Niehaus my favorite announcer

Here's a fansite Devoted to Dave Niehaus, longtime broadcaster of the Seattle Mariners.

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Field/3477/dave/

Gene Elston of Houston won the Ford Frick award this week for best announcer. While he's okay, the fact is that most of the games he called were for average to lousy Astro teams.

Houston fans, take me ON!!

Later,

JMN

What I won't do

Two things I won't do on the blog.

One: engage in political debate, go to www.teriobrien.com or www.michellemalkin.com or www.hughhewitt.com for Political analysis.

Two: Engage in over analysis of sports like the SABR types such as Aaron Gleeman, Baseball Prospectus, etc.

They're really good, but I won't try to over-analyze sports like they do.

www.aarongleeman.com for baseball analysis or www.lookoutlanding.com are very good sites.

Hoops

Well folks, it's that time of year again when college hoops is king. In a week or two we'll have conference tournaments, and the NCAA brackets and Dickie V and all of the "experts" will proclaim Duke or UConn the favorites.

By the way, I want to say this as clearly as I can. While I appreciate women and the feminine perspective, I do not like seeing women sports reporters. If I ran Fox Chicago, I would fire Jill Carlson (who reminds me of a schoolteacher, despite her youthful appearance) Corey McPherrin and Tom Waddle. They have got to be three of the worst local TV sportswriters I have seen and that includes Seattle and KOMO, KIRO, etc. Bruce King (Long time KOMO tv sportscaster) would be inducted into the hall of fame compared to the Fox Bozos.

Duke won again, so did most of the highly ranked teams.

I can't figure out Northern Iowa. They're good, but they have difficulty winning in the Valley. They got hammered by Bradley at home and then lost a dull 46-45 game to SIU in Carbondale. But they can beat Bucknell who is a good team. Greg McDermott, please explain your team to me. I can't tell if they're average or a Sweet 16 team.

Gonzaga won by 16 over the Torerros of San Diego. Morrison was held to 11 (as was pretty boy JJ of Duke) but J.P. Batista had 26 and Raivio did well for the Zags.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to the Villanova-UConn game in Hartford at 1 central on CBS. This will be the biggest regular season game in the Big East since 1985 when St. John's beat Georgetown at the Garden.

Thumbs up to Jim Whitesell of Loyola for getting his Ramblers to win their last three games over Fairfield, Wright State and Youngstown State. They're 17-10 and 4th in the Horizon League.

Thumbs down to the Big 10's worst coach, Bill Carmody for another poor performance against Penn State. Penn State has three wins over Illinois Big 10 Schools (swept Northwestern and beat Illinois at Champaign).

Washington needs to beat Cal to have a chance at the Pac 10 regular season title. Game is tomorrow at 7 central time 5 pacific.


Is Scott Skiles the right coach for the NBA? He's tough and demanding, but he may not be the type to last in today's NBA. Bulls lost back to back (last night to the Pistons at the United Center and tonight to the Sixers in Philly). They're better than the Sonics, but not much.

social stuff

Well this was a good week of work, etc.

Shabbos was relaxing, I crashed at home on Friday night. Shabbos for davening I went to Mikor for davening and then to KINS. I saw this gal who I know from David Levitt's wedding. She's nice to talk to however this other gal (whom I dated two years ago) was busy chatting with her married friend and when I saw her last fall she gave me short shrift so I decided it wasn't worth it.

If this passes for Modern Orthodoxy, I will go elsewhere.

Big 10 why I won't watch

Last night there were two games on the radio. One was Illinois-Michigan and the other was Notre Dame-UConn. I chose Notre Dame-UConn on WMVP (aka ESPN 1000) because quite frankly I am sick of the Big 10 and their boring unathletic style of play. Notre Dame lost its fourth overtime game this year to UConn 75-74, but it was better than the Michigan win over Illinois.

I challenge Skip Myslenski and Terry Bannon of the Chicago Tribune to explain to me why I should care about a dull league that is stuck in 1955. I care more about Loyola's chances to get into the NIT than Northwestern's mediocre record and their chance to get into the NIT.

In case I didn't say this already, Mike Davis is NOT the worst coach in the Big 10. That honor belongs to Bill Carmody of Northwestern. He makes Davis look like Jim Boeheim of Syracuse or Jim Calhoun of UConn.

I don't love the Big East or ACC, but the fact is that their elite teams are more fun to watch than the Big 10 teams. I respect Tom Izzo of Michigan State and last year's Illini team, but that's about it for the Big 10.

While I am ranting, let me say that the Pac-10 should not get more bids than the Missouri Valley (aka the Valley). Only UCLA and Washington deserve bids from the Pac-10 though I predict that either USC or Arizona will snare one bid on reputation.

Creighton, Southern Illinois, UNI (Northern Iowa) and Wichita State are good and one of these teams will reach the Sweet 16.

Good day.

JMN

stuff

Here's a picture of me from November 2005.

I voted in the World Zionist Organization today for the Torah slate or the Religious Zionists of America. They help get the day schools, Bnei Akiva, etc. get lots of funding from the WZO.

Please go and vote for them today.

Oh, here's a GREAT bumper sticker. It's on the right and summarizes my feelings on hunting-gate.

radio stations

I enjoy listening to the radio. It is fun, as long as there aren't a ton of commercials.

For music, I like WJMK 104.3 Jack FM, a station with 80's music.
For talk, I prefer WIND, Newstalk 560 over WLS 890. WLS is too establishment Republican for me. Rush and Sean are there big hosts and while they're okay, they're too focused on DC and the national stage for me. They shy away from social issues.

Michael Savage is really good, but I think in a year or two he will burn out.

Sports, WMVP ESPN 1000 beats the heck out of WSCR, 670 the score. The score is too local for my taste.

Day off

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Hey today is a day off from work. Hip hip hooray.

Today in the USA is President's Day. We used to celebrate Lincoln's Birthday (Feb. 12th) and George Washington's Birthday (Feb. 22nd). But the merchants wanted more business so President Kennedy or Roosevelt caved and made it the Third Monday of Februray which is closer to Washington's birthday than Lincoln's.

In Illinois, the Libraries and city offices close on Lincoln's birthday. Wouldn't see that in New York or other eastern states.

Anyway, my friend Tuviyah Spector (oldest son of my landlord) became a father last week as his wife gave birth to a son. I missed the Shalom Zachor on Friday night because of a) tiredness and b) it was about 5 degrees outside. So I went over to his apartment and gave him a card and a mazal tov.

I bought a new CD, Blue Fringe's 70 Faces. Blue Fringe is headed by Gary Rosenblatt's son Dov. Gary Rosenblatt is the editor of the New York Jewish Week, a prominent Modern Orthodox publication. My family spent a shabat at his house about four years ago before my brother got married.
The picture of me is from two weeks ago at the Bassman's during the Super Bowl party. I know it's not a Seahawk t-shirt, but it's from Seattle and the same colors, so it's good enough for me.

NCAA

Here are my teams to watch out for, besides Connecticut and Duke:

Northern Iowa, really solid team, beat Bucknell and Iowa.
Nevada: for some reason, fell out of the top 25.
UCLA: Good team, good coach.
Winthrop: gave Gonzaga some trouble in the first round last year, won it's bracket buster game
Iona: best team in the MAAC, even better than the Jaspers of Manhattan :-(
Marquette: upset Georgetown and Pittsburgh this week.

As you know, I love Bobby Gonzalez of Manhattan. But the fact is that they don't have 20 or so wins so they have to win their conference tournament to get in and Iona has Burtt Junior who's the best player in the conference.

My comment on the Indiana situation: Davis lasted 6 years which is good, but he was in an impossible spot, succeeding a legend in the General Bobby Knight. Alford is the only choice. As much as Wittman or Majerus (or even Few of Gonzaga) would do okay, the guy IU boosters dream about at night is Alford.

President's Day weekend

Well, last week was a good week. Finished a whole month at the bank I am working at.

Only thing is I can't get off til 415-430 so by the time I get home it's right before sundown. I made my own meal on Friday night and unfortunately I missed Tuvia Spector's son's shalom zachor, because it was at his apartment on California and North Shore. But it's really really cold and I went to 3 shalom zachors in the 4 weeks before Lakeview so that's too much.

Yesterday for lunch I went to the Strahlberg's a nice family who just moved to Chicago. David works as an economist for Lexicon, a company that does financial analysis support for law firms in lawsuits. His wife will be going back to work after the birth of their second son. She's from Clifton, NJ near Passaic. Very nice family. He's from Miami and went to U of Chicago for his MBA.

I still have no idea what I should do as far as dating. Maybe I have to roll the dice on Lakeview and go there in a couple of weeks and see if I can date someone (TBA).


Sports: Can ESPN Radio PLEASE fire or dump John Stashower???!!! He is the most biased update guy I have heard. He's a WFAN reject. If it doesn't involve an East Coast team, it isn't important to him.

Theere,... that felt better.

ESPN and Westwood One are almost the same. PC, East coast centric sports entities.

Thank the Good Lord for Sporting News and Fox Sports.

On the political end, tell Fox News Sunday to dump Mara Liasson who is looks challenged to say the least. Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post is more presentable to the eye. Juan Williams is fine.

weekend

Good weekend in Lakeview, met some nice people and had interesting conversations. I hope that I will end up living there by the end of 2006.
Friday night we had an interesting conversation about the Jewish community and the environment. I like nature and what it has to offer, don't care for the politicization of the issue.

The Chinese Auction was okay, it's a little pricey but considering that I pray at Mikor regularly, it is okay.

I will probably go to the Kollel Torah Mitzion shindig on Sunday night, unless the NBA all star game really excites me.

Hopefully in 6 months or so I will be in Lakeview.

Later,

JMN

Lakeview

Well folks this weekend I am going to Lakeview for shabbos. It's a good thing, unfortauntely, without a car, I wouldn't want to go there more than once a month as I have to use public transportation to get there, which is a decent obstacle to getting there. I didn't realize until this morning how much I don't like to pack. Anyway, for dinner tonight, I am eating at a nice guy's apartment and after dinner is an oneg. It should be a fun shabbos, something that doesn't exist in West Rogers Park, which is a shame. Even Lincolnwood and Skokie don't have this, and they're more "modern", but everyone there seems to be married or part of a family.

Shabat shalom.

Josh

sports thoughts

Well on Sunday the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 to win Super Bowl 40 and win their record-tying fifth Super Bowl. Dallas and San Francisco have won 5 Super Bowls as well. Dallas has lost 3 Super Bowls and San Francisco hasn't lost a Super Bowl. Seattle made mistakes and had certain things go against them which didn't help matters. Overall, it was a good experience for the Seahawks and the city of Seattle. Unlike larger Eastern cities, Seattle doesn't get to go to many championship type events.

As I told a friend of mine, now we have Gonzaga and Washington Men's Basketball to look forward to til the end of March. The Sonics are doing poorly and play no defense, so we can forget them.

Pittsburgh has Pitt men's basketball to look forward to, though I think they're no better than a potential Sweet 16 team.

I have no idea why Bill Carmody is still at Northwestern other than the fact that Northwestern University doesn't take it's men's basketball program as seriously as its football program. They can't beat anyone who is good such as Michigan State or even Iowa. He has been at NU long enough to expect some progress and I think it's time for a change.

My solutions are either Bobby Gonzalez of Manhattan College in the MAAC or Brian Gregory of Dayton. I think Gregory would be a better fit for NU as he's a Midwest guy and Gonzalez is an East Coaster who has some Pitino and Calipari in him.

Besides Illinois the only good team in the Chicago area is Loyola, who is 13-8 and 5-6 in the Horizon League. UIC and DePaul are under .500 and bore me to tears.

On another topic, I want to know why sports television executives think that Chris Berman and John Madden are still relevant in 2006. Their shtick is tired and unwelcome. Madden doesn't have it anymore. Berman's nicknames and blowhard style are no longer entertaining. Please, ESPN dump Berman or relegate him to second class status like Women's basketball or Bowling. If Brent Musberger can be relegated to second class status, so can Berman. Musberger is more professional than Berman.

Moreover, I don’t care much for sideline reporters, particularly women sideline reporters who aren’t eye candy. With some exceptions, they have the tomboy look and ultra feminist attitude.

Can we also petition Fox to dump McCarver and promote Thom Brenemann over Joe Buck. If Joe Buck’s dad wasn’t as well known as Thom Brenemann’s dad, Thom Brenemann would be the number one voice of baseball.

Introduction

Hi my name is Josh and I am a single guy in West Rogers Park. I have found it challenging to say the least.
I am a 30 something male who is single and Orthodox and living in West Rogers Park (WRP). I enjoy music, particularly 80's music like on Jack FM 104.3, some Jewish music, working out, baseball, basketball and football. I like collecting stamps as well, anything that has historical significance.

I am blogging to describe myself and what I do. I think that the young Orthodox unmarried males and females of West Rogers Park need to stop being so cliquish and afraid to meet others and organize some get-togethers either on shabbos or at a place like Sy's Bowling Lanes.

If the situation doesn't improve (and I don't expect that it will) I will hope to move to Lakeview/Lincoln Park by the end of 2006.

Anyone who is single and Orthodox in WRP should come and look at this blog and post, agree or disagree. I want to know why you guys are so darn cliquish.