“Catching Hell” The Steve Bartman Story

ESPN just released its special 30 for 30  on the infamous Chicago Cub fan, Steve Bartman. As we all know, Steve Bartman was the reason Moises Alou didn’t catch a foul ball, the reason Alex Gonzalez booted a tailor-made double play, Dusty Baker didn’t pull Mark Prior, the Cubs gave up 8 runs in the 8th inning. Blew a 5-3 lead in Game 7 with Kerry Wood on the hill, and ultimately the reason the Cubs didn’t win the World Series. Cubs fans are delusional if they actually believe any part of that. Unfortunately, for Bartman some Cub fans are crazy enough to do so. Steve Bartman’s life has noe been ruined because of the foul ball incident but let’s hope for the sake of die-hard fans everywhere that the documentary released by ESPN last night that Steve Bartman can once again be free to roam the streets of Wrigley Ville.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cX8OwMeE2MQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The Logic of “Duh Ville” Fans

Are Louisville fans on serious medication ? Logic isn’t something that’s too common in their fan base. Just the other day I was reading Cardinalchronical.com for the same reason Liberals watch Glenn Beck. I couldn’t believe what I saw. The Ville fans were already celebrating a basketball win over Kentucky for the upcoming season. They say that UL’s experience will outlast the youth of Kentucky’s #1 recruiting class. Okay so, short term memory loss may be to blame here. 2010 these same statements were made. The result: Kentucky smothered the Louisville players on defense en route to a win. The same statements were made the folowing season. The result: A 15 point romping of the Cards in their brand new arena. Anyone else see a pattern here? Not only that but who does UL have that’s any good? It’s alright though just keep trimming your line beards and speaking non-sense little brother. We’ll focus on our National Championship run this year….L’s UP!

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/U01WuP9Lon0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

UK Needs A Batman to Save them From The Joker

Joker Phillips has been less than stellar, an understatement if there ever was one, in his forst season and change  at UK. The Cats went 6-7 last season losing the BBVA Compass Bowl to a coach less Pittsburgh team. That’s right he got out coached by a team with no coach. The worst part of that game was the absence of 4-star QB (rivals.com) Ryan Mossakowski who departed from UK after the season leaving Kentucky with a subpar quarterback in Morgan Newton. Kentucky struggled against WKU, CMU and was beat by Louisville, a team that was defeated by FIU, and AT HOME. With a 48-10 loss to the Gators last week its clear that Kentucky will not compete in the SEC and will be lucky to collect one more win this season. If UK does finish with less than 5 wins this season, Mitch Barnhardt better be prepared to hear the fans moan and groan and demand a changing of the guard at UK.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Bg3EU9V1UD0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

How Do We Value Information?

“The quality of any piece of information is variable and its value largely depends on context and interpretation… “  I picked this quote because the random statements that were mentioned at the beginning of the article were just that, random statements. However, when we give those random statements value they become valuable. According to the article there are four ways to value information, personal, subjective, economic or community value. When we value the information that is presented to us it is embedded into the way we live and ac and “set conditions for the future.”

Information as a Resource (The Farenheight 451 Reference)

The best part of this article in my opinion is the example the writer gives of Shakespear’s “Romeo and Juliet”. The writer claims that even if one could destroy every copy of “Romeo and Juliet” that ever existed that it would still live on in the memories of people. Therefore, it couldn’t be completely destroyed.  I found this to be a very interesting point. Especially when the writer mentions that many types of information interact with natural environments to produce cities and towns. It’s just how the information is stored that makes the difference.

Information Content

We discussed in our class how books, magazines, journals and so forth will contain different information. We used the example of 9/11. On that day the best source would have been the news on tv the next day a newspaper in a few weeks or a month, a magazine, a year or two later a book, journal or film. The content you would find in a newspaper may be brief and to the point. Not of all of the information may have been released yet, whereas the content you would find in a book would have been well researched. When looking up information for one’s own topic, this needs to be considered.

Our Information Landscape

The “information landscape” here at Murray State is quite broad. With two libraries full of resources, books and journals the abundance of information is nearly limitless. There are some things about the two libraries that I didn’t know that were covered in this class. For instance, I had no idea what was in Pogue Library. I just thought it was a neat looking old building. Also, I was unaware of the different types of media that the Waterfield Library offered. During the first part of this semester the use of the online library became more clear to me. With all of the access to information we have here at MSU, we definitely have it made when it comes to research.

Tagging Items

The tagging items exercise that we did in class, demonstrated how one could describe something. How people can use different words to say the same thing. So in reference to searching for something on the web or on a database, it is best to search with different words, because according to the experiment in class different words can equal different results when searching. So I decided to test this theory on google.com. I searched “John Calipari” which gave me different results than “Kentucky’s head basketball coach” as did “Coach Cal” or “Pope John Cal”. All of the searches resulted in different finds which is why it is important to narrow your search and to think of alternative meanings for words or phrase you are trying to describe to the search engine.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=gsih&cp=8&gs_id=q&xhr=t&q=John+Calipari&qe=Sm9obiBDYWw&qesig=lON9MWKTyv75AYSKsZuVyQ&pkc=AFgZ2tkh5F5Xi5-g6y1yjFbZuCIvVYF3TO1uPA7fv6C3u0_UdbvvWqYBfbBenHf-zwwweWB_MuuhJmNFrRbW-_6O7kyMzTK1dQ&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=John+Cal&aq=0&aqi=g4&aql=f&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.&fp=28ccbf3f5b01a8c4&biw=1024&bih=628

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=gsih&cp=9&gs_id=23&xhr=t&q=Coach+Cal&qe=Q29hY2ggQ2Fs&qesig=1yAd0sEjj20F2KLLjL7BJw&pkc=AFgZ2tkh5F5Xi5-g6y1yjFbZuCIvVYF3TO1uPA7fv6C3u0_UdbvvWqYBfbBenHf-zwwweWB_MuuhJmNFrRbW-_6O7kyMzTK1dQ&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=Coach+Cal&aq=0&aqi=g4&aql=f&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.&fp=28ccbf3f5b01a8c4&biw=1024&bih=628

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&pwst=1&sa=X&ei=1NGFTp3-NK_ksQKmm-WSDw&ved=0CBoQvwUoAQ&q=Kentucky+head+basketball+coach&spell=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.&fp=28ccbf3f5b01a8c4&biw=1024&bih=628

The Dewey Decimal System Vs. The Library Congress Classification System

The Dewey Decimal System was created by Melvil Dewey in the late 1800’s. The problem with the Dewey Decimal System is that the subjects are too broad. The 10 subjects that are in the Dewey Decimal System include subject titles like, Science (including mathematics), Religion, Social Sciences and History, subjects that have volumes upon volumes of information. The Library Congress Classification System contains subjects that narrow in on subjects. It contains 21 subject titles to the Dewey Decimal Systems 10, which is why most college libraries use the Library Congress Classification System.

http://library.thinkquest.org/5002/

Debunking the Louisville Football Myth

Louisville football fans might be the most delusional fans in all of sports. I take that back, they are the most delusional fans in all of sports. Their undeserving sense of accomplishment is what sets them apart from most fan bases. After defeating Kentucky, a football team that will be lucky to win one more game this season, they hoisted the Governors Cup Trophy as their fans boasted about being "back on top." Wait what??? When has Louisville football been on top of anything? When has Louisville as whole been on top of anything? (Insert Karen Sypher reference) These delusional comments came 8 days after their beloved Cardinals were defeated by FIU. It was FIU's first ever win over a D-1A school.

2007 was a long time ago, yet it's all they have to hold onto. An Orange Bowl Championship....a game literally no one cared about. (Tied for lowest TV ratings for a BCS game). And even though Cardinal fans will swear up and down Cincinatti isn't any good, they've been to that same bowl twice since 2007. But don;t let facts stand in your way Card fans...just keep ironing your flatbills and throwin' your L's up.

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=17&f=2759

The Chicago Tribune, Part of the Information Landscape

With the Chicago Cubs season all but over (has been since April) I wanted to know what to look for going into the 2012 season. So how convientent that chicagotribune.com is one of the top 100 best sites for information? It's navigability was key. Right up at the top had sports and then it's own section just for the Cubs. As far as information goes, well I think its a common fact that sportsbloggers and message boards have more insight information than newspapers and news sites. However, the information presented in this particular news site was top notch. There were up to date trade rumors, recaps from games. I was saitisfied with the information that I was given by the website, not neccesarily the answer as it seems the Cubs are only going to get worse next year.

"Is Google making Us Stupid?" Article by Nicholas Carr

Nicholas Carr says in the article that people may well be reading more than they did in the 1970's and 1980's where the main mass medium was television rather than Internet. Yet, he says that the kind of reading that we are doing is a lot different. We can't read thoroughly and instead skim through the information. As I first looked at the article, my plan was to debunk Carr's point. However, I found myself skimming through his article because I didn't have the attention span to try and absorb all of the text he had presented in his article. Instead after skimming through three pages I went to (where else?) google and searched the topic, in doing so I found a plethra of information on the subject. However, I didn't have to read any of it to see that his thesis was correct and that I had incidentally been a part of his experiment.

The Big Question

John Hodgman, a regular on comedy central's "The Daily Show", writes about the big questions. He explains how our "big questions" have evolved since 1900. How many of the big questions we as, a human race, have answered. At the same time, Hodgman says there are so many big questions that have still left us puzzled. My big question, isn't theological or even scientific but it's a question that has been in the back of the minds of college football fans for years, "When will College football have a playoff?" I have researched this topic for at least 4 years now and it appears for the first time in those 4 years that I have finally recieved almost an answer.NCAA President Mark Emmert might finally have his back up against the wall on this subject as US Department of Justice claims that the NCAA might have violated some antitrust laws when establishing the BCS. Now with the forming of the "Super Conferences" playoffs seem to be on its way for College football.
To find this answer, i searched the web and found many sources. Some written by sports nerds, like me with their own blog and some written by sports nerds who work for major broadcasting stations. My opinion on the subject, I hope all of these writers have done their research and are in the right for writing what they do because if so, crowning a champion for college football may never be the same.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6479279

(A Title to Thesis Statement) Should UCONN Be Criticized By the Media For Thier Revoking of Scholarship?

A topic is what the message is based on yet the thesis would be more of the answer, or opinionated answer, to the question brought out from the topic. For instance, the topic of this post would be “Should UCONN be Criticized for Revoking a Scholarship”. I do have a thesis for this topic and it would be, “The University of Connecticut took away a scholarship from a young man who grew up in a foster home, to give a scholarship to 5-star recruit Andre Drummond, they did this 5-days before class starts. The Huskies Athletic Department, should be criticized and I will be not the last but possible the first to expose this injustice,”
Now I would need to build on this thesis and I will by saying:
The defending National Champions took away a scholarship from Michael Bradley to make way for top recruit Andre Drummond. Bradley grew up an orphan and now does not have the money to afford college, the most unfortunate thing for Bradley is that he was revoked of his scholarship FIVE DAYS before classes started. Which is a time period in which most schools already have their limited amount of basketball scholarships. So UCONN has basically shoved this kid back on the street with nowhere to go. Lets not forget that UCONN could have another scholarship available had they not have been caught cheating a couple of years ago, costing them scholarships. What could make this worse? How about over 66% of UCONN fans, according to a poll, agreeing with the UCONN athletic department. What a class act you are Connecticut.