Hijinks Inc.

Category: Quick Hits

  • T.W.I.S.T. for Aug 8-14

    It’s getting close to football season, we’ve got pre-season games… but nothing of any consequence yet. So we’ll make do with what we have:

    Football

    • I was just like every other football fan last year, and sorta dismissed the UFL as a passing fad, nothing but the next in a long line of failed leagues. But, they brought a team right down the road in Omaha, so I suddenly care about this young league! I’ve been really impressed with how the Nighthawks (that’s the team name, in case you couldn’t put the two together) have gone about building their team. The most recent signing is QB Jeff Garcia. At this point with the talent they’ve accumulated, I’d be fairly surprised if Omaha doesn’t manage to win the league championship in their initial season.
    • In the event that the NFL heads into a lockout next season, new Miami Dolphins WR Brandon Marshall has expressed interest in playing the NBA… and he seems serious about it.

    NBA

    The New Jersey Nets were purchased by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, and he’s been determined to give his team a makeover from top to bottom. The team has applied to the NBA for a name change, which usually takes about 2 years. Coincidentally, that would coordinate nicely with the Nets’ scheduled 2012 move into a new arena in Brooklyn.

    That’s about all I could find for you guys this week, just not a lot of interesting stuff going on at the moment, I just can’t bring myself to break down the NFL pre-season games. Real meaningful football, get here faster please!!

  • Saturday Shenanigans: Recent Entertainment News

    Hey there, welcome to another edition of Saturday Shenanigans, let’s get started:

    As we all know, all good things must come to an end. While I’m not the worlds biggest Entourage fan, I’ve enjoyed watching the series, but it’s coming to an end after next season, which will be a shortened 8th season. More than likely, we’ll get a feature film a little further down the road.

    Some of the hosts of the upcoming season of SNL are being announced, one I’m excited about seeing is Jane Lynch! She’s always fun to watch and she’s set to host the October 9th show.

    Blockbuster is doing everything possible to stay semi-relevant. They’ve begun to offer video games in their rent-by-mail service. I never tried GameFly, but I might give this a go. If they had the convenient streaming option that Netflix offers via Xbox 360, I would switch in a heartbeat.

    Click through the jump to get the rest of the stories from the week! (more…)

  • T.W.I.S.T. for Aug1-7

    I’ve had a crazy week this week, so I didn’t have time to bring you links for most of these stories, and I apologize for that. But the last thing I wanted to do was miss a week, so here’s your biggest sports stories of the week, from my point of view.

    News broke this week about Brett Favre contacting his coaches and teammates via text saying that he was calling it quits. Then Brett Favre said he was ‘undecided, but would probably play as long as his ankle holds up’ the next day. Seriously, who really gives a crap anymore.  And honestly, the Vikings passed on some quality rookie QBs in the draft just to make sure they didn’t upset the almighty Favre, he then turns around and ‘retires’ after the calendar has already turned to August? I’m so sick of this guy. Let’s just wait until the Vikings line up on offense in the first game of the year and see if Favre is under center. Quit giving this diva the attention he so desperately seems to crave.

    The rest after the break. (more…)

  • The MMA Minute – UFC 117 Aftermath

    On paper, this was a fantastic night of fights. Looking back at it, it more than delivered on all the anticipation, plus some. Here’s your recaps.

    Quick Recaps

    “We discussed yesterday about how annoying Sonnen had gotten with all of his trash talking. But… he totally dominated Silva for the entire fight. This wasn’t catching the guy in a mistake like Werdum over Fedor, Sonnen used his strengths to exploit Silva’s weaknesses and completely dominated him for the entire fight. I’ve never seen Silva go after someone like he did tonight, in beginning of the 1st and 2nd round he really attacked Sonnen instead of feeling him out for 3-4 minutes, but in the end Silva’s cocky fighting style finally caught up with him in this fight, and Sonnen backed up all of his trash talking with a very dominating performance.”

    …that was what I HAD written up before the miraculous finish by Silva. What an amazing fight! I can’t even put into words how unbelievable that finish was considering how the fight had gone. That’s why Silva is the best fighter in the world.

    All 3 rounds went as almost every Jon Fitch fight goes, Fitch trades some punches, gets a hold of the opposing fighter, takes them to the ground and goes to work. It’s not exciting, but it’s incredibly impressive. Now he’s next in line to get GSP or his own teammate, Josh Koscheck, fighting for the title.

    Guida was high octane energy the entire fight, like usual. Rafael dos Anjos posed his greatest threats whenever the fight was on the ground, continually trying to lock in the omaplata. Guida got dos Anjos up against the cage and got him to tap due to the broken jaw.

    • Welterweight bout: United States Matt Hughes vs. Brazil Ricardo Almeida – Hughes wins by technical submission (anaconda choke) at 3:15 of the 1st round.

    Hughes has looked really good in the last couple fights. I wasn’t sure he had anything left in the tank, but he’s really put together a few good performances in a row. This is his first fight after being inducted into the UFC hall of fame, and he knocked Almeida down with a strong punch, and then pounced on him to get the submission.

    I’m not sure I’ve seen a first round when more punches were thrown to knock the opponents head off… by both fighters! Roy Nelson spent most of the fight trying to defend the furious attacks from dos Santos, but quite a few got through. At one point, dos Santos front kicked Nelson straight to the jaw. Nelson took a lot of abuse, but just kept coming. I really didn’t think much of Nelson before this fight, but anybody that can take that much abuse and keep on coming forward, deserves some respect.

    I finally got back on the right track with my picks, going a perfect 5-0 on the main card thanks to the amazing finale comeback by Silva. This was the best night of fights I’ve seen in a very long time. Our next MMA event is WEC 50 on the 18th.

  • Saturday Shenanigans: Recent Entertainment News

    It’s that time of the week again, here’s your entertainment news:

    The teaser trailer they showed at Comic-Con for The Avengers is now online, click here to check it out. It’s not much, but you’ve gotta start somewhere.

    Zachary Levi addressed those rumors we told you about in the last Entry Level Geek, about him auditioning for the new Superman movie. In a recent interview with IGN he said:

    “It’s complete fiction. A bummer that it’s complete fiction!” Levi recounted how he himself began hearing about it. “I start getting these text messages from my friends, saying, ‘What is going on? You didn’t tell us any of this!’ And I’m asking, ‘What are you talking about?’ I get this link emailed to me from my publicist. She goes, ‘Just so you know…’ I go check it out, and of course, on the bottom of that article there’s all these comments, and every other article that spawned off of that and all the comments on those sites.”

    “I guess one of the things that I fear is that people pigeonhole me in the nerd role,” Levi told me. “Because a lot them say, ‘Well, I can see him as Clark Kent, but I can’t see me as Supes.’” Levi laughed, adding, “I’m an actor! Just give me six months and a gym. Give me something! I guess one of the upsides is that people are going, ‘I can believe him as Wally West. Make him The Flash! I can believe that!’ Which would be amazing.”

    More news along with this week’s New In Theaters after the jump. (more…)