Elite training for the homeless

WikiHow has instructions for making weight training equipment out of pretty much anything that resists gravity. My favorite suggestion is to "use canned goods that fit in your hands as simple hand weights." This one seemed like an especially great suggestion given the synergy it has with local canned food drives. I was a little confused though by the warning to "always consult with a doctor or qualified health professional before beginning an exercise program." If you're using a sock full of beans to workout, how good can your health coverage be?

Grading the MNF crew

We're about halfway through the NFL season and I think we've given the ESPN Monday Night Crew long enough to show what they bring to the table. Here's my take on how each of them is doing.

Chris Berman - He's terrible, completely cliche and almost never funny, but he's constantly trying to be. ESPN seems to be sticking with him out of loyalty because he's been there forever.
Overall Grade: F

Steve Young - Doing a nice job overall. He's constantly focusing on QB play in his analysis, but that's not necessarily a bad thing and to be expected given his resume.
Overall Grade: A-

Michael Irvin - Why is he on there? He seems like he would challenge Vince Young in a game of IQ Limbo.
Overall Grade: D

Tom Jackson - I don't know if he's the greatest football mind out there or even close, but he stays within his abilities. Comes across as a nice guy and doesn't take anything away from the broadcast.
Overall Grade: B+

Chris Mortensen - I don't like him or hate him. He does what he does and I haven't really formed an opinion about it.
Overall Grade: B-

Tony Kornheiser - The combover has to go. Otherwise, I have no real complaints. He comes across as the same guy from PTI. He isn't trying too hard for the MNF gig.
Overall Grade: A-

Joe Theismann - Not a fan. His analysis is pretty straightforward and rarely says anything that I wasn't already thinking on my own. They need to upgrade at this spot. The one bright side of keeping him around is that he makes a nice verbal pinata for Kornheiser.
Overall Grade: C

Mike Tirico - Provides some very nice play-by-play. I don't really have any complaints. He's definitely a guy you can build a team around.
Overall Grade: A

Michelle Tafoya - A trainwreck in HD. There has to be about a thousand better choices for this job. Its about time they call someone up.
Overall Grade: D-

Suzy Kolber - Not nearly as bad as Tafoya, in fact she does about as good as one can do in her position. Being a sideline reporter means that you're in a position to fail.
Overall Grade: B

If you build it, they will come

It seems that anything these days can be built from lego pieces. I remember when I was younger I was happy if I was able to build something resembling a house. Now you have a company like Burik Model Design creating replicas of stadiums such as Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards, and Heinz Field. While those replicas were really well done, I don’t know if they can compete with the replica of Allianz Arena that is at Legoland. This replica looks so much like the actual stadium in Munich that it’s kind of scary.

America's new favorite pastime?

On Sunday as the 1 pm football games were ending, I noticed that there was not going to be a second game on FOX. Instead, they were going to be showing professional bull riding. I must have missed when that became a popular sport in America. FOX must be looking for anything they can find to grab ratings, especially after the World Series was the lowest rated ever. I am just not sure if bull riding is going to get them the ratings they are looking for. JC Penney is also trying to profit off of the new bull riding craze in America, as they are now offering a product called the spring bull. I found it interesting that this product was for children ages 3 and up. Somehow, I don’t see myself putting a 3 year old on something like this and I definitely don’t think that they would make it on there for 8 seconds. After all, we can’t all ride bulls like Luke Perry!

Worst assemblage of cotton ever?

I'm probably late to the party in knowing about these baseball caps, but someone should have warned me sooner. They are a complete disaster from at least 5 standpoints, not the least of which is their overall style. They look like the kind of thing a clueless mom who collects beanie babies would give her son who likes "Baseball", but she's not sure what his favorite team is. I was all ready to annoint these the worst baseball hats ever made, but then I remembered this bedazzled beauty from Debbie Clemens and now I can't make up my mind.

Demon Sphere Gyro Ball

This pitch, supposedly discovered by a Japanese computer scientist, can theoretically break like a slider without giving into gravity.

The end of Bobby Bowden?

Last week, all the talk around college football was about Bobby Bowden retiring, or possibly even getting pushed out by Florida State boosters. Bobby evidently knows he's getting close to the end of his career, but has no plans to go anywhere anytime soon. The talk should be even more rampant this week after the loss to Maryland, which knocked Florida State to 4-4, 2-4 in the ACC. Even the people at MotivationalBuck.com seem to feel like it’s time for Bowden to go. I think he should be able to go out on his terms, but then again I am kind of enjoying watching them lose so many games this season.

Boxing's last hope

How terrible is boxing these days? Mike Tyson recently fought an exhibition against his 300 pound sparring partner, Corey "T. Rex" Sanders. Tyson apologized for knocking him down in the first round and later held him up when the guy was about to fall after taking a punch. This is a kind gesture considering his opponent was blind in one eye. There's also a new Rocky movie coming out, Rocky Balboa. As if a washed up Tyson fighting in his 40's wasn't pathetic enough, Stallone's going to try it in his 60's.

So with the growing popularity of UFC and K1, where does that leave boxing? The Contender seemed to get a little attention, but not enough to turn the sport around. That leaves the upcoming, SuperFighter tournament, scheduled for December 2nd, as the only real chance on the horizon for boxing to gain some marketshare back. The tournament will pit 8 "top" heavyweight fighters against each other in a single elimination style tournament over a 4 hour period (winner takes home $5 million). With this tournament, boxing is addressing its biggest deficiency. A single main event with no-name undercards just isn't enough to draw the pay-per-view dollars anymore. UFC and K1 beat boxing to the punch (no pun intended) by offering events with more than a handful of intriguing matchups every night.

Kim Jong Il loves this game too!

Many people may know Kim Jong Il as the bad guy from "Team America: World Police", but he is in fact a real world leader, and according to this article, a huge Chicago Bulls fan. This is a development I never expected, as I figured that most of his time would be spent planning world domination and developing nuclear weapons. I guess when Kim Jong Il is able to watch players like Kobe and Shaq on TV, he will never have to worry about being "ronery".

Show your team pride even in death

Eternal Image has entered a licensing agreement with Major League Baseball to make urns and caskets with official MLB logos on them (link). 6 teams, the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers should have urns available for opening day 2007. The company hopes to have all 30 teams available eventually. Personally, I'd rather be turned into a diamond so that I could maybe end up on someone's grills.

Never do this to your kid

Do you get it? Its a QUARTER-BACK. FamilyFun.com actually has instructions for how to put this together. I guess the whole point is that the kid would show up to a house trick-or-treating and the person answering the door would say "Hey, what are YOU supposed to be?". At which point, the child would turn around and say "I'm a QUARTER-BACK!" and everyone is supposed to laugh. They also have this great one entitled "Soccer Star". The point is to basically have your kid put on their youth league sports uniform.

The key to being a goalie

Scientists in Canada have discovered the exact spots hockey goalies need to watch to successfully block shots. Link

It turns out that successful goalies focus their eyes on the puck. Shocking result, however as graduate student Derek Panchuk points out, "Looking at the puck seems fairly obvious, until you look at the eye movements of novice goaltenders, who scatter their gaze all over the place and have a much lower save percentage than the elite goalies." So there you have it, if you are trying to stop a puck, ball, or wrench, focus your eyes on said object.

Double Dribble lives on

I absolutely loved this game as a kid. The graphics for the dunk sequences were nothing short of amazing to me. Looking back, it was just 3 poor quality pictures that played like a slideshow. You can get the game here to play on your computer. You'll have to download an NES emulator first. I'm pretty sure its illegal though to download these roms unless you actually own the game.

Snow Valley 1939-1982

Here's a Tribute to Snow Valley, a small ski area up in Vermont that eventually went under in 1982. The site has some great old pictures of the place and more information than you'd ever need to know about a defunct ski area. In a related story, Maple Valley ski area in Vermont is actually for sale. Only $1,750,000.

Chad's back!

If you play fantasy football, you probably know this by now, but Chad Johnson has been a major disappointment this season, both on and off the field. He has just one receiving TD this season, in week 2 vs. Cleveland. That same week he took this hit Which led to the postgame interview found below. This week he gets to face off against DeAngelo Hall and the Atlanta Falcons, and the Chad Johnson we know and love has returned. We will have to wait until Sunday to see if Chad Johnson is back to normal on the field as well.

"Father Knickerbocker" dribbling a basketball

Apparently, this was actually the Knicks logo from 1947 - 1964. Really? They kept this logo for 17 years? Can you picture Spike Lee sitting courtside rockin a jersey with Ben Franklin's cousin on the front? Actually, if you read below, you'll see that they brought this thing back last year for a throwback jersey. Apparently, anything becomes cool again when its on a throwback jersey. Check out SportsLogos.net to look up pretty much any logo.

'Father Knickerbocker' was at one time the symbol of New York City, going back to editoral cartoons in the 19th century, so when New York's Professional Basketball team was founded and decided to call themselves 'the Knickerbockers', it only seemed natural to have Father Knickerbocker associated with the team. In the club's early days he was used as a logo and displayed prominently on the team's uniform shorts. After 1964 the Knicks decided to go with a more simple logo as the name was unofficially shortened to 'Knicks' and was displayed over a basketball. Father Knickerbocker was sent to the archives until 2005 when he returned after a 40-year absence on a throwback uniform.

Posted by Chris Creamer on September 8, 2006

It's never too early

The College football season is in full swing, but CNNSI.com is getting a head start and has already predicted their Top 10 picks for the 2007 NFL Draft. I found this interesting, because usually when I read NFL mock drafts, it is late March and I have not seen any of these guys play for three months. This list has more meaning to me this year because my favorite team, the Redskins, look more and more like they are going to have a Top 10 pick this year (if they don't trade it away). CNNSI currently predicts Georgia Tech WR Calvin Johnson as the #1 pick. Obviously, some people on MotivationalBuck.com think he is worthy of that honor.

Completely addicting putting game

I think after all of the time I've spent playing this game, my high score is somewhere around 11. Is there anything more satisfying than beating a personal best at a random internet flash game? I didn't think so.

Busch Stadium from space!

Pictures from satellites are still really cool to me. Here's Busch Stadium from Google Maps. Well actually this is the old Busch Stadium. Google's satellites apparently haven't snapped any pictures over St. Louis this year yet.

Greatest athlete performance ever?

I was recently discussing with some friends what the greatest performance by an athlete was on film. My first thought was Ray Allen as Jesus Shuttlesworth in He Got Game. However, can that really beat Kareem in Airplane? I don't have an answer, I think I just felt like posting a clip from Airplane.

Miami-FIU brawl

The Miami-FIU game was almost two weeks ago, but punishments are still being handed out from the brawl. I, for one, find it funny that Miami football players are teaching students in Dade County sportsmanship and behavior. After all, they did put the U in Thug. I just wish Maryland had shown as much fight as Miami when they played FIU, who is still winless, earlier in the season.

Party on

This weekend is the annual Florida-Georgia game in Jacksonville, Florida. It has always affectionately been known as the “World’s Largest Cocktail Party” but evidently that is about to change.

My sister is a University of Florida alum, class of 04’, and she went to Jacksonville a few times for this game. I don’t think she ever made it into the stadium, even if she had tickets to the game. She was just there for the festivities, like many other Florida and Georgia fans will be this weekend. They may try to take the name away, but somehow I still believe that the area from Jacksonville Landing to Alltel Stadium will remain one big party.

You can ring my bell

Just in case anyone hasn't seen this one yet, its a classic. And by classic, I mean a few years old and involves a guy biting his lip and beating a bell like it owes him money.

Go local sports team and/or college

This is a great t-shirt from tshirthell.com for whenever you're at a game just for the tailgating and don't want to piss off the locals by wearing your actual team's gear.