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Monday, April 11, 2005

[General/Sport] Don't Forget Your Tinfoil Hat

[Ed: Sorry this post was supposed to go up on Friday but the $%&@ browser kept crashing when I hit "Publish". Please read below to see Jose's graphic account of Auckland's torrid underground party scene and Dom's first ever (EVER) post to "the Hammer" (which our pet name for this place)]

Stealing my thoughts! Those evil bastards at Microsoft have implanted Sony’s new brain technology into my Microsoft brand ergonomic keyboard and are reading my brain patterns.

And now I have proof! This article completely copies (or kind of looks like) what I have been spieling about for the past, god knows how many, columns. Let’s say…5.

I would like to point of that one of their “infamous” moments is less “in” than “famous”. I refer to the case of Tonya, Nancy and the Baton of Justice, or as I like to call it, the greatest marketing plan ever devised.

Ice skating is, despite the flimsy costumes and death defying acrobatics, boring. It has a worldwide TV audience of …um…there is no clever internet database for this but, the US Figure Skating website (why do all American sports have the same basic logo?) has this to say:

Figure skating broadcasts from the 1994 Olympic Winter Games are the
highest-rated Olympic television programming of all time. The ladies short
program from Lillehammer had the sixth-highest rating in television history
(48.5), placing behind the final episode of “M*A*S*H” and the finale of the
“Roots” mini-series

What happened in 1994 to generate so much interest in a sport? Take a guess. Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly (yes, his real name) hired a bunch of guys to hit Nancy Kerrigan in the knee with a telescopic police baton. This one action made two unknown (to the world at large) figure skaters into household names. Kerrigan went on to win silver at the 1994 games, Harding came eighth. Harding later also became an internet porn star and celebrity boxer. Kerrigan ended up pushing drugs on the back streets of Calgary (to escape any libel, I made that last bit up, she does ice tours around the states now).

Nancy’s website has some creepy questions on it:

  • How can one get backstage passes to your shows?
  • What is the name of the church you were married in?
  • How do you stay in such great shape besides skating?
  • Hi Nancy, your make up always looks great. I am a huge cosmetics fan and I was wondering what brand and colors you like to wear?
  • Are you safe from September 11th, 2001?

Nancy, I wouldn’t answer any of those questions if I were you. Nobody asked about her knee, nobody even hinted at it. "Nancy, I hope your knee is ok now." How hard is that?

This article also got my attention. Australian cricket umpire Darrell Hair is refusing to remove his trousers in order to make it easier for the New Zealanders to see the balls of Sri Lankan bowler Lasith Malinga. Cricket is such a noble sport.

On a different topic completely: because somebody (Dom) asked, below is this year’s NFL Football first round draft picks in order.

1. San Francisco
2. Miami
3. Cleveland
4. Chicago
5. Tampa Bay
6. Tennessee
7. Minnesota (from Oakland)
8. Arizona
9. Washington
10. Detroit
11. Dallas
12. San Diego (from NY Giants)
13. Houston
14. Carolina
15. Kansas City
16. New Orleans
17. Cincinnati
18. Minnesota
19. St. Louis
20. Dallas (from Buffalo)
21. Jacksonville
22. Baltimore
23. Seattle
24. Green Bay
25. Denver
26. N.Y. Jets
27. Atlanta
28. San Diego
29. Indianapolis
30. Pittsburgh
31. Philadelphia
32. New England

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