Episode XLII: Weblog

It may be hard to believe, but the Epic Ballade of Kansas weblog is not the only item of interest on the World Wide Web. Today I decided to be conscious of my fellow bloggers out there and share with you a couple of my personal favorites. If you’re at all like me, you’ll like these sites as well. Which means you probably won’t like them…

Freakonomics

My favorite blog, which I return to often, is inspired by the recent best-selling book Freakonomics.

The book uses economics theory to statistically analyze all sorts of things, such as: how drug-rings are like McDonalds (similar corporate structure), how sumo-wrestlers are like teachers (both cheat more often than you think), and how swimming pools are more dangerous than guns.

The blog is basically just an extension of the book, with more interactivity from the public. No topic is left untouched by the statistical analyses of the Freakonomics universe! Just recently, there were reports about how rich people tend to be happier than poor people, how rich countries tend to be happier than poor countries, and how conservatives tend to be happier than liberals.

But my favorite recent post was one asking: how accurate are local weather forecasts? There were a bunch of interesting findings, but my favorite one was this: in the locality that they tested, if you were to predict no precipitation every day of the year, you would be right 86.3% of the time. The best local forecaster, on the other hand, was right only 87% of the time! Which means that putting your trust in the precipitation forecast would have been almost identical to trusting that it was simply never ever going to rain!

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

This is just a site that I go to if I want to laugh hysterically for a couple of minutes with some good clean fun. The site is essentially just a compilation of continuously updated photographs from people who have found public signs in which quotation marks are completely misused. The photo is usually followed up by a witty, pithy comment upon the silliness of the situation.

Well feel free to let me know some of your own favorite blogs, and maybe I will have another Weblog edition of the Epic Ballade sometime in the future. Happy surfing!

Episode XLI: Championship

Episode XL: Championship

My second year of residence here in Lawrence has been somewhat of a charmed year for KU sports. Our football team has had their best season ever en route to winning BCS bowl game, and now, in case you haven’t heard:

The KU Basketball team just won the 2008 NCAA Championship!!!

The season was a good one (apparently the winningest season in KU history), and I watched (via television) essentially every game. Of course I had to choose last year, instead of this year, to purchase season tickets to the home games. Nevertheless, I had a good time watching the games, especially the Tournament games.

This year we had a very well-balanced team (perhaps too well-balanced even), including my favorite active point guard in the nation (after Steve Nash).

Quite frankly, I felt like the first three rounds of the tournament were fairly easy games, although the team did not perform at a high level. Then, in the Final Four, against a UNC team coached by our former head coach (it was not an amicable split), we played the best first-half of defense I have ever seen us play. It turned out to be enough to get us to the final game.

The championship game, to me, was one of the more exciting basketball games I have ever seen (and I have seen quite a few). At around two minutes to go, we were down by nine, and there seemed to be very little hope for us. But a few missed free-throws, an electrifying steal and three-pointer by the aforementioned point guard, and the biggest clutch 3-pointer the university has ever experienced, led to an exhilarating overtime win, and a National Championship for the Jayhawks.

[photo from kusports]

After each of the last three tournament games, there were massive celebrations downtown: about 4-5 blocks worth of people packed onto the sidewalks, streets, stores, restaurants, street-lights, balconies, etc. etc. It was one of the crazier things that I have experienced here in Lawrence. Almost as if the entire city was squished onto one street.

The official estimates I believe were around 25,000 after our Final Four game, and around 40,000 after our Championship game. It was insane! I would post some videos, but unfortunately my computer just exploded in a giant fireball of fury. So a couple of pics will have to suffice for now:

Finally, the next day (Tuesday) the university canceled classes, and we gathered in the football stadium to welcome and congratulate our NCAA champion basketball team.