rob’s place

I loved the Beijing Olympics.  I just love the Olympics!  So I started looking into what the future schedule is.

2010 Winter Olympics - Vancouver, Canada, Feb 12-28, 2010

2012 Summer Olympics - London, England, July 27-Aug 12, 2012

2014 Winter Olympics - Sochi, Russia, Feb 7-23, 2014

2016 Summer Olymics - TBA on October 2, 2009 (b/w Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, and Madrid)

I’m not a fan of Kobe Bryant. Never really have been.

But I was impressed by his reaction and celebration after the US Basketball “Redeem Team” won gold.

He didn’t act like a superstar. He didn’t act like he deserved it.

He really looked excited and genuinely happy. He looked like an Olympian.

I know he wasn’t the only one who reacted that way, but I noticed Kobe. He was smiling big. Singing the National Anthem.

Good job Team USA! Way to bring the gold back home.

YouTube - The Onion: The Beijing Olympics - Are They A Trap?

I recorded the Olympics all day so this afternoon I’ve been catching up watching all kinds of games that I never really thought I’d watch. Some of these games I can only take once every four years. But when it comes around I really enjoy them. This afternoon I watched basketball, sculling, water polo, track & field, beach volleyball, and the trampoline.

But the craziest was Woman’s Badminton.

Have you seen competitive badminton? It’s like what I would guess to be a tennis match with a flat ball. It was the Gold Medal game between two Chinese women and they were going at it! The announcers were SO into it building up excitement when I didn’t see it. The funniest part was how excited one of them got after one of the women scored a point. Talking about how the shuttle landed he said, “…landed like a butterfly with sore feet!”

I still don’t know what that means. But it sure was funny.

Mostly in the games I like the objective ones, not the subjective ones. In other words, I like the sports where one gets from point A to point B faster, or scores more goals, or whatever. Not the kinds where they say “well they did a hard one and did okay, the other did an easy one and nailed it”. Who wins? It’s subjective. Not that these athletes aren’t incredible (and I watch them), I just prefer the objective sports better.

The League
The 2008 East Coast Football Club (ECFC) live draft was today.  Below is my new team’s roster.  A few changes this year to the league to the roster:

I think this should make for a much more interesting and active season.  Shortening the bench and limiting the required starters should be fun.  In short, it’s more like a real team: 1 each of the 4 specialty positions + 2 extra specialty players to lineup wherever you want.

Anyway, that was the big change to the league rules.  Still sticking with 1 pt/20 yards passing, 1 pt/10 yards rushing, 1 pt/reception.

Team Name & Logo
I’ve also changed my team name and logo again.  It’s honestly one of the more fun and creative thing I try to do each year.  This year my team name is Panthera.  My logo is above - the orange lion.  If you’re not familiar with where these come from, the lion is borrowed from the South Holland Provencal flag.  The orange isn’t unusual in the Netherlands because the nation was ‘founded’ by William of Orange who defended the protestant Dutch nation against the Spanish Catholics (who eventually assassinated him) in the 1500’s.  The current Dutch Royal Family has almost always been from the House of Orange-Nassau.  All that to say, the Dutch like orange.

The name, Panthera, is actually not an actual animal or thing.  It’s a group of animals.  A genus of big cats.  There are only 4 animals in the genus Panthera: the Tiger, Lion, Jaguar, and Leopard.  They are also the only cats that can roar (bet you didn’t realize that, did you?).  So my team aren’t just tigers or jaguars or lions or leopards, we are a combination of all the big cats!  Roar!

(yes, I like to put a little thought and research to my team names)

The Draft
I was fortunate to get the first pick in this year’s draft.  I always go for a RB first, but this year I was seriously thinking about taking Brady in round 1.  But as you can see below, I didn’t.

Panthera 2008 Draft Roster
QB: Tony Romo
RB: LaDainian Tomlinson
WR: Anquan Bolden
TE: Jeremy Shockey
PK: Nate Keading
DE: Redskins
FLEX: Brandon Jacobs, Laveranues Coles
Bench: Matt Schaub, Selvin Young, Kevin Curtis, Ted Ginn, Ben Watson

So how did I do?

1.  I’m never a real big fan of the Opening Ceremonies of any Olympics.  But last night’s Beijing presentation was incredible.

2. If you have never been to The Big Picture from Boston.com then go there now and subscribe to the RSS.

3. Go see some awesome big photos of the Opening Ceremony.

4. I thought it was cool that they talked about how China sees harmony and other virtues as ideal.  They know they don’t have it yet.  In the US it almost seems that we either believe we have our virtues or we don’t.  There’s no middle ground or vision for the ideal.  Just an observation.

I’m getting ready for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.  Are you ready?

I love the Olympics - especially the summer edition.  I was a swimmer and coached a year of swim team during college.  So I gravitate to that sport.  Not to mention Michael Phelps is the bomb.

During college I played a lot of beach volleyball and some indoors.  I made the club team at Clemson but decided not to play.  So I love watching beach volleyball also.  And btw, when they show closeups of the players butts, it’s not just for sex appeal.  They are signaling how they plan to block.  One finger indicates they will block the line (take the shot away down the line) forcing the hitter to hit into the court.  Two fingers indicates they will block angle forcing the hitter to go line.  The signal on each hand shows what they will do if the hitter is on that side.

Anyway, while looking for some go to websites for the Olympics, I found a couple cool things.  The official logo is above.  Below are the official pictograms or sport icons they are using this year.  I got them from a site that even has the historical Olympic pictograms.  Very cool.

For a TV schedule it looks like the NBC Olympic website has a nice interactive TV schedul chart.

And believe it or not, it looks like the BBC might have a nice, clean Olympic Medal Count page by only posting earned medals.  Sports Illustrated has a nice looking full Olympic Medal Count page.

Will you be watching and tracking the Olympics?  If so, what are your favorite events?

Oh, and I’ll be pulling for the USA.

If you want to jump into a March Madness league, my Sleestack Madness bracket (free) is open.

Photo from the FAIL Blog

Yup, it’s time. Well, read this again Sunday night — THEN it’ll be time.

The NCAA Brackets are opening back up with all seeding announced by Sunday evening. And our annual Sleestack Madness bracket is back open for invites. It’s a private group so first you need to register, then you need a password (hint: it’s the name of the city in which I live).

Still stumped? Leave a comment with a valid email and I’ll reply with the password spelled out for you.

Due to the ‘bump’ last night, I’m reposting some posts that were missing. I’m compiling many of them to make it easier though I’m going to lose the old links. oh well. whatever.

These are a couple of posts on NASCAR that were missing…

The other day I came up with an idea for a NASCAR commercial. Simple. Short. And I think kinda funny.

At the end it could have the logo and say “NASCAR is Back” or something.

What do you think? You get it?

YouTube - NASCAR Returns (proof of concept commercial)

Well, even though this will make my third post about NASCAR this week, I’m not really a fan. First I made a commercial for NASCAR then I told you why Jeff Gordon is the guy I follow. So maybe I’ll tune in today and watch the biggest event the sport has to offer.

I’m going to open up a bottle of a fine merlot and serve it up with some goat cheese on some fine wafer crispbread crackers with a little drop of honey on top. I think I have the right food for a NASCAR viewing, right?

If my humor isn’t good enough, how about this NASCAR joke from a real comedian?

YouTube - NASCAR Funny - Alonzo Bodden

American pregame
Good anthem
Dull commercials
Interesting half
Good beer
Decent wings
Petty halftime
Vegan cookies
Great finish
Happy wife
Relieved Eli
Froggy Terry
Retiring Michael?
Celebratory NYC
Sulking Boston
Achy tummy

Monday.

Pretty cool Google Map mashup: College Football Bowl Schedule (2007-2008). You can even sort it all by Game Date, College Teams traveling Most Miles, and College Teams traveling Least Miles. Interesting stuff.

via Google Maps Mania