New Feature!

Ok, no new Ninja Warrior news to report as we in the states wait patiently for G4 to air the 21st Sasuke tournament "this November." In the meantime with the NFL in full gear I decided to slap together some kind of weekly top ten list of the best teams from the previous week. Think of it as the lazy man's NFL power rankings in a weekly feature I'd like to call:

The Super Hidoi NFL Top 10

Week 3..wait, would this be considered week 3 rankings since week 2 is now over, or week 2 rankings since that's the week they're based off of? I guess it doesn't even matter since no one reads this blog anyway. Let's call it Week 3.

1) NY Giants - They won it all last year and until they lose, #1 is where they stay.

2) Green Bay Packers- Rodgers looks good so far, but remember they've only played an overrated Vikings team and a really bad Lions team. Next week will be the first test for them against the Cowboys.

3) Denver Broncos- Yes they should be 1-1 but so far Jay Cutler looks pretty darn good. If he can keep up the high level of play, all the while continuing to check his blood sugar, I mean checking it often, then they will be in the playoff hunt.

4) Dallas Cowboys- Yes, it pains me, a life long Eagles fan, to put the Cowboys before the Eagles on this list. If not for a costly miscue by McNabb the Eagles would've won. At least we know that you can still blitz the hell out of Romo so makes bad decisions. The rematch is on Dec. 28Th and may just decide the division crown....

5) Philadelphia Eagles- ...but first things first. Yes, we moved the ball at will on the Cowboys, but my concern is the 41 points our defense gave up in the loss. I hope this isn't a sign of our defense being old. No time to rest though, as the Steelers come to town next week.

6) Pittsburgh Steelers- Hey Ben, how's the shoulder? Ben? Ben come back!

7) New England Patriots- So they lost their best player. Big Deal. It happens. They're still basically the same team that went 16-0 last year (in case you hadn't heard). Cassel has some great players and coaches around him, so in theory this team should be fine. In theory Communism works. In theory.

8) Buffalo Bills- An old friend of mine that I am unfortunately not in touch with anymore was a huge Bills fan, and I knew him during the infamous days when they would go the the Super Bowl and lose horribly. Well, these are different times! They have the pieces. I'm not saying Superbowl by any stretch but don't sleep on them.

9) Carolina Panthers- They could easily be 0-2 right now but they are not. They have the moxie to come from behind which is a good trait, but ya gotta start to wonder if its a good thing they've been down late to begin with.

10) San Diego Chargers- By the ghost of Natrone Means I won't give up on them!

Honorable mentions: Bears, Redskins, Colts

Quick Update

No really new Ninja Warrior news to report other than they picked the winners of the American Ninja Challenge contest to be sent to Japan for the 21st tournament. In Japan, that will be on this month. From g4tv.com:

"AMERICAN NINJA CHALLENGE 3 WINNERS MARK WITMER, BRIAN OROSCO AND OUR FIRST EVER FEMALE NINJA CHALLENGER LUCI ROMBERG WILL BE JOINING KEVIN, OLIVIA AND SPECIAL GUEST LEVI NEUEMBERG AT NINJAFEST 3, COMING THIS NOVEMBER."

For anyone wondering, Levi was last years winner who made it all the way to stage 3, while Kevin and Olivia are the hosts of a really boring show called "Attack of the Show" on G4. Now, this is going to be my chance to say I absolutely HATE G4's Ninja Warrior page. For what is arguably their most popular show, you basically get a small paragraph of info (half of which I just put above) the same poll that's been their literally for the last year and a half, and like 10 videos. Despite this, fans are rabidly awaiting "this November" for Ninja Warrior 21 to hit stateside. Gotta say, I can't wait.

American Ninja Challenge Voting

The voting to send 3 American challengers to compete in Ninja Warrior 21 has begun! You can find the link HERE. G4 used to have a half assed obstacle course to pick the finalists after the fan voting, but now the whole thing is entirely based off of only fan votes. My issue is I hope hope that the other voters aren't swayed by someone who may have a cool video, but they haven't done the necessary training to do well in Sasuke. A perfect example is using a trampoline. There's an obstacle in the first stage called the Jumping Spider (right) that has taken down MANY first stage competitors. Basically you have to jump from a trampoline and stick between 2 walls suspended over the water. Anyway, one of the best videos on G4 is by someone named Colin Bell. He was one of 2 finalists sent during the very depressing 19Th Sasuke. Anyway, he showed great promise but failed badly on the Jumping Spider. After not going last year Colin is back to try again. Apparently he's done some intense training and looks to be in better shape. HOWEVER, and I agree with this point that was brought up by theguy7121 from You tube, but notice in Colin's video theres NO TRAMPOLINE WHATSOEVER. If you watch his video he appears to be in great shape and could easily make it to the final stage, but can he erase the demons of Sasuke 19 and pass the Jumping Spider? I have no idea.

As for who I think should go this time, despite what I wrote about Colin I do think he deserves a 2ND chance, as well as Brian O, who had a very respectable showing in the last tournament but lost focus for a split second and failed on the flying chute. I think experience is the single greatest trait in any Ninja Warrior competitor. Colin and Brian have been there before. They know the course, they've dealt with the nerves of being up there for the first time and they could do great things. Sure, Levi was a rookie and made it all the way to stage 3, but how many Levi's are out there? That leaves us with one other person to send to Japan. Who should it be? That's where it gets interesting. Anyway, I've said my piece. Now go and vote!

Saske 21 Is On The Way...

I searched around Blogger or whatever the hell this is called for any Sasuke (Ninja Warrior in the US) related blogs and other than the random outdated one where somebody lists it as their favorite show, there's nothing very informative about it on here. So, being a pretty big fan of the show and wanting to be someone to spread the goodness of Sasuke, I'm going to begin posting tidbits about the event on here leading up to the 21st tournament. Maybe I'll do a faux-live blog or something. We have DVR now, so the world is my oyster!

Anyway, I guess I should mention for anyone reading this that doesn't know about Sasuke what the heck it is. Basically in Japan 2 times a year (one in the spring & one in the fall) the Tokyo Broadcasting System runs an extremely challenging obstacle course. 100 people from all over the world compete in 4 grueling stages testing speed, endurance, and strength. Since the first tournament in September of 1997, only 2 men have completed the full course, Kazuhiko Akiyama (Sasuke 4) and Makoto Nagano (Sasuke 17). The US cable tv station G4 sends a couple people to compete in the tournament and in Sasuke 20 Levi Meeuwenberg (who was one of the people G4 sent) was the only person to make it to the 3rd stage. Anyway, if you want to know more than my bastardized summary of Sasuke provided, then head on over to the Wikipedia page about it here.

Hopefully more to come...

Batman vs. The Parking Garage

Haven't written on this thing for awhile, mostly because my girl and I went to Orlando for a week from July 2nd to the 9th. I had my video camera so once I figure out how to upload videos onto this thing, I'll put them on here.

Anyway, Thursday night we went to see The Dark Knight at a midnight showing. We got there an hour early and barely found seats together. We show up any later and Erica (my gf) and I aren't sitting together...which is very bad. I'm not going to bore everyone with a review because I can't do the movie justice, only to say that every good thing about it you've read is true even all the stuff about Ledger's performance deserving an Oscar. I had EXTREMELY high hopes going into the theater and all my expectations were more than exceeded. Definitely GO SEE IT!!! The only crazy thing that happened that night was that the theater we went to was in a shopping mall that had a big parking garage attached. When all 4 showings of the movie ended all the people got to their cars and left at one. This created a huge dilemma since there were only 2 people working the gates to get everyone out. Needless to say there were loads of white people with their panties in a bunch. By that point I was too tired to care and just wanted to go home. So, we sat in our car in this parking garage until it looked like we wouldn't be sitting in a line for hours, wasting gas. Needless to say, the movie ended at about 2:55am and we didn't get home til around 4:30. The thing is, the movie was so good I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Apples to Apples. A fun game. Unless...

Played the game Apples to Apples with some friends last night. Its a great game, with loads of hilarious possibilities depending on the group you're playing with. Now I shall attempt to explain the rules for anyone not familiar. There's 2 card colors, red & green. The red cards all have a different person, place, thing, or event on them (ex: Count Dracula, losing your job, leaf blowers.) The green cards all have a different descriptive word on them (ex: elitist, magical, classic.) To begin, everyone gets 7 red cards. Then for the first round a judge is selected. The judge picks a green card and reads it aloud. Then, everyone who isn't the judge picks one of the red cards in their hand that they think best goes with the read aloud green card. Then the judge collects every one's selected red cards. Then he/she reads those red cards out and selects which one goes best with the green card they had for that round. The winner gets that green card. First player to get X number of green cards (depending on the number of players) wins. Now why have I gone through the trouble of (poorly) describing the rules for this game? Well the thing about the RED cards is while there are mostly normal ones like the examples listed above, some of the red cards have certain "questionable" topics on them. These include: (And I'm NOT making this up)

5) Hitler
4) In a Coma
3) Challenger Explosion
2) AIDS
1) Hiroshima-1945

Now I'm not offended by this, in fact there were some hilarious combinations in the game with some of these red cards last night. But this post serves as a warning. If you're a Japanese AIDS patient who has a relative that's in a coma, or if you're Jewish and had a relative that was in the Challenger explosion...then this game ain't for you. I mean did they think there wouldn't be any awkwardness if a player was connected in some way to any of these? The thing is, as the night went on and these had all been revealed, we began speculating what other cards we wouldn't be the least bit surprised seeing. They included:

5) Rape
4) The KKK
3) The Holocaust
2) Child molesting
1) 9/11

And the thing is, there were like 4 unopened packs of red cards still in the box. So, there's a good chance at least ONE of the above was in there.Am I reading into this too much? Probably. Should all I be caring about is the fact that the game was unique and original and worth playing? Yes. Well, anyone else have a thought?

Diablo 3 announced!

Not sure if anyone interested in the Diablo games would be reading my blog, but for old school rpg fans like me this is like (insert universal Christmas-like holiday here) and the Super Bowl rolled into one. For all your geeky Diablo 3 info, including the trailer and gameplay footage, head over to the awesome gaming blog Kotaku.

First post

I'm going to be writing on this thing about anything from video games to sports to any movies I've just seen or if I think of something funny to post. Thats about it. More to come.