I guess I've been beaten to the punch on reporting my own news, but I did pass my Jeopardy! audition (after failing the last two times I took the test) and think I did OK with my interview, even bringing up this article and subsequent interview with this place.

For what it's worth, there were about 50 people in my audition slot, including one guy from Athens State who I'd read for last week in Chattanooga, but only six of us went on to the next step. I actually think finding someone else I knew (and could relay information about the whole process) calmed me down a bit, so I wasn't trying desperately to plug major holes in my knowledge base.

The highlight of the tournament at UTC today had nothing to do with any quiz questions, instead it was seeing all the "Ann Coulter for Mayor" signs. No, not her, but her. I think a few teams picked up a sign or two along the way.

But maybe an even weirder sharing of the same name in similar arenas is this Bill Simmons who just won the infamous Wing Bowl, and that occasional I Love the '90s contributor.

Whoa, Canada
Forget about the old Dysfunctional Family Circus, this blog gets snarky on everyone's favorite preachy Canadian comic strip.

And speaking of Canadian pop culture, Kevin Smith gets to crash Degrassi and even snuggle with one of the original cast members. Forget the Next Generation, where's the DVD of the original series? Kevin Smith and I aren't the only ones who liked the show, right?

Cookies are bad for you
Well, the kids may have been out a bit late delivering unsolicited cookies, but an anxiety attack and a lawsuit coming out of it?

I think the key bit in the article was this: "... perhaps they were burglars or some neighbors she had tangled with in the past." Seems to say a lot about her, huh?

I got a fever ...
It's nice to see that Blue Oyster Cult are such good sports about the famous cowbell sketch.

That also reminds me that I need to do more work on a cowbell compilation, although Jeremy has done a good job with a great mix on his iPod.

While I'm not at work having to monitor the Australian Open men's final, I'm still up watching it while winding down for the evening. So I was a bit befuddled to why Chris Fowler was quoting lyrics from this song (recently seen on my quiz). Then all of a sudden, there's Olivia Newton-John singing the song just before the match. Surprisingly, I think both she and the song have held up well over the years; although my feelings about the song are probably skewed because I actually got a surprisingly warm response when I threw it on a mix CD.

Ice, ice baby
Just survived the Great Ice Storm of 2005, which was very similar to the Great Ice Storm of 2000 -- same nasty conditions, same part of the year (late January). I think the conditions this time around were worse for me personally, mainly because I drove through the slop three times (twice coming home from work, once going to the office), probably averaging no more than 25 mph the whole time. And yes, that includes the school zone that I-85 became Friday night. I had one instance of skidding on the highway, but corrected myself and pulled over in time not to cause any problems -- it helps that it was 2:30 and only a few cars on the road. But at least I got home -- another co-worker had to stop at a motel on 85 overnight because of the conditions. And I nearly took up a friend's offer to stay at the hotel adjoining the office tonight before deciding to gut it out on the road. I had to think about it given the massive de-icing I had to do with my car this afternoon -- but at least I had a scraper. I lent it out briefly to one of my neighbors, while another used a spatula to cut through the Magic Shell the ice created on our cars.

The coverage of the storm was a bit odd to say the least. With CNN in Atlanta, it was very easy to get a photo of the weather -- just walk outside and take a shot of the street and the building you work at. With The Weather Channel also in the Atlanta area, it appeared that the reporter covering the Atlanta angle of the storm barely had to leave its headquarters to get a live shot.

On the other hand, the local stations that usually would go wall-to-wall with that type of stuff were noticeably absent. With a rather sparse Saturday afternoon of network-televised sports, there were plenty of infomercials instead of news. Granted, the weather started overnight, making it difficult for anyone to move around Saturday morning, but you'd think that if they are willing to preempt Jeopardy or Dr. Phil for thunderstorms, they might bump Ron Popeil for ice.

Going back to the Ice Storm of 2000, though, I think I was slightly less cautious driving -- zipping along I-75 on the way back from Chattanooga wasn't wise, and I'm still trying to figure out why we had an AAJA meeting in those conditions. Plus, I lost my power for a couple of days around the AFC and NFC title games (no issues this time, although I was a bit scared seeing a bunch of traffic lights out just outside my complex) but felt smug seeing all the people in town for the Super Bowl having to deal with the cold and ice.

Mmm, sweetened carbonated beverage
Not sure why the AJC ran a story about the linguistics of cola on the business page (guess it's that Coke connection), but it makes for some fun reading, especially the map that puts Red vs. Blue county maps to shame. Plus, you can register your vote on the ultimate debate.

Lyrics results

Here are the final answers. Another quiz in the next couple of days, maybe.

1. Cracker – Get Off This
2. Aztec Camera – Jump
3. DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince – Nightmare on My Street
4. Carole King – It’s Too Late
5. Johnny Cash – A Boy Named Sue
6. Great White – Once Bitten Twice Shy
7. I Am the World Trade Center – Call Me
8. Hall and Oates – Out of Touch
9. The Donnas – Who Invited You
10. Drivin and Cryin – I’m Going Straight To Hell
11. Psychedelic Furs – Pretty In Pink
12. Aqua – Barbie Girl
13. Olivia Newton-John – Magic
14. Kylie Minogue – Love at First Sight
15. The Replacements - Alex Chilton
16. Liz Phair – Turning Japanese
17. Motley Crue – Girls, Girls, Girls
18. Missy Elliott – Get Your Freak On
19. Sarah McLachlan – Dear God
20. Snoop Dogg – What’s My Name?

From Bill Simmons' latest column:

Things have gone so poorly for Jets fans over the years, they were actually expecting something painful to happen down the stretch, just like Red Sox fans back in the day.

That pretty much sums up being a Jets fan. Actually, it helps being a Yankees fan and a Jets fan at the same time in these days -- you can't be too insufferable during baseball season because it will come back to haunt you during football season.

Oh yeah, the Elimidate-Super Bowl analogy was amusing, although it has me longing for that craptacular show that I haven't seen in a few years (and has to be a candidate for I Love the '00s -- probably 2000 or 2001).

And oh BTW, from the I Love the '90s: Part Deux shows I've seen so far, Simmons seems to be used only on sports topics and usually as the straight man. He's got more range than that; if Stuart Scott and Rich Eisen can be used on any topic, so can Simmons, right?

For some reason, I could fathom the idea of Jerry Springer, the Opera, but a musical version of The Apprentice seems just way too ridiculous.

Return of the snark
Yes, I'm eating up all of I Love the '90s Part Deux, but I'll get into some of the topics later. However, I'm always intrigued by who they pick up to do the commentary (and I'm still waiting for my chance to get on any of the talking head shows).

Yes, we have the usual suspects, but how did Juliette Lewis become a regular? Plus, it's good to have Bill Simmons on board since he damn well deserves to be on here. However, how did they convince the U.S. swim team to get snarky? (Not that I'm complaining about seeing Amanda Beard or Kaitlin Sandeno.)

One thing that both bugs me and entertains me is the use of '90s music to accompany the bits, but that many of the songs were released years after the nugget they're being snarky about. For some reason, I don't think I should be hearing Beck or Chumbawumba for stuff about the early '90s.

Other observations from the shows so far:
-- So that's what the lead singer of the Cranberries looks like without the really chopped hair.
-- Good to see DJ Jazzy Jeff getting some work.
-- How many redheads are panelists on the show, or is it just the lighting?
-- My goodness, Baby Spice has grown up nicely.

Allez cuisine
It's weird when Iron Chef morphs away from the campiness of the Japanese version to the competent American version. Alton Brown actually does sound like a combination of the guys who do the voices of Fukui and Hattori, and he does incorporate some of his Good Eats stuff into the show. On the other hand, I already picked up some looping of his commentary, although it's not as bad as some of Donald Trump's fixes on The Apprentice that sound a lot like "Mr. Black" on the Kamp Krusty episode.

It's also interesting that I'd actually heard of the first challenger, although partly because he's the brother of the guy's that not Woody Paige.

Plus, it was one of the few times I was actually hungry watching the show. It probably helps that the secret ingredient was something exotic but not too rare (i.e. I've had it a few times), not to mention they made seemingly accessible dishes.

They did keep some of the traditions of the original Iron Chef -- an over-the-top Chairman (allegedly Kaga's nephew, but in reality, just this guy) and Julie Chen, reprising the role of the guest giggling female judge.

Suck, suck, suck

Let's keep it simple on the Jets' loss: Herman Edwards turned into Marty Schottenheimer after the last Big Ben interception. Sure, you can rip into Doug Brien (like Peter King did), but it's hard to get too upset over a kicker missing a field goal over 40 yards. On the other hand, I got a tad too overconfident after the Reggie Tongue TD, which probably sealed my doom. I should've been expecting the worst, as usual, and then I would've been fine.

As for the other games, the Falcons beat the Rams sorta how I play on NCAA Football 2005. They do have a chance against the Eagles, who looked just fine against the Vikings. Of course, getting this far hasn't been an issue for Philly. Finally, I love how all the weather reports looked favorable for the Colts leading up to the game, but come Sunday, there was a winter storm warning -- and that was that.

Concerning the coverage, I was amused that Fox used a bunch of the music from Madden 2005 leading into commercials. Plus, that Fountains of Wayne ad was played a few times, but not too much for people to get sick of it.

OK, my turn
I guess I'm a tad late with the lyrics quiz thing. Or I'd like to say I'm waaaaay early since I ran a couple of lyrics quizzes on rec.games.trivia back in college (although not as regularly as Greg or Mark did back in the day) when it wasn't as easy to look up all the answers.

Anyways, here are the 20 that came off my shuffle the other day (before I loaded in my other MP3 CDs on to my iTunes library). There are five songs that are covers of well-known songs (yes, I collect plenty of covers). Those will be marked with an asterisk. I'll have the full answers up sometime next week, I guess.


1. Well the guitar player stayin’ out in hollywood and sayin’/He’s just trying to get some sleep, but everyone’s complainin'. (Cracker, "Get Off This"; Chris Hyde)
* 2. You got to roll with the punches and get to what's real. (Aztec Camera's cover of "Jump"; Greg)
3. He wears the same hat and sweater every single day/And even if it’s hot outside he wears it anyway.
4. One of us is changing or maybe we've just stopped trying. (Carole King, "It's Too Late"; Tyler)
5. Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July/And I just hit town and my throat was dry,/I thought I'd stop and have myself a brew. (Johnny Cash, "A Boy Named Sue"; Greg)
* 6. Woman you're a mess gonna die in your sleep/There's blood on my amp and my Les Paul's beat. (Great White, "Once Bitten Twice Shy"; Chris/Matt; Ian Hunter did the original, but most people probably remember the cover.)
* 7. Roll me in designer sheets/I'll never get enough. ("Call Me" is the song, still need the cover band.)
8. Broken ice still melts in the sun/And times that are broken can often be one again. (Hall and Oates, "Out of Touch"; Brian W.)
9. Face it dude, you can't beat me/In your Charlie Brown shirt and Cavariccis.
10. The black widow and the ladies man/Met down at the laundromat and tried to make me understand.
11. The one who insists/He was first in the line/Is the last to/Remember her name.
12. Imagination, life is your creation. (Aqua, "Barbie Girl"; Miguel)
13. And if all your hopes survive/Destiny will arrive. (Olivia Newton-John, "Magic"; Greg)
14. And everything went from wrong to right/And the stars came out to fill up the sky. (Kylie Minogue, "Love at First Sight"; Miguel)
15. Checkin’ his stash by the trash at St. Mark’s Place.
* 16. No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark. (Liz Phair's cover of "Turning Japanese"; Greg)
17. Dance for me. I'll keep you overemployed.
18. Listen to me now/I'm lastin twenty rounds. (Missy Elliott, "Get Ur Freak On"; Greg)
* 19. Your name is on a lot of quotes in this book/And as crazy humans wrote it/you should take a look. (Sarah McLachlan's cover of XTC's "Dear God"; Greg)
20. Long Beach is the spot where I served my cane. (Snoop Doggy Dogg, "What's My Name?"; Tyler)

Take me to the river
Besides the oversaturation of ads, ESPN took advantage of the lack of quality sports viewing options to finally shove Tilt down our throats last night. I didn't think it was all that bad, or all that good, either. Michael Madsen plays the tough just fine, and you had the requisite walk-ons from some poker stars (Daniel Negreanu and T.J. Cloutier in this case). But I think Slate hit it on the head with the one thing it was sorely lacking: not enough dumpy Asians. Otherwise, it's just another Las Vegas show with just a bit more poker in it.

I guess it's time to catch up, eh? You can thank a combination of being busy and being lazy -- no real excuse here.

-- Congrats to Kristin and Justin on their wedding. I'll let Kristin handle much of the narrative on it (plus links to photos since most of mine pretty much suck). However, I will say I had a fun time in Baltimore (with the hotel two blocks from Camden Yards), seeing many familiar faces and meeting some cool new ones. Plus, it was fun to be hanging out with friends on New Year's Eve. Thanks for letting me be part of all the fun.

-- Yes, there was lots of football on my plate, although I got to watch the Orange Bowl rout in peace at home. No arguments about the results, but one thing that kinda struck me about the debate over a playoff -- if people are so adamant about the regular season being the real deal, then why are there conference championship games (which are, in my opinion, precursors to a playoff)? That's where the no-playoff argument seems to ring a bit hollow.

-- I went 3-for-4 on playoff picks this week, missing only the Moonesota Vikings' win at Lambeau. A couple of those upsets probably is weighing heavily on one of my friends in our playoff fantasy league, who was autopicked Daunte Culpepper and Curtis Martin because of computer issues that forced us to redo the draft. Whoops. Somehow, my team is heavily dependent on either the Rams or Eagles reaching the Super Bowl (although we can do waiver claims throughout to replace eliminated players).
My team was, in draft order (picking 9th in odd rounds and 4th in even rounds):
1. Donovan McNabb
2. Plaxico Burress
3. Steven Jackson
4. Rod Smith
5. Ryan Longwell
6. L.J. Smith
7. Rams defense
8. Terrell Owens
(We start 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 D; plus one bench spot.)

-- I was pulling for the Jets to win, but wasn't comfortable enough in drafting them in a playoff league (although I did get beat out for Justin McCareins toward the end, thus prompting my last pick of Owens, just in case).

-- With a slow Sunday night after the playoff games (and after watching the 24 premiere -- starting the season with four hours over two nights is a good thing), I ended up spending a lot of time watching the second most useless major awards show, hosted by fake Kornheiser and Wilbon, otherwise known as George Costanza and Theo Huxtable.

While it was good to see them using online voting as a component, thus eliminating the question: "Do you know anyone who might have actually voted for the Peoples Choice Awards?", I swear they were making up some categories along the way or at least stealing them from the MTV Movie Awards. Favorite Movie Sequel? Yikes. Favorite Remake (aka Best Cover of the Year)? Are you kidding me?

There was even a big deal about Fahrenheit 9/11 winning "Best Picture of the Year," except that given the way the movie categories were set up, it's probably best to call it "Best Picture of the Year -- Other" since The Passion of the Christ and Shrek 2 also won movie awards for drama and comedy, respectively.

Yes, I've spent way too much time analyzing these awards, but hey, it's fun to figure out what the "people" have to say, although at least this time the "hipness" quotient was slightly above square thanks to the online voting. God forbid it was another Gallup poll or something determining these things. Plus, it's a good runup to the Golden Globes, where things will get even goofier I'm sure.

-- Speaking of films, I did see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou the other day. I guess I'm surprised it was a "big budget" Wes Anderson film, since it looks and feels like anything else he's made. It was entertaining enough, but nothing overly impressive or negative about it. I did enjoy the goofy set design, but otherwise it was just weird for the sake of being so -- including such things as the Filipino pirates, the guy singing David Bowie songs in Portugese and Bud Cort.

-- One last review, the Seinfeld Season 3 DVD set is amazing. I think you can figure out why it took them so long to put them out on DVD -- they went the extra mile in piling it on with featurettes on a number of episodes, plus the usual commentary tracks (some better than others, especially those not featuring the actors or Larry David).
But the kicker is the "Notes About Nothing," the pop-up video bits that you can activate and run throughout the episodes. There are some boilerplate bits like the first table reading/filming dates as well the original Nielsen ratings, but they go beyond the call of duty in reciting the credits of every guest star, whether it was an Oscar nominee like Katherine Keener or well-known character actor Philip Baker Hall, or a receptionist whose other credits were as minor guest roles long-forgotten and short-lived sitcoms. And then there's all the other trivia, including some great baseball rundowns when involving the Keith Hernandez episodes.

Since Jerry Orbach finishes the latest trio of celebrity deaths along with Reggie White and Susan Sontag, are we obliged to find some disparaging comments Orbach made to use in his obit? (Dan's latest post just had me thinking that about that.)

While I'm home in New Jersey for a late Christmas, here's a bit from The Black Table about the Garden State from some guy who's from the same area as me (seeing his innate knowledge of certain exits -- thus getting back at all those "What exit?" jokes).

To follow up the Fountains of Wayne/NFL post comment from before, the band has the commercial available on its site. Enjoy.

I'm still not sure what VH-1 wants to be, especially since they keep trotting out more snarky attacks on music they might actually play and another I Love the '90s (yes, I'll watch, but aren't we really tapping the well dry at this point?).

However, in between all the shows that are telling their viewers are fat, I stumbled across John Mayer Has a TV Show, which turned out to be really damn funny. As he proves in this mish-mash of a variety show, he's not just that guy who writes all that "rock for chicks." In fact, he's just another goofy guy who can have a little fun by mocking his own fans. Then again, you knew he had a good sense of humor when he appeared on Chappelle's Show.

Strangest talk show sight in a while: Joe Buck, filling in on The Late Late Show before Mr. Wick (a.k.a. Craig 2.0) takes over, discussing marriage with Ludacris. At least this seems a bit more on the level than those interviews with Leon.

More snarkolepsy
What does it say about the VH-1 talking head and countdown shows that there's the 20 Most Awesomely Bad Songs of 2004 before I've seen any Top 20/50/100 countdown of the best songs of the year. And am I so out of it that tuning into the second half of the show that I only recognized about half of the songs?

Plus, what exactly merits you to be on one of these shows? Descriptors such as "writer/comedian" are a bit suspicious to begin with, but at least there's some facade of being in the entertainment industry, which is what's needed for these shows. But when one guy is listed as "writer/editor," well, dude, you might as well just get me to crack wise since that's my job. At least put a fake name for a magazine or blog, for crissakes. Otherwise, you'll be overrun with tons of young'uns at magazines throughout New York begging to get on the show.

Ad watch
Since I don't have a TiVo or similar device yet, not to mention that we don't have any at the office, I actually do subject myself to a lot of ads. Surprisingly, there are a few that are worth watching (or at least you don't mind getting drilled into your head from constant viewing):
-- I only caught it during the Jets-Steelers coverage (and not on any other NFL game Sunday), but the NFL Network just rose to the top of my list for using this most appropriate song featuring footage of just quarterbacks.
-- Not surprisingly, Office Max has a special site for its Rankin-Bass-inspired Rubberband Man holiday commercials. That's how you do the holiday ads right, unlike the Old Navy ones where you just want to smack those carolers.
-- Peyton Manning plays a pretty good goof at cheering on guys at regular jobs. "Cut that meat!" is now burned into my brain. But how do you play fantasy accounting?

A few rambles ...
-- I've already sent out a report to those who need to know about this place. I suppose I would've been dangerously close to the meat sweats, but the salad bar with some freakishly large vegetables can either save your or hurt you. Put it this way, if asparagus spears are roughly the size of a No. 2 pencil, these things were like the jumbo souvenir pencils you'll never use and are probably a pain to sharpen.

-- Just noticed Jeff Probst is wearing an Under Armour shirt during the promos for the Survivor finale. Will we hear cries of "We must protect this tribe!"?

-- I've never seen a film use meta as well as this one. The film was a fun ride, although there seemed to be too much pretzel logic and non-linear storytelling just for the sake of doing so. Plus, they made a couple of nice additions in Catherine Zeta-Jones (who looked amazing), Vincent Cassell (who looked like Quin Snyder) and Eddie Izzard (in men's clothing, for once).

-- Does Ed Hightower officiate every major college basketball game?

-- That NCAA Football 2005 can be very accurate. Going on a whim, I decided to lead UConn. Two seasons later, I was offered Notre Dame and took it; I was surprised that job was available so quickly. Cut to reality and the Huskies' Randy Edsall is trying to quash rumors of him going to the Irish. Go figure that I'd only be a year off.

-- There's a lot more all-Christmas stations than I'd ever imagined. It's also sad that WNEW went all Christmas last year, and now WPLJ is going that way now.

I don't have too much of a problem with it now in mid-December. It was a bit much when stations were going that way around Veterans Day. Plus, most of these stations play it way too safe with their selections. On the flip side, the local alt-rock station tosses in a few holiday nuggets that probably won't see the light of day on the other channels but probably should, like "Christmas Rapping" by The Waitresses. Just because it was released in the past 20 years doesn't mean it's not suitable for all audiences.

Another Trashmasters has come and gone, and it was another fun experience, although I guess I was slightly disappointed in not reaching the K-Tel Hell finals (damn you, Foreigner -- guess I needed Carl's belt), but our team did relatively well with a fourth-place finish that we sealed only by rallying from a 310-145 deficit with five questions remaining to win by 10 points. That was a rush, especially since it came against a bunch of regulars I've both played with and against.

Something a couple of people mentioned independently this weekend is how much this tournament (more than most other trash events) is like a family reunion. Not only do we have a handful of teams from the area always playing, but we bring a regular contigent from Michigan, DC, Chicago, Wichita, Boston, etc. every year, not to mention folks from New Mexico, California and Minnesota from time to time. (BTW, nice to see you take the Trashmasters plunge, Brian.)

It's nice to see all sorts of people, and then play some intense, yet fun competitions with one another. I think that's why a lot of the trashy competitions retain some many veteran players and hopefully draw in newer ones -- there's a sense that we're all in this together for some fun and fellowship (as strange as that sounds). Besides, how else to explain why people would spend lots of time and money to travel to Chattanooga to play an intense competition where the prizes were taken from the best discount racks. Remember, we actually think it's plausible that everyone's favorite Jeopardy! guy might actually play one of our tournaments soon despite all the fame and fortune he's won this year; not to mention, the former all-time game show money winner was reading the above-mentioned crazy comeback match.

Buzz, buzz
I got some nice seats (just a couple of rows behind the scouts and media) for Georgia Tech's obliteration of Michigan in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, although I missed the banner ceremony trying to find decent parking near the arena, which seems impossible when you also mix in regular rush-hour traffic.

The Yellow Jackets moved the ball nicely around the floor, and they were unconscious from the floor, nailing threes left and right. Michigan may be good, but Tech is amazing, especially during a 20-0 run in the first half that brought out my inner Vitale on a couple of sweet shoots.

What's even more interesting is that while there were a bunch of scouts on hand, I can't really see anyone on Tech, as good as they are, be a huge contributor on the NBA level. I can't put my finger on it, and I hope I'm wrong, but instead I see a bunch of solid players who work well as a team as opposed to individuals.

Oh yeah, there were some "A-C-C" and "Big Ten sucks" chants during the game, but even Big Ten followers could tell you that the ACC was going to clean up. Remember, Duke and Wake drew big games in Michigan State and Illinois, respectively. But North Carolina and Tech, among the top 10 in the country got matched up with Indiana and Michigan, respectively, but both would've been good games about 10 years ago. (At least Northwestern didn't draw Florida State again, and Virginia is at least interesting.) In fact, during one of the preseason tournaments, the ESPN guys flashed the preseason first team All-ACC and All-Big Ten squads -- it was no contest for the ACC. They also matched the ACC second and third teams with the Big Ten first team, and it was still no contest.

It's all over
Well, Ken's run on Jeopardy! is over -- and now the show's ratings can level off (at least after tomorrow to see how the new champion does).

Obviously, Final Jeopardy did him in, but he seemed slightly reckless on the Daily Double bets that hurt him going into the final. Plus, Nancy seemed to beat Ken on plenty of the higher-value clues, which at least put her in striking distance of the win. And, it was a bit aggravating (and I'm sure many sports-types will be snickering) watching everyone flub the sports venues category, which everyone avoided like the plague.

Still, it was fun while it lasted, and I'm kicking myself for not watching Nightline's coverage of it, since Ken wasn't going to be on Letterman until the last segment of the show (instead, I had to sit through Alec Baldwin and a Top Ten list from Kurt Busch, who really doesn't look like a typical NASCAR driver -- in fact, he probably could've been a teammate of Ken's on the quizbowl circuit).

And in the end, it did seem a bit anticlimactic since everyone knew it was coming for a while. It was just a matter of how (which I didn't know until actually watching it -- partly so I could witness it myself, and partly because those who knew kept it secret).

Now, if he actually shows up this weekend in Chattanooga, that would be one cool "victory lap," so to speak, especially since a couple of other Jeopardy! high rollers will be playing. And I'm pretty sure Kevin Olmstead will be around as well as a reader. Way too much game show money flying around some dingy classrooms at UTC. Then again, we could be repeating the process in Pittsburgh in April.

With Tyrone Willingham's firing at Notre Dame just three years into a five-year contract, that means three of the five black head coaches in Division I-A are gone in just a few weeks -- along with New Mexico State's Tony Samuel and San Jose State's Fitz Hill (do I smell a bonus here?). Left are Carl Dorrell at UCLA (just two years in) and Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State (who had a trying first season).

BTW, for anyone looking to fill the coaching vacancies, how about Norm Chow, who would be the first Asian-American head coach if he gets hired?

Choking on a pineapple
Surprisingly, Crissy doesn't have too much to say about her trip to the NU-Hawaii game that knocked the Wildcats out of bowl contention. Thankfully, I didn't stay the whole time at work listening to it, although I picked up the WGN broadcast very clearly in my car on the trip home before stumbling with some issues at home that got me just in time to hear the final drive.

It's unfortunate the 'Cats won't go bowling, but in a way I don't feel so bad since I was going to be in Baltimore for Kristin's wedding and wouldn't be able to go, even though it's a manageable drive to Nashville. (And if things had shaken out right, we could've even done a potential BC bowl game in Charlotte, head back to Atlanta, and then go to Nashville the next day for NU's bowl. But alas, that's not happening.)

I've heard it over and over again in all the BCS talk that there should be no preseason polls because it unfairly screws up rankings down the line, and that rankings should start in October or something like that.

And while it's true that many voters are hesitant to knock down highly-ranked teams from early in the year if they haven't lost, I think everyone is forgetting about the practical purposes of the poll that has little to do with crowning national champions (at least in August and September): People covering college football on a national basis are trying to figure out who to watch/cover/hype.

Yes, it is the media's fault -- we need an outline as to who to cover, other than angry letters that say "your definately a moron because you said my team will loose". (Yes, the misspellings are intentional.)

While the rankings numbers are a bit of a crutch, it does give plenty an idea what is important to cover/mention/etc., especially early in the year when no one is sure what to expect. In fact, doing away with rankings until October puts the lesser teams at more of a disadvantage because many will be paying even more advantage to the major conferences and the major teams. The lesser teams will only get on the initial October polls if they're undefeated, and probably only lower on the list (like it is now).

The polls are getting shot down so much now because they are such a huge part of the BCS formula now, despite their obvious inherent flaws that have now been beaten to death, even though we've all known about it for a while. But what does it say to a system that relies heavily on polls that were designed as much for sports editors and assignment producer as it was for the sport as a whole?

Of course, some conferences even take advantage of some of human polls inherent flaws toward keeping the top teams at the top. Of the three BCS conferences without a title game, only the Big Ten has a somewhat logical system for rewarding a spot in the top bowl game in case of a tie atop the standings. Both the ACC and Big East tied their berths in the BCS bowls to the BCS rankings, pretty much assuring them that Florida State and Miami (when it was still in the conference), respectively, would make it in case of tie -- mainly because both would be ranked very high and only move down so much in case of a loss or two.

Both conferences could see a potential mess for rewarding berths to the BCS this season since there's a shot at a four-way tie atop the ACC and a three-way tie atop the Big East. Instead of using traditional paper tiebreakers like head-to-head matchups, it's putting it in the hands of the rankings since they're just looking for the most "marquee" name to get in there. It won't be so bad in the ACC, given there are four teams with reasonable credentials. But if BC loses Saturday, you've got three teams who potentially may not even be in the BCS rankings at all tied for the top in the Big East and relying on those systems to determine its bid. Use a paper tiebreaker, Pittsburgh would win since they beat both BC and West Virginia, but who knows if that will happen.

Who needs tryptophan?
I'm in here on a smaller turkey day shift, although that meant having to spend most of my time watching this snoozer in the office. Thankfully there was some stuff to work on and a little KenJen to watch during the fiasco.

-- As for reactions to other things going on, just like the Janet Jackson incident, I actually didn't see the Terrell Owens skit when it aired. I was playing Madden, which includes some ridiculously drawn cheerleaders, to stay with the topic. I wasn't too shocked or outraged about it, but if you've got kids, I suppose you'd have some issues with it. (On the other hand, I might've been more intrigued by the skit had they used Eva Longoria instead of Nicolette Sheridan, but that's just me.)

-- As for the Malice in the Palace, I did see that at work and that was wild all the way through. But even though it involved Ron Artest, you've got to wonder about the punishment had it not been the ESPN game of the week. Even though the Fox Sports Detroit affiliate also had tape, it might've been much harder to get a Zapruder-like coverage if it was just some local cable game. Other incidents have happened before, but few during an ESPN game, with all the talking heads ready to pounce.

-- I got an interesting e-mail through my fantasy mailbag about a convergence of quizbowl and the media. While it may or may not happen, I did happen to come across this decent Web site, which is really worth reading.

-- Trashmasters is coming up next week, and it's another loaded field, as usual. It should be fun seeing everyone. That's also why some of the entries are short, nonexistent, etc. -- no need to play my hand and/or give regular readers an edge since a lot of stuff comes from whatever interests me at the time (and possibly would be linked here).

-- It's a bad time to be a Mizzou fan, what with the problems with the football and basketball team, not to mention the namesake of the new arena getting charged with outsourcing her homework.

-- I know John Madden would give out those turkey legs years ago, but why are both networks trying to continue the tradition with special Thanksgiving awards when it seems like the announcers are constantly mocking it throughout the show?

I guess it's time to play catch up, no? It's been busy here at work with everyone leaving and my subsequent promotion by attrition. Plus, I had to finish off regionals questions, which is why entries had been sparse -- no need to link/mention stuff I know I'll be writing about.

Indecision 2004
On the other hand, I've kept my reflections on the election to discussions with certain people, it just made sense to me that way. Yeah, I voted for the other guy, but I'm more than accepting of what happened; besides, I split my ticket. And voting was easy here -- that's what happens when you go to the polls at 2 in the afternoon.

Fore!

More exciting to me was going to see the second round of the Tour Championship, which was just a few minutes away from me. I followed Mickelson and Garcia for most of the day, including watching Mickelson nail an eagle from the fairway on the first hole. (He then went 4-over the rest of the day.) I saw most of the field at some point during the day, including Tiger, obviously, but I was most amused by Darren Clarke, who was puffing away on a cigar while waiting to take a shot.

East Lake is a really nice, simple, old course, with many of the holes close together so you can take in much of the action at numerous holes without much effort. It's an interesting transportation situation, though, as I had to park at Turner Field and then take a bus (a nice touring coach, not a MARTA one) to the course. Going to the club, you pass some nice houses and the rebuilt areas nearby. On the way back, you pass through the 'hood.

Let's get quizzical
Regionals went over well, and we nearly used up all the packets in Athens, if not for some inevitable delays that forced us to close up when the building did. I've seen reports from a number of different blogs, so it's good to see questions went over reasonably well.

Bird is the word
Went to the Falcons-Bucs game today -- decent atmosphere at least early on, but it seemed to dissipate after Atlanta took a 17-0 lead. It is fun seeing some wild Michael Vick plays in person, although you're never sure if it will be something exciting, or a 10-yard sack. Saw a bit of both.

One thing I forgot to mention during this weird week (and there's more that won't be listed here) is that I went to see Team America: World Police, and now I can't get the fight song out of my head. I thought it was hilarious and even better than the South Park movie, with the puppets actually looking pretty sharp, although I enjoyed their own mocking of the puppets' movements from time to time.

On the other hand, I have been intrigued by the coverage of the ALCS, and one can only hope the creativity Fox had in that series will translate to the World Series.

-- The music lead-outs between innings have been all over the place, but that's fine, especially since they seem to capture the mood of the game for that half-inning. Plus, it's nice to see they're willing to pony up the money to get rights to anything, but two Bon Jovi songs? I guess with the Red Sox in the Series, there will be more Aerosmith, Boston, and The Cars being played, but hopefully not Marky Mark.

-- Unfortunately, I don't know what Fox will do if they spot Stephen King in the crowd again since they can't just cut to Tom Gordon anymore. But given the way Flash pitched in the series, it's safe to say that the girl still loves Tom Gordon.

-- I wonder if Al Leiter will be back for the World Series. He was very good, but it seems like he wouldn't say anything for extended periods of time, although he knew when to chime in most of the time with some heady stuff that hopefully didn't go over people's heads. Unfortunately, he also had the bad habit of having to throw out the cliches or reading stats out of the games notes to fill dead air, but then again, so does every other analyst.

Just to clarify on my ramblings from before: Red Sox Nation has annexed much of the country these days, which is understandable given the history and the amazing comeback. We'll find out in the next few days how many of these new fans have actually jumped on the bandwagon or were just interested, as Tim put it, in blowing up the Death Star.

No cheering in the press box
Congratulations to Red Sox Nation for a thrilling Game 7 win. It's a bitter pill to swallow for this Yankees fan, but the Red Sox did everything right to beat the bitter rivals and get to the World Series.

It was tough enough to deal with the loss, but we had to deal with the loud cheering from the news side further down the newsroom. And knowing these people over there, they wouldn't know Johnny Damon from Damon Wayans. Welcome to the "not Yankees" fans. I'd like to think they're jumping on the Red Sox bandwagon, but I'd been stunned if some of these folks actually watch the World Series, never mind continuing rooting for Boston after Saturday.

One of my co-workers had a great line about the cheering, though. We on the sports side should go crazy when Bush gets re-elected. One of my friends had to yell at one of the news groups to stop whooping it up every time Gore won a state.

I think I figured out what galls me about the sudden "Red Sox fans" over the course of the night. Real Red Sox nation knows how close they can get to the promised land only to fall short, creating a sense of both excitement and foreboding dread. So when they finally slayed the giant, it's such a rush since it's now their moment. It's a lot easier to hide behind the history and huge fan base of the Red Sox to disguise the disdain for the Yankees. You're exposed a lot more when rooting for the Diamondbacks or Marlins in the past couple of World Series (or to a lesser extent the Angels in 2002) -- it's hard for non-sports fans but Yankee haters to climb aboard a bandwagon that's only existed for about 10 years.

So, Red Sox fans, enjoy the World Series. The rest of you, I hear Desperate Housewives is pretty good.

Random thoughts

As I told my brother before the ALCS started, it was going to be a smackdown and it was going to go seven games, although obviously I didn't think it would reach seven this way. But this should be fun, and given the way most of these games have played out lately, we'll be leaving the office about the time the morning crew gets in on Thursday.

And speaking of the Boston-New York corridor, it's ixnay on Bristol. Oh well. Doesn't mean I won't stop trying up there.

Despite the baseball playoffs going on, I've actually tried to have some sort of life, sorta. I ended up at autograph sessions for both Alton Brown and George Carlin, although Alton drew a larger crowd but a 7 p.m. vs. a 12:30 p.m. start has a lot to do with it, I'm sure. But it does say something that it took me more than two hours to get Alton's autograph (and I got there early) while I got to Carlin's signing a few minutes late and only had to wait about 20 minutes.

Couple of thoughts from watching the Yankees-Red Sox ALCS:
-- The not-so dark secret of the "media," especially writers on deadline: We hate close games and late rallies, especially those that end at 1 in the morning. But at least there was a thrilling end to Game 4.

Even worse are long games that end way late and were over hours ago, like Game 3. While it was fun to see the Yankees win such a laugher, it was also aggravating seeing it was 10:30 and the game was only in the fourth inning, knowing that I had to get up at about 6 a.m. the next morning to go to Chattanooga to play half a trash tournament.

-- Al Leiter doesn't get a lot of chances to talk as the third guy in the booth, but he offers a lot of decent insight, especially about pitching. That probably means many viewers will hate him when he officially becomes an announcer upon his retirement.

-- This is probably based on the people I'm usually around, but I swear this series seems a lot like the election, and it's not just the Kerry from Massachusetts bit.
You know there are lots of Yankees fans everywhere, much like you know there are plenty of those voting for Bush.

And yet a wide majority of people I know are voting for Kerry and rooting for the Red Sox, although more to the point, they're actually voting against Bush (a sort of Yellow Dog thing) and rooting against the Yankees.

It seems pretty indicative of today's divisive political climate: No one actually has a cause they support, but instead of bunch of axes to grind. Many won't ever be happy, just less pissed off at something.

Just a couple of links this time around:
-- The Washington Post goes page one with an article on quizbowl, although it didn't dwell as much on the Ken Jennings connection as I thought it might, but at least it had quotes from him, as opposed to my column.
-- I shouldn't scoff, since I have two t-shirts marking Northwestern's win over Notre Dame in 1995, but now the official online NU sports store is selling a t-shirt of last Saturday's big win over Ohio State.

Hazing can be good for you
How a rookie Indians pitcher got shot while riding the team bus in weird enough, but how he avoided serious injury is very amusing:

[Team spokesman Bart] Swain said all of Cleveland's rookies were dressed in cheerleader outfits as part of an annual ritual -- Denney's choice was Southern California -- and the mood on the bus was jovial until Denney was shot. ...

Swain said the team's trainers thought the high white boots Denney was wearing as part of his cheerleader outfit may have prevented a more serious injury. The bullet didn't lodge very far into Denney's leg, and trainers were able to remove it before he went to the hospital.


And in another baseball note, it was fascinating watching Vin Scully do play-by-play on two games at once last night. He was calling the action as usual for the Rockies-Dodgers game, but since this is the time for scoreboard watching, you could tell he had the telecast of the Giants-Padres in the booth and giving updates in that game in between the action at Chavez Ravine. It was very entertaining, considering I didn't find the Padres game on my other TV until after the Dodgers finished. And it was amazingly seamless and calm; to think, many announcers can barely call the game in front of him, and Vin is doing double duty just when the action is getting good.

Fantasy football pervades the comics pages once again.

A couple more thoughts from the Texas trip
-- Is the radio industry slowly replacing Power, Lite, Kiss and the letter-number combo in favor of real names (much like pro wrestling biting the bullet and naming the characters their actual names)? I've already lauded the new Dave FM here in Atlanta (and there's a similarly named station in Canada as well).

In Dallas, I stumbled across Jack FM, which is even more eclectic than Dave FM. It seems even more like a CD collection or iPod on shuffle. While driving around Friday, I heard the incongruous 1-2 punch of Lita Ford's Kiss Me Deadly and ABBA's Mamma Mia. And, yes, there was some Led Zeppelin on the station later, so the station could be mistaken for KFSL -- Fossil 103 since it does play "Classic hits from Abba to Zeppelin, comma, Led."

Somewhat fitting, I heard White Wedding on that station after the wedding Saturday, but just before that I heard this '90s classic. Yup, this is definitely someone's iPod on shuffle.

-- Coincidentally, I noticed a couple of people from my flight out Friday morning who were also on my return trip Sunday morning. It wasn't hard to pick them out since they wore the same clothes on both legs of the trip. And those clothes easily identified who they were. They happened to be these guys celebrating their 25th anniversary. However, I have no idea if they stayed at a Holiday Inn while they were in the Metroplex.

I forgot to post this the other day, but it's a story like this that shows exactly how big college football is down in Atlanta, even the bye weeks.

By the power vested in me by the state of Texas, which shan't be messed with ...
I was in the Dallas area this weekend for Brian's wedding (congrats to the groom and his lovely bride Christine). It was a nice ceremony, and it was nice to be a part of the celebration.

But besides wedding stuff, there were still some interesting observations from being in the Metroplex for a couple of days:
-- Most of the stuff took place in Lewisville, just a few miles north of DFW Airport, and a suburb that's a definite salute to commerce. There was a big mall right outside our hotel, not to mention all the requisite big box retailers and chain sit-down restaurants. While driving around to find the church, we thought we had done a loop since there we encountered two Wal-Marts during the four-mile drive. We realized we were wrong since the first one we saw probably could've housed three indigenous populations, the second one, possibly only a splinter group.
-- A picture to come soon, but it appeared that they were building a highway to heaven outside our hotel. There's a massive highway project going on in the area, and from the angle of the supports currently built, it appeared they were trying to launch something into the sky.
-- After the wedding, my friend Jeremy and I went to Ameriquest Field to see Ichiro get his 250th hit. It's a nice stadium, although it looks a lot different in person than on TV -- it feels more closed in because of the offices in center field, and the upper right field stands seem massive compared to other upper outfield sections.
(It was a good excuse to see a sporting event in town, and it saved me the indignity of watching NU get put through the wood chipper -- although I caught a couple minutes of it on WGN getting out of the stadium. Yes, I could pick up WGN in Arlington, Texas. Thank God for AM radio.)
-- I thought about getting some Rangers memorabilia, but I couldn't find a player t-shirt in my size of Mark Teixeira or Francisco Cordero. They did have plenty of other options, though. While I understand having an Alfonso Soriano, Hank Blalock, Kenny Rogers and even Laynce Nix, I wondered who was buying the Ryan Drese, R.A. Dickey, Rod Barajas, Kevin Mench and especially the Jeff Nelson shirts.
-- The most intriguing part of the experience, though, was the free giveaway outside the stadium that might've made Dwight happy: There were people outside the stadium handing out free pork on a stick (and even squeezing some barbecue sauce if you so wanted). Not sure why they used this venue to promote pork awareness, but it worked for me.

It's been a strange week in the obit pages. It's definitely not Ronald Reagan and Ray Charles, that's for sure.

Instead, it's one of Roger Ebert's heroes and a guy who put Cobb County, Georgia on the map for me. (It's interesting that one of the first obits for him was from the Paulding County site (a neighboring county).

It's good to see someone else wonders why there are so many sportswriters at the heart of sitcoms, even though sports is hardly at the heart of their shows (with the exception of George Costanza playing Tony Kornheiser, and that shows epitomizes the word average). How many athletes do you see on many of these shows featuring sportswriters as the central figure?

I suppose if they were sports editors, they'd have to force them into an office. It is interesting to see how little we see of many of our site's writers in the office (even before the move), but in many cases, as long as you're set up in a home office, what's the need to commute in?

And now that I think of it, maybe that's why Sports Night was only slightly groundbreaking. Instead of having the sports folks at home, they're actually in an office and living out the same interpersonal relationships on a work level. In other words, it's a second family. You're now covering the "other" life of Ray Barone, George Owens or Oscar Madison -- although Sorkin found a way to make it seem more like a drama than a breezy sitcom.

Is it live or is it television?
There was a brief uproar yesterday when the local station that airs Jeopardy! pre-empted the show for Hurricane/TS Ivan coverage. It was amusing that the station got plenty of calls about it when the newscasters said a couple of minutes into when the show would've aired that the station would air both Thursday and Friday episodes back-to-back today. Now I know why the crawl works much better for many viewers; many of these people probably tuned out when they didn't see Ken's face and instead saw the local news team on the screen. I guess there are many people like this guy or satirized in this song.

During the explanation for the pre-emption, one of the newscasters said something to the effect that, "Ken doesn't lose today anyway so it's not like you're missing anything," and then went on to discuss the rumors briefly before going back to regular coverage.

It got me thinking that while all those rumors are out there, many people still want to watch his run, how long it goes, how it happens, etc., even though the end won't be when they're watching it. And in a similar vein, the actual World Series of Poker took place months ago and the winner got plenty of attention in the news, but many of us are still captivated by watching it on ESPN. (Unfortunately, I've gotten hooked on the show, too.) In both cases, we know (or supposedly know) what's going to happen and yet we want to watch.

Yet when it comes to the Olympics, at least for me, if I know the result ahead of time, I may or may not watch. But NBC sorta banks on the assumption that people will watch even if they know the results ahead of time (although they do their best to hide it from their coverage, but it's hard to do so thanks to today's instant information age). So not only has NBC treated some of its Olympics coverage like The West Wing or ER, it also makes it like a well-publicized game show or even the old Superstars competition (usually taped weeks in advance).

It begs the question why am I (and many people) so up in arms that NBC tries to package the Olympics as a show we'll watch even if we know the results in advance (in contrast to almost every other major sporting event we want to watch live), yet we'll eat up Ken's Jeopardy run and the WSOP, knowing what will happen, at least the basics of it.

I guess it's because when you watch a live sporting event, the result is the biggest thing (and the part that makes news) and all the details help accentuate it and add color to the viewing experience. In many cases, if you didn't see it but then saw a score or a result, you walk away satisfied. You can see highlights or read about it later if you really want to.

When it comes to Jeopardy! or the WSOP, the result is seemingly secondary (although Ken's run is challenging that assumption). Sure, Ken wins some ungodly amount of money in a day or Fossil Man wins the grand prize, but the journey is more interesting than the result. The how is more compelling than the what.

Plus, I think things like Jeopardy!, WSOP, and other game or reality shows seem to occur in its own universe of time and space. They air when they air, and we live with that fact and enjoy it for that moment independent of any other time (like many TV shows). Sporting events occur in the here and now, it's news, except that it's actually scheduled. So when it happens live, we want to know it happened and the result in due time.

I suppose the Olympics occupy a strange netherworld, at least in NBC's eyes. Those drawn to basketball and soccer, for instance, demand live coverage of their events because they're sports fans and are used to that. But the assumption is that those drawn to "Olympic" sports aren't necessarily sports fans and aren't beholden to the here and now of live coverage. You might as well milk the ratings when it's convenient as opposed to when it actually happens. If the WSOP can grab huge ratings for something that happened months in advance, could the Olympics be next?

I’m like a bird

So how do I celebrate/relax/whatever now that the Olympics are over? How about racking up more than 5,000 miles on Delta in a week. It was a wild travel week that really only came together after I had come back from my NJ-DC double shot just a month ago.

The first part of the trip was to talk to some people at a company near a large Otis elevator shaft and Lake Compounce theme park (where I ended up for that company’s picnic by some fluke). Those who can put it together will have an idea of where I went. I’ll have more updates on the actual business part of that trip later on when events warrant.

I got to that part of the trip by flying Song, Delta’s “low fare” offshoot airline. After that trip, I felt ripped off having to fly the mother ship home (and on the second half of my frequent flyer week). The no first-class thing was cool, mainly because everyone gets those leather-type seats.

But the real kicker is the Dish Network at each seat (rivaling JetBlue's offering of DirecTV). While I did watch a little TV on the flight (although no USA Network to catch up on the US Open), I spent most of my time dominating an NTN-like music trivia game -- multiple choice, touch screen to select answers, your seat number is listed alongside your score/answer/etc. I was waiting for one of my fellow passengers to come over and see who was going Ken Jennings on him or her.

Song also had a bunch of streaming audio channels, which were slightly better than the prepackaged music selections on your favorite airlines, if only because the playlists were longer, not necessarily better. In some cases, the music channels played full albums, which was nice; other times, it was just a mishmash sorta under one umbrella (for instance, the rock channel somehow included AC/DC, Hole, Warrant and Creed all in the same mix). The ‘80s channel had three albums streamed: Born in the USA, Night and Day, and Colour by Numbers. Guess which one I actually own? Sad, ain’t it.

Part 2: Vegas, baby, Vegas

The second trip of the week had me flying out to Las Vegas for the Fantasy Sports Trade Association conference. Somehow because of schedules, I have now attended it on an every-other-year basis. Instead of it being in Chicago as in years past, it went out to Sin City, partly because it coincided with another event run by the organizers. But, heck, it was in Vegas, that’ll bring people out there, and it attracted a record number of companies, including one that stuck to the Vegas theme by trotting out a bunch of girls to sell itself (unfortunately, I have zero idea of what they do, but the thought was nice).

I got into Vegas in the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday, and avoided the temptation to lose money at the slots in the airport. However, I did take advantage of another amenity at McCarran -- the ability to check into my hotel room at the Flamingo from their desks in the baggage claim area. It also got me access to the airport shuttle to get me to the hotel in just a few minutes (as opposed to the hour or so it took one of my colleagues because it stopped everywhere on the Strip).

Once I walked seemingly a mile across the sixth floor of the hotel to get to my room, it was on to exploring the area before the conference started. I hadn’t been in Vegas in more than 15 years (to put it into perspective, the Mirage was still being built when I was there), so it was a lot different than I remembered, but I also knew there was plenty to keep me occupied.

I ended up walking the Strip north from the Flamingo to Circus Circus in 105-degree heat (which honestly didn’t seem anywhere as uncomfortable walking the 6-7 blocks from the Washington Plaza to the Washington Convention Center in icky DC humidity last month). I stopped at a few casinos here and there, doing well at video poker at Caesar’s Palace and breaking even for the most part on the slots and such everywhere else. I also partook in the ¾-pound hot dog at Westward Ho (Total cost with a soda: $2.50), which was worth every nickel, meaning it was cheap and tasted that way. Just imagine fusing together the contents of a few cans of Vienna sausages together and you got this hot dog.

The dinner to open the conference was fine (dang hot dog killed some of the appetite), and it was interesting to hear special guest Napoleon McCallum talk about his career and the gruesome injury that ended it.

After dinner, it was off to go bond with some of the other folks from the conference in a place that has to be seen to be believed (there is some stuff that stays in Vegas).

Most of Thursday was spent doing conference stuff, attending panels, etc. However, I was able to steal a few minutes to cash in my winnings at Caesar’s from the day before (and then win another $9 on video poker for good measure). And since it was the season opener for Northwestern and BC, of course I was going to put some money down for the heck of it. Now I know why I don’t usually bet on sports.

Both bets were more from the heart since I’m an NU alum and my brother is a BC alum. I didn’t realize BC was on the road at Ball State until it was too late, and by then, well, they didn’t cover the spread and they barely scored what the spread actually wasy.

As for NU-TCU, I missed most of the game because I was doing a fantasy draft (and putting together a really good team in the process -- which means I’ll go 4-9 or something like that), but I saw a few glimpses of early in the second half before going to the Hard Rock for dinner. I jumped over to the bar to check out the score, figuring I had lost for sure. Instead, I was floored to see the game go into overtime, and Brian Huffman mimicking NCAA 2005 Brian Huffman by missing short field goals all over the place. What made it worse was that I only had the money line on NU. So not only did my team lose, I didn’t even cash in on them covering the spread.

After deciding not to go partying again with some of the guys from the night before, I ended up doing a little walking down by some of the places I didn’t see the day before like the Bellagio, Paris and Bally’s. Eventually, I ended back at the Flamingo opting to play black jack instead of trying to get a couple of hours of sleep before having to catch a really early shuttle back to the airport. It paid off at the end as I won $150, more than making up for the botched football bets earlier in the evening. Sleep? That’s what the plane was for, and I think I did well on that end on my way home.

I’ve got a few pictures from the trip that may get posted one of these days. However, after that trip, I know I’ll be back in Vegas sooner rather than later. I still have the south part of the Strip, not to mention downtown, left to see.

A couple of other Vegas thoughts and observations:
-- I’ve never been on a flight that had as much energy as the one I took to Vegas, especially compared to the ones I’ve taken recently to places not Vegas.
-- It’s weird to see the dress code just go all over the place, even among some of the folks I was with. While most of us weren’t overly dressed up, a bunch of us did have the business casual going (at least at night) or casual business (replace the khakis with shorts or jeans, depending on your comfort with the heat). And then there were the t-shirts and workout shorts on some. And honestly, no one looked out of place, it just depended on where you went.
-- Maybe because I wasn’t in any hurry to get anywhere, but the Strip wasn’t too bad from a walking perspective. Vegas isn’t a New York in terms of walkability, but it serves a decent purpose, although I guess withstanding afternoon temperatures in the 90s and 100s isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
-- Did I mention that I want to go back?

Here come da judge
Steve B came up with a good point that judging in diving is a lot more on the level compared to gymnastics and figure skating. The more I think about it, diving probably shouldn't be thrown in the same boat as the other two when it comes to eliminating judged sports from the Olympics.

When it comes down to it, you can easily figure out the math in diving scores. Since it's so transparent how the scores are determined, it's a lot easier to ferret out a bad judge or two. In fact, it appears diving combines the best aspects of the judging in gymnastics and figure skating.

Like figure skating, you get to see every judge's scores (although the FIS has changed those rules somewhat), and like gymnastics, the winner is the competitor with the most points. Unlike either sport, the judges aren't afraid to use the entire 1-10 scale, plus the degree of difficulty is factored in addition to the judges' scores and is well in the open, so there isn't that shroud of secrecy like in the case of the botched start value like in the men's all-around.

I am amused that figure skating coverage never really explains how the scoring is done other than seeing all of those 5.somethings and the 6's. It all comes down to an altered version of roto baseball scoring, except that judges are involved and they're determining the places. Why is the math so convoluted that we just have to take Scott Hamilton's word that someone won a gold?

And with gymnastics, we now know that certain judges screwed up, but how come we never see their scores? We just see a number and go with it (or not, as in the case of Aleksei Nemov). It just seems a bit arbitrary.

Finally, I guess with elite figure skating and gymnastics, everyone is so good that the slightest of bobbles need to be magnified to determine a gold medalist, but the judging in both sports is just asking for trouble when everyone is being graded over such a tiny range of scores. It seems a lot easier to figure the top competitors in diving when you can actually see scores ranging from 1-10. Only the worst of disasters will earn an elite figure skater something under 5 or a gymnast something under 9.

Dispatches from the overnight shift
MSNBC actually came through with a solid outing in the 2 a.m.-7 a.m. window today, primarily because they decided to show the entire men's triathlon live and not waiting for NBC to show a cut down version of it in prime time. They still got to squeeze in their schmaltzy profile during the race (of an Aussie, not an American), but it didn't detract too much from the coverage.

NBC didn't do the same for women's triathlon the day before, although it was trying to keep things open for the start of the bronze-medal baseball game (the ending would've taken place well after the game started) and thus filled the time instead with another showing of the bronze-medal women's beach volleyball match.

Another plus of the early-morning coverage is the extended looks at other sports, even if there were no Americans involved, and today it was wrestling and taekwondo. The highlight of the wrestling coverage was hearing Jeff Blatnick mention pro wrestling as a possibility for Egypt's Karam Ibrahim, who not only showed some good moves in reaching the gold-medal match but plenty of charisma -- he was doing flips on the mat after a win. Could we have the next Kurt Angle on our hands?

Taekwondo was interesting, and I even got to see a Filipino fighter compete, but I'm still amused that Pat Croce was the color commentator for this event. However, he did a solid job, in both showing that he's charismatic and knowledgeable.

It's unfortunate E.M. Swift doesn't write more for SI.com, because he nailed it twice with his columns on the unfortunate gymnastics controversy that has started to cloud the games and taken attention away from some great achievements like U.S. men's 400-meter sweep.

First, he helps to validate Paul Hamm's gold medal by further explaining the sometimes arcane judging rules. Plus, he mentions the start value issues with the U.S. team that eventually led to Blaine Wilson crashing off the high bar.

Today, he takes everyone to task for this year's games. The level of gymnastics was so-so, the judging was suspect, the international organizations have hung out Hamm to dry, the media coverage was deplorable. And while he doesn't call her out by name, Swift does take Christine Brennan to task for suggesting Paul Hamm should give up his gold medal primarily because the U.S. is so hated around the world.

"Brilliant. Let's blame a gymnast for the decline of America's stature in the world."

It seems like any competition whose results are primarily determined by judging has come under fire lately (except diving, you're next). And unfortunately, it's two of the highest profile events that are getting tarnished by the whole thing (gymnastics and figure skating). I guess when you're constantly making it a gigantic dramatic production to begin with, the drama will continue beyond the actual competition. Is Aaron Sorkin or David E. Kelley somewhere in the background writing these twists?

Boxed in?
What happened to boxing as a marquee Olympic sport? CNBC or MSNBC gives it three hours a day, but it's on its own and you really have to want to watch it to catch the coverage, although Teddy Atlas has been entertaining as the color guys, but I miss Marv Albert calling fights, and Fred "I'm not the Fear Factor Guy" Roggin seems superfluous. It feels like it's in its own TV ghetto, especially when you consider it's been getting zero buzz on NBC's coverage. There's been a story about an Iraqi boxer, but I can't name an American boxer, or an international fighter, for that matter. A sport that propelled Cassius Clay, George Foreman, Oscar de la Hoya and Roy Jones Jr. into pro stardom, and created a legend in Teofilo Stevenson, has become as anonymous as judo or taekwondo.

Is the lack of a U.S. presence/medal contender part of it? Aren't there any international fighters who come across as a "must beat" personality? Have Don King, Mike Tyson and Bob Arum wrecked the sport so much that we don't care about the potential future pros who will be coming from the Athens ranks?

Or is it the current judging system, which appears more to test the buzzer reflexes of the judges than the fighters' ability to land a punch? As much as it's easier to follow along, sorta, when you see a score, I think it's a lot more fun to wait for a knockout and/or have a Harold Lederman doing the judging between rounds. In fact, I think he's the guy we're missing to make the coverage complete. He'd work well with Atlas to complain about scoring, although he'd be flustered when he tries to throw it to Jim Lampley, who's got higher-profile anchoring jobs, when it's Bob Papa on the mike.

Channeling my inner Martzke

A couple of interesting quotes from the weekend in sports.

"That drive is so far right, Michael Moore is going to do a documentary on it." -- Gary McCord (I think) on a Tiger Woods shot during the final round of the NEC Invitational.

"We're now going to bring you uninterrupted coverage of the men's 100 meter final." -- Bob Costas
Ooh, commercial-free coverage of a race that takes less than 10 seconds to complete. I'm so there, dude.

A few more Olympics notes and observations ...
-- Give credit to NBC for spreading the wealth with all of the cable networks. It was fun bouncing between the mother ship, CNBC, Bravo, USA Network and MSNBC at different times during the day. I probably should've gone to the gym, where I could've watched NBC, CNBC and USA simultaneously; however, I probably would've been distracted by Best Week Ever or something like that.

-- But as we noticed at work when we got the non-Olympics Bravo feed for a while -- how much of the lineup is Celebrity Poker and Queer Eye? And at one point will my mind start bleeding over from those shows into Olympics coverage? Maybe Dave Foley calling badminton or something? Carson making over some of those Olympic outfits?

-- On the other hand, I think USA Network is more than ready for the U.S. Open when it had the men's doubles gold medal match live in the states until 7 p.m. Eastern and 2 a.m. Sunday morning Greece time. It appears they'll be prepared when Todd Martin has the requisite five-set match that goes until about 1:30 a.m.

-- And a note to the weightlifting announcers, everyone knows attendance has been an issue during the Games, don't lie about a standing room only crowd or a packed crowd in the venue when we can see plenty of empty seats behind you. BTW, how did former NFL linebacker Ray Bentley get a gig as the weightlifting color guy?

-- Oh yeah, we know there's a time difference between Athens and the U.S. Don't try to pretend otherwise during the prime-time and late-night telecasts. We know some of the Bob Costas in-studio interviews are taped ahead of time. Hence, Natalie Coughlin looking really good and ready to hit some clubs after her interview, although in real time it would've been 6 a.m. Greece time (since the interview aired after 11 p.m. Eastern).

But it was a bit ridiculous when the opening shot of Athens during Pat O'Brien's late-night show is Greece covered in darkness. Look, it may be 12:35 a.m. Eastern time, so we know it's early morning in Athens. Heck, the local NBC affiliate just did a live interview with their reporter in Greece during the late news and it's bright sunshine behind him. Just say it up front about what the late-night show is: prime-time (Greece time) events that were on too late to make the cable or daytime NBC coverage, events you want to show that won't make the prime-time cut, and a wrapup of everything else that happened.

In fact, I'm a bit baffled as to why NBC tries to make it a point to show events that took place during the day in Athens during the day in the U.S. and night-time events in Athens during prime-time or late night in the U.S. Most of the live events, except maybe soccer or the 10,000-meter race, were either indoor events with the Vegas effect (you can't tell what time it is) or stuff early in the morning in Greece, and in the middle of the night U.S. time, where you might as well fill the void with actual events.

(I am amused when NBC does the promo for the multi-channel coverage during the prime-time show. "Coming up at 2 a.m. on MSNBC ..." "Coming up at 4 a.m. on Bravo ..." "Coming up at at 7 a.m. on USA Network ..." They're pretty much telling you, "If you have no life and actually want to watch Olympic events as they're actually unfolding, here's how we're going to appease you. ... Why can't you just wait for Bob Costas tonight?")

Just got off a couple of days of overnight shifts to help out with the Olympics. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. It helps when there's live shot put really early in the morning from the ancient Olympic stadium (which looked like the parks Music Midtown just after the festival) or softball or another close call for the so-called Dream Team. I do appreciate the commercial-free coverage of stuff like USA hoops and soccer, although you'd wish there'd be more of it for other sports.

It is odd to watch live beach volleyball at 2 a.m. on MSNBC, if only because there are fans who decided to get out there at 9 a.m. to watch a match. I suppose it's the most eye-pleasing sport (it is often tough to separate the women's players and the dance team), but I'm surprised they don't go for more live coverage of stuff of the "fringe" sports at that hour; however, I think they have had live handball, which was really cool. Even on the cable networks, NBC does plenty of time shifting, which is even stranger for me when I've had to make sure stuff like shooting, badminton and rowing is working and then seeing it about an hour or so later (instead of 3 a.m., it's on at 4:30 a.m., for instance). But at least much of that other stuff is getting shown in the wee hours, and not just jump cuts when Pat O'Brien hosts Access Athens.

As for gymnastics, a couple of questions about the competition:
-- Svetlana Khorkina really wants to be an actress, right? I think she'll do just fine as Mena Suvari's double (or at least take the parts Mena turns down -- there is an American Pie 4 in the works.)
-- It's very easy to do the Mary Lou-Carly comparison. They were both cute 16-year-olds who won the women's all-around. But is it just me, but did Mary Lou at 16 look a lot older than Carly right now at 16?
-- Is it something with the U.S. team that some of the girls looked like linebackers compared to the competition?

The Ringmaster
It's a bit interesting that I do have to pay attention to NBC's primetime coverage to make sure we have all our bases covered. I guess if the Peacock hasn't shown it, it really hasn't happened, right?

The Costas coverage seems to be OK, although you know what you're going to get: U.S.-centric coverage, sob stories, etc., etc. Still, it seems to show what you need to see.

However, all of the other cable channels picking up the slack are doing a nice job as well. I've already watched a couple of handball games on MSNBC, and that (not badminton) really should be the "breakout" sport of Athens for U.S. fans, even if the Americans aren't even in it. It's also nice to get at least a flavor of a bunch of other sports either really late at night or early in the morning. At least I'll have something to watch when I start doing the overnight shift tomorrow (other than a repeat of the prime-time coverage).

Other Olympics thoughts:
-- I think we all saw the "Dream Team" losing sooner rather than later, but who knew Carlos Arroyo had that much game? Even more fun was watching the end of the Argentina-Serbia game -- the pass to Ginobili in the final seconds was just as impressive as Manu's shot. It is interesting to see that most of the hoops teams have some NBA presence.
-- I still can't put my finger on it, but I think if you look at Jenny Thompson, you're getting a preview of what Kirstin Dunst will look like in a few years (minus the ripped physique, obviously).
-- What type of plastic are the U.S. women's gymnastics team wearing? They're definitely not drab, but it seems a tad too shiny, especially when you factor in the makeup and what seems to be what Last Comic Standing winner John Heffron calls "stripper dust" on a couple of them. Speaking of the gymnasts, where's Pamela Anderson? You'd think with the money she shelled out for Mo Bhardwaj, you'd think she'd make her way to Greece. There were plenty of great seats available Sunday.
-- Speaking of attendance, I just about lost it when Telemundo showed the Ghana-Paraguay match and saw no one in the stands at midfield. The wide shot was even worse. If no one shows up for a match, does it really count?

Dot, dot, dot
-- Hmm, given JD's penchant for inadvertently predicting death for celebrities by writing questions about them, maybe it's not a surprise that Julia Child passed on just days after we saw her kitchen exhibit at the Smithsonian.
-- I think my level of interest in the Athens Olympics will be way below Atlanta, when I couldn't help be immersed in it, and Sydney, where the time zone differences and other responsibilities kept me way off kilter. However, it's going to throw me all off if I have to rely solely on NBC's coverage for the marquee events. I understand needing tape delay to show things to a mass audience, but working in a 24/7 news environment, it throws you off when you know what's going to happen (and need to know it happened) hours before it becomes "reality" for the American audience.
-- The fencing outfits look more like stuff from this movie.
-- I wish I knew my Greek alphabet so I could figure out when every country came out. However, I'm still wondering why NBC treated the parade of nations like a live event when it was taped hours ago ("Here are the countries who marched while we were on commercial.). With that said, it looked like NBC did try to fit in all of the countries in the parade.

The name is pretty silly, but I've become a huge fan of Dave FM, a reworked version of a former classic rock station. I'll have to keep track of a playlist one of these days. But within the span of a few hours, these were among the artists heard on the station: The Who, the Cranberries, Modest Mouse, Joe Jackson, Chris Isaak, Soundgarden, Better Than Ezra, U2, R.E.M., the Smiths, John Mayer, Garbage. Not exactly revolutionary, but it's nice to see a bunch of niches aggregating on one station.

In the span of 18 months, the two highest-profile alums from my high school have gone through very public downfalls. First, it was Jay Williams crashing his motorcycle. Now, it's Jim McGreevey's outing and resignation.

I sure hope I'm not the next most prominent person on the list. If that's the case, I guess I'd be toast.

Washington Journal, Part 2
After being overwhelmed by the humidity the first couple of days at UNITY, I instead got overwhelmed by the sheer number of people the rest of the time. (Final totals were about 8,000 attendees -- a record gathering of journalists.)

Thursday was the John Kerry speech, which sounded a lot like his acceptance speech at the Convention with a couple of little wrinkles to appease the crowd. It also sounded like the Convention with the raucous reception given by the crowd. Great, let's just fuel the flames of the "liberal media."

Thus, it was perfect to contrast that with the Bush speech Friday, which was actually more entertaining, although not always for the right reasons. He's a lot more folksy, which probably doesn't go over as well with this crowd, which (as part of the nature of the profession) needs to prove it's slightly smarter than their audience. And unfortunately, he absolutely flubbed one question on tribal sovereignty, sounding like a ninth-grader who hadn't done his homework. I suppose he let his words speak for themselves, which led to a colder reaction, plus lots of chuckles and guffaws both with and at him.

Granted, not everyone there covers politics or are even supposed to be "objective," but at such a high-profile event, you'd like to think many of the journalists there would try to keep an even keel. Hopefully that won't affect the next UNITY convention in four years when they try to get both candidates again.

As for other stuff at the convention ...
• Jerry Stackhouse is a very bright guy when spoke about his relations with the press at a sportswriters panel.
• I'd like to know who decided to schedule nearly half of the new media panels all at the same time. (I opted for a panel on Flash, which I now really need to take a class on.) However, the Saturday afternoon online panel was solid, and it was also a good place to meet with some other higher-ranking people in the business.
• There were plenty of good panels, but I wish I had more time to take all of them in. It actually seemed like there wasn't enough time for all of them. And other times, I just felt like I was grazing.
• Oh yeah, I did meet Morimoto and shake his hand at the AAJA banquet, although it was a mess trying to get his picture, so no photo evidence. However, he did do an amusing bit with Joie Chen, who helped auction off a chef's shirt signed by Morimoto and dinner at his restaurant in Philadelphia. Plus, he unveiled the secret ingredient ... SPAM (cans of the stuff were provided as a preview for next year's convention in Minneapolis). I think I even saw some cans of SPAM autographed by Morimoto.
• Speaking of the banquet, Connie Chung turned into Mark Russell with her take on the election to the tune of "Love and Marriage." It had to be seen to be believed.
• Despite all the gravity of the convention, it's still a great place to meet new people and see lots of old friends, co-workers and classmates. After a while, you keep on running into the same people over and over again, despite the 8,000+ people in attendance. That included the managing editor of the Seattle Times I had met on the bus back from Camden Yards on Tuesday.
• Among the parties and receptions I found my way to was a huge one at a reporter's place that has a reputation for being a hot spot for young DC elite.
• The convention was a solid experience in all, although I also realize I have no game, which is sad given some of the people I came across during the week.

But speaking of games, I saw plenty of quizbowl folks this week, including dinner with Tricia, Tim and J-Kel on Thursday (where they got to see the multitudes of conventioneers at the Grand Hyatt). Then it was back to Tricia's on Sunday to play a whole bunch of Burns and Muck Masters rounds with a bunch more people -- good times had by all. At least I know there'll plenty of good people around should DC be in my future.

DC follies
As hot as Atlanta can get, it hasn't been that terrible and definitely not as humid as it could be. With that said, welcome to the sticky city of DC. Not knowing about the shuttle buses running from my hotel (it proves there's a difference between retro and just old) and the UNITY convention, I've been treking a good 6-7 blocks back and forth and looking sticky in the process -- not what you want when you're trying to impress recruiters and other conventioneers.

Otherwise, it was a decently eventful day. Spent most of the morning actually processing registrations. Don't know how a mundane volunteer assignment turned into that, although four hours of meeting people doing that stuff was probably better than four hours of stuffing really nice laptop bags with stuff.

Had good talks with a couple of recruiters -- it's nice when there are people who know what I do and can thus relate with what I'm looking for.

And as always with these things, it's nice to see plenty of familiar faces, whether it's the Atlanta chapter folks, the Atlanta alumni group and just others I've met over the past few conventions. However, this time it was a lot more imposing with a big opening reception at Union Station.

It is interesting as well to see the famous faces at a convention like this, especially since it's an all-encompassing minority journalists group. I spotted J.A. Adande at the hotel bar. Some reasonably well-known local TV personalities around. And for you ESPN folks, Dream Job runner-up Aaron Levine is at the convention, although I haven't gotten a chance to talk to him just yet.

Travels with JQ
There will be more later (including my five-boroughs tour and the Man U game), but for now, I'm in DC for UNITY. Thanks to JD for getting me from the airport, and thanks to Kristin for a great (if humid) time in Baltimore and at this game -- where the large group of cadets from Annapolis sitting in the upper deck stole the show.