So watching the first round of tournament playoffs has shown some decent commercials. Two I really liked are from Nike and Air Jordan (same advertising agency?) The first has a Saul Williams track, so I might just be digging that. For those of you wondering, the song is List of Demands (Reparations).
Buckeye football is a little over half-way completed, and Ohio State is already looking at running for another National Championship. This season has been very different for me for a few reasons. First of all, no one really expected our team to do this well, or be #1 in the rankings so soon. Secondly, I have been very aware that this is probably my last season having a ticket to all the home games, and also the last time (at least for the next few years) that I will be in Columbus for nearly every gameday.
I’ve really started to realize some of the small things that I’m sure I’ll miss about Ohio State football in Columbus. Whether it is the constant radio promos supporting the buckeyes, the AM talk stations analyzing the team non-stop, restaurant and store OSU merchandise giveaways, or just the constant Buckeye spirit throughout the city, I foresee this being one of the harder things to adjust to. I’ve been down in Nashville now for two college football Saturdays and although it’s not the same as being in Columbus, it hasn’t been too bad. Kate and I went to watch one game at the local Alumni Club viewing and that was a lot of fun. Also, you get called out and recognized at lot more by wearing your Ohio State gear around town, because not everyone around you is an Ohio State fan (especially in SEC country). It makes for a lot of random greetings and hazings by spontaneous college football fans. I like this aspect a lot.
Go Bucks!
PS - Bree & Jess have entered the blog-0-shpere. Check out their site here. Let’s hope they keep up a little better than a few others. 
This past weekend was the Senior Bowl, which I didn’t get to watch because it was being played on the NFL network. Anyway, Troy Smith was the starting quarterback for the North, and depending on the news source you read, had either a good game or a bad game.
Both ESPN and CSTV ran the same AP article, but used completely different headlines. After reading the article, I take away that Troy had a decent game for the type of situation he had to play in.
ESPN - Smith outduels Leak, leads North to Senior Bowl win
CSTV - Smith Struggles Again , North Blanks South in Senior Bowl
Here are a few other headlines for the same AP Article.
Yahoo Sports -OSU’s Smith outplays Leak in Senior Bowl
SI.com - Role Reversal: Smith, North get best of Leak, South in Senior Bowl
FoxSports - Smith wins rematch of national title QBs
After reading those it seems there is only one that is trying to portray a different story than the others. I wonder if the AP tracks what headlines are used for their articles. It’d be interesting to see.
After a weekend of watching NFL playoffs and then one of the most watched shows on TV (24) I think I’ve seen that damn Chevy ad about 13,722 times now. Anyway, I think I’ve finally recovered from the grief that was the National Championship game. The trip itself was a blast and I ended up getting to watch the game in the stadium thanks to my awesome Uncle Rob who just happened to be down for the game and just happened to have an extra ticket and just happened to call me up about 24 hours before kickoff. Everything was awesome except for the outcome. There is a lot of analyzing you can do looking at why we lost, but I’ve decided to sum it up as follows. Florida played their best game that they had all year and we played our worst. A lot of other factors might contribute to why we played so poorly but thats the simplest way to put it. Thank goodness on Saturday I got to witness a true Ohio State win as the Men’s basketball team put away Tennessee in the last few seconds. I don’t know if I could have taken another loss.
So the 6th season of 24 has started and I’ve now come to the conclusion that 24 is one of the biggest junk food shows ever. And its awesome! There is so much poor writing and plot twists, but that just makes it all the better. Let me go through a few of my observations from the first two episodes for all you 24 fans. (Just a note, at the time of this writing I have not seen any further episodes than the first two).
Those are just a few of the reasons why 24 rocks so hard. If you don’t watch this show you are truly missing out on some of the best and at the same time worst television of the 00’s.
I was considering writing a similar article, but BuckeyeBattleCry put it better than I ever could have.
It’s the middle of the night right now. Three hours ago, I watched the final moments of LSU’s win over Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl. It was embarrassing, but not unexpected. It was a complete travesty of what the BCS should be. Notre Dame has no business being on the field of a Bowl Championship Series game.
All of what was said in that article also applies to Brady Quinn who, in my opinion, is extremely overrated, unproven, and will not be a top 10 quarterback in the NFL. (I feel bad for Lions fans)
Keep in mind that Notre Dame was ranked #2 going into this season and Brady Quinn made more pre-season covers than any other player by a large margin. ND won’t even finish in the top 10 and Brady finished a distant 3rd in the Heisman race. Over-hyped? I think so.
So yes, I realize it has been a while since I’ve made any post of substance, but a lot has been going on in the past few weeks that has been keeping me busy.
Lets see. Ohio State beat Michigan in an epic battle that will go down as one for the ages. I was there. It definetly qualifies as one of the top 5 Ohio State games I’ve seen in person and I will probably be throwing together a list of such said games after the National Championship. Should be an easy list to compose, order will be the only issue. Speaking of National Championship, it is looking like USC will be our opponent which I am very happy with. Not only am I please because I’m a USC fan and it will be great to see 2 teams which I cheer for play against each other for it all, but being a much greater OSU fan than I am USC, I’m glad that we’ll get to prove how great this year’s team is by playing another top caliber program (Instead of Rutgers or Michigan again). I feel when we win out, the 2006 Buckeyes will go down as one of the greatest teams in college football. In case I hadn’t previously mentioned, I will be out in Arizona for the game. Plane and Hotel reservations already made. Now just to find a game ticket. Hmmmm.
Saw the new Bond movie last week. It is very good. It totally reinvents the Bond franchise (which was long overdue) and makes for a great film. For Thanksgiving I was down in San Antonio with my Dad’s brother’s family. Its funny because we were staying at a resort type hotel, which had a lot of activities already availble for you, so really the only time we left to “see the sights” was to go to The Lighting of the Riverwalk. I didn’t even get to see The Alamo, which is somewhat of a shame, but the trip was a blast. I was amazed at how long I was able to last without internet access. 4 whole days without even an inbox check! That’s definitely the longest in quite a while. It also made me appreciate the free wireless access that Columbus Airport provides, as none of the other 3 airports I stopped in provided such a service. Although Atlanta did have a Nintendo DS Download Station.
Michigan Gameday pics are up. I plan on making an effort to post much more often through the month of December. We’ll see how long I stick to that. The combination of holidays, friends visiting, family, new video games (Matt got a Wii) and new gizmos may prevent that planned effort.
GO BUCKS!!!!!!
BEAT M*CH*GAN
If S beats M, then S = H.
If S !(beat) M, AND Q beat U, then Q = H.
Else, who knows.Where
S = Troy Smith,
M = Michigan
H = Heisman Trophy
Q = Brandy Quinn
U = USC.
Short post today because I have Gears of War and it is awesome. Possibly Halo 2 awesome. It’s hard not to enjoy a multiplayer that includes a chainsaw bayonet and curb-stomp. Boy do I sound violent.
Here is just a taste of what HD College Football has to offer. Keep in mind this is compressed to where it’s not full quality (but I’m a great video encoder now so it’s pretty darn good).
You’ll need an xvid codec. If you don’t know what that is then why are you here? No seriously just ask in the comments. If you have the guts!
Right-Click > Save-As
gonzo_catch_HD.avi (13 megs)
My two favorite sports are Baseball and College Football.
For baseball, the greatest two points of the season are the two weeks leading up to the playoffs, and the playoffs themselves. What’s funny is, for the rest of the country, if two specific teams aren’t playing in Post-Season, no one watches. With both the Yankee’s and Red Sox being out, viewership for the post-games this year is way down. I still love watching no matter who plays.
The greatest points of a college football season can happen almost every weekend. The reason I think college football has become so much more popular over the past few years is because with the way the BCS system works, every game matters. Even if your team isn’t playing, you’ll watch two teams because if one of them loses and is ahead of you, all the better ranking for your team. It’s an interesting situation that I don’t think happens in any other sport. Besides the fact that this past weekend’s Auburn/Florida game was a great game of football, the fact that Florida lost a) helps USC in the rankings and b) helps M*ch*gan in the rankings which in turn helps Ohio State in the rankings because those two teams will play each other.
Speaking of the Buckeyes, last week I finally got around to purchasing an HD Capture card for my PC. Now I’ve been enjoying the greatness that is HD Television for over a year now via my Costco Purchased Vizio 50″ Plasma Monitor, but I’ve never been able to recording anything of my choosing (usually I’ll just download aquire from alternative sources). Now that I have this capture card I can record all the Buckeye games in wonderful 720p. This week I’ve really gotten into video editing and encoding and have been able to put together some awesome looking clips from the Michigan State/OSU game. If I get a chance I’ll post some links later.
