Sweet merciful crap!

What the hell was that?

Well I guess I got too big for my britches by predicting the Bombers defence would not allow a 100-yard rusher this season. I knew it was a bet that was bound to fail, I just couldn't have predicted how soon after it would fall.

Nor, to whom would make that prediction fail.

Seriously, Josh Ranek?

Credit the Hamilton Tiger Cats, they absolutely smacked the Blue Bombers in the mouth on Friday night. And watching that debacle at Winnipeg Stadium gave me flashbacks — horrible, life-altering, mind-numbing flashbacks — to the atrocity that was the 2005 season.

Winnipeg fans could make excuses that our star slotback wasn't dressed and that our starting quarterback was knocked out of the game, but none of that would address the putrid effort the defensive dozen put up. It was like watching 2005 all over again, when no one on the defensive side of the ball could wrap up a man and Ron Lancaster's daughter could break through the tackles.

Going back to the offence, watching the Bombers try to move the ball without Kanye West in the lineup should serve as a swift wake-up call to all those who still don't believe they should get behind KG and an even sharper slap in the face to those who were convinced we should have stuck with Russ Michna as our No.1.

Michna and Banks were atrocious, at best. Michna fumbled twice — some slack granted because he hasn't thrown a meaningful pass in weeks — and Banks once again showed he's far from deserving of all the accolades that have been heaped upon him for his potential. Again, I understand the idea that a guy needs to get his reps and his experience in a system, but when are we supposed to finally see that potential come to fruition? Banks flat out missed wide-open men and, I don't care what anyone says, that has nothing to do with the "system" and just "getting it." At some point there has to be some confidence that if No.1 goes down, then the team has someone, anyone, to turn to and pick things up in stride.

Winnipeg surely doesn't have that.

Or maybe it does. If Mike Quinn is healthy, and all accounts say he will be next week, then he's likely to start against the B.C. Lions and he has been the most sure of the three back-ups. In fact, with Quinn potentially starting next week, I don't have a sense of dread that it will be an undeniable failure.

I think the loss to Hamilton also shows clearly that the Bombers still aren't good enough. Championship teams don't lose games in that way, even when being decimated by injuries. Some of the ugly scars were revealed and you can bet that anything short of a win next week against one of the league's best will put the Bombers back in that "are they really for real?" conversation.

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Caught Dave Chappelle's Block Party the other night.

Warning: To some, this next section will likely appear to be overblown, hyperbolic and over-exaggerated. Those people are wrong.

The idea behind Block Party, and the eventual final product, is deserving of status among the most important concert movies of all time. It's not wrong to suggest that this was an utterly significant piece of work in the history of the genre.

For Chappelle to have the idea in the first place — essentially gather as many random people for a street concert in Brooklyn's Bedford Stuyvesant district and keep the star-studded list of talent, as well as the show itself, a secret — is a beautiful thing. That he assembled the kind of hip hop greatness that he did is nothing short of remarkable. And that's to say nothing about the fact that he did what even The Fugees couldn't do: Get The Fugees back together.

Assembling Pras, Clef and Lauryn Hill for their first appearance together in God-knows-how-long, was one of the best things I've seen since I started listening to hip hop. (Alongside seeing Ice-T wearing a Blue Bombers shirt at a 1991 show at the Winnipeg Convention Centre).

But more accurately, Block Party is easily among the best gatherings of hip hop talent and at the very least, the artists are among the most important, influential and significant hip hop voices of any era. From Common, to Talib Kweli to Mos Def — with the undeniable tones of Erykah Badu and Jill Scott mixed in — Block Party is the soundtrack to the true hip hop head's daydreams. Sure, you could have gotten others with equal or more clout; others with longer track records of greatness, but if this group is not at least a part of the roster you'd assemble for the dream hip hop show, then you need to rethink your allegiances to the genre, because you're entirely misguided.

But Block Party's charm also stems from the willingness to assemble people of all creeds and bring a day of good music and happiness to an area and its people who could stand to use more such goodwill.

And when Lauryn Hill belts out "Killing Me Softly", it's nothing short of mesmerizing, a rendition utterly worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as its classic original.

What makes Block Party even more effective is the touch Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) puts on it as director. The film breaks away from the traditional "hip hop guy makes a movie" and allows the thick-accented Frenchman Gondry — a true outsider — to provide a unique angle that likely wouldn't have come across if Chappelle had gone for a director more typical of the genre.

Where Block Party stands out more than any other concert film is it serves as a lesson of what great hip hop music is. The Roots play their own instruments and show their power as a live act, drummer
"?uestlove" (pron. Questlove) works with all the musical acts, showing his versatility, Scott and Badu team up for the first time ever and put new twists and turns on the other acts' classics, and Dead Prez perform to prove that protest music isn't dead and that the voice of hip hop is still a relevant one.

It's more than a collection of great hip hop artists, there's a human element as well and Chappelle comes off as genuine — of course genuinely funny as well — and his interactions with Joe and Jane Blow are worth the viewing time. His idea to bring a black college marching band into the proceedings just elevated what was already a fantastic musical mixture. And when the band performs with Kanye West on "Jesus Walks", forget about it. It's a brilliant new twist and sound to what became a heavy-rotated single.

One final note: Cody Chesnutt makes brief appearances in the film and very simply is an artist worthy of keeping tabs. (Check some of his work out here.) You could call him the next John Legend if you mixed Legend with Bootsy Collins, Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Lenny Kravitz (and probably 50 others of varying sounds). He accentuates the penultimate scene singing his acapella ballad "Parting Ways" over a montage of the everyday folks who joined in on the journey.

The song is striking and the images that accompany it serve as a reminder of how enjoyable the two-hour journey was. And utterly memorable to boot.