Week 1 Picks: College

1.  Pitt -14

2.  Michigan-3.5

3.  Oklahoma State -7.5

4.  Virginia Tech -9.5

20 on each, sorry for the quick picks, but I have things to do.

2008 College Football Preview

It’s time for another year of college football awesomeness and the season really snuck up on me.  This may be due to the fact that I have left moderate sized city living for the suburban sprawl of Central Florida.  While I am sure you find my life stories quite entertaining, let’s get to the task at hand. 

The first order of business is to change my line from the self proclaimed “Marion County’s Number 1 Handicapper” to the self proclaimed “First Coast/Flagler County/Central Florida’s Number 1 Handicapper…..formerly known as Marion County’s Number 1 Self Proclaimed Handicapper.”  Good, we have item one cleared up. 

Last Year:

Last season I posted a 42-38 overall record, grossing a fair $325 fake dollars profit on the season.  At least I didn’t lose it all and have to “re-up” my fake loot.  If you have a spent any time on the site, you are aware that I will do the following things:

This is a warm-up: Olympic Recap

So the Olympics are officially over and since this is a football-mostly blog, I have not had much to say lately.  As a warm-up for the 2008 football season I figured I would give all 83,000 of my readers some love before I enter my third season of clever observations and witty quips.

1.  It’s hard to talk about the Olympics without mentioning the best story of the games……Not Michael Phelps, of course I am referring to the female gymnasts of China.  I need to give these young broads credit.  While we Americans are going insane because some dude who works in the internet security field has claimed that multiple female gymnasts from China can’t drive cars in our country due to their age, a small majority are losing their minds because some of these athletes have allegedly broken the age restriction rules without their knowledge.  Does anyone recall that China is a communist country that has a “ministry of information” if you will, which controls every piece of info….in and out.  Didn’t you assholes see V for Vendetta?  It’s like that.   

By the time these girls are old enough to be legal with regard to gymnastics in their human rights abusing country; they have been chewed up and spit out by their system.  The closest 16 year old Chinese gymnasts get to participating in the Olympics is making Nike shoes in a sweat shop on the outskirts of Hong Kong.  As a coworker mentioned to me today, “why do we (Americans) want to know that a group of younger athletes beat the crap out of us?”  He makes a valid point.  Also, would there have been such uproar if batshit crazy announcer Bela Karoli hadn’t made such a big deal about it?  Chinese former athletes who can’t carry their weight disappear via the “ministry of lead making American toy factories” anyway.  Let these girls be.

*Side note-  Was this even a story on the Swedish newsfeed of the Olympics, or any other country for that matter?

2.  American Swimming VS. American Track

American swimmers seem to have their shit together while USA Track and Field seems to be run by me after a 12 month drinking binge.  It’s hard to say whether or not USA swimmers were that well prepared, considering they all seem to have different coaches- more so than their track ego-thetes but hell Phelps can win 8 gold medals, and Tyson Gay can’t make a final?  While it’s hard to underestimate the abilities of other countries, its far easier to assume that these track athletes have decided they can win events by just showing up.  Time to get your head straight USA T&F.

I must give credit to Michael Phelps; I actually cared about swimming for a week.  It was the first time since 2004 oddly enough.  Perhaps his story can be optioned into a major motion picture.  I presume when it comes out in 2015, they will overplay the “America needed a hero” angle.

3.  The Opening Ceremonies-

While I don’t disagree that the opening ceremonies were visually stunning, I don’t care.  I hated the fact that NBC had an announcer who was employed to specifically tell me what everything meant.  I’m not a big culture guy to begin with and my lack of interest was confirmed after the news came out that most of the ceremony was a big hoax created by the “Ministry of Tiananmen Square Never Happened.”  Fake fireworks, ugly girls swapped out for more appealing ones, humans re-enacting how papyrus becomes paper, “volunteers” acting out the ancient art of Chinese dance fighting?  Come on, I at least would have respected a sweat shop presentation sponsored by Kathy Lee Gifford’s likeness making out with Phil Knight, perhaps an ode to the modernization of China exemplified by the pollution, which is apparent in Beijing.  Give me a chuckle China.

4.  USA Basketball WIns!

No shit, congrats overpaid babies.  Redeem team?  More like we are a bunch of overpaid athletes who should win, yet since our last team lost we have been compensated in our offseason to be coached by someone who can’t really control our egos, but if we lose we have to answer to the American public and not him, team.

Here is a question, why does everyone care that the U.S. basketball team did not win a medal in 2004, yet no one seems to give a shit that the U.S. baseball team has not won gold since 2000 and didn’t even qualify for the games in 2004?  Where is the uproar from the American public?

5.  Least Inspirational Athlete

Bernard Lagat, who finished fifth in the semi-final heat of the men’s 1500m run.  Born a Kenyan, he faced a ton of resistance from his countrymen when he opted to run for the US in these Olympics.  Lucky for us Americans it seems he really took to his new citizenship.  He probably became completely sedentary after signing his naturalization papers.  Way to fail to impress.

*Update-  Lagat has now also failed to medal in the 5,000m.  Cool.

 

6.  Best Sporting Event To Watch-

Swimming, no doubt about it.  I could not care who won, but records were smashed (due to the larger, deeper pool from what I hear).  It’s by far the most impressive thing the summer games have going for them. 

7.  Worst Sporting Event To Watch-

It’s called Rhythmic Gymnastics.  If you know, you know.  If you don’t, it’s what they make you watch while on death row.

8.  Biggest Overplayed Sappy Story-

Did anyone catch the one about Misty May-Treanor and her mother’s death and Jason Kidd?  It would be hard to miss if you watched ANY of the Olympics.  Well apparently, May idolized Kidd during her formative years.  She always wore the number 5 in every sport she played.  She even got the chance to meet Kidd some time ago.  Since both are in the Olympics again, they “reconnected” according to the words of NBC announcers.  Additionally, May even has a tattoo with the Roman numeral 5 on it.  Now I hate to start vicious rumors about marital infidelity with no actual knowledge behind it, but the Chinese did give out 100,000 condoms and May’s husband was not in China.

In an unrelated story, Misty May-Treanor’s mother died in 2002.  Since then she makes the conscious decision to grab containers such as prescription bottles, transfer ashes of her dead mother into said containers, puts it in her luggage, transports it though different countries, keeps it in her hotel room, transports the container to the beach volleyball arena, then dumps the remains of her mother in the sand.  She did this in 2004 and 2008.  Does anyone else find this odd? 

9.  Best On Air Personality- 

Teddy Atlas, it’s funny that Teddy Atlas and his clichéd boxing rhetoric work for the National Broadcasting Company.  Think about that.

10.  Worst On Air Personality-

Rowdy

Rowdy Gaines, Cris Collinsworth and Bela “Batshit Crazy” Karolyi.  Gaines knows his swimming but fails to impress.  I can’t pay attention to him since I didn’t believe his acting job in those endless pool commercials.  He also continued to say time and time again that something was “impossible;” like it was impossible for the U.S. relay team to win the gold medal against France.  In fact, he went on to say that for a week he had been doing “calculations” to figure out how the U.S. could win, and he could not find any scenario in which our countrymen came out on top.

What complex mathematics was he going over in laboratory?  You take 4 dudes and their best times for each country, then make a guess and say something like “all the American swimmers will need to swim a fast leg if they want to win against the French team.”  Fin!

Cris Collinsworth wasn’t terrible but they kept putting him in situations where he was totally out of his element.  My favorite was when he was sitting next Michael Phelps mother during a race for some reason.  Was he there to interview her?  Sadly, we will never know.

Collinsworth has made it clear even he doesn’t know what he is supposed to be doing and has said so…..on air. 

11.  Best New Event-

BMX!!!!!!!!  It’s like short track speed skating but with bikes.  I love it.

12.  Events That Should be banished-

Baseball, softball, trampoline, rhythmic gymnastics, anything with judges.

In the end, once again I was glued to my television for the better part of 17 days.  Despite its flaws, the games never fail to let me down.  While the Olympics continue to claim that they champion the cause of amateurism at its best and good will towards others, it is really just another way for us to remember that there is so much beauty in the world.  Also, make sure you keep that in mind when drinking a coke or a Bud, using your Visa card, and shopping for Johnson and Johnson products.