Here are a couple of random thought for this Sunny Sunday in this Jubilant July during this twothousandseventy 2007:

1) The dumbest thing I heard so far today was a guy saying if you drop a penny off the empire state building and it hit the ground hard enough it would flatten out into a quarter. This was said during a special report on 20/20 on the subject, proving that ABC has apparently run of anything close to real news to report.

2) I want to open a restaurant where you can eat the table. The table would be made of wood or Formica just like any other table, but you wouldn't get in trouble if you decided to take a bite out of it unlike a certain diner I ate at last night.

And folk, that may be the dumbest thing you've heard so far today.

3)

Labels: 20/20, abc, food, money

Nintendo fan boys hoped for so much this year from the Donkey Kong company at E3. Fans so hoped Nintendo would unveil a new Zelda, an improved online experience, Smash Bros. news, increased storage space for the Wii, and everything that Sony and Microsoft were currently offering on their systems. Counting the days down to video game trade show Mario lovers everywhere dreamed of Nintendo big wigs Reggie, Miyamoto, and Iwata whispering in their ears all the secrets Nintendo had to offer.

Then E3 came. What does Nintendo announce? You can do push-ups! Holy crap! How can us consumers resist plunking down our hard earned cash so we can exercise?

WiiFit is a new "game" that will make you work out and monitor your progress through the magic of a new add-on that Nintendo is calling the balance board. The Wii Balance board resembles a scale in appearance, but besides being able to just tell you your fat it also has built in sensors to keep track of your balance. Keeping track of this balance data in real time allows your Wii to make sure your doing the exercise they tell you to do, and not just sitting around eating left over cottage cheese watching reruns of Drexel's Class as usual.

Of course if you ask me, the Wii Balance board is just an updated version of the Powerpad from 20 years ago. In fact, according to Wikipedia, the powerpad was called the Family Trainer in Japan, and was even called Family Fun Fitness for brief times in the USA.





Nintendo also proudly displayed the WiiZapper, a $20 piece of plastic that'll hold the Wii controller together so somewhat resembles rifle or something. If guns aren't your bag, then you might want to try the WiiWheel, a plastic steering wheel that'll hold your Wii controller. Both of these new products are about as exciting as watching justin.tv.

Of course Nintendo has new Mario, Metriod, and Smash Brothers games coming out this year, and announced a new Mario Kart for early next year. This is comparable to when movie theatres saw Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek the third, and Spider-Man 3 all come out in the same month, with the new Harry Potter just around the corner. When you got that many big titles out at once, it's not surprising a few other announcements with fade into the background. Think of WiiFit like it's Evan Almighty, maybe it might be good, but in comparison to Transformers playing one theatre down? Well... actually, if you ask me, your best off going a couple of more theatres down and checking out Knocked Up or Sicko. Or even better yet, just stay home and watch justin.tv, it'll help you appreciate all the Evan Almightys of the world.

If you ask me though, and I don't know why you would, one of the best games is already out for the Wii.

Last E3, when Nintendo announced that the Wii was going to be backwards compatible with the Gamecube, it was a bit of a shock. Never before had a Nintendo system had such a feature, then it was realized that the Wii was basically just a Gamecube with an extra hamster wheel powering it.

So you might wonder with Wii's backward compatibility why one would repurchase a game that had already been out on the Cube for two years. Well, that's exactly what was asked of consumers with the release of Resident Evil 4: Wii edition. Perhaps like an idiot, I obliged and shelled out my $29.99 plus tax for a game I already owned.

Idiot or not, I'm having fun shooting zombies with point and shoot controls, while you're still moping over the lack of announcement of a new Kid Icarus game.

Labels: e3, nintendo, video games

The American movie watcher sure love their trilogies. Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Matrix, and Back to the Future have all made a hefty some of money. Star Wars has two trilogies, one good, one not so good. But for some reason everyone seems to forget about the Major League trilogy.

However, after viewing Major League III: Back to the Minors, I can safely say why people don't stand up and take notice of this trio of movies more often: The third film sucked. Not that the first two were golden pieces of film history themselves, but they at least seceded in being a goofy fun movie about baseball. The only thing Major League seems to succeed at was providing HBO Comedy something fill up their 2am spot with.

Major League III stars Scott Bakula of Quantum Leap, and Ted McGinley of Married With Children. Now you may say, "Hey, I don't remember either of these two 'As Seen on TV' actors being in either of the first two Major League movies!" Well my friend, not to worry, you are not suffering from some kind of terrible brain parasite that eats your memories, neither of them were. So why are they in this film? Because either A) the producers were too cheap to rehire most of the original actors, or B) they offered it to the original actors, but they were smart enough to turn it down (except for Charlie Sheen who was probably in rehab). Either way, this new cast results in a movie with a storyline about as enthralling as an episode Married with Children and as funny as an episode of Quantum Leap.

Oh, not to worry, some of the original actors came back. Who could forget such big name actors as Dennis Haysbert, Bob Uecker, Corbin Bernsen, Eric Bruskotter, Takaaki Ishibashi, and Steve Yeager. All of them household names of course. It's never really explained how the characters playing these characters wound up in the Minors plaing for The Buzz. In one movie they're on the American League Championship team, the next movie they're all playing together on a struggling Minor League team. Roger Dorn, played for the Indians in the first film, owned the Indians in the second, and in the third somehow seems to own the Twins. Bob Uecker, who greatest acting job was on Mr. Belvedere, is now the play by play announcer for the Buzz, with no explanation of why he's no longer the announcer for the Indians.

The new characters added to film add little. There's a pitcher who solely depends on his fastball and talk like a surfer, a pitcher who throws extremely slow and might also be a doctor, an aging first baseman named Pops (kind of like Julio Franco, they're both old, and they both suck) a kid named Downtown who... you know what it's not worth the effort it takes for me to push the keys down on my keyboard to continue with these character descriptions.

I'll give you a synopsis of the plot, but even if you've never seen the movie, and for your sake I hope you have not, I'm sure you can guess for the most part what it is. In short: Team sucks. New manager takes over team. Manager teaches team, using some unorthodox methods. Team gets better.

Now, to be fair, theirs a little more to the plot than that, like the rivalry between Bakula's minor league manager character with McGinley's Major league manager character and some other pointless filler, but you get the gist.

The Seinfeld theory is that comedies don't need a great plot (or any plot) to be enjoyable, because the jokes themselves that carry the show. However, when your jokes include such lines as, "If he says Bigs again I'm going to pinch is head off," and "And I thought you came here because you missed the sound of my voice." you're out of luck. The jokes in this film are not strong enough carry Nicole Richie if she were on the moon.

Of course this movie is eight years old so you may be wondering why in the world I even care. Well, because I care about those out there who may be one browsing the deep discount used video bin at Blockbuster and pick up this title and consider buying it. Let this be your warning, stay away.

Labels: baseball, movies, seinfeld