Blog Outsourcing: 9/27

Welcome to today's edition of Sparty and Friends.

A year ago, I spent the night in a mall alongside others stuck amidst the floods as a result of a typhoon. I walked and saw its carnage. I, on behalf of my fellow countrymen, appreciate the efforts of those who tried to chip in and help.

Walking home that fateful Sunday morning and seeing what transpired during the night, it really surprised me as to how we were caught off-guard, unprepared and shellshocked we all were. All the mud, the damage, the carnage. Good thing we were able to secure electricity that night.

I hope we learned from that experience and move on to become better prepared and better focused on handling disasters like this in the future.

Onto other things:

I'll need a miracle to beat GITC. You heard me, Aaron Rodgers? I need an aerial attack to work. And if you stall, I'll need Mason Crosby to make field goals. You got that?

Hereforth are the links:

Records are meant to be broken, but these are somewhat unassailable.

More reasons why people blame the economy. But it's also on Title IX perhaps.

We're getting closer and closer to looking like the peeps on Wall-E.

And the beat goes on for Jose Bautista.

Remember when people got scared on the possibility of OT during the NFC Title game as well as the Super Bowl? It just happened in Aussie Rules Grand Final.

Now, why would you do this?

GITC vs this girl? Who wins?

Here is an idea that might work for baseball.

The Reds have a flamethrower in their midst. Think he can do a 2002 K-Rod facsimile? They only need either a win or a Cardinal loss and they've sealed it.

Phillies seal a berth in a loss.

The Bobby Cox roadshow ends in a loss. He had earlier secured his 2500th win.

Think Ben Stiller or Vince Vaughn would be the stars of this one?

This DMC can rap unlike the other AFC West DMC. But they don't stand a candle to THE RUN DMC.

Danica Patrick making baby steps in her quest for domination.

RIP Giant Gonzalez.

David obviously did not learn from Tiger.

Finally, the Texas Rangers secure the division. Looks like their rotation is set, too.

Michael Owen saves the Red Devils from defeat. But on the other hand, Chelsea goes down to Manchester City.

Real Madrid having problems scoring goals. Not for Barca. Meanwhile, Valencia leads the Primera.

Ryan Mallett's Heisman chances are at the same tier as Jake Locker's.

Boise State did enough to stay in the chase, but what is interesting now is that Nevada is giving them an unintentional lift. They meet on Thanksgiving Friday at Reno. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech helping the Broncos out with a shutout against Boston College.

Oregon escapes with a win against Arizona State with an undefeated Stanford (fresh from blasting the Irish that had the Stanley Cup in their midst) looming in the horizon.

Ohio State and Wisconsin plaster their opponents with 70+ scores. Their Big Televen play opens next week with Buckeyes facing the Zookers and the Badgers facing the Spartans. Speaking of which, we still don't know if Dantonio is going to coach, but Don Treadwell's doing fine so far.

The Red River rivalry lost a little luster as Oklahoma's stumbling through and Texas actually losing in Austin.

Things are about to get ug(a)ly in Athens. First, they lose at Starkvegas. Then, they kick out a player.

ACLs down someone in Happy Valley and in Oxford. Knees being monitored in Purdue and Ann Arbor.

Here is the AP Poll.

How did the Twins win the division?

Cubs in no rush to find Sweet Lou's successor, but is Ozzie interested? Brenly is not.

Glad to know Blake Hawksworth is fine.

Writing on the wall for Bonderman?

Yankees end slump, take advantage of Rays slip-up.

KG is feeling good. Looks motivated, too.

At this point, the guy needs to shut up already. It's embarrassing. Makes that loss to the Rams look really awful.

Let the overhype between McNabb & Vick begin. Vick just finished assaulting cats.

Singapore really is a nice place to have a race.

Parting video: Because she made headlines on SNL after the Sesame Street issue.

TWTWTNBA: The Melo Conundrum

So, the Nuggets finally relented and decided to do the inevitable and listen to trade offers involving Carmelo Anthony. They're not going to get full value, but they'll try. Who should be trying to pry away him from the Rocky Mountains?

These are in no particular order, by the way.

1. Los Angeles Clippers. Homerism aside, they have an interesting trade chip (David Kahn's unprotected future 1st round pick. You can thank Adrianna Lima's husband). They can also dangle any combination of Chris Kaman, Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon and Aminu. In the end though, Sterling will nix it for he is Donald Sterling.

2. Chicago Bulls. Any deals that Denver would be interested in would probably involve Joakim Noah. The Bulls would like to jettison Luol Deng out of Chi-town at this point. Other than that, no dice.

3. New Jersey Nets. If this Russian billionaire is like the one that's running Chelsea FC, they will be looking for a star. They struck out on Lebron (for now), so they train their eyes on Melo for the Barclays marquee. They can trade Derrick Favors, a gaggle of big men and possibly Devin Harris.

4. New York Knicks. Because they are Melo's top choice. Unfortunately, they don't exactly have the ammo for a deal. They'll need a conduit third team in the mix.

5. Philadelphia 76rs. The Sixers would be interesting if they can part with Iggy and/or Brand. Yes, Elton pretty much sucked since he left the Clips to sign that huge contract. Iggy played well in Istanbul, but he's a glue guy paid like a superstar (sort of what Rudy Gay is now).

6. Orlando Magic. They are so ridiculously deep that they can offload them onto someone and not miss a beat. Gortat / Bass would be included, as would probably Vince. Hey, they can jettison the rights to the coward named Fran Vasquez.

7. Washington Wizards. Melo grew up in Baltimore, so a hometown trip may be what he needs. He would also be relieving pressure on John Wall to become a scorer and focus more being a distributor. It's unlikely though because it will definitely involve Gilbert Arenas' contract, which is highly immovable.

8. Los Angeles Lakers. Imagine Melo with Kobe and Pau vis-a-vis the South Beach Diet of Wade, Lebron, and Bosh. They'll have to part with Odom and Bynum to do this, for starters. If Kupchak pulls this one off, God help us.

9. Houston Rockets. Given that Yao Ming is the Zydrunas Ilgauskas 2.0, Daryl Morey has some nice trade chips he can use to snag Melo (Kevin Martin or Luis Scola, but not both).

10. Atlanta Hawks. I just think that the Hawks need to shake their offensive lineup a little bit. I have a sense that there is not really much upside left and they need to fix it to compete with the upgrades that Miami and Boston conducted. A Melo-JR Smith for Joe Johnson-Marvin Williams swap could help both squads.

Blog Outsourcing: 9/20

Welcome to the Today's Edition of Sparty and Friends.

I dunno what's going on with state of education in your neck of the woods, but the interesting thing that's going on in the Motherland as of late, is that our Education Department has released a memo barring teachers in public schools (that may extend to private schools in the future) to assign homework on Fridays. The premise is that the students deserve to enjoy the weekend and that homework cuts into that time.

I would have bought the idea, if our educational system can handle getting the kids straightened out, but with all the woes and deficiencies, that puts a lot of pressures on the academe.

Then again, one could only be bitter with them getting the weekend off, something I never experienced when I was their age. Lucky kids.

In other news, the collegiate basketball final participants have been decided. The first game between my alma mater and Far Eastern University will take place on the 25th of September. We handily dispatched our Final Four opponent yesterday. Feels good. In addition, yesterday was a double whammy as my college alma mater's high school sealed their third consecutive title. Yup, the college is eager to get this guy into the college basketball scene.



Here are the Fantasy League Updates (for NFL, pending the MNF)

KWSN & Friends FFL:

Ateneo LA Clippers vs GoodJobSmackOnTheButt - 98-72 (Clip Show still has Pierre Thomas raring to go)

So Favrelicious vs Future Seahawks Death Penalty - 83-74 (So Favre still has Garrett Hartley ready to kick)

Chmuras Hot Tub Crime Machine vs Russell's Purple Drank - 96-79 (Tub has Marques Colston while Vernon Davis is taking the Purple Drank)

Name TBD vs Favre's Flip Flops - 67-103 (GITC needs Frank Gore to do a miracle)

Pigskin Pick'em

Week 2 results:

Brawny Tom had the best selection with 11. KWSN, Mikey and myself each have 10.

League Standings:

Brawny Tom has a 2-pt lead over KWSN (23 to 21). One pt. behind them is John and myself.

College Pick'em

Week 2 results:

Sparty, after laying a goose egg on Week 2, goes off with 49. KWSN has 47, while Johnny & Cabbage each have 46.

League Standings:

Patphish has 142, a slim 2-pt lead over KWSN. Trey is being trey with trey points further back.

Onto the Links!

The idea of a mercenary cheerleading outfit might just work.

This was his chance. Looks like he took advantage. Your move, Andy Reid.

Put it this way, there more lies a social construct to who you recruit. It comes with the territory. You just hope it pans out, right Urban? Meanwhile, said Gators were dispatching a woebegone Volunteers squad whose former coach lashed out a bitterness rant against another.

Football is always considered as an homage to gladitorial combat. Injuries come with the territory. Some just can't handle that.

Some people have way too much time on their hands, but this looks really cool.

Mike Singletary is very very underrated with the sound bytes, because we are overwhelmed with Rex Ryan ones.

Quo vadis, Joe Torre?

Relax, people! He has not kicked the bucket yet.

What he really means is that he really really loves beating the living soul out of the Mets.

Reasons why I have no inclination with tattoos.

Colorado pulling off their trademark Rocktober-fest.

One creative way to increase revenues.

He really left it all out on the field.

Rules that need revising. Seriously.

2 years of Beadle.

You all know what went on during the weekend, so proceed with discussions. Meanwhile's here's Dominic Monaghan and Megan Fox to send you off.

TWTWTNBA: The World Basketball Championships post-mortem

These are some of the things that we learned from the World Basketball Championships

1. Kevin Durant is ready to take the best player mantra right now. If there is any doubt that he is not among the best in the world, leading the so-called B-team to first gold medal in the tourney since Dream Team II erased all that. I think he will win the 2010-11 NBA MVP if Oklahoma City takes the next step.

2. Hidayet Turkoglu gets a bounce back year in his Phoenix debut. Nothing like playing well for your flag to rejuvenate you after a lousy season. It happened with AK-47 before.

3. Lithuania will be dangerous in the Eurobasket 2011. Finishing third in the tournament sure made things look good for a team with only one NBA player (Linas Kleiza) on the current roster. Watch out for a future NBA player named Donatas Montejunas on that roster by then.

4. The Serbian resurgence is primed up. I still cannot get over the Milos Teodosic bomb against Spain. Turkey needed a block in the final seconds to escape with a semifinal win. Like Lithuania, they only have one current NBA player (Nenad Krstic). And after that nasty incident in Greece, they surely needed this good set of news.

5. Luis Scola. Argentina had no Manu Ginobili and Andres Nocioni got hurt in the path to Istanbul. Already known as one of the most hardworking players in the NBA, he then raised it up a notch. He averaged 27.1 pts (tops in the Tourney), 7.9 rebounds (4th), 35.9 minutes (3rd), 56.6 % shooting (5th). With all the uncertainty surrounding Yao Ming, Luis Scola can surely fill the void.

6. Playing bodes well for the upcoming NBA season. The future of USA Basketball looks really good. Youngsters like Russell Westbrook, Eric Gordon and Stephen Curry really benefited from the experience. NBA fans now have an idea on certain players who will be coming in this season, like Mozgov for the Knicks, Splitter for the Spurs, Asik for the Bulls and Erden for the Celtics.

7. Hard to argue the best game of the tourney. Brazil vs Argentina (Scola vs Huertas showdown) or Spain vs Serbia (Teodosic bomb) or Turkey vs Serbia (The Block) would be the prime choices.

Blog Outsourcing - 9/13

Welcome to today's edition of Sparty and Friends.

Yup, football fever has taken over. Already 2 200+ comment posts and another 100+ comment post for the past 2 weekends. You guys surely love your football. Especially when the writers and commenters are either a Spartan, an Irish, a Gator, a Vol, a Nittany Lion, a Buckeye or a Yellowjacket or a Giant, a Jet, a Dolphin or a Patriot. I actually missed out on the commenting madness the past two days. To prepare for this post (as I always do), I had to backread the posts and comments to set the table as to what I am going to write home on.

As for me, I watched the final regular season game of my alma mater. We lost by 2 pts, but we could have won the game with the missed free throws and a missed layup in the final seconds. However, we already secured the twice to be advantage by winning our game last September 5 against the University of Santo Tomas (the game where you saw my picture from last week's TMA). The Final Four is scheduled this week. Hopefully, I can write home something positive from that and I can relate them to you on next week's TMA.

Oh, and the VMAs took place last night, where I found this picture of someone that our newest member of the S&F team would absolutely appreciate...

Now here are the links:

Johan is shut down. We wish him well.

Mariano Rivera blows one. He's fine, people. Then again, they need to get Andy Pettitte ready already. Oh, and that came after Nelson Cruz killed them. Rafael Soriano also blew one, too.

Cheers to the Twins. They get their 4,000th win.

NL MVP race still undecided, because Albert Pujols just made his presence felt. On the other hand, Domo Arigato, Mr. Joey Votto.

Welcome to Rocktober. After they stole one from the Reds, Jason Giambi gets his 1st hit against the Diamondbacks in style. That's 10 straight. They are now creeping closer to the NL West division lead, which is a toss-up by itself, thanks to Tim Lincecum.

The BCS Cartel pressed the Buffalo Wild Wings button. James Madison answered the call.

Shoelace better start practicing Desmond Howard.

Week 1 in a snapshot.

Matthew Stafford's hurt. Not good news for the Lions.

Alex Barron blew this game. He better pack his bags.

Saw this in a tweet. Might be funny yet true: Philly coach Andy Reid muttering, please stay injured... please stay injured...

Well, at least it is not due to overtraining, right?

Tony Dungy must be the NFL pontiff.

Yup, typical Jets fans.

To paraphrase a tagline of one of the Motherland's most well-known banks, You're in good hands, with Kevin Durant. But the 12 Giant Men gave them their all.

How much do you want for Ron Artest's championship ring?

Melo to Chi-town? Probably not.

Do you still remember the anti-Peyton Manning? While the real one got battered by Arian Foster.

Bruce Pearl must have learned this from Lane Kiffin. However, he is a lovable guy, so that's fine.

Johnny might be interested in this one.

This goes with the Robert Green and that Chaouchi Gaffe gallery.

Daytona gets a hi-tech face lift from someone who has never ever been there.

Terry Labonte doing a Brett Favre.

The Tafosi celebrate the Prancing Horse's win in the Italian GP, but this might be the real reason to celebrate.

Because you need to know what is going on in the Canadian Football League.

Kim Clijsters was successful in defending her crown. Unfortunately, Rafa's quest for the career Slam is delayed.

Floyd Mayweather's still getting headlines for all the wrong reasons. Still saying Floyd's a farce.

They must have had a really really bad case of diarrhea.

Are you excited for volleyball? Speaking of volleyball, the streak ended.

Parting videos... This one came from the recent Cheerdance competition that the Motherland was focusing on yesterday.


This one came from the VMAs. This one features the Real Slim Shady.

Eminem & Rihanna - Love The Way You Lie - Live MTV VMA 2010 from Infox on Vimeo.

Blog Outsourcing 9/6

Welcome to the latest edition of Sparty & Friends.

It's Labor Day in the United States, and I am pleased to say that my job will allow me to have the day off today. But writing blog posts is a 24/7 responsibility for the site and the quest to provide quality content is always a responsibility all of us writers have. It always helps to have readers suggest possible posts.

Whilst college football marked its opening this weekend, college basketball for my alma mater is picking up. One more game to go before the end of the regular season. Toting a 10-3 record, they are a game behind Far Eastern University, whom they will be facing this Saturday, September 11th. Yes, that is a significant date. We lost to them in the previous round robin, but one missed lay-up was the difference.

Meanwhile, yesterday I had the opportunity to watch them seal the twice-to-beat advantage in the Final Four, albeit in a scary fashion. The special thing about this game is that I watched the game at courtside level. I somehow lucked out in getting one, which costs slightly over $7. Usually, these particular seats are always snapped up, especially when it comes to rivalry games.

The experience of watching it down there is really great. It will probably be unlikely for a repeat with the playoffs looming, but I would like another crack at it.



Hereforth are the content action:

Revis Island is ready for the upcoming season. Caretakers like Randy Moss and Brandon Marshall are to be advised.

Final roster cuts have been made, some look bad, but others look deserving.

Vincent Jackson is still a Charger for now.

Steeler Nation ready for Charlie Batch?

The Padres are on a skid. Giants catching up.

Good thing the Rangers locked it up already, because injuries are piling up, with Josh Hamilton and Cliff Lee skipping. They botched one, too.

On the other hand, Rays and Yankees are on a dead heat still, as for the Red Sox? All Sawx fans are in FML mode.

Carpenter keeps things alive, but the story is about the Rasmus drama.

Atlanta and Philly in a NL East tug-of-war.

Immediate repercussions from the Chapel Hill mess.

Things looking good for the Irish, even their TV profile.

How was it in Jacksonville State, the day after?

Cardiac Finish! Prayers were answered. Sure helps to be 6'8"



Turkey and Slovenia advance. USA plays later against Angola and will face winner of Russia vs New Zealand.

Delonte in Boston makes sense.

So Floyd "apologizes." The smart people have figured that out already. As for the Pacquiao, he shrugged it off.

Parting shot: Since it was 90210 a few days ago...