Press Conference Remix

Non-somnolent reader FJ sent this to me (via 4 Dudes Write a Blog via Deadspin), and I llllllooooovvvveeee it. There’s a stretch in the middle where it gets a little long, but it’s worth it if you stick around. Just marvelous. Genius, I tell you! I love the Jim Mora stutter effect.

Spreading the Word

I've been contending for a long, long time that March Madness is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and now I'm hearing the same thing from more and more people.  That's not to say that I came up with the idea or that you heard it here first or anything.  The point is that it's a natural way for hoops and sports lovers to think about the Big Dance. But if you want some serious evidence that the concept is widely adopted, check this out. Even Google is talking about it that way. I don't really use iGoogle, but I would be all about that gadget if I did. Plus, I know a few people whose companies block all sports Internet sites.  I'm thinking this might be a nice way to keep tabs on the tourney from inside one of those Mordac-run shops, because I don't think even they would block Google.  Of course, if you treat the first two days of the tournament as religious holidays and take time off every year, it's a non-issue, but that's not practical for everyone, either.  Either way, I like more ways to keep tabs on the Tourney, and I hope you are as psyched for the Madness as I am.

Madness On Demand ... in HD

In case my last post didn't clue you in, March Madness is very nearly here.  And to make it even better, it looks like CBS is working with cable companies to make HD game highlight packages (along with some other stuff) available on demand for free (yes, free!) during the tournament. That's good work. Now that I'm a DirecTV customer (just so the Girl and I can watch IU games), I've signed up for the Mega March Madness package, but I would have been excited about this if I just had cable.  And if I didn't have my TiVo Series3, which won't do video on demand. And if I had a cable company HD box.  And if my cable company was one that did a deal with DBS.  Still, it's a Good Thing.

How to Rant

I just put up a link to a video of a Chris Berman tirade on SaWA, and I think you should watch it. So here's a direct link for your convenience. Have fun.

SaWA

If you know me at all, you know I dig the sports. I generally avoid writing a lot about them here, because that's not really what I had in mind for this blog when I started it. OK, in fairness, I didn't really have much in mind for this blog when I started it, other than that it was a way to share information with a few people about the status of my facial hair without spamming them. But that's really beside the point. The point is that this blog isn't really about sports, even though I've mentioned them from time to time.

I do talk and write about sports, though, often via IM with Lawton or on the phone with the BHK or with some random clown dipping in our conversation as we leave a UVA basketball game last Sunday night. With all that talking and writing, a new blog has been born. I've gone and created Statler and Waldorf Arena, a blog where sports are written about. The beauty of it is that you don't just have to endure my drivel about sports there. Lawton is adding his drivel about sports as well. We're, like, co-bloggers and stuff. So far it would seem that I like numbers and Lawton likes pictures. Really, there are too many numbers in there, but we (I suppose that really means me, since I'm the one throwing up all those digits) hope to clean that up over time.

Take a look if you like. If not, I still plan on posting more of the Chronicles here.

Roy!

Two Saturdays ago, the BHK invited me to make use of his second seat to the Georgetown - UConn game at the Phone Booth in DC, an invitation that I happily accepted.

I should explain that happiness. Sure, I will typically be happy to accept any free ticket to watch college hoops in person, especially when I know both the company and the seats will be good. However, I grew up hating the Hoyas. I'm not sure that I can explain why, other than that they seemed to be the opposite of what I liked in basketball, even at a young age. My perception may not have matched reality, but I thought they can't shoot. No one moves because they don't really run an offense. They play a gahdam zone defense! The Iverson years did nothing but cement my feelings about them, and having Craig Esherick as coach only amplified them. That guy was an awful coach, from my perspective. It was during Esherick's reign that I first accompanied the BHK to the occasional game, and it was perhaps more brutal in person than on TV. On TV, at least I can change the channel. The BHK, a lifelong G-town fan, even discontinued his season tickets for a year as his monetary protest of Escherick. That's how bad he was.

Things started to change once JT3 came along to change things. They still play some zone on D, but I've changed my stance on that over the years. The real key is that their offense is a joy to watch. I've come to root for them, and I generally watch them when it's convenient to do so (i.e. it doesn't conflict with an IU game).

Hmm. Sorry. That explanation got out of control there. The point is that we were watching a very close game, in which I was rooting for the Hoyas. The score was tied as Georgetown got the ball with 39 seconds left. They took a timeout to set things up. They moved the ball around when play resumed, but they couldn't get any open looks. They swung the ball around, nothing. The shot clock was winding down and DaJuan Summers had the ball, saw an open man at the top of the key, and fired it to him. The guy took the ball and launched a 3-pointer. As it went up, I thought we were headed for overtime, because the open guy was Roy Hibbert. Roy Hibbert, the All-Everything center. The 7'-2" All-Everything center. The lumbering, non-athletic, non-explosive, slow of foot, 7'-2"All-Everything center. The buzzer went off, just before the shot hit nothing but the bottom of the net.

The Phone Booth exploded in noise. The crowd went bonkers. It wasn't quite a game-ending buzzer beater, but it was close enough in my book. There's nothing quite like being part of the crowd when the home team hits a huge shot at the end of the game like that. It. Was. Awesome! UConn called a timeout, then came back in and turned the ball over to end the game.

During that last timeout, the Georgetown band started playing Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." In time with the opening sequence of heavy beats, the crowd appropriately chanted/yelled/sang,

Roy!

Roy, Roy, Roy!

Roy, Roy, Roy!

Roy, Roy, Royyyyyyyyyyy

Just excellent, excellent stuff. Thanks to the BHK for the seat. Here's the video (for as long as it lasts on YouTube).

People Send Me Things, Part Dos

Non-somnolent reader FJ has pointed out to me that Ron Cherry wasn't citing an abstruse and esoteric NFL rule, he was merely providing a case citation for precedent, referring to the case of Kelly v. Lyons, 1986, Justice Dreith presiding. For completeness, FJ even provided a video link, which I happily share with you now.

People Send Me Things

And I have no choice but to share them. I think football rules are myriad and confusing, and I think I know most of them. Throw in the fact that the NFL and college football have several subtle differences in the details and enforcement of those rules, and it's hard to keep track of all of them when watching games. However, this video shows ACC ref Ron Cherry coming up with one I have never heard of before. Just listen to his explanation of the penalty.

Change of Pace/ Fore!

Things have been shaken up a bit for the Kid lately. See, I'm changing jobs. My old company encouraged me to come back and join them, and I've decided to do so. I've had a good run at my current company, but this was a good opportunity that I just couldn't pass up.

In my thoroughly extensive experience with accepting job offers (this is the third time I've done it), the new company always wants you to start right away. Things are happening. We need you to get in here and hit the ground running. The world is going to explode in 24 hours, and ONLY YOU CAN STOP IT! You know what I'm talking about. And, while you may be Jack Bauer, I am not, and I think the urgency, by and large, is a bunch of hooey. Since I got out of college last century, I haven't been off of work for more than a week in one stretch. OK, maybe about 10 calendar days. Either way, it's not a very long time, and I want a break. So, what with some vacation time at my current job and not starting right away at the new/old company, I'm not going to start until the 17th. I'm VERY excited about that.

People keep asking me what I'm going to do with my time off, and the question is positively pregnant with expectations. Am I going to travel the world? Build an addition on the house? Finally solve the mystery that is Amelia Earhart's disappearance? In a word, no, no, no. (Yes, that's one word. It's just repeated three times.) What I am going to do is relax. I don't want to go on trips or do anything particularly strenuous. I'm staying at home and chilling out.

I do have one thing I want to do with my time, though. I'm going to try to play golf at least every weekday until I start the new gig unless my body can't handle that much golf in such a concentrated dose. Or unless I just decide that I want to stay in bed or something. I broke 90 for the second time ever earlier this year, and I'm hoping that I might manage to do it one more time during the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted. Seriously, I will. I've decided that I'm going to write something about all the rounds I play before I start the new job. So if your eyes glaze over and you end up face down and drooling on your keyboard when I start talking about golf, you might want to stay away for a while. Otherwise, I'll be talking at you again soon.

Providing a marvelous segue (Look at that word. Don't you just love to see it in print? I certainly do. It's very cool, as far as words go. "Segue." There it is again! But I digress.) between working and my golf-filled time off, my last "working" day at the current gig was playing a round of golf in an outing that I had set up with the clients. It was marvelous, and we even played at a course that is one that I would almost never pay to play because it is too expensive. We played at Westfields. I had played there once before when I first started playing, and I shot a 75. On the front 9. So you could say that I got my money's worth if you think of it in terms of dollars per stroke. But I loved the course, which is just lovely, if quite challenging. So I was excited to play there again. This time I shot a 95 for all 18 holes. My normally wild driver did a good job of keeping the ball on the course off the tee, and I had three blow up holes that kept me from breaking 90. It was a marvelous Fall day, and ... well ... I'm looking forward to getting back out on the links tomorrow.

Have a great Monday. Hit 'em straight.

P.S. If you'd like to join me for a round in the next couple of weeks, let me know. I'm probably up for it.

A Cinderella Story ...

Just like Bill Murray's character in Caddyshack discussed, "It's a Cinderella story ... at Augusta." That's right, I'm at the Masters. No, seriously. See, I even have a tournament badge. Look:

See? The short version is that the Pretty Boy and I know someone whose family has tickets to the Masters every year, and they're not going there, so they let us go. Score!

Anyway, today was the first day that I have ever been to a pro golf tournament, and it was a good one to start out with. It might not be fair to all the other tournaments in the future, but that's not the point right now. The point is that I have a few thoughts to share on it, and I thought I would share them with you.

Doleros
This surprise started when I found out the price that's on that badge: $175. Sure, that's not chump change or anything, but it's really not bad for 4 days of admission to one of the premiere golf tournaments in the world. Plus, our admission came with a parking pass that allowed us to park -- at no additional charge -- right next to the course. That's just crazy, and it's certainly in direct contrast to all of my other professional sports experiences. So it's not expensive to get in and out of there for face value, but there just aren't many tickets. I don't think they've sold any new tickets for more than 20 years.

But that's not all. While we were spectating and walking around the course, we needed sustenance. So we headed to the concession and prepared to drop some serious coin. The price list didn't look right to us, but we might not have seen it correctly as we quickly moved through the line. We gathered the following items:

• 3 beers (in commemorative Masters plastic cups that we could take home with us)
• 2 bottles of water (in Masters-branded bottles of water, which we decided not to take home with us)
• 2 sandwiches in unusual-to-us green wrapping (that we didn't even consider taking home)
• 1 package of peanut butter & crackers, in standard packaging (please)

The total cost of that feast? $11.50. We were downright gleeful, and those beers were just marvelous. Really, the sandwiches were quite good, too. The Pretty Boy has been to a U.S. Open and a PGA Championship, and he thought we would spend a pretty penny on food and drink at the course each day.

Unfortunately, the stuff in the golf shop wasn't ridiculously cheap, too.

Cool Watching
The weather was beautiful, if a bit cool for early April in Georgia. But that's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about is that there are roped off areas all over the course (definitely at each green, and in some other places) where patrons can put little chairs down to sit and watch. What's cooler is that one can set down a chair, go wander around the golf course for a while, and come back find his chair sitting, empty, in exactly the same place. No one will bother it! It's amazing to me. Naturally, one has to label his chair, but it's still pretty cool.

Pretty!
I have often pondered on whether watching many sporting events on TV isn't as good as or, in the case of HDTV, better than being there in person. And I have even claimed that seeing the splendor of Augusta National in HD is better than being on a golf course in person. Well, having seen Augusta National in person now, I say that's a bunch of hooey. The course is amazing. Everything is green. Except for the flowers, which are all blooming. It's just ... wow.

180
I'm not talking about an about-face, that's the minimum score I think I'd shoot if I tried to play this course. It's long and everything, but having been out there and seen the angles and difficulty of different shots and the undulations of the greens -- which are things that I've never quite been able to grasp on TV -- I can say for sure that this course would soundly kick my ass.

Stay Away From the Tiger Cage
Everyone knows that Tiger Woods has the biggest galleries on the course, but I didn't know how much bigger they are. We spent a large part of the day walking the course and watching Ernie Els, Fred Couples, and Geoff Ogilvy play. Els and Couples are both incredibly popular, and Ogilvy is one of the better young golfers in the world. All 3 have won major championships. There was a pretty good crowd following them, but as they finished up, we watched Tiger tee off on one par 3. The crush of humanity around his group was ridiculous. We waited at the tee box before he got to the green on the previous hole, and we still didn't have a great angle. Not to mention that the caddies stood right between us and the green anyway. We decided it's just not worth fighting through the people to try to watch the best in the world play. His gallery was at least 3 times as large as any other we saw today.

I hope you all enjoyed a good day of golf, be it playing or watching, today.

Monday Night Chronicles

I'm doing something I almost never do: I'm watching Monday Night Football in real time. I'm doing that because it's the Colts vs. the Bengals, and they are my two favorite teams. Happily, the Colts have stepped out to a 10-3 lead, but there's still a lot of time left to play. That said, watching in real time (rather than DVR-delayed) shows me just how annoying the eleventy-seven commercials an hour on MNF are. (Blast! Former Wahoo Terrence Wilkins just muffed a punt to give the Bengals excellent field position after a 3 and out.)

Luckily for me, I have the Chronicles to take up that commercial time. Keeping with the holiday spirit theme we established last time out, I'm going to share a video that Lawton sent to me. It's the Scrubs cast doing voice-overs of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and it's good times. Enjoy. (And now the Bengals have tied it up. Dammit, Terrence!)

How To Start a Season (Cont'd)

I know it's not historically common for me to blather about basketball games, but I can't help myself right now. Those college hoops just keep on coming, more recently courtesy of my beloved Hoosiers. Last night they beat the Lafayette Leopards by a score that wasn't really indicative of how close the game was. Watching the Hoosiers play a real game in superb and stunning HD made for the head-to-toe happiness. The Girl and I watched it, and she must have been pretty happy about it, too, given that she stopped softly calling, "Ask me about my weinerrr..." for the duration of the game. Plus, she mentioned about 214 times that she was excited about getting to watch our boys play again. I was glad that the Hoosiers managed to win, and I wish it would have been less touch and go for the majority of the game. Still there were lots of things to think...

The Good

• Earl Calloway is really fast. The Jack-be-nimble point guard repeatedly knifed into the lane to easily score against the Leopards. At one point, he scored 5 buckets in a row (or maybe 5 of 6). As the cherry on top, he pulled up and drilled several pull-up jumpers, which Lawton and I have been preaching for years are the single biggest lost art in hoops.
• The Hoosiers don't have to have a big game from DJ White to win. At least not against Lafayette. DJ's fouls per minute stat was absurdly high last night, and he only scored four points, and those were after the game was decided.
• Rod Wilmont can still score, reminding us that he was a 30+ ppg scorer in high school. He lit it up from beyond the arc, dropping 6 of 11 3's. He's also still the best energy guy they have.
• Kelvin Sampson started off with a win. Don't ask me why I care about this. Maybe it's because if he didn't, people would be talking about how no other IU coach has ever lost his debut game or something equally trivial and irrelevant. Regardless, it's good to start off on the right foot.
• This squad can fill it up. Sampson's teams aren't known for high-octane offense. They're known for slug-it-out 62-56 types of games that feature a lot of long possessions full of D. I'm fine with that sort of play, but it's fun to put up the points once in a while.

The Bad

• The Hoosiers had to win without DJ. It's a good thing that we listed that they can do it without him in the Good part because they didn't have a choice. He needs to keep his ass on the floor for more than 5 minutes a game.
• Aside from DJ, the Hoosiers don't have anyone who can defend the post. Or rebound very well on the inside. Or score down there. Ben Allen has some skills, and you can't let him have a stand-still 3, but he's the smallest 6-11 guy I've ever seen play at this point. Really, we're just assuming that DJ can do it, since he was a near non-factor last night. But he could defend and rebound and score two seasons ago, so we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. It's only one game, but I'll be interested to see how this situation develops for the rest of the season.

The Annoying

• The refs are calling absurd numbers of fouls this year. I've watched two full games so far. The one I saw on Sunday in Hooville, and the one on TV last night. One game featured 51 foul calls, and one had 52. That's ridiculous, especially when about 20% of them are ticky-tack crap that didn't give anyone an advantage. Plus those Shane Battier-style flops. Yuck. (Had they been going the Hoosiers' way, I would applaud the Dane Fife-style craftiness. But let's not talk about my hypocrisy.) I sure hope they settle down with those foul calls. It bugs.
• Duke Vitale did the game. I've mentioned before that Dookie V. is a pain in the ass, and he sure didn't change before last night. There was a 12-minute stretch (that's game time, not real time) in the first half where they didn't talk about the game AT ALL. Happily and surprisingly, Vitale wasn't talking about Duke, but damn. He talked about Sampson's recruiting violations at Oklahoma. He talked about the scandal around uber-recruit Eric Gordon. He talked about Bob Knight (but not about Knight push-/slap-/clubbing one of his players in last night's game because that hadn't happened yet, thankfully -- incidentally, I think it's non-news, and I'm not going to talk about it). But he wouldn't TALK ABOUT THE GAME. If he weren't deaf in one ear (as he constantly claims), he would have heard me yelling at my Big-Ass HDTV to do just that. There were all sorts of newcomers checking in and out of the game that they didn't even waste one word on. It was awful. Luckily, I'm a good guesser, and I was able to figure out who they were. Thankfully, someone else will be doing tonight's game.

All in all, the Good outweighs the Bad and the Annoying (because they are Dumb -- oh sorry, got carried away with a bastardized Spaceballs line). And Hoops are here to stay for a while! Good times indeed.

How to Start a Season

I've been all sorts of stoked for the start of college hoops, and today it's even more pronounced than before. A buddy surprised me yesterday by saying that he had an extra ticket to the Wahoos' first basketball game of the season, which happened to be the opening of their sparkling new arena. He asked me if I wanted to go. Did I want to go?! Does the pope shit in the woods? Damn skippy.

So we took the 2-hour drive down to Charlottesville and went to the game. First, let me say the new arena is awesome. It's just an excellent basketball venue, and it has all this state of the art audio visual equipment, too. It's an absolute gem. Sure, it cost more than $130 million, but ... I like it.

Not surprisingly, the excitement was palpable as they readied to start the game. There were fireworks and lasers and flames and general craziness. There was an animated Cav Man video (a cheesy thing they do where an animated mascot does battle with the opposing teams mascot - it's incredibly campy, but it's hard not to like it) that led to the "real" mascot rappelling down from the roof. Then, they had Michael Buffer, who might very well be a caricature of himself at this point, announce the starting lineups. I was thinking that I had waited 7 months for some college hoops so it would be fine with me if they could dispense with all this buildup business and get down to some game action. They finally did so, and what a game it was!

The Hoos started out shooting well but quickly cooled, and Arizona started to run away with the game, leading by 19 at one point in the first half. I was thinking that I could handle such a blowout, as Arizona is damned good, and I would at least have had the chance to see the opening game in the new arena. But those crazy Wahoos came out on fire in the second half, and they came back to secure an improbable 93-90 win.

Now that's the way to start a college basketball season. I'm just hoping to get a win out of my beloved Hoosiers in their opening game tonight. Either way, hail, hail, hoops is here!

It's That Time Again...

Time to watch Don Knotts videos?

No, it's time for the sounds of sneakers squeaking on hardwood, of leather bouncing, of the groans of those forced to watch early-season zone defenses. In other words, it's time for COLLEGE BASKETBALL SEASON!!!!

Yes, I'm reasonably excited about it. Maybe it's because the Wahoos are not faring so well on the gridiron this year. Maybe it's because college hoops have been part of my life since I was a wee lad. Maybe it's because this means that there will be sporting events on pretty much every night!

Regardless of why I'm excited, I am. As a result of that excitement, I started looking at the ESPN Full Court schedule to see when they'd be showing my Hoosiers. To my delight, the answer is rather frequently. (Also somewhat frequently are the Hoosier games on ESPNU, a channel which approximately 14 people receive, which annoyed the ass out of me. But I'm not here to talk about how ESPN has become a company I hate for their practices in bilking the people who love sports for more and more money all the time by moving content people already watch from the channels everyone gets to channels they (ESPN) creates out of nowhere just to drive up demand and increase their revenue by claiming they have yet another channel with high-demand content that the cable companies almost have to buy from them. Case in point: no one carried ESPN2HD - probably because they hadn't even filled ESPNHD with HD content, so why bother with a second HD channel? - so ESPN decided to put the entire World Cup '06 on that channel. They're dicks. They are working hard at becoming the Best Buy of the TV world. But I digress.) Man, I wanted to get that Full Court goodness set up for my house since the coverage is supposed to start this Friday. However, given my past difficulties in getting Comcast to sell me the Full Court package, I figured there was no way they'd have it available at the beginning of the season.

For some reason, I browsed through my guide and saw that this Friday's games all showed up on the channels where the ESPN Pay Programming happens. "That's awesome!" I thought. "Surely, they wouldn't put that up there to taunt people who want to buy it. That must mean I can get that stuff!" Laughing about how I shouldn't be calling anyone Shirley, I called up my neighborhood Comcast office and had the following exchange:

Me: I'd like to buy the ESPN Full Court college basketball package.
Comcast guy: Basketball ... let's see here. You want the NBA Season Pass?
Me: [Incredulously, feeling major deja vu, not pointing out that it's the NBA League Pass] Umm, no. I was hoping for the college basketball package. ESPN Full Court.
Comcast guy: Oh. We don't have that available.
Me: [thinking, "Am I Sisyphus here?"] Well, the only reason that I called is that I looked in the guide on my cable box, and the games schedule for Friday night show up on those 700 - 706 channels where they're shown every year.
Comcast guy: Yeah, but maybe that was only in some areas ...
Me: Maybe ... But it showed up on my cable box in my living room.
Comcast guy: [Clearly not expecting that] Oh, well, the only basketball package I have in the system is the NBA one. Maybe the marketing guys haven't put it in there yet.
Me: I could see that, but I'm surprised that's the case. I mean, I'm surprised that I can't pay to watch something that actually shows up in the guide.
Comcast guy: Right. I'm just not sure what's going on. Maybe it's the sort of thing where it will be in the system before Friday but it's just not yet.
Me: [Thinking that this guy clearly didn't talk to me last year] I guessss ...
Comcast guy: Well, what I can do is take down your number, go talk to my marketing guys to see if they know anything about it, and give you a call back when I know something.
Me: So ... You're going to check things and ... then what happens?
Comcast guy: I'll call you back at your number after I talk to them.
Me: Oh, OK. When should I expect to hear back from you? [Thinking in terms of days]
Comcast guy: In about 10 minutes or so.
Me: [Surprised] Oh. OK. Great. I appreciate your help.

Well, it's already been a good hour, and I haven't heard from the Comcast guy. Whey they suck soooooo badly at this, I have no idea, but I expect I'll be calling them a few more times to get it right. Not Comcastic at all. Or maybe it is. Sigh.

Nonetheless, be happy. College hoops is nigh!

Leading Indicator

This past weekend I went to see my beloved Wahoos engage in gridiron battle with the Wolfpack of NC State. I was a bit trepidacious about the game, as the Wahoos have been bad this year, needing a missed extra point in OT to beat Wyoming and losing at home to Western Michigan, to name a couple of missteps. (I can't even go into giving away the game against the hated Terps.) On top of the general not-goodness of the Wahoo team, NC State had managed victories against once-mighty Florida State and never-shitty Boston College. None of those factors made me confident that UVA could pull out a victory, even though NC State's overall record wasn't that great. In retrospect, I should have been overtaken by a serene calm and supreme confidence once I got to my seat.


My seat happens to be near the visitors' section in the stadium, meaning that their cheerleaders are in front of me. Once I saw that crew, I should have known we were going to win. "How could you know from seeing the cheerleaders?" you might be asking. And it's a good question. Really, it's not the cheerleaders that should have foretold the downfall of the Wolfpack, but the mascot. Seriously, how can you possibly expect your team to win a tackle football game with the mascot pictured below on your sidelines? Shouldn't you just expect to lose that game?




Final score: Wahoos 14, Pearl and Dress-Wearing Girly "Wolfpack" 7