Rowing Through (1996) was covered by Scoopy the week it was released, and his review, as is often the case, is one I agree with. The crime in this film was that the DVD transfer wasn't better, as it was beautifully photographed. Most genres have formulas, for instance, we have the boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy finds girl Hollywood love formula, the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, such is life French love story, the athlete shows promise, athlete suffers possibly career ending injury, athlete becomes superstar formula, and the athlete becomes successful, athlete turns into an asshole, athlete becomes a human being again formula.

The strength of this Canadian release, to me, was that it did not follow the formula. Rather, it was a true story about real athletes, the amazing amount of dedication they have, and more agony of defeat than thrill of victory. Formula pictures exist because the general public understands them, and doesn't get lost. When you step outside the formula, you are running a risk. I admire the film makers for taking a story about athletes in a minor sport, and presenting their lives in a very realistic manner. The only question remaining is whether or not the characters are interesting enough to be entertaining, and for me, they were.

IMDB readershave this at 5.5 of 10. To recap the nudity, Helen Shaver shows breasts and partial bush, and Leslie Hope shows everything. The film will not appeal to action oriented viewers, and is properly rated a C, but I will personally order a remastered DVD if it is ever produced.

OTHER CRAP:

• It had to happen - as a Result of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of The Christ," Jesus is Now More Popular Than John Lennon.
• A review of the Mouseketeer's Vegas show.
• Rolodex of Love - more definitions. The Zombie Mask, The Woody Woodpecker, The Rusty Trombone, and more.
• The Justice Department is dropping its effort to subpoena medical records. Gosh, what a surprise, just as activists start clamoring for Ashcroft's medical records. Who would have guessed?
• Greg Norman's Yacht - "Aussie Rules" - Photo Gallery. Pretty good ship, but always runs out of gas just before making it into port.
• If you have DISH satellite network, say sayonara to MTV and comedy central, couch potato-san.
• The Daily Show reports on lobbyists
• The Daily Show reporting on the Martha Stewart convictions.
• Three teaser-trailers for Thunderbirds
• Pamela Anderson takes a shower.
• Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope unveiled the deepest look into the universe yet, a portrait of what could be the most distant galaxies ever seen. The new image, called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, includes objects that until now have been too faint to be seen and includes ancient galaxies that emerged just 700 million years after the Big Bang theory from what astronomers call the 'Dark Ages' of the universe"
• Hello, am I speaking to IKEA? I need a fartfull.
• Break out the Darwin award: handyman shoots himself in the head with a nail gun, leaving a nail lodged in his brain. Interestingly, the nail in his brain improved its performance.
• Great error page. "Cannot find the damn server"
• Police Apprehend FBI Impostors: "They flashed FBI identification saying they were agents Erik Estrada and Julia Stiles, but the employees, who are Vietnamese immigrants, did not recognize those names as belonging to Hollywood actors." I don't anyone else would associate those names with acting, either.
• Japanese lady wrestlers turn to prostitution for extra earnings. "I only sleep with my fans and not just anybody"
• Each of the Marlins' 85 World Series rings -- courtesy of club owner Jeffrey Loria -- features more than 240 gems and is believed to cost about $20,000.
• 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words. Actually, there are some errors and misrepresentations on this page. One of my favorite hobbies is looking up things that "experts" claim to be wrong, but are not. Here are some that relate to the article:
  • "Card shark" is not a mispronunciation of cardsharp, as is commonly believed, and repeated in this article. It is a separate phrase, with a different meaning. A "cardsharp" is a swindler. A "card shark" is a proficient, cutthroat, honest player. Goldfinger is a "cardsharp". Omar Sharif is a "card shark". Of course, people do use them interchangeably, sometimes inappropriately.
  • I took a quick look in two unabridged dictionaries (Random House and Webster) and both listed "dip"-theria as a legitimate pronunciation.
  • Flounder is not a mispronunciation of founder. In fact, the truth is nearly the opposite of what they claim in this article. If a ship is proceeding clumsily, or being tossed about by the waves and out of control, it is floundering at sea, with the L. If a chip is filling up with water and sinking, it is foundering at sea, without the L. Flounder has meant, "to struggle violently and clumsily; to plunge, roll and tumble about, to struggle along with difficulty" since Shakespeare's time.
  • Both Webster and Random House list "erb" as the #1 pronunciation for "herb". Pronouncing the h is for anglophiles, but then again, if you're an anglophile you don't pronounce the American "r", so it doesn't really make much sense for any American to pronounce it like the man's name "Herb". The American pronunciation makes no sense, of course, since Americans say "herbivore", not "erbivore", but that is the way it is, like it or not, sensible or not.
  • The three-syllable pronunciation of "miniature"is listed in Random House, and even in the venerated OED. I have no idea why the article insists that the four syllable variant is the only acceptable one.
  • Every dictionary I checked (including OED) lists "often" and "offen" as alternate pronunciations, of o-f-t-e-n. The root word is "oft".
  • Parliament???? In this case, the article seems to be completely in error, and what it claims to be correct is, in fact, incorrect. No less an authority than the OED says that Parliament can ONLY be pronounced par-li-ment, NEVER pahr-lyê-mênt . Random House agrees. The variant with the soft "y" sound makes no sense linguistically, since the word comes from the French word parlement, which can be found in the Chanson Roland, which was written about the same time as the Norman Invasion. I guess the Normans just brought the word with them, and I'd guess further that the middle syllable has always been pronounced like the French "le". That supposedly "refined" pahr-lyê-mênt variation sounds to me like some uninformed upper-class affectation. Whatever the motivation of the authors, it appears that they just plumb made this shit up, as we say in Texas.
  • It is probably pernickety of me to comment on this, but if you are American, persnickety is a perfectly good word, just as Americans are "achievement oriented", as opposed to "achievement orientated". The fact that the words are American does not make "oriented" and "persnickety" somehow wrong. Yes, "pernickety"was originally a Scottish word. Then we changed it. Feel free to use the original if you find yourself in Glasgow.
  • I agree with the article that it is very irritating to hear Texas TV commercials refer to a "living room suit", but I also acknowledge that language is flexible and evolutionary. The American dictionaries are now accepting that "suite" can sound like "soot" instead of '"sweet", when referring to furniture, so I guess it's time for me to get over it, as long as they don't make me say it myself.
  • Tijuana. Some Spanish speakers also say Tia Juana, which derives from the 19th century name of the area, which was "Rancho de Tia Juana" (Antie Jane's Ranch). In 1864, it was officially called Tia Juana in some official documents, Tijuana in others. By 1891, it was universally Tijuana. The exact process of transition is not known. More to the point, the Random House dictionary lists the four-syllable pronunciation as the ONLY acceptable English variant, but it also lists the correct three-syllable pronunciation as a Spanish alternative. You can forget about that Spanish alternative, however, unless you can pronounce the Spanish "J" correctly. At any rate, Random House says it is either "tee-a-wann-a" or "tee-hwann-a", but never "tee-wan-a". I'm not sure, but I gather that this article wants me to use the one that is never correct.
• President Bush will privately answer all questions raised by a federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. A White House spokesman said the President had decided to lift the one-hour limit because he didn't think an hour was enough to include all the lies and spin he is planning.
• ANGRY GLUTTONS MARCH ON MCDONALD'S. Lardasses Protest Supersize Phase-out in "Million Man Munch"
• Now it will never be over. Opera company fires soprano for being too fat.
• Dumbest crook ever? Woman tries to pay for Wal-Mart purchase with a million dollar bill
• Indecency bill near approval by Senate panel. So far, they have reached these conclusions. One bare breast on TV: indecent. Giant kickbacks to Senators: totally decent.
• Eldin kicks the paint bucket.
• Albuquerque plays host to the International Clown Convention. For the first time in ages, this is being held separate from the Democratic Convention.
• www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org - Warbirds Resource Group. Obviously no nudity, but just because dudes love fighter planes! This dude knows his stuff. Kinda cool.
• A 'Dear Abby' advice column was pulled because it included a letter based on an episode of The Simpsons.
• Here are four free galleries from Playboy's Beach Babes!
• Brooke Richards was the Playmate of the Month in December 1999. Here is her sample playmate gallery courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!
• Candidates are always good for a laugh
• John Walter ('How to Draw a Bunny') is teaming with John Malkovich's production company on an adaptation of Lawrence Joseph's novel 'Lawyerland,'
• Bush accuses Kerry of trying to weaken the nation's intelligence, presumably by a nefarious plan to throw the election.
• Will Jessica Simpson be Daisy Duke?
• New trailer for the kiddie film, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London
• Here is a new internet-only trailer for Alien Vs. Predator
• Five new clips from the new Johnny Depp thriller, Secret Window
• California Lawmakers Want Voting Age Lowered to 14. The lobbying effort is being provided for Citizens for Timberlake.
• Two sketches from last week's SNL, Ted Koppel and Bill Clinton
• Our official rasslin' hero, Rowdy Roddy Piper, is still as Rowdy as ever.
• Gallup: Nader takes votes away from Kerry, not Bush.If the results include likely voters only, Kerry leads 52-44 in a two man race, 50-44-2 in a three man race. In other words, if only likely voters are polled, 100% of Nader's support (all two of his points) comes directly from Kerry. (Nader does fairly well among registered voters unlikely to vote, bringing him up to 5% in the general population of all registered voters.)

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones above, since it's sorta in real time.

Click here to submit a URL for inclusion in Other Crap

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Words from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh.

.wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

Sopranos-related nudity:

• Here is Lorraine Bracco from Sunday's episode of The Sopranos (.avi version, .wmv version, .jpg and link)

• Here is Bracco 25 years ago in Duos sur canape (.avi version, .wmv version)

• And here's Edie Falco in a movie called Trouble on the Corner (.avi version, .wmv version)

Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble with the codecs for these movies:

Shiloh says:

FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the vids says the video codec:  DivX Decoder Filter & audio codec:  Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with. When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG Layer-3.  A friend of mine told me about compressing the audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.

 

When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp & asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost too much to buy in my opinion.

A reader says:

You mentioned that some users were having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool designed to determine what codec is needed for a video. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you or your users.

Scoop says:

I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9. The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly larger, and slightly lower quality.

• Jane Fonda, topless and showing rear nudity in scenes from 1978's "Coming Home".

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

Just some odd vidcaps I had lying around. They from DVDs that Tuna aptly named "strip and wiggle" disks. There are dozens of them and they have the same design-

Three steps-
1) Babe shows up
2) Babe strips
3) Babe wiggles

Babes in this case include a few you know: Amy Lynn Baxter in the days before the robohooters, Lorissa McComas in the days after and Dita Von Teese.

Two others do all three steps. They are Tyler Gates and Jamie Pope.

• Amy Lynn Baxter (1, 2)
• Dita Von Teese
• Jamie Pope
• Lorisaa McComas (1, 2)
• Tyler Gates (1, 2)

NAKED BIKINI MODEL IRONING BOARD
She Hasn't Been That Flat Since The Surgery - The Welsh company Reveal All Ltd. is selling an ironing board with a big picture of the silicone-enhanced, buxom British bikini model Jordan on it. When the material heats up from the iron, the bikini fades away, leaving her naked. Creator Jason Carr said he originally saw it as a novelty gift for young women, but it's mostly men and middle-aged women who are buying them. (here's a link to a news story featuring a picture)