one sip at a time

Wizards owner Pollin dies at 85 - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:31:16 -0500

Wizards owner Pollin dies at 85 - NBA - Yahoo! Sports:

nbaplayoffs2009:

RIP

I hope Gilbert Arenas gives him a warm welcome at the pearly gates.

Big Game Halftime Report

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:55:55 -0500

unnamedplayer:

sportscentr:

Toby Gerhart can’t be stopped

Jim Harbaugh should read sportscentr

Big Game Postgame Update:

Toby Gerhart can be stopped.
Shane Vereen can’t be.

Go Bears!

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:23:23 -0500

Go Bears!

God damn, Outlook.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:39:38 -0500

God damn, Outlook.

"Brandon Jennings already has a nickname, one he had tattooed across his back when he was in 12th..."

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:26:48 -0500

“Brandon Jennings already has a nickname, one he had tattooed across his back when he was in 12th grade at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va. That nickname is “Young Money,” and it is apt.”

- Milwaukee Bucks rookie Brandon Jennings is taking the league by storm

Thank God for a new sports nickname that isn’t just a play on the dude’s name (e.g., D-Wade, King James, A.I., A-Rod).

“Young Money” is an excellent nickname, one that I hope catches on quickly.

Onion AV List best of the decade

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:01:00 -0500

Onion AV List best of the decade:

bfizzle:

Bigger waste of time: Reading ‘best music of the decade’ lists or arguing about them in the comments section?

rajiv: Or writing one to begin with?

This comment kicks ass:

HellToupee

19 Nov. 2009 | 12:25 AM CST

guys what the fuck. you forgot [this band i really like], and the glaring omission of [this other band that i really like that i try to get all my friends into] is outright inexcusable. don’t even get me started on the absence of [this other band i really like that no one else knows and make me sound elite]

As a sidenote: glancing at my music library sorted by play count, here are a few albums that I really liked this decade (in no particular order) that aren’t on the Onion’s list:

Tool, 10000 Days
Flobots, Fight With Tools
Chevelle, Wonder What’s Next
Metallica, Death Magnetic
Ludo, You’re Awful, I Love You
Muse, Absolution
My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade
Silversun Pickups, Pikul and Carnavas
Wild Sweet Orange, We Have Cause To Be Uneasy
Green Day, American Idiot
Elliott, False Cathedrals

Google’s paying for my wifi on my Virgin America flight! I’m online at 10,000 feet.

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:52:59 -0500

Google’s paying for my wifi on my Virgin America flight! I’m online at 10,000 feet.

My paper on sustainable micro-blogging robots is going to kick...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:53:31 -0500

My paper on sustainable micro-blogging robots is going to kick so much ass.

PHD Comics: Buzzwords

"I’m not one to be big-headed or anything like that, but we don’t belong on the same field as those..."

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:58:14 -0500

“I’m not one to be big-headed or anything like that, but we don’t belong on the same field as those guys. We have way more athletes than those guys, and we’re more fundamentally sound than those guys. We’re better than those guys. … when we go out and play our game, they can’t compete with us, and it showed today.”

- Cal linebacker Worrell Williams (via unnamedplayer)

rajiv: Worrell will be eating crow on Saturday if Stanford wins against California, especially if it’s as convincingly as Cal won in the game Worrell was referencing. Of course, that would pretty strange, since he plays for the California Redwoods, of the UFL.

Shouldn’t locker room motivational material at least come from current opponents? Do you think the Cal defense will be fired up to stick it to Mark Bradford because he once talked about “getting this axe back at Stanford University where it belongs”? Probably not, since Bradford is currently one of Williams’ teammates on the Redwoods.

About right. Could be higher.

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:25:58 -0500

11/21/09 California OFF +7

19:35 ET Stanford OFF -7

unnamedplayer: Also, Cal, this makes you Michigan State. Not...

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:00:28 -0500

unnamedplayer:

Also, Cal, this makes you Michigan State.

Not that you won’t be favored, but you might want to save that shit for after the victory. When your rival has six of the last seven, they’re still your rival. Even if you beat some other team at home a couple times.

And are you really going to try to claim spiritual inheritance from the famous coach of the state school whose colors are blue and ~~maize~~ gold? Jim burned that bridge the first chance he got.

unnamedplayer: Stanford and USC are among the top trending...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:11:59 -0500

unnamedplayer:

Stanford and USC are among the top trending topics. Going for two may be classless, but it’s good publicity.

rajiv: I am very much not OK with what’s happening in Pac-10 / Bay Area football these days, but I love Footbaugh’s decision to go for two. I’m of the Woody Hayes school of thought when playing a hated opponent:

When asked why he went for two despite a 36-point lead against Michigan, Hayes quipped, “Because I couldn’t go for three.”

"Think of a cellphone network as one giant airplane that costs tens of billions of dollars to build...."

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:03:38 -0500

“Think of a cellphone network as one giant airplane that costs tens of billions of dollars to build. The cellphone companies don’t really know how much it costs to handle a call to Aunt Suzy in Syracuse, any more than an airline can calculate a specific cost for Seat 12B.”

- One of the several great lines in a pretty interesting NYT piece about the madness of the American cell phone market.

Looking for a Method in Cellphone Price Madness - NYTimes.com

A couple other highlights:

“On average, [Americans] effectively spend about 5 cents per minute of talk time and about a penny a text message, lower than anywhere else in the developed world.”

“[C]arriers put great stock in a measure called average revenue per user, or ARPU (pronounced “ARE-poo.”)” As though we didn’t already know that cell phone companies treat their customer like shit.

“In the first half of this year, the average wireless customer sent 518 texts a month and made 220 phone calls, according to CTIA figures. (That average, of course, is driven up by the furious texting of teenagers.)” The use of the adjective “furious” to mean “done often, with fervor” is only ever used to describe things teenagers do with their hands that embarrasses adults.

“Sprint, at No. 3, has been losing customers for several years.” I still love my Sprint Employee Referral Offer plan: about $36, including taxes and fees, for 450 minutes, unlimited texting, and unlimited data.

Damn, ESPN, can a non-insider read any coverage of the NBA? Of...

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:15:58 -0500

Damn, ESPN, can a non-insider read any coverage of the NBA? Of the 28 clickable stories promoted right now on the ESPN > NBA page, only 13 were available to the non-paying public. And six of those—more than half!—were on the last of the four promo screens.

Initial tests come back "normal" for Best

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:34:11 -0500

Initial tests come back "normal" for Best:

unnamedplayer:

sportscentr:

(via pac10football)
We need to define what “normal” and “normal, for a football player” mean. At this point, Cal is playing for the Las Vegas Bowl, versus the Emerald Bowl. Shut down Jahvid, and let him turn pro, where at least he’ll be compensated for his inevitable debilitating injury. Is it too late for Best to switch to track-and-field?

I say this without any thought of Cal vs. Stanford in 2 weeks — Best needs to be playing another sport. At the very least, he needs to not be playing football for a while. It is almost impossible for me to believe that the after affects of that play are only going to be felt short term. (BTW - in talking to my mom and making her watch it, she said what we saw after Best’s fall was a “seizure” not a concussion. Scary stuff.)

Thank god he’s ok, but that play single handedly switched me from the “it’s ok for my kids to play football” camp to, “i hope they’re swimmers.”

rajiv: Three thoughts:

“it’s ok for my kids to play football”? Did you forget you’re South Asian? You and Geets combined are about the size of a linebacker. The only football future your kids have involves holding clipboards. Or maybe kicking. Either way, concussions are not likely.
Even with thought of Cal vs. Stanford in 2 weeks — I hope Best sits out the rest of the season. After a concussion like that (especially after having suffered one just a week earlier), he needs to take some time and get healthy. I’d welcome him back for a bowl game if he’s cleared by a neurologist first.
Despite that, I don’t think Best needs to give up football. There’s nothing to suggest he’s particularly concussion-prone. He suffered a concussion a week ago that I think was his first. He probably came back a little too soon by playing in the OSU game, and anybody would have ended up a little brain-addled from that fall he took. He might need to adjust his running style to protect his health a little better—his arm injury last year also came on a flying leap—but he still has a future on the gridiron. Even on Sundays.

Iowa, team of destiny

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:17:33 -0500

Apropos of nothing: I disagree with all the hating on Iowa this season. Sure, they’ve been short on dominating, whistle-to-whistle wins. But you know what they’re not short on? Wins. Over good teams. Over top-25 ranked teams. Over teams with winning records. Over teams, in aggregate, better than any other undefeated teams has played. Winning ugly is still winning.

The columnati of college football seem to enjoy giving this year’s Hawkeyes nicknames (the “comeback kids” being the favorite), but I haven’t seen a lot of historical comparisons. You know who these Iowans remind me of? The Ohio State Buckeyes of 2002, aka that year’s national champions. (Sure, champs on a bullshit PI call, but whatever, champs). The sweatervestians of ‘02 seemed to win almost every game with a lucky bounce or two, but they racked up a classically lopsided win-loss total, all of one and none of the other, and they capped their season with an oh-god-they-did-it-again win over the invincible Hurricanes of Miami, Florida.

Well you know what? “~~Buc~~ Hawkeyes of the Big-10 pull upset against University of Florida ~~team~~, wire-to-wire #1, champion of the ~~Big~~ South Eastern Conference, in national championship game,” seems plausible to me. Even the QBs are similar: the ___keyes with their “I’m not sure if he’s great or terrible” guy under center, Krenzel / Stanzi, and [Florida team] with their “he’s the greatest ever!! (just won’t be in the pros)” player. Gameday thinks the road to the Rose Bowl goes through Happy Valley, but they might be right only because are were so extremely wrong: maybe Iowa isn’t a factor for the Rose Bowl because it’s going to a bigger game.

I’m not the first person to think of this.

"The New York State Board of Law Examiners congratulates you on passing the New York State bar..."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:36:05 -0500

“The New York State Board of Law Examiners congratulates you on passing the New York State bar examination held on July 28-29, 2009.”

- NYS Board of Law Examiners

:D

Bill Walton passes the mic

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:26:22 -0500

Bill Walton passes the mic:

nbaplayoffs2009:

A nice Walton tribute from Kelly Dwyer:

It makes sense that Bill Walton would have to retire from broadcasting, years before everyone else has to retire from broadcasting … Because early, forced, retirement due to health reasons makes all the sense in the world for Bill Walton. Why? Because it isn’t fair. Why? Because it’s sufficiently cruel. Why? Because this guy has never, ever, been able to catch a break.

And, by extension, the people he’s been able to entertain effortlessly (even though he put in great effort) for years are left out in the cold again…

rajiv: It also makes sense that Bill Walton would have to retire from broadcasting years before everyone else has to retire from broadcasting because he is truly awful at broadcasting. Walton was 1 of 2 announcers so terrible that I would literally change the channel if he was calling a game that I otherwise wanted to watch.

You’re on your own now, Dick Vitale.

What do Americans do in Vietnam? Fire M16s, of course. (via my...

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:11:21 -0400

What do Americans do in Vietnam? Fire M16s, of course.

(via my flickr)

"High adventure is unsustainable in the midst of stagnant security, and reveries of running away..."

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:23:30 -0400

“High adventure is unsustainable in the midst of stagnant security, and reveries of running away promise a freedom transcendent in its totality, a flee from security and into serendipity.”

- —Tony Vigorito, Nine Kinds of Naked

Good advice to get while on the road, I think.