Matthew Wrather and Peter Fenzel tackle issues of representation and expression with reference to PayPal, Antwone Fisher, Battleship, and leaked nude photos of celebrities.
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Well IN ACTUALITY, Matt Ryan didn’t make the Pro Bowl this season. Rodgers, Brees, and Eli Manning were the NFC selections, and then Cam Newton replaced Manning when the Giants went to the Super Bowl. Ryan did have a top notch season, however, and he has been to A Pro Bowl, not just this year’s.
Also, the Falcons weren’t particularly good this season. They went 10-6 and finished with the fifth seed in the NFC, before they were soundly defeated by the New York Giants as the Giants headed to the Super Bowl title.
Lastly, Ryan isn’t all that popular as a quarterback. He’s not even as popular as Michael Vick, who sells more jerseys and gets more advertisements. I’d say, if I had to ball park a Q rating, Ryan is rather middling amongst quarterbacks. He’s probably isn’t even in the top 10, and both Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III could both end up passing Ryan this season.
In conclusion, football is the best.
Hello Pete,
I am here. :)
This was all I could think about for most of the podcast. My brain is too fried to think much more, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77C47XYm_3c
I’ve spent many months on a privately owned marine vessel (an oil exploration/survey ship). You never really run out of books or movies – we had boxes and boxes of mildewing paperbacks, and a pretty big digital film library. Plus, DVDs are like 15 cents in Indonesia, so it’s no big deal to pick up a couple hundred random titles. But we were working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for a couple months at a time. The only way to spend that kind of time is by getting to know people. And the only way to get to know people is by telling stories. Honestly, there are a handful of men and women around the globe who I know as well as their lifelong best friends, because it gets that intimate. And boy, could I tell you some stories. I assume the Navy is similar, especially since the stakes are occasionally very high.
Pete, if you ever quit your job, please write a book. I have never been as tantalized by a given topic as I am right before you say “I can’t talk about that because of work”.
The Navy is VERY similar – the story-telling comes mostly from two factors. First, the crew of a Navy ship is constantly in flux – new people are always coming and going, so you always have a new audience for old stories. Second, as Leigh said, there’s a LOT of downtime where there’s nothing to do BUT get to know the guy next to you.
Most people on Navy ships spend anywhere from 6 to 12 hours a day on watch, which is usually comprised of at least 75% of doing nothing but stare at either the water or a computer screen/panel of gauges. You’re not allowed to read or watch TV or anything like that during that time, so you shoot the breeze with the other people on watch with you. There’s no better time for stories of drunken shenanigans than a 0300 watch in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
As far as research/Battleship goes, my sense just from watching the trailers is that the people writing the script didn’t do very much research, but the director/producer/costume designer/etc. did. The background details all seem pretty much right – they filmed a lot of the scenes on actual Navy ships, and as Matt alluded to in the podcast, most of the ranks, insignia, etc. are correct.
That said, the writers seem to have taken some liberties – the line about being “the fastest Enlisted person ever to make Officer” or some such is utter gobbledy-gook, and I’m sure most of the weapons details will just be whatever makes the coolest boom-boom noises.
That said, the Surface Warfare community has been waiting for a Top-Gun moment for 20 years, so I will be there opening night!
Was it this episode that mentioned the theory that killing $100 bills would disrupt drug dealers using cash? Here’s an obvious example of why that wouldn’t work. Even without eliminating denominations of paper currency, drug dealers or users are now using bottles of Tide as currency. ‘Police believe thieves are using the soap on the black market, which retails for $10-$20, to buy drugs. On the black market, Tide is often referred to as “liquid gold” and can go for $5-$10 per bottle.’ No serial numbers on the bottles, so it can’t be tracked after you steal a couple bottles.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/tide-detergent-being-stolen-stores-across-country-162253268.html