I checked out a story on CNN's website and it led me to TMZ.com. TMZ, which stands for "thirty mile zone" (referring to a Hollywood rule for shooting movies/shows within the city) is basically operated by the paparazzi. Their website boasts that they were "Named one of the year's 50 coolest websites by Time magazine".

Now follow me: TMZ is owned by AOL, which in turn is owned by Time Warner. Time Warner, of course, owns Time Magazine and CNN. So basically, one division of the company is honoring another part. Kids, that's what we call "cross promotion". I used to view CNN as the most reputable news source. As they have grown and combined with other companies, they have relied more on sourcing their news from other places. To use TMZ as their source for entertainment news violates the basic principles these people should have learned from journalism class.

The news that broke this week about Heath Ledger is tragic and the media should have been careful about the facts they report until the details are clear. The Chris Benoit situation is a good example what goes wrong when you report on sketchy details; the WWE had serious PR damage as a result of their actions. TMZ's website today published a number of "facts" about the situation that they later retracted. Among them: his apartment was owned by Mary Kate Olsen, sleeping pills were "strewn" about the room, and that he was found naked on the floor in an awkward position. These reports were repeated through other media outlets.

While these details may seem trivial compared to the bigger picture, it is just one recent example. I remember during the 2000 election, Al Gore was originally named the winner of Florida. When I went to bed that night, they reversed that announcement and named George Bush our next president. Thanks to the internet and 24 hour news channels, news today travels in seconds. The media has got to do a better job of checking the facts and filtering out things that aren't news (i.e. anything Britney Spears does).

Now that I'm done with my rant, I want to move on to something more fun. The previously mentioned George Bush is pushing a $600 tax rebate check for all individuals to boost the economy. I will gladly accept the money and came up with a list of things I could do with the $600. I passed my finance course in college, so I am sure each of these would only cost $600.

1. Buy the Florida Marlins and the Minnesota Twins and turn them into the Tigers and the Red Sox respective AAA teams. This is more of an official name change than anything else.
2. Buy a dolphin, parrot, tucan, rhino, gorilla, zebra, and sea otter for Stacey. That should keep her happy.
3. Pay off all of the fans at every single MSU away game to cheer for State. Turning every away game is the only legal thing I can think of to help them win a national championship.
4. Buy Keifer Sutherland a full-time driver so I can watch 24 in the future.
5. Buyout the networks so I personally can cancel American Idol, Big Brother, any show that involving someone else’s wife or a nanny tell you that your family sucks, Deal or No Deal, any show with Drew Carey as the host, any show that deals with investigators who communicate with dead people, any and all CSIs, and Extreme Makeover Home Edition.
6. Contract the NHL to 20 teams, none further south than the Mason-Dixon Line.
7. End the damn writers strike!

Friday!

I really love Fridays. I half ass work on Fridays, as I am sure many Americans do, just to get out of the office unharmed. I bet on Fridays, Mike's students learn little more than his football picks and Kevin's orders are lucky to be correct (kidding!) This weekend will be another sports blowout (sorry Stacey!) with the AFC/NFC Championships and the back-to-back MSU/OSU hockey games. Let's get this shit started!

I think everyone is surprised but in agreement that the NFC Championship Game is more exciting than the AFC. (Sad fact: when I wrote that last sentence, I spelled out ACT instead of AFC. Job habit, I guess) As for the Patriots/Chargers - boo, haven't we already seen this before? Last year's playoffs, week 2, and the AFC Championship game? Does anyone care about Rivers and Tomlinson (or is it Volek and Turner)? Does anyone think the Chargers will win? Patriots win 34 - 20.

I realize the Packers and Giants played in week 2 as well, but both of these teams are very different teams now. Growing up on wrestling, I love storylines in sports. It brings the importance of the game to a whole new level. I really want to see Brett Favre make one final go at the championship and retire. But that's not likely - I bet we'll see him again next year. (Sorry Aaron Rodgers) Packers win 24-17

Can anyone else explain to me why the Conference Championship games are both on Sunday? When did this happen?

I am really excited to see THE National Championship Spartan Hockey team tonight. Prediction for the weekend - win tonight, tie tomorrow. Thank you OSU fans for not giving two shits about hockey so I can get 4th row center ice tickets!

**Update**
They were actually 2nd row center ice tickets (I love when row "d" means 2nd row). It was a great feeling being heckled by stupid Ohioans knowing that my team was the better team. MSU came out and put 2 goals up early - they were clearly bigger and better than OSU. The Buckeyes finally put one on the board before the end of the first period. At the intermission, the band came out and formed "script Ohio" on the ice; nobody fell, so it was a disappointment. OSU came out strong at the beginning of the 2nd and had much more energy. They had a lot of chances, but MSU squashed their spirit by scoring another goal. In the end, they scored an empty netter as well to bring the final Score to 4-1. I stand by my prediction for a tie tonight. I am guessing it will be 2-2.

**Update 2**
I was correct about the number of goals scored on Saturday, but wrong about the final score. They won 4-0 with an impressive shutout from Lerg. Keep in mind he's 5'6" - he does this funny thing when he gets bored before the game and during breaks where he puts his arms on the crossbar and swings back and forth in the air. During player intros, they called out "Rich Comley" which pissed me off. There were about 9,000 people on Friday, which I later found out was more than twice their previous high attendance this season. Their student spirit section is about 15 people, which has to be the lamest type of student - "lower sport crazy fan" - they do all of the cheers and dances. It is cool if you're a part of a large section, but it just looks forced when you are doing it with your row and the row behind you.

The most impressive thing from the game was holding OSU to 0-7 on the powerplay (and going 2-5 themselves). I saw something I've never seen before - they were shorthanded and had a rocket of a shot that sounded like it went off the crossbar - no goal was called and play continued. At the next whistle, they had the Dance cam or something so everyone was being loud. They announced that the play was under review and I knew they were going to call it a goal. Nobody in the crowd noticed and about 2 mins later the ref signaled the 4th goal of the night (which still went unnoticed). They put back the correct time on the scoreboard and kept playing.

Overall, the team is a very finesse team - excellent passing, good vision, good speed, and clear the puck defensively. They do tend to have 5 min. lapses and aren't very physical. Lerg makes some great saves, but I think the more impressive thing is that other teams don't seem to get good bounces because he doesn't give up bad goals. U-M and Miami are at the top of the league - they play U-M in a home-and-home series next weekend.

It was so much fun to go to the games because seeing my team live made me feel closer to home. The best feeling was the pride I felt in knowing that they were going to win so I could be as boastful as I wanted around the OSU fans.

Post Potpurri

I'm excited for today's post - it is a combination of posts I've been writing for the past week.

Quarterbacks
Peter King wrote an article for SI.com today that mirrored other arguments I've heard on the radio - that this weekend's playoff games featured 3 of the top 6-10 QBs in football history (Peyton, Brady, and Favre). I agree that they are all great quarterbacks, but consider Bill Simmons' argument that the NFL is filled with tons of QB vacancies right now and that the overall level of QB talent right now is poor. You can't deny that there is a QB drought given the demand for Vinny Testaverde, Kerry and Todd Collins, etc. So my question is whether Peyton, Brady, and Favre really are top 10 all time QBs or if their peers' mediocrity boosts their value. And that is a question that I haven't heard posed on any of the talk shows. Favre's career numbers are the best - but given his health and tenure, should we expect them to be any less? I wanted to sort this out, so I did the only thing I know how - crunch the numbers and compare. I was REALLY surprised by what I found out. In my opinion, the two most important things are TD-INT ratio, since it shows the ability to score vs. errors, and completion percentage, because it proves accuracy. Using these two stats levels the playing field as well because it evens the comparison between someone who played for 7 seasons and someone who played for 14. Here's where Favre lands...

Player TD-INT Ratio, Completion Percentage
Steve Young 2.17 to 1, 64.3%
Joe Montana 1.98 to 1, 63.2%
Dan Marino 1.66 to 1, 59.4%
Brett Favre 1.53 to 1, 61.4%
John Elway 1.33 to 1, 56.9%
Fran Tarkenton 1.29 to 1, 57.0%
Troy Aikman 1.17 to 1, 61.5%
Johnny Unitas 1.15 to 1, 54.6%
Terry Bradshaw 1.01 to 1, 51.9%
Joe Namath .786 to 1, 50.1%

My first surprise was how strong the correlation was; besides Aikman, the two categories go hand in hand very well. He threw the numbers off because he never threw that many more TDs than INTs (his best differential was +9 for a few seasons, but in '93 he completed 69%). My second surprise was how well he really did stack up. My third surprise was how much Joe Namath sucked. He proves that personality can get you into the Hall of Fame.

So here's the real test of where Brady and Manning's places are amongst the best. How do they stack up in those categories?

Tom Brady 2.29 to 1, 63%
Peyton Manning 2 to 1, 64.2%

You really can't argue with the results. The three of them really are among the top 6-7 QBs of all time.

My New Love for Netflix
One of the principles of successful business strategy is identify a market weakness and market your product accordingly. For example, my family used to have 7 videotapes, one for each day of the week, to record their favorite tv shows (yes, they watch a lot of tv... not surprising if you know me.) This was inefficient because they would frequently forget to tape a certain show, the VCR was unreliable, and the tape quality was poor after a few uses. TiVo was the obvious gift for my parents two Christmases ago. They love the ability to set a "season pass", organize the shows they love, skip the commercials quickly, and pause live tv. It's perfect for them.

The second most successful entertainment innovation of the past 5 years is Netflix, which last February delivered its billionth disc. It has been a few months since I've rented a movie, which is probably shocking until you figure in the number of movies we watch at the dollar theater. The other night was Stacey's birthday, so we rented a movie to cap the night off. I forgot Blockbuster now charges around $4.50 to rent a movie, only $2 less than it normally costs us to see a new movie. How in the hell do they think they can compete with Netflix, which charges $9 for unlimited rentals per month? If you didn't guess already, I signed up for the "one at a time" Netflix plan. I figure this will help me get through the writer's strike.

I started my two week free trial by renting the first season of the Mole, the best reality tv show ever. Kevin, I am convinced that you would actually enjoy this show - just forget the word that precedes "tv show". The whole show involves a lot of intrigue, mystery, and deception. The competitions are usually pretty enjoyable and it doesn't focus on the lives of the contestants. The discs take 1 day to ship, so the entire day yesterday I was looking forward to coming home to the first disc. Of course I watched the whole thing and shipped it back today. Waiting two-three days to get the next one is hard, so I instantly upgraded to the "two at a time" plan. Their website is really well designed and it makes it very easy for you to upgrade. I love to see a really good marketing strategy such as this.

My New Love for my Crockpot
We really put our crockpot to work this weekend. We started with a dessert because Stacey and I have the biggest sweet teeth. It was really simple - a layer of chocolate pudding on the bottom with a layer of prepared chocolate fudge cake mix on top. It mixes a little into a chocolate lava dessert. It is incredibly rich, so I can only eat a few bites before I feel like throwing up. I'd rate it 4.5/5 - it loses a point only because it made me feel sick both times I ate it, but it was sooo good.

Next up was a soft taco casserole. It was had layers of cheese, beans and a ground turkey/salsa mix separated by tortillas. The tortillas ended up getting soggy (which I assume was supposed to happen) so they had the consistency of cooked pasta noodles. The whole dish tasted more like lasagna than mexican. 2/5

Tonight was the premier dish - beef brisket sandwiches on french bread. I didn't know what to expect when I ordered brisket; luckily the guy at the deli counter only asked me how many pounds. It turns out brisket is just a big slab of marbled beef. I think it comes from the undercarriage. (How fun is that word, "undercarriage"?) I bought the 10,000 spices that the marinade requires (among them was "all spice" - by definition, shouldn't that alone have done the trick?) and marinated it overnight. This morning, I threw it in with a bottle of beer and 2 cups of apple cider and set it cook for 10 hours. This is the exact reason why I was excited to have a crockpot - the ability to come home to real cooking that is already done. The meat was very flavorful, but it ended up tasting pretty similar to a pot roast. Still, the sandwiches were good and leaving it all day didn't burn our apartment down. 4/5

Overrated

Because I miss Shannon Brown...


After the close wins over Minnesota and Purdue, I was really nervous about their first road game. Izzo warned everyone that this team was overrated; that they weren't really the 6th best team in the country and that they still had a lot of glaring weaknesses they needed to improve upon. Since nobody gets the Big 10 Network, I only have the box score to interpret. The most glaring weakness, besides the fact that they scored 36 points, is the free throw differential. Don't misinterpret me, because this loss is inexcusable and MSU lost the game themselves. But it is inconceivable to me that a game could be called fairly when one team could get 4 free throws while the other gets 29. The other thing that sticks out to me is that 5 players (Naymick, Walton, Lucas, Dahlman, and Gray) combined for 83 minutes of playing time - a complete game for two players - and managed to score 0 points. Lucas was the worst of the bunch, going 0-8. They had more turnovers (18) than field goals (16). This is not Izzo's fault. Neitzel must step up and lead this team, the freshman need to start maturing, and they all need to play with more pride. Playing Ohio State at home gives them a great bounce back game, so I am really looking forward to Tuesday.

Taking a quick look at my bowl pick standings, I am 18-11 right now. I am obviously most surprised about Florida's inability to stop the offensive juggernaught that was Michigan. It's funny - every OSU fan I talk to admitted they were glad to see U-M win. They claimed different things: wanting Lloyd to win his last game, Big 10 solidarity, etc. But I think they were secretly excited because of what this means to their chances against LSU. Speaking of which, I am officially changing my pick for that game to OSU defeating LSU. I really feel the stars are aligned for OSU to win. Nobody is giving them a chance - similar to the way they came out in 2002 against Miami. While their QB is shaky, they have a consistent running game and a smothering defense. My official prediction: OSU 24 LSU 20

I watched a little bit of the Tila Tequila show (watch out Kevin, this paragraph is about reality tv... you might want to just skip to the next one) and she really didn't seem to care for any of the people. Sure, she was making out with them, but that doesn't mean shit. I came across an article that proved she was doing the show just to boost her own celebrity. She claimed that the guy she picked couldn't handle her hectic schedule and broke up with her. In actuality, she never called him after the reunion episode and MTV wouldn't give him her phone number. Apparently, before the finale, there were casting notices going around on the internet for the second season. She is the epitome of talentless celebrity.

As you both should remember, I love the show Lost. Part of each episode involves a flashback to their life before the island and the other part is the storyline on the island. At the end of last season, they made contact with a boat near the island, but were warned by the people who inhabited the island that the people on the boat would kill all of them. Nevertheless, they contacted the boat and are about to be possibly rescued. The last episode of the season was great because the "flashback" we saw was really a "flashforward" that showed one of the main characters (Jack) gets off the island, has a horrible life, and wants to go back to the island. What I love most about the show is that involves a lot of mystery and is leading up to the end (which is set to happen after 3 more seasons). Kev, I really think you would like the show and I think Mike might like it as well. Anyway, they got 8 episodes of the next season done before the writer's strike, which will begin on the 31st. By now, you probably have seen this preview, but I can't stop watching it because I am so excited.