How to Sell a $100K Car

I stumbled across a tweet this week about Jaguar's 13 minute short film that features Emmy Award-winning actor Damian Lewis.  How else do you sell a car that expensive?  Radio and TV spots are out, and print doesn't do the car justice.

When I played the film for my rowdiest class, I thought they would get bored quickly, but they stuck with it.  I think they enjoyed the bad guy, who they had seen in Bad Boys II and other movies.

I remember that BMW made shorter films about a decade ago, directed by John Woo and starring Clive Owen.  Those were good films, and so is this one.  Does it move Jaguars?  Debatable.

Gone But Not Forgotten

From: egyptsaidso.com

This isn't a story you hear about every day.  Lorenzen Wright was a guy who played 13 years in the NBA, then quietly retired to his hometown of Memphis.  Sadly, he was shot to death on a deserted road while he making a distress call to 911.  Three years later, there are still no arrests.

The NBA and TNT had a great story about the case this week.  My classes were very interested in it.  Wright's mother and sister were prominent in the video.  Unfortunately, Wright's ex-wife wasn't in the video to tell her side of the story.  The case has now grown cold; we can only hope there is a break in the case that leads to an arrest.

I Keep Forgetting About This Show

When I taught Strategic Marketing last semester, I went to Bloomberg.com quite a bit to pull short videos to show in class.  I forgot about their site when I moved on to teaching Sports & Entertainment Marketing exclusively this semester.

Oops!  I forgot about the Sportfolio show!  It doesn't come out nearly as frequently as I'd like--I'm not even sure when or how often the show gets produced.  But when it does, it's really good.  I was able to take the clip above and play it during the LGBT support day on Friday.  I'll have to remember to check Bloomberg more often in the future.

Bastards

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Immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing, speculation (rightfully) turned to who did it and why. It could have been domestic terrorists, or Muslims...again.  Even some gun control arguments were tossed about.

I wondering about how much to discuss in class--the bombing was less about a sporting event and more about general current events, but I usually err on the side about talking about something.  My kids did a good job of asking questions and bringing up facts even I hadn't heard yet.  I hope we never have to talk about something like this again.

Knuckleball 101

This is a great segment on 2012 NL Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey, who didn't find success in the majors until he was 37 while using an unlikely pitch, the knuckleball.

I had vaguely remembered some story last year about his sexual abuse as a child, and the segment goes into that, too.  My students were interested in both the baseball story and the criminal part of his background.

Paying Attention to Golf

For the first time, I had my students pick golfers to follow at the Masters this weekend.  They received extra credit based on how their two golfers finished.  I noticed the rise in interest on Friday versus their lack of interest in years past.  I guess I should have thought about offering extra credit sooner...

Linsanity

Last year many of my NBA-following students (and ESPN) descended into the frenzy of Linsanity.  Jeremy Lin came from nowhere/Harvard to become a sensation for the Knicks before moving on to the Houston Rockets.

There haven't been that many Asian basketball players, hence part of the curiosity towards Lin's career. Nor are there that many NBA players hailing from Harvard.   Based on what I saw in the video, no matter how his career turns out, Lin is already a winner.

Drugs Are Bad, Mmmmmkay?

Just finished reading the report on ESPN's web site regarding synthetic drug use in Auburn's football program.  So many lessons to be learned or reinforced from this saga:

• Winning covers up a lot of blemishes
• Organizations move slowly
• Athletes get a lot of second (and third and fourth) chances
• Drugs are for losers

Pumpkin Eaters

File this under If It's Too Good to Be True:  over 30 Atlanta Public School employees, including the retired superintendent, get arrested for changing their students' answers on exams.  The payoff for the cheating included receiving big bonuses.

So, how much longer until we see that end-of-grade testing is not a way to evaluate teachers?  Some columnists are actually starting to ask this question.

An Ode to Trash

From: crossfitretribution.com

I've gotten tired of telling students not to eat or drink in my class.  There was a time where students only did that in the cafeteria; however it seems like they can do it whenever and wherever they want to nowadays.

The worse thing about them eating and drinking in my room is the trash they leave behind.  C'mon: you don't have the decency to clean up after yourselves?  Now I have started a Tumblr tribute to my students (mainly in my second period) that I have to clean up after.