The Hopp Stop

He had a press conference this afternoon to announce. Not a surprise.

I went up to Tahoe on Saturday for the first trip of the season. Good times, passable snow. We went to Sugar Bowl, which got about a foot on Thursday. I can’t imagine what it was like before the snow, because it was still pretty rocky, with lots of exposed tree tops. Not that big a deal, as we (me, Blake, Carolyn, Jon) just wanted to get our first time out under our belt, get the boarding/skiing muscles going and shake the rust off.

Anyways, here are some links:

My roommate Jon tracked down this great story about a 22-foot tall snowman in Alaska.

The Hardball Times looks at some interesting stories from the baseball offseason. One thread running throughout the overview is the innovative and extensive statistical analysis taking place in the baseball world–pretty remarkable what people are able to compute.

Michael Rosenberg commented on the Michigan playcalling in the Rose Bowl. Also, Sunday Morning Quarterback took a look at the game. Bad news on Alan Branch: he’s not registered for second semester classes at Michigan. Brian at MGoBlog was finally able to put down the bile from the game and post on Friday.

Detroit News columnist Dave Dye’s take on the Glen Mason firing. I agree with his assessment that this was a mistake.

Awesome fake Chris Fowler diary from Sunday Morning Quarterback blog.

Nicholas Cotsonika in the Free Press on Millen’s refusing to cut and run with the Lions’ personnel department.

The Toronto Globe and Mail ran an interesting opinion piece on the future of the NHL in the US.

Per another signing statement, he claims right if necessary for national security.

Apparently at least 60 people have had their Gmail mail data deleted. This happened to my friend Rubin earlier in the year–not sure if he is included in the current tally. On a related note, apart from one weekend this fall where the servers were down, my Fastmail account continues to please. Once you go to IMAP, you don’t go back to other mail technology.

This article from the Detroit News makes me want to cry. Lions fandom: move to deep deep deep hibernation.

Also, Stevie Y had his jersey retired by the Wings.

I think this Pat Forde column about sums up Nick Saban, and college football coaches in general. It’s going to be pretty tough for Michigan to find someone to replace Lloyd Carr when he retires, given that they won’t settle for any carpet-bagging weasels that are apt to jump ship for the highest bidder.