Rubber Chicken’s Dojo

sheffield wednesday’s run of recent form hit a higflying speed bump over night with a 2-1 loss to promotion-hopefuls, nottingham forest. a dexter blackstock (cool name) double, including the winner ten minutes from time, was enough to see off the owls and dent their survival hopes.

with an uneventful first quarter, blackstock opened the scoring from the penalty spot after darren pooter, for reasons beyond all sanity, raised his arm to black a shot from the aforementioned blackstock.

the rest of the first half was forest putting pressure on the owls’ defence, steadfastly held by lee grant. at the other end, the other lee, forest’s keeper, lee camp, was hardly troubled by attempts by tom soares and tommy spurr.

a scrappy second half saw wednesday score a scrappy goal as the in-form luke varney slotted home a etienne esajas cross to level the scores. it didn’t last long though as blackstock finished off a parry by grant to put forest back in front for good.

the loss brings wednesday back towards the relegation zone as some other results did not go their way. nottingham forest, at the other end, are now one point away from automatic promotion.

i’ve been doing some reading lately and am just beside myself with disbelief as the rudd government attempts to tighten its grip on the freedoms of its citizens. it has been released that the australian classification board (acb) has banned any pornography depicting women with small breasts as it is claimed that it promotes pedophilia. bloody hell, what next? oh wait, showing female ejaculation, that’s what’s next. films showing female ejaculation have been banned for two reasons (from ‘the register’, i will link to it later):

1) That the depictions are a form of urination which is banned under the label of ‘golden showers’ in the Classification Guidelines or

2) Female ejaculation is an ‘abhorrent’ depiction

how is that any different to the male version of the same  function?

two excellent articles can be found at the british site, the register, and at the very aussie, crikey.com.au

i’m honestly shocked and amazed. does kevein rudd really think this is going to matter? it’s like trying to strangle water. it’s never going to work, just like his internet censorship plan. and while the acb claim that it is done on a case by case basis, it doesn’t take away from the fact that the intent is there.

speaking of censorship, the gaming community is still fighting for the acb to create an adults-only rating for games deemed too explicit for general public consumption. the confusing part of this comes as the average age for gamers in australia is over 30 years of age.

while i do agree that some games that depict sexual violence or mentions drugs explicitly should be banned by the acb. but surely adult gamers should at least be given the choice of whether they want to buy these sorts of games. most companies now refuse to edit their games for the australian market, while some that are given an r-rating in other countries actually ’shoe-horned’ into the MA 15+ rating in australia.

a great article can be found at the global post.

sheffield wednesday rebounded from a midweek blip against scunthorpe ( 2-0 loss) to go back to their 2-1 winning ways versus plymouth argyle. all the goals were scored in the first half as both teams were determined to lift themselves from the relegation battle.

new zealand striker, rory fallon, nodded home to open the scoring on 24 minutes. [aside] should be interesting to see how fallon goes in south africa this year. big fella might attract some attention from bigger clubs.

within a minute of argyle going ahead, luke varney poked home a marcus tudgay through ball to level the scores. it was varney’s first goal since re-signing with the owls on loan from derby county. [aside #2] it’s his sixth spell on loan with sheffield. why don’t they just buy him already?

varney doubled his tally three minutes before the break and it proved to be the game winner. tommy spurr, whose throw-in lead to the first goal, played the ball down the line to tudgay. he headed it down to varney who found some space as the argyle defence stayed off him. varney slotted it home at the far post to finish the scoring.

the second half lacked any decisive chances. plymouth tried to push forward but lacked creativity and finish.

while plymouth gets further mired in the relegation zone, the owls’ win lifts them to 19th on the table. they are five points ahead of the highest relegation position but the teams below them have games in hand. the positive football has to continue for safety to be certain.

the boston globe has an interesting set of photos for this week’s big picture series. the theme is fiery festivals. the viking looking pictures come from scotland and a festival that has been a tradition for 130 years. the lower set is from spain and includes horse riders jumping through flames to pruify their souls. here’s the pick of the lot:

sheffield wednesday have hit their usual new year purple patch, right when i don’t have interwebs coverage. as such, they’ve clawed their way out of the relegation zone and, relative, safety.

the owls now find themselves on a three game winning steak. all three games ended 2-1 against barnsley, blackpool and, most recently, peterborough. new coach alan irvine must be saying the right things in the dressing room. marcus tudgay (both against peterborough) has scored two of the six goals, while luke varney, while scoreless, has been playing well.  meanwhile, premiership target, lee grant, has been playing the house down at the other end, ably supported by the four in front of him.

let’s hope this miracle continues.

witty dialogue, fast-paced action and rachel mcadams make sherlock holmes worth going and taking a look at. director guy ritchie sets a cracking pace straight off the bat, giving an excellent insight into how holmes (robert downey jr) thinks. seeing how he is going to execute his fighting and then seeing it at full speed was pretty neato.

downey jr does a decent holmes while jude law plays sidekick, watson. he does a pretty good straight-man role. thhot.ey seemed to pay well off each other. mcadams plays token love interest but is still hot.

19th century london looks good, with some nice cgi. i could go on about costumes but i’m not gay. farting dog jokes are appreciated though. nice.

let’s be honest, this is more for entertainment, not cultural significance. it wasn’t really worth $20 plus popcorn but that doesn’t mean it was a terrible movie. just not the best one i’ve seen lately.

sheffield wednesday have confirmed that former preston north end manager, alan irvine, has been appointed their new manager. he has signed a three and a half year contract, meaning he’ll only last two.

irvine was controversially sacked from his former club this year, having guided preston to the playoffs last season. he had been there for just over two years.