You should be reading Ramble On right now.
Actually, you should be reading Bret’s stuff all the time. Because it’s always good. But now in particular, because he’s posting stories and pictures from his whirlwind trip last month to the underway USS Ronald Reagan, including COD rides between Naval Air Station North Island and the flight deck.
Read and enjoy.
18 April 2008 / 1 Comment / Tags: life, travel / TrackbackI wanted to like THE SPORTS BOOK ($35.00, DK Publishing, $23.10 at Amazon). Really, I did. The advance release I received advertised an encyclopedia of the rules and tactics of virtually every common athletic competition the world over. Ever been struck one night with an intense desire to figure out, “Just what the heck is korfball”? Tuned across Australian rules football on a public TV digital subchannel and been strangely entranced, yet completely confused as to the actual goal of the event? Well, this should be the book to solve all those problems.
Plus, it’s covered in Astroturf. No, really.
7 April 2008 / 0 Comments / Tags: booksWow, is Yahoo’s scenario generator awesome.
I have three of the four final-four teams: all but Kansas (not that Clemson, my pick out of the Midwest, could have beaten Davidson, let alone KU), and my running record is now at 39 of 60.
My current standing in my two pools is thoroughly mediocre, but the scenario generator gives me hope. In my 4th-of-6 pool, I finish second if the final is UNC-Memphis, no matter which way that game goes; conversely, if UCLA beats Memphis I stay 4th no matter how the other two games go. But in my 7th-of-14 pool, I finish tied for first either way in a UNC-Memphis final, second if Carolina wins over UCLA but all the way down to 9th if UCLA wins, all the way down to twelfth either way in a Kansas-UCLA final, and flipflop 5th or 6th in a Kansas-Memphis final.
1 April 2008 / 0 Comments / Tags: basketballThe condition of this year’s NCAA tournament is perhaps best described by the standing of my bracket (8 of 16 second round, 32 of 48 overall) in two separate pools. In one, I’m second of six players, behind one guy running away with the lead. In the other, I’m eighth out of 13. Same bracket, similar level and distribution of basketball knowledge (though a different set of biases), wildly different competitive standing.
The upset that surprised me least in the second round is the one that surprised the rest of nation the most: Davidson defeating Georgetown at the RBC Center in Raleigh, emerging from the subregional opposite UNC’s 1-seed. Carolina lost to Georgetown last year in the regional finals, and even that aside, there’s very little love lost for the Hoyas among ACC fans in the Old North State. I told everyone I talked to that if Davidson could keep it close in the second half as latecoming Tar Heel fans finally filed in from their Easter Sunday dinners, the building would close in on Georgetown; that’s precisely what happened. The Post is right to be upset over the home-court advantage to Davidson, but all the writers freely admitted that the Hoyas lost the game on their own merit.
Tech was drawn into a couple tournament stories as well, even as the Hokies awaited their NIT second-round date with UAB (taking place as I write). Most prominent was the fact that the Davidson sharpshooter Stephen Curry, son of Hokie legend Dell Curry, somehow eluded VT’s recruiting grasp — a story simplistically played as a serious failure by Seth Greenberg.
24 March 2008 / 0 Comments / Tags: basketball, media, realignment