Month: January 2013

Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Link-Off

Wednesday Link-Off: Speak The Truth

alessandra-ambrosio-victoriassecret13-02This week has been an interesting week for news if you can get past all the news about Lance Armstrong. There are stories about America’s political right and some bizarre ones out of here in Canada. But before we get to that, here’s Alessandra Ambrosio. By the way, she had a kid last May. Not that you can tell.

The NRA wasn’t always the most feared lobby group on Capitol Hill. For a long time, they were happy to be solely about gun safety. In the 70s, that all changed. (Washington Post)

It’s not often that folks in the media admit that they are wrong but Buzz Bissinger admitted that he was wrong to defend Lance Armstrong from doping allegations. (The Daily Beast)

David Walsh was the first man to suggest that Lance Armstrong wasn’t on the up and up all the way back in 1999. How does he feel now that his suspicions have been vindicated? (Sunday Times)

After the jump, some news media fails, sticking up for BioWare and the dogs invading a soccer game video of the day. Continue reading →

3 Comments Posted on by Steve Murray Randominity

The Best of Barrett-Jackson 2013

This week is the world-famous Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction is the premier classic and rare car auction in the world. It’s the sort of thing that rich people go to for buying new status symbols and where real men go to drool over what basically is automotive erotica. It’s basically a week-long celebration of the car where gearheads are king. So to celebrate the year’s biggest car show where the cars and not the manufacturers are the stars, here are ten of my favourite cars from this week’s auction. Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Entertainment

Worst of Music Hall of Fame: Patrice Wilson

In my Worst of Music posts, I often refer to various singers as all-time WoM’ers or Hall of Famers. Today, I’ve decided to officially induct the first member of the Worst of Music Hall of Fame.

Today’s WoM HoFer isn’t a singer but a producer. He has two previous WoM winners with Rebecca Black’s Friday and Nicole Westbrook’s It’s Thanksgiving. The latest song that he’s produced to go viral may be the worst of the bunch and makes him our first ever three-time Worst of Music award winner and earned him a spot in the WoM Hall of Fame. His latest song is by a rapping duo called Tweenchronic and is called Skip Rope. Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Sports

Join The 2013 Lowdown Blog Fantasy Hockey Pool

It’s time once again for the annual Lowdown Blog Fantasy Hockey Pool. We’ve created our fantasy hockey league over on the TSN/ESPN fantasy website. It’s a public pool so anyone can join. As with last year, if we run out of space in the first pool, we’ll create a second one. It’s a head-to-head league with the winner of each match-up based on winning the most of the nine categories (G, A, +/-, PIM, SOG, STP [Special Teams Points], Wins, GAA, SV%) in play kinda like the old Yahoo pools we all used to play. Each team has 20 roster spots with nine forwards, four defensemen and two goalies starting each night.

The autopick draft takes place at 5:00 AM Thursday, January 17, so sign up now and set your picks.

Click here to go to The Lowdown Blog Fantasy Hockey League.

The first league has filled up. We’ve added a second pool which is a points pool. It’s draft is at 5:00 AM on Friday.

Click here to go to the second Lowdown Blog Fantasy Hockey Pool.

Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Link-Off

Sunday Link-Off: That’s No Moon…

michea-crawford-paindusucre13-03Another week, another… Well, I can’t say dollar any more since WP’s in-house ad service doesn’t seem to be showing ads. Anyhow, I’ve been a little torn between here and et geekera which probably means posts are or will get a little thin between the two blogs. If you want to write for either site to make my life a little easier get your name out there and have a little fun at the same time, you can email me at thelowdown [at] live.ca.

As for today’s links, let’s start with Canadian model Michea Crawford.

For a while, it looked touch and go as to who would win the US Presidential election but Barack Obama pulled it out. What really helped him stretch his lead early in the campaign was that Reddit AMA. It was a big risk but it paid off with a big reward. (BuzzFeed)

The petition to have America build a Death Star got enough signatures to require a response from the White House. They responded in absolutely epic fashion. (The White House)

Alabama won their 15th national title in college football last Monday. The game was the highest-rated program in cable TV history and the BCS TV deal is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So where does all that money go? (The Fiscal Times)

After the jump, a big change at Gawker, the science of Serenity and changes coming soon to YouTube. Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on by Steve Murray Entertainment, Link-Off

Entertainment Link-Off: And The Globe Goes To

keira-knightley-allure12-03Since I’m drawing in to cover this week’s entertainment and pop culture links, we have to assume that Jackie has melted in the Australian heat wave… Anyway, the Golden Globes are this weekend so we’ll get our first indication at who or what will be the front runners at the Oscars. Speaking of which, the Academy Awards nominees were announced this week because the Academy says they don’t want to appear influenced by the Globes… So they moved the nomination announcement up because of the Globes? Makes sense…

Anyway, this weekend at the theatres gives us two big releases. There’s a new release in the form of Gangster Squad which actually has a cast despite the fact that the ads are only promoting Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. It also boasts a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If you want to watch a good movie that opens this weekend, Zero Dark Thirty goes to wide release this weekend so you can finally see it. But just for fun, let’s start this edition of the ELO with Keira Knightley. We don’t feature her on the blog nearly enough. Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Humour

Caption This: January 5 – 11, 2012

Inspired by the Globe and Mail’s caption writing person, we waste our time writing funny picture captions for some of the more interesting photos we come across when blogging. So here are some of the best pictures from the past week with a funny (-ish) caption. Continue reading →

2 Comments Posted on by Steve Murray Video Games

Death Rally Review (or Why You Should Read the Whole Review, Not Just Scores)

death-rally-box-artThis won’t shock regular readers but I’m a bit of a racing fan. Find me a driving game and I’m likely to take some positive from it. I say “likely” because that was “going to take a positive” from a driving game until I picked up the remake of Death Rally. Remedy Entertainment might be best known for its work on Max Payne and Alan Wake but the first game out of the studio was 1996’s Death Rally. Fifteen years later, it was remade for iOS and this year, it was ported to PC.

So is Remedy’s update of one of its classics up to par with recent updates like XCOM and Baldur’s Gate? Can an iOS port to PC be worth the price of admission? I examine in my review. Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Randominity

Does Anyone Believe What They See In Ads? (Infographic)

It might be the cynic in me but I have a hard time believe a lot of promises in advertising. It’s generally a case of if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It turns out that I’m not the only one who feels this way. This infographic shows there are a great many who have a hard time believing what they see in ads. Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on by Steve Murray Link-Off

Wednesday Link-Off: A Week at the Movies

jessica-chastain-gquk13-01Have you been reading Scott’s list of the Top 45 Movies of 2012? If you haven’t, you’re missing the most thorough breakdown of the year in movies that I’ve seen. Today, he’s dropping Part Three which covers #15 to #1. Therefore, I thought it was fitting to lead off this linkdump with actress Jessica Chastain.

Blue Brothers is one of the all-time great comedies. This oral history looks at how the movie almost never got made. (Vanity Fair)

If comedies aren’t your speed, maybe you’d rather read about Ben and Matt got their big breaks with Good Will Hunting. (Boston Magazine)

Okay, so Notre Dame got hilariously beaten by Alabama for the BCS Championship. My question is whether they even deserved to be there. After Penn State was nearly sanctioned out of existence for the Jerry Sandusky affair, the Notre Dame rape scandal was swept under the rug allowing them to get within one game of a national championship. (The Nation)

After the jump, did Dalhousie women’s hockey get screwed out of a season, Tony Bourdain vs. Travel Channel and a montage of montage. Continue reading →