f2f2s |

Gouda, you might want to look away

Tech Wins 45-42

Roddy Goes Off

JD did also (Hope you know who he is now Knowshon)

Defense didn’t play great, but they came up big when it mattered

We will boy.  Preseason #1 to a 9-3 team who has exactly 0 wins over teams that ended the season ranked in the top 25.  Well done, disappointment city.

Over 400 yards on the ground including a touchdown run on the first play coming out of half.  Two long TD runs keyed by UGA linebackers trying to knock over a runner instead of wrapping up.  An amazing 3rd quarter that never happens under Chan Gailey.

Wow.  Just wow.

Thank God that Pete convinced me to go up to Athens to watch the game.  I got to hang out with Ben’s dad (awesome) and Gouda’s dad (super awesome) and met a bunch of new Tech fans while hanging out at Allgood’s in downtown.  I even managed to make some UGA friends by buying a few people a drink after the game went final, I was maybe a little … outspoken when GT started coming back and ended up putting it on the Bulldogs.

I’ve waited 7 years for this, I came back to school hoping that I could finally enjoy a victory as a student and it happened.  I don’t even care about the 7 straight losses, those were BP, Before Paul.  Right now, the record’s 1-0 and we finally have a coach who’s got that swagger

link 1

If this was his initiation to the Georgia rivalry, Johnson would take it. While Richt was lamenting Tech’s offense is “going to be tough for anyone that plays them,” Johnson was asked of his first experience in the state series.

“I imagine it’ll be fun next year,” the Tech coach said. “It was fun today.”

link 2

Johnson passed on breaking off a piece of hedge for himself. Instead, he showed the sort of swagger that will clearly add some spark to what had been a one-sided series.

“I figured I’d be back,” he said. “Act like you think you’re going to win.”

That’s what I like to hear baby!

Enjoy your hedges boys.

Pictures from Macon.com and AJC

How did this happen?  I had no idea this cd was coming and just figured Love Lockdown was a single to keep him occupied like all his badass Child Rebel Soldier stuff with Pharrell and Lupe.  Thanks to roommate Pete for noticing this at Best Buy today and picking it up.

Anyway, the point is this cd is super awesome, but completely unlike anything else he’s put out.  It’s a lot of the T-Painish lyrical effects and the simple beats of Love Lockdown.  I’m super digging it though.

Hopefully Kanye doesn’t pull his usual “I’m too cool for everybody else” crap and lets people remix this.  The empty beats are begging for people to fill them in, speed them up, and just make it even better.

2 is the new 7 in Atlanta

I’m officially sick now.  Thank you long sleeve t-shirt for a 35º night game.  Oh well, it was worth it.

Anyway, here’s a week’s worth of links:

<3′s All Around for Ashley Judd (Deadspin)
I love Ashley Judd.  She’s a huge UK fan, super cool, and looks really good in just a hockey jersey.  Now if only she could make the Wildcats stop losing players every year that would be awesome.

Infinity Bookcase (Gizmodo)
Really cool, but waaaaay to big to actually use.

Joe Namath was pretty AWESOME (With Leather)
Best find so far out of the newly googlized collection of pictures from Life Magazine.

Shooting Skeet with Soccer Balls (The Offside Rules)
Steven Gerrard is much better at soccer than you will ever be at any sport.  Admit it, enjoy it, and move along.

G-Speak aka that computer from Minority Report (Gizmodo)
Whoa.  This thing lets you interact with a computer just by wearing special gloves and waving your hands around.  You need to check out the video and let your mind start wandering

In case you weren’t aware, there’s been some pirating going on lately.

And now things are about to get real.  There obviously aren’t enough ninjas hanging around to give these pirates a real fight, so we’re apparently moving on to Islamic militants.

Abdelghafar Musa, a fighter with al-Shabab who claims to speak on behalf of all Islamic fighters in the Horn of Africa nation, said ships belonging to Muslim countries should not be seized.

“We are really sorry to hear that the Saudi ship has been held in Somalia. We will fight them [the pirates],” Musa told AP Television News.

So yeah, this is about to get interesting.

Of course, there is more than one way to pirate, like stealing software!  Imagine you were working on a project that would allow you to steal iPhone applications without paying for them.  Now imagine that someone got ahold of your program before it was completely ready and started giving it away.  Obviously this wouldn’t be a problem, right?

SaladFork, the author of Crackulous, called the leak “absolutely disgusting, and downright insulting.”

Oh irony of ironies.

That, my friends, is US National player, star MLS forward, and all around badass Kenny Cooper.  People have been begging the US coach to get him into some games and Bob Bradley finally said yes.  Kenny showed up and did work, scoring off a beautiful pass from Jozy Altidore in the 54th minute to start a 2-0 victory for the US over Guatemala.  Freddy Adu added the 2nd in the 69th minute off a free kick from about 22 yards out.

Starting lineup was:

——–Cooper———Jozy———
–Sasha—-Clark—-Mastroeni—-Adu–
Bornstein-Goodson-Parkhurst-Thorrington
——————-Guzan———————-

For those who don’t follow MLS, Thorrington is midfielder for Chicago who has played forward. Starting him at right back made for a very attack oriented game like when Bob moved DeMarcus Beasley to left back against Cuba.  Also, putting the left footed Adu on the right side let him bring the ball across the field a couple of times and get some big rips on goal.

All around, it was a very young lineup and I think that a lot of the players made strong cases that they should see more time in the future.

There’s still no question about defensive mids though. You have two young starters in the Mexican League (Jose Torres) and Bundesliga (Michael Bradley) who are going to start for the US in the Hex. Pablo Mastroeni will get lots of play too after he serves his suspension for picking up a 2nd yellow card as he’s a very calming influence back there.

I like Rico Clark, god love him he grew up playing for the club in my hometown, but he gets flustered easily and can really fall apart. Hopefully he’ll get more time in friendlies and maybe the easier home matches (T&T, El Salvador) but I’m not ready to see him up against Mexico.

Freddy’s coming along nicely, but it’s hard not to get excited about how good that team out there would’ve looked with Landon playing in his place. Also, none of those 4 backs out there were quite international quality yet. Parkhurst is close, but he’s got some very good center backs in front of him. Bornstein got down the field great, but also got absolutely roasted a few times.

If we played Mexico tomorrow with everyone available, my lineup would be:

——Jozy—-Kenny—–
-Sasha–Landon———
—-Bradley–Mastroeni—
-Pearce-Boca-Gooch-Dolo-
——–Howard———

Yeah, I know the unbalanced lineup isn’t popular, but it lets Kenny float back and forth to receive the ball, and also gives Landon the ability to float out wide. When we played with Beasley at the back we did something like this where the left side was empty for him to come down and it was fairly similar the other night with Thorrington at right back.

Added bonus, if Marvell Wynne develops a cross he would be a deadly right back option in this formation.

Oh yeah, and GT thumped ThugU 41-23 last night.  I went and got a sweet white t-shirt and will give my thoughts on it all later.

Fred Drains

And that he does, as good ole Fred is shooting at a 62% clip from 2 and 37% from 3 for Swedish League team Norrköping Dolphins.

Somehow, at least according to his team bio page, Fred is Sverige or Swedish.  I’m not buying it.

If you were wondering how I stumbled upon this guy, Elsberry and I were discussing where previous Georgia Tech basketball players were currently (Ish is in Saudi Arabia, Luuuuuuke’s in Australia, Travis Best rocking out in Italy, etc) and I wondered allowed what happened to early exit Jim Nystrom who left after his sophmore year to support his family.  I couldn’t find where he is, but I know he’s played for the Swedish National team as recently as September of this year, so he’s alive.

Outliers came out today and I’m a big Malcolm Gladwell fan so I picked it up.  I also finished reading it today, so it won’t even make an appearance on the sidebar to the right.  Oh well.

If you liked Blink and/or The Tipping Point go ahead and pick this one up.

The main focus is to try and answer the question of why some people are so much better than others at what they do.  The answer is, rather unsurprisingly, that it requires a lot of hard work and a lot of luck.  So, yeah, it’s probably nothing you haven’t heard before but some of the examples in it and the stories he talks about are the real treat.  Also, and this may be new to some of you, he does a really good job covering the 10,000 hour idea as it relates to violinists and others that I may or may not have linked to before.

You can read a long piece from the second chapter right here.

I think that while some of the luck that he talks about is just that, dumb luck, some of it is luck you make too.  Yeah, Bill Gates found free programming time at the University of Washington when he was still in high school and could walk there, but he went around looking for that opportunity.  Talking to whoever he could to try and get it.  Any kid in his neighborhood could’ve had it first but Bill wanted it more and that’s a big part of what got him to where he is.

So yeah, I read a 300 page book in one sitting (about 5 hours, not a hard read) and then went out and put up my 4th straight clean sheet in the grad soccer league.  Only grad league goalie with no goals allowed, right here folks.

Yup, there’s a little extra this week because this week saw the first of what will apparently be a weekly YouTube address from Barack Obama to the nation.  Pretty awesome if you ask me.

Why Zombies Shouldn’t Run – Big Contrarian
Short excerpt from Shaun of the Dead co-writer Simon Pegg on why zombies shouldn’t run.  It’s awesome.

Top 20 iPhone Apps – Gizmodo
I don’t have an iPhone yet, but when I finally find those $200 these will be some of the first applications I get from the App Store.

A Few Requests for President-elect Obama – Brad Feld
3 things that Obama should do and why.  1) Appoint some Republicans to high level positions.  2) Veto the first pork-laden bill.  3) Continue being confident, but not certain.