Saturday, July 26, 2014

YES! YES! YES!  WWE superstar Daniel Bryan discovers someone burgling his house; subdues him with a rear naked choke hold until the police arrive. Said Bryan, "The fun answer would be that I put him in the 'yes' lock and he was tapping on the ground, but that's not what actually happened."

In related-ish news for which no reader of this blog possibly has any professional insight, a shareholder class action suit has been filed against the WWE for alleged material misrepresentations surrounding its ability to secure a favorable tv rights deal.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

TINY STUFF YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SHARE ... $9:  Every trendy restaurant menu, 2014.
THE WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART:  I have been a baseball fan my whole life, and never knew before that National Anthem standoffs were a thing.
SIGOURNEY WEAVER CHANGED WITH THAT WIG:  A nice retelling of the making of Galaxy Quest (as one AV Club commenter put it, it's "a behind the scenes look at a film that was a behind the scenes look at a television show"), which again raises a question I've asked before: as good as it was, wouldn't it have been better with originally-cast Alec Baldwin (or Kevin Kline) in the lead role?

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

POLKA--SO HOT RIGHT NOW:  For the first time in years, a comedy album tops this week's Billboard 200, with Weird Al taking the number 1 slot for the first time in his career.  The last comedy album to do so?  Vaughn Meader!
WE CHEAT OURSELVES AT SOLITAIRE: A reader couldn't help but wonder, "At our recent staff party, which included karaoke, things got really serious. People were mostly going for ballads. And THEN, one employee chose Don McLean's classic, 'Vincent.' Which leads into the question, What are the songs that would be instant karaoke party killers?"

Here's a karaoke songlist. Go for it.
PENIS BREATH!  Two adorable, foul minutes of kids cursing in movies.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

SKYWALKER/SOLO '16:  FiveThirtyEight goes all FiveThirtyEight on polling data about Star Wars, including character approval ratings (Emperor Palpatine has a higher favorability rating than Jar Jar Binks), film ratings (I suspect skewed by some respondents not knowing what A New Hope is), and who shot first.
TAKE BACK JOE PISCOPO:  Steve Hyden assesses the long, illustrious career of Tom Petty:
Tom Petty has been a rock star for almost 40 years. He has a dozen or so songs that will be played on classic rock radio for as long as there is classic rock radio. If you’re a music fan of a certain age, there was a time in your life when he seemed inescapable. Even now, Petty is still a guy that most people know, even if you don’t actively care about him one way or the other. Tom Petty’s music doesn’t necessarily demand a value judgment. It’s like having an opinion on tap water or concrete. Why bother? It’s just there, reliable to the point of invisibility. If it went missing, you would notice. But it’s never going missing, because Tom Petty has existed since the beginning of time, and will continue to exist until time is extinguished.