Monster of the Day: Vashta Nerada

Another Doctor Who monster, the Vashta Nerada:

The Vashta Nerada are basically microscopic air piranhas that appear as shadows. In the episode the picture is from a swarm of Vashta Nerada inhabit a spacesuit after consuming its occupant.

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Is anyone else tired of tNFL players wearing pink gear? I get that the NFL wants to appear socially aware, but making it an annual thing seems like too much.

Monster of the Day: The Mummy

Boris Karloff as the Mummy from the original movie:

If you've never seen the 1932 version of The Mummy, you'd be surprised to learn that Karloff barely appears in the film as pictured but rather mostly as a modern Egyptian.

RE: Gremlins

It must be noted that the Gremlins theme song is awesome.  Oh, and apparently Howie Mandel was the voice of Gizmo.

Monster of the Day: Tyrannosaurus Rex

From history and, of course, Jurassic Park, the T-Rex:

When the movie came out seeing the dinosaurs was pretty exciting, none more so than the T-Rex, who was every bit the villain you could have wanted. And, yes, I spelled Tyrannosaurus from memory.

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This one is for bigger baseball fans than me: Is winning the triple crown the most difficult achievement in sports? Miguel Cabrera is the first to do it in 45 years, which sure makes is sound difficult. Most of the other candidates I saw mentioned were career numbers, which seem to be quite a bit different than a single-season accomplishment.

Monster of the Day: The Alien

The Alien, or Xenomorph, from the Alien movies:

The H.R. Giger-designed Alien is simply the best movie monster ever.

Monster of the Day: The Creature

Specifically, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, or the Gill-man:

The Gill-man is considered one of the Universal monsters (notable monsters from Universal studios) though he isn't as famous as Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the Wolfman.

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This one is for the football pundits who are (reasonably) trashing the Big Ten and (unreasonably) talking up Northwestern: Do you honestly believe the Wildcats are going to be in the B10 Championship Game come November? Or is pointing out the B10's inadequacies so easy that you just have to tack on some really stupid comment?

Monster of the Day: Skeleton Warriors

The skeleton warriors from Jason and the Argonauts:

You can see a clip here.When I was a kid we had a video of some documentary or feature about special effects and it showed a few seconds of these guys fighting. I thought they were the scariest/coolest bad guys ever.

Monster of the Day: Gremlins

I assume the Gremlins don't need as much introduction, or explanation, as the Weeping Angels.

The first Gremlins movie is a little creepy in spite of its comedic elements, the second is hilarious with a few creepy moments. I prefer the second.

Monster of the Day: Weeping Angels

As it's October, I thought I'd do a little something for my own entertainment that sort of followed a Halloween theme, so: monsters. My criteria: 1) they have to be from a movie or a television series and, 2) they have to be at least a little scary. To start, from Doctor Who, the Weeping Angels.

You can see a clip of the angels in action here. The angels are monsters with a gimmick. As long as you look at them they're nothing but statues. But as soon as you look away they come to life and either kill you or send you back in time. So, whatever you do... don't blink.

RE: Biased?

Interesting research. Surprised? I don't know. He's right, the audience you are talking to...ARE FANS OF THAT TEAM. They expect a little homer out of you. But, there does seem to be a little more credibility when it's "down the middle." If it's too one-sided, it sounds like you asked a couple of guys from the bar across the stadium to call the game.

I can understand the NY audience base wanting it to be more down the middle. Of course, it would be nice if Bret Musburger would act more like a professional than the local guy at a high school game.

After 155 games, I've probably tuned in to 80 games for at least some portion of the Tiger games on the radio. I rarely see a game on TV. In fact, I've listened so much to the radio guys...I can't stand the Tigers own TV guys. Dan Dickerson really has a great personality. I think his strikeout and home run calls are pretty good and he takes it to the next level when the game dictates it.

For example, his strikeout call in the 2nd inning is nothing compared to a bases loaded strikeout or a strikeout in the 8th inning.

On the other hand, if you are too much of a homer, it could get you fired. I believe that is what happened to Mark Champion. He was the radio play-by-play for the Lions for many years, especially during the Barry era. (I believe he still does the radio and/or TV games for the Pistons.)

I'm not exactly sure if he was fired, but his classic "Holy-macerole" blasts for every time the Lions screwed up may have cost him his job. Mark called it as he saw it...the Lions sucked and he let you know it. The Lions brass probably didn't care for that.

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Do you think Ed Hochuli has spent the referee strike pumping iron?

Did you know?

According to Wikipedia, Lee Corso was a roommate of Burt Reynolds at FSU.

Biased?

The WSJ has done a little research to judge just how biased hometown MLB announcers are. Mario Impemba and Rod Allen come in right about the middle.

An Unexpected Journey

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Just how bad is the Big Ten? I'm actually in agreement with the polls, there's not a Big Ten team that deserves to be in the top 15. And the teams that are usually bad (Indiana, Purdue, etc) look to be really awful. I'm as tired of the talk about SEC dominance as anyone, but we might as well just give Alabama the national title and call off the rest of the season.

Storytime

"SMASH!"

So we had a "date night" Saturday night and took advantage of Olive Garden's "never-ending pasta bowl."  I hit that hard.  We then proceeded to the movies to see what was playing.  We checked out the Fashion Square Cinema, but didn't like the options...of times for the movies.  It was already 8:30, but nothing was really starting before 10pm that was interesting.  So we figured we could leave for the Saginaw 12 because if they didn't have anything better, we knew we had plenty of time to get back to the other theater.

Saginaw 12 had many more options, but I didn't "see" anything after TDKR.  I was somewhat surprised it was still there.  But, they also had The Avengers!  Yeah, four months later, still available.  I figured I couldn't get TDKR or Avengers, but kept my fingers crossed.  So we narrowed it down to "The Campaign" and "The Words."  We knew The Campaign would have lots of crude humor, just how much was the issue.  The Words was the dark horse.

We knew a rated R comedy must be pretty bad...but we went for The Campaign anyway to at least get some laughs.  Well, I have my limit of Ef-bombs in the first five minutes of a movie, so we walked out.  Thankfully, it was only 9:30 and TDKR was right next door!  Bam, got what I wanted.  But, they were having technically difficulties and the manager practically walked in the door as we were sitting down (thinking he was coming after us) and said the movie is cancelled, you can get your money back if you want or blah, blah, blah.  We knew that wasn't an option.

So...walk next door to The Avengers, which also was starting in less than 5 minutes!  Awesome.  I really wanted to see that again anyway.  We sat in the back (there were 8 people there actually...I think some came from TDKR), stayed until about 11pm, made out, then walked out and went home.

Perfect date night.


Other movie news:  We rented Memento this week.  I hadn't seen it in about 11 years.  It took two nights, but still puzzled.  Then I decided to watch the first 20 minutes and the last 10 minutes before I took it back and I think I have it all figured out.  The movie was 10x better after watching the first 20 and last 10.  Awesome.