What a finish to a great game. With Vanderbilt’s 72-69 defeat of the University of Tennessuck, the school is officially on a 4 game home winning streak against AP #1 ranked teams. Despite Alan Metcalfe’s best attempts to drive the bus off the nearest cliff and Chris Lofton putting on a shooting clinic, VU came away with a win. Since we won, and with the understanding that I wouldn’t even post anything if Vanderbilt didn’t, I’m going to go on for a good bit.
So after realizing that I never actually put my ice scraper in my car and driving home partially blind, I turn on ESPNNews, and what do I notice first? Not Stallings’ shiny dome on my TV, but news of the game in the coveted THIS IS BIG NEWS section on ESPNNews’ graphics package. Sweet.
Followed by this lovely stat that I referenced earlier:
Now I’ll get on to giving my comments of the actual game from the inside. The atmosphere was absolutely incredible. The student section had filled up hours before tipoff, and the place just felt electric. I noticed on the way to my seat that all the operable windows on the concourse were open. This is significant for a place that has no A/C and it’s 28 outside; as the energy was just overwhelming. I’m assuming that everyone can watch the highlights on their own; so we saw some interesting play, technical fouls on both coaches and one player, and an overall thrilling finish. It seems like I say this every year, but I’ve never heard the place as loud as it was this evening. The crowd just keeps out-doing itself.
And now for a couple comments.
Assuming you didn’t watch the game or see any highlights, I just want everyone to be made aware of the worst jacket ever: (And there were others in the stands wearing this abomination.)
And of course the post-game was wonderful:
There were of course some bad things. One of my great complaints against how Vanderbilt is portrayed in the media is how they are treated after a huge win. The story always reads, “Wow the other team sure sucks now!” and not, “Vanderbilt with a legitimizing win!” I heard a minor reference to this in tonight’s SportsCenter coverage, when Steve Levy uttered something to the effect of, “Tennessee certainly looks emotionally drained from Saturday’s game against Memphis!” I’ll let this one slide, but if the huge story today is “Tennessee Sucks!” and not “Vanderbilt is a contender!”, then I’m going to implode. (And I know it will be.)
Another deeply troubling thought is the reality of Vanderbilt’s fan base. A quick glance around the crowd will reveal tons of fans decked out in orange. I know Vanderbilt has trouble selling out football games with their own home fans. After all, who could forget during the 2007 home game against Alabama (a tour stop on Nick Saban’s Deceit Tour ‘07) in which the overwhelming majority of Alabama fans got the whole “ALA!” “BAMA!” call and response cheer going with alarming vocal intensity. But have we really gotten to the point where Vanderbilt and its fans can’t sell out the basketball stadium without letting in a ton of visiting fans? I assume the majority of them were Vanderbilt “fans” unless Tennessee was playing, which I already described as “reprehensible and wrong“, but can we just stop for one game to support the local team? Not a chance I feel given the morality of local sports “fans”. It is for this reason that Vanderbilt will always be the visiting team in their own city.
One final comment. Vanderbilt has been adamant about keeping students off the court at the end of the game to prevent an SEC fine and student injury. The rule exists for good reason, I’m surprised no one at a Vanderbilt game has ever gotten trampled after tripping on their way up onto the elevated court. I know that I was hoping that the students wouldn’t rush the court, but did the school really have to have police officers filming the crowd at the end of the game to act as a deterrent? Have we stooped that low? Why don’t we make a compromise? We won’t rush the court if you promise to try and “prevent us” by using full riot gear. The students will stay safe and the nation will think we’re a bunch of hardasses. It seems like a win-win to me. (Or at least consider using the national guard.)
This post was brought to you be the semi colon, and the number 14. If only my boy Elliott Cole could have gotten the minutes he deserved…
One major story making the rounds today is the possibility of Barry Bonds headed to the Devil Rays as a DH. For one, I can guarantee that this story started as some stupid rumor around the Devil Rays’ front office that just exploded when ESPN got word of it, but I digress. Checkered past aside, Barroid should never ever consider heading to the D-Rays. (Also, for the record I’m well aware that they officially are just the Tampa Bay Rays, but I don’t care, they will forever be the Devil Rays in my book even if they have a season with fewer than 90 losses.) Can you imagine Barry taking cuts while rocking his size 9 (allegedly) Tampa Bay cap? Emmit Smith, Jerry Rice, Patrick Ewing, and Hakeem Olajuwon all think that sounds ridiculous.
Perhaps the best/worst encapsulation of this potential move was mentioned in a possible “too soon” email read on Jim Rome’s radio show this afternoon.
Dear Barroid,
I ended my career with the Devil Rays. I wouldn’t recommend it.
It’s a big night tonight on ESPN. The newly crowned #1 Tennessee Volunteers head into Memorial Gym to take on the #14 Vanderbilt Commodores. The game is simply going to be huge, and I’m willing to bet students have been lining up since this morning to get seats. (I didn’t get up ’til noon as I have reserved seats.) Vanderbilt has the unique privilage of also being located in Tennessee, so as usual, I’m expecting a significant Tennessee fanbase as there are so many Vanderbilt “fans” who are only “fans” unless Tennessee is playing. (Don’t get me started as to how reprehensible and wrong that is.) Not a day goes by that I’m not made aware that the “university” in Knoxville is the big show in town, not the “other” SEC school that happens to be in town.
Ranting aside, the game tonight is going to be huge. Vanderbilt has an incredible home-gym advantage when the crowd gets into it, and I imagine it’s going to be hard to keep them out of it this evening. (Unless of course VU gets blown out, which might happen if Tennessee decides to run the full-court press all day.)
Tipoff is at 8:00 CST on ESPN, better watch it. I’m just hoping for three things:
1) A Vanderbilt win/blowout.
2) For my boy, 5′11″ 175 lb walk-on freshman Elliott Cole, to finally get some serious minutes, clown on Chris Lofton and his lame-ass photo, and rack a triple double. I’ll totally buy you beer little man.
3) That the students don’t rush the court. Act like you’ve been there.
The Houston Chronicle is reporting that Yao Ming is out for the rest of the NBA season with a stress fracture in his left foot. I’m not exactly an NBA fan, but it would appear that this is going to change the entire complexion of the playoff race in the Western Conference. The Rockets, at least as of today, have won twelve straight and still only sit in the 7th spot in the playoff rankings. They are 3.5 games out of first and 2 games away from being out of the race altogether. Without Yao, I envision this team rallying initially, but slowly fading like all those helium balloons you had as a kid. Oooor they could pull a Hindenberg and get the inevitable out of the way. Those of us from/in Houston had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and here it is.
This was originally shown to me on Digg, but the original image they posted didn’t show the location stats. I’ve heard the Czech Republic referred to as the Sketch Republic, and here’s some pretty good proof why. But I think the larger question here is what in the hell happened in January 2006 that caused this spike?
According to the AP it would appear that Steve Warshak (no not this guy), owner, founder, and portmanteau aficionado of Berkeley Premium Neutraceuticals, has been found guilty by a court of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. It was found that one of their products, Enzyte, actually did nothing that it claimed. (Sorry two freshman hall mates who shall remain nameless.) He faces up to 20 years in federal “pound me in the ass” prison. In addition to Warshak and other BPN employees, Warshak’s mother Harriett was also convicted with the same charges. It’s a family affaaaaaaaair.
It turned out that not only did the penis pills do nothing, the company took people’s credit card information required for obtaining “free” samples and automatically refilled orders before people had a chance to cancel their re-ups. (Again, sorry two freshman hall mates who shall remain nameless.) Additionally, the company refused to cancel placed orders or accept refunds.
With the conviction, I’m hoping the TV commercials will disappear and make TV a little more watchable with family members. Although I am secretly hoping the jingle remains in pop culture lore forever.
To the negative three of you that read my Oscars picks, it looks like I did all right for the most part. 3 for 6 on the evening isn’t too shabby, though those 3 did seem blatantly obvious to me. To be fair, I only watched bits and pieces of the ceremony as it became apparent early on that the broadcast would be laden with montages as the return of the writer’s did not come quick enough. That being said, I’m very excited that No Country For Old Men won best picture. It definitely was my favorite film of the year. I still think P.T. Anderson should have won Best Director for There Will Be Blood, but the Coen Brothers did an excellent job with their film as well and do deserve significant recognition. However I was glad to see that I can retain faith in the Academy as both Javier Bardem and Daniel Day-Lewis walked away with ther well deserved nods.
But how about the overload of montages this evening? I was particularly surprised they went with the “Every Best Picture Ever” montage that featured the great mistake of 2005, Crash. How that won over Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, and Munich will question film buffs for all eternity.
Like Tom Waits, I was first introduced to Kraftwerk at too young of an age. The first time I got my hands on a Kraftwerk album was at a music sale held by Rice University’s radio station 91.7 KTRU. At the time, I believe I was in 8th grade, I actually got my hands on Kraftwerk’s 1981 release Computer World for the low low cost of 50 cents. (KTRU was trying to raise money for new equipment as I recall.) I remember not knowing what to make of the album cover, only that it featured a ridiculously old computer, and that I myself liked computers. It was a match made in heaven. However after returning home and playing the album for the first time, I remember hating it. I couldn’t relate to any of the tracks and everything just felt foreign and unlistenable to me. What I missed in my original opinion of the album was the proper context in which to fully appreciate the album. As years went on, I grew to love the then emerging electronic music scene of the late 90s, and I kept looking back to find out what started this incredible trend. One group continued to pop up in my studies, Kraftwerk.
Kraftwerk have been described as providing to electronic music the equivalent of what primary colors are to a visual artist. And after listening to their work in the 1970s and 1980s, one can easily see how this analogy is perfectly apt. While I myself wasn’t born until 1984, I can easily imagine sitting around at the dawn of the 1980s and listening to this music for the first time. It must have been remarkably foreign and unique to the average person at the time. After all, there hadn’t been anything like it made previously. Little did we as a society know that these beeps and clicks would be the birth of the pop and electronic music explosion of the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and beyond. As a result of their completely unique approach to music, Kraftwerk received decent commercial success, but their weight would be felt in culture more than economics.
Most critics cite Kraftwerk’s 1974 albumAutobahn as the penultimate example of their importance to music. While I certainly enjoy the title track of the album in which the band explores the sites and sounds of driving the Autobahn in a 22-minute epic, I always found that the 1981 album Computer World resonated more with me. Perhaps it hearkens back to that purely coincidental encounter on Rice’s campus, but I largely feel it has to do with the fact that it’s the first time that the framework of what 1980s pop would become was codified into music.
Kraftwerk has had several different members of the year, but responsible parties for Kraftwerks’s 1981 release Computer World were Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, and Karl Bartos. At the time, it was the most refined released of their career as it consisted of tracks that had easily accessible rhythms and melodies as opposed to purely experimental offerings that were just exploring this new realm of music. It put the new medium of electronic beats on a shining pedestal for all to behold. And while a listen to the album today may make it sound dated compared to current electronic offerings, the fact of the matter is that the album was exploring a new style that had yet to be explored. At the time, critics were so confused as what to do with the album that the when the title song “Computer World” was nominated for a Grammy, it was nominated in the category for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Truly the times were getting ready to change, and even the music industry had no idea where they were headed.
As an avid yet relatively new Jim Rome listener I’ve always wondered what the heck is the “rat family” to which callers/emailers keep referring? A quick Google search found my results on mvictors.com:
The obvious Mike Ker-zewski is on the list, but Gary Gaetti and Mike Shanahan? Seeing as though the list was ended back in 2001, and how I don’t want to just rehash some 7 year old list without a little original contribution. I’d like to add a member that seems conspicuously absent. Pittsburgh Pirates short-stop Jack Wilson:
I believe that this children’s thermometer, which will play the Spongebob Squarepants theme in your ass once it takes a temperature reading, is wrong on so many levels that it’s just mind-boggling.
VS.
