Retriever Pride

UMBC came from behind today to knock off Albany and advance to the America East championships for the first time in school history. The championship game is next Saturday at UMBC. I don't know if anyone actually reads this but let me know if you want to go cause I'm going to try to get tickets tomorrow.

Good end of season/start of championship weekend. I watched Drake play for the first time today. They were pretty damn impressive playing against a team that was in the tournament last year. (EDIT: my bad, it was Southern Illinois not Illinois St. in the tourny last year). I don't think you can call the #20 team a Cinderella, but it seems that the Missouri Valley Conference teams tend to tear it up in the tourny.

As far as the bigger conferences go, I watched USC upset Stanford, Duke/UNC, UCLA/Cal and the end of Indiana/ Penn St.

• OJ Mayo is for real.
• Tyler Hansborough is unstoppable.
• The shot at the end of the UCLA game was totally over the top of the backboard.
• Finally, if Eric Gordon can't hit the wide open three at the end of overtime, his 26 point performance doesn't mean anything.

This next week is going to be sick. In the ACC alone, four teams tourny chances hinge on their play in Greensboro (MD if they can pull out the win tonight, V Tech, Wake and Miami).

Hail to the Chief

It's been a pretty uneventful President's Day weekend.

Saturday, I bought a PS3 with my tax return money. It's pretty awesome. NBA 2K8 is by far the most realistic basketball video game I've ever played. It even has a different shot style for every player (Joakim Noah shoots with two hands like in real life, and so on). I also got Rock Band. The guitar on it is easier than Guitar Hero, but the drums are pretty tough. I spent about three hours yesterday playing the cooperative mode online.

The main reason that I bought the PS3, however, was for the Blu-Ray player. The system came with Spiderman 3 (a mediocre movie that looks nice) and I picked up a copy of Ratatouille, which looks amazing. My dilemma now is, do I want to go back and rebuy movies on Blu-Ray? Probably not, or at least not until the price of the discs drops, but I think all of the new titles that I get will be on Blu-Ray. Shame that American Gangster is coming out on HD-DVD.

The kicker is, not an hour after I got back from Best Buy, I read that Toshiba is discontinuing HD-DVD players so I felt pretty good about my purchase.

Lastly, check this out. It's great how they got everybody in on the prank. Brett Myers may be a wife beating ass, but he's pretty funny.

It's weekend wrap-up time and it was a pretty boring weekend at that.

Saturday, I watched my UMBC Retrievers nearly blow a 20 point lead against Binghamton. That's right, UMBC is in first place in the America East and I need to start going to games.

This afternoon, I decided to watch Wild Hogs on OnDemand just to see why it made so much money. In a world where Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans exist, Wild Hogs isn't half bad. Half of the plot was ripped straight from Three Amigos but it had a couple of laughs.

I caught a little bit of the Grammy's tonight. Shocker (but not for the Grammy's) that Herbie Hancock won best album over Kanye and Amy Winehouse. Amy Winehouse seemed very awkward when she was performing, but the performance of the night had to be Kanye doing Dear Mama.

I think I'm coming down with some sort of sinus infection, I've been getting a lot of headaches and my face feels like it's going to explode. Fun times. Luckily, I have the day off of work on Tuesday for the elections.

I'm debating leaving work early tomorrow to catch Obama at the Arena, but it's probably not going to happen. I will work for him on Tuesday as long as I'm feeling alright. Get out the vote!

I'm one of the Oceanic 6!

Back into the swing of school and as such I haven't been watching a lot of movies or TV, but I'll go ahead and update on what I have been doing when not writing papers.

Last Sunday, I went with my mom to see Cirque Dreams at the Hippodrome. It's basically a rip off of Cirque Du Soleil. My mom said it was basically the same thing minus the stage built for them. It was very impressive but I feel a little more gay after watching half naked men balancing on top of each other. I also get why the scene in Knocked Up where Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen are tripping on shrooms while watching Cirque Du Soleil is so funny. You almost don't need the illegal substances to get the sensation.

I've gotten into religiously watching Countdown (it's a lot easier now that i have a DVR). Keith Olbermann is awesome at going from serious (the election) to irreverant (random Britney Spears news) at the drop of a hat. I do however question why they had the editor of TMZ on after Heath Ledger's death. Granted they have a lot of information but is it worth supporting a website that makes its money from endlessly hounding celebs.

For some reason, I decided to watch Epic Movie on HBO tonight. To quote Terry Bradshaw, "Not Funny."

I finished reading Colbert's book, I am America and So Can You. It's pretty funny but not nearly as good as America: The Book. I just started reading The Yiddish Policeman's Union. This is the second Michael Chabon book I have read and so far it's completely stylistically different from Kavalier and Klay.

Finally, Lost is back and the Writer's Strike is about to really hit home. With storylines such as Christian either is or is hanging out with Jacob, creepy Lt. Daniels, post-island madness, and full on Jack vs. Locke, eight episodes is going to be a horrible tease. Because I suck and read spoilers, I already know who the other three of the Oceanic 6 are. Sometimes with Lost, I like knowing when the twists are going to be so I can better see the lead up to them. I am pissed that I knew about the flash forward beforehand last season, however because it didn't have the same effect.

If I Say I'm an Oil Man, You Will Agree

I just got back from seeing There Will Be Blood. All I can say is wow, I need to see it again. Daniel Day Lewis was amazing and his Daniel Plainview was cut from the same cloth as Anton Sigurh. I really don't know what else to say about this. At times the movie is so emotionally uncomfortable that I had to laugh at the insanity of it. As Plainview's rival, Eli Sunday, Paul Dano turns in an exceptionally understated yet over the top performance. It's great that a movie about oil and religion does not have any political undertones as well.

I don't think it's possible to call a movie a classic right after seeing it for the first time. You must give a movie time so that you can put it into perspective to appreciate it.

That being said, There Will Be Blood will find it's place amongst the list of sprawling American epics like The Godfather.

Come With Me if You Want to Live

I watched the premiere of Sarah Connor Chronicles tonight. It was alot of fun but it's just another show that i'll get addicted to. Luckily Heroes is gone for the immediate future. I can't wait until Friday when I get my DVR.

The Terminator show is kind of screwing with the timeline of the movies, but then again the timeline of the movies was already kind of screwy to begin with. Kyle Reese went back in time to protect the unborn John Connor and in the process, became John's father. What kind of sense does that make?

Two upsets in the NFL today, that were caused by two choke jobs. Manning and Romo blew their games. Manning did have a little help with this from his receivers however. So we have New York, Green Bay, New England and San Diego. After Saturday's game, I'm psyched for the NFC Championship at Lambeau.

Possible Super Bowl Matchups:
Good Vs. Evil (in the form of Favre vs. Brady/Bellichek)
Eli Vs. Rivers

I'm hoping for the first one.

The Whole Reason I Got Into This Business Is Because I Thought We Controlled It

Welcome to the inaugural posting on "My Limited Worldview." I aim to offer up my comments on various stories in the news and in pop culture. I am not saying that what I think is gospel (as a lot of blogs believe) I just feel like documenting my viewpoints on a regular basis for prosperity's sake. Anyway, let's get down to it.

Pop Culture Corner

• Apparently NBC Prez Ben Silverman is equating the WGA to "nerdy ugly kids who are trying to cancel the prom." Smooth move, NBC. Resorting to name calling is sure to end the strike sooner.
• I watched the new American Gladiators last night. The show is edited entirely too much and apparently the writers who aren't members of WGA suck. Hulk Hogan's quips in between the events are unbearable and the contestants responses seem horribly scripted. At least some of the new Gladiators seem to have character. There's Wolf the crazy werewolf guy, Toa the Samoan witch doctor (who happens to be The Rock's cousin and stunt double), and Helga the scary German chick. I tried to watch the old American Gladiators on ESPN Classic tonight to get the bad taste out of my mouth but apparently DirecTV's guide lied to me and instead I watched "Missing Links."
• A Daily Show and Colbert came back last night. John Stewart seemed awfully scripted. I wonder if the WGA is going to come down on him like they have on Leno. Colbert was pretty funny but they used an awful lot of clips of past shows to kill time. Both shows had labor experts on as guests and both did hilarious monologues on the strike.

Politics

• So it's New Hampshire primary day and it looks like the Democratic race is gonna be a close one. I'm starting to like Clinton less and less. She's starting to get Bill to do her dirty work for her. Look, I was a huge supporter of Bill as president, but having him in the role of Hilary's enforcer puts a bad taste in my mouth. This election is starting to turn ugly really fast.
• McCain was projected winner about ten minutes after the polls closed. No big surprise there.
• For my money, MSNBC has the best election coverage. Matthews and Olberman are an awesome team to be reckoned with.

Recent Movies

Alvin and the Chipmunks - I went to see this with some friends because we were bored and had absolutely nothing better to do. I debated spending my money on it but I decided to bite the bullet and give it a shot. I was definitely surprised by it. While it is by no means a good movie, it does a pretty good job of getting the tone of the 80s cartoon down. I would definitely reccomend you watch it (for free) if you liked the cartoon at all. It follows in the great tradition of the Flinstones movie, a mediocre story that captures the tone of the source material well.