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Steven Turnbull

Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA


Joined January 19th 2009

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The draft is done, let the games begin!

February 26th 2009 10:41
Well the League of Leagues is finally on the way.

After a summer of talking, debating, and lengthy email in inordinate detail on what would be the rules (still hurting the "bad reputation" rule has missed out) the draft went away last Wednesday and finally the six teams are ready for battle.

The draft night went (surprisingly) off without a hitch. We laughed, we cried about the random format of the picks (okay that just me), we made fun of Chris believing Vanilla Ice was still number one on the charts, but we finally had our squads.

Eveyone got some great picks, some fantastic steals, and some teams they are just hoping will do something this season, but how did everyone shape up?

The teams competing for the inaugural League of League championships are;

Saget Sweaters
Western Bulldogs AFL North Melbourne AFL
Matthew Lloyd COLEMAN Cameron Mooney COLEMAN
Dale Thomas COLEMAN Jason Akermanis COLEMAN
Manly NRL Parramatta NRL
Ricky Ponting CRICKET Shaun Marsh CRICKET Andrew McDonald CRICKET
Chi White Sox MLB Florida Marlins MLB
Toronto Blue Jays MLB Colorado Rockies MLB
Boston Celtics NBA Orlando Magic NBA
New Orleans Hornets NBA Miami Heat NBA
Liverpool EPL Fulham EPL Blackburn Rovers EPL

Chris' Rou Ros'
Sydney Swans AFL Richmond AFL
Barry Hall COLEMAN Adam Goodes COLEMAN
Ben Cousins COLEMAN Ben Cousins COLEMAN
North QLD Cowboys NRL Canberra Raiders NRL
Mitchell Johnson CRICKET Simon Katich CRICKET Peter Siddle CRICKET
New York Yankees MLB St. Louis Cardinals MLB
Atlanta Braves MLB Cincinnati Reds MLB
New York Knicks NBA Milwaukee Bucs NBA
Chicago Bulls NBA Washington Wizards NBA
Everton EPL Aston Villa EPL Middlesbrough EPL

Peter Cetera All-Stars
Hawthorn AFL Adelaide Crows AFL
Matthew Pavlich COLEMAN Nick Riewoldt COLEMAN
Jarryd Roughead COLEMAN Daniel Bradshaw COLEMAN
Brisbane Broncoes NRL Gold Coast Titans NRL
Michael Clarke CRICKET Stuart Clark CRICKET Dave Hussey CRICKET
Philadelphia Phillies MLB LA Dodgers MLB
Arizona Diamondbacks MLB Oakland A's MLB
San Antonio Spurs NBA Denver Broncos NBA
Atlanta Hawks NBA Philadelphia 76ers NBA
Manchester United EPL Manchester City EPL Bolton Wanderers EPL

Chariots of Fire
Geelong AFL Essendon AFL
Scott Lucas COLEMAN Mark Williams COLEMAN
Paul Medhurst COLEMAN Daniel Motlop COLEMAN
St. George Illawarra NRL NZ Warriors NRL
Bryce McGain CRICKET Brett Lee CRICKET Cameron White CRICKET
LA Angels MLB Milwaukee Brewers MLB
Texas Rangers MLB Houston Astros MLB
LA Lakers NBA Phoenix Suns NBA
Portland T/Blazers NBA Toronto Raptors NBA
West Ham EPL Hull City EPL Portsmouth EPL

Invincible Whites
St Kilda AFL CarltonAFL
Lance Franklin COLEMAN Brendan Fevola COLEMAN
Steve Johnson COLEMAN Mitch Morton COLEMAN
Sydney Roosters NRL Newcastle Knights NRL
Brad Haddin CRICKET Nathan Bracken CRICKET Ben Hilfenhaus CRICKET
NY Mets MLB Chicago Cubs MLB
Tampa Bay Rays MLB Detroit Tigers MLB
Detroit Pistons NBA Utah Jazz NBA
Dallas Mavericks NBA Golden State Warriors NBA
Arsenal EPL Chelsea EPL Tottenham EPL

Beige Jackets
Collingwood AFL Brisbane Lions AFL
Jonathan Brown COELMAN Matthew Richardson COLEMAN
Brad Johnson COLEMAN Steven Milne COLEMAN
Melbourne Storm NRL Cronulla Sharks NRL
Michael Hussey CRICKET Phil Hughes CRICKET James Hopes CRICKET
Boston Red Sox MLB Minnesota Twins MLB
Cleveland Indians MLB Kansas City Royals MLB
Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Houston Rockets NBA
New Jersey Nets NBA Charlotte Bobcats NBA
Wigan Athletic EPL Newcastle EPL Sunderland EPL

The teams are all going through pre-season competition so far, and with AFL and NRL going through their trial/NAB Cup matches, and Australia getting ready to take on the Proteas in their Test series, we shall soon see which teams will rise to the challenge, and which will float to the shallow end of the dream pool.

Let the games begin!

-Bhuds (Beige Jackets)


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Hey...

February 18th 2009 12:26
Hey...watching what you say

OVERHEARING a politician off guard in public is a wonderful thing.

Last week I was walking around an airport when I saw one pacing while on the phone under flight timetables. He had his brow furrowed at something on the other end, but onlookers got a clue when he said another pollie's name in vein.

Anyway, he kept walking and left me out of the loop, but it is funny sometimes what you see and hear away from television screens and newspapers.

You get so use to listening, watching, and reading at home the same well-constructed jargon. You just want to scream `hey, loosen the tie, grab a mojito, and say something funny.'
As part of my job as a reporter I'm used to feeling this, so hearing someone talk aloud off the cuff is an interesting thing. On this I have to think twice before stopping myself running to the nearest phone booth to file an exclusive.

It makes me think too how much the things you say on Facebook and even blogs you have to be wary about. There are serious implications to people on these forums because essentially they're as much part of the public sphere as other conventional media. This is best shown with people talking and naming potential suspects of the Victorian bushfires.

On a less serious note it's also shown when status messages from partner and I profess our love long distance, and then friends post statements questioning my sexuality (I will get you Jezz with a giant stick).

Social networking authorities should always use tact when tabloid fodder could arise from their pages. Having said that though, maybe we should all be a little bit more careful in what we say or write. This of course excludes the politicians. They need more mojitos.

- Christopher O'Leary
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What sport delivers the best athlete

February 14th 2009 07:55
In my moment of relaxing over the weekend (alright half-way through another couch sitting marathon) I came across a show which had a concept of sheer brilliance.

Rexona World’s Greatest Athlete has brought eight high-profile Australian sportsmen from different codes, and pits them against each other in a range of sports.

With athletes from all the major ball codes, athletics, Ironman series and ever V8 racing, these athletes go up every week in a manner of sporting contests to see who is actually the best athlete.

Other than being an hour-long ad for Rexona deodorant, it actually brings up a very valid concept on which sport that our fair country obsesses about would actually create the “best” athlete.

Putting aside state rivalries and differences (AFL vs NRL, Union vs League, Ironman vs a sport people actually watch), there are a number of factors you would have to consider.
First of all the key points of the “greatest” athlete would lay in four areas; strength, agility, stamina and technique.

Union and league would definitely be up there in strength, while V8 and Ironman would be leaders in the stamina department, but when it comes to agility and technique, well there is no real way to compare.

Soccer players of course have great foot-handling skills, a skill that other codes do have, but are not overly reliant (AFL of course focuses on kicking, but only as one of their skills).

League and union players need agility to avoid tackles, same with AFL, but athletes are very agile in their particular event, and obviously have their technique perfected to compete on a world-wide challenge.

Cricket is one sport that definitely touches all these factors, but could you consider a sport that Shane Warne and David Boon (arguably the most unfit sports-hero of Australia) were champions in could deliver the greatest in all sports?

So the question remain which sport delivers the greatest athlete? If you are looking at a sport that participants prove to be versatile in all manners of athletic contests, I would have to say that league and union would be tied to deliver the results.

These are sports that demand strength to stop a thundering 120 kg opponent breaking through the line, the agility to deftly avoid the rushing tackle, the technique to look ahead a see line breaks, potential passes and possible deflections, and stamina as they need to do this again and again and again for a complete 80 minutes, hitting a tackle on a average of eight seconds.

Now being born and bred Victorian, I know that it is against my very DNA to not place AFL up the top, and that my fellow wise men (both originally Victorians) will point out that AFL delivers the same results, but there is something in the rugby codes seem to deliver each year players who would easily be considered as the best of the best in the world.

With a number of episodes left in the series, my bet is the final battle between Billy Slater and Loti Taquiri will be the one to stand and deliver as Australia's greatest athlete
And the final thought on which sport fails the deliver the greatest athlete, watching Ky Hurst with a basketball proves that while he is strong in the waves, he is useless when you take him out of his comfort zone.

- Bhuds
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Hey...

February 12th 2009 06:52
Hey...who needs a drink?

SOME of the best hot chips I've ever tasted was in a diner in the Victorian country side of Yea. I would go there with family while travelling up to our holiday house, and with cousins would happily devour a kilo of oily shoestring slices of potato covered in gravy or tomato sauce


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League of Leagues Rules

February 9th 2009 07:06
The competition involves people owning teams throughout a number of different sporting competitions. The more games your teams win, the more likely you are to win each fortnight.
Owners go head-to-head in fortnightly contests. For each sport, the owner whose teams have won the most matches over the past fortnight gets a point. The winner of the fortnight is the owner who gets the most points.

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A Stimulating Debate

February 8th 2009 11:24
Sorry guys, but I'm going to talk about politics. You'll have to bear with me for the next 1,500 words...

The last week has been massive in Australian politics, with the Rudd Government’s second economic stimulus package of $42bn, combined with the opposition’s stated willingness to oppose it, drawing the battlelines on economic debate around the best way to fight the worsening economic conditions


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Hey...

February 7th 2009 07:23
Hey...how to spend $950

It's taken two weeks since Carenda left for Cairns for yours truly to turn into a grimy smelly hermit. When I'm not at work I rarely leave my room, I leave old newspapers and dirty glasses all over the floor, and the television's permanetly set to Sam Seaborn's dulcet tones


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A-League Finals, Wk 1

February 6th 2009 05:56
It’s been a mixed season for domestic soccer. The woeful form of reigning champions Newcastle and Sydney, combined with a slight drop in average attendances in Melbourne, has seen the league stagnate slightly. For a league which is still in its infancy, stagnation risks becoming a more serious decline. This will make next season crucial, as two new, cashed up, clubs join the competition. Their aggressive willingness to sign new players should shake up the competition in a year which will see the game hopefully receive a boost from clinching world cup qualification. However the expansion comes at a risky time economically, with the tough climate testing the loyalty of the sport’s growing fanbase.

In the meantime we have the finals series kicking off this weekend. The four-weeks of finals have the potential to restart the league’s momentum. For the first time, the finals see four teams from four different states competing in the finals series. The series coincides with Australia’s world cup qualifier against Japan in Yokohama next Wednesday, which looms as the biggest game of the campaign, and has the potential to turn February into a bumper month of Australian soccer. With the Australian cricket team spluttering towards a possible series defeat against New Zealand (?), soccer has the opportunity to become a real talking point in much of the nation


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Electric Shockers

February 2nd 2009 11:46
As Chris alluded to in his last post, for the last week I have been living through one of Melbourne’s longest and most severe heatwaves. The temperature got above 43 degrees on three straight days from last Wednesday, with hot nights the norm and the beating sun providing punishing heat from early in the morning until late at night. In my small, non-airconditioned apartment the temperature didn’t get below 35 degrees for days and within a little while I was clutching onto a fan like it was a security blanket
.
It all threatened to get much worse in Melbourne last Friday night, when blackouts hit large sections of the City. In the area of Southbank where I work, the power outages took out traffic lights, caused evacuations and cancellations at the Victorian Arts Centre, and caused friends of mine who live in the area to get really, really drunk (actually, that would have happened anyway). Even more amazingly, the blackouts caused the evacuation of Crown Casino. That’s right – they had to cancel gambling. No confirmation to the rumour that the blackouts led entrepreneurial croupiers to take bets on when the blackout would end


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Hey guys, just want to let you know...

January 31st 2009 07:06
A `Rainy' holiday?

I'm sick of walking to work, but too cheap to buy a bus fare. It takes 20 minutes along Brisbane's inner-city hills, and I then end up looking like a runner who has completed a marathon in a suit. I feel like I lose a kilo of fat from every walk, and that fat's well needed because I hate cooking and two meals a day is too much effort


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Recent Comments

Comment by Steven Turnbull
on What sport delivers the best athlete

February 18th 2009 12:56


The League of Leagues
The Three Wise Men
I agree with your points, except to say Union's never going to be popular in Melbourne, and AFL is always going to have a tough time in Sydney with a second team.
It's going to be interesting to see the type of crowds AFL House will be happy with when Gold Coast eventually joins the league


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Comment by Steven Turnbull
on What sport delivers the best athlete

February 16th 2009 11:13


The League of Leagues
The Three Wise Men

I've gotta make the Victorian's defence here...

I'm not disagreeing with the points you were making. However in most sports I can think of a few AFL players who always gave the impression of being potential superstars if our local game wasn't developed. I can imagine James Hird scoring 20 goals a season in the Premier League, Luke Hodge holding down QB in an NFL team, Lance Franklin being an NBA all-star and Gary Ablett pulling the strings at half-back in state-of-origin league. I'm not convinced you could say the same about other sportsmen. AFL seems to require a greater level of all-round athleticism.

Also, and an easier point to make - Iron Man is not a sport. If that's a sport, then so is watching parking inspectors giving out tickets. It's a job, not a sport.

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Comment by Steven Turnbull
on Electric Shockers

February 4th 2009 11:06


The League of Leagues
The Three Wise Men
As one of my friends advised me by email, another appliance that really annoys me is the dreaded electric blanket.
These don't use as much power as some of the other appliances I've mentioned, but they have always annoyed me. It takes no more than five minutes to actually warm up a bed. In the meantime you run the risk of burning the house down and have those annoying bars running through your back. Worse, (although not scientifically proven in any way) having an electric blanket reduces your blood circulation, raising the risk of having to have an extremity removed.

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Comment by Steven Turnbull
on Electric Shockers

February 3rd 2009 10:25


The League of Leagues
The Three Wise Men
Welcome to the blog, Bhuds.

Good point about the tropics. I was housesitting last week and we put the air-conditioning on pretty regularly. The point was that I didn't keep in on when it wasn't going to actually be of use. I think you definately have a need to have one up there, although you should use the old school method of a kiddie pool and a cold beer, right?

I could definitely have attacked heaters and leaf blowers as well, although my rant was directed at electrical appliances. Heaters are the equally evil cousin of air conditioners - occasionally useful but chronically overused.

Visiting grandma is fun. She has dry sherry, biscuits, and smells funny.

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Comment by Steven Turnbull
on Hey guys, just want to let you know...

February 1st 2009 00:07


The League of Leagues
The Three Wise Men
I made a similar point when I was in Darwin for Australia Day last year and got to spend at least half the day drinking in an inflatable kiddy pool. Tropical tourist boards could use the slogan 'come and run under a sprinkler and stuff'.

Alternatively, they could just market based on the awesome scenery, like what seems to work for them now...

- Steve

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