Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: FIFA II

It's not often that John Oliver goes back to the well, but considering the recent corruption charges against FIFA it seemed appropriate that he re-address the issue on Last Week Tonight. As usual it's pretty brilliant, I especially liked his Ke$ha analogy.

Also nice to see someone bringing up the Women's World Cup and the moronic idea of playing it on turf. The short shorts idea's not so bad though...

Downgrade Links

Explaining the FIFA corruption arrests. I'm sure you've already seen the news this morning but if you have any questions regarding the FIFA arrests this is as good as any place to start. I'm amazed we actually got to this point, I mean I'm not amazed that FIFA is this corrupt everyone knew that. The amazing part is that finally someone has done something about it.

Of course the flip side of this is that the USMNT is doomed. We'll probably miss the next eight World Cups.

Nick, The Cubs Threw Out Your Grandma’s Personalized Brick. Back in 2006 the Cubs did this thing a lot of business or public works projects do when they're looking at raising funds. They sold bricks with your or your families name on them to use in the construction of the ball park. What did they do with those Bricks when it came time to renovate the stadium again? They threw them in the dump.

The 5 Best Book Characters That Game of Thrones Has Left Out. This is a pretty good list, Stong Belwas is the obvious number one but Coldhands and Patchface are nice inclusions too. Man, sucks thinking that we'll never learn more about Patchface. Him and Hodor seem like characters that have these big important secrets but they'll probably never amount to anything. Why answer the unanswered when you can write 30 chapters of Tyrion farting around the Free Cities.

The Witcher 3 Downgrade Controversy Sucks. Yes it does suck. There's two big things going on with The Witcher 3. The final product doesn't look like all the trailers the nerds have been salivating over AND it seems to have been nerfed on the PC. I'm afraid this is going to become more and more of a trend. Developers are trying to cast the widest net not make he prettiest games. That means developing for consoles first and PCs second. It also means protecting console sales. Until consoles are a minority share of the gaming market that's just how it's going to be.

Retro Handhelds Throughout History. Just a bunch of pictures of retro handhelds. I've played a shockingly low number of these.

Evil Links

Horror Classic 'The Evil Dead' Coming to TV With Star Bruce Campbell. I'm not like an obsessive superfan of the Evil Dead series but I'm what you might call a pretty big fan so I'm really excited about this announcement. I have so many questions. Will it be a serialized format? Are we talking multiple seasons or is this a mini series? Is Ash the star or just a minor role? Is Bruce Campbell even playing Ash?

I fall into the camp of actually liking the remake/reboot from 2013. I thought the mythos of the Necronomicon and the time old horror trope of a cabin out in the woods is strong enough to carry a well written movie on it's own. Sure, I'd like to see a Evil Dead 4 just as much as the next nerd but I'm guessing that due to the combo of Campbell's age and Rami's success it's just not in the cards anymore. Assuming it's well done, a TV series is just fine by me.

Megan Rapinoe says playing a World Cup on turf is 'bullshit'. I think I commented on it briefly on twitter but there was a sort of underground social media movement to get the announcers for the World Cup to quit saying that Landon Donovan was the top goal scorer for the US in the World Cup and start adding a bit of a verbal astrisk by saying he was the top men's goal scorer for the US in the world cup. The point being that the women's game matters and should be recognized. The default position of Sports should be both female and male, not Sports and Women's Sports.

With that in mind FIFA is going to hold the Women's World Cup in a bunch of stadiums that use field turf. If it wasn't clear before, it is now just how much they value the women's game.

Man Who Helped Kill Women's Pro Soccer Dies While Playing Soccer. Speaking of Women's soccer, there's something in the above article on Megan Rapinoe that really bothered me. She said that FIFA just maked billions on the World Cup in Brasil, implying that surely they could spend some of that money on the Women's World Cup and find a few stadiums that have real grass. That's pretty much where I draw the line in the field turf. If women's sports are going to succeed they need to do it on their own. Click through all the links deadspin has on this article about the former owner of the Florida magicJack. Women's soccer has always had the athletes, they have the fans they just can't figure out a way to put together a sustainable league.

Ignored Comic-Con This Weekend? Here Are The 10 Most Important Things You Missed. I'll be honest, I wasn't that jazzed for Comic-Con before the weekend started and nothing I saw on the web really changed my default jazz status. Still a couple cool trailers premiered and Wonder Woman got a new outfit that sort of looks like Xena's. I guess that's something, right?

The Biggest Winners And Losers Of Comic-Con 2014! Speaking of Comic-Con. Sounds like actual comic books took an even further back seat to Hollywood this year. Like if Comic-Con was a station wagon they moved from that weird rear facing seat every wagon in the late '70s had to a trailer towed behind the wagon.

Lost Links

85 Things You Probably Don’t Know About "Lost". Damn it buzzfeed, why can't I quit you? This is a pretty decent list of behind the scenes facts. I mean there's 85 of them. Odds are even if you did know all of these at one time, you've probably forgotten a couple. I might wait another couple years but Lost is totes one of those shows I'd like to watch again start to finish. I know, I know everyone's sour on the ending but I didn't mind it and I didn't think it negated all the fantastic episodes that lead up to it.

Here’s Your Collection Of Fans Who Kept Cameramen Busy At The 2014 World Cup. I don't think this world cup had any notable fans like Larissa Riquelme or blonde girl holding Brazilian flag (google it yourself pervert), unless you count that girl who got the modeling contract and then was dumped after they found out she liked to hunt big game. Still, that doesn't mean there weren't plenty of pretty ladies in the crowd.

5 Reasons Conspiracy Theories Are Destroying the World. Destroying the world might be a bit harsh but I would definitely go with making honest political discourse harder. I really liked the point about how for some people it's easier to latch onto one dissenting view, no matter how crazy it might be, than piles of empirical data. I listed to way too much talk radio and you get these kind of nut jobs calling in all the time.

Over the course of a weekend, DashCon 2014 descended into chaos. If you read just one link I put up this week, make it this one. It's the well detailed story of how a poorly run tumblr convention bilked a bunch of fun loving nerds out of thousands and thousands of dollars. But hey, everyone gets an extra hour in the ball pit!

A Trios of Reviews

WWE Network
For my birthday my wife got me a six month subscription to the WWE network. Now when the WWE network first launched a lot of people lauded it as the future of "television". I use quotes there because the WWE Network like any modern app works on Kindles, iPads, computers, etc. I still don't think that's the case. The WWE is unique in that it completely owns all of its content and is in a situation where it's old product is still highly desirable. Wrestling fans will gladly pay 9.99 a month to watch Bret Hart vs Stone Cold Steve Austin from 1997 but how many NFL fans are willing to pay a monthly subscription to watch the Bills choke away a Superbowl to (insert team name here). Anyway not the point.

The WWE Network is a lot of fun, for a long time wrestling fan like myself it's easy to just spend hours watching it. You get current Pay Per View events live as the happen, every old WWE, ECW and WCW PPV on demand, some original shows that vary wildly in quality and some random WCCW and Clash of Champions shows from the 70s, 80s and 90s.

It's not a flawless app. It froze on me a couple times during last weekend's big Money in the Bank PPV and the search feature is TERRRRIBLE. For example, I searched for Raven (one of my favorite wrestlers from the 90s) and it returned about 5 results, about 100 too few.

TL/DR, for a wrestling fan the WWE Network is well worth $9.99. There are bugs they need to iron out but as a whole the network delivers on it's promises. Solid B+

My wife is awesome, she gets an A.

Heroes of Cosplay: Season 2
Last year I reviewed Heroes of Cosplay, looking back on the review I was probably a bit too kind. I felt like the shows repetitive format mixed with some really fake drama took away from what the show was supposed to be about. Fast Forward to Season 2, which had its season finale last night, and a few of my complaints with the show have been addressed, while others have been exacerbated.

Most of the stupid fake interpersonal drama has been ditched, which is great. The problem is without the drama every episode follows the exact same format. What to wear? I'm running out of time! Oh man I didn't win the contest.. or WOOHOO I won the contest!

That's literally every episode. I mean I still watched and for the most part I enjoyed the costumes but it would be nice if the producers could figure out a way to avoid every episode ending with a contest. From what I've learned of the Cosplay community having a picture go viral or hit the front page of reddit is every bit as important as winning a costume contest. Heroes of Cosplay gets a metacritic score of 72/100

The 2014 USMNT World Cup Performance
So the World Cup is over now right?

The US Men's National Soccer team showed once again that they can compete on the highest level but they also showed just how far they have left to go before we can even dream of actually winning the cup. All we need to improve is our defense our midfield and our forwards. We're pretty set at goalie.

It's hard to complain about the results, getting out of the group of death was really amazing but if you look at the Nat's record over the last two World Cups we've only won 2 out of 8 games. That's not very good. The inability to posses the ball with purpose really kills the team at this level. Turns out Michael Bradley isn't the world class midfielder a lot of us thought he was. The striker pool is as thin as we were afraid it was. It's telling that when Jozy went down with injury we started Dempsey out of position for the next 3 games as opposed to replacing him with one of the other 3 forwards on the squad. The defense is still full of potential but young guys like Besler, Cameron and Gonzalez are still trying to find out a way to actually play together and form anything that resembles a competent back line.

But hey, the games were entertaining and a lot of people watched. That's the most important thing for US Soccer going forward. More people interested in the sport equals more money which will in time provide us better players (knock on wood). I rate the USMNT 2014 World Cup Performance as plucky.

Flip the Script

Well we're about 2 hours from the US/Belgium kick off, are you pumped yet? If not here's a video that might do the trick. Still not pumped? Try this:

Nothing? Way to let the terrorist win.

Triumph The Insult Comic Dog Watches the World Cup

Here's a couple videos of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog pooping all over soccer fans and the world cup. There's two videos, watch the both, laugh, have a tasty beverage, sit back and enjoy a little you time. You've earned it champ.

The Cup o Noodles Samurai has crazy soccer skills

Remember last week when I was talking about big events and how it's an excuse for lazy marketing people to shout out "hey remember our completely unrelated product when enjoying the World Cup"? No? Well allow the Nissin Cup O' Noodles samurai to dazzle you with his footie skills. Don't forget nothing going better with the world cup than dehydrated noodles and condensed chicken broth!

Let's all be futbol fans

One of my favorite things about a big sporting event is how advertisers try to link their product to the event or team, no matter how inane it might be. Like Kinkos is your official copy store of Superbowl XXIV and that's supposed to mean that if you want Superbowl quality copies you better get your ass to a Kinkos, or some nonsense.

With that in mind here's a Kia commercial about the World Cup and, oh I don't know, Adriana Lima's legs? Hey, advertising campaigns have been started with less. Looking at you Geico Gecko.

Why it's hard to love the World Cup

So this John Oliver rant is 2 days old, which in internet terms is like 3 months but with the World Cup starting tomorrow I thought it was a good time to upload it. There's like a thousand things about it to love. Scrooge McDuck references, penis jokes, pratfalls, John Oliver swearing, good times.

So enjoy the World Cup, FIFA is massively crooked and screwing over poor citizens left and right. DON'T TREAD ON ME, USA USA USA!

Japan has a Pokemon World Cup Jersey

That's right Japan has a world cup Jersey with Pikachu on it because of course they do. I love it. I know I haven't talked about it much on here but I'm super super pumped for the World Cup this year. I know the USMNT has as much of a chance getting through their group as I have getting through the opening scene in Star Trek without crying but who cares? It's the World Cup baby! International soccer at it's highest level!

I plan on enjoying at least three quarters of the tournament at home sitting on my couch in my underwear eating a big block of cheese. It's the summer of Kevin!

Then and Links

Let's take a long look at Alex Morgan's golf swing. It's a link to an instagram video of Alex Morgan in yoga pants swinging a golf club and doing a little dance. I'm going to go ahead and start counting my google bucks right now.

Oh look, I have enough to replace the sliding glass door burglars smashed when breaking into my house! And here I thought I was having a shitty day...

Seattle's LEGO Superstar: Alice Finch Goes 'Beyond the Brick'. Having seen Alice Finch's work in person I feel like I'm qualified to say "holy crap she makes good Lego things". The Rivendale build is even better than the Hogwarts one she did. The amount of detail in setting up all the scenes and getting all the geography to look right is amazing. Plus the cool stuff like the tide of horses is just crazy. Even after reading this interview I have no idea how she does it.

Panni World Cup Stickers: Then and Now. Simple premise.. let's laugh at how soccer players looked in 2006. Clint Dempsey in particular. Seriously Deuce, wtf?

Confessions of a serial reality TV star. I'm not sure there will ever be a day where I'm not fascinated by what goes on behind the scenes of MTV's The Real World (or any spin-off). This behind the scenes look from Susie Meister is a bit dry and at times self congratulatory but it's an interesting read none the less. I wish she had named more names... like I need to know that Wes is even more of an a-hole in real life. I need to know it!

Winner Stays

Nike has a new commercial for the World Cup (or more specifically for shoes and jerseys associated with the World Cup) and it's pretty awesome. Maybe not as good as the addidas one from 2006 where the kids playing on a dirt field picked a bunch of allstars and legends like Zidane and Beckenbauer but it's close. Can you believe the World Cup is like six weeks away?

In other soccer related news my rec team played to a rousing come from behind 4-4 tie last night. The team we played was comprised of students from the University of Washington. Thank goodness they were kind of crap, running around chasing a bunch of kids like that is not fun at all. Wow, you can run around for 15 minutes without passing out, good for you. Guess what kid? the job market sucks, have fun living the next 20 years in debt.

A Mind Forever Linking

Teddy Roosevelt: American Badass. Teddy was my kind of hippie. He wanted to protect nature so he could hunt and kill it. USA USA USA!

San Diego Comic Con 1988. A fascinating look at a program from Comic Con 1988, you know back when it was an actual comic book convention.

The 2011 Womens World Cup in Pictures. I'm bummed it's going to be 4 more years till I get to ogle Alex Morgan again. WPS? never heard of it.

NASA searches for Moon Trees. 20 years ago NASA sent some trees into space, when they came back they forgot about them. Sounds like the plot of the next M. Night Shamylamy movie.

Treat these ladies like men damnit!

break out the photoshop, perverts.
I'll be the first to admit, I listen to WAY too much talk radio: Sports talk, political talk, Ira Glass, Johny Slapstick and his wacky morning zoo crew. If it's dudes (or ladies) talking about stupid stuff on the radio, I'm listening but lately I'm not sure I like what I've been hearing.

Apparently the US Womens National Team is getting off easy in the media because they're women. They've been cast as warriors and heroes who fell short of the goal but in reality they're underachieving losers who choked the finals away like they were playing for the Miami Heat. Because they're girls we're treating them with kid gloves and that's a sort of reverse sexism that keeps women from being mathematicians and scientists.

Bullshit.

The real reason this team hasn't been torn apart in the press/media/blogosphere is because people don't really care about women's soccer. Oh sure most sports fans care about it for 2 weeks every 4 years but for the other 1,440 days no one pays it any mind. The World Cup is sort of like the Olympics. When they're on we're all rah rah rah, but once they go away no one really cares if Bryan Clay won the decathlon (like he did in 2008) or came in 2nd (like he did in 04). As long as Bob Costas gives us a story about someone overcoming something in some amazing way, we're happy.

That's why the USWNT are being lauded as heroes because no one really cares if they win the world cup or not. We're just as happy with them coming up short to Japan (the feel good team of the tournament) in dramatic fashion. When you're not that interested in the story it doesn't have to have the perfect ending, it just has to have a compelling one. That's what the USWNT failed to achieve at the last world cup when they were bounced out in the semi-finals by Brasil.

also this World Cup.. Alex Morgan and the truffle shuffle. How can you say anything bad about that?

Smashing Links

Mexican Soccer Fans are Boorish Animals. Remember the time in 2005 when Mexican fans chanted Osama during the US National Anthem? Yeah, the Gold Cup in Pasadena last weekend kinda went like that.

The loveliest ladies of the 2011 World Cup. Whatever man, I'm still pissed Lori Chalupny didn't make the squad. Seriously Shannon Boxx is like 87 years old. Why didn't they just cap Kristine Lilly again?

Social Media has overtaken Porn. The official word from whoever keeps track of these things is that people now spend more time on Facebook and Twitter than they do looking at internet porn. Porn clearly needs to try harder.

16 screencaps from Geordie Shore. Douchebags from Newcastle act like Douchebags from NJ. It's amazing... amazing how bad their English is.

2010, another year in mediocre blogging

Did you know I've been doing this for 2 full years now? Actually it's been 2 years 2 months, but who's counting? Oh that's right, Google Analytics does all the counting! Last week while on vacation I poured over all the tracking data for 2010 looking for interesting trends and facts. I didn't really find any so I just thought I'd put together one of those top 10 stories of the year posts everyone else did while I played Call of Duty until my arms went numb (true story).

So without further ado the 10 most popular posts of the year (which in the end is completely meaningless given that the front page is still the single most popular destination and I don't pad stats with click throughs)

Star Wars Car Wash was not bad. Big surprise this was the story of the year. As it turns out guys spending a lot of time on the internet like scantily clad ladies, who knew?

Who replaces toe thumbs? Again there's a reason I shoehorn a random Megan Fox post in here every couple weeks.

Landon Donovan slips one past the keeper. I feel like I should have won an internet pulitzer for this headline alone, too bad the story wasn't true.

World Cup Kit Review. It's funny that 2 of the top 5 are soccer related considering I barely blog about it anymore. I think I have Post Vulvazela stress disorder.

Marvel knows most of their movies suck, plan to shorten them. Too little too late my friends. Iron Man 2 was about 20 minutes and one Samuel L Jackson cameo, too long.

Ok, the 2010 Emerald City Comic Con really did have some awesome cosplay. I love cosplay posts but they're hard to put together, and it seems like everytime I do someone's like "hey that guy in the crappy costume was me" and then I feel bad.

Fabio Capello is watching you do it. Maybe Fabs should've spent a bit more time on the pitch and less time in Peter Crouch's hotel room. Then again, have you seen Abigail Clancy?

Avatar is so good you'll want to kill yourself. Seriously who liked this movie? Was I watching the same thing everyone else was?

When Pron isn't Pron. I'll always remember 2010 as the year "bubbling" facebook pictures became the chosen form of pornography for Mormon's everywhere. Or I won't, I haven't really decided yet.

Ice Cube with a gun.. and a fishing pole. Yeah this pretty much sums up my blog right here.

Oh yeah one more fun thing. Here are the top ten keywords bringing new people to the site this year. Landon Donovan, Megan Fox, Kate Gosselin (wtf?), Star Wars Car Wash, Diora Bird (spelling counts people!), Darth Vader Cat (again wtf?), Devildinosaur blog, 1990 bmw 525i, devil dinosaur, megan fox michael bay.

Iker Casillas is the Ladies Man

Most of you know Iker Casillas as the goal keeper for Real Madrid and World Cup Champions Spain. However, you might not know he also plays the part of dating expert Mystery on VH1's the Pick Up Artist. Or at least that's what I assume after seeing him make out with this reporter immediately after winning the World Cup. Clearly this is a man that has mastered the art of the pick-up.

What's that? That reporter is really his long time girlfriend Sara Carbonero? Whatever dude, this World Cup sucked anyway. See you in 4 years.

Special bonus Sara Carbonero gallery for Macros, hopefully this makes up for the He-Man debacle this weekend.

"sports is more than pretending you get tripped all the time"

I can't believe this World Cup rant from Aqua Teen Hunger Force's Carl came out last week and no one let me know about it. Next time I let you down, remember you let me down first.

Vuvuzela Hero

I've said before I don't actually mind the Vuvuzelas, but this video was to good to pass up. Cultural X2!