Jive Turc-o

Marty Turco's retirement from the NHL didn't last too long, as the Boston Bruins needed someone after Tuukka Rask was injured in Sunday's loss versus the New York Rangers.  He will be the backup to Tim Thomas for the next 4-6 weeks (the length of time Rask is expected to miss), which means we could get more of this:

And since it is likely that NBC or the NBC Sports Network will have Bruins games on, for our sake, let's hope Pierre McGuire has a watchful eye on Turco this time around:

Movember to the Extreme

So, November is the month where guys grow mustaches for the month and don't shave that part of the facial hair.  It has earned the name Movember, and is an effort to raise awareness about men's health issues, with prostate cancer chief among them.  Now, this mask you see here is what Anaheim Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller will be wearing for the month.  I have to admit, goalie masks are a thing of beauty, and certainly, this mask more than qualifies.  As you can see, pictures of the Ducks players are on the mask, complete with ridiculous drawn up mustaches.  The backplate of the mask would look like this:

Yes, that is Hiller rocking an equally ridiculous mustache and an over the top expression to boot.  This mask will be likely auctioned off at the end of Movember to raise money for charity, so this mask will not only be for looks, but also some good causes.

And this mask got me to think about this gem of a Looney Tunes cartoon:

Evil Dead II

From the minds of Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi comes a movie that is considered a horror classic.  Evil Dead II is the sequel to one of the scariest horror movies in American Cinema Evil Dead.  The sequel wraps up the loose ends to the first movie while setting up what would eventually be the third and final movie in the series Army of Darkness.  The second movie isn't nearly as scary as the first and not as quote friendly as the third movie, but what it can claim to be is the perfect movie in the sense that it combines the two and maintains a balance that few movies can claim.  Evil Dead II also has some hilarious moments that would carry over onto Army of Darkness.  Whereas many people claim Evil Dead II to be a classic, it's just another day at the office for Bruce Campbell, who simply makes movies that people will be talking about for a long time.

Dog Days of Summer

Since the hockey news is mostly limited to free agent signings, and many of them aren't significant enough to even dissect here, that leaves a pretty big hole to fill for things to post here.  So, for your amusement (or not), here's some really bad poetry:

Book Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Since my predictions are eating it and given that I'm close to the finish of the book that I'm reading now, I decided that now would be a pretty good time to make an attempt at reviewing said book. The book in question? That would be Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Yes, you read that correctly, and in case you think your eyes are deceiving you, the picture of the book cover should remove all doubt.

The book, written by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, is a hilarious take on the original Pride and Prejudice novel written by Austen. With some "help" from Grahame-Smith, there are now zombies, or as they are referred to in to story, unmentionables. The basic story remains intact, as Elizabeth Bennet has to deal with the infestation and the appearance of arrogant prick Mr. Darcy, among other things. The determination to wipe out the horde displeases her mother Mrs. Bennet, who wishes for the marriage of her five daughters, including Elizabeth, instead of the training that Mr. Bennet puts them through. Conflict arises when Lady Catherine de Bourgh makes an appearance and appears to challenge the Bennets, proclaiming that their style of training from the Shaolin temples of China are inferior to her training that she received from Japan. That conflict would escalate when Elizabeth, blindfolded, manages to kill the three ninjas that de Bourgh sends during a training session. Meanwhile, Elizabeth has to deal with a friend that gets infected by the unmentionables and eventually marries Mr. Collins, for whom it was intended by Mrs. Bennet that Elizabeth should marry. The description in which Charlotte's slow transformation into an unmentionable (the reasons for which is later revealed) is pretty graphic, but leaves no details out of how others react, which is one of the highlights of book.

As for the rest of the book, I really thought Mrs. Bennet came off as the nagging mother that just simply wouldn't shut up. In fact, I felt like smacking the crap out of her for every time she talked during the book. The evolution of the relationship between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy is carefully plotted out, from the hostile beginnings to what is seen as a warmer mutual feeling between the two. Even though the whole China/Japan prejudice is never really explored in the novel, it gets mentioned quite a bit. I would have liked to have known a little more about it, but it wasn't a central part of the story, as is the whole marrying the cousin concept that seems to keep coming up, so those are minor complaints to an otherwise great novel. If you've read the original Pride and Prejudice at all, you know how the story ends. If you haven't, I won't spoil it here. Overall, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is one of the better reads in recent memory. It has humor, romance, drama, and best of all, zombies. I definitely recommend it for all, especially for those who just simply can't get into the original story.