As you may have heard, I spent this past weekend up at Whistler-Blackcomb to attend the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival. As part of the festival, they had all sorts of, well, festivities. The marketing team said that this was the largest outdoor concert series and you may have seen some of the pictures I took of Rally Car and illScarlett. That was already pretty cool.

Being a ski and snowboard festival, however, there’s obviously a pretty big focus on the sport side of things. Yes, we got Stephen Fung to ride a razor, but we wanted to get some real entertainment from real athletes. Heading to the base of Blackcomb Mountain on Saturday night, we caught the Big Air finals. Those boys (and girls) really catch some big air!

The tricks themselves are obviously pretty impressive, but what was even more impressive was the ability of the competitors to recover from a wipe-out. They could have an absolutely nasty landing, twirling around end over end, but somehow they manage to get back on their feet within a couple of seconds. It’s all one fluid motion.

Check out some the great tricks in the video below, which comes with a bonus appearance from Ravidrums at the end. This percussionist had soooo much energy!

For another look at the Big Air competition, check out the videos from the blogs of Leo Chiang and John Chow.

Well, sort of. Thanks to the power of the time stamp, I’m able to publish this blog post while I am enroute to Whistler, the absolute best ski resort in North America and home to the alpine events as part of the 2010 Winter Olympics. The purpose of this trip is to the attend the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival, which marks the end of the season with 10 days of competitions, music, and probably some inebriation.

Although the festival lasts for a week and a half, I’ll only be there for the weekend, alongside several members of the Dot Com Pho crew. Stephen Fung has managed to hook some of us up with press passes to cover the events as part of the FutureLooks team. For those of you wondering, the panda killer will be in attendance as well, probably with his new favorite toy.

Checking out the official page, it sounds like we should be able to attend the outdoor concerts of bands like illScarlett, Ravidrums, and the John Butler Trio. Beyond the music, there are also several arts events — Mascot Mayhem, Pro Photographer Showdown, and Whistler Dogfest, among others — as well as some crazy ski and snowboard comps. The Big Air competition sounds particularly awesome.

Ironically, I haven’t been snowboarding since around 2003 or so, and I haven’t been to Whistler since 2001. Chances are that Whistler Village has changed quite a bit since then. Should be fun. I will be there with my digital camera, so expect some pictures and/or videos to get posted in the next few days. Have a good weekend! I know I will.

UPDATE (4/11/08 @ 7:56pm): In case you’re not following me on Twitter, here’s a note to say that we’ve more or less settled in here at Whistler. Unfortunately, we’ve discovered that our room does not have free Wi-Fi access as promised. Strangely, John Chow, who is literally staying in the suite next door, does have free Internet access in his room. Looks like we might be live-blogging from John’s room for the next couple of days.

I’ve been feeling a little under the weather these past few days, but it’s pretty hard for me to take a sick day. As much as I try to reduce my workload during this time, it’s inevitable that I have one last push at the end of the month to try to increase my income. I guess it’s a good thing that I work from home, because if I need to take a break for some apple juice, I can do that.

Anyways, seeing how it’s Wednesday, let’s get over that mid-week hump with some great freelance-geared posts from the blogosphere. Oh, and one post that has nothing to do with freelancing, but could prove to be one of the most awesome resources ever created on the Internet.

Kirsten Fischer from Freelance Switch had the opportunity to chat with The Anti 9-to-5 Guide author Michelle Goodman. In the interview, they discuss how to go about leaving the conventional job behind, what Michelle loves the most about writing and teaching, and what burned out freelancers should do to rev up their motivation.

Scott Young reminds us that when we set a goal, we should also consider the exit strategy. I’ve said before that goals are the bane of my existence, because I keep setting the bar higher and higher. At what point can you say you’re done? That’s why you need an exit strategy.

I find it somewhat ironic that Kathryn Vercillo thinks that typos don’t really matter, because she happens to be a professional writer. The most important thing is getting your point across in the clearest manner possible, but you have to remember the difference between a typo and an outright error. John Chow’s blog is full of errors, not typos.

Jennifer Mattern of All Freelance Writing recognizes both sides of the freelance coin. When you don’t have any work on your plate, you get stressed out about not being able to paying the bills. When you have too much work to do, you get stressed out about not being able to handle it. Don’t worry. Jennifer has some strategies to help you overcome freelance stress. I’ve never tried burning pine needles. That just seems weird to me.

Last but certainly not least, we have Darren Barefoot. The one thing you can say about Darren is that when he sets his mind to something, he gets it done. His latest accomplishment is the geo-locating of all Canucks pay-per-view bars and restaurants in Google Maps. This could prove to be the greatest resource for Vancouver Canucks fans ever!

Anyone who has been following football this past year probably would have heard about the “Spygate” scandal. Some have said that this scandal heavily taints the dynasty of the New England Patriots, a team that has made it to the Super Bowl four out of the last seven years.

Even so, the Pats went into Super Bowl XLII has heavy favorites over the extreme underdog New York Giants. Nearly every analyst wrote off the team from the Big Apple, but my official prediction said otherwise.

I don’t blame the analysts and journalists for predicting a Patriots victory, seeing how the Tom Brady-led team was heading into the big game with a record of 18-0. All they needed was one more victory to complete a legendary perfect season. Unfortunately for them, the New York Giants won, thus handing the Pats their first loss of the season. Instead of 19-0, they finished 18-1. And New Yorkers couldn’t be happier.

What you see above is a parody video created by the New York Post, briefly recapping Spygate and the Super Bowl to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”. We all know any videos related to Wacko Jacko are a blast to watch. I need not remind you of Filipino Thriller, do I?

Just about everyone predicted that the New England Patriots would have a field day against the New York Giants, running away with Super Bowl XLII and jumping into football history with a completely undefeated 19-0 season. Too bad for Tom Brady, because the Pats ended their season with an overall record of 18-1 and that one loss is easily the most costly of them all.

As I predicted, the New York Giants are the newly crowned Super Bowl champions. I expected a higher scoring affair — my prediction called for a 33-27 final — but the Giants emerged triumphant regardless, winning by a final score of 17-14. This is only a three point difference from my expected spread, so I still think that I was pretty much on the money with this one.

The opening drive of the game — a nearly nine-minute affair that ended with the NYG field goal — really set the tone for the rest of the game. I knew that one of the keys to the game would be the Giants controlling the clock and keeping the ball out of Tom Brady’s hands. That helped, to be sure, but you’ve got to give a heck of a lot of credit to the defensive unit of the New York Giants. They not only shut down Tom Brady (the sustained level of pressure must have been unbearable), but they also all but eliminated the threat of Laurence Maroney. No passing game and no running game results in very few points. In fact, the score was a miserly 7-3 (for the Pats) going into the fourth quarter.

The last two points of my previous post really came through, because the Giants rode their crazy road game momentum, while the Patriots sort of stumbled into the Super Bowl Sunday. Antonio Pierce and James Butler had great defensive games, but the sleeper star had to be David Tyree. He pulled down the Giants’ first touchdown and then nabbed an incredible reception during New York’s game winning drive. Anyone who saw that highlight would agree that Tyree really “used his head.”

Kudos to Eli Manning, Tom Coughlin, and the rest of the New York Giants organization. After starting the season with two straight losses and finding their way into the playoffs as a fifth-seeded team, it was clear that the odds were against them. But they remained resilient and persevered. They really did adhere to the philosophy that impossible is nothing.

The New England Patriots are going to come back next fall hungrier than ever. Could we see 18-1 followed by 19-0?

The rest of my day is going to occupied with pre-game festivities, halftime shows, and an unknown amount of high fat munchies. Oh, and there’s some football game going on today too.

My official Super Bowl XLII prediction is that the New York Giants will upset the New England Patriots, ending the game in regulation with a final score of 33-27. This will put a serious damper on the Patriots’ undefeated regular season, but my prediction can be broken down into three core factors.

1. The New York Giants have nothing to lose: Everyone is fully expecting that the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick machine will stomp all over the Giants, so it means that the latter really have nothing to lose. They can take a lot more chances, coming heavy on the blitz, trying trick plays on offense… whatever it takes to win. If you thought the Pats had a lot of pressure on Week 17 of the regular season, imagine how much pressure they’re feeling today.

2. The Patriots have not dominated the playoffs: This might be a slight change in philosophy, but during the NFL regular season, the Patriots were known to absolutely demolish their opponents, effectively beating teams by well over 20 points. By contrast, Brady had a less than stellar performance against the San Diego Chargers in the AFC Championship game. If it wasn’t for Laurence Maroney, the Pats might not have won and thus, might not have made it to Super Bowl XLII.

3. The Giants are riding a lot of momentum: The Patriots may be 18-0, but the Giants are riding a ten-game road winning streak, and the Super Bowl is just another road game. Also, have a look at the path that New York had to take to get to today’s game. Everyone expected the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to beat them. Everyone expected the Dallas Cowboys to beat them. Everyone expected the Green Bay Packers (in a ridiculously cold game) to beat them. And today, everyone is expecting the Pats to beat them. Somehow, it seems like the odds are almost in their favor when the Giants are the underdogs. Eli Manning has matured greatly and he’s finally emerged from his older brother’s shadow.

Mark my words. The Giants are winning Super Bowl XLII.