New Kevin Smith film, Red State, trailer

Saints Defense a bunch of bitches?

Am I the only one watching the Saints @ Seahawks who think that the Saints defense is playing like a bunch of bitches. Forget about the fact that they are giving up yards and points at will, it seems like on every play they are hitting well after the whistle. They are also trying to push people around and throw the occasional cheap shot. Is this the new "America's team" that everyone was trying to make them out to be after winning the Super Bowl last year?

Take a cue from your opponent in the game, the first team to ever make the playoffs with a loosing record. Hell, they weren't even one of those teams with a bad overall record that made a mad dash at the end like the Chargers seem to always do. They were just pretty average all season when not flat out bad.

However, in this game, Pete was able to rally the troops and make them believe that the playoffs reset all records and that nobody will remember the season if they put it all on the line now and move forward. The offense seems to be clicking on all cylinders and guess what? The defense is playing good, tough, and hard nosed like you want to see at this point in the season.

In conclusion, Saints defense, you don't look good. You look like a spoiled brat or an old fighter who takes a few strong blows to the head and responds by punching the other guy in the nuts. I never bought into your new status and it looks like not even the media will be able to carry on this charade much longer. I have no love for the Seabirds, but I hope in 15 minutes you will become the first team to loose a playoff game to a team with a loosing record, congratulations.

A Standing Ovation for The Black Swan

The film started a bit slowly as you get to know a bit about Nina. She lives in a childlike atmosphere with an overbearing mother who tries to trap her in the world of her youth as she relives her past through her daughter.
Nina does little to escape from this world and allows her mother to keep her there as she has never known anything else. This is why she makes such a good white swan as she has basically kept herself pure and naive.
However for the part of the black swan needed to combine with the white swan to make the Swan Queen, she needs to find a darker side of herself. The virginal perfectionist, must give way to the raw, flawed, sensual side that she has never known, to truly encapsulate the role.
In order to do this, her mind begins to play tricks on her, to show her the evil, the twisted, and the sexual that she needs. She reels from this and tries to fight it and flee at any possible chance.
The closer she gets to the first performance the farther from reality she goes. You begin to lose track of what is real and what is imagined in every action. Her trip down the dark path vastly increases her ability to perform as the black swan, however, her grasp on reality continues to slip away.
The performance itself is a bit shaky early on as she has slipped so far away from who she was that she can no longer completely embody the white swan. Her fall during a lift symbolizes her fall from grace and occurs at a point in the performance where she can begin to morph into the black swan.
She is a wreck after her fall, but her mind uses this opportunity to throw one heck of a mind trip her way that allows her to slip fully into the role that nobody thought she had in her. Her performance as the black swan is as chilling as it is intense. However, have the lengths that she has gone to in order to perform such a feat forced her so far down the road to insanity that she will never return.
The Black Swan was a very good film that picked up on a fragile, unstable girl, brings you through familial and sexual revolutions and drops you into the middle of madness.
Natalie Portman was amazing as Nina. The movie rests solely on her shoulders and she carries it throughout. That is not to say that others did not step up as well. Mila Kunis was fun and carefree in her role as Lily, Nina's possible competition. Barbara Hershey was intense and overbearing as Nina's mother Erica who gave up her career as a dancer when she became pregnant with Nina. The relationship between the two is chaotic and at times a bit surreal, but the bond seemed real and you could see the same intensity in Portman as the Black Swan as you see from Hershey as her mother.
The Black Swan was a great film to start my Awards Season marathon and I will be surprised if I see many that are better. I would be shocked if Portman isn't nominated many times for awards this season and wins at least a few. The performance by Portman as the Black Swan is amazing and worth the price of admission alone. Her metamorphosis is stunning. With the raw power of her performance along with the visual effects and sound, I was blown away. I give Black Swan a 9.

Debra Morgan (Dexter) on Babies

"A Baby!, A mother fuckin' roly-poly, chubby cheek shit machine."

Jennifer Carpenter as Debra Morgan on Dexter on hearing that her brother's girlfriend is pregnant.

Star Wars Symphony, pt 1

So, we are currently at intermission d the show has already been well worth the price of admission. They started with the THX into followed by the 20th Century Fox Fanfare. Then came the moment I had come for, when the lights flashed and the first notes of the Star Wars theme rang out. It was was like being hit with a physical wave of emotion as so many moments had been shared with these films.

After this , they moved on to Duel of the Fates and then compositions for Young Anakin, Podracing, Droids, Anakin and Admidala's love, and Anakin's transition to the darkside. The first half was concluded with The Emperial Death March

Between songs, Athony Daniels takes the stage to introduce the next one. There have been many great moments already and I am looking forward to the second half.

USA 50% chance to advance to Round of 16 in World Cup

Going Through First Seed Second Seed
Slovenia 83% 59% 24%
USA 50% 13% 37%
England 39% 28% 11%
Algeria 28% 0% 28%


Depending on which side you are on, you will probably dispute the title of this blog, however, it is only calculated based on the possibilities.

I am a fan of the USA soccer team and hope they somehow find a way to go all the way, but this had no affect on the percentages as they are what the numbers show.

So, basically, what I did was take the 9 possible results from the third rotation of Group C and then determine if there were any scenarios in which goal differential, goals scored, or drawn straws could determine final positions in the group. In those situations, I would determine of each possible sub-scenario how many times out of the total sub-scenarios for that scenario that each position could be achieved.

These result totals are listed below and are a breakdown of the data. After this is the actual scenarios themselves


Scenerio 1 Scenerio 2 Scenerio 3 Scenerio 4 Scenerio 5
Scenerio 6 Scenerio 7 Scenerio 8 Scenerio 9
Chance of 9 % Chance % Going Through
USA 50%
1st Place 0.50 0.00 0.67 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
1.17 13%
2nd Place 0.50 1.00 0.33 0.00 1.00
0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00
3.33 37%
3rd Place 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00
0.50 0.50 0.00 0.00
2.00 22%
4th Place 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.00
2.5 28%
England 39%
1st Place 0.50 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00
2.5 28%
2nd Place 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00
1 11%
3rd Place 0.00 1.00 1.00 0.00 0.33
0.50 0.50 0.00 1.00
4.33 48%
4th Place 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.67
0.00 0.50 0.00 0.00
1.17 13%
Slovenia 83%
1st Place 0.00 1.00 0.33 0.00 1.00
1.00 1.00 0.00 1.00
5.33 59%
2nd Place 0.00 0.00 0.67 1.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00
2.17 24%
3rd Place 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00
1.5 17%
4th Place 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0 0%
Algeria 28%
1st Place 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0 0%
2nd Place 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
0.00 1.00 0.50 1.00
2.5 28%
3rd Place 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.67
0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00
1.17 13%
4th Place 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.33
1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
5.33 59%

I. US Win and England Win.
a. USA wins with a better goal difference than England's win:
1: USA
2: England
3: Slovenia
4. Algeria
b. USA wins with the same goal difference as England and the drawn straw is
in USA's favor:
1: USA
2: England
3: Slovenia
4. Algeria

c. USA wins with the same goal difference as England and the drawn straw is
in England's favor:
1: England
2: USA
3: Slovenia
4. Algeria

d. USA wins with a worse goal difference than England's win:
1: England
2: USA
3: Slovenia
4. Algeria
II. USA win and Slovenia win:
1. Slovenia
2. USA
3. England
4. Algeria
III. USA win and England/Slovenia draw:
a. USA's goal difference is better than 1:
1: USA
2: Slovenia
3: England
4. Algeria
b. USA's goal difference is 1 and the drawn straw is in USA's favor:
1: USA
2: Slovenia
3: England
4. Algeria
c. USA's goal difference is 1 and the drawn straw is in Slovenia's favor:
1: Slovenia
2: USA
3: England
4. Algeria
IV. USA/Algeria draw and England wins:
1: England
2: Slovenia
3: USA
4. Algeria
V. USA/Algeria draw and Slovenia wins:
a. England looses by more than 1 goal:
1: Slovenia
2: USA
3: Algeria
4. England
b. England looses by 1 goal and wins theoretical drawn straw:
1: Slovenia
2: USA
3: England
4. Algeria
c. England looses by 1 goal and Algeria win theoretical drawn straw:
1: Slovenia
2: USA
3: Algeria
4. England
VI. USA/Algeria draw and England/Slovenia draw:
a. USA's goals scored in final game is no less than one fewer than England's
goals scored in final match.
1: Slovenia
2: USA
3: England
4. Algeria
b. USA's goals scored in the final game is two fewer than England's and USA
wins drawn straw:
1: Slovenia
2: USA
3: England
4. Algeria
c. USA's goals scored in the final game is two fewer than England's and
England wins drawn straw.
1: Slovenia
2: England
3: USA
4. Algeria
d. USA's goals scored in the final game are more than two fewer than
England's:
1: Slovenia
2: England
3: USA
4. Algeria
VII. Algeria win and England Slovenia win:
a. USA goal differential is better in the final game than England's:
1: Slovenia
2: Algeria
3: USA
4. England
b. USA goal differential is the same as England in final game and
theoretical straw is in USA's favor:
1: Slovenia
2: Algeria
3: USA
4. England
c. USA's goal differential is the same as England in the final game and
theoretical straw is in England's favor:
1: Slovenia
2: Algeria
3: England
4. USA
d. USA's goal differential is worse than England in final game.
1: Slovenia
2: Algeria
3: England
4. USA
VIII. Algeria win and England win:
a. The goal difference in the two games is greater than 2:
1: England
2: Algeria
3: Slovenia
4. USA
b. The goal difference in the two games is 2:
1: England
2: Slovenia
3: Algeria
4. USA
IX. Algeria win and England/Slovenia draw:
1: Slovenia
2: Algeria
3: England
4. USA

Finally, here are the tie breaker criteria for the group stages:


World Cup Group Stage Tiebreakers
a) greatest number of points obtained in all group matches;
b) goal difference in all group matches;
c) greatest number of goals scored in all group matches.
If two or more teams are equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings will be determined as follows:
d) greatest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
e) goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned;
f) greater number of goals scored in all group matches between the teams concerned;
g) drawing of lots by the FIFA Organising Committee.

Buffy dusting the sparkle-vamp