joyfulchristian

OK, now this is just dumb

Basically for as long as their have been video games  featuring real sports teams, people have been using them to try to predict who would win games.  MSNBC has taken this to a whole new level:

Join the Madden NFL 07 Matchup, powered by MSNBC and Xbox Live on Madden NFL 07, to determine the winner of the Colts-Patriots matchup, then check back here next week to see the results of the online tournament.

Hop on to Xbox Live and play a game of Madden NFL 07 using the two highlighted teams. Using the gamecast functionality EA SPORTS, we'll compile all the stats of all the games played and determine the winner, based on the averages from the games played. Then we'll compare the Xbox Live prediction to Novacek's predictions each week. Can the Xbox Live community outpeform Novacek each week?

Actually, that part's not so bad. Basically they're trying to see if their game, when taken on average, can is a  fairly accurate portrayal of the actual teams.  I can live with that.

The absurd part is that this article is written like the game is a crystal ball portraying every detail of the game:

Panthers receiver Steve Smith will be held in check, with just two receptions, but one will go for 57 yards, the Xbox Live tournament shows. Teammate Keyshawn Johnson, facing his former team for the first time, also has a good day with four catches for 56 yards.

Um ... yeah ... whatever.

And there was much rejoicing

in  SarahKLand.

The NHL lockout is over.

Update: Or maybe not.  Sorry hockey fans.

I just saw a white guy return a punt for a touchdown

... for Harvard against Yale.

Don't look so shocked. You knew it had to be an Ivy League game.

This is pathetic

I'm a Cowboy's fan. Always have been and I always will be.  But this season is just brutalizing me.  Back to back fumbles?  Without a single offensive play in between?  Arghh!

To save my sanity I'm probaly switching to CSI in a few minutes.

The Curse

I may never watch Major League Baseball again.

The general gist of most people's reaction to the World Series win by the Red Sox seems to be that it's great that they've finally broken the curse. I'm a bit different.

I've never been a big baseball fan. I enjoy watching games, but I've not really followed the game since collecting baseball cards as a kid. Since Nolan Ryan retired about the only things I've cared about are a) a vague desire for the Rangers to win, and b) a fervant desire for the Red Sox to never, ever win another World Series. Basically, I figured that the only fitting punishment for trading away Babe Ruth was the complete inability to win a Series before.

Now that b is gone, I just don't care any more.

On the brights side

Keyshawn Johnson is usually nonexistent if he doesn't get hot early. They're doing a very good job of getting him involved early.

Arggh

I'm a Cowboy's fan so I am, of course, watching the Dallas game today. Unfortunately they're playing Pittsburgh in the late game. I say unfortunate because Phil Simms is the color commentator. I don't know how he is in other games, but in just about every Dallas game I've heard him cover it sounds like he's got HUGE axe to grind.

Sometimes

... it's hard to be a Cowboys fan.

Mercifully

While everyone else was showing the worthless debate (and even more worthless post-debate debates) Fox has been showing baseball. And I don't even like watching baseball on TV.

It does, however, give me the opportunity to say that I think the new practice of singing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch of MLB games is very cool.

Amazingly

... this BBC story which goes on at length about the possible difficulties in finding top players to send to Zimbabwe not once mentions why so many players have qualms about going.

The story does include this graf:

Strauss told BBC Sport: "All the players have deep-rooted moral problems with going on the tour. It's not an easy situation for us to be in.

However there's nothing in this story that would let you know that the source of these "moral problems" for many of the players is that they don't want to be seen as lending legitmacy to a murderous dictatorship that has seizes farmland from people based on the color of their skin (white), routinely arrests domestic reporters and editors that criticize the regime (and deports foreign correspondnets that do the same), and has managed to destroy a once thriving economy forcing many of its poorest people to flee to surrounding nations.

Wouldn't want to give the story any context, now would we?

Yay!

The Cowboys won tonight against the hated Skins. All is right with the world.

On a related note, Joe Gibbs was undoubtedly a great coach and I hope (assuming he stays behind the Cowboys) that he does well. I've got to say though that tonight wasn't impressive. You could make a pretty convincing argument that poor time mangement cost them a game. Bad time management is almost always the fault of the coaching staff. (Unless you have an inexperienced QB, which the Skins don't.) Maybe he's just rusty and it will work out with time, but tonight was ugly for Gibbs.

And yes, I do have insomnia tonight.

That will ruin your whole day

Ouch!

NEW YORK - Ailing Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi was diagnosed with an intestinal parasite and out of the starting lineup Tuesday night when New York played Boston.

The Yankees didn't specify the parasite Giambi had, and he said he couldn't remember the name the doctor told him.

Now that doesn't sound like a lot of fun.

I don't usually post about sports

But a friend of mine is really jazzed, so I thought I'd mention it:

DALLAS (AP) -- Two games and 2{ periods into their first-round matchup, the Colorado Avalanche seemed to be toying with the Dallas Stars.

Then things turned serious for Colorado. And the Avalanche couldn't respond.

Philippe Boucher scored the tying goal with 4:27 left in regulation, then Steve Ott won it with a breakaway goal off a neutral-zone steal 2:11 into overtime, giving Dallas a 4-3 victory Monday night that revives the Stars' chances in the series.

I'm not really in to hockey, but being a native Texan, I always like it when Texas teams win in overtime.

That might explain it

There was a time when the thought of life without ESPN was horrifying. Granted, I was a lot younger and a more enthusiastic fan. Recently, I went a year and a half without cable, or indeed television, at all. (Well, I did have Babylon 5 on DVD. At least the first season.) And last year when I turned the cable back on, I decided I didn't care enough to pay for extended service and, therefore, ESPN. Strangely, in all that time, I haven't missed ESPN or, my once favorite way to pass time, Sports Center one bit.

I couldn't figure out why that might be. Matt Feeney offers a thorough critique that may explain the change. If you're interested in this at all, you should read his whole article, but his conclusion is priceless:

As John Buccigross might say, as Pravda was to the old Soviet Union, SportsCenter is to pro basketball.

Ouch.

Yeah

I'm not a big B-Ball fan. Still, living in Stillwater and having gotten my masters degree at Oklahoma State, I must express some satisfaction that OSU has made the Final Four.

Go Cowboys!

Okay, here's my thoughts

I'm putting this under sports for lack of a better idea.

I was reading this FOX story about the half-time show:

The two singers were performing a flirtatious duet to end the halftime show, and at the song's finish, Timberlake reached across Jackson's leather gladiator outfit and pulled off the covering to her right breast.

The network quickly cut away from the shot, and did not mention the incident on the air.

Timberlake said he did not intend to expose Jackson's breast.

[...]

"We were extremely disappointed by elements of the MTV-produced halftime show," Joe Browne, NFL executive vice president, said. "They were totally inconsistent with assurances our office was given about the content of the show.

"It's unlikely that MTV will produce another Super Bowl halftime."

MTV issued a contrite statement, saying the incident was "unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional."

Let's assume, for the moment, that I believe this was an accident.¹ I don't know what made them think this was an appropriate ending even without the bared flesh. At the end of the song Timberlake came up from behind Jackson and started feeling her up. (I really know of no better way to describe it.) I was sitting there thinking, "I can't believe they're doing this. Don't they know this is supposed to be a family show?"

And then he rips off part of her top.

On another note, he was clearly trying to pull something off, so if he wasn't trying to expose her breast, what was he doing?

I've seen a lot of things done in bad taste, but this takes the cake.

¹I don't. The only question for me is whose idea it was.

Superbowl

Well, the game was pretty good. It's hard to beat Super Bowls decided with less than 30 seconds on the clock. Now Glenn Reynolds has a new game for us to play.

I don't know about the first pundit, but I'm guessing the first Presidential candidate to tie the game to his campaign will be John Kerry.

Here we go again

The AP poll and the coaches poll both rank USC number 1, but they won't be playing in the Sugar Bowl for the BCS title. If Oklhaoma loses and USC wins, the BCS may become a thing of the past.

My personal opinion is that the BCS rankings should be used to set up a 4 game playoff. Three of the BCS bowl games could then be used for those playoffs. Just a thought.

Woo-hoo!

The Cowboys won! I'm glad, of course. I must say though that for a game between two topped-rank teams, this was really ugly.

Lame excueses

The Elder points out a very lame football excuse.

Sheesh

When I first turned on the Mississippi State v Kentucky game, Kentucky was down 17-0. Now they're ahead 42-17. Good grief.

The Broncos are in trouble

This is from the Denver post:

There's no truth to the rumor the Broncos are going to sign 43-year-old John Elway as their new quarterback.

Then again, considering the current state of the Broncos' quarterback corps, maybe that's not such a farfetched idea.

Yeah, starting QB Jake Plummer has a broken foot. Beurlein, his backup, has a broken finger in his throwing hand. Now, things are getting worse:

The latest blow arrived Friday when Danny Kanell - the former third-stringer who was elevated to emergency starter this week - missed practice with a bad case of the flu. Kanell is officially listed as probable, but coach Mike Shanahan said he's not sure if Kanell will play Sunday against Baltimore.

"This morning he was vomiting; he's got the flu right now," Shanahan said after Friday's practice. "He's a little bit dehydrated. We gave him some IVs, and hopefully he'll be all right by game time. We'll find out. We'll wait and see. I really don't know. He's got a touch of the flu. We'll see how he is in a couple of days."

They've resigned Jarious Jackson and he may end up being the starter. If they're lucky:

But Jackson isn't feeling well, either.

"I'm coming down with a cold myself," he said with a scratchy voice. "Man, my voice is already deep, I sound like an elephant. I'm definitely taking medicine and trying to dry it up before Sunday."

This doesn't look good.

Marcus Hayes on Game 3

Just saw this:

It started late, took forever in a frequent rain, featured a pair of splendid starting arms and was decided in the eighth inning on a staid 29-year-old rookie's hit in an effusive 21-year-old rookie's relief appearance.

Can't wait for Game 4, can you?

The World Series Nobody Wanted drags on tonight in the wake of a 6-1 exercise in somnambulism that the Yankees won to take a two-games-to-one lead.

Stop holding back Marcus! Tell us how you really feel.

Forget theF 14s

I was watching the opening of Game 3 of the World Series. That released an eagle to fly around the stadium at the end of the national anthem. That was just cool.

Gloria Estefan's rendition of The Star Spangled Banner was great. I got chills.

Not that I'm complaining

But it's difficult to describe how bad the Lions are.

Do the Cubs know

... that letting the Marlins hit home runs is a bad thing? It sure doesn't look like it at the moment.

Update - Do the Marlins know they're supposed to stop the ground balls?

Question

Today the Dallas Cowboys scored consecutive safties against the Cardinals. I can't remember that ever happening before. Does anyone know if that's ever happened in an NFL game before today.

Emmit Smith in red

I think I"m going to be ill.

Rush was right

Rush was right. So says Allen Barra:

Rush Limbaugh didn't say Donovan McNabb was a bad quarterback because he is black. He said that the media have overrated McNabb because he is black, and Limbaugh is right. He didn't say anything that he shouldn't have said, and in fact he said things that other commentators should have been saying for some time now. I should have said them myself. I mean, if they didn't hire Rush Limbaugh to say things like this, what they did they hire him for? To talk about the prevent defense?

You've got me.

I don't normally talk about sports here

... but the Jets look like a high school team. A bad high school team.