Salute to NCAA college sports (2 of 3)

The six student athletes picture here are 1) Alex McMurtry, women's gymnastics, Florida; 2) Sarp Gobeloglu (originally from Turkey), men's basketball, Montana State; 3) Dominique Wilson, women's basketball, NC State; 4) Myles Yorke, men's soccer, Radford; 5) Paige Neuenfeldt, women's volleyball, UNC, and 6) Zac Epperly, wrestling, Virginia Tech

Status Update_ I Suffer from Kiskanclik

Status Update for 1/28:"I must profess to suffering from major jealousy when I see a cute girl with a guy, even if she is 20 years younger than me and she lives half-a-world away!"

This couple is incidentally somewhere in Japan. We presume they are in Tokyo, but perhaps they are in Osaka or Kobe.

Kiskanclik is the Turkish word for jealousy!

John Lennon had a hit song called "I'm a Jealous Guy," which ironically Yoko Ono reportedly loves!

SIDEBAR_ We wish the North Carolina State gymnastics well tonight as they face Penn State and host Florida in Gainesville, Fla, tonight. The Wolfpack are lead by Brooke Barr, Jess Panza and Brittany Vontz. They are currently ranked #10 in the country, while the host Gators are the #1 team in women's gymnastics.

Top 10 List- Favorite Celebrities to Follow on Twitter

Oooops! In our last entry, we forgot to mention our "High School of the Week," which is Eastside High School in Gainesville, Fla. For those of you residing in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, this town is also where the University of Florida Gators play football (and other sports!). On Aug. 14, Eastside High School, where Jeff Charbonnet is the principal, will hold a Stop the Violence rally.

Now for our main subject manner which is my top ten favorite celebrities to follow on Twitter. Those of you who are fans of the singer Julian Casablancas will be disappointed to learn that he finished 11th!

Here is our list:

1) "Zippy the Pinhead" (pictured here): Yes, Zippy the Pinhead is a comic strip character who is the brainchild of Bill Griffith, but he is so much fun to follow on Twitter! Most of the tweets from Zippy/Griffith are actually quotes from back strips including this one from today: "In 1993, Nancy Sinatra will lead a bloodless coup on Guam."

2) Sarah Silverman: Well, we honestly can't post many of her tweets here because they could get one stoned to death in Qom, Iran, but today the standup comedian/actress said that: "I try not to be as hard on myself as I am on other people." She's great, isn't she!

3) Rainn Wilson- The star of "The Office" always posts great Tweets including an entry on Friday in which he said that: "Today should be Val Kilmer Day."

4) Amanda Palmer- The lead singer of The Dresden Dolls is just slightly less irreverent than Sarah Silverman which always makes for an unpredictable guess as to what she'll tweet next?!

5) MoRocca- We're not exactly sure exactly what MoRocca does or how he became a celebrity except that he's on NPR about as much as Big Bird is on PBS. The always funny Mo said that he was hanging out in Bogota with Miss Colombia. Earlier, he tweeted that he watched "Alf" in Spanish in his hotel room.

6) Paris Hilton- An actual recent tweet: "Going to bed. Sweet dreams everyone." Yes, she is not known for intellectual commentary but the heiress has 2.3 million followers on Twitter, and she is on occasion quite amusing.

7) Pee Wee Herman- He may actually be even more of a narcissist than Sarah Palin, but we love the '80s tv star who tweeted this weekend that he was going to reinact his 'Tequila' dance at the huge bikers' rally in Sturgis, South Dakota!

8) Kim Kardashian- see Paris Hilton

9) Kevin Smith- The director of "Clerks" is always fun to read on Twitter. Recently, he mentioned "Mallrats," so perhaps like those of us who couldn't get a date in high school (incidentally, Smith and I were both born in 1970) perhaps he can't 'move on.'

10) Apolo Ohno: This Winter Olympic speed-skating sensation spent the day helping needy children in Seattle, which should make all of us who slept 'til noon today feel even guiltier than normal!

NCAA Gymnastics Championships Underway in Florida

The NCAA Gymnastics Championships are underway at the University of Florida with UCLA, Utah and Oklahoma advancing to the Super Six. Three more teams competing right now will join them tomorrow night for the second and deciding round. According to reports, The University of Alabama is off to a stellar start tonight in the second round.

Alas, I could not be in Gainesville, Fla., for the finals which should be televised nationally sometime in May (traditionally CBS airs the championships though the coverage has been better some years than others).

I was deliberating what would be the best way to post an entry about the finals and for right now I will simply list my 24 favorite NCAA gymnasts who are competing in Gainesville in alphabetical order.

It should be pointed out that Nebraska, Oregon State and LSU's teams did not advance because those teams did not finish in the top three, but some gymnasts from those teams will likely compete in individual events which will be held on Saturday, the final day of the three-day meet with 12 teams.

The six teams competing tonight are the host Florida, Alabama, Michigan, Missouri, Arkansas and Stanford.

Here is the first part of my 24-gymnast list. The second part will be posted on my other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time." The asteriks will denote gymnasts who competing individually without their teams.

The two pictured gymnasts here are Annie DiLuziou of Utah and Morgan Dennis of Alabama.

My four favorite overall gymnasts are Daria Bijak (Utah), Amanda Castillo (Florida), Sarah Shire (Missouri) and Vanessa Zamarripa (UCLA).

The first 12 gymnasts are:

Daria Bijak-Utah (senior)

Amanda Castillo-Florida (senior)

Jamie Deetscreek-Utah (senior)

Morgan Dennis- Alabama (senior)

Ashanee Dickerson- Florida (freshman)

Annie DiLuziou- Utah (senior)

Sabrina Franceschelli- LSU (senior)

Susan Jackson- LSU (senior)

Carly Janiga- Stanford (senior)

Jacquelyn Johnson- Utah (junior)

Kelly Knutson- Michigan (senior)

Alabama Wins Big Gym Meet Over Florida

Whew! We almost had a "Dewey Beats Truman" moment, as I came close to stating in the header that Florida won the meet. I'm sure Alabama women's gymnastics coach Sarah Patterson would have been quite upset with me if that had happened! I must also tell Florida Gators fans (shh! I am one of them) that I could find any decent images of their gymnasts on the net so we have to go with the mascot who was probably not in attendance since the meet was in a surprisingly snowy Tuscaloosa, Ala., last night.

The Gators-Tide meet will be broadcast on ESPN 2 at 11:30 a.m. on Sun., Feb. 21.

The Tide won the meet by a 197.425-196.600 score. Before the night's meet, Alabama was ranked #2, and Florida was # 6. New national rankings will be announced on Monday.

In other gym meets last night, West Virginia won over Ohio State, Auburn won over Kentucky and Utah defeated Utah State. Despite two inches of snow in Athens, Ga., the host GymDawgs won over visiting Arkansas.

Sophomore Geralen Stack-Eaton tied her career best score on all four events, and she posted a career high in the all-around competition according to the official web site of Alabama gymnastics.

In spite of the inclement weather, 12,446 fans showed up to the delight of coach Patterson:

"I can't say enough about the 12,000 people that came tonight, even when everything is closed and they are being told to stay home."

Stack-Eaton also expressed delight that she was able to perform exceptionally well Friday night:

"I was trying not to think about it too much all night. But, when I got on floor and I stuck my first pass, I really started feeling good about my chances."

For the Tide, senior Ricki Lebegerm won vault. Stack-Eaton, junior Kayla Hoffman and senior Kassi Price tied for top honors on the uneven bars.

Sophomore Ashley Priess (pictured here) won the balance beam event, while senior Morgan Dennis came in first on the floor exercise.

But, the Gators put in an impressive effort as well in spite of coming up short on the road.

Florida coach Rhonda Faehn told the Florida Gators athletic department that her team performed well in their rivals' home gym:

"I was really proud of our team tonight. They competed aggressively, and did not hold back in this environment."

For the Gators, gymnasts Amanda Castillo and Maranda Smith scored a 9.825 on the uneven bars, and Liz Green scored a 9.875 on the beam.

Both teams are likely contenders for the NCAA Championships which be held on the Gators' home floor in Gainesville, Fla., this April.