Friday, July 29, 2011

Macho Madness: The Randy Savage Collection.

Saw this sitting on the shelf for $10 at Wally World and decided to give it a try. What stood out were the matches not included. None from the 70's. Nothing about George "The Animal" Steel. The one where Savage crushed Ricky Steamboat's throat. When Honky Tonk Man hit Savage with the guitar and Elizabeth brought Hogan to the ring. The street fight with Bad News Brown. When Savage beat Jim Duggan for the King of the Ring. And the final WWF match with Crush.

I didn't watch much WCW at the time so I'm not aware of many of Macho Man's antics while there.

What really stood out was the team work of Matt Striker and Maria. They played off each other well, and did a good job reading the script. While it seemed that Maria was there mostly for show, she got in a few good jabs.

There is a match that really had my attention: WWF Champion Macho Man and Intercontinental Champion Bret Hart VS Ric Flair and Sean Michaels with Curt Hinnig and Sheri Martel. Thinking about the history of all these players up to that point, and then to today was just mind blowing.

Thinking back, Randy Savage should be considered one of the best Intercontinental Champions of all time. Like other great champions such as Sean Michaels and Honky Tonk Man, Savage cheated, got DQ'ed, counted out, and just plain pinned his opponents. This got a reaction from the crowed because the fans wanted to see the heel beaten and their hero the champion.

One final thought about Macho Madness: The Randy Savage Collection. For me there was a overall sadness to it. In the back of my mind the whole time was the death of Miss Elizabeth a few years ago and the death of Randy Poffo a few weeks earlier.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Fact checking can be such a bitch.

Here's a couple of stories you should get a kick out of.

Many many years ago I saw the movie 2010. Then a while later I watched 2001. That's just the way they played on my local channel. I noted that the Discovery looked quite a bit different. As many have noted the interior of the ship was changed up quite a bit in both movies. But I swear the exterior of the ship was drastically redesigned. I went to the Wikipedia articles and movie mistakes sites to see if anybody else had noted it. Nothing. I thought maybe I had caught something no one else had. There were a couple of other movies I had caught mistakes in that no one else had. Running away with that high, I decide to tell the world about the mistake made in a movie from over 25 years ago.

But first the research.

Boy did I ever save myself from a ton of stupidity. I took screen shot of the Discovery from both movie and compared them. Identical. I don't really know why I thought they were different. My best guess is that I originally watched 2010 and 2001 on a sixteen inch floor model TV on a analog broadcast signal. The quality left a lot to be desired. My research was done with DVDs on a 23 inch LCD flatscreen. (You should see the spelling suggestions for flatscreen. “Disgruntled?" Oddly appropriate.)

The next boo-boo was about a minute away from happening when I stopped myself. I used to have a navigation menu at the bottom of each page for Season 2011. To update it I had to open each page and paste in the new link. A major pain in the ass when doing it 10, 20, and 30 pages at a time. How could I make a single change to one file that updates them all? I eventually came upon the iframe tag. It displays the menu and I could update on the new page and it changes all the other pages. I go and add this in to all the current pages for Season 2011. With one minute to go before the big update, I finally test to see if the links still work and discover the horrible mistake I was about to make. It opened up the new page inside of the iframe. Not change the whole page like I expected. Panic set in. What do I do, I really wanted this menu, but not piss off the reader anymore than I already do. So It's gone, No more menu.

I've looked into other ways, but most wind up with the same effect. Javascripting is a way, but is extremely difficult for me to get right. Plus with java blockers in most browsers it won't show up. I know because I used to have used Google Analytics and it showed me nothing while my web host was much more forthcoming. Flash would solve it, except the time it takes to update the flash file it just about as long as it is to update 50 pages with copy/paste. And again with most people flash is blocked and doesn't work with iPhones and iPads.

Once again looking at the stats, no one bothers with the menu anyway. Most just look at the home page. The occasional victim...er... potential fan that finds a page through Google looks at what he finds, goes back and forth, then leaves.

This mistake slipped by for six months. Those button that I have on top of the home page and each page of Season 2011? Two were messed up. I never checked them. The one for 2011 was supposed to go to the first page of 2011. Instead it went to the home page. The button for Season 18 didn't work. I only found out because when I was copy/pasting the table over to a new page, the images got jostled. In order to get them realigned I had to look directly at the code. I saw that there was no link associated with the image to Season 18. So I had to go through over twenty pages to fix it. It was a few weeks later when I found the link was wrong for 2011. Went through the same process again

I tell these stories not just for laughs. I tell them as teachable moments. Learn from my mistakes. Don't make them again. A simple five minute fact check can save you from sticking your foot in your mouth. And athlete's tongue is no joke.





(Addendum a day late: Should have taken an extra five minutes to re-read this before it was posted, because spell check doesn't catch gamma.)

Monday, July 25, 2011

Ravy 2011 Pg. 30.

Press the button just to the left of the scroll wheel on you mouse. Your mouse has one, doesn't it? If not why not? Catch up to the 90's already.

Wait a minute, does a Mac mouse have a scroll wheel? I don't ever remember seeing one. Hold it, some don't even have buttons to press. Poopie.

I was going to talk more about the Daisukino sisters, ran out of time.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Horrible Bosses.

When you have a crappy dead end job while in the middle of a recession, it is easier to kill your boss and get away with it than find a new job. That's the conclusion reached by a trio of amigos. As the plan comes together, it falls apart when one of the intended victims makes a victim out of another intended victim. The situation is made worse when a guy that has watched every episode of Law and Order forgets to lawyer up when you have info that can send someone else's ass to prison and keep yours out.

Friend of mine said that Horrible Bosses would be in the dollar theater soon because when he saw it the theater was empty. When I saw it the theater was packed. Last week everybody was watching Transformers 4. I was quite impressed with the turn out for a week old movie. The audience was reacting quite well to it. I did to. I liked it. I laughed a lot. But, and there always is, it just seemed that the whole bit with the dentist was tacked on at the last minute. It was like after finishing the script, they were a half an hour short.

Aside from that, It was well scripted and the characters seem to have some chemistry. While the bosses were certainly over the top, they were believable because we've all had to work for some dipwad that we wish had a peanut allergy.

I have to be honest, dollar theater for Horrible Bosses.
What is it with cops in California with southern accents, this is the second or third time.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

It's all water under the bridge.

This water has long since traveled down river. Drunk by a dear. Peed out by the dear. Sucked up into the intake of a bottling company. Bought and drunk by someone. Peed into a toilet and flushed into the sewer system that leads to a waste treatment plant. Dumped back into the river and through a hydroelectric dam. And possibly a beaver dam. It makes its way through a delta marsh and maybe even an oil spill. Gets caught up in the current of some gulf, bay, or cape. Washed out into the middle of the ocean were it supposed to settle. That is unless someone has paddled furiously to find this water. In his single minded haste he forgot to bring a glass or canteen, so he sucks up the water into his mouth. Then furiously paddles back through the oil spill, the gulf, the marsh, up the salmon ramp, past the treatment plant and bottling company, busts through the beaver dam, takes a second to pee and poop in the river. Comes back to the bridge to spew that water out at someone only to find that the bridge is all burned up and demolished. The guy that was supposed to get spewed upon, has long since traveled down the road of life.

My dad is a very wise man, and a very wise guy. He told me once when I was complaining about a some idiot that cut me in traffic last week “Son, do you want to be that guy you're bitching about standing next to bridge with a mouthful of water that maybe has been through the kidneys of a beaver that you just pissed off?”