Dear John Madden

Long snapper Ethan Albright wrote a letter to John Madden complaining about his status as the lowest ranked player in the game (thanks Ells and Rahil). It's genius ... and crass ... and genius. A snippet:

You make it sound like I wake up in the morning, helplessly shit and piss myself, then lose three of my teeth before I discover that I am trying to eat a rock for breakfast.

Long snappers are funny. Mike "the Superstar" Morris has made a career on sports talk radio here in the Midwest on KFAN repeating the line "I'll pop your head like a pimple" over and over until they gave him his own morning show. I wish it were that easy.

Ultimate related, RSD is now just a bunch of people antagonizing two guys. Maybe it's been that way all along.

In other news, I'm getting an arm phone, except mine is going to display as a hologram. Of a wolf. That's right. I'm getting a talking wolf hologram arm phone.

Think of it man. It's fucking brilliant.

Hopkins Fundraiser

First, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that a news story with a wicked title like "Scientists collect mysterious creatures in Antarctic waters including giant sea spiders" had damn well better include pictures. Because it didn't, it lost all credibility with me.

In other news, Hopkins Ultimate is having a fundraiser on Monday, February 25, 2008 at the St. Louis Park Chili's from 4:00-10:00 p.m.

5245 Wayzata Blvd
St Louis Park, MN 55416

After your meal, you'll need to drop your receipt in a box to be counted toward the fundraising effort. Please talk to you server about it. Your support is appreciated!

Where's the best ultimate?

Thanks to google trends, you can kind of get an idea of where ultimate is the most popular:



That's a list of the popularity of the search term "ultimate frisbee" by city. The only surprise on the list for me is Philly. I'd expect Pittsburgh to be above them -- especially given the success of their high school and college teams.

Ottawa might surprise a few folks, but they have the largest rec league in the world. The league even owns their own fields. It surprises me that they don't have better club teams coming out of there every year, but I think that's changing (GOAT has some Ottawa players, and just this past weekend, their college women's team won Trouble in Vegas).

Then you've got the Pacific Northwest dominating the 2, 3, 4 spots.

I'm a little surprised Minneapolis hasn't got that 5th spot. With Minnesota's college team always in the mix, Carleton a powerhouse, the high school league in the state is one of the best, and a greatly organized group of rec leagues, I'd expect Denver and Toronto to take a back seat.

Given leagues, club teams, college teams, etc, excluding internet related data, here are my top 10 ultimate cities:

1. Seattle
2. Ottawa
3. Minneapolis
4. Portland
5. Vancouver
6. Boston
7. Denver
8. Atlanta
9. Madison
10. Pittsburgh

Hawaii Chair Follow Up

I can hardly wait for mine to arrive.

Your secret Facebook friend

I love Facebook. I send Facebook status updates, pictures, and videos via my mobile phone. I enter hilariously unique little stories about how we hooked up in 1993 in the friend details section. I have a horrible record at poke wars, Scrabulous, and Roshambull. I'm even writing a Facebook application that's going to help every ultimate player. And I now get more happy birthday wishes than ever before.

But one thing I'll never do is accept a Facebook friend request from the CIA.

Turns out I wasn't given the option.

Really, I swear to god about this, I'm NOT a conspiracy guy. I think the UFO people are whackjobs. I'd punch a guy too if I walked on the moon and he called me a fraud. And these 9/11 loose change chowderheads have, in addition to their change, lost their marbles.

That said, in the list of names on the Board of Trustees at In-Q-Tel, you'll find Howard Cox's name. What's In-Q-Tel? An investment firm launched by the CIA in 1999 whose goal it is to fulfill the technical needs of the "Intelligence Community."

And what about Howard Cox? He's an Advisory Partner for Greylock, a company that invested $25 million into Facebook at a very critical time for them.

Chills.

Anybody want to go UFO hunting?

Guide to the Super Bowl

The author of this blog has learned that the Super Bowl took place last Sunday. I've been watching a lot of highlights from the show and can't find Brett Favre anywhere. I'll keep looking and report back, but I'm really starting to think that the Packers didn't make it in.


From other internet reports, here's what else evidently happened:

1. The NFL had to show Peyton Manning in his suite a lot to make up for him not being in every single commercial.
   
   
2. In an effort to appeal to a younger audience, the halftime show stayed away from such aged rockers as Mick Jagger (Super Bowl XL act) and went with Tom "young enough to be Jagger's girlfriend's father" Petty.
   
   
3. The shirt below is impossible to order right now. Apparently fans of the game really love the number 17. Google sheds no light on the reason.
   
   
   
   
4. The upset victory proved to Mike Huckabee that this presidential race isn't over until it's over!
   

   "Everybody thought [The Patriots] were on the way to a perfect season. The Giants had a different idea about it. "

   It's a very legitimate comparison in every way but one: Dude doesn't have the guy who made the greatest Super Bowl catch of all time on his campaign trail, David Tyree:
   
   
   

Meet Randy Newsom

Speaking of putting a contract out on yourself, meet Randy Newsom. He's an MLB prospect with an IPO.

He's selling 4% of all of his future major league earnings for $50k. If you're really really poor and don't have $50k lying around, you can dig $20 out from under your couch cushions to buy a single share.

You can read more about the story to find out this isn't all that uncommon outside of sports. And really, it's not that far off from gambling on the future success of professional athletes' success.

And before you all jump at the chance to invest, I recommend you do a little research. Here's a video to get you started!



It does have me thinking, with business savvy like this, what's he doing trying to be a baseball player for a living?

It's also got me thinking, what in ultimate is worth investing in?

Current buy, sell, hold list in ultimate:

• Buy:
  
• CUT
• matchdiesel.blogspot.com
• cultimate
• Flaming Moe
• Mac Taylor
• Five Ultimate


• Sell:
• The Ultimate Revolution
• Whitewater
• Score Reporter
• NUMP
• Stanford
• Kenny Dobyns


• Hold:
  
• Ultiverse
• Patagonia
• Wisconsin
• UltiVillage
• Michael Arenson