Cup of Coffee

December 7, 2013: Infamy

87 Comments

On days like this - commemorations of American hardship - I don't have the scope necessary to do the date justice. Perhaps nobody does. Regardless, I shall acknowledge it.

87 thoughts on “December 7, 2013: Infamy”

  2. So ManU lost at home to Everton on Wednesday for the first time since 1992 and just lost at home to Newcastle for the first time in 41 years! David Moyes better be polishing up on his resume.

  3. The event at Luke Air Force Base was a smash, by the way. We brought a PS4 for Madden, Xbox One for Forza 5, two 360s for Call of Duty: Ghosts, and a PS3 for FIFA. These were all very popular, but slightly more popular still was the Nintendo 64 we brought for Super Mario Kart 64. Classics never die!

      2. I tried to play GoldenEye a few weeks ago and the controls felt broken. FPSs do not hold up. That said, I'm sure people would have jumped in and played it.

        I was always Oddjob. I was very good in theory, but my horrible sense of direction applies to videogames as well (and it was even worse in those days). Other dudes would look at my screen and know where I was, while I couldn't do the same with them. I'd have to run around until I saw someone, and hope I'd seen them first.

        With online play meaning nobody can look at my screen, my odds went way up and I play well above average.

        1. Did you play the original or the re-release? With a proper controller, the re-release might be better, but I've never played it.

          2. I did. It's probably better than given credit for, but we were playing with Wiimotes, and playing any sort of FPS with those is an exercise is beating one's head against a wall.

      3. I could never beat the train level on GoldenEye.

        The multiplayer was great, of course, but I preferred Perfect Dark.
        In college, the order of multiplayer games played went: NBA Hangtime, Perfect Dark, MarioKart, GoldenEye.

    2. My favorite N64 game is the ridiculous Mario Kart ripoff in which everyone drives around in Volkswagen Beetles. My siblings and I get that out around the holidays every year or two (I may have to suggest it in a couple of weeks) and play.

      1. Beetle Adventure Racing! This game is incredibly good. It reminds me a lot of the N64 version of San Francisco Rush which was really great all things considered.

        I actually just agreed to buy Mario Party 2 & 3 from a guy on another forum I post on. I'm really excited to get those in and play them. I'm torn on if I want to buy the first one. I don't know if I have enough controllers for the N64 I'm willing to sacrifice to the stick-twirling mini games.

  6. I was thinking how cool it is that I could watch the Chelsea match on my iPhone in high def while sitting at the car dealership then I see Chelsea lose to Stoke in the 89th minute and then realized that it also kind of sucks.

  7. I don't know if anyone saw this but Temple Univ is dropping 7 sports ostensibly to be more competitive in football. One of the sports being dropped is men's gymnastics. There were only 16 D-1 schools with men's gymnastics and the NCAA requires 16 for it tone a sanctioned sport. No Temple could kill the sport at the collegiate level.

    You re not hearing about it yet but look forward to a lot of teeth gnashing over this. The UMN has a men's gymnastics team and they have been worried about this for years. While the bean counters will be happy.

        1. That's kinda the answer but not really. Besides football and basketball (and hockey at some northern schools) no collegiate sports make money. Very little boys gymnastic programs at the high school level so no feeder system, is a biggie. Men's Gymnastics is a fringe sport to be sure, it's only paid attention to at the Olympics but does that mean it should be a collegiate sport? Probably not. No collegiate (meaning NCAA sponsored) curling or archery teams either.

          The Temple thing is really sad (Track and Field and baseball cut too) all in the name of saving resources for a nascent football team.

        2. How many high schools have boys gymnastics? If training before college all has to be done privately, it really limits the pool of talent, especially when parents would rather spend on a sport that has even the slightest possibility of their boy, and eventually the parents themselves, cashing in with a multi-million dollar contract.

    2. I think you can put me in the bean counter category. I don't think any non-revenue college sports make sense.

      1. I think if high schools can run sports programs that colleges could run more sports programs if they just didn't gold-plate everything. Temple is claiming it would take $10M to put in a boathouse for a rowing team. Really? I admit I've never been in a rowing boathouse, but how much more than a well-built garage would you really need? That seems like the sort of estimate you give when you don't want to do the hard work to make the compromises to put up a reasonable structure at a reasonable cost.

        Honestly, I'd get rid of the revenue sports way before the non-revenue sports--graduation rates and GPAs are a lot better in the non-revenue sports (typically better than the university averages) and the students major in something other than communications or keg stands.

          1. I think that participation in sports is a worthwhile endeavor and it's worth something to the school to offer that, especially as long as the athletes are above-average students. At the same time, I don't think that they need to offer it at any price. I'm sure there are a lot of D-1 programs out there that could be more cost conscious. Frankly, I doubt most of the so-called revenue sports really pay for themselves--see, for instance, Grambling football.

            1. Does there really need to be division one athletics to participate? Intramurals are much cheaper and provide more benefit to the masses.

              1. I think that intramural athletics are great, too--although I think a lot of colleges have gone overboard on spending with even those athletic facilities--but I think it's worthwhile to foster top-level competition as well. I think a lot of athletes who are talented enough to be D1 in their sport wouldn't get much out of trouncing the kids at their school. At the same time, if the NCAA really existed to serve college sports, I think they could put more effort toward making D1 sports somewhat more regional and reducing travel costs.

                I look at Temple's baseball program and see that it has existed since the '20s, but up until this point has managed to not put their school in bankruptcy. I don't think that having a baseball (or softball or gymnastics or whatever) program is really the problem here.

          2. I'll admit I'm pretty biased against the big revenue college sports and I really don't have any hard facts, but it seems to me playing a sport in college would be very valuable for a student when it isn't something like football where the athlete is expected (I assume) to basically spend almost all of their time working on that sport. But, for something smaller and less followed, it would probably be easier to manage time training for the sport and time actually studying, especially if it's now of a club sport that doesn't travel all over the country. There's the obvious health benefits, social aspect, and is imagine it would provide a better connection with one's school to possibly make people donate more to the school later in life. (And probably less likely for that money to be given only to the team.)

            If like to see all collegiate sports taken away from being a national thing and make them be more of a local thing, with perhaps a national tourney existing, but teams have to pay their own way, and all that. (Do them at times with a long break from classes). Something like football almost certainly wouldn't survive, but more human friendly sports would stick around and probably some more fringe sports would get more popular (like the type that make for good league type competition after college.) Boom, something valuable to the student while in school and potentially something valuable to the graduate during the rest of their life.

            1. I definitely second the idea of getting travel under control. IIRC, the Kansas basketball team has their own charter plane. Even if it's possible for NCAA basketball to make money, I don't see how having so much travel that a charter plane is necessary really serves the athletes. National tournaments could be a lot more regional, too. Maybe that means one region's champion is stronger than another region's champion and you don't get the absolute very best championship match-up possible, but I don't see that as a particularly big problem considering that pro sports manage to make it work.

            2. Both of my brothers were DIII soccer players. The time commitment was still big enough to convince one of my brothers to stop after his sophomore year (two years later, in his senior year, his former teammates lost the national championship). The other wasn't fazed at all.

              1. I'm all for the D-III model and club sports (the U competes at the club level in men's volleyball -- or did, anyway -- and in Ultimate).

                As has been stated above by others, very few collegiate programs make operating profits (not very few sports; very few teams). and the sports that those teams participate in really have very little to do with the missions of their respective universities. Yea, they can be useful marketing tools. But would universities fail to attract students without them? I think the evidence is pretty strongly to the contrary.

                I for one would not miss big-time athletics at universities. They don't provide meaningful educational "opportunities" to underprivileged/underrepresented students (as is often the excuse used to justify the programs). They don't contribute directly to the mission in a marginal sense (over the opportunities offered by D-III, club, and intramural programs, for example). And they contribute mightily to the corruption of the educational mission, as is demonstrated over and over and over again by scandals and generally distasteful activities.

    3. I remember my parents bringing me to a men's gymnastics meet at the U in the late 1980s when the Husker team was in town because they were friends with some of the coaches from their days in Lincoln.

  8. So serpentine belt replacement is not going as well as planned. Frickin tensioner bike got stripped out on the belt install attempt, so I had to go try to find one of those. Naturally, no one has it in stock, but auto zone was able to order one from their Milwaukee hub which will get in this evening. It was a bitch and a half to get to the three bolts holding the tensioner assembly in, but I at least have that out.

    In the end, I'll still save about $100 from just the belt replacement at a shop.

      1. I wonder how it compares to a course on auto repair at a community college or something like that on a per hour basis. Could justify it under "education" I suppose.

  9. Wisky playing Marquette at the Kohl Center and the heat is out.
    insert joak about Wisky offense not going to heat the building

    1. SKC just equalised in the 76th. 1-1 for the last 15 minutes. Should be a great end to this game.

      1. Eddie Pope played for RSL, but that's as far as any interest I have. DG is an SKC guy, so I guess I'll go RSL to balance things out.

                1. Why do I have it in my head you hate Benny Feilhaber? That's not the first time I've done this. I even thought as I typed that "Is it DP who doesn't like Feilhaber?" It must be my old roommate Adam who hates him. I know one of my soccer-liking friends can't stand him.

    4. ESPN guy trying to sell me on the merits of deciding the winner on a shootout is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

  11. Guess who's a natural curler?

    *This guy*

    It's too bad the sheets are an hour away (at 6AM on a Saturday) in Maryland. There's absolutely no way I'm navigating that after work to join a league.

    Edit: Switched my MLS cup comment around so this doesn't look so out of place.

    1. Isn't Rochester about the same distance away? That's gotta be a better drive than Maryland.

        1. Oh, heh, right. Sorry about that. My memory is shot to hell these days from not enough sleep.

            1. Yikes, that's a pretty rough place to be without a car. I spent six years around DC without a car, but was always in a much more Metro-accessible place.

              1. I have a car here, just not when I was in Buffalo. More accurately, we shared a car and I had second dibs on it since she needed to drive to work where I could walk.

    2. We got off the original point. Curling is hella fun, and I hope wherever I end up has a readily accessible club.

      yickit & GH - I don't now how handy you are to Laurel, MD, but if you have any interest at all in curling I highly suggest their Saturday Morning breakfast program. Potomac Curling Club

      1. Yeah, it's a fantastic sport and gets better as you gain experience and more responsibility (vice,skip) and confidence (i.e. weight calls as a sweeper.) I'm playing vice this year in league play and I'm skipping a team in a league for paying up a position. Just a couple weeks ago in that league i was down two in the last end with the hammer. I had to make a down weight takeout ago my shot rock would stay in for the win (while paying my opponents rock far enough so my third some it counted it without knocking any of mine out). I totally nailed it. It was a blast.

        Also, getting to yell at your friends.

        1. That was the one thing I didn't like. I was (understandably) lead, so I was doing a lot of sweeping and throwing the 1 and 2 stones, which are sorta boring. I would have loved to try to knock out someone else who had shot rock.

          1. That's another thing that experience gives you: a better appreciation of playing lead. I played lead during a spiel to begin this year and I really enjoyed it.v those two stones are really important (more important than the second's stones) because they set the whole end up. My competitive league team has our more experienced front end guy paying lead and the newer guy playing second.

            But yeah, takeouts are fun.

            1. I'm not saying the first 2 stones aren't important, just that I didn't get to blast the shit out of someone else's stones. I know the first two set the tone, and I was acutally getting sorta upset with my inability to find the weight consistently. I'd throw a great first stone, then the second would fly through the house like a bat outta hell (relatively speaking for curling speeds)

              1. We were actually just talking about this on Thursday night. I kind of think it's better for new curlers to play second right away. Hitting rocks is satisfying and it helps them get better at balancing during shots.

                1. I think working at the ice rink for a year really gave me a leg up on the other newbies. I am very, very comfortable being on and walking on ice. My balance, both throwing and sweeping, was so on point. The dude who was instructing us was actually surprised I'd never thrown before.

                  1. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that bobsled stuff might have helped, too. For me, my bowling background made me something of a natural.

                    1. I actually did absolutely nothing on ice for the bobsled/skeleton training. But I did do a lot of explosiveness, mobility, and agility training, which I'm sure didn't hurt.

  13. Seems like the SEC has gone the way of the Big 12 and decided not to play defense anymore.

  14. NDSU wins its first playoff game 38-7. In 12 games this year, the Bison have allowed a total of 6 points in the fourth quarter.

    1. And the Twitters are telling me that NDSU's coach will be announced as the head coach at Wyoming tomorrow. WTF, Wyoming?

      1. I came here to see if you saw that. Although the guy has nothing left to prove at the FCS level, it seems like a lateral move in stature (although Wyoming may move up to a major conference). Paycheck will be much higher. I guess he didn't see Nebraska firing Pellini this year.

Comments are closed.