Your boy Ackbar is out of town -- and, honestly, I can't remember where he went this time; I lost track of his vacations after his fifth or sixth one this year, and I'm pretty sure Burning Man doesn't start until the end of the month -- so the task falls to me to fill your Monday morning with nonsense and potty humor. I was born to do this job.
I'm a little scatterbrained today because Mrs. Q and I took in Inception this weekend, and I've been trying to wrap my head around it for the last two days. I think I really liked it. I think. Leo was good, and the kid from 10 Things I Hate About You wasn't bad, either. The only misfire -- and I realize I'm only the 389,214th person to say this -- was Ellen Page. Juno didn't belong there.
On the other side of the coin, Dinner for Schmucks apparently sucks. Bummer. Speaking of Steve Carrell, NBC announced that Kathy Bates is going to return to The Office as a guest star this season, and that 30 Rock is going to do two live episodes. More importantly, we learned that Robbbb Cordddddry and Drew Carey are going to appear on Community. And speaking of Alison Brie (weren't we speaking of Alison Brie? No?), here's a fun mash-up of Mad Men boozin.' I want an Old Fashioned now.
On the other other side of the coin, the cast for the Avengers movie has been announced; in addition to Bob Downey and Scarlett Johansson (better known to you as Tony Stark/Iron Man and the Black Widow, respectively), some dude named Chris Evans is playing Captain America, and the guy from The Hurt Locker (and upcoming Ben Affleck - Jon Hamm vehicle The Town), Jeremy Renner, is going to be Hawkeye. Thor is going to be played by Chris Hemsworth; word is they showed an early trailer for Thor at Comic Con, and it got leaked and picked up by a couple of blogs -- but now it's gone.
Remember that big snow storm that hit D.C. last year? (And by "big," of course, I mean: "snowfall you could get on any random Wednesday in Wisconsin".) Nine months later, D.C.-area hospitals are bracing for a deluge of new babies. Bow-chica-bow-WOW.
Marquette Basketball Stuffs
Not a lot going on this last week, peeps: no Pro-Am, nobody cut from the team.
- Ackbar's boy Christian Schneider finished our Marquette SBN Wisconsin Hall of Fame nominees in style with his post on Al McGuire.
- The fellas at Cracked Sidewalks finished up the BIG EAST blogger roundtable at East Coast Bias.
- Marquette offered a scholarship to a 6'1" point guard from LaCrosse. The kid's already got offers from UW-Madison, UWGB, and Toledo.
- In other recruiting news, Marquette is reportedly in the running for B.J. Young, another point guard who's ranked #33 on Rivals. Indiana and Smarmy Tom Crean are also listed as contenders, so this might get interesting.
- GoMarquette had an interview with incoming freshman Jamail Jones ...
- ... and another with new walk-on Dave Singleton.
- Scuttlebutt is that Marquette is going to have new uniforms in 2011-'12.
In other quasi-college basketball news, I hope you've been following Kentucky Sports Radio's coverage of the Karen Sypher extortion trial. KSR took a break from the hilarity of Quick Rick's testimony to consider an important question: how likely is it that Ms. Sypher will be convicted of the six charges filed against her? (And, while we're on the subject: Todd Fritz of the Dan Patrick Show had the line of the year last week, when he dubbed Quick Rick's fifteen-second "performance" with Karen Sypher "Pasta Prematura.")
I can't grow a mustache -- at least, I can't grow a mustache that won't result in Chris Hansen and his stormtroopers immediately kicking in my kitchen door and seizing my wine coolers -- but, if I could, I'd go with the Cowboy. How about you? (Also: Scott Merritt would like a word with the person who didn't use his picture for The Pencil.)
This is a cause I have no trouble supporting: apparently, some Science Jackasses are trying to kill the triceratops -- not in a "we're going to Jurassic Park to eliminate this ill-conceived attempt to clone baby dinos" kind of way, but in a "the triceratops wasn't a separate species, it was just the juvenile form of the torosaurus" kind of way. This is bullshit. The triceratops is awesome. Hey, Science Jackasses: here's an easy workaround. If the trike really was just a juvenile torosaurus, rename the torosaurus the triceratops. I don't think you'll get letters of protest from angry torosauri.
The Giving Tree -- with a Sassy Gay Friend. Special guest star: Boo Radley.
I've noticed that the Admiral's random music videos aren't at all random. It's just music that he likes. Today, I'm going with a truly random music video. And the wheel stops on ... Jennifer Lopez. Unlike Karen Sypher, her love don't cost a thing.