Gophers Week 4 Preview vs. Syracuse Orangemen



Otto is down!


The Gophers are 3-0 now after a somewhat convincing win over Western Michigan.  Hey, they covered as TREstradamous predicted.  There's still plenty of room on the bandwagon though as we head into week 4.  This is due to a number of questions surrounding our heroes.  I'll answer those questions by making some stuff and take a look at Syracuse through the eyes of a Syracuse football message board.

The Cuse are 1-2 after blowing a week one lead at home against Northwestern in the first week, getting semi-drubbed by USC in week 2 and coming back in the second half against Stony Brook for a win in week 3. Behind the arm of 6'2" senior quarterback Ryan Nassib, the Orangemen are #3 in the nation in passing at 379 yards per game.  Nassib has 9 TDs against 3 interceptions.  He's thrown for over 300 yards in each game and threw for a whopping 482 yards against Northwestern.  Too bad they blew that game at the end.


Nassib is down!


Besides Nassib, other key players on offense include senior WR Marcus Sales, who has caught 25 of Nassib's 97 completions.  Junior RB Jerome Smith has 44 carries and a 4.0 ypc average.  Junior Prince-Tyson Gulley is kind of the scat back companion to Smith.  He's just 5'9", 180lbs, but has a 5.0 ypc and has 14 receptions and 3 total TDs. Gulley, who also returns kicks is the runner up for coolest name on the team behind frosh WR Quinta Funderburke.  Apologies to Siriki Diabate and Shamarko Thomas.  The offensive line is pretty solid; a senior RT and the starting LG and C are all back.  Last year's all Big East LT is out though with issues in his surgically repaired left shoulder. Syracuse is another team that runs one of these high-paced, no huddle-ish type of offenses.  Everybody's doing it!

Syracuse has a defense in theory, but they have given up nearly 34 points a game in their first 3 and one of those teams was Stony Brook.  That's good for 97th in the FBS.  Sophomore starting CB Brandon Reddish is feeling bluish and might miss the game on Saturday with the dreaded "lower body injury".  That leaves Keon Lyn and Ri'Shard Anderson who will be backed up by a couple of freshmen.  The aforementioned Shamarko Thomas is the starting strong safety and a good tackler.  Dyshawn Davis started at WLB as a freshman and has 17 total tackles this year.  Junior Marquis Spruill starts in the middle and is the team's leading tackler with 21 total tackles.  For the most part they run a 4-3 defense.  The D-line has experience, but is not loaded with playmakers.


Bring out the gimp.

So, we all know last week's story by now, except perhaps for DWG since he left at the half.  Queis goes down and the Auburn Bomber Max Shortell comes in and lights up the scoreboard Tecmo Bowl style to put the Gophers on top of Western Michigan.  All signs point to Max playing the entire game on Saturday with whispers of Marqueis being available in a pinch.  Freshman Philip Nelson is Shortell's backup, but the last thing the Gophers want to do is us him for a part of this game and burn his redshirt.  There are apparently plans in place if Shorty has to come out for a few plays.  Everyone suspects it would be former high school QB KJ Maye, but what if it's the hulking Moses Alipate?  Man, that would be great.  Maybe give him a can of Spam and watch him eat it like Popeye to give him the go-go juice.  Wait, is Moses even Hawaiian?

The Gophers defense allowed just 162 passing yards per game through 3 games, which puts them 5th in the nation.  They are one of just three undefeated teams remaining in the Big Ten.  Certainly, they haven't played the opponents that others have, but they're getting wins and clearly improving. They are set to play their second late game of the year in front of a packed house (dare I say it?) at TCF.  Their last night game was a scary affair out in the desert and this one could be just as frightening.  With the distractions that are going on this week due to injury and hype, I'm predicting the Gophers lose this one 34-31.  I hope to the baby jesus I'm wrong and Shortell throws 112 touchdowns and I pee my cargo shorts with joy, but there it is.

Silly Comments from a Syracuse Football Board

As a throwback to my old blog I went out and found some of my favorite comments from the football board at Syracusefan.com

"With there starting QB out ( 2nd leading rusher) and there starting Center out.. I like our chances in this game. There back up QB I read is more of a pocket passer and our defence is going to be licking there chops to get at him.. I see the game being a 2pk and would take 'Cuse on that.. " -OrangeFreek 

TRE says: Homophone fail.

"I'm not sure I'd call it [Gopher game] a must-win in the sense that I suppose you could lose it but still win the big east or win a bunch of BE games and the Mizzou game, etc." -billsin01

TRE says: billsin01 aka Capt. Optimism.  Win the Big East?  I know it's like winning the Sun Belt these days, but c'mon.

"Have you actually watched Minny? They are awful ... we stuck with a better USC squad this season without USC making a ton of mistakes ... if you watched the USC/Minny games you would know that USC did everything humanly possible to cough those games up ... they couldn't run the ball on Minny..."  -wfschrec

TRE says: This one just goes on and on about how bad the Gophers were IN PRIOR YEARS.  At the same time he says how good he thinks Syracuse is going to be this year when they have been soft, warm poo IN PRIOR YEARS. 

"I kinda wish we were playing Gray. He's like a lobotomized BJ Daniels." - BlackNight76

TRE says:  Ok, now that's just funny.  Gray>Daniels though.

***BREAKING UPDATE***

Screw it, after reading these Cuse boards I can feel the fear in their hearts and I am now changing my prediction to a Gopher victory.  Can you change prediction mid-blog?  I say yes.   Gophers 34, Orangeballs 31

 

Other News and Notes:

- If you don't know and love Ra'Shede Hageman, you haven't watched a minute of Gopher football this year.  Well, now he's active on twitter, so get ready to delve into the mind of a man that can throw opposing linemen through walls:  https://twitter.com/BIG_shede

The Tao of Shede says "If you want something so bad,It's not worth it. Go play football or somin."  Epic.

- Jerry Kill on who gets to wear #51 in honor of Gary Tinsley each week, "I leave that up to Keanon [Cooper], I leave that up to the linebackers."  Pretty neat.

- The Killers have a new album.  Yes, they're still terrible.  Avoid at all costs.

- I watched Revolution on DVR yesterday.  This is the new post-apocalyptic show on NBC.  Basically an EMP blows out all power, so peeps are riding horses and fighting with swords and bows and stuff.  They fast forward 15 years to a struggle between the militia and some kind of normal community.  The fast forward move is always key so you can do all kinds of flashbacks.  JJ Abrams is the executive producer and although I managed to avoid Lost, I think it was flashback central.  Anyway, the first episode was kind of predictable and there are some pretty wooden characters.  My hopes aren't high, but I'll watch a couple more episodes just in case a story develops. (hint to self: It won't)

- Darko signed a deal for the vet minimum to play a bench role with the Celtics.  I'll miss his willingness to slog around on the inside and block some shots.  I won't miss his lack of commitment to getting himself in shape and his stupid fouls.  It's all PEK everything now.

- Josh Willingham's 35th homer is the most by  Twin since 1970.  Yowser.  And to answer your question, yes they are still playing baseball.  Stay tuned for our MLB Playoffs preview blog!

Week in Review - 7/5/2010

Way too tired from the weekend at the cabin to do a true introduction here, so I'm not going to. And the fishing sucked.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Cliff Lee. Cliffy just keeps driving his price up. He's about as white hot as a pitcher can get, throwing 17 innings this week and giving up just four runs while striking out 13 and walking just two. That included a complete game win over the Yankees, which made Lee's third straight complete game and the fourth in a stretch of five games.  His ERA is now down to 2.34, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio is 100-8.  Yes, 100-8.  Frankly, dude is redonkulous and he's peaking right now.  It might be expensive for the Twins to get him, but if they haven't given up on the season yet (and frankly, they might want to consider that) they need to pay whatever Seattle wants, because if Detroit or the White Sox get him, it's over.  Well, more over than it already is.  

2. Carl Crawford.  He ripped up the Twins pretty good, which followed him ripping up the Red Sox pretty good, in a season where he's ripping up pretty much everybody.  And I just love this guy.  He could stand to walk a little bit more, but how can you not love a guy who's going to hit .300 for you with 15 homers, 30 doubles, ten triples, and steal 60 bases at about an 85% clip?  In baseball history, a player has stole at least 50 bases, been caught 10 times or less, and hit 10 home runs in a single season just 19 times - Crawford has done it three times (Rickey also did it three times).  And guess what kids?  He's a free agent after this season.  If they are actually committed to making Cuddy Bear into a third baseman, I say go all the way and put him there full-time next year, sign Crawford, let Thome walk, and move Kubel to full-time DH.  Seriously, Crawford is so good.  Gimme gimme gimme I need I need. 

3. Justin Rose.  Pretty good bounce back for Rose this week at the AT&T National.  Last week, Rose looked like he was going to be the runaway winner at the Travelers after stringing together three good rounds, but a disastrous 75 on Sunday dropped him to ninth.  This week, rather than let that derail what has been a good year, he went out and did it again, racing out to a big lead by Sunday, but avoided the crash and shot a final round 70 in route to a one-shot win over Ryan Moore.  That means his last three tournaments have gone win-should have won-win, and he's absolutely peaking for the British Open in two weeks, a tournament where he generally plays pretty well.  And I was just able to snag him early this week at 33-1 to win.   

4.  Matt LaPorta. You remember LaPorta, right?  He was the big centerpiece in the deal the Brewers made to acquire C.C. Sabathia from the Indians (a deal that, despite the results, should be the blueprint for the Twins to acquire Cliff Lee).  Since then he's kind of puttered around, hitting .254 in 200 ABs last year and .236 so far this year, all while showing the power of Nick Punto - not exactly what was expected of him.  But since the Indians traded Russ Branyan last week and installed him as the full-time first basemen he's shown flashes.  He started the week with a home run in three straight games, bringing his season total to four, and then closed the week with a three-hit game against Oakland.  It might not be much, but he has raised his average from .211 when he was sent down in early June to .236 now, so maybe he's figuring it out.  Or maybe it's a small sample size fluke.

5.  Miguel Olivo.  If you've been paying any attention to Matt Wieters, and I know I have, you know he sucks beyond anything since Mark Salas.  The reason I bring that up, is that Wieters sucked so bad we had to bench him in fantasy, and to replace him in the lineup Snake picked up Olivo - and it's paid off brilliantly.  After thrashing the Padres and Giants this week to the tune of .409/.435/.727, which included a 9-16 stretch, he's now hitting .307 for the year with 11 home runs and 39 RBI.  Notice anything fun about those numbers?  Yep, they're all better than what Joe Mauer is doing.  Just a brilliant move by the Royals letting this dude go and instead tossing a shitload of money at crappy old Jason Kendall instead.  There's a reason Kansas City hasn't been relevant since the early 90s.  Also Miguel Olivo is better than Joe Mauer.  Fact.



WHO SUCKED

1. South America.  Brazil and Argentina were two of the favorites to win the World Cup, and may even have been the top two teams, depending on who you asked.  And with teams like England, France, and Italy already eliminated their paths to the final looked almost preordained.  Unfortunately for them, Germany and the Netherlands had other ideas.  First, the Dutch knocked of Brazil 2-1 thanks to an own goal and an ejection, and then the Germans completely destroyed Argentina 4-0, their third game with four goals in the tournament.  They are looking awfully good right now, and I'd expect the winner of Germany/Spain on Wednesday day ends up taking this thing.  No offense to Uruguay or the Netherlands, but I'd put my money on the Germans.   

2.  Timberwolves.  I'm sorry, but they are seriously confusing the crap out of me.  I don't really know what they were doing with the draft last year, I don't know what they were doing this year, and I don't have any idea what they're doing with their cap room.  Bringing over Pekovic is fine, and it sounds like he's supposed to look pretty good, but signing Darko to a 4-year, $20 million when nobody else was going to offer him four years or $5 per year?  This contract should have been either 4 years/$8 million or 2 years/$6 million.  Such a bizarre decision.  I heard somebody on the radio describe David Kahn as the scariest GM in ball, but not because of his plan or anything, but because he seems to be doing the kind of long-term damage that can ruin a franchise.  I believe it.  I seriously have no idea what he's thinking.

3.  Matt Guerrier. Not a great week for Mr. Guerrier, who allowed at least one run in three of his four appearances this week, including that complete meltdown on Saturday.  His overall numbers are still good (ERA of 2.82, WHIP of 1.12) and he continues to be effective despite mediocre stuff, so let's hope this isn't the start of his annual "tired arm meltdown."  Despite all the times perception doesn't match reality, occasionally they sync up;  Guerriers ERAs for April-September:  3.59, 1.97, 2.75, 3.15, 4.66, 4.27.  He's heading towards a possible third straight year leading the league in appearances, so I'd say the burnout is more likely than not.  Let's hope Neshek and/or Condrey are ready when his arm gets tuckered out so they can just be plugged in.

4.  Dontrelle Willis.  Well you got to figure that's about it for Willis, barring a complete reinvention, after he was designated for assignment by the D-Backs earlier this week - which makes two teams that have given up on him this year (the D-Backs got him from the Tigers for essentially nothing).  He walked 27 batters in 22 innings for Arizona, and has basically been a walk machine since he went crazy bananas back in 2008 when he walked an astonishing 35 batters in 24 innings, which followed a 2007 where he led the league in runs allowed (as in he allowed the most runs, not the fewest).  Hard to believe this is the same guy who burst on the scene and won rookie of the year in 2003 and then put up a gem of a season in 2005 and finished runner-up in the Cy Young voting.  He's only 28, but I'm not betting on a comeback because that's now three full seasons of complete disaster.  I am now resisting putting a "D-Train/Trainwreck) joke.  I'll save those for Jesse Crain.

5.  NBA Free Agency.  I know I already mentioned the Wolves, but overall this has been pretty boring, right?  Nowitzki back to Dallas.  Pierce back to the Celtics.  Gay back to the Grizz.  Joe Johnson gets his max deal (mistake), but it's to go back and be a Hawk again.  Lame.  The only remotely interesting deal so far is Steve Blake to the Lakers, which is a nice deal for everyone involved.  It sounds like Amar'e has either already agreed or is close to agreeing to a deal with the Knicks, and the Suns have clearly moved on, signing both Channing Frye and Hakim Warrick, so maybe this will get things moving.  I'm thinking Wade and Bosh to the Bulls, LeBron to the Knicks and then they swing a deal for a point guard (Tony Parker?).  I don't know what is going to happen to the Wolves, but I'm willing to bet they overpay for David Lee despite the fact that his numbers came on a bad D'Antoni team and as such are inflated two ways, and then, since they have Lee, Love, and Jefferson they'll trade Jefferson for fifty cents.  Great.  Awesome.  Sweet.



Also way too tired for an outro.  If you don't like it you can go to hell.  I have an 8am fart-tastic meeting tomorrow, what do you want from me?

Mega Piranhas? (Live movie blog)

Tonight is weird. Due to circumstances not worth getting into here I am currently without internet or TV of any kind, cable or otherwise. What I do have, however, is a working DVD player, a DVD of the smash hit "Mega Piranha", and some beers. Let's see what kind of magic we can make, shall we?

- Right away I'm going to tell you that I'm very concerned about this movie based on the cover. Since I don't have an internet connection (I'm typing this on Word and will paste it into blogger later) I can't paste it in here, so let me try to describe it......it's a giant f*cking piranha eating an aircraft carrier, with several other piranhas of the "mega" variety that appear to be flying through the air. So, to recap, it appears this movie might feature piranhas the size of a city block that can fly. Optimistic, I am not.

- What I'm hoping this movie might be about is Nick Punto, Lew Ford, Jason Tyner, Luis Castillo, and Jason Bartlett combining to form one, Voltron-like mega-piranha. Ozzie Guillen would have a heart attack.

- I will also tell you that I have had to restart this twice already to get it to work. That does not bode well. It seems to be working now, except for the fact that for some reason I’m seeing a meteor from outer space fall to earth and cause mass destruction. They already did this in Raging Sharks, a movie of which you can find a live blog of right on this very site.

- False alarm. I’m actually watching the preview for Meteor Apocolypse, which once again proves I’m an idiot. I also have no plans to watch Meteor Apocolypse. I also can’t spell Apocolypse. We’re off to a great start.

- Before we get started I want to mention something genius Dan Gladden said on tonight’s radio broadcast. Thome was up in a 3-2 game in the 8th, and apparently they had some kind of wicked shift on as usual and so he tried to bunt. Gladden said he had talked to Thome, who had said he would try that if the team ever needed a base runner. Gladden said, “We don’t need a base runner, we need a home run.”

Dan Gladden, the same guy who is always harping on and on about manufacturing runs and getting on base and blah blah blah, just completely contradicted himself. I don’t know why I would expect anything less.

- We’re starting this movie at the Orinoco River, which looks like a cross between paradise and hell – like Jamaica. I’m not some fancy scientist so I can’t tell you where the Orinoco River is, but based on the actors here speaking Mexican, I’m going to assume it’s in South America.

- Some little Chiquita banana chick just got eaten by what I can only assume are piranhas, but it was just like straight up normal piranhas, which rarely if ever attack humans, preferring to dine on smaller animals and fish and carrion when available. Now we cut to the credits, which seem to be trying to show some kind of mutant cells, only it looks more like somebody playing Asteroids.

- Jesus the music in this movie is intense already. I feel like we’re at the climax already and we’re only three minutes in. This is clearly not a John Williams production. And speaking of that, when is Jaws going to come out on Blu-ray? I got a Blu-ray player, and the thing is freakin’ sweet and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves looks like I’m actually in the middle ages firing and queer-ass Celts with my sweet longbow, but we can’t get one of the best movies of all-time, which is just begging for the HD treatment, on Blu-ray? Who’s in charge over there, Ron Gardenhire?

- So credits role, and now we’re back to the Orinoco River (which they had to tell us again) except now we’re on a boat with a bunch of fat creepy old men and Latina chicks with no bikini tops (note: far less exciting then the description makes it sound). Also, I might be wrong on this but I can’t look it up for sure, but aren’t piranhas basically localized to the Amazon and that’s it? I would question myself, but since this is a SyFy movie with “Mega” in the title I’m going to go ahead and trust myself.

- The piranhas just chewed through the boat and sunk it in order to dine on sweet, sweet human flesh and latina breasts. Still, again, regular piranhas. Followed again by intense music. Good god. And there is that guy from the Brady Bunch. I think he was the older brother. He’s some CIA guy who just sent some Bourne wannabe to the Orinoco River to “check out what happened” since one of the creepy old pervs was a US diplomat or some such. Still following? Me neither. And we’re 11 minutes in.

- Hey Tiffany is in this! Like, “I think we’re alone now” Tiffany, who is playing a genetic engineer in a brilliant bit of casting. First Debbie Gibson in Megashark vs. Giant Octopus (also blogged here somewhere) and now Tiffany? They both did Playboy too. I heard from someone. I wouldn’t know. Didn’t look up the pics online at all. Didn’t even know the internet had that kind of thing. It was invented so researchers at different institutions could share their findings, pervs. You guys corrupt everything.

- Little bit of explanation here. Seems these piranhas have been genetically engineered, but something has gone wrong and they are now doubling in size approximately every 36 hours. This would probably explain the DVD cover. This movie is dropping plot points on us at a very rapid pace. I can hardly keep up.

- I was talking to a friend of mine today, and somehow taking food into a movie theater came up. He told me he’s taken a burrito from Chipotle into a theater before, as well as Subway and Jimmy John’s. I get the sandwiches, that’s actually genius, but does it seem really weird to anybody else to take a gigantic burrito, the size of a mega piranha after 72 hours, into a movie theater? Am I the weird one here?

- Tiffany explains they genetically altered the food supply to something something something and now one of the piranha groups grew too aggressive and too big and have no either been escaped or been stolen. She’s also a terrible actress.

- Do you guys remember when The Todd used to comment here all the time? And he even posted once in a while and had some pretty good random thoughts from The Todd when he got drunk on random afternoons? What ever happened to that guy? When Klinger ran off to Europe did it break his heart? Does he now spend his time sitting by the window, watching the rain fall and matching it’s drops with the tears running down his face, playing I Think We’re Alone Now on his recorder he stole from seventh grade music class?

- The fake Jason Bourne guy, let’s call him Lew Ford, now has to sneak around because the government of whatever hell hole country this is won’t let him investigate. The guy said why but it was in foreign and I wasn’t paying attention enough to read the subtitles. Stupid fancy artsy film.

- I don’t remember if this Brady Bunch guy is the one who turned out to be gay or the one who was sleeping with Marsha. Can’t get much further apart than that.

- Lew Ford just got attacked by a piranha! Not sure if it was Punto or Tyner.

- Oh. My. God. Nick Punto just jumped out of the water to attack Lew Ford while he was standing on shore. Like flying through the air. Then he stabbed it and killed it. Then, to get back, he got back in the water to get to his boat. To recap, after seeing giant, blood-thirsty piranha in the water, including one that was so aggressive it came after him like Nick Punto sliding into first, he got back in the water to swim to his boat. I’ve watched a lot of bad movies, and usually they are enjoyable on some level, but this one is basically unwatchable.

- Tiffany examines the carcass, and reports that they have two hearts. I don’t have a comment here, just wanted to toss that in just in case you didn’t think this movie was ridiculous enough.

- That colonel guy’s plan to deal with the piranhas? Take a helicopter and alternately fire missiles and machine guns into the river. Who wrote this, a four year old?

- You want a prediction on what else they’ll ruin? I read earlier today that dirt scientists found the intact skeleton of a prehistoric whale-like creature that was sixty feet long with razor sharp teeth over a foot long. Pretty badass, right? Well there’s some clown right now churning out a script for “Mega-Whale” or “Super Killer Whale” where one of these ends up being unthawed from a glacier and still alive, and then probably grows legs and invades Manhattan. Like Jason, but less gay.

- Uh oh. The missiles only killed 35 specimens, not nearly enough. Who would have thought that indiscriminately firing weapons into a gigantic river wouldn’t have got everything?

- Somebody just got eaten by piranhas, but honestly I have no idea who or why he was in the water. Let’s just assume they flew (much like the classic, Piranha II: The Spawning, a DVD I just acquired for free, possibly coming to a blog near you).

- I haven’t commented on the special effects yet, but as you would imagine they are poor. The piranhas appear to be cardboard cut outs in most cases, similar to Matt Tolbert playing shortstop.

- I don’t know exactly why, but Brady Bunch guy just told Lew Ford, “We’ve got to keep those scientists safe!” but he said it with the same inflection and passion that Joe Mauer shows in his commercials. Seriously, if I had to pick one thing that was the best in this movie out of plot, effects, acting, or writing, I’d just shoot myself in the calf.

- Should we talk about the free agency thing in the NBA that’s going on right now? It’s pretty frickin’ fun, at least. I can’t remember holy crap Tiffany has a large chest a single offseason that was ever close to this in terms of interestinglyness. And of course, we get the Wolves, who bring over some Eurodork and then sign Darko for 4 years and 20 million.

I was hoping they would resign him, because he must have some talent in there somewhere to have been drafted second overall (before Wade, Bosh, and Carmelo – oof) and he did seem to blossom somewhat once Rambis gave him actual playing time, but I’m not sure about this contract. I think four years is fine, and I think 5 million per is fine, but I’m not sure about them altogether. I think maybe 2 years/10 mil or 4 years 12 million makes a lot more sense.

We’ll see. This could end up being brilliant.

- I can’t really adequately describe this, but a piranha just leapt threw the air and impaled itself upon a lighthouse trying to eat someone. A lighthouse. A big, giant, normal sized lighthouse. So yes, my fears from the DVD cover appear to be accurate.

- Ok, now, smaller piranhas, about the size of a 42 inch television, just started jumping out of the river to eat Lew Ford. However, he was lying on his back, and he was able to bicycle kick them away. I’m rewinding so I can count how many. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Twelve. Lionel Messi would be proud. And this movie is even taking place in Argentina (I think). Poetic justice. Assuming I’m right and Messi is from Argentina. There is a large chance I’m wrong.

- According to some dirtball looking scientist guy, these piranhas will be the size of a rhinoceros in 8 hours. Um, dude, I don’t know if you saw that one get spitted by a lighthouse, but they’re way bigger than that. Unless SyFy saw fit to introduce a plot point that didn’t fit with the rest of the movie or what, you know, we actually see on screen. That can’t be right.

- God damn word is now effing with my post trying to format it into bullets. If this looks weird it’s not my fault.

- Do you want to know what’s awesome? I am now in possession of a Matt Wieters autographed baseball thanks to awesome reader Kate. The rest of you slouches could take a lesson from her and start sending me some kick-ass stuff, instead of just assuming you’re entitled to free entertainment. Typical Americans. Plus, bacon-flavored sunflower seeds. Bacon. Flavored. Sun. Flower. Seeds.

- Lew Ford: “This just got real.” Indeed, my friend, indeed. It’s been real from the beginning. There’s a car chase right now. I’d tell you why but I have no idea. And Lew Ford keeps talking in some deep, fakey, super serious voice. I want to punch him.

- Uh oh. They just showed an aircraft carrier. I fear it is going to be eaten by Luis Castillo and friends.

- You know how creature movies on Sci Fi can’t ever let the conflict just be about the monster? And how they always have to create outside conflict? In this one, it’s the Argentinian (?) military against the scientists, and I haven’t really been able to figure out why, but now the military guys are actively hunting the scientists through the swamps of South American and are trying to kill them. It’s like the catholic church versus Galileo, but with stupid people.

- I just got distracted playing Family Feud on Facebook (thanks Nutter) since I found a rogue internet connection, but right now we have tidal waves the size of the one that killed that one state due to huge piranhas which have apparently made their way to the ocean. I can only assume this means they’ve acquired the ability to breath salt water. I’d love to rip the science in this movie, as per usual, but they haven’t even made an attempt to make any kind of sense at all. Of any kind.

- Seriously this is the worst thing ever. Now that I think about it, they never even bothered to explain their “genetic experiment.” So the whole crux of this movie, a genetic experiment gone wrong, was explained as “a genetic experiment gone wrong.” They gave us nothing. At least attempt to explain. Even Malibu Shark Attack, the worst movie ever for science (as seen on this very blog) made an attempt. Poor form, Mega Piranha, poor form.

- Tiffany: “They have three stomachs.” No explanation or theory as to why that would be any kind of advantage, no explanation as to why that would happen, no nothing. I’m not asking for much, really I’m not, but you could at least make an effort.

- Jesus this cat sitting on my leg just farted. That is rank.

- I don’t expect a lot of science from these, obviously, but one of the best parts of watching this crap is ripping on their stupid science. But they don’t even bother here. They give us no plot, no science, no good acting or writing – nothing. This might seem counterintuitive, but at least the older ones made an attempt at something. It might have been bad (it was), it might have sucked (it did), it might not have made sense (it didn’t’), but this movie gives me nothing. It’s just garbage. I hope this isn’t what we can expect from SyFy going forward. If you’re going to make stupid retarded movies like this, you have to give the weirdos who secretly like them (hi) something to grab on to. This had nothing. It just made me want to kill myself.

- They just shot a nuclear warhead at Matt Macri and friends. Apparently it just made them bigger because they just ate a submarine, a submarine that looked like a toy next to them. Because it was. Jesus, I can take Wonderbaby’s toys and make a better movie than this.

- New plan: Let’s make one of them bleed, and the others will turn on him. I’m not sure if it’s the beer or this movie sucking the brain out of me, but I seriously can’t come up with words.

- I’m fast-forwarding. This is the worst movie ever. This makes Sharks in Venice (which you can find on this weblog) look like Groundhog Day (best movie ever).

- The piranhas are now the size of airplanes. Also what’s awesome is every time one of them jumps into a hotel (don’t ask) it immediately bursts into flames. It’s like a Michael Bay movie.

- You know how we’re going to fix this? Navy Seals. Because nothing says doom for a giant school of 80-foot long aggressive fish with giant teeth like humans with pop guns. Not to be confused with Ice Cube and George Clinton’s bop gun.

- Fast forwarding. How long is this movie, like 800 minutes?

- I think I just saw a lightsaber. Not going to rewind. Makes the movie better.

- Here’s how they win: Lew Ford shot one with an underwater bop gun. It bled. They went into a feeding frenzy and, apparently, they all ate each other. Not making this up.

- Roll credits. Wow.

- I’d do a wrap-up here, but wow. Brutal. No words.