American Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney has not only become famous for her epic vaults, but also for the fierce scowl she flashed on worldwide television throughout the vault awards ceremony after she fell on her ass on the second of her two vaults and hence short of capturing the gold medal.
Although most of us normal folk would be delighted with a silver medal, such was clearly not the case for Maroney. And while I would have loved to have seen her win the gold, I’m actually thankful she didn’t considering the gift of the Internet meme she’s now bestowed on us. Who knew that scowl would so quickly become the biggest viral sensation to arise from the Olympic Games?
If you haven’t seen it already, I implore you to check out this “mckayla is not impressed” Tumblr someone so ingeniously created on the heels of this scowling sensation. If you’re anything like me, who thrives on all things viral (strictly in the Internet sense, that is), it will provide you with minutes upon minutes of enjoyment.
I’m going to go ahead and call it – unibrows are about to become one of our nation’s next biggest trends. Logically, you may be asking how the hell this could be. No, it has nothing to do with any kind of Eastern European influence, but can instead be attributed to one of this year’s biggest basketball superstars.
Anyone who’s had a pulse on college basketball this past season is well aware of former Kentucky forward and 2012 NBA top draft pick Anthony Davis’ unibrow. What had been his unofficial trademark during his rookie season is now an official one after Davis recently decided to trademark his unibrow, including such expressions as “Fear the Brow” and “Raise the Brow”. I’m already envisioning the product line which will undoubtedly include stick-on unibrows.
Considering the kid has been bold enough to rock his fierce unibrow (which in my opinion resembles a pair of kissing caterpillars) under the lens of our society’s acute sports microscope, more power to him for trademarking it. I’m not sure where his inspiration stems from, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing a great deal more about the backstory as the NBA season approaches this fall.
After the ubiquitous Tebowing we’ve witnessed among the younger generation over the last year, it’s also now only a matter of time before the American sports scene finally catches up with its Eastern European counterpart and is wrought with a throng of unibrowed junior leaguers beginning to pervade our nation’s playing fields. It may well happen, folks.
I found this entertaining as well – check out the Daily Beast’s photo gallery of modern times’ most famous unibrows.
I returned home to lovely Roodhouse, Ill., this past weekend for my youngest sister Mary’s graduation. My sister Annie also came home from Anchorage, making it the first time all of us Burri were back under the same roof since Christmas.
The fam also kept the fact that Annie and I would be back in town a secret from Mare the last few months. Given how close our family is and that even the most inconsequential of news spreads like wildfire in our town of 2,300, keeping this a secret was a major feat.
As was our hope, Mare was hella surprised when she came home to find me at the house on Thursday night and was equally as shocked the following morning when Annie barged into her room to find her recently awoken and barely coherent (and barely dressed).
We got a lot accomplished over the four days I was home, as evidenced in the slide show below. I enjoyed some local Mexican fare with my mom and grandma (tough to beat Tex-Mex in the heart of Central Illinois), got in a couple walks with Babe (my black lab), had a legit family photo sesh (you know I’ll be blogging the hell outta those pics when we get them back), heard a sweet Sermon by a visiting African-born priest at Mass and even got to see the Cards lose in person! The highlight, however, was obviously watching Mare walk across the stage after winning a scholarship for a paper she wrote on domestic violence towards today’s youth. We hosted a party at our house after the ceremony, and I had the chance to see a lot of my relatives, including my cousin Christina who I haven’t seen in forever (a year-and-a-half is far too long!).
As it is so apt to do, my time at home flew by and before I knew it I was back at the airport awaiting my return flight to Richmond. I took some solid time during my two flights to think about those four days and how much I miss being home with my parents, sisters, grandma and our eight pets (I refuse to figure the three stray cats my mom and Mare have collected into this mix).
As my mom mentioned multiple times over the course of the long weekend, she really misses having “all of her chickens back in the roost”. I echo these sentiments, but have also come to realize that we’re all never all that far away thanks to cell phones, email, Skype and yes, even Draw Something. If you don’t have the latter, download it!
I recently wrote a feature story on Richmond Track & Field senior Meaghan McGovern, who studied and served in Tanzania over the past two summers. She’s not only a gifted student-athlete, but also a benevolent and commendable human being. She’ll actually be doing TFA (Teach For America) like my favorite middle sista, Elizabeth, next year. I can only hope my story begins to do her work justice.
My hope is to begin producing more feature stories and other “off the field” new media content for RichmondSpiders.com moving forward in the coming year. I’m currently talking with my boss and our website host about a new initiative that will do just that. Unfortunately, I can’t reveal too much at this juncture, but I’m stoked for where the project is headed. More deets to come.
Thought I’d share the first video I edited… in more than nine months on the job. (What can I say, we have some damn good video guys who’ve taken good care of us this year.) I shot the footage on a Flip Cam, which offers better quality than you might imagine, at this past weekend’s Atlantic 10 Track & Field Championships. Imma try to do more editing moving forward, so look for the quality to improve!
If you feel so inclined, check out my actual recap of the conference championship.
My friend, Cisco, sent me this video of the Harvard Baseball team covering Canadian bubblegum pop princess Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” this morning. Can’t deny the ingenuity of these brainy jocks. The best part is the guy in the back is legitimately sleeping the entire time.
And let’s not forget about Carly’s actual music video (below), which is nearly as amazing as the song itself and includes quite the twist ending.
In the spirit of all this Carly craziness, I figured it was also worth giving a shout-out to this clever “Call Me Maybe” business card. Pretty damn brilliant, although I’m still trying to conceive of its actual effectiveness for the bro who created it. Would love to be there when he tried it.
I watched the first half of the Bulls’ opening first-round playoff game versus the Sixers today as I’ve viewed so many other Bulls games this season – very intently. With the Bulls ahead by 11 at the half and my inners freshly full of orange soda and edamame, I drifted serenely off to sleep,… only to awake in the fourth quarter to reigning NBA MVP Derrick Rose landing strangely on his left foot during a drive to the basket and subsequently collapsing onto the court while clutching his .
My gut instinct was that he tore his ACL and would be out the remainder of the playoffs, but I had faith that the Lord certainly wouldn’t inflict such cruelty on me and the throngs of other Bulls fans who bore with the team through its injury-plagued 2011-12 season – and namely D-Rose missing 27 regular-season games due to various injuries sustained throughout the year.
Nevertheless, as my parents reminded us many times growing up, “Always trust your first instinct.” (advice which isn’t just reserved for standardized test and has gotten me into a number of precarious situations in my life – I blame mom and dad). I’m saddened to say this trusted adage did indeed ring true, as D-Rose tore his ACL and will thus miss the rest of the playoffs (not to mention being a part of Team USA at the Summer Olympics – also incredibly disheartening).
I think Bulls guard/forward Kyle Korver put it best in saying, “Saddest win ever.”
Those who know me well know I love being right, but not when it comes as such a devastating blow to a player of such perseverance, his team and the Chicago faithful who have stuck by them through thick and thin this season.
It’s interesting (I can’t bring myself to use the word funny here – too soon) how quickly things can change from one day to the next. With D-Rose and the boys seemingly back at full health and after earning the League’s best overall record heading into the playoffs, many thought they the Bulls may well win the title this year.
Now that he’s out, however, so too are the doubters, who have been so quick to cast aside the Bulls and their chances of claiming the League crown that has alluded the organization for some 14 years. (I’ll be a brat and admit this does seem like an eternity after the six championships in the ’90s.) They’re also the same people who have chastised Coach Thibs (Tom Thibodeau) for leaving Rose in the game in the closing minutes with the win well in hand. This is obviously a valid point given his susceptibility to injuries this season, but let’s not go down that road, folks. There’s a reason Thibs was voted 2010-11 Coach of the Year and should in my opinion receive the designation again this year. And besides, no one could have foreseen this happening.
Let me also say that while there can be no doubt of my dejection in the wake of today’s game, I’ve still got faith in my Bulls. Despite going 32-7 with D-Rose in the lineup during the regular season, they still went 18-9 without him. C.J. Watson has been supreme at the point in his absence during this time, and the rest of Rose’s supporting cast is much of the same mold. I could go on…
Do I have the utmost confidence that the Bulls will win the title at this point? I’d be lying if I answered yes. Do I have the utmost confidence they can still win the title? Of course. Only time, perseverance and continued team chemistry and solid coaching will tell.
My friend and fraternity brother (I use the latter loosely because I was the world’s worst member) Adam Hickey posted this shot of the Columns last weekend on his Instagram. Last Saturday was “Beat kU” Week at Mizzou, as evidenced by this sweet display on the Quad. The week of anti-Jayhawk festivities is always capped by our annual home Border War game against archrival Kansas, which the Tigers thankfully won in a 74-71 thriller.
With ESPN’s College GameDay in town for this year’s top-10 matchup, the game was hella hyped. I watched GameDay throughout the morning on Saturday and was very impressed by the student body’s showing. That, in addition to the victory itself, made me an incredibly proud alum. I actually rewatched the game the following morning and will keep it saved on my DVR for a long time to come.
As Mizzou prepares to make its move to the SEC (Southeastern Conference) next season, this may be the last time kU makes its way to Columbia. As the guys on College GameDay mentioned multiple times throughout the three-hour show, it would be a damn shame if the schools can’t come to some kind of agreement to renew the Civil War era rivalry on a yearly basis moving forward. While the Mizzou folks have already stated their willingness to continue the annual contest, the sentiment doesn’t appear to be shared by those in Lawrence.
This fracturing of longstanding conference rivalries is one major downside to the perpetually spinning conference realignment carousel present in college athletics nowadays. Nevertheless, my hope is that the two schools will arrive at a mutual agreement to keep the rivalry alive. Given that schools like Notre Dame and USC have been able to maintain their nonconference rivalry all these years, I believe us fans’ interests will prevail over conference politics and we’ll be seeing more of the Jayhawks for many years to come.
Note: Click on the photo above to see a collection of Saturday’s game day photos compiled by Mizzou Magazine.
In honor of tonight’s LSU/’Bama BCS National Championship game, I couldn’t resist posting this relatively inappropriate pic of this hot mess of a pair. (I mean, is she preggers?) As unfratty as I was in college, I’ve really come to appreciate this and the wealth of other completely fratastic material found on totalfratmove.com.
In other news, I could not be more indifferent about the outcome of tonight’s game.
I felt compelled to share this video of one of the members of Red Panda, a group of acrobats based out of San Fran, performing during halftime of the Richmond/Old Dominion men’s basketball game on Tuesday. How someone picks up this talent of riding a unicycle while kick-flipping bowls on their head, I don’t know, but 6,500 fans and I reaped the benefits.
A Prepster's Prattles 