Supplemental Jurisdiction

HOF

An update to a previous post:

Bracket Busted

A couple of weeks ago I was standing in line at municipal court, waiting to take care of a speeding ticket, when I overheard a conversation between two other attorneys. This was a couple of days before the NCAA announced the brackets for the tournament, and both of these attorneys were Kansas fans.

Attorney 1: So, I just purchased my tickets for St. Louis. Got seats for the regional finals and purchased a hotel room. Cost a small fortune.
Attorney 2: Really? The brackets haven't even come out yet.
Attorney 1: Yeah, but Kansas will be play in the Midwest regional, right? I mean, they'll be a number 1 seed, so they'll put them in the Midwest regional.
Attorney 2: Sure, you're right. Maybe I'll get some tickets too.

So, as someone who dislikes all things KU, you can imagine how hilarious I found this conversation on Selection Sunday when Kansas was placed in the West Regional. Hope those guys like Florida.

Hope Springs Eternal

Tomorrow morning I will awake early to engage in my yearly tradition: buying choice Royals tickets as soon as they become available. And by choice, I mean Cardinals tickets.

UPDATE: It took me 40 minutes to log in and get tickets to that game. Unbelievable. But, still, first base side. Not too shabby.

6-1, 6-2

Last week Serena Williams won the Australian Open, her 8th major championship, beating Maria Sharapova, the number 1 player in the world, 6-1, 6-2. Those of you that watched the match know, surprisingly, the match wasn't even as close as the score indicates. ("Comprehensive beating" was how SI's Jon Wertheim described it.)

Anyway, Serena was a guest on Conan, where Conan challenged her to a game of Wii Tennis:

[UPDATE: Boo NBC/Universal.]

This bit brings together a lot of things I totally love: Conan, tennis, Nintendo, extra "assets." So this is pretty cool.

The thing I should mention about Wii Tennis is that it isn't really much like tennis at all. I mean, it approximately simulates tennis, as imagined by someone who doesn't really play tennis. Not to say that it isn't fun; it is by far my favorite game on Wii Sports. But being an actual tennis player gives you no advantage in this game, aside from general eye-hand coordination. True, you can use actual tennis strokes and perform at this game just fine, but the secret to getting good is developing a well-timed wrist snap. That's true in some aspects of real tennis too (serves, overheads), but not so much with groundies and volleys.

Point is, it is funny tv, but not a real tennis simulation. Aside from the lack of motion-sensitive controllers and the inclusion of classic-Nintendo characters, Mario Power Tennis is actually a very accurate tennis simulation; probably the best regular-style controller tennis game I've ever played. (I say this having owned several tennis video games in my lifetime, including Wimbledon for the Sega Genesis and a crappy Jimmy Connors computer game.)

Oh well, time to sign off this thing: Short Circuit just came on. "Number 5 . . . is ALIVE!"

Ridin' Dirty

This weekend I sold out. I mean, I sold out a long time ago (hello, new job), but this weekend I sold out the last ounce of purity left in my soul: sports team loyalty. Because my mother is an alumna, we've always been a Michigan house. (Side note: I, too, was almost a Michigan alumnus twice over, except that both times I sold them down the river as soon as I received a better offer.) So, obviously I was rooting for Michigan to beat OSU, and now that they've lost, I'm hoping for a rematch in January.

For those of you that disagree with the rematch, let me just say I've heard the arguments against and I don't care. The arguments are not compelling; you cannot seriously tell me that USC deserves to be in the championship game more than Michigan. Aside from OSU, anyone else playing for the championship will have one loss, and every other team, save one, lost their one game to some bitch.

Anyway, that point aside, this weekend caused me to root for almost every team I despise. Arkansas, Florida State, Notre Dame (fucking Notre Dame, people!). And when I did that, placing my hope in teams I routinely wish would be obliterated, both metaphorically and literally, I was totally screwed. If I needed a team to come through and help Michigan, they failed. Miserably. So, to tie this back to this post's title, at the end of Saturday I felt completely dirty.

If you'd like to see the Weird Al parody of the above video, click here.

Also, I'm still planning on doing my "blog crushes" feature, as soon as I can figure out how to sound not totally creepy. If you'd like to be possibly featured, drop me an email. If you're a hot girl, be sure to include a picture. Yeah, I know, creepy.

Prediction

I'm home for Thanksgiving. It isn't too bad here so far, turkey, some football. However, I did get bored during the Dallas blowout, so I went to my room, fired up the old Sega Genesis, and popped in the first Genesis game I ever owned: NFL Football '94. NFLF94 is an amazing piece of sports history: On the front of the box is a picture of Joe Montana in a Kansas City Chief's uniform.

Anyway, I took this as an opportunity to simulate tonight's Chief's game against the Broncos. With Joe Montana at qb, I can now safely predict Kansas City will win, 56-21.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. If you need me later tonight, you can find me playing some NHL 94.

Lay off

From a today's L.A. Times about Jelena Jankovic's win at the U.S. Open and her first grand slam semi-final:

Not long ago, Jankovic would have been thrilled with just winning. She began the year by losing in the second round of the Australian Open and then losing her next nine first-round matches. She was the Kansas City Royals of tennis.

Not cool, L.A. Times, not cool. Why don't you pick on a team in your own state, like the Golden State Warriors? They're not awesome either.

U.S. Open

This is a rare special weekend post. I like tennis a lot, and the U.S. Open is my favorite event to watch (this is not to say I think it is the most prestigous; I grudgingly admit that is Wimbledon). This year, there are a couple of really cool things tied into the Open.

1. On Directv, you can actually get live feeds from the five main courts all day, every day. They even have a channel that shows all the courts at once, with the current scores listed. Check it out on Channels 680-685. Because of this, I'm no longer forced to watch whatever blowout USA is showing, instead getting to watch more exciting matches. This also means I get to watch doubles (especially the Bryan brothers), which USA and CBS never show.

On a related note: If you get Universal HD, you can watch the USA coverage in HD. Like all sports, tennis is superior in high definition.

2. The New York Times has a great US Open blog. They live blog matches, have interesting commentary, provide statistical breakdowns, and keep you updated on the schedule and weather. So far I've found it a great companion to my tv watching.

3. The Roddick v. Pong commercial is pretty good. However, the pong game they send you to is freaking addictive. And hard. Check it out:

Advice

If you are a spectator at a professional tennis tournament, there is no need to show up in your personal court gear. Trust me, no one is going to ask you to sub in.

Nasty

While browsing Dick's Sporting Goods this evening, I came across these on the sale rack, which I immediately had to have:

So freakin' sweet.  I was in the market for a "retro" shoe anyway, and opportunity came a knockin' in the form of these kick-ass Ilie "Nasty" Nastase's.

Vive la France!

Most of you by now are well aware of the headbutt Zinedine Zidane (of France) gave Marco Materazzi (of Italy) during the World Cup final.  Regardless of merits of headbutting (btw, I'm all in favor of it), this article about the possible cause is totally hot.

Some choice quotes:

"I did insult him, it's true," Materazzi said in Tuesday's Gazzetta dello Sport. "But I categorically did not call him a terrorist. I'm not cultured and I don't even know what an Islamic terrorist is."

. . .

Media reports, based on interpretations by lip-readers, have suggested that Materazzi called Zidane a terrorist or insulted his mother or sister. Materazzi denies these claims, too.

"For me, the mother is sacred, you know that," Materazzi told the newspaper.

. . .

Materazzi is no stranger to controversy. He was suspended for two months for punching Siena defender Bruno Cirillo after a Serie A game in February 2004, and earned condemnation following a brutal tackle on Sweden and Juventus striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic in October 2005.

Materazzi was also sent off three times while playing for Everton in the 1998-99 season.

One Italian senator even suggested that Materazzi -- also sent off three times while playing for Everton in the 1998-99 season -- didn't merit selection for the Italian team because of his physical style.

Oh man, good stuff.

Believe!

I was so intrigued by Bill Simmon's YouTube column today that I thought I'd try to find a video of one my favorite classic sports moments:  The Pine Tar Incident.  Unfortunately, I can't find any video of this game.  I am so sad right now.

In my search, though, I did find this, which is pretty hilarious if you are familiar with the Royals and their frugal, yet wealthy, owner:

By the way, KC freaking owns the National League.  At least until they play the Reds and Cardinals this week.

NHL

Congratulation to the 2006 Stanley Cup champions, the Hartford Whalers!

Brass Bonanza!

Recent Conversation

Because the Royals are horrific and the stands are constantly empty, this season they've resorted to telemarketing to try to get people out to the park.  The other day, some guy from the "Royals' Front Office" called me up:

Royals Guy:  Hi, Mr. Law Talking Guy.  This is Mike from the Royals' Front Office and we noticed you attended the Detroit series last week.  Did you enjoy your time at the game?

Me:  Yeah, I guess, considering.

RG:  Uh, what do you mean by considering?

Me:  Considering how terrible the Royals are.

RG:  Right.  Thank you for your time.

He didn't even try to sell me any tickets after that. 

Big

On Friday, some friends and I attended a baseball game.  While there, one of my friends found this girl's hair very big and very funny, so she took at picture:

This picture doesn't even really do it justice; it was ginormous.  However, she was also pretty hot.  I have this theory:  I've been going to baseball games for a long time now, and I can state for a fact that hot girls love going to baseball games because the stadium is always packed with them.  Them, and their boyfriends.  So, it is really only hot girls with boyfriends that show up to the games, which may have less to do with hot girls loving baseball and more to do with them wanting to spend time with their boyfriends.

Except for one hot girl I met after the game.  She came up to me and three friends (all guys), crying and asking to "borrow" a cell phone.  Allegedly her friends had left her there and she didn't know how to get a hold of them.  She also wanted a ride to somewhere in Kansas.  Those who know me know I don't make trips into Kansas on purpose, so we were reluctant to let this unknown girl just jump in my car.  However, when our lone female friend rejoined the group, shr lost interest in both the cell phone and the car ride and ran off.  When we saw her going from car to car trying to convince people (mainly guys) to take her somewhere, we talked it over and decided to let her ride with us.  After all, she was really young, and we didn't want someone to take advantage of her.  Just then, a truckload full of young men let the hottie jump in with them.

So, I don't know if we did the right thing.  It was definitely sketch, but then again, what danger were we really in?  The girl was tiny.  On the other hand, we've all been monitoring the papers to make sure there's no story about a truckload of men being found dead in Kansas. 

Basketball

ESPN.com is really stretching it with headlines like this:

When looking at something like this, I'm inclined at first to believe someone must have really thought this was clever and funny.  However, what really happened is some guy's boss comes into his office and says, "Jimmy, we need headline that's both clever and funny, and we needed it 5 minutes ago!"  So this poor dude---who's had about 15 beers and is more than a little pissed that he has to leave the Espn.com Final Four party to go write a stupid headline---plops down in front of his computer and just bangs out the first semi-pun-related headline he can think of.

"Jimmy, where the hell is that headline?"

"Right here, sir."

"Hmmm . . . 'Rep-title.'  As in reptile, because they're alligators.  I get it!  Jimmy, this is both clever and funny.  Brilliant!"

"Thanks, boss."  Jimmy grabs his now-warm Bud Light and quickly returns to the party.

NCAA Update

Yesterday I watched the Wichita State v. Tennessee game. When CBS came back from a commercial break, they opened with the obligatory "show the cheerleaders cheering in front of the camera" shot. I noticed that several of the female Wichita State cheerleaders were giving the "shocker" handsign, and that's when I realized their mascot is the "Shockers."

Note to the administration of Wichita State University: Although kind of funny, I might tell your cheerleaders that when they're on national television, they shouldn't go around displaying the "shocker" handsign, as it specifically refers to an obscene sexual act. This advice also goes to the Northwestern Montana State University Hand Jerkers and Central Nevada College Middle Fingers.

The Last Commissioner

My favorite quote from Frank DeFord’s recent SI column regarding Barry Bonds and his steroid use:

You can't rewrite history anymore than you can get God to stop the sun ... unless you are Joshua. And Commissioner Bud Selig is not Joshua. Or God.

I sure do dislike Bud Selig.

We're going to five blades!

I know what you're thinking now: What'll people say? Mew mew mew. Oh, no, what will people say?! Grow the fuck up. When you're on top, people talk. That's the price you pay for being on top. Which Gillette is, always has been, and forever shall be, Amen, five blades, sweet Jesus in heaven.

James M. Klits, Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades, The Onion (Feb. 18, 2004) 

I know I'm not the first to comment on this.  Whatever.  I wasn't the first to comment on Marbury v. Madison either, but it sure didn't stop me from piping up in Con Law.

So, Gillette, only two years after The Onion mocked the absurdity of the razor wars, has finally come out with a five bladed razor.  And they spent something like $2.8 billion to air a super bowl ad.  And this is what they came up with:

(You need the latest Macromedia Flash software installed on your computer to view the commercial.)

Hey Gillette, I could have given you an equivalent (or perhaps even superior) piece of crap for half the price.  Anyway, this ad seriously looks like they just dug around David Lynch's garbage for some leftover Dune footage, and then slapped in some pictures of a 5-bladed razor. I mean, really, check it out it out sometime.

Up until I got my Go-Go-Gadget electric razor this Christmas, I was still sporting the old Gillette Sensor Excel, a gift from Gillette on my 18th birthday.  It served me well, especially considering I have the body hair of a 12-year old girl.  I resisted the urge to buy the Mach-3, or even the Mach-3 Turbo.

(An aside, what the hell is up with the Mach-3 Turbo?  It is an regular razor with a Duracell.  As far as I can tell, it does nothing but vibrate.  Basically, you are shaving with a vibrator.  Good luck with that.  Bitch.)

Right, so I'm not sure what Gillette is doing, except they've totally run out of ideas and are now turning to The Onion for advice, which I submit is a very foolish thing to do.

What part of this don't you understand? If two blades is good, and three blades is better, obviously five blades would make us the best fucking razor that ever existed. Comprende? We didn't claw our way to the top of the razor game by clinging to the two-blade industry standard. We got here by taking chances. Well, five blades is the biggest chance of all.