Movie: Exporting Raymond

The show Everybody Loves Raymond was a big hit during its run from 1996 to 2005 and it still have really great reception in its life as reruns. The show was so popular and with such universal appeal that geniuses above decided to adapt the concept for a Russian audience with Everybody Loves Kostya. The only issue is Russian have a very different view on humor; essentially they seem to have no sense of it.

What ensues in the documentary Exporting Raymond is the comedic telling of the show's creator, Phil Rosenthal, trying to bridge this cultural divide.

Movie: The Hangover 2

They're back! This time Stu, the dentist, is getting hitched. No, it's not to the stripper from Vegas, but at least it's not the really mean one who cheated on him with the cruise ship bar tender. No he's marrying that really pretty Asian women you see there. The whole group heads out to Bangkok for the wedding, so not only do they get screwed up, but they get super screwed up in a foreign, third world country.

It's the same plot framework pretty much. The lose Stu's future brother-in-law and have to unwind the bizarre sequence of events from the night before that lead them to what they've woken up to. The little Asian dude is back as you can see, but so is Mike Tyson too. Also this one has Paul Giamatti appearing in some undisclosed role.

Beautiful Bulldog Winner!

We have a winner! This beauty is Lucy Brown of Nancy Brown from Johnston, Iowa, and the winner of 32 annual Drake Relays Beautiful Bulldog Contest. I also think she may be the first female Beautiful Bulldog too, but don't quote me on that. In honor of her crowning, Queen Lucy will parade through the week's events as the official mascot of the 102 Drake Relays.

However, have no worries, because our beloved mascot, Porterhouse, will still remain our full time official Drake mascot for the University.

The Great Egg Drops

While Santa Claus is stuck toting around in his old fashion sleigh powered by reindeer and children's dreams, the Easter Bunny is fully embracing the 21st century. These days this rabbit is hopping around in big ol' helicopter.

Yes, apparently this is new thing for evangelical mega-churches. The rent a helicopter, fly up in the air, and scatter like 20,000 Easter eggs across a soccer field or some open green space. As a result, the events end up getting a HUGE turnout of kids. Some events have reported being overwhelmed with upwards of 20,000 screaming children all hyped-up on an Easter sugar high and psyched up for even more eggs.

Let's ignore the fact that the several thousands of dollars spent on these events could have been put to feeding and clothing some desparate souls or assisting in curing AIDS or any of the other things you would expect a moral, religious institution to do. It's all for the kids, right?

Season of Chicken Fights

'Tis the season of chicken fights. 'Tis the season that two parties plow towards some mutually destructive doom all the while entirely relying on the other party to be first to give up first succumbing to the first's demands. Why 'tis this the season? No real reason. It's not even an annual occurence really. And yet we, the general public, find ourselves the betting chips of major, battling institutions.

Two instances come most to mind for this season. The first between the NFL and NFL Players Association stand to risk our millions of fans' primary source of entertainment through cold, midwestern falls and winters and ruin Steve-from-Accounting's chance to implete his new, fail-safe strategy for Fantasy Football. The second and significantly more important in theory - allbeit not in practice according to some - is the debate between the Congressional parties to raise the debt ceiling.

The debate is between a radical, unyeilding ideology and a practical application of principles. The Republican party, lead most loudly by the newly popularized Tea Party subsect, has chosen to adhere to one of the most literal and hardlined of its ideologies of slashing spending without raising taxes and does so, to some degree, at the detriment of its core contingencies.

The Grand Old Party has historically been the party of the grand and the old. Now I'm sure the growing uber-rich are much appreciative of Republicans preventing tax rates from returning to levels of the Clinton administration (levels under which our country had a budget surplus), but playing around with the idea of not raising the debt ceiling is serious.
By July of this year country's deficit will exceed the current debt limit. If Congress passes legislation that places the ceiling at a higher amount, we will be fine. If this simple technicality is not carried out, American will official default on its debt, ruining our solvent credit rating, toppling us from our perch of number 1. It would DESTROY our economy, and Wall Street will be pissed. 'The tax breaks were fine, but cut the shit. You're screwing with our livlihood,' some would presumably be thinking.

The main contention of Tea Partiest is that to raise the debt ceiling would be to accept outlandish government spending and everything they fight against. Instead Rep Paul Ryan (WI,R) has proposed a plan that would strip Medicare from the system. What Ryan has forgotten is screwing with Medicare is exactly what Republicans accused Democrats of doing with ObamaCare in order to frighten senior citizens into voting for people like him. In fact as many economist have pointed out that, while the taxpayer would less under Ryan's plan, the average American would actually pay more for health care as private insurance is often priced higher.

Obviously there is a problem with the Medicare system. It was been a dramatically growing portion of our budget over the past couple decades, but we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The is a difference is committing to one's principles in adaptation to the world's challenges and adhering to a hardline ideology in an all-or-nothing game.

Royal Wedding Pizza

Want to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton but have absolutely no way of getting to England let alone by passing the security there? Do you also have that all too American craving for something tasty yet delivered quickly. No worries, because with Pappa John's new Royal Wedding Pizza you can satisfy all those needs.

Another Hit to the Economy

The market took a real hit today due in large part to the decision of Standard Poor's to lower its rating on the US's long-term debt credit rating. As a result everyone flipped out into a huge tissy panic and the dow just plummeted.

And the whole reason S&P gave for the change has to do with all the stupid political bickering and BS all those people keep on the hill keep carrying on with and how it just seems to be happening at the expense of the economy. Nikola Swaan, an analysit with S&P credit, was quoted, "The outlook reflects our view of the increased risk that the political negotiations over when and how to address both the medium- and long-term fiscal challenges will persist until at least after national elections in 2012."

On the bright side it should be said that the US maintained it's 'AAA/A-1+' for sovereign debt. It is just the long-term debt rating that was lowered from 'stable' to 'negative.' The UK, also a AAA, had the same thing happen in 2009 and was able to get it restored. However this only happened after their government had agreed upon and begun to implement an austerity plan to reduce the country's deficit.

Trump 2012

There has been a lot of speculation about who would face Obama in 2012 for the Republican party. There have been several individuals tip-toeing around the subject but none really to commit. The issue seems that many of them just fail to measure up. They all seem to be on the extreme, extreme of the political spectrum and many of them have plenty of skeletons in closets. This coupled with the fact that several are television figures gives this cartoonish impression to all the potential to-be's.

There is one individual in the running -- or prerunning running -- who captures all of the ridiculous aspects of the others and more: Donald Trump. Ironically, he is also leading in the polls as the public's preference for Republican nominee. REALLY!?!? Has the Grand Old Party really come to this?

And I mean it's not just the hair; that's a cheap shot. It's that the Donald is the epitome of absurd magalomania; he calls himself "the Donald". Why does he feel a need to so tastelessly merchandise his name? Compensating for something, are we? And does he deserve this outlandish ego? Of course not. He's not a self-made business man; everything he has he got from Daddy. He's not even a good business man; he has filed for bankruptcy on several occasions.

I just think, as a rule, you should not have the leader of the free world be a person who has been roasted by Comedy Central, as if the reality show were not indicater enough.

The Governator: He's Back

Really dude? You were washed in the legitimacy of public office, and now you can't just step out of the spot light with some class. You have literally reduced yourself to a cartoon character. I mean you weren't the most amazing politician in our history, but eight years is a pretty good run. You ended with California in a fairly awful financial condition, but that was the case before hand and the downturn didn't help. You had your scandals of philandering, but sadly that's kind of par for politicians just ask your wife, Maria Shriver.

And who the hell are those kids you have locked in the basement there. This is just all too bizarre. It's like some goofy Batman/Ironman knockoff.