The Newsroom

The new season of The Ultimate Fighter starts tomorrow (Wednesday), and it's proceeded by the usual Spike TV Ultimate Fight Night special. I'll watch all of it, and I'll probably enjoy it as well. But there's nothing about this season of The Ultimate Fighter that I'm particularly looking forward to: I like Dan Henderson, and Michael Bisping is fine, but it's not like I'm chomping at the bit to see them fight each other. So the lure of the coaches fighting is "meh" at best. And the quality of the guys on TUF in recent seasons has declined dramatically, so there's little reason to emotionally invest in a bunch of fighters when there's little chance that any of them will actually leave a lasting impression in the UFC. The days of the UFC finding the next Forrest Griffin or Rashad Evans (or Michael Bisping, for that matter) from TUF are almost certainly over. Not to mention, being Canadian, the whole USA vs. UK angle on this season is not exact

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I just came back from my bank, where I was trying to secure a low-interest loan or line of credit that I'd use to pay off my higher interest car loan. Last I checked, the bank rate was 0.75%. The prime rate is 2.5%. My bank tried to give me a line of credit at 5.25%, and a personal loan at more than 8%. WHAT?

Sorry ... I'm just not sold on Michael Tait as lead singer yet.

Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe - space - 23 March 2009 - New Scientist Here's a fun story about the destruction of earth due to solar storms.

globeandmail.com: Why Twitter is a matter of life and death Twitter, once solely the concern of technophiles and new media pundits, is now a firm part of mainstream culture, both online and off.

While The Wrestler gets kudos as the best movie ever made on professional wrestling, Wrestling With Shadows is the best documentary ever made on the subject of professional wrestling. The National Film Board of Canada has it streaming on their website . It's an amazing documentary for so many reasons - not the least of which is that 10+ years later, it's hard to believe that "Montreal" is still an issue in professional wrestling, and that this more than anything else defined the careers of Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. It's also hard to believe in 2009 that anything like the events in the documentary could ever happen again.

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"jon michael vs rick flair" (From a Google search string found in my website stats.)

edmontonsun.com - Opinion/Comment - Read 'em and keep Why do we let you read our product for free online? Good question. We have no choice but to do so, because everyone else does.

I don't normally highlight a lot of American blogs here (have to keep up my Canadian content, you understand), but Barack Obama's Teleprompter is the best, oddest, most creative new blog I've seen in quite some time. It will be interesting to see how long it lasts.

(I meant to write this post, like, three months ago, and just forgot. But what the heck.) I bought Run Kid Run's "Love At The Core" album yesterday off iTunes, and have been loving it to death for the last 24 hours. That got me thinking of some of my fave Christian music from last year. Looking through my album collection, I'd have to narrow it down to three albums: Newsboys - Houston, We Are Go Downhere - Ending is Beginning Starfield - I Will Go The Newsboys live album produced what was my favorite song of the year (and, actually, the year before, too, seeing as they've done several versions of it) in "I Am Free." It's a great rocker and it sounds awesome live. Downhere put together was I think was, front to back, my favorite album of the entire year. It's the album that I can put in my car stereo any time and enjoy it. But Starfield produced a fantastic album that had my favorite worship song of the year in "Reign In Us." Plus, about

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Old age begins at 27 - scientists claim after new research | Mail Online According to scientists, our mental abilities begin to decline from the age of 27 after reaching a peak at 22.

My day of musical discovering continues. I love this song!

All the (mainly bogus) complaining about Facebook aside, this is why I love the Internet: I get to discover fun Christian bands that I don't hear on my local Christian radio station.

It wasn't that long ago that Facebook overhauled its look, a move that predictably resulted in a ton of complaints. However, Facebook stuck it out, the complaining soon died, and life continued on in cyberspace. Fast forward just a few months, and Twitter is all the rage, so Facebook decided to once again overhaul its look to make it more Twitter-like. And I hate it with a passion. Hate, hate, hate. As in, "Thinking of shutting down my Facebook account" hate. Yes, I know I've agreed with the sentiment that complaining about Facebook is one of those "first world" complaints that us comfortable North Americans make while real problems affecting real people remain ignored so we can complain about Facebook. That said, the new Facebook format is terrible. It's Twitter. But we already have Twitter. Sure, Twitter is likely stealing traffic away from Facebook, but Twitter has, to my knowledge, no revenue model, and no revenue to speak of, so I have no idea how

Rashad Evans vs. Lyoto Machida for the title. Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir it is not.

I was very saddened today to learn that my former colleague Neil Waugh was cut by the Sun today after a long career there. Neil and I worked together for 10 years at the Sun (including a span where I his editor), and while was an old grump at times, he was our old grump, dammit, and we loved him for it. Seriously ... beneath his tough exterior, Neil was a great guy to know. He had a steel trap memory for the goings-on in provincial politics, and loved his role as the irascible outsider looking in. The shocked faces in the press gallery today said it all - he was well loved by his co-workers and colleagues in the media and at the Legislature and he'll be missed. An era has ended at the Alberta Legislature.

Montreal just fired their coach. Montreal beat the Oilers tonight. Montreal is 9th in the NHL with 79 points. Oilers are 17th in the NHL with 71 points. Montreal just fired their coach.

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According to Dave Meltzer at wrestlingobserver.com , the Frank Mir-Brock Lesnar fight is being moved to UFC 100 on July 11. Dana White would like the May 23 main event to be Rashad Evans defending against Rampage Jackson, but Quinton isn't sure if he wants that fight on such short notice. If he doesn't accept, Lyoto Machida would get the title shot.

The latest update courtesy of Figure 4 Weekly Online is that Frank Mir did undergo a knee scope during the week, but the match against Brock Lesnar has not been officially cancelled yet. One poster on the F4W messageboards said that UFC would announce the new main event for the May show tonight during the Jackson-Jardine PPV. UPDATE: Frank Mir is telling people that he can't spar for four to six weeks, and wants the match moved to the summer.

MMA reporter Oliver Copp is reporting on the Figure 4 Online messageboards right now that Frank Mir is injured and his May fight with Brock Lesnar to unify the UFC Heavyweight and Interim Heavyweight titles is off. If true, this is terrible news. That was easily a million buys PPV. Updates and links as they become available. UPDATE: MMA Weekly says Mir's already had knee surgery . I guess the question now is whether UFC knew about this before they started selling tickets to UFC 98 and officially announcing the fight? SECOND UPDATE: Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports says Mir did have knee surgery, but the fight is still on for May. As of now, UFC boss Dana White is claiming ignorance. THIRD UPDATE: Several posters on the F4W messageboards have pointed out that Dana White's protests of not knowing anything about Mir's knee surgery before putting tickets on sale yesterday ring hollow. Mir, after all, was conspicuous by his absence at the announce booth at the WEC show on Sunday nigh

Sorry, I just can't get excited about Keith Jardine fighting Rampage Jackson. Well, I can get kinda excited about the Jackson part of it, but not the Jardine part of it. It may turn out to be fight of the year, but I'm not buying this show. My next UFC PPV will be the May show, with Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir for the undisputed heavyweight title.

Hysterical! My brother Dean wrote this.

This man tested positive for steroids .

Bank of Canada cuts lending rate to -1.5%. Borrow $1,000, pay back $985!

It's 5:02 a.m., and I'm writing and publishing this in real time. I have decided that gradually setting my alarm clock back this week is the only way I'm going to adjust to the time switch this weekend in a manner that won't involve heavy pharmaceuticals. So I was up at 4:30 a.m. today. Having a nice, leisurely breakfast and doing some early reading of the news. I'll be going to bed at 6:30 this evening, but ...

We "spring forward" this weekend and move to daylight time. That means I have to get up an hour earlier than normal. And "normal" is 4:45 a.m. Which is the equivalent of 3:45 a.m. once we move the clocks. Oh geez, I'm gonna be grumpy ...

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