H.O.L.Y. S.H.I.T.

THIS BEAR IS THE CRUNKEST BEAR IN THE PLANET! I AM IN PURE AWE!!!!!!!

Normally I would say this might be enough to get Alex hyped about hockey, but considering that crunkest bear on Earth blows up Ohio State and ultimately Earth, he might be biased against it. Damn, that Seawolf ice breaker for waking such a monstrosity of crunkness!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just watched it again....fucking exploding volcanoes, YEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

Sports Blog Recommendation

Calling all readers! (All 5 of you)

I need a good sports blog to read, I'm not looking for a sport specific blog, I want a general one that covers all sports. Currently I read Deadspin, but honestly, I'm getting tired of it. Over the years it has turned into more and more of a gossip column as opposed to an actual discussion/analysis of sports.

I think one story about drunk Jets' fans is enough, I think the current count is 5-6

I'm looking for something that has a mix of humor and analysis, not something that is just going to throw stats around like candy on flag day.

Wishful thinking: imagine PTI in blog form

I've heard of Kissing Suzy Kolber, Awful Announcing, and a few others but I've never read them. The blog must not be written like Jing's, i.e. no punctuation/capitalization, all one paragraph jammed together. Let me know what you guys think.

Side note, a search of sports blogs results in a list of "Top Sites;" number 4 is a Korean football blog...I might have to check that out!


A now for something completely different:

***I have tried for half an hour to get this screenshot from google, but it ain't workin, so here:

When you type "why" into google it gives a bunch of auto fill options, two are very interesting.

The first is "why does my vag smell?", no I'm no expert (thankfully) but I'm thinking that there are quite a few reasons that a chick could have some stink down there, but are there really so many reasons that it's the second recommended result for "why?!"

The other one is "why can't I buy a Canadian?"....what? But it got me thinking, if I could purchase a person from any country, it would definitely be a tiny Irish person. Basically I would pay him to be an alarm clock and every morning when it was time to wake up he would yell "TOP O' THE MARNIN TO YA!" and me smacking him in the face would be the snooze button.

That is all.

Apple iPad

I'm sure people are going to go nuts to try to buy this, but personally, I am dissappointed. I 'lll admit I was never that into it when all the pre-launch hype was going on, but I still think that people are making a big deal about nothing.

Hype #1: It's going to kill netbooks

No, it won't. It has no Office applications other than some weak ass program called iOffice. People who need to real work will not being using this device and a large number of netbook buyers are getting them because they're easy to work on while traveling.

Hype #2: It's a multimedia monster

False. Apple still refuses to put flash onto their products, which on a tablet, is pretty dissapointing. Surfing the web on the iPad would be great, but without flash support there's not much to take advantage of. No Hulu, no ESPN videos, no online games, not much at all.

Hype #3: It's trill as hell

It's really just a big ass iPod touch, but it shouldn't be. I think one of the worst aspects about it is that it can't run multiple apps at the same time (other than music). Basically, if you want to surf the web while listening to Pandora, you're out of luck. Want to IM while checking your email? Sorry. A device of that size, aka more room for processor/RAM, should be able to do more than the touch, not the same amount. Some people have been complaining about the lack of USB ports and other peripherals, but what does it matter if it's just running the iPhone/iPod Touch OS, you can't load outside files on anyways. Oh, typing also looks like it'll be a real pain in the ass.

What's it good for: watching movies on the go, surfing the web (non-flash sites), and I'm sure they'll be some nice new games made for it. Oh, I will give it this, for the price, if you're looking to buy an e-reader, you might as well get the 16 GB Pad, it does a lot more than the Kindle.

I don't see why someone would want an iPod Touch that you can't fit in your pocket.

If you're an Apple fan boy, or just a reasonable person who likes the iPad, let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Also, calling it the iPad, joke fodder for males 15-25 everywhere, bad call Apple marketing.

It's Football Time

Saints-Colts, I'm liking it. A few thoughts from the weekend: if the Jets can get a good WR, they're going to be pretty good next year, the Saints need to play better to have a shot in the Super Bowl--the Vikings handed them that game, and I pray that Favre announces his retirement withing 3 days.

Colts-Jets

I saw most of the game, the reason I missed part of it was due to a venue switch mid game (went from low def, to hi def TV). You know the Colts have something special when they put up a fairly dominant win and you barely hear Reggie Wayne's name called. Garcon and Collie are legit and it will be interesting to see which one pulls ahead next year. The Jets aren't bad, I'll give them that, but they need someone to compliment Braylon Edwards, dude is a good football player, but he's not exactly the best receiver.

Saints-Vikings

I'm glad they won, but the Saints didn't deserve to win that game. The Vikings shot themselves in the foot with all of those turnovers and it could have been worse if the Saints knew how to recover a football. I heard an analyst praising the Saints today because they pick up and run fumbles, I couldn't believe it! Twice yesterday the Saints had a chance to recover a fumble and blew it because they tried to pick it up and run instead of just diving on it. Sure it's great if you can do it, but take the safe play and fall on the ball.

Prediction: Saints 27-Colts 24

The Saints put Brett Favre on the ground yesterday and if they can do the same to Peyton they can win the Super Bowl. Sean Payton needs to find someone to pick on in the Colts offensive line and not let up, if they can get a crack that could be all it takes to get Manning frustrated. An aside, all this talk about Archie Manning being conflicted seems like a bit of baloney. I understand he has a strong connection to NO, but it's his kid in the Super Bowl, you think he's not going to root for him?


Weekend Update with Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey:

My girlfriend had a birthday party this Saturday night and a bunch of people crashed at her place. On Sunday we went to a diner in Plymouth Meeting to grab some breakfast. While we're eating we suddenly see Terrence Howard (Crash, Hustle and Flow, Iron Man) walk in with his family. They were dressed up so I can only assume they were coming from church. Apparently he ordered a shit ton of food (at least two orders of grits, pancakes, and some other unknown stuff), dude must have an appetite. He seemed decent enough and didn't draw attention to himself though I think he had 6 different waiters/waitresses trying to serve him, haha.

Blogcation

I have mad stuff going on this week (girlfriend's birthday, parents coming down, mad work) so I'm taking a brief hiatus from the blog this week. Don't expect any posts until next week.

Peace

Factoid of the Weekend

*Not a regular feature*

The Wall Street Journal did an analysis of a football telecast and found that for the typical 2 hour and 57 minutes broadcast, there is only 11 minutes of actual live action football. Obviously there is a lot of down time, but I never thought it was that much, damm.

Thread Count

I never thought sheets could be so funny.

Whaaaaaaaaa?

I never would have guessed! Does anyone really care anymore, concussions are the new steroids.

Weightlifting....sure.......

He played it well though, I'm sure he knew that not many people care anymore so why not admit it now. Just like Tiger Woods will be fine 6 months from now when there's a new scandal that everyone is obsessing over. Personnaly I predict that Andy Reid will admit that he actually ate Ray Rhodes to become the Eagles' coach in '99.

Playoff Tracker

0-1 right now. I didn't get to see much of the early game since I was watching Drexel lose to William and Mary (when did they get so good?). We'll see how the Cowboys-Eagles game goes...

Updates will be coming over the weekend

**1-1 for Saturday, I really thought the Cowboys-Eagles game would be a lot closer, Andy Reid didn't even have a chance to display poor clock management. They did use Vick for an actual pass which I think was a good thing, but that's really the only good thing you can say about the Eagles. Did you ever notice that when players are being interviewed they're always looking around as opposed to looking at the interviewer? What are they looking for? People to celebrate with, hunnies in the crowd to tag later that night? It'll always be a mystery...

**Man, people on the news here are real tight. Hahaha, they're interviewing a player right now and he's trying to hide food behind his back so the cameras don't see, awesome.

**2-1 so far, and looking iffy on the last game of the weekend. Though this could be a game if GB scores before the half...

**2-2 for wild-card weekend. A few things we learned about listening to Ben and his football predictions:
-Always obey the unibrow rule
-At least he can pick which game will be good, even if he doesn't get the score right
-That's probably it, until next week...


SIDE NOTE:

Don't you wish Jing could go to CES and pop and lock in the booth where they do this? How ill would that be?

NFL Playoff Predictions

Ahhh, we’re finally into meaningful football games in January. You know what I’m talking about, the ones that don’t begin with the Capital One Meineke Car Care KFC Dinner Bucket Daffodil Bowl. I’m talking straight forward Wild Card Weekend in the NFL (sponsored by Gillette). Rather than auto tuning my picks (though I still might) I thought I would write them down since that’s really the only thing that separates me from T-Pain, knowing how to write (and probably read!).

Dallas vs. Philadelphia

I’m going with Dallas here. Romo has been playing much better than he has in years past and they didn’t crumble like they normally would in the game last week against the Eagles. The key to this game has to be the containment of DeSean Jackson as both a receiver and a kick returner. He’s the Eagles most explosive player by far and if the Dallas secondary lets him get some open field he’ll burn them pretty quickly (the Giants learned that the hard way). If he’s in shape I think this could be a good opportunity to use Vick to try to throw off the Dallas defense. I don’t know what condition he’s in but it was surprising how little (and how straight forward) they used him during the season. For the most part, if Vick was in the game you were expecting him to run. Obviously people don’t want to take big risks in playoff games, but I think it could be worth having McNabb and Vick in the backfield at the same time and trying to fool the Cowboys defense. I think the Cowboys have the benefit of having a well balanced attack and their breakout star Miles Austin. As long as Tony Romo doesn’t have to hold a game winning field goal, I think they’ll be alright.

Cowboys 27- Eagles 21

Cincinnati vs. N.Y. Jets

I think this is definitely the most underwhelming game of the weekend, and the one I’m glad I’m missing if I go to the Drexel basketball game on Saturday (battle for 1st place!). Even though Cincy had some of their starters in vs. the Jets the effort just wasn’t there, and why should it be since they had nothing to win or lose. I don’t see Sanchez winning his first playoff game but I do see him eating a hamburger on the side line at some point during the 3rd quarter. Passing is the new hotness in the NFL (Andy Reid has been all over it for years) and it’s something the Jets just aren’t that great at. Carson Palmer appears to have regained some of his old form and my boy Cedric Benson should be alright. Cincinnati wins this game and leaves Jets fan wishing they had a dome for Brett Favre to play in last year.

Cincinnati 23- N.Y. Jets 16

New England vs. Baltimore

Remember this: anytime you have a unibrow playing in a wild card game, take the unibrow. Baltimore is going to win this game on the ground (even though I said it’s a passing game above). New England’s defense is right around average compared to the rest of the league and I think Ray Rice and to a lesser extent Willis McGahee will take advantage of that. Plus, I think the knee injury to Welker hurts them a lot more than people think. Welker was averaging almost 9 catches and 102 yards per game. He’s one of the key players in helping New England move the ball and Julian Edelman will not be an adequate replacement. Additionally, I just don’t see New Englands jumble of running backs making significant gains against Baltimore’s defense. Fred Taylor will be back, but he can’t be perfectly in game shape after such a long layoff. Oh, and I don’t know what deal with Brady’s ribs are, but you know Baltimore’s pass rush will be gunning for them.

Baltimore 25-New England 21

Arizona vs. Green Bay

I think this could be the best game of the weekend. I see it as a high scoring affair with a lot of score changes. I’m going to have to go with Green Bay on this one mostly for the great play of Aaron Rodgers. I think Green Bay flew under the radar this year with the Vikings in their division and New Orleans and Indy looking to go undefeated. They’re coming into the playoffs hot having won 7 of their last 8 and their final game was a shut out of Arizona (not that Arizona was trying). Keep the passing attach going and they should be able to outlast Arizona whose hopes ride on a great game from Kurt Warner. Neither team has an amazing running game so we should see them air it out a lot.

Green Bay 35-Arizona 31

Side Notes:
-Has the ever been this many teams playing each other two weeks in a row?
-In Bill Simmons newest article he compares home team records vs. the spread to say that home field advantage is going away. Shouldn’t the spread take home field advantage into account?What’s to say Vegas hasn’t just gotten better at calculating it in?

I am a Post Machine!

3 in 1 day, that's a personal best...

Not sure how many of you have heard about the Consumer Electronics Show happening out in Vegas right now so I thought I'd do a run down of some baller things coming out of it. It's a yearly show that highlights the latest and greatest tech for the year to come, all the major players are there (Sony, Microsoft, Samsung, etc.) though I'm not sure whether Apple still attends or if they do their own thing. Anyways, lots of cool stuff coming out it:

Gunnar Optiks 3D Glasses- now you can look trill as hell while watching Freddy vs. Jason 3D on your......

60 inch, 240 Hz, Wi-Fi enabled, 3D Sony HDTV!!!!!

Sony and Samsung are pushing 3D TVs like there's no tomorrow, and the intial reviews sound promising! There is also news that the PS3 will be able to handle 3D Blu-Rays without and issue so if you're rockin one (like me) there's no need to buy a new player. They also reported that DirecTV's 3D channels looked pretty good at the demonstration.

CES isn't just TVs, Dell introduced the Slate which seems like a hybrid between a tablet PC and a smarthphone. It has a 5 MP camera and a SIM card slot, but from what I can tell it would only be used on a cell networks data plan, not as a phone. (Looks purty though)

See through laptop...WHAAAA?! Is it practical? Probably not. Is it amazingly trill? ABSOLUTELY!!!!!

And we're back to TVs... Panasonic's 152 inch 3D TV with 4096X2160 resolution, let's play guess the price on that one! Speaking of prices, the world's first 3D camcorder will be $21,000. Someone better buy that for my birthday!

Microsoft gave us some info on this Project Natal business, it's basically a gaming system that can track your whole body so there's no need for a control. It has the potential for awesomeness, but also the potential for a major failure (aka bowling 24/7)

There's a ton more, but you can go visit a technology blog for that, so I'm going to end with one goofy thing and one baller thing, it should be pretty obvious which is which.

A washing machine running android (the OS that the G1, Droid, and now Nexus 1 phones all run). So pointless!

Is that what I think it is? YES!! A POLAR BEAR WITH AN HDTV IN IT!!!! BALLERIFIC TO THE MAX!

I don't really care about digital cameras or camcorders, headphones, standalone blu-ray players, streaming TV boxes, etc. but there's a ton of that stuff too. If you want to check it out I recommend heading over to http://gizmodo.com/tag/ces2010

Epic....FAIL

I don't know about you guys, but I love me some good fails. So here's the best of 2009!

College Basketball Round Up

Drexel seems like it might be starting to turn its season around after beating perennial CAA powerhouse VCU last night, 75-72. Now I’m not sure how good VCU is this year without Eric Maynor or former Coach Anthony Grant, but I can’t imagine that they took a huge slide. Chris Fouch scored a game high 19 points and after sitting out last year with a medical redshirt it looks like he could live up to the hype he had coming in to Drexel. He’s only a freshman so he’s expected to have his ups and downs, but I’m glad to see that he can play to his potential in big games.

In other news Cornell narrowly lost to Kansas on the road. I watched the tail end of that game once I saw how close it was and I have to believe that analysts will be all over Cornell as an upset pick once the tournament rolls around. They have really good outside shooting and it looks like Foote can make some moves in the paint as well. Not having seen much of the game last night I wonder how they’ll play if they encounter a very physical team since it seems like their game is based more on finesse than strength (mind you this is based off of watching (1.1 games).

Hilarious note: turns out there is a town in Kansas called Cornell, who would have known! Apparently it does not contain any buildings, just a train track according to google maps. It’s located just outside of Pittsburg (!) Kansas.

I got dinged in the comments for not having a good picture to word ratio...so here you go:

Very poignant for this time of year

Prof. Snoop in attendance

I just find it funny that the x axis is labeled "Impetus for Action"

Magazines

A lot of the tech blogs I'm reading have been dissuading their readers from purchasing magazines as gifts for people, but I don't really get why. I know the publishing industry is hurting and there is more information available online than ever before, but I really like to have an actual magazine in hand when reading the articles. There's something about it that captures my attention a lot more than an online article. I guess a magazine can offer more complex layouts and throw in info boxes easier than a webpage can, but I don't know if it's just that. Whatever it is, I hope the magazine industry doesn't die off, though the price of some magazines is super un-trill. This Christmas I got a subscription to GQ, Popular Mechanics, and Cook's Illustrated, and I'm excited to start getting them in the mail, even though I'm sure in some cases I could find the same articles online.

That is all.

Nicknames 101

This post is aimed at one person, their name begins with J and rhymes with ring.

A nickname is not something that a person can give themself, well, they can, but they need a buy off from other people. If I decided I wanted to be called bone crusher, it doesn't become a nickname until other people start using it. If I refer to myself as bone crusher, I just seem like an idiot. Occasionally you can get away giving yourself a nickname, but that's only if you initially introduce yourself as it (see: Nevin aka Nesquik). However, when people already know your real name, introducing a self proclaimed nickname is no bueno. Especially when the nickname implies a reign over the group of people who you want to use it. Additionally developing your own nickname with external buy off is often counterproductive since it will most likely lead to people intentionally avoiding the use of that name or applying it to others. In fact, since Dave was rockin the ill website back in the day, which was effectively a blog before the term blog was even popular; I believe that Dave should be known as the blogfather, who's with me?

Bye Bye!

Was he the only problem with the Giants? Probably not, but still get his ass out of there. There defense wasn't significantly different from what they had under Spags and it sucked @$$. Third worst in the NFL, really? My boy Mara better make something happen this offseason, because this is unacceptable. They need to evaluate the defense and the RB corps, I would have figured that the WRs would be the biggest issue, but with Smith, Manningham, and Nicks the WRs are actually looking pretty good. The Giants were a major disappointment this year, especially after starting 6-0. I don't know what inside info they have on the Cowgirls, but it must be good. I'm hoping that the Cowboys knock out the Eagles, and then get knocked out themselves. Right now I'm rooting for the Saints to win it all because I really liked New Orleans when I was down there and I saw how important the Saints are to them. They still have a lot of issues and I think a super bowl win could help a lot. Anyways, the Giants are a mess and they really need to make some changes on the D, their secondary had some injuries, but still, they used to have the natiest rush in the WORLD, and now that ish is mad weak. I really hope Osi doesn't leave, it took me 6 years to buy a new jersey after my Sehorn jersey, so if Osi goes I don't know what I'll do. I'll probably buy a Steve Smith jersey. Either way, I really hope the Giants do more then just fire the D-Coordinator, they need some personnel changes to. Also, thanks to my co-op who gave me the bottle of wine that helped in writing this post. Dipset all day, Giants all day. Go Leafs Go. Yankees shat on the Phils, go Malik Rose.

Flight Control

**This post has been in draft for a while...**

I'm on the train to rhode island so I figured I'd type up a post. I got a new iPhone app called Flight Control. Basically you use the multitouch control to guide planes (and helicopters) to landing. It's a very simple game but pretty addicting. I think it's one of those games where it will always be the same, but it will stay interesting. It's $0.99 in the app store, so if you get an iTunes gift card for Christmas hit it up.















Planes coming in for a landing















Warning: those suckas are getting a little close!

You Look.....Thrilled.....

So that's a picture of Phil Kessel who is a Maple Leafs player who was chosen to play on Team USA in the Winter Olmpics. Doesn't he look like a kid whose mom just forced him to put on the ugly christmas sweater his aunt sends him every year so that she can send a photo back to her. Maybe they took the shot at a bad time, but really, hold your shoulders a little higher.

This shot made me think about some other unfortunate sports photos:

Marshawn Lynch: I know this photo is small, but it's the one yahoo uses and it's the worst one out there. He's not a good looking dude (promo) in general, but this picture is TERRIBLE!

Evegni Malkin: What's up with that half smile? It looks like he had two different faces fused together, even his jaw line looks different. Actually, it looks like one side of his face is hungover and the other is fresh as a daisy.

Greg Oden: Another small picture, sorry. I give him credit for trying, but it looks like he just never grew into his body. Maybe he's a real life Benjamin Button or something.

Mark Coury: Alex just got real tight. Doesn't it look like someone used the stretch tool in photoshop starting below his eyes? Maybe it's just the angle, but it looks like the lower half of his face is extremely long.

Randy Johnson: I think the best thing about him joining the Yankees was that they made him cut off the mullet. Not a good look Randy.