Five aces. Best poker hand ever!

Found this on a messageboard I frequent. Judging from the comments, the players were just as surprised.

UFC 101: Forrest Griffin vs. Anderson Silva

The MMA world is abuzz today with the news that the August UFC PPV will be co-main evented by UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva moving up to 205 lbs to take a (non-title) fight with former lightheavyweight champion Forrest Griffin.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who isn't excited by this fight, but surely I'm in the minority. Here's my problems with it:

• It puts Silva's middleweight title on ice until at least late fall, and more likely until the end of the year. Sure, Silva's coming off two boring fights and needs his marketability rehabbed pronto, but that's no excuse for forcing middleweight contenders to sit on the sidelines, waiting for Silva to defend his belt again.
• There's no upside to Forrest taking this fight. It's a non-title fight. If Griffin wins, it's not like he's moving down to 185 lbs. to fight Silva for the title. If Griffin loses, it makes it harder for UFC to put him back in the 205 lbs. title picture.
  
• There's little upside in Silva taking this fight. If he loses, UFC's beaten their middleweight champion (who really isn't much of a draw at the best of times) with no return match in the offing. In the meantime, he has to then take that loss into a title defence against a long-suffering middleweight contender in, likely, December. If he wins, well, he wins. But will it help his drawing power in the long run?

Frankly, I'm way more excited about the Kenny Florian-BJ Penn match on this show, if only because I want to see Florian take BJ's 155 lbs. title from him.

Sunday afternoon humor

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Bonus Friday afternoon humor!

Moving on to the Case Of Muffet V. Spider...
Father to son in stroller: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; Humpty Dumpty hired a great lawyer; Humpty Dumpty sued the pants of the wall maker.

K Street
Washington, DC
via Overheard Everywhere, Apr 23, 2009

Former WWE star Bobby Lashley to fight in Edmonton

MFC 21: Bobby Lashley to debut against Mike Cook on May 15 at UFC blog for UFC news, results, videos, rumors, fights, pics and tickets — MMAmania.com

Prior to his June 27 pay-per-view fight against Bob Sapp for Prize Fight Promotions], former WWE star Bobby “The Dominator” Lashley will step into the MFC ring on Friday, May 15 at MFC 21: “Hard Knocks” live from the River Cree Resort and Casino and airing live throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico on HDNet Fights.

I gotta say ... good on MFC for getting him for this fight. I'm impressed.

Wait....Toronto has an NHL franchise?

Adding a second National Hockey League franchise in the Toronto area isn't on the league's radar, according to the NHL's front office.

Skillet's new song, Monster

From their forthcoming album. Quality is as good as it gets for YouTube, really.

I want one of these right now!

Belkin Nubbin Turns Car-Lighter Socket into USB Port | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

I’m pretty intrigued by Belkin’s new widgets which slip into the 12v socket and turn it into a USB port, enabling it to charge pretty much every gadget ever.

The WWE hates Montreal, part MXVIII

London Bound...Bret Hart...Chuck Liddell...Retirement Rumors Galore...Awesome Midnight Express Book | J.R.'s Family Bar-B-Q

The fans booed the amazing Anderson Silva Saturday night for not brawling with his opponent which showed how many casual/uninformed fans were in attendance.

Sunday afternoon humor

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Hard to believe that a $65 dog bowl failed.

Bike Designer Fails To Find Fortune With High-End Dog Bowl | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

MONTEREY, Calif. -- This carbon fiber dog bowl by bike designer Sky Yaeger was supposed to be her ticket to a new career – but despite being beautifully made, her $65 Splash-N-Go dog bowl is just not selling.

Where to watch UFC 97 in Edmonton and Calgary

My (semi) regular post on where to find a bar to watch tonight's UFC 97 PPV. The link is here.

Just remember, kids, nothing on the Internet is ever really private...

Documents: FBI Spyware Has Been Snaring Extortionists, Hackers for Years | Threat Level from Wired.com

The documents, which are heavily redacted, do not detail the CIPAV's capabilities, but an FBI affidavit in the 2007 case indicate it gathers and reports a computer's IP address; MAC address; open ports; a list of running programs; the operating system type, version and serial number; preferred internet browser and version; the computer's registered owner and registered company name; the current logged-in user name and the last-visited URL.

The Hockey Mask and Mug Of Syrup Were Also Excellent Clues

The Hockey Mask and Mug Of Syrup Were Also Excellent Clues
Student #1: So what do you think, eh?
Student #2: Are you Canadian?
Student #1: Why in the world are you asking me that? Is it because I said "eh"?
Student #2: Well, yeah.
Student #1: That is a total misconception! Not all Canadians end sentences with the word "eh"! I can't believe you think that!
Student #2: (thinking it over) So are you?
Student #1: Canadian? Yes.

Wabash
Chicago, Illinois

Overheard by: Laughing as I pass

via Overheard Everywhere, Apr 14, 2009

Skillet: A Day in the Life of a Show

Time-lapse videos are nothing new, but that doesn't make this any less fun to watch.

Sunday afternoon humor

see more pwn and owned pictures

GSP vs. BJ Penn on Spike a big fat failure turtle

So ... Spike has spent weeks hyping up the free showing of the January PPV last night by saying, "It was the fight that was supposed to settle the score ... and ended in controversy. Did Georges. St. Pierre use illegal grease to score his victory over BJ Penn? See for yourself as UFC presents UFC 94 ... blah, blah, blah" And they even used still photos of the cornerguy holding a jar of Vaseline near GSP's back.

Then, during the broadcast last night, they cut out all the between round stuff to air commercials. They never aired the commission guy telling GSP's corner to wipe him off. They never showed any of the "breathing techniques".

In short, they built this up as your chance to determine for yourself whether GSP cheated or not, and then NEVER SHOWED ANY OF THE SUPPOSEDLY INCRIMINATING FOOTAGE that happened between rounds.

Seriously .... this was as bait and switch as it gets. Fine - you got to see a PPV card for free on TV. But if you hadn't seen the original PPV and bought the hype from Spike on this and went to watch it determined to catch GSP's corner cheating, well, you were entirely out of luck, because UFC and/or Spike never showed any of that on TV.

Fail.

(And, for the record, I think BJ Penn's complaints about this fight and the "greasing" are ludicrous.)

Happy Easter!

A tale of two bank branches

My wife and I scooted over to the closest branch of a major bank today (an entirely different bank than the one we have all of our money with) to get a line of credit.

We were quickly told that the loan officer was booked up for the day. And wasn't in on Monday. And that the only time we could get an appointment that fit our schedule was late next Thursday. I said out loud that maybe we should try the other branch of the same bank just down the street. We were told that branch has the same hours, only only one loan officer and that we'd get in no sooner at that branch than at this one.

During this entire time, the person with whom we were dealing did not invite us to sit down while she looked over the calendar - instead she allowed us to stand awkwardly in front of her office while she shuffled about checking people's schedules. She did not inquire in any great detail about what we were looking for or why. She heard "loan" and she knew we couldn't be helped that day - or any day soon, for that matter.

So we fairly reluctantly made our appointment for next Thursday (after they took 5 minutes to find a business card for the person with whom we had the appointment) and proceeded to go straight to the other branch of the same bank just down the street.

There, we were greeted with a person who was immediately more interested in what they could so for us than what they could not. She apologized that they couldn't take us in right away, but they could see us early Monday afternoon. She thanked us for being willing to come back on another day. We were there approximately 1 minute, total, and felt more welcome in that 1 minute than in the 10 minutes or so we were at the other branch.

Same bank. Two very different branches. One wanted to do very little to help us. The other actually wanted our business. Guess which one we preferred?

First rainbow of 2009

A Better Way - Downhere

An appropriate song for Good Friday.

My birthday isn't until November, but you can start planning now

Cocoa Pipe Lets You Literally Inhale Chocolate | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Chocolate can be addictive, and eating it is fattening -- which is why a Harvard professor has helped create a cigarette-like chocolate inhaler that allows users to take a puff of their favorite treat whenever they want.

The product, called Le Whif, is a way to get chocolate without the calories, says David Edwards, a professor at Harvard University and the lead inventor of the product. And it is an experiment and adventure in gastronomy.

Crazy MMA knockout!

Wrestlemania 25 live coverage

My good friend Scott Keith is doing live coverage of Wrestlemania here.

The UT-Shawn Michaels match was an easy 5 stars. Just a tremendous, fantastic match. Nice to see that Scott agrees.

Oops!

It turns out my live Twittering of the WWE HOF last night resulted in me basically spamming Facebook with status updates, because I have Twitter update my Facebook status. And that resulted in the news feed of all my friends being filled with nothing but my tweets.

Frankly, I blame Facebook for allowing this to happen.

Sunday afternoon humor

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

WWE Hall of Fame 2009 Liveblog/Twitter!

Welcome to my liveblogging and Twittering of the WWE Hall of Fame 2009 webcast from wwe.com.

While we kill time, here's the link to last year's liveblog.

I've never Twittered and liveblogged at the same time, so this will be an interesting experiment.

• The Score is supposed to be showing the USA network portion of the show tomorrow (Sunday) at 5 eastern time, I think. Check local listings would be the suggestion (4:35 p.m.)
• Meanwhile, TSN is supposed to be showing the world men's curling championships, but it's delayed. (4:36 p.m.)
• Waiting ... (4:58 p.m.)
• Feed is buffering from WWE.com (5 p.m.)
• I'm getting great audio and not so great video. Which, I suppose, is fine, considering the HOF involves people standing in front of a microphone. (5:01)
• Love the "How on earth are you gonna stop this guy!" from Gorilla Monsoon in the Shawn-UT video. (5:03)
• Here we go! The HOF is on and live! (5:03)
• Opening with the Funks. This should be fun. (5:06)
• Holy crap, that NWA belt looked really beat up. (5:07)
• Dusty is inducting the Funks. Let's see if Big Dust can stick to the 3-minute limit on the inductions.
• Wow! Dusty just named dropped Lou Thesz!
• Pat Patterson is looking very old.
• Only Dusty can link Terry Funk to Tommy Dreamer and make it work.
• Man, the guys of today just can't deliver promos like Dusty can. He's got no notes, and he's delivering an entirely fluid and brilliant induction speech. (5:10)
• I think Dusty's already gone over the 3 minute limit.
• OK, not by much.
• ARGH! My feed keeps buffering. I might have to jack into the cable modem.(5:12)
• Dory gets a big pop for mentioning the Guerrero family. Slightly less of a pop for the Hart family. Well, they are in Texas, not Calgary.
• OK, after this, I'm jacking into into the cable modem. The buffering is getting ridiculous. (5:16)
• Dory just plugged his website for the remainder of his speech. That was kinda weird.
• Terry is YELLING HIS SPEECH!
• "THERE'S NO ROOM FOR DUMMIES IN THE WWE! YOU'VE GOTTA BE MULTIFACETED! SO KIDS OUT THERE, GET YOUR EDUCATION!"
• Dory's speech was understated and quiet. Terry's is so loud it's annoying. (5:19)
• Koko's next, so I'm gonna take a pause here and jack into my cable modem (5:21)
• I'm back, and the first thing I see is the Honky Tonk Man looking exactly like he did in 1990. Scary. (5:24)
• Gotta give HTM credit. He's actually making it sound like Koko deserves to be in the HOF.
• Noticed on the F4W messageboard that Bryan Danielson from ROH is sitting with some of he WWE wrestlers. Huh. That'll get the rumors started.
• Koko has a new Frankie. (5:28)
• Koko just thanked God that he's not dead (in so many words). Given the number of his former co-workers who are dead, I'm not sure if that's morbid or not.
• Frankie's gonna steal the show here. The closeup of the bird just got a pop. (5:30)
• Now Frankie is trying to eat Koko's speech. This is so funny!
• Perfectly acceptable speech from Koko, considering he should be nowhere near the WWE HOF. Seriously now.... (5:33)
• It was nice to see Bobby Heenan there, but boy did he look terrible.
• Von Erichs are next. Now this will be interesting. (5:34)
• I remember seeing that Kerry Von Erich-Ric Flair match on a VHS tape that Pro Wrestling Illustrated was selling back in the 1980s. I bet I still have that tape in a box somewhere in my basement.
• Michael Hayes doing the induction. Again ... this will be ... interesting ... (5:37)
• Hayes says no family had more influence tranforming wrestling into sports entertainment as the Von Erichs. Hmm ... I guess, considering the TV done by World Class was miles ahead of anyone else. And, I suppose if you look at all the early drug deaths ...
  
• Kerry Von Erich did not set any kind of world discuss record.
• I've kinda tuned out of Hayes's speech. I just don't like the man. He's such a worker, and I don't mean that as a compliment. He strikes me as a guy who would say anything to get the audience to pop, regardless of whether it was true or he believed it or whatever. (5:42)
• And the last Von Erich is up. Kevin immediately says, "I don't regret a thing." That's a kinda cold thing to say when you lost all of your brothers to this business.
• Kevin says Michael Hayes can talk. Yup. Ask Mark Henry about that.
• "I wish my brothers could be here with me. But, gosh, darnit..." Yeah, that's kind of an understatement. "Gosh, darnit."
• Kevin notes that his sons are in the building. Nice looking kids. "The Von Erichs still live," says Kevin. Great. Just keep them out of the business, OK?
• Impressed that Kevin has been married 31 years.
• OK, I'm not deliberately trying to be heartless about Kevin's speech. It was very good. But the tip-toeing around the deaths got to be a bit much. I know he can't dwell on them ... (5:47)
• Yay! Howard Finkel is next! I hope he gets the biggest standing ovation. (5:48)
• Mean Gene inducting Howard Finkel. That's entirely appropriate.
• Yeah, who didn't see that "Enough about me" comment coming?
• Howard credited with coming up with the term Wrestlemania. I actually believe that's true. And if it's not true, then it's been said often enough that everyone believes it's true.
• Howard's put on some weight.
• I think outside of Mae Young, I've never seen anyone so genuinely happy to be in the Hall of Fame.
• Howard is talking very, very fast. He needs to slow down.
• Howard just broke the volume knob in the control both.
• Chris Jericho has the world's orangest tan.
• Loved Howard's "NEW inductee!" bit. That was hysterical! (5:59)
• Bill Watts is next.
• Jim Ross inducting Watts will at least give it the context his induction deserves ... in three minutes or less.
• Ross just turned himself heel. And then he redeemed himself by making fun of Michael Hayes' hair.
• Ross just sent a message to the young talent with the "Watts was in the business for just 3 years before was main eventing the Garden."
• I think Ross is going over the 3 minute limit on the induction speeches. (6:05)
• Bill Watts can take off that goofy hat now.
• Anytime now, Bill.
• Um ... Bill ... you're wearing a giant green hat.
• OK, Bill Watts just made everything great by using the word "noogie" during his speech. (6:09)
• Erik Watts just introduced on camera. Hey, they should put him in Legacy!
• ... OK, maybe not.
• Boy, Bill Watts is sure putting himself over in a rather arrogant way. "What took you so long to put me in the Hall of Fame!?"
• I have no idea what Bill's talking about anymore. Someone yank him, please. This is why they put the time limits in. If he didn't have a 10 minute limit, he'd be talking for six hours. (6:13)
• Bill talks about Bruno Sammartino, saying "he was the strongest man in the world at the time, and we didn't even have steroids back then!" Wow ... got some guts to say that given the audience.
  
• Speaking of Bruno ... what a complete joke that he's not in the HOF. I mean, I know he's on the outs with WWE, but induct him whether he shows up to accept or not.
• Bill's been talking for 8 minutes now, and he's up to, like 1965.
• OK, so in the end, Watts's speech was somewhere between rambling and awesome. Kinda depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, it was utterly rambling at times. On the other hand, he talked about steroids and talked about dead wrestlers, which probably drove Vince McMahon insane.
• Watts, a WWE Hall of Famer, admits he's going to his first Wrestlemania tomorrow. Vince just popped another vein.
• Watts talks about going to heaven. I'm sure that raised a few eyebrows in the audience. (6:21)
• OK, apparently that's it for the web portion of the broadcast. Unfortunately, I'm not able to watch the USA version of the live broadcast with Rick Steamboat and Steve Austion, so thanks for joining me here.
  

It's Wrestlemania weekend!

It's Wrestlemania 25 weekend, which means the Hall of Fame tonight and the big show tomorrow. I've decided due to the poor build up of the card that I'm not going to see it live tomorrow, but will save my money for the DVD. However, I do plan to live blog and Twitter the Hall of Fame webcast tonight because that was fun to do last year, and resulted in an enormous increase in my page views, which is always good. Watch for that starting around 5 p.m. Alberta time tonight.

Chuck Liddell hypnotizes UFC audience