Earlier today (Friday the 25th), baseball practices started up across the SEC with Florida and South Carolina kicking off with scrimmages and Vandy having their first practice of the year. As with last year, I intend to launch of full series of previews… I’ve just yet to get the chance to finish them off. In any respect, there are high expectations with the Dores pulling in preseason rankings of 10 (Baseball America), 11 (Coaches’ Poll) and 12 (NCBWA Poll) in the last week. Florida is the consensus top team in the land, with South Carolina coming in second or third.
Over the next three weeks I will endeavor to do so before the Commodores kick of the season against All-American rightie Mark Appel and the Stanford Cardinal. For now, here’s a quick video from today’s first practice of the year. You’ll note that Coach Corbin’s first priority is working on the “Vanderbunt!”
When I first came across this video, my reaction was much like some others: utter astonishment and a few questions as to whether or not it might have been photoshopped. Well, it wasn’t, it just is the majesty of the Earth from just beyond the thin blue line.
It’s also a stark reminder that while the Hubble may get the majority of the press for opening our eyes to both the visible and non-visible beauty of the electro-magnetic spectrum, sometimes the best images are self portraits. Last February, I posted my favorite still self portraits. After the jump, I’ve embedded a video that shares the beauty of that still imagery with the majesty of the time-lapse video.
One of the more talented musicians you’ve never heard of seems prepared to hop back into the role of a working front man, though it seems like he still doesn’t have his rudder set. He’s not been entirely inactive and I came across of couple of music videos that Chris Wall produced earlier this year, without much fanfare. He’s set up a website at SoftBullets.com where he’s posting his musings and a track player with recent tunes he’s crafted but not yet made available for sale.
A few years ago, I came across Wall in a Brit indie rock band that seemed to truly be upcoming. Air Traffic rocked it out with lower level alternative rock hits like “Charlotte”, “Time Goes By” and “No More Running Away” (videos embedded after the jump). After parting ways with their drummer, they continued to try to march forward, even releasing another single in “Come On” (which I embedded here a couple of years ago). I’m not quite sure what happened, but shortly thereafter the band decided to either take a break / hiatus or to just call it quits.
It really is a shame for as captivating as their music could be, they were even better in small- to mid-sized live venues. Well, Wall has reemerged on the blog SoftBullets.com. It’s been up for a good bit, though I hadn’t chosen to search for it in the past. Figuring that it had been over a year since Air Traffic split up and that Wall was the proverbial “talent” (not to say that the other members of the band didn’t have skills, but Wall is a top of the line musician), I rather a few quick searches to see what he’d been up to.
Click through to keep reading and for more music. Read more…
I’m no Brian @VUGymRat from www.anchorofgold.com (the fine chap who came up with the below embedded faux ads for VU basketball), but I tried my hardest with the above.
Recommended daily dosage of Dramamine Miller is two right handed batters each game, preferably after the 7th inning.
So I traveled down to Nashville this past weekend for homecoming. I was blown away by a party at the old fraternity house, ate at a Waffle House twice in the span of 18 hours (somehow survived that) and took in a football victory and two baseball defeats. I’m reserving my full thoughts for later, but I will just say that we’ve got a new member of the WI[S]M all-time Vandy favorites team.
Joining Ryan “Flash” Flaherty, Curt “Mr. President” Casali, Sonny “The King” Gray and Tony “The Man of Steal” Kemp, this freshman righty earns a nickname to pace them all. Brian Miller is a local legend in Middle Tennessee. Among the lore is that, when throwing to his high school team’s backup catcher, he had to flatten out his pitches by throwing overhand because his sidearm delivery created too much movement. I’m immediately imagining some poor 15 year old freshman doing his best Aaron Westlake impersonation behind the plate, helpless to catch a single frisbee slider.
Tougher than the catcher’s experience is that of right handed batters. On Saturday, Miller made several look downright embarrassed and his rubbery arm action on the release earned the nickname Dramamine from me. I would have experienced motion sickness but for concentrating on wiping the huge smile off my face as I watched Vanderbilt’s version of South Carolina’s John Taylor and Jose Mata. Miller gives Corbin a huge weapon that will cause righties fits. Word is that the other Miller (left hander Jared) can cause similar conniptions for left handed batters.
I broke out the camera to capture a bit of Miller’s debut from behind home plate. Click through to give a view and learn a bit more about him. Read more…
Peaceful protests were plenty in the days leading up to the execution of Troy Davis last night.
This week, the State of Georgia executed Troy Davis in a case that gripped the nation for all of 24 hours, but had earned the attention of anti-death penalty, human rights and criminal justice advocates for years. Davis had been convicted after two hours of deliberations for the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail.
Before going further, I want to express my condolences to the MacPhail family for all they have been put through, from the loss of their Army Ranger, Police Officer and Good Samaritan son, brother and father. There is no question he died off-duty while fulfilling the oaths he took in his service to this country and to the city of Savannah. But this post and this issue is not about him, the victim. That is largely because the primary focus of the criminal justice system – the administration of the death penalty in particular – intentionally is not structured to factor in retribution.
This focus is why criminal cases are brought by the state (whether on the local or federal level) on behalf of the people and society as a whole. Accompanying civil suits may be brought by victims and their family to seek compensatory justice, but they are largely apart from the criminal cases. This is because criminal punishment is in the interests of society as a whole and not on behalf of the victims. It is also why we seek justice itself, instead of retribution.
Not really sure how best to describe this elegant, at times almost fractal animation. The story seems a bit rushed at times, but you can pretty easily make it out. With limited emoting from the protagonists, this is an impressive feat of storytelling. The video is clearly an exhibition of both the scoring and the animation (it is actually a music video of sorts), but the storytelling is rather pithy and well done.
This is the first in a three part look at the draft's impact on SEC rosters for the coming year.
This is the first in a three part series looking at the Southeastern Conference and the impact of the Major League Baseball Draft for the 2011/12 academic year. Part one provides data relating to the drafted players and recruits for each of the six Eastern division squads. Part two will do the same for the Western division. I’ll close with a final look at and overview of how each team matched up in recruiting, retaining and promoting their programs going forward. I’ll also identify some of the key newcomer names to watch on the horizon as we head into yet another year of baseball in the best conference in college sports.
Unfortunately, Captain America was not as bad-ass as this Private Ryan meets Steve Rogers poster portended.
So I broke my normal rule and went and saw a highly anticipated movie on its opening weekend (or at least I think it opened this past weekend). After a full day of playing basketball and sweltering at a Yankees game, I headed out trying to get hydrated and air conditioned at a jam packed theater for Captain America.
I had pretty high hopes for Captain America. It is one of the follow-ons to one of the better superhero adaptations, in Iron Man. Indeed, in some ways this serves as a prequel to Iron Man, with Tony Stark’s father playing a prominent role and edging further toward the awaited Avengers series of films.
Captain America also featured some pretty solid casting. If you thought of one actor who could best serve as an action star and embodiment of what Hollywood would imagine as the truly American look, you’d probably end up with Chris Evans. Toss in Tommy Lee Jones as his grumpy commanding officer and Hugo Weaving (of Matrix Agent Smith fame) as your bad guy and you’ve got a start for some good scenes. Brits Dominic Cooper (as Howard Stark) and Haylee Atwell (as Agent Peggy Carter) rounded out the principal roster.
The below animated short by David Wolter (a Dreamworks employee with a blog here) is beautiful, interesting and touching… all without a word spoken. This is how you do short form visual art.
rocked it out with lower level alternative rock hits like “Charlotte”, “Time Goes By” and “No More Running Away” (videos embedded after the jump). After parting ways with their drummer, they continued to try to march forward, even releasing another single in “Come On” (which I 
