Monday, February 26, 2007

You best respect Rulon Gardner

I’ve always said that the movie Unbreakable is what my life would be if I were able to dictate what happened to me. In the movie Bruce Willis’ character realizes that he is essentially invulnerable to sickness and injury after being the sole survivor of a terrible train wreck. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a great “comic book movie” for people who don’t like “comic book movies.”

Well, it looks like Olympic gold medalist wrestler Rulon Gardner is living my dream life. He’s already dislocated his wrist in a motorcycle accident, had a toe amputated after developing frostbite after crashing a snowmobile, and over the weekend he survived a plane crash. Rulon Gardner cannot be killed and he’s served our country before in the Olympics. I say he’s the living, breathing, one man answer to our problems in Middle East.

RIP Dennis Johnson 1954-2007

I’m a little late on this, but last week Dennis Johnson, one of my favorite basketball players from my early childhood, passed away. Johnson was the point guard for the Celtics teams of the 80’s that I still revere. 2 things always stood out to me about Johnson 1) In my opinion he is the single most unappreciated NBA player ever and 2) his stats didn’t exactly bowl you over, 14 points, 5 assists, and 3 rebounds a game for his career, but he always seemed to come up with a big play when his team needed it the most.
Probably the best example of both of these points is this play, Larry Bird’s famous steal against the Pistons in the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals. While Larry certainly deserves the credit for his miraculous steal this play would have been nothing without DJ’s great instincts in cutting to the hole. Watch the clip a few times and you’ll notice DJ watching Bird as he makes his move, almost anticipating that something is about to happen. That sums up DJ’s career, on the business end of one of the greatest plays in NBA history, but yet somewhat overlooked by the fact that everyone almost exclusively associates the greatness of that play to Bird.
Speaking of Larry, I’ll finish this post with a quote (from DJ’s great bio on NBA.com) on what Larry thought about Dennis Johnson;
“Larry Bird, who was not known for lightly tossing around compliments, called Johnson ‘the best I've ever played with.’”

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

A television guilty pleasure

The next cast for Dancing with the Stars has been announced and my sister's (and my) favorite Olympic male speed skater of all time is on it. Yup, Apolo Anton Ohno will be cutting a rug in prime time along with Clyde Drexler, female boxer Laila Ali, Billy Ray Cyrus, and a few other people I don't care about. This lineup once again has we wondering how on earth this show continues to put together groupings of people I'm actually interested in.
For example:
1st Season: Evander Holyfeild and Trista from the Bachelor (I really don't care about her reality TV credentials, just the fact that she's a Miami alum. It's all about The U.)
2nd Season: Master P, Lisa Rinna (My favorite female soap opera actress), Stacy Keibler, and Jerry Rice.
3rd Season: Emmit Smith, Tucker Carlson, and A.C. Slater (or as he's known to non Saved by the Bell fans Mario Lopez).
If you were to tell me a couple of years ago that there would be a show where random B level celebrities took part in a dancing contest I would have put the chances of me watching it at about 2%-3%. That is the genius of good casting.

A statement on the legal job market?

Today in one of my classes the professor noted that it will only be about 2 months until the 3Ls in our class graduate. Then she asked how many 3Ls we had in our class, about 12-13 people raised their hands. She then followed that up by asking how many students had jobs lined up, the result, only 2 people. At first I figured that this was just an example of some of those 3Ls observing the common law school courtesy of not admitting they had jobs, so as to avoid making the jobless feel bad about themselves. That inclination was dispelled after the students began lamenting about their joblessness.
What does this mean? I don't know, I just found it interesting. Instead of trying to analyze it I think I'll just watch this video a few more times and read this Deadspin.com post.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Thursday Night Plans?

I think I need to ask Angelina if I can have the car on Thursday night because just under an hour away from my humble abode in Pittsburgh there will be an interesting spectacle I'd like to see. The guy who played Tommy Gunn in Rocky V, real life boxer Tommy Morrison, will be fighting for the first time in 11 years or so . Some of you might wonder why this is a spectacle, well, our good friend Tommy Gunn (Morrison) hasn't fought in 11 years because he tested positive for HIV back in 1996 on the eve of one of his fights.
This is either going to be a testament to one man beating HIV (not likely) or in the worst case scenario, another nail in the coffin of boxing (probably).

The only question left now is how long it will be before some boxing promoter takes this situation to its logical end and gets Morrison and Tyson in a ring together for what would be the single most bizarre and uncomfortable sporting event ever.

Sounds like I'm in the government there.















Serbian village venerates Rocky
Some Serbians decided that they would build a statue of Rocky to change the bad luck their village has had. I think they're on the right track, it's always worked for me in the past.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Jealousy

There’s a guy in my copyright class that has a really big hockey jersey collection, he wears one nearly everyday. Up until today I only had a healthy respect for jersey collection. That changed this morning because he wore this (unautographed though)…
The Gretzky Oilers jersey. Now I’m just jealous.
I know, they’re not that rare, but I don’t have the $250 to buy one now and I’m kicking myself for not getting one when I did have the money.
Oh well, I’ll just have to make due by wearing my Gretzky Kings jersey tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

This Love Triangle is Out of this World, Literally

Growing up in Florida provided me with a lot of exposure to the space program. In all that I learned about the space program while growing up I don’t remember any stories quite like the one I read this morning. Apparently astronaut Lisa Nowak, a married mother of 3, attempted to kidnap a woman who was also vying for the romantic attention of astronaut William Oefelein, whom Nowak also had a crush on. Click here to read the whole story, it’s worth it.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

A Few Post-Super Bowl Thoughts:

-I forgot in my earlier post to mention one of my favorite events on any Super Bowl Sunday, the Puppy Bowl. This is the third year that the Animal Planet Network has countered the Super Bowl with hours of puppies frolicking and playing in a room decorated like a football stadium. I really love this show. Though I almost forgot about it this year I was fortunate enough to catch a replay. In my opinion the Puppy Bowl has been more entertaining than Super Bowl itself for the last two years. This year they even upped the cuteness ante with a Kitty Halftime Show! The only downside to this year's Puppy Bowl was a distinct lack of camera time for Dachshunds , oh well, maybe we'll get more Dachshunds next year. For more info and even some videos from Puppy Bowl III check out the Puppy Bowl website.

- Ok, so the Bears didn’t win. But, at least UM Alum and Colts wide receiver Reggie Wayne got a Super Bowl ring to go along with his 53 yard touchdown catch. That’s the great thing about being a Canes fan, no matter what 2 teams are playing you’re likely to have something to celebrate.

-Speaking of Canes, I believe I was right when I said Hester would put on a show. I intentionally waited until after the game started to leave for my friend’s house so that I wouldn’t miss the opening kickoff because I knew Hester had a chance to make some history as the first man to return the opening kickoff all the way. Sure, he didn’t do much after the opening kickoff, but then again the rest of his team didn’t do that much more either.

-Even with the Bears losing I couldn’t help but feel good for Tony Dungy. Especially considering what a great job he did to bring Tampa Bay from being the joke of the NFL to Super Bowl contenders only to be fired just before they made it all the way.

Why I'm Rooting for the Bears

I'm rooting for the Bears, here are the reasons:

-Bears quarterback Rex Grossman was the last Gator quarterback I rooted for before going to Miami.

-The Bears also have Alex Brown, another Gator that was at UF before my Cane conversion.

-The Bears have former UM standout Devin Hester on their team. Watch for him returning punts, he should put on a show.

-The Bears used the UM workout facilities once they got to Miami this week.

-The Colts wouldn't pay enough this off season to keep UM alum Edgerrin James as their starting running back.

-I don't like Peyton Manning the quarterback. My dislike of him goes all the way back to when he was in college at Tennessee and I'd root for the Gators as they beat him every year. Also, He'll probably break all of Dan Marino's passing records, so I don't want him to do that and have a Super Bowl ring. Lastly, and most importantly, he stole a Sharpie marker from me at and FCA breakfast in his junior year at UT. Sure, I got his autograph, but I want my Sharpie back Peyton! (With all that said I do like Peyton Manning the person. He seems like a nice enough guy and I love just about every one of his commercials)

Saturday, February 03, 2007

It’s That Time of the Year Again!

It’s Super Bowl® time and that means one thing to me, awkward NFL related legal actions.

- First up, apparently the NFL has no problem with you watching the Super Bowl® in a bar with a bunch of drunk guys, but they’re not too thrilled with churches showing the big game on anything bigger than a 55 inch tv.
I’m referring to this story out of Indianapolis where the NFL shut down Fall Creek Baptist’s plans for a Super Bowl Bash. I can respect the NFL making sure the church does not use the registered Super Bowl® name to promote the event. I can also respect the NFL keeping the church from charging anything. What I don’t respect is the NFL’s weak logic in enforcing its rights of public broadcast. The league justifies their disallowing the church to use a projector to show the game because it impacts the Neilson ratings for the game, but decides to ignore the thousands of sports bars doing the same thing because they always do it. So, the NFL has a problem with a couple hundred churches (at most) showing the game which would have little if any effect on the Neilson ratings, but the NFL doesn’t care about thousands of sports bars that could actually skew the Neilson.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against sports bars, I’m just against bad logic and even worse PR moves.

-Secondly, since the Chicago Bears are finally back in the Super Bowl® I naturally decided I’d watch a little Super Bowl Shuffle. However, when I looked for it I couldn’t find it. All I got was this message “This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Julia Meyer.” After some digging I found this little article about the how Mrs. Meyer has set up her own website to sell licensed Super Bowl Shuffle merchandise. Usually I’m totally in favor of people exercising their rights as copyright owners, but for once I’m a little torn here.

-Lastly, this doesn’t have anything to do with the law (which is rare considering the person I’m about to congratulate), but congratulations are in order for former University of Miami Hurricane Michael Irvin as he has been elected into the NFL Hall of Fame.