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Soccer Summer Madness – COPA Kickoff

@iAmAviG

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June 3, 2016

2016 will feature the summer of soccer.

Consider for a second this tweet from US Women’s National Team Star Alex Morgan

I think I'm in love. pic.twitter.com/W05VQfHQ7E

— Alex Morgan (@alexmorgan13) May 31, 2016

*Note that the Olympic Games on this schedule are only the Women’s teams, not the Men’s.

Three tournaments are going to span the summer, showing off some of the best players in the world.

Today, June 3, thru June 26 will be the COPA America Centenario. The 100th year anniversary of the South American football tournament will leave the continent for the first time, and be played in America, combining CONMEBOL (South America) and CONCACAF (North/Central America) teams for a 16-team tournament.

The winners of this tournament will NOT qualify for anything, as opposed to the regular COPA winners, which qualifies for the FIFA Confederations Cup.

The 16 teams are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rico, Ecuador, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Some of the players and names to look out for: James Rodriguez (Colombia), Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero (Argentina), Kaka and Neymar (Brazil), and lastly Arturo Vidal and Alexis Sanchez (Chile).

June 10 thru July 10 will be the EURO 2016. The winners of this 24-team tournament will earn a spot in the FIFA Confederations Cup.

The 24 teams that qualified are Albania, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Northern Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Rep. of Ireland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Wales.

Some of the players and names to look out for: Christiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden), Antoine Griezmann and Paul Progba (France), James Milner (England), Sergio Ramos (Spain) and Toni Kroos (Germany).

Lastly, we have the Rio 2016 Olympics from August 3 thru August 20. This will feature 16 Men’s Teams and 12 Women’s Teams. The top 3 teams in each win Olympic medals (in case that one wasn’t obvious 🙂 ).

The 16 Men’s Teams are made up of players under-23 years old, and up to 3 players over that age, and consist of Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Fiji, Germany, Honduras, Iraq, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, and Sweden.

The 12 Women’s Teams are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China PR, Columbia, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, South Africa, United States, and Zimbabwe.

Rosters for the Olympics have not yet been finalized, due to the time until the event and COPA/EURO falling out in-between.

Enjoy it all sports fans!

Cadman Plaza Park WWII Ceremony

@iAmAviG

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June 2, 2016

This past Sunday, during Memorial Day Weekend, I headed to Cadman Plaza Park and the Brooklyn War Memorial for a ceremony.

The Brooklyn War Memorial is dedicated to the 300,000+ men and women from Brooklyn who served in WWII. Inside the structure exists a large room with the names of 11,500+ soldiers who lost their lives during the war.

Unfortunately it has been closed for 25+ years due to lack of funding. In recent years the city and state has started sending some money in this direction, but help is needed from the public, and everyone can donate HERE.

The ceremony on Sunday honored 20+ living WWII veterans and featured a lot of interesting events.

It started with a biplane flyover:

And in the middle included an impressive performance from the Air Force Drill Team:

This is an event that I would love to add into my yearly calendar, and hope that many of you do the same!

Finales Done Right

@iAmAviG

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May 27, 2016

Finales are difficult.
If it’s a season finale, the writers need to tie up loose ends, but open up enough cliffhangers to make you want to come back for another season.
It it’s a series finale, they usually want to provide people some closure, or confuse people enough to make them hate the show and watch again (because we as humans enjoy that punishment).

Sometimes writers have the luxury of knowing that their shows are coming to an end, and have plenty of time to make everything fit neatly into the box (ex. Friends), while other times it is told to them after the (now) last season has already wrapped up (ex. Nashville).

But often times the writers know before we the public find out, and are able to gear the show in the right direction.

Two shows from this year that are good examples: Person of Interest and Nashville.

Person of Interest knew that they were getting a half a season in 2016, and that it would be their final one. As such, most of this year has the feel of ‘wrapping up’, and I like that, and hope that it finishes in a satisfying way.

Nashville had rumors all year of it coming to a close, but it wasn’t decided until after the show had finished taping that it wasn’t going to be returning.
As such, the “series finale” was treated like a “season finale”, but the feel of the episode was “The Writers Knew”. <No Spoilers> Wrapping up some storylines, tidying up relationships in one way or another, and lastly finishing with a big bang, that if it is indeed the series finale leaves enough to the mind that I am satisfied with it.
If they didn’t know OR if it does get renewed at some point, there is so much there to build off of.

Red Nose Day 2016

@iAmAviG

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May 26, 2016

Today is Red Nose Day, which is geared towards raising awareness for children in need, poverty alleviation and world wide charities.

Money raised from Red Nose Day goes towards Comic Relief, just like it does in the UK, where Red Nose Day has been around for 25+ years.

NBC hosts a star-studded telethon tonight, hosted by Craig Ferguson and sponsored by Walgreens.

I personally bought my nose from Walgreens (for $1), and part of those proceeds from noses are given to the cause as well.

So put your red nose on, and head to their website to donate!

WLIIA Returns Again

@iAmAviG

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May 25, 2016

A year ago I spoke about Whose Line Is It Anyways and how Aisha Tyler was sliding into her new role as host.

Well it’s safe to say that she has fit in well to her job, and the show is as funny now as it has ever been.

This week launched the new batch of episodes (the start of Season 12…but really filmed for Season 11), with special guests Alfonso Ribeiro and Keegan-Michael Key, and many games including fan favorites Irish Drinking Song, Scenes From a Hat and Weird Newscasters.

How can you see these, and not want to check the show out?

Sports and Mexico

@iAmAviG

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May 24, 2016

When you go to a sporting event in the United States, you generally have flags for America adorning the stadium/arenas, and their is usually also a Canadian flag positioned somewhere.

No, we aren’t in Canada, but the leagues work closely with Canada, with teams located there in MLB, NHL, NBA and MLS.
And when a Canadian team rolls into town, out of respect both anthems are sung.

But what happens when we start putting teams in Mexico, as MLB has hinted to, amongst other leagues rumors?

I’m certain that we will start singing the Mexican National Anthem before games that feature teams from both countries…I personally know America’s National Anthem, as well as Canada, UK and Israel. I guess it’ll be time to add in the Mexican Anthem to my repertoire.

Funny enough, I wonder how many people can actually correctly identify the Mexican Flag that’ll soon be added into our ballparks and arenas…

Cimorelli – Up At Night #Review

@iAmAviG

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May 23, 2016

Cimorelli, a group of sisters from California (previously mentioned here) dropped their first full-length album last week, entitled Up At Night.

While the album has a few good plays, including the title song Up At Night and Make It Stronger, it lacks that “finishing punch” that will put it over the top.
Which isn’t a bad thing on a debut album.

You’re wearing me down
I tried to keep these feelings out
But look at me now
I lost the fight

I’ve listened to them for many years, and they’ve had some fantastic covers (a few of them below), but the breakthrough for them is not here. With that being said, I hope they don’t give up but keep pushing out new stuff, while also continuing with the covers.

The album is a 5.5 out of 10.

My Fall 2016 TV Watching Schedule

@iAmAviG

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May 20, 2016

With the Upfronts this week and the schedules out for the networks, here is the shows I hope to be watching come the Fall.

I’ll probably add some more new shows once I see the trailers and/or pilot episodes.
New shows trailers (that are already out) are linked!

Sunday

9:00 PM — FOX — Family Guy

Monday

8:00 PM — CBS — Big Bang Theory (moving to Thursdays in November)

8:00 PM — FOX — Gotham

8:00 PM — FOX — 24:Legacy (NEW) (Midseason Launch)

9:00 PM — FOX — APB (NEW) (Midseason Launch)

Tuesday

8:00 PM — FOX — Brooklyn Nine-Nine

8:00 PM — ABC — The Middle

8:30 PM — FOX — New Girl (Moves to 8:00 PM in Midseason)

8:30 PM — FOX — The Mick (Midseason Launch)

10:00 PM — ABC — Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Wednesday

8:00 PM — FOX — Lethal Weapon (NEW)

10:00PM — ABC — Designated Survivor (NEW)

Thursday

8:00 PM — NBC — Superstore

Friday

8:00 PM — FOX — Hell’s Kitchen

No Date Yet

CBS — The Amazing Race

You can find the full Fall schedule HERE

Trusting The News

@iAmAviG

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May 19, 2016

Yesterday I read an article, in which the writer blamed the news deliverer for bringing him bad news, before it had been confirmed.

I’ve discussed similarly in the past and I am going to focus on it again today.

People need to go to news sources they trust. If you can’t rely on a news source, or don’t fully trust them, then go somewhere else.
It’s like the people I see complaining all day that “Fox News isn’t fair and balanced”…….well, if you don’t like the news they are giving you, what’s forcing you to watch the channel?

And if you go to a news source that gives you bad information, or causes you to make bad decisions, why blame the news source?
You trusted them. You are at fault.

A classic example is weather. I trust certain websites/channels more than others to be correct on storm tracking and snow amounts.
Why do I trust these sources? Because they’ve been correct in the past and they use weather models that are more accurate (albeit less proven) than the popular sites use.

Another example, and a great one for holding accountability on yourself and not the source, is financial information.
If you listen to an analyst who tells you to buy a stock, and that stock tanks, you can’t always blame the analyst…unless they have a bad track record, including getting bought off by companies to promote their stocks.

3rd @Honda Carniversary!

@iAmAviG

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May 18, 2016

This Saturday marks the third birthday/anniversary of Mirage, my beautiful mountain air metallic Honda CR-V.

She still works as well as she did on Day 1, and you can read my one year and two year reviews. But now let’s update those and see how she’s holding up the test of time.

She had one incident in the last year, but you wouldn’t have any indication of that if you checked her out, thanks to a perfect rebuild.

Recently I’ve heard people complaining about the rims getting rusted on their 2013 CR-Vs. And interestingly enough, I’ve noticed it on my neighbors car as well (same year, not certain same model). And that might be the key words “Same model”.
I have the EX, which comes with Alloy, and it’s entirely possible that everyone who is having rusted issues are using the LX (lower edition) model which has Steel rims.
The other theory I have, is that I keep my car cleaner. I take her for regular washes which helps clean off dirts that are harmful to a car, such as the salt used to treat the roads.

Spaciousness is something I preached the first year, and it still holds true. Transporting things from IKEA is a simple task, once the seats are dropped, and even without putting them down it is a huge space.

After three years, and thanks to a little help from Automatic, I now know that for the past year I have averaged 24MPG on every day driving, without any ECON Mode (that I haven’t touched since that first year). On a longer trip the car got 31MPG (over 700 miles).

I definitely recommend this car to anyone looking for a smaller sized SUV.

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