Balls or Lolz

We already have ballolz, but I would like to confuse people further by discussing ballers.  Aren't balls the opposite of lolz? Yes.  But Ballers are actually good.  What is a baller, you may ask?  A baller is defined as "one who succeeds in an ostentatious fashion while maintaining a laid-back demeanor."  Those who ball consistently can become "Big Time Ballers."  Such people include LeBron James, Snoop Dogg, Daniel Dennett, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton (status temporarily revoked.)  Here is an ode to big time ballers:


(The man filming himself playing the song in his basement, Jim, is also a big time baller.)

There are too many big time ballers to name here, and indeed more are made every minute.  For example, a few weeks ago no one had heard of Usain Bolt, but with performances like this one (sorry, can't find a link to the real thing on NBC,) he's clearly a big time baller.  If Usain Bolt or any of the other BTBs keep ballin' for a few more decades, they have a slim chance of obtaining the most coveted title in all of Ballerdom, they could become... 

A HUGE TIME BALLER

A Huge Time Baller must have balled for nearly their entire life, and their balling must have been of an exceptional magnitude.  There are currently only four Huge Time Ballers; they are, in no particular order:
1. Matt Ridley
2. Michael Jordan
3. Lyle Denniston
4. Tony

Are any of you, BoL readers, aware of any Huge Time Ballers? 

P.S. The opposite of a baller is a puker.  This is self explanatory.

I realized my reference to the "Colossus yell" in the previous post would be lost on the 3 people who read this thing and don't know about it already, so here goes.

A few years ago in Athens, Ohio I was leaving my favorite booze hole, Tony's, when I encountered probably 10 to 15 dudes sitting outside the bar imitating X-Man Colossus's mutant power from the X-Men arcade game.

Here it is in action(Colossus is the metallic guy going "AARRRRRRGGHHHH" and emitting an energy ball):

I will always remember how proud I was to be cool enough to be in on those guys' strange performance art. That arcade game was usually the crown jewel of any movie theater arcade lineup, and every kid worth anything loved playing it. Unless they wanted to play as Dazzler; that character really sucked.

Check out a good post on the game here.

More videos here. Also, in this compilation youtube from the game, you can catch some of the ridiculous Japanese to English errors, especially Magneto's hilarious threats starting at 6:20:

X-Men come to die! Death! Kill you! You shall meet with my wrath!

One more thing: Why was it acceptable to make the sentinels the same size as the X-Men.  Even casual X-Men fan know that the sentinels are multiple stories high?  When will the world make sense?

I've been lazy/preoccupied for a while, but BoL posting will resume now.  You may have noticed that the design has changed a little.  I think it looks a lot better than that spring(balls) green and orange strange combo, and I hope to customize the look when I figure out how to do that. Also, look for the official BoL mp3 player soon.

One of the happiest times of the year is nigh, as college and pro football set to start in nary a fortnight! Righhhht, anyway I am very excited to watch the Buckeyes, especially in week 2 vs the hapless and shitty other Ohio team, my Ohio Bobcats.  And in week 3, the season basically peaks with a USC vs OSU showdown in Los Angeles, which I am traveling to see....on television in Columbus.  This is a good entry on the big issues facing a really strong squad with a lot of awesome returning players.

Courtesy Ben, this Michigan blog, who more idiotic OSU (tOSU?) fans would "just have to hate it dude, Muck Fichigan huhuhuhhuhuhuh," is actually well written and has this insightful and fun preseason blog poll. I especially like the "Coutler/Krugman" award, although I take some issue with Coulter's partisanship being associated with Krugman's.

Also, via Tim, check out this interview with my favorite Buckeye, James Laurinaitis (pic of him doing the Colossus yell thing):


Look at his neck!

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether stuff on the internet is a joke.  If I hadn't seen this actually on TV, I would have serious questions.

Top 5 Most Viewed Features at NYTimes.com for July 23-29:

1. Home & Garden: What's Lurking in Your Countertop?
2. Science: 10 Things to Scratch From Your Worry List
3. Olympics: Records Say Chinese Gymnasts May Be Under Age
4. Rich: How Obama Became Acting President
5. Dowd: Is 'The One' Cocky or Commander in Chiefy?

The top two items on this list struck me as archetypal New York Times fan stories: Stories about problems that, when compared to the hand-to-mouth struggle facing billions of humans,  seem absolutely insane to complain about.  But to the well-educated and likely well-heeled NYT.com reader, concern over harmless radiation in luxury granite countertops(first story) or fear of sharks are urgent crises.

After relating a story of a pediatrician who freaks out from a radon test, the top article states:

Indeed, health physicists and radiation experts agree that most granite countertops emit radiation and radon at extremely low levels. They say these emissions are insignificant compared with so-called background radiation that is constantly raining down from outer space or seeping up from the earth's crust, not to mention emanating from manmade sources like X-rays, luminous watches and smoke detectors.

Seems like this paragraph, which was the seventh in the story, negates the purpose of the piece.

Also, while John Tierney's science column has been sweet when I've read it(this one is good), and this column isn't bad or dumb, it seems kind of lame that the second-most read item on the site is about somewhat trivial stuff(some of the items are worthwhile) that won't hurt you. 

The shark attack thing in particular stuck out to me because journalist Tom Fenton, who wrote 2005's "Bad News", reported in the book that the top tv news story in the summer of 2001 was shark attacks. 

If people really want to read about this kind of stuff, they will keep getting it from  for-profit media.

I feel lazy posting all these embeddable video links, but who are you to judge, visitor of free web site. 

This was posted a month ago so apparently its "old" according to BoL/Internet maven Matt, but I am posting it anyway.

This is a little late, but I saw the new Batman movie, Dark Knight, and it is absolutely four million percent lolz.  Easily the best superhero movie I've seen and one of the best action/adventures as well.  It was nice that a director took the genre seriously and made it work. 

The score of the movie is also fantastic and you can listen to some of the tracks here.

I want to go to sleep real bad, so I am just going to post this somewhat related video my friend sent me instead of talking about the movie:





This compilation actually makes me a little dizzy/tripped out after a few minutes, so watch out. Any of you guys have a favorite "holy ______!" from this thing?

Have you ever analyzed the commercials during a particular television show to figure out what the like demographic of the show is?  There's old people stuff during the news, Capri Sun and PG movies on kids shows, zit commercials during MTV and really manly shit like big fuckin SUVs and shaving gel ads with hot chicks feeling your imagined face during football.

As a person who stays up very late on certain nights watching television, I am accustomed to the uncomfortable reminder, via the advertising, that men who are awake at that time like myself do not have:

A) Girlfriends
B) Any money
C) Large penises
D) Ability to resist really dumb and transparent scams

The other night I saw a particularly fantastic infomercial that told me that I should mail them my gold jewelery in a lockbox in exchange for cash!  I was talking to a friend about how absurd the idea behind this commercial was, and about an hour later I found this site: Infomercial Hell

It has a similar commercial on it, "Cash4Gold." Although it doesn't have the metal and mailable lockbox, check out the woman who tells you that she melted down her wedding ring to sell it:





This site is great, many lolz and a good way to learn about infomercials you've never wasted your time watching.

Be sure to watch this really insane one from China:





I guess they have small-penised losers who stay up late in China as well.

Hey, I have been on vacation and not giving a shit about whether you lol or not at my BoL posts.  But this MySpace profile was just brought to my attention by my friend Scott, via the Something Awful goons.

Although I feel bad for Tina because I don't think she has any idea how devastating her unintentional self-parody is, but it is really, really fantastic.  Listen to her cover of "Gimmie More."  The most lolz I have had heard in a pretty long time.