Much to my dismay, the Olympics are over. For the last 16 days, I've been a complete Olympics junkie, watching anything and everything on the NBC networks that have provided 'round the clock coverage of the Games. I can't even put my finger on what exactly it is that compels me to be so devoted to the Olympics, but every time they come around, I'm absolutely glued to the set.

Obviously, the Olympics were great because it's a collection of world-class athletes performing at the top of their games. Watching some of the events, including the men's marathon today, I'd think to myself, "hey... I could do that!" In reality, I couldn't - probably not even with extensive practice and dedication... It's a credit to the athletes that they make their sports look as easy as they do.

But there's so much more to the Olympics than the simple feats of athleticism; the human element is what I think sets the Olympics apart from other major international competitions. For many of the athletes, this is the pinnacle of their careers. Even if they have the opportunity to participate in multiple Olympiads, the Games is the focus of their preparation, what they circle on the calendar and highlight as the big meet. Win a world championship, that's great... win an Olympic medal, you're immortal. It's the one big chance.

Everyone should hope to see the athletes each give the performance of their lifetime during their moment in the spotlight. As much as we all appreciate the underdog coming from nowhere to claim a medal, often times that comes at the expense of a favorite whose hopes... whose expectations of a medal are dashed in the blink of an eye. We cheer for the underdogs, but we sympathize with those who don't fulfill their potential...

Beyond the individual stories are the stories of nations. Here in the US, we have so many Olympic champions that there is stardom to go around. But in smaller nations, any medal-winning Olympian is a national hero. In Mexico, for instance, Ana Guevara - a 400 meter runner - is celebrated as a national treasure. Much has been made about some of the smaller nations' medalists; Paraguay's lone medal was the soccer team's silver, the Dominican Republic's Felix Sanchez brought home his nation's lone medal in the 400m hurdles, and Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj made up for the disappointment of having 2 of his only 3 losses from the last 8 years in the 1500m race come in the last two Olympics by winning a pair of gold medals that represented 2/3 of his nation's haul.

Other nations also saw new heros created... War-torn Eritrea can cheer on Tadesse Habteselassie, the bronze medalist in the 10,000m (quick: where is Eritrea?) India and the United Arab Emirates both earned their only medals (silver and gold, respectively) in the men's double trap shooting competition. Hong Kong brought home a winner in table tennis, Mongolia in judo and Zimbabwe's Kristy Coventry won a complete medals set (gold, silver and bronze) in swimming.

The Olympics also gives us a chance to watch a bunch of sports we might never otherwise see. Some are a bit silly (Trampoline? Rythmic Gymnastics? Synchronized anything? The Dressage portion of the Equestrian events?), but many are quite entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the small bit of field hockey I got to see... in a way, the way the players moved the ball around the field actually reminded me a bit of ultimate frisbee... Taekwondo and Fencing were both entertaining, especially seeing the competitors always celebrating every play in an attempt to sway the judges. Team Handball was fun too... it certainly looked like one of the sports I could do. Perhaps I'll look into giving it a try so I can find out just how easy the Olympians really make it look.

All in all, there were many great performances by some phenomenal athletes from all over the world in so many sports. Expectations and the definition of 'success' might have varied; some athletes are going home very disappointed while others are overwhelmed by their success. In any case, I find it easy to take away a lot of knowledge and inspiration from having watched so much of the Games... and I always do...

So twice I've written a synopsis of all the things that have been going on for me lately (quick summary: jobless and as of tuesday, "homeless"), but after writing it twice, Blogger ate it each time... aargh!

I did, however, want to make a quick comment about the Emerald Nuts commercials that have been airing during the Olympics: they're fantastic!!! And from them, I've learned that egomaniacal normans, envious nomads, extreme nurses, enormous neighbors, eerie namecallers, elegant naysayers, eavesdropping nebraskans, earmuffed negotiators, exercising newscasters, and egyptian/electromagnetic/evil navigators ALL love Emerald Nuts! Color me impressed!

And also two thumbs up for the Serta commercials with satisfied customers mounting their footboard as if it were a pommel horse to propel themselves into bed or engaging in synchronized tossing and turning as they lie sleeping... (although perhaps that's not the best statement to be making about your matresses??)

UPDATE: it seems as if after a day or so, the aforementioned post has finally appeared... I never got confirmation of the post, so I was a bit surprised to see it show up...

So my loyal readers may have wondered if I disappeared off the face of the planet... Not quite, but I'm very much in limbo at the moment... The lease is up on my apartment of the last three years next Tuesday and I don't exactly have an apartment to move in to just yet... Nor do I have a job to support a new lease... Heck, I don't even know what city my next job will be in, although it'll likely be Washington, DC...

On top of my moving and job seeking adventures, I also have a bunch of work to do to help launch the new design of JURIST on or about Labor Day... Oh, and then there's my Olympic fever...

Suffice to say, I've got a lot on my schedule and on my mind right now... There's actually been a lot of things that I've wanted to write about, but I just haven't had the time... Perhaps I'll catch up on some of 'em later, perhaps not... In the meantime, here's a story that crossed the wire on Drudge that I just had to pass along... Perhaps something like that is the cause of all my muscle problems, eh?

Nifty! The folks at Blogger have added a search function that replaces the Google ad banner that was once served as the header by blogspot! (you too can make the change by fiddling around with your Blogger template settings...)
The only problem is that something in the change makes the OMB CSS layout even more broken than it was before... oops! I'm going to fix it sooner or later... no really, I am! Even if I have to use one of the standard Blogger-provided templates... but I'm not sure when it'll happen... Posting will be light for the next week or so, as I'll be headed for DC and New York...

As of this moment, the Pirates' Abe Nunez and Vlad Guerrero have something in common that sets them apart from every other major league baseball player... what is it? (Guess in the comments)

Last Sunday, I visited Comerica Park - the 7th major league park I've seen a game in. Overall, it was a reasonably nice park, but nothing outstanding.

One of the first things I noticed about Comerica was that it is very large, in the sense that the park sits on a big plot of land. The field is big, but that wouldn't be the reason for the size of the entire structure. The lower deck has a very gradual slope, and there was very little overhang of the upper deck over the lower (which leaves few seats in the shade during hot summer afternoons, like Sunday's game).

Speaking of the lower deck, I was very unimpressed with the outfield box seats - the ones located in the lower deck in the outfield. The seats were oriented towards the middle of the field. For us, that meant we were looking straight at the area in short center field behind second base. You had to crane your neck to see home plate. Because of the gradual slope, there were a lot of heads between my seat and home plate, and a good number of them obstructed the view.

I found the upper deck seats to be preferable. The slope of the stands was much greater, so there weren't heads in the way of your view and the ones I sat in were also closer to the plate, so it wasn't as much of a stretch to see the batter. Presumably, they're cheaper too, so if I were to go back to Comerica, I'd probably try and get upper deck seats.

Although I might try for upper deck seats, I dunno if I would be successful. You see, the Tigers seem to hire sketchy ticket agents. When the first two memebers of our party arrived, they only had standing room only seats available for the Sunday game. However, when the remaining five of us showed up, they suddenly had seven seats together in the lower bowl. Huh??

I can't help but wonder if there wasn't something sketchy going on there, where they'd push the lower deck seats on you as opposed to less expensive seats you might prefer. I'm also suspicious about their ticket selling practices because they don't seem to have ushers at Comerica. We could have gotten standing room only tickets and waltzed right into the $25 seats we bought.

I also should mention that the standing room, like that at PNC Park, is more than adequate. For a few innings, some of us watched the game from a shaded area under the scoreboard out in left field. Along with the large patio in right field, a few places where you can look through the hitter's background in center and much of the area behind the seating in the infield, there were plenty of standing room opportunities.

Of course, out in left field, we were a little farther from the action than we should have been. The Tigers recently moved the left field fence in (to placate Juan Gonzalez, I think) and now the fans are separated from the field by a big 15-20 foot gap between the original fence and the moved-in fence. It just looks silly.

Speaking of the scoreboard, it was very large. Despite this, it seemed as if the Tigers could have put it to better use than they did. Statistics displayed for the current batter included only batting average, at-bats, hits, home runs and RBI. I don't recall seeing any pitching stats, radar guns or pitch counts (although I may have missed something here). Otherwise, all of the scoreboard space was allocated to typical stuff: the lineup, what the batter had done in his previous at-bats... with all the space they had, it seemed as if the space could have been put to better use...

There was reasonably good parking available around Comerica. Despite a near-sellout, we didn't have problems parking just a few blocks from the park. Of course, as Jim Caple noted as part of ESPN's review of Comerica, you may not want to park a few blocks away in downtown Detroit at night...

The food selection was acceptable, but not outstanding... mostly standard ballpark fare. I ran off to a little restaurant-type establishment and grabbed a Coney dog that was good enough... but the great part was that they'd give you a large cup of water for free. That's right, you didn't have to pay $5 for a bottle of water. It may be a little touch, but it seemed like the way it should be and I appreciated it. Sadly, I never got around to trying the bag of smoked almonds, which looked quite good.

While the park is just OK structurally and whatnot, I give it high marks for being the home of the Tigers. Everywhere you look, you're reminded of what club calls Comerica its home. You're greeted by large concrete tigers as you enter the park. Dan didn't particularly like all the concrete tigers, but I thought they were a nice touch. Tigers atop the scoreboard, tigers on the carousel, tiger mascot face-painting tiger themed faces, tiger roars after home runs by the home team (or were they Nittany Lion roars?)... you couldn't escape the tiger theme!

Tigers history is also represented at the park, with little kiosks highlighting players and events from each decade of Tigers history throughout the lower deck. Statues of Tigers greats are out in left center field (even if they do face away from the concourse and look a bit silly with the "action" poses with three baseballs coming off Hank Greenberg's bat to signify that he hit the ball really hard).

While I was walking around the park quite a bit during the game, I didn't notice much of the between innings entertainment, but at least some of the music they played got my immediate approval. What better could be played at a Detroit Tigers game than Detroit Rock City and, headed into the bottom of the ninth, Eye of the Tiger? Dare I say that the latter actually sounded inspirational in its context?

Of the seven parks I've been to, I'd have to put Comerica third, well behind PNC and Pacific Bell Parks (sorry SBC, it was "Pacific Bell" first and as far as corporate names go, that's just about impossible to beat). Not trailing Comerica by much is the Oakland Collesium, a highly underrated park. New Comiskey is a bland fifth, trailed only by the monstrosities that were Three Rivers Stadium and Riverfront Stadium.

One of the big knocks on Pittsburgh is that it's behind the times... generally speaking, it's not progressive enough... so imagine my surprise when I just saw a commercial for Kaufmann's on a local TV affiliate advertising "menswear x% off" while picturing high heels and a purse... who knew?

For many years, the much maligned push pass has been an integral part of my ultimate frisbee arsenal and nearly every push pass I've thrown has been met with a combination of oohs and ahs, heckles and naysaying... Now that I've been called out as the mischevious push-pass devil, I figured it's as good a time as any to state my case for the advancement of the push pass...

I've basically heard two theories as to why the push pass isn't a "legitimate" or "acceptable" ultimate throw... Of course, they're both opinion at best, myth at worst... Basically, the arguments tend to go like this:

1. The push pass is a low percentage throw because you can't really control it and where it ends up is mostly based on luck.

2. There isn't any reason to throw a push pass in a game, because you can always throw a forehand or backhand instead.

We'll start our analysis on point #1... Much like any other throw, a push pass is a learned skill... While it may look like showboating or magic to some, that's the way a hammer, thumber or even a flick looks to non-ultimate players and rookies... With a little practice, anyone can learn how to throw a hammer, and the same is true for the push pass.

Perhaps it's not thought of as a skill because it isn't taught correctly. Take, for example, this instruction from a guide to ultimate on how to throw a push pass. Step three of the how-to-throw-a-push-pass tutorial states, "Push the disk straight forward, with no wrist." This is wrong. Throwing a push pass like this is just asking for disaster because... well... that's not how to properly throw a push pass. Like any other throw, the push pass relies on spin for things like distance and accuracy and you need a good wrist snap to get that spin. While you could try throwing a push pass with no wrist, it would be about as successful as throwing a flick with no wrist... Coincidentally, players throwing either the push pass or the flick for the first time tend to use too little/no wrist before they're educated to do otherwise...

Once you get past the bad form, you can develop an accurate throw with results that can be replicated - it's a skill, not luck. That's when all the opportunities to use the push pass in a game open up in front of you. This makes sense... you can't do much with any throw until you really learn how to throw it.

So when would you want to use a push pass? Basically, anytime you're making a short throw (10 yards or less) - especially if you need a quick release. In my experience, push passes have quicker releases and are easier to transition to/from a backhand compared to a flick... YMMV. Furthermore, it's easy to put a lot of touch on a push pass; you can just float 'em out there for your receiver to go and get. The push pass can also be a functional equivalent to the scoober/hiawatha: a high release throw to the flick side. Absent a high-release forehand, most people can't throw - markers don't usually anticipate - anything high to that side. Consequently, it's a useful alternative for breaking a mark.

Now don't get me wrong, you can use other throws in these situations, just like you can use a flathead screwdriver for many jobs calling for a chisel. However, just as you might get a better performance from the chisel, which was created as a better alternative to the screwdriver in certain situations, the push pass is the more appropriate tool for the types of situations I've discussed that may arise while playing ultimate.

No, the push pass is not a replacement or even on the same level of importance to an ultimate player as a flick or a backhand... but it is on par with the scoober/hiawatha and arguably the hammer as well.

Oh, and for the record, for as long as I've thrown the push pass, I've only thrown three in games that went uncaught. One was in anticipation of a cutback that didn't happen on stall nine (of a 5 second stall count) on the goal line, the marker partially point blocked one (although it may have been a strip - I didn't call it because we were beating 'em pretty badly), and my receiver's defender got a nice D on one that I put exactly where I wanted to put it... Not a bad percentage, especially compared to my record with the more traditional throws...

Late night talk show fodder for the next month: a guy whose last name is Hacking is being charged with first degree murder... Fill in your own punchline... (although on a serious legal note, I wonder if he can have his name suppressed because it's too prejudicial...)

Because I haven't posted any random quiz results in awhile, here's what level of hell the Internet says I'm going to...
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Moderate
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Speaking of cheese and in my tradition of providing "unusual" food combinations, here's a recipe for Quesadillas with Pear and Brown Sugar Compote I got watching Emeril on the Food Network... The notion of combining fruit and cheese didn't seem too foreign to me, although it took some people by surprise...

Also note a few alterations I made to the original recipe with a good degree of success: Instead of using the recommended cheeses, I used pepper jack... If you're going to do this, I recommend using a softer version, such as the generic Giant Eagle brand, as opposed to the harder Helluva Good pepper jack... The latter just didn't work as well... Also, you can skip the walnuts... I mean, they sound delicious, but if you don't have 'em, the dish will still be good...

I think it's best served with the compote as a topping for the quesadillas... Probably best used as an appetizer or a side dish, but I've eaten a couple quesadillas as a dinner... of course as some readers know, I'm always one for making a meal out of side dishes... especially when they're tasty!

Because I so greatly enjoy the nifty little polling mechanism over at the Hammer Blog, I thought that I oughtta use it for myself... I didn't have anything pressing to poll on, but I wanted to throw it in there... just because I wanted to! Since I so greatly love cheese (bought another two pounds of it at the store yesterday), the inaugural OMB poll will be about that very subject... vote early, vote often!

Cleaning out some of my old law school stuff, I ran across my Criminal Law exam from the fall of my first year... The professor left one comment for each essay answer I wrote. Regarding question one, he says:

Some good insights, but could have been better developed which would have led to further issues

Fair enough... he wasn't terribly impressed... Now, on to question two, where I attemped to charge a dead guy with a crime...

This is very superficial. You miss many issues and simply offer conclusions about the ones you raise. Not the good insights demonstrated in question 1. Poor job.

Ouch! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the harshest comment I've ever gotten on any work I've done... Oh, and I got a B+ on the exam... It seems that more than half of the class did worse than I did...

ariz0nabay finally got around to mentioning the existence of his blog, It's Just a Ride, this evening... It's about time! His most recent post is about the radio industry and where you will and will not find music you should be looking for... He's spent some time in the industry and he has good taste... I fully endorse all of his recommendations...

In one of yesterday's more interesting developments, it seems that I have become the Angel of Death. One deadly shooting and one shooting leaving a man in critical condition took place approximately three and a half hours after I was in each of the locations where the respective shootings took place.

First, I drove down Bayard Street past the intersection with Craig at about 5:30... At 9:00, a man who had been shot was found one block down on the corner of Craig and Centre... Then I drove home last night at 9:40, going up Negley Ave. and turning toward home on Fair Oaks St... At 1:10 AM, a man was discovered who had been shot to death on that same corner (just 2 or 3 blocks from my house... eek!)

I think the moral here is don't follow me around... or at least if you do, check your watch and make sure you're not three and a half hours behind...

If you're a Pirates fan and haven't been under a rock or studying for the February bar exam the last few days, you're probably aware that the Bucs just dealt Kris Benson and Jeff Keppinger for Ty Wigginton, Matt Peterson and Jose Bautista... a deal I find wholely unsatisfying...

Dave Littlefield's stated goal in the Benson trade was to pick up a young impact bat at first, third or center field who was ready for prime time... DL also had a few things working in his favor: Benson was the best starting pitcher on the market... no, he's not a great pitcher, but outside of May, he's been very good this year and there's reason to think he can be good - or at least the average pitcher he's been this year including May - going forward... Furthermore, there were allegedly 4 or 5 teams interested in Benson for DL to play off of each other...

Given DL's agenda going into the deal and the reasons to think he could achieve his goals, it has to be disappointing when the best young, impact bat you can bring in is Ty Wigginton... Turning 27 in October, Wigginton isn't really "young" and his impact will be about the same as Rob Mackowiack (Wigginton's 5th most similar player)...

Sometimes, it's hard to say that a GM should have done better without knowing what offers were and were not on the table... But in this case, a top prospect was available for a mediocre pitcher, and DL either passed it up or didn't do a suitable inquiry... As the Mets were shipping out Wigginton and co., they dealt Scott Kazmir, a top pitching prospect to the Devil Rays for Victor Zambrano... Had DL realized he wouldn't get what he was really looking for and expanded the scope of his search, he should have been able to pick up a high-ceiling prospect like Kazmir, even if he didn't exactly meet the Pirates' needs...

More than a center fielder or a third baseman, what the Pirates really need are impact players... A team full of Ty Wiggintons, Rob Mackowiaks and otherwise average players might be OK, but it isn't a playoff team... Right now, that looks a lot like what the Pirates are assembling...

To be clear, if the Pirates already had a Ty Wigginton (and, of course, they do), I would want him to be in the lineup to see how he'd develop... But trading for Mackowiak #2 only pushes Mackowiak #1 to the outfield where he takes playing time from other guys with a few ounces of potential, like Tony Alvarez and JJ Davis... The problem here is going out and trading for him...

Similarly, Matt Peterson is a reasonably good prospect, but not great... As far as pitching prospects go, he isn't clearly better than Sean Burnett, Zach Duke, John VanBenschoten, Ian Snell and maybe even Bobby Bradley... Would I trade him for Kazmir? You betcha... and hell, I'd even throw in Ty Wigginton...

Bautista was lost in last winter's Rule V fiasco... He's since been claimed by two teams in addition to the Orioles, who initially drafted him... It's nice to have him back and I hope his development hasn't been too greatly stunted by the early promotion...

Bar Exam... over! Yeah, it's nice to be done... but how was it? Kinda strange... not exactly what I expected... Here's a recap:

Day One
Performance Test and 6 fact patterns from which four essay questions (each) are derived... Just describing the format of the test makes me wonder why they just don't number the questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc... Instead, "Question 1" is really four questions, most of which are on seperate subjects and each of which requires a seperate essay answer... In any case, the Performance Test didn't seem too difficult... We basically had to write a brief on some law as elaborated in a case or three... Finished that in just about the 90 minutes allotted...

Then the essays started... Although I was a little concerned about the essays from a substantive angle, I thought most of the questions were pretty easy... My roommate and I had a little pool where we each predicted the specific issues that would be tested in the essays... For ConLaw, I guessed we'd see a question about the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and the substantive due process fundamental right to raise your children as you see fit... Yeah, it was a really random shot in the dark, but to the surprise of both of us, those were the exact two issues raised in the only ConLaw essay...

The hard part about the essays was the physical demands... We had 45 minutes per question to read through the fact pattern, read the questions, figure out an answer and write it out... basically, you're looking at about 10 minutes per essay for 8 essays in the morning and 16 more in the afternoon... Add it up, and you have a lot of writing in not a lot of time... For someone like myself who writes either legibly or quickly, but never both, this was a problem... By the time I got to the last fact pattern of the day, I couldn't hold a pen long enough to write more than one sentence at a time... My forearm was tight and in some real pain and it was pretty hard to concentrate on writing, especially with time winding down (I was at about 8:30 per essay at this point)...

Despite that, the questions continued to be easy... Other than one rogue issue regarding grandparental visitation rights, an issue that isn't at all settled in PA, most of the questions were pretty straightforward... If I didn't do well on this part of the test, it was solely because of the physical pain (and correlatively the time pressure)

Day Two
After surviving the essay day (albeit barely), 200 multiple choice questions seemed like it should have been a piece of cake... I'd even been preparing specifically for this part of the test by doing tons of multiple choice practice questions... I felt good about it going in...

But for some reason - maybe because I had woken up really early that morning, maybe because I was a little shot from the day before - it seemed a lot harder than I expected... There weren't nearly as many I-know-I'm-100%-right questions as I had in practice... The reading that goes into the multistate is pretty rough too... By the end of the test, the throbbing headache I had the previous day had returned, and I was just glad to be done...

How will it all turn out? I don't know... I can't say for sure that I passed, but I also can't say for sure that I didn't... I guess you'll just have to keep reading until mid-October when I get the results back to find out...