Saturday, August 10, 2013

Preseason Tebometer

If Tebow still hasn't learned how to throw, I don't see it happening.
In case you're a new visitor to this site, ever since October of 2011 I've been writing a series of posts under the category "Tebometer," which detail Tim Tebow's ongoing quest to become a 50% passer in the NFL (he's never been able to do it).  Tebow's career completion percentage currently stands at 47.9; for comparison, the worst starting QB rate in the league last year was held by Miami's Chad Henne, at 53.9%.

And while preseason stats have no effect on his career numbers, Tebow's performance in New England's exhibition opener last night was far from inspiring.  He went 4-12 running a dumbed down offense against mostly backup defensive players.  Here's what the Boston Globe's Ben Volin had to say:
"Whereas [Tom] Brady and [Ryan] Mallett go through their progressions and have four or five receivers at their disposal, the Patriots kept it basic with Tebow. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels called 15 pass plays for Tebow in his 32 snaps, but they were almost exclusively of the low-risk variety — screen passes and play-action rollouts, in which Tebow was given just one read, and if the receiver wasn’t open he could scramble and make something happen."
And here's my observation from during the game:

In all 8 quarterbacks played in yesterday's contest (5 for the Eagles, 3 for the Patriots), with none besides Tebow connecting on less than half of his attempts.  In fact, the other 7 pass throwers combined to go 45-74, for 61%.

Friday, August 9, 2013

My long awaited & highly anticipated review of the "reality" TV show/Black Dog commercial - The Vineyard

For starters, I don't hate it.  You just have to be willing to suspend your beliefs in space, time, and physics in order to accept it (like the possibility of watching the sun set, then rise, on the same beach).  Coincidentally I was living on Martha's Vineyard in the summer of 2004 when MTV's Laguna Beach debuted, and that's what this show most reminds me of.  It was the first scripted reality program I remember watching where even though the premise was the cast members actual lives, they were still acting.  The Vineyard has a bit of The Real World mixed in as well; ranging from the spectacular house the show gives them to live in (in all my time there I can't believe I never knew of the illustrious "Black Dog house"), to the awkward first day arrival scene where they find their bedrooms and discuss who they want too hook up with, to the obligatory "boyfriend back home" plot line.

And in case anybody out there might actually question whether or not the kids are acting, notice how well they pretend to enjoy frolicking around in the freezing cold northern Atlantic in the month of May.  I can attest to the fact that there are real Vineyard people in it though, one of the local boys is someone I've seen around many times over the years.

My biggest complaint is how the show messes with the island's geography (I'm not even sure that's a real picture, it seems to be multiple places photo-shopped together).  The Black Dog store, restaurant, and the docks where they "work" at are all within a few hundred feet of each other (and their house is very close by) in Vineyard Haven.  In one scene a guy is looking for a girl at the store, and asks for her to come meet him at the dock.  But then when she does they're randomly standing in front of the harbor in Edgartown, on the other side of the island.  In another scenario two characters seem to be walking home from work, but somehow run into each other on the waterfront of a third town, Oak Bluffs.  In fact, a large portion of the show appears to be people making plans to "talk," and then meeting up to do so at various unexplainable locations.

By far the worst part is when a guy who's brand new to the island tells the girl who's been there for years that he wants to "show her something."  He then proceeds to take her to State Beach, maybe the most well known beach there is, and somewhere that people drive by every single day.  You have to be impressed with her acting when she says "any other places you know like this tell me, this is not something you see every day.  I've never even seen that spot on the island before," especially considering they show her jogging by the very same spot earlier in the episode.  This was just complete laziness on the part of the writers, there are a number of spectacular and mostly unknown hidden beaches right near where they live that could have been used for this purpose.

Despite all of this I do intend to keep watching, if for no other reason than to see if the handful of characters cast in the show are ever allowed to interact with any of the thousands of other "summer kids" and locals living there.  Episode 4 of The Vineyard airs Tuesday night at 10 pm on ABC Family.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

The San Diego Chargers are going to win the Super Bowl?

This is a two part blog, and I'll get to the title shortly.  First off I just want to comment on the ridiculousness of ESPN's coverage leading up to the Eagles/Patriots pre-season opener tomorrow night; highlighted by Philadelphia's quarterback "controversy" (between Michael Vick and Nick Foles) regarding who is going to start the meaningless exhibition contest in which starters hardly play anyway.  From how it's being reported you'd think Philly was prepping for the Super Bowl this weekend.  I guess it's indicative of America's love of all things NFL, and the void of any major sports stories in mid summer.  In fact, just now as I was about to hit "publish," this tweet popped up in my feed:
I'm glad that's out of the way, hopefully I'll finally be able to sleep tonight...

And while I'm on the topic of the Eagles and the Super Bowl, here's the second part of today's post: In 2009 Philly lost their first home game 48-22 to the New Orleans Saints.  The Saints went on to win it all that year.  The Eagles following three home openers have been against Green Bay in 2010, the Giants in 2011, and Baltimore in 2012; all of them eventual Super Bowl champions.  So after a four-year run of starting their home schedule against the league's future title winners, the first team to visit Philadelphia this season will be the San Diego Chargers.  The Chargers finished 7-9 last year and are currently listed at 50-1 odds to win the Super Bowl, so it seems extremely unlikely that the Eagles bizarre streak will continue.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Eminem, Rihanna, and a guaranteed blockbuster made for TV movie















The other day while jogging I happened to think of a a great movie idea, courtesy of Eminem and Rihanna.  When the song "Love the Way You Lie" came on my ipod (I was only going to add a link to the video, but after I remembered it features Megan Fox and that hobbit/Australian guy from Lost, I decided I had to embed it), one lyric that I'd heard many times before made me laugh out loud on this occasion (it's at the 3:20 mark):



"Maybe that's what happens when a tornado meets a volcano."

I'm not sure whether the film should be called "Torcano" or "Volnado," but either way the Syfy network needs to get working on it right away.

RELATED: The Sharknado phenomenon, Rihanna is just killing it lately, and This Rihanna song has got some terrible lyrics, but I love it

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Yesterday's game proved why winning the A.L. East is more important than ever

There's a scene towards the end of the movie For Love of the Game (where Kevin Costner plays Billy Chapel, a future Hall of Famer throwing a perfect game against the Yankees in the final start of his career, at the end of a last place season for the Tigers) where Billy tells his catcher he doesn't think he has anything left.  The catcher (played by John C. Reilly) delivers one of my favorite inspirational sports monologues (sadly I couldn't find a clip):
"Chappie, you just throw whatever you got, whatever's left. The boys are all here for ya. We'll back ya up. We'll be there. 'Cause, Billy, we don't stink right now. We're the best team in baseball right now, right this minute, 'cause of you. You're the reason. We're not gonna screw that up. We're gonna be awesome for you right now."

Last night the Houston Astros reminded me of this quote.  They have a roster full of Triple-A players (in fact before the game I'd only ever heard of two Astros total, Eric Bedard and Jose Altuve) that's buried in last place with a .333 winning percentage, 27 games out of first.  Their entire team's salary combined is comparable to John Lackey's.  

But yesterday Houston didn't stink.  Their energy, attitude, and hustle (summed up by the suicide squeeze that gave them a 2-0 lead) helped them play and act as if they were the best team in baseball.

It irritates me to no end when people make comments like "well, the Red Sox are a playoff team, but they can't win it all."  Oh really?  That Astros squad we saw last night could win the World Series if they were handed a playoff birth.  On any given day any MLB team can beat any other MLB team, and the playoffs are such a small sample that I'm confident every roster in the league would have a reasonable shot of winning it all if they were tossed into the postseason mix.

I wrote about this two years ago when it was first announced that baseball intended to add another Wild Card team; I hate the system as is.  There's a solid chance Boston could finish with the 2nd best record in the majors and end up stuck in a one-game playoff against Baltimore, Cleveland, or Texas.  And if you watched what happened yesterday, it's impossible to feel confident about a one-game playoff with anybody.


Monday, August 5, 2013

Did you know they put lojacks on babies in hospitals?

Last week I visited a newborn baby in the hospital for the first time since my sister was born decades ago.  I was a bit surprised to see the little peanut had a giant bracelet on her ankle.  The moms get one too, and an alarm sounds if the child is taken too far away from her mother.  Allegedly it would also go off if the wrong baby was mistakenly brought back from the hospital nursery.

I think they should add another feature to these as well, similar to something you see in clothing stores and bank robbing movies.  The bracelet should contain some permanent ink that explodes if you don't have the right tool to remove it.  That way if somebody tries to steal a newborn from the hospital, when they get home and rip the anklet off, ink will end up everywhere and the baby will be ruined.

(Ok, I'm obviously joking, but it's kind of a funny thing to think about.)

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Awesome Old Song of the Week: "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World" by U2

In my freshman year of high school the album I listened to more than any other was U2's Achtung Baby.  In fact looking back at it now, I'm still a big fan of tracks 2-10.  Oddly enough my least favorite of the bunch is probably the disc's most popular song, "One."  As far as "slow songs" go, I much prefer "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World."  In particular, I always enjoyed the lyric "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," which I've just discovered is a quote originally from Irina Dunn, an Australian social activist, author, and film maker.

U2 never made a video for this song, and they only ever performed it on the 1992-93 Zoo TV Tour.  In every live performance I could find Bono changed the lyric, so here's a regular audio clip with the words to follow along:



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