For 100 straight days, I have come into your computer room with new tidbits and a mininal amount of swearing. I have brought you comic news, Bengals jabbering, movie casting rumors, and discussions about really dumb things. It all began here. I stunk then. I stink now. Along the way, you’ve given me feedback, but I probably wasn’t paying attention. Keep trying, I’m bound to pick up on it sometime.

Here’s some comment milestones.
#1. Amy
100. Kerry
200. Kerry
250. Woody
300. MOe

Thank you all very much. You’ve made this a lot of fun and an enjoyable creative outlet. Tomorrow I’ll get back to my usual crap. Today, I’m patting myself on the back for a meaningless streak.

“I wish God were alive to see this.”

This is my goal. This weekend is the draft for one of my fantasy teams, the Nagel Fantasy Football League. It’s a good thing it was this weekend, and not last. “With their first pick, the Whitehouse Warriors select Rickey Williams.” Dodged that bullet. The draft is this weekend. I am now the hunter, and the rest of the NFFL is the prey.

This week, I finished up Michael Crichton’s latest novel (I think), Prey. I wasn’t thrilled with it and I was not alone. My biggest problem was the main character, I think. The first part of the book he’s a do-nothing wish-wash that makes Hamlet look like a man of action. The second part of the book he’s an arrogant prick that constantly underestimates the predators that are trying to kill them, even though he helped create them and knew they were constantly evolving. Main character every other page: “But they can’t do that!” Duh, they’re evolving. You know that. Stop being surprised. The fact that it was in first person only made that weakness more noticeable. Overall, not a bad book but far from his better stuff.

Still more news trickling out from the big Comic Con. The Beat has a pretty extensive and exhaustive rundown of the overall festivities, including the beefed-up Hollywood presence. Jeff claims there was even a Simpsons movie announcement. But it seems like the reports mostly focus on a gay character. If I missed the movie story, it’s because it was buried under an avalanche of other news. Lots of movie folks at San Diego last week trying to woo the hard-core fans of their respective franchises. The Blade folks, minus Wesley Snipes. The whole Firefly gang. Sin City, including a nice shot of Jessica Alba. Here’s another Sin City perspective with the same hot shot of Alba. Despite her hotness, still not thrilled with her as Sue Storm. More Fantastic Four news from San Diego, including a cast interview. Good news include the Thing not being done like the Hulk, Jack Kirby’s influence will be seen, and it’s Victor VON DOOM they’ll be facing. It’s clobberin’ time!

Jennifer Garner fans: She talks about an upcoming lesbian scene, her breasts, and panties. That should make you happy.

If punching George W. Bush in the face would make you happy, someone already beat you to it: the Savage Dragon.

Without Brian Singer, X3 is up in the air.

Justice League Unlimited kicks off Saturday with a huge lineup on Cartoon Network.

Season 4 preview of Smallville.

A teaser trailer for Batman Begins.

There will be a Punisher 2 apparently.

Sledge Hammer is on DVD.

More comics stuff: Grant Morrison on JLA and other DC stuff. Army of Darkness writer speaks. And Rising Stars finally back on a publishing schedule.

Have I got enough in here? No? How about some football, too?

Back to football, that means training camps. Some NFL trainings camps are open. Cinci opens tomorrow. We signed another draft pick. And another one. But there are still hangups in negotiations. Cautious optimism abounds. Other Bengal faithful are anxious like me. In Marvin we trust.

Wow. We already have a 2005 mock draft, complete with predictions for where teams finish.

Things don’t look good for the real 2004 Bearcat football team. Don’t worry, in 2010, I’ve positioned the team to be playing for a national championship. At least, in my make-believe EA world.

“There are seven working defenses from this position. Three of them disarm with minimal contact. Three of them kill. The other… hurts!”

I did it. I broke down and got Sega’s NFL game, ESPN 2K5. I needed a game to play on my girlfriend’s PS2 since I got stuck on Simpsons Hit And Run. She’s gotten better than me at Tetris so I needed something new. I also wanted to have a football presence at her house. Getting another NCAA Football for PS2 since I had one for the Xbox seemed foolish. The $20 price and rave reviews made ESPN 2K5 hard to pass up.

I’m not going to tell you this game is perfect. I’m not going to tell you it’s better than Madden, especially since I haven’t seen what EA is bringing to the table this year. But I will tell you this: you will get more good football in this game for your money than anywhere else. Yeah, NCAA 2005 is good, and Madden may even be better. But those games are $50. For less than half that price, I bet this game is just about as good.

Johnny and I played last year’s model and were not impressed. The passing game was pathetic and we quickly lost interest, preferring to return to the superior playability of EA goodness. That was last year. This is this year.

This year, the gameplay is pretty respectable, and it was fun being able to actually catch passes. In my Week 1 matchup against the Jets (I’m the Bengals, of course) Carson Palmer completed more passes than Gino Guidugli (”QB #8″ to those of you who haven’t modified all the names) did in an entire season of NCAA! The graphics aren’t as polished as the competition’s, but the presentation is fantastic. Lots of great touches make you feel like you’re watching an NFL game on ESPN. You can even check out a brief Sportscenter complete with a few highlights after you play. Between games you can choose what your team does each and every day for practice. The scouting information is unreal, almost too much. Another positive that EA has GOT to pick up on is you can control the length of simulated games. It’s very frustrating to find your players punished because when you play five minute quarters, everyone else is getting three times as many snaps as you. Your best defensive player ends up with 45 tackles a season, not even ranked in the top 100 in that category. It’s a great feature cause you can compare your team straight up with the rest of the league, and not apples to oranges.

One thing that did bother me that I noticed in the NBA version, too, is that the game gets a little loosey-goosey with trades. Over the course of a season, Tracy McGrady ended up with the Pacers. And in this game, the Chargers traded LaDanien Tomlinson for Hines Ward. Not before the season, not after preseason, but right after Week 1. After Week 2, Quentin Jammer and Vonnie Holiday changed teams. Way too much going on after the season starts. I don’t mind the computer making trades, but this kind of blockbuster really takes you out of the game and out of the world they spend so much time trying to create.

They try some things that need some polishing. The interface is still goofy, too much work to do some basic things and too easy to leave the game without vital info getting saved. Chris Berman at the desk looks weird and so does Suzy Kolber interviewing the player of the game. Another thing that really bothered me was the announcer. I was dissapointed they didn’t get Mike Patrick, Joe Theisman, and Paul McGuire to complete the ESPN package. The fellows they replace them with are professional broadcasters, but I would not have gone with that play-by-play guy. He’s got a nasal-ly AM Radio news voice that gets old after three seconds. I can only imagine how grating it would be after a whole season.

One audio plus is the NFL Primetime background music is present on this disc. Unfortunately, no “air raid siren” song they use to promote their Sunday night telecasts. If they did have that music, that alone would have been worth the $20 for me. I have not had any lucky finding that anywhere. (HINT: you will make me very happy if you tell me where I can get my hands on that song.)

Again, haven’t seen what Madden will bring, but he’s got his work cut out for him. ESPN 2K5 has raised the bar high. Of course, Madden has the built in advantage of NCAA proving feeder characters for continued career gameplay. But if ESPN had a college football game equivelant, watch out. They have made up a lot of ground quickly.

“I heard their periods attract bears!”

It’s Amy’s birthday! Even though she hasn’t updated her blog in a few months, go over there and wish her a happy birthday.

“Television news is like a lightning flash. It makes a loud noise, lights up everything around it, leaves everything else in darkness and then is suddenly gone.”

We are so close to full-time football. Friday, the Bengals report to mini-camp in Georgetown, Kentucky. It seems like it’s taken forever to get through the off-season. It’s not just me, this season starts later than normal, although this will be the new norm. Here’s something different from the norm: six Bengals home games are sold out. And we still have a lot of our draft picks unsigned.

I had a scare that my copy of NCAA Football 2005 wasn’t working. In my 2005 season, I ended up #3 in the BCS rankings. Yet, I did not get an invite to any of the BCS bowls. I only got the Liberty Bowl, which is where the Conference USA winner goes. In 2006, I got tripped up and came in second in the conference. Despite my 11-1 record and #7 ranking, I did not get any bowl invitations. I quickly fired off an email complaint to EA Sports. Then I realized maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m on probation. Now that I’m back in good graces with the NCAA, I was able to get a BCS bid. Of course, I switched over to the Big East (an option that was introduced this year and is apparently in this year’s model, too) who’s champion earns a BCS bid so maybe that is it. We’ll find out once I leave my beloved Bearcats and switch to a stinky school where I shall create a new powerhouse.

“Life is a lot like football. Especially if you play football for a living.”

Wow, this weekend’s big shindig looks packed. Lots of big news.

The JLA/JSA panel revealed a new Jusice League series. The good news is that Giffen and DeMatties second I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Justice League series could see print there. That’s good news considering the Identity Crisis death almost guarenteed this wouldn’t see the light of day. Well, that and a slow artist. There will be plenty of time for the dust to settle on this controversy. After Grant Morrisson’s first story arc, there’s a couple more stories already in the can. I’m hoping this title stays good, but with Busiek on the main JLA title, I’m sure I’ll get a good steady dose of vitamin JLA by the end of the year. Here’s more DC news.

So much stuff, I haven’t even had time to go over all the news. Here’s more Avengers news involving Dissassembled and beyond. Marvel news involving Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Punisher vs. Bullseye. X-Men news involving a new writer and other Reloaded stuff. Fantastic Four movie news, Batman Begins news, Elektra movie news, Smallville news. Joe Quesada news including She-Hulk being safe up to at least issue 12, which is good cause She-Hulk is a surprisingly good book and getting Robert Kirkman exclusive. Fortunately, he’ll keep doing Invincible and Walking Dead but he’ll also bring back Marvel Team-Up. Excellent.

Here’s the best movie you will ever see with Batman and Superman both in it: World’s Finest.

A movie you will be able to see is based on Frank Miller’s Sin City.

Watchmen movie news, but it may not have come from the San Diego con. Maybe, like me, they got it from Jeff.

And Jack Black may be wrong for Green Lantern, but he’s not as bad as these selections on Fark.

“Marriage is punishment for shoplifting in some countries.”

Brought to you by some relgious nuts on I-71 south of Columbus.

“This is hell? We’ve been totally lied to by our album covers.”

Lots of excitement since our last checkpoint. Some people soared up the scoreboard, others just kinda sat there.

Kelley tied Johnny with her knowledge of Dodgeball doorknob humping. Amy hit double digits by following my link to PVP. Johnny took a break from NCAA 2005 to claim the quote from the
late Captain Murphy on Sealab 2021 and took the lead back. Amy moved up the list with another captain quote, but from a different captain, and then another comic book reference. Dupree got on the board with one of the millions of excellent quotes from the Princess Bride. Amy tied for second with a Mallrats reference involving a comic and then tied for first with a comic book movie quote. Kelley came close to moving into a three-way tie but I really wanted to get Sam Wyche’s name out there cause I think he’s an underrated football mind. Johnny said Sam and other information I didn’t need, so Johnny moves into first alone. Dupree figured out which Nightmare on Elm Street I was talking about to double his score. Johnny asked Hooper X from Chasing Amy “What’s a nubian?” to double his lead. MOe identified Deon Sanders’s adulterring ways to pull out of his tie with Jeff. And I missed this the first time, but Kerry got Mary Jane’s pick-up line.

Quote Standings
Johnny 16
Amy 14
Kelley 13
MOe 8
Jeff 7
Kerry 5
dupree 2
Erin 1
Zandra 1
Rinnert 1

Again, double check your score. Make sure my math is right. Counting is hard. Anyone can guess the quotes and the more people who join in, the longer the standings get.

“I got a weird thing for girls who say ‘aboot.’”

Lots of news and neat things will come out at this weekend’s big comic convention in San Diego that began Wednesday. A lot of it movie-related due to the close proximity to Hollywood. I’m told one fan flick was shown: Luthor For President. Apparently, not since Bat In The Sun’s Batman Beyond: Year One has a full length movie been submitted for consideration at Comic-Con. Haven’t seen that one yet, either, so can’t tell you if they’re any good.

Could this be a movie poster for Sin City?

This is NOT the movie poster for Jack Black as Green Lantern, but a good piece of photoshop by Marzdul. I’m sure that’s not his real name.

An Avengers animated movie will be made. Except that it won’t be the Avengers, it will be the Ultimates.

Giffen and DeMattie’s Hero Squared looks pretty good and Army of Darkness will soon be in my pulpy little hands.

“The hero’s name is Maleekwa. He’s a strong role model that a young black reader can look up to. Cause I’m here to tell you, the chickens is coming home to roost, y’all. The black man’s no longer gonna play the minstrel in the realm of comics and sci-fi fantasy. We keepin it real, and we gonna get respect by any means necessary.”

NFL training camps are around the corner. Preseason games after that. Then the season kicks off September 9. Cinci begins September 12 and we’re already considered an underdog against the Jets. Finally, the Bengals signed a draft pick. It’s a sixth rounder, but that’s progress. Fortunately, no major quarterback controversy in our camp. The education of Carson Palmer continues unabated. Another week, another Browns front office person fired. The NFL is so close I can smell it.

But I’m not frothing at the mouth anymore. NFL talk is beginning to trickle onto sports talk radio. Mostly, NCAA Football 2005 is occupying my time until the best spectator sport ever invented kicks off for real. I have my hands full because the NCAA came down hard on my Bearcat dynasty and slapped me with a 2 year probation. That means loss of scholarships. I do like this new addition, even though it means more headaches for me, but you only get so many “discipline points” a season. I’d love to suspend every player for the whole season who did the smallest thing wrong, but I don’t have enough points to throw them around willy-nilly. Too bad. That would teach them to go against my decree!

Early reviews are in for ESPN NFL 2K5, and Gamespot thinks 2K5 is “superb.” That’s better than NCAA’s “great.”

Heh, who would’ve thought I could make it through the whole “Bad Bearcats” entry without mentioning Bob Huggins? Heh, heh, doh!

“I have fornicated with women other than my wife.”