The Weekly OT: Spring Practice Begins, Also: Battleship

Song of the Week: The Rumour, Mess With My Love

Here's little ditty you can listen to while reading this. That's right, The Weekly Offtopic comes with it's own soundtrack. This week's song is brought to you by The Rumour, who are probably best known as Graham Parker's backup band. Which is to say- not particularly well known. But this is a great blues jam you might hear in a Roadhouse.

CU is opening practice under MacIntyre:

At worst, this seems like a cynical attempt to close practices without closing practices. "I WANTED to have open practices, but you people couldn't shut up on your message boards so I had to close them." Again- that's the worst case scenario.

At best, it's just a really naive and unrealistic worldview. Thorburn mentioned today that he went to a San Jose State practice last week that only had a couple of people there. Well this ain't San Jose State. Expecting CU fans to conform to the same ideals as a fan base that couldn't care less just seems... short sighted. Why, exactly is he trying to eliminate information coming out of practice? I'm sorry, but I don't see anyone- let alone a hypothetical 8 year old- who falls in love with football based on watching practice. Practice is boring. A kid will fall in love with Colorado football after watching Ralphie run out and the team winning big games, not by watching Oklahoma drills in March.

And what, precisely is to be lost by allowing practice reports (especially considering he's closing Thursday practices during the season and other essential game planning parts of practice)? Frankly, most college football fans are idiots, and wouldn't be able to give a relevant analysis of practice anyway. No one really understands the line calls/ formations. No one can realistically give a view of the players other than "Player X looks Big/ Small." This is a dumb policy.

Florida Atlantic University agrees to sell the naming rights to their stadium to a private prison company:

Full disclosure- I'm opposed to the privatization of prisons on principle. That said, this seems like an epically stupid decision. What's the upside? It's not like putting your name on a stadium is going to gain you more prisoners (although this is Florida, so never say never). I get that the CEO is an alumnus. But the only "exposure" you're getting is when people start bringing up how horrible you are as a company. So congrats guys, you just donated millions of dollars to get people- who otherwise wouldn't care- to hate you. Why not just donate the money anonymously, get your club suites, and call the stupid place Memorial Stadium or Owls Field or White Trash Alleyway? Anything but this.

Movie Review:

Battleship is hands down the stupidest movie I have ever seen. And I have seen LOTS of stupid movies. It's kind of my wheelhouse. Battleship is stupid for many reasons, not least of which is the military glorification and bafflingly inane plot that would make even Michael Bay blush. But not most of which, either. Other issues include:

• Famous people giving up screen time to non famous people. Taylor Kitsch is the big star. I honestly had to look him up on IMDB. I figured he was something to do with Twilight, because I don't know that. He's probably famous for Friday Night Lights, but I've never seen that either. I HAVE seen John Carter (which isn't as bad as the box office would suggest), and I didn't recognize him from that, so that tells you something about Taylor Kitsch. Not featured as much- Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, the fat guy from Entourage, and LIAM NEESON. If your movie features more not Liam Neeson than it does Liam Neeson, you're wrong.
• The aliens biggest weakness is the sun, which, you know, is kind of a big deal here on earth. If they have to wear sunglasses all the time, that makes them douche bags, not evil.
• They actually tried to use elements from the game. You know the game Battleship- that super exciting board game that lends itself to a big budget CGI thriller. Or maybe the exact opposite of that. There is one sequence that involved plotting out the enemy using a suspiciously familiar looking grid. Also, and the worst, was that the aliens used bombs that looked exactly like the little pegs you use in the game. It made no sense and was completely ridiculous.

Random Thought:

I do not understand massage stations at the mall. I walk to the Century City Mall once or twice a week to pick up lunch, because I can't afford anything else at the stupid rich people mall, and every time, I see people using the massage station. For me, there is nothing relaxing about having an old Asian guy rubbing me down while surrounded by weird European tourists (You can tell they're European because the men are wearing capri pants). Is this something you would partake in?