The Contender - Smith vs. Banks

It's here and I'm watching live. Well maybe semi-live. I have a DVR with my DishNetwork subscription so I can tape a little and skip through the commercials. A

First round looks really good. Both look tight on defense and Banks is shooting counter shots. Smith got in a right hook that was the punch of the round. However; that was about the only shot that Smith really landed. Round goes to Banks for defense, aggressiveness, body work, and good counter work. Finally I'm seeing some talent on this show and I think Smith will come out for the second round a little more organized.

Second round: Smith with a nice overhand right. He keeps trying to land it again but missing. There it is, found it's mark. Oops, he tried it again and Banks was ready with a big counter that wobbles Smith. Man, that was right on the chin! I think Smith did a little too much head hunting and got caught. Banks has quit on his body shots. Close round but I give it to Banks.

Third Round: Banks is keeping his left hand down inviting another Smith overhand right. Banks is also stepping in and ducking just asking for an uppercut. I don't think Smith has it in him to do though. Bad round for Banks so I have to give it to Smith. I'm not impressed with Smith.

Fourth Round: Big left hook from Smith to wobble Banks. Banks goes for the clinch. Big right by Banks. McGrit pushing Banks to go forward and back up Smith. Banks looks tired. Smith is simply head hunting and throwing the big loopers that I just don't like to watch. Round to Smith.

Fifth Round: Banks left glove is down around his waist still. Smith jabbing. McGrit still yelling for Banks to go forward. Lots of action at the end of the round but it appears that Banks is throwing some good shots. I give this round to Banks.

My score: 48-47 Banks
Contender score: Split decision for Smith (48-47 S, 49-46 B, 48-47 S)

Conclusion: Banks appeared to tire in the 3rd round and slipped from his game plan. What happened to all the body shots, and counters? Maybe Smith just took it out of Banks with his power. This was my favorite Contender fight of the season. Both fighters showed more talent than all the other fighters we've seen so far.

Smith is medically disqualified rather than getting booted by the power rankings. He had a cut on the bridge of his nose.

Codrington, Bika, Soliman, and Johnsen are the final four and in the semi-finals. Codrington will fight Johnsen and Bika will fight Soliman.

Fantasy Football - Week 5

Well it happened again, I lost. I even had Dallas' kicker, Nick Folk who kicked a 50+ yard field goal. I even played Pittsburgh as my defense. Pittsburgh shutdown Seattle's offense and kept them scoreless. How did I loose? I'm keeping hope in the final weeks. Actually next week would be great if I could score another win.

A Riddle For You

Yesterday we helped chaperon a group of children from our Church to the Newport Aquarium. It's quite a long drive from where we live so we had a lot of time on the bus to try and occupy little minds. So my wife says she has a riddle that the kids can work on.

Wife: I have a face and two hands but I cannot see. What am I?
Kid on bus: Blind!

Now that is one of the best answers that I have ever heard. We all had a good laugh.

Anyone know the real answer?

One Of These Kids...

Caught this shot at Universal City in Los Angeles. It made me laugh and I hope it does the same for you. It definitely speaks for itself.

Hotel Room Finds

I mentioned this subject in one of my previous posts and thought it worthy of exploring further. So I did a little searching and found some more info.

So what are some strange things found in hotel rooms? Enjoy:

severed finger
marijuana
false teeth
vibrating intimacy aid
bugs
toe nails
used prophylactics
porn
poop
prosthetic leg
male wig
beer-filled tub
piece of meat under the sheets
waxed lip
tarantula
hotel security guard asleep on the bed
12-inch lizard
raccoon
pair of men’s tighty whiteys
broken leather whip
body massage oil
dead body
joint hidden in a bible
bullet holes and scorch marks in pillow cases
gun

Link

How 'bout a room covered in Vaseline?

Link

Or a man covered in latex wearing handcuffs hanging out with a donkey? Guess where the key to the handcuffs were? You got it, the donkey ate them!

Link

If you didn't find it above, check out the lost and found department!

Link

The Contender - Bika vs. McCrary

This week too proved a lack of quality talent. McCrary resembled the Russian, Ivan Drago, from the Rocky IV movie. However; the skill didn't come close to the Russian. McCrary showed little to no defensive skill holding his hands below his chest for most of the fight allowing Bika to tag his head over and over. Of course, Bika wasn't much better with his Contender style wide looping punches. It seemed his uppercuts were still being thrown from Cameroon. How wide can a person throw a punch? Had he straightened his punches and kept the jabs coming, he would have KO'd McCrary (agree?).

I scored the fight 49-46 and the one round I gave to McCrary was truly a gift. I could have went 50 easily.


As much as I talk about the lack of talent, I'm still looking forward to next week.

Forgotten Check(s)

How does one forget 2 checks that total over $750,000? I can't imagine receiving a check for even half that amount not to mention forgetting one! Well that's what Kelly Pavlik and his father did. They (his father) forgot their championship winnings at a hotel after the big Jermain Taylor KO. One check was for $666,000+ (Kelly's pay) and the other $105,000+ (Daddy-O's pay). Half-way to Philly and Daddy-O remembers the checks. Anyway, all was recovered and no damage done.

I have forgotten things at hotels (maybe once), but nothing of value. This reminds me of a story I heard on the news about people who leave things in hotels intentionally. For instance, leaving a pile of toe nails between the sheets (seems like toe nails were the most common thing to find). How about a hockey stick between the mattress and box springs..... Some items are hidden for the fun of it for those who like to participate in these bizarre scavenger hunts. I hope to never find a pile of toe nails between my sheets! That's just plain gross.

Paris Hilton vs. David Letterman

I prefer to write about boxing matches but a good down and dirty fight works occasionally. This had to be the funniest show that I have ever seen Letterman do. Normally, I just don't think he's that funny.

8:47 minutes of pure terror for Ms. Hilton is how I would sum it up. It starts out with the common greetings and Letterman taking a good stare at Hilton's legs. You can then begin to hear it in his voice, Letterman is setting her up: "How have you been - all right?" Of course he says this in his little creepy voice, not to mention that you can tell he's up to something. He gets right to it and asks: "How'd you like being in jail?" It never gets better from Ms. Hilton's viewpoint!

Letterman even asks her if she knew what she did to go to jail. She avoids answering. It's about at this point where you can tell that she is starting to feel the heat. This is where the dirty looks start as well.

"Have your friends treated you differently since you've been out of the slammer?" Oh, this is good stuff. Letterman just keeps coming and coming. At one point Hilton gets really upset and has this, I'm about to cry look. This is where she starts bouncing around in the seat.

I'll stop there and not ruin it for you (assuming that you haven't seen this masterpiece).

Check it out! This is my all time Letterman favorite.

Google's 9th Birthday and Web 2.0

Today is Google's 9th b-day. Wow, where has time gone. Seems like yesterday that I was sitting at work using my new Compaq Deskpro (more like dustpro), which was quite a change from my IBM 3090 mainframe terminal, checking out this new thing called the Internet. This was approximately 1993, and for you die-hards I know the Internet wasn't that new. However; to the majority of folks it was definitely new. Anyway, we had to be careful how much time we spent on the Internet because bandwidth was a premium. Since we had to use an emulation type of software to get to the Internet we were very discriminating in what we checked out - Big Brother had to be watching. At home, I would fire up the 9600 baud modem which just screammmmmmmed! Boy did I think life stood still when I purchased my new 14,400 baud. Then I went to heaven when I splurged and got a 28,800 baud modem. Back in those days Yahoo, Alta Vista, and Dogpile (a little later) ruled the search engines. There were no peer-to-peer programs to share all that good stuff, no blogs, and no wiki's. Anyone remember news groups and news group readers? The closest to a peer-to-peer network that I can think of were the bulletin boards. Occasionally I would forget the Internet and sign-on to one of these bulletin boards. At the time, I lived in the Dallas, Tx area and there were plenty boards to try out.

Life really has changed: No more ALC, COBOL, PACBASE, WAAPDSUTs, JCL, TSO, CICS, and on-call from H-E double toothpicks!

I like where we are and where we're heading. The Internet really has improved life or as least our ability to gather knowledge. I even like useless knowledge. It's all fun to collect. Has Google made a contribution to knowledge? I believe so. Happy Birthday Google!!!

The Contender

I have been watching this season and enjoying as usual. I have read lots of posts that say the talent is much better this year but I haven't seen it (I'm looking for it in the ring, not the gym). I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

So far, I have enjoyed the first year the best. It was full of drama and entertaining. The first season, the contenders wore their feelings on their sleeves and this made for a great show. I enjoyed the challenges they participated in and I enjoyed the rewards that they earned. Of course it helps when you pick the winner from the first show.

I believe the first season is one of the best reality shows I've had the pleasure of watching.

UPDATE: Just finished watching episode 3 and I'm still not impressed. A prediction: a good counter puncher will drop Johnsen easily! He leaves himself wide open too often. I was surprised to see that Johnsen didn't throw many looping punches, but it wont do him any good. If Hernandez (really out of shape) can hit him square with overhanders then he's got to know he's in trouble.

And for the big prediction - Buddy McGirt will put the gloves back on and fight Pepe for the Contender title. Unfortunately, in the last round Sugar Ray will jump in with a folding chair and whack both Buddy and Pepe on their heads keeping the title for himself.

Take the Test - Are You Still High School Cool?

The Test

Burning Down the House!

Last year I planted a couple of Jalapeno pepper plants and had a small harvest. Not many peppers at all, and they were all very small. This year was very different, two plants with lots of big peppers. I had to find something to do with this bumper crop of peppers so I decided I would make Jalapeno jelly. My first batch was perfect - no problems at all. However; tonight I decided to make some more. This batch didn't go so well. I just wasn't paying attention and let it boil over onto our glass cook top stove. I was trying to figure out what to do when it boiled over again. This time a fire jumped right up like someone had just thrown it there. Luckily, my wife was close by and threw some water on the stove and put it out. It was so out of control in just a matter of seconds. SMOKE everywhere and kids screaming and crying! Long story short, its all under control and the jelly tastes good. The stove needs a little work unfortunately.

The Dancing Outlaw - Jesco White

There's nothing like sloppy slimey eggs!

Black Gold!

It's festival time in Eastern KY and Black Gold is here! It's been called Hillbilly Mardi Gras, Redneck Mardi Gras, and Welfare Mardi Gras. Call it what you want, but it brings a lot of people into it's humble town. All those people have money and want to spend it on the food, crafts, and fun activities. This year I actually saw a couple of junked cars that you can pay $.50 to hit with a baseball bat (see pic)! Now that's some good 'ole redneck fun!

The food is the best part: funnel cakes, chili in a bag (shout out to the local Rotary Club), cheese cake on a stick, and BBQ. Of course there are many more options.

If you're an American Idol fan, then you would want to be here on Saturday. Bucky Covington will be the headline entertainment. Hope to see you there!