At least someone picked each of the Final Four participants, meaning one person selected Louisville. Kentucky was the favorite at the start and they look to have a path to the title. Ohio State was the only one of the four to not be picked to win the title. Likely due to the Penn State leanings of many of the participants. I made the bold pick of Missouri to win it all, so I was done real quick.
I’m fascinated by Opening Day starters. I think a team announcing its Opening Day starter should be a bigger deal with a grand unveiling. I guess the problem is that anyone worthy of a big show would already be the assumed Opening Day starter.
Imagine my excitement for a headline like this from Rob Neyer: Bruce Chen Tabbbed As Royals’ Opening-Day Starter This is the perfect example for the reason that my hopes of grand announcements is flawed. How many Royals fans want an event that tells the world their best pitcher is Bruce Chen?
Now, BC wasn’t exactly terrible last year at 12-8, 3.77. To me, his 2-ish seasons with the Phillies jump to mind first. In 31 whole games started, he piled up a 7-9, 4.28. In 2000/2001 that was average on average teams.
I was curious to see what Royals fans have had to put up with over the past few seasons. At least they had some Greinke, right? As always, Baseball Reference is awesome. We’ll start from 2000:
Jeff Suppan for 3 years, Runelvys Hernandez (haven’t thought about him in a while), Brian Anderson, Jose Lima, Scott Elarton, Gil Meche for 3 years, Zack Greinke, and Luke Hochevar last season. Poor KC.
Some other things …
Minor League Guy plays for the Cardinals. Well done by both the play-by-play guys for being funny but not too mean to the rookie. Also, an amazing job by the graphics guy to throw the graphic together.
Honus Wagner card up for auction. If I ever become rich, I’m not sure I’d waste money on flashy cars and boats. But probably will spend on houses and suites at sporting events. However, that one thing that money would not matter … this card.
Finally, 49 things you should know about Jamie Moyer.
Ice Cream Helmet
Gym Class Lineup – You can set your lineup now for the next game, April 4th, Cardinals in Miami. I’d have to go with OF being the closest matchup between Beltran and Morrison.
There are so many amazing things about the self-driving car that I didn’t take the time to think past how it would improve things for current drivers.
With blind drivers, I imagine a lot of things would need to be changed a bit. In the video, I was curious how the drive-thru person would react. What about the gas station?
How far can it go? Can you send your kids to school in a self-driving car?
Found at 9to5 Google.
Tony Reali injures his finger hitting the mute button
Not Reali. Of all the people I want to get injured on ATH, Tony is at the bottom of the list.
I haven’t watched in so long, I’m not even sure who the few I liked were and who is still around. I think most of the ones I liked got hired by ESPN and now appear on SportsCenter and their other shows.
Prepared to be confused …
You know what. I don’t have anything else to add. A ticket oak? It just makes no sense. I guess that’s the idea?
Danny O'Brien's Academic Prospectus – Black Shoe Diaries
1) PSU might be getting a new QB (the coach’s son?) who would clearly be the Bridge to Hackenberg.
2 (and more important)) We have a masters program in Rural Sociology? Can I do another Masters? Actually, I’d prefer Suburban Sociology.
Puck Drawn – Columbus Re-Brand
The post kicking off the competition blames the Blue Jackets branding for most of their problems. Makes sense. Puck Drawn does these sorts of competitions a lot and has all sorts of cool jersey and logo concepts. So while I have no connection to Columbus, and you probably don’t either, still, check it out.
The next contest is for a redesign of any current team.
New Soul Jerseys
Oh, right, the Philadelphia Soul still exist. After that cancelled season, I don’t think anyone cares about the Arena league, not that it was huge before (hence the cancelation). Not only are they still around, they have new jerseys I guess, and they look like the Carolina Panthers, which is not a good thing.
I had to look it up, but I was correct in thinking the Soul won the season before the cancelled year. That was 2008. The cancelled year was 2009. That surprised me, that there have been 2 seasons since they came back, 2012 will be the 3rd. I don’t need to tell you, but the winners those years were the Spokane Shock (2010) and Jacksonville Sharks (2011).
Neilson’s Year in Sports TV Advertising
What I found most interesting was the spend of the wireless carriers on sports advertising. You’d think beer would be at the top, things like DirecTV make sense. But wireless? That’s not really strongly tied. Sure there are some apps, and some carriers have deals with leagues, but I’ve never seen them as very much of a draw of one carrier over another. I think it has to come down to sports being the perfect demo that wireless carriers are going after. AT&T must be convinced of that, they doubled Bud Light’s spend.
This video is actually from 2005, and posted last May. I watched in a few days ago and haven’t had a shoelace come untied yet. Of course, I haven’t been walking around very much, and my dress shoes are the real problems, they will be the real test. It’s a little harder to tie this way, but not impossible. It could just be because I’m so used to the old way. I’ll be curious if it does work if eventually it won’t feel weird.
This may change my life. In undergrad I decided that if my shoe came untied during the day it was bad luck.
It’s calmed down, but a few weeks ago this song was stuck in my head non-stop. I think they paid off Spotify, cause it kept coming up on my playlist. Even if they did, it was worth it.
What I didn’t know until writing this post is that this is a cover. I was shocked. How could the song sound any different? Oh, you must listen to the original by Trampled By Turtles. How did they even get from there to the cover? I still like the MCS version, but I have the urge to add Trampled By Turtles to Spotify. The name alone is awesome and this song has be uber-curious.
Motion City Soundtrack version links: Wait So Long
This TED Talk, The happy secret to better work, was just loaded with facts and studies. One caught my attention a little more than the others. That when someone smiles at you, you mimic the smile and use that to determine if the smile is genuine.
Ok, when someone smiles at you, you smile back. Makes sense. But mimicking their smile? I had no idea. But how to test that is what actually happens? They made people hold a pencil in their mouth which inhibited their ability to mimic the smile. Those subjects were less accurate in determining if a smile was genuine.
Much more on smiling in this NY Times story.
Seems like there are a lot of possibilities here. Are some people’s smiles more easily mimicked? Does this lead to success being famous or holding higher political office. Is there smile compatibility? Do people have a smile-type they look for in a mate? Could dating sites use this to find a match where each person is the others smile-type?
Who knew there was so much research in smiling?
I have a couple of TED videos queued up to share. Most of them I have something to add besides just posting. This one, I can just post. Don’t worry, it’s not a sad talk, or one that makes you think to much.
