OH MY GOD

This video showed up on reddit today and it made me lose my shit in a fit of laughter. Since writing on a regular basis doesn't seem to be our thing, I always wondered what it would be like if the four of us did a regular podcast together. We'd probably end up doing something completely stupid like this guy.

I'm sure we could cover compelling topics like the strength of Thor's hammer and how it compares to Ryu's Hadouken. Perhaps we would discuss which fictional characters we would want to marry and that would lead to Adonis explaining how a marriage to an animated character would work.

The end result would be completely useless, a little douchey but probably met with uproarious laughter from listeners and decades of shame from our parents. Pretty much sums up this blog.

The Hunger Games

[EDIT: Changed from animated .gif to poster to reduce page loading time]



BWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMM (oh wait)

'Moneyball' Trailer

I remember when Bring It On came out and it was followed in a few years by Drumline and critics said it was like Bring it On for band geeks.

From the looks of the first trailer, The Social Network scribe, Aaron Sorkin, and a few others wrote a screenplay that feels like The Social Network for baseball geeks.

Based on the best-selling book, Moneyball tells the story of Oakland A's manager Billy Beane and how he made a championship contending team for pennies on the dollar using advanced statistics, called 'sabremetrics' in baseball nerd jargon. By ignoring scouting techniques used for over a century, Moneyball and its sabermetric strategies caused a rift in the baseball community between old-school traditionalists and new-school math whizzes.

There are some fair criticisms to be made about Beane's strategies and how much of them actually worked and how much of his success was just luck. What can't be argued against, though, is how sabermetrics have permeated baseball culture, not only through the fantasy baseball game that nerds like Adonis and I play, but in the statistical analysis that takes place in every major league front office.

There was a great article posted last week about "Moneyball 2.0" on Grantland. The writer, Bill Barnwell, detailed how sabermetrics and Billy Beane's notion of "Moneyball" have evolved over the years and how teams have been able to maximize wins against each dollar spent. Worth a read if only because last year's overachieving San Diego Padres are used in nearly every example he uses.

As far as the movie goes, after toiling in development hell for some time, it looks like it has a lot of potential. Nazer and I were huge fans of The Social Network, and I'll watch anything that Aaron Sorkin attaches his name to (The American President is one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time).

There's a fat guy played by Jonah Hill who wows powerful people with his smarts? Lightning fast "walk and talk" dialogue along with nerdy baseball-isms? I'm not sure I can find anything to dislike there.

Our "Comeback" is starting to look more and more like...

I'll chalk it up to everyone being busy...

Ray and friend-of-blog, Oli Bata, are coming up with fresh tracks every Monday as the hip-hop collective, Elevated Masses. Socially conscious lyrics without being pretentious and jazz samples with breezy melodies - music for the people...by the people two guys in a garage.

You can still find Adonis posting on the internets at http://adoniscomplex.tumblr.com/ where he's been featured on Tumblr's sports subpage. After that happened, he refused to acknowledge that he ever wrote here so go ahead and bookmark that address and delete this one.

Nazer hasn't yet joined us hipsters on the Tumblr, but if you haven't already, check out the music page at his website, http://www.nazerlagrimasjr.com/main/music.html. I never knew he added more tracks. Hell, I've been friends with him my whole life and I never even knew he played an instrument.

As for me, I've been doing absolutely nothing. Stay in school, folks...stay as long as you can.

In-N-Out Grand Opening Brings Woman To Tears

This is the kind of local news gold that I'd be posting on my own tumblr if I had one. Former Californian (hell, a Fontanian?) Danielle DeInnocentes sheds tears while stuffing her face at an In-N-Out Grand Opening in Frisco, Texas. We're all ridiculously passionate about food, but this shit is on another level. A quote from DeInnocentes reads as follows:

"I kept saying all night, pinch me, it doesn't feel real. It felt real in there."

FUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHH I swear I was about to start crying myself after she said that. She even saved the wrapper! Sigh...I wonder if I'll ever love something that much.

Probably not. But In-N-Out does sound pretty good after all that. In the words of hardcore fatty Gspook, who waited hours in line to be the first customer, "The burger gods have blessed us with an In-N-Out in Texas..."

Amen buddy, amen.

(Story via dallasnews.com)

Why stop at your phone and computer when you can have Google in your kitchen

Google had their annual I/O conference today, where they announced more details on their plan for global domination and introduced new digital soldiers to wage war with their mortal enemy, Apple.

For me, a project to integrate Android into household appliances piqued my interest the most. I did research into how technology like this could help homes be more green in college and with Android's share of the market and how far along existing technology for this use already is, the idea seems like it could only be a few years from being affordable and effective.

Energy in the household could be managed efficiently by allowing home owners to manage temperature in their home remotely, appliances could be turned off when not in use, and garage doors would never be left open while no one was home.

While these green benefits sound great, all I could think about was remotely controlling my oven and the possibility of heating up pizza rolls without ever having to leave my computer chair.

From:

To:

All from my cell phone! The future is near and it will be fat.

Android eating Earth photo via: Gizmodo

Tina Fey got whore'd up for a Jersey Shore spoof

And you won't find any complaints here. God I hope I can look this good when I'm 40 and pregnant. I meant, not that I'm a woman or that I want to be pregnant...you know, whatever the guy equivalent of this would be.

Head on over to Warming Glow for the whole sketch from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

THOR

Needs more rainbow bridges.

"Across the rainbow bridge of Asgard
Where the booming heavens roar
You'll behold the breathless wonder
The God of Thunder,
Mighty Thor!"