A Carhartt?

Did anyone else know they did this on Opening Day at Comerica Park?

Thanks

I appreciate the Tigers extending their Opening Day game so I could catch the end, but I'd really prefer a win in 9 innings that I miss to a loss in 11 that I get to watch. Thanks for the effort though.

How big would this be?

According to this story, the U.S. could be sitting on a massive reserve of oil. By massive, I mean in the neighborhood of what's under Saudi Arabia. That's enough oil to make the Middle East almost irrelevant in the near future. Wonder what that would look like? (Hat tip: Michael Ledeen, The Corner)

Forty Minutes

So, is anyone giving MSU a shot against Memphis? Well, besides Bob Wojnowski? This is the kind of game MSU lives for. That doesn't guarantee a win, but it suggest it could be quite a game. Just don't call it an upset. Also, is anyone really rooting for Memphis? Calipari and his team have been bugging me since mid-February, and I barely followed college basketball. Am I alone here?

Viral Marketing...

...can be silly but I like this bit for the upcoming Batman movie The Dark Knight:

More here.

Funny Stuff

A Chinese government official is unhappy with the U.S. State Department about a warning that visitors to the Olympics may be monitored and have "no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations." This shouldn't be surprising, given that you're talking about a totalitarian Communist regime, which aren't historically all that big on privacy rights (check out the film The Lives of Others).

Also interesting, the writer can't help but prove his liberal credentials by noting the "irony" that the U.S. government is warning about the spying tendencies of a totalitarian regime while supporting (gasp!) warrantless wiretapping of terror suspects. Because, obviously they're the same thing. Cough! Cough! Sorry, the choking stench of moral equivalence got to me for a bit there.

Not Working

I found this passage from this article in the Free Press about American Axle amusing:

"...and find a way to stop paying people for not working."

Gosh, there's a concept. Is it any wonder the Big Three, and their suppliers, are in such dire straights?

What's wrong with this?

I was reading about the Lakers game tonight and the name Vlade Divac was referenced. I thought, wow, haven't heard that name in about a decade. So, I decided to click on the profile link. Here is what came up:

Vlade Divac #12 C
Birth Date February 3, 1968
Birth Place Prijepolje, Yugoslavia
Height 7-1
Weight 260 lbs.
Age 38
Pronounced VLAH-day DEE-votz
Position C


Is my math wrong or theirs?

New/Old school

I think on the new style the home jersey's say "Pistons" and the away say "Detroit." It appears the old home/away just said "Pistons." Baseball does the same thing. Away jersey says the town and the home jerseys say the nickname or just the logo.

What's Going On?

I don't get Michigan talk radio here, so can anyone fill me in on what's going on with UM? A football player transferring isn't that unusual, but the statement from lineman Justin Boren isn't your typical playing time related gripe. So what's Rodriguez doing that's upsetting people? Saying the winged helmet now brings out a completely different emotion than pride is kind of a big deal

?

According to Netflix, since I liked Monty Python's Flying Circus and Mean Machine, I might also be interested in Sense and Sensibility. Huh?

Sports Logos

A few weeks ago I was thinking about the Pistons and their team logo from the 80's. Then I remembered that ridiculous marketing stunt they tried in the mid-90's and how Joey D got them back to the original once he started running the show. I like Joey's attitude: The Piston logo is just as untouchable as the Detroit Tiger "D." You just don't mess with it.

Then it dawned on me: What sports logos are "untouchable?" What logos, no matter how bad the team, would you never tweak. A few came to mind:

1. Chicago Bulls
2. Boston Celtics
3. LA Lakers
4. Detroit Tigers
5. Boston Red Sox
6. New York Yankees
7. Detroit Red Wings

Professional Sports Food Per Diem

A few weeks ago I was listening to "The Herd" on ESPN radio on my way to SVSU. The topic of conversation was that the host was going to be traveling over the next few days and ESPN was only going to be paying $48 per day for food. Since he was going to be in Houston, NY, and some other expensive city, his complaint was "how in the world will I be able to eat three meals off of $48 in cities like NY?" That led to his discussion on what NBA and MLB guys get per diem.

MLB gets $84 and the NBA gets $107 per diem for food. Wow. That is unbelievable and I now hate professional athletes even more. Do pro athletes really need to be eating at expensive restaurants for EVERY meal? You would think that $9 million a year contract you have would be able to cover your eating expenses. Let me get this straight: When I see a guy sign a fat contract of $50 million over 5 years, that doesn't include the money he will be paid for food? Ludicrous. I hate you.

Come to think of it, I remember one of the "Big 4" recently restructoring some issues in the players union and it seemed like they were bargining for $3/day for food.

I've actually tried to figure out how much it cost me on a normal day to eat:
Breakfast: 1 bowl of cereal (milk and cereal) ~ $1.25
Lunch: 1 turkey sandwich (2 slices of bread, little mayonnaise, turkey) ~ $1.50
Dinner: Probably on average < $3.00

Grand total: $5.75. Just to be safe, a flat $6.00 for 3 meals/day.

The Lopez...brothers?

For those of you who don't follow Stanford basketball (what's wrong with you), you may not know of these basketball players on the team part of the Sweet 16: Brook and Robin Lopez. They are twin brothers. Yes, brothers.

This quote is from Bill Simmons' blog on ESPN's Page 2:

Now, the reason that we're inherently prejudiced against the Lopez twins is simple: They're charter members of the Lindsay Hunter All-Stars for "Athletes with names that make them sound like hot girls." In other words, because their names make them sound like two smoking-hot juniors at an all-girls prep school, it's impossible to take them seriously as NBA prospects. If their names were Dwight Lopez and Isaac Lopez, you'd feel much better about them in the first round.

Their parents seriously need to be hit in the head with a spade shovel. Brook? Robin? Something tells me they really wanted girls.

WNIT?

Okay, so I just got this email from U of M about the women's basketball team advancing to the 3rd round of the WNIT. Are you serious? At Crisler? Give me 20 tickets right now. This is my dream come true.

What is wrong in our world? WNIT? Does anyone care about the men's NIT? If no one cares about the NIT, who is watching the WNIT? This has got to stop. Are we getting a little tournament happy? Even the coaches don't want to watch this game.

Ticketmaster

Not to keep bring up this sore subject. Have we gotten anywhere on a baseball trip? New York the destination? Mid or late august would be the best for me. Have we checked other ticket options - perhaps Stubhub. Lets get this thing wrapped up.

He Reigns

Star Trek

If you like Star Trek, at least in its '60s incarnation, I've got great news: you can now watch every episode of the original series online here. If Trek isn't your thing, there's also The Twilight Zone and MacGyver.

Serious Threats

Montana is serious about the 2nd amendment. How serious? Well, they've threatened to secede from the union if the Supreme Court rules that the right to bear arms is not an individual right.

See Ya Later

It's not good for my bracket, but seeing Duke knocked out of the tourney just puts a smile on my face.

Miffed

So are UM fans angry that Terrelle Pryor (I think he needs another "e" in his name) picked OSU?

Also, when you've spent months picking your college you could at least get the name right. An excerpt from the article:

"If everyone's here," Pryor said to start the news conference, "University of Ohio State."

Try the Ohio State University. Shouldn't a future Buckeye know something like that?

Tournament Pick'em

REPOSTED:

There's a new Tournament Pick'em Group at Yahoo! Sports. The group ID number is 4311 and the password is, of course, monkie. Haven't got the invitation emails out yet, but you don't have to wait.

UPDATE: Clicking this link should do most of the work for you.

On the Road

I'm heading back to Michigan for the weekend, so I'll try to catch who I can Friday/Saturday.

Mr. Redford...

...has lived up to the billing and received the coveted Mr. Basketball award. He received 1402 points (5 points for first place vote). Runner-up was future Spartan Draymond Green with 1245.

Congrats to Brad. By the way, he'll be playing Tuesday night at Houghton Lake for the Quaterfinals against Menomonee. Oh, and North Branch is also hosting boys Quarterfinals. Yeah, I'm sure it makes much more sense to send Frankenmuth to Houghton Lake when North Branch is in their backyard. Way to go MHSAA.

Another great idea by the MHSAA, just like this weekend when the Class B state championship in Hockey was ended after a record 8 OVERTIMES with no winner. So, instead of finishing the next day or next weekend or rescheduling for a future date, the MHSAA just said they would both be Co-Champions. Tie game. Nice. Don't forget to kiss your sister too. That was Marquette v Orchard Lake St. Mary.

You can follow the Quarterfinal Basketball game online here.

UPDATE: Muth loses, 65-60. Redford only scored 24 or so.

Scholastic News

Ah, remember the good ole days of sitting in elementary school reading the latest edition of Scholastic News. Well, the privilage of being married to a 3rd grade teacher is you get to grade a lot of papers. One of them being the monthly addition of Scholastic News. You remember how it works. You read the stories and then on the back page answer a few questions to see if you remembered what you read. Here are three of the four questions on the back page with the multiple choice answers:

1. The Iditarod race is about _______ miles long.
a. 32
b. 45 million
c. 1,150
d. 10,000

The answer was C. I know, how could it not be 45 million miles long. Well, actually some students seemed to think so and answered B.


2. You can guess that ______.
a. the Junior Iditarod is easier than the regular Iditarod
b. Conway Seavey is afraid of dogs
c. there is no time to rest during the Iditarod
d. cats can also run in the Iditarod

I have to be honest. I graded every paper with the highest hopes that someone would choose D. Finally, I got my wish. Some idiot girl picked D. Come on. Can you really see cats doing ANYTHING? Can you picture a bunch of cats all roped together? Running? In snow? Outside? In the cold? Cats doing work? Hilarious.


Now for the best one:
3. The main idea of this story is that _______.
a. monkeys like bananas
b. monkeys are causing problems in India
c. monkeys are very clever
d. it's fun to live with monkeys

Again, I was waiting with the highest anticipation someone would choose D. How is that not the right answer? You're telling me it's not fun to live with monkeys? I died laughing when I finally got to a paper when someone picked D. In fact, I gave them partial credit just for thinking it would be fun to live with monkeys.

Ultimate Timewaster

I've discovered the ultimate timewaster: Tecmo Super Bowl as a flash game. That's right, you can play Tecmo from any computer that has an internet connection and a web browser. If Tecmo isn't your thing, there's a few other games to choose from.

Sore?

Not to bring up a sore subject but where do we stand with the baseball trip? Probably need to get this in the works soon, especially if we go to a place that matters. You know fans in KC,TB, now MN, dont have a problem with just giving us season tickets. Elsewhere could be different.

Trampoline Bear

They just featured this video on PTI, one of my all-time favorites:



Classic.

R.I.P. Favre

What a sad week of sports news to hear Brett Favre has died at such a young age. It seems like it's been 24-hour coverage of his unfortunate passing on ESPN. What a tragic story.

Hey, did Favre just retire on Tuesday morning? It seems like I heard that somewhere, but I didn't know if it was true. I've been living under a rock since Tuesday morning, but yet the rock even knew Favre had retired. Weird.

Seriously ESPN, get a grip on yourself. You're covering his retirement story like the man has just died. I don't even get Sportscenter or ESPN, yet somehow you've covered this story so heavily, my TV couldn't fight the airwaves and ESPN managed to come through my television. You've been talking about it so much, even I have to hear about it on my own TV. Well, not really, but you get the point.

Is anyone else getting sick of all the pub on this? I really don't think overkill is the way to cover it. I don't need interviews of the 3rd string quarterback on the 1993 team asked, "Did you see this coming?" No one cares if a guy who used to live on the same street as Favre growing up, but was actually older than Favre so they never really lived on the same street at the same time, no one wants to hear him answer "So why do you think he retired?" Enough already.

I was listening to Rome yesterday and he interviewed the Packer head coach (forgot his name). Anyway, there were two questions he completely bombed: 1. "If Favre were to come out of retirement, would you take him back?" 2. "If the organization wanted Farve to keep playing, why is Favre's agent saying they didn't want him?"

By the way, I just retired on Tuesday as well, but no one cared about me.

Sincerely,
Warren Sapp

Meet "Brett" and "Favre"

If I ever have a son, I think I'm going to name him "Favre", like this Florida couple. Think it will catch on? I would find it hilarious if "Favre" was a top 10 boys name in ten years.

"I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."

I think this post by John Derbyshire at The Corner does a pretty good job of summing up how I feel about the election.

Tired

Brett Favre retired today after contemplating it for the past few years. He left a voice message with ESPN's Chris Mortensen saying:

I know I can still play, but it's like I told my wife, I'm just tired mentally. I'm just tired.

No wonder, considering he played in 275 consecutive games. I'm sure this will be debated constantly over the next few days, but I think you have to put Favre right up there with the best to play the game. I watched Montana, Elway, and Marino play, but not the way I saw Favre play. I saw flashes of brilliance from the others (Elway spinning through the air into the end zone in the Super Bowl comes to mind), but I know more about their greatness from sports writers and commentators constantly talking about it. With Favre, it comes from seeing at least 8 games a year for as long as I've been paying any real attention to football, and all of the images that are burned into my memory. For example, have you ever seen a more amazing performance by a QB than Favre against the Raiders on Monday Night Football just afte his father passed away? That's the stuff legends are made of. Congratulations to Favre on an amazing career.

There's No Free Lunch

Here's an interesting article by Thomas Sowell at NRO, especially relevant for Michigan and the auto industry.

"Restore the universe to order."

I heard this Hank Steinbrenner quote on PTI, so I'm assuming it's getting around:

"Red Sox Nation? What a bunch of [expletive] that is. That was a creation of the Red Sox and ESPN, which is filled with Red Sox fans. Go anywhere in America and you won't see Red Sox hats and jackets, you'll see Yankee hats and jackets. This is a Yankee country. We're going to put the Yankees back on top and restore the universe to order."

I may need to wear my Sox cap around again, if only for a day or two (gotta represent among all these Cub fans). Also, I don't think Hank has earned the right to go all Darth Vader on us yet. You've got to do a little better than overpaying for guys who are already past their prime to create enough fear to keep the other teams in line.