Archive for March, 2008

Enjoy.

How many people remember the M.C. Hammer of old?
I loved this era of rap. Of course I grew up with Hammer, so I’m also a fan of New Kids on the Block, Kris Kross and Vanilla Ice.
I kind of know what two fifths of the New Kids on the Block are up to. And we all know that Vanilla is back in the rock circuit as a reality show celebrity.
But what happened to Kris Kross? Kris Kross made you wanna “jump, jump,” but not much else. Mac Daddy and Daddy Mac were two of a kind.
I do remember both of those knuckle heads starring with Doctor Dre and Ed Lover in “Who’s the Man?” But that’s about it. I think they flamed out in about ’92 with a second album.
Thank God for memories.

I would hate to be this guy. Look at his face when he walks off the court. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The thing that did make me chuckle was T-Mac’s reaction as the guy was being escorted off the court by the Houston Rockets’ mascot. I did like the condolences given by the Houston Rocket cheerleader.
I hope this guy ditched the girl after the game. And I know she rode with him. Maybe he made her walk home.
I feel your pain bro.

Thursday’s games are only a day away, and as I write this, I am sitting in fifth place (out of 27) in the office pool.
My Final Four of UCLA (that A&M scare was a little much), Kansas, Texas and Tennessee are still alive.

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The Sox beat the Athletics today 6-5. Not a lot of people probably watched the game, or were able to do so. It started at 5 a.m. Tuesday.
Another reason is because the sacred day in baseball, opening day, was played overseas in Japan.
Do I have a problem with internationalizing the game? Nope, I would just like to see the start of the MLB season start and end in the states.
It was the Red Sox, not the White Sox, for crying out loud. If you want to have a game in Japan throw them the Florida Marlins. People who live in Florida don’t go to watch the Marlins.
In the NFL you don’t see the Cowboys or the Packers playing in Mexico City — no, you saw the Arizona Cardinals playing the San Francisco 49ers.
Granted the now NFL champion NY Giants played the Dolphins in England, but who thought that game would have mattered, honestly, when it was played?
And neither of those games opened the season.
The Red Sox should have been able to open their year up at Fenway. They earned it.
I understand there is marketing appeal because of Dice-K, but why play the game so early in the season if they must. I guess the shock will wear off as well as the jet lag.
I wonder how much complaining would come out of a MLB club if they had to play a three-game series overseas in the middle of an already too long 162 game season.
Regardless all major league sports are becoming more and more international. It’s for the good of the game when it comes down to it, but if you want to send a team to Japan to play how about another go around for the the Bad News Bears.

I stumbled across this video the other day on some obscure website and knew I had to pass it along to others.
I’ll open this up by saying Jackie Chan is crazy — as you can see after watching the video. I knew he did a lot of movies and did all of his own stunts, but not to the extreme as below. He was a younger, more able bodied actor when he did his earlier movies.
I remember when Jackie had his first big American film big break — “Rumble In The Bronx.” And it was still dubbed at parts.
I watched that movie all the time and then “Rush Hour” hit Hollywood. Chris Tucker peaked after “Friday” and then the first of now three installments of “Rush Hour,” but Jackie kept going.
Jackie’s stunts started to decline in extremes, but he still had good fighting sequences.
Anyways, on to the clip. If you can find any more stunts, ones that would live up to Jackie’s, then pass them along.

You heard it right. Next year, I am only filling out one bracket.
Not because I believe it’s the wholesome or correct thing to do. And not because the extra $5 will make or break me.

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By now, you have seen or heard about Belmont’s near-upset of Duke, which would have been only the second time in NCAA history that a No. 2 seed went down in the first round.
That was by far the most entertaining game of Thursday.
There have been only four games played so far Friday, but already two have gone down to the wire.

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As I write, Stanford is winning its game against Cornell by 35 points.
That seems to be the theme of this Thursday so far. Out of eight games, two were close.

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Right now, I am supposed to be vacuuming the floor and doing a couple more chores before my wife gets home.
But instead, I just finished up my bracket. And now in my hands I have a computer instead of a Dirt Devil so I can tell you about my picks.

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Yesterday the Virginia Tech Hokies took on the New York Yankees and lost 11-0. The score doesn’t matter, but who really knew that the game was played?
I sure didn’t and I would have liked to have watched. I found out when I watched ESPN News late yesterday. It was a nice, emotional story about a charity baseball game. It was a little short considering the seriousness of the murders that occurred last year.
Here’s a link to the story on our website – http://timesrecordnews.com/news/2008/mar/19/emotional-day-virginia-tech-and-yankees/
The Yankees are connected to the Virginia Tech school after George Steinbrenner donated $1 million to the campus to use for grief counseling after the tragedy .
A-Rod and Jeter were humble during their interviews and their words were heart felt.
I especially liked what Jeter had to say. A-Rod appears to be a PR robot, so I don’t really know how to judge his words.

Above is some footage taken by one of the people in the stands. The video kind of says it all.
Visit the Yankees website and ESPN.com to view more video.

The field of 65 (soon to be 64 after tonight’s play-in game) is set. What are some of my opinions?

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How would you like to have your hash browns served by this guy?
I don’t know what’s better — the lack of the undershirt or the fedora and matching track suit.
Kid Rock did a little side dishing at the Waffle House where he was involved in a brawl in 2007. Don’t you just love Kid Rock?
It’s not exactly Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, serving ice cream at Dairy Queen View image.
It’s better. I guess he felt he had to repair what relationship he had with the workers at Waffle House in Duluth, Georgia.
And while we’re on the subject, why doesn’t Wichita Falls have a Waffle House. Who doesn’t like waffles anyway you can get them at crack of dawn?
We had something of a Waffle House in the form of the Pumpjack Diner, but that didn’t last. They wore the funny hats and had the retro feel.
Waffle House has basically the same thing. Bring on the Waffle House.

My bracket is going to bust. I don’t know why I can just feel the holes at the bottom of the boat.
I have a thing for the underdog. Most of the time, whatever game I’m watching I’ll root for the losing team. Can’t blame a guy for wanting to see a close game, can you?
Anyways, I’m filling out my bracket and as far as I’ve committed myself to pick is the sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament.
Out of the East I have: North Carolina, Notre Dame, Louisville and surprise upset Butler. Don’t really know why I don’t like Tennessee, but I like Butler better.
Out of the Midwest I have: Kansas, Clemson (although I might change my mind and go with Villanova), University of Southern California and Georgetown. I have a feeling Hibbert won’t step up in the second round and get beat by Davidson, but Georgetown is who I’m choosing.
Out of the South: Memphis, Pittsburgh, Stanford and Texas. Out of all the divisions, I like my predictions in the South the best.
Out of the West: University of California-Los Angeles, Drake, Xavier and Duke. West Virginia might get hot and run over Duke, but I like the ability of Paulus to handle the rock in a pinch.
I’m not going to send Memphis to the Final Four. Their free throw percentage is atrocious. Either Pitt., Stanford or Texas is going to get them.
I really like the odds of UCLA winning the whole thing. My heart says go with either Kansas and Texas, but my heart gets me in trouble when picking teams.

Trent Reznor went for the big time and won big.
The Nine Inch Nails’ frontman decided to release his band’s news creative offering online, and boy has it been successful.
Since the album was released March 2 about 750,000 downloads have been tallied.
I read original story on an off-spin of a Ticketmaster.com website. To me those totals are amazing. Radiohead did the same thing and I think bands must branch out by putting stuff up for free on their website.
A lot of kids don’t want to spend $15 to test a band out. Sure they might like one or two songs, but that’s not why they’re buying it.
I praise Reznor for his decision to market his album online. He had different options — for free (9 tracks), $5 for everything, $10 for download and CD, $75 for the secret series and $300 for the super-secret series.
On March 10, a week after the album went on sale, all of the 2,500 editions of the $300 version were sold out.
No matter what you charge the idea will work. The band still stands to make profits. Even if you don’t rake it in initially, money is there to be made.
After Radiohead released their album nationally on CD they stormed to the top of the Billboard 100 charts for sales. How did they do it?
Well, Radiohead is a heck of a band with a religious-like following. They did it for free or for pay and they still rocked out with their downloads out.
So here’s to Reznor. Hopefully more and more bands will follow.

I would like to see Baylor make the NCAA Tournament simple because I think it is a great story.
Remember, it was only a few years ago the Bears had one player murdered by another, and a seedy coach who tried to cover it up.
They have had a great year. But Thursday was a day to forget, as Baylor became the first No. 5 seed to lose to a last-place team (Colorado) in the Big 12 Tournament.

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I really liked this video, and I hope you do too.
Santogold was featured by Rolling Stone magazine late last year as one of their “artists to watch.”
She has more stuff on her myspace page. I believe she’s from Brooklyn, but not 100 percent sure. I also don’t believe she has an major label record out yet, but it should be out soon.
Her sound is interesting considering what’s floating around nowadays.

The newest new game on the block for any gaming device is PS3′s Army of TWO. The co-op game features everything a growing boy loves. Blood, terrorists, explosions and corruption.
Army of TWO is about two semi-straight shooters that want to flush out corruption for the privatized military organization they belong to.
Not exactly something you’ll see in Blackwater, but a game is a game for a reason.
The first mission involves going to the Middle East and taking out some guy with a name that includes too many vowels.
The main characters — ex-Army Rangers Rios and Salem — globe trot to weed out the scum with pimped out super handguns and .50 caliber sniper rifles.
Everything about the experience I’ve had beating the game with my brother has been great. Co-op is fantastic. He has a humongous TV so playing split screen wasn’t as bad as it should have been.
He doesn’t have internet hooked up to his PS3, so who know what magic is around that corner.
If I have one major problem with the game is that you can’t run as one of the usable characters. When I’m getting shot at I’d like to think that I can hotfoot it out of there. But you can’t and you usually die.
Overall, a game of the year for PS3. I think its out on XBOX and I’d imagine its about the same.

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ERA, WHIP, OPS — to some those little acronyms mean nothing. To others, they mean everything in the world for the next six months.
Fantasy Baseball is getting bigger every year. The leisure fan jumps in and becomes a nut and then the cycle continues. Leisure fan is the key.
Once they become crazed they try to convert others like a senseless religion pastor trying to get people to drink the kool-aid.
You can probably learn a lot about a guy, or possibly girl, if you ask them if they play fantasy baseball and their eyes light up.
And with about three weeks until the season kicks off, draft day – the most important day on earth – is at the drop of the hat of every second of every minute of every day until opening day.
Don’t believe me? Go to ESPN.com and see for your self in the “draft lobby.” Talking on the message board to some of those people can be close to brain surgery if you don’t know what’s up from down.
Try this out for size “you think A-Rod will clinch AL MVP hitting 30HR, bagging 30 bases with a .325BA?”.
Some will know others won’t.
But there is fun in it all.
Just because, and because I wanted to have together time, I asked my wife if she wanted to join along and, yes, now the wife and me have a fantasy team.
The draft was later at night, so she was only able to stay up the first six or so selections before she hit the hay. I believe I did round out a good roster though. (http://games.espn.go.com/flb/clubhouse?leagueId=79421&teamId=10)
She like names, hence Papelbon’s pick, and went with her gut. I tried to steer her with my mythical/empty knowledge of the subject, so we have long names and amazing results.
Wonder if we should name the team www.wichitafallhelpwanted.com?

It’s the best time of the sports season — football season not withstanding (and it also takes backseat once every four years while the World Cup is going on).
March Madness is right around the corner. While I write this, Syracuse-Villanova is near tip-off in the Big East Tournament first round.

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