Live AFL Grand Final Broadcast in Canada? Not for 2011

I sent the below letter to TSN’s Audience Relations, where relations means you get an auto-reply indicating a cog will read the message but not personally respond. If there’s enough volume on a topic, someone in power at Bell Media may hear about it at the end of the day so you may be better off calling them at 416-384-7660. Also, come to my club’s AFL Grand Final party in Toronto. We’ll figure out a way to show it on TV whether TSN is involved or not.

I’ve come to learn that Bell Media doesn’t plan to air the AFL Grand Final on TSN2, instead showing Rugby World Cup games of Australia v Russia and France v Tonga. The March 18th press release stated,

“The top two teams face off in the AFL GRAND FINAL – the Aussie Super Bowl – airing live on TSN2.”

Football clubs across the country have planned Grand Final parties with the expectation of a live broadcast, just as many have done for more than five years now when it was once annually broadcast by Setanta Sport. The AFL’s party tracker has 11 registered events in Canada that will have hundreds of attendees each.

Last minute scheduling news of a tape-delayed broadcast on TSN this Saturday has lead to a non-announcement through social media of it now being streamed live on tsn.ca. Fans of AFL in Canada already had an ad-free web site to stream the Grand Final and such a haphazard handling of the AFL license will tarnish good will toward the TSN brand while also diminishing the opportunity to attract future viewership to the sport.

At this point, the best case scenario would be for Bell Media to offer a pay-per-view option to all the pubs holding event nights this Friday. AFL Grand Final parties have a social atmosphere akin to Canada’s run at Olympic hockey gold and that setting certainly isn’t attained hunched over a laptop.

When I Actually Showed Up to Softball

Like last year, I tracked my plate appearances for my softball team.

Spring: Multitards, 7-1 for 1st
May 11 won 23-17, 7-7, 2B, 3B
May 18 won 21-8, 5-5, 2B, HR
May 25 won 33-14, didn’t play (sick)
June 1 won 28-13, didn’t play (TTC subway delay due to St. George Stn. police investigation)
June 8 lost 21-8, 2-5 (warning track FO with the bases juiced was disappointing)
June 15 won 15-14, didn’t play (Thrice concert!)
June 12 won 8-7, 1-2, SF
June 29 won 16-15, 5-5, 3B (pitched my teammate the hit that was the winning RBI in top 8th)
AVG 0.833 (20-24), SLG 1.208

I didn’t end up playing the summer session because games were Monday nights which interfered with my Aussie Rules Football team’s training at Cherry Beach. Then for autumn, our team (named Catch the Taste!) forfeited half our games due to lack of numbers and for the other half I was either out of town or too damned hungover to make it. Mid-afternoon Sunday leagues played in seasonally-deteriorating weather are just not a cool idea. But I did fill in a for a couple friends with spot starts:

June 13 for Kieno’s team, won 10-9, 2-3, 2B, GW 1B
June 17 for Zeff’s team, lost 15-9, 3-4, 2B
Aug 8 for Kieno’s team, lost 16-6, 1-3, BB

My commitment to hard hit grounders between SS/3B or liners to shallow outfield paid dividends in keeping my on-base percentage on the up-and-up. Here’s to hoping a free evening schedule in 2011 will allow me to keep this momentum going against my age’s grain.

I’m an Exception to a Bill James’ Rule

Since I’m a dork, I kept track of my at-bats for co-ed intermediate slo-pitch games played this year spread across three leagues with mostly the same core of teammates throughout. Serious business.

Spring: Mulletards 2, 3-5 for 7th
May 6 3-4
May 13 2-3
May 20 5-5
May 26 3-4
June 9 3-4
June 16 4-4, 2B
June 25 3-3
AVG 0.852 (23-27)

Summer: Mulletards 3, 5-5 for 3rd
July 14 4-4, two 2B
July 21 2-3, two 2B
July 29, 3-3
Aug 9, 4-4, 2B
Aug 11, 4-5, 2B
Aug 18, 1-4
Aug 25, 3-3
AVG 0.808 (21-26)

Fall: Remember the Alomar, 5-4 for 3rd
Sept 13 3-5, 2B, 3B
Sept 20 0-3
Sept 27 2-5, two 2B
Oct 4 4-6, 2B, 3B
Oct 18 3-4, two 2B
Nov 1 1-4
Nov 8 1-3
Nov 15 3-3, 2B
AVG 0.515 (17-33)

Overall AVG 0.709 (61-86)
Overall SLG 0.919 (79-86)

The season did take a toll on my body as an extended slump in autumn vastly deteriorated my overall stats. Last year’s line for just the fall session was AVG 0.720 and SLG 0.960 so I saw a slight regression in performance. I thought age 27 was supposed to be a ball player’s peak season!?

Austin Last Weekend

Last Thursday through Monday, I flew down with my Torontonian Aussie Rules Football team for a weekend partyfest.

• It was bizarre seeing just how segregated the workforce was between white people and minorities. The cleaning staff at my hotel just stared at us like lost puppies when we made a request.
• We snuck onto UT Longhorn’s playing field. (photo)
• Next day some of us watched a UT women’s volleyball game vs. Colorado. I felt like I was watching a cult ceremony. For volleyball. (photo)
• Avoid 6th street.
• Gingerman needs a Toronto location.
• Tried bourbon for the first time at Club DeVille.
• Saw White Denim at Mohawk.
• Followed up with Future of the Left at Beauty Bar. Don’t remember a thing because they didn’t go on until 1AM.
• Both of the above bands are in Toronto next week, but I couldn’t get a ticket to the solid out Built to Spill/Dinosaur Jr. show!
• I have no SMS history between 2:20AM and 3:44AM on Saturday. The 3:44AM message seems to indicate I met people. Don’t have a dozen drinks starting at 2PM when you weigh less than 150lbs.
• Aussie’s Grill and Beach Bar was the location of the first time I ever witnessed someone chug a margarita.
• 16oz. ribeye at Austin Land & Cattle Co. was excellent even if my stomach wouldn’t let me finish.
• Coyote Ugly on 6th was likely the most embarrassed I’ve ever felt for another human being. I felt less so after witnessing the amount of money milked from my group from those bartenders. Faux lesbianism while feeding cheap beer followed by expensive shots is business savvy right there. They called me McLovin’ but were too stupid to notice I walked out without paying for three drinks.
• Didn’t find the time to eat proper Mexican or Texan BBQ, but did hit some late night Kebabalicious.

After four nights, I don’t think I got the full Austin, Texas experience.

Jays’ Fan Duality

The meteoric rise and fall of the Toronto Blue Jays this season has allowed fans to experience all the emotions that happen to a championship club after their fall from grace. Blame escalating salaries, small markets, poor management, or under-performing athletes; sometimes it’s fun to just be along for the ride. The past 10 days: not so much.

Footy Training, Day 1

Dear Hick Texan

Shawn Camp had a 7.20 ERA last year with 7HR allowed in only 40IP. The addition of one measly pitch this year does not make him a fucking 8th inning setup man with only a 2-run lead.

Free Bonds.

Show You’re Worth Millions

Hey, Jeremy Accardo, why don’t you throw a splitter? You know, instead of grooving 95mph fastballs one-after-another that professional batters can quickly adjust their timing to? Your split-fingered fastball is what made you an effective closer last year. Don’t forget your past. I know you’re reading, baby! Blogosphere.

However, it really isn’t comforting to know The Beej is back a year removed from Tommy John surgery when he doesn’t even seem to be topping 90mph yet. Oh, attaching yourself to a sporting event based on arbitrary geography! At least one nice part about the Internet is knowing there’s a Jays fan site that’s probably the best out of any Major League Baseball team. There’s a certain je ne sais pas that’s created when you combine self-aware misogyny, bigotry, and general hatefulness with excessive alcohol. I fully support a “Fuck the Wave” movement.

Since I’m a Canadian imbecile, don’t I have to make an obligatory reference to hockey? Well I, for one, look forward to our Les Habitants overlords.

I’ll Show You Heartbreak

Feel the ‘stache

After modern baseball’s resident loudmouth today came within one out of no-hitting Oakland, I thought it would be time to remember a legend. Back in 1988, former Jay Dave Stieb did the exact same in consecutive games to end the season against Baltimore and Cleveland. Oh and he happened to do it again in 1989 against the Yankees. He finally got his revenge by completing his one and only no-hitter against the Indians in 1990.

Current Jay Roy Halladay also came within one out of no-hitting the 1998 Tigers, in his second ever major league appearance, no less, until a pinch-hit Bobby Higginson homer ended the bid. Too bad he’s pitching like Josh Towers right now.

As If We Need Another Reason to Hate You

A-Rod defends controversial shout. Time to quote the rulebook. 7.08 (b). Any runner is out when — He intentionally interferes with a thrown ball; or hinders a fielder attempting to make a play on a batted ball;

Rule 7.08(b) Comment: A runner who is adjudged to have hindered a fielder who is attempting to make a play on a batted ball is out whether it was intentional or not.
If, however, the runner has contact with a legally occupied base when he hinders the fielder, he shall not be called out unless, in the umpire’s judgment, such hindrance, whether it occurs on fair or foul territory, is intentional. If the umpire declares the hindrance intentional, the following penalty shall apply: With less than two out, the umpire shall declare both the runner and batter out. With two out, the umpire shall declare the batter out.

People That Should Not Be in MLB

Let’s do this alphabetically:

• Clayton, Royce
• Fasano, Sal (mustache or not)
• McDonald, John
• Phillips, Jason
• Roberts, Ryan
• Towers, Josh
• Vermilyea, Jamie

Noticing a pattern here? Getting owned by Carlos Silva. I wonder what season ticket holders are feeling about this. As long as you lie about the severity of your closer’s injury before opening day…

Sportsnet Marketing Disaster

I’m going to get all Canadian here, but what’s the deal with Roger’s Sportsnet new marketing strategy? Surely this is a pisstake? Their faceless female voice personality has a raspy wisp that sounds like she just came straight from a take of recording a midnight sex chat infomercial. They also got rid of their sports news show, instead switching to “Connected” which is just a condensed version of irrelevance. They bring in three early 20s broads coming straight off the Humber College assembly line that have nothing to do with sports. The morning sportscaster is a complete wreck with two-plus second pauses between sports highlights commentary. Keep the flow going, idiot! The whole thing feels like a high school production. Add onto that 10 minutes of middle-aged men giving hard-hitting analysis (!!) on hockey, when the show itself is less than 30 minutes, and you’re left with nothing. They’ll show only those fucking hockey highlights; but for basketball, baseball, or any other sports people with a semblance of intelligence enjoy, they only get shots from 2 or 3 games, having to catch up with everything else on the ticker, which advertises the Toronto Blue Jays every 3 minutes thanks to ol’ Ted’s corporate machine.

Their slogan: HOCKEY THAT MATTERS. Sports don’t matter. Neither do bimbos that fill the screen with generic porcelain rather than knowledge or wit. I only speak of all this because we have Roger’s basic cable at my home, so there’s no TSN (see: ESPN Jr.) and Jay Onrait to cleanse my palette. It’s obvious that they’re desperate due to a large loss of market-share where the audience they have is due to no other choice. Personally, I’m just choosing to keep the television turned off.

2007 Baseball Predictions

I posted this in a thread on Batter’s Box but thought I’d add it here too.

1. Ranking of each division
   • AL East:
     1. Toronto
     2. New York Yankees
     3. Boston
     4. Baltimore
     5. Tampa Bay
   • AL Central:
     1. Cleveland
     2. Detroit
     3. Minnesota
     4. Chicago White Sox
     5. Kansas City
   • AL West:
     1. Texas
     2. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
     3. Oakland
     4. Seattle
   • NL East:
     1. Philadelphia
     2. New York Mets
     3. Atlanta
     4. Florida
     5. Washington
   • NL Central:
     1. St. Louis
     2. Chicago Cubs
     3. Cincinnatti
     4. Milwaukee
     5. Houston
     6. Pittsburgh
   • NL West:
     1. Los Angeles Dodgers
     2. San Diego
     3. Arizona
     4. San Francisco
     5. Colorado
2. Wildcard: Detroit and New York Mets
3. League Champs: Cleveland and St. Louis
4. World Series Champs: Cleveland
5. MVP: A-Rod and Pujols
6. Cy Young: Rich Harden and Chris Carpenter
7. Rookie of the Year: Daisuke Matsuzaka and Chris Young
8. Number of innings Josh Tower will pitch: 53IP

I also again entered a fantasy baseball pool with some nerds at Shacknews through Yahoo’s free service. Last year I finished 9th out of 10 teams despite having a strong offensive showing. This was mostly due to injuries from my pitching (Harden + Burnett = sadness). This year I was hoping to improve, however now there are 15 teams, which dilutes the drafting field. I had pre-ranked about 20 players for the draft thinking I would complete it later and then show up for the live draft to ensure I got my talent. However, I ended up completely forgetting and my picks were autodrafted by the Yahoo system. I ended up only getting 5 of my pre-ranked players, which made by pitching strong, but my offense looks like the Kansas City Royals. Maybe next year.

At Home He’s a Tourist

1. Canadians are so friendly because they must stay close together to keep warm and survive winter’s harsh temperatures.
2. I wish I was a sports writer so I could spend my whole day writing bad puns, such as “Power Rangers” (LOL, New York Rangers) and “Blue Crush” (LOL, St. Louis Blues).
3. I Mother Earth’s web site and forums have been down for more than a month. When an online community I take part in goes down, a little part of me dies. It may be a part that should die anyway, but damnit nonetheless ah shucks fuck.
4. For one day, two weeks ago, I had my hair cut in a mullet. My cousin took pictures but I’m too lazy to retrieve them. Just assume that a thumb, index finger, pinky finger time was had.

Now that we have the pointless thoughts out of the way, I can relay news that I just completed selections for my Yahoo! Baseball Fantasy League draft. My team follows:

The draft gives the option of pre-ranking players and having the Yahoo! system automatically choose your selections or you could enter the Java applet live draft and select players one by one with the other participants. Unfortunately, I got to the live draft 30 minutes late and 9 rounds in and many of my pre-rank options were gone so Yahoo had taken the joy of assigning me Alex Rios which was a WTF. I’ve since fixed that glitch, adding Mike Sweeney as a bench player I could swap in if Overbay fails it.

I consider my pitching being weak and my position players have some uncertainty involved. Nick Swisher hit for a poor average in his rookie season, so I’m banking on him improving as a sophomore. Griffey better not get fucking injured again and Béltre should definitely improve from his relatively disastrous introduction to the American League last year.

Another glaring point are my selections being predominately related to Canada. Many of my selections ended up being current Jays (Wells, Overbay, Burnett, Ryan), former members of the organization (Delgado, Young, Lopez), or were Canadian citizens (Morneau, Bedard, Dempster). Stand on guard or die, motherfuckers.

• Jeff Blair
• Olney Buster
• Batter’s Box
• Robot Uprising
• Humans United Against Robots
• Copper
• Australian Slang Dictionary

Sarah Silverman is Hotness + Dumb and Dumberer Breakdown

Oops, I haven’t updated in exactly 2 months. Well I guess it didn’t help that Alkali went down so there was no domain to visit. So everyone’s favourite Chinese-American gave me some web space and for the first time arioch I setup a proper script to update with. I’m finally out of my 1996 method of manually writing the HTML and uploading through FTP when I wished to add to my journal. I still have to figure out an easy way to import all my updates dating back to 2000. I really don’t think adding each post manually and then backdating individually them would be worth the effort.

I guess I can start with my whereabouts of last semester. I started with five courses and ended with three. BSc in out of the picture and BA is back in! My marks were as follows:

Yes, the above table indicates that I almost failed first year biology. On the final exam I didn’t know anything when it came to the last couple weeks in the course so in the short answer section I was filling in the answer spaces with quotes from The Simpson’s and pleads for the marker to pass me. If I make them laugh maybe they’ll love me.

I flew back to NS in late December, did the family thing, spent way too much time on holidays as usual (I didn’t fly back until Jan. 9th). I also had to suffer the wrath of dial-up Internet. *shakes fist*

During that time I managed to read No Logo and in my opinion, a quarter of its length should have been cut. There was so much repetition and tangents that lead nowhere that sometimes reading was frustrating. Why didn’t she put the case studies on Nike, McDonald’s, etc. at the start of the book so you don’t have to read the same examples hundreds of times in other chapters? It was a decent read although the culture presented in the last half or so of the book is pretty much irrelevant in 2004. I also started reading Nineteen Eighty-Four but I only got about 1/3 way through it on my plane ride back. The only other Orwell I’ve read was Animal Farm in grade 10 (11?) English class where I disliked it simply out of principle that it was forced on you along with the interpretations the teacher would dictate to his humble servants students.

While I was home I really had nothing to do except watching really poor movies on satellite TV. Amongst the trash was Dumb and Dumberer. Sweet Jesus, I think my hatred for Hollywood’s teet sucking ways has increased ten-fold. While the two main actors played the characters well, the writing was abysmal. Most of the jokes were stolen directly from the original with a very small fraction of the funny included. These moments I’ll spoil below:

• Original: Lloyd and Harry play tag in the van resulting in “The Gas Man” yelling, “GUYS! GUYS!”.
  Sequel: Lloyd’s dream sequence where Harry’s mother and the token hot chick in the movie are squabbling over Lloyd until here interrupts with, “GIRLS! GIRLS!”
• Original: Lloyd and Harry play tag in the van resulting in “The Gas Man” interrupting.
  Sequel: Lloyd and Harry play tag in a convenience store until the clerk interrupts.
• Original: Lloyd has a sexual fantasy dream sequence about Mary “Sampsonite”.
  Sequel: Lloyd has a sexual fantasy dream sequence about a bunch of chicks in bikinis.
• Original: Harry has a bathroom scene where he evacuates every ounce of waste in his body.
  Sequel: Harry has a bathroom scene where a melted chocolate bar ends up getting spread all over himself and the walls. This was actually the only part of the movie I laughed at – where Bob Saget walks in yelling, “There’s shit EVERYWHERE!“. But the source of the humour was already done in Half-Baked.

  Marijuana is not a drug. I used to suck dick for coke. Now that’s an addiction. You ever suck some dick for marijuana?

  It’s only funny because the quote is coming out of Bob Saget’s mouth!

• Original: Harry exclaims, “Check out the ass on that!” to which Lloyd quips, “yeah, he must work out”.
  Sequel: Harry exclaims, “I can’t she’s wearing those [short and tight] shorts” to which Lloyd quips, “yeah, last time I wore shorts like that I got beat up”.
• Original: “Funny” vehicle: moped.
  Sequel: “Funny” vehicle: short bus.
• Original: Lloyd and Harry have a falling out and Lloyd trades the van in for a moped to which Harry has a diatribe on the stupidity of his actions, finalizing his rant with, “… and completely redeeming yourself!”.
  Sequel: Lloyd and Harry have a falling out and Lloyd steals a polar bear Harry enjoyed at a local museum, bring it to his house where the same fucking situation happens.

The list of “more than just similarities” continues. Avoid this shite at all costs. In happier news, I watched Garden State and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle yesterday both get my thumbs up. Well worth a rental.

In other entertainment, the new season of Jack Bauer Power Hour has started and yet again I’m glued to my monitor television set for every episode. During the holidays I also watched some re-runs of Lost so now I have two television shows I actually watch. Although I don’t know how many times they can milk the scene of somebody walking alone in the woods to hear some noise outside their field-of-vision. Oh, my sister and her husband also bought me season two of The Office on DVD. I’ve already seen many of the episodes but its absolutely worth owning it – just for the “mix of Flashdance and MC Hammer”. Mr. Toad!

In early January Canada also won gold at the World Junior Hockey Championships. So being Canadian, I have to cheer… and stuff. In related yet complete unrelated news, my intramural hockey team also played and won our first game of the semester Tuesday with a 6-2 score. I likely played my worst game in months because I had to play defense with the absence of our best defenseman (and player) that isn’t playing semester. It’s also possible I’ll be stuck on defense for the rest of the semester because nobody else wants to go back AND some our worst skaters are already on D, which won’t bode well once we start playing well-skating teams… like who we’re playing next week. I believe they beat us 8-1 three months ago.

In music news, I Mother Earth‘s vocalist Brian Byrne now has demos of his solo material online. It’s “country-ish” but I’m really enjoying some of the tunes, especially “Arizona”. I believe he’s still shopping it around to record labels and plays the odd show in Ontario. I’m going to make an update later about my most listened to albums of 2004, but I don’t feel like compiling that at the moment. I’ll just procrastinate like I do about everything else. For instance, I’ve been meaning to switch university programs for 4 years now yet it still hasn’t been done…

There Be No Honey Here

My intramural hockey team’s record is now 0-4. In chronological order, we’ve lost 3-2, 5-3, 8-1, and 6-0. It didn’t help that we’d been rolling three lines for the first three games and then for the fourth there was only eight of us. We held our own for the first period but by the end of the game our legs fell out and the opposing team pulled away. I’m also still not fully comfortable on the ice. i.e., seeing possible plays and being able to stick handle around guys. I used to be a hot dog back in pee-wee so I thought playing in a non-contact league now would be no problem. I guess I’ll just have to practice a bit more, maybe play some rec hockey on Tues/Thurs afternoon.

But wait! I’m behind in two out of my five classes, chemistry and calculus. I know my GPA this semester will be a disaster (distributed systems and symbolic logic should somewhat even it out), but my overall GPA won’t be affected much at all since I’ve already taken so many classes. Score!

I’m enjoying how most of the hits I get to this site are people searching Google for “cunt” or “hymen”. But no, they just get the journal of a plain white boy. Maybe you people should buy some British medical texts.

New Juno Reactor is very good. Download it! Buy it!

Any Excuse to Get Pissed

Oh yes… I’m really drunk right now.