With more filler than a can of dog food
Um... only three fights again this week. I assume this means three fights that go the distance, because otherwise they're going to have to fill extra time. If that's the case, I'm not looking for to it, because, surprising as it may seem, I choose to watch "BattleBots" to see robots fighting.
Gammacide's weapon is a big plow. So here's a segment about a big plow at a construction site, attached to a bulldozer. To demonstrate the destructive power of the bulldozer, it runs over some ceramic garden gnomes. Then they pretend to flatten an environmentalist. Shouldn't the huge plow push the man forward onto his face before crushing him? Oh well, at least the guy seems pretty cheerful about being killed.
Time for the super heavyweight fight. Gammacide, as you might expect from the name, comes from the same family as Gammatron (Gammatron no longer qualifies for the walker bonus, so it's been out of the tourney since season four). Gammacide is a wheeled robot with a big actuated plow in the front, and of course, the trademark black dome on the top.
Gammacide will face Dreadnought. Dreadnought is still the wedge with two OverKill-style tires on the sides and two Minion-style disks on the back. It's the secret love child of the Coolrobots team.
Wouldn't you know it, it's robot fightin' time. Gammacide rushes to meet Dreadnought, which has chosen to attack with its wedge. But Gammacide gets under Dreadnought's wedge, slightly lifting it into the air. Dreadnought responds by trying to push Gammacide's side.
Dreadnought then decides to maybe get those disks spinning. It does so, and backs into Gammacide's plow. Some sparks, and Dreadnought bounces into the air from the impact. Gammacide capitalizes, and pushes Dreadnought over and onto its back.
Dreadnought keeps spinning the disks in the same direction, so now they're moving downward. Gammacide pushes Dreadnought toward the saws, but ends up taking the hit itself.
Dreadnought gets the wedge to go under Gammacide's plow, lifting Gammacide's front off the ground. Gammacide's wheels are turning, but it's not going anywhere. Dreadnought pushes Gammacide over the saws.
Dreadnought wedges against the spike strip two times while Gammacide puts its plow back on the ground. Gammacide then takes another hit from the killsaws.
Driving. A couple inconsequential taps. Dreadnought points its spinning disks at Gammacide, which rushes toward Dreadnought, plow-first. The hit tosses Dreadnought into the air, giving it a complete flip and landing on its back again. Gammacide tries to push Dreadnought, but by the time it lifts the plow, Dreadnought has escaped to Gammacide's rear. It makes a few sparks before Gammacide drives away into the wall.
Dreadnought tries to hit Gammacide in the plow, and bounces away when it does so. Gammacide pushes Dreadnought over the saws. Sparks. The first one-on-one fight that we've seen Dreadnought in, and its Magic: The Gathering ad is scraping along the floor for the majority of the time.
Dreadnought kind of runs away, spins up the disks, and charges into the side of Gammacide. As Gammacide turns around and lines up with Dreadnought, Dreadnought turns so its dangerous spinning disks won't hurt Gammacide. Gammacide takes advantage of this thoughtful gesture and charges into Dreadnought's side.
Dreadnought drives off, then charges into the other side of Gammacide. Because the disks are spinning downward, the hit causes Dreadnought to flip back over.
Dreadnought goes to work on Gammacide's rear end. It runs off to spin the disks again, then hits Gammacide in the plow arm. Gammacide backs over the saws. Ooh, green sparks... that's different.
Dreadnought wedges under Gammacide's side and slowly pushes it toward the wall. Unfortunately, the wedge isn't able to clear the hub of the floor spinner that's in its way, so Dreadnought comes to a stop. It backs up and tries again, but that wedge ain't going over that hub. Gammacide escapes, and Dreadnought tries for a third time. Maybe it's trying to break the hub. At least, that's what I like to think.
Bil talks about how people ask him what the floor spinners do, and how he tells them that the floor spinners change the direction of the bots, changing the fight. This would be more convincing if either of the spinners had actually been spinning at any point during this match; unfortunately, they have been stationary. So I guess all they really do is make things difficult for wedges.
Gammacide isn't moving anywhere. It raises and lowers its plow to see if that's the problem. The plow lifts the robot off the floor when it goes too low. At one point, while lowering the plow onto the floor, one of the arms holding the plow becomes detached from Gammacide's body. That could be considered bad.
Here comes Dreadnought from the other side, ready to put those disks into the other arm. Smack. Gammacide then backs up, so Dreadnought hits it in the plow. Then Dreadnought has to step back to spin the disks again.
Gammacide continues to play with the plow. As it raises its body into the air, Dreadnought hits it again, making it very clear that one of the arms is no longer attached to Gammacide's body. Dreadnought backs up and gives the other arm another good shot, trying to snap the whole thing off.
And another hit by Dreadnought. Gammacide isn't looking so good. Dreadnought sits next to Gammacide, spinning its disks faster and faster. Gammacide lifts its body into the air again. Dreadnought plows into the other arm again, getting under Gammacide's body in the process. Gammacide tilts backward onto its rear end and the broken arm falls under its body. Time runs out as Dreadnought moves away.
The 29-16 decision knocks Gammacide out of the competition. Curt Nemeth says that he's going to use Gammacide to clean snow-covered sidewalks. He'd better cover all those holes in the plow first.
Before the commercial, it's another parody. Instead of "Crossing Over with John Edward," it's "Passing Over with Arj Barker." Arj pretends to act as the medium between builders and their dead robots. It's your standard "Crossing Over" parody, complete with the part where Arj rattles off a list of letters in the hopes of choosing the correct one that starts Moebius' name. (Every "Crossing Over" parody contains a part where the medium tries to guess the first letter of Moebius' name. You didn't know that?)
After the commercial, it's... more filler. In case you missed the "Carl the Mascot" segment from episode 3 (and by "missed," I mean "didn't see," not "expressed a feeling of longing over"), here's some more of the character. Actually, it's just a rehash of the idea of the "meet this character here" concept, except with more shots of Carl in front of a white backdrop, pretending to get his picture taken. I thought Mechadon was the unofficial BattleBots mascot.
Back to the cheesy curtains and models for the introductions of the lightweights that are about to fight. I see... they had to show off the fact that their nut-shaped table can rotate. Sublime's weapon is a pneumatic lifting arm. Death By Monkeys can now move its spikes up and down, kind of like Vladiator used to do, except slower.
The box is locked, the monkey suits are on, it's robot fightin' time. Sublime zips across the floor to meet Death By Monkeys. They crash into one another, then make no fewer than five charges where they completely miss touching each other. Then they crash into one another again.
Death By Monkeys moves to the center of the Box. Sublime crashes into a wall, then takes the long way around to charge Death By Monkeys. It collides with Death By Monkeys and raises the arm, but the arm slips out from underneath.
As Sublime is lowering its arm, Death By Monkeys charges into it and pushes Sublime into a screw. Sublime narrowly avoids being hit by the hammer and runs away, leaking CO2.
The two meet on the other side of the Box, Death By Monkey's spikes against Sublime's lifting arm. Since Sublime isn't raising its lifting arm at this opportune moment, I'm guessing that we just saw it release the entire contents of its tank.
The two separate and tease Pete, who just can't hit these wily lightweights with any of his big hammers. Death By Monkeys raises its spikes. Sublime gets underneath and pushes Death By Monkeys into the wall.
The two separate. Sublime drives toward the killsaws nearest the driving platforms. Just as it begins to cross the holes, the saws pop up... and fling Sublime the entire length of the BattleBox! All the way to the back! Cool! Sublime loses a piece of its armor.
Death By Monkeys (still with its spikes up) and Sublime meet again and begin to spin around, dancing with each other. The saws ask if they can cut in, pushing Death By Monkeys away.
Sublime and Death By Monkeys drive side by side to the other side of the Box. Death By Monkeys stops near the center, while Sublime continues to the blue square. It starts moving in wide circles... looks like it's having some drive issues.
A shot of the Death By Monkeys team. Sublime takes another hit (though not nearly as dramatic of one) from another saw. A shot of the one-man Sublime team. Some driving, then Sublime takes another hit from a saw.
Death By Monkeys still has its spikes up in the air. Sublime gets its lifting arm firmly underneath. And if I wasn't before, now I am certain that Sublime has lost its ability to lift, because this would be the perfect time to do so.
The two separate. Death By Monkeys lowers its spikes. It then shoves those spikes under the side of Sublime. Sublime spins the wheels that have been lifted off the floor thanks to those spikes. Something flashes inside of Sublime. And now smoke starts to pour out of Sublime. That's never good...
Death By Monkeys puts its spikes under the side of Sublime again. More shots of the drivers hide what's really going on inside the Box.
Now Death By Monkeys and Sublime are butting heads again. Death By Monkeys pushes Sublime into some saws. Sublime has clearly lost the drive on its right side.
Death By Monkeys ramps up Sublime. It backs off and tries again, this time pushing Sublime into the base of a screw. It holds Sublime there for the final seven seconds of the fight.
Replays, then Carmen gives some not-entirely-accurate information. As you would expect, Death By Monkeys wins the fight, 30-15. In the post-fight interview, Tony Rock suggests that Jerome Miles also wear a goofy costume next time. It worked for Team DaVinci, didn't it?
And then... more of Arj pretending to be a medium, like charcoal or oil paint (Ha!). You know, if Arj really wanted to communicate with the dead, he should just talk to himself, because he's dying in this bit (Ha! Ha!).
Commercials. I like being able to fast-forward over the Dell kid. (Okay, 21 years old is hardly a "kid," but calling him "the Dell adult who acts all twitchy and stupid" makes it more difficult to accept the reality of the popularity of this character.)
"Hey you," demands Carmen, "don't construct or operate a robot or BattleBot without proper supervision." See, now this poses a problem. I've already come to the conclusion that whatever Carmen says isn't worth heeding, so I should simply ignore her, or possibly even do the opposite of what she says. Which means that I am going to construct a BattleBot without proper supervision. And I wasn't even planning on constructing a BattleBot to begin with! Thanks a lot, Carmen, now I'm going to lose a hand because of you.
For the last fight of tonight, Final Destiny will face GrayMatter. We're told that GrayMatter has been completely redesigned. This implies that it's been on the show before, and to be honest, I'm having trouble remembering which one it is. The name does sound familiar, though... oh! It fought Revision Z in season two. Yeah, I don't remember it at all. Looking through robotcombat.com, apparently it also was in a televised fight against Minion in season one. Wow, total blank. I need to watch season one again. I don't suppose Comedy Central would want to air it any time soon, would they? (insert bitter, knowing laughter here)
So anyway, GrayMatter now has a weapon, a relatively small spinning disk in the front (the spinning disk has teeth on it, of course). The rest of it is its body, with a lump on top for the gas engine that powers the robot and/or weapon.
To describe Final Destiny, imagine one of those old portable golf holes that important people use to practice their game with. You know, the thing that has all the floppy, hinged plastic pieces around the edge for the ball to go up and into the hole? That's what Final Destiny's body reminds me of. It consists of six hinged wedged sides (the only difference is that these are hinged at the top). When an opponent travels up one of these sides, it meets a spinning bar at the top of the robot. Final Destiny covers a lot of floor space, which may be a problem if Pete gets saw-happy.
I decree it to be robot fightin' time. Both robots move out of their squares and spin up their weapons. GrayMatter goes to attack the side of Final Destiny (that spinning bar covers all sides of the hexagonal body, so I'm not sure why). From the overhead camera, it doesn't look like any damage was done to Final Destiny's armor.
Big hit! I've got to watch this one in slow-motion a few times to figure out what just happened.
Okay, GrayMatter backs off, then puts its disk against Final Destiny's armor again. The hit produces sparks and comes into contact with the edge of one of Final Destiny's wedge panels, raising it into the air. This causes Final Destiny to become unbalanced, leave the ground, and fly out of control. It almost completes the Mauler dance, but it lands back on its wheels. As Final Destiny first leaves the ground, its bar hits the front piece of armor protecting GrayMatter's gas engine. This tears the armor off and causes smoke to come out of GrayMatter. All of this happens in about one and a half seconds.
GrayMatter comes back over and attacks Final Destiny again. As GrayMatter touches Final Destiny, Final Destiny's bar takes off additional pieces of GrayMatter's armor. GrayMatter then drives up Final Destiny's wedge, and the spinning bar tears off more of GrayMatter's armor. GrayMatter is knocked away.
The wedge on Final Destiny that GrayMatter initially attacked does look loose, and it's the one that GrayMatter is focusing its attention on. It attacks that wedge again. But that darned spinning bar tears off more of the armor surrounding the gas engine. Only the back and left side of the engine are protected at this point.
Final Destiny drives over the killsaws. GrayMatter follows the leader. GrayMatter has the armor on its other side mutilated by Final Destiny. GrayMatter drives up Final Destiny's wedge again. Final Destiny turns a bit, pushes into GrayMatter... and now it's hitting that juicy, juicy engine!
Final Destiny attacks GrayMatter from another side, and rips off another piece of that top armor. GrayMatter is now having a difficult time moving anywhere. A spark flies out of GrayMatter as it tries to do something, anything. But GrayMatter is dead.
Final Destiny comes around and attacks the other side of the engine again. Oh! I don't know what that black container sitting next to the engine was, but Final Destiny just tore it off and flung it across the Box!
A love tap from Final Destiny, but GrayMatter doesn't respond. There appears to be a large puddle forming underneath GrayMatter. The count-out, and Final Destiny wins.
Carmen is in a completely different place to recite her predetermined opinion on that fight. She tells us that GrayMatter was indeed leaking after that fight. You'd think that maybe we would be shown how badly damaged GrayMatter was after the fight ended... but after the standard replays, instead of any more shots of GrayMatter, we get another shot of Carl the Mascot (a scene that we've already seen in this episode, I might add). Since I watched this fight three times before I even noticed the puddle forming under the dead GrayMatter, I'm disappointed. Not surprised, of course, but still disappointed.
Commercials. Then, just in case you haven't been bludgeoned over the head with it enough yet tonight, it's another "Passing Over with Arj Barker" segment. Ho ho, now he's eliciting credit card information from somebody! This is certainly more robot-related than, say, showing us exactly what all happened to GrayMatter after that fight.
An interview with the victorious Team Infinity. Then the recaps. Again, we're told that GrayMatter was really leaking after that fight. But I guess we're going to have to use our imaginations, because we aren't getting to see it. 'Cause there are the credits, and now the episode has ended.
I'll be honest -- I'm blanking on ideas again for the end of the summary. So I'm going to do like I did last season and present a list of phrases that people have entered into Google, gotten one of my pages in their results, and then willingly clicked on my page to see if it could fulfill their needs. I know that I said I wouldn't be able to do this again, but since nobody ever searched for the phrase "pictures of containers of saliva and hair" in my season four, episode two summary (to be honest, I'm disappointed), I'm going on the assumption that these were all legitimate searches.
Is BattleBots a repeat
Think about this. Of the sites that have a BattleBots schedule on them, telling you whether the episode is a repeat, how many will actually use the word "repeat"?
Whatever happened to Son of Whyachi
Again... this isn't Ask Jeeves, people!
Why does Minion in BattleBots always fight from the red square
Another question. This is just a guess, but since I've noticed a similar trend with BioHazard and Ziggo (though they alternate squares between seasons), I'm guessing it has something to do with being ranked number one in the weight class and being placed at the very top or bottom of the tree.
atmoic font
This implies that I've misspelled the word "atomic" on one of my pages.
(checks)
Aw, shoot.
site:www.geocities.com can't swim profile
First of all, of course, this has nothing to do with BattleBots. But here's the most interesting part: I just typed this into Google to see what would happen. My relevant page was number 278 in the results. So for somebody to have visited my site by searching for "can't swim profile" within GeoCities pages, they'd have to go past 277 other sites before deciding that mine might be the one.
BattleBot Quad the Crusher
Eh... this is as good a time as any to make a year-old correction, I guess. It turns out that the correct pronunciation of the robot's name really is "Cue-add the Crusher." Regardless, it's spelled incorrectly in this search. When I tried putting this one into Google, it returned with two pages -- and the other one didn't work.
Fire extinguisher BattleBot
But... the BattleBots rules state that fire is an illegal weapon, so why do you need a fire extinguisher? In fact, the fire extinguisher itself would be an illegal device.
Gas gangrene stats
Air Force logo engraved walking stick
Taco Bell versus small taco stands
Cow carcass 3d studio
Meat processing impaler
Fighting babes in swimsuits
There are many things you can say about these searches, but my primary comment for each of them is the same. If you're really searching for information on that, then why did you click on a link that says "BattleBots season x, episode x"?
Though now that they bring it up, I might take a crack at searching for "fighting babes in swimsuits." Thanks for the idea, bizarre, illogical search!