Yesterday at Blockbuster Video I spotted the most unholy of sacrileges. You may remember my posts a few years ago about Apartment 12: The Movie and Apartment 2welve: The Adventure Continues. Well it turned out someone actually read those posts, and somehow they twisted around my great ideas into this atrocity.

My part is being played by MARK RUFFALO?!?! What happened to David and michael? And more importantly, how did my action-packed, extreme-sports-filled plot turn into some gooey, artsy-fartsy fluff? And they didn't even give me a screenwriters credit. Unbelievable. If you're in the mood for some more pain, there's a trailer here, but don't say I didn't warn you.

As I predicted the other day, Eileen and I saw Firewall this past weekend. The movie itself was ok enough for a midwinter throwaway, but what set it apart from the vast hordes of other techie movies were the computer scenes.

For the most part, Hollywood likes to completely exaggerate what a computer can do. Without spoiling this flick, there were certainly some unrealistic scenes but most of the shots of user interfaces were realistic command prompts rather than ridiculous "Swordfish"-esque symphonies of meaningless 3D graphics and spinning widgets.

So in the realm of UI realism, I give this film three and a half slashes(/) out of a possible four.

Meanwhile in other movie news, wasn't NASCAR supposed to be trying to convince us that auto racing isn't a backwoods hick sport? Why, then, would they endorse this walking stereotype, which seems to play to the same demographic that NASCAR is trying to distance itself from?

Wow, who thought that after the flurry of posting during the Super Bowl I would go silent? Things at work have been very busy, and we made yet another non-stop dash to St. Louis and back for a Less than Jake concert last weekend (to everyone I didn't get to see, hopefully next time?). Here's what's been on my mind lately:

-The movie Firewall will definitely be viewed by me this weekend. The clip of it during the Daily Show last week smashed the Unintentional Comedy scale as we know it: Harrison Ford, in full-blown Air Force One "get off my plane" mode, pacing around a server room with fists clenched spouting lines about terminal access. Priceless nerdiness.

-I haven't watched much of the Olympics, but I enjoy reading about the latest failures of blowhard Bode Miller on the Google Desktop at work. This brings to mind a post I made a couple of years ago about the Olympic Men's Basketball team and how it wasn't that they were black, it's that they were pompous assholes. The same applies to Bode Miller, who will hopefully disappear back under the rock that is winter olympic sports when these games are over.

-Despite the seeming lack of buzz, I'm really looking forward to the baseball World Cup. Granted I probably won't watch many games that don't involve the US or the Dominican, lest I have to suffer through watching the overrated South Korean pitchers (Sunny Kim, anyone?) and their ridiculous throwing motions, but scheduling this event in March was a stroke of marketing genius. After 2 months of snowboarding, hockey, and approximately 50,000 games of college basketball (where *everyone* can make 3's), I will certainly be ready for some baseball that doesn't involve the disorganized Red Sox organization.

-I got cut off today by a car with a vanity license plate that said INUYSHA. Anime fans may be amused, but frankly I was frightened and confused.

Who won on the field: Obviously the Steelers, who managed to win the game without a single player having a game worthy of the MVP award. Seriously, who's the MVP? Roethlisberger and his < 50% completion percentage and 2 picks? Fast Willie and his long run but nothing else? Randle El and his long pass and nothing else? The MVP award should go to Mike Holmgren for allowing the Steelers to win by completely mismanaging the both 2 minute drills, a la Herman Edwards.

Who won the ad battle: Mastercard with their MacGyver ad. Gotta love MacGyver. Nothing else memorable, and some of the companies even went with reruns, which always lose points in my book.

Who won on the field: Pittsburgh almost ran away with it, but Roethlisberger threw one too many sidearmed wobbly ducks and the Seahawks got right back into the game. Seattle then stuffed the Steelers and marched down the field again, so they win the quarter despite their tight end not being able to hold onto the football.

Who won the ad battle: I was about to chastise Careerbuilder.com for going to the well one too many times with their "chimps at work", but then they introduced the donkeys at work, complete with the donkey wearing a dress shirt and slacks. There's always a special place in my heart for animals wearing people clothes.

Who won: Whoever wasn't watching the reanimated corpses of the Rolling Stones.

Who won on the field: Pittsburgh still looks uncomfortable on offense, but they scored thanks to bad Seattle coverage on a long pass, kept the lead thanks to Darrell Jackson's inability to stay inbounds, then watched the Seahawks bizarrely end the half without even a good field goal attempt.

Who won the ad battle: Diet Pepsi redeemed themselves with the Jackie Chan ad (and the fact that the ad didn't mention that horrible "brown and bubbly" slogan at all). Careerbuilder.com had another funny chimps at the office ad, but nothing else was really memorable at all.

Who won the quarter on the field: Seattle, whose offense ran up and down the field against the Steelers' D. Roethlisberger has been off target for the Steelers and they've had no running game to go with it.

Who won the ad battle: Nobody ran away with it, although the Burger King ad was kind of neat and the Budweiser "magic fridge" ad was mildly entertaining. The big loser was clearly Pepsi, whose "Brown and Bubbly" campaign is just creepy. Add to that the fact that a) UPS already owns "brown" in terms of advertising and b) saying their drink is "brown and bubbly" in no way differentiates them from any other soft drink company.

After the unfortunate exit of the Patriots from the playoffs, I haven't been in much of a mood to write about football. But today is Super Bowl Sunday, a national holiday for guys everywhere, so I'll try to compose myself for this one night. I plan on writing a running diary of either the game or the ads tonight, so check back later, but here are my pregame thoughts.

I'm not sure who to root for in this game. On one hand the Steelers are in the AFC, my conference of choice, and have the much more storied history. On the other hand the Seahawks are the underdog and have never won a Super Bowl before.

Normally I would choose based on which team had more players I can't stand. Any team with Terrell Owens, for example, automatically gets rooted against. Ditto with a team containing convicted felons (the Ravens), drug offenders (the old Cowboys), or Mannings (Colts and Giants). The closest thing to a trash-talking loudmouth on either of these teams is Joey Porter, and he seems more harmless little scamp than clubhouse cancer.

I don't like Roethlisberger because he has a weird throwing motion, but I don't like Shaun Alexander because of his whining last year when he didn't win the rushing title (and the sneaking suspicion that as soon as he's not in a contract year he'll let himself go and become soft and slow).

The Steelers are from a blue-collar town; the Seahawks are from a high-tech mecca and the birthplace of grunge, which seems to tip things to their favor until you remember that Seattle is also the home of Starbucks.

So in the end I think I'll run for a close game, exciting plays, entertaining commercials, John Madden's ridiculous commentary about made-up foodstuffs, and a Seattle victory. They're owned by Paul Allen and rooted for by many Microsoft employees, so perhaps a victory will encourage the troops to release Windows Vista on time and with no bugs or security flaws.

Well, we can always hope.

My prediction: Seattle: 23 Pittsburgh: 10

While we're all waiting anxiously for the nominees of Lucas' Most Hat-centric Movie of the Year, I took a stroll over to those other guys to see which of their nominees I've seen.

Normally this is where I list the best picture nominees, complain that I've only seen one of the movies, and then make fun of Hollywood for awhile. This year, however, not only have I seen none of the Best Picture nominees, but I've seen none of the movies nominated for any of the major awards.

Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Supporting Actress, Best Picture, not even Animated Feature. Not until you get down to the categories like Art Direction, Cinematography, and Costumes do you come to any movies I've seen. And I'm not even remotely intrigued by any of the ones I didn't see, with the exception of a Best Animated Short Film called "Badgered". And even that could probably never live up to our old friends...these badgers.