Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Even though the posting has died down severaly in the past few weeks, I promise I have a couple of posts lined up from this past month that I will get to once I am done with this Actuary exam on the 9th. Also if you’re interested in guest writing for me, please let me know. I know a couple of peope have expressed interest but just haven’t gotten around to writing anything. 

Anyways, I’ve gotten a chance to watch some Bowl games and I have this post scheduled to go up at midnight so I guess this is from two days ago when Oregon played Oklahoma State. Oregon’s bakcs are just remarkable: Jeremiah Masoli and LeGarrette Blount make a mockery of the OK State secondary in the following clips:

1. Masoli trucks a defender towards the end of his run:

2. Masoli trucks a linebacker and continues running for a touchdown.

3. Blount hurdles a defender, stiff-arms another and keeps running for a touchdown.

4. ESPN Game Highlights:

Ridiculous Holiday Mailbag

If you are a sports fan and you don’t read Bill Simmons by now, you should really get on that… or if you’re too lazy to listen, get his podcast. He recently put out his ridiculous holiday mailbag email because as he stated that someone could justify that “Maybe I needed something to distract me from the terrifying realization that the Patriots’ 2008 season rests in the hands of Brett Favre”. Well said.

I’ll quote a couple of the completely bizarre emails that were sent to him with his replies and you can read the rest of them here: Sublime meets ridiculous in holiday mailbag

 

Q: How ’bout this hypothetical? It’s 2012, Matt Cassel is the quarterback for the Vikings and standing with a Super Bowl MVP trophy in one hand and a Super Bowl trophy in another. It’s his third Super Bowl MVP in four years, two with the Vikings and one with the Patriots in 2009. He states in his opening remarks, “I would like to dedicate this Super Bowl to Tom Brady for getting injured and allowing me to finally get my shot.” Flash to Foxboro, where Tom Brady has never returned to his 2007 form and reinjured his knee three times since, and Bill Belichick has retired from coaching due to having a heart attack from seeing Cassel win his second Super Bowl without the Patriots. Jump to 2022, as the Patriots have become the ’90s Cincinnati Bengals and you are hysterically crying while writing a piece titled “The Curse of Matt Cassel: IT IS REAL.”
— Andrew, Boston

SG: Just real enough that I made the same face that babies make when you stick a lemon in their mouths.

 

Q: If you’re sitting on 24 wins in “Streak for the Cash,” shouldn’t you hop on a flight to Vegas and bet about $250,000 on the opposite of whatever you pick for your 25th selection? All the games ESPN.com puts up as straight win/loss picks are close in point spreads, so I am sure you could get a money line in Vegas that would pay out straight up. That way, you ensure yourself of a minimum victory of $250,000, and can win a maximum of $750,000. I mean, you gotta protect yourself at this point right? I’m sitting in class at law school going insane thinking about this guy NOT doing this.
— Bryan, New York

SG: One catch: Where do you get the $250,000 to slap down at a sports book? This plan only works if you’re a multimillionaire or you’re running a Ponzi scheme. By the way, you’re not gonna believe this, but Bill Simmons is a huge “Streak For the Cash” fan. Every time I get to three in a row, I start dreaming about ESPN.com’s worst-case scenario of one of its employees (in this case, me) beating the game, followed by a mammoth Bob Ley investigation and 27 caustic Phil Mushnick columns.

 

Q: When I found out Al Davis’ mother lived until she was 103, I thought about impaling myself with a dull garden tool about 103 times. I’ll be 67 by the time the Raiders are respectable again. Can you please offer me some hope?
— Scott, Holiday, Fla.
 

SG: (Shaking my head sadly.)

 

 

Q: I don’t care what the SEC says: The J-Kidd transaction was Cuban’s greatest trading transgression of 2008.
— Marchy, Malibu, Calif.

SG: (Applauding.)

Sharks Talk… Some Leafs Too

If you wanna follow a team that is doing remarkable, record shattering stuff right now, then you need to follow the San Jose Sharks. After 30 games, they are 25-3-2. They have gotten 52 points out of a possible 60 points and have played only 3 games where they did not pick up a single point. How does that even happen, especially in the NHL now which has so much parity due to the salary cap structure. There are 3 other teams who have 6 or less losses after 29 games this season (Blackhawks, Bruins, Red Wings) all three of which just happen to be Original Six teams. 

I don’t know why but I only seem to talk about hockey about once every blue moon but here is the shootout from last night’s Leafs/Devils game. I don’t get to watch too much hockey now but I make to sure catch some of it when the Leafs are playing one of the local teams since they are on tv so I caught the game yesterday. It was a pretty tightly contested one where both teams could have put this one away in regulation but even after overtime they were tied so here is the shooutout.

The entire shootout clip is the second one but if you don’t have time (or even 4 minutes) to watch all 8 shots, here are the two top clips from the Leafs’ end. Just beauties – especially the Jason Blake shot (second shot in the first clip).

The entire shootout (after the break): Continue reading “Sharks Talk… Some Leafs Too”

My United States Cabinet (2024)

So still sticking to theme of politics and with President-elect Obama nominating people to this Cabinet, I thought I would create a mock list of my Cabinet. Granted I will not reach the age requirement until 2024 – not that it makes a difference since I will never be a natural born citizen. Hypothetically if those rules weren’t in place, my Cabinet just might look like the one listed below.

The top set of nominees are listed in order of succession to the Presidency and the ones below are five positions that have cabinet-level rank, which allows these individuals to attend Cabinet meetings without being secretaries of executive departments.

Feel free to comment if you are listed below or think you should be listed but I just made this list yesterday and I know I am missing a few good people. Some of these people I haven’t talked to in quite a while but from what I remember left quite the impression. I think I did a pretty fair job of getting people with diverse views and not all left-wing nuts or right wing radicals.

Feel free to make your own Cabinet and feel free to share.

Office Nominee
Vice President and President of the Senate Krishna Hajari
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike DiAmore
President pro tempore of the Senate Pam Ahn
Secretary of State Katie Murray
Secretary of the Treasury James Kong
Secretary of Defense Mike Bocchinfuso
Attorney General Vivake Prasad
Secretary of the Interior Brian Feraudo
Secretary of Agriculture Jason Rowe
Secretary of Commerce Kate Kelliher
Secretary of Labor Joscelyn Chang
Secretary of Health and Human Services Mark Angeles / Alexandria Gamboa*
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shivani Chopra
Secretary of Transportation Joseph Sullivan
Secretary of Energy Chad Edwards
Secretary of Education Lauren Scala
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tim Stanoch
Secretary of Homeland Security Ronak Savla
Positions that are not part of the Presidential line of succession
White House Chief of Staff Stephanie Albright
United States Trade Representative Hao Yan
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Amanda Grimes
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Justin Eusebio
Director of the National Drug Control Policy Eric Abrahamsen
Ambassador to the United Nations Tanya Manifold

* – The one pick I couldn’t settle on was the Secretary of Health and Human Services… Mark and Alex can fight amongst themselves to see who wants it.

Team On A Mission

This is an article I wrote for The Stute prior to the Final Four weekend and certainly I will be writing one about this weekend shortly, but here is the previous one.

“We are 5-3-2 in the NCAA Tournament over the past five seasons, so as a program we are looking to take the next step and reach the national semifinals for the first time.”

Those were the words of Men’s soccer coach Tim O’Donohue (7th season – 132-16-17) in the season preview release way back in August. The Ducks have gone 2-0-2, with 2 dramatic penalty kick wins two weeks ago here in Hoboken to reach that national semifinal for the first time.

Although the season is far from over with the Ducks still having the possibility of playing two of the biggest games in program history, they have already had quite a season. They started things off by defeating Redlands University from California, then ranked #8 in the country, by a 2-1 margin which would be the first of five consecutive wins the Ducks had to start the season. That start would push the team to a #5 ranking of all teams in D-III soccer but that would be as high as they would get as the Ducks because facing Swarthmore, a ranked opponent for the second time that week proved to be a little too much as they went down 2-0.

The loss stopped Stevens’ home unbeaten streak at 62 games going back to a October 2002 loss to United States Merchant Marine Academy. Since the loss on September 13th, the Ducks have lost only one game in their last 19 contests including a stretch of seven straight shutouts – six of which came in either the Empire8 Championship tournament or the NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Championship. To date, Stevens’ defense has allowed 1 goal in 400 minutes in the NCAA tournament.

Going up against Amherst in the semifinal, the Ducks enter the matchup with an impressive 18-2-4 record and have truly gotten here through a complete team effort. The first round was a lone goal by Todd Sheridan that put the Ducks past Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The following day it was two crucial goals by Nolan Sandberg that propelled the Stevens squad to the regional semifinals for the fifth time in six years.

Then came the weekend in Hoboken.

It would turn out to be “Pandemonium in Hoboken” as the play-by-play announcer for Stevens Athletics and Empire8.tv Matt Fitzsimmons would proclaim after senior captain Craig Moquin knocked home the final penalty shot against defending national champions Middlebury Panthers. The Ducks were still dancing and the fans had stormed the field on back to back nights in probably one of the most memorable sports weekends for Hoboken in recent history.

The Ducks scored 1 goal in 220 minutes of game time. After keeping the game scoreless and constantly battling off a relentless attack by Johns Hopkins in the sectional semifinal, the Ducks were able to advance on remarkable goalkeeping by sophomore sensation Zach Carr who saved four out of the five penalty shots he faced.

The national semifinal on Saturday, December 5th against Amherst is scheduled to start off at approximately 1:30 PM following the 11 AM matchup featuring Messiah College and Loras College – both of those teams advanced to the national semifinals in 2007. The NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Championship Final is scheduled for the following day.