Eugene Fischer

Month: September 2009

David Robinson’s 71 Point Game

On April 24, 1994, David Robinson was 33 points behind Shaquille O’Neal for the NBA scoring title.  In the last game of the season, against the L.A. Clippers, he scored 71 points.  This brought his season average to 29.8 points per game.  Shaq played later that night, knowing how much he had to score to pass David, but only managed to score 32 points, for a season average of 29.3 ppg.  David took the NBA scoring title.  The next year he would win the league MVP award.

The game wasn’t nationally televised, and many Spurs fans thought that all footage of it had been lost. But the Spurs.com broadcasting department has managed to track it down, and now you can watch online most of David Robinson’s points in his 71 point game. This is a Spurs record, surpassing the 63 scored by George Gervin, also done in the final game of the season to win a scoring title.

Watching this brought back a lot of memories of just how special a player David was.  He will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame later this week.  For all his amazing achievements, The Admiral is still underrated as a player.  See sports economist Dave Berri’s statistical analysis of David’s performance, in which he determines that Robinson was the most effective center since Kareem Abdul Jabbar–surpassing both Shaq and Hakeem Olajuwon.  And it’s almost cliche to say, but Robinson has been as awesome off the court as he was on.  Since retirement, he has devoted his time to the school he founded for underprivileged children in San Antonio, a city he has done so much for that when he left the league the NBA renamed its community assistance award the David Robinson plaque.

Can you tell I kind of idolized David Robinson growing up?  It’s nice when your childhood sports hero is such an upstanding guy that he seems as cool under adult scrutiny as he did to your uncritical younger self.

I don’t care about football, but I love this tag, so…

From Ferrett, and confirmed and sourced at Deadspin, Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor had this to say in regards to why he wrote new Eagles quarterback and former dogfight organizer Michael Vick’s name in his eye black.

Not everybody’s the perfect person in the world. I mean everyone kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me, whatever. I think that people need a second chance, and I’ve always looked up to Mike Vick, and I always will.

I’m sure I would get to use this tag more if my sports interest didn’t start and end with the basketball season.  Come on, Oct. 27.

CreatureCast Episode One: Squid Colors

Some clever people have gotten themselves a grant from the National Science foundation to make awesome hand-drawn cartoons of animals to pair with conversational interviews with scientists explaining their research.  It’s kind of like if This American Life was a charmingly low budget biology vlog.  It’s called Creature Cast, it’s creative commons attribution-noncommercial-share alike, and you can follow along with the episodes and related postings on the Creature Cast blog.  The first episode is about the colors of the squid loligo opalescens, which you’ve probably eaten if you’ve ever had restaurant calamari.  The concepts are communicated clearly and the drawings are delightful.

CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

And here is the best video I was able to find of some of the actual behavior discussed by the interviewed scientist.  It is a different species of squid, but I think the same principles are in evidence.

A Flyer Put On My Windshield

PROFESSOR BROTHER MIGUEL ANGEL

I give classes, heal mexican style.  Good luck for Bingo, help you find work.  I heal different from others.  Cure drinking problem.  Good luck for money.  Run away bad neighbors.  Bring back husbands and boyfriends.

For the first time at this addresss.
Work with White Magic
I take away evil.  I give names of persons.
Tell you of past, present and future.
CALL FOR APPOINTMENT

[CONTACT INFO]

I’m actually considering calling to find out if his rates are reasonable.  This sounds like a dose of fairly harmless craziness that it could be fun to invite into my life.

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