Keith.truong@Jamo
[Photo: P. Luly W./Yelp]
Hamburgers and hot dogs are the food of summer, and both are incomplete without their crisp, greasy accomplices: french fries. This update of the french fry map welcomes Salty Sow's triple-duck-fat-fried fries and Haymaker's various poutines, as well as many more fried potato achievements. See a favorite missing? Hit the tipline or comment below.
This comes from a Japanese Football League match between the Kashima Antlers and Sanfrecce Hiroshima and it is a missile. On a designed play, the Antlers punched a corner kick to Daigo Nishi, a lone defender outside the box and he connected on a dazzling volley. No one saw it coming, or going, and it popped the back of the net. The Antlers went on to win 5-1.
I might be going out on a limb here, but, for some reason, I don’t think this is going to end well for the Cowboys. Wait a minute, I guess it’s not really going out on a limb when the Cowboys haven’t been to the postseason in the past four seasons.
If you aren’t a Dallas Cowboys season ticket holder, chances are you haven’t heard about how the Cowboys included tickets to the NFC Championship game along with season tickets in envelopes that were sent out to season ticket holders.
From ESPN:
‘Included in this package are your 2014 playoff tickets and parking (if applicable) for two potential home games at AT&T Stadium,’ read a letter that came with the season tickets. ‘The barcodes on the tickets will be activated when a home playoff game is clinched and the tickets have been paid in full.’ “
In all seriousness, this isn’t that big of a deal. According to the Cowboys, it was simply more convenient to send out playoff tickets with the regular season tickets. And that honestly makes sense.
But, when you’re the Dallas Cowboys and have a history of fucking up in crucial moments to blow your postseason aspirations, different rules apply. You probably shouldn’t be sending playoff tickets that might not be needed to a fan base that is probably less than pleased with the lack of success your franchise has seen in the past few years.
In this case, the Cowboys are just setting themselves up to be the punchline of some awful “Jerry Jones, Tony Romo, and Jason Garrett walk into a bar to watch the playoffs, but forget their tickets” kind of joke.
Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
Keith.truongDamned if that's not a good plan.
We got iPads for our playbooks today. Here’s the only play loaded on mine.. pic.twitter.com/3TcEpjx5wj
— S. M. Hunnicutt (@Hunnicutt08) July 31, 2014
Bob Stoops passed out this season’s playbooks — which are contained on personal iPads — to his Oklahoma University team today. While the rest of the team will spend the next month deciphering complex blocking schemes and defensive assignments, kicker Michael Hunnicutt doesn’t appear to have quite as much work cut out for him.
[TBL]Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
Keith.truongWHAT?!?
This is an absolutely hilarious video of DMX freaking the hell out during a recent trip to an amusement park in Orlando. It would seem that X is completely terrified of the Sling Shot ride, which is awesome considering he’s made a career of being one of the toughest, hardest rappers in the game. Also, because he’s spent a lot of time in prison.
Things I learned today: the Sling Shot is way more terrifying than prison.
Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
Keith.truongOuch.
Oh god, we've all seen this happen, but you probably haven't seen it in a $1 million buy-in tournament. But with 18 out of 42 entrants remaining, and a $15 million prize sitting at the end, Connor Drinan saw his aces cracked by Cary Katz's.
Keith.truongFor you Elder Scrolls players.
An Imgur user has put together an exhaustive list of recurring characters in Elder Scrolls games—from Arena all the way up through Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls Online. Is your favorite character on it? Probably. Did they suffer some kind of cruel, shocking fate between games? Yeaaaaah... probably again.
Keith.truongNever even thought of the connection. :O
Thanks to Imgur, the next time you see Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill you will have a whole new perspective on things. We also went back to check on Uma’s speech at Jack Rabbits Slim restaurant from Pulp Fiction, and the text is absolutely accurate.
Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
Olympiakos and AC Milan met yesterday for an international Champions Cup friendly in Toronto, where the Greek side came out on top 3-0. Andreas Bouchalakis had the highlight of the night when he scored this incredible goal from a good ways out late in the second half. Just look at the curve on that shot! Holy crap.
Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
Keith.truongIt'll be fun to see how they do this year.
A Tiny Club’s Uneasy Rise by Raphael Minder
Eibar, a small soccer team with a 5,250 seat stadium is entering Spain’s top division, La Liga. And it’s been a pain in the ass.
Keith.truongOw, my childhood.
If you’re old enough, you may well remember paying actual money for the soundtrack album from the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, possibly on cassette, possibly at a K-Mart. You may even remember what a jam MC Hammer’s “This Is What We Do” was. (Just speaking hypothetically.) That lost era, when movies would include end-credits rap songs describing the plot of the movie you just watched, is sadly long-gone. But even though it looks like flaming, molten garbage, the new Michael Bay-produced Ninja Turtles movie looks to bring at least some aspect of it back again. The movie’s theme song is called “Shell Shocked,” and it’s a vaguely dubsteppy rap song with Juicy J, Wiz Khalifa, and Ty Dolla $ign rapping vaguely turtle-related boasts (“Bandana on my face like a gangsta,” that sort of thing). It’s something, anyway. Below, listen to it and watch a scene of Whoopi Goldberg and Megan Fox discussing the Turtles, because that’s also something that happens in this movie.
Keith.truongLooks kind of good. :O
The newest addition to the Austin banh mi scene will officially open its doors next week. Dang Banh Mi opens this Monday, July 21, serving up a menu of banh mi sandwiches, pho, bun, and other Vietnamese specialities in a fast-casual style space at Burnet and 183. The restaurant is the latest project from Dave Paul, Sean Greenberg and Mark Greenberg of Plucker's Wing Bar, inspired by Paul's passion for Vietnam and banh mi.
Dang's owners previously told Eater that the banh mi are based on 100 year old family recipes from the Bánh Mì Phuong street stand in Hội An, Vietnam. While the project is not intended to expand as rapidly as Plucker's, notably the website has a slot for "locations." Dang Banh Mi joins local chain PhoNatic in combining what the owners call an "approachable" fast casual atmosphere with Vietnamese cuisine.
· Dang Banh Mi [Official]
· All Dang Banh Mi Coverage [EATX]
On the immediate heels of a generally favorable and successful 2014 World Cup, attention will soon turn to the 2018 tournament in Russia. While four long years separates Germany’s bid to defend their title, you can enjoy these 11 very cool posters in the meantime, courtesy of ESPN.
Follow Andrew Doughty on Twitter @Adoughty88
[SB Nation via ESPN]
Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
With ‘Game Of Thrones’ just coming off arguably its best season yet and the World Cup dominating the sports headlines right now, one Spanish graphic designer by the name of Nerea Palacios decided this would be a great time to put together some GoT-themed soccer kits…and they’re awesome.
The concept kits offer a look into what the uniforms for different family houses (and the Night’s Watch) may look like if Westeros and Essos were to have their own World Cup, one that would presumably be a lot more violent and chaotic than the one currently going on in Brazil.
Check out the unis by clicking through. I would definitely buy at least a few of these if they were actually being sold.
Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
Captain America represents some idealized idea of what America represents more than the actual real...
Keith.truongThis article actually came out before today's game. Before the game, Brazil had an ELO of 2099, and Chile had 1937 -- a difference of 162.
If you’re one of those people who thinks there are too many ties in soccer, it’s now safe to tune into the World Cup. The knockout stage begins Saturday, and with it the guarantee that a team is going to win each game. If matches are tied at the end of regulation, there will be 30 minutes of extra time. If they’re tied after that, penalty kicks will decide the games.
These knockout matches require different treatment from the Soccer Power Index (SPI) match predictor, which we’re using to power the FiveThirtyEight World Cup forecasts. The match predictor is calibrated based on the results of competitive international matches since late 2006. (We define a competitive match as any game that isn’t a friendly, and one where both teams were ranked in the SPI top 100 before the match.) The vast majority of these matches are ones that end in a draw rather than go into extra time. So the match predictor calculates the probability of a draw, along with a win or a loss, for each team.
But draws are no longer possible in the knockout round. The match predictor needs some way to resolve the proportion of games that it originally had going to a tie. Previously, SPI made a very conservative assumption and split those games 50-50 between the two teams. This is equivalent to saying that the results in extra time are totally random.
In this case, however, the conservative assumption probably isn’t the best one. In conjunction with ESPN Stats & Info, I gathered a list of extra-time matches since 2005 (after FIFA discontinued use of the “sudden-death” Golden Goal and Silver Goal rules) in the most important competitions: the knockout stages of the World Cup, the Confederations Cup and continental championships. We identified 54 such matches. Then we looked to see how often the favorite won. (To determine the favorite, we used Elo ratings rather than SPI ratings, because the Elo sample goes back further; however, SPI ratings are very highly correlated with Elo ratings and it’s reasonably easy to translate from one system to the other.
The pre-match favorite won 33 of the 54 matches — 61 percent — either after extra time or on penalties.
The sample size isn’t huge, but it’s unlikely that these results are a statistical fluke. If extra-time games were truly random, there’d only be about a 7 percent chance that the pre-match favorite would just happen to win 33 or more times in 54 attempts. Just as important, there are sound logical reasons to assume that the pre-match favorite is slightly more likely to prevail in extra time. If Germany somehow managed to draw with Burkina Faso after 90 minutes, you’d be wise to take Germany’s side of the bet if the teams were given another 30 minutes to play.
Most of the favorite’s edge, in fact, comes from its opportunity to play another 30 minutes of regular football. Of those games that were won before penalties — such as the 2010 World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands, where Spain scored a goal in the 116th minute and held the lead to avoid having to go to penalties — the favorite won 68 percent of the time. But the favorite won just 57 percent of the games that were decided on penalties.
Of course, some matches feature much heavier favorites than others. So we ran a logistic regression model to estimate the favorite’s win probability based on the difference in the team’s Elo ratings. Those results are reflected by the red line in the chart below.
In a knockout-stage game featuring teams with a 100-point Elo-rating difference — for instance, Italy and Ivory Coast based on their pre-World Cup Elo ratings — the favorite (in this case, Italy) starts out with a 64 percent chance of winning. If the game is tied at the end of regulation play, the favorite’s chance of winning (either after extra time or on penalties) is reduced to 56 percent. Its edge is even smaller if extra time is drawn and the only way to win is on penalties — it has just a 53 percent chance of prevailing at that point, we estimate.
Where the difference between the teams is larger, the favorite maintains more of an edge. Argentina and Algeria, for example, have about a 350-point Elo-rating difference. Argentina would have a 71 percent chance of winning such a game after it went to extra time. However, its edge would be quite small — it would only be about a 60-40 favorite — if the game went to penalties.
Matchups as lopsided as Argentina-Algeria rarely occur in the knockout stages of the World Cup, however — and where they do, the favorite is highly likely to win during regulation play anyway. So this adjustment doesn’t make all that much practical difference. Calibrated based on SPI rather than Elo ratings, we have Argentina as an 85.8 percent favorite under our new method, rather than 82.4 percent under our previous system that treated all extra-time games as random. And in the match between Belgium and the United States, Belgium is now a 58.4 percent favorite instead of 57.3 percent. The main effect is on Brazil, which has gone from having a 36 percent chance of winning the tournament to a 41 percent chance. Still, even the Brazilians sometimes lose on penalties, like to Paraguay in 2011.
Basketball fans seem to be pretty excited about the return of the Charlotte Hornets and I can’t say I blame them. After unveiling their new uniforms earlier this summer, the Hornets just unveiled the court they will be playing on this season.
The parquet features a “honey comb” design, which is pretty awesome:
And Charlotte is now affectionately known as “Buzz City,” I guess:
You can see the official unveiling video here.
Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
Keith.truongApparently Cory Matthews went to ACL at some point.
SportsCenter began using their new $125 million studio this week, meaning the old one that they had used for the previous decade is now gathering dust until they break it down and find another use for the space.
The picture you see above – which features a completely vacant studio without all the lights and graphics – may be the last we see of the set, which brought us thousands of SportsCenter editions over the past 10 years. Sure, the new digs are futuristic and pretty awesome, but I can’t help but feel a little sad knowing this one is getting Old Yeller’d.
Article found on: Next Impulse Sports
Source: U.S. Census Bureau | Geography | (301) 763-1128 | Last Revised: December 11, 2013
Miss a World Cup Match? Totally fine. Some wonderful bastard out there is recapping all the games in MS Paint.
Before the World Cup began, FiveThirtyEight’s projections, which are based on ESPN’s Soccer Power Index (SPI), were higher for teams from South America and lower for teams from Europe than other ratings systems’.
So far, that’s looked like a reasonably sharp assessment. And if we extend the analysis from continents to hemispheres — with teams from North America and South America in one group, and those from Europe, Africa and Asia in the other — it looks like we may even have underestimated teams from the Americas.
First, let’s look at the results by continental confederation. The table below evaluates each confederation’s results so far and compares them with the FiveThirtyEight/SPI forecast before the tournament. It includes results through Friday afternoon’s game between Costa Rica and Italy, and excludes games (such as the France-Switzerland match that I’m watching now) between teams from the same confederation.
Before the tournament, our projections expected South American teams to have compiled 5.7 wins, 2.0 losses and 2.3 draws through this point in the World Cup. In fact, their record is 7-2-1. Not a huge difference, but the South American teams have more than held up their side of the bargain.
Teams from Europe, by contrast, are 5-6-2 in games played against other confederations, compared with an expected record of 5.1 wins, 4.6 losses and 3.3 draws. Pretty close, although a pinch worse than expected.
It’s teams from North America’s CONCACAF federation, instead, that have produced the largest discrepancy. They’re 4-1-1 so far, much better than their meager expected record of 1.4 wins, 3.1 losses and 1.5 draws. Meanwhile, teams from Asia and Africa, although not expected to be much good, are struggling with a combined record of just 1-8-4 so far.
A still more striking result comes when you combine the continents into hemispheres (counting Europe along with Asia and Africa in one hemisphere and the Americas in another). In inter-hemisphere matches so far, the Americas have 10 wins against just two losses. The rest of the world has the opposite record: 2-10-0.
What accounts for the differences? The least sexy explanation might be luck: We’re not talking about all that large a sample of matches. We’ll have to see whether the pattern holds through the rest of the tournament.
But travel distance could also play a role. The FiveThirtyEight match projections include a very modest adjustment for east-to-west travel distance (north-to-south distance seems to matter much less, perhaps because it doesn’t produce as much jet lag). The adjustment is calibrated based on the results of highly competitive soccer matches since 2006. However, there’s evidence that the home-continent advantage had been higher in the past. No European team has ever won a World Cup played in the Americas.
It’s also possible that the effect has something to do with the stadium atmosphere. Teams such as Chile and Colombia have received raucous support in their matches so far; in the game I attended at Estádio do Maracana in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, perhaps 90 percent of the crowd was pulling for the Chileans. Because partisan crowds seem to affect officiating decisions in soccer, that could mean these teams are getting a bit more slack from the officials. Chile, for example, spent much of the second half of its win against Spain lying on the pitch with exaggerated injuries but received no sanction for time-wasting.
A final theory might be that teams from the Americas are fresher. The major European leagues just completed play in mid-May after beginning their season last August. Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, for example, played in 51 matches for Real Madrid since the start of last summer, including the Champions League final a few weeks ago. The best teams from the Americas, like Brazil and Argentina, also have plenty of stars in the major European leagues. But others, such as Costa Rica and Mexico, are less reliant on such players. That could serve to mitigate the talent advantage that the European teams might have and reward the countries with disciplined and tactical team play.
Isaac Hou is a Taiwanese-American street performer hailing from Taipei City in Taiwan, where he lives for one thing: dazzling people with his amazing skills.
Keith.truongThese are usually pretty amazing. They had one in December or January that raised a million bucks.
Schedule last updated: June 9, 2014 - 1:23 pm
| Date and Time | Game | Runners | Estimate | Post-Game Setup | Comments | Couch Commentators | Prizes |
| 6/22/2014 12:00:00 | Super Mario 3D World | SlowKingsPants | 2:15:00 | ||||
| 6/22/2014 14:15:00 | Jet Set Radio Future | UrBoyGraham | 2:40:00 | ||||
| 6/22/2014 16:55:00 | Ape Escape 2 | iongravirei | 1:20:00 | o[8(|) | |||
| 6/22/2014 18:15:00 | Super Monkey Ball 2 | Geoff, Miles | 0:30:00 | Expert mode race | |||
| 6/22/2014 18:45:00 | Donkey Kong Country | Garrison | 0:45:00 | All Stages | |||
| 6/22/2014 19:30:00 | Kirby's Dream Land | TrUShade or CyberbotX | 0:20:00 | Incentive for Extra (hard) Mode | |||
| 6/22/2014 19:50:00 | Kirby Super Star | Countdown42 | 1:30:00 | 100% | |||
| 6/22/2014 21:20:00 | Banjo-Tooie | Hyperresonance | 3:15:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 0:35:00 | Pikmin | CaptainX24 | 1:40:00 | Best Ending run | |||
| 6/23/2014 2:15:00 | Bioshock 2 | BloodThunder | 1:40:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 3:55:00 | Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs | Weables, ShadowDraft | 1:00:00 | Incentive for Amnesia Justine run | |||
| 6/23/2014 4:55:00 | Goosebumps: Attack of the Mutant | pcull44444 | 0:45:00 | All cutscenes | |||
| 6/23/2014 5:40:00 | Pizza Pop | EggmaniMN | 0:15:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 5:55:00 | Samurai Pizza Cats | Trogdor | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 6:15:00 | Metal Warriors | Omnigamer | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 6:45:00 | Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman Zero | tonic | 0:25:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 7:10:00 | Choujin Sentai Jetman (Power Rangers) | Guhbadoo | 0:15:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 7:25:00 | Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon | Pykn | 1:40:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 9:05:00 | Alex Kidd in Shinobi World | Deepfreeze | 0:15:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 9:20:00 | Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (SMS) | btrim | 0:20:00 | Start of Disney block | |||
| 6/23/2014 9:40:00 | Aladdin (Genesis) | jymotion | 0:25:00 | All Levels | |||
| 6/23/2014 10:05:00 | Crusader of Centy | Geurge | 1:00:00 | Zelda-like Blast Processing action! | |||
| 6/23/2014 11:05:00 | Earthworm Jim | Zyre | 0:45:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 11:50:00 | Setup the Dolphin | everyone | 1:00:00 | Buffer period #1. Potential bonus game. | |||
| 6/23/2014 12:50:00 | Sonic the Hedgehog 2 | Aleck47 | 0:30:00 | Start of Sonic block | |||
| 6/23/2014 13:20:00 | Tails' Adventure | boredeathly | 0:35:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 13:55:00 | Sonic Advance 2 | Naegleria | 0:45:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 14:40:00 | Sonic Unleashed (day stages only) | BrokenArthritis | 1:15:00 | Incentive for Eggmanland; end of Sonic block | |||
| 6/23/2014 15:55:00 | Pulseman | soothingplumtea | 0:40:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 16:35:00 | Mega Man | Adefgames | 0:30:00 | Start of Mega Man block | |||
| 6/23/2014 17:05:00 | Mega Man 3 | Checkers | 0:45:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 17:50:00 | Mega Man 5 | darkman78 | 0:50:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 18:40:00 | Mega Man 6 | DarkTerrex, Golden | 0:45:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/23/2014 19:25:00 | Mega Man V (Gameboy) | mrcab, Virtualboyness | 1:00:00 | Race! End of Mega Man block | |||
| 6/23/2014 20:25:00 | The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures | Zmaster91 | 3:00:00 | ||||
| 6/23/2014 23:25:00 | Resident Evil 2 | Carcinogen or Fiercekyo | 1:10:00 | Choice of scenario | |||
| 6/24/2014 0:35:00 | System Shock 2 | Cirno | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 0:55:00 | Psychonauts | Duke Bilgewater | 1:10:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 2:05:00 | Deus Ex: Human Revolution | Xexi | 1:25:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 3:30:00 | Sly Cooper and the Thievus Raccoonus | LovableLambchop | 1:30:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 5:00:00 | Blasto | Saint Connor | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 5:30:00 | Chameleon Twist | Kefka14 | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 5:50:00 | Gex 64 | AlbinoAlbatross | 1:30:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 7:20:00 | Bomberman Hero | PvtCb, Yashi, Kirkq | 1:05:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/24/2014 8:25:00 | Treasure Master | MechaRichter | 0:45:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 9:10:00 | Kickmaster | Zyre | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 9:30:00 | Marble Madness | bassdeluxe27 | 0:10:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 9:40:00 | Metal Storm | UraniumAnchor | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 10:00:00 | StarTropics II: Zoda's Revenge | Guhbadoo | 1:20:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 11:20:00 | Clash at Demonhead | Gildersneeze | 0:35:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 11:55:00 | Arkista's Ring | Feasel | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 12:15:00 | Rygar | Darkwing Duck | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 12:45:00 | 8 Eyes | Feasel | 0:25:00 | 1 Player, 2 Controllers incentive | |||
| 6/24/2014 13:10:00 | Shatterhand | UraniumAnchor, Klaige | 0:30:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/24/2014 13:40:00 | Zombies Ate My Setup | everyone | 1:00:00 | Buffer period #2. No, ZAMN isn't a bonus. | |||
| 6/24/2014 14:40:00 | Super Meat Boy | MattyIce3131 | 2:00:00 | 106% run; incentive for doing a world blindfolded | |||
| 6/24/2014 16:40:00 | I Wanna Be The Boshy | witwix | 0:50:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 17:30:00 | Dustforce | TheBirdOfPrey | 0:55:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 18:25:00 | Castlevania 64 | Cosmo | 1:30:00 | Character bid war, incentive for Legacy of Darkness run by PvtCB | |||
| 6/24/2014 19:55:00 | Castlevania: Symphony of the Night | romscout vs. Dacidbro or MechaRichter vs. zex | 0:45:00 | All bosses race, Alucard vs. Richter bid war | |||
| 6/24/2014 20:40:00 | Touhouvania 2 | Krimmydoodle | 0:25:00 | Hard mode | |||
| 6/24/2014 21:05:00 | Bunny Must Die | PinkPajamas | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/24/2014 21:35:00 | Guacamelee | NiL8r | 1:25:00 | Incentive for Good Ending | |||
| 6/24/2014 23:00:00 | Bastion | Vulajin | 1:00:00 | All Story Levels | |||
| 6/25/2014 0:00:00 | Ikachan | Reed, lurk | 0:25:00 | ＜コ:彡 | |||
| 6/25/2014 0:25:00 | Eversion | UraniumAnchor | 0:20:00 | Incentive for All Gems/True Ending | |||
| 6/25/2014 0:45:00 | Bleed | Studio | 0:25:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 1:10:00 | Dust: An Elysian Tail | Vulajin | 0:35:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 1:45:00 | Outlast | Saint Connor | 0:30:00 | Incentive for all chapters | |||
| 6/25/2014 2:15:00 | Anodyne | ShadowDraft | 0:10:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 2:25:00 | Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Rise of the Owlverlord | crate | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 2:55:00 | Forbidden Forest | danacrysalis | 0:10:00 | Commodore 64 block. Really? Yes. | |||
| 6/25/2014 3:05:00 | Monty on the Run | danacrysalis | 0:15:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 3:20:00 | MadWorld | LazerLong | 2:15:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 5:35:00 | Ninjabread Man | SCXCR | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 5:55:00 | Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind | Graviton | 0:25:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 6:20:00 | Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel | Omnigamer | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 6:40:00 | El Viento | Spineshark | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 7:00:00 | Tomba 2 | CavemanDCJ | 1:30:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 8:30:00 | Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage | Jumpyluff, SSBMstuff | 0:40:00 | 14 Talisman race | |||
| 6/25/2014 9:10:00 | Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg | iongravirei, AlbinoAlbatross | 1:30:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/25/2014 10:40:00 | Bangai-o | zex | 0:55:00 | Start of Treasure block | |||
| 6/25/2014 11:35:00 | Mischief Makers | Jackafur | 1:10:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 12:45:00 | Guardian Heroes | Reed | 0:20:00 | End of Treasure block | |||
| 6/25/2014 13:05:00 | Mystery Setup Theater 3000 | everyone | 1:30:00 | Buffer period #3. Potential bonus game, mystery edition. | |||
| 6/25/2014 14:35:00 | Double Dragon Advance | Murphagator | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 15:05:00 | Battletoads & Double Dragon | PJ, MechaRichter | 0:40:00 | Co-op run | |||
| 6/25/2014 15:45:00 | TMNT IV: Turtles in Time | Sinister1, Mike Uyama | 0:30:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/25/2014 16:15:00 | Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi | Striker | 0:40:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 16:55:00 | Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts | PJ | 1:00:00 | Weapon bid war | |||
| 6/25/2014 17:55:00 | The Lost Vikings | johannhowitzer | 1:30:00 | 1 player, 2 controllers | |||
| 6/25/2014 19:25:00 | Warcraft 3 | Studio | 1:30:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 20:55:00 | Octodad: Dadliest Catch | Ubergoose | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/25/2014 21:25:00 | La-Mulana (version bid war) | HiddenDistance or JMan | 2:20:00 | Bid war between the original game and the remake | |||
| 6/25/2014 23:45:00 | Risk of Rain | Studio, LazerLong | 0:30:00 | Co-op run | |||
| 6/26/2014 0:15:00 | Noitu Love 2: Devolution | BlackCatGaming or CavemanDCJ | 0:40:00 | Bid war, Xoda vs. Almond | |||
| 6/26/2014 0:55:00 | Grand Theft Auto 2 | Kubelwagon | 0:50:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 1:45:00 | Duke Nukem II | Bonesaw577 | 0:45:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 2:30:00 | ZZT | Cosmo | 0:15:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 2:45:00 | Nitronic Rush | ChocoPoptart, Geoff, Vespher | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 3:15:00 | Trials Fusion | TheBlazeJp | 1:15:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 4:30:00 | SSX3 | CloakedYoshi | 0:30:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 5:00:00 | Tony Hawk's Pro Skater | guished, Remedy, George | 0:25:00 | 100% race | |||
| 6/26/2014 5:25:00 | Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 | George | 0:20:00 | All goals and golds | |||
| 6/26/2014 5:45:00 | Strider 2 | frankieframeskip, zex | 0:20:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/26/2014 6:05:00 | NiGHTS into Dreams... | Miles | 0:20:00 | Claris vs. Elliot bid war | |||
| 6/26/2014 6:25:00 | Mighty Switch Force | Duke Bilgewater | 0:35:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 7:00:00 | Shantae | Wuqinglong | 1:30:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 8:30:00 | Trip World | Wawlconut | 0:15:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 8:45:00 | Yoshi's Story | soothingplumtea | 0:30:00 | All Melons | |||
| 6/26/2014 9:15:00 | New Super Mario Bros. U | ewaller | 0:50:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 10:05:00 | New Super Luigi U | wexcelsior | 0:50:00 | ||||
| 6/26/2014 10:55:00 | Setup Kart GX | everyone | 1:30:00 | Buffer period #4. Potential bonus game. | |||
| 6/26/2014 12:25:00 | Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons vs. Oracle of Ages bid war | Bananas or Rainbowism | 2:15:00 | Bid war between the Oracle games | |||
| 6/26/2014 14:40:00 | Goldeneye | l34ss l3oost | 0:50:00 | 00 Agent, Hard | |||
| 6/26/2014 15:30:00 | Doom 64 | peaches_ | 1:30:00 | Watch Me Die difficulty | |||
| 6/26/2014 17:00:00 | Halo: Combat Evolved | Goatrope | 2:10:00 | Legendary | |||
| 6/26/2014 19:10:00 | Dishonored | FearfulFerret, DecidedSloth | 1:05:00 | Race! Incentive for Knife of Dunwall DLC | |||
| 6/26/2014 20:15:00 | Fallout 3 | stonenot or Beezy | 0:50:00 | Incentive for a run of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind | |||
| 6/26/2014 21:05:00 | Rayman Legends | FearfulFerret, Spikevegeta, Ubergoose | 2:00:00 | potential race | |||
| 6/26/2014 23:05:00 | Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword | TLoZSR, Testrunner | 6:00:00 | ||||
| 6/27/2014 5:05:00 | Bible Adventures | Brossentia | 0:15:00 | David & Goliath scenario | |||
| 6/27/2014 5:20:00 | Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers 2 | Sinister1, feasel | 0:20:00 | co-op | |||
| 6/27/2014 5:40:00 | Bubble Bobble | Darkwing Duck, MetaSigma | 0:45:00 | co-op | |||
| 6/27/2014 6:25:00 | Castlevania | kissmyafrocard | 0:20:00 | ||||
| 6/27/2014 6:45:00 | Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse | kissmyafrocard | 0:40:00 | Character bid war | |||
| 6/27/2014 7:25:00 | Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom | Crak Atak | 0:25:00 | ||||
| 6/27/2014 7:50:00 | Bionic Commando | PJ | 0:35:00 | Incentive for 100% | |||
| 6/27/2014 8:25:00 | Metal Setup Chaos: the story of the President of this great United States of America | everyone | 3:00:00 | Buffer period #5. Potential bonus game. I'm totally subtle about what bonus game this is (hint: From Software's greatest masterpiece) | |||
| 6/27/2014 11:25:00 | Heretic | Cubeface | 0:35:00 | Hard, Episodes 1-3 | |||
| 6/27/2014 12:00:00 | Ultimate Doom | Kubelwagon, Dime | 0:45:00 | Race | |||
| 6/27/2014 12:45:00 | Quake | Cubeface | 1:45:00 | 100% Nightmare run | |||
| 6/27/2014 14:30:00 | Metroid Prime 1 vs. Metroid Prime 2 bid war | Miles | 1:40:00 | Bid war between the first two Primes | |||
| 6/27/2014 16:10:00 | Metroid Fusion | kirbymastah, BioSpark, JaggerG | 1:50:00 | Race! Incentive for 1% runs | |||
| 6/27/2014 18:00:00 | Super Mario Bros. 2 (U.S.) | cak | 0:30:00 | Warpless | |||
| 6/27/2014 18:30:00 | Super Mario Bros. 3 | duckfist | 1:10:00 | Warpless | |||
| 6/27/2014 19:40:00 | Super Mario World | Suidt | 2:00:00 | 96 Exit run, incentive for all dragon coins and moons | |||
| 6/27/2014 21:40:00 | Super Mario Sunshine | Linkfan21, ChrisM, JKB | 1:40:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/27/2014 23:20:00 | Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door | Almolicious | 6:15:00 | ||||
| 6/28/2014 5:35:00 | Pokemon Puzzle Challenge | unusualcook, Bbforky | 1:00:00 | Intense Difficulty. Incentive to run Pokemon Snap | |||
| 6/28/2014 6:35:00 | Pokemon Red | Shenanagans, MexiricanBassMonkey | 1:30:00 | Incentive for Yellow glitched run | |||
| 6/28/2014 8:05:00 | Mega Man Zero 2 | Kuribon | 1:10:00 | ||||
| 6/28/2014 9:15:00 | Mega Man X | Tiki, CalebHart | 0:40:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/28/2014 9:55:00 | Mega Man X2 | CalebHart, Iateyourpie, Ivan, Trogdor | 0:50:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/28/2014 10:45:00 | Half-Life | Cubeface | 0:50:00 | ||||
| 6/28/2014 11:35:00 | Half-Life 2 | Gocnak | 2:15:00 | ||||
| 6/28/2014 13:50:00 | Portal | Norferzlo, z1mb0bw4y | 0:25:00 | Race! | |||
| 6/28/2014 14:15:00 | Portal 2 | Phxntxm | 1:00:00 | "Solo co-op"; one player completes co-op mode | |||
| 6/28/2014 15:15:00 | Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past | Andy, Jadin | 2:00:00 | Any% no out of bounds. Incentive for Any% no Exploration Glitch run by Jadin. | |||
| 6/28/2014 17:15:00 | Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds | Zandergoth | 2:10:00 | ||||
| 6/28/2014 19:25:00 | Legend of Setup: Buffer of Time | everyone | 1:00:00 | Buffer period #6. Potential bonus game. This one is also labeled in the most subtle of manners. | |||
| 6/28/2014 20:25:00 | Super Metroid | zoast, Ivan | 1:45:00 | Low% run, incentive for glitched any% | |||
| 6/28/2014 22:10:00 | Final Fantasy VI | Essentia, puwexil | 7:30:00 | Co-op, incentive for 100% | |||
| 6/29/2014 5:40:00 | Finale | everyone | 0:05:00 | If we have enough energy to last 5 minutes, it's a miracle |
Over the past half-decade or so, the Spanish national team put together one of the most impressive runs in the history of international soccer, winning a European Football Championship in 2008, a World Cup in 2010, and another Euro crown in 2012. But in this year’s World Cup, Spain went out with a whimper — routed by the Dutch in its opening match and failing to muster a single goal in a 2-0 loss to Chile.
Just like that, Spain’s hopes of advancing beyond the group stage were dashed.
Before the tournament began, our World Cup prediction model had Spain racking up 5.9 points in the Group B table. (In round-robin play, teams get three points for a win and one for a draw.) But after two losses, Spain is now likely to amass only 2.2 points, 3.7 fewer than expected — a huge shortfall.
As strange as it sounds, though, this isn’t an uncommon fate for defending World Cup champions. Since the tournament shifted to its current three-points-for-a-win format in 1994, defending champs have come up short of pre-tournament predictions by an average of 2.3 points during the group stage, and only two incumbent champs — Germany in 1994 and Brazil in 2006 — actually exceeded expectations the years they defended their titles.
To determine these shortfalls for years before 2014 (tournaments for which I don’t have FiveThirtyEight projection data), I turned to the pre-tournament Elo ratings. The Elo system is designed to produce probabilities of wins and losses for each team in a matchup based on the difference between the two teams’ ratings. Of course, the group stage of the World Cup also allows for draws. Elo treats draws as half a win for each team, but doesn’t provide a prediction for a tied outcome. So, I tapped into our FiveThirtyEight model to derive the probability of a draw based on the raw probability of a win if ties weren’t allowed.
For example, in the opener of the 1994 World Cup, Germany (Elo: 1,971) faced Bolvia (Elo: 1,663). In a world without ties, the Elo formula tells us Germany’s 308-point Elo lead would produce a win 85.5 percent of the time, but the curve above also tells us that 15.6 percent of the time, such a matchup will end in a draw. Subtracting half of that number (7.8 percent, since ties count as half a win in Elo) from 85.5 percent, we get the corrected probability that Germany would win outright: 77.7 percent. (The Germans did end up winning, 1-0.)
Doing this for every World Cup group-stage match from 1994 to 2010, we can generate a projection for the number of points each team would have been expected to accumulate in the standings table. We see that defending World Cup champions have usually fallen short, often in a major way:
Only the 2006 Brazil side, which tore through the group stage undefeated, significantly outplayed expectations. The rest either played to them (Germany 1994), underperformed slightly but still advanced (Brazil 1998), or flamed out spectacularly (France 2002, Italy 2010 — and now Spain 2014).
It’s not clear why this is happening. Is Elo overrating defending champions for some reason? Are these teams overburdened by the weight of expectations? Or is this just an unlucky streak in the small sample of six tournaments? Theories will abound, but one thing is for sure: When it comes to meeting pre-tournament expectations, it’s rarely paid to be a defending World Cup champion in recent years.
Keith.truongPretty cool, until you realize that your fate has been sealed by some retard on the other side of the world.
Games as recruiting tools aren't anything new, but this little free browser game was more entertaining to me than America's Army ever was.
Keith.truong[Testing Bookmarklet] ESPN's Nate Silver has a data driven site, and here's their interactive World Cup prediction's page that updates based off of games played in this year's Cup.
Keith.truongMore like Fullthor Bjornsson,
Keith.truong2 dollar hops & grain cans + rare greenhouse tappings sounds pretty badass.
Haymaker. [Photo: Spencer Selvidge/EATX]
The World Cup starts tomorrow, which means Austin bars will be awash in soccer jerseys until July 13. Venues all over town will be showing the games, but there's watching the World Cup in a bar and then there's watching the World Cup with rowdy fans, drink specials, cheap food, and/or all three.
Here are the funnest events and best deals for primo World Cup enjoyment. From Star Bar's American pride specials, Hops & Grain's rare greenhouse beer tappings at Wright Bros Brew & Brew, and Takoba's Brazilian music, there's great options for die hard supporters and bandwagon-jumpers alike. If there's any fun place to watch the World Cup that we missed, hit us up at the tipline or in the comments below.
--Nadia Chaudhury
