alamo bowl

So i think the Alamo Bowl was the worst officiated game I've ever seen - really horrible especially for a bowl game. I think the Sun Belt officiating crew was struggling for sure

I'm not going to try to make excuses why Michigan lost (since Casey Copeman thinks all of us M fans tend to always have an excuse)
The fact is Michigan was in control of the game when they were winning 28-17 and had plenty of chances.

Things that are pathetic though are the fact that Michigan had to use a timeout on two occassions in order to get the official to review a controversial play. Like the announcers were saying, you have the tool so if you are in doubt play it safe and check the replay. And what was up when like nebraska had stormed the field while the final play of the game was going on. yes some Michigan players did cross the field but while there prolly should have been a penalty the officiating crew was nowhere in sight. How pathetic

It was cool watching the game with Jenny El and Eddie who came down to my crib. We chatted, ate pizza and took in the game. It sucked because I didnt hit the bed til real late and i had to be in to do page design at 4 am this morning. But it was well worth it

Eddie and Jen crashed at my place and then Eddie took off in the morning after me and him played College Hoops 2k6 after i got home from work. Then Jen and I bonded and ran a few errands and got some lunch at Arbys and talked quite a bit for a vast majority of the day.

Crystal got back to Michigan and we chilled with her for a bit before she went to work. Then Jen and I talked some more before I met up with Eddie in Dundee to return her to her boyfriend. Now hopefully I'll get to see the Pistons aim for 24-3 when they take on the Heat shortly!

Alamo Bowl ending

Deeeeeeeetroit basketball

Today I got to head up to the Palace to go to the Pistons game against the Raptors. My uncle and I had courtside seats thanks to my kick ass aunts connection. I had sat in the same seats when I caught a game last January.



The game was good. Before the game my sister's dance troupe from her school danced which was cool. My parents made the hike to see it and I got to talk to them for a bit too.
And the Pistons won the game just as I figured since they were playing the lowly Toronto Raptors, who are one of the worst teams in the NBA right now



Maurice Evans and McDyess had good games off the bench and Rip, Chauncey and Sheed paced the starters. It was a pretty fun game to see. I switched off with my sister and let her have the court side seats for a bit and she enjoyed them as did my Dad when he caught some of the game from the lower level too.

home for Christmas

It was good to be home for a little bit of time.

I went home Saturday morning and did a lot while I was on the west side of the state for the holiday. It was cool to be with the family for a little bit and catch up with quite a few friends.

While at home I
- stopped and saw Renae and her husband Joel at their house in hartford. Seems like married life is treating them well and they have two greyhound dogs (former race dogs to keep them company)
- had lunch with a whole bunch of people from high school. that was pretty cool and there was a decent group of us. people there were Ashley Kolenko, my boy Jon, Amy K, Rick Matheny, A.J., Jamaal, and Brandon Briggs. Plus there Amy brought her older brotehr Erich (graduated the year before us) and her boyfriend. It turns out her boyfriend went to school with my friend Audrey from EMU and is good friends with her - small world.
Lunch was at pizza hut and it was pretty cool just to get updates about how some people are doing that you havent heard from/seen since high school
- Did some last minute shopping at the shitty Orchard mall
- Karaoke with the family on Saturday night after eating dinner
- Opened presents of course - I got some cologne, a stereo and some accessories for my Ipod which dont work. Plus i got a Rip Hamilton red pistons jersey
- Went to church Sunday morning and then had dinner with the family and our close family friend Ron
- Visited my frined Amy Wood for a bit on Sunday night
- Went to go pick up some meats this morning with my dad

oh and i cant forget my mom and sis made Christmas cookies so i definitely pigged out on those and got to take a batch home with me which was cool.

so all in all a nice trip home. only bad thing was that my parents found out about the ticket i got a little over a month ago - man they find out everything. oh well though - they werent too mad or anything and made light of it.

Besides being home other cool stuff going on:
- i'm perfect in both my college football pools so far - 7-0 through the first seven bowl games. off to a hot start i guess.. still 21 more to go so i cant get too carried away
- and I'm in the championship game in one of my fantasy football leagues on eSPn and it appears im headed to the championship game in my yahoo league. Thank you Shaun Alexander!!!

thats all i got for now. Hope everyone had a good Christmas

nite w/ the fellas

So I decided to make the hike up to Ypsi to catch a women's basketball game last night with some of my peeps from the Echo and it was a pretty good time.

Ended up going over to Larry's apartment and Nate met up with us over there and then we checked out the women's team take on Utah, which was ranked No. 22/21 in the country. The game was actually a pretty good one and EMU held tight for the longest before the Utes finally held them off to get the win.

It was also cool being there because Creighton, another former Echo sports writer was tehre cheering on the team. and Jason was on press row so it was like an Echo day. I ended up talking to Streeter (sports information guy) for a few minutes and said hi to the coach Ramsey (men's coach) and prof. Bunsis

Other than that I stopped and said hi to Rachel real quick and headed home to relax. Definitely not a bad night and it was pretty cool to see some people

Quite funny

A new billboard will be posted in Detroit this weekend dissing on Matt Millen

Heres what it says

Not this MILLENium
Rebuilding since 1957

And what is even funnier is that WDFN is having a million fan march as a peaceful protest prior to Sundays home finale against the Bengals

And on another note im wondering whos on Chad Johnson's list this week

A looooooooooong update

A lot to write about in this one - but i think I'll start with stuff relating to work

So last Thursday I was covering the Adrian College-Siena Heights mens basketball game with Sean. Adrian-Siena is a huge rivalry with both schools located in Adrian about three miles away frn each other so needless to say its a big deal in these parts and despite the massive snow we were gettin that night, it didnt stop people from coming out to the contest.

The game was a good close battle the entire night but Siena ended up winning at the end because Adrian missed a bit too many free throws (more on this later). So yea it was a good game, but I even found more entertainment and watching a co-worker of mine who was in attendance at the gaame. This individual happened to go to Adrian College and was doing everything he could do to try to help his alma mater win. he had several signs at the game which were quite interesting

His signs read these things
- Thou shall miss
- Trust Jesus
- Fred Smith, I am your father (in reference to Siena's coach)
- Fire Millen
and my personal favorite
- Brian Calloway is a stud

Sean joked that since he didnt have a sign for him that the Trust Jesus one was referring to him
Craziness. But everytime Siena shot a free throw in the second half he ran under the basket twirlign the thou shall miss sign, thinking that his little sign actually had an effect on the shooters
But it was quite interesting seeing him in his Adrian College gear

Anyways back to free throws - it seems like shooting them is a lost art these days. Adrian College's mens team seems to be horrible at them. During last Thursday's game they shot 37 percent from the line and during the next game they played they shot 40 percent. Definitely not a way to win games. I went to a high school game on Friday (Adrian-Dexter) and Adrian didnt fair too much better either - they were 9-23

This weekend wasn't too bad. Covered a basketball game on Friday even though there was no school for about every school district in Lenawee County because of all the snow that fell from 6 pm til about 1 am on Thursday night/Friday morning.
Also covered a game on Saturday and chilled with Crystal's brother playing video games.

On to other things

- High School boys basketball has started: One of my co-workers said finally real basketball and he couldn't be more right. I dont know why girls dont, but guys have more of a sense of urgency in basketball games and are more aware of game situations. girls just arent for some reason. Not to knock girls basketball because in some cases they are more fundamentally sound than guys and can probably shoot free throws better. but its nice to see dunks, like i saw last week at Sand Creek.

- Fantasy Football: I made the playoffs in two of my three ESPN leagues aand was the second seed in both. One league i finished the regular season with a 9-4 record, the other a 10-3 record. I'm currently still in the regular season of my yahoo league but should be in second place out of 12 teams when the week is over with a 9-5 record. What is ever better is I have won 6 of my last 7 games after starting the season 3-4. This definitely has been a good year of fantasy football for me.

- Ron Artest wants a trade from the Pacers: I welcome this

- Tigers sign Kenny Rogers and Todd Jones: Hopefully these older pitchers can stay healthy and be beneficial to us unlike Troy Percival

- Michigan hoops: Nice to see the Wolverines at 7-0. they actually look real good but UCLA should provide a good test this weekend

- Pistons: Can't say enough about them - hopefully I'll get to catch a game this month

- Lions lose again: I'm not surprised and I think Jeff Garcia has no business starting, but hey who am I. And i thought it was hilarious in last weekends game against Minnesota that fans were screaming for Harrington to be put in b/c Garcia was so horrible

- Fire Millen: Its obvious the man needs to go but with him gettin a five year extention it seems the city of Detroit and Lions fans are out of luck. Its sad that at a red wings game people are dissin on Millen.