Archive for Sport
April 14, 2007
It’s That Time Once Again
6:51 pm | Sport | Comments: 3
NHL Playoff Season is back! And for the 16th straight season, the Red Wings are participating in the party. The last time the Wings weren’t in the playoffs was when I was 7 years old, years before I even knew what a Red Wing was (actually, I still don’t). This is the second stab at the Stanley Detroit is taking in the post-Yzerman era, and they can’t really get any worse than last year. Seriously. Getting swept would have been better than winning two throw-away games.
There’s a good chance that you don’t give a crap about hockey. Well tough luck, because this webrog is about me, not you. Me. And I like hockey.
March 7, 2007
Stop Talking about Snowboarding
1:35 am | My Life | Sport | Comments: 14
Let it be known that I am planning a snowboarding trip for March 24th. Late in the season? Yes. I personally am hoping that Michigan doesn’t melt everything on me before then; I walk by faith, not by sight. I’m really looking forward to this and you’re all invited, just get in touch with me sometime before the 24th. Hoping to go to Caberfae, but if the majority of folks are feeling lazy and cheap we will go to Bittersweet.
The issue of health insurance has been raised. In a discussion this evening we decided that you can injure yourself just as readily walking to your car as you can while snowboarding so there’s no need for alarm should you be lacking in the health insurance department. So just stick with me and everything will be alright.
September 16, 2006
Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame
10:03 pm | Sport | Comments: 1
A great football game was had earlier this afternoon as the astonishingly-overrated No. 2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish were not only humbled but nearly excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church by the Michigan Wolverines. The 21 points actually assembled by the Irish belied the fact that they played so poorly that even St. Jude turned off the television before the game was over. The final scoring play was the best. The ball simply flipped out of Brady Quinn’s hand as he began his throw, and after he unsuccessfully attempted to cover up the fumbled ball a Michigan defensive end picked it up and rumbled 54 yards for the score - but not before a Notre Dame linesman comically bumbled a tackle on him and rolled off onto the sideline in dismay.
Let it be known that a SIO record has just been set for most words that end in “-umbled” in a single post, which now stands at 4.
June 26, 2006
The World’s Game
9:13 am | Sport | Comments: 12
Perhaps the most baffling thing about this backsliding country of mine is its aversion to the game of Football. No, not that one, the real one. The one they’re playing over in Germany right now. Well, the U.S.A. isn’t playing there anymore after their dismal performance. America doesn’t give a crap about Football, and it really shows. We were eliminated from the World Cup by Ghana? A country of 300 million people can’t scrape together enough soccer talent to beat a country with a population hovering just above 20,000? That’s absolutely ludicrous. The U.S. is getting behind in pretty much every sport these days. We’re not the best at Baseball anymore. Baseball! Thankfully, none of this matters. If it did, America would be more doomed than it already is. As it stands, America is free to be crappy and lackluster at nearly everything it does, including soccer, border protection, and car-making.
May 6, 2006
Thoughts About the Red Wings
6:36 pm | Sport | Comments: 10
Many adjectives come to mind when describing the Red Wing’s recent playoff performance. Atrocious. Shameful. Outrageous. It was an absolute, unmitigated disaster. I think Legace has to go; it was more than just bad defense that allowed those soft goals. It was bad goaltending, plain and simple. I also think the Dead Wings need to find a way to motivate themselves beyond all the factors which should have been motivating them but strangely didn’t. When you take a 2-0 lead into the third period of a game which means eliminiation if you lose, the last thing on the planet that should happen is Edmonton putting the game-winning goal into the net with a minute to go. Detroit’s intensity disappeared the moment the 3rd period began, but Edmonton’s did not. This all doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of how bad the series with Edmonton was.
I still like Mike Babcock. But hey, even Dave Lewis got the team to a President’s trophy. Dave Lewis’ team also crapped out early in the playoffs. Live and learn, I suppose. I won’t call the season a complete waste, but many excellent opportunites were indeed wasted. Additionally, it’s become apparent that Detroit’s search for a franchise goaltender continues. Three Stanley Cups (in recent memory) with three different netminders and counting. If you see me socially anytime in the near future, don’t ask me about all this. I might hip-check you into the wall or something.
March 12, 2006
Spring Break Endeth
11:11 pm | College | My Life | Sport | Comments: 5
And thus comes to a close the fifth James Lanning Spring Break In Which He Did Not Go Anywhere (JLSBIWHDNGA). However, a good time was had at ski hills, ristorantes, obscure Hudsonville rental properties, and lazing around in bed like a slob. Following the week’s top secret meeting with Mark, we patrolled the downtown area taking some cool pictures that I wish I could post, however they’re stuck on my cellphone pending me finding the cable thingie that goes in the plug whats-it.
What struck me most about snowboarding this season is how my relationship with my snowboard has grown over the course of the season (which, I’m afraid, may have come to a close). I feel myself increasingly becoming one with my snowboard. We’re a team, really; a partnership. This past Thursday there was a moment where I nearly forgot I was even on a snowboard. I was simply moving as God truly intended me to move.
January 17, 2006
The Good Old Hockey Game
1:29 am | Pictures | Sport | Comments: 13
Posting some picture action from the Red Wings game Saturday vs. the New York Rangers (not the Chicago Blackhawks as I originally thought).
Joe Louis Arena
The Red Wings during warmups - most notably Brendan Shanahan (14), Niklas Lidstrom (5), and Pavel Datsyuk (13).
Chris Chelios (24) is the oldest active player in the NHL this season, seen here skating with Niklas Lidstrom and Kirk Maltby.
November 5, 2005
Flashback
1:17 pm | Sport | Wisdom | Comments: 19
On this day in 1935, Parker Brothers launched the game of Monopoly. Just about everybody at some stage in their life has played this game. Most people have no clue how to play it, either. I thought I would talk some Monopoly strategy here for you folks who constantly find yourself landing on your buddy’s Hotel-festooned Pennsylvania Avenue with only 150 bucks left to your sorry name.
Monopoly, like other great games such as Risk, is at its core a game of chance. You could be the greatest player in the world’s history and land on nothing but railroads and utilities until all legitimate properties are owned by other players, perhaps managing to scrape together the light blues and maybe Marvin Gardens. The difference between a winner and a loser in Monopoly many times will be how the dice rolls, but often the outcome of the game can be decided by effective decision-making.
The first decision you should make is to buy every property you land on, EXCEPT the railroads and utilities. I should stress this. You will NEVER win the game by owning railroads and utilites. Feel free to pick them up after you’ve made some decent purchases, but remember you’ll only be throwing them around as leverage in deals for real properties later on. Just save your money in case you land on something useful.
Obviously, the idea is to get sets and build on them. At the stage in the game where people are beginning to compile sets, the trade-making process will kick into high gear. Let’s talk about trades for a bit. What makes a valuable trade? Not the original or mortgage cost of the property, nor is it the amount of cash involved; the value of a trade comes in whether or not you or your opponent will achieve a set as a result of the trade. If both of you will benefit in this manner from the trade, you can then start looking at property values and cash. This is a point in the game where everybody will gang up on the perceived leader and chant that nobody should trade with him without such a trade being stacked ridiculously in favor of whoever isn’t the perceived leader. This is not how the game works, people. If you just simply stonewall any attempt to allow the game to progress to the next stage, the game becomes very dull. This is also the part where would-be economists start their mantra about supply-and-demand, a concept which doesn’t rationally apply to Monopoly because there’s only one of everything, which means everything is essentially equally available, in that everything is equally unavailable. But I digress.
The game goes in stages. First stage is buying, second stage is bargaining, third stage is building. The building stage is where you really need to balance your cash on hand and your developments, because what good are 3 hotels on the oranges when you can’t even pay the $50 rent for Boardwalk (not that anybody ever lands on Boardwalk - we’ll talk about that later). Remember that buildings can only be sold back to the bank at half-price, so you will lose 50% of an investment if you carelessly sink all your money into it. That being said, the sooner you can get your properties developed the better.
And that’s it, really. Buy good properties, make good bargains, and build safely and swiftly. So what are good properties? My favorite set is the oranges. I can’t explain why, but they always seem to get me tons of cash. I can also often be found developing the purples (Mediterranean and Baltic), which for $500 will have hotels and will sap opponents of their Go money. Never - unless you find yourself with no alternative, or with an obscene abundance of cash available to you - develop Boardwalk and Parkplace. As for the rest, it all depends on what your savings will allow.
Finally, remember those house rules you always played with? Forget about them. Most notably a Free Parking lottery. I usually play with the Free Parking lottery because everybody else wants to, but it has the potential (which is almost always realized at some point) to completely throw off the balance of the game. Some folks also play with 100% building sell-back return; this encourages rash development decisions as you can always just sell it off if you need the money. For a real game of Monopoly, play the real game. Oh, and don’t cheat.
September 12, 2005
White Dawn
12:27 pm | Sport | Comments: 13
Mostly for my own sake but also for all those interested in such things, I’m putting up a list of good snowboarding (and skiing too, I guess) deals for the southwest Michigan area. It is the intention of the SIO staff to do some mad snowboarding this winter, and it’s best to be prepared. If anybody knows of other discounts or what have you, let me know.
There are three ski areas within a couple hours of Grand Rapids: Cannonsburg, Bittersweet, and Caberfae. Cannonsburg is the closest, smallest, and cheapest of the three. Not surprisingly, their website offers little or no information on lift ticket and rental prices. The only information given is season passes - which look to be more than exorbitant in price. Nonetheless, Cannonsburg is always helpful when you have the craving but don’t want to drive forever just to get onto your board.
Bittersweet is where I first learned to ride. It’s a nice little place near Kalamazoo, about a thirty minute drive from good old GR. Normal lift tickets will cost you $23 and $29 on weekends, meaning the purchase of a season pass (if you buy it this month) will bring you back at least 10 times - not bad. College students, on Mondays through Thursdays starting at 3pm, will find themselves able to get lift tickets for $18, a deal of which I hope to make good use. Wednesdays and Thursdays are also Women’s and Men’s days, respectively, and offer the same discount.
Caberfae, off M-55 near Cadillac (approximately 90 minutes or so of drive time), is the best easily-accessible option for the Grand Rapids enthusiast. Lift tickets range from $25 - $40 depending on what day you show up, and college discounts are also offered (the website is somewhat vague on the details, though). Mark your calendars: Friday, February 24 will be $9 all-day lift tickets for college kids. Punch passes are also available, meaning you ski 4 times for $50 (or $99 without limitation, which saves you some but not much money).
There are other excellent places to ski in Northern Michigan, most notably Crystal Mountain and Boyne Mountain, which are multiple hours of driving time from Grand Rapids with lift tickets approaching $50. I do hope to get a group up to Boyne at least once this winter, however.
September 10, 2005
Go Blue
8:16 pm | Culture | Sport | Comments: 6
My dad and I have been Michigan football fans for years, though we’re not sure how we got into it. Roger Swets probably had something to do with it. At any rate, the game today against Notre Dame was ridiculous, and I only watched the first half. Generally, the first half is all you need to see of a Michigan game to know how it’s going to turn out.
On the cover, it looks like Chad Henne was a total wipe-out. This might have been due in part to the fact that Michigan’s pass protection was downright crappy today. That, in turn, may have been due in large part to the fact that three starting offensive linesmen were not playing as of the second quarter. Injuries played a big part in taking whatever wind was available in Michigan’s sails hence, and perhaps the biggest loss was Michael Hart. Without a power rusher and with a nervous young quarterback with bad accuracy behind the center, Michigan just didn’t have what was needed to put points up on the board against the Dame. Even after being handed a golden opportunity by the defense with a fumble recovery in Notre Dame’s red zone which two plays later developed into a 1st-and-goal at the 5 yard line, Michigan couldn’t score. That’s pretty sad.
