Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Good old fashioned family racism

i was perusing the online paper this morning after finishing up the easyest all-nighter i have ever pulled and i came accross something that peaked my interst. it seems that there is quite a dust up going on over the newest muppet addition to the Seasame Street cast.

the new muttep is named Abby Cadabby, she's a three year old pink fairy in training and one of the first new muppets in over 10 years. now i have never been all THAT into Seasame Street mostly because i was 3 last tim ei saw an episode and i dont quite rememebr it too well. also i have been told that i didnt in fact watch the street all that much. i guess i was more of a jerry springer kid.

anyway, apparently there have been some complaints that she is to girly-girl and what not. i wont go into it too much. just google it if you care so much. its just that midway threw the article theytalke to one of the critics and its this one quote that really made me smile in a oh-isnt-that-ironic type way.

i'm gonna quote exactly from her now so you know i can in no way be making this up:

"And Susan Linn, cofounder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, calls Abby's introduction a blatant attempt to compete with the gigantic Disney princess market. "The last thing little girls need is one more pink fairy," she says. "My understanding is that she's a little incompetent with her magic, too. I'm concerned that now even the Sesame Workshop has bought into the girly, girly commercialized image of what it is to be feminine."

now here is the fun part of the quote:

They could have had an Asian girl, they could have had a girl who's really good at math."

if you're tying to argue against a new muttet that you see as reenforcing a negative steriotype the you really shouldnt start by throwing out racist suggestions to take her place. i mean if your first suggestion is to get an asian who is good at math what your 2nd suggestion? maybe a black muppet who's favorite food is fried chicken and can't swim. why not a mexican puttet who wears a giant sombraro and lives in a studio apartmetn with 40 other mexican puppets. or a white puttet with a mullet and who's brother and daddy are the same person.

oh yea and they were also pissed because she was a magic fairy (is there any other kind?) so she is obviously is a memeber of the occult and therefore satan's minon. that's tough to pull off, being critizized for being too girly and a member of the occult at the same time. maybe i should start watching seasame street.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Yet another pointless preseason football post no one outside of myself likely cares about.

This actually happened a few days ago, but I had already posted twice on preseason football, who’s existence is almost as pointless than, say blog posts about said preseason football. So I was wary on posting yet again about these exhibition games, I mean I didn’t want to interrupt all the great nothing that was going on at the blog and I certainly didn’t want to step on the toes or get in the way of all the posts that have been flying back and forth recently. But I decided what the hell, why not upload a post about something that means absolutely nothing making the post worth less than nothing. This posts hopes to someday, with enough hard work and dedication to become nothing.

I followed, over the internet, the 49ers pre season opener earlier this week. Now you may be asking, what kind of sadomasochist are you? Or possibly, I don’t even know any sadist who would go for that kind of ordeal. Well what can I say, I wanted to see what that old first round draft pick from two years ago was up to. A 24 million dollar guaranteed Mr. Alex Smith. After managing somewhere in the area of 13 interceptions as well as numerous fumbles as the result of untouched pass attempts (oh yea a one single touchdown pass) I was wondering how the now second year veteran was getting along in norv turner’s offence and how he would do going up against the Chicago bears, who had the best defense in the league last year (and even better than the super bowl shuffle Chicago bears).

So how did they/he do, you ask? Surprisingly very well, hell better than that, they played great. Like they did in the season opener against the rams last year. Alex Smith gave up an impressive 0 fumbles, that’s right the man with the supposed tiny hands did not fumble once. And for this bit of news you may want to take a seat and surround yourself with pillows because smith threw NO interceptions. No that’s not a typo, he actually complete nearly all the passes that he wasn’t throwing away, going 16/21 and managed to not throw a single interception. trust me, when talking about alex smith of the 49ers that is a big deal. On top of that the 9ers managed to actually score points, and not just field goals for once. They scored actual touchdowns, which were absent for games at a time last year.

Now I know it was the first game of the entirely meaningless preseason but damn if there weren’t hopeful signs out there. The offense looked competent, the quarterback didn’t get sacked, didn’t fumble and didn’t throw and interception. The defense stopped the run and actually contained the pass. I guess having a secondary that isn’t injured and made up entirely of rookies does make a difference.

Despite it all meaning nothing, here’s to a better season.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Speaking of football on tv…

I was watching some pre season football on fox and I don’t know if you saw it but they have upgraded some of their graphics. First off they changed the design of the score bar on the top of the screen. It looks cool, a little bit of a web 2.0 feel to it, but I seems to have a little bit of wasted space. However the really cool and noticeable change was to the arrows they superimpose onto the field. You know the once that tell you the direction the offence is going (which if you cant figure out then you are either blind (and in that case what good does an arrow do for you anyways) or you really are not that big a football fan and the arrow wont much of anything to you) but it also lets you know the down and how many yards to go for a first down. The arrow used to be a bright pastel color that really stood out form the field and was even a little distracting. However this new arrow 2.0 is quite impressive. They have changed the colors and even graded the colors to make it look as f=if the arrow was painted directly onto the field and is lying on top of the grass. To add to the effect they don’t lay the arrow over the white lines to give an even more realistic view. Its nice to see computers being used for some thing useful for once besides word processing and excel and finally being used to entertain us.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Football is on TV!

football is back on tv right now and it feels so good

so i randomly turn on the tv this evening and what do i see?

American football and boy does that make me feel good. plus there is a lot of icing on this delicious, delicious cake. first off the raiders are playing, which is very cool and a little unusual. second the game is on NBC, and i have never seen a football game on NBC before and i have been waiting to see what that is going to be like; so that is exciting. on top of that NBC is doing a really great job with the game (it feel just like monday night football, in fact i even thought for a brief time that it might have actually been monday and i had slept threw sunday (more on that in a second). it's a very good thing that i am liking the game on NBC because they are going to have pretty much free choice on showing the whichever is the best game for most of the season. in addition jeff garcia is playing, which always takes me back to a more nostalgic time when the 49ers wining 10 games didnt take 3 years to accomplish.

and now the absolute best icing layer. John Madden and Al Michels were doing the commentary for the game. usually for these pre season games you get po-ducnt billy and trailer-park joe to call the games, but not this one. no instead we get John "Hall-of-Famer" Madeen and Al "Do-You-Belive-in-Miracles" Michels.

welcome back football, it's so great to see you again. now hurry and get threw this pre season crap and start the season.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Holy Crap on a Crapsical!

Billy died!?!? They killed off billy!!! right when he was growing a backbone and becoming a real careactor, BAMN!! he's dead! freakin awsume.

oh and that part with blonde cylon chick and her seeing doctor baltar. oh man that was histerical to see those roles reversed.