Custom Hats

Ever wanted your own custom hat? Well, Lids has the tools you need. A few clicks and you can have your own custom cap. Or beanie. Or bucket hat. But not visor. And, yes, they do have monkeys available.

Idiots!

Fools. The NFL and the Player's Association failed to reach an agreement on a new CBA again today. This could lead to an uncapped year in 2007. For a league that seems to never make a wrong move, this is incredibly stupid. Hockey has provided a great case study in labor stupidity by both players and the league. A large part of the popularity of the NFL is based around its labor stability. Serious damage could be done to the league if this isn't figured out. This could be a disaster.

Wonderlicked?

There are rumors floating around that say Vince Young scored a 6 on the Wonderlic test on his first try, but then scored a 16 the second time around. A score of 20 is roughly equivalent to an I of 100, or average intelligence. There are also reports that the initial rumor was false. There are also rumors that Young may fall as far as #7 to the Raiders, though that's pure speculation.

Now, I've taken a Wonderlic test, so I can speak intelligently about it, though I don't know what I scored. You take a fifty-question test in 12 minutes; I'm pretty sure when I took it we were only given ten. Here's some example questions from this FoxSports article, which explains a little about the test:

Look at the row of numbers below. What number should come next?
8
4
2
1
1/2
1/4

In printing an article of 48,000 words, a printer decides to use two sizes of type. Using the larger type, a printed page contains 1,800 words. Using the smaller type, a page contains 2,400 words. The article is allotted 21 full pages in a magazine. How many pages must be in smaller type?

None of these are terribly difficult, but when you're rushing to get through them in the alloted time they are difficult enough. You might also notice that there's nothing football-centric about the questions. Apparently there are some that think the test is culturally-biased. I suppose that might be true, if stupidity is one of your cultural values. Let me clear though: I don't think Young actually scored a 6, unless the test was administered wrong or there were other extenuating circumstances. Mostly, I just think it's amusing how people get so worked up over this test when they have no idea what it is.

Uh...Haag?

Be careful, I think Noah can kill you with his mind.

Homeless?

No place to lay your head? Can't afford rent? Does GMC have the solution for you: the GMC Pad. It's like an RV, but "hip" and "modern". Or something. I guess it beats living in a storage unit. Questions as to whether GM could actually sell this thing are pointless since it's not even a true concept, and certainly not a production vehicle. It's the winner of the 2006 Design Challenge. It impressed because of the innovative concept, not necessarily its marketability. But maybe for roadtrips...

Football 101

Joey Harrington is going back to school. He was just enrolled in Professor Martz's class, Football 101. It starts March 6th, two weeks before any other team begins official workouts. Martz wants Harrington to get a head start on the new offensive system. Surely there must be some similarities to the previous West Coast system, right? "None," says Martz. "We're going to coach him like he's in high school." Sounds like fun. Harrington gets one more chance to prove he's the man. Can he come through?

The Big Board

There are already two teams in the fantasy baseball league, so it's time to drum up some more interest. You can see Brandon Funston's Big(ger) board here, a list of his top 100 fantasy baseball players. A preview:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Albert Pujols
3. Vladimir Guerrero

You can sign-up here.

Camaro Concept

Did you see Chevy's Camaro concept at the auto show last month? It looks like this:


You can see more on Chevy's official site. Bad news is that because no one in Detroit has any money so it won't be produced for quite a while.

Noah's a pussy

Come on Noah, come get me. I'm hiding in cyberspace. I can say anything I want. Na na na-boo boo.

More on Noah

This guy's a real celebrity! There was an article about him in a Naval Academy publication, which you can check out here.

Disturbing

Now that I'm something like a real engineer, a somewhat troubling thought has occurred to me. All the structures and devices our lifestyles and lives depend on are engineered. At some point in a project, every engineer has to make assumptions and says "Boy, I hope this works." or "I hope this doesn't blow up and kill everyone." These assumptions have varying degrees of validity. I'm becoming familiar with the WAG (wild ass guess). We actually use that as a note on calculating. Sometimes, you have to WAG like a golden retriever on prozac.

Who's surprised?

Noah Gould won the US open Karate tournament last weekend. I'm a bit short on details, but I'm told he won his weight class (Heavy), then beat the other champions to take the whole thing. For those who don't know, Noah made black belt before thanksgiving, having only started his freshman year (he's now a senior). That's fast (normally takes 5+ years).

Quantum Physicists just want to see if we'll actually believe it

"A non-running computer produces fewer errors," Yeah, obvious. The trick is getting answers out of it. They claim they can. Quantum physics, like the duck-billed platypus, is indisputable evidence the God does, in fact, have a sense of humor. And its really weird.

Ready for the draft?

No? Well I'm not quite yet there either, but as the Combine begins today it's time to start talking about it. To warm you up, check out this mock draft from Charles Robinson.

And the starter is...

Joey Harrington. Well, not officially of course. But sort of. The new Detroit coaching staff threw their support behind Harrington yesterday, meaning he will most likely stay in Detroit and they will not use their 1st round draft pick on a QB. The thought is that Martz can work his magic on Harrington and turn him into a Pro Bowl player. Well, maybe just a serviceable starter. Can we get Dre' Bly's opinion on this?

Ill-tempered Rodent

By now, you've probably heard about the altercation between an MSU student and a UM basketball player before the game on Saturday. You may have even seen video on ESPN. Now I don't think Mr. Brock should have been down on the court, which is a violation of the contract for his Izzone tickets, and especially shouldn't have been there drunk. But even so, Ba doesn't get a free pass. Brock could have been seriously injured and Ba had plenty of opportunities to get away from the situation. He looks like he was just trying to prove how tough he was. It's a good thing the stands were empty, because if the Izzone had a legitimate reason to attack a UM player they'd still be scrubbing him out of the concrete. UM guard Daniel Horton said: "We did everything we could to try and prevent it." Well, if "everything" means "nothing", then I'm sure that's an accurate statement. In the end both universities come up looking bad. Good job guys.

Deep Philosophy

Q. What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
A. "Make me one with everything."

On presenting a $10 bill to the vendor, He asked for his change...the vendor replied "But change comes from within."

Detroit Sports Round-Up

A few interesting stories from the past week in Detroit sports:

-Here's an article about the future of Lions, and another more specifically about Harrington and Martz.

-A note here about how Milicic has no one to blame but himself for his lack of development.

-A story about how Flip Saunders plans to play all four All-Star Pistons at once and how team play might be coming to the NBA. Also has a picture of the AWFUL all-star uniforms. Yuck!

Irked

I haven't posted for a while, mostly because the sports world is largely focused on the Olympics, which I care nothing about. But I finally found something annoying enough to get me to post. It's right here. I know what you're thinking: "But that's only ESPN's NFL front page." Yup. And it annoys me. I'm not even talking about layout or intrusive video and ads. It's the Insider content that bugs me. ESPN has been pushing this paid content for many years, but I think it's gotten worse over the past year or so. It's especially noticeable during the NFL offseason where there's almost nothing you can read for free. It seems to be an attitude ESPN has, and it really irks me. They may be the the "worldwide leader is sports", but there are many other acceptable substitutes online. And if you start talking about fantasy sports, ESPN massive failure with free fantasy football last season put them far down the list. Anyway, I think I'm going to start checking Foxsports.com for my sports news first.

We don't need to stinkin' recoil operated autoloading mechanisms

Go watch this video. In-freakin-sane. Thankfully they run it at one half speed the second time. I can't imagine firing a revolver that fast, much less hitting anything.

Holy Terror, Batman!

Batman takes on Al-Queda! No, really. Frank Miller is half way through a new graphic novel were Batman defends Gotham from terrorists. Real world, arab, muslim terrorists. No swapping for neo-nazis or crazy Christians. Hearkens back to the days of Captain America and Superman pounding Hitler. I'll buy that.

I like to show off

In case anyone is interested, (or not, I'm going to post regardless), here is my new car.
2005 Grand Prix GT. Has a few options on it, didn't spring for the GTP with the supercharger, but it makes for a nice drive regardless.

Custom Candy Hearts

Valentine's Day is getting nearer and many people are looking for candy that expresses how they feel about a special person. Well, this site lets you put exactly what you're feeling on a candy heart. As you can see, I made one for Matt. Okay, so this site only makes a picture of a candy heart. Go here if you actually want custom candy hearts.

CC Ringtone

I was looking online at ringtones for my phone, thinking maybe I'd set up unique ringtones for each group (I can only do groups, not individuals). I was trying to figure out what song to use for the CC ringtone when I thought: "Why don't I let people vote?" So, what do you think? Here are a couple examples:

1. CC Fight Song (Northwestern Fight Song)
2. Enter Sandman Intro: Metallica
3. Thunderstruck: AC/DC
4. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life): Green Day
5. Brain Stew: Green Day
6. Dachshund "Weiner Dog" Barking (Okay, that one's just for Kevin)
7. 3am: Matchbox 20 (For Fritz, really)
8. My Hero: Foo Fighters
9. Brass Monkey: Beastie Boys (for Aaron)
10. Phenomenon: Thousand Foot Krutch
11. Chem 6A: Switchfoot
12. Hands and Feet: Audio Adrenaline

Okay, that's more than enough, I'm sure you get the idea. You can see the actual site here. In case you're wondering, I currently have Crazy Train by Ozzy, The Clincher by Chevelle, and the "Eat 'em Up" MSU cheer.

Finally

The Raiders have finally hired a new head coach, or rather an old one, Art Shell. They are the last NFL team to fill their head coaching vacancy. Two questions this brings to mind:

1. Does this mean we won't hear any more in the offseason about how awful NFL teams are because there aren't enough black coaches? Is 2/10 enough for the offseason? If not, how many? And aren't you then just asking for a quota?

2. How unappealing are the Raiders? I mean two of the guys that they interviewed elected to work for the Lions instead as either head coach or coordinator. The Lions. They would rather work for the Fords than for Al Davis. Makes you wonder.

Right On

You are so right about ESPN and women's basketball. Personally, I'm tired of ESPN telling me how I should follow and care about the sport. I imagine this has something to do with ESPN carrying the women's tourney. But, no matter how many times you talk about UConn and the Vols, or ask if Pat Summit is a better coach than Coach K, I just don't care. Even when I was on campus and the women's team was making a run at the title, I didn't care. I don't follow women's basketball, golf, tennis, or soccer. No matter how many stories ESPN features. Heck, I barely follow the men's games in those sports.

You know what else I don't care about, no matter how many times the TV says it's important? The Olympics. I'm fairly patriotic, but I refuse to watch a sport I wouldn't watch otherwise just because it's the Olympics. So maybe I'll pay attention to the hockey. Oh, by the way, figure skating is not a sport. Out.

ESPNEWS Headline?

This was the "headline" on the right side of ESPN's webpage. Click here for the "story." The title of the link in the "headlines" column said "No. 6 Maryland stuns No. 1 UNC women at home." Let me breakdown the sportgrammatical errors:

1. Nothing in womens basketball is considered "stunning." No one cares.
2. Nothing in womens basketball is worthy of being a "headline" in the "headlines" column. Again, no one cares.
3. Nobody even knew UNC was No. 1, let alone Maryland even had a womens basketball team.
4. In womens basketball, it doesn't matter where they played. Home...away...no one goes to the game regardless of where it is played. So, since that eliminates "the 6th man" advantage or home court advantage, there is no need to spice up the headline stating they lost a home game.
5. The fact that the link title didn't even say what sport it was, just saying "women" in the sentence immediately pointed to women's college basketball. If it was a men's headline, it would just say No. 6 John Doe stuns No. 1 UConn at home. We all know the sport. (Notice it is called NCAA and WNCAA on the bottom ticker?)

How Much Better?

Now that the Lions have hired Martz, the question is how big an impact will he have on the team? Of course with an all-new coaching staff it might be difficult to break out his individual contributions, but you can boil it down to this: What do you expect out of the Lions next year? On PTI, Kornheiser and Wilbon gave the Lions a 65% and 75% chance, respectively, of reaching the playoffs. Now any Lions fan will know how dangerous it is to be too optimistic, but this is coming from neutral observers. Could it be realistic? Well, no. Am I wrong?

Thank God It's Thursday, Again

According to ESPN and the Detroit Lions website, Mike Martz has been hired as offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions. Did I just step into a time warp back to last Thursday? Apparently, somebody decided the deal needed to get done. I may have to take back some of the nasty things I said about Detroit management. Some. Maybe.

New MNF Team

You probably already know that Monday Night Football is moving to ESPN next season. What you didn't know is that the broadcast team will be all new, which ESPN announced today. Well, re-announced, since they'd already announced it after it was decided to move MNF to ESPN. Apparently Al Michaels had a change of heart, necessitating a larger change than was originally planned. The new team will be Mike Tirico as the play-by-play man with Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser providing color. Michelle Tafoya and Suzy Kolber will be on the sidelines, as they were at Super Bowel XL. I'm going to miss the Sunday Night crew of Mike Patrick, Theismann, and Paul Maguire, who I thought should have just been moved to MNF. They were one of my favorite broadcast crews ever, though I know they had their detractors. Those people suck. Patrick is a better play-by-play guy than Tirico, Theismann stays, leaving Tony as the wild card. I love PTI, which will be on the road with the crew for every MNF game, but I don't know how well Kornheiser can do color commentary. PTI works because of the interaction of Kornheiser and Wilbon, alone either of them might be good but not great. And, as Kornheiser said, speaking as Howard Cosell, people are going to throw bricks at their TVs so they don't have to see his ugly mug in HD. If nothing else, Best Buy will end up happy.

Fantasy Baseball

The league is up. The email from Yahoo:

Welcome to Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball.

This is to confirm that you've created the Custom League named Cass City Monkies.

To allow other managers to join your league, send them the League ID# and Password. In your case, the ID# is 23429 and the Password is monkie.

You have chosen for your league to take part in a live online draft on Tue Mar 28 5:00pm PST. Until that time, you (and only you) can change the type of draft by using the Change Draft Type option found among your Commissioner Tools, which can be reached from your League Overview page.

If you choose to remain in a live draft, please arrive at the draft 10 minutes ahead of the scheduled time. The draft will start promptly and may conclude rapidly if only a few managers are logged in.

We also suggest that all league members pre-rank their players in case a manager can't make it to the draft. Managers can do this at any time by simply going to the Fantasy Baseball home page and clicking on their team name.

Thanks for joining. Good luck.

--Fantasy Baseball Commissioner
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1

Join if you're interested.

XL Thoughts

Some thoughts on the Super Bowl:

1. The officiating was pretty terrible, and all the calls went against Seattle. They blew too many opportunities to blame the loss on the calls, but it's enough to make you wonder.

2. What a great ending for Jerome Bettis, the best anyone could hope for. However, I don't think he's near as beloved in Detroit as the media says.

3. Joey Porter was shut down in the Super Bowl. That's satisfying.

4. Jerramy Stevens caught a TD pass, but also dropped 3 passes and was benched in the game. That's exactly how he played all season: making just enough plays to tease you into thinking he was going to break out.

5. The pass where Roethlisberger scrambled to avoid tacklers, check to be sure he was behind the line of scrimmage, and then threw the ball down to the 1 was a defining play for him. He played poorly overall, but that was a great play.

6. I love Randle El on trick plays. Absolutely one of my favorite things in the NFL to watch.

And the winner is...

Craig Emmert. After 4+ hours of Tecmo strategy, fun, throwing of controllers, food and really bad weather, Craig made it through the Tecmo Madness.

A few stats:
There were 15 people in the tourney, ages ranging from 9 to 33?

When each person arrived, they took a number (seed) out of the cool whip dish. Yes, the cool whip was all gone. So, 15 people meant one person got the bye...Craig.

For the night, Craig only had to play 4 games to take home the Championship trophy...Bobblehead. Craig finished 4-0.

On the other hand, Brad Speirs, 2nd place, had to play 8 games before he lost in the championship.

Host Nathan Haag, 4th place, had to play 6 games. He was knocked out by Brad Speirs:
49ers: 24
Oilers: 21

Biggest upset(s): 16th seed and 9 year old Tyler Brandel knocked off the #1 seed after coming back from being down two TD's. Tyler was the Giants. Following the win, Tyler then knocked off Nathan Haag, 22-21 on a 30-yard FG to win the game as time expired. By the way, Tyler made the Giants look like the 49ers passing offense:
Giants: 22
Bengals: 21

Other notables: Jason Pierce, O-G football coach, 3rd place.
Nathan Fritz: 1-2
Aaron Barrigar and Kevin Schott: 0-2

Teams used the most: 49ers, Oilers, Chiefs, Eagles/Giants/Bengals.
Yes, someone used the Lions. That's right, the Chiefs. In fact, the Chiefs were involved in the first 4 games played. I think the Chiefs were 0-4. I can't remember, they might have gotten a win.

I told Fritz on Wednesday I'd be happy if I finished in the top 5. However, the next night I "scrimmaged" Jason Pierce 4 times and won all 4 games, 3 of them using the 2nd player controller. Prior to that point, I had never beaten Jason and he was my pre-tournament pick to win it all. Side note, back at Christmas break, Jason whooped me 3 games in a row. So, after beating Jason Thursday night 4-0, I thought I had a better chance than Top 5 finish.

So yes, the 9-year old, comes to my house and beats me. Shows up the host. Now that just isn't Tecmo etiquette. However, in hind sight, it was the best thing that could happen. Tyler then had to play Jason Pierce (loss #1) then played Brad Spiers (loss #2). So, had I beat Tyler, I would probably been finished by Jason and Brad as well.

My biased opinion: This tourament was sweet. We even had a guy bring his own pool stick...check that, sticks. A "breaking" stick and the "regular" stick. He plays in a Bay City pool league, so he's pretty good. I didn't get to see him play though, too busy making sure the Tourney finished by 1 a.m. You know how in March madness every 5 minutes there is a game just about to end and it comes down to the wire or has an incredible finish? And then the TV station breaks into the next game about to finish, and then when that game finishes there is another game ready to end with both teams close? Are you picturing it? Like at a sports bar/restaurant, there are 4 tv's with a different NCAA game on each one so you can see all of them have great finishes? Well, that is exactly what the Tecmo Tourney was like. We had 3 rooms with a TV in each room with a Tecmo game being played. Even better was the fact all the games were staggered, so you could go into each room and see them all end individually. You never had to miss a finish. Every time you went into a room another game was coming down to a tight finish. And then boom, go into the next room for another one. Incredible!

See you in 2007!

Mike Martz

According to Ryan King on Saturday night..."they'll get him." Referring to the fact that the deal with the Lions didn't work out, but he will end up signing.

Nice Job

Mike Martz was ready to become the Detroit Lions offensive coordinator. The only hurdle remaining was to get a contract put together and signed. So what did the Lions front office do? They botched it, of course. They probably were unwilling to pay the money Martz wanted, reportedly an average of $1.5 million over 3 years. The possibility of Martz becoming the OC actually had me somewhat excited about the Lions again. Sure, he's nuts, but he's also an offensive genius, and it seemed like Marinelli would be able to keep him in line. Now it's much less likely that Martz will join the team. I may have to go find myself a "Fire Millen" t-shirt.

UPDATE: It's official, Martz has turned down the job. The money was the problem. I think the Lions had a real chance to change the franchise right here, and they blew it. They thought they had the right guy, but let a relatively small amount of money kill the deal. There's a reason they've been mediocre for 50 years.