I guess this will be another of those sports type blogs. Mind you, not a fantasy sports blog, those games won't be till manana, but just straight up sports, nothing more. The Penguins continue their .500 ways, losing Wednesday night 3-2 to Montreal and then winning tonight 6-4 against Toronto. 2-2 isn't great, but it isn't terrible either, especially for a relatively young team. It is nice to see the new veterans, Peter Sykora and Darryl Sydor mesh fairly well with the younger players that make up the majority of the Pens roster. I just hope the team continues to get better as the season progresses. While many are marking them as a Stanley Cup contender, I just want to see them do better than last year, when they lost in the first round to Ottawa. Mind you, Ottawa has a good team, they went to the Stanley Cup Finals last year, and started this season with something like 6 straight wins, but if the Penguins could make the playoffs and win a series or two, I would be content. Not that everyone in Pittsburgh would be content mind you, I am just more of a realist in my expectations.
Sadly, the Pitt Panther football team continues to meet those expectations on a weekly basis, losing again this week 48-45 in double OT to Navy. I remember not that long ago that if you had one of the service academies on your schedule (Navy, Army, Air Force) it was pretty much a guaranteed win. Nothing against those schools mind you, they graduate plenty of quality students, many of whom go on to stellar careers in the military, but usually an athlete that is looking to play the game at a professional level after college doesn't go to a military academy, because after graduation there is a military commitment involved as well. Yet the Pitt team has fallen so far that beating one of these schools is now an accomplishment of sorts, and losing to them is not all that surprising. Once again, we can thank the coach Dave Wannstedt (who I still wish to see fired) for having another hand in helping his team lose again. Let's forget that he had his team ill prepared to compete with Navy's rushing attack, giving up over 300 yards rushing through the course of the game, but lets go to overtime shall we. Mind you, Pitt had a decent day running the football as well, putting up over 200 yards on the ground. Still, after 4 quarters the game was tied and Pitt had the ball first, where they scored a touchdown, leaving Navy the ball and knowing they needed to score a touchdown to force a second overtime. The jubilation of a 7 point lead was short lived as Pitt gave up a tying touchdown a mere one play into Navy's overtime possession. Enter the second overtime, and Pitt made what can best be described as a stop of sorts, holding Navy to a field goal on the possession, meaning Pitt could either tie the game with a field goal or win it outright with a touchdown on their possession. Pitt drove all the way to the Navy 2 yard line and had a fourth and goal from the two. The options here are two fold, you can have one play to win the game by going for a touchdown, or you can kick a field goal and play a third OT. Given how successful Pitt had been running the football, calling a running play in this situation isn't out of the question, nor is going for a field goal and a third OT. Dave Wannstedt calls for the quarterback, a true freshman making his first college start, to throw a pass to the second string tight end in the end zone. This is what we call, not playing to ones strengths. The results were predictable, the pass falls incomplete and Pitt loses. When asked after the game about the play call, Wannstedt issued the following explanation, it worked well in practice. Dude, your team just gave up 48 points to Navy, I doubt your defense stopped anything in practice, because they sure as hell didn't stop anyone in the game. The notion that it worked on this bunch of scrubs is hardly reassuring when it comes to implementing it in a real game situation, let alone one with the game on the line.
Okay, that is my sports rant for the evening. Actually, I am killing time until the hockey game comes on yahoo. I have been watching more hockey on the computer than is probably healthy, but it beats what is usually on the TV. I did finish my Neilsen TV diary, I just have to drop it in the mailbox and my limited TV viewing will be added to numbers from all around the country, hoping to change the crapping programming of network TV by showing them that at least I am not watching it. Not one bullshit reality program showed up in my diary, because I would rather put a gun to my head and pull the trigger than watch that tripe.
It looks like yahoo is offering Boston @ San Jose for the hockey offering this evening. I think next week, maybe on Wednesday, they are carrying the Penguins game, which will be kind of neat, but for now I will just have to settle for some left coast hockey.
We here in the Burgh did receive a cool video upgrade recently, compliments of Google. Now when using Google maps, you can do street by street pictures on the web. It is absolutely amazing what technology can do. I can actually see the front of my apartment now on Google maps. Basically, the way it works is you pull up the map of the city in Google maps and a little dude is on the middle of the map. You simply drag him over what street you want to view and a picture pops up, which is an actual picture of the point in which you placed the guy. There is a line that runs down the street, and with the arrow keys, you can progress down the street. At intersections you can turn onto other streets or continue on your current path. At any point you can rotate the camera to take in the entire panorama of the location you are at. It is just mind numbing how cool it looks. I moved the dude over my street and arrowed him to my apartment's address, rotated the camera and tada! there was my front door on my apartment. I was actually hoping that they might have got a picture of me leaving my apartment, but no such luck. it was just my front door.
Well, I better get running, the hockey game is about to start, and I don't want this to turn into a glog, a blog is more than enough for now.
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