New Zealand's sporting teams are generally nicknamed using some combination of the jerseys they wear (usually black) and the sport they play. So the basketball team is the Tall Blacks (insert joke here), the rugby team the All Blacks, the soccer team the All Whites, etc.
Can you guess what they wanted to name the badminton team?
It was a bloody silly idea in the first place, but New Zealand's badminton world may finally have to concede that calling the national team the "Black Cocks" really is a bit too strong, the New Zealand Herald reports.
Badminton NZ prez Nigel Skelt confirmed: "At the recent New Zealand Open, crowds were yelling out 'c'mon the Black Cocks'. Whether the team actually adopt the name officially, they're already known as the Black Cocks."
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With Arrested Development officially retired, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has assumed the throne of my favorite TV show. Watching the promos for season two I was a little wary of Danny DeVito being cast as Dennis and Dee's dad on the show--not that I have anything against him in general, but it seemed like it was a really blatant attempt to force a recognizable but old name onto a show that was built around the chemistry of its relatively unknown, young group of actors/writers.
Fortunately the transition has been pretty seamless. Charlie, Mac, Dennis and Dee are all rather nuanced, funny characters, so you never really care who is on screen at any point in time. And both DeVito and Anne Archer, playing his estranged superbitch of a wife, have meshed and carved out their own niches without leading the show away from the callous, oddball sense of humor that made it so worthwhile in the first place. Tim Goodman of the SF Chronicle agrees.
Plenty of clips on youtube, here's the first episode from last season in two parts:
The Gang Gets Racist, Part 1
The Gang Gets Racist, Part 2
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Rog showing Raffie how to dress for success
The level of false humility in sports is ridiculously high; as cocky as many professional athletes are, most also cultivate at an early age an equally obnoxious tendency to deflect credit and provide tired, uncontroversial responses at every turn. So in some ways it's refereshing when the best tennis player in the world talks about himself as though he is in fact the best tennis player in the world.
And if you're Roger Federer, why walk to the court in a tracksuit when Nike can make you a special cream-colored blazer to honor your status as three-time defending champ? Taking the general idea behind Rasheed Wallace's championship belt and translating it into a classy look befitting of Centre Court, Roger came out for each of his matches at Wimbledon wearing a blazer. Think about that for a minute. Most reasonable people quietly hate guys who wear blazers to trendy bars, so I don't even know what it means to wear one during a major sporting event.
All that said, it's still all about the quotes:
On whether he's on the road to becoming the best ever:
"I am maybe heading down that road."
On destroying Jonas Bjorkman in the semis:
"It was flawless. It's just a beautiful feeling. You don't get it very often because usually you have very close matches. When you can dominate an opponent, it's always nice, especially in a semifinal of a Grand Slam."
On destroying Jonas Bjorkman in the semis, once more for good measure:
"Yeah, I mean, it was, yeah, it was flawless. He wasn't making crazy mistakes or anything. He really just came up short. So for this reason there was no need to feel bad for him because I just had a really great day, and unfortunately he couldn't do any better today."
On rolling through Mario Ancic:
"It was an incredible performance. It's not ordinary when he comes to the net and every time you pass him. I guess if I keep this sort of a performance, I don't see myself losing."
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Gael Garcia Bernal stars in Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. Stylistically, or at least in terms of its interesting ability to bend reality, it looks very similar to Eternal Sunshine, though Charlie Kaufman isn't behind this one.
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As noted by Stereogum, The Killers have new stuff on the way.
I always assumed a time would come when I would be embarrassed to have attended three Killers shows, and it's now become apparent that that time was about two years ago.
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Vinny Del Negro lives!
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The cool chase scene from the opening of District B13.
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Some yet-to-be-named members of the BBC's Office will be guest-starring on the American version. And the BBC would like to do an Office movie.
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