Tag Archives: atlanta

[This space for rent]

Posted on by
4

News last week was that, by 2017, the Atlanta Falcons will have a new home and the Georgia Dome, losing its chief tenant, is set to be demolished. The future location of other events to which the Georgia Dome plays host, including the Georgia high school football championships, the SEC football championship, and, this year, the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four, is unknown. While I’ve always thought it looked a little dark in the dome when I saw it on tv, it isn’t like it’s raining in there like it was during the Silverdome’s end days.

While many of the details remain yet to be decided or announced, one thing seems certain: the Falcons’ new home will bear the name of a corporate sponsor. Currently, ten of the league’s thirty-one stadiums do not have a named corporate sponsor. If nothing else, these names are cumbersome to say, and while local residents likely would prefer putting up with these sterile tongue-twisters in exchange for having to commit public funds to the venues’ construction and maintenance, most fans probably bristle at the concept from some old, undefined corner of the fan gut. Sometimes a stomachable compromise is available; in this case, the “Coca Cola Coliseum ” the “Delta Dome,” or the “Georgia Pacific Arena” each might keep things feeling local, but a move to a title corporate sponsor will always feel like something has been lost.

Google Image Search indicates that this is a rendering of Atlanta’s new NFL stadium. A fan can only hope that the discount the owners secured by purchasing the structure used from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Committee will obviate the need to secure a naming sponsor.

FrankenMonday Update

Posted on by
Reply

http://twitter.com/celebrityhottub/status/261813533640118274

Nothing is weather until it’s New York City weather, which means that, as of sometime today, we have ourselves some weather. Somehow unsurprisingly, the indomitable Clay Travis has himself a man on the scene, reporting live from the south shore of Long Island. Somewhat surprisingly, there has been a dearth of Point Break references being made, so that’s something we collectively need to work on. And while the Frankenstorm/Hurricane Sandy caused the main presidential candidates to take a break from the campaign trail, it didn’t stop sports this weekend.

Saturday was a tumultuous day in college football’s top 25, with undefeateds Ohio and Mississippi State taking their first losses of the season, Wisconsin losing to Michigan State in overtime, Oregon State losing to Washington, Florida losing to Georgia, USC losing to Arizona, Rutgers losing to Kent State, and Michigan losing to Nebraska. Although not technically an upset, Notre Dame surprised most people outside of South Bend by beating Oklahoma in convincing fashion. The Georgia win is significant because it dashes the order that was starting to distill in the highly competitive SEC East. The Arizona win is significant because 1) aren’t they really bad??, and 2) it weakens Oregon’s strength of schedule, because the Ducks were relying on a win against USC to buoy their BCS ranking that continues to fall despite an unbroken series of mathematically mind-boggling wins.

In the NFL, the Lions beat the Seahawks by scoring touchdowns in both halves of the game, and even daring to take a lead in the first half. The Falcons preserved their position as the NFL’s only undefeated team by beating the Eagles, a team where the only constant now seems to be the walrusness of Andy Reid’s mustache. (Reid fired his good friend and defensive coordinator Juan Castillo during Philadelphia’s bye week last week, and after yesterday’s game, Michael Vick said that Reid was contemplating a change at quarterback.) In a real accordion-style game, the Giants went up 23-0 on the Cowboys, then went down 24-23, before coming from behind in some technical sense to beat Dallas, 29-24. Andrew Luck led the Colts to an overtime victory against the Titans, the Broncos beat the listless Saints by twenty, and the Bears survived a scare from the visiting Panthers, beating Carolina by one.

Finally, the sad World Series came to an end last night when the Giants beat the Tigers 4-3 in the tenth inning of game four. It’s San Francisco’s second championship in three years. More on that later in the week.

Narrow Margin Monday, take 2

Posted on by
1

We find ourselves late on a Monday after another weekend of close games. On Saturday, woefully underachieving Michigan State lost in overtime to Iowa as a result of what one local radio host called the worst coaching he had ever seen in his life, and the man is neither young nor inexperienced in the field. In a real upset, LSU threw a monkey wrench in the SEC East race and beat South Carolina 23-21, Kansas State escaped Ames with a 27-21 win over Iowa State, Notre Dame beat Stanford 20-13 in overtime, and Texas A&M squeaked by Louisiana Tech 59-57. Even the Florida-Vanderbilt game was close into the fourth quarter before the Gators and their quarterback ran away with it. More on that game later this week.

Saturday had its share of blowouts, naturally, and the notable ones included Alabama’s 42-10 win at Missouri, which remains winless in its new conference, Texas Tech’s 49-14 embarrassment of one-time national championship contender West Virginia, still-undefeated Oregon State’s 42-24 win over BYU, and Michigan’s 45-0 muddy execution of Illinois on Wolverine homecoming. Michigan hosts Michigan State in another ALDLAND outing, more on which toward the end of the week.

The NFL had its share of close contests too, including the Lions’ overtime win over hapless Philadelphia, Buffalo’s 19-16 overtime win over Arizona, whose kicker hit a 61-yarder to tie the game but subsequently missed a 30-something yard kick to win the game in the final seconds, the Seahawks 24-23 win over New England, Atlanta’s come-from-behind win over Oakland to become the league’s final undefeated team, Miami’s 17-14 victory over the Rams, and Baltimore’s 31-29 capitalization on the Dallas (ongoing) Disaster. Baltimore payed a long-term price for its win, though, sacrificing defenders Ray Lewis and Ladarius Webb at last to the football devil (no, not the commissioner– separate office) in payment for their past defensive successes. Lewis and Webb are out for the season. Other high-flying teams went down in spectacular fashion on Sunday, including San Francisco, 26-3 at the hands of the Giants, and Houston, 42-24 to Green Bay on Sunday night.

In off-field NFL news, Jonathan Vilma, the embattled New Orleans Saint, reportedly will be allowed to play as soon as this weekend, although it isn’t clear if he will. Vilma continues to maintain a defamation suit against Roger Goodell.

In baseball, the final four is set and in motion. Detroit seized a 2-0 lead over the Yankees as the series heads to Detroit with AL strikeout kings Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer yet to pitch for the Tigers. The other road team, St. Louis, has a 1-0 lead in the NLCS battle of the two most recent defending World Series champions, though the Cardinals are down 5-1 in the fourth as I write this.

ALDLAND Podcast

Posted on by
1

ALDLAND is back with its most intense baseball podcast yet.  We have playoff predictions.  We have triple crown coverage.  We even speak about the elusive quadruple crown.  Also covered: a stupid sport with stupid players and owners that isn’t even going to play a season this year.  Someone else needs to step up and listen to this while Pax is in the Alps.  Will it be you?  It better be.

_______________________________

Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

Goin Phishin

Posted on by
Reply

Annual Phish summer pilgrimage starts today. After seeing the band in New York, Indiana, and Michigan, it’s time to add Georgia to the list. According to at least one expert, the group has been on a real tear during this second leg of their summer tour, so I have very high hopes.

For live setlist updates and high-quality photos, follow @Phish_FTR. For weakly insightful observations and low-quality photos, you know where to find me.

London Olympics organisers hit dead note with opening ceremony plans

Posted on by
Reply

The cheeky Guardian reports:

The London 2012 opening ceremony is going to be called Isles of Wonder, but there can be no wonderment more wonderful than the fact that Olympics organisers wanted Keith Moon to perform.

Moon has been dead for 34 years.

The drummer for the Who died in 1978 after ingesting 32 tablets of clomethiazole, a sedative he had taken for alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

The band’s manager, Bill Curbishley, told the Sunday Times he had been approached to see if Moon “would be available” to play with the surviving members this summer.

“I emailed back saying Keith now resides in Golders Green crematorium, having lived up to the Who’s anthemic line ‘I hope I die before I get old’,” came the excellent reply.

“If they have a round table, some glasses and candles, we might contact him.”

For its part, the staff of the Guardian is just really looking forward to seeing Jesse Owens compete.

They also could’ve gone with a “Pictures of Lily” reference (“[]he’s been dead since 19[78]”), but it wouldn’t have rhymed and seriously, how did the London Olympic Committee miss this one? Moon isn’t just the one-time drummer of a classic rock band. One could be forgiven for not knowing the life status of the drummer from Mot the Hoople. I’d even give you Faces or the one-armed guy from Def Leppard. But Moon is the famously dead drummer of one of the biggest British rock bands ever. I mean, there he is atop British Drummergod Mount Olympus alongside John Bonham (Led Zeppelin), Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones), and Ginger Baker (Cream, Blind Faith, Ginger Baker’s Air Force). This would be like the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Committee inviting Duane Allman to perform or the 2096 Alanta Olympic Committee inviting Jerry Garcia.

Speaking of Atlanta and dead musicians, though, now that someone finally put CNN’s hologram technology to value-adding entertainment use, maybe Moon can make it after all.