WWJD

Quick *funny work story -

*I have a theory that most work stories are not funny. In fact I would go on to say that probably 90-95% of work stories are not funny. Even if you think they are funny and people you work with think they are funny to the outside public I can almost guarantee that they aren't funny. The problem is that people think that 1) Their office is like The Office. and 2) That people understand the nuances and intricacies of their work. For example you might think it is funny that your SO isn't shipping because the ship date was written in CMS instead of OMS, but most people will have no idea what you are talking about.

Anyway, on to the hopefully funny work story.

Somebody sent me an email and to understand the context I started reading for the bottom of the email chain. On the email chain there were some disagreements and questions that were obviously frustrating the people on the chain. It didn't look like anybody was getting the resolution they needed. Finally somebody wrote an email with the one sentence "Jesus will have to answer that."

When I read that I laughed out loud because for a second I thought that this person was basically saying something like "God only knows" and trying to end the argument as something that won't be solved. That second passed though as I kept reading and found out that one of our planners in Mexico is named Jesus and he in fact did know the answer to the problem. Problem resolved. Jesus saves.

Random observations

Here are the random observations of the day:

• The 6-4 Dolphins are playing the 6-4 Patriots on Sunday at noon. I haven't been this excited for a regular season NFL game in 5 years.
• I bet you didn't think it was possible for a 0-10 team to be favored, but guess what Washington is not only favored but favored by over a touchdown in their next game. The reason being is that they are playing their in-state rivals Washington St. Washington St. has won only one game this year and that game was against a Portland St. team that is 3-7 and has lost to UC Davis, Sacramento St. and Northern Arizona.
• Do you know why I like Joe Posnanski? Because he writes articles about the best player in college basketball. What you expected Tyler Hansbrough? Sorry, but Joe knows that Tyler isn't even the best player in the state of North Carolina. The best player scored 33 points, handed out 9 assists and had 4 steals last night for a school that used to be best known for academics, free laundry and an excellent Religion school. It will be tough rooting against him and Davidson on January 7th.
• Here is a Scoop Jackson article about the best player, where he talks about how Curry wasn't on the cover of Street and Smith, SI, Espn or Athlon and how he needs a nickname. For once I found a Scoop Jackson tolerable if only because he wrote about how Curry is not getting enough attention from the national media.
• I hope by now that you are getting the point that Stephen Curry is incredible. I like Curry almost as much as I dislike Hansbrough.

A little known player

Last year I wrote a much commented post about the top 10 reasons why you should dislike Tyler Hansbrough. That was a year, a week and a day ago. So much has changed since that time. Since that time the Dolphins have seen Greg Camarillo go from a practice player to a season saving star to an actual solid #2 receiver in the NFL. Since that time the Jazz got jobbed by the Lakers in the 2nd round of the playoffs. Since then the stock market has gone down 35%. Since that time the United States elected Obama. However, despite all of thoese things there are a few things that haven't changed and more importantly there is one person who hasn't changed. Tyler Hansbrough and the media's love affair with him has not changed in the past 373 days.

In honor of that I have decided to come up with a new top 10 list on why you should dislike Tyler Hansbrough:

1. Inside post defense - Do you know how many block Psycho T had last year? I will give you a hint. It was the same amount of blocks as 6ft 2 inch Stephen Curry. Give up. The answer is 14. How does a 6ft 9inch post player play 1286 minutes and block 14 shots? I don't even know how that is possible.


2. Media Love -Tyler Hansbrough once again is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. Below is a picture of the cover:
   
   For those of you who are counting that makes 4 covers that Psycho T has been on. That would equal the amount of SI covers that Sandy Koufax and Jerry Rice were on during their playing careers. Seriously. It is kind of a fun game to see what all-time players have been on the SI cover the same or less (John Stockton) than Tyler Hansbrough.


3. He overshadows the the other UNC players - I am not a big fan of North Carolina's basketball program. Still I have to feel bad for any player on the team not named Hansbrough. Danny Green is the most complete player on the team and their best defensive player. Wayne Ellington is the team's best shooter. Ty Lawson is still the most valuable player on the team. Still based on the national media's reaction you wouldn't even know that those players were on the team.


4. Omri Casspi and Gani Lawai - These are the two player in between Tyler Hansbrough in the Nba Draft mock draft. Have you heard of them? One is a post player from Maccabi Tel Aviv and the other is a post player for Georgia tech. In other words he isn't that good.


5. His Age - Andrew Bynum has been playing pro basketball for 3 years and less than a month ago he celebrated his 21st birthday. Tyler Hansbrough is entering his Senior Year in college and he is 23 years old. The only time I might agree with most commentators this year is when they talk about how Hansbrough is a man amongst boys. There was a reason why Danny Almonte was such a good little league pitcher.


6. Selfishness - Tyler Hansbrough averaged less than one assist per game last year. Considering how much talent is on UNC's roster you would think Tyler would be able to pick up a few assists a game.


7. Assist to turnover ratio - This point is similiar to the point above in the fact that it points out how one dimensional of a player Hansbrough is. Anyway, Tyler's assist to turnover ratio was 0.42. In other words he had more than double the amount of turnovers over than assists. Simply put - that isn't good.


8. Outside shooting - Hansbrough has made three 3 pointers in his career. He isn't much of an outside shooter, which is another reason why he won't be a good pro player. Unless you are a Dwight Howard type athelete then you need an outside shot to make in the Nba. Needless to say Tyler Hansbrough isn't much of an athelete.


9. Cole Aldrich - Below is a picture of a freshmen dominating the natational player of the year in the Final Four.

10. Natational Title - Now for the last point I thought about pointing out his awkwardness, the fact he travels every time he makes a post move, or even his awkward 7 year old boy haircuts. Instead I will point out that despite all of the attention and love from the media Tyler Hansbrough has never won a national title. Why I don't think is always a fair way of judging the performance of an athelte in Tyler's case it is appropriate. The reason being is because he has been given plenty of chances. His sophomore year's team was stacked and didn't even make the Final Four. Last year's team was given a very easy road to the Final Four and they choked as well. Now all of this year's team is back and they have another easy non-conferance schedule. If they (and Tyler) don't win the title then I hope that the media gets together and realizes that they should never write another puff piece on Psycho T again. Tyler might not want to grow up, but some of us wish that he would grow up and move on.

Quick points

Happy Friday to everyone. Winter is officially here in MN as I can look out the window and see snow sticking to the ground. Anyway, it has been a pretty exciting week with the Miami-Buffalo game on Tuesday highlighting everything. Here are some quick thoughts:

• M and I are going to see Prairie Home Companion tonight. I tried calling the ticket office to buy tickets and they informed me that you could only buy them through ticketmaster.com. Now why can you buy the tickets online, but not over the phone? Why do they even have a ticket office?
• Hulu.com was the 4th best invention of the year according to Time Magazine. For anyone who likes certain TV shows, but doesn’t have Tivo, DVR or in the case of some family members a TV this website is a must for add to your favorites list.
• All this talk about whether or not Barack Obama has *mandate makes me think of him and Colin Powell going to grab some Ben’s Chili Bowl in DC before going to see a movie.

*I realize that at most only 2 people would get the joke, so here is an explanation. My new term that I like to use is “man date”. A man date is when two male friends go out on a traditional date like activity such as dinner, movie, or a comedy show. Not too complicated, but I felt like a clarification was needed.

• Ted Cook's 19th Hole BBQ and Asahi beer were my food and drink of choice for the Presidential Election coverage on Tuesday night. Neither disappointed.
• The blue side won in both the election and the Miami-Buffalo game on Tuesday. Obama won 2.2 times more electoral votes than McCain. Buffalo scored 2.2 times the amount of points that Miami scored. The comparison from the previous post about the similarities between the game and the Election held even through the result.
• Dolphins-Seahawks on Sunday. As a Dolphins fan I am starting to feel guilty about expecting an above 500 record. It has been nice enough to know that the team is playing meaningful games in November.
  

Obama

Congrats on the big win yesterday. The last time a Democrat won an election I had just turned old enough to go see Forrest Gump.

There will be more time to look through the stats, but one of the ones that jumped out at me was how people who made over $200K voted. My guess would be that those voters would vote overwhelingly for McCain because Obama kept talking about how he was going to raise the taxes on people who made over $250K. Anyway, according to the cnn.com exit polls voters who made over $200K (only 6% of the population) voted 52% for Obama and 46% for McCain.

Are you excited about tomorrow?

It all comes down to this. Both sides have spent so much money, so much time, and so much energy in hopes of having their spot in the national limelight. Side A is represented by the color Red. Side B is represented by the color Blue. Side A courts the “real” Americans, such as the ones found in the cornfields of Southwestern Ohio. Side B courts the people in metropolitan areas of states like New York. Side A has seen success in the past with the biggest success coming in 2004. Side B has had a tough decade, but with a mid 40s African-American leader is hoping to come out victorious this year. Side A is hoping for a newcomer to provide the spark on what has been a listless 2008 campaign. Side B is surprised to be leading Side A, but is still relishing the moment as being the hunted as opposed to being the hunter.

I am excited to see the outcome tomorrow and am looking forward to the result. To find out more about tomorrow then please click on this link.




Go Redhawks!
(Oh yeah in case you didn't get it...Side A is Miami U and Side B is the University of Buffalo. What else would I be writing about?)