Dallas One Win Away

After their dramatic victory in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, the Dallas Mavericks are just one win away from completing their run for a Championship!  Dirk Nowitsky may be one of the greatest players of all time, and it's somebody that most fans didn't know much, if anything, about before this year's playoffs, what a feel good story!  He's had a LOT of help along the way in the Finals also, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, and perhaps most of all, particularly in the last two games, Tyson Chandler.  Tyson Chandler is a player that wasn't good enough for the Charlotte Bobcats to keep around...that's the Carlotte Bobcats, a team that didn't even make the playoffs.  And for the first part of this series you could certainly see why they cut him, he didn't do much.  But these last two games, he's really done what he should've been able to do all along, use his size to great advantage.  Ironicly, if he'd been playing up to his potential all year he probably would've never left Charlotte, so him finding his game this late actually served him, and the Mavericks, very well.  If Dallas wins the Championship, of course Dirk will get the biggest share of the credit, and deservedly so, but Tyson Chandler may be the second most important player on this team, and when you're on a team with folks like Kidd and Terry, that's really saying something.  Game 6 in Miami is going to be HUGE, I'm thinking it could be the highest rated game in NBA history.  Certainly it's a game I'm looking forward to! 

Major Campaign 2012 News!

There's so much news I don't know where to begin!  First, the bad news.  In the wake of his announcement, it seems that Mitt Romney is opening up a bit of lead on the other contenders, actually getting to 30 percent of the vote in one poll if Sarah Palin doesn't run.  But speaking of Sarah Palin, it seems that she's been on the receiving end of an attack from Michelle Bachmann's new Campaign head, Ed Rollins!  Why was Ed Rollins first act as chief of her campaign, to go out and attack Sarah Palin in an interview?  That of course has led to a bit of a feud between the two camps.  Of course ultimately Michelle Bachmann is another Gary Johnson.  Gary would've done well if Ron Paul hadn't run, but since Ron is running there's just no reason for anybody to support Gary.  So it is with Michelle Bachmann, she no doubt could do well if Sarah Palin doesn't run, but if Palin does run then there's no reason for anybdoy to support Bachmann, and she will do extremely poorly.  Granted there was a poll on Bill O'Reilly last night showing her ahead of Palin 60-40 in a head to head contest, but that's an online poll taken before Sarah Palin got in.  If she gets in, those numbers would change DRAMATICLY. 

On a happier 2012 front, it seems the Ron Paul campaign keeps picking up steam!  He recently got another major endorsement in Iowa, another State Representative has endorsed Ron's candidacy, this time Freshman State Rep Kim Pearson!  A fellow Tea Partier, she won a VERY tough race last go-round, and now she's supporting Ron Paul for President!  For all of you Iowa readers, watch that name, Kim Pearson, you might be seeing it for Senator or Governor one day, and if so, please remember to give her your full support!  That's not all the Ron Paul news though, because he also picked up a major endorsement in New Hampshire as well!  State Senator Jim Forsythe has not only endorsed Ron Paul for President, he's actually agreed to be the Chairman of Ron's New Hampshire Campaign!  Of course New Hampshire's legislature is a citizen-legislature, so they have lots and lots of free time, State Senators from other states might be too busy to do something like that, but not in New Hampshire!  This is a HUGE plus for Doctor Paul, so now his Iowa and New Hampshire campaigns are really starting to take off!  Stay tuned for more 2012 updates!

Amazing Game 4

Game 4 of the NBA Finals was quite simply amazing.  Dallas, as usual, got off to a good start and proceeded to waste that on shoddy defense.  It was a different kind of bad defense this time though, as you recall in game 3 they repeatedly allowed Miami to simply drive and dunk or lay it up for tons of free points in the first quarter, keeping Miami close and allowing them to eventually build a huge second quarter lead.  This time they did a much better job of stopping Miami from just having free points by driving and dunking or laying it in, but they gave up an ASTOUNDING amount of offensive rebounds, nine in the first quarter alone.  Simply unfathomable, so Miami managed to end the first quarter tied despite shooting less than 30 percent from the field, while Dallas shot around 50 percent.  Its amazing the creative ways Dallas can find to give away points like they're a high school team instead of an NBA team.  Dallas played relatively poorly in the second and third quarters, ending them down by 2 and 4 respectively.  Its worth noting that Dirk Nowitsky, who was having a very bad game, was quite sick, he could barely talk, he had a high fever, he was very much not well.  Of course we all remember MJ playing in the Finals with the Flu and scoring a ton of points, but clearly Dirk, especially when he's sick, is no MJ. 

The 4th quarter began the same way the 2nd quarter did, with Dallas giving up a bunch of points without scoring any themselves, quickly going from 4 down to 9 down, much like they went from tied to 7 down less than 2 minutes into the second quarter.  The early parts of 4th quarters have been REALLY awful for Dallas in this series, and it was no different in this game.  Eventually they settled into a medium-high single digit defecit for a while, as the time ticked away.  As the game progressed toward its ultimate conclusion, Dallas finally started getting some offense going, cutting into the defecit, and actually getting some stops as well.  Thanks to the Miami coach inexplicably not calling timeout during a key Dallas run, they were actually able to come ALL the way back, AND take the lead!  A lead they were able to get up to 3 points with about half a minute to go, but then Miami had a very long pass that resulted in Wade getting fouled and going to the FT line, where he cut the lead back to 1.  There was about a six second difference between the shot clock and the game clock, and Dirk was standing there holding the ball.  He could've held it longer than he did, but he decided to drive on the Miami fellow guarding him, and despite his sickness, and the poor game he'd been having, he made a BIGTIME layup with about 14 seconds left! 

Miami called a timeout, and it seemed they would go for a 3 point shot to tie, but instead Wade drove and got an easy basket with 9 seconds left.  Dallas took their final timeout, advancing the ball, and then they inbounded it in such a way that they were able to run off a couple seconds before anybdoy could reach the guy to foul him.  Dallas then hit two CLUTCH Free Throws, extending the lead back to 3 with 6.7 seconds left.  Miami called its final timeout and advanced the ball, and now seemed like a great time to just foul somebody, and make sure Miami couldnt tie the score, since they couldn't advance the ball again, being out of timeouts.  Instead Dallas chose to play defense, Wade received the inbound pass but stumbled and lost the ball, he recovered it and passed to a teammate, Miller, who was probably the LAST guy that Miami wanted to shoot their last shot, but with about 3 seconds left thats exactly what he did.  I don't think the ball even hit the rim, if it did it BARELY did, and the time ran out, an amazing and glorious victory for the Dallas Mavericks! 

What an incredible game, and it sets up a VERY critical Game 5 in Dallas on Thursday night.  Sadly its up against Impact Wrestling, so I'll be forced to go back and forth like I did last week.  It's a pivotal game, just as Dallas had to win Game 4, they have to win Game 5 just about as badly.  Game 6, and if necessary Game 7, will be in Miami, so Dallas will have to win another game in Miami in order to win this series, but if they lose game 5 they'd have to win TWO STRAIGHT games in Miami, quite the daunting task indeed.  Much better to just win Game 5 at home and then win Game 6 in Miami, ending the series right there.  Yeah, let's just do that :) .

You're Welcome General Motors

After we the Taxpayers bailed out the incompetent leadership of General Motors, as well as other banks and car people, hundreds and hundreds of billions in sweet bailout moeny for the fat cats and nothing for the regular folks who lost their jobs and their homes, it's nice to see that the head of GM is so grateful for the money that Bush and Obama gave to him, money they got from us.  It seems the head of GM has decided to show his appreciation by lowering the price and raising the quality of GM cars.....I'm kidding of course, that's something a good company leader would do.  This guy has a totally different idea, he's showing his appreciation for all our money, by calling on Congress to raise Gas Taxes by 50 cents to a Dollar a Gallon!  What a great guy this fellow is!  It seems he wants to thank us for all the money that Congress and the White House took from us to give to GM, by asking Obama and Congress to take even MORE of our money!  What a fantastic thank you gift!  What other awesome thank you gifts could this fellow give us?  Cars that explode?  Maybe cars that won't go above 20 miles per hour?  Oh I'm sure this guy can think of something, he's a brilliant and generous leader!  So thank you to General Motors, and their fantastic leader who was of course appointed by one of Obama's buddies!  His economic ideas are just as awesome as Obama's are, a feat that's no doubt hard to achieve, but clearly he is up to the task!  In fact, maybe we could put this guy in charge of Health Care too, another aspect of the economy that Americans clearly don't pay enough for yet.  More taxes = more fun, at for far-left folks like this guy! 

Massive Ron Paul Fundraising

For the second time in this election cycle alone, Ron Paul scored big with a 'Money Bomb'.  A money bomb is a 1 day fundraising event in which people 'bomb' the campaign with money, you may recall recently Congressman Bachmann raised around 200K on her money bomb day, by contrast Ron Paul raised 1.1 Million dollars yesterday.  During the previous campaign, late in 2007 the Ron Paul campaign held the first ever 'money bomb', in which it raised over 6 million dollars in a single day, setting a record for fundraising in one day.  Since then, other campaigns have begun employing money bombs also, to varying degrees of success.  Earlier this year, on the day of the SC Debate, the Ron Paul campaign held a money bomb and raised over a million dollars then also.  There are many more money bombs planned throughout the year, the next one being July 4th.  Despite news reports of Mitt Romney being the big moeny candidate, and that he raised 10 million dollars in one day, the reality is he didn't actually raise 10 million dollars in cash, he raised 10 million dollars in Pledges.  A money bomb, on the other hand, brings in actual campaign cash, money in the bank that can be used immediately for the campaign.  Which is more valuable, a million dollars in the bank, or 10 million dollars in pledges?  You can judge that for yourself, but I'm sure that Ron Paul is quite a bit happier to have his moeny in the bank than Mitt Romney is with having 'pledged' money. 

Today's money bomb money will be a huge help as Ron prepares go toe to toe with Mitt and the others in the crucial Iowa Straw Poll, which is held in August.  That straw poll will go a long ways in separating the Pretenders from the Contenders.  In 2007 Ron Paul was polling at about 1 percent in Iowa, but got 10 percent in the Iowa Straw Poll, good enough for 4th place.  That year the Fox News Channel reported, and I promise you I'm not making this up as insane as it sounds, the results for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th place.  So despite unprecented media bias against his campaign, he greatly overperformed his current standing in the polls at the time, and in fact went on to score another 10 percent showing during the Iowa Caucuses themselves.  This year Ron is at 8 percent in the most recent Iowa poll, with Romney at 21, and Sarah Palin and Herman Cain tied with 15 each.  So the field is wide open, and there's no reason why Ron can't finish either first or a strong second.  Between now and the Straw Poll Ron's campaign has to keep building support, and building infrastructure.  Iowa, being a Caucus state, simply cannot be won by a campaign without boots on the ground.  Ron's campaign is strong and growing in Iowa, he and Romney will likely be the two best organized candidates in Iowa come Straw Poll time, and its definitely possible that Ron's campaign will be the very best of the bunch.  So the bottom line for now is, another bigtime fundraising day for the Paul campaign, a day that will help his already strong Iowa campaign organization get even stronger!  

Impact Wretling Review

This week's Impact Wrestling was just all kinds of awesome.  We started the show with some amazing backstage fighting between Velvet Sky and ODB.  The brawl eventually spilled out into the main part of the arena, ODB controlling most of the action.  Multiple times dudes try to break it up, only for ODB to lay them out.  Eventually ODB drags Velvet into the ring, strips her down to her bra and panties, and chokes her out with her clothes, eventually counting her own 3-count, and walking away the 'winner'.  Awesome action, and a super fun way to start the show, two bigtime Knockouts in bigtime brawling action!

It was cool, as always, to see Mr Anderson impersonating Sting, he is so talented and he honestly does look a LOT like Sting back in the day.  He had a backstage segment with Eric Young, which led eventually to a match between Mr Anderson as Sting, vs Eric Young as the Great Muta.  Eric Young actually wins the match after using the Green Mist, in the true style of the Great Muta himself, something that truly never gets old!

Of course the highlight of the show, as is often the case, is the ongoing storyline with Angelina and Winter, also known as Winterlina.  For the first time in a long time, Angelina actually spoke this week, and she was fantastic!  She and Winter were in the back, Winter actually began the conversation, upset that Mickie beat her last week and caused her to bleed.  She's telling Angelina that she needs to avenge her, getting more and more worked up until Angelina suddenly puts her finger on Winter's lips, and proceeds to say her first words in quite some time.  She talks about how she's starting to understand how Winter feels, she says that they must become royalty, and that she wants return to a time when it was just the two of them, noone standing in their way.  She dedicates her upcoming victory to Winter, takes her hand and they walk off together.  It was awesome, it was romantic, it was powerful, and it was certainly dramatic!

Angelina's match this week was against Miss Tessmacher, who has certainly come a long way from her days as Brooke in the 'Extreme Expose' in the WWE.  With Mickie and Tara, as well as so many other super-talented Knockouts to work with, she's become quite the talented wrestler in her own right!  The match was fantastic, lots of great back and forth action, with Angelina ultimately getting the win via some kind of backbreaker style move.  After the match Winter signaled for Angleina to put Miss Tessmacher in that way cool submission hold that she uses, and she does so, ultimately knocking her out cold.  Winterlina celebrates in the ring after another bigtime victory!

The Main Event was a Tag Team match, featuring Jeff Jarrett and Scott Steiner vs Kurt Angle and Matt Morgan.  Scott Steiner ultimately got the win, but the big news was what happened after the match.  Karen had interfered, and she, Kurt, and Jeff were all going out of camera range.  When the cameras finally got to them, Karen had fallen down a bunch of stairs, and was totally laid out!  She ended up getting taken out in an ambulance, with Kurt saying to Jeff that this was all his fault.  Who knows what exactly happened to cause Karen to fall down those stairs?  Perhaps we'll find out more next week!

So an amazingly awesome and super cool night of Impact Wrestling action, tons of fun, great storylines, awesome wrestling, bigtime Superstars, it's a great time to be an Impact Wrestling fan!

The Greatest Comeback of All Time!

Game 2 of the NBA Finals was a seesaw battle, lots of ups and downs, but in the end it was Dirk Nowitsky leading what has to be the greatest comeback in the NBA Finals of all time!  With about 5 or 6 minutes to go, Dallas had just given up 13 straight points, and trailed by 15.  It seemed that they were about to head back to Dallas trailing 2 games to 0, looking like a team that was just too old or simply too pathetic to perform in the 4th quarter.  But that, as it turns out happily, was just an illusion, as Dallas quickly ran off 8 straight points to cut the lead to 7.  A generous foul call gave Labron two free throws, that he made to extend the lead to nine, before Dallas hit a big 3 ball to cut the lead to a half a dozen.  Dallas continued to whittle the lead down thanks to big D and scoring at the other end.  Eventually they got it down to 2 with under 2 minutes to go, and Miami had a LOOONG posession, thanks to Dallas' repeated failure to rebound Labron James misses.  Eventually somehow they managed to get the ball back on a 3 on 1 break, which they converted to tie the score!  Now under a minute to go, Miami misses again, and Dallas has the chance for a 2 for 1.  They pass on that, taking their time and that resulted in an open 3 ball for Mr Dirk which he promptly DRAINS to give Dallas its first lead in like FOREVER, a 3 point lead with 26.7 seconds to go! 

Miami took their final timeout, and then received a HUUUGE gift, as Jason Terry inexplicably leaves Chalmers, the man he was supposed to guard, to double team Wade....ON AN INBOUNDS PASS PLAY, when Wade didn't even have the ball!  This gave Miami the chance to simply throw the ball in to the all-alone Chalmers, who hit the wide open 3 and tied the score with 24.5 seconds still left.  The horrors!  Dallas then called their own final timeout, and began milking the clock.  With about 10 seconds or so, Kidd got the ball to the only man on the court who mattered, Mr Dirk Nowitsky.  He said after the game he was anticipating being fouled, since Miami still had a foul to give, but apparently Miami forgot or something, as they simply played him straight up with Bosh, who got TAKEN TO SCHOOL, Dirk blew past him and laid it up with THE LEFT HAND BABY!!  That gave Dallas a 2 point lead with under 4 seconds to go, and Miami had no timeouts so they had to push it quickly.  Wade actually got a mighty decent look all things considered, but in the end it was no good, and the Dallas Mavericks had scored their greatest victory of all time, and the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history!  I can't wait for Game 3 in Dallas on Sunday evening!  Oh baby what a series!

Shocking New Iowa Poll

A new poll from the First Caucus State of Iowa was just released today, and it has some very shocking numbers.  First, the not-shocking part is that Establishment favorite Mitt Romney continues to hold a narrow lead, with 21 percent of the vote.  However while it also isn't surprising that Sarah Palin is in second with 15 percent, what is absolutely shocking is that she is tied for second with Herman Cain!  The former head of Godfather's Pizza has zoomed up to 15 percent in Iowa, totally shocking.  Newt Gingrich is in 4th, still with 12 percent of the vote despite his scandals and huge sleaze factor, Michelle Bachmann has climbed into the double digits, scoring a 5th place showing with 11 percent of the vote, Tim Pawlenty also has double digits now in 6th place with 10 percent, Ron Paul sadly is all the way back in 7th place in this poll with just 8 percent of the vote, ahead of only John Huntsman, who has 0 percent (he literally only got 1 vote in the entire polling sample). 

This poll tells us a lot of things, first of course that name recognition and being the Establishment's Man is still good for first place in Iowa, at least right now, and it also shows that Governor Palin is still a major force in Iowa politics, despite having done virtually nothing to boost her standing there.  However what's much more interesting about this poll is how the lesser known Conservatives are doing, particularly Mr Herman Cain.  As a successful Businessman and cancer survivor, Herman Cain brings powerful leadership skills to the table.  He seems to have a strong Conservative resume as well, no doubt that especially helps in a state like Iowa.  The fact is that Cain has very little money, and is zooming up pretty much entirely due to the strength of his South Carolina Debate performance, and subsequent interviews.  I don't know much about the man, but from what little I do know he seems like a very genuine and likable fellow, somebody who is extremely qualified and very trustworthy.  I look forward to seeing and hearing more from this excellent candidate.

Another part of the poll that might be a bit surprising is that Newt Gingrich still somehow has 12 percent of the vote, I guess thats entirely due to name recognition, because he's alienated so many people at this point its a wonder he's even still in the race.  Michelle Bachmann continues to climb in the poll, she's up to 11 percent, and she's one of those candidates who would probably benefit most should Newt continue to sink.  Tim Pawlenty is somehow at 10 percent despite basicly being a bland, boring nobody.  And Ron Paul does surprisingly poorly in this poll, the only major candidate to not be in the double digits, albeit he's close at 8 percent.  Certainly you could say that he's within the margin of error for 4th place, so many candidates are packed so close together, and of course if you looked at Ron Paul this time in 2007 he was at about 1 percent in Iowa, and still managed to get 10 percent of the vote in both the Ames Straw Poll and on Caucus Night.  His starting point this time around is thus eight times stronger, and by that logic he will finish on Caucus night with 80 percent of the vote....OK maybe not :) .  But this much stronger starting point definitely gives him a much better shot at winning the Caucuses, and he's also much stronger on the ground this time around in advance of the critical Ames Straw Poll in August , which could go a very long way toward making Ron the man to beat come Caucus night. 

So some major developments in the 2012 Presidential Race, stay tuned to the Gladiator Blog for more coverage of Election 2012!

NBA Finals Game 1

Tonight's Game 1 of the NBA Finals was very exciting, and showed a lot about the two teams.  In the first half, it was Dallas' game, in the second half Dallas started to take over, but then Miami turned the tide, eventually winning comfortably.  Dallas did a lot of things wrong, really easy and simple things like missed layups, and failure to rebound, which if corrected could easily lead to a win in Game 2.  Perhaps the worst thing about the game however, was the unbelievably biased Pro-Miami announcing by the ABC Announce crew.  Hopefully something can be done to either get more objective announcers, or to at least give these guys a reprimand to get them to show more objectivity.  A notable point in the game, when a Dallas player was driving for a dunk and got totally clobbered by a Miami player, one announcer actually insanely suggested that they should've called an offensive foul.  Apparently if you drive for a dunk against Miami you deserve to be clobbered!?  It was an unbelievably huge Pro-Miami bias, and I'm not watching ABC for that, I want to hear unbiased announcing.  Its bad enough that the liberal media can't be unbiased on political matters, do they really have to extend their lack of objectivity to sporting events?  I would hope not, I hope tonight was an exception and that going forward we can get truly objective announcing, it sure would make watching the Finals more enjoyable for anyone who isn't a huge Miami fan.  

Tonight's RAW

Tonight's RAW was filled with major news and action!  Let's start at the beginning, where there were a lot of technical difficulties, through it all was a really good and hilarious R Truth promo, attacking John Cena merchandise, and making his way to a family in the crowd, talking to the youngster, then asking him where his dad was.  His dad was of course right next to him, which was funny, and the fact that both were wearing John Cena shirts also played nicely into the segment.  R Truth asked the father what his son's name was, but before he could answer R Truth said 'let me guess...Little Jimmy?' oh man alive that wa hilarious!  Eventually Cena came out and talked for a bit, and the Main Event was made by the RAW GM, Cena vs R Truth! 

Later in the show we got a fantastic segment with Michael Cole interviewing Alex Riley.  Apparently Riley has some cool entrance music now.  Cole went on and on about everything that Miz did for him, and how he should apoloogise, etc.  The crowd was solidly behind Riley, who eventually attacked Cole, leading of course to an attack from behind by the Miz!  However Miz's advantage was relatively short lived, as A-ri made a comeback and Miz eventually ran away.  Two weeks in a row of Riley owning the Miz!

We had a FANTASTIC Divas Tag Team match as well, featuring The Bellas against Eve and everybody's favoirte Diva, Kelly Kelly!  Kelly is so amazingly awesome, happily she got the win tonight!  The match was great, and unlike last week, no interruption from Kharma, which was also a plus.  This was nideed Kharma's last night on RAW for about a year, as she announced later in the show that she was in fact pregnant.  Why they made her pregnancy part of the storyline is beyond me, it seems rather stupid, just asy she was leavnig due to bullying, that would play into the whole anti-bullying campaign and their movie and all.  But thats the way they went, they went with reality TV.  Eventually the Bellas came out and made some fat jokes, and finally Kong left the ring. 

The Main Event wasn't all that good really, it featured a fair bit of R Truth stalling, and repeatedly rolling out of the ring after Cena would beat on hm for a bit.  Eventually Ron acted like he was leaving, Cena gave chase, only to have Truth attack him and make it back into the ring before the 10 count, something Cena was not able to do.  The winner of the match, Ron 'The Truth' Killings!  A shocking victory for R Truth, granted it wasn't a Title win, but still, he beat the Champ!  Apparently it's already been announced that it will indeed be Cena vs Truth at the next PPV.

So a lot of major action tonight, some truly major developments, and we're well on our way to the next PPV!  Tonight's RAW definitely gets a Thumbs Up from SirGladiator!

Memorial Day

I'd like to wish everyone, especially all our brave and awesome men and women of the United States Armed Services, a very happy and healthy Memorial Day.  Let's all take a moment to thank and appreciate our brave soldiers for all that they do to keep us safe and free.  We as Americans have a certain tendency to take Freedom for granted, something we have to constantly fight against, because indeed, as the saying goes, the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.  That vigilance is the job of all of us, not just the awesome men and women who fight for our freedom on a daily basis.  So on this, their Memorial Day, let us all give a big thank you to all of those who work so hard, and sacrifice so much, somtimes their very lives, so that we can be free.  Thank you to all of you, you guys ROCK!!!

Writer's Block

If you're like me, you sometimes experience that ever-so-frustrating phenomenon known as writer's block.  You know you want to write something, but you don't know what to write, because....you guessed it, writer's block :) .  I'm experiencing that right now, so I'm doing the only thing a writer who has writer's block can do, other than not write at all (which is of course the most common way we deal with writers block, sadly), and that is, I'm writing about it.  As far as I know, this is actually a pretty unique way to attempt to deal with writer's block, since the most normal thing is to simply try to figure out something to write and then only once you've done that, resume writing.  Hopefully this method will be an improvement, in any event I courage you to try it yourself the next time you're stuck with an annoying case of writer's block.  Just write about it.  Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but at least it'll be better than writing nothing at all and waiting for it to go away on its own.  Beat the big bad writer's block by writing!  Always remember, a writer writes, always!

New Hampshire Poll

A new CNN Poll out of New Hampshire, home of the First in the Nation Primary, has more good news for Ron Paul!  We've already heard from Gallup that he's in 3rd place nationwide (second if Sarah Palin doesn't run), and now news from CNN that he's in second place in the Granite State!  Naturally Mitt Romney, former Governor of neighboring Massachusetts, is in first place, he has 32 percent of the vote.  Ron Paul is in clear second with 9 percen.  Newt Gengrich and Rudy Guliani each have 6 percent, others have less.  Of course its easy to look at a poll like that and think it doesnt matter who's in 2nd when Romney is so far ahead in 1st, but it really does for a number of reasons.  First, whoever is Romney's main challenger will naturally get major attention, and stand to gain a lot in the polls as a result.  Second, you can combine that with the fact that Ron is especially likely to win Iowa, where he's already got a machine in place and is working on winning the Iowa Straw Poll in August.  A win in Iowa would of course give a huge boost to Ron heading into New Hampshire, which naturally means that the higher he already is at the time, the more likely he will be to vault all the way into first.  Second place New Hampshire this early, a strong position for Congressman Ron Paul!

Good news about Balls Mahoney!

If anybody here heard a rumor about Balls Mahoney today, I just want to pass along that I just read that rumor is NOT true, nothing wrong with Balls, he's alive and well and everything.  With all the sad news that we always seem to be getting about one famous wrestler or another passing away, most recently of course being the sad news about the Macho Man passing away recently, its especially good when the bad news finally turns out NOT to be true for once.  So three cheers for Balls Mahoney, and three cheers for him still being alive and well!  All together now.....Balls!  Balls!  Balls!  Balls!  WOOOOOOOOOOAH Balls!!! 

The Witcher 2 Official Review

Every so often a game comes along that doesn't simply live up to expectations, doesn't even simply exceed those expectations, it completely redefines a genre.  That is what The Witcher 2 has done, it has established itself as the new Standard for Action RPGs.  The graphics, the sound, the storyline, the depth of characters and incredibly meaningful decisions that you make throughout the game, make this not just a great game, but truly an Epic Win.

 You are Geralt, the fellow on the right in this picture, with his significant other Triss, on the left.  Geralt is a famous Witcher, which is someone who has three major abilities, sword, magic, and alchemy, the latter being the ability to create and drink potions which temporarily improve your stats.  During the course of the game you'll use all of those abilities and more, although as you level up you'll choose which 'skill tree' or trees you'll be investing your ability points into.  Would you rather focus on your swordplay abilities, or maybe get some of both the swordplay and magic abilities?  The choices are yours, a theme that will be on powerful display throughout the game.  Choices and decisions are a huge part of what makes RPGs great, and you won't find better than TW2.  From very early in the game you'll make important decisions that can make a major difference in the gaming world.  Who lives and who dies is often up to you, and sometimes, like in one particularly important decision late in Chapter One, your decision will have a VERY profound effect on the world going forward, so much so that the second Chapter of the game plays out completely differently depending on that choice, from which town you end up in to which side of an upcoming war you side with, and all the consequences that naturally flow from all those things.  I know of no other game that has ever packed anywhere near this much power into the choices that you the player are allowed to make, the consequences are profound, and you really feel like you're making a huge difference in the world, because you are.

Whether you're on the side of this beautiful lady, Saskia, in her battle for Freedom and Independence is entirely up to you, your choices determine which side you end up on, hers or the king who seeks to crush her and her peasant-army.  But that isn't until Chapter Two, you've got a lot to do and accomplish before then Witcher!  And that, of course, includes romance.  Geralt begins the game with Triss (which, strangely, is even true if you import a save from TW1 in which you romanced Shani instead), a very attractive red-haired sorceress who is very much in love with you.  You, of course, can be in love with her as well, or not.  As this game is all about choices, you can choose to be faithful to Triss, or to stray with a number of different women.  In fact, as the game progresses another major love interest from Geralt's past is repeatedly mentioned and eluded to, and presumably you'll meet her either in a future DLC or Expansion for TW2, or in TW3.  But there are certainly enough women around already to test your committment to Triss.  Also, while on the topic of romances, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Love Scenes.  These aren't super-mild events like in Dragon Age 2, they aren't even tame-but-'controversial' like in Mass Effect.  These are very detailed scenes, tastefully done, but still quite graphic.  Overall they're a major improvement over the likes of DAO/DA2 and ME2, but they might be a bit much for some folks, so if you choose to share an intimate moment with the lady of your choice, be prepared for far more than anything you've seen in Ferelden or on the Normandy.

As you can see from the pictures, this game is a graphical masterpiece, a truly beautiful sight to behold.  The sounds, including the voice acting, are also awesome.  No game is without its faults, and TW2 does have a few, most notably that while Geralt is a fine Hero of the game, he isn't customizable at all.  You can't play as a female character, something that most folks would probably like to be able to do.  You can't change the skin color, hair color, eye color, etc. of the character in any way either.  The complete lack of customizing options is a letdown, and stands in stark contrast to most major RPGs these days, for whom character creation options are standard.  Hopefully the next TW game will have the same character customization options as games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout, and Fable, just to name a few.  As fun as it is playing as a generic male, white haired Witcher, it would probably be a lot more fun playing as a Witcher who looks like Triss or Saskia.  Also on the negative side, there's an over-abundance of bad language in the game.  I don't understand why they felt the need for so much bad language, there's certainly no need for it, its a shame they allowed so much bad language to pollute the beautiful environment of this game.

There's never been a game quite like The Witcher 2, it is simply incredible from start to finish.  From the challenging yet fun combat, to the beautiful characters and scenery, to the extremely impactful decisions you make that effect so much of the gaming world and the people in it, this game is quite simply a masterpiece.  The Witcher 2 gets a score of 98 out of 100.  A point off for all the bad language, a point off for the lack of Character Customization, other than that a perfect score!  I encourage everyone to buy and enjoy The Witcher 2 today!

Don't count out the Bulls!

Last night we witnessed an exciting Series Finale between Dallas and Oklahoma City, Dallas was up 3 games to 1 and they used another late 4th Quarter comeback to close out the series 4 games to 1.  Many may look at tonight's game 5 and see the same thing coming tonight, Miami winning and closing out the series in 5.  However that overlooks a couple criticial differences between these two matchups, that could result in a completely different outcome.  First of all, Dallas had two remaining home games, so if they lost their home game last night they still had another coming in game 7, should it have been necessary.  Miami only has one home game left, which would take place in game 6.  If the Bulls win tonight, Miami only has one chance to close out the series at home, which they would very much need to do as Chicago is an excellent Home Team.  Another difference is that Miami doesn't have a Dirk.  They've got some awesome players, no doubt about that, but they don't have that one guy you can go to over and over again when the game is on the line, and rest assured that things are likely to turn out well.  Labron's late game choking exploits are legendary, granted he hasn't displayed them much in this series, but perhaps one should add the word 'yet' to that.  Dirk is a veteran of the Playoff wars, this is a man who is VERY hungry to rid himself of the bad memories from blowing his chance at a Championship a few years ago.  Miami already accomplished one of their major objectives, they beat the Boston Celtics.  Just exaclty how hungry are they to go all the way?  No doubt they want it, but do they want it as bad as Dirk?  Doubtful.

Make no mistake, tonight the Chicago Bulls mettle will be tested.  Tonight we will see what Rose and company are truly made of.  But if you think the outcome is inevitable, that a Dallas-Miami Finals is a foregone conclusion, I would simply suggest that you think again.  A lot can still happen on the road to the NBA Finals, you just might be in for another surprise or two along the way!

New Gallup Poll

The latest Gallup Poll, just released today, shows some truly fascinating, and I might add awesome, numbers.  Even the bad news isn't so bad, as while the leader is still Establishment Flip-Flopper Mitt Romney, his support is only 17 percent.  He's just two points ahead of Conservative Hero, Governor Sarah Palin, who has 15 percent.  More excellent news is that in Strong Third is Congressman Ron Paul!  Governor Palin and Congressman Paul are by far the best candidates, Pro-Freedom, Pro-Constitution, these are people who don't just talk about being Conservative and Pro-Freedom, they live it.  Champions of Small Government, Palin and Paul would make an awesome Ticket, in either order, come 2012. 

It's also important to note that in the event that Sarah Palin does not run, Gallup polled for that too, and in fact Ron Paul moves up to second!  So even if one of these great Americans doesn't run, the other will be even stronger, so no matter what happens we'll have at least one awesome candidate in this race!  It's good news for Constitutional Conservatives, Freedom Loving Americans like myself, and it's awesome news for America!

Major WWE Divas News

It seems that there is some major good news and bad news, in regard to the WWE Divas.  First the bad news, apparently Kharma, better known as Awesome Kong back when she was in TNA, will be out for 9 months.  While nothing has been officially confirmed at this time, all signs point to the reason being exactly what you'd expect it to be, for a woman who mysteriously disappears for nine months.  Apparently she's scheduled to give an interview on next week's RAW.  She didn't speak much in TNA, and she has never spoken at all in the WWE, so this could be rather unique, possibly even strange, when it happens next week.  Who knows what they'll have her say, as a way to explain her impending extended absence, only time will tell!

On the good news side, it seems they're FINALLY bringing AJ up to the big leagues!  For those of you who saw NXT Season Three, you saw the star of that season, AJ, she was so positive, so energetic, athletic, just awesome.  And even better news, they're putting her back together with fellow NXT Season Three castmate Kaitlyn, and they're doing it Friday!  AJ and Kaitlyn will be teaming together against two other divas in a Tag Team match on Friday Night Smackdown.  For those of you who didn't see NXT Season Three, I don't really know how to describe how amazing AJ and Kaitlyn were together, they had such incredible chemestry, I've never seen two people have as much chemestry as they did, hopefully they still do and you'll get to see for yourself on Friday!

So Kharma on the way out, AJ coming in, its a big Divas News day!  Stay tuned for more news about the Divas, as well as other Wrestlilng news, right here on the Gladiator Blog!

Miami's Secret Formula

I actually missed a lot of tonight's game, but I caught most of the last quarter, as well as overtime, and I was surprised to see that they were employing a Secret Formula, one that I have only seen used once before in history, against my then-favorite team, the Charlotte Hornets (of course the Hornets are now in New Orleans).  Let me take you back in time, to a First Round Playoff Series, between the Chicago Bulls and the Charlotte Hornets.  The Bulls, complete with Michael and Scottie, were of course the #1 ranked team in the Eastern Conference, and my Hornets were the #8 ranked team.  Back then 1st round series' were only 3 out of 5 games, not 4 out of 7, which made each game even more important.  It also made it a bigger deal when, in game 1, which was played in Chicago of course, we actually BEAT Michael Jordan and the Bulls, thanks to the awesomeness of our Point Guard, Mugsy Bogues.  He was simply amazing, even the mighty Bulls had no answer.  He was a Superstar, just like Rose is today.  The Bulls were in big trouble, this was a short series, how could they stop Mugsy and the Hornets?  Were we really going to knock off this incredibly powerful team?  It was looking really good, and against any other Coach we might've won the series, but sadly, Chicago had Phil Jackson, and he came up with a totally unique strategy.

What Phil Jackson did, all those years ago, was take his best defender, Michael Jordan, and put him on Mugsy, instead of the person he normally would guard.  It was a strange looking move at first, but it didn't take too long to realize that it was in fact brilliant.  In neutralizing Mugsy Bogues, Jackson and the Bulls were largely neutralizing our entire offense, and the sad result was that we then lost 3 straight games, and the series.  I never forgot that strategy, and I wondered if anybody would use it against Rose and the Bulls.  Tonight, somebody did.

In putting Labron James on Rose, once again it stops not only the other team's Superstar, it hampers the entire offense.  The Bulls simply had no answer for this powerful defensive strategy.  They did hang tough, even led late, but that was mostly due to Miami playing horrible offense.  If Miami were having even a mediocre night offensively, they'd have won going away, by double digits, such was the defensive dominance they had thanks to the decision to put James on Rose.  Can the Bulls somehow counter this move?  Certainly the Hornets never found an answer all those years ago.  It is up to the Bulls coach to try to find the answer that eluded our own Coach all those years ago.  If they can find that answer, there is still time for the Bulls to come back, as they potentially still have 2 home games remainaing.  But they'd best think of something fast, because tonight the Miami Heat used the secret Phil Jackson formula for stopping star Point Guards, and unless they find the counter, that formula is going to result in another Series victory for the team employing it.

Dramatic Game 4

What a Dramatic finish to Game 4 in the NBA Western Conference Finals!  With about 4 1/2 minutes to go, Oklahoma City was totally dominating.  They had stretched out a single digit lead into a 15 point lead, they were just owning Dallas.  But then, Dirk decided that he didn't like that, and he wasn't going to stand for it anymore!  Despite some seemingly REALLY bad refereeing, Dirk repeatedly seeming to get fouled but getting no call, the Mavs managed to tie the game in regulation, and then WIN it in Overtime!  This shocking turn of events likely means that the series will end in 5 games, and that Dallas will move on to face either Miami or Chicago, in the Championship Finals!  What an epic night of awesomeness!  NBA action, it's fantastic!