The World of Joel

I have always been a big fan of DirecTV, I have an HD unit which I am very happy with the quality it shoots out on my 37″ Toshiba LCD. But if there was anything I had to love about DirecTV it is during Wimbledon and the US Open where they open up about 6-7 channels and allow you to watch literally every court that is playing. This is great because a lot of times ESPN will just show the Williams sisters, or whatever is on center court and this can be the least enjoyable matches to watch. So today I got to sit back and watch some really great tennis including this final match of the day with Chris Eaton from the UK who is ranked 661 in the world but maybe it through qualifiers and took the match in 3 sets. The crowd was so for him, and he looked like he was having the time of his life, it was quite a match to watch. I also got to watch a great Andy Murray match and saw James Blake pull off a great match as well.

So as I said yesterday I was having problems staying focused, watching Wimbledon is one of those “distractions” that I don’t mind putting in front of work, there is nothing better then watching Tennis at the All England Club. And just think in a week I will be only a short distance away from the action when I leave for London. Ah I love this time of year!

For the first time in my life, I feel like I am jumping on a bandwagon. If you ask me my favorite football team it would be the 49ers, baseball, The Angels, Golf Player Tiger Woods, Tennis Player James Blake, but when it comes to basketball I just don’t have a team, probably because I have never been a huge fan. However this season, before the Pao Gasul trade for the Lakers, I began to show signs of interest. Now I have been watching most of their games and have been enjoying it. Last night was one of the more exciting basketball games I have watched in a while, and seeing the Lakers head to the NBA finals is fantastic news, it means more basketball in the weeks to come. How great would a LA vs. Boston match-up be? I for one am hoping for that, and hoping that the Lakers take home another ring.

Not me. I came in last. Well a few spots from last, the people who came in last didn’t play so they got a 0 as there score. Otherwise I came in last. I just was not on top of my March Madness picks this year. But as the deal for entering the Pick’Em each player must give a link back to the winner. And the winner is Cage Today! Congrats my friend, you did pick a great bracket, much better then mine and quite a bit better then David’s. Hopefully next year we get a better turnout, March Madness is not a lot of fun without having some great Pick Em pools!

I am a big fan and supporter of ESPN. I have heard many of my favorite radio hosts call it the evil four letter station, but I for one enjoy most of their coverage. Except for Bob Knight, why do they want this son of a gun on as a NCAA Basketball Announcer, the man is an idiot and should be punished for the terrible way he treated people throughout his career. Moving on however. I love how everything is going HD, I for one have DirecTV HD and I really need to upgrade to HD-DVR. However on my 37″ Toshiba LCD, things look fantastic in HD and one channel in particular held it back and that was one of my favorite channels ESPN News. Well now ESPN has upgraded their station and DirecTV within the first day or two added the channel for its subscribers, that is exactly what I like to see!

I have to say the new ESPN News is snazzy. The great menu on the left hand side gives a much stronger look into box scores while still receiving the latest scores in the typical tracker on the bottom. My only issue, its a bit to busy and can be a bit overwhelming at times. Other then that the color is great, the HD picture is fantastic, and I have come back to watching ESPN News over Sportcenter again, because it leaves a lot of the extra frills out and just gives great Sports News, what I like to see! Good work ESPN.

I love watching Tiger Woods play. The man is pure brilliance and it showed again today. I was just eating lunch ready to sit down and study for finals when I remembered Tiger was in the lead at Arnold Palmer’s tournament in Orlando. Of course when Tiger is in the lead you know its going to be a great Sunday! Well it proved to be again! Tiger comes in tied on the 18th looking like he is going to force a playoff. He sticks his shot on the fairway, and sticks his approach on the green. He had a 20+ foot putt, longer the he had made all tournament. But its Tiger Woods and you just got the feeling like he was going to sink it. And sure enough he did.

So I have written about David Lithman before, he is one of the few blogs I read on a regular basis. Last year was really what I consider a high point for blogging, and we had a great turnout for the NCAA Tourney Pick’em for Bloggers last year. David is running the show this year and I encourage anyone who hasn’t signed up who runs a blog to sign up! Its a lot of fun, and you will see how badly your bracket gets beat by my perfect picks! Here are the rules and for more info, head to David Lithman’s Blog to check it out!

Rules:

• Only bloggers. It can be any type of blog. If you own a random fashion blog, thats fine… If you sign up and you don’t have a blog you will be booted.
• Your bracket name must be either your domain, name, or blog title. It must distinguish you from the rest of the pack.
• You must complete your bracket by Thursday March 20, before the first game.
• Anyone who signs up must acknowledge the winner in a blog post. The blog post must have a link back to the winner’s blog. You can simply say ‘Congrats to David Lithman for winning the Bloggers NCAA Tournament Pick’em Contest’.
• If you do not acknowledge the winner in your blog somewhere you will be ostracized from the community.
• I am the commish and control the league.

Prizes:

• A free link back from every blogger who signs up in the tournament. This could be a lot of free links if we get everyone to signup.
• 1 month of advertising on my blog in the 728×90 or 125×125 banner spot.
• More Prizes to Come. If you would like to donate something, let me know!

I watched the Super Bowl. For those who read my previous post I really didn’t think I was going to, and right now at 12:00am on Monday morning writing my paper I am feeling the repercussions of it. What a game eh? It was great to see the “perfect team” go down! I got to say I was rooting heavy for the Giants, and to see Eli mount that great game winning drive was by far one of my best Super Bowl experiences since the 49ers destroyed the Charges back in 94. But outside of the game I had to post my favorite commercial. Which easily was “What is Love” Pepsi Max commercial.

I love the Super Bowl. I love watching football. However since I started college I have “half-watched” the last few Super Bowls, mainly because the Super Bowl always lands right before Week 5 of school which for those on the quarter system know, is Midterm Week. I have no midterms this week, but instead I have a 10 page paper due on Tuesday, a research study on Wednesday, 100+ pages of reading for two classes, and Statistics homework. My chances of being able to sit down and watch the Patriots trounce the Giants, probably not that likely. More then likely for me I will be watching the Super Bowl on mute while I work on my paper(s) and read. Sounds like fun? Not really. Well this is the last year I will have to miss the Super Bowl!

There is no doubt that if you kept an eye on sports this week that it was a great weekend to be a sports fan. There was a great Australian Open Final that was the first time in a long time we didn’t see Roger Federer hoisting the trophy which to me was a bit of a bummer. Although in all actuality I would have loved to have seen James Blake win the whole thing but that just wasn’t going to happen. However if you did pay attention to sports this week you probably saw that Tiger Woods was playing in a league of his own this weekend.

The question that arises in my mind is Tiger that good or is the rest of the tour that bad? How can someone consistently win tournaments with 9 stroke leads? I mean that is insane. Where most of the field was maybe 1, 2, 3 under par he finished -19. I am a huge Tiger Woods fan, he is the real deal, walking history, walking greatness, and to watch him dominate in what he has been quoted as saying the best he has felt in a long time is pretty exciting. Could Tiger grab the year grand slam? It sounds like if he will, this may be his year.

I have a feeling most of you have already seen this, and if this has gone around and I just missed it, well then please ignore this. My cousin Brandon yesterday at Thanksgiving showed me this video and it had me cracking up big time. It is Peyton Manning doing a spoof commercial for the United Way. Enjoy it.