Monday, April 25, 2005

Feeling a draft
For those interested, here's my column on the top fantasy prospects from the draft (mostly focusing on this year with a little nod to keeper leagues).

A few other notes and thoughts that didn't make the column for a variety of reasons:
-- Because he's from the alma mater, I will support the Luis Castillo pick, although the steroid charge is still a giant red flag, although I'll have to believe it's a one-time thing. At least you can't confuse that Luis Castillo with this Luis Castillo.
-- I wasn't sure where to put in a line about the Lions taking UConn's Dan Orlovsky since he's probably not a fantasy prospect for a few years, but it is worth noting that Detroit teams have done well with UConn alums, just ask the Pistons (Rip Hamilton) and the Shock (Swin Cash).
-- It's curious to see that Ohio State, Michigan and Northwestern all had the same number of players drafted. Michigan's three picks were among the first 33 and that was it; Ohio State finished its haul with Maurice Clarett; and Northwestern finally reached three with Noah Herron going to the Steelers (their second NU pick of the draft).
-- It may be just me, but Aaron Rodgers looks a lot like John Heffron, one of the Last Comic Standing winners.
-- I like the Jets taking a kicker where they did. Doug Brien was going to be run out of town on a rail, so why not take the best kicker there. Besides, they still got a solid corner in Justin Miller a few picks later. However, with all the big kicks that he had, the Nuge did miss a key one in the Buckeyes' loss to Northwestern, so he's not perfect.
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Thursday, April 21, 2005

Boom goes the dynamite
Lest I be the one to judge someone's public speaking prowess in front of the camera, but after seeing a few too many iffy quizbowl moderators, this clip is just too funny. I figured it's the next Dream Job winner, but my friend called it the ESPN version of William Hung.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

More TRASHiness
For those interested, the stats can be found here and here. Oddly, IE renders it properly, but Firefox displays it in Kanji. It's been fun seeing some of the writeups from the competitors -- and noting what I wrote.

Any other remarks and stuff from the weekend are more than welcome in the comments.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Emerging from the TRASH heap
OK, I think I can sort of return to reality after working on TRASHionals stuff in between some non-stop stretches at the real job. After getting home late last night, I got a lot of much-needed sleep and a chance to just veg out today -- thankfully.

It was good to all the usual suspects again, including many of you on the left-hand rail who have already posted their results. (To the NUQB alums reading this, yes, I made sure to set up your matchup and read for it -- it's fun to have the power to do that.)

Actually, I wish I got to spend a little more time with a bunch more of people since there were others I barely got to see, but when you're running around and pulling the strings, there's only so much that you can see of the competitors other than the one round I read per team (if I see the team at all). In fact, other than people who know me very well, I'd realized most of the people involved have zero idea who I am (in the grand scheme of the organization) or what I do. For now, I'm OK with it, especially since a lot of the stuff I do are the small details that aren't so obvious -- the scheduling/bracketing/room flow stuff.

Nonetheless, the whole tournament worked amazingly well. We were ahead of schedule for a good part of the weekend and I saw a nice spread of competition and met some nice new people along the way. I think the questions were solid, although there are some hitches of course. (Yes, we may have overdone the Sideways stuff.) I have to tip my hat to the Pitt/CMU people who provided tons of support and did a good job of putting up with me as I directed people around.

Congrats to Brian, Jeremy, Mark and Dave for winning it all (undefeated no less plus a thrilling final match) -- I suppose the belt will travel pretty much in a straight line from Wisconsin to Barrington to Columbia to Norman.

Pittsburgh was a very nice city from what I saw this weekend -- and I suppose it will give me a sneak preview when I get around to visiting the Groces when they move up there later this year. PNC Park was very nice for one of the neo-retro parks and it helped that it was just a few blocks away from our hotel (which also hosted an event that so lent itself to a bonus question).

The Cathedral of Learning was an impressive site from the outside and very nice enough inside for hosting a large tournament -- although it would've been cool if we could've had matches in "The Italian Room," "The Armenian Room," etc. Plus, from a logistical standpoint, it was nice that there were a ton of eateries just down the street. I finally got my chance to try out Primanti Brothers, although I wasn't as overwhelmed by it as much as I thought I would -- the fries in the sandwich were nice, but the steak part was a disappointment. FWIW, it was interesting that there was only a slight markup in the price of the sandwich at PNC compared to the restaurant itself.

Finally, on the way home, I finally got my chance to test out the XM Radio on the AirTran flight. It was pretty cool since there were plenty of listening options, compared to the preprogrammed stuff that usually shows up on in-flight entertainment, although it's still not the Dish Network stuff I got on Song. But it at least it give me something to look forward to the next time I fly the airline.

Friday, April 01, 2005

It's been a week full of deaths, and now you can add Mitch Hedberg to the list. He was a guy I started warming up to (I can dig the hippy/stoner version of Steven Wright), and I know at least one of my co-workers was a big fan (heck, he might've gone to see him just before his passing since he died in New Jersey, ostensibly after doing a set). I really did want to see the double tour with Stephen Lynch, but I ended up having to work.

Here are some of his best lines.