Tonight is the BCS National Championship Game between the LSU Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide. It will be the first time under the BCS system that two teams that have faced each other in the regular season have done battle in the national championship game.
Why would the BCS replay a game that we’ve already seen and fell asleep watching? For the money. As the following infographic shows, there’s quite a bit of money to be made from bowl games. Continue reading
I like changing up my desktop wallpaper on a regular basis. My wallpaper at work is even a slideshow so I have a new wallpaper every thirty minutes to change things up ever so slightly. So to help you change things up for your work week, I’ve scoured Flickr for five Christmas-themed wallpapers that are worth adding to your collection for this week. Continue reading
It’s time for the return of the Sunday links after a three-week hiatus. To make up for the absence, here’s Chuck star Yvonne Strahovski. Maybe the show would’ve had better ratings if she did more photoshoots like this before the fifth and final season.
If you’ve ever wondered why it seems as though American political coverage has gone a bit overboard, we finally know who to blame. Political coverage is following the lead of sports coverage. (The Atlantic)
The Black Keys think Nickelback sucks. I knew there was a reason I liked these guys. (Uproxx)
It was AJ Daulerio’s final week at Deadspin last week. That meant that he got a classically Deadspin-esque roast sendoff. And he’s been roasted by the likes of Leitch, Magary, Scott Van Pelt and more. Sadly, no Brett Favre. (Deadspin)
After the jump, the latest on SOPA, a new player in gaming media and a new and better candidate for President. Continue reading
It’s a quiet weekend in Hollywood. The only movies coming out this weekend are either on the small side or just plain awful. The Devil Inside had the biggest Friday box office this weekend but it’s probably not worth watching. The next three weeks make up for that with at least a couple big movies opening each weekend. But the surprisingly good Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol with Paula Patton is still #2 at the box office.
After the jump, another quick look back at 2011, the latest on some upcoming big releases, Barney Stinson actually goes on The Price Is Right and a real-life Ron Burgandy moment. Continue reading
TEXANS (-4) Over Bengals
Since TJ Yates became the quarterback of the Houston Texans their points per game has dropped by 5 points. That doesn’t bode well for the Texans who will face the Bengals 9th ranked defence. The Texans are in the playoffs for the first time ever. Their path to the playoffs has been remarkable to say the least. Not having to compete against Peyton Manning probably helped but the Texans stayed resilient despite significant injuries on both sides of the ball. Houston’s defence is better than Cincinnati’s. They allowed the second fewest yards of any team and the fourth fewest points. Outside of one bad game against the Saints they have played outstanding D. The defence wont lose them this game. The offence also has a lot of special players on it. Arian Foster had an amazing season after being out the beginning of the season and the Texans rush game had the second most yards in the league. The problem the Texans have is at QB. Yates isn’t special and hasn’t been that good. The ball in his hands isn’t good for them and I expect them that they’ll be using Foster quite a bit.
The Bengals are a tough team to figure out. They never had a good win all season. Heck outside of Tennessee they barely had a good win. That being said they played some pretty tight games with some really good teams. They do have talent. Andy Dalton had a stellar rookie year and along with AJ Green should make a nice core for the Bengals for years to come. The Bengals defence is good and they might be able handle Foster. To win this game the Bengals will need Dalton to be playing better than he has recently.
I think that the Texans will be able to overcome TJ Yates and their defence will shut down the Bengals rookie attack giving the Texans their first playoff victory in franchise history. Texans 24 Bengals 17
Lions (+10.5) Over SAINTS
I’m not going to lie I think that the Saints will have no problem winning this game but the Lions offence has the power to keep up with the Saints.
The Saints are coming off an improved season after being eliminated last season by the Seahawks, another team that they were favoured by 10 points to defeat. Their offence was prolific as Brees broke a 30 year old record and Darren Sproles looked to be the best off season pick up. Their defence has played well enough to keep up but they gave up over 4,100 yards passing this season, third worst in the league. Not the best thing when Stafford just put up over 5,000 yards.
The Lions got crushed by the Saints the last time that they played because they played so undisciplined. I think there is a possibility the pressure will get to the Lions and they’ll be even more undisciplined but I think that they will be better and not rack up over 100 yards of penalties this game. The Lions defence was a little over rated coming into this season but they still have play makers on that team.
This could be the best game of the weekend and will probably be the highest scoring game. NBC made a good choice by picking it up over Tebow’s game. Saints 44 Lions 37
Inspired by the Globe and Mail’s caption writing person, we waste our time writing funny picture captions for some of the more interesting photos we come across when blogging. So to make up for missing last week’s edition, here are some of the best pictures from the past two weeks with a funny (-ish) caption. Continue reading
The very public ballot box stuffing campaigns of the past seemed to be missing in this year’s NHL All-Star fan voting. However, very quietly, the fans of the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs stuffed the ballot boxes to get their boys into the game as starters. In fact, of the six starters voted in by fans, four are Sens and one is a Make Believe. Eight of the top-nine vote getter played for one of the two Ontario teams.
It has become painfully obvious that the current system of fan voting is broken. Whether the ballot stuffing campaigns are public or not, NHL fans are clearly not using their power to vote in All-Star starters to vote for the best players in the league but as a means to execute some sort of cruel joke on hockey fans everywhere. It’s time that the current system is scrapped in favour of one that mitigates the risk of blatant fan tampering with the All-Star Game. Continue reading
Depending on where you go to school, university and college students are back to class either this week or next following their winter breaks. Back at UWO, we used to call the first week back “Frost Week.” It was classes during the week and like a return to Frosh Week at night. Of course, any return to the grand days of Frosh Week means that a few drinks will be consumed to help you warm up on those cold winter nights.
That’s where this infographic comes in. It’s the periodic table of cocktails. If you want to know what’s mixed into various cocktails and how strong they are, the table has the answer for you. Continue reading
It’s the last day to vote for the starters for the 2012 NHL All-Star Game. Unfortunately for hockey fans, Toronto and Ottawa fan boys have stuffed the ballot box which will result in hockey’s all-star game becoming a laughing stock. The leading vote getters are Kessel, Alfredsson, Spezza, Phaneuf, Eriksson and Tim Thomas.
Unfortunately for us, Project Mayhem appears not to have taken the ballot box by storm as we had hoped. There’s still time to cast your 30 all-star ballots. To troll Ottawa Senators fans, you should vote for Dany Heatley, Martin Havlat, Marian Hossa, Zdeno Chara, Chris Campoli and Ray Emery.
Normally, we have a policy about not running candid photos on the blog but it’s quite clear that Maria Menounos is posing in this photo so I can post it here.
The NHL’s 2010-11 ticket revenue figures leaked online this week. The rankings are actually sort of surprising but make sense when you think about it. (MC79Hockey)
What happens when a video game hardware company outsources customer relations to a PR company that should know what it’s doing? A complete customer service and PR disaster. (Penny Arcade)
Keeping with video games, they may be moving to a purely digital format sometime in the future but they’re on discs for now. So just how are they made? (1up)
After the jump, the NHL’s New Year’s party, some video game stories and F. U. Knighted Airlines. Continue reading
The Lowdown 