This is the second fucking time this has happened in the last two weeks. I spend like an hour writing a post, go to publish it, it says “Are you sure you want to edit this post?” I say “Yes.” It says “You are not allowed to edit this post.” So I hit the back button and the post is gone, never to be found again.

Needless to say, I am not about to write all that shit again. Here is the basic idea, you fill in the blanks with your own witty commentary:

I’m sick of hearing about “UFC 81: Breaking Point.” Who the hell is Brock Lesnar and why is he a wrestling superstar if I’ve never heard of him? Why is this match a big deal for pro wrestling if 1) Lesnar already made his UFC debut and destroyed some nobody. 2) This isn’t a title match. 3) Ken Shamrock, “The World’s Most Dangerous Man,” already did the transition from pro wrestling to UFC and back like 10 years ago.

What ever happened to the ECW? I know it is owned by the WWE now, but is it still all low budget and white trashy? That was the best part! Remember The Sandman? He was my favorite, pretending to chug beer, but really just spitting it all over the crowd and then smashing the can on his head.

(Sorry for the blurry, I couldn’t find this any bigger)

Godammit! So, I ordered the Royal Rumble tonight. It was a good time but it left a bad taste in my mouth. We got back a bit late from this strange African supper we had, so we missed the early matches. Here’s what I saw-

One title match was pretty lame with a really good finish to it. The other was a great match, but the ending was retarded and made Jeff Hardy look like a pussy (although that’s still probably better than the drug addict he’s looked like in past years). Also, Chris Jericho bladed (used a razor to make it look like his head had been busted open) like a champ.

The rumble match itself is always a treat. The weird thing with this rumble was how many people were in the ring at the same time. Usually, the rumble will have 5-8 guys in there for most of the event. There’ll be about 10 minutes where the ring fills up and no one gets eliminated, then someone like Kane comes in and tosses 6 people at once. That repeats until the end. This year, they just kept coming. There were times when there were at least 12 to 15 guys in there. It was pretty chaotic as a result, and made for interesting viewing.

The problem was the ending. I was hoping Shawn Michaels would win. I was expecting Triple H to win. I was pissed when John Cena returned 2 1/2 months early from injury and won the damn thing. I know I said Cena was wrestler of the year last week. That doesn’t change the fact that dude is frigging overexposed. I’m totally sick of watching John Cena being booked like a superman. I was thrilled that he was injured cause it would give him a chance to come back fresh after 6 months away. Instead, he’s still stale after 2 months.

This was the problem at the end of the Hogan era too. After a while, fans stopped believing anyone could beat Hogan and when they did, they also stopped caring. Where’s the drama? That’s what I think when Cena wins the Royal Rumble. That’s what I think when Cena beats 5 guys by himself in a handicap match. That’s what I think when Cena defies the odds, logic and medical science to win a match. He puts on good matches, but nothing looks like a challenge to him anymore. He barely broke a sweat tonight!

The only solution to all this that satisfies me is to turn Cena heel. Just have him start bragging incessantly about how great he is. Let all the guys who boo him now feel right about it. Unfortunately, little boys and teenage girls seem to buy way too much Cena merchandise for Vince to let that happen anytime soon.

Overall, I enjoyed the show, but man did that ending leave a bad taste in my mouth. I give this Royal Rumble 664,745 improper uses of the term “literally” (i.e. “He’s literally cleaning his clock!” “He literally took his head off with that one!”) out of a total possible 983,666.

Today’s comic is brought to you by: stating the obvious! When real conversation Just Won’t Do.

Sorry to bump you off the top so quickly, Iride, but this caught my eye-

You know, I’m all for free speech. And I’m all for the right to protest in public (even though it generally accomplishes very little). Moments like this make me question that, however.

The Westboro Baptist Church is run by a guy named Fred Phelps. His church has 71 members. At least 60 of them are his relatives. He’s the guy behind such charming websites as http://www.godhatesfags.com/ and such lovely protest signs as “Eat a queer fetus for jesus.” Fred was a lawyer (and to his credit, did some fine work in discrimination suits filed by black clients) before being disbarred for being a gigantic douchebag, then he became a fanatical minister. According to him, gays, Jews, Swedes, Irish, Canadians, hell, the whole lot of society are on a bullet train to hell.

Phelps is convinced that he and his family are the only righteous people left on earth, because they’re not afraid to go out and make complete asses of themselves in “His” name. So, Heaven will just be populated by him, his family and God, apparently. For a guy who seems to thrive on hate, I can’t imagine a worse hell. He won’t have anyone else to hate if they’re the only ones in Heaven! He’ll have to start deciding that his children who have freckles are “abominations.” He’s already started, I guess, since four of his children are estranged from the family.

You know Fred, you talk out of one side of your mouth about how Al Gore is a “famous fag pimp,” and how Matthew Shepard got what he deserved, and then out of the other side about God’s plan. Everything is according to God’s plan. Well, if that were the case, wouldn’t God have created fags? Didn’t God give people free will? Can’t all these “perversions” be traced back to God giving us a choice? Is God trying to tell you, in Heath-Joker fashion, that “it’s all part of the plan”?

Anyway, in reaction to this, members of the Superhero Hype message board are trying to organize a counter protest, fully clad in Joker make up. “Our Joker needs his crew one more time,” says one board member, referring to all the times the internet community came together in Joker make up for viral marketing related scavenger hunts and puzzles. Sounds like a good idea, but I hope it doesn’t go too far. Phelps and his merry band of hatesters are generally funded by their lawsuits against well meaning people who can’t stomach their disgusting displays. If things get out of hand, it’s just giving them what they want: more money and more publicity.

Remember yesterday, when I said that the biggest tragedy was that a young girl would only get to know her father through his films? Fred Phelps has trumped that. The biggest tragedy will be when that young girl has to wade through a crowd yelling that her father is burning in hell to get to his funeral.

Interesting links-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8cN2pB3MCE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFMdQTpPKc4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhr96Imua8U&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RusB4ZFKv-c&feature=related

Here are some more pictures from my may-gical holiday down under. They use lots of really colorful adjectives like “magical” and “fantastic” to describe things we would consistently call “cool” or “awesome.” It makes you feel kind of simple after a while. Plus their accent is like ear candy.

On the street in Nelson. You tell me…

Me and my seal. Not nearly as cool as a monkey.

A “wee hec-tor’s dowl-fin.” We swam with them, it was meh.

My brother’s favorite pose. Damn that lake was cool.

This is the drive back from swimming with the dolphins in Akaroa, near Christchurch.

An excellent disc golf hole in Queenstown. The basket is so tempting, you can almost smell the ace coming. And then you 4 it.

As you can see Milford sound is fucking awesome, and so am I while doing my Japanese tourist impression.

So, here’s a kick in the teeth. Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment this afternoon.

I’m not going to lie to you. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have given two shits about this. Sure, the death of a father of a young girl is sad no matter what, but I thought of Heath Ledger as just another actor getting work because teenage girls thought he was hot. I always thought of him as that pretty-boy from A Knight’s Tale and 10 Things I Hate About You.

Just below the radar of mainstream Hollywood, however, Ledger was slowly establishing himself as a serious actor in lesser known films like Candy and Ned Kelly. Then, when Brokeback Mountain came out, he was widely praised for his portrayal of a gay cowboy.

Ledger in Ned Kelly

Still, none of that got him on my radar. I still haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain. Obviously, Heath Ledger only started to enter my area of interest when he was tapped to play The Joker in The Dark Knight. My first reaction was “that guy?” Then I started reading a lot of positive things about his performance, both as The Joker and as Bob Dylan in the strange pseudo bio-film, I’m Not There.

I saw him as The Joker for myself in the Prologue a few weeks back. Heath’s Joker reached out through the screen and commanded your attention. He tapped a very unsettling and creepy vein. It’s clear that he put a lot of thought into his performance.

From what I’ve read, The Joker consumed Ledger. He spent a few weeks holed up in a hotel getting the character down. He worked day and night on how he was going to speak, how he would move, and how he would think. He kept a diary, writing down things The Joker would find funny (AIDS was one of them, reportedly). Ledger was quoted as saying the character was extremely challenging. Reportedly, he suffered from insomnia during filming.

Ironically, that may have played a part in his death, as Ledger is believed to have died of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. It will be eerily poetic if Ledger’s performance is as the Joker is an enduring and powerful as it’s been described by his co-stars. Creating this new, fearsome and guttural Joker may be Heath Ledger’s legacy.

It’s tragic that he was only just starting to shed his pretty-boy image and develop a reputation as a serious actor. It’s tragic that he had just completed a personally satisfying role that he may have been able to continue performing for years in sequels. It’s tragic that an actor with great promise died at such a young age. And most of all, it’s tragic that a 2 year-old girl will only know her daddy from watching his films, trying to figure out what he was really like.

Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams, in happier times, when daughter Matilda was a baby.

RIP

Sidenote: Can somebody put Larry King out of my misery? Please. Watching King try to play ringmaster to his panel on Ledger’s death tonight pissed me off. He clearly had done no research, and came across with a callous “let’s get this over with” attitude. Nancy Grace will be pissed you stole her gimmick, Larry.

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER BASEBALL CARDS?

Okay, I’m admittedly a PC guy. I play too many emulated video games to give Mac’s a fair shot. They’re solid systems though, and there are some damn fun things you can do with them. For example: COMBINE WIIMOTES AND MACBOOKS IN A VOLTRON OF AWESOMENESS!!!!

Here’s my instructional video.

There’s another program I was looking at called Wiinstrument, but I couldn’t get it to work on Lindsay’s computer. I’m going to keep trying though, it appears to have a drum machine and more instruments. But I am dedicated to writing some songs on Wiistrum. It’s somewhat limited in the notes it can play, but looking at those available, I can play Sister of the Moon by Fleetwood Mac. That’s got to count for something.

Links-
Wiistrum
Wiisaber
Wiinstrument