I had a great time in Washington, DC this weekend. One of the places we ate at was Matchbox. The pizza was very good, but the mini-burgers were even better. They are kind of like the Ruby’s Minis at Ruby Tuesday, but much better. If you’re ever in Chinatown, I highly recommend this restaurant. Apparently they use to give out matchbooks, but now all they give out are little paper pads that look like matchbooks. I was a little disappointed. Hopefully I’ll get back up there again soon because I had an excellent tour guide.
Another Reason I Love The NCAA
April 10, 2008 By 3 Comments
This weekend is the Alabama A-day game. This is the scrimmage rounding out spring training. It’s open and free to the public. Last year it was a huge event with 92,000 plus attending the game.
This caught the attention of some investors who wanted to take advantage of these spring games across the country and make it a weekend event, not just a Saturday thing. They developed the ‘Gridiron Bash’ that involved concerts and pep rallys. Alan Jackson was scheduled to play at Bryant-Denny Stadium tomorrow night, and many other big acts at other schools. The University of Alabama was leading the 16 schools in the competition with roughly 10,000 tickets sold towards the 1 million dollar top prize.
I was looking forward to this until the beloved NCAA stepped in and said that promoting the student-athletes at these events violates the spirit of amateurism. The NCAA says it does not allow “student-athletes to participate in any promotional activities or appearances for a commercial venture.” Now, no concert and no other events besides the A-day game, I guess.
So it’s okay for the athletes to appear in Pontiac Game-Changing Performance commercials? And used to promote ESPN, CBS, NBC, etc. programming? What about bowl season? And we just finished March Madness, which all games were televised by CBS. These are huge commercial events.
This doesn’t make sense to me. Officially the events have been ‘postponed’ until the fall, so we’ll see if they actually happen. To be fair, I don’t think the NCAA ‘forced’ these events to be cancelled, but Fox Sports Net, a Gridiron Bash sponsor, felt that without the student-athletes, it wouldn’t be worth sponsoring.
I wonder how the NCAA got involved? Did they snoop into this on their own, or were they urged strongly to investigate by rival schools?….. We may never know, but it is suspicious.
This is why I alluded to them a few days ago as being like the ACLU–they always have to be starting something.
Ray Melick has an excellent article on this in the Birmingham News.
New Laws For Welfare Users
April 9, 2008 By 2 Comments
I recently heard, and then read in the Church News tonight about a bill that has been introduced in the California State Assembly regarding random drug testing for applicants of welfare benefits.
This makes perfect sense. We, the working folks, must pass a drug test before getting hired on at a new job, and oftentimes submit to random drug screenings throughout our employment. Why then do people who receive welfare benefits not live by the same laws? We (you and me) give them the money and they don’t live by the same rules.
A young man in California, who proposed this bill, was born with Spastic Triplegic Cerebral Palsy, an addiction to heroin, and numerous traces of other drugs because his mom consumed illegal drugs during pregnancy while on state assistance. Then– what a surprise, she abandoned him. Makes me sick.
A California Assemblyman said this law could help “break the destructive cycle of supporting drug addicts with public assistance monies.”
Do you know of any states that have this law or are trying to pass it? What do you know about it? I’m going to send this to Gov. Riley because it should be passed in Alabama.
Tournament Ends
April 7, 2008 By 3 Comments
I never thought it would happen, and apparently Kansas was the only ones in the Alamo Dome that thought they would win with two minutes left in regulation. They were down by nine and couldn’t penetrate Memphis’ defense. But, somehow they won in overtime. Congratulations Coach Self.
Now that all the good sports are over with until college football (with the exception of the grand slam tennis events), my Saturdays are more productive and I can actually play sports myself versus watching someone else.
New Banned Beijing Olympic Substances
April 6, 2008 By 2 Comments
When we think of banned substances at the olympics we usually think of steriods, of course. Normally large amounts of caffeine are included on the no-no list too. But it’s official this year that the list includes turtle blood and deer penis. Apparently these, and other Chinese voodoo medicines, have been put on the list by the Beijing IOC because they are traditional performance boosters containing substances like ephedrine.
I wonder if Yao Ming tears up some deer penis to recover quickly when he gets hurt. I think a spokesman for the Rockets has said he uses ancient Chinese remedies to heal. Maybe this is why he dominated Shaq the first time they met his rookie year. Makes me wonder, what else exist that could make me a super-human in a short period of time??
Damon, what do you use?
A Great American Dies
April 5, 2008 By 2 Comments
Former president of the NRA, Charlton Heston, died this evening at his home in Beverly Hills. The cause of dealth hasn’t been published yet. From what I know of him, we lost one of the few good guys in Hollywood. He was a great actor and was even awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush (another great american). Below is a link to the latest news on him and his accomplishments.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346965,00.html
In other news, the Kansas Kurse is broken. If you remember about two weeks ago I said Kansas would get beat in the tournament in the first or second round. Not because they are bad, but because they seem to lose early most years when they have teams good enough to make it to the final four or eight. They took North Carolina to the woodshed tonight and played like I didn’t think they could. I was impressed. In recent years they’ve been like Alabama (when they would go to the tournament back in the earlier part of this decade). People would pick them to go to the second or third round, but they’d never make it because they’d get beat by some no-name team.
I like their coach, but I’m betting Memphis will win the National Championship Monday night. Memphis has played better than I thought they could too. It’s been a great tournament this year.
Beautiful Countryside
April 4, 2008 By 6 Comments
I have a scenic drive to work each day (45 miles) and decided to take a picture this morning. This is similar to the land I want for the ‘Forester Manor’. I find something very relaxing about horses and barns. It would be nice to own a farm, but I would of course hire people to do most of the work. I wouldn’t mind cutting grass with my big tractor and riding the 4-wheeler though.
I wonder what Michael Andrew thinks of this picture? I’d like to win a contest with it.
The Land of the Free…
April 3, 2008 By 5 Comments
The ACLU always has to keep something stirred up, kind of like the NCAA. What do you think about this article?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346291,00.html
Can anyone tell a time when the ACLU took a patriotic, conservative, or reasonable stand on anything in the modern era? I’ve got to tell you, I think it will be harder than giving me reasons why Charles Barkley should be governor. But, who knows, I’m sure they’ve done some good things. I just don’t know about them, and haven’t searched hard enough.
Alabama Changing The Value of Pi
April 2, 2008 By 2 Comments
I’m one day late on this, but I was reading the top 10 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of all time yesterday and #7 was a good one. See below:
#7: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the ‘Biblical value’ of 3.0. Before long the article had made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark Boslough.
No Smoking
I’ve made a few comments to friends before about how I thinks it’s funny when houses have ‘no smoking’ signs posted on the front or back door. You know, the ones that you buy from the store with the orange letters and black background. I was at a family members home recently and noticed they have one on their back door. It wasn’t the orange-lettered kind, but it was a professional one. Does anyone else find this funny? Do people have friends that rude that they might light up while in your house? Or is it a way to display someone’s feelings regarding smoking? One day I hope to get a good explanation.