It’s not often that an advertised main event truly lives up to the hype.  Sometimes the fight is not very good, or it is overshadowed by another fight on the card.  Last night at UFC 102, Randy “The Natural” Couture and Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira put on a fight that may one day be considered once of best of all time.  Two veterans, with more combined experience that any two other fighters on the UFC roster, battled back and forth for fifteen minutes.  In the end, Nogueira won a unanimous three round decision over The Natural.  Both fighters picked up an extra $60,000 for Fight of the Night honors.

Randy Couture is 46 years old and he fights like a 36 year old.  Nogueira is only 33 years old, but he is a veteran of almost 40 professional fights.  He is a submission wizard and one of the best heavyweight fighters of all time.  He is the only fighter to have held both the UFC and PRIDE heavyweight championship belts.  Couture is a veteran of 26 professional fights and although his record of 16-10 is not spectacular, it is deceptive.  He is the only five time titleholder in the UFC and has been in more championship fights than any other fighter.  He has also never been submitted inside the octagon.

Both of these fighters are favorites of mine.  Inside and outside the ring, they are both classy and respectful.  They never have a bad word to say about their opponents and never engage in trash talking.  They are also very technical fighters who generally have a fantastic gameplan going into the ring.  Fighting Nogueira must be like fighting a boa constrictor.  Once he gets ahold of you, escaping is almost impossible (and to Couture’s credit, he did that time and time again last night).  Randy Couture is the illegitimate stepchild of Dick Clark and Sun Tzu; his strategy is generally flawless, and the man is ageless.

In the co-main event, Thiago Silva shook off his disappointing loss to Lyoto Machida and knocked out Keith “The Dean of Mean” Jardine in the first round.  It was a competitive fight for all the 95 seconds that it lasted.  Jardine is a herky-jerky fighter to put it best.  He punches and kicks from odd angles, and that throws his opponent off.  His leg kicks are some of the best in the division as well.  Thiago Silva fights in a much similar fashion to his namesake Wanderlei Silva.  There is no style, no flair:  The man comes right at you using vicious strikes and Muai Thai.  His intentions are to knock the yellow off of his opponents teeth.  He is also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, but rarely do we get to see him utilize it.  The finish of this fight came when he caught one of Jardines leg kicks, threw him off balance, and knocked him out on the ground.

In other fights, Nate “The Great” Marquardt lived up to his moniker by knocking out Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master Demian Maia in a mere 21 seconds.  I was hoping for a longer fight, as I would have loved to see how Maia’s jiu-jitsu skills matched up to the all around abilities of Marquardt.  However, Marquardts first punch of the night caught Maia flush on the chin, and he was down for the count.  You never want to use lucky in an MMA fight, but perhaps fortunate would be a good choice of words.  Neither man broke a sweat.  Marquardt also picked up an additional $60,000 for Knockout of the Night honors. 

Brandon Vera won a unanimous decision over Krzysztof Soszynski.  Soszynski was a late replacement for Matt Hamill, who was injured during training.  Vera was simply to fast and too skilled for the much bigger Soszynski.  He gave it the old college try, though, and I think that once he matures a bit more “The Polish Experiment” will be a force to reckon with in this division.  He needs to change up his training, in my humble opinion.  To fight a skilled, fast fighter such as Vera, you have to overwhelm and smother him.  You have to negate the speed, and make him work.  Unfortunately, this will make for a bit of a boring fight, because you have to lay and pray a la Matt Lindland.  Keep the smaller man down, stay on top of him, and make him carry your weight.

As an aside – Krzystof Soszynski is the happiest guy in mixed martial arts today.  Watching him come down to the cage, his pre-fight antics, grinning, smiling, and pointing – you can tell the guy is just happy to be inside the cage, earning his bread by fighting professionally.

Knockout of the Night honors should have gone to Todd Duffee, who set a UFC record with his debilitating seven second knockout of Canadian Tim Hague.  Both fighters were huge, each 6′ 3″ tall and around 260 lbs.  I didn’t expect this fight to last long, and it sure didn’t.  After knocking Hague down with his second punch, Duffee quickly followed up and put Hague away for the quick KO.  The seven second stoppage bested the previous record of eight seconds, which had been shared by Don Frye (UFC 8 over Thomas Ramirez) and James Irvin (UFC Fight Night 13 over Houston Alexander).

Jake Rosholt secured a third round submission win over Chris Leben with a beautiful arm-triangle choke.  Leben, fighting in his home state, did not tap and went to sleep.  Prior to the submission, it was a back and forth fight with Leben landing hard shots, and Rosholt scoring takedowns.  Rosholt received Submission of the Night honors for his win.

Ed Herman fell to Aaron Simpson when he could not continue because of a knee injury suffered by one of Simpson’s takedowns.  After recovering between rounds, he wanted to continue but 17 seconds into the second round his knee betrayed him and the referee had no choice but to stop the fight.

All in all, despite the lack of a title fight on the card, this was one of the better events that the UFC has put on.  I’ve said it time and time again, that if the main event is good then the card just looks even better.  We watched this one in house, as it was a bit of a send off to one of the regulars who is taking his act up north for awhile to go to college.  We did up a BBQ with some burgers, taters, and chicken.  All in all, a pretty good night.

Most people have never heard of Marin Soljačić.  He is a physicist of Croatian descent at M.I.T. who, along with his team, invented wireless non-radiative energy transfer.  Essentially, to a layman such as you and I, wireless power.  For his work, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

Approximately one hundred years ago, Nicola Tesla begins theorizing that wireless power is achieveable.  It was his idea to transmit electricity wirelessly over long distances, as the concept of the power grid had not yet been conceived.  He even went so far as to build a 100 ft. tower in New York, the Wardenclyffe Tower.  Unfortunately, he was unable to complete his experiments due to monetary issues.

Enter Professor Soljačić.  He would not have pursued his idea if it was not for his wife having a cell phone with a low battery.  It was constantly beeping at night keeping him awake, and during one of those fruitful nights he thought that there has to be away to charge the cell phone without plugging it in.  And so the experiments began.

As for the technology itself, I think it is best explained by Eric Giler.  He is the chief executive at Witricity, the company formed to bring the new technology to the marketplace.

Number of pieces:  570.
Appropriate Age:  7+
Build Time:  90 Minutes.
Build Difficulty:  2/5
Build Quality:  3/5

The Wave Racer is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.  The more I look at it, the more I like it.  It is a relatively small boat compared with other sets in the Pro Builder line, but do not let that stop you from purchasing it if you can find it.  This set is from 2001, so your best bet is going to be e-bay or some other auction site.

The boat is black, white and yellow.  It is about 20″ long and is designed as a speedboat.   It has numerous decals and two large engines at the back.  These were the trickiest to build, but they were not too bad.  The top parts of the boat are all silver, and include a number of specialty pieces.  A rope runs along the entire top of the boat from the back to the front and to the back again.

The set took me about 90 minutes to build, and it was not very difficult.  The included instructions were clear and easy to follow.  The decals are very tricky to put on, but I do not consider myself an expert in that department.  The build quality, as usual from the folks at Mega Bloks was solid, but I needed to reinforce the middle of the boat in several areas at the bottom to ensure that it would remain intact once put in the eager hands of a five year old and three year old respectively.  In so saying that, I can see the engines being the first thing to come off.

To date, this is one of the better sets that I have built.  Photos will follow and I will update this post with them.

The last couple of weeks have been very humid around here.  The temperature has hovered around 33 degrees, but due to the humidity it has felt like 43 degrees.  We can’t complain, however – July was one of the rainiest of all time (or so it felt).  Last Friday, the heat wave came crashing down as Ontario experienced a couple of tornadoes.  Nothing like Hurricane Hazel in the 1950′s, however.  Since then, the temperature has been pretty moderate.

Number of pieces:  265.
Appropriate Age:  8+
Build Time:  Less than one hour.
Build Difficulty:  2/5
Build Quality:  4/5

As this was the first Mega Bloks set that I have owned, it is somewhat fitting that it is the first one that I review.  This set is not large, coming in at 265 pieces.  It was fairly easy to build, even with assistance from a five year old boy who shares the same passion for building blocks that I do.  This helicopter is large for the small amount of pieces, measuring approximately 19″ from end to end (not including the top rotor blades).  It is camouflage green, with a black front and bottom.

The build quality on this set is excellent.  By build quality, I am to define how solid the set it, and its ability to resist being damaged by the day-to-day administrations of a three year old and five year old.  In that respect, the Army Chopper holds up well.  The only pieces that continuously fall off are the top rotor blade and the back tail fin.  They easily re-attach, however, and the Army Chopper is ready to fly again.

In these photos, the Army Chopper is missing the machine gun that it originally came with.  Otherwise, it is complete.  The set (along with many of the ProBuilder sets) does not include a minifig with it.  In so saying that, given it’s ridiculously low price of $9.99, who can complain?

Next up on the Summer of Fun 2009 Tour was the CNE.  The Canadian National Exhibition has been around for 138 years, and is one of the largest fairs in North America.  On Friday, which was opening day, admission prices were slashed to $1.75 to celebrate Toronto’s 175th birthday.  As you can imagine, there was a ridiculous lineup but we were able to bypass 90% of it because we found a smaller line.  Sometimes the sun just shines in the right way.

I haven’t been to the CNE in a few years, and it seems that it is even larger now.  Wandering through the aisles of carny games, where you essentially pay $5.00 for a small stuffed animal, or trading up to a larger one…these have not changed much.  They are still the same games from years gone by, and each of them are designed so that you lose.  I wonder how much money the operators of these games make.  Given that it is all in cash, and that the employees are probably paid minimum wage, I would gather a great deal.  Some people think that they only show up to one fair, but they do not.  These trailers of games are in operation year round.  Good for them I suppose, but they did not sucker me in this year.  I do not have much use for stuffed animals nowadays.

I have always enjoyed the food and agricultural buildings, however.  The food building has something for everyone, from the crappy pizza to Indian food to Montreal smoked meat sandwiches.    I indulged in a large Montreal smoked meat sandwich.  It was greasy, large, and tasty.  It was $5.50, which wasn’t a bad price at all.  Wandering over to the agricultural building was also an interesting experience.  I am a city boy, and haven’t spent much time at all around the farm.  Seeing animals such as chickens, lambs, goats, horses, pigs, cows, turkeys, llamas and alpacas up close is interesting.  One cow in particular was very friendly with me and spent an inordinate amount of time licking my hand with her 8″ tongue.  Needless to say, I was grateful for the handwashing stations that had been setup.

There was also a building that was offering all sorts of craft goods for sale, as well as novelty items, clothing, cheap jewellery, and sports memorabilia.  It was similar to a flea market, but a bit more classy.  I didn’t see anything that tickled my fancy, but I got some early Christmas ideas from them.  I never have been much of a browser – I usually have a pretty good idea of what I am looking for prior to purchasing it.

All in all, a good time was had, and it certainly was not expensive.   As the Summer of Fun continues, I shall be sure to blog about it.

As anyone who knows me is aware, I am a big fan of building blocks.  The “Lego standard” for lack of a better term is what I follow.  In other words, it does not matter who the manufacturer is, as long as the set is compatible with Lego building blocks then things are all good.

I have been playing with Lego since I was a little boy.  I got my first set when I was five years old and I was hooked.  I used to play by myself for hours on end.  I had almost a hundred sets and thousands upon thousands of pieces.  I had them all sorted, not only by color but also by specialty pieces.

Recently, I discovered another company that manufactures Lego-compatible sets.  This company is based in Canada and is now known as Mega Brands.  They were formerly known at Ritvik, and then changed their name to Mega Bloks prior to their current name.  They manufacture a line of building block toys known as the Pro Builder Series.  These sets truly have to be seen to be believed.  Most of them are large sets numbering between 500 and 1,000 pieces.  Some of the larger sets, such as the Sea Wolf Submarine and the Endeavour Space Shuttle, are over 2,000 pieces.

In around Christmas time last year (2008), my roommates little boy started to have the same affinity for Lego that I once had.  Seeing that, it rekindled my passion for the product.  His first Lego set was the Lego Police Station (Set 7744), a very large set that numbers 953 pieces.  It took my roommate and I almost 2 1/2 hours to build after the little guy went to bed.  Since then, I would buy him the occasional Lego set and we would put them together.

In April (2009), I gave him the Lego Police Command Center for his birthday.  This set was not nearly as large, numbering 524 pieces.  It only took me about an hour to put together.  This time, I wrapped up the box but already had the set built so he could play with it immediately.  I remember when I was five years old that I really did not like waiting for my father to put anything together for me.

It was around this time that I discovered the Mega Brands Mega Bloks Pro-Builder series.  I was in Wal-Mart and they had a set there on sale for $9.99.  It was an older set, the Army Chopper (Set 9786).  I did not know it at the time, but this set was first manufactured in 2004 and had been long discontinued.  What it was doing in this Wal-Mart in May of 2009 is beyond me.

Regardless, we came home and built the chopper.  Myles (the aforementioned five year old) helped out, and it took us almost two hours to put together this 245 piece set.  He found the pieces and I showed him where they went on the chopper.  Once it was finished, I must admit to being immediately impressed with the build quality of the product.  This product was built so solidly that despite its being manhandled by a five year old (and his three year old little brother), it withstood the barrage with no damage (except the top of the tail and the rotor occasionally popping off).  It was at this time that I began my hunt to purchase more of the Mega Bloks Pro Builder products.

Since that time, I have tracked down numerous sets.  At first, I was just building them as a hobby, and then passing them off to the kids to play with (or destroy).  I then had the bright idea to save the sets until Christmas, and build them a city that they can immerse themselves into on Christmas day.  I think that will make a fabulous end to an already exciting day of opening presents.

This is my project.  It is big, and very ambitous.  Yet it will be fun, not only to build, but to see their faces when they see a basement full of building blocks.

Within the subsequent child pages I will post photos of the sets that I build, along with some comments about each set.  Once I get the city completely setup, I will also post photos (and perhaps a panoramic video).

Synopsis (from IMDB):  In a dystopic & crime ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg with submerged memories haunting him.

Robocop is one of my all time favorite movies.  Even 23 years later after the movie was made, it still stands the test of time.  Robocop, played by Peter Weller, was once a cop named Frank Murphy.  He was brutally murdered at the hands of Clarence Boddicker, who is the leader of a ruthless gang of criminals.

The city of Detroit sold the police force to private interests, OCP.  As Murphy signed a release form in the event of his death, OCP remakes him into the cyborg Robocop in an effort to fight crime.  Problems occur when Robocop starts to remember its previous past as Officer Murphy (especially Murphy’s violent death), through flashbacks.  This leads Robocop on a crusade to bust Boddicker’s gang, but this is complicated by corruption within OCP, at the highest levels.

For me, this movie is a solid four and a half out of five stars.  Great acting, great scenery, great plot, great quotes (“I’ll buy that for a dollar!”), a whole lot of violence (in fact, the movie received an X rating upon its initial screening), and subtle humor all make for a fantastic movie.

There are multiple versions of the film floating around.  The Criterion Collection (which is now discontinued) and the Blu-Ray release are by far the best out there.  On each version, the extras as well as the uncut footage both add to the release, making it one of the all-time greats.  Rumor has it that there is a remake of the film in production, to debut in 2011.

As an aside, don’t bother with the sequels or the TV series.  The second film was decent but by no means lives up to the quality of the original.  The third film is garbage.  Period.  The TV series was ok at best, but nothing that I would waste my time watching.

The humidity the last few days has been through the roof.  Wow.  So far, the weather this summer has been rather modest, and it was a rather wet July.  The temperature yesterday was 33 degrees, but the “feels like” was hovering around 43 degrees.  I opened the door and stepped outside and it felt like I was suddenly swimming in pea soup.  Today was not as bad, but close.  It was made worse by the fact that I was working in a school that did not have the air conditioning functioning – so it was nearly 100 degrees in the room.  Rather unbearable, and especially by me.  Anybody who knows me knows how much I detest the humidity.  I sweat like a pig, and I don’t like that feeling one bit.  Furthermore, it makes it hard to concentrate on the task at hand because you are so terribly uncomfortable.