Summer tennis tournament season is here again and I’ve been trying to figure out which weekends I will be on the courts. Most of my information comes from OregonTennis.com. I always try to play four or five tennis tournaments in the Mid-Willamette Valley over the summer. Here are the tournaments I plan to enter, in the USTA 4.0+ division (starting this weekend):

• Monmouth Independence Tennis Tournament: July 2-3, 2011
• McMinnville (MAC) Open Tennis Tournament: July 22-24, 2011
• Woodburn Open Tennis Tournament: July 29-31, 2011
• Albany All-City Tennis Tournament: August 5-7, 2011
• Dallas Community Tennis Tournament: September 30-October 2, 2011

Usually registration closes about a week before the start of each tournament. Each PDF entry form should show up at OregonTennis.com a few weeks in advance of each tournament. For Woodburn and Albany, you can also contact (or stop by) the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

USTA tennis tournaments

I’ve yet to play in any of these, but summer USTA tournaments in Corvallis, Eugene, Ashland and elsewhere can be found at USTA TennisLink.

Here is the description of my accepted presentation:

Mascot Identity: The Symbolic Consumption of University Athletics Brands
Ian Cavalier, Oregon State University

This study explores the relationship of university mascots and logos to the democratization of higher education and mass consumption of products in the US. The rise of forms of representation by college athletics teams has strong ties to corporate trade characters and to commercial models of brand experience and identity building. University mascots and logos are performative signs that unite fans and are commodification tools that capitalize on popular characteristics of creatures, cultures and objects. Embedded brand identity characteristics, such as cuteness and ferocity, have direct monetary and ideological value to universities. Branding changes indicate cultural context and organizational shifts.

I am presenting on Thursday afternoon in the Eliza Theater as part of the Popular Culture Performance and Representation panel.

Here is a handful of links relevant to my topic:

• “Why We Brand, Why We Buy” by Debbie Millman
• BrandPedia – The Brand Encyclopedia
• Wikipedia: Benny Beaver
• Scout.com: “New logo announced” by OSU Sports Information
• OSU Alumni Association: “Primal Traditions“
• OSU Alumni Association: “A History of Athletic Mascots at Oregon State University“
• Oregon State University: Jr. Benny

More information about the conference: SfAA 2011 Annual Meeting.

Summer tennis tournament season is fast approaching and I’ve been trying to figure out which summer weekends to schedule vacations and trips to concerts and so on. But I always try to play at least four tennis tournaments over the summer. However, sometimes OregonTennis.com doesn’t have information about these tournaments (at least not months in advance). So, I’ve made some calls and figured out the summer tennis schedule for the Mid-Willamette Valley myself. I’ve at least got the dates of the four tennis singles/doubles open tournaments I played in 2009. They are as follows:

• Dallas Community Tennis Tournament: Canceled (was scheduled for June 11-13, 2010)
• Monmouth Independence Tennis Tournament: July 3-5, 2010
• Salem All-City Tennis Tournament: Canceled (final year was in 2009)
• KTA Benefit Tennis Tournament: Canceled (was tentatively planned for July 23-25, 2010)
• Woodburn Open Tennis Tournament: July 30-August 1, 2010
• Albany All-City Tennis Tournament: August 6-8, 2010

Usually registration closes one to two weeks before the start of the tournaments. The PDF entry forms should show up at OregonTennis.com a few weeks in advance of each tournament. For Salem and Albany, you can also contact (or stop by) the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, as those two tournaments run through the city.

USTA tennis tournaments

Can be found at USTA TennisLink.

Here are some interesting ones:

• Timberhill Tennis Club – Corvallis City Championship: June 11-13  (TennisLink #600100510)
• Eugene Tennis Club – Pacific Continental: July 1-4 (Tennislink #600106110)
• Ashland Tennis Club – Big Al’s 35th: July 16-18 (Tennislink #600120510)

That’s all I know for now.

PlayersFrom.com

Ever wanted to know what players from your favorite college, home state or country are currently active on professional sports teams in the United States?

At Players From, you can keep track of professional athletes from your favorite college team, home state and home country.

Examples: Oregon State University, the state of Iowa and the country of Brazil.

You can also browse categorized mascots for all colleges, such as occupations, cats, bears, invertebrates and many more.

Other features include current MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL rosters, which have been linked back to ESPN and CBS Sports profile pages. Be sure to check out the growing Interesting Lists & Reports for random, useless and bizarre stats.

All Players From data tables are completely sortable, so can view your favorite pro players, teams and mascots however you prefer. If you think this site is useful, please share it with your friends and fellow sports fans! More features are coming soon.

Players From is one of several new software development efforts that will be placed under the umbrella of Agile Android in the coming months.

OnlineLabs.in

A related educational research project, also launched recently, is OnlineLabs.in. This site aims to serve as a comprehensive, encyclopedic reference about online labs in a variety of subjects, particularly virtual laboratory simulations for science education. We categorize useful listings for online lab simulations, virtual science experiments and free educational software.

OnlineLabs.in currently features resources in Chemistry, Physics and Biology to help learners identify free and commercial virtual science labs. We also offer online educational resources and information about simulations and free software in Anatomy, Geology, Astronomy, Design and Math.

Most addictive YouTube videos of all time
(that I can remember at the moment, what with all my ADHD hey what’s that?)

1. “I’m On A Boat” and more from The Lonely Island
2. AutoTune the News #2 and more episodes from schmoyoho
3. “Cooking by the Book” A Lil’ Bigger Mix by Mastgrr. It’s a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake! Also see the “Bananaphone” remix from HatPerson
4. Rap Chop! It’s Vince with Slap Chop! Also see Press Hop (sports soundbites) and more from djsteveporter
5. Might Putty Dub!,  Billy Mays kaboom! dub and more informercial dubs from Jabo0odyDubs
6. The Black20 Trailer Park: 300 – PG Version (AKA “Caketown”)

In addition to loads of other funny 300 parodies (like LisaNova does 300), I would also be remiss to not mention the dozens of “Dear Sister” parodies.

Must stop self from watching these again. Perhaps a 12-step program?

I felt the same way about this awesome mashup video in 2006: “Star Trek + Nine Inch Nails = Closer.”

LEGO Arcade, 8-bit design and Wimbledon

I liked this: LEGO Arcade. There’s much more great LEGO animation from MlCHAELHlCKOX where this came from, such as: Super Lego Mario (Level 1).

For some actual LEGOs, see the “bat country” scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at Brickshelf.

Also, Philip DeFranco is a funny dude. Check out some of his YouTube clips.

Tokyo Zokei University’s Open Campus has a really nice web page design. I’m a sucker for the 8-bit aesthetic. Read more: “The Bestest College Webpage Ever.”

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens at Wimbledon. With Rafael Nadal out, will Roger Federer win his record 15th major and sixth Wimbledon title? Do Andy Roddick or Andy Murray have a chance? Will the Williams sisters meet in another final? Can anyone seriously challenge them right now?

Lastly, I am thinking of starting a “365 Days Project” on Flickr, beginning July 1. Currently contemplating possible photo themes and my motivation to commit to taking at least one (hopefully compelling) photo every day for a year.

Also, since I haven’t quite figured out how much I’m going to let Twitter replace (or integrate with) the pop culture topics I tend to write about here, this post may be slightly redundant with my recent Twitter status updates.

Social networking apps

I’ve been playing with social networking applications quite a bit during the past couple of weeks, particularly those that can simultaneously interact with Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed.

For Windows desktop clients, I’ve determined that it’s basically a cross-posting competition between Twhirl, TweetDeck and Twhirl’s successor Seesmic Desktop. All three are Adobe AIR-based desktop applications and there are a lot of bugs to be worked out between them, especially for effective Facebook integration. The following was big news for TweetDeck fans this week: “TweetDeck Plugs Memory Leak; Launches Facebook Integration for All.” I also tried a number of Firefox add-ons and toolbars, including Friendbar, TwitterFox and the experimental FireStatus Firefox add-on. There are many more Firefox add-ons for Twitter/Facebook status updates (like Power Twitter).

What’s my verdict? Well, check out this tweet. (Hint: I currently have a preference for the Firefox add-ons over the desktop clients.)

College basketball

I managed to correctly pick North Carolina to win the NCAA Tournament, but finished second in my office pool. I was glad to see Penn State win the NIT. Was also glad to see Oregon State win the CBI.

Art and graphic design

Take a look at all of these pop culture variations of da Vinci’s Last Supper: “Suddenly Last Supper.”

Here are five types of logos explained: “Logo Design Basics: The Five Types of Marks.” There are marks, letterform marks, wordmarks, abstract marks/symbols and emblems.

Google

Ever wanted to find a photo of a certain color using Google Image Search? Problem solved: “Search the rainbow.”

I also found this interesting: “YouTube tour reveals Google data center designs.” It’s not so secret anymore.