In The News: September 30, 2007

Team McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton is on the cusp of history, as he ran away with a first place finish at the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend. With the win and with only 2 Formula One races remaining till season’s end, Hamilton, who came in only 2 points ahead of teammate Fernando Alonso in the driver’s championship race, put himself in position to become the first rookie ever to win the Formula One driver’s championship – pretty impressive indeed. As for the rest of the drivers that matter, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen finished third, moving all the way up the field after finding himself second to last earlier in the race, while Alonso crashed out (perhaps bad karma finally catching?) and didn’t finish the race. With 2 races and 20 maximum points remaining the top 3 drivers are: Lewis Hamilton (107 pts), Fernando Alonso (95 pts) and Kimi Raikkonen (90 pts).

A weekend of upsets shakes up college football

Talk about a looney Saturday in college football! In a day of upsets, the third, fourth, seventh and tenth ranked teams all lost their respective games, while the fifth ranked team lost on Thursday – the first time since 2003 where half of the college football top 10 lost in one crazy weekend. This weekend, No. 5 ranked West Virginia lost to South Florida, No. 3 Oklahoma lost to Colorado, No. 4 Florida lost to Auburn and No. 7 Texas lost to Kansas State. The weekend has thrown the BCS race and the college football rankings for a loop, but this is what makes college football – and football in general – such a great sport. On any given day, the most powerful teams in the land can take a dive against a scrappy challenger who outplays, outhustles, outworks and outsmarts their stronger opponent.

Favre breaks career touchdown record

Brett Favre broke Dan Marino’s career record by throwing his 421st career touchdown in the first quarter of Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings. Good for Favre, but his record might not last very long given what Peyton Manning has done in his first 9 seasons in the league. Not counting the 5 touchdowns he has thrown this year, Manning has 275 touchdowns in those 9 seasons. At his current pace, if he were to play 17 seasons like Favre has, Manning could end up with more than 500 career TDs.

Tiny Appalachian State stuns mighty Michigan

In case you haven’t heard, Appalachian State University pulled off one of the most improbable upsets in the history of NCAA college football by stunningly defeating the Michigan Wolverines 34-32 on Saturday afternoon. The game was as exciting as the score indicates, with Appalachian State blocking a Michigan field goal in the final seconds to preseve the victory.

Appalachian State University was an underdog in every sense of the word when its football team met up with national powerhouse Michigan Wolverines. Tiny Appalachian State with a student population of just over 15,000 is located in nondescript Boone, North Carolina, a town centered almost entirely around the university, while mighty Michigan with 40,000-plus students strong makes its home in equally robust Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The Appalachian State mascot is a happy-go-lucky “mountain folk” named Yosef, while Michigan instills fear in its opponents with its own mascot the mighty Wolverine. The Mountaineers play in the Southern Conference, which is equivalent to the now defunct Division 1AA level, while the Wolverines came into last night’s game ranked number 5 in the entire country. And, to top it all off, Appalachian State is plain weird. The school uses this unsettling, yet oddly hilarious recruitment video, which by the way might explain the low enrollment rate at the public school.

These non-conference games at the start of the college football season are supposed to serve as tune-ups and help pad win totals for the national powerhouses. Unfortunately for Michigan, the Mountaineers decided to ruin the Wolverine’s entire 2007 season in one horrible, horrible September afternoon for the fans of the maize and blue. For the rest of us, it was among one of the most exciting and entertaining college football games in recent memory.

In The News: August 31, 2007

Team USA coasted past what was supposed to be their toughest challenge of the FIBA Americas Tournament. Led by Kobe Bryant’s 27 points, the US squad beat Argentina 91-76. Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix looks at four things we learned about Team USA coming out of last night’s game.

Louisville scored on all but one possession of the game, and Heisman hopeful Brian Brohm threw for 375 yards and four touchdowns, mostly by the start of the third quarter, as the Cardinals beat hopelessly overmatched Murray State 73-10. Despite the lopsided score the game was pretty fun to watch, as college football season kicked off last night. Here is the TV schedule for the remainder of this weekend’s college football games.

Speaking of college football, check out the 2007-2008 Maryland Terrapins football schedule.

The buzz around the Google phone continues to build. Will it live up to the hype? The image below is one of the many representations of what it might look like.

If you want one of the 60GB PlayStation 3s at $499, you better act now. Soon, all you’ll find are the new 80GB models at the usual and outrageous $599 price point.

Apparently, some Chinese Shaolin monks are a little peeved about an Internet rumor that they were once beaten in hand-to-hand combat by Japanese Ninjas. We didn’t know Shaolin monks actually surfed the Internet, what with the whole simplicity and zen of life thing. But if they are, what are they actually searching for? The world may never know. What do you think? Who would win in a fight, Ninja vs. Shaolin monk?