scoring goals, especially at even strength. But good young goalies in their first playoffs have a tendency to take their teams on long playoff runs, so Canucks in 6.

DAL #21 goals for vs. VAN #5 goals against
DAL #3 goals against vs. VAN #22 goals for

DAL #7 power play vs. VAN #1 penalty kill
DAL #11 penalty kill vs. VAN #20 power play

(5) San Jose vs. (4) Nashville: This will be the most entertaining series for sure. Another case of a Central division team that might not be as good as their record. And seeing as how this exact same series happened in the first round last year, I expect to see the same end result, but the Predators will at least make a series out of it this time. Sharks in 7.

SJ #6 goals for vs. NSH #8 goals against
SJ #6 goals against vs. NSH #5 goals for

SJ #2 power play vs. NSH #3 penalty kill
SJ #14 penalty kill vs. NSH #18 power play

Remember the guy before the tailspin? Yeah, people liked that guy...

2007-03-28T00:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a lame quiz, just because I haven't put anything up here in a while.

TEN YEARS AGO

How old were you? 12
Where did you go to school? Lawrence Grassi Middle School
Where did you work? Unemployed
Where did you live? My house
Where did you hang out? In Canmore at that age??? Home!
What was your hair style? Same as now. Short.
Did you wear glasses? Nopes.
Who were your best friends? Cody, Dillon, Taylor, Ben...short list. God, Canmore sucks ass!
How many tattoos did you have? At age 12? Are you kidding me?
How many piercings did you have? See above.
What car did you drive? My bike.
What was your worst fear? Not getting promoted to corporal. And it happened!
Had you driven yet? Nopes.
Had you been to a real party yet? I guess pop and chips parties don't count, eh?
Had your heart broken? Hell no!
Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Single.

FIVE YEARS AGO

How old were you? 17
Where did you go to school? Strathmore High School
Where did you work? Unemployed! YES!
Where did you live? My house
Where did you hang out? Mostly at the movies in Calgary
What was your hair style? Same as now. Short.
Did you wear glasses? Yup.
Who were your best friends? Dustin, Mick, Sarah, Jen, Jen, Peter, Chase, et al.
How many tattoos did you have? Self-mutilation's not my flava.
How many piercings did you have? See above.
What car did you drive? 1988 Ford Bronco. Best. Truck. Ever.
What was your worst fear? Not getting accepted into the army. And it happened too!!
Had you driven yet? Here there and everywhere.
Had you been to a real party yet? That New Year's party at my brother's wasn't just real...it was legendary
Had your heart broken? Nopes!
Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: Taken.

MARCH 2007

How old are you?: 22
Where do you work? Labatt, but I'll probably be unemployed again soon due to my poor performance. Woohoo! 3 for 3!
Where do you live? In my parent's basement
Where do you hang out? The bar, Lister, or the movies. But mostly work.
How is your hair style? Short
Do you wear glasses? Contacts mostly
Who are your best friends? Dustin, Heather, Andre, Mick, Mick's entourage.
Do you talk to your old friends? Depends which old friends. And facebook doesn't count as talking to them.
How many piercings do you have? Self-mutilation
How many tattoos? See above
What kind of car do you have? 1988 Volkswagen Jetta. God I love that car.
What is your favorite band/group? STEVE WINWOOD
What is your biggest fear? I'm not so sure I should put something here, given how well the other two turned out!
Have you been arrested, if so how many times total? Nope
Has your heart been broken?: No...
Single/Taken/Married/Divorced/Bitter: BITTER!

In Defence of Kevin Lowe

2007-03-03T00:22:00.001-08:00

Alright, so there's been a lot of bandwagon jumping and people saying they're not renewing their season tickets and some "Fire Kevin Lowe!" and all that stuff, so I just have this to say:

1) If Smyth had become a UFA in the summer, you would have griped about how Lowe let him walk away for nothing. If he signs with the Oilers in the summer, Lowe will have grabbed two decent forward prospects and a first round draft choice for next to nothing. Genius move. If not, well, they've got the prospects, the draft choice, and about $5.5 million in cap space that they otherwise would not have had.

2) With the salary cap in place, it's going to be really rare to see players play out their entire careers with one team. We see this with the NFL all the time. Get used to it.

3) Name one trade that Lowe has made that has not worked out in the best interests of the Oilers. Anyone? (The panicky Chris Pronger trade doesn't count.) Name one prospect that Lowe has traded that went on to become a star with another team. Anyone got a name? There was bitching about how Lowe traded away "the future of the Oilers blueline" Doug Lynch and Jeff Woywitka for old-balls 31 year old defenceman Chris Pronger and we all know how that turned out...Stanley Cup Finals appearance. There was bitching about how Lowe gave up too much to get Dwayne Roloson and that turned out the same way...Stanley Cup Finals appearance. You complained about losing Mike York to get Mike Peca. Peca was awesome in the playoffs. What has York done recently?

4) Heart and soul of the team...isn't that what some of you dummies said about Georges Laraque?

5) YES, the Oilers have packed it in for this season. NO, they wouldn't have made the playoffs had they kept Smyth. NO, you can't expect the team to make the playoffs every year. If anything, the team should have traded more vets so they could rebuild properly...which every professional sports team has done at one point or another, and the Oilers will have to do it as well to get something better than 8th or 9th place finishes every season. This is called "putting things into perspective."

So basically to everyone STILL crying out there...you're wrong, and Kevin Lowe will prove you wrong.

NFL Playoffs: Super Bowl XLI

2007-02-01T23:29:00.000-08:00

(3) Indianapolis vs. (1) Chicago: The last time these two teams faced each other, it was Week 11 of the 2004 season and the Colts won 41-10 in Chicago. But that hardly counts for anything. It was so long ago.

It's interesting that everyone's going on about how good Indy's rush defence is. Maybe it's that good because all three teams the Colts have faced in the playoffs gave up on the run and it proved to be their un-doing. The Chiefs had 17 rushing attempts, the Ravens had 20, and the Patriots had 24. All 4 teams that beat the Colts in the regular season did so because they were able to grind down the clock and keep the Colts offence off the field. Look at the games the Colts lost: the Cowboys had 36 run plays, Titans had 35, Jags had 42, and the Texans had 42.

...Which brings us to the Bears running game. They ran the ball 503 times this season for an average of 3.8 yards/attempt. That's a lot of attempts (5th in the league) but not a great average. But sometimes all a team has to do is run up the middle for no gain and everything will be fine. The Bears have the luxury of being able to do this and let the defence and special teams win the field position battle. Devin Hester will need to be better on punt and kick returns to give the Bears the advantage.

The Bears did little to contain the Saints' passing attack. Turnovers killed the Saints. And, in the Bears three losses this season, turnovers did them in as well. Since Indy is #22 in takeaways (see below) for the Bears to win all they have to do is protect the ball. It's very simple but easily forgotten in such a big game. Still, the Saints got some big plays on the Bears, and had they held onto the ball, the game could have been way different.

I'm reluctant to pick a dome team because there's only ever been one dome team to win the Super Bowl. The Bears do have a lot going for them in this game but I don't think it will be enough. Let's set the final score at Indianapolis 20, Chicago 17 with Vinateiri getting the game-winner late in the 4th. That means to bet against the spread. Having said that, Manning is well-known for choking in big games, so an outright Bears win wouldn't surprise me at all.

IND #3 total offence vs. CHI #5 total defence
IND #21 total defence vs. CHI #15 total offence

IND #2 scoring offence vs. CHI #3 scoring defence
IND #23 scoring defence vs. CHI #3 scoring offence

IND #18 rushing offence vs. CHI #6 rushing defence
IND #32 rushing defence vs. CHI #15 rushing offence

IND #2 passing offence vs. CHI #11 passing defence
IND #2 passing defence vs. CHI #14 passing offence

IND #22 takeaways vs. CHI #28 giveaways
IND #4 giveaways vs. CHI #1 takeaways

IND #13 punt returns vs. CHI #23 punt coverage
IND #31 punt coverage vs. CHI #2 punt returns

IND #7 kick returns vs. CHI #5 kick coverage
IND #30 kick coverage vs. CHI #8 kick returns

AFC/NFC Championships (a.k.a. Fuck the Super Bowl)

2007-01-21T00:51:00.000-08:00

These are the games without all the hype and good commercials and also when we determine which NFC team will get steamrolled in the Super Bowl.

(2) New Orleans vs. (1) Chicago: The last time these teams faced each other, the Bears won 20-17 at Tiger Stadium in a game where Aaron Brooks and Kyle Orton were terrible. So don't take too much from that, but it does concern me how close the game was. Anyway, the Bears shook off last year's loss to Carolina and won their first home playoff game in a long time, which means the pressure's off. That's bad considering how well Rex Grossman does with no pressure. I recall a meaningless Week 17 game against Green Bay in which Grossman scored a rating of 0. Applying the playoff formula (dome teams lose) should assure the Bears a win, but I don't have any reliable stats about how the Saints fare outdoors in January. I am already cringing thinking of Feb. 4 if the Saints win...it's going to sound like "Blah blah blah Hurricane Katrina, blah blah blah Reggie Bush, blah blah blah biggest surprise team BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!" Anyway, it's the playoffs, so defence wins! Bears 26, Saints 21.

NO #1 total offence vs. CHI #5 total defence
NO #11 total defence vs. CHI #15 total offence

NO #5 scoring offence vs. CHI #3 scoring defence
NO #13 scoring defence vs. CHI #3 scoring offence

NO #19 rushing offence vs. CHI #6 rushing defence
NO #23 rushing defence vs. CHI #15 rushing offence

NO #1 passing offence vs. CHI #11 passing defence
NO #3 passing defence vs. CHI #14 passing offence

NO #31 takeaways vs. CHI #28 giveaways
NO #6 giveaways vs. CHI #1 takeaways

NO #28 punt returns vs. CHI #23 punt coverage
NO #7 punt coverage vs. CHI #2 punt returns

NO #14 kick returns vs. CHI #5 kick coverage
NO #16 kick coverage vs. CHI #8 kick returns

Weather forecast at Chicago: Flurries, 32°F

(4) New England at (3) Indianapolis: This is what I like to see...no more #1 and #2 teams. This is what playoffs is all about. The last game between these two was very unusual. First, the Patriots lost at home (Colts 27 Pats 20 was the score,) Vinateiri honked a 37-yarder and a 46-yarder, and Brady threw 4 picks. I am still having a really hard time believing that Indy's defence is that good. I could blame the Ravens loss on poor blocking and poor coaching though. Baltimore seemed to quit as the game went on and the play-calling was rather preposterous. Did anyone get the feeling watching that San Diego game that the Patriots were resurrecting their dynasty? Cripes, I sure did watching that 4th quarter. I'll let the Brady man love continue. Patriots 20, Colts 17.

NE #11 total offence vs. IND #21 total defence
NE #6 total defence vs. IND #3 total offence

NE #18 scoring offence vs. IND #23 scoring defence
NE #2 scoring defence vs. IND #2 scoring offence

NE #12 rushing offence vs. IND #32 rushing defence
NE #5 rushing defence vs. IND #18 rushing offence

NE #12 passing offence vs. IND #2 passing defence
NE #12 passing defence vs. IND #2 passing offence

NE #4 takeaways vs. IND #4 giveaways
NE #17 giveaways vs. IND #22 takeaways

NE #3 punt returns vs. IND #31 punt coverage
NE #26 punt coverage vs. IND #13 punt returns

NE #1 kick returns vs. IND #30 kick coverage
NE #20 kick coverage vs. IND #7 kick returns

NFL Playoffs - Divisional Round

2007-01-13T13:04:00.000-08:00

3-1 last week. NFL Playoffs - Divisional Round:

(3) Indianapolis vs. (2) Baltimore: The last time these teams met, the Colts embarrassed the Ravens 24-7 in their 2005 season opener at the RCA Dome. It was the beginning of a 6-10 season for them. This is a completely different Ravens team though. I believe the Ravens are the teams that nobody wants to face in the playoffs. I'm not entirely convinced that the Colts can duplicate their performance on defence (they held the Chiefs to 44 rushing yards.) Plus, I'm thinking the home crowd is going to be relentless on the team that abandoned the city in '84. Ravens 14, Colts 10.

IND #3 total offence vs. BAL #1 total defence
IND #21 total defence vs. BAL #17 total offence

IND #2 scoring offence vs. BAL #1 scoring defence
IND #23 scoring defence vs. BAL #12 scoring offence

IND #18 rushing offence vs. BAL #2 rushing defence
IND #32 rushing defence vs. BAL #25 rushing offence

IND #2 passing offence vs. BAL #6 passing defence
IND #2 passing defence vs. BAL #11 passing offence

IND #22 takeaways vs. BAL #8 giveaways
IND #4 giveaways vs. BAL #2 takeaways

IND #13 punt returns vs. BAL #20 punt coverage
IND #31 punt coverage vs. BAL #24 punt returns

IND #7 kick returns vs. BAL #11 kick coverage
IND #30 kick coverage vs. BAL #11 kick returns

Weather forecast at Baltimore: Cloudy with showers, 42°F

(3) Philadelphia vs. (2) New Orleans: In Week 6, the Saints collected a 27-24 win on a last second field goal set up by an 16-play 8:26 drive. The Eagles could not stop the pass at all as Brees racked up 275 yards and 3 TDs through the air. Losing Lito Sheppard isn't going to make this any easier for them. I'm encouraged that the Eagles aren't as pass wacky as they once were. Last week, they called 37 pass plays and 27 run plays. However, the Saints will likely still control the time of possession and get the last possession and the win. Saints 38, Eagles 35.

PHI #2 total offence vs. NO #11 total defence
PHI #15 total defence vs. NO #1 total offence

PHI #6 scoring offence vs. NO #13 scoring defence
PHI #15 scoring defence vs. NO #5 scoring offence

PHI #11 rushing offence vs. NO #23 rushing defence
PHI #26 rushing defence vs. NO #19 rushing offence

PHI #3 passing offence vs. NO #3 passing defence
PHI #9 passing defence vs. NO #1 passing offence

PHI #14 takeaways vs. NO #6 giveaways
PHI #9 giveaways vs. NO #31 takeaways

PHI #10 punt returns vs. NO #7 punt coverage
PHI #21 punt coverage vs. NO #28 punt returns

PHI #28 kick returns vs. NO #16 kick coverage
PHI #24 kick coverage vs. NO #14 kick returns

(4) Seattle vs. (1) Chicago: The Seahawks visit to Soldier Field in Week 4 resulted in a 37-6 drubbing for their first loss. Hasselbeck and the running game were bruital, Rex Grossman threw 2 TDs and Thomas Jones rushed for 2 more. I've heard a lot about Rex Grossman's extremely poor play lately. It won't matter because the Seahawks are virtually out of their league in this one. The only reason they beat Dallas is because Mike Holmgren craps horseshoes and four-leaf clovers. The balmy 33°F temperature plays in their favour though. Bears 28, Seahawks 7.

SEA #19 total offence vs. CHI #5 total defence
SEA #19 total defence vs. CHI #15 total offence

SEA #14 scoring offence vs. CHI #3 scoring defence
SEA #19 scoring defence vs. CHI #3 scoring offence

SEA #14 rushing offence vs. CHI #6 rushing defence
SEA #22 rushing defence vs. CHI #15 rushing offence

SEA #20 passing offence vs. CHI #11 passing defence
SEA #16 passing defence vs. CHI #14 passing offence

SEA #21 takeaways vs. CHI #28 giveaways
SEA #27 giveaways vs. CHI #1 takeaways

SEA #15 punt returns vs. CHI #23 punt coverage
SEA #17 punt coverage vs. CHI #2 punt returns

SEA #18 kick returns vs. CHI #5 kick coverage
SEA #27 kick coverage vs. CHI #8 kick returns

Weather forecast at Chicago: Rain/snow, 33°F

(4) New England vs. (1) San Diego: The last time these two teams met, the Chargers ran away with it 41-17 There's a thing about San Diego...they have an awesome rushing offence and are almost immune to committing turnovers. When you look at the stats, the Patriots are actually a better team than the Chargers. Dare I give the "defence wins" cliche? I would, but the Chargers defence aren't slouches either. It'll be close. In fact, I'll bite on the upset. Tom Brady is 11-1 as a starter in the playoffs. Patriots 21, Chargers 17.

NE #11 total offence vs. SD #10 total defence
NE #6 total defence vs. SD #4 total offence

NE #18 scoring offence vs. SD #7 scoring defence
NE #2 scoring defence vs. SD #1 scoring offence

NE #12 rushing offence vs. SD #23 rushing defence
NE #5 rushing defence vs. SD #2 rushing offence

NE #12 passing offence vs. SD #13 passing defence
NE #12 passing defence vs. SD #16 passing offence

NE #4 takeaways vs. SD #1 giveaways
NE #17 giveaways vs. SD #15 takeaways

NE #3 punt returns vs. SD #15 punt coverage
NE #26 punt coverage vs. SD #17 punt returns

NE #1 kick returns vs. SD #12 kick coverage
NE #20 kick coverage vs. SD #3 kick returns

Weather forecast at San Diego: Sunny, 59°F

Next week:

New England at Baltimore
New Orleans at Chicago

Atlanta Falcons Year End Report

2007-01-08T01:13:00.000-08:00

Another NFL regular season is in the books and once again, the Falcons went home early while 8 teams are left competing for football's ultimate prize.

Meet Bobby Petrino. Well, that was fast. I don't question bringing in a college coach, even after the Nick Saban fiasco, but Rich McKay wanted somebody with head coaching experience. This is good...they'll throughout that West Coast offence garbage and maybe keep running that college option that worked so well early in the season.

Here's some of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the 2006 season:

THE GOOD

Alge Crumpler: The bright spot in the team's passing game. Algernon made the Pro Bowl and caught a career high 8 touchdown passes (and dropped several others, the game in Week 3 against the Saints springs to mind...) and had 38 first downs. If only he were a better blocker...

Jerious Norwood: A 3rd round steal in this year's draft as he (and many other rookie RBs for that matter) managed to outrush Reggie Bush. He had 633 yards for a 6.4 yard per carry average, which was the best in the league among RBs with 20 or more carries. He's the future of this position for the Falcons.

Tyson Clabo: On an O-Line that doesn't know the meaning of the word "blocking," Clabo is the exception. After being undrafted and bounced around on several teams' practice squads and the waiver wire, he earned a starting position this season. Good on ya.

Lawyer Milloy: A veteran presence in the secondary, he surpassed expectations. He has sharp football instincts, and as strong safety, he did his job as he was in on virtually every play and made clean tackles. Unfortunately, he was held without an interception. Hey, at least it worked out way better than the last time the Bills and Falcons did business.

THE BAD

DeAngelo Hall: I know that it's bizarre to put a Pro Bowl selection down here, but he only made it because of 4 INTs and a TD. Those plays were the exception...the norm is for D'Lo to get lit up, give up on plays, and attempt to intercept hail mary bombs when a good DB would simply knock it down. He's a selfish player and deserved every drop of the face-spitting TO gave him.

Edgerton Hartwell: Exposed as a fraud. Jamal Lewis made him look so good in Baltimore that he was signed to the Falcons to a big contract to be a run-stopping middle linebacker. He ended up being injured half the season, and in his absence, Keith Brooking did a better job in the middle than he did. Time to move Jordan Beck up to this position.

Roddy White: Roddy showed flashes of brilliance like in the Dallas game where he racked up 102 receiving yards, but he had a bad case of the dropsies this year. It was bad enough for Jim Mora to sit Roddy's ass on the bench and have Ashley Lelie start in his place (who didn't do a lot better.) As a former first round draft pick in his second year, I expected to see a lot more development than this.

Michael Koenen: I'm kind of reaching with this one, but Koenen was so bad in the placekicking department that the front office had to thaw out Morten "Old Balls" Anderson to take over those duties. After hammering a 58 yarder for the franchise record last season, Koenen missed on tries of 50, 50, 30, 36, 30, and 40 in the first two games of the season. However, I might as well give the blame to the field goal/punt unit as a whole because two of those tries were actually blocked, and the next game, the Saints managed to block a punt for a TD. Three blocks in three games? Come on guys, one is too many for the season!

THE UGLY

Matt Lehr: A friggin' turnstile, and a steroid monkey to boot. When you play left guard, and the quarterback is left hand, which way is he going to go? Maybe to the left? Which means it might be a good idea to block somebody instead of watching as Vick gets sacked yet again. And if you're going to cheat and break the substance abuse policy, you should at least have something to show for it!

Jim Mora: This is more of an afterthought, but he still deserves a mention. His antics both on and off the field were an embarrassment to himself and to the team. I scarcely need to mention that squeaky-clean owner Arthur Blank had no patience for that shit. After going 11-5, he posted an 8-8 season despite starting 6-2 and took the team to 7-9 this year despite starting 5-2.

Michael Vick: He had a career high for passing TDs (20) and rushing yards (1076). So what's the deal? As pictured above, Vick's antics created a sideshow for the Falcons and an unnecessary distraction. The Ron Mexico scandal put him on thin ice, and now that ice has broken. It's time fans stopped saying "All he does is win games," because he no longer does.

NFL Playoffs: Wildcard Round

2007-01-05T20:56:00.000-08:00

The early Super Bowl pick: Early in the season, I picked the Cowboys vs. Dolphins. I will go with the Eagles in the NFC, and I will go with the Chargers in the AFC, with the Chargers winning the big game in a rout.

(6) NY Giants vs. (3) Philadelphia: A closely matched game between division rivals. The season series was split between the two with the Giants winning at the Linc. It was especially frustrating for the Eagles because they flushed a 24-7 lead going into the 4th quarter. Not only that, but a personal foul by Trent Cole with 7 seconds left put the Giants into field goal range for the game-tying FG. The tables have turned since then; Jersey/A has no momentum, losing 2 of its last 8 and the Eagles have all the momentum, winning 5 in a row. I'll put this one on coaching: Fat Andy has had playoff success and Tom "Mr. Personality" Coughlin hasn't. And, don't look now, but the Eagles have something that resembles a running game. Eagles 27, Giants 21 in overtime.

NYG #14 total offence vs. PHI #15 total defence
NYG #25 total defence vs. PHI #2 total offence

NYG #11 scoring offence vs. PHI #15 scoring defence
NYG #24 scoring defence vs. PHI #6 scoring offence

NYG #7 rushing offence vs. PHI #26 rushing defence
NYG #14 rushing defence vs. PHI #11 rushing offence

NYG #19 passing offence vs. PHI #9 passing defence
NYG #28 passing defence vs. PHI #3 passing offence

NYG #17 takeaways vs. PHI #9 giveaways
NYG #18 giveaways vs. PHI #14 takeaways

NYG #16 punt returns vs. PHI #21 punt coverage
NYG #3 punt coverage vs. PHI #10 punt returns

NYG #30 kick returns vs. PHI #24 kick coverage
NYG #18 kick coverage vs. PHI #28 kick returns

Weather forecast at Philadelphia: Light rain, south wind at 5 km/h, 50°F

(5) Dallas vs. (4) Seattle: Dallas has skidded into the playoffs winning only one of their last three. Lucky for them, Seattle's skidding too. Well-coached teams have figured out how to beat Tony Romo. The two teams have identical records, with Dallas going 9-7 the hard way (against a GOOD division, that is.) It is irrational for me to pick Seattle since they are outmatched in almost every statistical category I listed below. The last meeting between these two at Qwest Field, as most of you will recall, involved a terrible decision to pass on 3rd and 7 with 14 seconds to go, game tied at 10. The result: interception, and Josh Brown's 50 yard figgie made the Seahawks 5-2. To add to the misery, Jose Baby Cortez had honked a 29 yard attempt wide left earlier and it ultimately cost him his roster spot. Much is being made of Seattle missing its two starting corners. I don't understand why. Trufant is overrated, Herndon just plain sucks, and beside, they have the second best free safety in the NFC (Ken Hamlin.) I guess it might have something to do with T.O. That said, a Cowboys win wouldn't surprise me at all...they were road warriors this season and the Seahawks faltered at home to lesser teams. Seahawks 23, Cowboys 20.

DAL #5 total offence vs. SEA #19 total defence
DAL #13 total defence vs. SEA #19 total offence

DAL #4 scoring offence vs. SEA #19 scoring defence
DAL #20 scoring defence vs. SEA #14 scoring offence

DAL #13 rushing offence vs. SEA #22 rushing defence
DAL #10 rushing defence vs. SEA #14 rushing offence

DAL #5 passing offence vs. SEA #16 passing defence
DAL #24 passing defence vs. SEA #20 passing offence

DAL #9 takeaways vs. SEA #27 giveaways
DAL #21 giveaways vs. SEA #21 takeaways

DAL #21 punt returns vs. SEA #17 punt coverage
DAL #25 punt coverage vs. SEA #15 punt returns

DAL #9 kick returns vs. SEA #27 kick coverage
DAL #2 kick coverage vs. SEA #18 kick returns

Weather forecast at Seattle: Cloudy with showers, south wind at 5 km/h, 39°F

(6) Kansas City vs. (3) Indianapolis: I was surprised that the Chiefs were even in the playoff hunt last week. Indy had the last ranked rushing defence in the league, allowing all 16 of their opponents to rush for over 100 yards and allowed a franchise-worst 5.3 yard per carry average. The Chiefs and Larry Johnson will be able to exploit that to keep the clock on their side and keep the Colts' offence off the field. The Colts have honked out of the playoffs early for the past four years and have everything to lose. The Chiefs, on the other hand, were very lucky to make the playoffs and therefore have nothing to lose. Teams like that are always dangerous. The only thing that worries me is that the Colts were unbeaten at home this season, and the Chiefs are 0-3 at the RCA Dome. Chiefs 31, Colts 28.

KC #16 total offence vs. IND #21 total defence
KC #16 total defence vs. IND #3 total offence

KC #15 scoring offence vs. IND #23 scoring defence
KC #12 scoring defence vs. IND #2 scoring offence

KC #9 rushing offence vs. IND #32 rushing defence
KC #18 rushing defence vs. IND #18 rushing offence

KC #22 passing offence vs. IND #2 passing defence
KC #18 passing defence vs. IND #2 passing offence

KC #11 takeaways vs. IND #4 giveaways
KC #15 giveaways vs. IND #22 takeaways

KC #23 punt returns vs. IND #31 punt coverage
KC #14 punt coverage vs. IND #13 punt returns

KC #24 kick returns vs. IND #30 kick coverage
KC #22 kick coverage vs. IND #7 kick returns

Weather forecast at Indianapolis: They play indoors...

(5) NY Jets vs. (4) New England: I'm sorry, but Jersey/B is a pretender. When you beat Miami 13-10 in a sleeper and beat Oakland 23-3 in the final two weeks, that qualifies as backing into the playoffs. Still, I love a playoff game between division rivals. The Jets won at Gillette Stadium earlier this season in a pretty fantastic 17-14 game that saw both offenses working out of the no huddle quite a bit. But the bottom line is that the Patriots become a different team when the post-season rolls around...every year I predict they'll lose and every year they prove me wrong. Patriots 20, Jersey/B 10.

NYJ #25 total offence vs. NE #6 total defence
NYJ #20 total defence vs. NE #11 total offence

NYJ #7 scoring offence vs. NE #2 scoring defence
NYJ #6 scoring defence vs. NE #18 scoring offence

NYJ #20 rushing offence vs. NE #5 rushing defence
NYJ #24 rushing defence vs. NE #12 rushing offence

NYJ #17 passing offence vs. NE #12 passing defence
NYJ #14 passing defence vs. NE #12 passing offence

NYJ #24 takeaways vs. NE #17 giveaways
NYJ #12 giveaways vs. NE #4 takeaways

NYJ #19 punt returns vs. NE #26 punt coverage
NYJ #9 punt coverage vs. NE #3 punt returns

NYJ #5 kick returns vs. NE #20 kick coverage
NYJ #9 kick coverage vs. NE #1 kick returns

Weather forecast at Foxborough: Sunny, 46°F

Alrighty then, next week we have some fantastic looking games:

Seattle at Chicago
Philadelphia at New Orleans
New England at Baltimore
Kansas City at San Diego

Go Stelmach (Part 4)

2006-12-03T00:45:00.000-08:00

This should be the last post on this blog on the subject of politics until the next election. I will get back to posting about movies and which coaches in professional sports need to be fired.

Earlier, I mentioned the importance of MLAs getting their constituents out to vote for the candidate they're supporting. You Can't Teach That will now evaluate all MLAs who stood behind a candidate. I will do this by finding out how many votes they were able to get for their candidate in their own ridings and what percent of the vote they were able to get.

Stelmach's Supporters:

Ed Stelmach: 4156 votes (89.5%)
Ray Danyluk: 2496 votes (82.6%)
Pearl Calahasen: 891 votes (70.9%)
Lloyd Snelgrove: 1231 votes (66.4%)
Iris Evans: 1493 votes (64.4%)
Ivan Strang: 481 votes (63.4%)
Hector Goudreau: 581 votes (59.2%)
Luke Ouellette: 1385 votes (58.1%)
Fred Lindsay: 909 votes (56.7%)
Doug Horner: 1056 votes (55.3%)
LeRoy Johnson: 985 votes (50.6%)
Dave Hancock: 1909 votes (47.0%)
Lyle Oberg: 1012 votes (46.7%)
Mel Knight: 570 votes (43.8%)
Mark Norris: 919 votes (41.9%)*
Guy Boutilier: 306 votes (36.6%)
George Groeneveld: 901 votes (34.3%)
Carol Haley: 373 votes (18.4%)

*For the purposes of this comparison, the riding used for Mark Norris was Edmonton - McClung.

I'm not really worried about our two amigos from Edmonton because Hancock's auto dialer called me twice. I'm pretty sure he did all he could. Another thing is that they were working against Stephen Mandel's Dinning endorsement.

Dinning's Supporters:

Shiraz Shariff: 1831 votes (86.8%)
Moe Amery: 1247 votes (77.2%)
Harvey Cenaiko: 953 votes (73.5%)
Yvonne Fritz: 840 votes (70.5%)
Len Webber: 897 votes (57.5%)
Wayne Cao: 374 votes (56.8%)
Ron Liepert: 1564 votes (56.7%)
Gary Mar: 696 votes (56.6%)
Ron Stevens: 981 votes (54.7%)
Dave Rodney: 993 votes (53.9%)
Heather Forsyth: 988 votes (53.6%)
Alana DeLong: 903 votes (52.5%)
Richard Magnus: 573 votes (50.3%)
Cindy Ady: 809 votes (50.0%)
Denis Herard: 631 votes (49.9%)
Thomas Lukaszuk: 901 votes (49.6%)
Neil Brown: 497 votes (48.5%)
Art Johnston: 673 votes (48.1%)
Greg Melchin: 950 votes (46.9%)
Janis Tarchuk: 653 votes (46.6%)
Gene Zwozdesky: 608 votes (44.5%)
George VanderBurg: 676 votes (41.5%)
Clint Dunford: 542 votes (39.5%)
Rob Renner: 486 votes (37.3%)
Gord Graydon: 505 votes (35.3%)
Frank Oberle: 336 votes (34.6%)
Mary Anne Jablonski: 392 votes (31.3%)
David Coutts: 643 votes (28.7%)
Richard Marz: 680 votes (26.8%)
Len Mitzel: 284 votes (26.8%)
George Rogers: 489 votes (23.9%)
Rob Lougheed: 536 votes (22.5%)
Ken Kowalski: 366 votes (21.2%)
Ty Lund: 239 votes (20.8%)
Ray Prins: 474 votes (19.9%)
Doug Griffiths: 229 votes (16.0%)
Barry McFarland: 382 votes (15.2%)
Mike Cardinal: 219 votes (13.5%)

Looks like Dinning's MLA endorsements couldn't get him past Morton in the rural constituencies.

Supportin' Morton:
Paul Hinman: 1302 votes (61.7%)
Ted Morton: 1367 (51.5%)
Hung Pham: 414 (40.6%)

It should be noted that Cardston - Taber - Warner was Morton's second biggest win...maybe MLA endorsements do matter.

Here are some more stats for you political junkies:

The Toast of Calgary: Jim Dinning won 19 Calgary constituencies and the advance poll by 50% or higher.

The Crust of Calgary: Ed Stelmach's best finish in Calgary was in Calgary - Varsity, with 21.2% of the vote.

The Most Improved Award: Stelmach went from 3.2% in Strathmore - Brooks to 47.6%.

The "We're All PC's Here" Award:
1. Fort Saskatchewan - Vegreville: 4642 ballots cast
2. Edmonton - Whitemud: 4058 ballots cast
3. Lac La Biche - St. Paul: 3022 ballots cast

Props to my home riding, St. Albert, which finished 10th.

The "Couldn't Possibly Care Less" Award:
1. Calgary - Fort - 659 ballots cast
2. West Yellowhead - 759 ballots cast
3. Fort McMurray - Wood Buffalo - 836 ballots cast

Note: Edmonton Advance Poll had a lower turnout than Fort Mac - Wood Buffalo. It could be because the first advance poll was such a mess that most people didn't try to go to this one.

Go Stelmach (Part 3)

2006-12-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

WE WIN!!!!!!!

Unofficial results:
Ed Stelmach: 51,764 (35.9%)
Jim Dinning: 51,282 (35.6%)
Ted Morton: 40,976 (28.5%)

Morton is eliminated, then:

Ed Stelmach: 77,577 (58.3%)
Jim Dinning: 55,509 (41.7%)

Wow, my prediction sure was wrong. I never would have thought Stelmach would be leading after the first count. I guess Morton really tapped out all his support in the first ballot. The attacks that Dinning levelled at Morton was a gamble that didn't pay off due to Stelmach's massive #2 turnout on Morton's ballots. Stelmach's MLAs really came through for him while Dinning's sat on their hands. Charisma be damned; I think that somebody so different from Ralph Klein in personality is just what this province needs right now.

Go Stelmach (Part 4) will have a more detailed break down of the results once they're available, but I'm sure Anonymotron's analysis will be way better than mine anyway.

Take that, Jim Dinning's raw ambition! EDDY! EDDY! EDDY!

Go Stelmach (Part 2)

2006-12-02T13:38:00.000-08:00

A fairly uneventful week of campaigning. Like I thought, Dinning and Morton swung at each other and Stelmach stayed out of it, and Hancock and Norris endorsed Stelmach. What I didn't count on was Oberg's endorsement of Stelmach. Whether those three can get their supporters to the polls is a whole other story, and I think a good chunk of them might stay home this weekend. But I don't really know...Dave Hancock's auto dialer has called me twice urging me to vote for Stelmach. I think Morton's "capital of northern Alberta" thing was a minor slip of the tongue that the media is blowing out of proportion and I don't think it will hurt his chances. I think that the Dinnites' claim that only 40% of their people bothered to vote is bunk, given that the voter turnout was right around what I expected. But with his large volunteer base, he's probably sold the most memberships this week.

The key to winning is going to be the MLA's supporting each candidate getting their people to the polls. And since Morton has the fewest MLAs on his team, he loses.

Revised Prediction:

Morton: 39.5%
Dinning: 33.9%
Stelmach: 26.6%

Stelmach is eliminated, then:

Dinning: 51.6%
Morton: 48.4%

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!??

2006-11-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

Playoffs!? Don't talk about playoffs! I just hope we can win a game, another game! Four game losing streak now! I can't take it anymore!! Jimmy, you are a worse coach than your father, and that is saying a hell of a lot. This is the man who builds up the hopes of Falcons fans worldwide only to fuck everything up in the last half of the season. Don't worry Jimmy, the Saskatchewan Roughriders are looking for a coach. But when you go, please take that retarded monkey skeleton of an offensive co-ordinator with you!

UPDATE: Sports writer par excellence Gregg Easterbrook had this to say:

"As the Falcons have dropped four straight, everyone's focusing on criticizing Michael Vick. What about all the odd coaching decisions made by Mora and his assistants? Vick wasn't the one who ordered himself to take seven-step drops on passes against New Orleans -- something he's never been good at, and which plays away from his strength, the sprint-out pass. (Sprint-outs keep Vick closer to the line and also simplify the field, requiring him to look at only half the coverage, not the entire coverage as in a deep dropback.) Trailing 14-3, Atlanta had third-and-goal on the Saints' 2, on a day the Falcons would rush for 281 yards and average 6.2 yards per rush. Just run the ball! It wasn't Vick who not only called a passing play but a seven-step drop play that required him to run backward to the New Orleans 10; sack, and Atlanta settles for a field goal. You're on the 2, why are you instructing your quarterback to run backward to the 10? Last season's incident in which Mora the Younger did not know that a tie would keep Atlanta alive for the playoffs, and was screaming into a cell phone on the sidelines as he sent in the wrong decisions knocking the Falcons out of the postseason, is hardly the only weird coaching by Mora. Plus, a good coach focuses the criticism on himself, away from his players, a la Bear Bryant. Time to look away from Vick and toward the Atlanta sideline.

Go Stelmach

2006-11-26T00:03:00.000-08:00

You Can't Teach That brings you a rare post on the subject of politics.

And then there were three:

Jim Dinning: 29,470 (30.17%)
Ted Morton: 25,614 (26.22%)
Ed Stelmach: 14,957 (15.31%)
Lyle Oberg: 11,638 (11.91%)
Dave Hancock: 7,595 (7.78%)
Mark Norris: 6,789 (6.95%)
Victor Doerksen: 873 (0.89%)
Gary McPherson: 744 (0.76%)

I expected Dinning and Norris' totals to be higher and Stelmach did better than I anticipated. This is a pleasant surprise since I've been a Stelmach supporter for the last couple of months.

Here's what I'm thinking:
-A northern alliance forms with Hancock, Norris and (for what it's worth) McPherson endorsing Stelmach. In fact, Hancock has already given Ed his blessing. I expect Doerksen will support Morton. Oberg could really go either way, but I suspect he'll go with Morton as well (he certainly wouldn't support Dinning...)
-The Dinning and Morton camps will fling crap at each other all week while Stelmach will mostly stay out of it and do the under the radar thing. This could give Ed a lot of second place votes.
-Morton's campaign has the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why is he so popular? Meanwhile, Dinning's continues to stall and continues to resemble Paul Martin's play it safe campaign. Stelmach picked up steam in the last couple of weeks, but I think he threw everything he had at making the second ballot. I'm not sure how much he has left. Dinning should still have plenty of funds.

Here's my early prediction for first place votes, which assumes the vote total from the first ballot remains the same:

Jim Dinning: 35.1%
Ted Morton: 33.6%
Ed Stelmach: 31.3%

Once the second place votes are counted:

Jim Dinning: 52.2%
Ted Morton: 47.8%

I will make a revised prediction late in the week that isn't based on so many assumptions. Let the games begin. Go Stelmach.

UPDATE: Fuck! Daveberta beat me to the Afghan Northern Alliance reference. I'll have to be clever some other time.

Spontaneity

2006-11-19T23:16:00.000-08:00

It was 12:15 PM on Saturday. My parents were bugging me about something, (I wasn't really paying attention) my work angst hit an all-time high on Friday, and I was dreading Convocation. So I pulled up my MSN list, clicked on Blobra's name, said "see you in 4 hours" and took off to Calgary. I hadn't been there since July. When we got there, we picked up 24 beers and proceeded to get drunk as fuck. Other events included ending up in Strathmore for dinner at Blobra's mom's house and going to some house party at 2 AM. Unfortunately, I left my fucking camera at home. And then in the morning, I vowed to quit drinking forever and then went home.

The best road trips are the spontaneous ones.

Big Movie Update

2006-11-11T22:52:00.000-08:00

I watched some of these such a long time ago that they're out of the theater already. Warning: May contain traces of spoilers and/or plot ending details.

ON THE BIG SCREEN:

Trailer Park Boys: Trailer Park Boys plays like an overlong TV episode. The writers forgot that anything can happen in a TV-based movie, yet they didn't set one toe outside the boundaries of the TV series (except for the frontal nudity.) They also strayed from the "mockumentary" style that the show is filmed in, which made certain elements of the story feel far-fetched and ridiculous. Sometimes, the show is even funnier because the camera guy ducks when there are shots fired and sometimes, crew or equipment are visible (all done intentionally, of course.) Also, there are numerous places where the movie storyline is not synchronized with the TV storyline (i.e. Bubbles' original shed was destroyed by Ricky in a fire and it made no mention of Ricky and Lucy's first wedding) and I consider that a slap to the faces of the show's longtime fans.

The Departed: This is a great spy vs. spy movie where the suspense keeps building. You hardly even notice it's 2 hours and 45 minutes, unlike The Aviator which had some lulls. I was quite surprised to see Jack Nicholson cast instead of Bobby DeNiro, because Bobby would have fit the role quite well, and Jack at age 75 is new to the gangster genre. Nevertheless, he put on a pretty good performance, as did DiCaprio (but not as good as Gangs of NY, or Aviator.) I felt Damon's performance lagged behind the other leads, but that's to be expected. Now I have to go see the Hong Kong version.

Jackass Number Two: Not a movie. Again, more of an overlong TV episode. Of course, the movie has its advantages...the stunts are grosser and/or more expensive and elaborate, and they're allowed to say fuck without having to bleep it out. It also contains more Dave England than the first movie, which is a huge plus. If you were a fan of the first movie, I'd say this one is about on par. It's not much funnier, but it is grosser.

Little Miss Sunshine: I was quite reluctant to see a movie called Little Miss Sunshine, but it came very highly recommended to me from three people with very different tastes in movies. The story itself is not all that original...consider it "The Royal Tenenbaums meets I Heart Huckabees", but the writers still do a wonderful job of putting it all together, and the acting was superb. The way they tied the story in with Proust was just...wow. I think a lot of families can relate in some ways, and some claim to be even more dysfunctional. People who watch movies with me know that movies about midlife crisis get an automatic pass, but the situation with Dwayne really hit home for me. Probably the best movie I've seen all year.

Flyboys: The one major complaint I have about Flyboys is that I could have written it. The story was very weak...there were no surprises because anyone who wasn't born yesterday knew exactly how the next scene was going to go. Also, my hard and fast rule is that filmmakers should not use CGI where they can avoid it. Nearly all of the flying sequences were CGI (but quite well done.) The love story they threw in was very lame, and all the characters were too flat to be in a movie about war heroes.

Flags Of Our Fathers: I was surprised by this one. I hate Paul Haggis and Clint Eastwood (as a director) so much that I almost didn't go. I expected it to be about the Battle of Iwo Jima with some kind of controversial political agenda. I thought they'd ruin it by tying it to euthanasia, like they did with Million Dollar Baby. Thankfully, there was none of that. What you see is what you get. It was very true to the historical facts and even delivered a pretty good theme about war propaganda. Thumbs up all around, especially to Adam Beach who was spectacular as Drunken Ira Hayes. Give him Best Supporting Actor right now.

On Deck: Casino Royale, Bobby, Let's Go To Prison, 10 Items Or Less, The Good Shepherd, Borat

IN THE DVD PLAYER:

Akeelah And The Bee: Yikes. I can see why Oprah would like this movie. It is no different from the "underdog" stories that have been flooding Hollywood for years. Larry Fishburne almost single-handedly saves this movie, as he was quite good. But the tie at the end was just way too cheesy for my liking. I've seen the national spelling bee on ESPN and those kids are more competitive than any professional athlete I've ever seen and would never settle for that.

Cars: A lot of people pass on animated films because of their simplistic writing intended for younger and/or simpler audiences, but to do so is to miss out on some truly great works (Wallace and Grommit, Finding Nemo, South Park, etc.) This one depicts anthropomorphic cars and is very Doc Hollywood-esque. Pixar has given us some great films...having said that, if you take away A Bug's Life, this one is probably the worst. It contains all the cliche themes of a great children's film...the importance of friendship, good sportsmanship, and they throw in a love story for good measure. Still, it has its moments. Made me laugh to beat the band...parts, anyway...

Lucky Number Slevin: What a pleasant surprise this one was. It incorporated plenty of film noir elements and even made a direct reference to North by Northwest in the film. I had to watch the ending twice just so I could put all the pieces together. I also thought it was quite a coincidence that Ben Kingsley got snuffed the exact same way that he did in House of Sand and Fog. Another sad example of a great film that won't even get a sniff at the Oscars.

Poseidon: One of those "spectacle" movies with dazzling special effects and little else. And another example of a remake falling well short of the original. I think it just goes to show how water travel is so much more dangerous than air travel. Right? Right?

The Sentinel: I never sleep on airplanes. The first time I slept on an airplane was when I blew five bucks to watch this movie on Westjet. So that means there's something seriously wrong with it since it was supposed to be an action flick. The ending isn't all that surprising, and the film is entirely dependent on the ending grabbing the audience by the balls. Very disappointing.

24: Season Three: Last season, 24 focused on a nuclear weapon...in season three, a biological weapon. Now they just need a chemical weapon and they've nailed the big three (and are officially out of ideas as far as I'm concerned.) I think that Nina showing up to buy the virus was pretty convenient, and the whole "Jack Bauer in Mexico" thing was rather silly. I don't blame Palmer for being so pissed off at them for hatching that hair-brained scheme.

24: Season Four: Instead of following the format of the previous three seasons (two big storylines) this one had chunklets of about five or six storylines which made it seem too far-fetched to be a terrorist plot. They don't know that the more complicated the plan gets, the greater the chance of something getting fucked up. Marwan escaped so many times that it made CTU look like a dumb bunch of fucks. Overall, I'd say better than season three.

United 93: I hesitated to see this one because I had heard it was critical of the FAA. It's filmed in an unusual way...it reminded me of a reality show and the events took place in real time (Sept. 11 would have made for a good season of 24, yes?) It didn't give a thought to character development, which was a big plus, because it was totally irrelevant to the story (unlike World Trade Centre where the characters were relevant, but poorly developed all the same.)

V For Vendetta: I wish the Wachowskis would simply sell their ideas to the studios rather than trying to write them themselves. This had potential to be a really great movie. It was good...really good, but not great. It had good characters and an interesting setting, but it was a little light on the theme..."fascism bad." They could have done a lot more with this. And they've learned nothing from The Matrix...they attempted a romantic side story in this one too and fell flat on their faces again.

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

We're #2! We're #2!

2006-10-06T05:38:00.000-07:00

I was pleased that the Oilers didn't make a big production out of their second place banner. It was already raised before the game and was simply unveiled before the players came out. It didn't even make the broadcast of the game. The hockey gods, impressed by this modest display, awarded the Oilers the win. Contrast this to Calgary's second place banner raising, which saw them march out the Campbell Bowl and raise it in front of the players with fireworks and all that shit. The hockey gods were annoyed enough to give the Stars a 3-2 victory that night. Since 1999, the Oilers' 45 minute pregame ceremonies for player retirements and the Heritage Classic have angered the hockey gods so much that they would punish the Oilers with a losing streak following these displays.

Football Rivalry Trifecta!

2006-09-11T00:29:00.000-07:00

Friday: Edmonton Eskimos beat the Calgary Stampeders 35-24
Saturday: University of Alberta Golden Bears defeat the University of Calgary Dinos 17-15
Sunday: Atlanta Falcons beat the Carolina Panthers 20-6.

Woo-hoo! The weekend could not have gone any better. I was especially pleased with the Falcons win because nobody thought they could do it...not even me. The next two games should prove if they are for real or not.

I was a quite pissed off that the Smos flushed a 16-0 lead over the Stamps but as the clock struck midnight eastern time, the Stamps' cinderella comeback came to an abrupt end as the Smos scored two touchdowns in the span of 6 seconds at the end of the game.

2006 NFL Season Preview

2006-09-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a set of predictions for all thirty-two teams. I'm going to come back to this mid-season and examine just how wrong I was. Last season, I picked the Jets, Raiders, and Ravens to make the playoffs. Oops!

NFC South

New Orleans: The Saints are my dark horse pick this year. They have some serious talent on offence with Drew Brees (plus receivers who put up decent numbers with Aaron fucking Brooks) and Reggie Bush. Not too sure of their defence though. Clearly they’ve learned nothing from Atlanta’s mistake and stuck Bryan Scott at free safety. I think they’ll be an exciting team to watch as they’re going to win a lot of games shootout style. This is a pretty risky pick considering they have a rookie head coach, and that combined with a new QB could be dangerous, but a change may be just what the doctor ordered. I predict that all teams remain in contention to win the division by week 15, and the Saints will take it in week 17.

Atlanta: They’ve upgraded in every area of the game, got rid of the crap players, and even better, they sent their crap players to division rivals. Unfortunately, despite that their rivals have improved too. The receiving corps remains the weakest link but that’s to be expected for a team with the #1 rushing offence in the league. It’ll probably be #1 again this year, especially since TJ Duckett will stop getting carries. The defence worries the hell out of me. If the preseason is any indication, it could be the same old story as last year.
Wins: New Orleans, Arizona, NY Giants, Cincinnati, Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Washington
Losses: Carolina, Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Dallas, Philadelphia

Carolina: If Steve Smith goes down, the Panties are in huge trouble. Keyshawn is not talented enough to carry the team’s passing game. Stephen Davis is not a huge loss for them, but only if DeShaun Foster can keep having the flashes of brilliance he had last season.

Tampa Bay: I’m still trying to figure out why they won the division last season. I think it was because of Jon Gruden’s iron balls. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, putting the Sucs down here where they belong, but I don’t think Chris Simms can do it. However, they do still have rookie of the year Carnell Williams who will continue to do great things for them. The defence remains the same (terrifyingly good) but they are only getting older. Fast young teams will be able to exploit them.

NFC North

Chicago: Molecular geneticist Rex Grossman returns as the starter. I think that time is running out for him and he knows it, so this season, we’ll see what he’s really made of. I think he’s made of china furniture so it’ll probably be the same old story in Chicago with the crappy backup QBs. If Grossman can find Muhsin Muhammed several times a game, they’ve got it made, since the running game with Thomas Jones and oft-injured Cedric Benson will sort itself out.

Minnesota: Evidently, the circus is still in the twin cities, with Koren Robinson’s recent drunk driving charge. They have the Eagles’ old offensive co-ordinator as head coach, so I’m very interested to see how that’s going to turn out. And yes, I still hate Brad Johnson.

Green Bay: Not quite the disaster that last season was. They look better defensively, especially in the secondary. Offence remains the same, but I do have to question Brett Favre’s ability. I honestly believed he wasn’t going to play the season. Hence, the Pack goes here.

Detroit: I wonder what it’s going to take to get the Lions out of this position. It seems like they’re perpetually stuck in the lower third of the league and can’t get out no matter how many top 10 receivers they draft. Apparently, Jon Kitna will be the starting QB. I’ve always thought of Kitna as a very capable BACKUP. Who knows…

NFC East

Dallas: I don’t think the T.O. circus will be enough to hold them back. They finished 9-7 last season and would have won two extra games and sent another to overtime if they had a kicker who didn’t completely suck balls. They thought getting Mike Vanderjagt would fix that, yet they still have two kickers on their roster.

NY Giants: Once again, the Giants look terrifying on offence. Tiki finished second in rushing and young Eli will continue to improve (when he learns to stop throwing while falling backward.) Pass defence is a serious weakness for Jersey/A and every team in their division can effectively put the ball in the air. They also have a tough schedule early on so they might be playing catch-up all year.

Washington: Mark Brunell is too old balls to be the starting QB. They lost a few games last season because they tended to go blitz crazy in 3rd and long situations which translated to easy completions and 1st downs for the other team. Let’s see if they’ve learned anything from that. Losing Portis is bad for them because now they have TJ Duckett, who last season had 5+ carries in every game, yet had two games where he rushed for negative yards. I think that’s some kind of record.

Philadelphia: I’m not sure what to make of the Eagles…they’ve made the NFC Championship game without T.O. so who’s to say it won’t happen again. I guess it does look like their defence is falling apart, so I think that’s a good enough reason to put them in the basement. Stallworth was a good pickup, but the west coast offence will take him some time to get used to. Once he does, he’ll be very productive.

NFC West

Seattle: Undisputed winners of the worst division in professional sports, hands down. They don’t have Steve Hutchinson, and I know that’s going to profoundly affect their running game. Let’s face facts: Alexander is next to nothing without that line. At least they still have Walter Jones. To make matters worse, Alexander’s on the cover of Madden ’07 and that carries a pretty strong curse with it (ask any Falcons fan.) It will be up to Hasselbeck to follow up his breakout season with another outstanding performance, and even without Jurevicius, they should have enough talent at receiver to do so.

Arizona: They added Edgerrin James and if Kurt Warner stays healthy, they should be able to keep the Seahawks playing their starters until about Week 15. On defence, they’re not quite where they should be. And they have to resist the temptation to start Leinart too early.

St. Louis: The Rams look a lot different from Mike Martz’s run and gun type offence. They play a lot more conservatively now. Marc Bulger’s a good quarterback and he still has Torry Holt, so that alone is enough to keep teams honest.

San Francisco: A few months ago I was challenged to name three players on the 49ers and I could only come up with two. That suggests that like Houston they are a bunch of no-names. They had the league’s worst offence and defence last season, so I have no reservations about putting them in the basement for this season.

Now for entertainment purposes, this is how the playoffs might end up:

(6) Atlanta vs. (3) Chicago: Bears
(5) NY Giants vs. (4) New Orleans: Giants
(3) Chicago vs. (2) Seattle: Bears
(5) NY Giants vs. (1) Dallas: Cowboys
(3) Chicago vs. (1) Dallas: Cowboys

AFC South

Indianapolis: Nothing changes here. The Colts pull off some regular season dominance and then wheeze out in the playoffs. They have no running game to speak of anymore, which means they’re in big trouble against teams with good pass defence.

Jacksonville: Leftwich will need to prove that he should still be the starter over David Gerard. There’s a lot of talent on that team on both sides of the ball and they should have quite a strong finish, but not quite enough to return to the post-season.

Tennessee: Vastly improved now with Vince Young. The Titans are slowly getting themselves out of cap hell and getting rid of McNair was a good start. However, they’ll be playing Billy Volek for the time being which automatically puts them out of contention.

Houston: Oh lord…The Texans didn’t do anything to help their cause this offseason, except for Jeb Putzier (good pickup.) Poor David Carr can’t show the league what he can really do if he’s constantly getting cranked behind the worst O-line ever. And I think that Super Mario is a combine freak who won’t live up to his expectations. He’ll be a decent D-lineman, but unspectacular. And losing Dominick Davis leaves them with no running game whatsoever.

AFC North

Pittsburgh: There’s controversy surrounding Bill Cowher and Roethlisberger can’t seem to stay healthy (like last season.) I think the accident has kind of fucked him up. The good news is that all their rivals are in a similar position. I guess we’ll see what Roethlisberger’s really made of since he’s lost another target. The good news is that Willie Parker is awesome, and forget about Jerome Bettis, I don’t think he was as important in the last season as some people made him out to be.

Cincinnati: A lot of questions going into this season, the main one being Carson Palmer’s health. I don’t think management is overly concerned though…they’ve brought in Anthony Wright and Doug Johnson (yes, the same Doug Johnson of the 5-13 Atlanta Falcons fame) so if Palmer goes down, watch out!! Also, Odell Thurman has received the Ricky Williams vacation (4 games, not a stint with the Argos…yet) and they’ve had 4 other players arrested on various charges this off-season. That’s enough of a distraction to lose them the division, but not a wildcard.

Cleveland: I believe in Charlie Frye. However, the Browns seemed to be cursed as they’ve run into quite a bit of bad luck this pre-season. The big one is losing LeCharles Bentley for the season…he was the missing piece of the puzzle. But I think that Frye will be able to find Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow enough times to win a couple more games this season.

Baltimore: They’ve landed a proven QB in McNair, but as with any other year, he won’t be able to stay healthy. If that was the case, Baltimore has enough talent on offence to win a fair number of games. It’s now or never for the Ravens who, after this season, will have some serious cap issues, so desperation may take over. It should be interesting.

AFC East

Miami: What a cupcake schedule the Dolphins have. The Dolphins are poised to become a breakout team this season. They finished 9-7 last season despite and have now added Daunte Culpepper. I can’t believe they squandered the chance to add another locker room cancer by cutting little Vick.

New England: Eventually, people get tired of the success story and they want to see them lose. But I don’t know…the Patriots always do so well in the draft and they have one of the best coaches football has ever seen. Overall, I’m not impressed with this year’s Patriots team, but Tom Brady might be able to make his crap receivers look good.

NY Jets: Pennington is the undisputed starter. I think he can do good things for this team. His rating is in the low 90s but it will be the defence which holds them down in this tight division.

Buffalo: Oh hallelujah, the Bills’ problems are solved. Haven’t you heard? Peerless is back in town! And, uh…yeah…never mind! If reuniting him with Bledsoe in Dallas couldn’t work out his issues, then I think he’s been lost forever. And they’ve learned nothing since JP Losman is the starter again.

AFC West

Denver: So Tatum Bell is the man…All Denver had to do was keep its team together as they had very little gaps to fill, but that was tricky given their cap situation. As a result, Mike Anderson is gone and that’ll hurt the league’s #2 rushing offence. Jake Plummer had quite a season in ’05, and I think he’ll be able to do more of the same,

Kansas City: Losing Willie Roaf is a huge blow, but Larry Johnson was able to work his magic without Roaf for some games last season. The Chiefs look very impressive on paper, and might just have enough to get back to the playoffs.

San Diego – The Philip Rivers show is not all that it is cracked up to be. That being said, I am still very, very hesitant to put a team with Antonio Gates and LaDanian Tomlinson behind the Chiefs. But I put them here because of their weak finish last season and with Brees gone, things can only get worse. Great run defence, but still pretty bad against the pass.

Oakland: The Raiders should be all set up at corner for the foreseeable future with Michael Huff and Fabian Washington. Aaron Brooks is the new guy in town and I can’t see him winning comeback player of the year. So the Raiders stay in the cellar for another season. Maybe they should begin the thawing of Rich Gannon…

(6) Kansas City vs. (3) Pittsburgh: Chiefs
(5) Cincinnati vs. (4) Denver: Broncos
(6) Kansas City vs. (1) Indianapolis: Colts
(5) Cincinnati vs. (2) Miami: Dolphins
(2) Miami vs. (1) Indianapolis: Dolphins

SUPERBOWL XLI:
Miami vs. Dallas: Cowboys win.

And last but not least, Week 1 predictions. I didn't add my comments like I normally do because this damned post is long enough. If you want the comments, you have to subscribe to my weekly NFL e-mail.

Miami
Carolina
Tampa Bay
New England (Lock)
Kansas City
Denver
New Orleans
Tennessee (Pepto)
Philadelphia
Seattle
Chicago
Jacksonville
Arizona
Indianapolis
Washington
Oakland

You Can't Teach That Birthday Special

2006-08-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

Though I never thought that we could lose
There's no regret
If I had to do the same again
I would, my friend, Fernando...

I guess I have to do the Stallions year end report in this post. I didn't think I would have to. The season's over now because we lost to the Calgary Gators 30-14 on Saturday. They were a totally different team than the one we played on July 8, and they just kind of got the better of us. We also had some bad luck on a few plays, but that always happens and it goes both ways so no need to think "what if." At the end of it all, it was a privilege to call myself a part of that team and to be on the same field as some of those guys. I just wish I could have made more of a contribution than I did. But my streak of never missing a regular season football practice is still intact and I felt that I improved a lot. I plan to keep working in the offseason, and I hope to join the team again next season if they will have me back. It will be very strange not having practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I know that I am going to miss it a lot in about a month or so just like I did with the Spartans.

My birthday was today and I watched Beerfest and went for dinner at Ric's Grill in St. Albert which is almost too classy for me. Excellent food and excellent wine, but I likely won't remember too much of it, since kids only remember bad birthdays.

Let's see what's been going on in movies and TV lately:

Batman Begins: It's not like the other Batman movies, except that it's dark and gothic like all the other ones. Christian Bale plays the lead surprisingly well, but maybe I'm biased by the lousy performances of George Clooney and Val Kilmer in the previous sequels. It's not really like other superhero movies because there isn't really a true supervillain in this one. The bad guys are closer to common criminals. Anyway, I could go either way on this one...nothing to write home about, but not bad either.

Beerfest: All the same producers, writers, and actors as Super Troopers, so if you liked that film, chances are you'll like this one too. Super Troopers was better though. Same style of humour, and it isn't too preachy about the negative effects of heavy drinking either. There's a disclaimer at the beginning and a little blurb in the middle about how Beerfest is ruining the characters' lives, but that's about it. There are some fall down funny parts and some gross out parts but overall, it's pretty funny. Reminded me a little bit of Lister.

Ladder 49: First of all, I knew Johnny Cash was going to get roasted after watching the first five minutes, and it's really sappy that way. It also seemed a little unrealistic to me...I don't think emergency services workers can be that dramatic otherwise the job would wear on them too much. Some of the paramedics I know have a really twisted sense of humour, but in their words it's kind of like "If you don't laugh, then you've got to cry." Rescue Me is more like that and it's sometimes billed as a dark comedy so as far as fire fighting shows go, I prefer Rescue Me.

Lost in Translation: This was my second attempt at this film. The first time I saw it, I was drunk or passed out (or both) and didn't follow it as closely as I should have. As I've said numerous times, I'm extremely biased toward midlife crisis films, so naturally, I liked this movie. The two main characters are named Bob and Charlotte. Bob is middle-aged and is always away from his family and can't communicate with his wife. Charlotte is almost in the same boat except that her husband is always away and she is much younger. They both have something to offer each other. Bob gives Charlotte the attention and humour she needs and Charlotte kind of helps reconnect Bob to his life. In contrast to Bob's wife, Charlotte communicates well with Bob and they can openly discuss things about the meaning of life, why we're here, where we're going, etc. The first time I saw it, I didn't like it because nothing really happens in the movie, but it's more about the characters than anything. If you don't like movies where two characters just talk, then you won't like it. I for one thought it was well done and very well written.

Rescue Me Season Three: Pretty much the only show I stay up to date with on a weekly basis. This is a great show because Denis Leary just plays an angry guy, which he does so well. As for season three, I thought there were a couple of episodes that just kind of lagged and didn't contribute anything to the big picture. I'll reserve judgement until I see the season finale on Wednesday though. All drama shows kill off characters periodically to keep the audience interested and to throw in twists, but in Rescue Me, most of the dead characters end up coming back as ghosts who can interact and communicate with Denis Leary only. Anyway, if you want to watch a show about firefighters with booze and drug problems, then this is the show for you. If you want to get into this show, just make sure you pay close attention to the character development because that's really important if you want to fully understand what's going on, especially in the newer episodes.

Snakes On A Plane: This is quite a masterpiece alright. I set the bar very low heading into this one obviously. I enjoyed how the movie poked fun at itself at times. For a movie that cheesy, you pretty much have to in order to keep the audience from constantly rolling their eyes, so kudos to the director. I think that films should avoid using CGI wherever it's possible, because it made the snakes look pretty fake. And I am going to pick apart the flying. No airline should ever use a 747 between Honolulu and Los Angeles because it makes little economic sense. The pilots were communicating with ATC remarkably well for having "Lost all avionics!" and why would a plane enroute IFR at 35,000 feet be talking to the tower at LAX? The airplane didn't overspeed as it fell from 35,000 feet. Its rapid descent continues to less than 200 feet and than miraculously recovers. In real life, a heavy aircraft like that one descending so rapidly would be fucked at about 5,000 feet if corrective action wasn't taken. If a 747 bounced like that on landing, a tire would probably have blown or the gear would have collapsed altogether. And he kept the plane tracking straight down the runway remarkably well down the runway considering the tailwind and was able to stop it in under 10,000 feet without the use of the thrust reverser and minimal brakes, which is pretty good considering the things approach at about 130-140 knots with full flaps. Ye Gods!

24 Season Two: Superior to season one. I can offer the same criticisms as season one though. I couldn't turn the show off as they were scrambling to find the bomb, but then after the bomb went off, I thought "How can they possibly fill 8 more hours??" It got a little dry and political from there and there was very little suspense. It picked up more toward the end, but it took Jack so long to get the evidence that the Cyprus recording was fake that it was almost a comedy of errors.

World Trade Center: This one was quite disappointing because my mom hyped it up way too much. It attempts to be a story of setting and a story of character and really fails at both. To be a story of setting, it would have to go into greater details of the actual World Trade Center disaster in kind of a minute by minute fashion, preferrably in real-time (kind of like United 93) but that would create too much of a spectacle out of the disaster. Even though this movie makes no attempt to glorify anything about September 11, 2001, some people still feel this movie was made too soon, so Oliver Stone was walking on eggshells right from the get-go. And to be a story of character, I think I would have to know a little bit more about the characters than just the banter between the two leads John and Will while they were pinned under the rubble. However, to accomplish this, they would have had to do some scenes taking place in the days before September 11, 2001 which would have made the movie about 4 hours long. The performance of Michael Pena was about the only saving grace in this film.

Also, this blog has been up for one year. Birthday wishes also to youcantteachthat.blogspot.com

Signed to Four Month Deal

2006-08-23T00:39:00.000-07:00

I still can't believe my good fortune in the last six weeks. The other day, I learned that one of the ladies in the lab was going back to school in the fall to pursue a career in nursing, so my boss offered me an extension. Of course I snapped it up because I'm not particularly interested in learning a new job right now even though the pay might be better. I'm especially not interested in being unemployed and not making any money either.

Also, the Falcons traded piece of garbage T.J. Duckett to Washington for receiver Ashley Lelie from Denver, who received a third round pick from Washington. In 2005, Ashley (which is a girl's name) started in 13 games for the Broncos and caught 42 passes for 770 yards and 1 TD. The low number of catches and the single TD is worrisome, but 30 of his catches were for first down, and Duckett was expendable anyhow since Warrick Dunn was going to be the #1 guy at RB anyway. They needed a receiver after losing The White Guy. The White Guy was the so-called "third down" receiver on the Falcons with 50 catches and 31 first downs so I think Lelie will step into this role quite nicely. I like this trade. Rich McKay is a genius and I think I have a man-crush on him.

I'll keep the terrible 80s videos coming, it's just that I have to write the posts in HTML so it takes forever to do each one.

When does NFL start?

2006-08-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

Well Danny Nocoachia, losing 4 of 5 in an 18 game season is completely unacceptable. Say what you will about the margin of losing and being a "young team." I'll see you in the unemployment line at Canada Place in September, bitch. At least we'll always have your gay little celebration on 2nd down in the Grey Cup to remember you by.

Terrible 80s Video #8

2006-08-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

8. Tracey Ullman - They Don't Know

Quite a lot to pick apart with this one. There's a guy in a gold speedo playing the chimes at the beginning, Tracey stands over the ball return at the bowling alley as balls roll between her legs, there are cut scenes of home movies (presumably Tracey as a kid?) and there's this bizarre line dancing thing right in the middle. Then it cuts to Tracey looking like a knocked up alcoholic housewife shopping for groceries. They get a couple things right though...Tracey does the right thing by leaving the guy with the creeper 'stache and I get a kick out of the three-wheeled car. But yes, that is Paul McCartney at the end. Apparently, that's what she sees when she looks at the guy with the creeper 'stache. Or something. I have a hard time making sense of this one.

Terrible 80s Video #9

2006-08-17T21:04:00.000-07:00

9. Styx - Mr. Roboto

This video is pretty much a literal translation of the lyrics, which I hate to begin with. The light show is just cheesy and the creepy expression on the faces of the robots will be in my nightmares for a long time, especially that one that's grinning. Shudder. At least the robots are doing "The Robot," one of the few redeeming features of this video that keeps it from ranking even lower. I hope the editor for this video never worked again because of the crappy transitions like the one shot that comes in from the corner and the other one that kind of flips into the middle. Totally unnecessary.

I think the song is awesome and Dennis DeYoung is the second greatest synthesizer player ever (Steve Winwood has the edge on him.)

Where the hell did August go?

2006-08-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow's the 16th of August and it just occurred to me that I don't have any plans for my birthday in 11 days.

Umm...holy fuck.

Seeing as how last year's celebration was an unmitigated disaster (I helped my brother move that afternoon, then got an allergic reaction to something at Mongolie Grill, but kids don't remember bad birthdays, right?) I don't have high expectations this year. It happens to fall on a Sunday this year, and I also happen to have the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off. It would normally become a 6 day bender I'm sure, but everyone else has, you know, work and responsibilities and shit and can't be that reckless. Most of my plans hinged on what the Stallions would be up to that weekend. It turns out we'll have a home game on the 26th at 5 PM. If we win that game (and we should) I'll probably go out boozing with the team that night. And Friday's out because I work until 11. That leaves Sunday for the official drinking party and nobody except for rubbie-dubs like me gets drunk on a Sunday.

Let's see...the Smos have a bye that week, so that's out. Derby Day is the 26th, but that conflicts with the Stallions. I'll probably even end up reffing football on the 27th. Maybe I'll just go see the movie that's sure to topple American Beauty right off the top of my all-time list. I'm talking, of course, about Snakes on a Plane.

Other than that, the job search is a little slower than I would like it to be. However, I have come up with a few opportunities that pay about $10 more per hour plus benefits for an easier job than the one I have now. I knew that I was getting fleeced as a summer contract worker, but I didn't know just how badly until now.

"Awww...Damnit!" - Dave England

2006-08-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

I went out to Lac La Biche over the long weekend to stay at Dre's cabin. The first night was good...we built a decent fire and had some beers. When I got up the next morning though I was chilly despite the fact it was about 22 degrees outside. I also didn't have much of an appetite. That was my first clue that something was wrong. We set to work digging a hole for an outhouse, and then I was feeling a little queasy and had to go inside for some peach drink. Well, after a couple of big chugs of peach drink, I had to run outside to barf. I took it easy for the rest of the afternoon. Then we had spaghetti for supper which I was not able to eat much of and then a few hours later, we built a big fire and had some more beers. I think I rushed the second Lucky Xtra because I ended up barfing again, so I was cut off. On Sunday, we went out on the boat, and (surprise!) when we got back on dry land I had to barf one more time. I then packed up and headed home with a one litre bottle of ginger ale as my companion. These queasy feelings subsided by Monday morning, but then every time I swallowed, it felt like I was swallowing glass, so I still couldn't eat or drink. And it hasn't gotten a lot better since then. I've discovered that I can drink as much milk as I want without feeling the intolerable pain, but it sucks not to be able to eat and drink what I want.

So I'm working the tailgate security at tomorrow's Eskimo game which I know I'm going to regret because 1) I hate the goddamn Riders and their fans worse than anything, 2) I hate the Schmos almost as much right now because they're a bunch of pieces of crap and 3) the Falcons open their preseason tomorrow against the Patriots and it's on TV. I was quite looking forward to seeing DJ Shockley, Klaus Alinen, Cedric Bonner, Cole Magner, Jason Randall, and others who have no business whatsoever playing in the regular season. I'm serious too. When one of the star players goes down in a game and his replacement trots in, it's better to have studied up on him and know what's going to happen instead of sitting there saying "Who the fuck...?"

Go Stallions!

2006-07-31T16:56:00.000-07:00

Grande Prairie trip was awesome. We won the game 54-7 and secured a first round bye in the playoffs. The only thing is that it poured rain throughout the first quarter and I don't think I've ever been so cold playing a football game. That's Alberta weather for you...the last game felt like I was playing on a field in Africa (37 degrees) and in this one I thought I was getting hypothermia. I won't comment on any of the capers that took place after the game because what happens on the road stays on the road, but things did get a little crazy.

NFL season is just around the corner with the preseason starting August 12. The Falcons have already suffered a setback, losing clutch receiver Brian Finneran for probably the season during a non-contact practice last week. I keep telling myself that it could be worse; it could have been Dunn, or Abraham, or D'Lo, or Crump, or...You-know-who. It seems like every year a good Falcons player goes down before the season starts. 2003 was You-know-who, 2004 was D'Lo (although he did come back in November,) 2005 was Ed Hartwell, and now Finn in 2006. I don't know how this will affect my preseason prediction, but I'll have to wait and see how the preseason plays itself out and then I'll put up predictions for all teams.

Auto Racing

2006-07-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

Yep, that's me last weekend at Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered By Ford West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix Presented By The Brick. These two fine ladies were giving away free photos and looked really happy to be there, especially the broad on the left. It was hot that day, probably 32° or more. Look at me, I'm afraid to lay my sweaty hands on them (although my left hand does look like it wants a taste of the blonde broad's left boob.) Maybe it's because I know that so many other guys have already done that over the course of the day and I don't want to get AIDS.

Anyway, it was a good weekend, and it was hot out...so very hot. Champ Car is the greatest ever.

While you see a chance, take it.

2006-07-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

On August 13, 2002, I received a rejection letter from the Canadian Forces. I was dependent upon joining the reserves to finance my education and to give me a challenge, so this turned my world upside down.

Almost four years later, on May 10, 2006, I received a phone call telling me that I did not meet the requirements to graduate from university. After four years of torment and suffering to earn a piece of paper, I was crushed to find out that it wasn’t over.

Both of these were pretty borderline calls. What’s the difference between them? I chose to fight the university decision.

I chose to fight it. And I won.

I can hardly believe it. During the last month or so I had completely resigned myself to the fact that I would have to do one more semester. I had learned to suck it up. But I needed to know for sure from the university that they didn’t make the decision on my graduation status in error. After perusing the university calendar for a loophole, I found one that I might have been able to exploit. As I pointed out earlier, in the Immunology and Infection section of the calendar, it does not state that you need a 2.3 GPA in your final year. This was the basis for my graduation denial. But it does say you need a 2.3 GPA in your final year for other programs. I highlighted this fact in a written letter to the Chair of the department of biological sciences. I knew this was a long shot, so I did not get my hopes up. I guess they decided that they can’t go by rules that aren’t written in the calendar, so they ruled in my favour. Score one for justice! It’s good to know that some people in the ivory tower still have a mind for what is fair. A faculty of science advisor told me not to appeal. My program advisor told me not to bother appealing. The Ombudservice was of no use to me. But I did it anyway.

I’ve spent the last four years feeling incompetent, dumb, inferior, and mediocre. If my Grade 12 self saw what I have become, he would certainly wonder what the fuck happened. My Grade 12 self was a hell of a lot more confident, sometimes to the point where he could come off as smug, arrogant and self-centred. He had a lot of optimism and was excited about leaving high school and pursuing the successes and opportunities that the university experience bestows on everyone. I certainly see things a lot differently now. I used to think that anything was possible if you dedicated yourself and believed in it. I came here expecting to be on the brink of something extraordinary after university. I expected some kind of post-graduate degree to be in the works. These last 8 months, all I wanted to do was pass my classes, get the fuck out, and fly planes for a living. And that got me to thinking…if there’s one thing I learned during my four years here…it’s that I have no business in a career in immunology and infection or health science in general…well, I guess that alone was worth the price of admission. A lot of people go to university to find something they enjoy and constantly change their majors and are here forever. But I think finding out what you don’t enjoy can be just as valuable…sort of. Back in Grade 12, certain people had successfully convinced me when I wanted to pursue a career in aviation, that aviation wasn’t good enough, that a university degree would be necessary to get me toward a good job that I loved, and that being a “glorified bus driver” wasn’t the way to white collar high fucking society. But how can that be more important than being able to look forward to going to work in the morning? Would I be better off if I was an engineer who hated his job? All those people who show up to work because it’s a job and they can make a living from it are all suckers. I think Dane Bullerwell said it best: “Every day I spend doing something because I’m good at it or because it’s tolerable – and not because I really enjoy the work – a little part of me dies.”

I can’t help but feel that this place brought out the worst in me. Whenever someone accomplished something good, I couldn’t be happy for them, I would actually find myself giving them dirty looks. I think it’s because I don’t like being constantly ranked, graded, and evaluated, and that’s all I’ve had throughout my life. Here, it doesn’t matter if you know 90% of the course material inside and out. If everyone else in the class knows more than you, you can still end up with a shitty grade.

If I had it all to do over again, would I? There are definitely things that I would do differently, but I have met a lot of great friends here, and I had the opportunity to play hockey for the first time, it got me a job working in the breweries, and at least it got me the hell out of Strathmore.

And maybe, I worried about things too much. I was sick of always worrying about that next midterm, the due date of that assignment, how much money was in my bank account, etc. And the worst part is that I just let out all my neg-head downer shit on everyone else. I was pretty miserable to my friends, roommates, classmates, and family, especially in the last 8 months. This is just selfish and inexcusable. So I guess the truth is that I’m a bad person. But, that's going to change - I'm going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you. The job, the family, the fucking big television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three piece suit, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.

Mid-Summer Crisis (part two)

2006-07-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

Here's an update:

-Still have to go back to university in the fall.
-I hung around with Andre and Wallace over the weekend and Mick and Lamar on Monday, so that was good. Dustin will be up this Friday or Saturday for his semi-annual liver damaging trip to Edmonton.
-Going flying next Monday. Still, I don't know when the next one after that will be as the financial picture is still not very clear.
-The Stallions experiment still resembles a sinking battleship. I think that we've hit the mid-season wall as a team though, so maybe it's not just me. The road trip to Calgary was a blast, other than the game ending at halftime because of lightning, the food at the bar after the game taking two and a half hours, and a couple of guys on the team coming to blows later on. I hate seeing that. I suppose when you mix booze and boiled up tension with your teammates, people will shoot their mouths off and you just have to try to ignore it, but it's still not a pretty sight. But yeah, other than that, a good time.
-I'm becoming more efficient at my job, which is why I can take the time to write this blog post. Still, the 4:30 AM wake-up every day still gets on my nerves. We've had 6 managers quit in the last 6 weeks which makes me wonder what's going on with the leadership, but that's fine, we can manage.

Oh yeah, my dad's unemployed now too, so I don't know what's going to happen. The folks may be moving again, who knows. That's just what I need, more uncertainty. The goddamn human comedy continues.

And why does it seem that the Eskimos only lose to crappy teams? They're underachievers one week and then world beaters the next. All my teams that I cheer for are schizophrenic like that (the Oilers lost three times to the worst team in hockey last season), but it does make things more interesting. If I knew exactly how each team was going to perform before the game even started, there would be no point watching it.

Weekend Movie Recap

2006-07-03T23:20:00.000-07:00

Over the past 3 days, I've been watching movies almost non-stop, putting a big dent in my "Movies To Watch" list. And now I'm blogging about them. Clearly, I'm obsessed.

Match Point: Not your typical Woody Allen film. There is no neurotic nerd who gets into relationship problems of some kind, it's set in London instead of New York, and Allen does no acting at all. This one isn't particularly funny either. But Woody claims that this was his best work ever. I might be inclined to agree had it not been about 40 minutes too long. It still deserved to be nominated for the original screenplay Oscar, but it definitely did not deserve to win, like how Crash didn't deserve to win. Still, I liked the theme of the movie...it was kind of about how some people are lucky and some are unlucky, like a tennis ball striking the net can either go over it, in which case you win, or it can bounce back to your side and you lose.

American Splendor: I only picked this one up because of Paul Giamatti. I didn't really know much about it beforehand, except that this was supposedly Giamatti's strongest performance. After seeing it, I'm inclined to agree, although there were some striking similarities between Harvey in this movie and Miles in Sideways. Both are kind of hard luck characters who think that the world is screwing them over. The writing was spectacular. This one actually won a shitload of writing awards, but couldn't stop the Lord of the Rings sweep of 2004 to win the Oscar. Anybody who likes indie film is probably well-acquainted with this one already, but if not, it should definitely be high on your list.

The Squid and the Whale: Again, I didn't have too much prior knowledge of this one, only that it was nominated for writing at the last Oscars. When I think of movies about divorce, I automatically think Kramer vs. Kramer, but this was significantly different from it. After I got into it, I started noticing elements of The Royal Tenenbaums, and then in the closing credits, I found out it was produced by Wes Anderson, go figure. The writer (Noah Baumbach) also did The Life Aquatic, so there's that too. It does a really excellent job portraying how joint custody can screw up the kids. I don't have any firsthand experience with this but I did notice that at some of my brother's hockey games, separated parents with joint custody would usually sit at opposite ends of the arena. It would be hard to grow up normal in that kind of environment. Frigging brilliant, excellent movie.

A History of Violence: Yikes. I have no idea what to make of this one. I was kind of hoping it would keep me on the edge of my seat, but the best action occurs in the first 15 minutes. And in stark contrast to Match Point, this one is about 40 minutes too short. I thought they could have dug into the main character's past a lot more than they did because it left quite a bit unanswered. Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention. And they might have given William Hurt a bigger part. He did a 5 minute bit and then the movie was over. I can't believe this was written by the same guy who wrote Judge Dredd...my stars. Overall, I was pretty disappointed by this one. It just didn't live up to its hype.

24: Season One: I don't even watch TV anymore. I just rent the DVDs. You don't have to wait a week between episodes and there aren't any commercials. But you may have to wait all night outside the video store, like when my roommate Marc stayed up all night watching 24, talked of going to Movie Studio as soon as it opened so he could get the next episodes because he was so hooked on the show. Thankfully, that hasn't happened with me. I'm amazed at how the writers could keep this thing going for 24 episodes and in real time. It must have been hard to think up things for all the characters to be doing at any one time. I guess sometimes they gave the characters busy work...like the time Rick spent 40 minutes digging a grave, and the time Terri and Kim spent a whole hour debriefing with Nina. But for the most part, the show moves fairly quickly, and Tommy Douglas III gives a pretty strong performance. I'm sure that if I ever had a day like that at that pace, I'd be passed out before noon. I'm still 8 episodes away from finishing, so I might comment more later.

After all the dust has settled...

2006-07-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

Eric Brewer, Jeff Woywitka, and Doug Lynch for Joffrey Lupul, Ladislav Smid, a 1st round pick in '07, a 2nd round pick in '08, and a possible 1st round pick in '08. I like this trade.

Who's Chris Pronger?

Summer's half over

2006-06-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we're at the midway point now of summer 2006. I set a goal in January that I would make this one the second best summer ever. Nothing will ever come close to 2001, let's face it. That summer involved flying, football, and hanging out with friends. I wanted this summer to emphasize all three of those things as well. Let's see how I'm doing so far:

1. Graduation application denied (that's the big one...)

2. I live in St. Albert. With my parents. That makes it very difficult to have people over and the St. Albert thing means it's difficult to hang out with friends. I see Mick about every 2 weeks, I haven't seen Blobra in 3 months, Andre is always around, but he's moving to Fort Mac this month, and Wallace works an afternoon shift with Thursdays and Sundays off so I'll be seeing even less of her. It also means I spend a lot of money on gas. I drive half an hour every morning to work and it's about as far to the Stallions practice field.

3. The football thing has become more challenging than I ever thought possible. I know I lack athletic talent at the best of times, but when I stand next to these guys I just look like a piece of shit. It's like the hockey thing...sometimes I feel like such a fraud out there.

4. I flew for 2.4 hours yesterday. That was the first time this summer I've been up flying. I think that I'll be going up maybe twice more over the next two months as I never seem to have any money and should think about saving some. See #1.

5. The end of the Oilers Stanley Cup run was extremely disappointing. It's good that I had NHL hockey well into June though. Sometimes I wish I wasn't such a fan because the stress levels in my life would plummet. Seriously. It's worth being hardcore when your team wins, but it's really hard when they lose.

6. Work sucks the life out of me. I'm up at 4:30 AM every day and don't go to bed until 11:30 or midnight. I just can't go to bed early. So I'm half-asleep and unmotivated at work nearly all the time. There are also disadvantages to working days since there are a lot more people around so you kind of need to look busy all the time.

7. I have let just about everyone down in one way or another. God, why is it that when I find a group of people that I like to hang out with I have to fuck it up by acting like myself? I guess not everyone's a cold-hearted cynic like me so maybe that has to change. That's going to be kind of hard though.

Other than that, things have been awesome! But damned if I don't have a lot of work to do to save this summer from completely tanking.

Not in MY NHL!

2006-06-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to blog about what took place in the actual game. Even though he was wrong about everything else, Anonymotron hit the nail on the head with this quote: "Do I seriously have to go sit in my cubicle and listen to people HAVE THE SAME GODDAMN OBVIOUS DISCUSSIONS about the loss, ALL GODDAMN DAY LONG?" Good thing I'm stuck off in a corner of the basement where my human contact is very infrequent, and I don't work in a cube. It will be a miracle if Weeds makes it through today without dismembering a certain idiot meddler co-worker of hers.

I'm really glad the Angry Guy didn't show up last night. I think it's because I came to terms with this when I was driving around the city for an hour after game one of the series; Betsy and I were having our own little pity party. Does this mean all my neg-head downer shit can be good sometimes? I can understand how hard it must have been for people who, you know...still believe in things. I certainly didn't help matters much, with my "Game Over!" declaration and prediction of a 4-1 Carolina win after the first period, just to press the buttons of everyone I was watching the game with.

I can't wait for Saturday and the Stampeders/Eskimos at Commonwealth. I know the Stamps fans will be out in full force wonk-wonk-wonking about the Oilers, despite the fact that hockey and football are two different sports (no, really!) These are the fans who showed up to Stampeders games all 2004 season wearing their Flames jerseys, so Andre responded during the labour day rematch by wearing his Lightning jersey. So I hope to see a Hurricanes jersey this Saturday. If not, I will be very disappointed. And of course, if the Edmonton fans show up in their Oilers jerseys, they're going to get a faceful of knuckles. Except for that one guy in College Corner who has always worn his Oilers jersey...I guess it's bad form to beat up retards.

Great Oilers Moment #1

2006-06-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

1. EIG buys the team

I think this is a fantastic story. Few people remember, or even knew in the first place, how close Edmonton came to losing its NHL franchise. Here’s how it all happened:

Peter Pocklington was a pretty respected businessman in Edmonton during the 70’s and early to mid-80s. He brought jobs to the city through his thriving meat packing empire and brought an NHL franchise to the team. Through a shrewd business move, he managed to keep Gretzky from going to an expansion draft when the Oilers joined the NHL. And at great personal expense, he put together a winning roster and the team won its first Stanley Cup within five years of joining the league…something that’s almost unheard of for an expansion team. But the Gainers strike of 1986 was the beginning of the end for Pocklington. He was blasted for his use of replacement workers and his business never really recovered. Also, in ’88, many fans chose to blame Pocklington for the Gretzky trade, while Pocklington tried to shift the blame back on Gretzky and his new wife Janet. Few believed him, however, and all of a sudden, Pocklington became Edmonton’s very own Mr. Burns. The shenanigans would not stop there, however. Pocklington frequently got into spats with Northlands over his lease agreement there and threatened to move the team several times when negotiations didn’t go his way. The fans got fed up with this and the team saw dismal season ticket sales in the mid 1990s. Finally, in 1998, the Alberta Treasury Branch seized control of the team over Pocklington’s accumulated debts and put the team up for sale. And since no single local person offered up the money to buy the team, it appeared the Oilers’ days in Edmonton were numbered. It seemed they were doomed to suffer the same fate as the Quebec Nordiques in 1995, and the Winnipeg Jets in 1996.

However, a number of factors at least stalled the process for the time-being. The very same lease at Northlands that Pocklington tried to void prevented him from unilaterally moving the team or selling it to someone who intended to move the team. The lease also stipulated that an ownership group willing to keep the team in Edmonton had six weeks to purchase the team for $70 million USD if an outside buyer declared their intentions to buy the team.

Since no single buyer could be found, Cal Nichols, owner of Gasland Properties, was forced to come up with a more creative solution: securing smaller investments from a large number of buyers. Lenders were willing to finance 40% of the purchase price, meaning Nichols needed to scrape together $60 million. He had raised about $35 million when an offer came in from Les Alexander, owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, to purchase the team for $85 million USD. Alexander originally offered to keep the team in Edmonton, provided the lease at Northlands was terminated, attendance remained at acceptable levels, and a local ownership group was eventually found and he would be granted an expansion franchise in Houston. City council rejected these terms, believing the lease at Northlands was still their best chance to keep the Oilers in the city for the long term. Alexander then went to the ATB and gave them $5 million USD as a deposit and committed to buying the team for $85 million USD and moving it to Houston. Cal Nichols and his group now had 6 weeks to come up with the $70 million USD as stipulated by the lease agreement. As the deadline approached, the group committed to purchase by matching Alexander’s $5 million deposit and paid the ATB the remainder of the $70 million 40 days later.

The Edmonton Investor’s Group is the sole reason why there is still NHL hockey in Edmonton today and thus ranks as the most important moment in the team’s history. However, the group was quite wary of its bottom line and the team could not afford to bring in big talent. The team under the new ownership group struggled to make the playoffs every season and didn’t win a playoff round until 2006, when the new collective bargaining agreement made it possible for all teams to ice a competitive roster.

Great Oilers Moment #2

2006-06-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

Well! 2 more wins until I am forced to eat a big steamy plate of crow for my bold prediction after Game 1. I kept thinking Game 6 was never going to happen and that I would never get to see a Stanley Cup Final game. Who knows when the next time the Oilers will be in the finals will be and I was fortunate enough to have season tickets this season. It's paid off big time.

2. 1990 Stanley Cup Win

So at the turn of the decade, the Oilers sat second in the Smythe Division, the Flames had won the Cup the previous season, Wayne Gretzky had departed to the LA Kings two seasons ago, the Oilers lost in the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 1981-82 the previous year, and Grant Fuhr had injured himself. It would seem that the Oilers were in their autumn years and had no chance in the 1990 playoffs.

Or not.

However, from the very early going, the Oilers looked terrible. In the first round, the Winnipeg Jets held a 3-1 series lead over Edmonton and the Oilers' only win had come by way of overtime. In the next two, the Oilers earned a pair of 4-3 wins, and got a decisive 4-1 victory in Game 7 to advance to the Smythe Division final. Here, they faced the team that eliminated them from the playoffs the previous year. However, the Oilers were not at all intimidated, and led by Bill Ranford's heroics, they swept the Kings, outscoring them 24-10. In a hard fought Campbell Conference final, the Oilers beat the Blackhawks 4 games to 2 and went on to face a familiar foe from the 1988 series: the Boston Bruins. Game 1 still holds the record as the longest Stanley Cup Final game ever played. It ended when Petr Klima scored at 15:13 of the third overtime period giving the Oilers a 3-2 win. Ranford stood on his head all series as he never allowed more than 2 goals in any of the games. The Oilers would win the series 4 games to 1 and Ranford would win the Conn Smythe.

For some people, this one is the forgotten Stanley Cup. To me, it was the greatest one of the five the Oilers won during their dynasty. They proved that they could win it all without Gretzky. They would come close again, making the Conference finals in the two subsequent seasons, being upset by the Minnesota North Stars and then swept by the Blackhawks.

Alright, so now that the five cups are all out of the way, what could possibly be the greatest Oilers moment of all time? The answer's coming soon.

Great Oilers Moment #3

2006-06-11T19:04:00.000-07:00

I suppose I'd better finish this thing off...

3. 1984 Stanley Cup Win

The Oilers made it to their first Stanley Cup final the previous season, but were swept by the New York Islanders as they won their fourth Stanley Cup in as many years. They outscored the Oilers 17-6 despite all of the Oilers' goal-scoring records and boasted superstars such as Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin and Billy Smith. So after a seven game series with the Flames, and a sweep of the Jets and Northstars, the Oilers found themselves in the finals again with the Islanders. It seemed history was doomed to repeat itself; the Islanders had home ice advantage and many hockey writers, even in Edmonton, confidently predicted that the Islanders would be successful in their "drive for five."

Game 1 was a battle of the goaltenders, with Grant Fuhr coming out on top in a 1-0 contest. Game 2 was more lopsided as the Islanders routed the Oilers 6-1. The series then headed up to Northlands, where the Oilers offence overpowered Billy Smith as they recorded back to back 7-2 wins. After two periods of Game 5, the Oilers found themselves up 4-0. But two quick goals by Pat LaFontaine put the outcome in doubt. The Oilers knew that if the series had to go back to Long Island, they would never have come back winners. However, despite this momentum shift, Andy Moog stood tall for the rest of the game, and an empty-netter by Dave Lumley made the final score 5-2.

The Oilers had just ended the greatest Stanley Cup dynasty in the post-expansion NHL. Celebrations erupted down Jasper Ave. and Mayor Laurence Decore declared that the win was "the greatest thing that's ever happened here."

Game Over

2006-06-05T22:27:00.000-07:00

"The Oilers, on the other hand, can choose between D-Wayne and Bozo the Clown on any given night."

And now they don't get to choose anymore. It's Bozo the Clown for the next three games. I say this because D-Wayne is gone for the series. I know some people are going to say "Christ, Adam, you need to hold onto some hope...some faith." And because of the shit blizzard that I'm trapped in, I'll say "Sorry, pal. Hope, faith...tank's empty on that count." This is not just me trying to pull a reverse jinx. These are my prognostication skills telling me that it will all be over by next Monday. Face it, we're back to square one: the goaltending circus that plagued the team for most of the season and managed to win 41 games by pure dumb luck.

I suppose it all depends on how the team responds, but they have relied very heavily on Roloson to get them this far. I should probably wait one more game, but I've been watching this Conklin/Markkanen/Morrison shit all season and I'm so goddamn sick of it. Don't accuse me of being off the bandwagon...if I'm wrong, I'll eat my crow with a smile on my face, but I would prefer to be prepared for what's ineviteably going to happen.

NHL Playoffs - Round 4

2006-06-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

I went 2 for 2 in the last series (so did the monkey) while the “experts” went 0 for 2. That makes me 8-6 in the postseason. I guess that means you have to listen to what I say now.

(8) Edmonton vs. (2) Carolina

Two former WHA teams competing for the Stanley Cup…man, that warms the old heart. But who would have thought this at the beginning of the season? Carolina was the big surprise in the regular season, and the Oilers barely squeaked into the playoffs.

Anyway, I hope that the Oilers don’t change what they’re doing too much because from the limited time that I’ve watched Carolina play, it looks like they play very similarly to Anaheim. They look like a really fast team, but unlike Anaheim, they’ve got some more depth on offence and the scoring could really come from anywhere (Weight, Brind’Amour, Staal, Stillman, Recchi, etc.) This kind of sounds like another team the Oilers have played…San Jose Sharks anyone?? Their blue line doesn’t look all that bad either. Who would have thought that clown Mike Commodore would become such a star? Their power play for the playoffs has also been very successful…not unlike Detroit! So what we have here is a composite of all the teams the Oilers have played. We have the fierce power play of Detroit, the offensive prowess of San Jose, and the speed and hot goaltending of Anaheim all rolled into one. Although it will be interesting to see whether or not there is a full blown goaltending controversy…Peter Laviolette has not hesitated to rotate his goaltenders and it has worked for him. A goaltending change is more a mind game than anything. When a team starts its backup in a game, it signals to the other team’s forwards that they shouldn’t have to work too hard to win the game. Also, the team tends to rally around the new goalie, as seen in Game 4 of the Anaheim series. The Oilers, on the other hand, can choose between D-Wayne and Bozo the Clown on any given night. The mind game probably won’t work too well in their case.

As for the rest vs. rust debate, I tend to agree with the rust side more often. However, the move to Tarrytown was fucking brilliant. It gets the travel day out of the way and puts the team in the eastern time zone and has them working out on slushy ice.

So what’s the verdict? Well, the crystal ball is still all clouded up by homerism…or is that a cloud of smoke from a burning phone booth on Whyte Ave.? I can’t tell. Oh well, retards will be retards. Oilers in 6.

Good news is that the monkey (who is 9-5 in her postseason predictions) picked the Oilers. Unfortunately, McKenzie and McGuire (who are 7-7 and 6-8 respectively) also picked the Oilers. Also, Mayor Howie Mandel picked Oilers in 6 also, and he has called each Oilers series exactly right, including the number of games.

EDM 3.18 goals for per game vs. CAR 2.44 goals against per game
EDM 2.47 goals against per game vs. CAR 3.00 goals for per game

EDM 19.8% power play vs. CAR 83.7% penalty kill
EDM 88.6% penalty kill vs. CAR 25.9% power play

EDM 26.8 shots per game vs. CAR 26.3 shots allowed per game
EDM 35.1 shots allowed per game vs. CAR 30.9 shots per game

Great Oilers Moment #4

2006-06-04T17:43:00.000-07:00

4. 2006 Western Conference Championship

With a new CBA in place as a result of the 2005 NHL lockout, the Oilers all of a sudden found themselves on a level playing field with the rest of the league in terms of player salaries. GM Kevin Lowe made the most of the opportunity, obtaining Chris Pronger in exchange for Eric Brewer, Jeff Woywitka, and Doug Lynch. He then obtained Michael Peca by sending Mike York to the Islanders. However, these two did not prove to be all the missing pieces to the puzzle. Pronger struggled at first before finding his form in November and Peca was having such a bad season that late in the season, he openly questioned whether the Oilers were a good fit for him. That, and the Oilers had no number one goaltender, rotating between Ty Conklin, Jussi Markkanen and Mike Morrison, with none of them rising to the challenge. At the trade deadline, Kevin Lowe finally pulled the trigger, acquiring Minnesota’s backup goaltender Dwayne Roloson in exchange for a first round draft pick and conditional third round pick. This move was criticized by armchair GMs everywhere, especially when Roloson lost his first three starts as an Oiler. Sergei Samsonov was also acquired at the deadline in exchange for a second round pick. At the end of it all, the Oilers backed into the playoffs, relying on losses by the Vancouver Canucks and Los Angeles Kings to get into the playoffs. As a result of their low seed, the Oilers faced the President’s Trophy winners, the Detroit Red Wings, in the first round. The Oilers dropped the first game and after four, the series was tied 2-2. The Oilers won the next two, with a miraculous comeback in the 3rd period of Game 6 with goals by Fernando Pisani and Ales Hemsky. With the game tied 3-3 with 1:05 remaining, Samsonov hit Hemsky with a picture perfect pass and he streaked in all alone and beat Manny Legace for his second of the game. The Oilers became the first 8th-seeded team to upset a #1 seed. In the second round, the Oilers found themselves down 2 games to none after back to back 2-1 losses at the hands of the San Jose Sharks. Game 3 went to triple overtime all because of Roloson’s heroics. The Oilers won the game 3-2 on a goal by Shawn Horcoff. This was the turning point of the series as the Oilers would win the next three games as well, becoming the first 8th seed to make the Conference finals. The momentum continued into the 3rd round despite being fatigued and ravaged by the flu, the Oilers took a 3-0 lead in the series and ended up winning in five games. They went on to face the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup final.

And that’s as far as the story gets right now, so this could move up or down in the rankings. I wonder how it’s going to end? Can’t wait to find out…

Great Oilers Moment #5

2006-06-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

5. 1987 Stanley Cup win

With the 1986 playoff disaster still fresh in their minds, the Oilers were looking for redemption. The Oilers didn’t encounter much resistance in getting to the finals; they went 12-2 as they disposed of the Kings, Jets, and Red Wings. For the Flyers, it wasn’t so easy. They needed seven games to win the division final and six games to win the conference. After four games in the finals, the Oilers led the series 3 games to 1. It appeared the Oilers would win their third cup in four years. Then Mike Keenan brought the Stanley Cup into his dressing room before Game 5 to motivate the troops. The trick worked: the Flyers won Game 5 4-3. Back in Philadelphia, they were able to ride their momentum and Ron Hextall’s fantastic goaltending to another win by a score of 3-2. The series headed back to Northlands with the Flyers holding all the momentum. But once again, the Oilers found a way, winning the game 3-1. Ron Hextall won the Conn Smythe, becoming only the fourth player from the losing team to do so.

But I think the neatest thing about this win is that after accepting the Cup, Gretzky didn’t even hoist it…he promptly handed it off to Steve Smith.

Great Oilers Moment #6

2006-06-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

6. Esa Tikkanen eliminates the Flames

The 1991 Smythe Division semi-final round saw the defending champion 3rd place Edmonton Oilers taking on the 2nd place Calgary Flames. The Flames were heavy favourites going into the series as they finished 20 points ahead of the Oilers in the standings. After four games, the Oilers found themselves ahead in the series 3 games to 1, but there was no quit in the Flames. Anybody who remembers this series will no doubt first recall the image of future loser Theoren Fleury sliding around on the ice in Game 6 of the series after the Flames had just knotted the series up at 3 games a piece with a 2-1 overtime victory at Northlands. That sent Game 7 back to the Saddledome. The Flames enjoy showing the Fleury celebration on their jumbotron videos, but the organization tends to have a selective memory because of what happens next. After 60 minutes, the two teams found themselves knotted at 4 goals a piece. Just before the 7 minute mark of overtime, Esa Tikkanen blasted a shot that found its way past Mike Vernon to complete the upset of the Flames.

The Oilers would defeat the LA Kings in 6 games in the Smythe final before losing to the upstart Minnesota North Stars in 5 games in the Campbell Conference Finals.

After this series was over, a temporary ceasefire was called in the Battle of Alberta. In 1993, the Oilers failed to make the playoffs for the first time, and while the Flames continued to enjoy regular season success for the next few years, they didn’t win a playoff series from 1989 until 2004. The Oilers returned to the post-season in 1997, but this time the Flames were on the outside looking in.

Tikk would be traded to the New York Rangers in 1993 for Doug Weight.

Great Oilers Moment #7

2006-06-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Carolina it is. Official Round 4 prediction will be posted shortly.

7. 1988 Stanley Cup Win

The Oilers already had 3 cups to their name and had won it the previous season. To get to the finals, they first disposed of the Jets in 5 games, but then found themselves matched up against the President’s Trophy winners, the Calgary Flames. The Flames had amassed an impressive 48-23-9 record, however, they surrendered almost as quickly as the Netherlands as it only took the Oilers 6 days to send the Flames back down the highway. From there, they took out the Detroit Red Wings in 5 games and then came up against the 4th best team in the league, the Boston Bruins. The Oilers won the first 3 games of the series convincingly, by a combined score of 12-6. In Game 4, the game was tied 3-3 in the 2nd period. The old Boston Garden was such a piece of shit that the wiring and breakers in the building failed, plunging it into darkness. The game was rescheduled to be played at Northlands, and the Oilers won it by a score of 6-3. Their postseason record was an amazing 16-2, and it was the second time they had won the cup in consecutive years and had now won the cup four out of the last five years.

Also of note…this would be the last game Wayne Gretzky would play in an Oilers uniform, and at the ripe old age of 27, it would also turn out to be his last Stanley Cup.

Great Oilers Moment #8

2006-05-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

8. Upsetting the Canadiens

The year was 1981. The Oilers finished 6 games below .500 in the regular season (good enough for the 14th seed in the NHL) and as a result of the playoff format at the time, had to play the #3 seed…the Montreal Canadiens. The Canadiens of 1981 were still a hockey powerhouse featuring the likes of Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson, so needless to say there was plenty of scepticism heading into this one, even by the Oilers players. The Canadiens expected an easy win, and Lafleur even told the Montreal press that he would put Gretzky “in [his] hip pocket.” It obviously made for good bulletin board material in the Oilers locker room because in Game 1 of the series, the Oilers won 6-3 with Gretzky recording 5 assists. They won Game 2 by a score of 3-1 and after two losses at the Forum, the Habs were shocked. The Oilers put the series away in Game 3 when Mark Napier gave the puck away to Gretzky who turned it into a short-handed goal, giving the Oilers a 4-2 lead. They would go on to win the game 6-2 and complete the sweep of the Canadiens.

This moment provided the hockey world with a glimpse of the kind of team the Oilers would become and galvanized the fan base in Edmonton. Unfortunately, the Oilers would lose in the quarter-finals to the eventual champions, the New York Islanders.

Great Oilers Moment #9

2006-05-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

9. Todd Marchant Eliminates the Stars

I know that some fans have grown to hate Todd Marchant because of the Oilers’ recent series with the Ducks, but I just have to say that those fans are retarded. Todd deserves a pass because of his (relatively) recent contribution to Oilers history.

1997 saw the return of the Oilers to the post-season after missing the playoffs in each of the previous four seasons. As such, the expectations were fairly low, but the team featured rising stars such as Doug Weight, Curtis Joseph and Ryan Smyth. In a way, this was also the ownership’s last gasp at glory before things really started to come unglued for him.

One of the best moments of that series happened in Game 3. Down 3-0 with about 4 minutes left to play, the Oilers somehow tied it up to send it to overtime and Kelly Buchberger scored the game winner. Most of the fans had already left by that time, and when they heard what was going on, they turned their cars around and headed back to Skyreach. The series would end up going to Game 7 in Dallas. The game was tied 3-3 after 60 minutes. In overtime, Joe Nieuwendyk was robbed by Curtis Joseph, even though he was badly out of position. A few shifts later, Todd Marchant took a pass from Doug Weight and beat former Oilers goalie Andy Moog over his shoulder, signalling to the Edmonton fans that the dark days were over and kickstarting a new heated rivalry with the Dallas Stars. This would turn out to be a very significant contribution to history, as the Oilers would meet the Stars five more times in the playoffs, and would lose to them each time.

The Oilers would go on to the second round only to lose in 5 games to the Colorado Avalanche.

Great Oilers Moment #10

2006-05-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

Hopefully this will be educational for all the new Oilers fans out there. Welcome aboard the bandwagon, now learn a thing or two about what your new favourite team has done over the years.

10. 1985 Stanley Cup Win

The Oilers had captured their first Stanley Cup the season before, and they finished the '84-'85 season with 109 points. Only one team had a better record and that was the Philadelphia Flyers. And wouldn't you know it...they faced each other for the Stanley Cup.

I place this Stanley Cup victory at #10 simply because of the dominating fashion in which it was accomplished. Hockey fans love drama, and the Oilers didn't provide any of that. There was never any doubt from the get-go...the Oilers swept the Kings and Jets, beat the Blackhawks in 6, and beat the Flyers in 5. The series against Chicago saw the Oilers breaking the record for most goals scored in a playoff series with 44. This was actually a more memorable series than the Stanley Cup final...hell, the old Chicago Stadium had a mystique about it and it was a terrifying place for the visiting team. But the finals had a few notable moments...the Oilers kind of underestimated Pelle Lindbergh at first but after losing Game 1, they bounced back to win the next 4. Gretzky set an NHL record with 30 assists and 47 points in the playoffs and won the Conn Smythe Trophy for his efforts. Also, Paul Coffey shattered Bobby Orr's record for goals and assists by a defenceman in the playoffs with 12 goals and 25 assists. And when you consider that the Oilers hadn't beaten the Flyers in 8 straight games before this series, it just goes to show that regular season crap doesn't count for too much in the playoffs.

Still, fans certainly didn't complain about winning back-to-back Stanley Cups, but people tend to always remember the win in 1984, and this one is always the afterthought. I think that some fans take this one for granted, but when you win the Stanley Cup in only 18 games, it means you're the real deal.

You Can't Teach That

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Great Oilers Moment #5