Superbowl XXXVII 927
So, if you're a good, patriotic American, you're certainly watching the Superbowl right about now. The dot-com ads should be pretty much absent this year, but perhaps there will be something more interesting than ads for recycled movies. Maybe even the game will be worth watching. :) Update: 01/27 17:02 GMT by T : Chardish writes "If you didn't catch the trailer for The Matrix: Reloaded on the Superbowl last night, it's now available for download."
Not to be a troll here but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tone down the crazyness, things that have been a part of American culture do not necessarily mean they are thru-and-thru patriotic.
Forgive the obvious question... (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, it's the same old stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
Superbowl Sunday... Great (Score:0, Insightful)
Just think. The NFL's refusal to switch to a series format for the final like the NHL, NBA and MLB leads to domestic abuse. I wonder if the NFL's commissioner's wife was smacked around today...
It's very simple! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't believe me, check how much 10 seconds of superbowl publicity cost.
The dumbification of /. (Score:2, Insightful)
Recently we've had "SOHO", "Crop circles", and now this. All "posted by Michael", BTW. What next? "What happened on the last episode of 'Friends'"? "Crossing over, with Michael"? "Psychic hotlines - how they've helped me"? "Methods for selecting lottery numbers"? "Best use for that old washing machine in the back yard and the car up on blocks"? "Naming my 6th child - Lerleen, Billy-bob, Sue-anne or Scout"?
Anyway, it's lucky Michael told me about the Superbowl, I might not have heard about it otherwise. Sigh.
THIS IS FLAMEBAIT NOT NEWS (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Thank God... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway, nobody's forcing you to watch it all. Just work out when it starts and do something else the rest of the time.
BTW, Eric Idle is on Channel Five's coverage for some reason.
Re:Forgive the obvious question... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the Formula 1! Man, talk about technology. It's a geek's dream sport. Fast cars, cutting edge technology, stuff blowing up now and then, things being measured in thousandths of a second.
Not all geeks hate sport. Not all countires have the same jock/geek class seperation at school that US movie makers love screaming and dancing about, either.
A True American (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Not to be a troll here but...IN SOVIET RUSSIA (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:and the point is? (Score:5, Insightful)
I happen to like (American)football. I'm not a jock per se, but I do play sports.
Christ, can we get a clue in here?
A timeless ode to patriotism. (Score:1, Insightful)
You really don't get it do you? You, by invoking a defense of the term "patriotic", and then saying
I didn't hear Bush tell me to watch the game, I didn't see the U.N. pass a resolution, and I didn't hear an "Axis of Evil" tag attached to it.
imply you believe that if Bush told you the superbowl were patriotic you'd agree. What about Bush's dictum would make it patriotic? Can't you, as a free thinking individual, determine what's patriotic yourself? Is it possible that Bush could do something that's un-patriotic or are presidents the ultimate arbiter of patriotism?
Patriotic things are "feeling, expressing, or inspired by love for one's country. A patriot would, as Bush -swore- to do when inaugurated:
"preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Bush, however he has been spending his time on his -perceived- number one duty "to protect the homeland from the enemy." link [felsef.org]
In doing his "duty" he and his legislature have assaulted the Constitution more savagely than at any time since the great depression.
Don't try to defend patriotism and pimp the current president's policies, true patriots won't be fooled.
Re:Forgive the obvious question... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah I'm sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Geeks like to think they are so open minded and forward thinking. The reality is you will be hard pressed to find a more closed-minded group of people if you tried.
Shania was lip syncing, I'm sure of it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I only watched the half-time stuff, then turned back to Fear Factor.
Re:Not to be a troll here but... (Score:1, Insightful)
They chalk up "deep coding" as an attributal and worthwhile skill to earn a living, but feel it is okay to demean an event displaying fellas that are athletic instead. Meanwhile, there are more geeks and thinkers being employed by the NFL and related activities than athletes.
It reminds me much of the attitude when I was in college. Graduated with honors in the College and concentration, yet folks in my dorm considered me a "jock" because I was on the swim team. Some people just need something to heckle because they feel left out. The editors feel they have an upper hand on this forum, which they certainly and deservingly do, but it's the same adolescent psychology as when the bullied becoming the bully. Meanwhile, they have no problem using this as an opportunity to post 2 stories on the same event which, heavily implied, they look down on.
Note when the same tactics are done to the Linux or nerd community in general, they cry about how they've been screwed and how the little guy is getting stepped on.
Don't like the Super Bowl? DON'T WATCH IT. Want to watch the ads but not the game? You're a piss poor excuse of a geek if you haven't figure out to set up your PVR at this point and don't have a simple backup known as a VCR.
(Funny, I recall
Re:The dumbification of /. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah... great... what are you, fourteen? What do you suggest? That we concoct some crazy scheme to get back at the principal and the jocks?
I'm sorry but US football is a thrilling and complex game that is both viceral and intellectual.
But instead you decided to relegate it to some stupid stereotype of Big Dumb Hicks. Grow up.
Re:Forgive the obvious question... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why formula 1 is even less prominent in the US. When something as small as
Re:Not to be a troll here but... (Score:2, Insightful)
This Discussion Prohibited (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though, isn't there a law against providing inaccurate legal advice? I mean, they can't wish away Fair Use (in analog anyhow, but I digress) but they sure represent that it's illegal.
hahaha raiders blow (Score:2, Insightful)
War Sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
And then Argentina scored big against a British destroyer and people died who probably didn't need to, good cause or not.
If you are that gung-ho about another Iraqi war, then get your ass down to a recruiting station right the fuck now. With 8 weeks Basic + 8 weeks 11B training you might just finish in time to see this war up close and personal.
As for me, I've done time in Uncle Sam's Army. I've got friends in theater. Trust me, it ain't no national football game.
Re:It's very simple! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not to be a troll here but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ya, those Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan didn't deserve it. Bush was just bullying them. Neither did the Taliban, Bush was just being too arrogant there.
You'd think Bush would've learned by now...but nope. He wants to bomb an insane murderous dictator. The guy only tortures anyone he doesn't like, gasses his own people, and attacks neighboring countries the first chance he gets.
What'll he do next? Go after North Korea's Kim Jong Il? I mean, what has that guy ever done? Starving to death millions of his people, and brutually torture, imprison, and execute hundreds of thousands more. [msnbc.com] How dare Bush call that guy "evil". It ruins dialouge between our nations.
Its rantings like yours ruin integrity for any peace movements. Trying to paint Bush as a terrible person while completely ignoring these evil governments who torture and murder millions is simply ignorant and ridiculous.
Re:No. (Score:2, Insightful)
Only because you live someplace where somebody did all the dirty work for you.
Using the example of Iraq you brought up earlier, the mere act of pissing and moaning about the actions of the local government (which you seem fond of) would get you thrown into a special prison built just for people like you. They may eventually let you out if it becomes politically expedient, but not until after they've had a chance to use you to discover new and interesting ways of causing pain (a favorite hobby of Uday's, I hear).
But, no, here you're perfectly allowed to wish death on people you don't even know while attempting to put on airs of intellectual superiority. You have the constitutionally gauranteed right to make a total fool of yourself.
"Think about that one..."
If you don't want to do anything at all, most communist regimes have ways of convincing you to put away your selfish attitudes and get to work on the collectivized farms. A worker's paradise has no room for non-workers.
Re:Matrix Trailer (Score:3, Insightful)
The first movie had creative shots that looked cool, and they came up with a brilliant, cheap way to get them. Now they're doing fucked-up shit for the sole reason of making the effects so overblown and expensive that nobody can reproduce them. Crazy-flips with guns: good. Agent Smith buckling the front-end of a speeding car into the ground as if he weighed about 6 tons: bad. I liked the first movie because they kept the CGI unobtrusive. Now they've got Neo with this pole thing flipping around like a rubber doll tied to a power drill. I'm hoping that's just going to be an effect of the TV, or an unfinished shot they spit out for the ad, but I was hoping that with Spiderman too. (the rest was pretty good though, I'll admit, that and the flying thing were the only two that looked generated, and I don't know how you make flying look realistic anyway.)
I'm getting pissed off about CGI these days. I watch Jurassic Park and the CG effects are better than Spiderman. They're better than SW2, they're better than the fucking Hulk by about a century. How the hell did they get dinosaurs to work fabulously, but Titanic can manage to make a frikkin' flat piece of metal look computerized for about 4 times the budget? I'm thinking that a lot of the stuff recently is just about trying to computer-generate people, and that I'm a lot less forgiving about wierdness in familiar objects, but if that's the case then they shouldn't be doing it when it's unecessary.
Maybe, no, definately I'm a little too critical here, but I'm sure there's other people out there who are irritated when they can tell it's CGI. CG lets directors do basically anything, and it only looks a little off, but I'm still waiting for either myself to get used to it, the technology to get better, or the directors to get over the coolness and use it a little less liberally.
Alright, I'm done, feel free to point out the errors of my angst.
Re:Not to be a troll here but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not to be a troll here but... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, if your country is not bombed yet - it's a matter of time and it will be. Just stay in the line and wait for your turn patiently.
I wonder, will USA recycle already bombed countries to the far end of the evil axis or there is another rule how to treat them?
I am an American (Score:4, Insightful)
I do not enjoy football. I think your statement about patriotism is misplaced.
Patriotism is voting not only on big election days, but on primarys as well.
Patriotism is not littering.
Patriotism is volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.
Lots of things are patriotic, football is just a professional sport, like many other professional sports, It does not show Love of country; devotion to the welfare of one's country; the virtues and actions of a patriot; the passion which inspires one to serve one's country.
Re:Matrix Trailer (Score:2, Insightful)
Glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks this. Hollywood has gone too fucking far. Less is more, dumbasses. Jurassic Park got it right, so did Forrest Gump and of course Blade Runner and Aliens. CGI complemented their stories. Now I'm looking at The Hulk teaser and it's been too fucked up by computers to enjoy. Bill Bixby is already rolling in his grave. George Lucas is the ultimate lazy filmmaker. Noone cares if you use state-of-the-art visual effects to make those shots! In five years, CGI may be advanced enough to convince an audience without a doubt that a generated object looks real. Then everyone will be laughing at your retarded Yoda fight.
In a documentary on the making of Gangs of New York, Lucas said to Martin Scorcese on the set, "You know, you can generate all this with CG now." Thankfully Scorcese didn't agree with him.
The Matrix teaser was great; the one they released in Japan was fantastic. This commercial killed my expectations by 3/4. The scene with an Agent crushing a car on a highway, that looked stupid and unbelievable even if the storyboard called for it. I can live with it as long as it's only one of a few.
</rant>
My hopes are down but I'll still see it anyway.
Re:Who are the ad wizards... (Score:3, Insightful)