S.K.o.S.

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.

Night 10 results are in the books. So here are the scenarios for Night 11. It's not real long, but I'll spoiler it just in case.

Yeah, but you could also think of it like, if you want to make the crowd care about an otherwise irrelevant match, he's probably the guy to do it.

If they want to keep Suzuki in the mix on Night 11, then both Styles and Okada would have to lose their Night 10 matches. And there are scenarios where those five guys from Block A could all still be alive at the start of Night 11 as well (Nagata, Shibata, Gallows and Smith would all have to win their Night 10 matches). By the way, that means if Honma does get a win, it would be a moral victory only. Everyone he's facing from this point forward is already eliminated.

I'm running through the scenarios after Night 9. I think that Smith is the only guy with 8 points who's still alive. Smith needs a miracle scenario where he ends up in a five-way tie atop Block A, with Fale, Nakamura, Shibata, Smith and Tanahashi all at 12 points. Among that group of five, Fale and Smith are both 3-1, and Smith would win out since he would beat Fale on Night 10 in that scenario. So in Block A, only those five guys are alive - Fale, Nakamura, Shibata, Smith and Tanahashi, with Smith just barely hanging on. In Block B, it's just Okada, Styles and Suzuki.

Honma's last 3 matches are DBS Jr, Kojima, and Benjamin, in that order. Benjamin's 4-4 right now, and for him to still be in contention on the last day of the group matches (in order to get eliminated by Honma), he'd probably have to win his next match... except that's against Tanahashi. We'll see.

The first tiebreaker is head-to-head record in the group matches among everyone involved in the tie. If that's irresolvable (e.g. two people are tied for top spot in a group, and their group match was a draw) then they have to do something else to make the decision. They used a playoff match in 2003, and believe it or not, they used a coin toss in 2009.

It's also back up to 92% on RT, and tied for the top spot on that list right now. 168 positive reviews out of 182 is exactly equal to HTTYD2's 132 positive reviews out of 143.

The prizes!

Thanks! I have him specializing in developing risk models for parking garage companies. If you want to give me any sort of lingo I can use to help make it more accurate, I'd really appreciate it! I'll shoot you a PM this weekend sometime.

UPDATE 13 OF 21 - through July 31 Standings 1 [↑ 4] Chaos - 30 points (12/18, tiebreak 0.328) 2 [↓ 1] hobo joe - 31 points (11/20, tiebreak n/a) 3 [↑ 5] Control - 32 points (17/15, tiebreak 0.657) 4 [↑ 9] The Erotic Terrorist - 33 points (18/15, tiebreak 0.056) 5 [↓ 2] Suicide King of Spades - 33 points (15/18, tiebreak 0.538) 6 [- 6] Ligerbusa - 34 points (16/18, tiebreak n/a) 7 [- 7] The Natural - 36 points (20/16, tiebreak n/a) 8 [↑ 14] -MJ- - 37 points (15/22, tiebreak n/a) 9 [↑ 18] Super Ape - 41 points (13/28, tiebreak 0.51) 10 [↓ 8] The Z - 42 points (20/22, tiebreak 0.05) 11 [↑ 13] Paco - 42 points (22/20, tiebreak 0.086) 12 [↑ 15] Cameron Swift - 42 points (18/24, tiebreak 0.145) 13 [↓ 12] Niners Fan in CT - 44 points (12/32, tiebreak 0.064) 14 [↓ 10] The Veeg - 44 points (22/22, tiebreak 0.599) 15 [↓ 3] Lacelle - 44 points (20/24, tiebreak n/a) 16 [- 16] Rippa - 46 points (16/30, tiebreak 0.042) 17 [↓ 11] DreamBroken - 46 points (26/20, tiebreak n/a) 18 [↑ 24] Hoffman - 50 points (14/36, tiebreak 0.085) 19 [↑ 25] blitzkrieg - 50 points (22/28, tiebreak n/a) 20 [↑ 23] Kevin Wilson - 51 points (22/29, tiebreak 0.213) 21 [↑ 27] Mike Zeidler - 51 points (31/20, tiebreak 0.4) 22 [↓ 20] pipGofern - 52 points (20/32, tiebreak n/a) 23 [↑ 34] Ultimo The Great - 53 points (29/24, tiebreak 0.197) 24 [↓ 21] RossWB - 54 points (26/28, tiebreak 0.062) 25 [↓ 17] Dr. Bathroom - 54 points (18/36, tiebreak 0.134) 26 [- 26] Elsalvajeloco - 55 points (37/18, tiebreak 0.017) 27 [↑ 32] CSC - 55 points (26/29, tiebreak 0.077) 28 [↓ 19] JRGoldman - 55 points (22/33, tiebreak n/a) 29 [↑ 36] ivpvideos - 57 points (16/41, tiebreak 0.641) 30 [↓ 28] The Damn Yeti - 61 points (26/35, tiebreak 0.167) 31 [↓ 29] Raziel403 - 63 points (28/35, tiebreak n/a) 32 [↓ 30] jaedmc - 65 points (26/39, tiebreak 0.029) 33 [↓ 31] caley - 65 points (30/35, tiebreak 0.202) 34 [↓ 22] Death From Above - 68 points (28/40, tiebreak 0.181) 35 [↓ 33] SorceressKnight - 68 points (32/36, tiebreak 0.742) 36 [↓ 35] MushroomJones - 70 points (39/31, tiebreak n/a) 37 [- 37] Sublime - 85 points (24/61, tiebreak 1.113) 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 [- 4] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - $188,957,297 (28 days) 5 [- 5] Godzilla - $188,144,600 (28 days) 6 [↑ 7] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - $180,629,673 (21 days) 7 [↓ 6] 22 Jump Street - $165,261,139 (28 days) 8 [- 8] How To Train Your Dragon 2 - $146,203,361 (28 days) 9 [- 9] Neighbors - $132,600,495 (28 days) 10 [- 10] Edge Of Tomorrow - $87,227,625 (28 days) 11 [NEW] Lucy - $61,287,385 (7 days) 12 [↓ 11] The Purge: Anarchy - $57,410,975 (14 days) 13 [NEW] Hercules - $41,648,048 (7 days) 14 [↓ 12] 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] X-Men: Days of Future Past - 205/224 = 92% (28 days) 3 [- 3] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 210/231 = 91% (21 days) 4 [- 4] Edge Of Tomorrow - 211/235 = 90% (28 days) 5 [- 5] 22 Jump Street - 161/190 = 85% (28 days) 6 [- 6] Godzilla - 180/246 = 73% (28 days) 7 [- 7] Neighbors - 141/193 = 73% (28 days) 8 [NEW] Hercules - 57/91 = 63% (7 days) 9 [NEW] Lucy - 79/135 = 59% (7 days) 10 [↓ 8] The Purge: Anarchy - 62/108 = 57% (14 days) 11 [↓ 9] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 133/250 = 53% (28 days) 12 [↓ 10] Maleficent - 91/182 = 50% (28 days) 13 [↓ 11] A Million Ways To Die In The West - 59/180 = 33% (28 days) 14 [↓ 12] Transformers: Age of Extinction - 29/168 = 17% (28 days)

Guardians made $11.2 million from Thursday night shows - more than Captain America 2 and Transformers 4 did on their Thursday nights. Box Office Mojo is saying it's guaranteed to have a $70 million opening weekend, which would be a record for August, and a $100 million weekend is a possibility.

Yeah, I noticed that a 1921 nickel would've been worth thousands of dollars, but didn't bother checking why. The silver is probably a factor there. (edit to clarify: not the silver in and of itself, but the fact that nickels earlier than 1922 contained silver probably led to them being taken out of circulation, which made them rare, which made them worth a lot of money.)

Just briefly skimmed, will read in more detail later, but pretty brilliant. We just finished reading Nabokov's Pale Fire over in the DVDVR book club and this seems very similar to that (in the sense that you read it and go "Why... why is he writing about all this?"). Also, speaking as an actuary who marks out at references to actuaries, props for making the guy an actuary!

Also wondering if that deal means the days of being able to watch WWE PPVs in movie theatres in Ontario are over. I doubt I'll be able to tolerate Jeff Blair long enough to find out whether he's talking about it.

When Rogers made their tv deal with the NHL, the Rogers-owned sports radio station was talking about virtually nothing all day other than that deal. Wondering if this one will get anywhere near that level of coverage.

Bought a can of Coke last night and got a 1929 nickel in my change. Looked it up and it's not worth anything significant, especially since it's not in very good condition. Still, that's the oldest coin I've ever had.

FYI Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' box office is another one that's following the same pattern as Spider-Man 2 and Godzilla. At the 16-day mark these three movies had made: Godzilla = $171.0 mill ASM2 = $167.3 mill Apes = $167.1 mill But we're currently at the 19-day mark for Apes, and it's now pulled ahead of where those other two movies were at that point. Apes = $177.1 mill Godzilla = $177.0 mill ASM2 = $175.0 mill

Okay, first of all, I loved the concept. Creating one fictional character to write a poem and then another to add notes to that poem is original enough that I don't think it's ever been done anywhere else, but it's certainly not overly complex, or different for the sake of being different. It's like, if it had never been done before, maybe it should have. I enjoyed the poem too. The theme of confronting one's mortality will pretty much always be interesting to me. Liked the stuff with Mrs. Z where he's reluctant to get too familiar with her, showing that he knows he's never going to figure out what happens after you die. (Looking back, though, the whole theme of the poem is probably just meant to make the second big reveal at the end that much more of a surprise.) Then, since I liked the poem, I wanted the notes to actually be talking about it, and Kinbote was maddeningly determined to tell this Zembla story at the slightest provocation. To be honest, I was skimming through them early on, because I didn't see what they had to do with anything. There's this huge note to line 149 that has nothing to do with the poem, and just goes on and on. Then it finishes with "I trust the reader has enjoyed this note," which I took to mean that he was done with that sort of thing for a while, and then less than a page later he's back at it. It was around the point where he started talking about Disa that I actually started to become interested in the Zembla notes. Then came the partially telegraphed ending, which let me know that I actually needed to be paying attention to them. I like the whole idea that Kinbote has this legitimately important story to tell, but he knows he's not a good enough writer to do it justice, so he feels he has to get Shade to do it for him. Then Shade dies, Kinbote has no real backup plan and tries to do the best he can, and he ends up not only doing a substandard job of telling his own story, but also inadvertently shits all over Shade's final work. He produces this huge pile of garbage and he's like, "Well, whatever. Hope you all like it." We end up finding out that even though Kinbote seems to hold Shade in the absolute highest esteem, he really only values Shade's ability to tell the story that Kinbote wants him to tell, and Kinbote actually cares very little about Shade as a person. But strangely, I still felt a little sorry for Kinbote by the end.

I finished a couple of days ago. Writeup coming.

I think the thrown horse was my favourite part of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. More than one in a single movie? I dare not hope.

UPDATE 12 OF 21 - through July 24 Thursday's box office numbers are trickling in. I don't have the updated number for Transformers 4 yet, but it's #1 on the box office list regardless, so I'll just throw this up here and fix the Transformers number later today. Also, everyone's point totals now include the points for Jupiter Ascending. Standings 1 [↑ 2] hobo joe - 20 points (11/9, tiebreak n/a) 2 [↓ 1] Suicide King of Spades - 21 points (11/10, tiebreak 0.544) 3 [- 3] Lacelle - 25 points (9/16, tiebreak n/a) 4 [- 4] Chaos - 26 points (12/14, tiebreak 0.328) 5 [↑ 11] Control - 28 points (15/13, tiebreak 0.657) 6 [↑ 12] Ligerbusa - 28 points (14/14, tiebreak n/a) 7 [↑ 8] The Natural - 28 points (16/12, tiebreak n/a) 8 [↓ 6] The Z - 29 points (16/13, tiebreak 0.05) 9 [↓ 5] The Erotic Terrorist - 29 points (18/11, tiebreak 0.465) 10 [↓ 7] The Veeg - 30 points (20/10, tiebreak 0.599) 11 [↓ 9] DreamBroken - 32 points (18/14, tiebreak n/a) 12 [↑ 14] Niners Fan in CT - 34 points (8/26, tiebreak 0.06) 13 [↑ 15] Paco - 34 points (18/16, tiebreak 0.269) 14 [↓ 10] -MJ- - 34 points (16/18, tiebreak n/a) 15 [↑ 18] Cameron Swift - 36 points (16/20, tiebreak 0.145) 16 [↓ 13] Rippa - 36 points (14/22, tiebreak 0.329) 17 [↑ 22] Dr. Bathroom - 36 points (14/22, tiebreak 0.573) 18 [↓ 17] Super Ape - 39 points (11/28, tiebreak 0.516) 19 [- 19] JRGoldman - 40 points (20/20, tiebreak n/a) 20 [↓ 16] pipGofern - 40 points (18/22, tiebreak n/a) 21 [↑ 28] RossWB - 42 points (20/22, tiebreak 0.062) 22 [↓ 21] Death From Above - 42 points (18/24, tiebreak 0.136) 23 [↓ 20] Kevin Wilson - 42 points (18/24, tiebreak 0.217) 24 [↑ 25] Hoffman - 42 points (12/30, tiebreak 0.27) 25 [↑ 29] blitzkrieg - 42 points (22/20, tiebreak n/a) 26 [↑ 32] Elsalvajeloco - 43 points (31/12, tiebreak 0.18) 27 [↓ 24] Mike Zeidler - 46 points (26/20, tiebreak n/a) 28 [↓ 23] The Damn Yeti - 47 points (18/29, tiebreak n/a) 29 [↑ 35] Raziel403 - 48 points (22/26, tiebreak n/a) 30 [- 30] jaedmc - 49 points (20/29, tiebreak 0.029) 31 [↓ 26] caley - 49 points (20/29, tiebreak 0.198) 32 [↓ 27] CSC - 51 points (22/29, tiebreak 0.281) 33 [↓ 31] SorceressKnight - 54 points (26/28, tiebreak 1.417) 34 [↑ 36] Ultimo The Great - 55 points (31/24, tiebreak 0.197) 35 [↓ 34] MushroomJones - 56 points (29/27, tiebreak n/a) 36 [↓ 33] ivpvideos - 57 points (16/41, tiebreak n/a) 37 [- 37] Sublime - 62 points (22/40, tiebreak n/a) 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 [- 4] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - $188,957,297 (28 days) 5 [- 5] Godzilla - $188,144,600 (28 days) 6 [- 6] 22 Jump Street - $165,261,139 (28 days) 7 [↑ 9] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - $155,688,629 (14 days) 8 [↓ 7] How To Train Your Dragon 2 - $146,203,361 (28 days) 9 [↓ 8] Neighbors - $132,600,495 (28 days) 10 [- 10] Edge Of Tomorrow - $87,227,625 (28 days) 11 [NEW] The Purge: Anarchy - $41,376,145 (7 days) 12 [↓ 11] 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] X-Men: Days of Future Past - 205/224 = 92% (28 days) 3 [- 3] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - 202/222 = 91% (14 days) 4 [- 4] Edge Of Tomorrow - 211/235 = 90% (28 days) 5 [- 5] 22 Jump Street - 161/190 = 85% (28 days) 6 [- 6] Godzilla - 180/246 = 73% (28 days) 7 [- 7] Neighbors - 141/193 = 73% (28 days) 8 [NEW] The Purge: Anarchy - 50/91 = 55% (7 days) 9 [↓ 8] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 133/250 = 53% (28 days) 10 [↓ 9] Maleficent - 91/182 = 50% (28 days) 11 [↓ 10] A Million Ways To Die In The West - 59/180 = 33% (28 days) 12 [↓ 11] Transformers: Age of Extinction - 29/168 = 17% (28 days)

Update might be a little late today. I have somewhere to be this afternoon.