January 2010
38 posts
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charlie davies remarkable recovery; world cup this...
The list of injuries that Charlie Davies suffered just a few months ago seemed too much to recover from in a year, let alone four months later.
Davies, 23, sustained multiple serious injuries (a broken right femur and tibia, a broken left elbow, facial fractures and a lacerated bladder).
Yet, it appears that Davies might be ready to start playing soccer competitively again for his club team by...
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a lot of people watched the football game last...
It was the NFC Championship game with the second-highest rankings ever, and the highest-ranking NFC Championship game for FOX, showing how much CBS wanted Brett Favre in the Super Bowl (though the Super Bowl will still bet he most-watched show all year, even if the Jaguars and Seahawks were playing).
That said, holy crap, Minnesota. If your team could just not fumble*, we’d be talking about...
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the first tweet from space
While an astronaut has tweeted in a circuitous way from space before, this is apparently the first direct tweet from somewhere that isn’t the Earth’s surface:
Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s
That is from the account of @Astro_TJ, TJ Creamer. Creamer is aboard the...
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The commissioner of the all-white basketball...
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how fast would lebron blow out his knee if he...
J.A. Adande wrote a column saying that LeBron James should become a Clipper.
Only LeBron has the power to shift the balance all by himself. It would be the most significant free-agent move since Shaquille O’Neal left Orlando to come to the Lakers, and that was only the most significant free-agent move in sports history. (Three championships and a Most Valuable Player season = best signing...
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this isn't what they cheerleaders meant when they...
Jose Offerman has some issues, I’m thinking.
He took a swing at an umpire (video via ESPN below), but that isn’t even the worst part of the story.
Here is something in his past:
On Aug. 14, 2007, he was batting for the Long Island Ducks against the Bridgeport Bluefish in an independent minor league game when pitcher Matt Beech hit him with a fastball. Offerman charged the mound...
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ray allen: less fan influence on all star voting
Ray Allen is exactly right on this one (I’ll admit that even though he is a Celtic and I hate the Boston Celtics).
Basically, the fans sometimes vote in people who have no business playing in an All-Star game. Sure, it’s an exhibition game and supposed to be for fun, but it would be more fun if those who actually deserve to be there are allowed to play.
Take a look at this year, for...
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mark titus aka @clubtrillion hits 2 million hits
Ohio State University benchwarmer Mark Titus hit two million hits on his blog Club Trillion.
he writes about “life views from the end of the bench” and is probably, strangely enough for someone averaging just 2.7 minutes per game, the most recognizable player on the Ohio State basketball team.
In celebration of this achievement, Titus made a video of himself as his video resume for...
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guy with lots of time on his hands calculates...
I actually think that this is really cool. Someone calculated the win-loss records of the teams headed by Charlie Brown in the comic strip “Peanuts.” At least from 1951-1970.
If Retrosheet has taught us anything, it’s that, in this day and age, just about anything is possible. We don’t exactly have box scores, scorecards, or play-by-play analysis of all the games...
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i cheer for the even newer england patriots
The Kansas City Chiefs, my team, hired Romeo Crennel to be their new defensive coordinator. He was most recently the coach of the Cleveland Browns (that didn’t work out too well) but before that he was the defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots.
The new offensive coordinator? None other than Charlie Weis. Weis was the head coach at Notre Dame (that also didn’t work out too...
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WatchLetterman talks about Conan/Leno scandal.
Letterman is still the best. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.
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NBChaos -- Conan won't move show back half an hour
In a statement Conan O’Brien has rejected NBC’s wishes that he move his show back half an hour to accommodate an expected move of The Jay Leno Show to late night.
People of Earth:
In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do...
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mark mcgwire hired ari fleischer to be his...
Apparently Ari Fleischer wants to see how many incredibly unpopular things he can represent in the world of sports. Because he’s the guy behind Mark McGwire’s surprising* admission that he used steroids*.
Anyway, here’s the lowdown on McGwire and Fleischer:
The one-day plan — coordinated over the past month byAri Fleischer, a former White House press secretary who runs...
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'google' is word of the decade; 'tweet' word of...
The word of the decade which just ended is ‘Google’ according to the American Dialect Society, while the word of the year is ‘tweet.’
“Both words are, in the end, products of the Information Age, where every person has the ability to satisfy curiosity and to broadcast to a select following, both via the Internet.” [Chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect...
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mark mcgwire admits steroid use
Former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire admitted something that I think all baseball fans assumed was true — that he used steroids. McGwire admitted this in a statement to the Associated Press.
“I wish I had never touched steroids,” McGwire said in a statement. “It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during...
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nbc greenlights six dramas
NBC suddenly finds itself in the position of having to create new programming for five hours a week — not something that an already ratings-starved network would want to do. This comes because the Leno-in-primetime experiment failed disastrously.
They are starting the process of rebuilding their programming, and there are some dramas from big name producers lined up to attempt to bring NBC...
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togo soccer team no longer playing in african cup...
After their team bus was attacked by gunmen, Togo’s soccer team voted to stay in the African Cup of Nations. However, their government had another idea.
But they do want back in after a three-day mourning period.
Togo has asked the Confederation of African Football if it can rejoin the tournament after a three-day mourning period, Reuters said, citing Christophe Tchao, Togo’s sports...
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why @realkidpoker is my favorite poker player
Sure, Daniel Negreanu is not the best poker player in the world, and he doesn’t say that he is unlike Phil Hellmuth, but he is genuinely a cool guy from all appearances. I mean, just take a look at his latest blog post on his blog.
All of a sudden they all start jumping up and down, screaming at the top of their lungs, chanting some Euro song. It was nuts. Right when we hit about the 6th...
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leno canceled
The Jay Leno Show is officially canceled. Of course, this won’t be the end of Leno on TV — he’ll be moving back to the 11:35 ET slot and Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon will be shuffled about.
[NBC Universal Entertainment chairman Jeff] Gaspin emphasized that no deals had been signed, but said that all three late-night hosts - Leno, Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon -...
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human ancestors may have used rafts 130k years ago
This is why science is awesome. You can read a headline and know that it will be an interesting story.
Case in point, this story from Wired, Hominids Went Out of Africa on Rafts.
Several hundred double-edged cutting implements discovered at nine sites in southwestern Crete date to at least 130,000 years ago and probably much earlier, Strasser reported January 7 at the annual meeting of the...
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togo team will stay at african cup of nations...
The African Cup of Nations is in Angola this year. And Angola isn’t the safest place in Africa, as the Togo soccer team found out. Earlier this week, the Togo team bus attacked by gun-toting men.
Togo’s bus in a convoy from Congo was six miles across the border in Angola when it came under fire. The bus driver died in the 30-minute ambush, according to Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor,...
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could a punter be a key part of the playoff games...
No, no, don’t laugh. Sports Illustrated has a great feature story on punters in their latest issue.
It reminds me of what someone (I can’t remember who, sorry) on Twitter said during the Fiesta Bowl between Boise State and TCU when the Boise State punter pinned the Horned Frogs down on the one-yard line with just 1:16 left in the fourth quarter. Boise State had a 7 point lead.
This...
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obama state of the union won't mess up 'lost'...
Barack Obama’s second State of the Union Address will not be on February 2, avoiding a potential conflict with the three hour season premiere of Lost.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, told reporters today that he could “allay fears” of those who watch “Lost.” He said the president’s speech will not be on Feb. 2. “I don’t foresee a scenario in which the millions of people that...
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CES 1979: Flashback Look at Electronics →
A video showing the cutting edge technology in 1979. Yeah, a VHS of The Sound of Music cost $75.
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will conan go to fox?
It’s all-but certain at this point that the great Jay-Leno-in-primetime experiment is over — and it failed horribly*. Not only just for Leno, but also for Conan O’Brien, who took over at the 11:35 slot.
So now, to avoid Leno fleeing to another network and NBC dropping to third place in late night (they are currently in second to CBS and David Letterman), they are going to move...
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pete carroll back the nfl? bad idea
So Pete Carroll, the USC coach, is going to be the next coach of the Seattle Seahawks, it appears.
I have no idea why anyone would think that Carroll would be a good NFL coach. He has already been fired as coach of the New York Jets (after one season in 1994) and of the New England Patriots (he lasted three seasons but was fired in 1999).
And how many college coaches have successfully made the...
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facebook has its own flavor of vitamin water
So reports @techcrunch.
VitaminWater has just announced that its newest flavor will be called “Connect”, complete with a Facebook logo and a full paragraph description loaded with references to untagging, friend requests, and photo stalking. It’s black cherry-lime flavored, with caffeine and “eight key nutrients”. And it’s coming to stores nationwide in March.
But really this is just a reason...
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Pacquiao-Mayweather fight dead for now
(Via PTIShow), the Las Vegas Review-Journal is reporting that it looks like the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather megafight is off.
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said he is still under a gag order from mediator and retired judge Daniel Weinstein not to discuss the situation. However, Arum plans to announce on Thursday plans for a March fight in Las Vegas between Pacquiao and WBA junior middleweight...
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WatchClint Dempsey had an incredible goal for Fulham against Stoke City. Too bad that it came in a losing effort. Still, worth a watch or two.
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things looking up for the kansas city chiefs
It may be weird to say that things are looking up for a team that just won five games and will be in the top-five picks for the draft for the third year in a row. But they won more than twice as many games as last year (2) and some young players showed their talent as the season came to a close.
Of course, the biggest performer on the offensive side of the ball on Sunday in the game against AFC...
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people like avatar -- one of highest grossing...
Remember when people said that James Camerons’ epic Avatar was destined to be a flop? That it was even more destined to flop after a relatively small opening weekend? Experts told us that it was just too expensive to recoup the money they spent on the state-of-the-art special effects.
Yeah, they want a mulligan on that one.
After another big weekend, Avatar launched into the list of...
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the new yorker's 2009 quiz
How many answers can you get right on this quiz about politics in 2009? I got 21 of 29.
The Jimmy Carter/Meghan McCain/G Gordon Liddy/Timothy Geithner/Carrie Prejean questions really got me.
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writers from "the new yorker" remember the '00s
The writers at the New Yorker gave their quick impressions of their memories of the ’00s and a prediction for the decade to come.
Here’s my favorite:
SASHA FRERE-JONES
A moment: In January of 2000, I used Napster for the first time. I downloaded the entire catalog of a band I knew only by name. When it turned out that I didn’t care for the music, I was oddly relieved. I hadn’t...
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engadget staff gets their hands on nexus one...
The tech blog engadget scored a major coup by becoming the first publication to get their hands on the Nexus One — the new Google phone. This isn’t just a phone running the Android operating system (like the Motorola Droid) — but a phone designed by Google (though built by HTC) and will be the “Google phone.”
There is video of the unboxing by the engadget crew at...
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the @badastronomer says a new decade starts today
There is a lot of argument* as to whether the new decade begins today or in one year. Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, says the new decade starts today (as I mentioned on Twitter last night):
I meant, and still mean, specifically the first decade of the 2000s. That does in deed and in fact end today.
What people were arguing over were things like centuries and millennia, and how there was no...