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My wife pointed out a pretty cool occurrence tonight in the Twitterverse. Someone name Brian Scott (@bman6100) wanted to use a song by Brad Paisley in a PowerPoint for school. Apparently at his school he needs permission to use a song in this way. What was he to do?
Twitter to the rescue!
Brad being a dutiful Twitter user responded:
Wow, isn’t Twitter awesome!
Again, I was asked by a reported some questions after the state tournament.
– What are your thoughts on the team’s performance at the State Meet this weekend?
It is tough to put the whole experience in perspective. We were pretty happy after Friday finishing in 9th only 327 out of first. We knew it was going to be a tough climb, but we knew we could do it. Then on Saturday morning we bowled our best 3 game series of the tournament but we still dropped a place to 10th. That was fine, we set our goals on 6th and moved forward, but then we kind of unraveled and dropped down to 12th. As I said, it is tough to put in perspective because you are in last place on the second day of state, but then you have to remember that only 12 teams in the state made the second day of state and you realize what an awesome accomplishment it is and then you look at the individual successes inside the larger team and you realize that it truly was an amazing weekend that I or the boys will never forget.
My main goal going in to the tournament was to get to Saturday and then see where we could go from there. So, in that sense the weekend was very successful. The boys were focused all weekend and really gave their all. After entering Saturday in 9th place we were hoping to move up in the standings, but it was a tough field with several quality schools. I was pleased with the determination the boys showed through all 12 games never giving up and fighting until the end.
– What were some of the highlights for you guys?
There are several pieces of the weekend that will always stand out to me. The first was the support we got from the parents. We had a fairly large contingent follow us down to state, and it meant a lot that there will willing to take the long trip to O’Fallon. On Friday in game 6 we were right on the bubble between advancing and being cut and the boys needed a big game, we were going strong through the first 8 frames and we were in good shape. Then, unexpectedly, the fan section starting chanting, “Let’s go Bears, Let’s go Bears…” and it was really awesome. This encouragement pushed the boys forward and we bowled our best game of the day (1039). The chants from the crowd gave me goosebumps and really made the day.
Another highlight is the performance of the seniors, Luke Mueller and Austin Wells. Both days Luke started out with a rough score (159 Fri and 148 Sat) but finished very strong. (1266 on Friday and 1211 Sat) he didn’t let the bad first game get him down and he kept fighting through. He was also always clapping and cheering on his team mates even when he was worried about his own game, which I really appreciate that he was able to put his own frustrations aside for the good of the team.
Austin’s performance was also inspiring. He has been battling with tendinitis since winter break and been fighting through the pain. On Friday morning his medication was not agreeing with his system and he just felt a little off leading to an uncharacteristically low (155) game 2. In the afternoon, after eating some lunch and letting the medication settle, he was back in good form finishing with a strong game 5 (266) and a 672 series for the afternoon. Then, on Saturday Austin was our rock. He decided to forgo medication and tough through the pain. In the morning most of the boys were clicking and bowling well which lead to our team’s high series (3052) but we still dropped a place to 10th with Austin finishing with a 622. In the afternoon as the team started to unravel, Austin was steady as a rock with only one open in the last two games and finishing with a 642 series and taking 28th place with a 2485 tournament total (207.1 avg). This makes him the highest finishing Lake Zurich Boy’s bowler in school history. It was really nice to see Austin achieve this since he has been our team leader for the last two years and to see all of his dedication to the bowling team really pay off.
Finally, the total team effort that the boys showed throughout the weekend very gratifying to me. It is difficult to instill the team concept in what is perceived by many as an individual sport, but the boys really came together as a group. When we had to substitute kids in and out to try and find the right mix no one got down or upset. The boys were constantly trying to help each other make adjustments and they were constantly encouraging each other. The leadership of Kyle Hunter, much like at sectionals, really helped us on the first day to keep from getting discouraged in the tight competition, he was always setting the expectation that we were going to do better each game, and that paid off.
– I believe Austin Wells reached the state tournament last year as an individual, how much do you think that helped him this time around?
Austin learned a lot last year in terms of how to adjust to the lane conditions as the broke down. The state oil pattern is still a house shot, but it is a slightly different house shot than what these boys play on all year. This isn’t as much of a problem in the early goings as it is as they break down. Austin saw this last year as he was barely eliminated after the first day because he was not able to string together his strikes. That experience gave him motivation to make his game more versatile and we can see that it paid off this year. Austin has never been one to be affected by the pressure of the moment, but I still think having been in that state environment last year helped he keep a cool head this year.
– Could you list how the rest of the team did at State?
Luke Mueller was 44th with a 2426
Steve Garcia was 45th with a 2407
Those were the only 3 who bowled all 12 games.
Here is a link to the results from Saturday, http://www.ihsa.org/activity/bwb/2009-10/1result2.htm and Friday, http://www.ihsa.org/activity/bwb/2009-10/1result1.htm.
– Can you put in perspective the season the team had this year?
This was the first year since my first were we had a full varsity team (5 or 6 kids who could average 200+). We had no seniors last year and only 2 two years ago, so we have been building to this for several years. Last year when we didn’t advance out of sectionals after winning the conference we said, wait til next year and all year we talked about how this is our year and the boys performed up that expectation. They won two large, competitive tournaments (Cougar Classic & Plainfield North Invite) and finished in the top 5 the last 5 weeks of the season. (Morgan Park, Rockford PBA Experience, Plainfield, Lake Zurich, Sectionals). With the 12th place finish at state this is the most successful team in Lake Zurich Boy’s Bowling history.
On top of that we are only losing two members of the Varsity squad (Mueller and Wells) for next year and we have some underclassman that have made a lot of progress in the past year. After the 2006-07 state trip, most of that team graduated, so the lessons learned from state where not passed on. This year, I am hoping that the returning members will take what they learned from this experience and use it to motivate and drive them forward as we work in the off-season.
I was asked my thoughts about the bowling team before sectionals by a reporter from the Lake Zurich Courier.
Some of the my comments were in the article, but I wanted to share the rest. I was a little verbose because I was exited from sectionals.
– What does this mean to you guys to be competing at the State Meet next weekend?–
It means quite a lot for us to be going to state. This is a group that spent the last 3 years waiting for “next year.” The team had no seniors last year and only two the year before. So, most of the guys this year have been on varsity in some form for the past 3 years. As a group we always talked about growing and maturing and how our time would come and this season we have seen all of the hard work of the last three years finally pay off. For this group to make it to state is also personally satisfying because the seniors on the team started the same year that I started coaching the team so it is culmination of a lot of hard work.
– What were some of the highlights for you guys at the Sectional today?–
A few highlights of the day for me where Mike Schmitt (Fr. 200 average) who came in off the bench when we needed him in game 5 and bowled a 257. That was a huge game that really helped keep the team’s momentum going.
Game 6 was very exciting for the team. We we were out of 1st by 25 pins but up on 3rd by 80 and 4th 136. The 4th place team, Niles (Notre Dame), was coming in real strong in the lane next to us and we were about neck and neck with Vernon Hills (1st place). Throughout the year at several tournaments the boys have had a rough time staying strong through all 6 games. Today with the pressure on, the guys performed well and finished the day almost climbing back into 1st.
The other highlight was the performance of Kyle Hunter. Kyle typically starts tournaments stronger than anyone on our team. However, he has not had a particularly consistent time of it as the tournaments progressed. Today Kyle showed his toughness both physically and mentally to fight through 6 games making many adjustments and trying different shots both ones that he was used to and ones that are outside of his wheelhouse. And while he had dreams of 1st place after the first three games, the 6th place finish is by far his strongest individual performance.
Also, the stable leadership or our seniors, Luke Mueller and Austin Wells really help set the tone for the day. While they were not the scoring leaders, they didn’t let that get to them. The other bowlers could see that they still had the confidence in the team and were panicking because of a couple of low scores and that helped to set the tone for the day. I can not say enough about what those two have done for this team over the last three years, and we certainly wouldn’t be were we are today without them. Ultimately, all four of the upperclassman ended up “on the sheet” which would be in the top 27 for the sectional.
Finally, I was very excited about the support the team received today both from the large turn out of parents and the large number of other bowlers from the team that showed up. It is encouraging as a coach to see that the younger kids are excited to be on a team and are willing to come out and cheer their teammates on.
– What did you think of the performances of your two juniors Kyle Hunter and Steve Garcia on Saturday and what have they brought to the team this year? –
I can’t say enough about the performance of Garcia and Hunter. I already wrote about Kyle above. But to add to that Hunter has become one of the team’s emotional leaders as well. More than anyone on the team Kyle has matured as a leader and the team looks to him for motivation and inspiration.
Garcia has been one of our consistent performers over the past few weeks. He took 3rd at the Plainfield North Invite, 3rd at our tournament, 4th in conference, and 8th at the sectional and is really starting to find his way as a bowler. He started the day a little slow but showed true grit and fought through and gave us some huge games when we needed them. He too is growing into his role as leader on team and impresses me a little more every week with his bowling insight. All during the second game he had to basically through his ball at the gutter in order to strike. This is something he is horribly uncomfortable doing, but he toughed it out and got the job done.
– What are the team?s aspirations at the State Tournament next weekend? –
One of the traditions our school seems to be developing over the last three years is that teams that earn 1st or 2nd in state get to ride a fire truck from May Whitney to the high school for a pep assembly. One of the boy’s main goals is to ride the fire truck. That is what they talked about in practice as we prepared for sectionals. My goals are a little simpler, I want to make it to the second day at state. My first year coaching I took a team down state and we did not make it past the first day, and I would like to get over that hump. If after that we get to fire truck all the better. This group has the physical ability to bowl that well as long as they stay focused. We don’t have a true super star this year, but we have a group of solid bowlers that have shown when they are performing they can compete with the best in the state.
Tonight we saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into as I am not a big Sherlock Holmes fan. I read The Hound of the Baskervilles in high school and just remember that it involved a moor. So, I can’t really comment on how true the movie is to the character. In terms of the movie itself, I thought it was a pretty good movie. The story was well crafted and followed a logical track in the way that Holmes was able to deduce the clues. The story seems to make sense in terms of what I would expect from Sherlock Holmes. The main antagonist is a practitioner of dark magic and is trying to bring the British Empire back to its full glory. Holmes works through a way to explain all of the magic tricks to explain how they actually happened. I was intrigued to see how most of the Holmes’s deductions were based on chemistry and all made sense and were probably true. I was happy to see Holmes use the flame test I learned about in chemistry.
The way the film was shot was also very interesting. I did not realize that Holmes was quite the fighter and I enjoyed the fight sequences they setup where they walked you through Holmes’s thought process before the fight takes place. The slow motion choppy animation during the fights was a little weird, but I guess it added to the intensity of the scene. The sound was very nice in the film. There were periods of quiet where they would highlight the noise of one of the objects coming at the screen. This gave a slight impression of 3D that I really liked.
I also liked that the movie was very true to the times without seeming dated. The costumes and scenes in the movie never seemed out of place and for the most part the technology was accurate as well. There was one device that electrocuted people that didn’t seem particularly realistic (even now). The rest of the science seemed pretty solid throughout.
What was really eye opening to me in the this film is how much House and Wilson (from the TV Show House) and Holmes and Watson are alike. I have to assume that the character of Greg House was based on Holmes to some extent. The way that Holmes uses little random clues to make deductions is just the same way the Holmes does. Particularly the scene where Holmes deduces everything about Watson’s fiance from small clues is exactly something House would do (and has done). Also, the way that Holmes keeps sucking Watson back into his life and sabotaging his relationship is akin to House and Wilson.
In all, I liked the movie and it kind of makes me want to go read some of the books. This movie fits in well right now in terms of what is popular on TV. It fits in with all of the CSIs and other crime dramas out there. The introduction of Moriarty clearly sets the ground for a sequel and I look forward to that.
Another person getting You Tubed. Here is Emmy Award winning news anchor Ernie Anastos from Fox 5 in New York saying, “Keep Fucking that Chicken.” Mr. Anastos says he meant to say, “Keep Plucking that Chicken,” which apparently means to keep trying at an arduous task.
For example:
This story probably wouldn’t have left New York if not for YouTube making it viral. I have seen it on The Daily Show and heard it discussed on the Nick Digilio Show on WGN because it was high on the Yahoo Buzz Search.
The face on the co-anchor is awesome!
I would like to coin a new term, “Getting You Tubed.” I don’t know if someone has already coined a similar term, but I will take credit. When that means is that you do something bad that would have been buried in your regional news 3 to 4 years ago, but now because of You Tube and other web 2.0 technologies, the story goes huge.
The most current example is Congressman Pete Stark from California. The conversation went like this:
Senior Citizen to Congressman Stark: “Don’t pee on my leg and then tell me it’s raining.”
Congressman Stark’s Response: “I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg – I wouldn’t waste the urine”.
Before YouTube, this comment maybe would have made the pages of a paper in California, but now it is a national story I heard about on a NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me quiz show, all because of YouTube. I think this is an example that shows that all public figures need to be on notice, that if you say something unprofessional or beneath your level, it will get noticed and it can travel across the globe.
Here is the video:
As I predicted in my previous post about the Kanye West & Taylor Swift incident, Kanye West, according to People.com, has apologized. To recap, Kanye was, I guess, dissapointed that Taylor’s video won best female video at the VMAs instead of Beyonce’s. He stole the microphone from Swift to make his opinion public. As I later learned, he was most likely drunk when he did this and further I don’t even understand what his point was about Beyonce’s video being one of the best ever.
Well, People.com is reporting that Kanye wasted no time in apologizing.
I still do not think this is enough, and really there is nothing that can excuse what he did. Further, if he were truly sincere, he could have not used all caps, which just makes me cringe. I will be interested to see what Taylor does and I would be so pleased if she wrote a song about this. When she got dumped by the Jonas brother she wrote a song and got in on her album, now hopefully we can see the same thing here. Maybe that will help put a stop to the trend of celebrities acting and thinking they can just apologize it away.
I tried to go to Kanye’s site to get the first hand source, but it is currently down. I don’t know if it has been slammed or maybe he has rescinded his apology.
In the end, none of this matters compared to the real problems in out world, but it is a little diversion to make life interesting.
As I finished my first blog post about the incident on the Video Music Awards tonight, I found out that tonight there were a few shining stars in the show.
First, to MTV, thank you for kicking Kanye West out of the show.
Kanye West Asked To Leave VMAs After Rant Against Taylor Swift – News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News via kwout
Now, I would like to say the MTV that, while your VMA show is supposed to be a raucous party, maybe alcohol needs to be banned in the future. Apparently when Kanye went on his tirade at the 2006 MTV Europe awards he had been drinking:
Kanye Admits To Having Had A ‘Sippy Sippy’ (Or Two) Before EMA Rant – News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News via kwout
And at the show tonight it was the same thing:
Kanye West Asked To Leave VMAs After Rant Against Taylor Swift – News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News via kwout
I may add these incidents to my pre-prom don’t drink speech next year.
Second, to Beyonce Knowles. She looked out raged when Kanye made his outburst during the show which I think was a general emotion and showed that she was in not one bitter than Taylor Swift won. This is probably in part because, as she says, she knows what it is like to be a young kid being nominated for an award because she was only 17 when she was nominated with Destiny’s Child.
Most importantly, after winning video of the year, she called Taylor Swift up on stage to finish her speech.
Beyonce Wins VMAs Video of the Year, Gives Taylor Swift Her Moment | 2009 MTV VMAs, Beyonce Knowles, Kanye West, Taylor Swift : Just Jared via kwout
Pure class and a great photo opp!
In the interest of fairness I went and watched the videos that were in question on the VMA awards tonight. I wanted to do this to see if Kanye West had a point, even though he was out of line as I mentioned earlier. I watched Beyonce Knowle’s video, and I fail to see how it is “one of the best videos of all time.” At a minimum, Waterfall (Destiny’s Child) was better than this and I could probably name four videos from country that are better, let’s see:
It is a catchy song, but “You Belong with Me” is, in my opinion, better video, it actually tells a story and is clever and creative. Beyonce’s video is different and kind of cool, but to me it is just dancing to music and doesn’t add anything to the song like Taylor Swift’s does. And, even if you did think it was better, it is not “one of the best videos of all time.”
On a side not, I think “Put a Ring on It” is a great song for weddings when the bride throws the bouquet and I often wonder if writes think about that when they write songs. I bet they do.
In case anyone hasn’t seen the videos in questions from the VMA awards tonight, here are links to both.
I can’t embed Beyonce’s but here is a link.
Tonight I was watching the Bears game and went to make a tweet about the game and I occasionally like to scan through the trending topics. Well on Twitter (and on Facebook) there were a lot of posts about Kanye West. So, I followed the link on Twitter to search for the story and it said that Kanye dissed Taylor Swift. I was outraged because, as anyone who knows me knows, I adore Taylor Swift. (Yes I’m a 29 year old man and I’m okay with that.)
So, I read a story about it on Rolling Stone and I couldn’t believe it.
Before I passed judgment, I wanted to see it for myself. So, after several Google and YouTube searches involving people’s personal responses, I finally found the clip, posted below.
So, I watched the clip and it was surreal that anyone, I don’t care how famous you are, would go on stage and do that. It was almost as bad and as when Faith Hill had a tantrum when she lost to Carrie Underwood at the CMAs in 2006.
That maybe wasn’t quite as bad because she was at least off stage, but she had to know the camera was on.
In any event, I am starting to see a disturbing trend of public figures acting out in ways that are clearly inappropriate. Kanye couldn’t have thought that what he did was appropriate. Especially, and maybe this shouldn’t matter, considering that this is a 19 year old girl who has done nothing but be a shining role model in the media. Kanye apparently proceeded to flip the bird to the crowd while Taylor was crying backstage.
Kanye West Crashes VMA Stage During Taylor Swift’s Award Speech – News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News via kwout
This is the same week that Congressmen Joe Wilson of South Carolina decides he should shout, “You Liar”, during the president’s address to Congress. Again, I fail to see how anyone could think that was appropriate, even if the president was lying! And in the same summer that the governor of that same state, Mark Sanford, went off with his Argentinian girlfriend and abandoned the state.
Then we have Chris Brown who decided that he could beat his girlfriend Rihana to within an inch of her life.
What these people all have in common is that the apologized about what they did after the fact and that was supposed to make it all better. And it seems like we in a America are all to willing to forgive. Now, this may seem contradictory on my part because I have posted that I think Michael Vick should be allowed to play football again, but that is different. The biggest difference is that Vick not only apologized, but he also spent 18 months in custody. Additionally, I don’t have to forgive Vick for him to keep playing football, no one does.
Here is a picture of Kanye leaving the show. Look at his right hand, maybe we will see what the really cause of the outburst was:
I would almost guarantee that tomorrow Kanye West will apologize to Taylor Swift. I would encourage her not to accept it. It can not be sincere. How can a person walk all the way on to the stage, take the microphone from someone, make that statement, and then walk away and flip off the crowd and actually be sorry. President Obama accepted Congressman Wilson’s, I know that, but that is the problem. We live in a society now where public people can do or say what they want and then apologize and it’s okay.
I am not saying we should never forgive people and I am not saying that we shouldn’t move on when conflict occurs, but we also need to hold people accountable when they act irresponsibly when they should know better. The governor of a state should be allowed to just disappear for a week and then just be embraced back into the fold by his state or by his wife.
So, I say, do not just forgive Mr. West. I say boycott his music and his antics until he can behave like an adult. I was thinking about Jay Leno’s return to TV tomorrow, but I will not watch if Kanye is still going to perform. I have occasionally thought of listening to his music because my good friend Jenny likes his music, but that will never happen now. This act stupid and apologize culture needs to end!
