Re-Hacktionary Report

Saturday, November 27, 2004

Audaces Fortuna Iuvat

Busy day today. Got up at 6:30 am and volunteered for the Highschool Leadership Conference. One of the groups didn't have their actual leaders show up, so I got drafted to lead them around for a bit. I got to see two of the speeches, which were quite good. At lunch, I passed the team off to Sam Power and headed over to the Engineering Head Shave. I unfortunately wasn't able to stay long enough to see actual shaving occurring, but the turnout seemed to be quite good. Kudos to Gary and everyone else involved for the hard work that went into supporting a good cause!

In the evening, I went to see Alexander with some other hacks (and Jones). I will say that Oliver Stone has never been known for his brevity or subtlety.

I think the movie was trying to do too much. Trying to tell the whole life story of Alexander and his conquests just wound up making the movie drag at times. And if I thought it was dragging at times, I can only imagine what others thought. While it gets marks for opening with a quote from Vergil (see above, though it was in English in the movie) the reptition of it througout the movie almost reached levels similar to "With great power comes great responsibility" in Spiderman. As well, while verbatim quotes from the sources (in this case, "He is trying to cross over from Asia to Greece, but he cannot even cross from couch to couch") occasionally make me chuckle, they also tend to come accross as stilted. "I, Claudius" had the same problems, and it was alot better (though, don't get me started on its historical manipulations). At any rate, while I thought the movie was o.k., it could have been more focused.

Here's hoping the other movie that I'm looking forward to this season isn't quite as much of a let down.

Thursday, November 25, 2004

The Police Are Gonna Have To Come And Get Me

Well, this was going to be quite a bit longer, but my browser crashed so I'll just do the abbreviated version. The occasion of this post is Entertainment Weekly's (admittedly subjective) ranking of the Top 25 Rap Albums of all time.

Now, while I recognise that The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Ready to Die" was a good album, I think ranking it third is a bit much. Particularly considering that 2Pac's "All Eyes on Me" didn't make the list. Methinks there was a bit of coastal favouratism at play.

At any rate, I can deal with that. I can also deal with the fact that the Cypress Hill album they selected was "Cypress Hill" as opposed to "Black Sunday" (though, I suppose it's also an open question if there should be any Cypress Hill albums on the list). I can even deal with the notable omission of any entry from the Geto Boys.

However, what is inexcusable to me is the fact that a list that includes Eminem's "The Marshall Mather's LP" (yeah, that's not sucking up to current tastes) does not include N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton". Now, I'm not saying that Eminem is bad, but top 25 albums? Come on. As well, from a "impact" perspective, if "Straight Outta Compton" never drops and you don't have an Eminem, a Snoop Dogg or a Mack 10 (and that's just the direct proteges). To say nothing of the fact that a certain John Singleton movie winds up with the title "Criminal Minded". I suppose maybe EW thought that by giving props to Dre and Cube individually for "The Chronic" and "Death Certificate" respectively they were covering their requisite bases. I disagree however. Both of those albums stood on their own merits ("Amerikkka's Most Wanted" arguably had a bigger impact, particularly for the bi-coastal elements, however I've tended to prefer the songs on "Death Certificate" so I'm not complaining. But then, I prefer "The Predator" to both, so I may be out to lunch). "Straight Outta Compton", in my opinion, deserved independent recognition. Pity Entertainment Weekly didn't feel the same way.

Monday, November 22, 2004

Death, Taxes, Damon Allen Wins Grey Cups

Well, there's nothing like an afternoon of KFC and Canadian Football. I thoroughly enjoyed the game, not just because the team I was pulling for won, or because I was right. I thought it was exciting, but not too much of a nailbiter to lead to nervousness.

At any rate, I think that Buono was outcoached by Pinball in this one. I don't think that naming Dickenson ahead of Printers made that much of a difference. Apart from the timecount violations (oh, and it was hilarious watching O'Mahoney miss the convert) and maybe overthrowing Geroy Simon in the 4th quarter, not too many of the mistakes could be laid on Dickenson. However, the fact that right before the game apparently Clermont didn't know who was starting may have made things uncertain for the team as a whole. I prefer Printers as a quarterback for the added dimension he gives, but this wasn't where the game was lost.

I thought that the decision to kick away from Levingston and Bruce wound up hurting the Lions in the end. They gave the Argos better field position and also showed a lack of confidence in the coverage team. Levingston especially is a feast and famine returner. For every one he breaks, there are a number of others where he loses yards trying to get around the corner. I think the preoccupation with keeping the ball out of the hands of Levingston made him more of a factor than he and Bruce otherwise would have been.

I also think that punting it away with about a minute left was a mistake. As it turns out, they never got the ball back. At that stage of the game, down by that much, you've got to be playing 3 down football.

My personal award for "What Were They Thinking?" goes to Steve Armitage, for his "Is this a dream come true?" question to Jason Clermont in the aftermath of a loss (it was probably a good question to ask before the game, but not afterwards).

At any rate, full marks to the Argos. Damon Allen proved once again that he is a Grey Cup machine (3-0 as a starter, 3 time MVP, 4-1 overall and they almost shouldn't count '86). Should be interesting how things shake down accross the league over the offseason. I can't see B.C. being able to keep both Printers and Dickenson (though, they are both under contract). As well, if Allen retires that also means an opening in Toronto (unless they decide to go with Michael Bishop as a starter). Additionally, I expect Crandell to land somewhere other than Calgary, while Nealon Greene will probably be departing Saskatchewan, and then there's the rumours of the return of Ricky Ray and what that will mean for Jason Maas in Edmonton. So much excitement.

I also think that the Toronto win has raised Rich Stubler's stock in the race to be the next Eskimos Head Coach. I think he'd do a good job, though I'd have some concerns with his commitment (or lack thereof) to the running game in light of post-game remarks today. I'm not sure what he's been up to lately, but I also hope that they consider former assistant Brad Miller, who left after the 2000 season to go do something with the Green Bay Packers. In any event, it should be a good offseason, which should take some sting out of the fact that there likely won't be any hockey.

Saturday, November 20, 2004

You Will Know And Believe To Be True

We had a hypnotist last night for FABS. I tried going up after the intermission, but it didn't work. Just as well. When there's already so much out of people's control it strikes me as rather odd that people would voluntarily relinquish control so that they can be embarassed in front of their friends. Oh well.

Afterwards, the party moved to The Druid. It was quite a good time. It was very crowded (which can be a typical comment for most fun evenings at a bar), with a fairly high turnout. Lots of good music as well. Towards the end of the evening, I bumped into Cusid VP West Julia. Always strange to see people in settings they don't really belong in.

I'm going to have to buckle down now, though I've been saying that for the past several weeks.

Friday, November 19, 2004

I've Got No Choice

If Survivor wasn't on right before The Apprentice, I probably would have stopped watching it a couple of weeks ago. In terms of The Apprentice tonight, I agreed with the double-firing. While I sympathise to an extent with the position Wes was in, he arguably lost the challenge when he sent Kelly over to the other team. Getting rid of one of your stronger players just didn't make any sense and ultimately led to his team's downfall. Particularly given that if he'd sent Maria to the other team, her combined with Ivana (who to her credit probably had her strongest performance yet this episode) would have made an already internally divided team more so by having two strongly disruptive influences. Both of them deserved to get fired, and it just made sense to do it at once (there's been a few people that have been able to hang around by virtue of other people making worse mistakes, so it's good to see Trump not wasting time by letting people hand around unnecessarily). I think the team aspect of the show, while being good in that it forces people to work together, also has the unfortunate side effect of allowing more mediocre players to stick around by virtue of their team winning. I also thought that one of the funnier moments of the show was when Maria and Wes had to take the same cab. That and when Trump told Sandy she should call Bill "Mr. Rancic" (come on, they call the others "George" and "Carolyn". What makes Bill so special).

This Ain't About Tea

Ok, as promised, my thoughts on the Grey Cup.

First things first, I'm a superstitious person. Printers winning Most Outstanding Player should usually bode ill for the Lions. At any rate, here are my thoughts.

Special Teams:
Argos clearly have the advantage here. Prefontaine is a better punter and place kicker than O'Mahoney, who's been inconsistent all year. While Cutolo is a good returner, the combination of Levingston and Bruce for the Argos means a "pick your poison" situation for the Lions whenever they're punting. I also think that the Argos have a better coverage team.

Defence:
Both teams have solid linebacking corps and good defensive lines. I think the difference here lies in the secondary. While BC's secondary has improved from early in the year, they aren't at the same level of the Argos. Toronto has been vulnerable against the run all year, but for the most part have been able to get away with it.

Offence:
B.C.'s offence is more high-powered. Indeed, the superior Argo secondary may be counterbalanced by their less superior receiving corp. Geroy Simon is probably the best receiver in the league right now, and Clermont won Outstanding Canadian. At Quarterback, while neither Dickenson nor Printers has won a Grey Cup (Dickenson's ring came whilst sitting on the bench in 98) they're both big-game players. That being said, Damon Allen is still a Grey Cup machine.

If we look at the Thanksgiving game between these two teams, Toronto was able to keep the Lions out of the endzone. If it comes down to special teams, Toronto wins. While I'm getting tired of listening to commentators say "if it's low scoring it favours Toronto, high scoring favours B.C.", there is some truth to the statement. Anyways, while on paper this is one B.C. should win, they don't play the game on paper.

Toronto will win.

Monday, November 15, 2004

Since 1983

It's been a while. Quite busy, particularly with Hugill this weekend (I didn't even make it home Saturday night, and instead crashed at a friend's house so that I could get an extra few minutes of sleep).

I thougth I'd commen on the Grey Cup. Probably the worst case scenario for the organisers. They could have had Montreal-Saskatchewan (with the close location to Ottawa, Montreal fans would all come out. And Rider fans always make it out for the Grey Cup when their team is there). Instead, they got B.C.-Toronto (while things have improved greatly in both cities, I think it's fair to characterise them as the two cities with the most apathetic fans). Should be a good game, however.

Lots of interesting storylines as well. Damon Allen against his most recent former team, the whole issue of whether Printers will be healthy or not by game time, whether Dickenson should start anyways, etc.

It's always interesting as well to decide who to pull for when Edmonton isn't there. At this stage, I think I'll be pulling for the Argos. While I think Casey Printers in amazing, and Carl Kidd is the best quote in the league, I've never been a fan of Wally Buono or Dave Dickensen (for reasons which should be reasonably obvious). As well, I've learned to never discount Damon Allen in a Grey Cup game.

Anyways, assuming I have time (which is a rather large assumption) I'll try and post a thorough analysis of how it will all shake down before the game.

Friday, November 05, 2004

Why Do You Hate Democracy?

Went to an Candidate's Forum today. It wasn't too much effort, as I had a class in that room right afterwards, so I just went in early. It was, oddly enough, put on by both the Legal Activist Collective and Democracy Now!. A girl from my highschool was running for the Social Credit Party, so that was kind of cool. My personal highlight was when one of my classmates asked Larry Booi why he hated democracy.

In terms of The Apprentice this evening, if Raj had brought Chris into the Boardroom he'd still be on the show. Trump definitely had that "I'll show you, I'll fire you because I can" look in his eye that he had when he fired Bradford, so Raj could have dodged a bullet by bringing him in (as well, as evidenced by the comments, Trump also blamed him for not bringing him in). Additionally, with Ivana, if you bring someone into the boardroom, you have to be able to answer the question when they ask "Why are they here?". Realistically, he wasn't going to win anyways, but he was an entertaining character. As well, while I'm not normally one to level this charge, I think the bringing back of the fired people for this episode only was clearly a ratings-based move.

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Guess Who's Back?

Alright, I know I've been neglecting this. But I've been quite busy. If it's any consolation, I also didn't get around to posting my CFL picks on the webboard for the first time ever (and I would have been 4-4 that week). If anyone cares, I'm picking Toronto and Edmonton to win their respective semi-finals this weekend.

In terms of what I've been up to lately, there's been lots of interviews. I just got back from Toronto. I didn't get to do much apart from the interview thing, but it was nice to see people nonetheless. The wining and dining was definitely good. I also briefly dropped by a Hart House debate meeting, which was pretty cool. On the way to the debate meeting, I also walked by another building, which got me thinking about what might have been. While I still think I made the right choice in that respect, at the same time it's sometimes interesting to think of how things may have turned out differently with just a few different choices. But then you just drive yourself crazy. While others may not have always agreed, I've made the best decisions for myself, and I can't complain with the results.

Speaking of results, I'm a tad irate that I missed out on all the election watching fun-ness. There will have to be plans for Provincial Election viewing.