Quantico Basketball Association

Anyone up for some fantasy basketball? I'm going to set up a league this year, so if you're interested in smack talk and something to put on your resume, send me an email at sorrochorro-qba@yahoo.com to join the QBA! Let me know within the next week or so so we can get the draft set up and be ready on opening day.

Diablo Loosed

I know that as I near 30 I shouldn't be excited for video games anymore, but I am hyped about Diablo III.  I remember running through the first 2 games and loving every minute of them.  Now with #3 a reality, I hope it takes it up a notch just like Warcraft III did to the Warcraft series.  Take a gander at some of this video.  It's 20 minutes, but you can get a feel for the gameplay straightway.  This will be the game to have when it's released (perhaps) next year...unless Spore is finally released.

Will Smith Would Beat Me

One more wacky test, thanks to my wife. Will Smith did a good job in I Am Legend and I think he would be more secure than me against zombies, except I wouldn't go crazy and talk to mannequins.

69%

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Is This Good?

Thanks to the Cheeth for the link...I think this is average-ish.

25

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Grand Central Prank-tion

This is an incredible group prank/way to get attention that was recently done in New York City. Check it out, the people who did it are very, very talented.

Beat My Countrytude

I got this from Smash and thought I'd say how I did and challenge you to beat me (and I know you will).

78

I came up with a decent strategy (follow the continents instead of jumping around) and my second time got this score:
101

Know Your Historical Events

Education in the United States has one constant: everybody is always declaring that we're terrible at it. Whether it's falling behind the Japanese (a completely random sidebar here - that whole "the Japanese go to school 220 days a year and we only do 180, so we must be doing worse" argument that I heard nankaimo [sorry, I just had to use that there because I just couldn't think of the English term for a minute {that term is over and over again}] during my time in high school is absolutely irrelevant. The Japanese do go to school that many days a year, but Saturdays are not a full day of education in the classical US sense. On top of that, while their education system may help in things like math, where exactness is paramount, it suppresses values like individuality. But I digress...) or worrying about whether our education is enough for the future, we tend to be worrywarts. I came across a test that has been given to students in college by a group who are trying to show that we're not great at history, and according to the test results, they're right. You can access the test right here (60 questions, if you're curious about how long it will take) and it's a pretty good overview of historical basics. I got 86.67% and would have done better if I had paid attention to a couple of the questions. Some were definite misses, but I would put my history knowledge as tested by this group right around an A-. The interesting thing is that even at vaunted Harvard, the school average is a D+ (69%), and this is a group of students who are paying nearly $25000/year. Take the quiz and see if you're smarter than the average Harvard attendee.

Wednesday Quick Hits and Primary Reaction

There were quite a few interesting articles in the news today, so I thought I'd share a few of them.

-The New York Times has an article (it may require free registration) about how important your diet is to your relationship. To some degree it seems like common sense, after all, who would want to have to give up meat to date somebody, but it has some interesting thoughts anyway. I know that my wife hates raw onions and so I've pretty much had to give them up. I suppose I could eat them, but then my kisses get to be few and far between. To me kisses>onions, so it's a simple mathematical equation.

-Mike Huckabee mentions in today's Salt Lake Tribune that he hasn't alienated Mormon voters. That, of course is a matter of opinion. I think most Mormons would agree that he has alienated them - I know I feel he has. He might be able to say he hasn't tried to alienate Mormons (which is true, he's just tried to beat Romney by hammering on his quirky belief system), but he can't speak for the 4+ million people out there who feel he's alienated them.

-Take a look at the most devastating paintball gun in the history of the world. This would be awesome!

-CNN tells us why we're not having as much sex as we should be. Every last one of those makes sense to me, especially the stuff in the bedroom one. Unless you're doing the cybersex thing...then it's a different story. We've had our room be a TV free zone since we got married and it's usually a computer-free room too. Of course, there are times when my wife's getting ready for bed that I have had my laptop up and running, perhaps because I didn't consider brushing our teeth foreplay like I should have.

-After McCain's sweep yesterday of the Potomac Primary, he's almost got the nomination all but locked up. Sure, he still needs 300+ delegates to be the official nominee, but the problem that Huckabee's got is that with one more primary win, McCain will have clinched at least a brokered convention. When you add his delegates to Romney's and Paul's, there is no way that he'll go out before then. There is a small chance that Huckabee will run the table, but that chance is slimmer than he was after he finished his diet. It's getting to the point where he ought to bow out gracefully and let the Democrats slug it out for a few more months of back-and-forth while McCain gets the party around him. In a related story, Joe Lieberman has endorsed McCain for President. I still say that even though Republicans would have heart attacks around the country, a McCain/Lieberman ticket would be a thing of beauty. It wouldn't be the mess that Adams/Jefferson were because Jefferson was the loser in that competition. Is there anything that could be a better way to bring the country together after a couple of decades of divisive politics than a unified party ticket?

-Obama has won every post-Super Tuesday contest and is actually ahead of Hillary Clinton in the delegate count. I think that Clinton only has one chance of winning, and that's a brokered convention. If she can tweak things so it goes to convention without a winner and then get Michigan and Florida's votes counted, putting her over the top, that's how she'll win. The big question I have is whether that's a smart policy or not. After all, pulling a dirty trick like that to force the first major non-David Palmer black presidential candidate out of the race is something that could sow dissention for a generation or more. All the beefs that minorities have with the GOP would be nothing compared to that, especially because Obama's the front-runner among all candidates.

My Voice

Just so you know, I'm a west man. Apparently my voice isn't. All I know is that I don't say "crick" (creek) or "ruff" (roof).

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Boston
The West
North Central
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Know Your Airline Ports of Call

Lufthansa, in a nice little piece of viral marketing, has released a site where you can try and top other peoples' scores in a round of geography and "where does Lufthansa fly?" I did pretty well, but man alive, who's heard of Izmir, Turkey before?

Classic Music Videos, Part the Second

Another night at home crusing YouTube, another batch of the best of the worst.


"Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" - After seeing this I wonder why anyone was surprised when George Michael came out of the closet. I mean honestly, he's just this side of Carson Kressley here. There are certainly worse videos out there, but we're warming up.



This is more like it! The Hoff with "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Jump in My Car." This has to be one of the worst ideas of all time. It's things like this that make me wonder why I loved Knight Rider back in the 80s. Was it naivete, the lack of 200 channels or had I just fallen under The Hoff's spell?


It somewhat pains me to include Journey's "Separate Ways." It must be included, but at the same time Journey is one of my favorite bands even 20 years after their heyday. I think that they might have the dubious honor of being the biggest band that didn't have a clue how to do a music video. Here you have a random girl in a shmullet walking around the most musically talented worst group of porno actors you've ever seen. From Steve Perry's over emoting to Jonathan Cain's famous Wall-O-Keyboard to Ross Valory's tapping the bass on his closeup, there are few videos that combine the success and crap factors as successfully as this.

Classic Music Videos: Part the First

So my wife is having a girls party tonight, which leaves me with nothing to do other than cruise YouTube for random miscellania collected by people across the world. Well, in my search for music videos to listen to the music of one hit wonder bands, I came across this one, "Tired of Toein' the Line" by Rocky Burnett. It's quite possibly the best music video made by someone from the US.



Here's one that's just the song with pictures in front of it. I would put this ("The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace) up against anything else as the worst song ever made. You can rest assured that Satan has this in Hell's Jukebox on permanent rotation.

Draw A Line in the Sand

Check out the Redistricting game from a group at USC. While not all learning can be fun, in this case it is. You get to learn how redistricting can work, does work, and should work. Give it a gander!

Urnial Etiquette

Have you ever been in a precarious urinal situation? You know what I'm talking about - there are those public restrooms that are just too cheap to install a $10 partition between urinals, so everybody's just looking forward hoping that you can be shielded enough by the combination of the urinal sidewall and your hands to prevent any "misunderstandings" from happening. One of the keys to knowing what to do in this situation is to train. Here's a little quiz that will help you in all those dangerous situations.

As seen on Wimp.com

Political Quiz Time

I'll have a couple of updates coming through over the next couple of days as I get things caught up from my time in Washington. I do have a little quiz to gauge your political (specifically foreign policy) leanings:
American Choices
Here's what I scored:

Your Foreign Policy Priorities:
Primary: Global Markets
Secondary: Military, Human Rights
As the world's only superpower, we can lead an effort to maintain peace and stability. This is best accomplished by building wide coalitions with allies, but we must reserve the right to act unilaterally when necessary.
As 9/11 demonstrated, repression abroad can feed terrorism and threaten our freedom at home. Where possible, we should use our economic and military power as a "carrot" to encourage positive reforms in repressive regimes.
Expanding global markets is key to prosperity and stability in the world. Any displacements caused by free trade and economic growth are only temporary, and should not distract us from pursuing the bigger goal.
As the wealthiest nation, the US has an obligation to help others , and a large stake in seeing a strong and stable international order. So as not to waste money, we should make sure our priorities are focused and our oversight is diligent.

Fantasy Apprentice

One show that I've looked forward to ever since it started is The Apprentice. The first season was a gem and it's very rewatchable on DVD. The second season was rough, very rough. My man Bradford got out way too early because of a bad decision on Trump's part and the rest of the candidates just weren't as strong. It didn't help that the eventual winner, Kelly Perdew, had the personality of a cardboard cutout. The third season got better, and the fourth season had the show hitting its stride again. I have high hopes for the fifth season that's starting up a week from today. My only beef is that NBC, in all their infinite wisdom, decided to schedule it opposite 24 on Monday nights. It was opposite CSI (my wife's favorite show) and now it's opposite 24 (my favorite show). Thanks NBC, thanks a lot. It looks like it's another season of watching The Apprentice on tape upstairs while we TiVo 24 downstairs.
Another reason to be excited is someone they are already playing up to be the return of Ivan Drago: Lenny the Russian. Unfortunately NBC doesn't have that spot up on the internet, but trust me...give him a pair of boxing trunks and he's just as evil.
One of my Apprentice traditions is Fantasy Apprentice. Yahoo hosts it and even if you don't know anything about it or watch it, sign up and give it a whirl. You can win bragging rights and a mention here on Ye Olde Two Guys from Quantico Bloge as well as a nifty Photoshopped picture of a trophy to post as your desktop wallpaper.
Go to the Fantasy Apprentice Home Page
The group ID is: 460
The password is: trump

Hope to see you there!

This House Can Kick Your House's Butt!

Has the Griswold house become too passe in today's 1.21 gigawatts of holiday lighting world? If current trends are any indication, yes. While the houses at the site that Mickel blogged about a week ago are all bright and all, to be noticed in the Las Vegas Christmas landscape, you need something more than just a bunch of lights. You need music and lights. You don't need just any music though. I would imagine the conversation between husband and wife went something like this:
Wife: The Mormon Tabernacle Choir?
Husband: Too traditional.
W: Bing Crosby?
H: Too crooney.
W: Celine Dion?
H: Please. Do you want to look like a total loser?
W: Maybe Mannheim Steamroller?
H: Naw, they have synths and all, but it's not quite got the edge that we're looking for.
W: Maybe Trans-Siberian Orchestra?
H: Now that's what I'm talking about! We can rock this casbah with something from them!
And thus the coolest Christmas house of all time was born. While the first reaction I heard from my wife was "that's fake," trust me, it isn't. It was actually on the news a few nights back (well, not in it's full glory - you can't just have a picture of a house putting on a light show for 3 minutes on the local news unless there's lots of dead bodies in front). With a lot of time, some good solid technical knowhow, and a MIDI sequencer (oh, and a lot of money to pay for the power bill), you too can have a house like this. Of course, you may want to take it up a notch...maybe a holographic Santa going across the sky, or a manger scene acted out by the original cast of Les Miserables.

Update: Here's a site that will tell you exactly how to reproduce this (or so) if you really want to. Here's a segment on the Today show too.