S.K.o.S.

Finished this a few days ago. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I did get to attend one live Expos game, on a family trip to Montreal (they played the Padres, and Joe Carter was on the Padres, which nails it down to 1990). I remember the chickens on the scoreboard. The parts I enjoyed the most were the stories about players' drug habits, and the Vladimir Guerrero section, where Keri really got across the idea that Guerrero could hit pretty much any pitch. I found all the play-by-plays of actual games started to wear on me after a while. It's probably impossible to avoid going through games step by step like that, but when we're going through several decades of team history, it gets a bit long. It's cool that they got Terry Aislin to do illustrations. Aislin is as much of a Montreal institution as anything else.

Trio #6 is 3.0 + Archibald Peck. So they're keeping them together from the Ashes time travel storyline.

http://www.chikarapro.com/king-of-trios-event-details/

People seem to think so. They've had a bunch of US dates this year, including AIW, and been impressive. There's no shortage of them on YouTube...

Oh, by the way, no one from outside North America has ever won a prize in this pool. If it happens this year, I'm ok with providing a prize dvd to any winner who lives outside North America in whatever format they have a dvd player for, PAL format or whatever (at least in theory. Like if it turns out that a PAL dvd of any of the prize movies are super expensive or nonexistent, then I'll have to figure out something else).

Short answer: yes. You had the Giver and Expendables 3 pretty low on both your lists (you left Giver off your RT list), which is where they belong. Other people did not. Long answer:

UPDATE 16 OF 21 - through August 21 Standings 1 [↑ 3] The Natural - 54 points (32/22, tiebreak 0.125) 2 [↑ 4] Chaos - 56 points (28/28, tiebreak 0.328) 3 [↓ 2] -MJ- - 56 points (30/26, tiebreak 2.634) 4 [↓ 1] hobo joe - 60 points (28/32, tiebreak 0.163) 5 [↑ 10] Ligerbusa - 60 points (32/28, tiebreak 2.625) 6 [- 6] The Erotic Terrorist - 62 points (32/30, tiebreak 0.128) 7 [↑ 9] Control - 62 points (36/26, tiebreak 0.657) 8 [↑ 13] RossWB - 68 points (36/32, tiebreak 0.062) 9 [↑ 11] Cameron Swift - 69 points (30/39, tiebreak 0.145) 10 [↓ 7] Suicide King of Spades - 70 points (28/42, tiebreak 0.538) 11 [↑ 12] pipGofern - 70 points (30/40, tiebreak 3.398) 12 [↑ 20] The Z - 74 points (42/32, tiebreak 0.05) 13 [↑ 17] Niners Fan in CT - 74 points (30/44, tiebreak 0.064) 14 [↑ 18] Rippa - 74 points (34/40, tiebreak 0.209) 15 [↓ 8] The Veeg - 74 points (32/42, tiebreak 0.599) 16 [↑ 25] CSC - 75 points (36/39, tiebreak 0.237) 17 [↑ 23] Paco - 75 points (43/32, tiebreak 0.245) 18 [↓ 14] Hoffman - 76 points (26/50, tiebreak 0.244) 19 [↓ 5] DreamBroken - 76 points (42/34, tiebreak 2.212) 20 [↓ 15] JRGoldman - 76 points (37/39, tiebreak 2.585) 21 [↑ 24] ivpvideos - 77 points (32/45, tiebreak 0.8) 22 [↓ 21] Dr. Bathroom - 78 points (34/44, tiebreak 0.063) 23 [↑ 26] Ultimo The Great - 78 points (41/37, tiebreak 0.197) 24 [↓ 16] Kevin Wilson - 85 points (42/43, tiebreak 0.213) 25 [↑ 29] jaedmc - 86 points (45/41, tiebreak 0.029) 26 [↓ 22] Lacelle - 86 points (39/47, tiebreak 0.84) 27 [↓ 19] Super Ape - 87 points (37/50, tiebreak 0.51) 28 [- 28] Mike Zeidler - 87 points (43/44, tiebreak 0.667) 29 [↑ 30] Raziel403 - 89 points (42/47, tiebreak 1.241) 30 [↑ 34] MushroomJones - 91 points (54/37, tiebreak 0.146) 31 [↑ 33] Elsalvajeloco - 92 points (62/30, tiebreak 0.048) 32 [↓ 27] blitzkrieg - 92 points (42/50, tiebreak n/a) 33 [↓ 32] The Damn Yeti - 97 points (46/51, tiebreak 0.351) 34 [↓ 31] caley - 99 points (54/45, tiebreak 0.202) 35 [↑ 37] Sublime - 115 points (34/81, tiebreak 0.274) 36 [↓ 35] Death From Above - 118 points (48/70, tiebreak 0.324) 37 [↓ 36] SorceressKnight - 126 points (68/58, tiebreak 0.439) Box office 1 [↑ 3] Guardians of the Galaxy - $234,253,857 (21 days) 2 [↓ 1] Transformers: Age of Extinction - $231,752,475 (28 days) 3 [↓ 2] X-Men: Days of Future Past - $210,594,250 (28 days) 4 [- 4] Maleficent - $193,615,390 (28 days) 5 [- 5] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - $192,851,280 (28 days) 6 [- 6] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - $188,957,297 (28 days) 7 [- 7] Godzilla - $188,144,600 (28 days) 8 [- 8] 22 Jump Street - $165,261,139 (28 days) 9 [- 9] How To Train Your Dragon 2 - $146,203,361 (28 days) 10 [- 10] Neighbors - $132,600,495 (28 days) 12 [↑ 12] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - $128,809,806 (14 days) 11 [↓ 11] Lucy - $110,235,270 (28 days) 13 [- 13] Edge Of Tomorrow - $87,227,625 (28 days) 14 [- 14] The Purge: Anarchy - $69,494,380 (28 days) 15 [- 15] Hercules - $69,086,296 (28 days) 16 [- 16] A Million Ways To Die In The West - $41,158,955 (28 days) 17 [NEW] The Expendables 3 - $20,918,177 (7 days) 18 [NEW] The Giver - $17,370,538 (7 days) Rotten Tomatoes 1 [- 1] How To Train Your Dragon 2 - 132/143 = 92% (28 days) 2 [- 2] Guardians of the Galaxy - 204/222 = 92% (21 days) 3 [- 3] X-Men: Days of Future Past - 205/224 = 92% (28 days) 4 [- 4] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 213/235 = 91% (28 days) 5 [- 5] Edge Of Tomorrow - 211/235 = 90% (28 days) 6 [- 6] 22 Jump Street - 161/190 = 85% (28 days) 7 [- 7] Godzilla - 180/246 = 73% (28 days) 8 [- 8] Neighbors - 141/193 = 73% (28 days) 9 [- 9] Lucy - 106/166 = 62% (28 days) 10 [- 10] Hercules - 62/100 = 62% (28 days) 11 [- 11] The Purge: Anarchy - 65/113 = 58% (28 days) 12 [- 12] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 133/250 = 53% (28 days) 13 [- 13] Maleficent - 91/182 = 50% (28 days) 14 [NEW] The Expendables 3 - 48/138 = 35% (7 days) 15 [↓ 14] A Million Ways To Die In The West - 59/180 = 33% (28 days) 16 [NEW] The Giver - 33/107 = 31% (7 days) 17 [↓ 15] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 20/96 = 21% (14 days) 18 [↓ 16] Transformers: Age of Extinction - 29/168 = 17% (28 days)

Rumblings are that someone at Box Office Mojo has chosen to spend the afternoon picking their nose rather than updating the website.

I'm just imagining being in another room in the house when that happens, hearing the sound, and thinking "Oh man, this isn't going to be good."

Presumably Mondo, Doane, and Mitchell? Unless Jeter wants to come out of retirement. It says Kenny, Mikey and Johnny. Not sure how the names match up other than Ken Doane.

Apparently we're getting a new Aphex Twin album sometime this year. http://pitchfork.com/news/56341-aphex-twin-announces-new-album-syro-via-the-deep-web/

Saw Coherence on the weekend, spoiler-free (all I knew was "a bunch of people are at a dinner party, a comet goes by, and weird stuff starts happening"), in a theatre in a city I'd never been in before, with a start time of 10 pm Pacific when I was still kind of running on Eastern time, and a little buzzed. That was just about the perfect way to watch it. If you like Primer, or sci-fi in general, or xkcd, you pretty much need to see that movie. I'm surprised I'm not hearing more about it.

Geez, I don't know how big Meryl Streep's role in it actually is, but right now it's the worst rated Streep movie EVER.

Coming to you from a conference room in a hotel in downtown Portland.

UPDATE 15 OF 21 - through August 14 Standings 1 [↑ 2] hobo joe - 44 points (22/22, tiebreak 0.379) 2 [↑ 5] -MJ- - 44 points (22/22, tiebreak n/a) 3 [↑ 8] The Natural - 48 points (28/20, tiebreak 0.038) 4 [↓ 1] Chaos - 48 points (22/26, tiebreak 0.328) 5 [↑ 9] DreamBroken - 48 points (28/20, tiebreak n/a) 6 [↓ 4] The Erotic Terrorist - 50 points (28/22, tiebreak 0.128) 7 [↓ 6] Suicide King of Spades - 50 points (22/28, tiebreak 0.538) 8 [↑ 17] The Veeg - 52 points (30/22, tiebreak 0.599) 9 [↓ 3] Control - 52 points (28/24, tiebreak 0.657) 10 [↓ 7] Ligerbusa - 52 points (28/24, tiebreak n/a) 11 [↑ 12] Cameron Swift - 57 points (24/33, tiebreak 0.145) 12 [↑ 13] pipGofern - 58 points (24/34, tiebreak n/a) 13 [↑ 18] RossWB - 60 points (30/30, tiebreak 0.062) 14 [↑ 21] Hoffman - 60 points (18/42, tiebreak 0.244) 15 [↑ 27] JRGoldman - 60 points (30/30, tiebreak n/a) 16 [- 16] Kevin Wilson - 63 points (32/31, tiebreak 0.213) 17 [↓ 14] Niners Fan in CT - 64 points (24/40, tiebreak 0.064) 18 [↑ 20] Rippa - 64 points (28/36, tiebreak 0.209) 19 [↓ 10] Super Ape - 64 points (30/34, tiebreak 0.51) 20 [↓ 11] The Z - 66 points (38/28, tiebreak 0.05) 21 [↓ 19] Dr. Bathroom - 68 points (32/36, tiebreak 0.063) 22 [↑ 23] Lacelle - 68 points (33/35, tiebreak 1.656) 23 [↓ 15] Paco - 69 points (41/28, tiebreak 0.245) 24 [↑ 25] ivpvideos - 69 points (28/41, tiebreak 0.785) 25 [↑ 28] CSC - 71 points (34/37, tiebreak 0.237) 26 [↓ 22] Ultimo The Great - 72 points (39/33, tiebreak 0.197) 27 [↓ 26] blitzkrieg - 72 points (38/34, tiebreak n/a) 28 [↓ 24] Mike Zeidler - 73 points (33/40, tiebreak 0.641) 29 [↑ 30] jaedmc - 80 points (43/37, tiebreak 0.029) 30 [↑ 32] Raziel403 - 83 points (46/37, tiebreak 1.658) 31 [- 31] caley - 85 points (46/39, tiebreak 0.202) 32 [↑ 33] The Damn Yeti - 87 points (42/45, tiebreak 0.301) 33 [↓ 29] Elsalvajeloco - 88 points (60/28, tiebreak 0.048) 34 [↑ 36] MushroomJones - 91 points (56/35, tiebreak 0.012) 35 [↓ 34] Death From Above - 92 points (38/54, tiebreak 0.324) 36 [↓ 35] SorceressKnight - 96 points (50/46, tiebreak 0.439) 37 [- 37] Sublime - 103 points (36/67, tiebreak 0.333) Box office 1 [- 1] Transformers: Age of Extinction - $231,752,475 (28 days) 2 [- 2] X-Men: Days of Future Past - $210,594,250 (28 days) 3 [↑ 9] Guardians of the Galaxy - $197,545,821 (14 days) 4 [↓ 3] Maleficent - $193,615,390 (28 days) 5 [↓ 4] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - $192,851,280 (28 days) 6 [↓ 5] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - $188,957,297 (28 days) 7 [↓ 6] Godzilla - $188,144,600 (28 days) 8 [↓ 7] 22 Jump Street - $165,261,139 (28 days) 9 [↓ 8] How To Train Your Dragon 2 - $146,203,361 (28 days) 10 [- 10] Neighbors - $132,600,495 (28 days) 11 [- 11] Lucy - $102,219,505 (21 days) 12 [NEW] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - $89,242,236 (7 days) 13 [↓ 12] Edge Of Tomorrow - $87,227,625 (28 days) 14 [↓ 13] The Purge: Anarchy - $69,494,380 (28 days) 15 [↓ 14] Hercules - $66,041,222 (21 days) 16 [↓ 15] A Million Ways To Die In The West - $41,158,955 (28 days) Rotten Tomatoes 1 [- 1] How To Train Your Dragon 2 - 132/143 = 92% (28 days) 2 [- 2] Guardians of the Galaxy - 199/217 = 92% (14 days) 3 [- 3] X-Men: Days of Future Past - 205/224 = 92% (28 days) 4 [- 4] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 213/235 = 91% (28 days) 5 [- 5] Edge Of Tomorrow - 211/235 = 90% (28 days) 6 [- 6] 22 Jump Street - 161/190 = 85% (28 days) 7 [- 7] Godzilla - 180/246 = 73% (28 days) 8 [- 8] Neighbors - 141/193 = 73% (28 days) 9 [↑ 10] Lucy - 101/159 = 62% (21 days) 10 [↓ 9] Hercules - 61/99 = 62% (21 days) 11 [- 11] The Purge: Anarchy - 65/113 = 58% (28 days) 12 [- 12] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 133/250 = 53% (28 days) 13 [- 13] Maleficent - 91/182 = 50% (28 days) 14 [- 14] A Million Ways To Die In The West - 59/180 = 33% (28 days) 15 [NEW] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - 18/92 = 20% (7 days) 16 [↓ 15] Transformers: Age of Extinction - 29/168 = 17% (28 days)

Whoooa... now I know how Phoebe felt when she figured out where the word "brunch" came from.

FYI, Friday's update will be a few hours later than usual. That second part probably means it will in fact end up #1 on the box office list. It had been lagging behind Transformers 4 up until the 10-day mark.

I don't have a ranked list, mostly because nothing has grabbed me enough to be my #1. But here's a brief list of movies I liked that haven't been mentioned yet. It's been a good year for movies starting with B. Boyhood: Suffers a little from being overhyped, but it is really good. The kid ages very naturally, obviously, and there were a couple of times where I thought "He looked so different just like 45 minutes ago, but I barely noticed him changing." Interesting that they could keep a consistent tone over more than a decade of filming. There's one great gut punch almost out of nowhere (well, "great"... it's not fun to watch), and then several teases of more gut punches that keep you thoroughly engaged. Borgman: This was like the long con version of Funny Games, but it has a dispassionate feel to it, like if it was produced by the National Geographic channel or something. It ends up being shocking because it's so not shocking. And it keeps teasing us with the idea that there's something more to what we're seeing, some greater scheme that we don't understand. Granted, if you want a movie where a guy has a very unkempt beard and shaves it off halfway through, Blue Ruin is better. Begin Again: It's by the same guy who did Once, and it's similar, but it's been just long enough since Once and there are just enough differences that I'm down for the ride again. Love the scene early on where Ruffalo discovers Knightley and is imagining the accompaniment to her singing. Locke: Tom Hardy is good enough to make a movie about nothing but a guy in a car making phone calls worth seeing. Just found out recently that he apparently didn't know his lines in advance and was reading them off a teleprompter. What If: It's a typical romantic comedy, but the dialogue and chemistry between the leads elevates it to something worthy of low-end best-of-the-year consideration. The Exploding Girl made Zoe Kazan a must-see actress for me, and that's been working out pretty well so far. Need to see The Missing Picture, Coherence and Stand Clear of the Closing Doors.

As an aside, Downloaded was directed by Alex Winter, aka Bill of Bill & Ted fame. I had a bit of "they're doing a documentary on Napster and mp3s now?" reaction when I heard about it, but then you realize that probably a lot of us on the board are exactly the right age to have been right in the thick of things when it was going on, and there's still a big chunk of the population who aren't in that demographic and aren't really up on the early days of mp3s. And yeah, I remember Audiogalaxy getting shut down too! That was a much bigger deal for me than when they shut down Napster.

They announced a bunch more movies for the Toronto Film Festival. http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/tiff-2014-adds-the-cobbler-madame-bovary-sils-maria-the-forger-and-many-more-20140812?page=1#blogPostHeaderPanel A couple that caught my eye: Not sure if I'd actually want to sit through that second one but I love the concept.

Saw a tweet about Galloway still being in WWE house show mode, but they didn't get any more specific than that.

UPDATE 14 OF 21 - through August 7 Standings 1 [- 1] Chaos - 38 points (14/24, tiebreak 0.328) 2 [- 2] hobo joe - 38 points (18/20, tiebreak 1.027) 3 [- 3] Control - 39 points (17/22, tiebreak 0.657) 4 [- 4] The Erotic Terrorist - 42 points (22/20, tiebreak 0.085) 5 [↑ 8] -MJ- - 42 points (20/22, tiebreak n/a) 6 [↓ 5] Suicide King of Spades - 43 points (15/28, tiebreak 0.538) 7 [↓ 6] Ligerbusa - 46 points (24/22, tiebreak n/a) 8 [↓ 7] The Natural - 48 points (30/18, tiebreak 0.525) 9 [↑ 17] DreamBroken - 48 points (28/20, tiebreak n/a) 10 [↓ 9] Super Ape - 49 points (17/32, tiebreak 0.51) 11 [↓ 10] The Z - 50 points (26/24, tiebreak 0.05) 12 [- 12] Cameron Swift - 52 points (24/28, tiebreak 0.145) 13 [↑ 22] pipGofern - 52 points (20/32, tiebreak n/a) 14 [↓ 13] Niners Fan in CT - 54 points (18/36, tiebreak 0.064) 15 [↓ 11] Paco - 54 points (28/26, tiebreak 0.208) 16 [↑ 20] Kevin Wilson - 55 points (26/29, tiebreak 0.213) 17 [↓ 14] The Veeg - 57 points (33/24, tiebreak 0.599) 18 [↑ 24] RossWB - 58 points (30/28, tiebreak 0.062) 19 [↑ 25] Dr. Bathroom - 60 points (24/36, tiebreak 0.017) 20 [↓ 16] Rippa - 60 points (24/36, tiebreak 0.17) 21 [↓ 18] Hoffman - 60 points (22/38, tiebreak 0.207) 22 [↑ 23] Ultimo The Great - 61 points (33/28, tiebreak 0.197) 23 [↓ 15] Lacelle - 61 points (28/33, tiebreak n/a) 24 [↓ 21] Mike Zeidler - 63 points (33/30, tiebreak 0.583) 25 [↑ 29] ivpvideos - 63 points (22/41, tiebreak 0.75) 26 [↓ 19] blitzkrieg - 64 points (30/34, tiebreak n/a) 27 [↑ 28] JRGoldman - 66 points (33/33, tiebreak n/a) 28 [↓ 27] CSC - 67 points (32/35, tiebreak 0.2) 29 [↓ 26] Elsalvajeloco - 69 points (43/26, tiebreak 0.048) 30 [↑ 32] jaedmc - 74 points (35/39, tiebreak 0.029) 31 [↑ 33] caley - 75 points (40/35, tiebreak 0.202) 32 [↓ 31] Raziel403 - 77 points (42/35, tiebreak 2.907) 33 [↓ 30] The Damn Yeti - 79 points (36/43, tiebreak 0.188) 34 [- 34] Death From Above - 80 points (30/50, tiebreak 0.291) 35 [- 35] SorceressKnight - 84 points (40/44, tiebreak 0.509) 36 [- 36] MushroomJones - 87 points (54/33, tiebreak 0.488) 37 [- 37] Sublime - 97 points (28/69, tiebreak 0.524) Box office 1 [- 1] Transformers: Age of Extinction - $231,752,475 (28 days) 2 [- 2] X-Men: Days of Future Past - $210,594,250 (28 days) 3 [- 3] Maleficent - $193,615,390 (28 days) 4 [↑ 6] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - $192,851,280 (28 days) 5 [↓ 4] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - $188,957,297 (28 days) 6 [↓ 5] Godzilla - $188,144,600 (28 days) 7 [- 7] 22 Jump Street - $165,261,139 (28 days) 8 [- 8] How To Train Your Dragon 2 - $146,203,361 (28 days) 9 [NEW] Guardians of the Galaxy - $134,390,839 (7 days) 10 [↓ 9] Neighbors - $132,600,495 (28 days) 11 [- 11] Lucy - $88,022,805 (14 days) 12 [↓ 10] Edge Of Tomorrow - $87,227,625 (28 days) 13 [↓ 12] The Purge: Anarchy - $66,248,300 (21 days) 14 [↓ 13] Hercules - $57,761,247 (14 days) 15 [↓ 14] A Million Ways To Die In The West - $41,158,955 (28 days) Rotten Tomatoes 1 [- 1] How To Train Your Dragon 2 - 132/143 = 92% (28 days) 2 [NEW] Guardians of the Galaxy - 183/199 = 92% (7 days) 3 [↓ 2] X-Men: Days of Future Past - 205/224 = 92% (28 days) 4 [↓ 3] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 213/235 = 91% (28 days) 5 [↓ 4] Edge Of Tomorrow - 211/235 = 90% (28 days) 6 [↓ 5] 22 Jump Street - 161/190 = 85% (28 days) 7 [↓ 6] Godzilla - 180/246 = 73% (28 days) 8 [↓ 7] Neighbors - 141/193 = 73% (28 days) 9 [↓ 8] Hercules - 61/98 = 62% (14 days) 10 [↓ 9] Lucy - 95/153 = 62% (14 days) 11 [↓ 10] The Purge: Anarchy - 65/113 = 58% (21 days) 12 [↓ 11] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 133/250 = 53% (28 days) 13 [↓ 12] Maleficent - 91/182 = 50% (28 days) 14 [↓ 13] A Million Ways To Die In The West - 59/180 = 33% (28 days) 15 [↓ 14] Transformers: Age of Extinction - 29/168 = 17% (28 days)

There were at least allegations that Hawking's wife physically abused him, right? I remember reading that somewhere, but I think it might have been an article from some UK tabloid so the source was a bit suspect.

Cue Ryan suggesting Styles over Fale in the finals via Fingerpoke of Doom.