Sunday, August 24, 2008 - Redemption

-Tiger Woods is closing in on the $1 billion mark by 2010. Come the same year, teen actress Miley Cyrus will be worth that much. Funny how things like this work out sometimes.
-Manny Ramirez compared coming to LA from Beantown, to having "20 lbs less on my back". On a completely different note, a story surfaced that Man Ram "forgets" to tip the boys that provide him with necessary services, and his teammates pitch in to pay for him.
-Angel Matos gets the jackass-of-the-week award after his kick to a referee's face after getting disqualified in the taekwondo bronze medal match. Can you say lifetime ban? Give his coach one as well.
-A private research group said that Fantasy Football will cost U.S employers close to a total of $9.2 billion this year, due to time being wasted. While they feel that if they ban all sports-related websites, this could lead to reduced morale and loyalty. A catch-22 for them, it would seem.
-2:30 a.m tip-off time for the gold medal game between Spain and the U.S. Yours truly watched the first half (too tired to finish the game) and the Spaniards were hitting big shot after big shot to keep the game within range of an upset. Close game at the end but USA is back on top of the basketball world.
-Still on the topic of Team USA, there's an article on SI.com comparing the 1992 Dream Team to this year's, and how the '92 team would squash the Redeem Team. Thank you, Captain Obvious. The team's starting line-up had Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, and a couple of other HOF'ers. Oh, and coming off the bench, some guys named Larry Bird and John Stockton etc...
-"There is no deadline for the investigation." for the Chinese gymnast scandal, meaning this will more likely than not continue even after the Olympics are over.
-An article raised the thought of Usain Bolt playing in the NFL. Well he's got the speed, and a heck of a lot of it, but he would have to learn to catch and be willing to get-hit hard on occasion for it to work.
-John Mayer and Jennifer Anniston are splitsville, after 4 months - hollywood equivalent to 4 years.
-Katy Perry was once a Christian singer. So how does one go from singing gospel songs to oh-so-catchy lesbian kiss ones? A total 180.

Thursday, August 14, 2008 - Everything Going Swimmingly for USA

-An Ashley Simpson/Milli Vanilli moment at the Olympics, which is possibly the biggest stage you could attempt to pull that stunt on. High risk, low reward - and definitely not worth it...
-Spain should fire their marketing team for that recent fiasco. Tells a lot about the intelligence of Team Spain basketball, that not one of them suggested that the gesture was possibly a bad idea.
-Is Michael Phelps good or what? Chinese viewers have dubbed him as the "flying fish" for his agility in the water, I'd replace the first word with Golden. Side
note, the guy consumes about 12,000 calories a day. Crazy stat.
-Canada currently has less Olympic medals than Vietnam - a country with just one silver medal at this moment. I'll let you do the math on that one...
-The Tampa Bay Rays will be without all-star Carl Crawford for about 6-8 weels as he will be undergoing surgery on his right hand.
-A Chinese soccer player on the women's team is named Yu Suk.
-The Russian and Georgian beach volleyball teams showed that the game had not political undertones as they hugged before the match.
-Sports Illustrated's Marty Burns ranked the Toronto Raptors at 7th in the Eastern Conference and surprisingly one rank lower than the Detroit Pistons.
-This week's edition of SI.com's Pop Culture Hot List included an Entourage reference, so I thought I'd post it here. Regarding LeBron bolting to Europe for the cash: "You know the only thing I keep thinking about when I hear King James might bolt the NBA for a Russian or Greek team willing to pay him $50 million a year? The season finale of Entourage where Ari and Vince would rather sell Medillin to an Oscar-winning studio for $35 million than to an unknown like Yair Marx for $75 million. Nicky Rubenstein went for the money and ended up looking like a fool. As cliché as it may sound, sometimes there are more important things in life than money."
-Link of the day: Jennie Finch's blog.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 - Happy Birthday Canada!

-Carlos Delfino looks to be the odd man out for the Raptors and may have played his last game. While it appears that the long-awaited arrival of Croatian sensation Roko Ukic has ended; as he will most likely take the role of back-up PG or reserve SG.
-Don't look now, but the Detroit Tigers are creeping back into the playoff picture.
-Hats...or sombreros off to Spain for winning Euro 2008 - (a tourney in which many soccer analysts dubbed as one of the greatest soccer tournaments ever) with a well-deserved and dominating victory going a perfect 23-0.
-Bryan McCabe has exercised his no-trade clause, leaving many Leafs fans confused as to why.
-Are the Yankees hated? This stat seems to point to "yes" - batters hit the most over the last 10 years are: A-Rod, Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter.
-the always controversial and retired NFL-er Michael Strahan will be joining the Fox crew, odd considering his track record with the media. But hey, isn't that what some people said when they heard Sir Charles was to become a regular on television?
-More strange NFL news, Warren Sapp is to appear on next season's Dancing With The Stars...
- Big Papi confirms that he will not start for the AL, at the MLB all-star game this year.
-Lou Pinella was ejected in just the 2nd inning of the Cubs-WhiteSox game and had some choice words after the game - ending with the quote, "it's over with. They're[upmires] still my buddies."
-The Detroit Red Wings' goaltender Chris Osgood brought the Stanley Cup to a bar in Plymouth for fans to drink out of, in his hometown.
-quite possibly another all-Williams sisters Wimbledon finals?
-The Lebron-Jay-Z rumours are heating up, big time. And it appears that the Nets are looking to make a huge offer for Bron-Bron in '10 after trading Richard Jefferson. A little tidbit, Lebron James listed New York as his favourite city ahead of his hometown Akron, Ohio...
-Roy Halladay with another dominating performance, last night, going the distance for a league-leading 6th time and shutting out the Seattle Mariners.
-Man who auctioned everything... is a bit disappointed with the selling price.
-And finally, a big Happy Birthday to the great land of Canada. Enjoy Canada Day, everybody, and be safe.
-Ladies and gentleman, our musical guest for today is Canada's own homegrown talent, Sloan!