I love a good party. I especially love a good holiday party that brings together all the geeks and webheads in my city and gives back to the community at the same time.
That’s why, on December 15, I’ll be at the Mod Club for HoHoTO, partying with the Twitterati and web geeks in Toronto and supporting the Daily Bread Food Bank.
And I’d love it if you were there to party with me.
Join us at the #HoHoTo holiday party at The Mod Club Monday, December 15, 2008 at 7:00 PM (ET). Cash bar, DJ’s, and lots of twitterluvvin’ - what more could you want? It’s for geeks, phreaks, webheads, twitterfiends, techies, media, marketing, and PR types and all their friends. And everyone else! DJ’s, interactive media, and loads of holiday cheer, all for a great cause - The Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank.
Tickets are going fast, and starting Tuesday, the price of the ticket will be going up $5 a day, so buy yours today. Yeah, stop reading the rest of this post and go buy a ticket.
For years, my interest in the Olympics has been tangential: I’ve been excited to hear about world records and great achievements, but haven’t actually been interested in watching the Games themselves.
This year, I’m completely entranced by the Olympics in Beijing.
I’m not quite sure what caused this shift, but rarely have I been so enthralled by a major sporting event that wasn’t the Super Bowl or the World Cup. Over the past few days, I’ve been looking at some of the things that really caught my eye at the Olympics in 2008.
Last up (fittingly): Last-Place Finishes.
Canada kept it close, but once again, the host nation China has outclassed every single country — in last-place finishes. There’s a fantastic blog called DFL that keeps track of last-place finishes at the Olympics, and Canada came up big this year with eight dead-lasts. China finished with fourteen.
You can laugh all you want, but finishing in last place is no laughing matter. The fact is, not only are these athletes representing their country on the biggest stage — and you’re sitting in your underwear watching them on TV — but they also finish what they started. The DFL listings do not include athletes who do not complete their events. From the FAQ:
“Better DFL than DNF,” someone once told me — the implication being that it’s better to finish last, so long as you finish. Those that came last were at least able to put a mark on the board — a mark that we can compare ourselves (and the gold-medal winner’s results) against. We’re celebrating the last-place finish, not searching for the athlete most deserving of our derision.
Again, it may seem ridiculous, but celebrating last-place finishes is important because we’re celebrating the worst of the best, which is always better than celebrating the best of the worst. Like the blog says, “they’re there, and you’re not.”
For years, my interest in the Olympics has been tangential: I’ve been excited to hear about world records and great achievements, but haven’t actually been interested in watching the Games themselves.
This year, I’m completely entranced by the Olympics in Beijing.
I’m not quite sure what caused this shift, but rarely have I been so enthralled by a major sporting event that wasn’t the Super Bowl or the World Cup. Over the past few days, I’ve been looking at some of the things that really caught my eye at the Olympics in 2008.
Next up: Gymnastics.
If there’s one thing that is guaranteed to catch my attention, it’s controversy. This year, the gymnastics at the Olympics have been rife full of controversy, and it has been captivating.
By now, it’s pretty evident that some of the Chinese gymnasts are much younger than the minimum age of 16 years old. The Chinese attempt to hide it by deleting documents and forging passports is doing nothing but making it worse. Time to fess up, China.
I won’t even talk about the ridiculousness of the judging or the absurd tie-break procedures — or the fact that Nastia Liukin was robbed — but this year’s gymnastics has been rife with controversy, and because of that, the competition has been extremely compelling.
Oh, and the highlight of my Olympic viewing experience? Shawn Johnson’s huge smile as she won the gold medal on the beam. I’ve never seen someone that happy and truly appreciative of their experience. Awesome.
Does controversy make you more interested in an event, or is it bad for sports in general?
For years, my interest in the Olympics has been tangential: I’ve been excited to hear about world records and great achievements, but haven’t actually been interested in watching the Games themselves.
This year, I’m completely entranced by the Olympics in Beijing.
I’m not quite sure what caused this shift, but rarely have I been so enthralled by a major sporting event that wasn’t the Super Bowl or the World Cup. Since yesterday, I’ve been looking at some of the things that really caught my eye at the Olympics in 2008.
Next up: Michael Phelps.
Oh, we all know he’s more fish than human, but even that can’t explain the remarkable feat of Michael Phelps.
Phelps’ real achievement isn’t winning eight gold medals in one Olympic games — though that is amazing — but instead making millions of people across the world care about swimming again.
For a lot of people, swimming is something you do at the beach, or those classes you take when you’re young. Competitive swimming isn’t heavily televised in North America, and it surely doesn’t dominate water-cooler conversations like the Brett Favre trade.
Michael Phelps made competitive swimming cool; Phelps’ medal hunt made it normal for swimming-related headlines to dominate news broadcasts and talk shows. Swimming now isn’t just something that is done by guys that shave their legs — it is the pinnacle of athleticism.
I doubt the interest will linger, and I’m sure swimming will be relegated to its niche relatively soon, but I’m glad Phelps was able to make a whole nation — heck, the whole world — rally around an athlete that wears Speedos more often than Levi’s.
Do you think Phelps’ remarkable Olympic results will invigorate long-term public interest in swimming?
For years, my interest in the Olympics has been tangential: I’ve been excited to hear about world records and great achievements, but haven’t actually been interested in watching the Games themselves.
This year, I’m completely entranced by the Olympics in Beijing.
I’m not quite sure what caused this shift, but rarely have I been so enthralled by a major sporting event that wasn’t the Super Bowl or the World Cup. Over the next few days, I’ll be looking at some of the things that really caught my eye at the Olympics in 2008.
First up: China.
Apart from the fact that they are completely dominating the medal standings, there has a lot been said about the host country this year. The protests at the torch relays were the first events that piqued my interest in the Games.
China rebounded from all the protest talk to host one of the most beautiful Opening Ceremonies I’ve ever seen, albeit one marred with controversy about faked fireworks and a girl not pretty enough to sing.
The sporting venues and other support structures around Beijing and other parts of the country are being praised as being architecturally stunning — and it helps that the Chinese athletes that have been competing in those venues are exceeding all expectations. All in all, China has been a wonderful host for the Olympics, able to temper controversy with beauty and elegance.
The only major concern I’ve had (and this may have been a concern at other Olympics, but I’m not aware as none of the previous ones have been as captivating as these Beijing Games) revolves around the empty seats I’ve seen at venues on the television broadcasts. The reason for the empty seats baffles me: perhaps China has done a better job of marketing the Olympics to the international television audience than it has inside its own country?
What do you think of the job China has done in hosting the Olympics?
As a die-hard lifelong New York Jets fan, it’s no surprise that the recent trade of Brett Favre to the Jets was some of the best news I’ve had in years. Not only will Favre, one of the greatest quarterbacks to play the game of football, help bolster the image of the green and white, but will also give the Jets a realistic chance to make it to (and succeed in) the playoffs this season.
Let’s be honest. I’m more than just a fan of The Chad: he’s also one of my heroes.
Sure Pennington owns the highest career and single-season passer ratings in Jets history. That’s great. But numbers can’t adequately describe the impact that the veteran quarterback has had on my favorite pro sports team.
In an age where sports is more business than play and athletes are more concerned about fattening their paychecks than playing hard, Chad Pennington stands out as a football player that plays with heart. Through the injuries, the slumps, and the unending criticism by some of the most vicious media (it’s hard to play in New York, in any sport) in the world, Chad has shown nothing but resilience, dedication, sportsmanship, and the desire to do the best that he can do.
Say what you want about his physical limitations (and there were many). Pennington was able to overcome those limitations because of his willingness to play as a team, because of his drive to make everyone else around him a better player, and most of all, because of his astute knowledge of the sport of football.
I’m glad that we have Brett Favre on the Jets, and I truly believe that the green and white will be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy this season under Favre’s leadership. I am sad however that Chad Pennington, one of the greatest team players the Jets have ever had, won’t be there to enjoy the spoils of the work he’s been putting in, year after year, to make all of us in the Jets nation proud.
I’m going to take a page out of Fireman Ed’s book here and give it up to one of my favorite Jets — heck, favorite football players — to ever step on the field:
Two Sundays ago, I spent the entire afternoon watching coverage of the Kentucky Derby on NBC.
I gawked at the Hat Parade, laughed at Terrell Owens’ popcorn comments, quivered in anticipation as the horses approached the posts, and sat enthralled as Big Brown blew away the competition as the colt raced towards the finish line.
And yes, I cried when the filly, Eight Belles, fell after her second place finish and had to be euthanized.
Finding a scapegoat
In light of the Eight Belles tragedy, PETA had decided to start a media firestorm to convince people that horse racing is cruel.
Now, I’ll acknowledge that PETA, in the past, has done a lot of great things with regards to the treatment of animals. I just think that this time, they’ve gone too far.
For some inexplicable reason, one of the major points in PETA’s campaign has been to call for the suspension of Eight Belles’ jockey Gabriel Saez, as well as the banning of her trainer from ever training another horse.
How the unfortunate incident at Churchill Downs has anything to do with the jockey is beyond me, and I’m an avid horse racing fan. Yet, PETA continues to show its ignorance and stubbornness by trying to make its point through a scapegoat.
A perfect example of PETA’s inanity was demonstrated when spokesperson Nicole Matthews came on to Mike Tirico’s ESPN Radio show and refused to address Tirico’s questions about the jockey and instead decided to read off her talking points cue cards.
Tirico: Did he do something that other jockeys haven’t done in the recent past?
Matthews: Well, horse racing is a dirty, greedy money game.
Tirico: That’s a big picture question, Nicole, and I understand that and we can get that for a brief moment in a minute. But come back to my point. Did he do something that somebody in the seventh race at the Derby didn’t do?
Matthews: Well, you know, thoroughbreds are raced on hard dirt surfaces, too young and too often and they’re whipped viciously as they come down the stretch.
Tirico: Let me try my question a third time. Did he do something that a jockey didn’t do in the sixth race at Churchill Downs Saturday. You can say you don’t know, it’s okay.
Matthews: [inaudible] horses is a standard practice, of course.
If PETA continues to be this ignorant and can not even respond to a rational question with regards to their complaints, they immediately lose any credibility with regards to anything they can say about horse racing.
Making room for change
The idiocy of PETA’s arguments (and yes, I did say idiocy, because it can not be described as anything else) aside, I will agree that the horse racing industry need to make a few changes in order to protect the health and well-being of the horses. Most people believe that banning whipping will be an excellent first step, but my major concerns do not revolve around the races themselves, but in breeding.
It is no secret that race horses are bred for size and speed; other factors such as strength and endurance are not priorities for horses running in high-stakes races that are usually just a few furlongs. This means that many horses are not bred for long careers, but instead for big finishes in lucrative races.
PETA should have targeted these kinds of breeding practices that are creating weaker (albeit faster) horses instead of trying to scapegoat a jockey that has done nothing wrong but do his job, and do it well. Even a small bit of research would have helped them realize that they’re taking the wrong approach; apparently PETA doesn’t value research as much as public demonstrations.
I love animals, but next time PETA opens their mouth to say anything about any issue, I’m tuning out. And it’s entirely their fault.
As a former Georgetown student, it’s no surprise that I’m a huge Hoya basketball fan.
Their Final Four appearance last year was not a flash in the pan as many have been suggesting: they recently won the Big East conference for the second year in a row (no easy feat in one of the best conferences in the nation) and are in position to win the Big East tournament and make a strong case for a high seed in the NCAA tournament starting later this month.
Of course, you don’t need to take my word for it. Dana O’Neil wrote a fantastic piece on ESPN about how JTIII is bringing the Hoyas back to their glory days. From the article:
The game for the regular-season crown was sweetly indicative of what the Big East is about.
It was brutal and ugly and beautiful all at once. Shots were harder to come by than Kleenex at a Brett Favre news conference, and the unforced and forced errors rivaled those of a crummy tennis match. Ten minutes in, the score stood at 10-7. Georgetown had five turnovers, Louisville six. Louisville went 15 consecutive possessions in the first half without scoring; not to be outdone, Georgetown all but blew an 11-point second-half lead with three cough-ups on three trips down the court.
But for people reared in the heyday of the league, there was nothing painful about it. It was exactly right.
I’m extremely proud of my Hoyas this year, and have been wearing my GU t-shirt all season. Before I break out into the fight song, check out this great site celebrating 100 years of Georgetown basketball. Let’s make our 100th year special by winning the national title.
I’ve always been intrigued by innovative ideas that are integral to the development of human capacity and potential, particularly when it comes to healthcare and the alleviation of poverty.
PlayPumps allow local communities to access clean drinking water without the necessity for intensive labor, electricity, or fuel that usually comes with drilling a water well. Instead, they “harness the power of children playing” in order to pump water to the places that need it most. Watch this video for a quick explanation.
Sure there are several issues — child labor, misuse, advertising, etc. — that come from having such a project, but the fact remains that the installation of these pumps is bringing clean water to communities where this water was otherwise difficult to obtain. The discussion around the ethical and social issues behind this technology is one that needs to happen, but the underlying result of the project is noble.
I’ll make it a point to do some more research on PlayPumps and their model of social entrepreneurship before I decide to make a donation, but I just wanted to share this to show yet another example of how the smallest innovations can help change the world.
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