Motorin' ... and driving through the night

Moto GP's first round this year, in Qatar, was the first night race held in the world's premier motorcycle racing series. My impression? Sorta cool, no big deal though.

As for the action, reigning champ Casey Stoner picked up right where he left off last year, coasting to a win on his Ducati. Behind him it was pretty entertaining though, with some new guys dicing it up with veterans.

The pictured rider is rookie Jorge Lorenzo, who's teaming with four-time series champ Valentino Rossi — "The Doctor" — for Yamaha. Lorenzo was impressive, taking the pole and beating his teammate by finishing second. Rookie Andrea Dovizioso was also impressive, beating out Rossi for fourth on the last lap. And the new Tech3 Yamaha team with Texan Colin Edwards and Brit James Toseland, over from World Superbike, looked strong on some sweet blue and yellow bikes.

After Repsol Honda rider Nicky Hayden got buried down the running order, I was pulling for the Tech3 guys, but also Lorenzo. Yes, because he was a rookie dicing with the vets (and I do mean dicing, that's him at 30 seconds blowing past Toseland and Rossi), but also because I liked his helmet. Yes, many times it's that simple with me.

One of the coolest things about racing, for me, is the whole graphic design appeal of the cars, bikes, uniforms, whatever. Specifically, I dig helmet designs. The big symbol on the top of Lorenzo's helmet looked like a corporate logo, but I thought maybe he was maybe using such a look for his own design purposes, which would have been cool. Outside of Nascar and guys riding with Red Bull and Monster energy drink sponsorships, you usually don't see anything that blatant.

But nope, Chupa Chups is a Spanish lollipop company. It still looks cool, though. Maybe if I was Spanish like Loranzo and saw it all the time I wouldn't think so, but I'm not, so it looks cool.

I guess there's not a whole lot of future in racers appropriating corporate logos for fun when they're all trying to get real sponsorship, but they could create designs that look like advertising but not specific logos and trademarks.

Anyway, round 2 is today in Jerez, Spain with Lorenzo sitting on poll again. If he takes his home race in his second GP expect to hear a lot more about him. If you pay attention to motorcycle racing.

This guy looks like he's rooting for Rossi, though.

Stay the heck out of a fight

Leap tall legal hurdles in a single bound

Superman's not dead, but DC's copyright to the character took a hit this week. Interesting stuff.

James Jean has it covered

Just taking a moment to spotlight the awesomeness of artist James Jean, probably best known for his painted covers of the DC/Vertigo series Fables. I don't read it, but I want to buy it every time I see his latest cover.

Below: Batgirl #45, Fables #8, Fables #71, The Escapists #2 and Fables #64.

You got the juice now, kid

Speaking of hair ...
In case you missed the McDonald's All-American game Wednesday night, University of Arizona recruit Brandon Jennings brought back the flat top in full effect. Well played.

My family has very special hair

Very. Mostly the two on the left.

Wanna see some lay ups?

I caught this 10-minute comedy sketch show on MTV last night called North Palm Wrestling. Good name, not bad show. The above, aside from the opening credits, was probably the highlight.

The guy actually does look like Diana Taurasi, who is real for those who've never watched Sports Center. I like that on the fake game box, he's taking a jump shot but has no basketball.

Robert Downey Jr., typical black guy

Tropic Thunder, featuring Nick Nolte with a flame thrower. This actors being thrown into real conflict story's been done in other forms before, The Three Amigos and Galaxy Quest come to mind off the top of my head. But Downey Jr.'s character having plastic surgery to look black for a role kind of takes this over the top — and Nolte.

Wait, wait, I know it, I know it ...

Want to waste a couple hours? Know movies? Check out the Flickr group Name That Film, which posts screen captures from films for viewers to guess.

It doesn't really matter how well you know movies. If the random screen captures didn't make it tough enough, the predominant use of obscure films will. But it's still an interesting time waster, albeit maddenigly frustrating when can't name the one in 100 you know you've seen. Via.

BigDog strikes back

It really floats!

Funny. And scary. But funny. Via.


This thing is sketchy. Looks like something out of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum. The guy who kicked it is a hero.

We are ... not going to Penn State

Not a surprise. Terrelle Pryor, the top high school recruit nationally, is going to Ohio State, with Michigan losing out.

Pryor was reportedly only involving Penn State in the process at all because of his relationship to PSU assistant Tom Bradley, and because that's where his father wanted him to go. Reading between the lines of Pryor's comments at his press conference, PSU's not on the same level as Ohio State and Michigan.

Step up your game Penn State.

Pennsylvania, the big polecat

Colbert is coming to Philly leading up to the April 22 primary election. A "morbidly obese" win for Clinton is expected. Which reminds me, I should probably inform voter services of my address so I can actually vote where I live.

St. Paddy's whip

My Car and Driver desk calendar featured the 2006 Lamborghini Miura concept yesterday:

... But with two supercars already in the garage, does Lambo need a Miura revival? We say yes.

As do I, this car is sick. Lamborghini's not playing ball, however.

Frankencoat, pffft

Nerd World points out an overlooked piece of cinema ridiculousness, the Frankencoat from Van Helsing.

Not to be confused with the Frankenfish, which still gives Matt Berringer nightmares.

Obliging Randy Couture

Hulu went live, last week I think. Has high quality clips from TV shows and movies, as well as web stuff. Also has full TV episodes and movies, so if you're a Bob Newhart Show fan but don't want to commit to the DVDs, you've got episodes here. Not sure if they last forever, or how often new seasons are added.

There are ads, which can be annoying while going through Conan O'Brien clips, but they're not as bad as boradcast ads if watching a TV episode, only 30 seconds a shot.

UPDATE: Hmmm, embedded videos rather wide as you can see, and unresponsive to my HTML adjustments. So they may show up wonky if embedding.

Muppets have brass, son

They have other versions of the above ad with Lincoln and Washington online, ostensibly for Presidents Day, but only run the Thanksgiving guy on TV as far as I know. Hmmmm.

Wings of silver, nerves of steel

I had completely forgotten about this show. I guess they had to go with "rainbow in the night" in the opening theme as this was already in use.

If I was riding around in space, I would definitely opt for the coupe over the convertible. Dude with big tuning fork doesn't care, as long as it looks metal.

Start it in a supermarket

Archie comics mixed with lyrics from Pulp's "Common People." Pretty good. Via.

Also surprisingly awesome is William Shatner's version, along with Joe Jackson. Joe Jackson?!?

Cam-Pain

Watching and waiting

Zach Snyder's Watchmen movie has wrapped and the wait is on. Check out the characters at the film's blog. The Comedian's laughin' at ya, jerk.

Orange On the Aisle: London

I had seen a bit of London, usually the same scene, several times but finally watched it from the beginning recently. And despite the fact most of the characters are detestable, I kind of liked it.

The plot basically concerns Syd, played by Chris Evans, moping about and freaking out in the bathroom at a going away party for his ex-girlfriend. Luckily for the filmmakers this bathroom is huge, because 75 percent of the movie takes place in there. So good location scouting, dudes.

Joining Syd in the bathroom for venting and debate, along with a good deal of drug and booze ingestion, is Bateman, played by Jason Statham. He's basically a sounding board but dips into his own issues eventually.

While Syd works up the courage to exit the bathroom and speak to London, played by Jessica Biel, we get flashbacks and backstory. We also get that Syd is an overly dramatic ego-maniac, London's likely a cheating shit-talker, and the partygoers are coked-up skeezas. The only character you kind of like is Bateman, but he's helped by the fact he's Jason Statham. Louis C.K. also has an amusing cameo as Syd's therapist.

London feels like it was based off a play, and reminded me of
Hurlyburly a bit, which I also liked despite detestable, self-absorbed characters pontificating while doing heaps of coke and booze.

Not great, but better than I expected. It should be noted Evans (a good casting choice in Fantastic Four, probably the only one), did most of the movie in sweatpants. Interesting choice.

— 3 out of 5 white lines off a painting

Redesign, woot

All that dead black space in the middle of the screen was bugging me, hence the redesign with new template. Image behind blog title grabbed here, via.

Cool Uniform Props: Arsenal road whites

Cesc Fabregas lines up a kick against AC Milan in the second round of the Champions League last week. Like these, with the maroon, white and gold, much better than home red jerseys. Good socks too.

Smell ya later

Philosophy of physics, Warren Ellis style. The first panel from episode 4 of his online comic FreakAngels.

Old Del

New Del

"Workin It" by Del the Funky Homosapien off his new album, 11th Hour.

Hair definitely

New nephew Franklin may have set record for earliest faux-hawk ever. He's got a lot of hair goin on straight outta momma.

Hair don't

Beckham wisely averts gaze. I've never understood how guys play soccer with hairdos like this and expect to know where the ball will go on headers. For more laughs do a Google image search for Abel Xavier. Via.

Other blog jawns

My other blog chronicling my reading adventures is up and running. Everything from Ultimates 3 to the New York Times. It'll look better once I figure out how to get a photo for the top Photoshopped the way I want.

I'm also contributing to this Philly sports deal under the tutelage of Ron Wood and OB. Word.

Orange On the Aisle: I Heart Huckabees

I feel like I Heart Huckabees is one of those love or hate movies. That's what you get with a movie about existential detectives following around an environmental activist, a corporate guy from a Target-type store, his model girlfriend, and a firefighter with identity issues but who's very sure using petroleum is wrong, even if it means riding a bike to a fire.

It starts out with the Jason Schwartzman character asking existential detectives Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman for help explaining a coincidence of seeing the same African door man three times in a day. From there the philosophy and therapy on the run ensues.

For no other reason check Huckabees out for Mark Wahlberg, who is crazy but awesome as Tommy Corn the firefighter. Director and co-writer David O. Russell, as with Three Kings, also inserts some special effects bits that are pretty cool. The whole cast is good, but Wahlberg steals it.

Not for daily viewing, but I liked it a lot.

— 4 out of 5 dodgeballs