The Old Blog

Now they’re in my town! I really want a Segway!

That’s what happens when you try to shoot puppies.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!

Ken Jennings reportedly lost a game of Jeopardy! after 74 straight victories, according to this article at kottke.org; his final episode should end in October, after a 2.5 million dollar haul.

This contradicts the earlier rumor that Jennings lost after 38 days.

To Minnesotans, East Coast Bias usually means that you favor St. Paul over Minneapolis. That said, it’s sure nice to see Johan Santana get some national attention–this time from the Washington Post and MSNBC. I don’t think he’ll win the Cy Young Award this year (losses of 2-0 and 2-1 may end up squelching his chances), but he certainly should. Did I mention he pitched 7 shutout innings tonight?

Still trying to reverse the path of the Rock, who played college football and then became a pro wrestler, Brock Lesnar may sign with the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Lesnar was cut by his hometown Minnesota Vikings last month when they realized that each of Lesnar’s wrestling “holds” would cost the team 10 yards.

ABC is really reaching in their ads for “Wife Swap,” a reality show about, well, swapping wives. In the spots, ABC shows a bunch of stirring, emotional scenes, and the participants say cheesy things like, “I didn’t realize how much my family meant to me” and “I cherish my wife more than ever”–crap like that. ABC also makes sure to point out that this is the original wife-swapping reality show, implying that Fox’s “Trading Spouses” is a pale rip-off. Of course, they leave out the bit about the show’s real original origins: Channel 4 in the UK. Another thing they fail to notice is that claiming you had the idea for a wife-swapping reality show first is like claiming your collection of hentai porn is more comprehensive than that of your co-worker. Even if you feel you’re better, you’re still a maker of crappy shows/hentai porn freak.

Dick Cheney implied that voting for the Kerry/Edwards ticket will cause a massive, deadly terrorist attack. Because, you know, voting for Bush/Cheney certainly prevented that last time around.

ESPN turned 25 this year, and Boston University is celebrating by finally–finally!–allowing on-campus students to have cable. I don’t know of another college, save the ones with religious arguments against it, that didn’t allow students to order cable for their rooms, even if the students themselves were willing to pay for it.

Of course, only 30-40 percent will be outfitted for the mighty wire when it arrives in January; it’ll be another six months before the entire campus gets it. And finally, BU students can finally follow one of the most popular college soap operas in the country (BU-produced Bay State) from their very own rooms. A channel with BU talent appears to be part of the package, which means that students from a college with an above-average school of communication can finally see what the fuss is about. What a concept!

Aside from calling him a “gangbanger,” Brian Triplett of ESPN.com wrote a heartwarming article about a half-blind minor league pitcher for the Red Sox named Abe Alvarez. I can only assume that Triplett is unaware of the other, rather common usage of “gangbang.”

This reminds me of what I like to call the “John Madden A-hole Game.” A couple years ago on Monday Night Football, John Madden was describing the different gaps in the offensive line that running backs could run through. To either side of the center is the “a hole,” while the “b hole” is outside the guards and the “c hole” was outside the tackles. Anyway, the runner in this game (I believe it was Clinton Portis) was having an easy time running up the middle. So for a few minutes, John Madden kept making comments like “Portis blasts through the a-hole” and “There wasn’t much room in the a-hole, but Portis made it through.” Somebody must’ve been listening, because last year, I heard Madden talk about “a gaps,” instead.