The Irish lose again in overtime, or rather double overtime, to Michigan in the second round of the NIT. Do not pass GO, go not collect $200. Why can't they win the overtime matches? This is the next one among many. ND could have received an invite to the NCAA tournament had they held it together, but no. They just can't handle it. Grr.

Last night I was reminded of one of the negatives of San Antonio. Tornado watches. There I was huddled in my bed gawking at my tv set as the weather gal calmly announced that funnel clouds had been spotted in Uvalde, and the storm was headed my way. All I could think about was why I had placed my bed so close to the window!
I'm so brilliant.
In other news I have a job interview as a law clerk, so maybe those storm clouds sent good mojo. It's set for April, so my fingers are crossed.

The Japanese care so much about their peeps! And no there's not a theme here (below).
Always innovators when it comes to technology, our friends on the other side of the world have created a robot that can carry the elderly. It can hear, smell, and see. Can it replace a man?
That was a joke.
Ever so worried about the growing population that can no longer take care of itself, this robot is aimed at performing tasks that a personal assistant would normally do... like lifting! Eventually they hope to program it to detect health problems.
Via Boing Boing.

Bleach has been licensed by Viz, and the news frightens me. I should be thrilled. I can finally buy the DVDs of this wonderful anime that is funny, angsty, and action-packed. Every week my brothers will have mini discussions on the latests episodes (though currently it's in filler hell so it's not as enjoyable except that the Bound storyline is getting interesting). Now Viz has it.
What does this mean? All fansubbing must stop. No more downloads and no more episodes till they are released on DVD. I always support japanese animation, so it's not a problem. Waiting, well... The concern of many anime viewers occurs once a show becomes licensed, specifically when a company decides to broadcast it on television. Sailor Moon is an excellent example. It's not a little kid's cartoon. It deals with adolescent themes such as sexuality and death, and when it was broadcast on Cartoon Network the anime was so poorly edited that the charm of the show was lost. When people sought the unedited DVDs only the edited ones were available without the Japanese language track. Anime released today that are edited and advertised for children don't have the unedited DVD option, which is a shame because shows like Digimon and Shaman King are probably a lot better than they seem.
Here's a better example, Naruto.
Naruto is the coming of age story of a ninja in training and his friends. They are all young teens dealing with the first signs of adolescence and evil. Naruto has it all. Comedy, sexual humor, angsty, and wow is it violent. When it was licensed it was slotted for CN's Toonami programming. Why? Because the characters are tweens. The Toonami block is for tweens? Violence is ok, but they had to edit out a hilarious accidental kiss between Sasuke and Naruto. Have I mentioned the show tends to get very violent? There may not be a lot of blood, but what happens to the characters is harsh. It gets to a point where one has to ask, how much should be edited and still keep the integrity of the show, or wouldn't it have been better to move it to Adult Swim. Oh, and I don't think there will be any releases of unedited versions of Naruto on DVD in the near future.
Then there's Bleach.
Rumor has it that Bleach is destined for Adult Swim. This would be great news. It deserves the exposure, and it certainly doesn't need to edited. I just can't picture it. Not with some of the gags, and well if anyone is up to date like I am, the whole Renji/ Ichigo undress moment was to die for. Toonami would edit that out!!

The FCC seeks to fine CBS around $3.6 million for depicting an orgy on television. There was no actual nudity, but since the scene involved teenagers it borders on pornography. In the meantime shows like all the CSI's, which tend to be gratuitous for their violence (and sex cases), don't receive complaints for the gunshots or guttings. One would think that such things would be just as indecent.

The FBI has issued a warning stating that future NCAA basketball games may be the target of suicide bombers thanks to the post of an unidentified extremist. Oh joy, another threat. I'm trembling. Here I thought Notre Dame's latest loss and failure to reach the tournament this year was the end of my world.

I just spent an hour writing out an ad on this nifty website. I even had a funny example. If you're Hispanic you'd totally get it too. So what happened? I moved to save, and my touch pad went beserk. Instead of going foward it went backwards. It deleted everything, so now I'm on strike! Craigslist be damned as well.

My father is a doctor. Ever since he learned how to use the 'foward' function on email not a day goes by that I receive jokes of every variety and color. He revels in sending me lawyer jokes. Some of them are good, and well some of them are...

A man walks into a bar. He sees a good looking, smartly dressed woman perched on a bar stool. He walks up behind her and says, "Hi there good looking, how's it going?" She turns around, faces him, looks him straight in the eye and says, "Listen, I'll screw anybody, anytime, anywhere, your place, my place, it doesn't matter. I've been doing it ever since I got out of college. I just flat out love it." He says, "No kidding? I'm a lawyer too! What firm are you with?

Gee, doctors and lawyers just hate each other with a passion, don't they? I think I'm going to start this guerilla campaign where I find good cases. Where a lawyer does an amazing thing that doesn't make my dad start sputtering in Spanish that he/she is the soon to be spawn of Satan. There are millions of good, ethical lawyers out there.
::cricket:: Hello.
And to think, his own daughter went to law school! He's uber proud of me, but the minute I receive my license I become the enemy. It doesn't matter if I've sworn up and down, here and there, to heaven and hell. Doctors and lawyers don't mix. The jokes are amusing, but wow. Feel the wrath!
Anyone know any good doctor jokes?

And it's all sad.
I can't believe Dana Reeves is gone. She was only 44. That woman was so strong for her husband. Now she's with him I guess. I just feel bad for their son.

In conclusion....
So the rest of my choices last night for the Oscars were hit and miss at best. I was thinking that "Brokeback Mountain" would win though secretly my fingers were crossed for "Good Night and Good Luck." Suddenly "Crash" is the love child of Hollywood, and well I'm not surprised to be reading this morning that a bunch of people are disappointed. What a great Oscar moment. The underdog wins.
I personally loved "Crash" when I saw it oh so many months ago. My roommate told me to go see it, and I remember just being floored. There are so many scenes in the film that are downright raw, yet it deserves a second and third viewing. Why don't I own this yet?!?!?
As for reactions to the telecast, well it was fun. I really liked Jon Stewart as the host. The audience in the auditorium hated him, but I was laughing hard everytime. I missed that. I hope they ask him back. My only qualms with the telecast were the dvd bashing (subtle much) and the producer's need to cut off the winners' acceptance speeches. The speeches were actually decent this year, but apparently ABC had the need to start the music before the winners even got on stage! They did this to Robert Altman.
Now for the snubs. I mentioned A History of Violence in a previous post, but I forgot about Sin City. It needed to be included for Art Direction and Editing, and a bunch of other things. Technically the movie was seemless. The actors looked like carbon copies of the comic book characters, and the background scenes were amazing.
I wonder what this year will bring.