Saturday Night Live Sports All-Stars

Like I did for the Charles Barkley Saturday Night Live, I'm going to rate each of these skits out of 5. No Charles Barkley heads.

Maya Rudolph National Anthem (4/5) - Dinosaur Boy was rolling on the ground laughing. It was pretty funny and not so far-fetched actually. Some of these Star Spangled performances get out of hand.

Derek Jeter Monologue (2/5) - I don't usually like the monologues. Except Taylor Swift's was awesome.

Schmit's Gay (2/5) - The 2/5 is only because it was great to see Sandler and Farley. How was this "sports"? Either way, it wasn't really funny.

Peyton Manning | United Way (5/5) - I love Manning. This is funny. Spend time with your kids so Peyton Manning doesn't.

Lebron James | Read to Achieve (3/5) - Lebron isn't half bad here. It's not a great skit.

Yankee Stadium Stories (1/5) - The bread and meatballs was funny.

Mike Tyson | What Up With That (3/5) - Tyson's acting is terrible, his dancing is brilliant.

Michael Jordan | Stuart Smalley (3/5) - It's a classic and all, but I don't know. Maybe we've seen it too much.

Ray Romano | Sportscenter (5/5) - Excellent. I want to watch a full-hour Sportscenter like this.

Peyton Manning | Team Captain (5/5) - Most of the best recent male cast members plus Peyton. A little bit of pee came out.

Derek Jeter's Taco Hole (4/5) - Great Beach Boys parody. Need more Will Ferrell.

Stevie Wonder | Kannon Camera (1/5) - Pretty awful.

Shaquille O'Neal | Spanking (3/5) - Kind of funny, and not dragged out. I pretty much appreciate everything Shaq does.

Charles Barkley | Racist Macgruber (1/5) - Ugh.

Tiger Woods | The Situation Room (1/5) - Not funny.

Harry Caray | World Series (1/5) - I love Harry. I never found these skits funny. Why would I ever want to hear Harry talk about the Braves and Yankees? I'd rather hear the stories he's talking about. That's why we love Harry. His tangents aren't funny, they're awesome.

Game Time with Dave and Greg (5/5) - It's like Starman on crack. I liked this whole episode for the most part.

Hulk Hogan and Mr. T (3/5) - It's a shame that this is only decent because they are so awful at not laughing.

Tom Brady | Carnival (3/5) - You can see him aiming right below the hole.

Chris Farley and Nancy Kerrigan (4/5) - Farley is great.

Synchronized Swimming (2/5) - My wife loves this. I think it's OK for like a minute. But it goes on forever. It's like an entire mockumentary. In my sleep-deprived post-Blogathon state, this is ridiculously long.

ESPN Classic Bowling (3/5) - The guys are funny enough, but the bowling characters are definitely not. Two more strikes and she is out.

Tom Brady | Sexual Harassment and You (1/5) - TV (un)Funhouse.

Michael Phelps | The Charles Barkley Show (3/5) - Keenan Thompson is funny. Michael Phelps didn't do so well.

John Belushi | Donuts (2/5) - I thought we were ending with Barkley's Scared Straight and we got this instead.

Blogathon Bonus! I'm back for the NFL Pro Bowl...

10:02 - So, in reference to our podcast discussion, Favre's not even here but McNabb and Romo are. These rosters are not even close to the originals.

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9:35 - That was good. ESPN was interviewing Maurice Jones-Drew and he was supposed to be out on the field for a kick-off. He put on his helmet and ran to the field, but it was too late. Back to the bench.

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8:58 - It's the first half and we're already seeing David Garrard?? OK, unless Rodgers and Shaub come back in, I think it's time for me to switch over and check out the Saturday Night Live Sports Special on NBC.

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8:30 - Young just threw it abut three yards short on a quick 10-yard pass. Although it could have to do with the fact that the coach in his helmet sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher.

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8:28 - No offense, but since Vince Young came into this game, the NFC has taken over. Also, I could listen to Ray Lewis on the field all day. I'm hoping he becomes a head coach someday.

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8:00 - I like the audio in the huddle, but would like it more if I could hear Brees and Manning. TD -- Rodgers to Steve Smith.

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7:52 - Wow. While I'd still like to see the NFC double-team Andre Johnson to make Shaub a little less comfortable, it probably doesn't really matter. Shaub looks pretty good. This also makes you wonder how good Brandon Marshall would be with Shaub throwing to him regularly.

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7:45 - No one touches the Shaqtus.

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7:40 - You would think the NFC would make sure to guard the one guy who Matt Shaub is used to throwing to!

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7:25 - So the big debate of course is should this game have been moved. Wedge and I discussed this a bit in our first podcast. I really don't think the time or location matters. I love the MLB All-Star Game. I do my best to watch the NBA All-Star Game because I think it's fun. I also watch all of the pre-game festivities and contests for both the MLB and NBA games.

On the other hand, I rarely watch the entire Pro Bowl. Many years I haven't even turned it on. And I think it says a lot that Wedge and I were not the slightest bit worried that we'd be asleep long before this game kicked off.

So I don't think it matters. Before the Super Bowl or after it. In Hawaii or wherever. Doesn't make a difference to me.

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7:15 - So yeah, I found out work is canceled tomorrow and I'm still pretty much snowed in. I haven't been to sleep yet because I'm crazy. I figure I might as well stay up and watch the Pro Bowl at this point. If I have any interesting thoughts, I'll post them here.


I still have lots of Blogathon supplies leftover. Party.

Checkered Flag!

Congrats to the new Porsch-ish Action Express team on their Overall Daytona 24 Hours win; Terry Borcheller, Mike Rockenfeller, Joao Barbosa and Ryan Dalziel! It surely wasn't the fastest car on the track, but as we all know, in order to finish first; first you must finish. Also a very big congrats to the Mazda Speedsource team of Sylvain Tremblay, Nick Ham, Jonathan Bomarito and David Haskell. Huge wins for both very deserving teams and drivers.

Its a shame that it looks like Ganassi's loss is going to be pinned on Justin Wilson; we may never really know what he was feeling in the car, we'll only know what happened as a result of that garage visit.

And as the race festivities start their closing, I just wanted to take this time to thank everyone who joined us for our 2nd Annual 24-1/2 Hour Blogathon. In a way it just seems almost ridiculous to me that one year ago we had "Hey lets try and live-blog the race for all 24 hours" and in one year turned it into a full-on community of people blogging, commenting, chatting, and playing Mario Kart; from learning Cricket and watching tennis with Shane, to having Lindy Thackston and Vision's Pat Caporelli drop in on the roundtable; it was just so much fun.

Most of all... I really just can not believe that for 2 years in a row we actually covered sports, all-encompassing, for 24 and a half straight hours. And as the same way we closed things last year, I can repeat the same in earnest... thanks again everyone for joining us in whatever way you did... hopefully you come back throughout the year for everything else we do... but as for now... I need to get some sleep...

Congrats to us all, racing season has begun!

almost there!

Well, here we go. I'm sure Wedge will have a race wrap-up for us. I'm going to clean my house and hang out for as long as I can before I crash. Work should be fun in the morning.

Thanks to everyone for following along, playing Mario, live-chatting, everything.

More Super Bowl coverage coming this week.

Have fun!

Paul Page Back on ESPN again

For those of you who may not be watching Daytona; I'd recommend heading over to Snocross on ESPN/Winter X-Games, not just for Paul Pahge, but its also some great racing; with plenty of action. If you haven't heard, this year they added a ridiculously high banked curve and are calling it "Talladega" thats probably about all you need to know about that.

Holy crap just as I type that Levi Lavalle goes over the top of Talladega!

Back in Daytona though, we're under the 20 minute mark and it really looks like the Action "Porsche" is going to go to victory lane in its first ever race, which is simply remarkable if you know anything about the troubles they've had trying to get going. Also interesting to see that the Ganassi team is already putting the onus on Justin Wilson for the garage drive-thru.

a final Blogathon limerick - #3

These 24 hours were fun
And soon we will know who has won
But I just keep hopin'
I keep my eyes open
And don't fall asleep 'til it's done

Careful, ref!

Checking out the Florida/Tennessee game. 7 minutes left, Florida's up by 1.

The ref just showed a lot of courage and called a traveling violation on Cameron Tatum. I don't know if I'd have the guts to do that, considering that guy likes to possess guns. Read the article. Center Wayne Chism is quoted saying, "We've got a lot more weapons."

Weapons?! Hope the ref is packing some protection.

The Final Hour is Upon Us!

So with one hour to go, Action Express's lead (Barbosa) over Ganassi (Pruett) is diminishing, but it just does not look like it'll be enough without a caution...? The difference is down to 52 seconds so its not impossible, but it'll take a LOT. Oddly enough we've had two cars go ablaze, one car running around on its rims, and somehow haven't gotten a caution... are we sure this series is run by the same people as NAS (debris caution) CAR?

In the GT class, it looks like Sylvain Tremblay and Nick Ham, along with Jonathan Bomarito in the car now, are taking this victory so long as the car continues to run. As Andy and I have both said, this is a great win for that team as Sylvain lost his wife just before last years race, and its not just Sylvain, she was an intergal part of that team, so while a win will never bring her back, at least this can be something very positive for them.

Its not the 4 cars within a second from last year, but its surely not without a storyline this year.

FInally!

Radio Le Mans meets the Rolex 24

Hindhaugh & Haven on Eurosport now available as a stream! :)

http://www.ustream.tv/channel-popup/e2-00000061

I'm Starting to Really Like the Team Name Action Express

Barbosa is back in the Action Express to finish things up, and Pruett is back on the lead lap saying hello to his family; a caution would make the very interesting. (note that very quietly Max Angalelli and the Suntrust crew have gotten their car back up to 7th... as always with endurance racing its not just speed).


The last hour and a half is going to be very interesting, especially if a caution flies, or simply if the #9 has any issues... which curiously they are already spraying WD-40 on their throttle linkage... "running without a clutch"  sounds like some crazy fun driving that car; in fact Pruett is running laps multipole seconds faster, and he has an hour and a half to continue doing that...


(side question: if Porsche wins the race 2 years in a row, does Chip change his team to Porsche?)

You don't care about the war, do you?

I know this isn't about sports and I know we've talked about these ads a bunch, but my favorite part of that Nazi DVD commercial that keeps coming on is when they say something like, "If you care about World War II you will buy these DVDs."

Imagine if every ad just came out and said that.

"If you care at all about your children, you will use Glad trash bags."

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wha??? is that a "t" or an "i"??

How Was Ski-Cross Not An Olympic Sport Already?

For anyone like me who may be flipping over to the Winter X-Games as many of our Olympic athletes are doing their final warm up, I just have to ask, how in the word were Ski and Snowboard cross not Olympic events before now? this is amazing and of all, its not settled by judging! That had always been my biggest pet peeve about the Winter Olympics because its been so packed full of opinion result controlled sports like figure skating, moguls, ice dancing, snowboard halfpipe; which I'm not going to argue those people aren't athletes, I'm just going to argue that any "sport"; even outside winter Olympics is crap when the result is decided by anyone other than the competitors; find a way to let things be settled so that the fans can immediately know who won, as they say "settle it on the field."

Now its time for some Snowmobile racing! For which we get to hear the great voice of Paul Page!

Burger King High School Skills Challenge

These guys are throwing a football to a moving target depicting the Burger KING.

Seriously. The announcers are doing play-by-play about a kid throwing to the Burger King.

Now the obstacle course and this is cool. They let a kid who just completed his Marine training run first. He timed 36 seconds in boots. The first football kid did about 27 seconds. Michael Taylor, a LB headed to Tennessee, just did it in 26.9 seconds. Storm Johnson, a Miami RB recruit, went last. He got fancy and flipped at the end, costing him a half-second and the title.

They should make a guy dressed as the Burger King run this course.

They just interviewed Taylor after he won and told him how much Lane Kiffin was anticipating his arrival at Tennessee. Kind of old, huh? (Taylor predicted he will be a freshman All-American and that Tennessee will win the SEC.)

OK, I'm putting the race back on and cooking some beer brats.

Wow, Wow, WOW!!! Have Action Express Racing Just Clinched It!?

No explanation, but Justin Wilson just took the Ganassi 01 into the pits and immediately to the garages!!!! 

No word, and a very pissed off looking Chip Ganassi in the garage, they got it back out quickly, but the damage is done as they are now down 2 laps to the Action Express Porsche, the 01 may even have to worry about the 2nd....

and just as I type that, the Action Express #9 is having problems; crap is breaking everywhere, does the Michael Shank #6 now have a shot again!? Crazy Crazy developments here; this may just come down to survival of the fittest! This is what I love about endurance racing.

UPDATE: and the #9s stop was long enough that the Ganassi 01 is now back on the lead lap, though its a large gap within that lap, a caution anywhere would surely fix that.

'Geeky Thoughts - Hour 21

Hey, all. I figured that it was time to weigh in with some random randomness on the race, now that I've had a chance to watch for a while and get caught up from last night. Well, not completely caught up. I'm actually still 8-9 minutes behind live on the DVR, but we'll call that close enough for now.

Firstly, hooray! I got a prediction right! I was skeptical of the reliability of the Dinan BMW for a 24 hour race, and in fact, one of the Ganassi cars did go "pop" overnight. I got one right! On the other hand, I've gotten basically all of my other predictions wrong. The other Ganassi car is on the lead lap, behind the "Not a Brumos" Porsche Riley. I did call it correctly that one of the Speedsource Mazdas would contend for the win in GT, but I called the wrong one there. The #69 car is out (I think) and the #70 leads the class. That's good to see, as Sylvain Tremblay deserves a good showing here after losing his wife just before last year's race.

What else? Not much to report, as there are still 3+ hours to go, and we're just settling in for things to start unfolding for the endgame. Big ups to everybody (Ron, Allen and International IndyCar Blogger Extraordinaire Shane Rogers) for covering everything last night, so that I didn't have to stay up to watch Roger Federer whoop up on Andy Murray. That sounds like it wasn't any fun at all, so good thing I retired to get an hour or two of sleep before Baby Speedgeek's 2:00 AM bottle. Also, big thanks to Furious Ron and Allen for hosting the star-studded (THE Lindy Thackston! Pat Caporali! A Surly Pressdog! A Combatative Declan Brennan! A Tweaked Out Roy Hobbson!) roundtable and IMKWF last night. That was an absolute blast, even though I was completely exposed in my 26 hour window of experience with Mario Kart Wii. At least my experience with Mario Kart 64 from '96 through '99 held me in good enough stead to run dead even with Dinosaur Boy, Ron's 6-year old son. You haven't seen the last of me, kid.

One more word of thanks: this one to Mrs. Speedgeek for picking up Donut Professor donuts on her way back from Walgreen's this morning. You're the best, honey.

OK, let's watch some racing.

Winter X Games

We turned on skiing and one guy wiped out.

We are watching the snocross heats now and two guys crashed and got stuck. It looks like DK Summit. I'm waiting for them to throw green and red shells!

SPEED Not Content With Just Ruining Fan Experience

For those who went through Blogathon with us last year, likely remember that SPEED fought with the TRG team about their "pit cam" a stationary crappy, grainy still shot from TRG's pit. The shot never showed you anything but the pit, no track. SPEED told TRG they could bring it back up when SPEED went off the air for the night... the only problem is that it was a lie, and they forced it to stay off the internet the whole race, even though SPEED themselves were abandoning fans for 9 hours of the race.

So this year after a ton of work TRG managed to finally get SPEED to agree to let them do interviews with their own drivers on a live cam, so long as the shot didn't show anything trackwise... which is why its funny, because their attempt last year didn't show anything as it was. Its been great, we've been getting a lot of great info that isn't on the TV broadcast, plus the fans can directly ask drivers questions right before and after they get in the cars, I've loved it.

Not content with constantly trying to ruin the fan experience online, while still not doing anything to improve their own TV coverage or website experience, SPEED just stepped it up a notch, by bringing in some weird lady who just showed up and started putting SPEED logos an some stupid tax company logo on TRG's back tent canvas!? Are you kidding SPEED!? What part of TRGs great web-cast did you have a part in, other than being a hardass and taking out the potential for more of what it could have been?

Though to be honest, at least TRG is holding back nothing about what they think about SPEED as Liz, TRG's PR person, who has been on this web-cast the ENTIRE race, may have said it best "I'm not sure what their TV numbers are, but we may actually be competing with them."

In case you missed it, SPEED wants you to know they had nothing to do with all of this and it shows in the fans comments; I'd say this has done about 300 times more damage to them than taking TRG off the air last year did. How not to win over fans and friends...

Judy Pruett does exist...

This is probably not Scott Pruett's wife. But Wedge seems to believe that Judy Pruett does not exist and I figured I could probably prove him wrong. And this photo came up on Yahoo images.

I did learn that Judy and Scott have written numerous books for children. I'm sure 12 Little Race Cars would be a hit here in my house.



Here is a link to an interview with Scott Pruett about writing the books.
I suppose I'll work on finding a correct photo.





[Edit for video proof] Here you go Wedge!

Brumos Porsche is Done! and a Giant Ruse

Wow its almost like the car was simply holding out long enough to let Hurley Haywood finish his career in style, because after he got out of the car for his final racing stint of his career; as pressdog would say; its blown up sir. Raphael Matos jumped in and almost immediately start tracking a giant cloud of smoke around the track.

And here is a random thought... but has anyone actually ever seen Scott Pruett's family? Why is he always saying hi to them back home? Like, why throughout this man's career, is his family always at home!? Why aren't they allowed at the track... could Scott just be saying hello to no one anywhere? This whole thing could just be a giant charade!? We've been duped I tell you!

And Then There Were Two? ... errr.. Four?

There's 4 hours to go so theres always plenty things that can happen, but have we already settled that Michael Shank Racing's #6 may already be out with 2 laps seperating them from 2nd and very few cautions flying in the race? So is it officially favorite vs. underdog, a sponsorless white car vs. the giant Target logo?

It looks like we're dealing with the same kind of situation in the GT class where its either going to be a TRG repeat or Mazda SpeedSource's return back after a year's absence; which prsonally I, and many other people would love to see, if not only for the Mazda RX-8 but also as some kind of good for Sylvain Tremblay, who lost his wife last year just before last year's 24 Hour race. Plus he and Nick Ham are just great drivers in general, not to mention beating the odds of TRGs many, many entries.

Thoughts from the person who does not know anything about racing...

These cars seem to be showing the stress of a 24-hour race.

I don't understand why they keep going through the grass. I realize sometimes it is an accident, but some of these incidents look like they are being done purposely. That one guy went in the grass and came back on the course and crashed into someone. It looked pretty stupid.

When they were just showing that car being refueled out of the pit, did you catch the huge Saints car flag?

The caution seems to have tightened things up, right? Seems more exciting now.

Dinosaur Kart

What if we put dinosaurs and cars together, and called it "Dinosaur Kart."

Where's all the race talk?

Am I the only one watching these cars go around this track? I need a 24-hour baseball game or something so I can actually know what I'm talking about. But for now I will add:

The Target car that is blue in front and red in back was just on TV. I assume his velocity was high. And there were other cars trying to match or even surpass his speed.

Furious Wedge, guys. Analysis. That's what we bring.

ideas for new Saints shirts

[Continuing my non-racing talk!]

So everyone's talking about the NFL's claims of trademark infringement against people selling shirts depicting the New Orleans Saints' logo and their famous "Who Dat" chant.

I'm not going to say who is right or wrong here. There are tons of other sources to go to for that opinion. But I will offer this.

"Who Dat" is old! I love traditions and all, but if the NFL is giving us trouble, let's just move on, huh? New team, new motto. I have three t-shirt suggestions for you:

3. Love That Catchin'

People in New Orleans "Love That Chicken (From Popeyes)." Why not just borrow that slogan? Like, "Man, Reggie Bush can run fast, but I Love That Catchin'!"






2. Let 'Em Have It!

The famous (in New Orleans) Frankie and Johnny's Furniture slogan. "Who's coming to the Dome? The Falcons?? They'll have to see the Special Man... Let 'Em Have It!" I say, I say, I say! With NO problem.










1. Throw Me Something Mister (Brees)

Our famous Mardi Gras chant could easily be adapted for our football team. Drew's receivers probably already yell this anyway.

Anyone else sick of Troy Polamalu and his hair?

Am I really supposed to look at this guy's hair and then want to run out and buy hair products because he uses them? When his team won Super Bowls, I could almost understand having to watch him on TV. But at this point, I feel like some marketing dude somewhere is just laughing at us. This is a joke, right?

Erghh.

I stayed up way too late, consequently I slept way too late. Good fun though - I'd do it again. And I just missed the cricket talk!

Now I'm running about because my mate who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery who'd told me to meet at 4 now wants to meet earlier, in a city an hour away... which means I needed to leave ten minutes ago.

Finally, an update on Andy Murray's status - he lost so he is no longer considered British, he is Scottish and nothing to do with the rest of us. Click here for further updates.

Yahoo Image Search Game: Daytona 24

In this game, I search for the topic in Yahoo Image Search and will post the result that matches the minutes on the clock. It is currently 8:55 so I will post the 55th result for "Daytona 24."

"Server not found" so I went to the next one available:














I'm sure you all know what this is, but it looks like a violent attack to me!

I think the TV sponsors should be forced to sponsor cars.

Then we'd get an emery cat board car!

This cat is sad...

...because he wants an emery cat board.

I like it when...

they crash so hard their engines are smoking! Those are the best.

I'm back!

I took a quick nap after tennis. But fishing's on now... I just had to wake up!