Stryper - Always There For You

I can't believe this song is 20 years old. I still remember driving my Hyundai Pony down to the University of North Dakota to see them in concert.

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Turn your iPod into an e-reader

Last night, I discovered the "Notes" feature on my 4th generation iPod Nano, which effectively lets me turn it into an e-reader. With the help of this website (or this one, which does the same thing), you can turn pretty much any text file into a series of notes files that can be put on your iPod, complete with hyperlinks from one file to the next. It's very cool.

Newsboys - I Am Free

Hmmm ... watching this older clip ... the Houston We Are Go CD may have been less "live" than advertised ...

Pepsi's New Logo: What Went Into the Update - Advertising Age - News

I'm still partial to the 1971 logo myself.

Skillet - Rebirthing

Love this song.

Mmm ... Yogurt Pepsi ...

Pepsi: Move To Japan So You Can Drink Yogurt Pepsi

Japan is a unique country with an adventurous palate, the perfect place to try out new Pepsi Yogurt flavor, aka "Pepsi White." Reader Danny who sent this in says, "The flavor was quite sweet, and closer to that of 7-UP with some slightly milky tones (not really yogurt, just milk). Overall it was good, if odd." In this concoction, it would appear culinary scientists have discovered found the absolute gastronomical inverse of Crystal Clear Pepsi. Congratulations, Science.

Click the link for a photo of Pepsi White.

Sunday afternoon humor

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BarlowGirl - Never Alone

Michael W. Smith - A New Hallelujah music video

New ECW belt available for pre-order

The new ECW belt is available for pre-order from WrestlingSuperstore.com. It should be available in January.

The new Divas belt won't be shipping until March of next year.

Strikeforce draws 1.1 million viewers

"Strikeforce on NBC" draws record 1.1 million viewers | MMAjunkie.com

This past Saturday's airing of "Strikeforce on NBC" topped out with more than 1.1 million viewers, the California-based organization today announced.

In other words ... a mixed martial arts group that only hardcore fans know about, that airs in most markets in the middle of the night, now has almost as many viewers as TNA Impact, which airs on prime time.

Yeah, TNA sucks.

Where to watch UFC in Edmonton

I normally don't post this until Saturday, but my site stats are showing the search strings appearing much earlier than normal, so what the heck. Here's my semi-regular public service posting on where to watch UFC pay-per-views in Edmonton.

I have to say, if the number of search strings looking for info on UFC 90 is indication of overall interest in Anderson Silva versus Patrick Cote, this PPV may do surprisingly good numbers.

New TNA Legends belt

It's an amazing work of art. I don't like the red leather, and the design seems to be derived from the IWGP title. And it has aspects of the UFC and WEC designs as well.

EDIT: TNA has pictures here, here, here, here, here, and here.

SECOND EDIT: And the pictures are up on DMB.com.

Two NHL teams in Toronto?

No, really, that's the rumour.

Why not? If any city deserved to have two terrible hockey teams that never win the Stanley Cup, it's Toronto.

Elite XC is dead

Yup.

UFC is basically the only MMA game in town now.

Bye, Kimbo.

Now if only Dana White would open a women's division, Gina Carano could get a job ...

Sunday afternoon humor

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How did Michael Bisping win that fight?

Apparently, backpedaling and getting hit amounts to a win in UFC these days ...

The UFC October continues

UFC has a three-hour free show on Spike TV tonight, headlined by Michael Bisping vs. Chris Leben. The show is from the UK, so Bisping is going to be a huge crowd favorite ... which makes me want to see Leben upset him and cut a big heel promo afterwards.

Bonus Friday night humour!

It's an attempt to make up for the almost complete lack of posting this week.


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Weird Al: Forefather of the YouTube Spoof

Weird Al: Forefather of the YouTube Spoof

Posted using ShareThis

It's election day

Vote early, vote often.

Couture vs. Lesnar

Oh yes.

Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web

Inside Chrome: The Secret Project to Crush IE and Remake the Web

Posted using ShareThis

Sunday afternoon humor

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Volleyball and nuclear weapons: A day in Red Deer

We spent the day in Red Deer yesterday watching my nephew's Christian college team play in a volleyball tournament. It was very interesting at times watching a bunch of Christian colleges play volleyball - no swearing, no taunting, and at one point, the opposing team's coach informed the referee/judge that a ball the ref had called in was, in fact, out, and that cost his team a point. Honesty. Gotta love it.

There was a bit of sporting culture shock when the tourney started. I was unaware that they had tweaked the rules of volleyball so that there is a point awarded off every serve, and not just for the team serving. That makes the games go a lot faster.

But the big news - at least to me - was that one of those "Welcome to Red Deer" type signs on Gaetz Avenue proclaimed that Red Deer is a nuclear-weapons free zone. It's good to know that when the bombs start to fly that Red Deer can hold its head high and say, "No thank you!" before being vaporized into radioactive ash.

But it begs the question ... what does Red Deer know about who in Alberta has nukes? Calgary, I'm looking at you!

October: All UFC, All The Time

There's another UFC pay-per-view rerun on Spike TV tonight. This is the one with George St. Pierre's title defence against Jon Fitch (Spoiler: GSP won). But more importantly, it featured Brock Lesnar beating the holy you-know-what out of Heath Herring. (Spoiler: Duh.)

Definitely worth putting on the DVR and burning to DVD.

New iPod owner!

As of this afternoon, I'm the proud owner of a new 16 gig iPod Nano.

It is very small. But it holds more stuff than the hard drive of my first desktop computer.

Google search string weirdness

This afternoon, someone from WWE.com (that would be, World Wrestling Entertainment) Googled "wwe divas belt replica" and landed on this humble web page.

Now, I'm just thinking ... wouldn't someone who works for WWE know how to buy a replica of their own title belts?

Newsboys - Houston We Are Go - CD/DVD Review

I have to admit ... I've been hot and cold on the Newsboys. Way back when, I liked their connection to Steve Taylor and their goofy, humorous songs, and thought they were funny and thought provoking. Then I kind of lost touch with them and what I did hear from them was more worship-oriented music, which was fine for what it was, but there are a billion bands that do worship music and it didn't exactly gravitate me towards their CDs.

Then I heard the live version of "I Am Free."

That song single-handedly got me back into listening to the Newsboys. I'm not a rabid fan (they'd be no higher than my fourth or fifth favorite band right now), but I've got enough of an appreciation of their music to spend a few bucks on the new Houston We Are Go live CD/DVD. Well, that and my general love for live albums.

I'm still watching the DVD (literally, as I type this), and I've listened to most of the CD. It's really good. Nothing surprising. The Newsboys have a very polished sound that doesn't sound *that* much different compared to their studio albums. But it's absolutely a fun listen (and completely slick DVD). If you're a fan, you probably already own it. If you're not a fan, this is a pretty decent "best of" collection that will introduce you to all facets of the band.

Thumbs up.

Free BarlowGirl Christmas song download

Right click here for a free version of What Child is This from the band's new Christmas CD.

Sunday afternoon humor

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EliteXC on CBS thoughts

Well, that was a thumbs down show if I've ever seen one. We all got to see an MMA promotion die on live TV, and it wasn't pretty (even if it was pretty funny). Between the technical glitches, the WALKING~! and the brutal main event that utterly exposed Kimbo Slice as a goof, it was not EliteXC's best moment. It may have been their last moment. When you think back on pivotal moments in mixed martial arts, remember Ken Shamrock's eyebrow laceration. It killed an entire promotion.

On the plus side, last night's show was good for my hit count, generating nearly 600 hits in the afternoon and evening.

Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock cancelled?

There's word going around the MMA world right now that due to a cut suffered by Ken Shamrock, his fight with Kimbo Slice tonight is off.

Well, bye EliteXC. Nice knowing you.

UPDATE 5:59 p.m.: The fight is OFF. The commission doctor has ruled Ken unable to compete due to a cut over an eye. No replacement has been named yet.

UPDATE 6:18 p.m. The latest from Dave Meltzer's play-by-play on figurefouronline.com

Nothing has been said to the live crowd about the main event. This has changed six times in the last several hours, but as of this moment, the scheduled main event is not happening. Frank Shamrock is still at the announcers desk and at this moment is getting ready for a stand-up but as of 15 minutes ago was awaiting word if the commission would allow him to do the main event or if Slice would accept him as a new opponent. Petruzelli's match with Aaron LaRosa hasn't happened yet because Petruzelli is also a possible opponent for Slice.

UPDATE 6:31 p.m. Apparently, it's Kimbo vs. Seth Petruzelli (whodat? - ed.) in the main event.

UPDATE 9:16 p.m. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!! Kimbo got humiliated against a guy who hadn't fought in a year! Kimbo's done, Gus.

Saturday Night Fights ... and more fights

It's all fights all night long tonight with Elite XC's third (final?) CBS prime-time special featuring Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock in what may be a 9-second destruction of poor Ken. And UFC is countering on Spike TV by showing the recent Rampage Jackson vs. Forrest Griffin title fight PPV that sent poor Quinton for a time out.

Fortunately, staggered feeds and digital cable means I get to DVR both of them and don't have to choose one or the other.

And I have to say, I'm loving the fact that UFC is giving me all these PPV shows for free. It's saving me a bundle of money, and I can burn them to DVD before deleting them, saving me having to purchase the DVD as well.

I'm not complaining about the new Facebook, but ...

Within a day or so of Facebook permanently updating everyone to the "new Facebook," a friend of mine changed her status update to bemoan all of the people bemoaning the new Facebook.

She said that complaining about the new Facebook was such a "first world" complaint. In other words, only people like us in North America, full of affluence and without any real worries in life, could be bothered by a different interface on a piece of free software we are using.

Fair point.

However, my issue with the redesign is not a complaint per se about how it looks, but how it functions - or doesn't function.

Since the switchover, I have found Facebook to be very buggy in all sorts of ways. The news feeds are often 18 hours behind, or are weird mixed bag of brand-new updates plus stuff that is three days old. It doesn't update my Google Reader feed automatically anymore, forcing me to manually import stuff every once in a while. Stuff like that. And there seems to be no actual mechanism for giving feedback to Facebook in any way that results in a live human being responding and saying, "Yes, we're aware of that problem and we're trying to fix it."

Those would probably fall under the category of "first world" complaints as well, and I don't have any problem with that. Really, I don't care much at all how Facebook looks, but I do care about how it functions. And right now, it's not functioning very well.

Downhere - My Last Amen

From the new album, Ending is Beginning.