mgroves

Posts Tagged ‘sports’

Like Coors beer? Like random triangles? Try these videos on for size.

For the first time, I attended an OSU game in person this weekend. Besides it being my first game, I was also especially interested because it was a game against Ohio University, my first alma mader.

The last time these teams played in 1999, the Bobcats gave the Buckeyes a very exciting first half scare–I believe it was 10-10 going into the half. Of course, the Buckeyes came back in the second half and slaughted the Bobcats…something like 40-16.

This weekend’s game was even more exciting, as the Buckeyes didn’t truly get going until sometime in the 3rd quarter. A final score of 26-14 is not exactly a convincing win for a nationally ranked Big Ten team against a team that’s mediocre within its own MAC division.

But anyway, you can read all about that on ESPN. I’m here to relate the in-person experience of this OSU game.

There was a whole section of OU fans a few sections down from us, and OU fans seemed to dot the crowd in and out of the stadium. There was a noticeable number of fans who wore both OU and OSU apparel, and there were a lot of “two-face” shirts as well. Very cool to see that.

The bands were very fun to watch, and this is a treat that you don’t often see on TV at home. OSU did a quick tribute to Ohio University and formed into a block “OHIO”. Very nice, very cool, great sportsmanship. The Marching Buckeyes also did a cool little “Top Gun” show, climaxing with forming into a Navy fighter jet and simulating afterburners with fire extinguishers. I’m not kidding. It’s corny, but it was fun.

There was a whole section of OU fans at the game, which was quite vocal. They added a “U” to the end of the “O-H-I-O” chants. There were some Bobcat fans spotted around my section who were very representative of Ohio U graduates: loud, possibly drunk, and half-seriously talking smack.

After the game, the OU Marching 110 did their halftime show (it was preempted due to some hall of fame ceremony at halftime), which was fantastic. They did their own traditional block-Ohio formation. While the football teams are certainly not in the same league, for my money, the marching bands are very comparable. The Marching Buckeyes played the OU fight song afterwards, which was very nice.

All in all, a fun time, but now that I’ve done it, I think I’ll stick to watching games on TV.

If you don’t religiously watch the Cincinnati Reds on Fox Sports Net Ohio like I do, then you probably haven’t seen these ridiculous JTM commercials.

JTM is a company that sells various pre-cooked “meat” products. The last time I had them (admittedly 15+ years ago), I about vomited.

Also in case you don’t follow the Reds, this series of commercials features Chris Welsh (mustache), a former Reds pitcher and current Reds broadcaster along with Bronson Arroyo, the former Red Sox pitcher, current dog of the Reds rotation, and avid musician who plays local concerts for charity.

These commercials are bizarre in multiple ways.

Chris has hinted that more of these commercials will be coming forthwith.

I thought I’d also mention that Chris used to plug JTM products during the broadcast by saying, “Hey meat, looking for something to spice up your BBQ?” or something like that, which I always thought was weird. However, I later learned that “hey meat” is a reference to the movie Bull Durham, a.k.a. the other Costner baseball movie.

Speedlinking is yet another tool of the lazy blogger. Basically I smash together a bunch of interesting links that I collect every so often, and write a sentence or two about them.

• Brian Wesbury, an optimist, noted economist, and writer for the Journal says that The Economy Is Fine (Really)
• The Reds are trying to build up some goodwill and sell more tickets in Central Ohio by refurbishing 13 baseball diamonds in Columbus.
• uʍop-ǝpısdn ʇxǝʇ ɹnoʎ dılɟ
• In Excel, sometimes you want to add those “hidden” apostrophes to numerical data so that it becomes a string. Use this VB function as a macro to do that en masse.
• Have you played Passage yet?
• Type in the url of your website, and find out what other sites are hosted on the same server. Obviously, this isn’t going to be very interesting if you have a dedicated server. Sites hosted on the same server as mgroves.com include: The Getaway Gift Shop, Atheist-blog, Big Tree Marketing, Beauty Madness (tickles-and-things.com).
• A save game exploit was found in Zelda: Twilight Princess that allows unsigned code to be run. This is similar to the PSP exploit that eventually allowed the system to be “soft-modded” (i.e. run homebrew/pirated programs). That can’t be done on the Wii yet, but maybe soon.

I was logging in to a new bank account that I created recently, and they asked me to create some security questions.

This is typically stuff like “mother’s maiden name” and whatever, just to increase the amount of barriers to unauthorized access.

At this particular site, you can select from a couple dozen pre-written questions and then supply your answer in a textbox. So, here’s an example:

I was just about to submit this when I though to myself: “Wait a second. That last question would have the same answer for every single person who doesn’t live in New York.” OH, EXPLOITABLE!

I created a simple Excel spreadsheet with random numbers to determine the winner.

The winner of the Brutus Buckeye Coffee Mug is…

Minywheats!

Congratulations, sir. I will email you to arrange delivery. I might even arrange to get video of the prize ceremony.

Thanks everyone for participating and stay tuned to future contests where I give away stuff that I don’t really want!

Just a quick reminder that the Great Coffee Mug Giveaway of 2007 is coming to an end soon.

Head on over the Coffee Mug giveaway blog post and leave a comment to enter.

The contest ends on November 30th, so you don’t have much time left. It’s free to enter and free to win, people, so just do it already!

As a prize for being the closest on my prediction of the score of the 2007 Ohio State – Michigan game (17-3, actual score 14-3) at my place of employment, I received a fine Brutus Buckeye coffee mug.

As I don’t drink much coffee or tea, I thought I might give it away to a Buckeye fan who does.

Here’s the mug.

And here’s a video of the spinning.

I can tell you’re excited!

To win this mug, all you have to do is leave a comment below. Only your first comment will count in this giveaway. You must be at least 18 years old to enter and live in the United States of America. Upon winning, I will email you to get your mailing address, so make sure to provide a valid email address.

To be eligible, you must enter before November 30th, 2007, at which point I will choose one winner at random.

Joe Nuxhall, the youngest baseball player ever in the modern era, and perhaps the best radio personality the Cincinnati Reds have ever had, died on November 15, 2007 at the age of 79.

Joe is most famous for his hall-of-fame quality radio announcing and being the youngest baseball player, but he also put together an impressive career as a pitcher:

• 2-time NL all-star (1955 and 1956)
• Led the NL in shutouts in 1955 (5)
• Career stats: 135 wins, 117 losses, 3.90 ERA, and 1372
• Many other leaderboard appearances and awards

Joe meant a lot to the Reds and Cincinnati in general. His charity, the Joe Nuxhall Character Education Fund, has helped thousands of children and even built a gymnasium for the One Way Farm home for abused children.

In honor of Joe being a remarkable baseball player, skillful and entertaining radio broadcaster, and soft-spoken community activist, who left an enviable legacy that every sports organization and city should strive for, I submit that Joe would make an excellent Patron Saint of Cincinnati, or that at least GABP be renamed Nuxhall Field at GABP.

Here are some photos that I just pulled off my Game King-II camera. Some of them have been sitting there for quite some time.

Here are the finished versions of the cakes that Ali took to the fair.

Here’s a drawing that Jonny put up on a white board. I don’t know why I look so worried…

Here’s a picture of Griffey from the last Reds game I was at.