The Jamaican bobsled team, captained by Hannukkah Wallace, one of the Top-50 drivers in the world, on a sled donated by the U.S. fell two sleds short of making the field for Vancouver. What a shame, considering I leave for the islands tomorrow.
I was looking forward to living out this cinematic brilliance in real life..dah well, nothing a pina colada won't cure.
Sidebar: I'm out until the 26th, suckers - returning just in time for St. Patrick's Month. amaican Bobsled Team Falls Short In Qualifying (NYT)
The Tiger Woods press conference is going to be Grade A caliber B.S…unless he’s cries. If he cries, it’s going to rule (and hopefully inspire a slow jam). But most likely, it’ll be awful, not at all like this…
Tuesday night, I went to my first Trey Anastasio concert at Terminal 5 in NYC (conveniently located on 11th Ave near all the bad nudie bars. Woohoo!). For those of you who do not know who Trey is, he is the lead singer of Phish. For those of you who do know who he is, below is the set list:
Trey Anastasio & Classic TAB
February 16, 2010
Terminal 5
New York, NY
Set One: Shine, Cayman Review, Push On ‘Til the Day, Alaska, Mozambique, Gotta Jibboo, All That Almost Was, Drifting, Liquid Time, The Birdwatcher, Night Speaks to a Woman, Tuesday, Brian and Robert*, Strange Design*, Sample in a Jar*, Chalkdust Torture*, Wilson*
Set Two: Sand, Alive Again, Last Tube> Show of Life, Sultans of Swing, Ether Sunday, Black Dog
Encore: Magilla, First Tube
* – Trey Solo Acoustic
Now, I am not a huge Trey fan. I like some of his music, he’s a phenomenal guitar player, and it was an excuse to drink beer and hang with my buddies on a Tuesday night (I sincerely hope I have not offended any Phish Heads reading this by saying that). Here is what I learned:
1) I will get the sophomoric, frat-boy comments out of the way first: We saw one woman we deemed attractive. Moving on…
2) Several of the songs Trey and Classic TAB played? They originally wrote ‘em and they were later adopted by Phish, prompting one buddy to say “HA! Phish is like a glorified cover band!” (again, Phish Heads, he is a big Trey fan. He was kidding. Please no hippie voodoo on us).
3) The concert started at 8:30 and lasted (minus a short break in the middle) until midnight. Set two was 70 minutes alone. However, the energy was high the entire time and it’s hard not to get excited when there’s a second-set ending cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog”:
5) Finally, the concert was a blast (if you get a chance to check the band out, after one concert I suggest you do so) but there was a TINY part of me that was hoping we’d get a surprise guest…like this one:
Crooning soccer hooligans singing Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply," and one terrified old bird sitting idly by.
Found via Delete Yourself, the amusing and sexified blog of the creative director at the digital agency that created this video for Puma.
Here's the original track to listen to for anyone who wasn't coherent in 1997 (…or if you need a reason to hate me personally.)
Earlier this week, I exchanged a few emails with my old boss Steve, at one point him asking: Is this the worst team in the history of Fordham basketball….or was last year’s the worst?
This year’s F.U. Rams men’s basketball team is abysmal - 2-20 (0-10) thus far, last in the Atlantic-10. And last year’s team was likewise atrocious (3-25 (1-15). In fact, it translates to a .111 winning percentage over the last two season. However, in all the years I’ve followed Fordham basketball, I’ll always associate the 2002-03 team (my freshman year at Fordham) as the worst team I rooted for - 4-24 overall; two wins courtesy of a St. Bonaventure recruiting scandal.
An anecdote from the first game I attended…
Bob Hill (former NBA coach of the Knicks, Pacers, Spurs) was still the coach that year, and during a late January loss against Xavier some kid started a FIRE BOB HILL! chant that resulted in an altercation between the incisive fan and the moms of the Fordham players. A few months later, Fordham and Hill “agreed to amicably part ways.”
Truth be told, I was mainly there to see David West dominate for Xavier, but I’ve stuck by Fordham’s team ever since!
…
Anyone think they can top this level of lackluster? Chime in and let me know what worst team you ever rooted for was?
If your head did not explode from reading the title of this post, I suspect you are probably laughing or are confused as to what the hell the Beanpot is. In the grand scheme of sporting events, yes, comparing the two is bombastic. It’d be like comparing, ladies and gentlemen, sex with a model to that first awkward drunken make-out/groping session you had freshman year of college.
While the Super Bowl is the grandaddy of all American sporting events (so grandaddy-licious this year that it’s the most watched broadcast event in history), the Beanpot is a tournament involving Boston’s 4 big schools: Harvard, Northeastern, Boston College, and my alma mater, Boston University. Each year, the 4 schools are paired off for a 2 week tournament for the coveted Beanpot trophy. More importantly, these four schools play for pride and bragging rights…and yes, ads do not cost $3 million for 30 seconds.
If you watched BC’s 4-3 Beanpot victory on Monday night at a local sports bar, it made for an unbelievably satisfying sports dessert to The Big Game’s main course. As a BU alum, it was disappointing to lose, especially to our hated rival (Thank god for $1 dollar draft Mondays at Third & Long) and I was not exactly thrilled wake up and watch ESPN’s Top 10 yesterday morning. What was the #1 play you ask? Chris Kreider, BC’s 18 year old freshman, deking out BU freshman Max Nicastro and finishing with a fluid backhander past BU goalie Kieran Millan to put BC up 3-1 during the Beanpot.
Now, I can drunkenly berate the other 3 BC goals (and believe me, I did) but none of us could argue this was a helluva play. Oddly enough, I quickly changed my tune since, if you watched the game, you’d know BU’s David Warsofsky had an equally amazing top-shelf backhander later on. Surprisingly, I was happy. I was happy that college hockey, a sport that doesn’t get nearly enough recognition and is the pride of the BU faithful, was getting it’s due on Sportscenter. Hopefully next year, we’ll reclaim the trophy for a tournament that’s continually ours (29 titles and running). Until then…
What? You didn’t think I’d really end this on a sad note and praising the enemy, did you? GO B.U.
Not only am I nerd, because I just dropped that information on you, but I’m also a huge jerk because I remembered I love Super Bowl boxes about the time that Jay-Z and his symphony asked you to pledge allegiance to the Roc Nation (approx. 6:03). Alas, I didn’t get to participate.
If you reigned victorious, hit me with a story (How much you won? Which friend you berated first - your pitiful buddy who got stuck with 2-2?). I love a good gambling success story, and the only one I’ve heard out of this Super Bowl so far is from my degenerate coworker Leon* who bet heads on the coin toss.
*Not his real name, changed b/c betting on the coin toss is ultra degenerate.
Liberals were not pleased with last month’s Supreme Court ruling in Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections was protected as free speech under the First Amendment and could not be limited by campaign finance laws. The constitutional logic of the case is fairly sound: in a recent New York Times article, Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied “regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process:”
“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”
Cue doomsayers and pundit panic attacks. The obvious consequence is that corporations will now have an unrestrained ability to funnel cash into candidates who best serve their interests, which also means that anyone deadest on running for office (and remember, money talks more than talking points do) and looking to max out on campaign donations is more likely to pander to corporations than individual contributors (although the later model of asking for $5 donations from millions of people worked superbly for President Obama). The potential urgency of correction this mistake was highlighted by a point which President Obama incorrectly noted in his State of the Union address was that foreign corporations could influence American elections (they are actually barred from doing so by law).
Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. The point is that one corporation is trying to make things right, albeit with a hefty dose of good old-fashion tongue-in-cheek irony. Murray Hall Incorporated, a liberal PR firm recently announced that it would run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional district. “Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”
Murry Hill released a faux campaign video dripping with irony last week on its newly created campaign website announcing its run:
“It’s a new day. Until now, corporations influenced politics with high-paid lobbyists and backroom deals. However, as much as corporate interests gave to politicians, we could never be absolutely sure they did our bidding. But today, thanks to the enlightened Supreme Court, corporations have all the rights the Founding Fathers meant for us.”
I don’t really have an opinion on who’s going to win the game. However, I am certain, by the end of Sunday night, we will all be sick and tired of hearing the song When The Saints Go Marching In. Even odds that The Who noodle around with it during half time.
If you dislike this song - which, not for nothing, if you dislike this song then you’re a jerk, it’s delightful and timeless - you should probably either watch the game on mute or chew your 7-foot sandwich really loudly.
Here are my Top Five Renditions* of When The Saints Go Marching In.
*So as not to go buck-wild with the Saints favoritism, I didn’t post the original Who Dat?! version, but I did post it over here.
