Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson runs by Oakland’s Ricky Brown in the fourth quarter Sunday. K.C. Alfred/Union-Tribune
OAKLAND – In the end, inevitably, it got back down to child’s play. LT vs. the Raiders. Rock? Paper? Scissors?
Scissors, it is.
In the Chargers’ vernacular, actually, the play that LaDainian Tomlinson used this time to continue his personal vexation of the Oakland Raiders was called “Slant Scissors.”
Twin tight ends Antonio Gates and Brandon Manumaleuna did the pinching, turning their blocked victims inward on the right side, and Tomlinson did the cutting with a precise turn outside for a 41-yard touchdown.
“Big hole,” said Tomlinson, who was untouched until he was well inside the 10-yard line and still cruised in. “If you can’t get through that hole, you don’t need to be playing football.”
ALAMEDA — For the record, San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson is listed as probable for Sunday’s game against the Raiders because of a sore toe.
Probable? Yeah, right. Tomlinson’s status is about as questionable as the sun rising this morning.
Tomlinson looks forward to games against the Raiders like none other. The Raiders bring out his best, which is saying something for a player who has carved out a career worthy of inclusion in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“I enjoy playing there,” Tomlinson said of Oakland. “It’s one of the better places in the NFL to play, just because they have a great fan base. The field is always in good shape. The sun is always shining. It’s a great place to play.”
By MIKE SULLIVAN – Staff Writer |Saturday, September 27, 2008 6:34 PM PDT ∞
SAN DIEGO —- New York Jets running back Thomas Jones wasn’t fined for his low block on Luis Castillo during Monday night’s game, and Castillo has no problem with the NFL office’s decision.
“It’s part of the game,” Castillo said Friday. “Even if I had been engaged with the (offensive) tackle, it would have been completely accidental.”
The play drew lots of attention because it occurred on “Monday Night Football” and was replayed over and over. That meant that millions of people saw Castillo’s left knee buckle after being hit by Jones’ helmet, and feared that the Chargers’ defensive end had suffered a major injury.
But Castillo returned later in the game. Four days later, he emphasized that he’s thankful to have avoided a major injury.
“I’ve never been mad about this,” he said. “I’ve been relieved.”
OAKLAND – Less is more for the Chargers offense, so far.
Only four teams in the league are taking fewer offensive snaps per game than the Chargers. Yet only four teams are gaining more yards per game.
There is good and bad to be seen in that. No team – especially not one with Super Bowl aspirations – is happy with its offense not being on the field enough.
Big plays are exciting, but it’s a dangerous way to live and impossible to count on.
“Obviously, we are doing a lot of things good,” quarterback Philip Rivers said. “We need to continue to keep the running game going. We busted a couple, but we really have to bust some really long ones. That takes time and patience.”
Rivers swears the day is coming when the Chargers will run the ball 40 times a game, by necessity or logic.
That day has not yet arrived and does not appear to be at hand.
Not with this offense, not with a quarterback dealing like he is, not with a tailback’s toe not quite right and defenses still playing to stop him.
Ankara – Turkish internet users have been blocked via a court order from accessing the site of prominent British biologist Richard Dawkins after complaints from lawyers for Islamic creationist author Adnan Oktar, the website of Turkish television station NTV reported on Wednesday.
A court in Istanbul ordered that Adnan Oktar, block access to the site and since the weekend Turkish internet users seeking the site have been redirected to a page that says in Turkish ‘access to this site has been suspended in accordance with a court decision’.
NTV reported that Oktar complained he and his creationist book ‘Atlas of Creation’ had been defamed by comments made by Dawkins on the site.
‘I am at a loss to reconcile the expensive and glossy production values of this book with the breathtaking inanity of the content,’ Dawkins, a distinguished advocate of the theory of evolution, wrote on his website in July referring to the Atlas of Creation.
The book has caused controversy not just through its advocation of creationism but also through how thousands of copies of book were distributed to schools in a number of European countries.
Oktar has used the Turkish courts on a number of occasions, the latest being earlier this year when he attempted to have Dawkins’ book The God Delusion banned in Turkey on the basis that it was insulting religion but a Turkish court threw the case out.
In August 2007, Oktar, who writes under the pen name Harun Yahya, convinced a Turkish court to block access to millions of web blogs using the Wordpress.com hosting service after finding that a number of blogs carried libellous comments.
In May, Oktar was found guilty of creating an illegal organization for personal gain and sentenced to three years imprisonment. He is appealing the decision.
Ok, this really needs to be the last entry regarding the early nineties. Here is a part from the Life video with John The Man Reeves (JTMR) and Kien Lieu (Donger). This part was the best for me. Not only were these guys on top of their game back in the early nineties (not that they aren’t now), I just thought they were two of the the coolest people you could ever hope to meet. Back then, they were pro, in the spotlight, and all over the place. Where I lived in Mira Mesa, they were living legends. Reeves could do anything and everything on a skateboard when most of us were just trying to stay on.
Me on the other hand, I was just a little kid (I met them when I was around 13-14) trying to tag along with the wealth of pro skaters that were around San Diego. John and Donger were always good to me and in some cases had more faith in my than I did myself. Donger eventually got me some care packages from Life and to me that was the biggest compliment anyone could have given me. A formal sponsership never came out of it but I’ll never forget that he was pushing for me. Donger’s style was the best. Like Christian Hosoi on street, only all his own. And the guy could literally ollie over anything. Amazing. No one has ever done a better looking frontside 360 ollie than Donger. No one will.
I always admired John’s style because he was pure fury. What he lacked in flip tricks, he made up with sheer power. The guy went big and you couldn’t help notice him. I would say that influenced my style quite a bit. I couldn’t flip my board worth a damn, but I could 180 a gap that you’d be afraid to walk down. Plus, John was one of the funniest people you could ever meet. The shit that came out of his mouth was so random. But he always hit the nail right on the head. Both of these guys were smart as hell, too. Very smart.
By the way, Dan Stuart filmed most of this video. In terms of video, he was my idol, hands down. He was by far the best skateboarding filmer I’ve seen to date. I ripped him off as much as I could. But, he scared the shit out of me as a little kid because he was the most aggressive and crazy guy you could expect to meet. A very intimidating figure, especially to a 14 year old. Despite his eccentricities, in my opinion, he made the modern day skateboard video what it is today. As much as I was freaked out by him, I still owe him some props. Not only did he help me out when I filmed some footage for the Plan B video, Second Hand Smoke, he took my photo and got me a ridiculously insane full page color shot in Transworld. As a 14 year old, it doesn’t get much better than that. So he’s another guy I really looked up to, even if he did always wear those tight shorts.
The combination of these guys is what makes this video so cool to me.
Anyway, here’s my small tribute to these two guys that influence me a lot and that I looked up to. Make that three guys.
This blog is tribute to the band Bad Religion. Specifically, it is a tribute to the words and thoughts of the lead singer Greg Graffin. Here, eventually, you will find all of the lyrics to Bad Religion songs created over the course of 3 decades. Greg Graffin is currently a lecturer of Life Sciences at UCLA.
Selected song lyrics will be analyzed by the author of the website, Jason Castaneda. Jason has a B.S. in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley. The description of the songs will be more technical in nature. To a large degree, it will not be the intent of this site to describe the qualitative meanings of any songs. That will be up to the listener as no one associated with this has has priveliged access to Dr. Graffin or his thoughts. The purpose will only be to make some of the techincal aspects of the lyrics more accessible to the average listener. Although the author has some formal scientific training, he is in no way an expert on these matters and, as always, the reader’s feedback is apprecaited.
Jason played bass in the pop-punk band Time, and guitar in the hardcore punk band, The Neighbors.
Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson runs by Oakland’s Ricky Brown in the fourth quarter Sunday.