Sports Illustrated: Dazed and confused

Continuing with the trend of great feature articles in the sports week is one by Don Banks about the '94-'95 Browns. The year Belichik was fired.

It's amazing how there's that whole other side of the story that you never seem to hear about. Up until I read the article, I had no idea Belichik had actually manage to have a successful team in Cleveland, all I read about was how he was a failure in communicating with his players and all that stuff. And now, better enlightened, I can appreciate just how incredible that man is.

And you know what?

The article is all the more chilling in light of the recent developments regarding Los Angeles. Now, if they were simply expanding new teams into the league, it's understandable, but there's that possibility they're leaving open about a team moving to L.A. That's a pretty hefty undertone. The entire Browns' experience could happen again to another team (the Saints seem very close, but I still expect a team to be in Louisiana in the near future. Maybe the Saints will move to San Antonio as a different name, and the Saints will be reborn in Louisiana at the same time as a team is made in Los Angeles). We'll see, I guess.

Grizzly Bears (Opinion)

Apparently there is a motion to take grizzly bears off of the endangered species list in certain states. Interesting. Here's my take on that.

According to the article,

"Federal wildlife officials estimate that more than 600 grizzly bears live in the region surrounding Yellowstone in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Those numbers represent a significant recovery. Only 200 or 250 grizzlies were in that region in 1975, when grizzly bears in the lower 48 states were listed under the Endangered Species Act."

I don't know, am I the only one who thinks 600 bears is still a pretty low number to be taken off the endangered list?

The Northwest Territories Wildlife Division says that "there were probably more than 100,000 grizzly bears in North America prior to European settlement. Since then, the population in the continental United States has dwindled to about 1,000 grizzly bears. In Canada, the population has decreased to 20,000-25,000 grizzly bears that live in several distinct populations. Currently, most grizzly bear populations in North America are thought to be stable. The NWT is home to an estimated 3,500-4,000 grizzly bears. The highest concentrations of grizzly bears in the NWT are found in the Mackenzie Mountains."

I don't know... 1,000 grizzlies in the States? I can't tell you how dated that information is, but for the sake of argument, we'll guess there's around 1,500 grizzlies tops right now, 600 or so around the Yellowstone. If the movement won't even affect the grizzlies inside the park, why is it even going forth?

The interesting thing is, the major wildlife people are all "hail!!!!" about this because "the very act of taking the Yellowstone bears off the threatened species list will redirect attention and resources to areas where grizzlies remain endangered." That's a good point. I'm not so sure grizzlies are in the clear, though, around Yellowstone.

This article gives a reason why it shouldn't:

"Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council agrees that "sound science" should be the criteria for listing and delisting under the Endangered Species Act, but said “we believe that there are some significant, serious flaws” in the federal proposal to delist the bears.

Willcox, who herself has been working to protect bears for 20 years, believes that there should be 2,000 to 3,000 bears “living in connected ecosystems” before they are delisted. “The bear may be out of the emergency room, but it’s certainly not ready to be released from the hospital,” Willcox says."

Sound judgement is what I hear.

If there were thousands before, why are people all bally-hoed about a total of 1,000 in the entire country? If Yellowstone had like 1,000, it'd make slightly more sense. But heres an interesting fact, it's taken around 30 years to bring the population for 200 to 600. I don't get it. I agree with these wildlife folk that taking them off would be a signal of success, but I think they're underestimating the effect of removing them.

The article describes how removing them from the list would allow people to "'harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect' them. It would be up to the states to regulate 'taking' of grizzlies, which could include hunting." You know... if it took 30 years to go from 200 to 600, it could take 30 years to bring them from 600 to 1,800. That's STILL not a very good number. I don't care how much the "required threshold" they thought about 30 years ago has been reached (IE number of cubs and fertile mothers and that sort of stuff), keeping the Bears at a population of like 500 doesn't sound like much of an improvement to me. Especially if they'd have to put the Bears back on the list after five years and say "oops my bad, we were wrong, it was early" and delay the repopulation even more. Way too eager to remove them from the list and make a statement... the entire thing reeks of political maneuvering to me rather than actual concern over the Bears...

Bananas

I've astonishingly missed a day already! *gasp* Take that, Alex.

So in my drive to eat healthier snacks, I've been eating bananas. Kg for 82 pence-ish, if I'm not mistaken. Not a bad price. The problem is that now I'm worried about eating too much.

I hear you're only supposed to eat a max of three bananas or so, otherwise you'd have insane vitamin overload. At the same time, I eat an all-in-one vitamin every night, because I have issues with certain vitamins. Obviously not fruit vitamins, though. Now... as I'm currently limiting myself to three bananas in one day, this is probably giving me a good 200, 300% daily value of the respective vitamins. Anyone know if this is really, really bad? I'm hoping that's not like, overdose numbers... >_>U This article doesn't really specify how much is the general threshold, so... I have no idea >_> Well, my hair is still there, and I imagine my organs are still working fairly well... although I have been having issues with dizziness post-run lately, we'll see...

Sindy pointed out to me tonight I had way too much sports blogging. I'm sorry. That really wasn't my intention... it's just that the week had a good number of shocking developments and I wanted to do a little catch-up rant in the first week (plus I was too tired to do any other subject, as they'd actually take some work), so it ended up being largely sport. Hopefully won't happen again :p

ESPN Magazine: Who Knew? (Opinion)

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=steroids&num=1

Amazing article. You don't even really have to be much of a sports fan. It's about the history of steroids in MLB since around the 1980's and how the league cultivated a culture that defends the usage of steroids. Absolutely amazing work of writing.

It took me about 30 minutes to read the article, but I assure you it's well-worth the read. Chilling accounts of different prominent figures in the entire steroids "scandal" since the 80's and their roles (some who used, some who tried to raise it as an issue) in regards to the era. You see just how ridiculous the league, and its players, were and still are in regards to the problem. And it doesn't look like it's going to be solved anytime soon.

Priest Holmes and Terrell Owens (NFL)

According to this news report, Priest Holmes' career may be over. That's a pretty stunning turn of events from less than two weeks ago, when he was "probable" for last sunday's game.

The big news around the NFL is the treatment of Terrell Owens. Man's been suspended (long overdue) and his apology has fallen upon deaf ears. That's a good thing. If the Eagles did indeed take him back after that pathetic excuse of an apology, I would have lost a lot of respect for the organization.

But the pathetic thing is that TO's going to find himself on a contender against next season. Presumably, anyways. The Eagles could trade him back to the Niners or something, that'd be hilarious, but I don't think that's happening. I wonder how they're going to get rid of him, though.

Musings of the sports world (Sports)

So there I was sitting with Gilbert Arenas slotted in as my point guard in fantasy, and in the first half he had a grand total of one assist.

Man's really playing point guard, right...?

The Wiz won anyways (good thing) and Arenas ended up with like two assists, but that's a pretty strange showing for a point guard... although I should be used to that because of what happened last year. What's with Antwain Jamison, on that note. He's playing like a pussy point guard instead of a Forward, judging by how many jumpshots he's taking. Come on, you're a forward, drive to the basket! Wiz look like a team with 8 shooting guards and Haywood/Thomas right now... I don't think that's going to work too well. But eh, they're 3-0, guess I can't complain...

Musical chairs for positions in the NFL. Michael Bennett pops up for 100 yards (what?), some backup in Chicago busts out 10+ yards per carry, Brooks Bollinger runs up a come-back attempt that almost worked, Packers down to their 20th runningback of the season or something, Kurt Warner utterly fails... what's up?

It's a pretty harsh league for the quarterbacks of next year, I think. Leinart, Brady Quinn, Vince Young and Marcus Vick could all line up for the draft. They're all, obviously, first-round material unless something drastic happens up until the draft. In the league, the Lions (3-5) and the Cardinals (2-6) are the only teams absolutely desperate for a quarterback. About five teams have a worse pick than them. The Ravens could be looking for a fix if they do give up on Boller (too quick to say, in my opinion), the Dolphins may want to look for a quarterback this year, the Jets might want a backup option (if they're unhappy with Bollinger, but I don't think they are anymore) in case Pennington has to sit out another year, and I hear the Packers are looking into Leinart. Weird league. Then you talk about runningbacks. It seems, to me, that the Niners are the only team with an inkling of genuine interest in a back. Even they have Frank Gore waiting in the wings. I know people think the Niners are going to draft Reggie Bush come the next draft, but I wouldn't be too sure. They have some serious issues elsewhere on that team (offensive line, defense...) that could be plugged with a high pick. So where would Bush land? I don't know... it may be another of those years where the highest back drafted is way down on the first round or maybe even the second round (like the year Larry Johnson went 25th to... the Chiefs). Almost every other position has a nice, clear entry into the league, though. Receivers are still a marquee position that doesn't have enough talent on a good many teams (Bears, Niners), offensive line and every position on defense is a concern for almost every team, too. Will probably be an interesting draft.

I doubt all four of those quarterbacks are entering, by the way. I specifically mean Marcus Vick. I don't think he's entering this year. Remember, he's less than a year removed from utterly embarassing himself (and his family). Now that the Hokies are out of Bowl contention, I think he'll probably come back for one more year, solidifiy his leadership, mature one more year to make sure he's ready, hopefully lead the Hokies to the Bowl and bust out into the NFL draft a much higher pick than he is right now. He's got too many character questions right now that it might be worth it to risk injury to clear his name after another year of college.

I think the Yankees are going to be messed up for a couple years. Their entire roster has aged to the point where the hitters are slowly becoming more fearsome due to name rather than output. They have much detailed issues on the pitching staff. Their organization's staff is pretty haywire, too, and their farm system, for all intents and purposes, is pretty bad. I think they sucked the farm system dry last season with Cano and Wang. It might take a couple years for the Yankees, if serious, to be a legitimate threat to win the Series.

Theo Epstein retiring from the Red Sox, for that matter, was pretty astonishing. But I think it's a good move for him. I don't think anyone really knows what he's going to do with his life henceforth, but even if he never returns to baseball, I think he's accomplished so much already that he's set. Maybe he was simply burned out and needs some rest. What will be interesting is if he returns to the MLB. Who will hire him? What would the Sox do? Hmm.

Sounds of nature and unexplained highness

So I sit here tonight in the darkness (not total, the light from the city several miles away is sparkling in a very pretty manner, skylines are always great like that, and my monitor is in fact quite bright) just listening. You know those sunny days where you just want to sit up straight in the grass, tilt your head up towards the sky in the distance, close your eyes and just feel the wind?

I don't want to get hit by pneumonia or anything so I'm happily sitting in my room in relative warmth (still a rather cool room, but it's comfortable), but hearing the soft breeze rustling the tree a couple feet from the open window is awesome. You just feel the wind, mentally, and it's almost like you actually have this breeze passing through you. Only seems to work at certain nights, though. Haven't heard a single car nor any noise from people tonight. I wish every night were as great as this.

And then I got to thinking, what other noises make you feel this way? I think water, as a whole, does it. Ocean waves, rain pattering on the stone balcony, streams trickling water down a brook amidst the foliage, the faucet dripping into a pool of water...

The crackling of fire, too. You just sit here, eyes closed, feeling a slight bit of heat from the fire and then the irregular yet soft crackling of the wood as it splits apart. The crunching of snow under footsteps. The extremely soft patter of snowflakes as they accumulate into snow (yes, they DO make a sound, a very nice sound, in fact), the chirping of crickets and cicadas at night...

Ahhh, nature. 'Tis a pity it's so difficult to find a nice place with trees and grass near a body of water with a nice flow of wind and yet not having any outside noises (cough cars cough).

And so it's past 1:30AM, and I sit here, alone in the darkness (Tim's asleep, sober, in fact), listening to the rustling of leaves just outside and getting goosebumps. I wonder if I'll ever get to sleep, even though I'm actually pretty sleepy anyways.



And now for the latter half. Jon was having quite the insanity-streak as his work ended tonight, and I thought it would be nice to share the oddity.

(00:49:51) Jon: *hide's izzy's corpse
(00:50:11) Jon: fufufufufufu
(00:53:58) Jon: i should hide you under stone henge
(00:54:38) Jon: and then put the blarney stone on ya
(00:55:02) Jon: surrounded by eggs
(00:55:07) Jon: and a tall pine tree
(00:55:13) Jon: with a giant tiki head from easter island
(00:55:47) Jon: and draped in lava
(00:55:52) Jon: which will harden
(00:56:21) Jon: so i can put a giant turkey on ya
(00:56:28) Jon: holding 9 candles
(00:56:47) Jon: muttering yiddish
(00:57:07) Jon: which i guess could be yur last rites
(00:58:19) Jon: as mozart plays the requiem
(00:58:43) Jon: and ichabod crane comes comes riding through
(00:58:58) Jon: yelling about the redcoats are coming
(00:59:47) Jon: and then other corpses of primitive ape men under stone henge rise up
(00:59:53) Jon: and do thriller
(01:00:26) Jon: until a leprachaun jumps out throwing marshmellows
(01:01:32) Jon: and a toucan runs away from a 1 eared rabbit along a rainbow
(01:01:37) Jon: touching from rome to beijing
(01:02:05) Jon: when a giant rises up throwing moon cakes at people
(01:02:12) Jon: who turn into candy corn as they get hit
(01:02:19) Jon: so that it lures a dragon
(01:02:29) Jon: into melting them with his icy breath
(01:02:53) Jon: into a coagulated pool of bright orangey colors
(01:03:13) Jon: which flows into the amazon river
(01:03:21) Jon: mutating the piranhas
(01:03:26) Jon: and capybaras
(01:03:33) Jon: into leviathans and behemoths
(01:04:08) Jon: which begin to rampage new york
(01:04:13) Jon: cuz new york always gets rampaged

天空のエスカフローネ [Visions of Escaflowne] (Anime)

Started watching the series because a friend was talking about it on IRC about two weeks ago... wasn't bad at all. It's a fantasy anime (ala Scrapped Princess et all) based on a moon around the Earth named Gaea.

Probably repels a lot of people with its usage of mechs, though, as combat is largely focused around Escaflowne, this one uber-mech of sorts. Kinda like a Gundam, except slightly less invincible. Still, they didn't obsess over the mechs, so I appreciated that. Used more like a weapon-of-war, like Battlesuits (not the mechs) in Mech Warrior. That being said, I think they were pretty unorginal for the locations and their customs, and the "town amongst hills and then barren space and then suddenly another town!" thing common amongst fantasy stories drove me nuts. For instance, there is nothing but trees between Fanelia and Asturia. What? These guys have relatively advanced mechs and yet they couldn't be bothered to expand and chop down trees? Please.

Mechs fighting it out

That pet peeve aside, and despite the fact that certain places were obviously modeled after feudal Japan and mediaeval Europe, it was still a somewhat engaging setting. Could have used far more originality with the places and behaviours of people, but what can I say.

Not as cute as you think

What's supposed to drive the series is the characters. I think they did a fairly respectable job in this regard. Token-cute-person Merle was obnoxiously annoying, in my opinion. They tried to put in a tint of seriousness about her so you'd care later in the series, but by that point it's like "shut up already." The heroin's pretty believable, I suppose, but she kept flip-flopping her views throughout the series that sometimes, from one episode to another, her actions don't make sense. For instance, there's this one episode where she spontaneously begins to hate her powers. Absolutely no signal that something like that was coming, she just spontaneously falls apart at a critical moment. They had some nice twists for the characters, though, and the "villains" were fairly likeable and believable. That's a feat, considering so many stories are obsessed with making villains as evil as possible instead of actually making them plausible. Newsflash: villains are not necessarily totally evil. There's this one character, Chid, who's supposed to be around 10, and yet he's drawn like he's 5, and he acts like he's 18, with full angst and all. That was annoying, too.

And the all-important ending. I don't know... I think it was sort of a let-down. The problem is, the story started leaning towards the Evangelion-side, where it tried to be philosophical. So when it came to the ending, the writers looked like they just... fudged it. Couldn't even give the Escaflowne a proper farewell. They just made so many things happen in the end that it didn't, for all intents and purposes, make much sense. They tried to give a reason for it, but I don't think that still allows for such a muddled and open-ended ending. Definitely a weak-spot for the series.

That being said I had fun watching it. Definitely on the upper-tier of fantasy stories in anime-form. Animation was superb, all that good stuff. Small nit-picky details I didn't like and the ending wasn't as convincing as it should have been, but it's still a series I would recommend.

Michael Smith on Terrell Owens (NFL)

"The road ahead (Dallas, the Giants twice, Seattle, St. Louis, Washington again) will be hard enough for the Eagles without the burden of T.O.'s incessant bitching pulling them down. Owens is not Anakin Skywalker and his behavior since the Super Bowl suggests that there is no good in him whatsoever. Reid needs to stop searching for it, stop waiting for it, and let T.O. start searching for another place to play. I mean, what's the breaking point? Where's the "here" that most organizations by now would have had it up to?"

Awesome line, the full article is here.

What's really pathetic is, if the Eagles let him go, TO will just find a different team to play for. And he'll get the money he's looking for.

Ahh, <3 Spencer

(00:12:15) zhangshunyu7: nooooo priest holmes is out, stupid fucking pittman, kept him instead of lj
(00:13:13) zhangshunyu7: and fuck stupid cleveland o coordinator, i don understand how droughns keeps getting 100+ and no tds like hes weak, he was an fing fullback
(00:14:27) zhangshunyu7: and wtf is wrong wit cadillac
(00:14:49) zhangshunyu7: and fuck ernest wilford stealing all this shit from jimmy smith
(00:15:51) zhangshunyu7: what the fuck
(00:15:59) zhangshunyu7: 10 carries for 4 yds
(00:16:23) zhangshunyu7: fuck barlow and yet again he leads the team in receiving
(00:17:11) zhangshunyu7: and who teh fuck is gado?
(00:17:23) zhangshunyu7: and my god charlie batch is crap
(00:17:48) zhangshunyu7: neone with pittsburgh recievers is crying

Ahh, we love Spencer, best sports analyst around ;)

On the Packers' recent failures (NFL)

Don't kill me, Eric, but the Packers are doomed to failure in the near future, and there's a simple reason to it:

Favre is playing.

Now, don't get me wrong, he's a great player. One of the best quarterbacks ever to play the game, a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and hands down he would lead quite a few teams right now to the Super Bowl. The problem is that it simply won't happen to the Packers, and his existence on the team has messed them up badly.

The last season the Packers had severe issues was 1992, the year he stepped in. That's, what, 14 years of consistent competitiveness? That's incredible. Only one other team had even come close to that recently, and that's the Titans. Look at them now. They had to cut almost every player they had loose due to salary-cap prison, and they're considerably NON competitive. But the future looks pretty bright, especially with Billy Volek, Drew Bennett and that really deep, young core of receivers as well as a suddenly young defense that's not getting destroyed as lots of people thought they'd be. It's a catch-22.

The Packers, for the past four years or so, should have gone into rebuilding mode. They time for chances had gone by, and they seriously had to revamp their roster for the future. A brand-new three-year plan to catapult them to the top echelon of teams. The problem is that they couldn't. They have Favre at quarterback, nearing retirement, and they didn't and don't want to rebuild while he's there. With Favre at the helm, they had to try to get to the Super Bowl every season. It's a mentality teams get when they have such a great quarterback. I'd imagine that'll be the case when Peyton's close to retiring, too. The problem is that, with every season a team tries to hang onto the threads of competitiveness, they become further away from actually winning it. Everyone knows the Packers seriously needed to retool that defense. But for the past three years they didn't. They couldn't. They had so many high-priced players all over the board in order to keep a core group of key players, just so they could get to the playoffs. How many times have you heard the Packers in the group of teams picked for the Super Bowl? Almost never. The management was afraid of doing what the Titans, amazingly, are doing. Steve McNair is about to retire. Of course they'd love to get him a Super Bowl ring, he got them so close in 1999. They had their window of opportunity, from 1999 to 2003, when they got to that AFC Championship. That was it. The team realized it. McNair realized it. Since then they've been in rebuilding mode, even though McNair was at helm. They've tried to remain competitive, but it was obviously no longer for the Super Bowl, there was a rebuilding project underway.

The Packers couldn't do it.

And now they're forced into a rebuilding mode. I don't think they should fire Mike Sherman. He's done a splendid job under these circumstances, and I think people don't give him nearly enough credit. In fact, the Packers should be looking to keep him, to have him lead the team towards the future with stability and leadership in hand. I don't want Favre to retire, but the team seriously needs to realize that they need an emergency rebuild project, because they're not going to be winning a Super Bowl with that kind of a roster. They should be looking to win one with Aaron Rodgers, not Favre.