Categories
Olympics

Preparing for the Olympics: Communist China style

The Chinese government’s busy printing up etiquette guides for the citizens of Beijing in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics.

The “Basic Reader in Civility and Etiquette” tells residents how to cross the street, order steaks, how to dress (do not wear pajamas in public), and how to greet foreigners.

Beijing’s audiences will represent the spirit and style of the city and the entire country,” mayor Wang Qishan writes in the introduction to “Rules and Propriety.

Along with the athletes and others, they will be like ‘actors’ appearing on billions of television screens around the world. It goes without saying this is a big problem!

According to the article, “A July 2005 basketball game between China and Puerto Rico in Beijing deteriorated into a brawl, with fans hurling insults and missiles at the visiting team.” I think the Chinese might be stockpiling too many missiles if they can afford to just hurl them at the Puerto Rican basketball team.

Links:
[Reuters]: Games hosts try to polish Chinese manners

Categories
All Other Sports

More on the Duke lacrosse team scandal



I’ll take the rapists for $500, Alex

Yesterday, we told you about how members of the Duke lacrosse team had to give DNA samples to investigators after 3 members were accused of sexually assaulting and beating a dancer at a house party.

Well, this story is getting thornier as the school has announced that instead of just a two game suspension, the team would be suspended indefinitely. Apparently, more evidence has come to light, including police finding one of the dancer’s fingernails, makeup bag, cell phone, and ID. The charges being investigated are first degree rape, kidnapping, assault by stragulation, and robbery.

One part of the story we didn’t know about was that the two dancers were black and that when they started to perform, the men in the house started yelling racial slurs at them. Somehow, this doesn’t surprise me in the least. According to a neighbor, when one of the young women ran outside, one of the team members yelled to her “Thank your grandpa for my cotton shirt.” Boy, his parents did a fine job of raising that kid.

Speaking of which, this blog has pictures of various members of the lacrosse team and their parents names. Now some people might think this is overboard but somehow you can’t help but look through the pictures and play “spot the rapists/racists/assholes”.

One last item of note. The lacrosse team told the dancers they were members of the baseball and track teams. Way to try to throw your fellow athletes under the bus.

This is going to get really ugly, folks. And rightly so. I really don’t understand why anyone would think rape, sodomy, and racial slurs are ok. I imagine Al Sharpton has already got his plane ticket to Durham.

Links:
[News & Observer]: Dancer gives details of ordeal
[News & Observer]: Frustrations boil at Duke

Categories
General Sports

Odds and Ends for Wed March 29 2006: Selig Poised to Begin Steroids Inquiry

Bud Selig spent last weekend reading “Game of Shadows” and is on the verge of announcing a steroid investigation. Selig is expected to ask George Mitchell, a former senate majority leader from Maine, to lead the investigation. It’s about time.

In other news…

[Steve Straiger]: SC has no opinions on Kelvin Sampson so we’ll let this hoosier tell us what he thinks.

[The Journal News]: Road to the Stanley Cup is paved with whiskers. (via Kuklas Korner)

[ABC7 Chicago]: Maguire University, a fake college, duped the NCAA and scored tickets to the Final Four for two years. Now they just have to buy them along with us schmoes.

[Reuters]: Theaters will begin showing live 3D sporting events in 2007. I don’t get it.

Categories
General Sports

Vote for the next Woman We Love

Last week, Lois Griffin won by a narrow margin over Vanessa Marcil. This week, we have six new candidates and it’s going to be a tough decision for you. (On the podcast, we mentioned Scarlett Johannson but since she’s so damn hot, I’m going to automatically make her a WWL. Plus, it wouldn’t have been fair to the others on this list.)

Rachel Bilson

Maria Sharapova

Heather Graham

Mandy Moore

Portia di Rossi

Halle Berry

Voting will end next Tuesday before the podcast. Vote Now.

Categories
All Other Sports

Ben Johnson really needs the money



The man with no shame

How else can you explain his willingness to do ads for a new Canadian energy drink called Cheetah Power Surge. The ad goes something like this:

Frank: Ben, when you run, do you Cheetah?
Ben: Absolutely. I Cheetah all the time!

This is almost as sad as Gary Coleman doing cash call commercials or Erik Estrada trying to sell me real estate in northern California.

Media people are all over this ad campaign for being so poorly thought out. Athletes are great endorsers because people want to be champions. People don’t want to be cheaters. What’s next? Raffy Palmeiro doing commercials for a DC hotel? “Absolutely, when in Washington, I lie all the time!”

Links:
[Toronto Star]: Ben Johnson, Cheetah. Get it?
[D’Angelo Brands]: Talkshow commercial (Quicktime)

Categories
Philadelphia Eagles

Dhani Jones gets arrested for dancing


Dhani Jones decided to take a girl dancing in the middle of a Miami street. Unfortunately, he was charged with a misdemeanor for obstructing traffic.


When asked to leave, the female figured it out and left, but he kept dancing in the street by himself.

Eagles fans think he should be arrested for being such a shitty linebacker. Although I guess next to Mark Simoneau, he’s practically the reincarnation of LT. There’s nothing worse than Jones doing his celebration after every tackle, especially since he doesn’t even play guitar in real life.

I’ve gone ahead and asked him what happened in Miami on his website. I doubt I’ll get a response.

By the way, via Fark comments comes this amusing anecdote about Dhani in college:

Dhani Jones was my year at U of Michigan. He was in the Residential College, which loosely translated to “artsy fartsy poetry writers.” Anyway, his answering machine message was (this was him saying it): “Don’t have a closed mind when leaving a message for Dhani Jones.

Links:
[Philly.com]: Misstep for Birds’ Jones

Categories
NFL General

NFL announces first weekend of national games

The full schedules don’t come until next week but the NFL has announced the opening weekend national games.

To kick off the season, Miami will visit Pittsburgh. It seems that this new tradition usually has a team being sent to slaughter against the defending Super Bowl champs. The Steelers get their rings and the fans get to enjoy a win at home. (Yes, I’m already picking this game 6 months out.)

T.O. gets his national exposure in a Dallas uniform right off the bat as Dallas at Jax is the nationally televised game on Fox on opening weekend. The Sunday night game will feature the battle of the Mannings. I guess the league figures they won’t ever meet in the Super Bowl so might as well get it out of the way early and use the story line while they can.

For the first time, there will be a doubleheader on Monday Night Football. Right now the matchups (Vikings at Redskins, and Chargers at Raiders) don’t much excite me. The NFL couldn’t find a better draw than Brad Johnson vs Mark Brunell in one game and Aaron Brooks vs Philip Rivers in the other?

Finally, the NFL network will kick off its coverage (please god, let it be without Bryant Gumble) with the third Thanksgiving Day game, Denver at Kansas City. The other two games are Miami and Detroit and Tampa Bay at Dallas. Another national spotlight for T.O.

Links:
[NFL.com]: Five games featured on opening weekend, three games on Thanksgiving

Categories
Video Games

The Top Cyber Hockey Players of all time



I’m about to do my thing with the thing

IGN confirms what anyone who has ever played NHL 94 on the Sega Genesis knows, Jeremy Roenick was unstoppable. This is why Swingers is such a genius movie. What else could capture the 90s better than two guys playing NHL 94 with Trent saying “It’s not even so much me as it is Roenick. He’s good.”

My roommate Andy and I used to play a full 7 game series every night after work. Roenick was so good that we were banned from using Chicago. Although he used to kick my ass with Alexander Mogilny who is #14 on IGN’s list. I didn’t think anyone but my roommate used Buffalo.

Rounding out the top 10 are: Gretzky, Patrick Roy, Lemiux, Hasek, Forsberg, Jagr, Iginla, Belfour, and Chelios. Jerome Iginla is the only one from a recent game (NHL 2K5) to make it.

Links:
[IGN]: Top 25 Cyber Athletes of All-Time: Hockey

Categories
General Sports

The World’s highest paid athletes



It’s good to be Tiger

[Update: Check out the 2007 highest paid American Athletes]

Here are the top 10 highest paid athletes in 2005 according to Forbes.

  1. Tiger Woods – $87M. The guy makes most of his money ($80M) just from endorsements and appearance fees.
  2. Michael Schumacher – $60M. This is actually a drop in income because of lower endorsements and licensing.
  3. Oscar De La Hoya – $38M. $35M came from just 2 fights.
  4. Michael Vick – $37.5M. Got $30M as guaranteed bonus money for his 10 year contract with Atlanta.
  5. Shaquille O’Neal – $33.4M. He has the NBA’s highest salary at $28M.
  6. Michael Jordan – $33M. All of it from endorsements.
  7. David Beckham – $32.5M. All that money and he still doesn’t know how to tell time.
  8. Kobe Bryant – $28.8M. Hate him for his cash.
  9. Lance Armstrong – $28M. I guess he realized with $28M, he could do better than Sheryl Crow.
  10. Valentino Rossi – $28M. Yeah, we never heard of him either. Apparently he races motorcycles in Italy.

What do these athletes have in common? Most of them are pimping Nike. That and they have more money than you ever will.

Related Links:
[Forbes.com]: The World’s Best-Paid Athletes

Categories
All Other Sports

Odds and Ends for Tues March 28 2006: Dumb Luck

When I was younger, I heard a story about a guy who left his glasses at home, filled out a lottery sheet upside down, and won the lottery. While not nearly as lucrative, it turns out that one of the four people out of 3 million who picked this Final Four actually thought he was picking George Washington University. Why anyone would think George Washington was going to be in the final four, I don’t know. But it proves that picking brackets is all about dumb luck.

In other news…

[Beer Leaguer]: Five Questions: Philadelphia Phillies (Season preview)

[SI]: The SI cover jinx has claimed 16 victims since Jan 2005.

[The-Coffeys.com]: 2005-2006 Official Unattractive Final Four Team

[SF Gate]: Bonds wants our sympathy. We just end up hating him more. “My life is in shambles. It is crazy. It couldn’t get any crazier. I’m just trying to stay sane.”

[Joey Harrington3.com]: Joey expresses gratitude for Matt Millen – we lose a little respect for Joey… and we didn’t have that much to begin with.