Ok, Canada, you won the gold in the sport that means the most to you. Good for you guys. Big kudos to the USA Hockey team, which was apparently the youngest in the field. They went in expecting to not even medal, so a Silver shouldn't be that much of a disappointment. Still, the Gold Medal winners are the only ones that get their anthem played and the only thing I like more than a well-sung National Anthem is one that has crowd participation. In honor of that, here is one of my all-time favorite YouTube clips.
...and on that note, back to ignoring hockey unless the Bruins are doing well in the playoffs.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Your Country Or Your Baby-Mama?
The only thing better than high-profile drama between two professional athletes is when you throw in the frenzy that comes when those same athletes are asked to represent their country. A couple months ago the story broke that John Terry, the Captain of England's national soccer team, had been caught cheating with the girlfriend on one of his teammates, Wayne Bridge. Now, two guys fighting over a girl is nothing new; once again, this just proves that no matter how old you get, you never get that far out of high school. Terry was stripped of his captaincy, but not removed from the team. Apparently, there was some one better ready to take Bridge's place so the team sided with their former Captain. Only then the guy who was supposed to start got hurt and England turned back to Bridge to be on the team. He told them (very politely, cause he's British) to screw off.
I respect the hell out of this guy. I also am one to never forgive an indiscretion like this (though, if you wait it out I'll very likely forget, because I forget a lot of things). While he's likely to catch a lot of flack for "turning his back" on his country, the fact that none of his teammates respected him enough to call for Terry to be kicked off the team speaks volumes. Still, if I was this guy I would be awfully tempted to accept an invitation to the team and then cause an international incident as I went in, spikes up, to tackle my own teammate on the World Cup stage. Perhaps it's for the best that he gets left at home.
-It's a little weird to see the big hub-bub about the Canadian women's gold medal hockey celebration spilling back onto the ice after the arena was empty. The IOC said they are "looking into this," which sounds ominous until you realise this is the same organization that just ruled China used underage gymnasts back in the 2000 games. They do not strike me as the type to rush to punish people. First off, the arena was empty. Secondly, I would be disappointed in them if they didn't celebrate with beer and champagne. They just achieved a life-long goal and did it with the added bonus that it was in their home country. And I know that we have this image of women being all 'sugar and spice and everything nice,' but these girls are hockey players. Also, it's a sports arena: can we stop pretending like this is some holier-than-thou place? I mean, this is the Olympics, not Church. This is the same sporting event where the Olympic Village has run out of condoms. Let's all get off our high horse here.
I respect the hell out of this guy. I also am one to never forgive an indiscretion like this (though, if you wait it out I'll very likely forget, because I forget a lot of things). While he's likely to catch a lot of flack for "turning his back" on his country, the fact that none of his teammates respected him enough to call for Terry to be kicked off the team speaks volumes. Still, if I was this guy I would be awfully tempted to accept an invitation to the team and then cause an international incident as I went in, spikes up, to tackle my own teammate on the World Cup stage. Perhaps it's for the best that he gets left at home.
-It's a little weird to see the big hub-bub about the Canadian women's gold medal hockey celebration spilling back onto the ice after the arena was empty. The IOC said they are "looking into this," which sounds ominous until you realise this is the same organization that just ruled China used underage gymnasts back in the 2000 games. They do not strike me as the type to rush to punish people. First off, the arena was empty. Secondly, I would be disappointed in them if they didn't celebrate with beer and champagne. They just achieved a life-long goal and did it with the added bonus that it was in their home country. And I know that we have this image of women being all 'sugar and spice and everything nice,' but these girls are hockey players. Also, it's a sports arena: can we stop pretending like this is some holier-than-thou place? I mean, this is the Olympics, not Church. This is the same sporting event where the Olympic Village has run out of condoms. Let's all get off our high horse here.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Time To Break Up The Big East
The other night as I sat down to watch the Notre Dame/Pittsburgh basketball game, I was hoping for a close game, but went in fully expected Pittsburgh to pull away in the second half. While Pittsburgh is ranked #16 in the nation, Notre Dame has had a fairly unspectacular year and was missing their best player. Should have been a fairly simple win for the Panthers... so, of course, the Irish won by 15. It's just the kind of loss that has come to signify the Big East conference this year, which is why it occurs to me that the Big East can't keep going like this. It's too big, too crowded and too full of solid teams. It can't survive if they keep this up. They need to cut some of these teams out for everyone's sake.
The problem is that merely being a good team isn't enough in the Big East. You have to be great or you will never make it through conference play. Just look at the Irish - of their 10 losses, 8 have come in conference. Barring a shocking run in the Big East tournament, they won't make the NCAA tournament, but it's possible that two A-10 teams could be invited to March Madness even though both of them would likely finish in last place in the Big East. #13 Georgetown, which ran Duke (arguably the best team in the ACC) off the floor, currently sits 6th in the Big East, behind a Marquette team that isn't even ranked. UConn beat then-#1 Texas, but sits just ahead of the Irish with 11 losses, 8 of which were in-conference. The teams are just cannibalizing each other.
By creating this sort of Super-Conference for basketball, all they've done is make sure that no team can get through the season with a record good enough to secure a top seed in the NCAA Tournament. Just two weeks ago everyone thought Villanova was a lock for a #1 seed, but they've suffered a couple of in-conference losses since then and aren't even first in the Big East. No one can keep up a level of sustained success when there are 12 games against Top 25 teams on your schedule. Now, ideally they would get down to 12 teams, but let's start slow and get rid of two teams. My first candidate? Louisville.
Frankly, don't even know why Louisville wants to be in the Big East. First off, I don't know how good you may be at geography, but they are decidedly not East. They have to have huge travelling costs with having to continually go to Pennsylvania and New York. Secondly, when they had their best success in football it was the Bobby Petrino run-and-gun style, which doesn't work when you're play in the Northeast and facing snow, wind and temperatures in the 30s. Don't you think Cardinal fans would be much happier taking Arkansas's place in the SEC (Arkansas jumping to the Big 12 to replace Missouri, who jumps to the Big 10), where they can cultivate the awesome Louisville/Kentucky rivalry twice a year?
Next I was going to suggest South Florida, but we can't kick out two schools that have football teams, because realistically every conference is trying to get to the magic number of 12 for a Conference Championship game. Instead, how about Seton Hall? They're sort of in the same boat as Marquette - good not great, but can get on a good run and make some noise. The problem is they just can't do it consistently enough. They would, however, do very well in the Atlantic 10. They could cruise to an automatic NCAA bid almost every year. It's a much easier path.
So, that's my suggestion to start with. The conference is still loaded so they can still claim to be the best basketball conference, which makes everyone remaining in the Big East happy. Louisville get to market a great rivalry and save on travel costs and Seton Hall can be a perennial contender for the NCAA tournament. Now we just need the rest of the schools in the Big East to agree with me.
The problem is that merely being a good team isn't enough in the Big East. You have to be great or you will never make it through conference play. Just look at the Irish - of their 10 losses, 8 have come in conference. Barring a shocking run in the Big East tournament, they won't make the NCAA tournament, but it's possible that two A-10 teams could be invited to March Madness even though both of them would likely finish in last place in the Big East. #13 Georgetown, which ran Duke (arguably the best team in the ACC) off the floor, currently sits 6th in the Big East, behind a Marquette team that isn't even ranked. UConn beat then-#1 Texas, but sits just ahead of the Irish with 11 losses, 8 of which were in-conference. The teams are just cannibalizing each other.
By creating this sort of Super-Conference for basketball, all they've done is make sure that no team can get through the season with a record good enough to secure a top seed in the NCAA Tournament. Just two weeks ago everyone thought Villanova was a lock for a #1 seed, but they've suffered a couple of in-conference losses since then and aren't even first in the Big East. No one can keep up a level of sustained success when there are 12 games against Top 25 teams on your schedule. Now, ideally they would get down to 12 teams, but let's start slow and get rid of two teams. My first candidate? Louisville.
Frankly, don't even know why Louisville wants to be in the Big East. First off, I don't know how good you may be at geography, but they are decidedly not East. They have to have huge travelling costs with having to continually go to Pennsylvania and New York. Secondly, when they had their best success in football it was the Bobby Petrino run-and-gun style, which doesn't work when you're play in the Northeast and facing snow, wind and temperatures in the 30s. Don't you think Cardinal fans would be much happier taking Arkansas's place in the SEC (Arkansas jumping to the Big 12 to replace Missouri, who jumps to the Big 10), where they can cultivate the awesome Louisville/Kentucky rivalry twice a year?
Next I was going to suggest South Florida, but we can't kick out two schools that have football teams, because realistically every conference is trying to get to the magic number of 12 for a Conference Championship game. Instead, how about Seton Hall? They're sort of in the same boat as Marquette - good not great, but can get on a good run and make some noise. The problem is they just can't do it consistently enough. They would, however, do very well in the Atlantic 10. They could cruise to an automatic NCAA bid almost every year. It's a much easier path.
So, that's my suggestion to start with. The conference is still loaded so they can still claim to be the best basketball conference, which makes everyone remaining in the Big East happy. Louisville get to market a great rivalry and save on travel costs and Seton Hall can be a perennial contender for the NCAA tournament. Now we just need the rest of the schools in the Big East to agree with me.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Throwing Everyone Out
Just like when something is a trending topic on Twitter, if a local story goes national, it never seems to be for an uplifting reason. The big story last night was Central Falls High School in Rhode Island deciding to fire the entire teaching staff, including the principal. Apparently the school has been doing terrible in standardized testing for a while and has an awful graduation rate, so they were attempting to work on a couple different plans to turn the school around before deciding that the grand show of firing every teacher at once was the way to go. There were protests and rallies with a lot of grandstanding on both sides, but every teacher will still be fired. Say what you want about the rest of the school, but apparently the Central Falls Drama Department appears to be the one area in which they're doing rather well.
Now, I'm not one to advocate for anyone getting fired, especially in this economy, but I have to say my sympathy for the teachers wained a little last night after I saw a couple of them appear on the ABC National News and take the ever so classy stance of blaming the kids. One of them even went so far as to say, "Given the students we had to work with, I think we did an excellent job." Nice. My empathy went down even more when later in the story a student said the following, "Without them we wouldn't not be nothing." It's not every day you see a triple-negative sentence. Now, the school is allowed to hire up to half the faculty back if a new plan isn't approved, but I really don't think the English teachers should be in that group.
-While I think the story about missing actor Andrew Koenig is really sad, how is it that this story has been going on for almost two weeks and I'm just now learning that his dad was the original Checkov?
-Also, congratulations to Seth Green on his engagement. Just further proof that you can be 5'2" and still land hot women if you are a successful actor. I'm sure he got the Hillary Duff treatment that evening. (If you don't get that reference, do your own damn Googling.)
Now, I'm not one to advocate for anyone getting fired, especially in this economy, but I have to say my sympathy for the teachers wained a little last night after I saw a couple of them appear on the ABC National News and take the ever so classy stance of blaming the kids. One of them even went so far as to say, "Given the students we had to work with, I think we did an excellent job." Nice. My empathy went down even more when later in the story a student said the following, "Without them we wouldn't not be nothing." It's not every day you see a triple-negative sentence. Now, the school is allowed to hire up to half the faculty back if a new plan isn't approved, but I really don't think the English teachers should be in that group.
-While I think the story about missing actor Andrew Koenig is really sad, how is it that this story has been going on for almost two weeks and I'm just now learning that his dad was the original Checkov?
-Also, congratulations to Seth Green on his engagement. Just further proof that you can be 5'2" and still land hot women if you are a successful actor. I'm sure he got the Hillary Duff treatment that evening. (If you don't get that reference, do your own damn Googling.)
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Give It The Fonzie Treatment
One of the more frustrating things in life is when things break for no reason. If you constantly drop your phone or it gets wet, stepped on, run over and crushed - well, you can't really act too shocked when the '9' button suddenly stops working. But, it's very annoying when things work just fine one day and suddenly the next day those same buttons are useless. Recently buttons on my iDock began to do this. With no real warning or cause, the volume and toggle buttons on the dock just stopped working. What makes this stranger is the fact that the toggle buttons are part of a larger circle that make up one button, which has specific pressure points for specific actions (think of like they are situated west and east) and the other two buttons on the same circle (north and south) still work just fine. Now, it's not that big a deal because I can still change the song just using the iPod itself. The bigger issue is the volume, because when the iPod is playing through the dock the only way to change the volume is to track down the remote and change the volume from there. I feel like an idiot having to walk across the room and find the remote, just to turn a song up when I am a foot away from the thing. Really, it's the exact opposite of what a remote is supposed to be doing.
I could understand the problem if the dock had recently fallen or gotten some liquid into it, but it's been very nicely situated on top of my bureau ever since I bought it. Barely moved (if at all) after it came out of the package. Also, I'm hesitant to open it up and look inside, because I'm not savvy with the hardware of electronics. I may as well be looking into an open human chest cavity. At this point I'm seriously thinking of trying to kick it or something to try and shake whatever wire came loose back into place. Then, at least if something else on this thing stops working I could explain it away, "Oh, the radio part doesn't work ever since I threw the dock against the wall."
-I think it's pretty stupid of ESPN to come out and publicly announce the suspension of Tony Kornheiser. Seems kind of petty, almost like they're trying to make an example of him. Furthermore, I actually believe all this talk about his comments about Hannah Storm have actually brought more attention to a topic that would have been forgotten if they didn't keep bringing them up when mentioning the story on SportsCenter. Now it's seeped into other news organizations (my mom asked me about what he said, which proves how big the story has gotten). If they had just quietly given him a couple weeks off it would have seemed like much less of a big deal.
I could understand the problem if the dock had recently fallen or gotten some liquid into it, but it's been very nicely situated on top of my bureau ever since I bought it. Barely moved (if at all) after it came out of the package. Also, I'm hesitant to open it up and look inside, because I'm not savvy with the hardware of electronics. I may as well be looking into an open human chest cavity. At this point I'm seriously thinking of trying to kick it or something to try and shake whatever wire came loose back into place. Then, at least if something else on this thing stops working I could explain it away, "Oh, the radio part doesn't work ever since I threw the dock against the wall."
-I think it's pretty stupid of ESPN to come out and publicly announce the suspension of Tony Kornheiser. Seems kind of petty, almost like they're trying to make an example of him. Furthermore, I actually believe all this talk about his comments about Hannah Storm have actually brought more attention to a topic that would have been forgotten if they didn't keep bringing them up when mentioning the story on SportsCenter. Now it's seeped into other news organizations (my mom asked me about what he said, which proves how big the story has gotten). If they had just quietly given him a couple weeks off it would have seemed like much less of a big deal.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Please Turn In Your License, Sir
On the way home from a couple of quick errands this afternoon, I was coming down a side street towards a red light. There was one car at the light, then two parked cars, half sticking into the road because there was no lane for parking (but clearly parked and empty), then another car. The last car was just far enough over that I couldn't tell if he wanted to park or be part of the traffic flow. When the light turned green he didn't move. I started to go around him, cursing his existence for not being courteous enough to have a blinker on and still missed the light. It was at this point that the guy (who was young enough that he should have been more alert), perked up and then pulled in behind me. In other words, he thought the empty cars were part of traffic, even though they were obviously unoccupied. These are the kind of people I share a road with.
-So, Randy Moss has come out and said that he thinks this coming season with the Patriots will be his last. His contract is about to expire and he doesn't expect to get an extension in Foxboro, because the Patriots don't pay. He said there were no hard feelings and that this was just business. All in all I would say that these comments were very measured and thought-out, just what you would expect of a veteran who is secure with his legacy in the NFL. The only thing I take exception to is when Moss said the Patriots don't pay. If that was the case, they wouldn't be up against the cap every single year. They just don't pay soon-to-be 34 year-old wide receivers who have seen their production drop. They will be paying Vince Wilfork (I hope) and Jerod Mayo. They're simply trying to get the most bang for their buck. Don't make them out to be the Buffalo Bills in this scenario.
-Wait, now I know "trying to trade kids for a bird" sounds bad. But, before we all rush to judgement here, perhaps we should find out what kind of cockatoo it was. I mean, was it the kind that repeats what you say? Did it do tricks? These are the kind of things I want to know before I jump to a conclusion.
-So, Randy Moss has come out and said that he thinks this coming season with the Patriots will be his last. His contract is about to expire and he doesn't expect to get an extension in Foxboro, because the Patriots don't pay. He said there were no hard feelings and that this was just business. All in all I would say that these comments were very measured and thought-out, just what you would expect of a veteran who is secure with his legacy in the NFL. The only thing I take exception to is when Moss said the Patriots don't pay. If that was the case, they wouldn't be up against the cap every single year. They just don't pay soon-to-be 34 year-old wide receivers who have seen their production drop. They will be paying Vince Wilfork (I hope) and Jerod Mayo. They're simply trying to get the most bang for their buck. Don't make them out to be the Buffalo Bills in this scenario.
-Wait, now I know "trying to trade kids for a bird" sounds bad. But, before we all rush to judgement here, perhaps we should find out what kind of cockatoo it was. I mean, was it the kind that repeats what you say? Did it do tricks? These are the kind of things I want to know before I jump to a conclusion.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Quick Movie Reviews
A phone call to Verizon last month, the purpose of which was just to add another phone line to the house, revealed that we were in line for a whole slew of upgrades. We were now going to get the Golf Channel (YES, YES, Y-E-S!!), several new high-definition channels and the big haul was three free months of HBO, Cinemax and Showtime. So, I've been catching up on my movies the last couple of weeks; both the ones I wanted to see but never made it to the theatres to do so, or the ones which I had no desire to see. (Who am I to turn them down when it's free and there is nothing better on TV?) Anyways, most have been terrible, but I'm giving you my reviews anyway. There are several of them, so I'll make them quick.
Yes, Man A very nice rip-off of Liar, Liar. But, I liked that movie, so this one was fine. I'm less offended because at least it was Jim Carrey copying himself instead of taking a lesser actor and using them to bastardize a sequel, like they did with Jamie Kennedy and Son of the Mask. Frankly, the most unbelievable part of this movie was when Carrey's character was taking guitar lessons from some kid and the song he learned was "Jumper" from Third Eye Blind. Really? Some 17 year-old is going to teach a song that came out when he was 5? I don't care that it came around later in the movie, it bothered me tremendously.
Dance Flick I'm not usually a big fan of parody movie that try to cram 15 movies into one, but at least they are usually good for a chuckle or two. Not this one. I didn't laugh once.
The Soloist I feel like Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. were openly trolling for Oscars in this movie. Alas, they just didn't tug on the heart stings enough. (Get it? Heart strings? Cause it's a movie about a guy with a cello? Nevermind, let's just move on.)
You're Welcome, America This came out last year, but I only got around to seeing it now. I love Will Ferrell and think he did the best job of any SNL performer when imitating George Bush. But, I got the joke after 15 minutes and this thing was an hour and a half. Could have been half as long and it would have been better.
Journey to the Center of the Earth You know how occasionally rides at amusement parks are based off of movies? In this case, I think they had the ride ready before the movie was done. It's basically three people in front of a green screen for a couple hours.
The Mummy 3 Ouch, Brendan Fraser goes 0-2. I used to really like this guy as an actor after School Ties and With Honors, but he's had some really bad misses lately. This was another movie where they probably paid the writer $15 and spent the rest on special effects.
12 Rounds If you accept going in that it's an action movie starring a wrestler you will have a much more enjoyable time. There is no heavy thought involved and also some very large explosions. Kind of all you could want from this, actually.
Death Race Yes, Jason Statham, we get it - you like cars. Maybe you should start liking movies that have plots.
Role Models You should just see I Love You, Man instead. It was funnier.
Yes, Man A very nice rip-off of Liar, Liar. But, I liked that movie, so this one was fine. I'm less offended because at least it was Jim Carrey copying himself instead of taking a lesser actor and using them to bastardize a sequel, like they did with Jamie Kennedy and Son of the Mask. Frankly, the most unbelievable part of this movie was when Carrey's character was taking guitar lessons from some kid and the song he learned was "Jumper" from Third Eye Blind. Really? Some 17 year-old is going to teach a song that came out when he was 5? I don't care that it came around later in the movie, it bothered me tremendously.
Dance Flick I'm not usually a big fan of parody movie that try to cram 15 movies into one, but at least they are usually good for a chuckle or two. Not this one. I didn't laugh once.
The Soloist I feel like Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. were openly trolling for Oscars in this movie. Alas, they just didn't tug on the heart stings enough. (Get it? Heart strings? Cause it's a movie about a guy with a cello? Nevermind, let's just move on.)
You're Welcome, America This came out last year, but I only got around to seeing it now. I love Will Ferrell and think he did the best job of any SNL performer when imitating George Bush. But, I got the joke after 15 minutes and this thing was an hour and a half. Could have been half as long and it would have been better.
Journey to the Center of the Earth You know how occasionally rides at amusement parks are based off of movies? In this case, I think they had the ride ready before the movie was done. It's basically three people in front of a green screen for a couple hours.
The Mummy 3 Ouch, Brendan Fraser goes 0-2. I used to really like this guy as an actor after School Ties and With Honors, but he's had some really bad misses lately. This was another movie where they probably paid the writer $15 and spent the rest on special effects.
12 Rounds If you accept going in that it's an action movie starring a wrestler you will have a much more enjoyable time. There is no heavy thought involved and also some very large explosions. Kind of all you could want from this, actually.
Death Race Yes, Jason Statham, we get it - you like cars. Maybe you should start liking movies that have plots.
Role Models You should just see I Love You, Man instead. It was funnier.
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