It's time. As Charis and I prepare to head overseas we've decided to start a blog together. That means that this one will be retiring. As a result, I've shut off the commenting feature (I was getting too much spam anyway) and will no longer be here. Come join us at the new blog. You can find it at samandcharis.wordpress.com (for the time being).
Goodbye.
There are a number of obvious reasons to love Baron Davis if you're a basketball fan or a Warriors fan, but here's one for the non-basketball fans.
Here's a bonus reason from last year. That car is P-I-M-P.
So I've been slowly cleaning up my old room at my parents' house while we've been here and while cleaning I found something that made me laugh. When I subbed a lot for K/1 classes back in the day they used to (and still may) gather around for circle time right before the students were dismissed. Sometimes the kids were allowed to tell jokes, all of which I found hilarious. Not because they were funny. But because they were distinctly not funny and totally random. So when I was cleaning I found a paper towel on which I had written some of these jokes that were told. I've reproduced them here. I hope you find them as humorous as I do.
Q: What did the backpack say to Daniella?
A: I want to switch with SpongeBob.
Q: What did the backpack say to the backpack?
A: It's time to go to school.
Q: What did the dog say to the other dog?
A: Ruff!
Q: What did the toilet say to the other toilet?
A: See ya later, cowboy!
I can only think of a few nerds who will get this, but this is the best way I can describe my thoughts after watching Enchanted a few weeks ago:
Superman : Batman :: Cinderella : Enchanted
As many of you know, Notre Dame had their worst season ever this year. They were last in Division I-A in total offense, 116th in scoring offense and rushing offense, and 110th in passing offense. They lost to Navy for the first time in 44 games. They won a total of three games to go 3-9 for the season. Those three wins were against UCLA, Duke, and Stanford.
Cal played two of those teams, UCLA and Stanford.
Cal lost both of those games.
Pitiful.
I'm somewhat glad that I'm still in town on December 31st when Cal plays Air Force in the Armed Forces Bowl so that I have an excuse not to spend money on tickets and attend the game in nearby Fort Worth.
This week's tough question: Is it even worth my time to watch the game? Cal's atrocious. After a 5-0 start they completely fell apart and lost six of their last seven games. There's a high likelihood of them losing the game and I'll just be frustrated and miserable watching them. I'll probably have to go to a sports bar (are they even going to be open at 9:30am?) and spend money to watch the game since we don't have cable. But my team's in a bowl game. I should at least show some loyalty, right?
I don't know what to do. If you have any suggestions, let me know.
So I've spent a bit of time the past few days reading about the Mitchell report and the influence of performance enhancing drugs in baseball. After thinking for some time I've come up with an idea to fix the performance enhancing drug problem in baseball (or in any other team sport). In addition to fining and suspending (and banishing?) players who violate the drug abuse policies, enforce significant financial penalties ($1M? $5M? $10M?) against owners and organizations that employ such players. Rather than having baseball try to independently enforce their drug policy, this would force teams to police themselves to avoid incurring large financial penalties. This way MLB wouldn't be the only organization trying to find steroid users; owners, GMs, and other management personnel would have greater incentives to find out which players are on the juice to avoid employing them because the penalty is much greater. Players are also given another reason to avoid performance enhancing drugs because they know that teams would be discouraged from signing them if teams knew or suspected that they were on steroids. The proof of burden swings from being on MLB and is now placed on the players. The money from the fines and financial penalties could go back into educating youth about the dangers of taking performance enhancing drugs or financing urban baseball programs for kids that wouldn't normally have the chance to play baseball like programs such as RBI (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities). Of course I'm sure getting the owners, players union, and commissioner to agree to all of this is improbable, but hey, it's an idea, right?
I realize this is blatant name dropping, but who cares. It's so weird for me to be one degree removed from the latest Heisman winner and the first ever underclassman to win the award. It has always seemed to me that fame happens to other people, or that other people are the ones that know people who are famous. It's odd to me that someone so famous is so close. His sister and brother-in-law attended our engagement party. This same brother-in-law designed our wedding invitations. Crazy! Anyway, I'm super happy for Timmy and his family. The character and devotion to God that is spoken of him and that is seen on TV is real. I'm glad he won it.
In response to Danny's post about lame sports nicknames (specifically the first initial of first name plus first syllable of last name trend (the worst of which I feel is J-Ho for Josh Howard) and first initial, last initial combinations) I also have to mention my annoyance at the trend where the players initials are taken and combined with their number (KB8/24, CP3, CB4). The only exception to this, in my opinion, is Andrei Kirilenko because his nickname, AK47, actually means something.
My favorite sports related nicknames right now are Agent Zero and Boom Dizzle.
An interesting, albeit incomplete list of sportspeople by nickname, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Full disclosure: my nickname my senior year in high school was Math God.