Comedy and Tragedy

Rugby: “On Saturday, France meet England at Stade de France. On Sunday, South Africa meet Argentina at Stade de France. On Monday, New Zealand meet Australia at the airport.”

Custody Battle: Huntington, WV (AP) - A seven-year old boy was at the center of a Cabell County courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulation requiring that family unity be maintained to the highest degree possible. The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried and said that they also beat him. After considering the remainder of the immediaty family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references and confer with the Child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Notre Dame Football Team whom the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone.

Tragedy: I'm an idiot. Had an entire month to compare the specifications of the new frame to my existing one and I didn't. So with the MS Bike Tour coming up tomorrow morning, I have two frames sitting at the LBS stripped with components laying around. Turns out the new bike needed a 30mm seatpost collar (rare, searched 8 stores in NYC), a 34.9mm front dérailleur clamp (paid $100 for it to be overnighted to me, but now I can't get the other two parts so I just wasted my money) and my existing headset which I believe is a Cane Creek IS-2 won't fit into the head tube even though many others have used the same headset with no issues. Damnit, I might just ride my LeMond Poprad, though I'll need to dig up some allen keys to adjust the seat post. %*@)$*%

The Gridiron storms back into our lives...

Nike Leave Nothing, for a high quality version of the video above (this is why I hate all-Flash sites) click on It's Time for Football on the bottom right, next on the lower left, click on Ads, finally, on the top right click on the thumbnail beneath videos. Michael Mann directed the commercial which was produced by Nike in cooperation with advertising agency Wieden & Kennedy.

I'm not a big fan of Nike, but they are winning me over with their homegrown snowboarding team (part of Nike 6.0) and with marketing campaigns like the one above. Love the slogan too! Curious as to how they made the commercial, there's an interesting thread at mograph that may lend some insight. Have some more time to kill? Check out additional Nike and adidas commercials here.

September brings another season of the gridiron into our living rooms. First week wasn't bad, Reggie Wayne put up some big numbers for my fantasy team on Thursday. Actually it was the best fantasy week I ever had. Not sure how you get on Yahoo's leader board, but I thought my 181.40 points would surely put me up there.

The first touchdown throw between Eli and Plaxico was auspicious. Eli has improved a lot since last year but he still looks like a girl on the field and just like prior seasons, he'll probably start out strong and disintegrate by December. What really ticked me off was the end of the game after he hurt his shoulder. He was able to throw 4 for 4 and then sat out the last 5 minutes of the game. WTF? The stage was set for him to really show the world what type of player he is and he pulls that shit? Sure he might have been hurt enough to be detrimental to the team, but he did have a successful drive already with the injured shoulder. Him sitting out probably wiped out his own team mentally. I would bet 90% of the quarterbacks in the league would have stuck it out. Look at what Pennington did... I knew we should have drafted Quinn. By the end of the season, Eli and Coughlin should be given their walking papers.

Onto the game gridiron football was based on, rugby. The World Cup is going on right now, the American team has had a poor showing so far losing to England and Tonga. The All Blacks absolutely demolished Italy. Fortunately for us Americans, selected Rugby World Cup games are being broadcasted by Versus.