Trip in Review

Alright then.  The Trip of a Lifetime^TM is over and it was awesome.  The highlights/lowlights:

1.  Fenway is kind of a dump.  It sounds almost sacrilegious to say since there's so much history there (I mean the greatest player ever Ty Cobb played there for christ's sake) but at the same time it's also should be kind of obvious.  The place was built in 1912 and, despite some renovations to put in more seats and what not, there's really not that much you can change.  It was awesome to see (second time for me, first for the other two) and we did get to see Ian Kinsler put one over the monster, but maybe it was because I've been there before or maybe it was because the Sox never bothered to show up and were out of it from the first inning, but it was a little bit underwhelming.  Still, it's the kind of place every baseball fan should see, the atmosphere was cool both at the park and around it (we ate at The Cask & Flagon - big time Sox bar, try the calamari), and since it was the 700th consecutive sell-out at Fenway we all go souvenir baseballs.  Pretty cool (currently selling for around $6 on ebay).

2.  Harvard is full of liberal arts hippies.  I learned this from a friend of Snacks' who we met for lunch in Cambridge.  We made some crack about bars having equations on the walls, a joke we must have made 40 times, and he said, "Not at Harvard.  They can't do math at Harvard, everyone is in liberal arts, I don't even think they have an engineering school.  The actual smart kids all go to MIT."  I'm now looking at Harvard in a whole new, and much more worthless, light.  Single best piece of information we learned on the trip.

We also were able to find Shay's,

which is one of my favorite bars in the world.  I'm not sure why, it doesn't exactly look like much, but I have fond memories of the trip I took to Boston with the missus and we spent some time here after watching the Harvard/Cornell football game (a game where both teams played spread offense which blew my mind).  It also sticks in my mind because this is where I watched Torii Hunter dive for, and miss, a line drive that drove a dagger into my tiny black heart.  We left immediately afterwards.

3.  The HOF is truly in the middle of nowhere.  And I mean really, truly.  It's like driving around Aitkin, MN or random butthole county, WI only if it took you four hours to get there.  More than once we cracked jokes about how there was no way we were in the right place, and as time passed and it looked more and more country/redneck I think the joke's almost became a new version of whistling as you walk passed a graveyard, but luckily we made it.  And there's nothing there except baseball.  Every store and every restaurant is baseball-themed, so it was pretty cool, even if we didn't have time to linger.

We did, of course, spend several hours in the Hall and it really doesn't disappoint.  Don't get me wrong, most of the stuff you're looking at/reading about happened not only before Snacks and I were born but a lot happened even before our dad was born so you really have to be a pretty hardcore baseball history nerd to really dig it, but luckily I am and the old man is and Snacks is probably a 0.75 or so, so we all enjoyed it.  There's basically a little bit of everything from every team, every era, and every stadium so it's like an educational tour but with some kick-ass visual aids like Honus Wagner's baseball card that I wanted to steal.  I actually think every baseball fan would enjoy it, but if you know the difference between Lefty Grove and Lefty Gomez, the difference between Al Kaline and Ralph Kiner, and Josh Gibson and Bob Gibson, you owe it to yourself to go.  If nothing else, you'll get to admire Cooperstown's ultra modern gas pumps:

4.  The Yankee Stadium Experience was awesome. Yes, I hate the Yankees just like everyone should, but when they built the new stadium they did it right and that entire experience was awesome except that apparently in New York you can't get a beer before noon on Sunday.  +1 point for Minnestoa.  Anyway, the place just blows you away with its size, both inside and outside, but the concourse is actually really nice and modern.  Similar to Target Field and the other newer stadiums, or at least the ones I've been to, you can easily walk around taking in the sites of the stadium and still watch the game - a big issue at Fenway.  It was also pretty cool to watch how the dudes in the right field bleachers (the drunks who are poor) chant each Yankee players' name who is in the field until the player acknowledges them.  It's the kind of thing that sounds stupid and Yankee-ish but seeing it was actually pretty cool.

What was not pretty cool was Jon Rauch, and although I may be overreacting a little bit here I hope he falls in a giant vat of fire and snakes.  The one thing I said before this trip started was that if I could see one thing I'd like to see Mariano Rivera come into the game in the ninth with Enter Sandman playing.  I just think it'd be awesome.  So the game we're at the Yankees lead by 3 going into the top of the 8th.  Jose Bautista hits a home run so now it's just a 2-run game and Rivera is up in the pen.  Awesome.  Toronto brings in Rauch, who proceeds to give up a 2-run bomb to Swisher and Rivera was sitting back down before the ball even cleared the fence.  Thus depriving us of a truly awesome experience, and adding another tally to Rauch's ledger in my book of enemies. 

Note to Snacks:  Don't watch this.  I did, and I am now seriously considering driving to wherever Toronto is playing and stabbing Rauch with a spoon.


5.  New Yorkers are nicer than Bostonians.  I did not see this one coming but I guess I should have based on the class of douchebag you can see in Boston rather routinely, but specifically I'm talking people in the service industry here.  I talked about the Boston dinks in a prior post, but really they were all kind of jerks.  We knew things would be different when we stopped near Schenectady at a city whose name I don't remember on our way to Cooperstown for lunch and the bartender girl was like, super nice.  We chalked it up to being a kind of small town, but then it didn't matter where we went as long as we were on the New York side of the border people were nice and helpful.  Even in downtown NYC not far from Times Square we went to some English bar where we were forced to watch New Zealand demolish Canada in either rugby or Australian rules football.  At one point Snacks asked the waiter about a beer and she hadn't tried it, but rather than acting like an overaggressive douchebag like the guy in Boston she actually seemed apologetic and was all smiley and shit like that.  I really didn't see this coming, but it's not even close:  New Yorkers are nicer than Boston people.  FACT.  

6.  New York Pizza is overrated.  You know how if you go to Chicago and get Chicago style pizza even if you're not necessarily a fan of deep dish, which I'm not, you get it?  Like, you get why people go crazy for it and it's really quite good?  Yeah, New York style is kind of meh.  Maybe we didn't go to the best place but we knew we wanted NY-style pizza and then we saw Famous Original Ray's and being Seinfeld fans we had to head in and try it.  Meh.  Give me my thin crust cut in squares any day - midwest style rules.  [note:  I have recently been informed by an actual New Yorker that judging New York pizza based on Famous Original Ray's is similar to judging it by Sbarro.  Ouch.  Screwed that one up.]

Speaking of Seinfeld, we also saw the place that the Soup Nazi was based on.  We didn't go in, because we didn't want soup or to get yelled at, but Snacks got a picture.  Anyway, since we're both Seinfeld fans (and anyone who isn't probably enjoys watching Ghost Hunters) catching these couple landmarks made the trip just that much better.  We kept our eyes open but didn't see anything else - not even a Jerk Store.

7. My dad got hit on by an annoying old gay guy who wouldn't shut up.  So then we had to leave (not because my dad was offended by a gay guy but because this guy seriously would not leave him - and by extension all of us - alone) and ended up finding a great bar called Rumor.  So everyone wins.  Except the old gay dude.  And whoever he ended up picking up that night.  That guy is the real loser.

8.  Here are some other random pictures.  I included comments because you are dumb.

This is the Boston Beer Works.  This is where Snacks had that nancy beer.  Confession:  it was good.

This is a picture of the Green Monster and gives you an idea of where our seats were.  Apparently there was a home run hit almost here at some point but we weren't there because the Sox pitchers decided to walk everybody and we went to go check out the rest of stadium.  Verdict:  festive dump.

This is the inside of Fenway.  Yuck.

This is the second best shirt we saw on our trip (behind the "Jeter wears Wine Coolers" shirt.  I almost bought this until I realized that just because I laughed at a shirt didn't mean I'd ever wear it.  Also between this and the Wine Cooler shirt it's clear that Bostonions are better at shirt making.  The most clever shirt I saw in New York was one that said "Bahstan Sahks Cawkh."  Not exactly Joycian.

This is a picture of Joe Mauer and I'm not exactly sure why it's in here other than that this freakin' sally is in the hall way too much.  Like this:

And this:

Plus he's in their welcome video twice.  Ridiculous, especially now.  He's like the next Peyton Manning or Nicole Eggert - it's over.  Also pictured in that last one:  Jeff Reardon.  The biggest dickhead I've ever met.  Nice job robbing a bank, ass.  Even  fuckin' Keanu could pulled that off.

I really, really could have done without this.  Still, seemed fitting.

This is Yankee Stadium as you walk up.  It is super, super big.  Almost too big and super impressive.  Funny thing is that is exactly what your girlfriend said to me the first time I dropped by pants in front of her.

Y

Yankee from the inside.  I got nothing else to add.  This thing is a monster in a wonderful way.  Like Avril Lavigne.

Mariano warming up.  Little did we know this was as close as we'd get.

Thanks to this fucking guy.

Finally, this might be my favorite picture of the entire trip, taken in the wilderness of upstate New York somewheres.  And if you don't know why, I both pity and hate you.  Mostly hate.  But also pity.

In conclusion this was the awesomest trip ever and I'm super glad we did it. If you haven't it's clear that I'm much better than you, so, I guess, in your face.

Six Very Important Things this Morning 7.28.10

1.  The Twins blitzed the Royals again.  Once again your beloved hometown 9 started the game strong, scoring two in the first (which could have been more but Denard Span has a serious aversion to staying on base), then coasted there way to an 11-2 win behind another offensive explosion from Danny Valencia.  Another four hit game for the not-a-slap-hitter gives him back-to-back four hit outings and makes four straight games with at least 3 hits.  Mauer, Hardy, Young, Cuddy, Span, and Butera each had at least two hits as well.  This team is absolutely rocking the ball.  Butera is nearly hitting .200 for christ's sake, what the hell is going on?  Maybe most impressively, Pavano was clearly not on last night the way he has been lately, but he was able to pitch around trouble for his five innnings, allowing only one run, and the bullpen took it from there.  They're really clicking right now, and if the non Pavariano starters can keep it together they could end up taking this thing.   hahahahahahahahahahahamakeatrade.

2.  Sticking with the Twins, apprently they're exploring Matt Capps.  According to Tim K. at ESPN they aren't happy with Rauch and have looked into acquiring Capps, and learned that the Nats would want Wilson Ramos back.  This is lunacy on so many levels.  Capps is nearly identical to Rauch.  Although he might be slighly better he's in no way Wilson Ramos better.  Maybe a Matt Tolbert better.  If this happens I quit being a fan.  Let's hope the Twins leave the exploring of Matt Capps to either Mrs. Capps or various ladies of ill repute, ok?  Speaking of which, ask me about Brendan Donnelly some time.

3.  Just when you thought the Wolves offseason couldn't get any more bizarre.  Newest news is that Jonny Flynn will be out 3-4 months due to hip surgery, which means the Wolves have now gone from three viable point guards to 1 + Bassy Telfair.  If you're scoring at home, Kahn has now essentially cleared house, getting rid of nearly everybody from the previous regime and now getting started on moving out his own guys, as Sessions and Hollins were both Kahn signings last offseason.  It's a bold move, and is it just me or does Kahn have a little Steinbrenner in him?  Who else would sign someone to a four year, $16 million dollar contract just to trade him the next year for a player who was immediately cut?  He basically kicked him out of bed in the middle of the night and didn't even supply cab money.  Ain't right.

4.  The baseball world holds its collective breath.   Super phenom (and fantasy team savior) Stephen Strasburg was scratched from his start against the Braves last night after he was "unable to get loose" in the bullpen.  That was the official explanation.  They said there was no pain or anything, he was just unable to get loose.  I usually find a couple of kamikazes does the trick.  Seriously though, this could potentially kill baseball. 

5.  NFL Writers in Cincinnati are going to be busy.  The Bengals, in keeping with their tradition of being a complete mess, have signed Terrell Owens.  If you were in the same room as me right now you would see me showing how much I care about this by making fart noises with my mouth.

6.  Best Second-Baseman Ever?  Rickie Weeks went deep again last night, which makes three consecutive nights and gives him six home runs in his last ten games.  For the year he's now up to 22 home runs, and is basically having the same season as Joe Mauer - if Mauer had 22 home runs, 7 steals, and played a god awful second-base.  But who cares about fielding when you're destroying the ball?  He might not have the average you'd always want and he strikes out quite a bit, but he also can take a walk and when he makes contact he hits the ball a ton.  So exactly like the exact opposite of every Twins' middle infielder ever, and Gardy's worst nightmare.


I'm hoping tomorrow's post is going to be a gopher hoops recruiting rundown, something I've been really neglecting since I am spending basically all my energy on the Twins for some reason.  Well, that and preparing the house for the new kid, who is really just going to be a time sink and money drain.  Joy!

Let's Talk Closers

I wasn't planning on writing anything since I'm still so damn tired from that damn Chicago trip, but I happened to be in the car and flipped on the radio and listened to a little Twins Spring Training game.  Even though we're in the heart of the NCAA Tournament, and the two rounds where the best basketball is usually played, it still made my heart skip a beat for summer and some hardball.  Of course, I also had to hear Gordy and Gladden talk about how Jesse Crain would be a great closer if he could just throw strike one, and I don't exactly miss that, but you take the good with the bad.

And even though I know the Twins aren't going to make a move, and even though I know they are going try to go with a closer-by-committee, and even though I know it's not going to work and they're going to wait too long to try and fix it, I'm going to look at the outside possibilities anyway.  Mainly to educate myself on how many options are out there that are going to be ignored.

So here are 10 possible closers we might find wearing a Twins' jersey and working as a closer at some point this year, in the order I found information on them:

1.  John Smoltz.  I bring him up because a reader mentioned him in the comments, but the only thing I find attractive about him is that he's a free agent and wouldn't cost anything outside of the contract to acquire.  At 43 with rapidly dropping velocity and a rapidly rising flyball rate, it's tough to figure out what would be attractive here.  He just took a job with TBS, but his contract has provisions in it where he can leave to play ball if he gets a contract offer.  How badly would that move reek of desperation?  And how much does it sound like something that is going to happen around July?

2.  Kerry Wood.  In the last year of his contract (unless he finishes 55 games this year), Wood is a natural to come up in every closer-related trade rumor.  Of course, Wood is hurt again, this time with a strained back muscle, and with $10.5 million coming his way this year there's no way the Twins would make a move for him now, and nor should they.  If he comes back strong and nobody has stepped up by mid-summer, I can see this one happening, division foe or not.

3.  Mike MacDougal.  I'm not sure about this one, especially because he just got released by the freaking Marlins, but MacDougal did have 20 saves last season for the Nationals and has notched 20+ in two other seasons in his career.  He throws hard and gets a lot of groundballs, so he's an intriguing possibility, but he walks as many as he strikes out these days.  I'd be much more interested in him if he had become available prior to Spring Training, but if he's willing to sign for cheap I'd endorse this move.

4.  Heath Bell.  I've mentioned him here before, and he's probably the best possible option, but the Padres are apparently asking for Glen Perkins and two "good" prospects.  I've said it before, if by "good" they mean guys like Ben Revere, they can screw off, but if they mean guys more like Trevor Plouffe, I'd consider myself intrigued.  This team is in position to win this year, and a move like this takes that up another notch, not to mention showing a nice shift in team philosophy.  

5.  Derrick Turnbow.  Remember this guy?  He notched 39 saves for the Brewers in 2005 with a sub-2.00 ERA and looked poised to be a star, but fell off a cliff since then.  In the next three seasons he's posted a total ERA north of six and has started walking nearly as many batters as he strikes out, and hasn't pitched in the majors since 2008.  He was just released by the Marlins, who apparently stockpiled crappy relievers this Spring, and it actually sounds like he's retiring due to a shoulder injury, but I'm including him here mostly because I already typed all that stuff above before I read the part about the injury.

6.  Jason Frasor.  The other hot name behind Bell, and I'm not entirely certain why he's such a hot commodity.  He saved just 11 out of 14 opportunities, and last year was the first time he posted an ERA under 4 in the last four seasons and the first time he ever put up a WHIP under 1.2.  He's cheaper than Bell, would cost less in prospects, so I see the interest, but I'm not sure he's necessarily any better than Rauch, Neshek, or any of the other clowns the Twins have.  That said, if they can get him in a straight swap for Glen Perkins I would enthusiastically endorse it.

7.  Matt Capps.  I know the Twins had their shot to sign him this off-season if they really wanted him, and they wisely laid off, but time's have changed with Nathan's elbow issues.  I can't imagine the Nationals really need a $4.5 million closer this year when they're going to struggle to win 65-games, and with just a one-year deal it's hard to imagine them not looking to deal him around mid-season.  I fear he's really more of a middle reliever type who's been forced into a closer role, and he regressed big-time last year, so I can't imagine the Twins making this move unless he either provs himself to be back to being good or they get really desperate. 

8.  Francisco Cordero.  He's a pretty big long shot, considering he will make $12 million each of the next two years, but I'm starting to have to stretch to get to 10 and what do the Reds need with a $12 million closer?  Actually they have a pretty good young roster, but if it seems they aren't quite ready I can see the Reds moving guys like Cordero, Aaron Harang, and Bronson Arroyo - they could always try to convert Jose Arredondo into a closer.  I doubt the Twins get involved here, but it's always possible, particularly if anything further goes wrong with Nathan.

9.  Octavio Dotel.   He seems to be about 100 years old, but he keeps plugging along, putting up decent numbers.  He's now on the Pirates, making $3.5 million this year, and they have a club option for next year for $4.5 (although the option becomes team/player mutual if he's traded).  The Pirates have started to show that their front office gets it, and there's really no need for them to bother keeping him - not to mention having that trade clause in there shows they've had that in mind since they signed him.  Actually, other than Bell, Frasor, or (god help me) Smotlz, he's probably the most likely to end up a Twin.

10.  Eddie Guardado.  He's almost certainly going to retire, and there is really no point in bothering to bring him in since him getting people out is basically little more than a rumor at this point, but tell me this, as a Twins' fan, that this doesn't sound like something they'd do.

Of course, I could be wrong about all this too.  ESPN's Eric Karabell believes Jon Rauch could be the next closing star - or at least the next David Aardsma, and really if you look at the ten guys I listed above it's mostly garbage.

I don't know.  I'd still feel a lot better if they got Bell, or are at least prepared to pull the trigger on Wood if he shows he's recovered.  All I really know is that this sucks, because the Twins did basically everything I wanted them to do, and now we have to worry about this.  Arg.  At the very least, tell me they're going to pick somebody, hopefully Rauch, and just go with him.  I have less than zero interest in dealing with watching some kind of closer-by-committee garbage all year.  I prefer to focus my rage on one player at a time.


Sweet 16 predictions coming Wednesday night, so if you are still waiting on my picks to make your wagers, just sit tight.

Mali-BOOOO! (Live Movie Blog)

Clearly I haven't learned my lesson yet, because I am once again back with another live movie blog. Tonight I will be taking on Malibu Shark Attack, a Sci Fi SyFy original movie that aired for the first time about a month or so ago, but which I am just not getting around to watching. Even though it's the movie out of that marathon I am most looking forward to, I'm also very nervous that it will suck. Spring Break Shark Attack was wildly successful at creating a good shark movie, and I loved it, and this one seems, at least I hope, to have that kind of potential. All I want is a realistic, well-done shark movie. I don't even need great acting, and don't need great effects. Just be realistic, and don't be stupid. Please. Think of the children.

- Ok, before the opening credits even roll, we see a shark eat a grouper, and then that shark gets eaten by a much bigger shark. This leads me to believe we are going to be dealing with some some of freakishly large shark, so you can probably thrown out my hope of a realistic movie right away. Nothing like crushing my dreams in the first ten seconds.

- Our main characters look to all be life guards so far. Remember Baywatch? Nicole Eggert was the hottest one.

- Shit. I just read the DirectTV summary for this: An Earthquake unleashes huge, prehistoric sharks that terrorizes the California coast. Great.

- We just saw a pack of these prehistoric sharks, and they look like goblin sharks. Now while that might be the coolest name for an animal ever, it's a curious choice for an antagonist animal in a movie. Yes, they look scary, but their max length is only about 10 feet and they are skinny for their size (max weight = 350 lbs., like your mom) and as such have very little power. They also don't attack humans, and usually eat small fish and squid (note: not the giant kind). They also aren't prehistoric, they actually live now. I now this because I spent an hour a while back watching a documentary called, "Quest for the Goblin Shark" on The Science Channel. And they found one. And they accidentally get caught in nets all the time. Not prehistoric. Photo evidence:

Scary looking? Yes. A danger to humans? No. Prehistoric? No.

- Oh, and also they don't travel in schools. Mother F. We're five minutes in and already set a record for scientific inaccuracies.

- I just found out I'm going to be able to go to the opening game at TCF Bank Stadium. I'm not exactly the world's biggest college football fan, but I'm pretty stoked.

- One of the female lifeguards looks like Maggie Gyllenhaal if she died her hair blonde and then injected an assload of testosterone into her body while smoking a carton of cigarettes.

- Holy god the acting in this is maybe the worst we've had yet. At least a cute blonde girl finally showed up. And we've already had three shark-related fatalities. Plus, it's on a beach so there's lots of bikinis running about. But still, the acting. Oof.

- Some dude who looks like Michael Madsen just proposed to some old lady life guard. This guarantees the old lady lifeguard is going to be the heroine. You watch.

- Some teenages are now drinking beer and going parasailing, which, if they had watched some other shark movie I can't remember right now, they would know that parasailing is a good way to get chomped by a shark. Which, by the way, are now definitely confirmed as goblin sharks after a few close ups. This is so weird. There are plenty of really scary and awesome sharks out there, but they go with a small, harmless shark and magically give it not only the aggression, but the tools to kill people.

I get why you might not want to do Great Whites, which have been done to death, but why not switch to the Tiger? That thing is totally wicked awesome, but Spring Break Shark Attack is the only movie to feature it. The Bull Shark attacks more people than any other shark, but as far as I know, the only movie made featuring a bull is something called Red Water, starring Kristy Swanson and Mr. Belding (and which I can't find on tv, ever). The point is you don't have to give a species attributes it doesn't possess just because it has a cool name - there are tons of cool sharks still waiting for movies to be made about them.

- During all that those kids what were parasailing got eaten. And now there was another earthquake and there is a tsunami alert. That's another thing that's been bugging me; why do all these shark/croc/squid movies feel the need to toss in a natural disaster, too? When Luke and Han got all effed up in Empire Strikes Back, they didn't feel the need to have a cyclone come whipping into Cloud City.

- Cute blonde girl is now in a bikini top, and she's running down the beach with a young male lifeguard who I am going to call Tackleberry. She is very bouncy and very natural. He runs like a fag. Seriously. You know that kid in elementary school who didn't have the coordination enough to even run and kind of looked special at Track & Field Day running the 50 meters? Like that, but with more gay.

- Preceeding the Tsunami, a Goblin Shark washes up on the beach in front our lifeguards. Somehow old lady lifeguard is smart enough to identify it as a Goblin Shark, but also goes with the, "they are supposed to be extinct" followed in the next sentence by "they are really rare." Which is it, lady? Extinct, or rare? Because you can't have both. And, as discussed earlier, they aren't supposed to be extinct. Not even a little bit. Stop lying.

- I just looked up that blonde girl, and her name is Chelan Simmons. She's done a lot of work, but nothing that really stands out with the exception of Stephen King's It, in which she played the little girl who gets killed first when Pennywise returns. I suppose I should supply a picture (not of when she was a little girl, pervo).



- The tsunami has hit the life guard tower with our heroes still in it. Luckily, it hit with the force of someone taking a bucket of water and tossing it at the tower. Unluckily, it seems the entire beach is now underwater, and they are trapped in the tower (which is half-submerged). I'm guessing this is where the sharks come in.

- There's also a house near the beach where a bunch of construction workers are trapped now too. There was some whole sub-plot going on with them but I wasn't really paying attention so I don't know what it was. Seems better for all of us that way.

- That hot blonde chick got her leg whacked and is now bleeding . the blood which is seeping into the water and attracting the thought-to-be-extinct goblin sharks. The goblin sharks OF DOOM.

- It seems she needs stitches, but since they're trapped the only possibility is to have the manly Maggie Gyllenhaal stitch her up with needle and thread. Ouch. This girl is quite the screamer. Tackleberry is either grossed out or turned on - he's not exactly the king of emoting through facial expressions.

- Wow. Way to drag out a scene of a chick getting stitches for 20 minutes in a god damn shark movie. And this chick is way less hot now. What a whiner. Talk about high maintenance. She's the J-Lo of shark movie chicks.

- Speaking of high maintenance, I miss Super Sioux Fan.

- I still can't get over pack-hunting, aggressive, human-killing goblin sharks. Which by the way are continually circling this life guard stand because a couple of drops of blood fell in the water a half hour ago.

- Oh for christ's sake. The old lady life guard, the one who identified these sharks as "extinct" goblin sharks, just told one of the other life guards that they are "the same species as the Great White." First of all, goblin sharks aren't related to great whites in the slightest, except they both have the word "shark" in their name and both live in the ocean. Second, if goblin sharks were the same species as Great Whites, they'd just be Great Whites. Great white is it's own species, as is goblin shark. As is cat. And dog. That sentence is like saying, "Hey, that cow is the same species as that spider." I'm going to kill this movie.

- And now they use echo-location to find their prey. Like bats. Which, I think this goes without saying, is completely untrue in every way. If you're going to completely make stuff up, I'd go with a shark whose fins were actually chainsaws.

- Sentence just uttered, "this is a species of shark that hasn't been seen in millions of years." Even Mrs. W laughed at that one, and said, "Didn't we just watch a documentary on this kind of shark?" Yes. Yes we did. We were lucky we caught that one. It's not often you get to see footage of a creature that hasn't been seen in millions of years.

- Remember the part where I mentioned that the old lady lifeguard just got engaged so she would end up living until the end? Well the sharks must have echo-located her standing in the guard tower, because they rammed it from the bottom and then ate the crap out of her. So yeah, I was way off. They were probably pissed from all the disinformation and false rumors she was spreading about them.

- I would try to describe how dumb this scene just was, but I seriously don't have the words.

- Hm. It seems the construction people in that house are unaware of our little shark problem, because some chick just decided to go swim to the mainland to try to find a boat. Well, let's just say the construction workers are fully aware of the sharks now.

- Oh, and I guess they can jump now because they just got another construction guy who was standing on the dock. Mrs. W is currently cackling out loud at the effects in this movie. I haven't touched on them yet, but they are wretched. I think Jaws for Nintendo had better animation than this - better plot, too.

- I think I'll probably write more on the Twins' moves at some point, but real quick: We should be very fired up by the Jon Rauch acquisition. The guy is a top flight set up man, and has experience as a closer. He immediately displace Guerrier as the 8th inning righty. Mahay is kind of meh, but at the same time he upgrades the Twins bullpen just by his experience and the fact that almost all the bullpen guys suck. He's 38 and has fallen off a bit this year, but has been a pretty good reliever throughout his career. He should take half the Jesse Crain role, with Guerrier slipping down to take the other half, while Crain takes over mop up duty.

For the starters, obviously I would love it if they can swing a way to get Harden. Even if he only pitches 6 times, that will probably be the Twins six best chances to win the rest of the year. If Harden doesn't work out, I've heard Penny has a decent chance of ending up here (although how sweet would it be to get both). He hasn't been as good as he used to, and he's no Harden, but once again, he'd probably be the team's best pitcher, so I'm all for it.  Although after watching Duensing, maybe we just try to pitch him every other day?

- Some studly lifeguard guy is going to make a swim for it from the tower. Apparently he's not scared of this echo-location garbage. The douchenozzles in the tower are going to distract the sharks by yelling. You know, because sound travels through water so well. And there's the, you know, echo-location problem to deal with. And for some reasons the sharks keep trying to get through the hole they already broke in the bottom of the thing to eat the lady who was full of lies.

- I guess stud daddy McGee was just trying to get the flare gun which was at the bottom of the ocean - which he did. But then he shot a shark with it - the only flare which he just risked his life to go after. So basically after all that we're at teh same point we were before, except now there's no flares even at the bottom of the ocean, and that hot chick still hasn't taken her top off. I know it's SyFy, but a boy can dream.

- Ugh, that "same species" comment is really getting to me. What she really should have said was that goblin sharks are of the same order as great whites and also are not at all extinct. See, because goblin sharks and great whites both belong to the order of lamniformes, one of the two main orders of sharks (carcharhiniformes being the other main order, including bulls and tigers), however order is three levels removed from species (order, family, genus, species) so really, they aren't that closely related at all. For reference, poodles and polar bears are of the same order - and thus are just as related as goblin sharks and great whites. As are hippos and giraffes. This movie didn't even try.

- Two of the construction workers got a fishing boat and are coming to get the life guards, even though they never were actually able to fire the flare. As they are driving across the water, they are throwing dynamite into the water to keep the sharks away. Trust me, that sentence sounds awesome, but somehow this movie has managed to destroy the long held equation: sharks + explosions = pimp.

- Recently started watching Mad Men. Pretty good so far. Makes me long for the good old days when you could treat a woman like a piece of meat and get drunk at work. But have you noticed that Dom Draper's house looks exactly like the Nightmare on Elm Street house? Super creepy.

- Did you know there is such a thing as a crocodile shark? Now that is a sweet name. Of course, it's the smallest member of the order lamniformes (the same as the Great White - duhn duhn duhn) at only 3 feet long. But it did wreak some serious havoc by biting a bunch of undersea fiberoptic cables laid by AT&T and causing a ton of damage - which I think was actually the plot of Shark Attack 3 and the worst book ever written, Meg by Steve Alten. THE MAIN CHARACTER ENDS UP WALKING AROUND INSIDE A MEGALODON OMG WTF!!!! Don't ever read that.

- A perch and a barracuda are of the same order. Think about that the next time you laugh at a perch. They're practically the same species.

- The world's smallest fishing boat apparently can fit seven people, and the constructioners pick up our life guard friends. The sharks neglect to ram this smallest of boats despite having rammed several boats earlier that were even bigger. But, bummer of all bummers, they run out of gas. They ran out of gas. They have no more fuel. Sometimes I wish I was just making these movies up in my head, and nobody had actually green lighted scripts like this.

-Ugh.  Somehow, despite having no fuel, they magically drifted to the construction house.  Well, not quite to the construction house, they stopped about 25 feet from it for no explainable reason, and are now sitting there and "have to swim for it."  The sharks show up, and old man who got engaged to super-uninformed and now digesting in a shark's belly life guard lady jumps in and swims away from the house to distract the sharks.  Some would say that was noble.  Others, like me, would say he just wants his time on this movie to finally end.

- Now they are in the basement of the construction house, which is half flooded of course, and also of course, somehow a shark got in and is now stalking Tackleberry and hot blondie.  Luckily, Tackleberry saves blondie and severely injures the shark with a chainsaw.  Yep, you read that right.

- Main construction guy somehow blew it up by doing something with some pipes.  I seriously have no idea.  That made less sense than Christina Aguilera marrying that little troll guy she married.

- Ewww.  That manly Maggie G. is now making out with studly McLifeguard.  Gross.  And they appear to be in a truck which is half underwater.  I don't remember how they got there.  That scene must have been hell for that actor guy.

- For some reason Lifeguard guy just got out of the truck and into the water, and of course a shark came after him which he of course then killed using a chainsaw.  Again.  This is so weird.

- They just killed the last shark, this time by trapping and then stabbing it to death with various construction tools.  Then they are finally picked up by helicopter and this garbage is over, but not before we find out that Studly Lifeguard and main construction guy are both in love with manly Maggie.  She says, "How do you boys feel about sharing your toys?"  I'm totally not kidding.  She just proposed a threesome.

Overall, this was awful.  Bad story, faulty science to a degree last seen in a second-grader's story, and put the cherry on top, there were like, no main characters killed.  The end total was five still living, which is an embarrasment itself, and that was out of like seven characters we were actually introduced to.  I had such high hopes, but this might have been the worst one yet.  I'm still not sure why I keep doing this to myself.