Maybe I should stay up and watch Jimmy Kimmel?  You can forward to 0:50 to just see the good stuff.

So the new NHL All-Star Game logo is making the rounds and it is pretty exciting that the game is coming to Raleigh in 2011.  I was equally surprised to see that the logo looked a lot like a Dr. Pepper logo.  Maybe it is the color or the shape but those two logos look a lot like each other.

We’ll do our best to keep tabs on the build up to the game and more importantly and cool stuff that comes our way.  That’s a huge hint to both the All-Star Game and Dr. Pepper that if you want more love headed your way from NOSVC you could be cool and send us something.  We aren’t picky – tickets would be nice.  Box seats would be better.  A six pack of Dr. Pepper and a t-shirt would work.  Make it Diet Dr. Pepper – Cara likes that and always gets excited when restaurants have it.

Seriously – looking forward to this spectacle as it gets played out in our backyard.  I might be mistaken but I think this is the first game of its kind to come to North Carolina and perhaps the biggest game since the Rose Bowl was played at Wallace Wade in 1942.

More info here – including info on the design elements included in the logo.

Pay attention Raleigh.  This is what you want.  This is the new baseball stadium Winston-Salem built (for the Dash) downtown.  Hit the jump for more pictures and post in the comments where you would locate this stadium here.  Me? I am partial to the area between Hammond Drive and South Wilmington Street.  I think I could walk there for games.  I even have a compromise – let’s call it Lightner Field and forget the public safety center.

I am almost positive that the current vampire craze (True Blood/Twilight) is directly related to the writers watching Sesame Street’s Count von Count as children.  If you are reading HBO please make one an arithmomaniac.  Not only would it be a great tribute to the Count but it would stay true to vampire folklore.  (And you thought Sesame Street made that up.)

I’ll miss watching US compete on the national stage and while I’ll likely watch another game or two I just don’t have the same level of interest I did when we were in it.  That doesn’t make me a bad soccer fan more likely it means I am a typical American.  The game as it is played really isn’t geared to our collective tastes as sports watchers.  To that end I give you a short list of things I think could improve the game by making it a little more “American” if you will.  I don’t mean to disparage the beautiful game but no one on the planet could argue that without good ol’ American ingenuity the world wouldn’t be half of what it is today.

1. Soccer needs more commercials. I know I posted two very cool commercials (here and here) but 45 minutes is a little much without a break to go get a beer or use the facilities.  The problem is simple – you could leave for 30 minutes and not miss anything or leave for 30 seconds and miss the one goal of the game.  So why not add more breaks and more cool commercials?  Perhaps moving away from to halves to four quarters with TV time outs once per quarter would work better.  It would intensify the action and give us time to hit the fridge without missing anything.
2. Time should countdown and not up. It’s the final count up!  That doesn’t sound right and while you are at it quit adding time.  So someone got hurt – stop the clock.  That’s what we do here if someone is really hurt we make time stop to get them help.  If they are faking it like I think a lot of them are I have a solution for that as well…
3. Issue a PINK card for being a wuss. I know the card thing is already complicated enough with a yellow card and a red card and what they mean and all that nonsense but I am all for ending the cry baby on the ground game stopping nonsense.  If you fall down and no one touched you we’re giving you a pink card – two pink cards and you are out the rest of this game and the next game or however long the referee feels you need to recover from being a wuss.
4. Enough with the damn horns already. I know it is a vuvuzela and I don’t care.  It is like any other kid with a noisemaker.  We heard you the first time now shut the hell up.  We get it – you have a plastic horn.  You can play one note.  Congratulations.  Now learn a song or stop. A band marching or otherwise at halftime would be kinda cool.
5. Cheerleaders. All I’m saying is it worked for the Hurricanes and they said hockey would never make it in the south.  If redneck hockey can work for us – American soccer might work for the rest of the world.

FIFA feel free to use my suggestions any way you see fit.  See you in 2014.