Amazing Games

August 18, 2012

Sounders Tifo

This is a cool list of all the tifo displays by ECS.

Little League World Series
I'm not a fan of the LLWS. 
It's for kids who hit puberty early and have grown to freakish sizes.
And for parents with loads of excess money and time.
ESPN is probably putting it on because they don't have other sports to show right now.
I would rather see bowling, darts, poker, ultimate frisbee, double dutch, paintball, competitive eating, jai-alai, Scrabble or Magic: The Gathering.

They sure used to cover things like that:

Also, I guarantee at least some of the kids feel like Stan, Kyle and Butters in:
South Park Episode The Losing Edge
A winning season and overzealous parents threaten to ruin the entire summer when the boys of South Park head to the Little League State Championships. The kids desperately want an end to the boring baseball season, and just one loss would set them free. Unfortunately, the opposing team is much better at losing than they are.

R. Kelly - Ignition (Remix)
Covered by Young The Giant

And the original:

Today's Photo:

At Joe's Bar, with this decor and this crowd, there is a expectation about the music stocked in that jukebox.

Instead they played this and this.

Stereotype busted.

Expendables 2: More Expendabler

August 17, 2012

Youtube HOF: Expendables Edition 

Death of the Great American Shoot-'Em-Up
Expendables 2 Power Rankings

Hot Cheetos and Takis

This Grantland article explains it pretty well.

Today's Photos:

View from the Great Wheel

Three Clubs

August 16, 2012

Don’t Nap On This: 
Why The Business of Sleep Will Keep BoomingOne day, when smog-free cars run on sea water and every loophole in the tax code has been closed, the entirety of humanity will be in such a glorious state of physical fitness and spiritual bliss that falling asleep will be as simple as  laying one’s head on a pillow. Until that day, however, the business of helping people get a good night’s rest is likely to remain what it is: A fast-growing sector in an otherwise slow-moving economy, with a little fuel additive in the mix that’s only going to make things more interesting. That would be the increasing awareness within the insurance industry that insomnia in all its guises is a real problem for much of the nation.Sleep-assistance is already a big business. Industry revenues are expected to surpass $32 billion in 2012, an average annual increase of 8.8% a year since 2008. That’s according to a recent report in The Fiscal Times, which offers a description of the sleep economy that  ”includes everything from pills, products and medical devices to ‘sleep consultants’ who farm themselves out to hospitals, labs, and sleep centers, to luxe mattresses made with tension-relieving foams.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Space, Politics, and the Most Important Thing to Know About the Universe

Chad Johnson Sunk By His Need For Attention

All he wanted was to be loved. Love was in short supply when he was very young. Chad Johnson never forgot that. He has spent his adult life trying to make up for lost time. It’s ironic and sad that, at age 34, the former Bengals great is back closer to Square One than he has been in many years.

I Hate Starbucks

Carl Crawford Called A Racially Charged Name I've Never Heard Before
This makes me nervous about every word I've ever said to anyone.

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee with Seinfeld

A show that's about nothing.

Hasn't he done that before?

Today's Photo:

At the Crossroads Par 3 Course.

Man, it was hot.

The weather.  Not my game.

"We Are Just Blowing Through Nap Time"

August 15, 2012

Scrabble Scandal
Is it that more people are cheating, or are more people just getting caught?

Sierra Nelson - "I Take Back the Sponge Cake"

A choose-your-own-adventure poetry book.

Hard Knocks - Chad Johnson Cut

HBO's show is definitely interesting, even if you already know what's going to happen.

Felix Hernandez Throws Perfect Game

Baseball will ban the above highlight soon.

Wouldn't want people to get excited about your sport.

US wins in Mexico (for the first time).

Today's Photo:

This guy was in my neighbor's backyard using every power tool known to man.
I know it's a reasonable time for them to work on their house, but I wanted a nap.

Birthday 2012

August 14, 2012

New Words In Dictionary

Thank God we're defining "F-Bomb"

Julia Child Remix

Brian K Vaughn - Saga

"Y: The Last Man" was awesome, and I only hear good things about "Ex Machina"

This guy is a winner. 

NPR Top 100 Teen Reads

A bunch of series made the list.

Trailers
The Campaign
Contains biting political commentary
Wreck-it Ralph
"I'M GONNA WRECK IT!"
This is 40
Remember all the good Apatow movies.
Life of Pi
Looks beautiful.

Today's Photos:
Moving a friends.
On the countertop, that's a plunger and toilet paper.
You know, as a housewarming present.

Birthday.

Media Blackout Lifted

August 13, 2012

Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built

Gamify Your Life

For the last year, gamification has been on an accelerated hype/hope/backlash/spin cycle. If you believe the buzz (and you mostly shouldn’t),  there’s not much in life —  from boring business tasks to retail “experiences” to sex — that can’t be improved by adding a leaderboard and levels. Ok, I’m exaggerating and it would be a waste to dismiss the benefits of thoughtful game mechanics and, well, fun, when it’s appropriate and well-applied. So with that in mind, here are a few gamification apps that are smart ideas and might be useful, if you need the kind of nudge that some friendly competition (even with just yourself) can provide:

The World Records That Fell

A list of all the world records broken during the London Games.

Chemistry Olympiad Gold Medalists

Pitchfork Soundplay

They make games based on songs.

The first five installments were Jake Elliott's game inspired by M83's "Intro", Santa Ragione's game inspired by Matthew Dear's "Street Song", former Cut Copy member Bennett Foddy's game inspired by Cut Copy's "Sun God", and Ivan Safrin's game inspired by Chromatics' "Lady".

Today, Soundplay is proud to introduce Pachinko Pictures' "Take a Walk", inspired by the first single from Passion Pit's Gossamer.

The Unlikely Smash Success of The Expendables

Two years later, we’re getting an inevitable “Expendables 2.” Critics weren’t kind to the first film, and I can’t imagine they’re going to be any nicer to the new movie — it’s not that type of film. But what’s amazing is that, when you think about it, this series isn’t really about stars or excitingly cool concepts. The “Expendables” franchise has been about enjoying an era that’s not around anymore, celebrating a brawny, old-school style of action filmmaking that went out of favor around the time that Stallone first stopped being a major box office draw. Those who dismiss this series will insist that Stallone and his B-list costars are hopelessly out of step with the times. The films’ fans will argue that that’s exactly the point.

San Juan Adventure

August 12, 2012

Racewalking, Raceshooting, and Rolling Rocks

August 11, 2012

Men's 50k race walk Italian busted for doping

Injured Race Walker from Sydney on 2000
Walks into the stadium to "I would walk 500 miles"

Chris Maddocks from Great Britain won the hearts of the crowd as he was the last finisher, coming in more than an hour after Korzeniowski.  Ian Whatley commented on the Racewalking email group, "Way to go Chris Maddocks, probably the last man born in the 1950s to compete in Olympic track competition."  Like his countryman rower Steve Redgrave, this was his fifth Olympics, but Maddocks has always finished out of the medals.  The crowd was ready to welcome him and he was cheered throughout his final lap and serenaded in the stadium with the song "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)" by Scottish pop group The Proclaimers, with the refrain "I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more." 

Modern Pentathalon
Fencing
You face all 35 other guys
One touch wins.

You know, like a real duel.

You ride a horse that you've never seen before.

And you run while taking breaks to shoot a laser pistol.

Charity Modern Pentathlons should replace charity 5ks.

Today's Photos:

At Lebowskifest

Walters

Dudes

Landlords, "I am the Walrus", a brother shamus, Jackie Treehorn, and a Maude Lebowski painting described as "highly vaginal".

German techno-pop group Autobahn, and the Police Chief of Malibu

161 + 148 = 309

SLUBP + Greenwood Art Walk

August 10, 2012

Cure on Cap Hill
Review makes it sound good.

Curiosity 360 Photo

Miami Horror - Holiday

Humane Society Adoption Truck
Unfairly cute.

Cuoco
Had samples at SLU Block Party.
They had some kind of green grill that makes the meat amazing.

Today's Photos:

Cycle Saloon

Street Soccer (presented by Golazo)

Between Heaven and Hellboy
At Urban Light Studios

At Hot Cakes Molten Chocolate Cakery

Olympic Deep Cuts

August 9, 2012

Women's 10k Swim

The above link breaks down the feeding stations, which resemble an aquatic NASCAR pit stop.

Rhythmic Gymnastics 

Brian Phillips on Grantland wrote a great piece about the surprising change in attitude once you stop thinking of this as a farce, and actually watch Rhythmic Gymnastics:

 My own interest in RG is of long standing, dating back to last Friday, when I remembered a promise I'd given my editors that I would "totally write something about the Olympics." For a lot of extremely sound reasons, none of which was that I am lazy and it presumably wouldn't take very long, I thought I'd pick one of the sillier-sounding Olympic sports — race walking, maybe, or trampoline — and fire off something quippy about what it was like to watch. "After all," I said to myself, "the Olympics are all about briefly getting passionately mixed up with sports you don't normally care about. And who doesn't love a good trampoline quip?" I did my usual vampire cackle and adjourned to YouTube.

The problem my little plan almost immediately ran into is that when, as part of my research, I started watching RG videos, I found that I actually liked it. I mean, I think you're not supposed to say that if you're an American sports fan with pretensions to red-bloodedness, but fuck it: These women are amazing.¹ If you care about sports on any level beyond box scores and regional rivalries, if you love watching a wide receiver make an acrobatic catch or a striker score an off-balance goal, if you ever feel astonished by, just, like, the incredible things people do with their bodies — then I defy you to watch a few minutes of RG and not think it's pretty cool.

My buddy defined RG as a "Cirque du Soliel Competition" which is entirely accurate.

Olympic Mascots?

Gawker runs us through the lunacy of "Wenlock" and Mandeville".

I love mascots more than anyone, and even I can't support those.

They also have their own official terrifying website

Pork and Beans

Heard this song in the car today.

This video was made in 2009.

It already feels dated.

Like it's from some earlier, happy time when we were all giddy about the internet.

Today's Photo:

Woodinville Whiskey Co. offers free tastings of their delicious products.
I suggest pairing any drink with a blizzard, like we did.

They also have this home aging kit.

TBTL is Picnic Potluckers

August 8, 2012

RC Mini Coopers Return Field Apparatus 

Too Many Exclamation Points!!!

Salon.com

But I admit: I do it too. I’ll drop an exclamation point or nine in an email or text to smooth the transaction. I do it not because I’m nice but because I’m lazy: Instead of finding the right words I find the “Shift” and the “1″ keys. Synthetic excitement explodes out of my cursor, unearned. And I can sound friendly without all the effort of actually being friendly.

But I’ve also come to hate it. I hate that I’m trapped by it, that if I don’t put six exclamation points in an email or text I sound like a jaded ex-bullfighter or a 13-year-old goth girl.

BMX Downhill Riding

The Olympic Committee won't let you embed any of their clips.
But, of course, you can videotape your tv screen and there's nothing they can do about that.
It is nice to see them embrace these newer, "extreme" sports.

Is there a danger the Olympics will turn into the corporate-sponsored X-Games?

Today's Photos:
From the TBTL Potluck at Chateau St. Michelle

Golf... and a Movie?

August 7, 2012

Liu Xiang

Chinese 100m hurdler
Tore his Achilles on the first hurdle and hopped to finish

Women's Water polo
Bad timeout forces overtime

Shades of Chris Webber.

U.S. Women's Soccer Beats Canada

I know the video quality is low.  
It's someone taping what's on their TV.
The law seems pretty dumb when this is legal.

Cyclists Are A Menace...Sometimes
I have no problem with bicycles.
It's a great hobby and people who do it are fine people.
But if you are a bicyclist on a road, you have to follow the rules.
You can't be a car one minute in the middle of the road, then a bicyclist who gets to use the bike lane, then a pedestrian who gets to use the sidewalk, then try to pass a semi truck making a left hand turn.

Total Recall

I left the theater thinking 

"Why even bother to remake that?"

It was one long chase movie and was terrible sci-fi.

Grantland review questions all Phillip K. Dick remakes.

Today's Photos:

106.
Best score of the summer.

Now that I think about it, I probably didn't go golfing the same day  I saw Total Recall.  Hmm... actually, none of these events probably happened today and there was some kind of glitch on the blog.
Or maybe I'm remembering it wrong.
Or my memories are fake.
Oh no.

Partial Clearing of Media Blackout

August 6, 2012

I'm still on media blackout due to the Olympics.

Which is fine, because all I'm going to do is watch the Olympics.

But I was fully caught up today, so I tentatively checked twitter and bookface, where it became clear that I must maintain FULL media blackout for the rest of the Olympics.

Men's 50m Three Position Rifle Final
Uses four acoustic mikes to triangulate bullet position.

Team GB Explodes Onto Medal Stand

By Bill Simmons

The Week's Best Robot Videos
Includes Captain Kirk explaining the Curiosity Rover

and a real life WALL-E

Northwest Bookfest
Coming to Kirkland
Sept 22-23

It's Raining Books!

Frank Ocean - Bad Religion

Owwie!

August 5, 2012

Red Hot Chili Pipers
They add bagpipes to rock music.

And Samuel L. Jackson tweeted about them.

China - Australia
Women's water polo shoot out

Curiosity Rover Lands on Mars
Boing boing

Greco Roman Wrestling
Flying Squirrel

Real wrestling is not this exciting.

Greco Roman rules mean you cannot attack the legs, so it's a lot of jockeying for position.

While I'm sure that's very athletic, it's not terribly exciting to watch.

But they do have some cool things.

Like the challenge brick instead of a flag.

Also, if you lose a video replay challenge, your opponent gets a point.

If the wrestlers are still scoreless after 1:30 (out of the 2:00 round), the ref draws a ball out of a hopper.

The color that is pulled gets top position and has 30 seconds to score.

If he doesn't, the other guy wins.

Usain Bolt

5 reasons why he's fast

He takes only 41 steps.

Today's Photo:

Some people at the Zombie thing were jerkfaces.
One of them karate chopped me, and now I'm wearing a splint.