Addicting New App

I have been playing this addicting new app I found called Flappy Bird. I'm sure most of you have heard of it. If you haven't go download it. It's free and wicked easy to play. All you do is tap the screen and try to get the bird through the pipes. It's harder than you think though. I've been playing for about an hour now and my high score is 10. By this time tomorrow I'll be at 100 maybe even 150, but not higher than that.

Ciao- Butt

WHERE HAVE I BEEN????

So its been quite some time since I posted a new post on this page. I live a very exciting life which leaves no time to do stuff. Thats a lie, I just kept forgetting to do one. I just moved backed into college for my last semester a couple weeks ago, and juggling college life and writing this blog as been more challenging than I thought. So I hope to be able to writing more cause I know everyone wants to hear my opinion, because I'm basically an expert on everything. To make up for it heres a video of cats, cause everyone loves cats.

Ciao-The Butt

Dan's Super Bowl Reactions

I found myself in a state of sheer confusion between the hours of 6pm and 11pm last night. While the Seahawks were putting the beatdown of a lifetime on Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos, my mind was trying too hard to wrap itself around a shmorgesport of things that seemed out of place.

First the obvious thing -- the game itself. Nobody saw this coming, right? One of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time (yes, he still is) got completely manhandled by one of the youngest teams to ever play in a Super Bowl. We all knew how good Seattle's defense is, but to keep a Peyton Manning-run offense to ONE score all while scoring 43 points yourself? I would have thought there would be a better chance of Bigfoot ringing my doorbell than that happening. 

But it is what is it, and Peyton Manning falls to 1-2 in his Super Bowl career.  That's rough and it does hurt his legacy. He will be back, though, and he and the Broncos will be competitive again. 

How about patriots fans saying things like "Now it's obvious that Brady is better," and "Manning is not a great quarterback because he has a losing record in Super Bowls." 

Well, Brady and Manning are 0-4 in their last four Super Bowls. Both of their legacies have taken hits. But that is neither here nor there. In a game that had NOTHING to do about with the Patriots, yet people still found a way to make it about the Patriots. 

And Pats fans wonder why we are hated so much...

It was also terrific to see Percy Harvin score that touchdown. He's one guy who I really want to see make a comeback and be relevant again, because he is a great player.

Like I said last week, the Seahawks should be considered the model team right now. I guess that goes without saying because they are Super Bowl Champions, but it is very good to see the defense still does win championships. 

Okay, next thing on the agenda -- commercials.

Here is a quick ranking of the good commercials:

1. The "Transformers: Extinction" Trailer

2. The "Amazing Spider-Man 2" Trailer

3. The two Budweiser Commercials

4. The Bruce Willis Commercial

5. The Doritos "Time Machine" commercial

Honorable Mention: Those Ian Rappaport commercials were really dumb until Arnold showed up and said "prepare to be crushed... in tiny tennis." I loved that. 

Otherwise, this was the worst year for commercials on record. 

They were all trying to be too sentimental. If you want us to remember a commercial, you need to make us laugh or cry. Most of the commercials did neither of those things. Axe Body spray tried to take a stab at comparing world peace to smelling nice -- at least that's how it came off to me and everyone else in the room -- and that was a total joke.

I guess people are outraged at Coca Cola's "It's Beautiful" ad because it contained some languages that weren't english and a gay couple? Shut. Up.


And finally -- The halftime show

I seem to be the only person who was horribly, horribly disappointed in Bruno Mars' and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' performances. The Chilli Peppers just sounded bad. Flea's bass wasn't even plugged in, and the whole performance was just noise.

By virtue of the Chilli Pepper's performance, it seriously hurt how much I was able to enjoy Bruno Mars. I like Bruno Mars. I think he is one of the more talented musicians out there today. But throwing RHCP right smack in the middle of his performance brought the whole thing down. The two acts are COMPLETELY different, and really had no business sharing the same stage.

I don't really know who exactly is to blame here, though. On paper it looked like it was going to be a great performance. One of the best rock bands of all-time paired up with today's most talented artist? For some reason I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. But the rest of you seemed to like it, so I'm happy for you.

Overall, I'd give this Super Bowl 4/10 stars. It was a little boring.

P.S. How about this nutjob? This was just the capper on a strange night. 

I Don't Know Who To Root For In The Super Bowl

I have a conundrum with this year's Super Bowl; I have no idea who to root for.

I was fortunate this year to see an abundance of teams that I like make the playoffs. For the first time in a long time, the Steelers, Ravens, Jets and Giants all missed the playoffs.

The Patriots made it to Championship Sunday again (yawn), NaFoleseon Dynamite  took over for Mike Vick and the Eagles made a run into the postseason, former Eagles coach Andy Reid brought the Chiefs back from the abyss for at least a season, and even the Chargers were hard not to root for. Obviously there were the 49ers, Saints and Colts too, all of whom I like.

My least favorite teams in the playoffs this season were probably the Panthers and Bengals, but it's not even like I don't those teams.

So no matter what, I was going to have two teams I support at least a little bit make the Super Bowl. That's something that hasn't happened since the Pats beat the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX.

So that brings me to this Sunday. Seahawks vs. Broncos. I have yet to figure out who I should root for, with both teams have appealing characteristics.

I will now state my cases for each team.

Case for the Seahawks:

Ever since the days of Shawn Alexander and Matt hasselbeck, I have been fond of the Seahawks. Now that they have guys like Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson, they are one of the most fun teams to watch in all of sports. Seattle also has something that is far more entertaining than a high-powered offense, but a suffocating and relentless defense.

They hit hard, they run hard, and Wilson is the best quarterback in the league who doesn't have a Super Bowl Ring (you heard me).

They truly embody what a good NFL team should be. They don't need to score 35 points every game to win.

They are a great football team in every sense of the word, and they truly deserve to be in the position that they are in.

Like many of you, I'm not much of a Pete Carroll fan, but I honestly often forget that he is even the coach.

Also, Derrick Coleman's story is a fantastic one. It's impossible not to pull for that guy.

Case for the Broncos:

In a word, Peyton Manning.

My fellow Patriots fans can say what they want, but I love Peyton Manning. Any person who has even the slightest interest in the game of football should love Peyton.

He plays like the game like nobody we've ever seen, and he does so without being a smug a-hole like so many other great athletes.

I've never particularly been a Broncos fan at any point in my life, although I do like their stadium (lots of long field goals have been kicked there). I'm more rooting for Peyton than anything else, although Champ Bailey is a guy who definitely deserves a ring.

I am taking a historical approach to the game this year, mainly because of the fact that Peyton's little brother has more Super Bowl rings than he does. Thirty years from now, when we're looking back at the history of the league, do we really want to see Eli Manning with more rings than Peyton? Hell no.

For the record, I don't care if Peyton finishes with the same amount of rings as Tom Brady. They're two of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time, and they both deserve their share of Super Bowl wins.


So those are the factors at play for me on Sunday. I'm not interested in the Richard Sherman narratives or Pete Carroll or Wes Welker or any of that. It's going to be a terrific game, and it even looks like the weather is going be decent in New Jersey come game day.

And all told, I'll probably root for the team who the people at my Super Bowl party are rooting against. 

Enjoy the game everybody!

P.S. Has anybody delivered a better Media Day performance than Marshawn Lynch did yesterday?

It should also be noted that I predicted Championship Sunday perfectly.

Extra Points Going the Way of the Dodo?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

There are a lot of pressing issues in the NFL nowadays, but the kicking of extra points is not one of them.

A couple days ago in an interview with Rich Eisen on the NFL Network, Roger Goodell said the NFL Competition Committee may get rid of the point-after altogether. Under adjusted rules, a team would get seven points for a touchdown and have the option to convert for an eighth point by throwing or running the ball into the endzone. If the team failed at the conversion, the touchdown would be bumped back down to six points.

Now, for those of you who know me and know me well, you know that I have a very strong affinity for kickers in the NFL. The only jersey I have of an active player is that of Stephen Gostkowski. Him and David Akers are two of my favorites, and I love what the position brings to the game. So I may be a little bias here.

Goodell says in the interview that extra points are "almost automatic," and he is absolutely right. The Washington Post reported that since 2004, kickers in the NFL have made 99.1% of their extra point attempts. This past season there was a total of five missed point-afters out of 1,261attempts.

But so what if it's automatic? It can't be a safety thing, as Goodell says. It has to be something he and the Competition Committee perceive would make the game more entertaining, as extra points are probably the least hazardous plays that occur over the course of a football game.

But if Goodell wants to make the game more entertaining, what did he do to kickoffs? Fans aren't able to watch guys like Devin Hester make some of the most exciting plays that the game has ever seen on kickoffs anymore.

Although, were it not for Rob Gronkowski being on the field for an extra point last season, the Patriots probably would have won the Super Bowl. But still...

I would, however, be open to the league changing WHERE the extra point is kicked from. If they move it back to the 20- or 25-yard line to make the kick a little tougher, I can understand that somewhat.

But as the league stands right now, there are more important areas of the game that need to be focused on; Concussions, pass interference, Richard Sherman, playing the Super Bowl in New Jersey, etc.

It's probably just an idea right now that doesn't really have any traction, and I hope it stays that way. I want to see my precious kickers on the field as often as possible, but most of all I don't want the NFL to complicate things more than it needs to.

Netflix Movie of the Week

So I'm going to start a weekly post about a great movie to watch on netflix. I assume most people have netflix or use someone else's account.


This week's movie is called Blackfish. Blackfish is a documentary film about killer whales and how they are treated in captivity. I took a film documentary course last semester and got a B in it so I'm basically an expert on the documentary film. So I know a good one when I see it. Give it a look it's about 80 minutes long so it won't take too much time out of your day.

Film Review: Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

In the midst of all the Academy Award nominees being released, I took it upon myself to forgo all of the nominated masterpieces and see Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. The Marked Ones is the fifth installment of the "Paranormal Activity" franchise, and much like the first four, it raised way more questions than it answered.

But first, this was no ordinary trip to the cinema for me. It marks the first time in my 23-plus years of existence that I ventured to see a movie by myself. I picked an 11:50 showing on a Thursday morning, so not surprisingly I was the only person there. I sat all the way in the back of the smallest theater, ate my popcorn and talked to myself throughout the movie. It was a strange, strange, STRANGE feeling. In a way, I felt like a rich guy with his own movie theater.

But I digress...

As you probably figured out from the trailers, The Marked Ones takes on a whole new cast of people. Instead of Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat and others, it stars a completely different family from California.

The movie follows the main character Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) and his friends Hector (Jorge Diaz) and Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh) as they try to figure out why Jesse has been possesed by a demon.

I don't consider myself an avid fan of the Paranormal Activity franchise. I thought the first movie was pretty clever for what it was. Since then, it's basically been four movies with the same stuff happening over and over again. Each movie has had certain elements to separate it from the other ones, but they are all basically the same. The only reason I keep coming back is so I can understand the events of the preceding movies.

- Why does Katie own a house in the fourth movie? And how did she obtain a kid?
- Where the hell is Hunter?
- Why is all of the stuff even happening? (this question is briefly answered in The Marked Ones)

With every movie comes more and more questions. This last movie probably brought up the most.

Like the Saw franchise, these movies will continue to drag on for years to come. But, I'll keep seeing them.

In conclusion, there were some elements in The Marked Ones that made it different than the other films in the series. As I said before, this movie raised a lot more questions that I simply want answers to. That will be enough to keep me coming back for more movies.

Hopefully they will actually make their Halloween-time deadline this year. Watching one of these movies in the middle of January is a little pointless.

Final Rating: 2/5 Stars