V8

So these new V8 V-Fusion commercials are really starting to get to me. I'm not saying they're starting to get to me in a bad way, but they're really starting to make me think. You know the ones I'm talking about? The commercials where someone gets some junk/fast food or they don't eat any vegetables they get hit on the head and the voiceover says, "Coulda had a V8." I know that I don't eat nearly the amount of veggies that I should. I don't like a lot of vegetables. However, lately I've tried to resolve to eat healthier. I know that must of the stuff I put in my body is not good for me. I'm not at the point of cutting out fast food completely, but I definitely need to cut back. So I'm thinking that maybe I'll try these V8 drinks. I think I could give V8 Splash or V-Fusion a shot, but not the original V8. I don't see myself coming to grips with drinking liquid vegetables. I've actually tasted V8 Splash before, and it tasted like regular fruit juice. Hopefully it's something I can do for the long haul.

YouTube Pick #15

Before we get to the end of the tournament and a new team is crowned National Champion, I want to take a look back at Florida's glory. Here's One Shining Moment from last year's championship. In most instances One Shining Moment would just be a cheesy song and montage, but in college basketball it's the icing on the cake of the NCAA tournament. It's what everyone looks forward to after the trophy has been presented. The winning team and fans wait in the arena to watch it on the big screen. One Shining Moment is as much a part of the tournament as hoisting the trophy, confetti falling, and cutting down nets. College basketball players will say that as kids many of them dreamed of seeing themselves in One Shining Moment. This song is the culmination of the nearly month-long tournament, kind of like what the Closing Ceremonies are to the Olympics. I had One Shining Moment stuck in my head for about two solid weeks last year. Watching it now gives me chills. Expect more Florida videos in the near future.

Hova

The Jay-Z concert is going on right now at the American Airlines Arena, and I'm not there. Booooooooooooo. One day I'll see him in concert...one day...

Round 1

So the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament ended yesterday, and the day was FULL of surprises. The biggest surprise of the day came with San Diego beating UConn. How in the world does San Diego knock UConn out of the tournament in the first round? UConn: the perennial power, one of the bastions of college basketball, with the hall of fame head coach. I still can't believe it. Aside for messing up my brackets a little bit it's personal since both of my parents went to UConn. UConn was my first favorite college team, and there's always a place in my heart for them. Since Miami used to be in the Big East my dad would always take me to the game when UConn came to town and they always beat up on the Hurricanes. In over twenty years of coaching at UConn Jim Calhoun has never been knocked out in the first round. It's really hard to believe. As stunning as that was it wasn't nearly all that happened yesterday.

Siena, who hadn't been to the tournament in over a decade upset Vanderbilt, and Villanova beat Clemson. Clemson! I thought for sure Clemson would make it to the Elite Eight. I had Clemson going farther in the tournament than UConn. Normally, Villanova beating another team wouldn't be considered an upset, but they haven't been as good as in past seasons and Clemson has been great.

The best, most exciting finish of the day came at the end of the game between Drake and Western Kentucky. Please watch the video below and see for yourself.

Tourney Day 1

So today was the first day of the Big Dance. It's always exciting to know that there are going to be a bajillion games going on at once and you can pretty much get a taste of all of them. Since CBS carries every single game they can never show full games in the first round. They have to jump around from game to game so everyone can see everything. But that's part of the fun...unless they cut away from your school's game. That's something Gator fans, unfortunately, don't have to worry about this year. I was reminiscing this afternoon about my March Madness memories at UF. I remember freshman year keeping track of the opening round game on the computer while pretending to pay attention in class. Or sophomore year going to the Orange and Brew in between classes to watch our games. The best memories, of course, are from junior and senior year when we made our way to back-t0-back championships. I miss watching games in Gator's Dockside. I've yet to find a sports bar of that caliber at home, but I won't give up.

Anyhoo, as you may already know I was very concerned about my brackets this year because I haven't really been keeping up with college basketball. But! My brackets were nearly perfect today! I only missed one game, but I still can't get over it. It was the game between USC and Kansas State. When I was filling out my brackets and came to this game I initially thought to pick Kansas State because of how good Michael Beasley is. But then I kept second guessing myself and thought that a single player couldn't win a game in the NCAA Tournament. But Beasley, along with the help of Bill Walker pulled it out. I'm so mad at myself. I'll get over it.

Tomorrow is another day filled with more basketball. North Carolina plays for the first time tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to seeing Tyler Hansbrough. Let the Madness begin!

Marquette

I never realized this before, but I like Marquette's uniforms. They have new unis this year after their sponsorship switched from Nike to Converse. This comes as a result of Dwyane Wade's line with Converse. Dwyane Wade went to Marquette and the team is now outfitted with his shoes.

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Danity Kane's new album, Welcome to the Dollhouse, came out yesterday. I actually really want to get it. Unfortunately, I'm kinda broke at the moment, so that's not possible right now. I never really expected much out of the group. I've enjoyed watching them on Making the Band from the beginning, but that certainly does not necessarily translate into good music. However, they really surprised me with their first album. I like it a lot and still listen to it today. That's much more than I can say for a lot of the cd's I have. Anyway, this season of Making the Band 4 has been fantastic. I didn't realize that the new album was coming out so soon. From what I've seen on the show I really like the new songs. Here's their first single, which is called Damaged. I'm sure it's something a lot of people can relate to.

The Life Aquatic

This morning I watched The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. The cast was loaded: Bill Murray, Anjelica Houston, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Willem Defoe, Owen Wilson. Despite the all-star roster I didn't know how I felt about the movie until the end. There were points when I chuckled and points when I thought, "Ok, where is this going?" I really liked the way the movie was produced visually. It looks colorful and whimsical. As for the movie itself, I thought it was just alright. It strikes me as one of those off-beat movies kind of like I Heart Huckabees, but not as far out there as Huckabees. I did not understand that movie. Anyway, I guess The Life Aquatic was pretty good. I'd give it a thumb three-quarters of the way up.

Bracketology

I'm sitting here struuuuugling trying to fill out my brackets for the tournament this year. Since being out of school, which has only been since December, I haven't watched nearly enough college basketball to know who I think is going to be successful. I think I'm picking North Carolina to win the Championship, but that's the only thing I feel even remotely confident about. I also know that I'm taking Clemson pretty far into the tournament because I saw them in person when they played at UNC and they had them against the ropes for almost the whole game. I don't really know how good most of the other teams are aside from looking at their records. I only have a passing knowledge this year as opposed to previous years when I've watched more games and had a better idea of what a team looked like. It's always hard to choose, but this year for me is even tougher. Right now I'm hung up on a matchup I have between Clemson and Georgetown. I don't know what to do!

Click here to fill out brackets of your own.

YouTube Pick #14

I love Nike commercials. There's always something about them that makes them bigger than just being about athletic apparel. Their ad agency, Wieden+Kennedy, always does an incredible job. Here's the latest Nike commercial for the Jordan brand.

The Big Dance

Yesterday the brackets were released for the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, and for the first time in a long time the Gators were left out. Florida is not alone in having to sit it out this year. The Gators' opponent in last year's National Championship game, Ohio State, will also be missing the tournament. This was to be expected after the team's performance, but it still sucks. No one expected the team to do much after about half of last year's squad went to the NBA. Early in the season the Gators did a lot better than most people expected and the thought of a tournament bid started floating around. But as the season wore on the fact that the team was extremely young and inexperienced started to show. They started performing the way everyone thought they would from the beginning.

Toward the end of the season many of the analysts designated us as a bubble team and thought we had a shot at going to the Big Dance if we could close out the season on a high note and make a good showing in the SEC Tournament. Well, we lost the last three games of the season and were knocked out of the SEC Tournament in the first round. That tournament game against Alabama was painful to watch. Some of the commentators surmised that maybe the pressure of the Gators' success of the past was wearing on the team this year. We had previously won the last 3 SEC Tournament Championships in a row and have been the defending National Champions for the past 2 years. Most of the kids on the team now are freshmen and weren't around for any of that. So now the team will play in the NIT, which is the tournament for those who didn't make it to the biggie. The Gators' first NIT game will be against San Diego State on Wednesday, March, 19 at 9:00 p.m. in the O'Dome. The game will be shown on ESPN2.

It's a tough pill to swallow to know that Florida's reign as the undisputed king of the college sports world is coming to a close, but it was fantastic while it lasted. In the last two years the University of Florida's Men's Basketball and Football teams did something that has never been done in history and plausibly will not be repeated for a long time to come. I have thoroughly enjoyed it while it lasted and will carry the pride with me forever.

YouTube Pick #13

I really love this commercial. I wish everyone had this kind of resolve.

Seafood? What seafood?

So today was the Marathon Seafood Festival in the Florida Keys. I first saw an ad for the festival in the Weekend section of the Miami Herald about two weeks ago and knew instantly that I had to go. I LOVE seafood. I'm not too much of a fish person, but I like other fruits de mer. So I showed my mom the ad and asked her if she wanted to go, to which she said yes. I've been looking forward to this thing -- and I mean really, really looking forward to it -- for two weeks. As each day got closer I got even more excited.

So today was the magical day. My mom and I set out at about 9 a.m. to make the two hour drive to Marathon. The drive on US 1 in the Keys is just gorgeous, so I didn't really mind it most of the way. Once we got to Marathon, which is in the middle Keys, we started seeing signs for the festival and I couldn't wait to get to all the seafood that was awaiting us. I was looking forward to stuffing myself with shrimp, scallops, crab, etc. We eventually found a place to park down the street and followed the crowd in through the festival gates. Once inside I saw all these booths and just wanted to run around and see what there was. So my mom decided to look at the map in the program to determine the best place to start in grabbin up food. That's when we realized...the food section in this seafood festival was very small. On the map the section of people selling products was about three or four times as big.

We went over to the food section and found a very paltry selection. Eight booths of food. EIGHT BOOTHS! One booth had hotdogs/hamburgers and one had desserts, leaving six booths of seafood. Six booths of seafood at a "seafood festival"??? Are you kidding me?!?! So what did I get to eat at this seafood festival I've been extremely excited about for the past two weeks? Shrimp cocktail and conch fritters. They couldn't even have hot, seasoned shrimp. The shrimp tasted so plain. I don't even really like shrimp cocktail in the first place. The conch fritters were like 95% batter and 5% conch. I couldn't believe these people have the nerve to call this a seafood festival and have the nerve to be doing this for 32 years. But you know what? I wasn't even mad. I was disappointed, but I had a good time on the drive down and enjoyed hanging out with my mom. So the trip wasn't a total loss, but now I'm desperate to find a real seafood festival with food as far as the eye can see.

YouTube Pick #12

I am severely disturbed by what I have just witnessed.

Gator Football

So I was looking at the Gator Football schedule for this coming season and the fact that I won't be there in Gainesville to go to the games really hit me. I started getting sad thinking about how much I'll miss being in The Swamp. The home games this season include UM, LSU, and South Carolina. I'm hoping to find a way to make it to some games. Knoxville is about 4 hours away from Charlotte, so I think I could possibly go to the Tennessee game. My last trip to Neyland was fantastic, so I definitely want to make sure I can go again. There's a 2 day break after the weekend we play LSU, so maybe I could go to that game as well. I also think I could possibly make the 6 hour drive to Jacksonville for the Georgia game. I'm pretty sure I know some other people in North Carolina who'll be trying to go to the Cocktail Party as well. We'll see what happens.

YouTube Pick #11

With the Gators starting play in the SEC Basketball Tournament tonight (7:30pm, FSN Florida) I thought it would be a perfect time to take a look back on Joakim Noah's "dance" after winning the SEC Championship for a third year in a row last year. Gosh, I miss that team.

Wax Spa

If you're in South Florida and have any waxing needs whatsoever I highly recommend Wax Spa in North Miami Beach. This place is fantastic! If you go ask for Ina. She's great. A lot of the reviewers say they had a completely painless experience, which I cannot attest to. But of the places I've been and people I've seen Ina is the best. I got my eyebrows done today and I love them. There has only ever been one other time when I've been really happy with how my eyebrows came out after getting them done, but happy days are here again. When you call you'll make an appointment with Boris, who's also very nice. He'll call you the afternoon/evening before your appointment to remind you about it. Check it out!

Rhapsody in Blue

I don't know if you know this, but Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin is my absolute favorite song of all time. Many people will recognize this song from the old United Airlines commercials. When I was in Cleveland last week walking through Tower City Center I heard the song coming from somewhere and I stopped dead in my tracks to listen to the rest of it. Whenever I listen to Rhapsody in Blue I'm reminded of why I love it so much. The song is so rich and full. It really feels like the music is telling a story with ups, downs, and plot twists. It really shows George Gershwin's brilliance. If you're not necessarily familiar with the name, you've probably heard some of his songs, which have become American standards. Some of his songs include I Got Rhythm, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, and Someone to Watch Over Me. Anyway, back to Rhapsody in Blue. My favorite rendition is the one by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andre Previn. No other performance I've heard brings the song to life as much as this. Please do me and yourself a favor and take a listen. Enjoy! :)

p.s. The song is about 15 minutes long, so you might want to settle in for a long winter's nap or have it on in the background while you do other stuff.

Colts Internship

So today I got an email from the Community Relations Coordinator at the Indianapolis Colts. She said they "recently received" my resume and cover letter stating an interest in and internship with them. She said they were impressed with my qualifications and wanted to extend an interview to me. Exciting, right? How great would it be to work around Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy? Except that the internship is for the fall and I'll be in school. Oh well. I am, however, amused that they said they just recently received my resume and cover letter. I sent them last May! And I do recall getting a rejection letter from them. Although I think that was a different department. My how the tables turn.

NASCAR

So, lately I've been gaining more and more of an interest in NASCAR. In the past I've had absolutely no interest in "The Big Left Turn", but in the past couple of years I've been able to stand watching bits and pieces. I'm trying to gain more of an interest, especially since I'll be moving to Charlotte, which is pretty much the NASCAR capital. Most racing teams are based in and around Charlotte and the new NASCAR museum is going to be opening in Uptown Charlotte. There are also a couple of people involved in NASCAR on UNC Charlotte's Sports Advisory Board.

Anyhoo, Emily once told me that in order to really get into NASCAR you have to pick a driver to follow. So I've set out on a journey to find a driver to call my own. But where should I start. There are so many drivers to choose from. I thought about going through all of the drivers' bios to see who I liked the most, but I think that's more than I really want to do. So, I started going through them based on name recognition.

I started with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. I like him and in the past he's the one I think I would choose to follow the most. But he no longer drives the Number 8 Bud car. I don't like the way his new car looks. I know that may seem like a girly reason not to pick him, but whatever.

For some reason there's something about Tony Stewart I like. I don't know what it is, especially since it seems like he has kind of a prickly personality. In post-race interviews he's often heard talking smack about this or that. Like his post race interview in Atlanta yesterday. He was talking about how the Goodyear tires all the drivers used were the worst tires ever created. Dale Jr also had the same sentiments in his interview, but his words weren't as vile as Tony Stewart's. I was talking to Dan about this and he said I might like Tony Stewart because he cuts the crap and isn't afraid to tell it like it is. I think that might be exactly it! As of right now I have no other reason to pick Tony Stewart other than a gut feeling, and you should go with your gut, right?

I decided to try to pick a driver that I know more about. So I went through the list of drivers to see who I'd learn more about. While I was doing that I realized that a lot of these drivers are older. If I were to pick someone like Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte, or Kyle Petty I run the risk of having them retire soon, then I'm back to having to pick a new driver all over again. So then I started looking through the young drivers. This way I can have a driver for years and years. My first thought was to go to Kasey Kahne; he's Emily's driver. But all the girls like Kasey Kahne; he's NASCAR's "dreamy driver". I kinda don't want to get lumped into that, so I decided to try something else.

I came across Kyle Busch. He's a young driver and I already recognized his name, so I decided to do a little research. Turns out I'm actually older than Kyle Busch by about 5 months. So I know that he's my age and will be around for a long time. Definitely a positive. Then I realized that he's the one who drives the M&M's car that I like. Another plus. I'd seen this car in the past, but I never knew who drove it. He alternates between that and a Snickers car, but I like the M&M's. The only risk with this is that he gets a new sponsor and a new car. For example, he used to drive a Tony the Tiger car. Let's hope he sticks with this sponsor for a while. On his website he has pictures of his two little dogs. How cute is that? So I'm starting to like him more and more.

I think I've narrowed it down to Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch. I kinda wondered aloud about whether or not you could have two drivers. Dan says you should really have one, but two from the same team should be okay. Cha ching! Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch are both part of Joe Gibbs Racing. So I think I can live with this for now, and maybe in the near future I can pick just one driver.

YouTube Pick #10

LOVE THIS SONG! Another hit produced by Cool & Dre.

Kanyeeeee

So yesterday Kamilah and I tried to buy tickets to the Kanye West Glow in the Dark tour. We tried to get the tickets as soon as they went on sale. We were massively unsuccessful. Because of all the presales by the time we got on the Ticketmaster site the best seats we could find were on the other side of the arena from the stage and it would've cost us about $95. I think that's a lot to pay for seats that aren't even that good. Factor into that the fact that I pretty much have no money right now, and I just don't think it would've worked out. The other tickets were still expensive, but they were at the very top of the arena.

I made myself okay with the fact that I wouldn't be able to go to the concert. I told myself that I'd be alright since I've already seen Kanye in concert 3 times. The first time was the summer after freshman year when he came as part of 103.5 The Beat's Beatdown concert. Elizabeth, Yves, and I paid about $50 and we were pretty close to the stage. The second time was when he came to UF in October 2005. The seats were pretty high, but we only paid $36. The third and last time I saw him was in France in 2006. This was pretty incredible...

Lauren and I bought tickets to see him at the Nice Jazz Festival. We had flown back from Paris to Nice the day of the concert and navigated our way from the airport to the concert grounds. There were about two or three stages at the festival, so we found the one where Kanye was going to be. When we got the the festival Joe Jackson was performing on the stage where Kanye was going to be. Neither Lauren nor I had ever heard of Joe Jackson. I mean, the only Joe Jackson I ever knew about was Michael's dad. Anyhoo, most of the people watching him were in their late 30s and up, so I figured that when he was done most of them would leave. Luckily, I was right. As soon as the Joe Jackon fans started leaving Lauren and I started pushing our way toward the front. We were right up against the fence that separated us from the stage. I was insanely excited. When Kanye finally came out I almost couldn't contain myself. There were certain points where I was singing along with him and he was looking right at me; I just about died. The picture below shows how close I was.

Part of the way through the show Kanye announced that this was the last show on the European tour, so he would just do a bunch of songs and he wanted to take requests. Everyone started yelling "Gold Digger", "Jesus Walks", "Touch the Sky", etc. While the rest of the crowd was yelling the names of those songs I yelled "Celebration!" Kanye said, "Okay," and actually performed it! I couldn't believe he really heard me. After he was done with that he asked for another request and the crowd started yelling the names of the same songs again. I decided to yell, "We Major!" Kanye said, "Yeah, we can do that one," and he did it! Excited can't even describe how I was feeling. Thinking back on the great experience that this was made me think that I should be okay with not going to this concert. But then I started thinking of what a great performer he is and started getting disappointed again. We'll see what happens.

YouTube Pick #9

I seriously laugh every single time I watch this video. I can't get enough.

Killer T

So I'm watching the UNC-Duke game and it looks like UNC is about to win. I was rooting for them because I went to one of their games last month and because they have Tyler Hansbrough. UNC fans call him Psycho T, but I like to call him Killer T. He has been selected as the player of the year by many different organizations. I love all of his facial expressions. He plays so hard all of the time and it shows on his face. Even when he's looking normal he's always looking slightly crazy, like he's about to explode into some kind of emotion. It's fantastic. Take a look.

ROCK THE VOTE!

Today I volunteered at a Rock the Vote registration drive at the Bloomingdale's in Aventura Mall. I was really excited about this because getting people to vote is one of the things I feel really, really, really strongly about. I have my own political views, but I think everyone who is eligible should vote. I'd rather someone vote for an opposing candidate than not vote at all.

Anyhoo, I was there for about 4 hours. Unfortunately, my partner and I did not get very many people registered. There were four people doing the registration and we were split up into two different sections of the store. My table was downstairs near men's denim by the back corner of the store. It was a very low traffic area and because of Bloomingdale's rules we were not allowed to have any kind of signs telling people what we were there for. We also weren't allowed to solicit people, so we could only ask people to register if they walked past the table. This was very, very frustrating. The table upstairs got lots of people to vote because they were near the front of the store right in the middle of the walkway, whereas we were off to the side. I'm really glad that they were able to get a lot of people registered.

Even when we were able to talk to people it was still a challenge getting people registered. A lot of people just said no and kept walking before they realized what we were even asking them about. This is where a sign would have come in very handy. A lot of people were not U.S. citizens. One guy gave me this whole speech about why he doesn't vote and why he doesn't like politicians. Another guy said he didn't want to register because he didn't want to get picked for jury duty. I informed him that jury selection is done through driver's licenses and not voter registration. I think this is really what started changing his mind. He then said he didn't want "The Man" keeping track of him. I told him that as long as he has a license, social security number, and has taxes taken out of his paycheck "The Man" is already plenty aware of what he's doing. He finally registered. :)

I'm trying to figure out how to do more events that will hopefully be a little more productive.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE register to vote! It doesn't cost you anything. You can register from your house. You can vote from your house. And despite what many people seem to thing you really can make a difference. Remember, the difference between the 2 candidates in the 2000 presidential election was only about 500,000 votes. 500,001 people who thought their vote wouldn't count could've changed the election.

Browns

Last Wednesday I had an interview with the Cleveland Browns. It really came about completely out of the blue. Monday of the week before I got a letter from them saying that they wanted to give me an interview. They must have kept my resume from when I sent it to all of the NFL teams last summer. I was really pretty shocked.

I flew to Cleveland on Tuesday and was greeted my freezing rain. I looked out of the window of the plane and it just looked cold and gray. I know that I don't really get along with cold weather too well, but even the people from Cleveland said the weather was horrible. The bad weather continued for the rest of the day and night, which forced Chili's to close early and the airport to shut down completely.

The next morning I went to my interview and it was fantastic! The people interviewing me were very impressed with my work experience. They also appreciated the fact that I've worked around high profile people in the past, since they don't want people getting starstruck around their players. I think I should be hearing from them in the next week or so. I'm feeling pretty confident. :)

UNC Charlotte

Sooo...

I applied and got into the Sports MBA program at UNC Charlotte!

I'm really excited about it. I was going to apply to other schools, but I've decided that this is the program for me. The curriculum is better than those of other schools. They have classes that I feel like I'd actually be interested in going to. They also have a Sports Advisory Council that works with the program. The members of the Council are heavy hitters in Charlotte sports (President of the Carolina Panthers, VP of Marketing for Charlotte Bobcats, VP of Sports Marketing for Bank of America, etc.).

I should be starting in the fall and be finished in 2 years.