What is to happen to the American audience without Lance?

So I guess this is the litmus test (again) for exactly how fickle (read ignorant) the American public is exactly about the Tour de France. Since this will be the first year where Lance is not going to compete - I would also hazard a guess that it very well might be the last year it gets the coverage it has here-to-fore received. It's not that big of a stretch really is it? After LeMond took 30 some-odd rounds to the back, the coverage all but collapsed until he returned, then it up and vacated again when he left for the last time. No one paid any attention to Andy, or good ol' Bobke, or anyone else for that matter. Then Lance shows up full of spunk, and :: wappow! :: the Tour is cool again.

Who's next?

So who wants to start a pool on the next American? Is there anyone with the legs to take the podium? Nope. I doubt it. But honestly, who cares?! There are a ton of excellent riders in the filed, and right now it's anyones race. Which, for a change, is really exciting! I for one will be watching, again, this coming year to see who conquers the Tour. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind seeing George Hincapie take a podium spot, it is just really unlikely. My guess is that Jan Ullrich is going to go for it at least 1 more time before he hangs up the cleats.

Check out the latest Tour info here.

OLN

What I do hope these chuckle heads get right this year is to tone down Bob Roll's involvement. I can't stand this twit. He's why people dislike the Americans. He is. You know it too. I caught a couple of late season races on OLN this year, and he was horrible. Sounded like a complete tard (no big surprise), though the other guy was even worse. What a bunch of idiots! No wonder cycling in the states is unappreciated. If I had no one else to listen to but these yahoos, crap, I'd just go shoot myself. :: BANG  :: Problem solved....

This is an interesting bit of archeology. There seems to be a discovery of a Step Pyramid in Bosnia - that Archaeologists claim to be in the neighborhood of 12,000 years old. There seems to be quite a bit of buzz about it on the news sites too - not a ton - which is sorta strange. It is mentioned in a couple of places on the BBC, as well as here (hope you can read Bosnian), and some Google results too.

It's very interesting to me. From the picture, it makes one wonder how the hell anyone couldn't have seen it before. I know Bosnia isn't the richest country in the world, so that could take it a long way - as far as not having any sort of measurable archaeological research budget. Anyway, it's interesting. It just goes to show how little about our planet we actually know.

It's not hard to fathom how this could have been overlooked and forgotten about in 12,000 years. Just take a look at all of the technology we created and subsequently forgot about. Plumbing is a great example. The Romans developed and engineered an amazing water transport system, and after the sacking of Rome - it was what, 2000 years later before the toilet even showed its face again? Concrete too. I'm sure there is a huge list that I just don't know about too.

Where's Indiana when you need him?

Best Buy Sucks the shooter

I really like it when a company's customer service sucks so bad that they are willing to lose a customer over a matter of $10. That's exactly what Best Buy did today, when they decided to tell me that they weren't going to honor my purchase of preorder since I didn't also at the same time order a product which was not on the website - which also happens to be the same damn thing I was preordering. Now maybe I just don't get the concept of a preorder, but when it states that something is a preorder, then that means whatever you pay for the preorder gets applied to the actual order. Yes?

Ultimately, I guess it doesn't really matter. When you get down to it, Best Buy sucks anyway (hehehe I like the Google results too). Their return policy sucks. Look at Circuit City's and you'll see what I mean. Their prices are nothing special - even when they have stuff on sale. I will be buying everything on line from now on. I will most likely go to Best Buy when I am in town - so I can see something in person, check it out, waste the sales dorks time and effort... then go buy it at NewEgg or Buy.com or something. They are ALWAYS cheaper anyway, usually by a lot.

Apple bapple fofapple...

While I'm on a roll too, I bought an iPod the other weekend. Through some fantastic twist of fate, I had been afforded the opportunity to come into money that covered almost half of the $399 price tag. I like it when stuff like that happens. Yes. I am being vague on purpose. Get over it. So I absolutely love this thing. Thank you Jobs! It makes me want to buy more Apple products. Like the new G5 iMac, or the Mac Mini, or any other myriad of Apple products. It's fun. It's hip. It helps me get the chics.... err.... not so much actually. 

Any way. It's sweet. The video screen is wonderfully clear, the device is fast and small. I wonder why though I just saw an ad on Circuit City's website that displayed the iPod with the Revenge of the Sith on it... Didn't know anyone was releasing movies that aren't out on DVD to the iPod video format just yet.

So before I get too far off base. I asked when I bought it, why I would want to get the AppleCare - and come to find out; I don't. Hence I didn't. But, Apple being the fine upstanding company offers 90 days of free tech support. SO. I call these folks to find out how I can get my iPod to act as my Library at work - so I don't have to copy all 22gb of music to my work machine. This knucklehead proceeds to tell me I cannot - and it's due to anti-piracy crap. THANKS AGAIN TO THE RIAA for demasculating a wonderful product! Now you would think the story ends there. Negative.

Now, figuring this guys is a tard, and never actually used an iPod I did some playing around with it. And sure enough! What am I doing right now? You guessed er' Chester! Using it as my library with no problem. All I had to do was set it to NOT update on both machines. And viola! Instant usage just as planned. All I have left to say, is at least I didn't get "Hello, my name is Steve..."

I ran across this Ice Giant video and it is really quite funny. The whole idea is interesting but, hey look for yourself, then come back....

There is a ton of stuff on the site of various Giant things supposedly found around the world, even something uncovered by the Tsunami recently. Interesting.

The ice giant video is very, uhhmm, rendered. The backdrop looks like a scene painting, and most likely is. The biggest question I have is, if these are real finding, why haven't I seen anything on the actual news? It would be all over NBC, BBC, Reuters, CNN etc... Instead, all I get is how many military folk are getting hurt/killed, and where the President is vacationing now and how scared we all should be - as eloquently explained by the master of doom & gloom Cheney.

I have found a lot of folk who think this is the latest Marketing ploy by Sony to promote their new game Shadow of the Colossus.   After looking at some of the screenshots, I am leaning to that conclusion myself. Now, I am not always so quick to dismiss this sort of thing, because I am quite certain that there are a great many thing about our planet and its history that we do not know - but there would be a huge and decisive media frenzy building over such a discovery.

What really has me intrigued though, is the idea behind this sort of marketing. It isn't too far off for companies to have the ability to make rendered video so realistic that it is not easily possible to discern the fake from the real. So these sorts of campaigns could get very interesting and have some wildly unpredictable results upon the community unto which they are released.

Walken2008

Christopher Walken for President of the United States? Gabriel? WTF?

Okay so I know it's a fake, but damn funny just the same. For a second there I thought this was a still grab from the Weapon of Choice video by Fatboy Slim, but the suit is too dark.

Check it out anyway, maybe he can be convinced... It really isn't possible to do worse than the big W.

Uhhhmmm, yeah. Right then. So let's look at the premise of game comes to big screen... Shall we? How many times has this actually been successful? Once? Twice? Resident Evil was good, and I liked the second one too (but I have a thing for Milla Jovovich). Then there was the Digitally rendered Movie, back in the day.... Final Fantasy - which was excellent. What else am I forgetting? Oh yeah... Doom.

If only I could forget it. WAIT TO SEE A MATINEE OR ON DVD. Dear lord, where to start. Let's be positive.

The effects were excellent, and the relationship to the game series was also spot on for the most part. I enjoyed the audio/visual correlation between game-play and cinematography. The action sequences were well choreographed and quite energetic and very entertaining. Here comes the bad list:

• The plot sucked
• the character development sucked
• the acting was passable
• the dialog generally sucked - mostly because we aren't even that foul-mouthed in the Corps for Gods sake!
• If you don't know the games, you will not get the movie.
• The Rock's performance was a let-down.

Overall I give a strong 5. I didn't want to walk out on it, but I won't be needing to ever watch it again. It's a good thing the game play isn't as bad as the movie, because I would want my money back. I could go on and on, but I won't....

In retrospect, we should have gone to see The Fog or Stay. It probably would have been worth staying up until 1am for.