How Obama got America back on its feet and marginalized his opposition

Our President just gave an outstanding address. Not only he perfectly state what his plans were for the country but showing an investment in what he expects from us. It is that expectation that had the republicans feeling the walls close in on them. After all of this "united message" from leaders of the GOP they found that their message is just a little tweet on a Twitter that no one is following. The President made everybody stand up and cheer on issues that you would of never dreamed of in the last administration. If you get Senator McCain to give a standing ovation on ending the war on Iraq or to get them to cheer about taxing the rich people I'd expect you to almost walk on water. But what the President did was to call them out in the most polite way and just pretty much force them to almost apologize for all their talking points they been putting out on TV. At least it seemed like it with all the clapping they did tonight.

Then you get Gov. Jindal with the "Republican response". I wonder if he ever heard  about the FEMA meltdown which was under Bush's administration when he was talking about the bureaucratic red tape that halted rescue efforts. He said the lesson learned was that the government can't do anything in a correct and orderly manor. I think he may be right but he is omitting one thing from that statement: A REPUBLICAN government failed and just because they did does not mean at all that the Obama administration is going to do things like they did the last 8 years. And the talk about the universal health care plan the Republicans have did not make any sense. If they had a plan and it is so awesome then where was it? They had control of both parts of congress and also the white house yet they didn't bother to ever bring up the matter let alone pass anything remotely resembling universal health care. His response came across extremely patronizing. All the 80's style "you are special" expressions will not get your party back into the country's favor. He does represent the spirit of his party but unfortunately that spirit is out of step with the times.

ESPN.com reports on "the greatest streak in the history of college varsity sports; you've never heard of it."

Oklahoma State's women went 0-for-18 on three-point attempts last night against Texas Tech. That wasn't quite as bad as the Dayton men's 0-for-24 night behind the arc earlier this season, but was still pretty weak.

The Cowgirls entered the game hitting only .321 on trey attempts, which converts to a .679 rate of missing. We then raise .679 to the 18th power (representing the 18 misses), yielding .0009. Rounding up to .001, Oklahoma State's futility behind the arc would have had a prior probability of 1-in-1,000.

This calculation assumes independence of observations, that the outcome of one shot has no bearing on the next, like coin-flipping. A great deal of past research suggests that an independence model generally fits athletic performances well.

Saturday's men's college basketball action featured two players carrying their respective teams on their backs for large segments of their teams' games.

Maryland's Greivis Vasquez scored his team's first 16 points of the game against North Carolina (article, play-by-play sheet). One might expect Vasquez to have exhibited some amazingly hot shooting to accomplish this feat. However, before he made his seventh basket to reach 16 points (5 two-point hoops and 2 three-pointers), he had missed four shots. Vasquez then went through a 19-minute scoreless stretch (he scored his 16th point with 13:39 remaining in the first half and didn't score again until there was 14:39 left in the game), although he helped his team in other departments. He scored 11 points in the second half and eight in overtime, giving him 35 points. Combined with his 11 rebounds and 10 assists, Vasquez also recorded a triple-double in the Terps' win.

Halfway acress the country, as Texas handed Oklahoma its first Big 12 conference loss of the season, the Longhorns' A.J. Abrams became the go-to guy late. He scored 16 straight points, and 18 of his team's final 20, ending with 23 points in all (article, play-by-play).

Two college basketball games I saw on television today, the Texas Tech men's game at Oklahoma and the Texas Tech women's game at Nebraska, featured barrages of made three-point shots by individual players.

In the men's game, won by Oklahoma 95-74, the Sooners' Cade Davis made three treys in less than a minute late in the first half to get the OU blowout going (from 3:08 on the clock down to 2:18; play-by-play sheet). Tech's Nick Okorie made his first seven field-goal attempts of the game (six two-pointers and a three) to keep the Red Raiders in the game for a while.

On the women's side, Tech cut a 56-37 Cornhusker lead with 7:47 left in the game to just four points (60-56) with 50 seconds left, although Nebraska ultimately held on, 62-56. Giving the Lady Raiders hope was Jordan Murphree, who made three three-pointers in a little over a minute (2:05 to 0:50 left in the game; play-by-play).

This weekend we have two milestone anniversaries of amazing college basketball games. Today is the 10th anniversary of a hot-shooting Rayford Young leading Texas Tech to an upset comeback win over Kansas. Sunday is the 15th anniversary of Kentucky's comeback from a 31-point deficit against LSU with less than 16 minutes left in the game to defeat the stunned Tigers, 99-95.

Young's performance for Texas Tech, which I witnessed in person, was incredible in many ways...

*He scored 32 points in (roughly) the final nine minutes of the game (41 points in all).

*He went a perfect 18-of-18 from the free-throw line (including 12-of-12 in the closing minutes). The Red Raider squad as a whole went 30-of-32 from the stripe.

*For the game, Young hit on 5-of-7 three-point attempts.

In the Kentucky-LSU game, the Tigers at one point reeled off an 18-0 run, which the Wildcats answered with a 24-4 spurt.

The February 2, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated (with LeBron James on the cover) includes a sometimes humorous, sometimes serious article by Richard Hoffer on the elusiveness of sports momentum as a documentable phenomenon (at this point, I've not been able to find an online version of the article). As the article's subtitle puts it: "Broadcasters and coaches love to cite it, but what exactly is the Big Mo?"

After citing some academic concepts and articles, Hoffer draws some conclusions:

If [momentum] were going to be that easy to explain, we'd have found a way to duplicate it, coach it and write best-selling books about it...

...at these upper levels of performance, the talent is so evenly distributed... that random events -- pieces of luck, an unlikely and inspired effort here or there, a boneheaded decision, a blown call -- are often the difference in a game, a season or even a career.

By handing the Cleveland Cavaliers their first home loss of the season this afternoon, the Los Angeles Lakers have earned the designation "streak-breaking Los Angeles Lakers" in this AP article. As the article notes:

The Cavaliers came in 23-0 at Quicken Loans Arena, but were stopped by the Lakers, who ended Boston's 19-game winning streak on Christmas Day and halted a 12-game run by the Celtics earlier this week.

Why Your Team Didn't Win The Super Bowl - NFC

Everyone has a team that they are loyal towards and most fans had their dreams crushed at some point this season. Some teams had a tough defeat in the playoffs and some teams never really had any shot at the Super Bowl. It was a long season with many ups and downs and some team's seasons could have been salvaged by one single play that didn't go their way or a string of bad GM decisions. Here are the reasons why your NFC team didn't win the Super Bowl.

Arizona Cardinals - They thought the Super Bowl was only 58 minutes long. I can't imagine how it feel to be Kurt Warner. He has been on the sideline while two, almost all three, of his Super Bowls were lost.

Atlanta Falcons - They were just happy to make the playoffs, but when they got there, they didn't give Arizona any credit. The Falcons should be good for years, they won't make this mistake again.

Carolina Panthers - They thought that Jake Delhomme was good enough to still be their quarterback. Like the Falcons mistake, they probably won't make this mistake again.

Chicago Bears - They depend on a quarterback who thinks a neckbeard is fashionable. I know Rex Grossman isn't any better, but they had a chance to trade for Donavon McNabb at some point last off-season and didn't do it.

Dallas Cowboys - Tony Romo met Jessica Simpson. I know this didn't happen this season, but seems like all the tabloid coverage has really hurt his on-field ability to win games.

Detroit Lions - Barry Sanders retired. It has been that long since the words Lions and playoffs have been in the sentence or paragraph.

Green Bay Packers - They let the Brett Favre saga drag on for too long. All the drama that surrounded the Packers was counter-productive to their growth as a team.

Minnesota Vikings - They have no other offense weapons other than Adrian Peterson. I know Visanthe Shiancoe has a weapon, but we can't talk about that on this blog.

New Orleans Saints - They drafted Reggie Bush. That draft choice should have went towards a defensive player, in hindsight, but aren't we all a genius when hindsight is in involved?

New York Giants - Plaxico Burress bought a gun. If Plax didn't shoot himself, I'm sure that they would have beat the Eagles in the playoffs. Hixon couldn't handle the burden of being the #1 receiver.

Philadelphia Eagles - Donovan McNabb's conditioning. It is a trend that McNabb becomes gassed as the game goes on. He can't finish games and needs to lose the extra 20 pounds of Chunky Soup weight he has put on over the last few seasons.

San Francisco 49ers - Mike Nolan was their coach at the beginning of the year. Mike Singletary proved his worth as a coach and will be the best sound bite in the NFL over the next few years.

Seattle Seahawks - Their entire offense was in the hospital by Week 3. Not only was their entire receiving squad on injury report, but Matt Hasselbeck barely played.

St. Louis Rams - Orlando Pace retired. Pace was a major reason for all the success the Rams had during their prime. He kept the quarterback upright and once he was gone, Bulger was eating more grass than a cow.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers - The team was distracted by Jeff Garcia's hot wife. I can't think of any real reason why they didn't even make the playoffs, but they collapsed the last few weeks of the season. Jon Gruden wished he knew the reason too, he may still have his job.

Washington Redskins - They hired Jim Zorn. The first game of the year, they were killed by the Giants, then they went on a run, but then they hit a wall. Zorn is probably the least qualified to be a head coach and his play-calling was mind-boggling at times.

Why Your Team Didn't Win The Super Bowl - AFC

Everyone has a team that they are loyal towards and most fans had their dreams crushed at some point this season. Some teams had a tough defeat in the playoffs and some teams never really had any shot at the Super Bowl. It was a long season with many ups and downs and some team's seasons could have been salvaged by one single play that didn't go their way or a string of bad GM decisions. Here are the reasons why your AFC team didn't win the Super Bowl.

Baltimore Ravens - Their offsense was too erratic and relied solely on their running game to score points. Joe Flacco will end up being a good NFL quarterback, but they just asked too much of him in his rookie season.

Buffalo Bills - They drafted Trent Edwards. Edwards spent most of his college career injured and can't seem to stay healthy.

Cincinnati Bengals - Carson Palmer's injury made the Bengals regress in 2008. I'm not sure if they would have been a playoff team if Palmer stayed healthy, but his injury made them look like amateurs.

Cleveland Browns - Romeo Crennel was their head coach. I know that most of the Browns recent draft picks haven't lived up to the hype, but a coaching change will do them well.

Denver Broncos - A Pop Warner team could pass on their secondary. A team with Dre Bly and Champ Bailey shouldn't be this bad.

Houston Texans - They are in the same division as the Colts and Titans. If doesn't help their record or confidence when you face two of the best teams twice a year.

Indianapolis Colts -They can't beat the Chargers in the post-season. They had a long winning streak going into the playoffs, but San Diego has their number.


Jacksonville Jaguars - They let Marcus Stroud leave. The Jaguars defense wasn't the same without Stroud clogging the running lanes.

Kansas City Chiefs - I'm not sure if they have rebounded from being on HBO's "Hard Knocks" two years ago. An injury to Larry Johnson didn't help, but their season was derailed long before training camp.

Miami Dolphins - Having Chad Pennington as their quarterback finally caught up to them. Pennington may have had a much better season than expected, but he can only get you so far in this league and the first round of the playoffs seems to be the limit.

New England Patriots - This one is easy, Tom Brady's knee. Brady is the one player on the Patriots that they couldn't overcome losing. Matt Casell did a spectacular job, but he wasn't Tom Brady.

New York Jets - They traded for Brett Favre. I don't think the Jets would have won the Super Bowl with or with Favre, but he didn't help the cause.

Oakland Raiders - Rich Gannon retired. I could have chosen many reasons for this, but seems like all their problems started a few years ago when their team got really old within a few months of going to the Super Bowl.

San Diego Chargers - They didn't retain Lorenzo Neal. LaDainian Tomlinson needs a fullback to lead the way for him. Jacob Hester didn't cut it and Tomlinson had one of his worst years.

Tennessee Titans - They stomped on the towel. I do believe in karma and Big Fat Lendale White didn't earn the Titans any extra points by stomping on a Terrible Towel.

Why Manti Te'o Signed With Notre Dame

Manti Te'o, who is considered to be the best defensive recruiting prospect, decided that he will attened the University of Notre Dame. This is a huge shock to many experts who had him going to either USC or UCLA. There are many reasons why Te'o should have signed with either of those Pac-10 schools, but I will explain one main reason why Manti Te'o signed on to wear a golden helmet during his college career.

There are so many reasons why a top defensive recruit wouldn't choose Notre Dame, especially a guy like Manti Te'o. For starters, he is a devoted Mormon and Notre Dame is one of the large Catholic universities in the U.S. He is so devoted that he wants to go mission work when he turns 19, which could delay his arrival to Notre Dame. Also, Notre Dame hasn't had a decent defense since Chris Zorich and Bobby Taylor were in college. And lastly, Notre Dame seemed to be inches away from firing Charlie Weis and he could be playing for a different coach by the time he is finished with his college career. Those are all huge reasons why Te'o shouldn't have signed with the Irish, but yet he did.

Going into last season, the Irish expected to make some sort of bowl game by the end of the year. I'm not sure if they were thinking that they would end up playing Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl, but it could have been a blessing. Manti Te'o is from Hawaii and I'm 100% sure that he watched the Hawaii Bowl very closely. The Irish looked very polished and made easy work of the Rainbow Warriors, it could be considered that it was their best overall team goal. If the Irish didn't up in the Hawaii Bowl or any bowl game period, they wouldn't have had a shot at Te'o.

USC should have snatched Te'o up very easily. They have a long lineage of Pacific-Rim descendants have very good careers as a Trojan. Troy Polamalu, Junior Seau, and most recently, Rey Maualuga, to name a few, played in huge games and made the USC program what it is today. One negative about playing at USC is that they are extremely stacked at every position. Te'o probably wouldn't have had any trouble breaking into the starting line-up, but at Notre Dame he could start as a freshman.

Congratulations to Notre Dame for landing a top defensive recruit. This speaks a lot about the recruiting skills of Charlie Weis and proves that the Golden Dome can still attract top-flight athletes. If Te'o ends up on campus next season, it could catapult the Irish into a top-25 ranking at some point next season. They were a very young team last year and most of their starters will be back next year. Expect big things in South Bend in 2009, even if they do have two Golic boys.


Feel free to "Like" my blog on Facebook or click the Facebook box located within the sidebar.

J.J.Redick To Pacers?

J.J. Redick seems to be a little lost in the backcourt of the Orlando Magic. He has started five games this season, but when he came into the NBA he didn't expect to be averaging roughly 5 points a game in his best season. It makes sense for both teams for the Orlando Magic to trade J.J. Redick to the Indiana Pacers for Jamaal Tinsley. Neither of these players are being used by their team properly and since Jameer Nelson may be lost for the season, it makes sense for the Magic.

I thought about this post before the Magic pulled a trigger on a trade that sent Keith Bogans to Milwaukee for Tyronn Lue. I believe my trade makes much more sense for Orlando and could possibly still happen. Lue had his lone moment of glory as a member of the Lakers when he basically shutdown Allen Iverson in the NBA Finals all by himself. Lue signed a huge free agent contact that following season and has never been the same. Orlando will still need to fill the void that Nelson left and could still possibly make a trade to acquire a much better point guard.

A trade for Jamaal Tinsley makes sense for Orlando, since the Pacers have given him the "Starbury" treatment since the end of last season. He hasn't even been allowed to be with the Pacers all season and they ever went as far as removing his name off of his locker. In order to trade Tinsley to the Magic, the Pacers would need to offset the contracts. If the Magic would put Redick in the package, the Pacers would probably have to take the bad contract of Brian Cook and might possibly have to send Roy Hibbert. Another possibility would be that the Pacers would pay a large amount of Tinsley's contract and send him to the Magic for either Redick alone or maybe just a 2nd round draft pick.

As it stands right now, the Pacers are needing to rid themselves of Tinsley. He has had off-court troubles since the beginning of his career. At this point, the Pacers will take anything they can get for him and the Magic and the rest of the league probably knows that. The J.J. Redick trade may not happen for that reason, but I believe it makes sense for both sides. The Magic need a true point guard with scoring ability and the Pacers need a Jason Kapono-type of shooter to help free up Granger and Dunleavy, plus it would help fill out their team with yet another "white boy."

Monday night's women's basketball game between Tennessee and Oklahoma had the potential to give Lady Vols' coach Pat Summitt her 1,000th win, but it didn't happen. Instead, though, the game had some notable streak-related aspects.

The Sooners' Courtney Paris saw her NCAA record streak of 112 "double-doubles" (double figures in both points and rebounds) come to an end. Paris scored 9 points and had 12 boards against Tennessee. To put the 112-game length in perspective, the second-longest double-double streak in NCAA women's history is 19 (by Old Dominion's Anne Donovan in the early 1980s).

Further, the game had a number of team scoring runs. As shown on this play-by-play sheet...

*Tennessee scored 16 straight to take a 33-18 lead.

*Oklahoma responded with a 23-1 spurt to take a 41-34 advantage.

*The Sooners later put together an 11-2 run to open up a 57-46 lead and 9-0 burst to turn the game into a blowout, 72-54 with around 6:00 to play.

In what might qualify as the understatement of the year, Summitt was quoted in the above-linked article as saying, "We are a long way from being a 40-minute team."

Obama makes a limit on executive pay. Rich people sad.

Uh oh. Obama's done it now. I can feel society just crumble to dust now that the executive's jobs don't  pay what they used to. I mean how the hell are they going to be able to afford their dick wagging contest stuff now? Crap where is all that extra money going to now? Hmmmm. Thinking about it. Wait I got it! If they have extra money maybe they can start paying the lower classes their share now. Since we do all the work. I mean I haven't seen this guy as a greeter in my store.

Don't fuck with Christian Bale.

CAUSE HES THE GODDAMN BATMAN.

Springsteen Delivers His Finisher

I do believe many a lady have felt The Boss's finishing move.

I love the random commentary on this short video clip.

Lesson learned, don't drink fizzi pop.

Fizzi pop has to register itself when it moves into a neighborhood.

Causal market kills video games? Not yet.

A lot of numbers are in and it looks like another year of Nintendo domination. Along with that comes the chorus of forum bodies and comment-posters apathetically singing or debating the death or marginalizing of the core market. Yet a closer look at the numbers and you might be able to read something most people won't see when they take a look at just what titles they were. 

 

 

Looking at just these 5 games in these 3 markets 3 of the 5 games are Nintendo with Mario Kart at the top spot. With GTA 4 and COD: World at War on the 3 and 5 spot respectfully. Mario Kart at number one was 24% of sales and Wii Fit was right behind that at 23%.  Neither of them  were at those 2 same spots in all 3 markets (USA, JAP, UK). Wii fits lowest ranking came in USA at 3 (20% 4.55 mil). The number 1 game here in the states is our own GTA 4 at 5.18 mil (22%). How did GTA do everywhere else? It did great in UK ( 2nd spot with 1.85 mil) but, not so good in Japan ( 256K for 4th out these 5). COD: WOW did pretty well here at 4.46 mill (19% which garnered them  4th).  In the UK they broke a mill and were 20% of the sales but the game wasn't even released in Japan (for obvious reasons). But if it were and say that it got about the same as GTA 4 then you got Smash making a run for its money.

        

Also what are the positions in the Market? The USA is the biggest with a whopping 63% of total sales with UK at 20% and Japan at 17%. So we already know that USA has the biggest pull in the industry. GTA 4 US sales alone beat out Mario Kart in the other markets. 

     

So what is that telling me? That casual games  may not be taking over anytime soon. Sure you could say that not all these titles represent the top Japanese sales but their hardware sales have been slowing down.  In addition what is the real casual games here? Wii Fit is made for that market no doubt but some could argue that Mario Kart isn't. Smash barely has any of the "dem Wii bowling is fun" motion controls and more complicated than what I would call casual. If the US and UK markets are growing then you'll should start seeing that core games definitely are a viable market and may stave off that popular and sensational mentality of the death of it.

Columbus Finally Has A Hockey Team!

I've lived in Columbus, Ohio for over two years and never went to a Blue Jackets game. There are a few reasons for this, but mostly it is because I didn't want to pay to watch the home team get trounced on a nightly basis. I'm a casual hockey fan and have been a free agent, but no team has really caught my eye. I'm originally from northern Indiana and there are no teams in the state and the Blackhawks have been bad for most of my life. I think I have finally found my team, the Columbus Blue Jackets.

I finally went to an NHL game last night, the Blue Jackets played the Dallas Stars. I had great tickets and saw the game from the 5th row. I never realized how tall most of the players are and the speed of the game. I have watched hundreds of games on television and I have found myself watching more the last few years, but my attention usually strays away after one period. I found myself in-tune to every play and didn't want to leave my seat. Dallas ended up winning the game in a blowout, 7-3, but really the Blue Jackets played a horrible first period and pulled the rookie goalie, Steve Mason, in the middle of the first period. They ended up putting even more of a rookie in the game to see what he can do, it wasn't too pretty.

The Blue Jackets are setting themselves up for a possible playoff spot. As of today, they are sitting in the 8th and final spot, but there are a few needs they need to address. They need a veteran goalie to backup Mason and to also provide a mentor for the young stud. Pascal Leclaire might be out for a long time and they need someone other than "Dubie," the young, young goalie, for backup purposes.

Another need would be a defenseman that has been in the playoffs before and can handle top-tier forwards. They never really filled the void that Adam Foote's depature left in the defense. Russell, a promising player, isn't much of a defenseman, he can skate like a forward and should probably be a "4th line" forward, not a 1st or 2nd line defenseman.

Lastly, they need to trade for Doug Weight. There have been rumors that they have been inching close to a deal for about a month, but no new news lately. Adding a few veterans at each position may be needed for them to even make the playoffs and not get swept.

The Blue Jackets are a fun, young team and could be peaking over the next few years. The state of Ohio have never had a winning team and I believe if they start winning, the crowds will come out and support the team. The game that I went to last night was a sellout, if not really close to one. Columbus has one of the best stadiums in the NHL and the city needs to see a winner before this town can become as nuts about the Jackets as it is about Buckeye football. If the Jackets miss the playoffs this year, I'm positive that next year they will improve even more and could possibly contend for a spot near the top. Filatov, Voracek, Mason, and Brassard will all have a year under the belt and will improve enough to help Rick Nash and the Blue Jackets to become a contender in the NHL. It's a bold statement, but if the Tampa Bay Rays can become a winner, why can't the Blue Jackets?