A Stronghold Of Purity

It should be noted, however, that Anton LaVey's biography page came out 54% good.

So do with that information what you want. Preferably NOTHING.

SmackDown! 5/26/2005: For and Against

(This is what Butch is referring to. I've been doing this over at Stratusfaction since after Wrestlemania. And since I'm starved for content, well...)

FOR: Being five of six on my picks.

AGAINST: People complaining about the "anti-climactic" ending to the JD main. What has JBL always done when the chips are down? That's right... look for the easiest way out possible.

AGAINST: Carlito not jumping back and forth between chairs while interviewing himself.

FOR: "Your actions speak louder than your words."

FOR: The "Winner's Choice" concept.

FOR: Carlito making his intentions known right off the bat.

FOR: Rey's single-mindedness. He could be a top guy if he polishes off his promo delivery.

FOR: Melina, but you knew that.

FOR: This match. MNM seem to get a little better every time out

FOR: The Scooby Doo-style chase sequence.

AGAINST: Holly not seeing the rep get taken out.

FOR: Oh, Patrick DID see the chair shot.

FOR: Haas flipping out over another close call.

FOR: Cena, subdued, selling the effects of the I Quit match.

FOR: JBL selling it even more.

FOR: The mic work on both ends here.

AGAINST: JBL's constant begging to see the video.

FOR: Robinson sending Morgan to the back.

FOR: Carlito trying to go WITH him.

FOR: They seem to be shifting the focus from Morgan as stutterer to Morgan as powerhouse.

FOR: The return of the F-5.

AGAINST: Didn't Big Show taken a table bump just last month? It's getting old.

FOR: Angle shooting on hs ECW experience. (The Raven-Sandman crucifixion angle, If Memory Serves Me Right.)

FOR: "ECW can kiss my ass!"

AGAINST: Tazz not choking Angle out for those insults.

AGAINST: The Angle Invitational's become mostly a time-filler.

FOR: Going right into the battle royal.

FOR: Eddie taking out Rey pre-match. You know he heard what Rey said.

AGAINST: Eddie taking an early powder. If you're gonna do that, at least be hilariously heelish on commentary like Rock did two years ago when HE did this.

FOR: REY'S REVENGE~~!

AGAINST: Is Rey still in the match? Is Rey IN the match?

FOR: Thanks, Cole.

AGAINST: Why is the whole Cabinet still in?

FOR: Oh.

FOR: The rapid-fire eliminations here.

FOR: The replay of Angle's low blow -- I completely missed it the first time.

AGAINST: Rey is now 1-1 against Angle heads-up in battle royals.

FOR: Angle-Cena next week! Yay!

AGAINST: Wait, it's NOT Cena? Oh, no...

AGAINST: Even the fans know what's coming.

FOR: Well, at least that should end the angle. Maybe Tazz chokes him out NEXT week.

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Movies

4:15 p.m. matinee ticket (and a 4:30 start): $6.25
Two hot dogs and a bottled water: $11.00

The whole system has broken down.

What you've gotta remember about the history of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that every version of it's a little bit different: the radio serial, the book, the BBC TV miniseries. And even the Predictable Love Story Angle Written In For American Audiences doesn't seem forced, mostly because Adams had been working on the screenplay version for years. Still, it's a believable (and most importantly, funny) adaptation that's even somewhat open-ended.

Sam Rockwell, well, rocks as Zaphod. He's a lot more of an egomaniac than he is in the book, I thought, but Rockwell nails his manic insanity. I totally didn't recognize Malkovich. I can no longer see anyone but Martin Freeman as Arthur (almost every scene where he meets someone for the first time is hilarious), and Mos Def's Ford is cool and detached while still giving you the impression that he's not from here, as he should be. Zooey Deschanel. Who knew? She's adorable in this as well as pretty good. She won't be rushing headlong into the top 10 of The Real Lista Caliente but I'll be rooting for her.

Thumbs up.

A Bit Too Close

(I'm late with this because the Internet at home went down Thursday morning and didn't come back until Friday afternoon.)

So the plumber showed up Thursday afternoon to replace the water heater. He'd actually been by on Wednesday to look at it and measure it. Out of necessity, I have a short model that's about half the height of your standard water heater, and it sits in the closet in the bathroom which I use as the linen closet.

After he drained the remaining water out of the old one (through a hose that ran out of the apartment and into the flower bed outside) and carted it out of the bathroom, he brought in the new one and unpacked it from its box. I looked at it and thought that it looked a little bigger than the old one, but I didn't say anything. But as he was putting the fixtures on it to connect it to the pipes in the bathroom closet, he started thinking the same thing.

After another measurement, he realized that the new heater was an inch too wide to fit in the closet.

Creating a Problem.

Some phone calls were made and the hope was that a heater that fit could be located, otherwise my choices would be either go with a lower-capacity tank (which I wouldn't have had a problem with) or knock out the walls (which I WOULD have had a problem with). Fortunately, a 40-gallon heater that fit was found ("They don't even make these anymore") and installed, though he had to remove the folding door on the closet to do so. This was quite the process by itself, as the bathroom door was closed and his torch (which I guess he was using to seal the pipes to the fixtures) still set off the smoke detector three times. This all took about five hours, or three hours more than it normally does.

Total cost: $700, which is at the low end of the estimates I got from five different places. (I learned my lesson from the toilet debacle.)

This-n-That

- Butch's friend taking one side of Butch's old dresser off with one swing of a bat is the greatest thing I've seen all year, just edging out the row of Jets fans at the draft who reacted to the Mike Nugent pick like they'd been told they were being served the trout ice cream Sakai made in IC-A: Battle Of The Masters.

(The Mike Nugent pick was Very Necessary, btw. You want to make a playoff run with Doug Brien? Yeah, that's what I thought.)

- Brad Wilkerson's career average against the Phillies: 1.000.

- Fuck with me and I will SIGN YOUR ASS UP.

The Bathroom From Hell

Plumbing's expensive.

Back in January, my toilet damn near exploded and I had to get it replaced, well, immediately. And because I had to get it replaced immediately, I ended up getting screwed on the deal.

Now the water heater's dead. That's what it means when it's leaking from the bottom. Three calls to three different plumbers confirmed that it is, in fact, dead. The also confirmed that it'll cost at least $700 to replace it.

Which I can't possibly afford.

I gotta get out of this place.

Live Or Memorex? (full)

Read this first
Read this second

Did that "East Coast-West Coast" angle make sense to anyone? Biggie-Tupac this ain't. And the whole "East Coast fans appreciating the nuances of the game" thing is funny now that you know about the partially coordinated audience. (Though in Lon and Norman's defense, I'm not sure they knew that was going on beforehand. They might have been told in post-production. "Yeah, that side of the room's gonna clap for no real reason. Just go with it.") Lederer actually looked annoyed/confused by the cheering. He had this look on his face at one point like "What the hell is going on over there?"

There wasn't a bad beat in the tournament worse than the one that took Lederer out.

On the "Huck Seed bluffs himself out of the tournament" hand: I first got there in the middle of this hand, so I'm not sure if Huck was in one of the blinds or not, but D'Agostino led with bets twice after he paired his queen on the flop... sitting there with 9-6 and no pair or draw, at some point you have to think you're beaten, right?

The cut to the final 18 was weird and possibly inaccurately edited -- I could have sworn White's elimination (in the main room) came before Greenberg's. Ah, well.

This last group of nine makes me wonder if there's anything like home court advantage in poker -- I found out that several of those guys play in A.C. and at the Taj semi-regularly.

All right... Hoyt's 7-8 offsuit all-in bluff. 'Cause that's what it was, a plan to steal the blinds for some free cash since everyone else had folded to him (the blinds were, I think, 12k and 24k at this point). D"Agostino calls and turns over his 10s and we're all thinking, "Well, that's pretty much it."

Then that flop hit. The TV didn't do the crowd reaction justice -- there was a "Whoaaaaa!" with a definite undercurrent of "Oh, shit" accompanying it.

Another thing you don't hear when you're sitting there live is the chatter at the table. We couldn't hear Cassidy talking himself into folding on the next-to-last hand. They also mercifully edited that down -- he was standing there thinking for a good three to four minutes before he gave it up. It was odd to watch and try to figure out... I sensed Cassidy was beaten, but I couldn't put Aglialoro on a hand that was all that great. And ESPN's graphics people screwed up -- they put the 4 of hearts on the display on the river when you could plainly see it was the 4 of spades.