Haven't been able to comment much these days; I've been on the west coast, and while I was there I learned about a new cause Gheorghe: The Blog should throw its collective heft behind. It's certainly weird enough, and we could all use the good karma.
Save the Pacific Tree Octopus from Extinction
Please go here now to read about the rare -- and getting rarer -- pacific northwest tree octopus.
The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate forests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the forests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.
Although the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle . . .
Unless immediate action is taken to protect this species and its habitat, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus will be but a memory.
As I enter middle age, I've started to draw some generalized conclusions about the world based on my decades of accumulated wisdom. Such as: some things are better experienced live. Like pro sports. I enjoy pro sports much more when I'm there, in the flesh, watching the game unfold while sitting cheek by jowl with the great unwashed (e.g., TR). I think it's because I've seen everything that could happen, happen. Maybe some things just don't hold my attention in two dimensions anymore. For instance, regular season baseball is almost unwatchable on TV at this point in my life.
Music is better live too, at least for some bands or genres. I never sit down and listen to classical music at home, but I used to take advantage of free tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra with some regularity.
Sex is better live too. As opposed to a magazine or movie. I mean with a live woman. I never did it with a dead woman. And I mean being the person having the sex with the live woman. Not watching someone else be the person. I never did that either.
I guess I just really appreciate being there experiencing someone do their thing at a very high level, regardless of what their thing is.
Another conclusion: New York City is a preposterous place to live. Taxes are insane. Housing is offensively expensive. Groceries are stupidly dear. I can't find a decent barber. Getting east-west is nearly impossible. But the food is fantastic. And there are plenty of opportunities to watch live sports and live music.
You may have reached some of these conclusions on your own. But you likely haven't synthesized them into one idea for a weekend outing. I have. Combine NYC with an interest in live entertainment, and a live-in ladyfriend, and blammo: Broadway. It turns out that watching really good actors live is better than watching them on your TV or a movie screen.
I'm sure you'll say this is corny, cheesey, or some other pejorative food analogy. I even expect a ghey call or two. I don't care. The Z-woman and I go every other month or so and it's fun. I saw "A Behanding in Spokane" this weekend. It features Sam Rockwell, the guy Morgan Freeman beat up in "Million Dollar Baby," and some little blonde girl with disarmingly big feet. It's a dark comedy about a guy who had his hand cut off and who now wanders the country looking for it.
Christopher Walken plays the lead. He is hands down (get it?) the eeriest guy in the world. He was 100 feet away from me and I was still skeeved out by him. I knew it was a comedy going in, so I laughed at a lot of his creepy shit. Remember his maniacally funny soliloquies from "Pulp Fiction" and "True Romance"? He had about five of those. And his insulting repartees from "Biloxie Blues"? He had two or three of those too. No one can be as simultaneously funny and discomforting as Walken. But if you walked in off the street and didn't know it was a comedy, you'd find his character scary as hell, like Nick at the end of "The Deer Hunter." Dude's a freak. An incredibly gifted actor, but a freak nonetheless.
I encourage you to get out and watch people do something that they are really good at and that's fun and impressive to behold: go check out some live theater. I don't like musicals, but if you went to one you could combine live acting and live music, and your lady will probably dig it so you might end up making real live love. The trifecta! Or roll like me, avoid the troika and look for actors you like in regular plays with no singing and dancing. And then on the ride home when your lady says "That was really great, I had no idea you were so cultured" you can say "Babygirl, my shit is deeper than Atlantis" and then turn up the volume on your Whitefield Brothers CD, and unless she reads this blog she'll think she has herself a true man of the world.
...just not the apex of the vortex of joint technology. It's the apex of the vortex of the British soccer season for the Big Three clubs in the EPL. Heading into the last six weeks of the season, Manchester United and Chelsea (and, to a lesser extent, Arsenal) are embroiled in a tight race, with the top two teams separated by one point in the standings and Arsenal four back of the lead. Man U and Chelsea have battled each other for the lead all season, while Arsenal pulled off an improbable rally in February and March to climb back in the mix. After a scoreless tie against Aston Villa on January 27th, followed up with a crushing 3-1 loss to Man U on January 31st, Arsenal ripped off six consecutive wins to make up some ground while the other two clubs had minor stumbles. However, they had a poor showing last weekend in a 1-1 tie with Birmingham city and now will need a lot of help if they want to win the league title.
The fates of these three teams will be determined in large part by the events this Saturday. At 7:45 AM, you can point your rabbit ears over to ESPN2 to watch Man U host Chelsea at Old Trafford. A Man U win should make them almost impossible to beat, as they will have only five games left, most against weaker EPL opponents. A Chelsea win puts them in the driver's seat with a two-point lead, while a tie opens up the door for Arsenal, who should be able to dispatch a shaky Wolverhampton squad. In the event of a Man U-Chelsea tie and an Arsenal win, Man U would have 73 points, Chelsea would have 72 and Arsenal would have 71. In this event, look for the fourth-place Tottenham Hotspurs to be a spoiler. They play Arsenal, Chelsea and Man U in three consecutive weeks in mid-April.
But this weekend's slate of matches is merely a portion of the red hot footie action over the next eight days. In addition to EPL matches, Man U and Arsenal both remain active in Champions League play, although Chelsea spit the bit against Inter Milan early last week and was eliminated. We've got a flurry of big Champions League matches starting today. Man U starts a brutal eight-day stretch. The team travels to Germany to face Bayern Munich in the Champions League today, in the first of a two-match series. The team then returns home to Old Trafford for the Chelsea tilt in four days and remains at home to host Bayern Munich three days later. That's three very difficult matches in two countries in eight days. Not an easy task for any squad, let alone a veteran team.
There are three reasons for Red Devils fans to be optimistic. First, Bayern has lost two straight Bundesliga matches and has gone 1-2-1 in its last four to fall out of first place. Second, Man U was able to rest a lot of its firepower in last week's romp over the official team of The Teej, the (Michael) Bolton Wanderers, as Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick and Ji-Sung Park all sat out in the win. Third, last week's win saw the return of injured young striker Federico Macheda, who shows flashes of both Cristiano Ronaldo's artful footwork and John Terry's legendary libido. Macheda, pictured above, was born in August 1991. Commence feeling old now.
There are additional quarterfinal Champions League games today and tomorrow. The Bayern-Man U game is being shown on delay on Fox Soccer Channel tonight, but those of us with work colleagues on the road will be darting raindrops en route to a pub for the 2:45 PM ET start.
rob left me in charge today (perhaps even all week), but I'm just not feeling it on this rainy/cold/dreary day. So I asked Reverend Run, the D.M.C. and (from beyond the grave) Jam-Master Jay to help me get through this afternoon*:
Sadly, fifteen years ago today Eric Lynn Wright, better known as rapper Eazy-E, passed away. I figured we had enough of the Tauntaun sleeping bag and instead could use some Eazy-E (and friends) prior to tonight's hoops action. Enjoy...but as you might recall, Mr. Wright and Co. use some "colorful" language, so try not to get fired listening to this.
In case you didn't know, my birthday is coming up (I will be a spry 34, my liver will be a Mantle-esque 69) so I thought I'd help you all out before you hit the malls to find me a gift. It's real simple. I want the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag.
I was already quite excited for this item, then I read this: This high-quality sleeping bag looks just like a Tauntaun, complete with saddle, printed internal intestines, and a plush lightsaber zipper pull.
Printed internal intestines? Yes please. And according to the Prodcut Features, it also "simulates the warmth of a Tauntaun carcass". Can it get any better?
I was originally going to put together a post for the first couple days of the tournament. Then I started drinking with my Dad at 10 am on St. Patrick’s Day. Then I decided it would be a good idea to eschew my mid-afternoon drunken nap and meet up with some of my degenerate friends (Ask Greg about these people, I’m the most responsible and respectable person among this group of friends…by a WIDE margin) for more drinking. And then I was in bed by 7:45 pm on St. Patrick’s Day. All in all, it was a great day. Just not a day that was very conducive to getting anything productive done. So, with that in mind, here’s my take on the NCAA Tournament so far as well as some thoughts on the upcoming slate of games.
- I've said it in the comments before, but take a look at Tennessee PG Bobby Maze when he's at the foul line tonight. I've never, ever seen a high level athlete who wanted to be another athlete so badly (save for Kobe Bryant). Maze dribbles like Allen Iverson, wears his hair like Iverson. He even has multiple tattoos that are identical to Iverson. It's kind of creepy.
- It’s no secret that I’m in the bag for Ali Farokmanesh, but just in case you aren’t, here’s something you might not know about him that should (repeat, should) make you love him more: He used to babysit Idaho Football Coach Rob Akey's kids in Washington. G:TB obtained a copy of the list of requirements to submit an application to babysit Rob Akey’s kids. There was only one requirement: BIG BALLS.
- While we’re on the subject of juevos, there is something that’s really bothered me since Saturday night. The notion that the shot by Farokmanesh that effectively sealed the Kansas game, was a terrible shot. Ummm, no. It wasn’t. I understand why people are saying that (time and score), but ask yourself this question: If Farokmanesh pulls the ball out and Northern Iowa sets up their offense, are they getting a better and/or more wide open shot than what Farokmanesh had? I say no. In fact, with the way Kansas had turned up the heat defensively (and the way Northern Iowa’s poise seemed to be melting away), there’s a very real chance that Northern Iowa wouldn’t have gotten a shot off at all. Was it a ballsy shot? For sure. A bad shot? Nope.
(One more thing: The shot that Farokmanesh hit to beat UNLV was a tougher, more pressure packed shot than the clincher versus Kansas. The shot against UNLV came with under 6 seconds left, the scored tied and UNLV’s defense set. The shot against Kansas looks better/tougher because of who it helped beat.)
- Speaking of NCAA Tourney stars whose names most people can’t correctly pronounce, maybe it’s time for all those people who killed Joakim Noah’s game during Florida’s second tournament championship run to acknowledge how unbelievably, totally and completely wrong they were about him. If you re-did that draft today he definitely goes in the top 5 and probably the top 3. Say what you want about him personally but the guy is already one of the league’s top rebounders, plays hard every night, does all the little things and is a proven winner. There was a point when people compared his game to Anderson Varejao (and it wasn’t really that far off). Other than hairstyle, I don’t think we can make those comparisons anymore. Noah could be a starter on a championship team. Shit, Noah may even make an All-Star game or two before it's all said and done. Neither of those are ever happening for Varejao, certainly not without LeBron involved.
- This has been a great tourney. One of the best that I can remember. But TJ’s right, a few more nut punches would really put it over the top.
- You know what’s going to be a great game? When Greivis Vasquez and Sherron Collins’ teams face off in the Spanish League Playoffs next year.
- With all the upsets during the first two rounds, there’s been a lot of talk about how the NBA’s age limit rule has changed the college game and the dynamics of the tournament. This is true. However, the effect of this rule that I find more interesting is the long term effect its had on a number of so-called mid-major programs(Butler, Xavier, Gonzaga...even Vanderbilt (technically not a mid-major but definitely not your typical power conference school). What we are starting to see with many of these mid-majors is a run of continued excellence, not only in their conference but also out of conference and in the tournament that establishes them nationally.
These teams are building sustainable programs by using their national success to gain greater exposure to recruits (where before they could only recruit regionally, at best) which allows them access to a wider range and higher level of recruit than in ever before. And while these recruits are higher level recruits than these schools once attracted, they are still the kinds of kids who are going to be in school for 4 years. This allows coaches to mesh young talent with experienced talent and (in the cases of Butler and Xavier) while incorporating their systems which only serves to further raise the profile of their program through consistent tournament success. This sustained success then leads to the ability to create a brand for their programs in much the same way high-major schools like Duke, Kansas and North Carolina have created brands for their programs. Gonzaga built their brand prior to the age limit rule but both Butler and Xavier have seen a significant boost to their programs in the 3 years since the NBA's age limit was instituted. This model is obviously still in its infancy but we could eventually see a school like Butler, Xavier or even a CAA school use this model to build their program past the level of high-mid major (I need a better name for these programs) and up to the point where their program joins the nation's elite. While this will take many years, and some luck, its a real possibility in basketball due to the relatively small amount of money needed to run a successful, high level program as well the low number of players involved.
One potential offshoot of this model: With the current model in place, one could make the case that's its best for a mid-major coach to stay at his school for the long term (10+ years) and build a brand for his program before (maybe) taking a high profile job at an established basketball power, as opposed to taking the first high major job that comes along because, as we've seen with Dan Monson (Gonzaga to Minnesota) and Todd Lickliter (Butler to Iowa), if they end up at a school that struggles to meet the administration's expectations then the coach will end up fired and working back at a mid-major school with 4-5 years. Only now, they've downgraded to a downtrodden mid-major school and are left with an even bigger rebuilding project then they ever had at their original school.
- Now, that The Wire has been off the air for so long, it’s just nice to have a guy named Omar back in my life.
- Did you see Hoop Dreams? If you did, you no doubt remember William Gates’ prick of a high school coach, Gene Pingatore. Yeah, well, he’s still coaching. In fact, he coached Evan Turner (and Demetri McCamey) in high school. Is it just me or did that guy look like he was in his 60s during Hoop Dreams (which was filmed almost 15 years ago)? Does he prowl the sidelines with a walker now? Or is it just his cryogenically frozen head propped on the scorer’s table?
- Is Ekpe really any more of a name than LaceDarius? And while I'm talking about Baylor, how can you not root for a team whose backcourt consists of a Tweedy and a LaceDarius?
- There's a popular sentiment that the Carrier Dome is going to be overrun with Cornell fans tonight due to the close proximity of Syracuse and Ithaca, therefore giving Cornell a huge homecourt advantage over Kentucky. I couldn't disagree more. Kentucky fans travel. I mean really, really travel. Like midwestern College Football fans travel to warm weather bowl games. Additionally, I don't get the feeling that the majority of Cornell alums still reside in upstate New York. Certainly not enough to paint the Carrier Dome red tonight. I think you're going to see more blue in the crowd tonight and, at least in the early going, are going to see the Kentucky faithful make their presence felt in a very real way. Listen, I hate Kentucky's irrational, mouth breathing, hillbilly fanbase as much as anybody, but I also respect their irrationality and dedication. The only way that Cornell's going to gain a homecourt advantage tonight is if Big Red can keep it close late and get the neutral fans to get behind them down the stretch.
- Obviously, I love the first weekend of the tournament. Everybody does. It's a basketball orgy. However, if I'm being truly honest with myself I'd have to admit that the second weekend of the tournament is better. The teams are better, the stakes are higher and, ultimately, the games are more memorable. Sure, there are memorable moments during the first two rounds but the truly memorable games (Nova-Pitt last year, UConn-Washington '96, Duke-Kentucky '92 and many, many more) come from the Regional Semifinals and Finals. In fact, during Florida's back-to-back title runs the moment I remember most comes from the regional semifinals during their first title chase.
(I couldn't find just the clip of the shot so you're getting a 2006 NCAA Tournament/Florida highlight video. The shot appears at about the 1:19 mark. Well, not the shot but the aftermath of the shot...Noah's reaction to the shot. You'll have take my word for it, it was a great game changing shot. TJ and I looked everywhere for it with no luck. We did find a bag of farokmanesh I thought my dog ate though.)
- Finally, we finish off in the only appropriate way I could think of. With the All G:TB Team, of course.
G: Jacob Pullen, Kansas State - Awesome beard (not as good as mine) and he looks just like the guy having a picnic with his girlfriend from the Miller Lite commercial that's been running all tournament long. G: Ali Farokmanesh, Northern Iowa - Big balls, fun name, breakout star of the tourney so far.
G: Joe Mazzulla, West Virginia - Murdered Duke two years ago in the tourney, suddenly thrust into the spotlight with the injury to Daryl Bryant and (this is important) he's basically got the same last name (save for one vowel) as my fiancee which allows me to make any number of inappropriate jokes about her and her Italian ancestry.
F: Chris Kramer, Purdue - Because he told me he'd kick my ass if I didn't put him on the All G:TB team.
C: Omar Samham, St. Mary's - He's half Egyptian and half Irish. He used to be a fat kid and he plays basketball in low tops just like me. Need I say more?
Courtesy of the newly discovered website Urlesque, I happily present to you this morning the Rave Truck. As opposed to all the other videos I throw up here, I strongly urge you to actually watch this one. It's freakin' awesome.
We've been one of the internet's leaders in tracking the menace lurking in the Swiss countryside. Frankly, we're concerned that not enough of you are listening. Hear me when I tell you that the large hadron collider is still lurking, and this week it announced its intent in clear terms.
The Large Hadron Collider set a new record for the creation of energetic particle beams this morning. The particle accelerator, which surpassed Fermilab’s Tevatron in December as the baddest atom smasher of them all, smashed its own record, charging particles to 3.48 trillion electron volts.
"Energetic particle beams", people. "The baddest atom smasher of them all." This makes Sarah Palin's death panels look like a frolic in the local wolf-shooting helicopter park. How the nutbag right and Dennis Kucinich haven't been whipped into a righteous froth about this issue completely blows my mind.
Remain calm, ladies and gentlemen, but remain diligent. Our very survival may depend upon it.
Sorry to bump such a great video, Past Dave, but Future Dave is a self-centered jackass, and he'd prefer that people watch his ghetto Rube Goldberg contraption rather than the professional one created by OK Go. And credit where it is due: Alex set up the upstairs train and built the card house, and Ian collected all the vehicles.
Also, this video is so much more G:TB than the good one.
Sorry to bump you, Teej, but this is not a cover song and it does have a basketball hoop in it. Plus, ten minutes are up. And this video is amazing; if you haven't seen it yet, watch it.
If you have and judging by the numbers, quite a few people have, then the question is: what is the effect of the overt State Farm Insurance product placement? Though I loved the video, this question was gnawing at my brain while I watched it (which is probably just what State Farm wants).
Am I supposed to wondering: what if this happens to my house? And then go buy some insurance? Or am I supposed to believe, that like a good neighbor, State Farm is there when a pop band needs some bank so they can make a concept video? What is their angle? It's got to be the idea of things going wrong, though the video is all about things going right, but perhaps it is just the threat of things going wrong that pleases State Farm. Anyway, it is safe for work and quite impressive.
...and I just wasted 30 seconds of it thinking of that witty title. Whitney seems to be amused by what really annoys me, or grinds my gears in the parlance of Peter Griffin, so I'll see if I can make his day and mention how much cover songs piss me off. Van Morrison's Wild Nights is a great tune...but thanks to John Cougar Mellencamp [Greg, do your joke here] and that chick with an even weirder name than Erika Badu we get that crap ass version all the time. Hell, I hate to say it, when I was a kid that Club Nouveau version of Lean On Me was da bomb, but come on now, Bill Withers pisses on Club Nouveau. Cover songs are the devil.
Monta Ellis had 35 or so last night. Monta Ellis shot 9 for 27. Monta Ellis might have a problem. And, oh yeah, the Warriors gave up 133 points last night (though they did score 131).
Ten minutes might even be too long...perhaps next time we do this (2012?) I cut it to five.
I can't quite tell if me wholeheartedly accepting "the Teej" is Jeff Goldblum from "The Fly" or that dude in "District 9".
I know everyone loves the Eddie Murphy "Party All the Time" video as most absurd display of ego ever, but Don Johnson's "Heartbeat" is ten times worse. I mean, come on, he was a Big Lots compared to Eddie's Nordstrom. Both those videos by the way have been featured here on G:TB.
So, can I expect McDonald's to give me one more epic Filet 'o Fish ad for next year's Lent/March Madness? (now there's a tournament for you)
OK, sorry folks, my time here is done.
*Ten Minutes with the Teej promises no spell-checking, grammar-checking or fact-checking. That's right, I didn't use the google once for this. Even to find images. Or tubes of You.
Depending on the media outlet, the NCAA's plan to expand the Men's Basketball Tournament from 65 to 96 teams falls somewhere on the certainty spectrum from 'done deal' to 'pretty much done deal'. All that's left are the details and timing.
As is my wont, my initial Costasian reaction to this news was disgust, followed by anger that mellowed to exasperation. But then my lizard brain gave way to the part of the mind that actually, y'know, thinks about things.
The NCAA exists to generate revenue for its member organizations. Sure, it runs championships and enforces standards, but it's primarily a sports cartel. Once you've accepted that premise, any notions of the importance of tradition in the NCAA's decision-making process are rendered nothing more than quaintly wishful thinking. While we traffic frequently in such magical realism, this is a case where the cold logic of the almighty dollar is crystal clear.
According to CAA Commissioner Tom Yeager, the annual Men's Basketball Championship generates 98% of the NCAA's operating revenues. While I find that number hard to believe, I suspect that Mr. Yeager may have a better sense of the facts. Adding 32 more games to the tournament (and, if reports are accurate, bringing ESPN along to television those early-round games) would generate a shitload of incremental revenue, roughly speaking. Game, set, mint.
So, to paraphrase one of Bob Knight's more neanderthal public pronouncements, if it's going to happen, we might as well enjoy the benefits a 96-team tourney will bring us.
Michael Litos at CAA: Life as a Mid-Major estimates that the increased revenue will allow mid-majors to increase their basketball budgets by a significantly greater percentage than their high-major counterparts. Sure, the big guys will enjoy more incremental revenue, but as Litos opines, "...I personally have no problem with a major conference school’s budget going from $60 million to $70 million if the budgets of CAA schools move from $1.5 million to $3 million."
Beyond the financial considerations, a 96-team tournament would feature at least 2-3 CAA teams every year. This year, instead of hoping against hope for a miraculous at-large bid for William & Mary, the CAA would have placed the Tribe and Northeastern in a 96-team field. In an important corollary to this line of thinking, the chance for W&M to get in to the tournament in any given year would go up considerably. As a beggar in this area, I'm okay with swallowing my pride so long as it means I get a weekend trip with my friends to Buffalo to watch the Wrens play in a first-round 16 vs. 17 matchup.
Finally, this weekend's wall-to-wall thrill ride makes an even better argument for a 96-team event. 32 more games bring 32 more chances for Oh My God! moments. (32 more chances for Duke/Pine Bluff bludgeonings, too, but nobody remembers those games a week later, while we'll all be able to spell Farokhmanesh for the rest of our lives.) If you capital-l Love college basketball, more games that count mean more games to watch without guilt.
So bring on the field of 96. That, to abuse once again a catchphrase, is change we can believe in, even if it means tradition gets punted.
I'm in the Salt Lake City airport with two hours to kill. Time for me to do my part to further the G:TB family's enjoyment of this terrific college basketball weekend.
Here's a little Johnny Utah to go with the final games of the first two rounds.
Consider this a forum for day 3 comedy rhombii, and a place to show some love for hoops-related mid-90's music for which no real videos appear to be available on YooToob. Guru had a heart attack and fell into a coma a few weeks ago, so show some love for Gang Starr even if the video is visually weak.
Special thanks to ODU, Murray State, Ohio, BYU AND Florida, Robert Morris, Wake and St. Mary's for making yesterday the best Day 1 of a NCAA Tournament that I can ever remember.
Now if we can only get Day 2 to be half as exciting we're golden...
I hate to bump down another terrific podcast, but it's the first day of the Dance, and you all need to be excited. I believe Mark has a post on the way, but just in case he doesn't, why don't you watch these tourney buzzer beaters and get fired up:
and we could all use the good karma.
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