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There's another UFC PPV this weekend, and it's gonna be a bottom-of-the-barrel buyrate given the number of matches originally scheduled on it that were scrapped due to injuries. Nonetheless, if you want to go see the show, here's the usual link to the bars in Alberta showing the fights. If this show gets 300,000 buys, UFC should consider themselves lucky. Guess it depends on whether the last season of Ultimate Fighter helped Rashad become a PPV draw against someone who is most definitely not Quinton Jackson. However, that is one of the better event posters I've seen from UFC in quite a while.

The marathon review of the UFC's Ultimate 100 Greatest Fights DVD set continues wtih Disc 4. It's worth nothing that somewhere in the Disc 3-4 range, they stopped making sure to announce who the refs were in every match. Also notable is that Affliction shirts get blurred out. What is this, WWE? 60. UFC 46: Georges St. Pierre vs. Karo Parisyan: GSP's UFC debut sees him lose the first round to Karo, but then come back in rounds 2 and 3 to win the decision. Good match.  

Another whirlwind Christmas in Manitoba is complete - a few days at  my wife's parents, a few days at my parents, and then a 16-hour drive home. We left Winnipeg just before 5 a.m. Edmonton time this morning, and got home about 30 minutes ago. A fun time was had by all. I ate waaaaaayyyy too much, and will be hitting the treadmill with vigor in the near future. Next on our vacation itinerary: three weeks in Hawaii this summer. Yee-haw!

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And

After some time off from reviewing these discs, here's Disc 3! The reviews will be shorter than usual, as I watched these fights over several days, mostly in the passenger seat of the car, so they're not as fresh in my mind as usual. 73. UFC 52: George St. Pierre vs. Jason "Mayhem" Miller: This was GSP's first fight after losing his original title shot against Matt Hughes. And like most GSP fights, it's a fun scrappy battle that's never in doubt. GSP wins and continues to impress.

Natalie: Least-deserving winner ever. Russell totally got jobbed.

On vacation for a while, so posting will be slower than usual. I'm also going to miss the Survivor finale on Sunday, so I'll have to catch up on that when I can.

Yes, this is like my 27th post today. I'm testing this post from a BlackBerry to see if it's possible... and to see what it looks like when it's published. If it looks OK, great! Opens up new possibilities for updates when I travel.

The penultimate show this season sees Shambo finally get voted out. Otherwise, not much to the episode, really. EDIT: OK, I take that back. There was one big development tonight, and that was the establishment of Brett, to use a professional wrestling term, as the underdog babyface against Evil Russell and his heel team, to win the whole thing. Finale on Sunday and I'm travelling, so no immediate review. Maybe not for days. Sorry.

Is Calgary's Bret 'The Hitman' Hart making a WWE comeback? Will the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be ... be coming back? That’s the rumours making the rounds among wrestling circles, that former Calgary grappler Bret The Hitman Hart has signed a short-term contract that will see him return to the WWE in January, culminating in his March 28 appearance at WrestleMania XXVI. “He’s coming back,” Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer, tells the Herald. “My understanding is that it’s a done deal.”

Vancouver votes for two-year MMA regulatory trial, June UFC event now likely | MMAjunkie.com The Ultimate Fighting Championship's long-anticipated Vancouver event today got a green light. As expected, the Vancouver City Council today voted in favor of a two-year trial for mixed martial arts in the city. UFC president Dana White has long hinted at the possibility of a show in Vancouver, and during this past weekend's UFC 107 event, said a June event would be likely if regulation was adopted.

Courtesy his camp. Plus, new photos of him.

My favorite song gets a proper video.

Edmonton breaks weather record EDMONTON — Sunday marked the coldest Dec. 13 in Edmonton’s history. Environment Canada recorded a frigid -46.1 C, or -58.4 C with wind chill, at the Edmonton International Airport at 5 a.m., Environment Canada meteorologist Pierre Lessard said. The old record of -36.1 C was set last year, he said.

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This is the match where Bruno lost the World Wide Wrestling Federation title, ending a seven-year reign.

And here we go, finishing up the second part of Disc 2 of the UFC Ultimate 100 Greatest Fights box set. You can find my reviews of Disc 1 here and here , while Part 1 of Disc 2 is here . 79. UFC 69: Matt Serra vs. Georges St. Pierre: No video packages for this one but the back story, of course, is that Serra was the welterweight winner of that season's The Ultimate Fighter show, which promised a title shot to each of the winners of the show in the 170 and 185 lbs. weight classes.

Sorry for not posting this last night, but I was out for the evening and completely forgot Survivor was even on. So I watched it tonight on the Global TV website. Gotta love that one of the elimination challenges was the traditional Samoan sport of ... bowling? And you gotta love Russell wearing the hidden immunity idol at tribal council basically calling anyone's bluff on voting for him. A double elimination night, as Dave and Monica are voted out.

UFC 107 is this weekend, so it's time for my semi-regular post on where to find a bar to watch the show in Edmonton, Calgary and across Alberta. Details here . While I have nothing against Penn vs. Sanchez as a main event, this was the show that was supposed to have Rampage Jackson vs. Rashad Evans based on the huge The Ultimate Fighter build. Then Rampage quit UFC in a huff . The latest is that Jackson has agreed to come back for the Evans fight down the road, but if the fight was Saturday, it would be an easy million buys show.

- TRAINER: LESNAR RECOVERING FROM DIVERTICULITIS- MMA WEEKLY - Mixed Martial Arts & UFC News, Photos, Rankings & more Brock Lesnar’s head coach is telling him to rest and relax, whether he likes it or not. Greg Nelson, a two-time cancer survivor who leads Lesnar’s fight camps along with Erik Paulson and Marty Morgan, said the UFC heavyweight champ is still recovering from a severe case of diverticulitis (an infection in the digestive tract), but wants to get back into the gym. Last Friday, UFC president Dana White sent a Twitter message that Lesnar was "still VERY sick" and the promotion was "unsure about his future." Nelson, who recently returned from teaching several seminars in Spain, gave an update to MMAWeekly.com on Tuesday afternoon. He declined comment on a potential interim heavyweight title posed by White in recent weeks.

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I spent way too long last night watching this program, which I thought was only going to be two hours long. Imagine my surprise when hour three began. Anyway, some quick thoughts ... Sad to see Marcus Jones get KO'd, but his standup was terrible... So lemme get this straight - Jon Jones had a point taken away from him for an illegal elbow strike, Matt Hamill was unable to continue, so Jones gets DQ'd? WHAT? ... Kimbo showed me very little last night beyond the sweet suplex he threw. He got a gift decision only because judges don't think leg kicks mean anything in scoring, which wrecked Houston Alexander's entire strategy ... I love Roy Nelson. Anyone who can fight at that level with a physique that resembles mine is great. ... Chuck and Tito as the next Ultimate Fighter coaches? It doesn't excite me.

And away we go with Disc 2! 87. UFC 54: Chuck Liddell vs. Jeremy Horn: The first of approximately 150 Chuck Liddell fights on the 100 Greatest Fights DVD set, and, well, it's not exactly a barnburner.

And we're finished Disc 1 , so here's the rundown of the rest of the fights: 92. UFC 39: B.J. Penn vs. Matt Serra: So, it only took eight fights on this set to find a match that absolutely did not deserve in any way, shape or form to be a part of the 100 Greatest Fights DVD. Seriously, why was this included? I mean, it was fine , but it didn't blow me away, nor was there any great sequence that merited it being on the list. A three-rounder in the lightweight championship tournament that went to a decision for Penn. Yay. Next!

Survivor returned from its US Thanksgiving-induced hiatus tonight to yet another glorious episode of Evil Russell showing that he is in complete control of the game. Of course, it now appears leading into Day 31 that finally everyone else is catching on to that fact, but I'm really hoping it's too little, too late. And Dave gets to live another day because Russell said so. Instead, John's the subject of this weeks patented Survivor Blindside.

After taking a week off, TUF came back last night for a two-hour pre-finale that was hugely underwhelming. The big Kimbo twist (after teasing he'd be back the entire season, he decided his knee was too screwed up to fight again) was given away in the first 5 minutes. Then as soon as the show was over, UFC confirmed the worst-kept secret in the world - that Kimbo is fighting Houston Alexander this weekend at the finale. Whatever. So his knee is either too messed up to fight or it's not. Otherwise, pranks were played, fighters got mad at each other, the coaches continued to build up a feud that will probably not culminate in a match, and we have our finalists for Saturday night - Roy and Some Other Guy Whose Name I Can't Remember Without Looking It Up. Brandon? Brendon? Something like that.

My lack of posting this week has been due in part to the arrival of my UFC Ultimate 100 Greatest Fights DVD box set - 8 discs and about 26 hours of MMA goodness. I'm almost done with Disc 1, so here's a quick review of those fights after the jump. Keep in mind, I'm not taking notes during these fights, and am doing the reviews entirely from memory:

This seems to be the Sunday afternoon rage. I'd say that's pretty accurate.

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A follow on this post , courtesy, MMA Junkie : Earlier this month, M-1 Global exec Jerry Millen made waves by claiming Fedor Emelianenko would be willing to fight Brock Lesnar for free . UFC president Dana White recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio) that he's prepared to call Millen's bluff . "They'll do the fight for free?" White asked. "That's [expletive] weird because I offered them millions of dollars to take the fight and he didn't take it. Now [Emelianenko] wants to fight for free? When and where? I'd love him to fight for free. "I'll make that [expletive] fight right now for free. Let's do it."

I ran 10K last Saturday. I ran 10K today. Not bad, considering the only other time I ever ran 10K, I ended up in physiotherapy for four weeks getting my left knee fixed up. The difference now is that I've cut my speed back to focus on distance, not time. I ran my first 10K in 74 minutes. Last week took me about 95 minutes. Today, I did it in 89 minutes. And my knee feels fine. In fact, last week, I ran 10K on Saturday, and followed it up with a 4-mile run on Sunday and 3 miles on Monday. (Yeah, I go back and forth on my units of measurement.) I'm working my way up to running 15K in one shot.

Yes, yes. I'm the last person in the world to link this video. BUT IT'S AWESOME! And Ode To Joy is really good, too!

In the new issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter , Dave Meltzer writes: June has a tentative date set for Vancouver, although they (UFC) have also got a hold on the Rexall Place in Edmonton. Edmonton would be the back-up because right now MMA is not sanctioned in Vancouver, although UFC expects that to change in time for the show.

I'm still here. Busy week. Put up lots of content last week, and going lighter this week. However, in the spirit of Twitter, here's some short-burst random thoughts: Raw last night was one of the better episodes I've seen this year. Nice to see the WWE finally pulling the trigger on some new guys, at least for this week ... I've determined that I can sing harmony better in the key of D than C. I have no idea why that is ... The UFC Ultimate 100 Greatest Fights came out a couple of weeks ago. I ordered it from Amazon.ca, and on shipping day, was sent an email it was delayed by several weeks. I've since ordered it from Amazon.com. When it comes in and after I've watched it, I'll post some thoughts... I ran 4 miles on Saturday, 6 miles on Sunday and 3 miles yesterday. Pretty happy about that. ... Ummm, that's it. I'm really tired.

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Full results of last night's UFC show (which I didn't see, as I was at Starfield, see post below ) are here . Glad to see Forrest get the win over Tito.

Starfield rolled into town last night for their Reign In Us Tour and it was everything I expected. They started with a standard rock concert kind of set, then switched to an acoustic worship set, and after an intermission finished with what they called their rocking party-time set. I didn't have a stop watch on Starfield, but they must have played for close to 90 minutes in total, which was impressive. They did virtually all the songs I wanted them to play, including their new one, The Saving One, which they typically do in concert back-to-back with Mighty To Save. It was great to hear it live. My only complaint - I SAID, MY ONLY COMPLAINT - is that the concert was loud. REALLY LOUD! Like, the loudest concert I've attended in some time. OK, I was sitting in the front row, but I was almost that close for the Downhere show last month (third row), and it wasn't anywhere near as loud. I'd kind of like Starfield to explain what part of giving glory to God at a worshi

OK, this man isn't retiring anytime soon, considering this was put out by his camp.

Starfield week draws to a close with this video from Winnipeg last year, which is actually one of the best quality Starfield vids on YouTube. Don't know why I've never seen it before. Concert tomorrow night. I don't think I'm going to take my camera (I'd rather enjoy the show than worry about shooting it) but I'll post a review on Sunday.

Evil Russell continues to bring the awesome by finding his third hidden immunity idol - only this time, he actually had a clue. But he also was the only one who had a clue, if you get the drift. And Laura is finally dispatched from the game.

Time for my semi-regular post on where to find a bar to watch UFC 106 in Edmonton, Calgary and across Alberta.

A fun show that seemed to foreshadow all the teasing of Kimbo's return will be for naught, as Kimbo goes down with a knee injury. Plus, Rampage playing volleyball is BUYS, and a great KO to end the evening. Thumbs up.

It's really hard to find a good clip of this on YouTube that's complete. This one is fairly representative. Nonetheless, a great song.

It's being reported today that UFC President Dana White is looking at a Shane Carwin vs. Cain Velasquez bout for February for an interim UFC heavyweight title, to keep the title in play while Brock Lensar recovers from mono and his recent intestinal surgery. Seems reasonable to me.

Halfway through Starfield Week, counting down to Saturday's concert in Edmonton....

Starfield Week continues leading up to their concert Saturday night in Edmonton.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/70247157.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUI UFC: Lesnar recovering from intestinal infection By STAFF and NEWS SERVICES Last update: November 16, 2009 - 9:27 PM Officials with the UFC will disclose more information about current heavyweight champion and former Minnesota wrestler Brock Lesnar's condition today, amid reports that the former Gopher is seriously ill. "We will definitely know something on Brock by [today]," UFC spokesman Joe Fernandez said via e-mail Monday. UFC president Dana White said Monday that Lesnar is recovering from a bacterial infection in his intestinal tract.

OK, this is awesome.

Kicking off the unofficial Starfield Week here at The Newsroom, I give you another version of Starfield's new song, Saving One, plus Mighty To Save. Starfield plays in Edmonton this weekend, and my lovely wife and I are going! EDIT: If you arrived here through a Google search looking for information about The Saving One album, see my update here.

I'm totally hit and miss on Third Day as a band. But this is one of their songs that I really like, and the acoustic version is fantastic!

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Holy crap. Everything is all happening at once. Courtesy Figure Four Online . It's behind the member's only firewall, but here's the quick and dirty: Brock Lesnar is extremely sick with mono and something else unknown and may never fight again. Big Nog has a bad staph infection and is out of UFC 108.  Shane McMahon had a meeting with UFC recently. More: The big news from the UFC Press Conference had nothing to do with tonight’s fights. To a stunned press pack, Dana White announced that Brock Lesnar is not only struggling to recover from mono but that after a recent trip to Canada he has developed further health problems and is currently back in hospital. He refused to give more details about the nature of these health problems except that they were serious. In response to a direct question about what this meant for the future of the heavyweight championship Dana White raised the possibility of an interim championship or even stripping Lesnar of the title. He said that

I'm liveblogging UFC 105. Liveblogging will continue after the jump. DO NOT CONTINUE UNLESS YOU WANT THE RESULTS FOR THE SHOW. SPOILERS AHEAD! The show airs tonight on tape delay on Spike TV.

Amazing!

According to Sportsnet's online schedule , they are showing UFC 105 live tomorrow from England ... but only in Ontario and eastern Canada. Sportsnet West and Pacific gets ... wait for it... Darts. Please tell me this is a horrible mistake and that I'll be able to watch UFC live tomorrow. Quick edit: I've twittered and emailed SportsNet about this. Second edit: This was forwarded to me by someone else who emailed Sportsnet about the same issue: Thanks for your recent email. As we have four national channels  available to all cable and satellite providers in Canada, we have  decided to air the event live on only two of them. As most viewers have  all four channels, we are giving them different options on each. Having  said that, we will be re-airing UFC 105 across all Sportsnet channels that night at 8 pm local. Jim LaChapelle Audience Relations I'd like to see Sportsnet's stats that "most viewers have all four channels." I'm sure sure

It means tomorrow is Saturday.

Evil Russell: Best. Survivor. Player. Ever. EVER!

I guess UFC is going to tease for the rest of the season that Kimbo is coming back to fight. Hope no one believes that's actually going to happen. Otherwise, a fairly blah episode. Roy won and advances. Chickens were placed in Rashad's car and he thought it was funny. Meh.

The Fight for the Ninth Planet | Wired Science | Wired.com If there’s still someone out there who thinks science and politics never mix, the story behind the Battle of Prague should change your mind. Some have cast the debate that took place in the Czech capital during the summer of 2006 as a battle against American scientists who wanted to keep the only planet discovered by an American on an unreasonably high pedestal. On the other side of the argument, there are those who suspect that the rest of the world wanted to see Pluto demoted to punish America for its unpopular foreign policy.

M-1 exec Jerry Millen: Fedor Emelianenko will fight Brock Lesnar for free | MMAjunkie.com First, it was Randy Couture. Now, it's Brock Lesnar. Each time former PRIDE heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko (31-1) adds another win to his already impressive career total, fans from across the world call for the Russian to face the UFC's reigning king. Emelianenko toppled the previously undefeated Brett Rogers at Saturday night's Strikeforce and M-1 Global co-promotion, "Fedor vs. Rogers," and those requests have already begun again. While the UFC's unwillingness to co-promote has proved an insurmountable roadblock in the past, M-1 Global USA vice president Jerry Millen has a simple solution: do it for free.

I'm still on my first listen through Hello Hurricane (courtesy a stream at New Release Tuesday ) and I'm having the exact same reaction to this album as I did when I first listened to the band's Nothing Is Sound CD: This is the record that U2 should have made. And didn't. It'll take me a few times through the album to really get a feel for Hello Hurricane , but I'm comparing it favourably to U2. So it's good.

After watching the disparity between my StatCounter hits and SiteMeter hits grow to a 50% difference on any given day, I ditched SiteMeter entirely the other day, and the result was an almost instant 25% growth in my StatCounter hits. I have no explanation for this phenomenon other than it seems the SiteMeter code was slowing down the loading of my website and that may have impacted the way StatCounter was measuring hits. Or something. I dunno. I also added the addthis.com code to my template, allowing easier sharing of the brilliant ( recycled, shurely - ed. ) content of this blog to other social networking sites.

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Apparently, I'm in the minority, but I was hardly blown away by last night's Fedor vs. Rogers MMA card on CBS. I thought it was amateur hour in many ways, what with Frank Shamrock utterly refusing to answer Mauro's repeated requests on scoring a round, making both men look like complete goofs, the CBS crew cutting to an interview with Fedor that became an interview with a Russian through a translator telling us why we weren't getting an interview with Fedor, and a five-round lay-and-pray fight between Jason Miller and Jake Shields that had approximately 6 seconds of drama when Shields nearly got choked out but was literally saved by the bell at the end of the round. Plus, there's no better way to look minor league than to put Big John McCarthy on the show as a referee, and he gets the biggest cheers of the night up to that point. Yeah, when the referee is a bigger star than every fighter who has appeared on the show thus far, you're in trouble. Not to mentio

Big night of mixed martial arts on TV tonight. CBS is showing Fedor vs. Rogers, which will be interesting because it's Fedor's big North American free TV debut for Strikeforce after spurning UFC's efforts to sign him. He's fighting Brett Rogers, who only the hardest of hardcore MMA fans have ever heard of before. Personally, I'm rooting for the Rogers upset, just to watch Dana White cackle with glee, and to watch the "Fedor is the No. 1 heavyweight in the world" fanboys have their heads explode. There are some other matches on the CBS card, but darned if I know what they are. In terms of promotion, this really is a one-match show. Meanwhile, UFC is counter-programming with a 2-hour special showing the main events of a bunch of recent UFC PPVs, including Randy Couture vs 'Minotauro' Nogueira. This is going on my DVR. I may liveblog the Strikeforce show if I'm feeling ambitious. Strikeforce needs a home-run tonight, or else they could be the

I discovered today that Twitter's updated their blog badge, so I grabbed the new code for that. And I decided to tweak the blog colors a bit to even them out. I like it. Not as soothing as taupe , but what can you do?

Well, that was a tremendously fantastic episode of Survivor - one of those shows where I had no idea who really was going home, what with 4 different immunity idols in play at Tribal Council. Eric came out on the short end of the stick. Good riddance. Meanwhile, next week.... no! Don't get rid of Evil Russell!

Lovable Marcus finally gets a win for Rampage's team, preventing the sweep. Amazing how Rampage's team can win one fight and suddenly Jackson's entire attitude changes. Plus, you gotta love a guy who apologizes to a door.

Getting word tonight that Brock Lesnar, whose UFC heavyweight title defence against Shane Carwin later this month at UFC 106 was already postponed due to lingering illness, is now off the rescheduled date of January 2. It's now been confirmed that Lesnar has mono. I'm thinking the UFC is going to have no choice but to set up an interim heavyweight title, as it could be summer before Lesnar is back training.

I was a casual fan of Futurama when it was on the air but I completely fell in love with the show on DVD a few years ago. And I was quite excited when I heard that Futurama would return to production as a series of direct-to-DVD movies. I grabbed the first one, Bender's Big Score , as soon as it came out. It was OK. Not great. Not terrible. Just OK. I made the decision at that point to not buy any more of the DVDs until I could find them in the bargain bin. As it turned out, they all ended up airing on TV. Good thing, too, because Futurama's big return peaked with the first DVD movie at merely "OK". After that, it was entirely downhill. I recall that I did not laugh once during The Beast With A Billion Backs , and that Bender's Big Game had just one funny scene in the entire show. Otherwise, completely forgettable and horribly disappointing. The final of the four direct-to-DVD movies, Into the Wild Green Yonder , aired on Global TV this past Sunday. One wo

The only match between the two (as far as I recall) and it was for Flair's NWA title. I was live and in person at this match at the Winnipeg Arena.

"UFC's Ultimate 100: Greatest Fights" set for 8-disc DVD release on Nov. 10 : " The 'UFC's Ultimate 100: Greatest Fights,' a collection of the MMA promotion's 100 greatest fights as decided on by a fan vote, will soon be available on DVD. And unlike the five-part Spike TV series, which showed just clips of the 100 contests, the new DVD collection will offer all 100 fights in their entirety. Anchor Bay Entertainment, the current distributor of UFC DVD's, today announced that the eight-DVD set will be available on Nov. 10 for a suggested retail price of $99.97.   EDIT: My review of the UFC's 100 Greatest Fights DVD set starts here .

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Apparently, this is the band's standard encore in concert, as I've seen several clips of it, and they did this in Edmonton a couple of weeks ago, too. It's a good clip because it showcases both sides of Downhere - guys who don't take themselves too seriously, but yet take their ministry very seriously. I'd really like to see them put Mighty To Save on their next album.

EDIT: The first radio single, Rediscover You, is streaming here . Second edit: Here's another version of Saving One that's just audio, but it's tremendous quality. Second edit: If you arrived here through a Google search looking for information about The Saving One album, see my update here.

Let's all take a moment to recognize this milestone. OK, that's enough. As you were.

Blech. A boring and fairly mundane episode notable only for Leader Shambo and the return of The Schemes of Evil Russell. Otherwise, all the action really starts next week with the merge.

Rampage goes 0-7, and the doors of the TUF training centre will never be the same. What a great show: Madman Matt, who must - MUST! - come out to Randy Orton's "Voices" theme when he fights in UFC, takes down Scott Junk in the best fight of the season (or at least, the best first round of the season). And Rampage and Rashad almost go to blows, hyping up the best fight that will likely never happen.

The Internet's all a-buzz today because last night's UFC PPV ended with Lyoto Machida defending his UFC title against Shogun Rua by winning a unanimous decision - a decision that virtually everyone who wasn't a judge at ringside considered to be one of the worst decisions in company history. I didn't watch the show last night, but I got an opportunity to watch the main event this afternoon, so here's my thoughts "live" as I watched each round: Round 1 was a pick 'em. You could give either guy 10-9 on that one. Round 2 was Shogun. So either tied 1-1 or Shogun 2-0. Round 3 was definitely Machida's round. So, if you gave 1 to Machida, he's up 2-1. Otherwise, it's Shogun up 2-1. Round 4 was another one of those toss-ups. I'd give it to Shogun because he was pressing the action more than Machida, but Machida probably got the best of the few exchanges that actually connected. So now, it's Shogun 3-1, or Machida 3-1 or 2-2. I'

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It dawned on me as I sit here checking new apps for my Blackberry that I can get a Facebook app, and various Twitter apps, and even CNN or Weather Network apps, but there's no dedicated blogging app for Blogger. Instead, you have to essentially email blog posts, as I'm doing now.

The story begins this morning when a Windows 7 compatibility check on my laptop showed that my Acronis backup software was not compatible with Windows 7. This is problematic because, of course, you should always backup your system before upgrading the OS. So I needed to upgrade Acronis before I could even consider buying Windows 7. I went to the Acronis site, downloaded the new Acronis 2010, and installed it. Upon which time, it Blue Screen of Death'd me. Worse, it wouldn't even let me uninstall the new version, and a reinstall of the old version didn't seem to help anything either. In the end I had to use System Restore to get myself back to normal. In the middle of uninstalling and reinstalling Acronis, though, I Google'd the Acronis Blue Screen of Death for kicks and discovered that this is a huge problem in the new software that Acronis will fix, eventually. We hope. So I currently have backup software that is not compatible with Windows 7 that needs to be up

A confession of sorts: I really didn't "get" worship music until Kutless put out their first worship album, Strong Tower a few years ago. I thought worship music was kind of boring and stodgy in style and fairly simplistic and repetitive in form compared to "real" music. The Strong Tower CD made me realize that, actually, what I didn't like about worship music was how it was being presented to me - on a church organ with no passion or energy. Worship music done by a band I like in a musical style more fitting with my personal tastes? Tremendous stuff! A second confession of sorts: I much prefer Kutless's worship albums to their regular rock albums. If I had my way, they'd stick to making worship albums full-time. I really think this is what they're best at. Without going back and doing a track-by-track comparison, I can't say whether Kutless's second worship album, It Is Well , is better or worse than Strong Tower . The highs of th

OK, I gotta get one thing off my chest before reviewing this album, and it's this: Why is Downhere not the biggest band in Christian music? Seriously. I listen to all kinds of Christan music - everything from Skillet and TFK to Michael W. Smith and Lincoln Brewster. Downhere is the best band in Christian music today. They should be selling albums by the tens of thousands. I don't understand why they are merely "critical darlings" and not enormously popular in the Christian music genre. Plus, they are one of the best live bands I've ever seen. Jason and Marc's duel lead vocals are tremendous, and spot-on in concert. And with no other segue into reviewing this album ... Downhere's Christmas record, How Many Kings: Songs for Christmas , is really good. Two things jumped out at me upon listening to it. First, it sounds great. Full, lush arrangements. Maybe it's because I bought the CD instead of the iTunes download. But whatever the cause, I'm imp

Time again for my semi-regular post on where to find a bar to watch the UFC PPV this weekend. Nothing excites me on this card, so I'm taking a pass on it.

OK, I didn't see *that* coming. So it's goodbye to Good Russell, who got taken out of the game via medical evacuation. Shame for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that we were unfairly denied the sight of watching one of the teams retching up pizza post-Tribal Council.

Different week. Same result. Rampage is now 0 for 6. Whose the boob now?

OK, so here's the deal. I bought the new Kutless worship album off Itunes yesterday. I've listened to it once, in the car. It's good. But I've been really busy with work and too tired to bother listening to it again at home a few times to get a solid feel for it and write a review. And my new Downhere Christmas CD just arrived in the mail today. Yeah, it came out three weeks ago. I'm pretty sure I could have walked it from Tennessee to Edmonton in that time. So, yes, a review for that CD will be coming too. By Christmas, I hope.

This album is coming out tomorrow, but I'm a little worried about a Canadian release because it's not available for pre-order on ITunes yet.

What can I say? These guys are awesome, and they put on a tremendous show last night in Edmonton. Otherwise, High Valley was a pleasant surprise (all the moreso considering they're country, which is one genre I really do not get into) and Shaun Groves had a solid solo acoustic set highlighted by his incredibly dry sense of humor.

Comes out tomorrow!

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My favorite Christian band, Downhere, is in town tonight to headline their own concert. I'll be there live-tweeting it, so feel free to follow along .

Well, I found a blog backup from September when I switched hosting services, so I manged to restore a good chunk of posts. But I'm missing about a month's worth of stuff. Will see how much of that I can manually restore from my Facebook feed of my blog. EDIT: OK, I managed to restore about 99% of the missing material. So we're back in business.

Ack! In the process of trying to clean up some duplicate posts from the hosting switchover a couple of weeks ago, I think I just deleted my entire blog. This sucks.

OK, this is the biggest wrestling news of the year: Shane McMahon has announced his intention to resign from WWE . My take on the whole thing is this: Shane sees no long-term future in WWE, personally or professionally or corporately, and is getting out while the getting is good and he's still young enough to go build his own legacy using his share of the family fortune. Frankly, this is THE wrestling story of 2009, and will have long-term repercussions on the entire industry (or what's left of it in North America). The rumor mill - or maybe, the wishful thinking mill, as Shane has said nothing publicly about this other than what's on the WWE site - has him going to UFC, where he'd do more or less the same job he did in WWE, which was global marketing.

BWAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAH!!! Wes Sims got choked out by a Hobbit!

Not much to say about tonight's episode. It basically starred 48 hours of rain, and it's been ages since Survivor was forced to make NOTHING interesting. Otherwise, the food challenge was vomitlicious, and had me heaving in my seat just watching it. Bye, Ashley.

Here's something random: For September, SiteMeter said that I had 3,343 hits and 5,179 page views. StatCounter, on the other hand, credited me with 4,097 hits and 6,262 page views. That's quite the discrepancy. Somehow, SiteMeter is losing about a quarter of my traffic.

The boys from Downhere put up a new video today of their Christmas song, "How Many Kings." The band is in concert in Edmonton this Sunday. (And, yes, I'll be there. Looking forward to it!)

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The Onion sues Nobel Prize Committee - Steven’s blog - RedState Noted satirical newspaper, The Onion (www.theonion.com) announced today that it is suing the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for plagiarism and theft of intellectual property. At issue is yesterday’s announcement by the Committee of its selection of U.S. President Barack Obama as this year’s recipient of the coveted Peace Prize and 1.4 million dollar award. According to Vernon Coldwater, a spokesman from The Onion legal department, his employer can prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the idea of awarding Obama the Peace Prize is the intellectual property of staff writers from the Onion political satire department, and that it was stolen by spies from Oslo.

From their forthcoming worship album. Such a pretty song.

Tonight's episode took a break from the Evil Russell Controls The World storyline in favor of ... well, I guess tonight was the Purple Team is Human After All storyline. Or maybe The Marines Should Really Disown Shambo Cuz She's Doing Them No Favours storyline. Eh, either way, Yas is gone, and the world rejoices. Next week, a return to the Evil Russell Is Probably the Devil storyline, and the beginning of the Weather Armageddon storyline.

OK, this is getting ridiculous. And I'm now rooting for Rashad's team to win every fight this season. No wonder Rampage quit .

Another cool tune from one of my favorite new bands, The Letter Black. Even my wife loves this song, and our musical tastes are pretty different (we meet at Petra. She goes softer, I go harder.) Still, I'm a sucker for female-fronted rock bands, and rock songs with orchestral strings and nice harmonies. This is one of those, "I luv, luv, luv this song" songs.

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Crazy Ben gets sent packing to the nut farm, and the first cracks appear in Evil Russell's gameplan. Otherwise, how amusing was it to see Shambo be more cooperative with the opposing team than her own?

From Figure Four Online : 5.3 million viewers for the show and 6.1 million for the fight. Highest rated fight in the history of UFC programming and most watched MMA television show from start-to-finish in history. The show did a 6.8 rating in Males 18-34, highest in the history of the station, beating the Ortiz-Shamrock fight in 2006. Kimbo vs. Roy Nelson did a 7.86 rating in the Male 18-34 demo.

As expected (well, by anyone with half a brain), Kimbo lost last night, so the only reason to watch this season's show is already done, just three episodes in. And, as expected, Rampage Jackson's team is now zero for 3 on this season, and Rashad is already contemplating the sweep. Other than that, however, this was a total nothing show. And now that Kimbo's out of the running (unless they can find a way to get him back in via injury substitution), there's no reason to keep watching. I mean, what's the big draw now, the crappy fights?

The band Downhere, which last year gave away their album Wide Eyed and Mystified entirely for free on the Internet to promote their new album Ending is Beginning , is back in the giveaway business. If you pre-order the band's new Christmas album, How Many Kings , you get to choose an immediate download of either Thunder After Lightning , Wide Eyed and Mystified , or the acoustic Wide Eyed and Simplified (which was my option, because the only thing better than Downhere is Downhere unplugged). It's basically buy one album, get one free! You can't lose!

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