Tag Archives: pittsburgh

2012 Summer Movies That I Must See Before I Die

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Every year it seems like there are some movies on the horizon that I absolutely must see, and I always think “crap it would suck if I died before I got to see…” and then name the movie. This summer there promises to be quite a few. Here are the top movies that are coming out this year that I absolutely must positively stay alive to see…

Friday, May 4th

The Avengers

Marvel Comic's The Avengers

Marvel Comic's The Avengers. I hope The Vision is in The Avengers 2...

Ok so, I’m a Marvel geek, and this movie is just absolutely positively one I must see before I die. FOR YEARS I’ve hated how the studios have handled superheros. Both DC and Marvel heros have been just totally beaten to shit. Even the ones people liked. They were warped twisted versions from the comics, and even when they weren’t… They were isolated from each other. No crossovers of Superman or Batman? It was all origin stories, and too many villains and not enough crossovers.

Then Marvel got a hold of their properties (other than Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Spider-man) and said “ok we’re gonna do it right” and by gum so far I’m loving it. Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk (the second one), Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America… All leading up to the team up of team ups. The Avengers. It’s just a gold mine of geeky fun. Plus it’s got Colby Smulders (awesome name) from How I Met Your Mother as a particularly background rich shield agent. Oh and of course Sam Mother Fuckin Jackson.

I will attend a midnight showing of this movie should one be available.

The Avengers Trailer

Friday, May 11

The Dictator

SACHA-BARON-COHEN-THE-DICTATOR

Sacha Baron Cohen as The Dictator

Sasha Baron Cohen as a Qadafi-esque Arab dictator who shoots people randomly while winning a 100 meter dash in 50 meters. Love everything this guy does, particularly when he gets really really insulting. Some people who know me might be surprised I’d be looking forward to a movie ‘making fun’ of arabs, but seriously Arab Dictators need to be made fun of. Plus if you can’t have a sense of humor about yourself, then your’e dead inside. I’ve seen my family all in a room arguing loudly in 3 languages simultaneously. They’re great people, but we have alot of things that deserve to be made fun of.

The Dictator Trailer

Friday, May 18

Battleship

No not really. Did they really make a movie based on the board game Battleship and have it be against Aliens? I’m tempted to go watch it to see if someone says “G5″ or something like that at some point. Otherwise pass.

Battleship Trailer

Friday, May 25

Men in Black III

Will Smith returns. I gotta admit I’m not THRILLED for this one, but I’d like to see it. The second one was pretty blah in my opinion. It just didn’t do it for me. The first movie was so insular and well done, the second one felt tacked on. This one already feels tacked on the tacking on, but I’ll give it a shot because Smith is a heck of an entertainer.

Men in Black III Trailer

Friday, June 8

Prometheus

Prometheus with Charlize Theron and Idris Elba

Charlize Theron and Idris Elba in Prometheus

The prequel to the Alien series… Does that make it the sequel to the Predator series? I don’t care. It’s Ridley Scott returning to Sci-Fi which he is so freaking masterful at. Plus it has Charlize Theron in it. And Aliens. And spaceships. Don’t get me started on how much i love starship sci-fi, and why so many movies and tv shows are starship sci-fi, but so many books aren’t. Anyway, I’m really excited for this one, and I’m doing my best not to spoil it for myself.

Prometheus Trailers

Friday, June 29

GI Joe: Retaliation

GI Joe Roadblock Action Figure

GI Joe Roadblock Action Figure

Not sure how much I like that they kill the entire GI Joe team at the start of the movie other than apparently Duke, Roadblock, and Lady Jaye, but I can live with it. The first GI Joe movie was surprisingly good. Sure I had nits to pick with it, but on the whole they did a great job. Love seeing more characters enter in, and love the Rock and Bruce Willis. I just hope we get a scene of The Rock showing Roadblocks secondary specialization of being a chef.

GI Joe: Retaliation Trailer

Tuesday, July 3

The Amazing Spider-Man

I’m torn. I’ve honestly not particularly enjoyed the Spider-mans that have been put out there so far. The first one was good because.. well because it was finally a marvel hero on screen. But they changed stuff like the organic shooters that took away Peter Parker’s brilliance. They graduated him from High School by the second reel. I mean come on. At least leave him in High School for a whole movie or two. Hell by the third movie he was graduated from college? And don’t get me started on the third one. Spider-man 2 was definitely the best and I love Doc Ock in it and a number of the scenes. But really I kind of wish that Sony or whoever it is would stop making Spider-man films so the rights would go back to Marvel Studios whom I bet would do a better job. I want a Spider-man Fantastic Four crossover… but won’t happen as long as different studios have the films. Anyway from what I’ve seen I’m worried they’re borking this one as well… But I’d be lying if I said I’m not going to go see it.

The Amazing Spider-Man Trailer

Friday, July 20

The Dark Knight Rises

Last but certainly not least is the third Batman movie, partly filmed in my beloved Pittsburgh. I’ll be all over this, even though I generally am not a DC fan. The Batman films have done a pretty damn good job and I really like them. Now give The Flash the same treatment….

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer

Friday, August 3

The Bourne Legacy

Jeremy Renner takes the reigns. I’ve enjoyed him in Mission Impossible 3, and look forward to his Hawkeye. I’ve really enjoyed the Bourne movies for the most part, even though I couldn’t finish the first book. I look forward to the next stage.

Total Recall

I don’t know about this one. I generally am all over Phillip K Dick stories, and I loved the first one but that might be because I love Paul Verhoevens IN YOUR FUCKING FACE directorial style. Plus they’re not even going to Mars in this one apparently. And it’s got Colin Farrell as Quaid.. But also it has Jessica Biel… Who is on my list… so I’m gonna go.

Jessica Biel from GQ Magazine. Hummina

Jessica Biel... Hummina Hummina Hummina.

Anyway that’s that. Sure there are a ton of other movies coming out this year, and probably some good ones, and probably some ones I’ll later wish I had on this list, but that’s it for now. Bring on Summer! I just hope I make it.

Pitt and Penn State to Renew Rivalry

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So it was announced today that Pitt and Penn State will play a home and home series of college football in 2016 and 2017. From 1893 to 2000 they played 96 times, missing only a few years. It was one of the longest running rivalries, and one that drew national television audiences every fall. The history of the teams, and Penn State and Joe Paterno with the Big East which snubbed him (idiotic that they did) is complicated. But it’s great to hear that they are finally getting a couple games going again.

Scheduling is tough. In a perfect world they should play every year I think, because of tradition, geographical rivalry etc… At the same time I understand that Penn State has scheduling issues with it’s Big 10 commitments, so even if they only played a home and home every 4 years or so (2 years on 2 years off) I think tha’td be great. They SHOULD play regularly and far more than once or twice every 20 years.

I’m glad that the schools got it worked out, and that it’s a home and home (and not a 2 and 1 for Penn State). Let’s be honest, Heinz Field is basically neutral ground anyway for this kind of game. Even if Pitt gave away some revenue from Heinz Field for Penn State to do a home and home, I’d be fine with. I’m realistic. Penn State is the bigger draw with more rabid fans. There’s no question about that.

I’ve heard rumors that Coach Graham is partly responsible for this as well. That he pushed for it, and that he felt that tradition was important. I gotta say, especially if this is true, that Graham is doing ALOT to win me over prior to playing a single game. He’s definitely talking the talk.

I just hope he walks the walk too.

Particularly in 2016 when Penn State comes to Heinz Field….

Douche Ravenstahl

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You know…

When Tom Murphy decided to not run for a fourth term as Pittsburgh mayor I thought to myself “hey maybe this is the changing of the guard moment.” Maybe we could elect a vibrant young person into the mayors office who will not be owned by the machine of pittsburgh politics. The race was a split one with Bob O’Connor, the beloved but obviously in the pocket of the machine longtime councilman, winning. I voted for Bill Peduto. That there in some people’s minds (those that are all about the machine, even those who don’t realize it) disqualifies me. I didn’t think Peduto was perfect, but I did think he was a fresh new idea guy, a real policy wonk, and one who could lead Pittsburgh into a bright new future.

Instead we got a guy who I was told more than once “It’s his turn.”

Give me a break.

Anyway then Bob O’Connor died. I wasn’t a fan of the guy, but that still sucks and was sad.

Anyway so then we get Little Lord Fontleroy. Luke Ravenstahl was shoved into the mayorship. He had finagled himself in a fluke election onto the city council, and was the acting president of the council (it rotated regularly) and voila… He was now mayor.

At first I was excited. Talk about a changing of the guard, this kid was 26 years old. He’s GOTTA have fresh ideas. He’s gonna be vibrant and keep Pittsburgh moving forward. He was an instant celebrity. Even got on David Letterman.

Then of course we got to see him him action.

And I sighed.

It was quickly obvious he was a small minded, not that smart, douchebag who quickly let the machine get it’s hooks into him. It really became obvious in the special election in 2007 when Bill Peduto ran against him again. He smeared Peduto left and right with hardcore negative ads. Peduto refused to go negative because he’s a good guy, but Ravenstahl went really nasty in a really dicky way.

Heck no Republican had been elected to the mayors office in Pittsburgh since the Great Depression, but the Republican candidate against Ravenstahl got the endorsement of both the conservative AND liberal newspapers in town, as well as the police union. That’s sort of unheard of. Of course 63% of people still voted for him to be the mayor.

In 2009 he won his first full term by defeating another nice councilman (Dowd) who he again disparaged and the machine was behind Ravenstahl in full force lining his pockets with too much money for anyone to effectively campaign against. He didn’t even have a Republican oppose him in the general.

So why am I writing this? CAuse he’s in the news again…

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2010/11/24/kdka-investigation-the-cost-of-protecting-the-mayor/

http://thatschurch.com/2010/11/29/dear-lukey-5/

This time he’s got a posse of overtime cops making sometimes 40K+ extra a  year to hang out with him and drink. he’s the mayor of pittsburgh. Why does he need full time security coverage of multiple guys? Give me a break. I can see bringing an overtime cop with you when you go down somewhere rowdy, but this shit is ridiculous. He spent more in the past 2 years than Tom Murphy did in 12 YEARS on security. This in a city that’s collapsing pensions, and cutting down police coverage in the districts of councilmen who don’t support Ravenstahl’s other measures.

Oh yeah that’s not great either is it…

And when asked about this stuff he refused to comment “It isn’t a story”. Whatever douchebag.

This guy is nothing but corruption wrapped in a dickish frat boy from a bad 80′s movie. I mean hell his wikipedia page is half about the controversies and criticisms of the guy.

Next mayoral election I don’t know who will run against him, but I’m going to go door to door in my neighborhood for whoever it is. Ravenstahl is bad for Pittsburgh. Pretty soon enough people will realize it and kick the guy to the curb.

(oh and yes another reason I don’t personally like him is that he totally fucked the city during last winter’s snowpocalypse. We got hit by feet of snowfall that shut the city down for two weeks, we were trapped on our street without being plowed for four days, and he was nowhere to be found. People suspected he had gone to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and it wasn’t until conveniently lots of hours later that he appeared and stated he was “making a point” by not having people know where he was during a city emergency, where people were LITERALLY dieing in their homes because ambulances couldn’t get to them because the city wasn’t organizing the snow clearing of the streets efficiently enough)

(Or the fact that after the Pittsburgh Police went kinda overboard for security for the G-20 summit, including illegal searches, seizures, harasement, unlawfull arrests, and even beating protesters far away from the scene of the summit who were peacefully protesting he responded by saying “I have some free speech for you – fuck you, Vic Walczak” (the legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU))

(Or spending a quarter million dollars of state grant money to put his name on 250 trash cans around the city right before his primary election in 2009)

(Or that he promised full disclosure of city contracts and basically keeps all city contracts awards hidden)

(Or a ton of other things)

Pitt fans need to root for The Orange

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Here are the current standings in the Big East after the midday games

Pittsburgh     4-1
Syracuse     4-2
WVU        3-2
SoFlo        3-3
Connecticut    2-2
Louisville    2-4
Rutgers    1-3
Cincinnati    1-3
Pitt remains in the drivers seat, but do they really need to win out now, or just beat WVU next Friday? Let’s assume Pitt beats WVU next week for this hypotheticial… the worst Pitt would be in conference would be 5-2 if they lost to Cincinnati in the last week.

With a win tonight Syracuse would go 5-2 but lose a head to head against Pitt.

Connecticut if they win tonight, and their last two, would come to 5-2. They’d win a head to head against Pitt.

WVU winning against Rutgers in the last week would bring them to 4-3 at that point and be out of it. SoFlo winning against CT would bring them to 4-3 and be out of it Louisville with four losses is out. Rutgers and Cincinnati would be out, even if Cincinnati beat Pitt.

So… Pitt obviously needs to beat WVU next week. If they can’t do that, at home, then they don’t deserve to represent the Big East this year anyway (really none of the teams is truly a standout, so nobody truly deserves to represent the Big East this year, but this is the way the BCS works folks.) If they do beat WVU, and if Syracuse wins tonight, then that’s the ballgame right there.

So Pitt fans, you should be rooting for The Orange tonight. If they win, then all Pitt needs to do is beat WVU and the Big East is theirs. That’d be the ballgame. The River City Rivalry at that point would be just a gearing up for probably the Fiesta Bowl.

The Air Is “Crazy Bad”

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A few years ago a report came out by the American Lung Association about the air quality in US Cities. It put Pittsburgh pretty high, and today it has dropped a bit, but still comes in fourth after Phoenix, Bakersfield CA and Los Angeles. Most of that is particulate pollution.

Of course there were plenty of people who complained because the reading station taking the air quality index reading for Pittsburgh was based down in New Castle about 50 yards downwind from one of the few remaining coke plants in the region. Pretty much the absolute worst air in western pennsylvania right at it’s source. People said it didn’t really give an accurate reading for the city.

But assuming they are correct, and again I don’t think it really is a good reading, but what’s today’s air quality index for Pittsburgh?

Looks like the AQI is 30 for Ozone, and 51 for Small Particulate Matter.

51 actually puts it in the moderate AQI category which is 51-100.

To have a blue sky you need to have the pollution levels under 100. After you go above 100 you start getting into the hazy gray skies, or worse. Makes me wonder what the AQI would have been in Pittsburgh back in the day when they had to have the streetlights on during the daytime.

I mean it can’t have been good right?

That picture on the right is Pittsburgh in 1940. At Noon.

yeah that’s Noon. Granted it’s black and white and the contrast is upped, but seriously, there are a million of em.

Anyway, so now we’re trying to keep air quality in the green, and for the most part we do in most cities. Some go into the yellow a few days a year, some 100 days, but the goal is to keep that AQI number under 50, and Pittsburgh has improved in the past few years, thanks to the Coke Plant doing some work on it’s emissions.

And today… From China we get a report from the US Embassy that the AQI is “Crazy Bad”.

First thing is just: Good lord, a 500 AQI. Yet it still looks light, so the above AQI in Pittsburgh in 1940 had to have been so much worse. Right?

Second thing is just: Good lord, a 500 AQI? How do people live there? How long can China do this to itself, to it’s people, and to the world in order to drive a 10% growth rate?

Third thing is just: I love the probably twenty something embassy staffer who tweeted that AQI because they ran off the chart from hazardous and had no adjective to use so they just put in “Crazy Bad”.

It was eventually removed and changed, because I guess someone thought it would probably offend the Chinese, but seriously. 500 AQI? That’s crazy bad, and that notice was there for Americans living abroad, and I guarantee you every American who saw “Crazy Bad” thought when they saw the numbers “No Shit.”

Big East Worst Case Scenario

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I’m waiting for my computer to stop have the spinning thing spinning, and writing this on my other one. *sigh*

Anyway I was thinking about “What’s the absolute worst case scenario for the big east in the next three weeks? What would make the rest of the country hate them?” Well We’d probably make all our bowl commitments, but we could shuffle that a little maybe to miss one at the expense of making someone else look better, but lets say this happens…

Pittsburgh beats South Florida, but then loses to WVU and Cinci.

Syracuse loses out to Connecticut and then BC (another out of conference loss)

South Florida loses out to Pitt, Miami, and Connecticut.

Connecticut beats South Florida and Syracuse but loses to Cincinnati

Louisville beats WVU, and then loses to Rutgers.

West Virginia loses to Louisville and Rutgers, but beats Pittsburgh.

Rutgers beats Louisville and West Virginia, but loses to Cincinnati

Cincinnati beats Rutgers and Pitt and UConn

Final Standings?

Cincinnati 4-3 || 6-6 (head to head tiebreaker 2-1)

Connecticut 4-3 || 7-5 (head to head tiebreaker 2-1)

Pittsburgh 4-3 || 6-6 (head to head tiebreaker 1-2)

Syracuse 4-3 || 7-5 (head to head tiebreaker 1-2)

West Virginia 3-4 || 7-5

SouthFlorida 3-4 || 6-6

Rutgers 3-4 || 6-6

Louisville 3-4 || 6-6

—

Yes. The Big East would be able to fill all it’s bowl game slots, and in fact wouldn’t have a single losing team in the entire league. Everyone would be bowl eligible. All 8 teams. However because they won their last three games against Rutgers, then UConn, and then Pittsburgh… 6-6 Cincinnati may actually win the third tiebreaker which is BCS ranking (and most likely it’ll be in the 40′s or 50′s at that point.

I can almost hear the collective ESPN College Football Fanboy Head exploding at the thought of #9 Nebraska playing #54 Cincinnati in the Fiesta Bowl.

That’s parity for ya. Nobody can say the Big East isn’t doing it’s part to lobby for a playoff format for college football.

Big East Predictions – 11.18.2010

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This weekend we have Pittsburgh vs South Florida, Syracuse vs Connecticut, West Virginia vs Louisville, and Rutgers vs Cincinnati…

Pittsburgh 30 – South Florida 27

Oh how I want to pick Pittsburgh for this one. My gut actually says that South Florida is going to win, and Pittsburgh is going to do what it does best…. Takes the best talent in the big east and then collapses when the pressure is on. I know some people don’t like like it when people blame Wanndstedt but I really do think his play calling at times is pretty horrific. He’s a panicer, and it comes across in his play calling. People seem to be saying though that South Florida has come on strong of late with three wins, but… Really? They lost to Syracuse and West Virginia then BARELY beat Cinncinnati, Rutgers, and Louisville (the bottom of the pack in the Big East this year which granted is a pretty tight pack). I’ll give it to the Panthers on their talent alone, and hope they can just not fuck up a few plays less than they did last week. South Florida though needs a win or they’re out of the Big East race, so they’ll fight hard.

Syracuse 14 – Connecticut 10

If this was at home for the Huskies, I’d give it to them. They play great in night games in that piece of shit stadium with practically no lighting. Seriously, their stadium is pretty crap. However they’re on the road… yet Syracuse sucks at home. Who to root for? the team that’s on the road and winless on the road, or the home team that’s winless at home? I kid. They beat Maine and Colgate at home…Whatever that means. I’ll give it to the Orange though. I think Connecticut got lucky last week by hustling hard against a superior team and getting the lucky bounces, and some bad focus by Pitt.

West Virginia 24 – Louisville 6

West Virginia has had it’s ups and downs this year, but they’re a better team, and they seemed to start clicking last week on offense finally. I think their defense will for all intents and purposes shut Louisville down, and have a comfortable win here.

Rutgers 36 – Cincinnati 28

Neither of these teams impresses me this season which is sad. There’s been such a huge collapse for the bearcats, and the Scarlet Knights wildcat does nothing for me. My first instinct was to call for a fairly low scoring affair, but I bet the two teams open up on each other a little bit and get some points on the board with some back and forth and special teams errors, and bad defense.


The Big East Champion Race

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If my predictions come true for this weekend here’d be the standings on Sunday morning…

Pittsburgh 4-1 6-4
Syracuse 5-2 8-3
West Virginia 3-2 7-3
Connecticut 3-2 6-4
South Florida 3-3 6-4
Rutgers 2-3 5-5
Louisville 2-4 5-5
Cincinnati 1-4 3-7

We’d be up to 5 bowl eligible teams and need just one more win from Rutgers or Louisville to give the Big East it’s 6 bowl teams. Just a few weeks ago it looked quite possible that the Big East wouldn’t be able to fill it’s bowl slots (6 for it’s 8 teams) but with just 1 win needed between Rutgers and Louisville and the fact that they play on Black Friday we look good to go for all the Big East bowls.

With two games to go South Florida, Rutgers, Louisville, and Cincinnati would be out of the running for the Big East Crown leaving Pittsburgh still in the driver seat with Syracuse two games back (since they lost to Pitt) and Connecticut and West Virginia 1 game back (but also behind Syracuse since the Orange beat both of them (should they win this weekend)) .

If Pittsburgh wins out it’s the Big East Champion (at 8-4).

If West Virginia wins out and Connecticut loses a game it’s the Big East Champion (at 9-3) unless Syracuse wins out and Pitt loses out.

If Connecticut wins out and Pitt loses one game, it’s the Big East Champion (at 8-4).

If Syracuse wins out (beats Connecticut this week) and Pitt loses out they’re the big east champion (at 9-3).

If that last one happened you’d have

Syracuse 5-2 9-3
West Virginia 5-2 9-3
Connecticut 5-2 8-4
Pittsburgh 4-3 6-6

With Syracuse winning on head to head tiebreakers against both WVU and UConn.

Just goes to show you how important the last three games are. Right now 6-7 teams are still in the picture. After this weekend that could shorten to four, if my predictions come true. Even then, it’s a HUGE two games, with the difference being a team could go from being in the Fiesta Bowl, and dropping all the way to the BBVA Compass Bowl (past the Champs Sports Bowl and the Meineke Car Care Bowl). Heck, if Notre Dame pulls out wins against USC and Army the Champs Sports bowl will grab them in a heartbeat.

So Pitt could win out and go to the Fiesta Bowl as the Big East Champion. Or it could lose out (including this weekend to South Florida)…and not go to a bowl at all! Not even be bowl eligible.

Talk about the mediocre level of play in the Big East if you will, but parity sure makes it interesting. If Pitt had been It this year, and was currently undefeated after beating Utah, Miami, Notre Dame, and Connecticut; were 4-0 in the conference and 9-0 overall with a top 5 bcs ranking, would that make the last three games more interesting other than possibly spoiling Pitt’s ranking (it wouldn’t be top two, so it’s not like the national championship would be on the line).

Seriously, Parity is kind of interesting…

Big East Expansion?

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With Big East Football having one of it’s worst overall seasons in recent memory, the presidents and chancelors (and their AD’s?) are meeting in New York for a meeting.

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigeast/post?id=14417

Word on the street is Expansion is the word. With last summer’s ripples of change, which probably luckily for the league died out without fully engulfing multiple leagues, the Big East is worried about the future. Will the Big 10 or the ACC come to poach some schools like Syracuse or Rutgers or even Pitt or WVU? Probably a worst case scenario for the league would be to lose 2 or even 4 of those teams, the core of the historical league, and their most known and respected institutions (as far as sports go).

Of course expansion talk brings out the people from the non-AQ conferences. The Big East Sucks! Give the Mountain West their BCS spot! It doesn’t matter to most of these people that it doesn’t work that way, but whatever. I gave up expecting reasonability in sports fans years ago. It’s like discussing religion with a fundamentalist and expecting rationality.

Anyway so first off I just want to point out that the BCS works by looking at conferences over time, and that the Big East, while having a really bad year overall, is still better than the Mountain West for a number of reasons.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/andy_staples/04/23/bcs-aq/index.html

There is a good writeup of how it breaks down. Firstly it points out, accurately, that the big 6 conferences wrote the rules…and therefore no current conference, the Big East included, is going to lose it’s spot. Sorry.

Secondly, to GET an automatic qualifer for the BCS you need to meet three different standards and be in the top six in all 3.

“1. The conference must finish among the top six in a listing of the average of each conference’s highest ranked team at the end of each regular season.”

So over the four years you take the highest ranked team from the league and average it.

“2. The conference must finish among the top six in a listing of the average computer rankings of every conference’s full roster of teams at the end of each regular season.”

Take the computer ranking of all the teams in the league, and average it. This is more a ‘depth’ of league thing, so that you might have a superteam and 9 crap teams, and it’s gonna drag you down.

“3. The conference must accumulate a score of at least 50 percent of the highest ranking conference’s score in the Adjusted Top-25 Performance Ranking, which measures how many teams each conference placed in the BCS top 25 and adjusts for conference size.”

Basically it takes the ranking of the conference’s score, and adjusts it giving more points if the league is smaller, etc. There is a formula….Anyway here’s how it broke down for 2008-2009…

Prong 1 Prong 2 Prong 3
1. Big 12 (1.5) 1. SEC (38.63) 1. SEC (22, 100 percent)
1. SEC (1.5) 2. ACC (40.34) 2. Big Ten (20.25, 92 percent)
3. Mountain West (5) 3. Big East (42.69) 3. Big 12 (20, 90.9 percent)
4. Pac-10 (6) 4. Big 12 (46.38) 3. MWC (20, 90.9 percent)
5. Big East (7.5) 5. Pac-10 (49.85) 5. Pac-10 (15.75, 71.6 percent)
6. WAC (7.5) 6. Big Ten (50.91) 6. Big East (15, 68.2 percent)
7. Big Ten (9) 7. Mountain West (58.61) 7. ACC (12, 54.5 percent)
8. ACC (11.5) 8. WAC (72.28) 8. WAC (8.75, 39.8 percent)
So There ya go. the Mountain West averaged a higher rank of it’s top team in the past couple of seasons (and it will again this year). It also did well given it’s size in prong 3, but it suffers from it’s lack of depth. Other than Utah, TCU, and BYU (and maybe Air Force) the conference is pure crap. If you’d like to argue it isn’t, that’s fine, but the numbers don’t lie. The MWC is TOP heavy. In a big way. Worse, Utah leaves to go to the Pac-10/12 and BYU is going independent. They’re bringing in Boise State, but the other teams they’re hoping for won’t be there till at least 2012, when the numbers are done. This is going to leave the conference as TCU and Boise State along with their punching bags which are basically Sun Belt or Conference USA teams.
There’s an ESPN Blogger debate about it here….
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigeast/post/_/id/1758/blogger-debate-big-east-vs-mountain-west
Plus if you go further back to 2006 and look at the numbers…

http://www.bcsevolution.com/2010/4/23/1438259/the-bcs-releases-the-conference-aq

From 2006-2009 the Big East is 5th in method 1, the MWC is 8th. In Method 2 the Big East is SECOND (just after the SEC), while the MWC is 7th. Lastly, in Method 3, the Big East is 4th, and the MWC is 6th.

The Big East ranks higher than the Mountain West, someone significantly in some cases over the past 4 seasons prior to this last one. So anyway, kudos for jumping all over the Big East when they have a down year, but sorry. The Big East is still the better league.

Not to mention the whole thing is about money anyway, so don’t get me started on that.

Anyway so there is the talk of expansion, and the presidents are meeting… The Big 10 and ACC are circling, the Big 12 might be looking to nip some more with Nebraska leaving, and the MWC is whining like Rodney Dangerfield. Meanwhile the Big East football schools want at least one more school to expand to 9 teams.

See 9 teams lets them play an even home 4 games and 4 away games. As it is right now every year you play either 3 home and 4 away or 4 home and 3 away. They want that guarnateed home game every other year. At least. That 4 and 4 that comes from a 9 team league is the reason other leagues are looking at Superleagues of 16 teams. The Big 10 and Pac 10 in particular are definitely interested. It gives you two divisions of 8 teams where you play each team in your division, and then 1 crossover every year. That’s your 4 and 4 home and away, plus you get a championship game at the end of the year to help your standings (sometimes).

The Big East though has a problem. They have 8 football teams but they have 8 non-football teams.

Marquette, Depaul, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Villanova, Seton Hall, St. John’s, and Providence all play Basketball and other sports in the Big East, making it a 16 team league…But they don’t play Football (or they don’t play football in the Big East ie Notre Dame)… leaving only 8 football teams.

The football teams are screaming for expansion. The basketball teams are saying that 16 teams is already too many for them for basketball.

What to do. Some of the expansion proponents want to poach TCU from the Mountain West. Maybe bring Houston along with them to grab the DFW and Houston markets. Others want East Carolina or Central Florida, which are both growing programs, and UCF is one of the biggest schools in the nation, and grabs the Orlando market giving the Big East a firm hold and presence in central Florida with South Florida in the Tampa area. Memphis has also been mentioned, and I’ve heard Buffalo and UMass as well. Lots of schools in the mix. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

I think that expansion WILL happen. It needs to be by majority vote, and while the comish of the Big East is a Providence college guy, and the past two comissoners have been Providence guys, and the league office is headquartered in providence, I would be shocked if he sided with expansion, but it’s for the best of the league. i also think it comes to a vote and the 8 football schools will vote for expansion, and I think that Notre Dame will vote for expansion, as well as possibly Villanova giving a 10-6 vote for expansion.

Villanova will vote to expand, and they’ll push their team up to FBS Division 1 status. Not sure how, but that’s the feeling I get from reading the news. They’d be probably crazy not to, and the Big East would love to refirm their hold on the Philadelphia market they lost when they gave the boot to Temple. I don’t think they’ll invite Temple back. They could as well, but I doubt it.

Villanova would give the league 9 football teams, and 16 basketball. Better, but Villanova while good at the FCS level is not exactly a FBS name. It’ll actually weaken the league. They need more. That’s where TCU comes in. It’s been talked about alot lately. TCU is a quality program and a quality school, and they’re missing out by not being in a BCS conference. the MWC is not in any way guaranteed to go up, and as I show before if the other leagues do well in the next year or two they’re shit out of luck. They need not only to do well but to do better than everyone else, and with Utah and BYU leaving that spells trouble, even with Boise State coming in.  Plus travel wise TCU isn’t exactly int he heartland of MWC. THeir travel times would be equivalent in the Big East than the Mountain West, but it’d definitely change the reach of the Big East.

I think that the Big East, if they want to survive should grasp onto that and offer TCU a bid. In addition they should offer one to Houston. This gives TCU at least one short home hop and a former rival from their Conference USA days back playing regularly, and it gets the Big East on TV in DFW and Houston television. They’d have to offer the schools tocome on as full programs though, or it won’t happen.

That’d give us 11 Football teams (5 home, 5 away games, 2 out of conference) as well as 18 baskseball teams. Eminently doable. Of course why keep everyone? There’s been talk also of booting Seton Hall. They’re very small, barely spend any money on their athletics and are at the bottom of the rankings for nearly EVERY sport. Kick em out, and you’re back down to 17 basketball teams.

At that point if you wanted to expand you’d really need to take a jump. You’d have to definitely boot basketball only schools, or you’d have to go to a 12 or 14 team league to get two divisions.

I think it would probably be a mistake to initially do that. Add in say Central Florida, Eastern Carolina and maybe UMass to go to 14 teams with two 7 team divisions and a championship game. You could. It’d be pretty crazy, and alot of change really fast.

We’ll see what happens. Personally I hope they go bold, but not too bold, and give Seton Hall the boot, while inviting TCU, Houston, and promoting Villanova. If Villanova doesn’t want to bring it’s team up in football then extend to Central Florida.

I’d prefer Villanova though, even though it’d probably be better in some ways to have UCF.

However that’d give the Big East tv markets for a Big East Channel in

New York (1), Chicago (3), Philadelphia (4), Dallas-Ft Worth (5), Washington, DC (9), Houston (10), Tampa-St Pete (13), and Pittsburgh (23) from the top 25 markets. 6 of the top 10 markets.

And if they brought in UMass they’d get Boston (7). Central Florida would bring in Orlando (19).

That’s a great reason alone to bring in TCU and Houston. If you care about money and the survivability of the league. Personally i’d love it if we could fuck the markets, and have teams play other teams that make sense. It makes alot more sense for Penn State to play Pittsburgh and West Virginia than to have the Nittany Lions play Minnesota, or to have Pittsburgh play TCU, but this is what we’ve been given.

Anyway…. I hope that the Big East does the ‘smart’ thing and vote to expand. I hope that Villanova comes on board as well as TCU and Houston. That’d be an interesting addition to the league, it’d be good for all those three schools, and the league as a whole.

We’ll see what happens.

Taking a Walk

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Greenwood Street Looking UpSometimes you have to stop and smell the roses. Or take a picture of Greenwood Street looking up the hill to Stanton Heights. Either way you’re interacting with the world in some way, stopping to look at stuff. Not so worried about time, time, time, but willing to see life as a sequence of events, you go from one to the next, and if you don’t get there precisely at 5pm then well, that’s ok. You saw something cool along the way.

Of course other times you really want to get to where you’re going, and the sights aren’t that interesting, but they waylay you nonetheless.

I had hoped to make a tremendous amount of progress on our corporate site yesterday but I got waylaid by some emergency client work. One of our clients sites got shut down by their host, Hostgator. Apparently they were using up too many resources. Why that is I’m not sure. I think the developer who originally put their site together did a really crappy job, but I can’t say. I’ve never really looked too hard at it.

Of course then it gets shut down for taking too many resources away on a virtual server and it’s emergency central. I can’t blame em really. Their site was totally down. I talked with Hostgator’s support and they said to just respond to the email tech support ticket that they say they sent, but didn’t, and it’d get turned back on. I tell them to resend it, and they do. So we respond back saying “turn the site back on”. But they won’t. Not until we document exactly what we’ve done to insure it won’t happen again.

At this point the client is freaking out, and we convince them to go onto the Rackspace Cloud, spend a little more money, and then we can figure it all out. Hostgator wouldn’t even let us run the site to see what kinds of errors it was kicking or anything. It’s kind of hard to figure out what the problem is with a WordPress site if you can’t turn it on.

Sure we could have put it on a whole ‘nother test server, but what would be the point of that? Why not just turn it on in the same location but live. Same problme for Hostgator, but we get the site up. Even when I said, “ok we’re going to go witha a dedicated server, but in the meantime till we switch it over, can oyu make the site live?” but they wouldn’t. So they lost the business of the client.

If they had just worked with us, and not been so rude on the phone with the attitude that we were taking advantage of them they’d have probably turned a little money every month from someone using a virtual hosting account, into an over 130 buck a month dedicated hosting account… But instead they decide that customer service is best when it’s rude, and perfunctory, so there ya go.

We grabbed the site, stuck it on the cloud, and it’s running like a dream. It was crap on the Hostgator site. Ran like crap. Obviously it bogged their server down, because they shut the puppy down. Now though it’s flying, and someone else igs getting their money.

What’s my point of this story? I didn’t plan on doing any of that yesterday. Staying on hold with Hostgator for long stretches arguing with their techs. Digging around a file manager in CPanel, investigating a wordpress installation I had nothing to do with. Etc. These were ‘roses’ that were stuck in my face that I had no choice but to smell, rather than work on the OrcaPack corporate site.

So today I get to do it a bit more. This morning I had more client work, and then the boys came home and I had a 3 year old sitting on my shoulders while I tried to work, so back to the Moglo I go. And on the way I decided to stop for a few minutes and take a picture of a typical Pittsburgh street.

Why not right? Gotta stop and smell the roses.