lets go to smokes

Dodger Blue

2008-10-14T00:43:00.004-04:00

"Crack," goes the bat for Casey has not struck out. Not this time. A Dodger fan would not be so lucky. It's been 20 years since the team barreled through the playoffs and caused all 27 A's fans to feel the same way that I do now. This time Matt Stairs is at the plate. He's barely played throughout the series. Like Kirk Gibson before, a closer is on the mound. Stairs has got to be overmatched. There's no way he could catch up to a Broxton fastball. Even if he did, he couldn't get all of it...and then, of course, he does. Only in baseball can six months of ups turn so quickly into six more of down. In baseball, the best team in the league tends to lose about 62 times a year so in a short series anything can happen. It's the kind of game that leads one to believe, and belief is the most painful of all mistresses. It leads to hope and hope leads to the most painful kind of defeat. It's the type of loss you can't see coming. It's like getting dumped unexpectedly, and your team still losing after having a two run lead in the eighth inning. All you can think is, "when did this morph from they to we?"

You remember the reason you like the game; it's the unpredictability that makes it worth watching. The momentum changing like the wind is why you watch night after night throughout the season. Waiting for this moment is why you watch through the five to three games. It's why you watch a team win ninety times and lose seventy two times. You wait for this moment because one time in your life something beautiful might happen, just not this time. This time, defeat comes from the jaws of victory.

This is why, at first, you don't notice what happens. You can't. At first, you see the ball hit and for a second everything slows down. You're screaming inwardly. You want to do so outwardly, but nothing will come out. Then everything speeds up faster than before and you realize Matt Stairs--or as I call him, Matt "Fucking" Stairs--is on second and he's rounding the bases. He's probably the happiest he's ever been on a baseball field, but I can't be bothered by his joy because my vision is clouded by hatred of fastballs over the plate and months of cheering that now mean nothing. It's just a game. A game I'm not even playing. A game I don't have any control over, but it's so much more. Living in San Francisco, my only connection to that smog filled place I called home is the baseball team. The team whose season I just saw end when Matt "Fucking" Stairs hit his first career postseason homerun. It's the kind of things dreams are made of, and only now do I realize that it's also the stuff of nightmares.

The game is lost, but every Dodger fan knows there's still a tomorrow.

What's that? Hope is back. You told yourself you wouldn't let it return, but there it is. Hope is rearing it's ugly head. It's becoming belief. I believe if this team can win on Wednesday and then steal Game six in Philly then maybe game seven will just work itself out, but I can't see that far ahead right now. Right now, Matt Stairs is still circling the bases. An entire season is flashing before my eyes as if my life were in danger and that baseball Stairs hit into the ether is a bullet headed for my still beating heart. That's what it's like to be a Dodger fan right now. Hopefully, if there isn't a game to be played after Wednesday I'll bleed Dodger Blue.

Update: Phucking Phillies

They'reGRRRRRRReat

2008-09-12T02:12:00.004-04:00

Be A Tiger

It's not easy being a large feline, you can ask Tony, Chester or James Spader. They'd all say the same thing if they could talk--or act--namely, the search for junk food is hard, really hard. It's a job, and to really understand that you've got to be a cartoon cat. Imagine being one of those poor orange cats. There you are, an animal in love with a food wholly antithetical to the rest of your speciers, but it's always just barely out of reach. You're sitting there thinking to yourself that this must be how a bear feels when he sees food in a canister, and man would you like some Cheetos and there's just a bunch of kids telling you that Trix are for kids and isn't that a rabbit...oh the terrible existence of the cartoon animal. Well fear not world, for these felines and James Spader teach children something incredibly important and no one is even aware of it. Those cartoon cats are teaching young children every day that life isn't fair, that most people will try and fail and that it's okay to fail because tomorrow you will try again and probably fail again, but what's important is to try. Usually, I'd say that that kind of message is anti-American, but today I feel forgiving. Today, I see the need for people to try even if they do fail because, really, don't we all fail almost every time we try? It's those few times that we don't that cause us to forget all the other times. How many people tried and failed to create fire or the cotton gin or a computer. Who knows, right? We only remember the winners, but how many losers were there? How many of them got close? Is it possible that any of those people contributed to the general atmosphere of change?

I don't know the answer at all. All I can tell you is dare to be grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat.

Brett Favre Facts as told by Noe Burgos and Ravi Kantha

2008-08-14T00:42:00.004-04:00

1. Brett Favre Loves Footbal

2. Brett Favre Hates Studying....Conclusion: Football>Studying

3. Brett Favre is the greatest Football TEAM of all time

4. Wrangler Jeans are REAL....COMFORTABLE.......JEANS

5. Brett wasn't addicted to Painkillers....Painkillers were addicted to Brett Favre

6. Brett Favre can throw a football around the world and catch it himself (as shown in the 1998 NFC Championship Game)

7. Brett Favre can throw a football through a bulletproof vest

8. Bulletproof vests are made from Brett Favre's hair

9. Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite backed up Brett Favre in High School (he never played)

10. Brett Favre is Gunslinging and Gunslinging is Brett Favre

11. When Brett Favre and Billy the Kid dueled, the football beat the gun

12. If Brett Favre was alive in the 1790s, he would have killed Aaron Burr with a football

13. George Bush invaded Mississippi to search for the WMD known as Brett Favre's arm

14. Federal Law states that no car can travel faster in interstate highways that a Brett Favre throw

15. Was Brett Favre watching too much Rocky Balboa or was Rocky Balboa watching too much Brett Favre (Thank you Joe Reiss)

16. Two Reasons for the end of the Soviet Union
a- Rocky Balboa's defeat of Ivan Drako
b- the USSR could not compete in the arm's race with the birth of Brett Favre

17. The next generation of US Tomahawk Missiles are called BFBs or Brett Favre Bombs

18. Brett Favre doesn't need 8 hours of sleep. He needs 8 Touchdowns.....He is always well rested

19. Upon his arrival to New York, a man tried to mug Brett Favre at gunpoint. Brett Favre remarked, "that is not a gun", flexed his right arm and said, "that's a gun". The man fled.

20. While God rested on the 7th day, Brett Favre picked up the slack and said "let there be Touchdowns"...and it was good.

21. Samuel L. Jackson: Angry Black Man :: Brett Favre: Touchdown Machine

This list amounted to the amount of points scored by Brett Favre during the time it took to write the list.

Bark like KG, Pierce like Paul

2008-06-19T18:27:00.010-04:00

War Kg!! Before I move into the productive portion of my year, I would like to recap the past NBA season and go over some of the myths that have been perpetuated over the past 12 months.

A year ago, the season started with a trade and ended with a BANG. I have already commented on many of these trades, KG (Loved it obviously), Shaq (still love it), Kidd (Hated it), Charmin (Heist, but still TBD).

While I appreciate what Pierce had done throughout the playoffs I believed that Allen should have been the finals MVP. Now on to the myths...

Myth 1 the Western Conference is better than the eastern conference How anyone can still believe this is beyond me, while every year basketball pundits and experts claim that the Western Conference Finals Should be the real finals, the Eastern representative always puts up an adequate fight, (which is more than the Lakers could say in this finals. Was there ever a doubt who was going to win this series after the opening tip?) This brings me to my next myth.

Myth 2 the Lakers are set up better than any team for next year.
Even the Lakers don’t believe this myth as Lamar Odom went from potential champion to an expiring contract faster than I could say “Charmin”.

Myth 3 Andrew Bynum will help lead the Lakers to the promise land next year and for the subsequent decade.
If (note not when) Bynum does come back, people need to realize that he averaged 13 and 10 and had not played well for even 1 full season.

Myth 4 the CAVs suck.
Besides being the closest team to dethroning the Celtics and the only team to earn their respect, the cavs were one PJ Brown jumper away from winning the championship.

The Peasants Revolt!

2008-05-22T19:46:00.002-04:00

*I had to write this as sort of an addendum to Chig’s take on last night’s episode.*

Let’s get right to the bottom of this one folks. Last night’s Real World was, to say the least one of the most ridiculous, yet entertaining episodes I have ever laid eyes on. This season has gone from being one of the dullest seasons to, frankly one of the best (The episode was that LEGENDARY). Let’s recap.

Ryan, Sarah's boyfriend comes to visit. When he arrives she jumps into his arms and tells him how much she has missed him (Although, it would have foreshadowed Ryan’s personality way more accurately if he had jumped into hers). At dinner later, Will and Ryan share a few awkward moments as Will proceeds to have a burping aka flirting contest with Sarah right in front of him. This begins the “The Ryan is a pussy and has no backbone” portion of our program. When Greg returns home, he makes sure to introduce himself to Ryan. This is followed by Greg in the confessional room shitting (figuratively of course) on Ryan for being a ‘dweeb’. When Greg brings a girl (episode skank #1) home for Dave, Kimberly (generic blondie Dave fucks occasionally) is left alone. Will tells Kim to confront Dave, but she doesn't want to (because she constantly lies to herself that she doesn’t like him). One of Greg and Dave's guest make a comment saying that Brianna is ghetto (not the first time she has been called that) and she starts ranting about how the guests are whores (this coming from a stripper). Brianna and Greg proceed to have a shouting match (first time we really see emotion from him, which is a huge breakthrough for his character). Then all of a sudden Greg starts in with Sarah. Sarah charges out of her room and confronts Greg on his behavior towards women (If you didn’t all ready know, Greg refers to women he hooks up with as ‘Associates’ and regular girls as ‘females’, which is a little weird but not nearly as bad as the common bitch, slut, skank vernaculars). Greg calls out Ryan from another room to say that if he wants to defend his ‘female’ (Sarah) and fight he will get beat up (Greg says this only because he knows Ryan is a pussy). Ryan tells Greg that he doesn't want to fight (for the obvious reasons of not wanting to get his ass kicked) but insists that Greg not to call Sarah a bitch and also that Greg not call women "hoes".

Because Real World hadn’t made Ryan look like a pussy enough, they cut to him admitting that the argument with Greg felt like a real fight (Haha). Brianna decides that she likes Ryan because he isn't the type of guy that has balls (girls always say that but what they really mean is they like guys that are pussies as friends, not hook up material). Kimberly admits to her Mom that she has been getting close to Dave (fucking constitutes getting close, right?), but says that she doesn't want to get too close. That night, Dave admits to Justine (skank #2, who Dave actually like likes) that he had people over the night before. Justine tells him that he doesn't have to explain to her. Back at the house Dave and Justine do a confessional together and proceed to make out in the confessional booth. Kimberly sees an opportunity (to be an ultimate bitch) and informs Justine and her friends that Dave has been intimate (the same kind of intimate as with her) with other girls in the past few nights. Justine and her friends decide to leave the house and Dave gets so mad that he threatens to knock out the girls (what is it with huge muscular guys threatening to punch girls this season? First Joey, now Dave?) if they even look at him wrong. Greg looks up at Dave and tells him that Justine wasn't even that hot, and so he shouldn't be upset. Dave gets very defensive and starts to yell at Greg, his anger towards the girls being displaced at Greg.

Inside the house Dave is still mad at Greg. Brianna takes Greg's "associate" Reva (queen of all hoes) aside and warns her about Greg. Greg tells Queen Ho that she can't talk with any of the females in the house or he won't be her ‘associate’ anymore. Brianna and Will take some time to soak their feet and talk about Greg. When Greg comes outside and wonders what they were talking about Brianna ends up telling him that he is a dog because of his chauvinist attitude towards women.

Meanwhile, Sarah discovers that all of her brand new underwear has been stolen. She confronts Greg, but he swears that he didn't take the missing underwear. Sarah tells Ryan about her missing things and cries that she can't live like this. Sarah calls her parents and they comfort her about her missing things. When she is done with her call, Greg tries to get in to use the phone, but Sarah stubbornly keeps the phone away from Greg, even though her vagina boyfriend tells her to let it go (is that 4 acts of pussyism for Ryan now? I notice a theme here). Greg admits to some of the pranks to Will but still denies taking Sarah's underwear.

Ryan quietly douches his V and exits stage left (I didn’t even notice he left). Later, Brianna decides to rummage around Greg's belongings for Sarah's missing underwear. She doesn't find it. That night at a club (which one I forgot as they go to 2 or 3 different Hollywood clubs every episode), Greg admits to Will that he took the underwear (notice how he thinks of Will as his only friend in the house? This will come into play very soon). Will then proceeds to inform Dave of Greg's confession. Back at the house, Will takes his aggression towards Greg out on a punching bag and a wall. Greg wonders what Will's problem is and Will tells him that he needs to return Sarah's missing underwear (He apparently is the keeper of Sarah now, like a brother). After Sarah finds her missing things Will tells her about Greg's admission of guilt. The roommates discuss how they can't trust Greg anymore (which is funny to me because they never trusted him in the first place) and Dave says that he would love to kick Greg's ass (Dave at least once an episode tries to get into a fight for no reason at all). Will makes a move on Greg's "associate" Reva. On the dance floor Will and Reva start to kiss.

Later that night Reva calls for Greg and he informs her that he is upset with her. Reva denies anything happening and Greg decides to invite her over to the house. Once Reva is at the house she wastes no time in jocking Will behind Greg’s back. Kimberly tells Reva of Greg's pranks. When Will enters the room, Kimberly agrees to be the look out for Reva and Will so they can hook up in the confessional room alone. Greg searches the house for Reva but to no avail. When he tries to look in the confessional booth they slam the door in his face.

Greg worries that Reva and Greg are doing something in the confessional (obviously), and is right. When Will and Reva exit the confessional (after oral sexing each other and who knows what else), Reva lies to Greg and says that they were just talking (Haha, ok…). Greg ends up believing Reva (even though he states it isn’t logic to do so) and forgives her, as long as she agrees to stay away from his roommates. Fade to dark…

Closing thoughts…

When the season began, I automatically thought Greg was an arrogant douche (and I still think that) because he calls people peasants and gets under people’s skin every chance he can get. But this episode was down right cold. The gang mentality in the house has officially gotten out of hand to the point where everything Greg does is blown way out of proportion by the rest of the roommates. Besides being arrogant, his biggest offense was putting rocks in Will’s bed, putting a bloody tissue in Dave’s bed, and stealing Sarah’s underwear. Annoying for sure, but hardly serious. I used to think Will was awesome but for him to punish Greg by fucking his ‘Associate’ was just uncalled for in my opinion.

Did the punishment fit the crime? You tell me.

I end with a photo of happier times

MV Mamba

2008-05-09T17:30:00.002-04:00

"We don't rebuild, we reload!"

-Shaquille O'Neal, Los Angeles Lakers 2004

Those were the words of former Lakers Center entering the 2004 season, a season of turmoil that ended the last Lakers dynasty. Following that year Kobe Bryant opted out of his contract, Shaq was traded, Phil Jackson stepped down and the other role players on the team were scatter amongst the NBA.

Kobe ultimately re-signed with the Lakers amid the notion that playing for them provided his best shot to continue winning championships. But was it?

Following the breakup of the Shaq/Kobe Lakers, the organization did everything in their power to "rebuild" the team opting to surround Bryant with young talent instead of season veterans. Every move they made seemed to imply they were building a team for the next decade (rebuilding) instead of building a team to win now (reloading). Through the following three seasons of mediocrity, Bryant stayed on board, begging for some help. It was until the end of the 2007 season when he realized the organization had been lying to him. Their primary focus wasn't to build a championship caliber team around him; they intended to build a championship core to succeed him. This caused the maniacal and championship driven Bryant to present an ultimatum for the world to hear, "Build a championship around me, or trade me to an organization that will do so."

Listening to LA radio, days after Bryant won the 2008 MVP award and had lead the Lakers to a 6-0 record to start the postseason, many Laker fans still expressed disgust for the disloyalty Bryant showed to the organization.

Somehow these guys missed the point. Mitch Kupchack didn't turn into a genius overnight with the Pau Gasol deal, the history, location, power and appeal of LA had made LA an attractive destination for obtaining high quality free agents at a discount rate. Players like Jermaine O'Neal, Ron Artest, Jason Kidd and Baron Davis all expressed interest in playing in Los Angeles. Kobe and the Lakers could have been competing for championships for the past two years if properly motivated.

I am of the opinion that Kobe's demands done in the way he did so were the only way the Lakers would change their priorities. Without them, the maturation of the younger players (a bit of luck for everyone involved) and Kobe's newfound trust for his teammates, the Lakers present and future would not be as bright as it is today.

Sounds like an MVP to me.

A Few QUick HIts

2008-04-08T21:25:00.002-04:00

Quick Thoughts

You know those old Haray Carey skits with Will Ferrell, "If the moon were made of cheese would you eat it?" It's a simple YES or No Question. Those are awesome. Tune in for more of the Chris Farley Show.

I feel like Froot Loops is trying to end society with their new Froot Loops straws. You know what Toucan Sam, what if I don't want part of my balanced diet to come from a drinking receptacle? Why don;t you follow your nose up that path?

What's the funniest country name? I'm going to go with Yemen.

It's a free throw. It's fifteen feet. I'm looking at you Derrick Rose.

If you don't listen to the Sound of Silver by LCD Soundsytem then fuck you.

Me- Goodbye college basketball. I'm a mess without you. I need you. I miss your scent....I miss your musk. I'm ....(sob) (sob) (sob)
O.J. Mayo--Yo dog, maybe you know, don't talk for awhile.
Kevin Love-- Yeah, maybe sit the next few plays out buddy.

Nick Hornby likes soccer as much as I like all the sports I enjoy in summation. Seriously, it's incredible. His love of soccer runs so deeply throughout Fever Pitch that it makes me not retch at the sight of the game. If I had read this book earlier in my life, I probably would have moved to England, gotten myself a cool cockney accent, a mohawk and beat up some Liverpoolians.

Can someone post for me how the internet works. I feel like I could explain how a car works or how an airplane flies to a five year old. But if she asks me how the fucking internet works, I'm going to have to scream, "It's a series of tubes!"

He Looks Like The Guy...

2008-04-03T00:32:00.000-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnwir88g_4

He totally looks like the guy that would brag about his tomatoes!

District Deliberations: On Today

2008-04-01T17:45:00.005-04:00

Hey,

So today I read this whole big article and I realized something: Ron Paul would make a really good president. His entire philosophy on immigration, abortion, and a return to the Gold standard as a unit of measurement for currency actually makes a whole lot of sense. If you really put it in perspective, he could bring us back to the days where the dollar was worth a fortune, circa the Jimmy Carter presidency (one of, if not the, greatest president). Also, given his stature, it is hard to say any country or terrorist organization would want to try anything against us. It would be like picking a fight with Napoleon in his prime.

Also, reading ESPN today, it seemed as if the Knicks want to hang on to Isiah Thomas for another year. I think this is a smart move because, despite some of his minor mishaps, he’s put together a multi-million dollar roster full of talent. Once they get their chemistry figured out, they will be unstoppable. Mark my words, Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph will go down as one of the best big duos in basketball since Duncan-Robinson.

I also put down 500$ today for OSU to destroy USC at the Coliseum this fall. USC just doesn’t have enough talent to compete with BIG 10 speed. Watch it, Trojans, and GO BUCKEYES!

Also, I actually had an opportunity to read some texts on the basis of Scientology, and the verdict is in. It’s actually pretty sweet. I was captivated by all of it. I strongly urge anyone that may read this to do some research. There has to be a reason so much of Hollywood is onto this. I mean after all, Hollywood is full of some of the most reasonable thinkers that humankind possesses. All hail Tom Cruise.

Ok, this is getting to be a bit much even for me, but I’ll end with this.

District Deliberations: On Current Happenings

2008-03-30T12:06:00.002-04:00

Ok, so I’ve been a degenerate and haven’t blogged in a year, so here are my thoughts on the current state of the world.

Elliot Spitzer got ripped off. He way overpaid for that jersey trash. $80,000, really? That girl was worth maybe a six pack of Mike’s at the shore. My favorite is that she was also on Girl’s Gone Wild. Spitzer is such a douche, and to make matters worse, this chick is going to get rich off of the situation. She will go on a book tour, release an album, and do talk shows. Finally though, someone will realize she’s just Jersey trash, and that’ll be the end of her. Fucking Spitzer.

In Politics, the next president will be a liberal…and here’s why. ALL THREE CANDIDATES ARE LIBERAL. So for every democrat that rules out McCain for having the Republican tag, get used to your new president, because it’s going to happen. While Democrats battle over a white man and a black woman (that’s right I said it, Obama’s a sensitive guy) instead of uniting to fight McCain like they should, Johnny Mac sits there and does what he pleases. Many independents and conservative Democrats have marked their support for the Senator after his speech last week. The Conservative Right isn’t going anywhere, which should put McCain at like 60% favored in the polls. So barring an actual sex scandal, (nice going NYTimes) there’s not much else to do but plan the inaugural ball. Now before people chew this out, let me level with you. For those who think he’s the second coming of W, he’s not. For those afraid of his social issues, he’s opposed to the appeal of Roe v. Wade, and supports Stem Cell Research. For those who think his stance on the war is wrong… He’ll be the most likely to successfully get us out of Iraq, and let me remind you that Hilldog voted for the war, and though Obama opposed it, he couldn’t actually vote against it (he wasn’t a senator when the vote took place). Saying you don’t want the war, and having the wherewithal to actually do something about it are two different things. Fuck Illinois’ state senate. Finally, McCain was mentioned heavily as a favorite to be John Kerry’s VP in 2004. That dope is as liberal as they come. So that’s it. PS Al Gore will not be the next president, but that goofy bastard will have a huge say in the democratic nominee. That in itself is an inconvenient truth. (see what I did there?)

Fuck Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan. That being said, who cares if they support Obama. Look at the idiots that support McCain and Hillary. Anyone who thinks that Obama has been indoctrinated with all this hate is retarded. My take is that it’s a creative way to reevaluate racism in the country. Southern bigots (FoxNews) have been pissed since Jim Crow was repealed and finally feel ashamed for being terrible people. So finally when the black community gets an enthusiastic and positive leader, who has a racist preacher, the ex-bigot group is going to act all offended and play the victim. I call bullshit. Obama has been criticized for this for too long and in the end it doesn’t matter. (also McCain supported Obama’s support of his preacher, furthering the homogeny of all the candidates). However, Hilldog’s claims that she landed amidst sniper fire in Bosnia is hilarious. She will also be the next president, end the war, feed all the children, and not be such a horrible liar. Fuck you Hillary, yet again.

And now, everyone’s favorite hooker.

and look at that come hither look. Doesn't it just say, "pay me for sex?"

All black people do not look alike, but...

2008-03-27T16:38:00.003-04:00

Seriously, who is who???

It's the one that says Bad Mother Fucker on it....Part Deux

2008-03-17T19:11:00.004-04:00

To: Negro
From: That's all you had to say

Missing out on the Prolific, but he is busy taking care of EMO and RAVI. Ill jump in.

Grossest thing? No idea, ¼ of chicks in America with STDs?

As for the Hall, Nash is going to make it the same reason he as Hollinger has repeatedly reminded us incredulously won the 2006 MVP award. People LOVE him, why is that? I think we can get a couple more curious guys out of that topic. People love him most likely for the same reason they love John Daly, they feel that they can relate to him for some reason. Maybe it's because he's only slightly taller than them unlike his behemoth teammates he's frail and tends to live a normal non bling life. As for his numbers, he has had great years in Phoenix but he's breaking down and if this is his last good year he probably does not deserve the HOF, but I assume he will make it anyways and be a first ballot guy. Let me put it this way, no one even considers him a HOFer before heading to phx. Were these last 4 years really worthy of a career of recognition?

To clarify the girl with dudes things I meant anywhere, bars and clubs just seem to be where they it comes up the most but I meant to a stranger. If you know someone to be goofy no amount of events are probably going to change your opinion. More so I meant you walk around and see some guy with a random hottie, whys he that much cooler than he would be without the hottie? A guy with a huge group of friends looks like us, so we don't notice as much. Oh he's the center of 4 guys wait, I was just telling a story to 8 of them. What actually tends to happen more frequently is we a beautiful woman catches our eye, and then we notice the gentleman to her right and think, "what's he got that I don't" and the actual answer is nothing but we always assume exactly what Deuce said. Cock, Money/Cool or the girl is dumb. I don't know it's sort of weird to me.

Steps Theory, it's basically correlated to nurture v nature. My main question is keeping all things equal outside of effort do we have limitations. I think we do because since time is finite, it leads me to believe effort is so as well, and if so we must have limitations. The actual steps concept has too many intangibles to re-elaborate on them. How does nature / talent actually help limit an individual's potential? I think talent/nature is the rate, the quickness in which your effort actually translates in to production. This model makes sense because given equal effort the individuals with the most talent will have the most production. Let me know if you guys would like to add anything to the new simplified model. I basically took out the multi-steps and just basically made one step for one individual without taking into consideration how his step overlaps with the other individuals in the world's steps.

Adderall, is something I would need to do more research on however, it has been describe extremely similarly to steroids to me and if that's the case it just says a lot about our priorities. Society loves to glorify public figures and hold them to higher standards than they hold themselves and this has been going on for quite some time.

As for the combo guard thing, Monta is good, my point is he's small, he's frail, he's not even as good as wade and we don't know what wade would have been without shaq. Arenas has the skill set to excel in the NBA but who doesn't. Marbury, Baron, and all those guys could have been the greatest pg ever but they were not and are not even close to being the best pg today.

Deuce and I love football, as for soccer and hockey keep it simple, Beckham and the ducks questions only. Haha, Jets or 49ers? Brandon Moore is their RT?

I hate to get all philosophical but what would you guys throw everything you have done thus far away for? A chance at what? A romance with who? Spitzer threw it away for Alexandra Dupré and while I think she's hot, beauty is common, especially in the city of angels.

As for the GSW-Suns tonight! Woot Woot! Ill have my jersey ready! I would go GSW +8. As for the actually winner I have no idea, the original Superman will save all his subsequent dives for the playoffs!

To: That's all you had to say
From: Negro

What's up Vanilla Faces and Chiggy,

I'm going to re-answer my question about Nash because I wasn't asking about Nash himself per se. I do think he belongs in the Hall of Fame, but I'm going to extrapolate the argument out a bit. In my mind, the Hall of Fame—and probably everyone else's as well—the Hall of Fame should be reserved for the "best" basketball players.However, the problem then becomes, "how do you decide on the bestplayers?" Obviously, the Michael Jordan's, Jerry West's and Magic Johnson's of the world are in. They had long and brilliant careers. But what about a guy that was just above average for a very long time. Does he deserve to get in because he's tenth on the all-time scoring list? I mean, who cares where he ranks on some list if he neverreally affected a team. Basketball, unlike baseball, isn't about stats so much as impact. And when it comes to impact, I think it is much better to burn out than to fade away. So, let's take Nash as a test case.
Steve Nash didn't really get a chance to start everyday until he was traded to Dallas. So, I'm going to omit those first few years from my analysis except to wonder whether or not anyone has ever come as faras he has, i.e. not playing at all to fighting over a spot with Anthony Johnson on the Mavericks to two MVP awards. Anyways, since 2000-2001 Nash has averaged about 17 points a game, and when he was in Dallas he averaged about 8 assists. Since he moved back to the Suns, his assists have increased dramatically up to an average of about 11,and he's been one of the top three point guards in the league over the last five years except, I would argue that he's been better than that for a bit longer. What is the true test of a point guard? Is it points? Obviously not, that's why we've hammered on Gilbert Arenas. Is it assists? Well, this answer is closer, but still wrong. Assists help to paint the broad strokes of the picture, but they miss the most important argument. To my mind, the best indicator of great point guard play, on the offensive end, is offensive efficiency. Incredibly, Steve Nash led teams have been the most efficient offensive team in each of the last seven years dating back to2001-2002. That is an incredible run.

Finally, I get that Nash's career hasn't spent as much time as otherpoint guards at this level, but I think the hall of Fame is about remembering peak performance, and seven years seems, to me, to be a large enough sample size to label him an elite point guard somewhere better than Bob Cousy and worse than Gary Payton. I mean, think about it this way, when people think of Mickey Mantle's career, do they focus on his early struggles and his late failings or do they focus on his best 10 year stretch?

On that note, I'm going to crib something from Bill Simmons. I think that there should be levels to every hall of fame. For example, we'd have media and such on the bottom level since they always votethemselves in despite the fact that no one cares about their busts. Then, on the second level, we'd have marginal Hall of Famer's. On the third, we'd have great players, and on the last level there would bethe all-time greats. That's where the Jordan's and the Bird's and the Johnson's and the Russell's would be. We could even limit the amountof all-time greats, that way we would have to be really sure that a player deserved to be remembered on the highest level. Of course,we'd also probably have to allow them to augment that level by two or three players per decade. It wouldn't be historically accurate to eventually kick Jerry West out of the inner room just because a younger generation didn't remember his prowess relative to the people he was playing against.

To Joey, Adderall is fucking wild. I took it twice in college, and then just didn't need sleep. I was not tired the next day and just went to bed at my normal time. It was so strange. It was like I just didn't need sleep for a night. If that's not a mental steroid then I don't know what is.

The step theory seems to me to be completely true. Though I think of it as more of a pyramid with way more people in the middle than on either edge. I mean, isn't the theory basically proven by bell curves? The problem people tend to have is that they believe that with hard work anyone can be anything, but what they fail to realize is that the ability to work hard is a gift in and of itself. I just don't have the desire to work hard to become a racecar driver. So, I will never become a good racecar driver; I'm at the bottom of the pyramid. But some people have a gift for driving and care to work their asses off. The lesson is, even caring enough to work hard at something is a gift. When natural talent and hard work meet, people make a lot of money.

Finally, with the Spitzer question, I think we're missing the point. In almost every case, non-famous people are only risking their personal, not their professional lives. So, I guess you're not really losing everything (Though you could still make the argument that you were). Anyways, the answer is that there is no woman alive for whom I would risk or lose everything I'd built. However, if Heidi Klum could become 28 again, that answer would change faster than you can believe.

Anyways, I think the most telling point of the whole Spitzer debaclehas more to do with hubris than any real knowledge that he was aboutto throw his life away. I mean, here's a guy who fought corruption on Wall Street when it wasn't perceived by the corrupt people as wrong. They were just going about their business like they always had, in most cases. They knew it was against the law, but it was the way they'd always done and always been allowed to do everything. Suddenly, Spitzer comes along and puts them behind bars using electronic paper trails. Now, Spitzer is in hot water because he used a service that hundreds of New Yorkers use all the time, but is against the law and he was caught via electronic paper trail. It's ironic, and luckily everyone involved gets what they deserved, except#9's wife, which brings me to my last question….

What the hell is going through a woman's head be it Eliot Spitzer'swife or Hillary Clinton or any woman when they have to stand next totheir husband as he has a press conference announcing he cheated onthem? Is it embarrassment as all of America knows that they're homelife was not lived as advertised? Is it anger, held in check byXanax? Or is it something else? And what about the wife of that Pennsylvania (New Jersey Governor, maybe) lawmaker when it turned out he was gay?

Have a great day bitches,

Austin

Check my Wallet....which one's your wallet....The one that says bad ass motherfucker on it.

2008-03-14T19:25:00.003-04:00

From: Chiggy
To: Spunk Faces

Deuce, Sen., Prolific,

I am starting another "curious guy" (copyrights with Simmons) because three main topics have peaked my interest. Monta (Combo guards), the girl rule (a new rule in a long line of chigozism) and Adderall (Educational Steroids?). Why didn't I just post on all three topics in the normal format? I think I kind of like this "curious guy" format in which my takes are discussed and balance is shown to my opinions, plus I love the immediate feedback, so without further adieu.

Monta: Simmons is ridiculous. Jron is just insane. Hibachi is just silly. Surf and Turf? While I acknowledge Monta is the greatest waiver wire pick up ever (First round bye here I come woot woot!) he is not the next Wade. Not even close. How is he any different from any other undersized two guards who is primarily a scorer? Isn't this what OJ Mayo is getting killed for? Mayo, Monta, Gordon, D. Harris, Leandr o Barbosa, Jamal Crawford, Gilbert (aka Hibachi) what do any of these "gunners" have in common? My take they are not franchise guys. Sure every team would love to have one of these guys preferably as a spark of the bench but would you seriously want to build around any one of them? People seem to their (potential) offensive unstopability will lead to anything more than an early round exit. How many of these types of players have lead a team to a championship? None in our lifetime. If any of you guys have any thoughts I would love to hear them.

Girl Rule, the basis premise of this rule is everything someone does can look much cooler if you have a girl with you participating and or watching you do it. How did I come up with this rule? Heading to the LA club scene I noticed how many guys went there without girls. All of these guys seemed like scrubs standing on the edge of the dance floor holding their beers waist high and wistfully waiting for a female to talk to them. Then it struck me, the reason these guys look like tools is because they don't have girls with them! If they were doing exactly the same thing but had a girl next to them it would appear that they were "chilling" same thing for the dance floor, or the bar, alone you look like a tool but when you are with a girl (s) you look like you are either in a intimate situation or the life of the party. What are you guys thoughts on this and why it has this perception. Also what does this tell you about our society and the human race in general?

Adderall, my initial thoughts are pretty simple, academic steroids? I don't think people know enough about the health effects to really differentiate between the long term effects of the two drugs but what are your initial opinions? Many more thoughts but this is a G rated site.

Awaiting my belt! with kisses,

Chiggy

From: Double Deuce
To: Gingers

Hey Chig Music,

Back by unpopular demand, it's time to get some self-exploration on.So, you want to know what's so great about Monta Ellis, why Adderallis awesome and what causes uncool actions to suddenly become cool.

Well, she-it negroooooooooooooo that's all you had to say.

I'll start where I'm most comfortable; basketball.

You write, "How is he any different from any other undersized two guards who is primarily a scorer? Isn't this what OJ Mayo is getting killed for? Mayo, Monta, Gordon, D. Harris, Leandro Barbosa, Jamal Crawford, Gilbert (aka Hibachi) what do any of these "gunners" have incommon?" Now, I seriously cannot believe you are lumping O.J. Mayo in the samecategory as a guy like Monta Ellis. Ellis has proven himself a verycapable scorer in the best basketball league in the world, while Mayo is periodically getting shut down by college players. But that aside,you are absolutely correct, a team will never win a championship with Monta Ellis as their centerpiece, but as an important cog off the bench, he could absolutely be an integral piece for a championship team. The guy is locked up to 770k for the next two years and can carry the scoring loads for games at a time. To wit, his scoring andshooting numbers have been almost unfathomable over the last 15 games. How can you compare O.J. Mayo and Monta in light of this? It's unconscionable.

Second, I really don't think that Gilbert Arenas can be on this list.While I agree that he will not win a championship with how his team is currently constructed, He is a step above every other player on thislist. He's more like Dominique Wilkins—great scorer, who will neverwin a championship— than he is like the other players on your list,and what's wrong with that? I mean, Wilkins was the human highlightreel, and Arenas is the human bloglight reel. More importantly, theycan carry teams to 50+ wins whereas no one else on that list is carrying anyone to a .500 season if they've got to be their team's beast of burden.

Third, before I rate the characters, I need to add in a caveat. I don't, honestly, know how good Monta would be in any other system. Nellie Ball is perfect for his frenetic pace and his need to get alarge volume of shots. Nellie lets him over-dribble and hoistridiculous shots, and it keeps him happy enough to keep passing the pill at other times. How a team that fast doesn't average over 20 assists a game is beyond me.

Anyways, how would you rate these characters? I'm throwing out the Hibachi because he's in a different league than the others. So now I've got Ellis, Barbosa, Harris, Crawford, Mayo and Gordon. Interestingly, if you would have asked me this question last year I would have put Barbosa in front of Ellis, but his lost confidence is vexing this year. How do you forget how to make 3's, especially ifyour name isn't Nick Anderson? Also, I feel like this list is cut into three pretty obvious tiers. We're looking at the Top three inthe first tier, Crawford sitting by himself because he's a proven bit above average commodity, and then the other two languishing in the back.

I'm going to take on the Adderall question next because I'm not quite ready to take on a question about the cool power of double X chromosomes. Adderall is obviously an enhancer. I mean, the only other way I'm going to stay up and study for 48 straight hours is withan eight ball of coke or 37 Red Bulls and 25 cups of coffee. And the crazy thing is that I'm not sure which one of these three options is the worst for me. But the equation of studying to drugs looks something like this:
4 Adderall= 24 straight hours studying Econometrics
12 Red Bull+12 cups of coffee=24 straight hours studying Econometrics
1 Eight ball of coke=18 minutes of studying Econometrics & 23 hours42 minutes of looking for more coke.

So, I guess it's better than the cocaine, but a toss up with theliquid caffeine. Now, the problem, as with all drugs, is where todraw the line. Malcolm Gladwell has a great piece in the New Yorker about coffee and increased brain functioning. Is this a form of enhancement? You betcha it is. So, what makes it allowable? A lot of people take vitamins to supplement a shoddy diet. What makes this okay? Where is the line? I guess, the point is that all of this drug testing is arbitrary. It isn't okay in sports because sports are ontelevision and we like the picture of the savant. We'd rather someonebe talented than work hard. We, as humans, are beholden to the myththat talent is somehow nobler than constantly refining skills through hard work. Anyways, I'm going to get off my soap box here. We don't care about Adderall because it just doesn't cross our minds that the only way to get an A is to take drugs. We just assume the person worked his ass off throughout the quarter or semester or whatever. Finally, college kids aren't constantly on television, in general, whichmeans there is much less scrutiny on their day to day lives. I have no doubt that if, all of a sudden, econometrics became an Olympicsport, they would test the shit out of our systems for Adderall.

Next, onto the girl conundrum. I don't know. This question seems to have a fairly obvious answer. Maybe, you want more nuance,but I mean, there really isn't that much. The way I look at it, pretty girls are basically a finite resource and guys don't have a lot of variation from person to person, except at the very top and very bottom. So, when we see a guy by himself we think, "That guy's a douche, ha ha ha," but when we see him with a girl and he's not substantially better looking we are forced to think, "Man, He had to do something to get with that girl. Either he's super cool or he's got a humongous penis. Or she's just really dumb." Now, the first two are unlikely and the third is actually very likely, but it doesn'tmatter because the first two could potentially be true. That potentiality breeds contempt and grudging respect so the guy automatically seems cooler no matter what he's doing on the dancefloor. Then again, I think clubs generally suck. What are you doinggoing to them anyways?

Finally finally, speaking to the human condition, it seems to me that people seem cooler as long as they've got anyone else around them.This is why guys go out to places with their buddies and girls tag along with other girlfriends. To this end, you might say, "I roll with my homeslices so I've got a posse." Well, why wouldn't someone pick a fight with you? It's not because you're tough, but because you seem like the type of person others would stick their neck out for. Inherently, you seem cool. People don't fight with cool people. So, really the top level of cool is obviously a girl on the arm, but a group is still a rung up from the last group which is headed by Amare Stoudemire looking for someone who recognizes him at a club while Chiggy looks on in delight wondering if he could beat him in a fight.

All right, big game tonight. Warriors or Suns?

Do you think Nash makes the hall of fame? This is really a question of would you rather burn brightly for a five year stretch or be asteady above average player.

What's the grossest thing you can think of? This is mine. Yesterday, I had to use a public bathroom—which totally sucks. There was only one stall so I had to wait as some other guy dropped his deuce. Finally he's done, and out walks a fucking bum. I mean, can you think of anything grosser than having to drop a deuce on the same toilet as a fucking transient. I washed my ass fifty times yesterday and took some antibiotics, and this is all after putting like 500 of those paper toilet ring things on the toilet rim. Absolutely disgusting.

Catch you on the flip side,

Double Deuce

From: Senator Mary Ann
To: I didn't get to make this up

ok boys, I'll start from the bottom up.

The grossest thing ever... is ginger kids. Fuck those freckled little bastards...

I think Nash definitely makes the hall of fame. The guy has reinvented the assist. He's a John Stockton for our generation. He's too good not to make it. Even if he burns out, he'll still have put himself on a pedestal that all other players in this day are compared to. When you think "assist" nowadays, he's the first name you think of. The dude can shoot, he's a leader, and he's a stand up character for the NBA. I like him in the HOF

I agree with Austin for the most part on his take on the Girl with a Dude makes him look cooler theory. However, I would like to add certain exceptions to the rule. There will always be a case where a guy is just so doofy, that it will always look like charity. He could be the smoothest operator underneath, but if the dope is goofy on the outside, its over. I mean I'll acknowledge if a dude has a good looking girl with him, but sometimes its just laughable. I'll note my brother Danny as a perfect example. He's a great kid, don't get me wrong, but if i saw him talking to a SI Swimsuit caliber girl, I wouldn't know what to do other than laugh (and go hit on her myself). Also, there are a number of individuals at a certain level of douche, that no matter how hot the chick, the dude will always be a douche. Case and point...Mark Zoller. The dude pulled a fair amount of ass. But no matter the caliber of the chick with him at the bar, he was/is always going to be a douche/tool/undeserved egomaniac. I forgot my point, but fuck Mark Zoller. Oh yeah, anyways, the caliber of the girl can also decide the level of how much cooler a certain activity can be. If youre at the beach with a good looking girl...Props... If she's not so good looking...Whats wrong with that guy? Is he hunting that wildebeast? you get my point. As we're leaving this only to situations at a bar/club, i'll end my piece on this.

Adderall as an academic steroid is the best analogy for the substance I've ever heard, especially in pertaining to our conversations. It is a controlled substance (much like roids in that they are sometimes legal) that when abused can give you an edge in the 'test' you are competing for. However, they are different in that adderall doesn't function much differently than excessive caffeine. And its weird in the way it functions too because it is a stimulant that calms hyperactive people with ADD down. Steroids are a stimulant for people who are slow in some form, thats why it works so much more effiectively on people that are normal. I might just be talking out of my ass, but from what i've heard, adderall doesn't do that much for normal people, it functions more like a placebo unless you're seriously ODing on the shit, whereas steroids will exhibit a noticeable physical difference in a short time of using, at least this is what i've seen/heard, but again, i'm no expert. However, there are several individuals that had that XU adderall when i was a sophmore. That was to be taken once a day because it lasted 24 hours. The people who took that usually ended up doing worse because the were so goddamned wired. Idk, thats my take.

As for bball and competition in general, I'm really at a loss. I think the shooting guard position is one that is either being redefined by the Lebrons and Agent Zeros out there, but there is wasteland after them. Even so, it has been a long time since an MJ really led their team to a championship (except maybe tony parker when MANU is on the court, but even then...) Thats something that i think Chiggy needs to define with his step theory (or plateau because the levels are vaguer). Usually I see the emergence of players like Monta as something as a omen of bad things to come. I'll cite when the knicks brought in Moochie Norris. He was an awesome SG that could actually play well with Starbury, but even then, his arrival kinda signaled the downfall of a franchise that competed well for a while there. Still, Wilkins won shit. Arenas won't win anything. Crawford is headed that way. And if this is the shape of things to come, OJ Mayo should stay at USC for 3 more years. I still see Ben Gordon winning something somewhere. He's like a John Salley character though. Grind it out on the heat. Retire, then come back on the Lakers and get a ring... I kinda see that happening to him.

My question would involve hockey or soccer or football, but I'm the only one that gives a shit right now anyways, so i'll hold my thoughts for an independent post. Fucking Jets look so different. All they need is an Estrada for that Right side. Branden Moore blows.

Thoughts?

Madame Holly

2008-03-12T18:48:00.002-04:00

Madame Holly

Saturday, March 8th, 2008
Chinatown

"You're going to live to an old age."
-Every psychic who has ever existed

My journey has begun and there is no going back. My partner and I have looked it up and found over four pages of psychics, mentalists, spiritualists, clairvoyants, mediums and general John Jay bullshit artists in the City proper, all of them willing to peer into the secret garden of our soul (for between 25 and 150 dollars a reading). This being a point close to the beginning, I should expound a bit upon my reasons for these psychic readings especially because I'm a sort of psychic atheist. Actually, that might give psychics too much credit. Atheism implies that there is an opposite that could also be the case. Truly, I'm more of a psychic interloper. But who knows, perhaps I've entered their world in the same way C.S. Lewis once entered a church. Perhaps, I'll come out of this experience and write books about the power of aura healing and tarot card readings. I doubt it.

What does it mean to be alive? I mean, really, why are we here? This is possibly the stupidest, most boring, question in the world. It's also the only important question, and sort of humorously, if it were to have an answer it would, no doubt, be incredibly unfulfilling. If God were to open up the heavens or burn from a bush and tell me my reason for being was to procreate, it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, that's pretty much the reson He gave to Abram. But damn; if procreation is my only reason for being, then what a boring life. My conciousness would be minimized. I'd be nothing greater than an animal, and I don't care what PETA says, animals and me are not on the same playing field. It's not even the same fucking ballpark. I mean, let's think about the dog. Man's best friend lives and eats for free on the Marshburn dole, and this is fucking expected. My dogs are bums and no one seems to care. All they do is sit around, sleep, and hump things. Is this the life I'm supposed to live? I sure hope not. Help me Holly.

To get to Holly's reading room, we had to venture through Chinatown on a Saturday. San Francisco is already a small city, but Chinatown on a Saturday might as well be Beijing except with taller and whiter people. The smell of fish permeates everything and, on this day, the air was thick in the sort of way city air gets on a warm calm day. Why couldn't it be blustery and rainy? Those seem like movie quality psychic conditions. In any case, we're not operating under the optimum conditions, and there isn't enough electricity in the air, but who needs lightning when I've got Holly? Let's get my self-exploration on.

We found Holly through a Google search, and as we walk into her psychic reading room, I feel as if she is looking into my soul like a child looking at a new pet for the first time. Then she begins to speak. "Who's up first?" she says. Shouldn't she know the answer to this query? I mean, her vocation is clairvoyance. Shouldn't she just point at one of us? That would have been much more impressive. In any case, Nick is first, and they don't even go into an adjoining room. Up to this point, coming to a psychic had been akin to--what I assume it's like--when one goes to a brothel. You go into a separate room, she services you and you come out with empty pockets. Until now psychic readings were exactly the same, except without the sloppy seconds and possible sexually transmitted diseases.

As Nick's reading comes to an end, I prepare to have my mind blown by Holly's truthbomb cards, and as I pick some, admittedly, great cards, I begin to think about Bill Murray. Apparently I'm incredibly gifted but also walking a path that isn't quite right for me. I'm a searcher, you see. Luckily, a mentor is going to come along by the time June rolls around and he's going to make me an unbelievable offer, and in my mind, this man is Bill Murray. He seems perfect because he's talented and lazy and just my type, and He's going to take me under his wing, and he might also try to take my girl, but I can't really complain because, you know, he's Bill Murray and all.

As the reading continues, I just keep imagining myself placed into the movie of Bill Murray's life. We're planning screenplays and new ways to hit golf balls together. He's the big dog and I'm nothing but a cinderella story getting my rocks off at the ball washing machine devising a way to "kill all the gophers," and its exactly what I've always wanted except now I'm worrying about Bill's newfound sensibility. Has he lost his ability to play up for laughs because I might need him to do that a little bit. I might need him to re-incorporate a little Stripes-like slapstick to go with the quiet laughs of Rushmore. I mean, is he even capable of this anymore? For a person that's about to become very successful, I sure do have a lot of self-doubt. Thanks a lot Holly; you've just managed to muddle the waters even further with your tarot cards. Maybe, you just needed a little more lightning.

You know, this being a journey of self-empowerment, I sort of get the feeling that I need to drop my cynicism and allow the power of pyschic thought to heal my soul. Maybe, I just need to cure myself of using ironic distance as a shield for the mind. Or maybe, psychics shoud be better bullshitters. I don't know, but if being clairvoyant was my J-O-B, I think I'd think of something better to say than, "You have an aura; you're going to live to an old age." Though, now that I think about it, I am two for two with the old age thing.....so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

District Deliberations: On the Rise of the Unlikely

2008-03-05T00:55:00.004-05:00

If asked who the Republican nominee would be 6 months ago, there would have been maybe a handful of people who would have said beyond the shadow of a doubt: John McCain. However, tonight John McCain became the Republican candidate for the 2008 presidential election. Defying odds, and the bothersome campaigns of Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, when Huckabee took the stage for the last time, mostly to demonstrate his sweet one-liners (seriously huck, you’re an awful comedian/politician; knock it off), John McCain ascended to the pinnacle of the Republican Party. This is troublesome for Democrats everywhere however, because like McCain’s campaign in August, Hillary has come back from a troublesome deficit and won Ohio (one of the most crucial states in the union, and it is truly a shame...not because Hillary won, but because Ohio sucks). Though Texas is still undecided (I’m writing this before all results are in) this should keep Hilldog afloat enough to contend the democratic candidacy until the convention. Way to go Hillary, you’re single-handedly keeping a Democrat out of the White House because you’re a selfish goon.

In other unlikely news, BRETT FAVRE FINALLY RETIRED! This comes as a shock to everyone because, well, we just thought he was gonna die before he’d ever retire. Seriously this is the most important piece of football news this decade, because Favre has been around for nearly 3! In all honesty, though, Favre will go down as one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the sport. Nobody played the game with as much grit and passion as this man did for the past 17 years. For that I commend you Brett. However, for every time someone called you a “gun slinger”, you threw a pick. In fact, you hold the slim honor of having the most interceptions in the history of the game. You even beat Vinny Testeverde! Moreover, Favre’s retirement means the dawn of a new era, the Aaron Rodgers era. Rodgers is often known for being the least used 1^st round pick in the past 4 years, in addition to getting hurt nearly every time he has played. More importantly, since he has been studying under Brett Favre, I can predict that there will be no lack of interceptions in Green Bay for years to come.

I was inspired by the last post from Chiggy/Double Deuce to include another unlikely hero. Ladies and Gentleman, let me present to you MMA fighter, Kimbo Slice. I’m pretty sure this is a homeless boxer that was found in bumfights, even though his wikipedia page will denote something completely different. Right now he is training under MMA legend, Bas Rutten, famous for these self-defense videos. Still, you make the call. Dingadadingadading, kick to the groin. (please don't try this at home, drunk, with friends, any of it ever)

Also Happy Birthday to Smoke’s Girl. Way to go, you did it!

Finally, another tribute to an unlikely individual who has risen to something great...err...Selma Hayek is just hot, ok?

Doubling Down to the Future

2008-03-04T15:13:00.003-05:00

The last correspondence of the week.

To: Doble Deuce
From: Chigga What
RE: Ba(ra)ck to the Future
My Native American compadre,

I need to first start by noting that you just had a less distracted blast to explain Male/ Female salaries. I feel that subject might need to be explored a tad bit more, but who knows I'm just the neighborhood feminist. I agree with your assessment about if we had less distractions they would just fill up our day a tad bit more, but wouldn't that be a good thing? Isn't that similar to the concept of specialization? Maybe it's just me but while I acknowledge that the practice of being well rounded is a good thing, I rather people focus the majority of their efforts on a couple of things they know really well. But that's just me.

As for baseball/ girlfriend comment I would like to say god we love gay guys and I completely agree with your girlfriend. I didn't understand baseball until the playoffs last year. People love baseball BECAUSE it's boring. I have heard people talk about the "pace" of the game as a primary reason for the enjoyment but that's really just code for lack of action. Baseball is the only sport in which can be used as white noise. Background music to our lives, we value it because other more important human interactions/ work can be done without missing the beauty of the game. While I still hate the game, I get it and that's all that matters.

As for your sell out theory about advertising, I agree that is a problem but I think it was always a problem. We just didn't notice it before because we were younger. Ultimately I believe that even given less constrictions we would become bored with all forms of media because it's just too darn hard to remain fresh.

As for the Gladwell piece I think the majority of people that we deal with do not have the life experience to understand what he is talking about. He is commenting on the superstars of the world. The Buffets, Trumps, Cubans etc of the world. He concedes that for the borderline individuals and minorities the signaling effect does help but what does that really tell us? Roots my friend Roots.

As for the West, I can only really see three teams coming out of it. The Suns, the Spurs and the Lakers. Basically all of the teams where the stars of the team have championship experience. Experience matters and that's what I think is ultimately going to be the deciding factor. I also think that Kidd going to the Mavs make them worst and Yao's injury makes the rockets better. But then again that's just me.

The east? Does anyone watch that? Well again Ill give you the top 3, Cavs, Pistons, Celtics. I think the cavs take it and have been betting accordingly. Anyone who can do what Lebron did to the Raptors will not be stopped unless he runs into a much better team or another superstar who has the ability to match wits with him. LBJ beat the pistons single handily last year and he's better this year. As for the Celtics, doc rivers nuff said.

San Fran Culture? Does that city really have any culture outside of La Roccas? I think not, but who knows. It is different though because San Fran prides itself on not being LA. The weather is not as good and therefore the population is made up with tons of different people. In fact San Fran is one of the more diverse cities in the US so it's really difficult to pinpoint one overarching theme. Going from the Mission to the Marina one would more likely assume they left states than they are within the city. The gay thing is what you are famous for but I think it's just a small part of the melting pot that is the Bay.

Speaking of Cuban he thinks that the MMA will pass Boxing in our lifetime, why can't you just get on the freight train? Also with the new GF, I am sure you have noticed some differences between the two of you, what are your thoughts on how that translates to all male/female interactions?

Doubling down on your Indian ass,

To: Chi-Town Zie
From: I can't believe the musician from Road House Died
RE: Seriously, he was only 41

What's up Vanilla Face,

You are entirely correct to point out my dunderheadedness when it comes to female salaries though I have to say that I made that comment in jest. Women aren't paid as much as men because their brains are 1/3 the size of ours. Everyone knows that. It's science.

To your next point, in general, the world is better when people have a focus. If we still had to go out and forage for food, I'm sure no one would have come up with this series of tubes we call the internet. And even more tangentially, I don't think the internet would have boomed like it has if it weren't for internet porn. Suddenly, men didn't have to worry about looking like a douchebag at some store, sandwiching a porno magazine between two other magazines that they didn't really want just to get their rocks off. Now, there's this technology that allows us to do this from our desks at home. You can't tell me that the prospect of less ridicule isn't one of the things that led the pinheads who came up with this shit to keep innovating and making the internet better. Suddenly, those guys who could never get a girl's pants off didn't have to worry about it. They could just go to her website and tell her what to do. Gross.

I've told you many times that I love baseball because it's a background sport. But I still think you're missing the point just a little bit. The static nature of baseball means that, at any point, everything could change. So, when the count is two and two in the ninth inning of a tie game, the next pitch could end the game or not. There's so much drama inherent in static enterprises because when they finally move, each move can carry a ton of significance or none at all and the drama stems from that. That said, there is very little drama in a July game of a season that lasts 162 games. Also, you also forgot to mention that it's the perfect sport to drink beer to. This cannot be understated.

I understand that MMA is all the ('roid) rage. And it's awesome and the fights are awesome and the fighters are incredible and they (apparently) do not feel any pain. But I will always be a boxing apologist. Often, I've said that I love boxing because the heavyweight champion of the world is the guy who could beat up anyone else in the world (this is also the reason I like the 100 meter dash). At this point, this might not be true anymore, however, boxing will always hold that place for me because I grew up watching replays of the "Thrilla' in Manila" and the "Rumble in the Jungle" and all the rest. My father showed me tapes of Ali-Frazier III, 15 years after it happened and I was riveted. I couldn't (and still can’t) believe that had Frazier been able to rise for the 15th round, Ali might have died from internal bleeding. That's what pugilism is supposed to be about. Who the fuck is tougher? Those guys would have fought in an alley over a girl, it just so happened they were in a ring. Isn't that what we want? None of that could have happened had they not been in the ring for 15 grueling rounds. I love boxing because of what it used to represent, and I hate that it’s lost its verve, but I remain eternally hopeful in what it could once again represent; pugilistic purity.

It used to, and I hope once again will, represent something that Mixed Martial Arts never can because in MMA the clash in styles is always more important than the central question in boxing which is, who is the tougher motherfucker. Boxing is two people playing the exact same sport and seeing who can do it better for longer. That's as close to perfection as I can hope for.

Finally, I'm a terrible person to ask about the male-female dynamic.

Are males supposed to care about their careers more or less than females? Because the truth is, I barely care about a career. I have no idea what I do or why I do it the way that I do. There's no focus and no vision, probably because this isn't the job I want to be doing in three years. On the other hand, she legitimately cares about her job and will probably be beating up the world within two years if she decides that that is what she wants to do.

I mean, she thinks that I'm smarter than her, but that’s certainly not true. I’m not smarter, though I do get other people to do my work more often. Perhaps, this is a difference in the sexes or perhaps it's a difference in our individual relationship. I can't know for sure. Maybe it means I've mastered the corporate American art of outsourcing. Who knows? I probably worry less about the future, care less about money and care more about reading. But these seem more like individual differences than overarching male-female themes. It's probably also a reason why people like working with me. I'm always goofing off so there can't be any time to get nervous, which in turn means they'll do things for me.

Another difference is that she has boobs and I do not.

Till next time,

Mister Marshburn’s Wild Ride

Doubling Down Part Deux of a 17,000 part series.

2008-03-03T19:19:00.002-05:00

To: DD,
From: Chiggy
RE: Feck off

DD,

First of all I would like to mention I am voting for Mccain, a vote for McCain is a vote for the Senator's employment (since he is working on the campaign). As for a need for personal communication I suppose this might be true, but I think it might have a little more with a need to place responsibilities/ blame on someone. Every time I deposit a check at the bank I make sure to go into the branch, not because I don't realize the ATM can do it but because I want to be able to blame an individual if my check is lost. It might not seem rational but I have actually had a check lost in the scuffle from the ATM to my bank account, as for texting I think it has more to do with the fact everyone wants to KIT, but they actually don't like as many people as they profess. There are five reasons why I text, 1) I am lazy, 2) I don't actually want to talk to you 3) Its loud (clubs, concerts, etc.) 4) I am busy (work, class, dinner, etc) or 5) I'm driving jk, there are probably only 4 reasons. Basically half the reasons are of the I don't like you very much variety. But alas I am a huge texter so I shouldn't really let me secrets out.

The main thing about the automated systems that gets to me is that they constantly frustrate everyone. I thought I was the only jackass who just repeated customer service while seething through his teeth; however I have recently watched a couple of friends go through the exact same act. I think just taking the automatic frustration level away from people would be an upgrade in customer service.

I agree with you take on society. I think we are too connected, too plugged in, I mean look at our blog, we have writers in DC, NYC, SF and LA and we are able to communicate frequently and quickly. I think it illustrates a little bit about the diverse options that we are presented with on a daily basis. I think people of our generation have the ability to work hard but with out a firm program/ timeline get distracted by the options of today.

Commercials are the same way, we have so many options and so many bright people have created them that nothing feels fresh, nothing feels new and hence why they seem shittier. Back when we were younger and hadn't been through the process as many times every super bowl commercial seemed fresh and exciting, but I think that might have been a result of having very little options to compare them with. My favorite new commercial is the All State "Safe Driving Bonus" radio spot ("safe-rib eating bonus!"). While it is nothing like the cave man spots it's a lot like the new school spots in which it's a quick cheap thrill and I still remember it months later.

Tangentially, I would like to ask you a couple of questions about our played out society. Super Man dunk or not a dunk? Gladwell's piece, thoughts? Also do you think BS will be angry that we stole his structure? (BTW I love the fact that Senator hates him, LGTS the model of diversity!) These and other questions need to be answered prior to getting back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Chiggy

To: Chiggy
From: Doble Deuce
RE: Two Tickets to Paradise

Chigga Chigga Chigga what Ni**!

So, here we are at a crossroads. How many electronic mails do we write? Would it be better if the Earth were just destroyed by a damn asteroid? I can't know, but it's time to live this week like its shark week. In the meantime, I'm gonna take all that knowledge you just gave me out behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

I understand the need to place blame on someone, and I empathize that automated machines don't allow you to do that. I guess it's just sort of weird and circumstantial that we enjoy human contact for completely different reasons. This must be how coalitions are made in Congress. A bunch of white dudes come together and realize they want the same thing for different purposes and sign a deal except when they do it there's always at least one more shithead that piggybacks on the deal and writes in some pork barrel spending for a bridge to nowhere or something. Good thing I pay taxes.

I guess I always thought automated voice systems were sort of soothing. I don't really get your hatred and, finally, every system I've ever used has immediately gone to the operator when I murmured, "Operator." So it goes, I guess.

Anyways, I think sometimes I go a bit far in my critique of society. The sky isn't falling down on us anymore, and as far as I can tell it never was barring a brief period from about 1968-1969. As you know, there is nothing in this world I hat as much as a hippie. Godless swine, I say. Still the movement away from personal interaction troubles me. I mean, at what point will I not even need my voicebox. I've always said that I would smoke to my hearts desire except I've never wanted to have to talk through one of those special external voiceboxes. Well, it appears that speaking itself has become overrated. This troubles me.

I agree that there are now MORE distractions, but I don't agree that this is the root cause of our collective malaise. I mean, there have always been distractions. When they're broken down, isn't that exactly what sports are? Maybe this is the root reason that companies have started to offer the same compensation for females as they do males. The females are less distracted by the traditional medias.

Anyways, if there were less distractions, I'd just let each of them fill up my day a bit more. At the very least, I'd be more knowledgeable about those distractions. So, that'd be nice. As it is, all I can talk about are sports, my job and a few writers.

In fact, just yesterday my girlfriend was asking me about baseball—and I know you hate baseball, but follow me here. She couldn't understand what made sports so goddamn appealing, and I realized that I can't explain it; it's part of being a normalized guy. Why should I care about the Dodgers or, especially, the Clippers? The players change every year, you know? But the thing is, I don't care about the players; I care about the jerseys. The players are the catalyst that allows us to feel that we are actually a part of something greater than ourselves. I think I ended it by saying that underneath it all, guys are pathetic.
There are three ways to look at the advertising conundrum. The first is that I can agree in principle that "a lot of bright people have been making bright commercials for too long," so now nothing feels fresh or new. Unequivocally, bright people make ads; they're drawn by the salaries available without extra schooling, but then the problem is that they're all bright. So in the industry the average advertising IQ is something like 130 so now you've got to be uber-exceptional to stand out.

However, there's another way to look at this. Too often in advertising, we make commercials to please the in-group. That is, to make the grade, you've got to impress the executives. In this process, a lot of the original meaning is lost, and, most times, the message is watered down. I think that, too often, the commercial is lost in an internal bureaucracy. It's too bad.

Finally, advertisers are always worried about amorphous things like "brand awareness" and "brand recognition" and whatever. They think of their job as an art form instead of what it should be: an extension of the sales force. Now, I'll grant you that advertisements that think of themselves as a sales tool tend to be boring and infomercially, but this sort of thing is cyclical man. Right now, we've got too many people telling too many good stories so they all get lost, but when you see an ad actually tell you to DO SOMETHING all of a sudden it works. Sometime in the future, I'm sure that'll flip again.

Wow, I'm not even to your questions yet.

No, the Superman dunk was not a dunk, but it was theater. And my question is who cares? What more could I ask for out of an exhibition competition, you know? It took some thought prior to the competition, and an insane amount of jumping ability. I loved it on three or four hundred levels.

Malcolm Gladwell's piece was from a while ago, and it is among the best articles I've ever read. The problem with Malcolm Gladwell is that he's too good of a writer. Every article of his that I read makes me both amazed and depressed. I can't write as candidly or as lucidly no matter how much I practice, this will never change.

Anyways, the article is incredible. I think it speaks to the biases we, as humans, have towards symptoms. We care about the problem; we do not care about why the problem exists, and this hampers our ability to solve anything. To tell you the truth, after reading the article I was most surprised that more universities don't take Harvard's approach. It blows my mind—remember, my mind is easily blown—that most schools admit students based on their predicted success in school instead of on their predicted success after school. After all, the people who build the libraries and the research areas are rich.
They're people that "made it" after school. In this light, who cares to predict how well someone will be able to write about classic literature. Wouldn't you rather they be ambitious enough to actually finish their own great novel?

I also found it interesting that people who got into UPenn as well as Penn St. and chose to go to Penn St. did just as well after college as those who went to UPenn. I mean, it makes sense. The sort of person who gets into UPenn in the first place is an ambitious sort of person. It shouldn't really matter where you go to school if you've got the ambition.

Finally, "mking connections"is totally overblown. That is to say, where you make connections is totally overblown. Penn students were telling you that connections were their basis for going to Penn as if there has never been a successful person at Penn St. If you're ambitious enough, you'll meet the right people. I guess what I really took away from his article is that life is mostly up to the individual. This is a good thing; as long as you're up for the challenge.

Anyways, I want to know what you think about the Western Conference, your thoughts on the Eastern Conference and what you think about San Francisco culture. It's still a west coast thing we've got going on up here, but everything is just a little bit different. It can't be just the gay vibe, can it?

Back to you, you blackface.

Double Down with Chiggy

2008-02-29T18:00:00.004-05:00

What follows is Chiggy's and the Deuce's take on this American life. We spent the better part of a Thursday answering eachother's questions because, you know, work be damned.

To: Double Deuce

From: Chiggy

Re: Here we go!

Double Deuce,

A lot of things have changed in our society and much for the better. Look at this email I am sending, back in the day I would have had to send it via US Mail, (and everyone knows it takes at least 2 weeks for those letter carriers to get anything right) Right now it is instantaneous and I can get immediate feedback about my thoughts.

Right now I am pretty hot about one technological advance, Automated Phone systems! Who honestly thinks these are helpful? "Please dial or say your account number now" Besides the fact that if I was organized enough to have my account number handy while I am most likely driving I wouldn't call these people, the fact that I have to RESTATE the same account number when I talk to an actual representative is ridiculous. The fact that most of them will not allow you to go directly to customer service is also pretty frustrating, and while there is tons of unintentional comedy in watching everyone say customer service for 5 straight minutes being on an Automated Phone system sucks when you actually have to deal with one.

The wisdom of Double Deuce has been called upon, how can the guys of LGTS start a movement to end the practice of using these systems? I have a dreamsicle that one day my four small children can live in a world in which they can call a corporation and talk to a human being.

Another technological joke is texting. My stance on texting has changed a ton in the past few years, and while I don't think it's only for girls anymore I think its ridiculous how people consciously wait prior to responding to texts. What your "friend" will think you are a loser if you respond immediately when you get the texts? You don't carry your phone with you everywhere you go? I have never experienced anyone waiting 2 hours to text me back when I owe them money. How is it possible that everyone you see out has their phones on them yet no one ever really picks up or responds to texts in a prompt manner? Just a few thoughts that I thought needed to be shared with you my gimpy friend.

Lots of Luck, Chiggy

To: Chiggy

From: Double Deuce

Re: Cheesey Doodles

Let's get Chiggy with it,

I guess it would be logical of me to answer these questions in asequential manner, but I'm feeling a little frisky this afternoon soyou're going to get my thoughts in a ramshackle mess of knowledge.I'm laying truthbombs on your ass.

You say you want to talk to a person; I say fine. We should be giventhe opportunity to speak to an operator because five minutes into ourautomated experience, we get shipped to one anyway. I mean, doesn'tit seem like there is no way that, in the long run, the automatedphone system saves any money. First, you call and then you getshipped to a real person who is supposed to be able to help exceptthat your problem is not covered by this niche person so they pass youon. And now, you have to re-tell your whole story to this new personwasting their time, your time and the company's time. How does this process save money? Doesn't it make more sense to have an operator automatically place you so as to avoid all that time lost on both sides? The answer; no it doesn't. The last time I checked, operators, by and large, could care less about their jobs. If they do a great job, nobody cares….so why work hard, you know? My bet is that they probably make just as many, if not more, mistakes than the damn automated machine. This is why I don't buy anything that might break, ever.

Ahhh, the texting thing. I just don't know how to feel about texting. I still tend to think, "why not just call?" But I don't live by myown personal motto. I've begun to text more. I message friends for noreason. So I guess I'm the worst type of person in the world; I'mlike the anti-Ghandi. I'm not the change I want to see in the world.

Chigozie, the way I see it, you're reacting against a world where we lose interpersonal communication. Whether or not you care about theperson on the other end of the phone, you want to hear from them. You want to hear another human voice, which totally makes sense. As work becomes more official and I suffer more and more transactional sortsof conversations, I want my friends to call and actually want to talk to me. I need more than the standard text message giggle. I'm a real person, you know. Still, I send text messages because it's easy and because I'm lazy.

This probably says something greater about our generation. Something like; we have these wants and desires, butwe're really not prepared to have the focused vision it takes to get accomplish the goal even if it's just talking to friends instead oftexting them. I don't really know, and I guess, I've sort of just resigned myself to the fact that our generation sucks.

Anyways, are there any ads you just can't stand? When they are good, I love advertisements. The fact that a person can tell a convincing story in thirty seconds that can also illicit an emotion is absolutelymind-boggling to me, and I do this for a living. My problem; therehasn't been an ad like that for me since Geico's, "So Easy a CavemanCan Do It," and even that ad was killed by the TV show they did. Imean, wasn't Encino Man already a major motion picture like 15 yearsago. I swear that in Hollywood, people with a foot in the door arethen able to fail upward. And what does this tell me? I live in the wrong city.

Okay, I've been thinking about this a bit. Remember in high school when we'd tell people that you wrestled and I played basketball and they'd look at us incredulously because you're black and I'm not? Well, I think we finally have a chance to induce that stereotyping again. I'm on the record as voting for Obama. I think you shouldtell people that you're voting for McCain. Let's blow some minds, man. It's high time that we really aren't judged by the color of our skin, but by the content of our political views. So let's join in and rein truthbombs on these stereotyping liberals.

District Deliberations: I'm Slacking...I Know

2008-02-28T00:33:00.002-05:00

I’m Slacking!!!!!

Ok so plenty to catch up on, and most likely I’m out of date, but here’s what I thought was important this week:

Tina Fey on SNL- bitches do the best work. Sorry Tina. I like your show, but fuck that, and hilldog btw. This woman is a bitch, but it doesn't does not mean that she’s going to run the country well. In addition, everyone has said that Bill will have too much influence on the White House. Though speculated not to be such a bad thing, because 2 smart people working together can’t be worse than one, you’re wrong. Bill has been a detriment to Hillary’s campaign, and the guy will not help out in the White House. The major issue is the war. Bill demilitarized this country. Hilldog voted for the war. Think that’ll make for some nice pillow talk? Stick to comedy Tina, because your Hillary endorsement was a fucking joke.
Beat up on Obama – That’s about enough. I’m not endorsing Obama, but the guy has done nothing wrong and he’s taking shit from everyone. Some douche kept referring to his middle name “Hussein” and tried to make the comparison to Sadaam. Hillary’s been calling him out in every way she can. The Conservative media has criticized him for being endorsed by Farrakhan. The other media thinks nobody wants to hurt his feelings and is tossing him softballs. Fuck that. Obama is doing everything right. He is winning support because of his character, i.e. not mudslinging. Sorry Hillary, but finding this, isn’t going to hurt Barack. He was showing respect for a different culture, something you wouldn’t know anything about. You can't fault him for being supported by unsavory people. Numerous politicians have been endorsed by creeps. Also, you have a mullet Hilldog. Pack it in, yer done.
John McCain- Way to hold the fort dude. He condemned some dude for mocking Barack and took whatever heat he got with character and fortitude. Way to be Johnny Mac.
I had a cigar and a drink with the Governator the other night. Rarely am I starstruck, but Arnold is the man. Dude is still huge, he can hold a crowd and smoke a huge stogie, all without speaking a word of intelligible English. Truly the best Democratic governor in the nation. (that's a joke)
NHL news- Trade deadline was ridiculous this week. Mike Richards went to Dallas. Marian Hossa went to the already deep Penguins. The Caps got Fedorov. And the Rangers did jack shit. Truly this trade deadline made for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer in the NHL. Look for some fireworks for the end of the year.
Soccer is relevant! Tottenham Hotspur won the Carling Cup (English League Cup) to win the first trophy for the year. Arsenal striker Eduardo Da Silva may never be the same again (caution: video is gruesome). Internazionale tied Roma today, essentially guaranteeing them the Scudetto (Italian league) this year. All of this is so much more exciting than pitchers and catchers reporting, but still the Mets got Johan Santana.
I started a new job this week. I’ll be blogging but at a far lesser pace than the past month. I got some good stories in the works too. Getcha popcorn ready.

Finally, remember the good old days?

What it Means to be Fredo or Burning Out as Opposed to Fading Away

2008-02-27T19:22:00.005-05:00

Fredo Corleone—sometimes referred to as John Cazale—was in five movies before he died of bone cancer. Each of these movies was nominated for the Academy Award in the Best Picture category, and three won the title. It has occurred to me that (perhaps) John Cazale is the only actor who has ever lived who literally has never made a bad movie, and as it happens, he never will make an unwatchable flick. Perhaps, seen in this context he was lucky to have bone cancer insomuch as it solidified his artistic legacy. However, this is narrow lens with which to view a man’s life. I mean, dying may have been beneficial to Fredo’s artistic legacy but it probably didn’t afford him the chance to do the things most of the rest of us take for granted like marrying Meryl Streep or playing foosball or treating themselves to a drunken night with friends. Now, if I wanted to, I could probably create an argument claiming that it was better for John Cazale to die rather than live (though I don’t actually believe it). Or I could take a similar but more narrow view and suppose that only his career benefited from his untimely demise but that every other area of his life was distorted and swallowed up by his early death. But there’s a problem with this; there’s no way to know whether or not his career benefited or his life would have been better. Maybe his career would have taken off or maybe his life would have tanked. There’s no way to know. Really, all that I know about Fredo Corleone is that he’s smaaaaaat, he coulda been somethin’ too, every one of his movies was nominated for an Oscar, and that the last one probably wasn’t a coincidence. Besides that, what is there to know about an actor who died in 1978?

Dying seems like it probably sucks, but it is also one of the most interesting aspects of the human experience because it is most definitely the only thing that happens to everyone absolutely universally. I think about dying a lot, and I think anyone who claims they don’t is probably lying. And if they’re not lying then they are boring, which in my world, is worse. It’s not that I like to ponder how I’m going to die, but if given the opportunity I’d definitely want to be able to decide how it was going to happen. I’d delight in the opportunity to decide what everyone else would remember about my final minutes, days or years. This brings me back to Fredo. John Cazale died of bone cancer soon after he married Meryl Streep, and I can only assume that it was a painful way to perish. And the sad thing is, He had no control over this outcome. It’s a depressing thought; knowing we aren’t in control of our own existence. It makes me wonder how I’d choose to go. I guess if I could choose, I’d want it to be funny, but not hysterical. Depressing, but not maudlin. It would need to be random, inexplicable even and it would have to happen in a way that could probably have been avoided.

For instance, about a year ago, my friend Nick and I were both mugged exiting a friend’s birthday party. Now, nothing happened (besides Nick’s backpack being stolen), but in that instance when the six of us were fighting and neither Nick nor I knew if our assailants were carrying weapons or not I thought, for an instant, that we could die on McCallister Street in San Francisco without ever really living. This was a shitty feeling. It felt almost as bad as getting hit in the face, which was, coincidentally also happening at the very same time.

So, I began to think about how I’d want to die if it were to happen, and I came up with a solution. I couldn’t eat a bullet like Hunter S. Thompson and I don’t want to fall from grace and die on a toilet like Elvis Aron. Hunter’s death really wasn’t funny or inexplicable. Elvis’ was funny, and inexplicable but the circumstances were just too pathetic. No, I don’t want to go that way.To my mind, it would be much better to have my head pummeled by an angry sea otter or die at the paws of an angry bear, while climbing a mountain. There’s just no way either of those deaths could be thought of in a forlorn fashion. They’re just things that, sort of, happen. They’re occurrences that people will remember years after they actually happen, and in terms much happier than, say, bone cancer. But I can’t help but think about something else now. Perhaps, I am missing the point entirely.

All of this death talk is reminding me of something else entirely, “What does it matter if you die if you’ve never really lived?” In reality , dying isn't really about the person who is gone, but who and what the dead man leaves behind. Only in this way, can people have a legacy that lasts beyond the momentary. Fredo made five great movies, Elvis churned out #1 hit after #1 goofy movie after #1 hit and Hunter S. created the counter-culture of the ‘70’s. In this context, these people will live forever. Maybe, it’s not about how you die after all.

A Few Thoughts

2008-02-25T16:36:00.002-05:00

- Each post about a psychic is part of a book a man named Nick Spencer and I are writing. So that’s kind of cool. You get to read the rough draft of essays that become a book. Lucky you.
- Baseball season is coming in hot, fast and heavy. Bats, balls, sexual innuendos….get used to them for the next 8 months.
- I’ve got a broken foot so I have an excuse, but what’s your excuse for watching the entirety of the Godfather and Godfather II yesterday?
- I really like the name Surrender Monkey to describe the French. But what should we call the rest of the world? People who are generally darker than Americans isn’t going to work so let’s see some ideas in the comments.
- You know, this whole merit based society we’re moving to is not cool. I miss those days I never got to be a total part of when I could have risen through ranks based on race alone.
- I’m not afraid to admit it anymore: I don’t hate the Golden Girls
- That’s sort of a lie. I mean, I can’t watch the Golden Girls because its mostly about sexual prowess of sexagenarians and I really can’t watch a show about sexagenarian sluts.
- Try sniffing glue; four out of five dentists agree that it’s awesome.
- Never mention The Greg Louganis story to A.C. Slater….Lesson learned.
- I hear people say, all the time, that television sucks. My question is, what are they watching? 30 Rock may be the best show I’ve seen in three years. I’m dropping truthbombs on your mind grapes, bitches.
- Werewolf bar mitzvah spooky, scary.
- I’m gonna make you a mix tape. Do you like Phil Collins?
o Do I have two ears and a heart?
- I need to watch fewer cartoons....I mean, what 23 year old watches three straight episodes of Hong Kong Phooey Come on.
-If I was a casting director, I'd cast Alec Baldwin for everything. He'd be like my Eddie Murphy in Norbit.
-I guess that means that Kim Jong-Il and I have something in common.

Lady Katherine

2008-02-22T19:27:00.002-05:00

“You’re going to live to a very long age, at least 85.” Thus begins my imminent, and probably eminently methodical, trek to find meaning in an otherwise meaningless world. Nick Spencer and I have sealed our fate; we just don’t know it yet.

There are questions in this life beyond our comprehension or something like that; so the adage goes. Vonnegut tried to answer them very simply writing in Slaughterhouse Five that some alien being (the Tralfamordorians) was going to push a button and the universe would end. So it goes. I want more, but where can I find it. Certainly, I could look inside, but inside myself I’m mostly consumed by pop culture, sports and witty banter. There’s really not that much there. I can’t speak for my counterpart, but knowing myself is like knowing a movie character. There’s just not that much substance beyond my two-dimensional being—that is, besides an endless conversation about who would win in a fight; a Bengal tiger, a grizzly bear or a silverback gorilla with a baseball bat.

But I’m trying to change Ringo, I really am, and you guys caught me on a good day.

To this end, I’m visiting fifty-two psychics. Fifty-two people, who could, perhaps, explain an unintelligible world. Maybe they can tell me why I’m here. Maybe they can’t. As a cynic I look at them using their inner eye only in exchange for legal tender and I think it’s an abuse of power if they’ve got that inner eye or, worse, stealing if they do not. But, really, what’s the difference between them and a pastor who charges a tithe. Both are delivering peace of mind; one just gets tax breaks for it, you know. If a psychic provides me peace of mind at thirty-five dollars a visit then it’s a steal of a deal I say. To find true inner sanctum in a messed up world for the price of 35 dollars, well who wouldn’t shell out the dough for that kind of truthbomb?

I wondered upon entering Madame Katherine’s den, what I would be told. Would she open my eyes to the necessity of new experiences? Would she give me the strength to do the things I need to do by telling me something I already knew? Perhaps, I’ll walk the Earth…be a traveler, and experience and just go, go, go. Alas, snake oil salesmen come in many forms and I fear, one may have come to me in the form of a 65 year old woman who constantly answered her phone while surreptitiously looking at my palms. At least, they’re nice palms—the only pair I own, actually.

“Did I know that something was troubling me?” Oh, I had no idea Madame Katherine because I am not self-aware enough to know that like every human being there are things wrong. “Did I know that I’m going to be very successful?” Why no, I didn’t know that Madame, but I had been hoping to spend my last years on Earth wallowing in self-pity due to an unfulfilled life brought upon by my professional irresponsibility.

At this point, I can’t comment on a generalized set of problems that pervade psychics—I’ve only been to one—but I can speculate upon the profession a bit. My guess is that supposed legitimate psychics would claim that Madame Katherine is sullying their name by practicing without the inner eye. She is a snake oil salesmen they might say, and who knows, maybe they’re right. Maybe she is selling the emperor’s new clothes. But her problem isn’t necessarily that she can’t predict my future. I mean, half of predicting is asking questions, right? A person could take a look at me and see many things. She predicted I’d be successful. Well, why is that? When I walked into her den, I was wearing black work pants and a cashmere sweater. I was bathed, and my hair was coiffed. I’m white and skinny and about six feet tall and I speak intelligently when I choose to do so. Her job is to process this information. Could she know that I’m successful? No. But she could make an educated guess. When you add into this, the machine gun delivery of her “prophecies” and my yes or no answers to her questions, it allowed her to quickly whittle her guesses down from general to specific. And this is all fine. I don’t care that she tried to prophesy about me. It’s flattering. Really. Except that I don’t need to be told what I want to do in life. I already know that. My dreams are my dreams because they make me happy, and I don’t need to be told what makes me tick.

And that leads to the problem with Madame Katherine specifically. Why should I care to have her re-visit my past or tell me my future? These are things I either know or have a lot of influence over and it doesn’t interest me in the least either way. I’m interested in things I can’t control like, “Hey Katherine, how can we stop global warming or find Osama Bin Laden or help the Knicks win a basketball game?” These are things I’m interested in because these are things that are inherently interesting. When I ask her, “Why are we here,” why would I want her to comment on serendipity—our paths crossing for a reason— when she could be telling me that in June the Suns are going to win the championship and in betting on them now I’ll find meaning in life. That's information I can use. Alas, I learned nothing from Lady Katherine that I didn’t already know, and my eyes have not opened nor my soul split asunder.

Perhaps, I’m looking at this all wrong. Perhaps the fault does not lie with Katherine, but with myself. Perhaps, I have yet to open my own mind. But I can’t get over this sneaking suspicion that the world would be better off without her type of snake oil. Perhaps, instead, it is time for the Tralfamadorians to push the button. Well, apparently they can’t do so yet. One down, fifty-one to go. So it goes

Thoughts on New Awesome Websites/Videos

2008-02-22T13:19:00.010-05:00

This week was a great week for doing nothing but being lazy around the internet. So here are my thoughts on some of this week’s best finds.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com – Easily the best find this week, this site oversimplifies general things that white people prefer over other races. I find this hilarious because it has a more hipster/yuppie connotation, but did proceed to make me laugh out loud and tell some of my ethnic friends that they are, in fact, just white.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2oPys_5iXc -- Sorry Barack, but they aren’t “just words”, they are a rebirth in plagiarism turned hilarious. "It's that little bitty 'kting' that makes it different." Sure it is...The video is posted above.
http://menwholooklikeoldlesbians.blogspot.com -- Enough said. This is the most descriptive name for a website you can waste 20 minutes on and giggle to yourself. Enjoy
http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/lookalikes/ -- Doesn’t matter if you like soccer or not, this site derives its name from a classic and timeless chant which goes,

"Who ate all the pies?

Who ate all the pies?

You fat bastard

You ate all the pies!”

As you might have noticed, this isn’t a complimentary chant, and is usually yelled at members of an opposing squad/fat guys in the stands. This site offers some of the goofiest “look alikes” (see page2 espn.com for others) and are pretty funny, even if you have no idea who the players/coaches are.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15899_20-tacky-religious-products-guaranteed-anger-god.html -- This is just funny to me because of #14. My brother has a Rock Band back home, and as the lead singer, I had to create a 6’8” black guy with an orange Flock of Seagulls’ haircut and an Abe Lincoln beard and named him “Chocolate Jesus”. Unfortunately, this character was deemed inappropriate for online play, but still provided hours of enjoyment, especially when I used the Scott Stapp voice(think lead singer of Creed) to do anything. This raised a dilemma in my mind though. What if a Hispanic kid bought an Xbox 360 and wanted to make his tag (his name) Killer(like “John Doe Killer” or “Stel Plakas Killer”), but his name was Jesús? Surely you can’t sign in to an online community with the name JesúsKiller, because that will arouse suspicion and piss people off. But it’s not like this kid meant any real harm by it. Damn, I feel bad for little Jesús, and whatever piss poor name he had to pick instead.
UPDATE!!!:: Two more genius threads for the day. www.barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com and www.hillaryclintonisyournewbicycle.com . Surprisingly simple, yet hilarious. My favorite is about Hilldog breaking up the no hitter because that bitch would do that.

Finally our girl of the day is Katie Price Jordan. I don't know who she is and I don't care.

Wait! you have a blog? What do you write about? Me?

2008-02-21T12:48:00.012-05:00

Quick thoughts

1) If you don’t have a job how are you going to HOST me?

2) Senator, we need to start thinking about planning a trip for USC v OSU

3) Shaq looked good, the Suns looked good, I made a ton of money last night and I plan on making a ton more in June.

4) The fact someone was attempting to teach me how to use a number line makes me want to take a forever nap.

5) Armenian Food at the Farmers market is code for diarrhea. Double Deuce I would definitely choose to piss every single night.

6) Yesterday Double Deuce sent me this website. It was so good I sent it around to the other writers of LGTS and their response prompted me to send it to a good majority of my friends. Immediately the site was popping up in away messages and many people were discussing various entries on the blog. Everyone agreed that it was very well written and hilarious. That is the level I want LetsGoToSmokes.com to achieve. Double Deuce, Senator, Prolific we have a new goal!

7) Oh and if you like beer pong, I guess I can give an old school shout out to this site

8) You can fuck a lot of girls with coke.

Update

1) A quick comment without getting into the details of my night when someone of the opposite sexy says "Do anything" It almost assuredly means sexual favors, right? I mean, if a girl said she would do anything for me and I asked her to cook me a meal would she feel cheated? If I asked her to go to the zoo to pet the sea otters with me; wouldn't she be confused?

This confuses me, why do girls say "Do anything" when they just pretty much mean sexual favors? Is this some sort of Womanese to appear less slutty? JW investigate this for me.

2) The NBA landscape is now on fire! Trades galore! Right now I feel like we are in the old school era of the NBA where teams are made up of multiple "all-stars/ hall of famers" and the remaining teams are working with nothing in the present (cap space and picks) and trying to develop guys

Quick side rant has anyone ever been "developed" in the NBA? I cant think of many guys who have gotten substantially better over time, while I concede guys do improve, it seems that most great players display a glimpse of greatness from an early age.

I can't believe all of this is a reaction to the prank call Kupchak made to the Grizzlies.

"Kwame Brown for Pau Gasol" (snicker)

"Throw in a couple of draft picks and you got a deal"

(silence)

I am pretty sure it went down almost exactly like that.

3) Cp3 is so special

4) Best comment of the Lakers/ Suns game last night; Joel Myers (Apparently his kid works with Bigtime, see I am talking about you now) asked Mcnabb, "Back in the day when you were a little younger you could ball, can you still ball now? (he was referencing Mcnabb's basketball career at Syracuse)

Mcnabb clearly annoyed replied "I am still young"

It was amazing, I wonder if the Philadelphia radio shows are resetting that today for show fodder. Philadelphia Sports talk radio "365 days of Donavan Mcnabb" you gotta love it!

One last website for the LGTS faithful

District Deliberations: Political Nonsensicals

2008-02-21T11:44:00.006-05:00

McCain won Washington and Wisconsin to make his push for the nomination that much closer. Obama dominated Hawai’i and took down Wisconsin as well, infuriating Hillary further. Now for the juicy stuff…

Obama’s wife made a statement this week (actual quote, "People in this country are ready for change, and hungry for a different kind of politics. And let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.") which has been horribly misconstrued. Needless to say everyone and their mother has released their interpretation of what this means, many calling her un-patriotic and un-American. I think she just meant to say that she’s proud of her country now because more people are hopeful for a better future. But my favorite news medium, Fox, went on to criticize her saying that this country has been through so much since she’s been alive, even detailing a timeline, starting with the Civil Rights Movement leading up to the modern computer era, about things she should be proud of America for. Fox News also asked her what her favorite color was, and when she responded green, Fox News said, "Oh yeah? Well, mine's America, so fuck you!" (disclaimer: didn't actually happen, but my favorite color is America, so fuck you) Seriously, Fox News has nothing better to do, but Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (yes that’s her real name) should watch what she says, knowing that pundits will dissect her and make her look foolish every damn time without fail. Also this led to a bunch of superfluous “I’m proud of’s” by the McCains. My new solution to this issue would be to have the world’s first “Proud Off” between the candidates, with nothing to gain but pride…gay pride.

Now this may seem like “just words” (apparently that’s what Obama is running on, so kudos to that, whatever it means) but Hillary’s staff has somewhat released a plan to try to win delegates by fighting for those already supporting Obama and Edwards. I don’t know how you win pledged delegates, or if you can really, but that’s Hillary’s new plan…well that and tattling on everything Obama does (see “just words" link). So while many feel this race is getting more and more exciting, I think its getting catty and boring. The new “realization” that political writers have been documenting is that the Democratic Party is the party of change, and while Hillary has been endorsing herself as a pioneer of change, and one who has fought for it for a long time, she’s starting to realize, as well as the American public, that she isn’t change; she is the same old story.

But for a new scandalous story, the NYTimes is reporting possible infidelity in McCain’s campaign. Apparently the presidential hopeful might have a thing for a saucy little lobbyist, but the entire thing appears to be false, as nothing can be confirmed. However, McCain’s campaign managers are allegedly keeping her away from the candidate, and admonishing all claims, even calling out the Times for reporting this as news. Eh, whatever, it’s been a while since there was any kind of sweet sex scandal in Washington (too soon?) and at least this chick is hotter than anyone Bubba put his wang in.

Today’s saucy little minx is Sarah Harding. She sings…or something?

shout out to Dhaka, Bangladesh

Question That Need to be Asked Lest the World Never Find the Answers

2008-02-19T20:27:00.001-05:00

The following all comes from a conversation in a car. Don't read ahead if, at this very moment, you are eating.

Would you have sex with Martina Navratilova or Barbara Walters? You have to pick one. If you don’t answer Babs I don’t what to say. First of all, to my knowledge, Babs is straight, but I think Ryan puts it best, “At least every time you saw her on TV doing a story you could say ‘I had sex with her,’ and laugh at the horrified looks on your buddies’ faces.”
This probably has a deeper meaning. Maybe it speaks to the male goal of sleeping with the entire female portion of our species or maybe it doesn’t. I think Freud or Jung could figure it out, but then again they’d probably just tell me what I already know. In the words of Jesse Spano, “I’m a P-I-G....PIG!”

Okay, the Martina/Babs question came from some book we stole from one of our hosts to pass the time, but most of the questions really weren’t very good so we started coming up with our own. AND Trevor came up with one of the most brilliant queries I have ever had the pleasure of arguing about….

Trevor- Okay, okay I got one, “Would you rather piss your bed every night….
Ryan- What the fuck man…
Austin- …. Yeah, don’t you pretty much do that whenever you get drunk anyway??
Trevor- Hold on guys—and not for a while asshole—“or would you rather shit yourself once a week but totally indiscriminately.
Ryan and Austin- You mean like, we wouldn’t know when it was going to happen
Trevor- Yeah, that’s it.
(Silence and Contemplation)….
.
.
.

(More of the Same)
.
.
Ryan- I’d piss myself every night.
Austin- What????? No way
Trevor- Yeah, so would I….Austin you’d rather shit yourself indiscriminately?
Ryan- That’s maybe the grossest thing I’ve ever heard…
Austin- Wait, you’re peeing on yourself every night, without fail, and I’m gross…
Ryan- Well, at least you could hide the urination from everyone else in your life…Only your wife would have to know…
Trev-…And you could set up for it….I think you could purchase like linoleum sheets or something
Austin-But you’re still constantly peeing on yourself….I’d rather shit myself once and get it over with…
Ryan-What if you’re out on a date and then it just happens….You have no control over it
Austin- Yeah , but what if a date goes well and you end up having sex, but lets say you were drunk so afterwards you fell asleep and then you just peed all over the girl
Trevor- You could just claim you pissed because of the alcohol…
(Trevor is rudely interrupted by Austin)
Austin- Yeah, Because that would be way better…Hey baby we only hooked up because I was so ridiculously intoxicated that I couldn’t imagine going through the whole “getting up to go to the toilet process….”
Trevor- …Plus urine is sterile…You could drink it
Ryan and Austin- What?
Trev- Forget I said that
Austin- Okay think about it this way…Trevor its like a normal curve of shitting right?.…I mean, like, it’s a totally random variable—the shitting I mean….
Trevor- Yeah
Austin- All right, so if you sleep eight hours a night, there is a one third chance every week that you will shit yourself once at night, which isn’t really a big deal because you’d be urinating all over yourself anyway…
Ryan- Okay so what if it happens at work…
Austin- I thought about that…I’d wear Depends to work every Monday through whenever it was that I defecated randomly then I’d switch back to the old boxer’s….The worst time would obviously be when you were out, but I’d just always have an extra pair of slacks. Plus, if Friday came around and I hadn’t shit myself yet, I just wouldn’t go out…If I had a girlfriend I’d ask her to stay in for a movie or, you know, wallow in my own self-pity caused by this inexplicable shitting disease.
Ryan- All right I can see it, but I’d still want to just pee every night…I’d have my wife sleep in another bed or maybe I could marry a urophiliac (He really said this)…I’m not really sure yet
Austin- I guess I could marry a poo-lover, what’s that called again?
Ryan- A coprophiliac….
Austin- Yeah…That’d be weird though…
Trevor- I can’t imagine someone who liked to be shit on or peed on could be classified as normal or someone you’d want to spend the rest of your life with…
Ryan and Austin- Yeah, I guess you’re right
Trevor- Anyone hungry?

Big News Day!!!

2008-02-19T11:46:00.005-05:00

So starting of the morning would be the huge announcement that Fidel Castro has resigned from his position as the “President” of Cuba. This marks the end of one of the longest tenures in power in the history of the world, especially in that of a communist nation. His kid brother, a young whippersnapper at 76, Raúl, will assume power, with no clear cut choice for VP. This is a serious crossroads for Cuba, as now it is on its own, without the whim and leadership of Fidel, a concept that many Cubans have never experienced. I’m looking forward to this ending the embargo, so that I can buy some Montecristos and Cohibas at my local cigar shop…err… for less than they cost now.

Pakistan’s civilian government elections voted against President Musharraf’s party this week, which means a transition in government over there. This is good because Bhutto’s widower (representing the People’s Party, generally pro-USA) have opted to take their fight against religious terrorists on their own shoulders, not involving United States help. This is good because it shows we absolutely don’t need to police the world, and if these people like us and want to do the job, more power to them. Pakistan is one of those nations that is generally kind of scary, but this should settle everyone a bit. However, I must say it is hard to be afraid of a nation whose national sports are Cricket and Kabaddi, which is an elaborate form of shirtless slap tag. Honestly the dumbest thing I’ve ever watched.

Dwight Howard won the dunk contest (called it Chiggy). As for the rest of the All Star weekend, I didn’t pay any attention to the game, but Bill Simmons made sure to give a resoundingly heartfelt story about how great the NBA is, (I particularly liked when he quoted "Keep ya Head Up" while spilling sugar all over himself). I swear this guy is Rick Reilly, if Rick Reilly sucked. He went on about how New Orleans is better than ever (bullshit) and how the NBA has less thugs than the NFL (no shit, there are like 100 players in the NBA) and I don't understand why this guy gets paid what he does. Check your facts BS.

Hillary's campaign has thrown accusations of plagiarism at Obama for quoting what appears to be a speech given by Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts. Obama writes most of his own stuff, and if he sampled some of Patrick's work, it doesn't change his message. This to me is a sign of desperation in Hillary's camp, because really? Is that all ya got?You better bring it to Ohio and Texas otherwise you'll be {deleted due to plagiarism from popular songs by Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, and the Gap Band}

But in news that makes everyone happy (yes, even me) NY Magazine has reproduced Marilyn Monroe’s “legendary last (nude) photo shoot”…with Lindsay Lohan. I’m not even putting a picture at the bottom of this post. Enjoy.

District Deliberations: More Winners & Losers

2008-02-15T15:35:00.004-05:00

Losers:

The Patriots – I know this is beating a dead horse, but this article from CNN today stated that they tried to patent the phrases “19-0” and “19-0 Perfect Season”. When asked for a comment, I said, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA fuck New England!” bELIeve.

Jason Kidd – This poor guy has been trying to get out of New Jersey since he started beating his wife (coincidence?) and unfortunately, some scrub, Devean Green, had a clause in his contract that would allow him to block a trade if he didn’t like it. This dude exercised it, and now Kidd is stuck with the Nets. Sorry Jason.

Paris Hilton/Hottie and the Nottie – Paris Hilton’s movie was released this past week to rave reviews…Just kidding. Several sources have officially labeled this the worst movie ever. This is tough to do. Imagine all the Bio-domes, Farce of the Penguins, and Date Movies there are out there… and this tops them all. It grossed approximately 250$ per theater it was released in (roughly 30 spectators) and has been recently given the lowest possible rating on IMDB.com. It finished lower than “Car 54, Where Are You?” which had Rosie O’Donnell as the sexy wife (ugh). Also the co-star in this film is not that ugly (I also could have found a better picture, but hey sideboob, right?). Yet it looked like they beat her with leprocy, and that’s a shame because it shouldn’t take that much effort to make the “hottie” attractive. But then hey, it’s Paris Hilton, she looks like Squidward, so fuck her.

Roger Clemens- The Rocket’s testimony before congress has been nothing short of entertaining at least. There have been a number of bizarre statements made by everyone testifying, but the best has been rodent-like Congressman Waxman telling Roger when its his turn to talk or not. Basically Roger is getting caught lying, and will face criminal charges for perjury after this is all over. Also, McNamee confessed to injecting Clemens’ wife. Sucks to be the Rocket.

Indiana- The IU basketball program has been under some heat recently following Coach Sampson’s recruiting controversy. This is a blow to the program that really hasn’t been good or interesting since Bobby Knight was there throwing chairs around. Indiana Congressman Dan Burton has been a big Roger Clemens supporter at his hearing this week, spawning a number of investigative articles about his reputation. Needless today, like many politicians, he kinda sucks. (this article has a nice laundry list) This is all in addition to the fact that the Colts got knocked out of the playoffs by Phillip Rivers, the Pacers suck, and Charlie Weis has shown how great Notre Dame really is with an unbelievably subpar season. Jim Gaffigan put it best when he said, "I'm from Indiana. I know what you're thinking, Indiana...Mafia. But in Indiana it's not like New York where everyone's like, 'We're from New York and we're the best' or 'We're from Texas and we like things big' it's more like 'We're from Indiana and we're gonna move." Also, what the fuck is a Hoosier? (Don’t answer, I don’t care)

Winners

John McCain – McCain swept the Potomac Primaries this week, giving him a hefty lead for the Republican nomination. Furthermore, Romney has thrown all his support behind McCain, for whatever reason, and it looks like he officially made it back from the depths uncertainty. Kudos.

Uno The Beagle – Uno is the first beagle ever to win the top prize at the Westminster Kennel Club. Other than this being news, who cares?

Obama- Barack also swept the Potomac Primaries this week, causing Hillary to freak out and fire some more of her staff. This puts him in the lead for the Democratic nomination. Big Unions are supporting him, and the country is starting to believe it when he says, “Yes We Can”, which is cool and all, but the music video blows. All he really has to do now is gain the support of the Superdelegates, and hope that Hillary hasn’t poisoned them already.

Eric Bana – This dude was the Hulk, Hector of Troy, and that badass in Munich, but nothing will shine like the fact that he got to fuck around with Scarlette Jo and Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl. This movie, which is also slated to be awesome (review done by me, being a history nerd) and will portray the time period mentioned in this year’s season of “The Tudors” and should follow until at least Anne’s beheading. I’m sure we can all say, “you lucky son of a bitch, Eric Bana”, in anticipation of this film’s release.

The Writer’s Union/America – Finally that Godforsaken strike is over. The writer’s union got a new deal though that gives them royalties from everything that is bought and sold on the internet with their name on it. Now we can stop watching reruns and I can see a new episode of “The Office”. Moreover, though pessimistic, we are at least getting something out of this season of shows, and that’s something to look forward to.

Another big winner this week... Anyone who got the SI Swimsuit Edition. Tori Praver is awesome... Shout Outs to our friends in Oulu, Finland, and Varna, Bulgaria.

Ba(ra)ck To the Future

2008-02-15T14:34:00.005-05:00

- Okay, so I just saw this commercial for the “Short Birth Control Pill” and at the end, it said, “serious risks are associated with the pill including stroke, heart attack, diabetes….etc.” Now, in light of these risks is it really that important to have a period that lasts for one or two less days? I’m not a woman so (I guess) I wouldn’t really know, but honestly is death worth a shorter period when there are other pills on the market? I’m not sure, but I think I need to drink a beer. At least, it’ll probably make this pill look better.
- Juicy Fruit is a tasty gum.
- Pleasantly plump is definitely a better way of saying Reginald VelJohnson.
- I feel bad for the non-Matthew Perry writers in Studio 60.
- Recent developments in the Human Genome Project have changed my tune regarding evolution. I used to think that we were like 90 percent monkey, but now I know that I am 98.77 percent chimpanzee. It’s important to me that everyone knows this.
- My advice to you: Watch The Departed. Actually, that’s not really advice. If you don’t watch it soon, I will fight you.
- The Killers album is fantastic on one or two levels.
- Do Trekkies like the original Star Trek or Star Trek: The Next Generation more? I bet they like the original more and that’s why I could never be a Trekkie.
- It’s really weird, but I don’t think anyone in San Francisco even cares about the A’s
- Would there be any better fake, random killer to have after you than Jason. I mean, if he was chasing you would you ever jump in a car. He never goes any faster than a brisk walk. So, why would you ever jump in a car that is (obviously) not going to start?
- Kelly Kapowski or Valerie Malone? I don’t know if this is a question that can even be answered….and if you don’t know who those people are then you need to watch more shitty television.
- Does anyone ever believe that Jimmy Carter “I lusted in my heart thing?”
- A book to read: Infinite Jest, It’s really long and (I suppose) sprawling.
- Is Harvey Danger overrated or underrated(??) because I feel like it’s either one or the other.
- The key to winning drunken Monopoly is flipping over the board.
- It’s been said before, but Halloween is the perfect holiday. I mean, it’s got something for everyone. Little kids are happy because they get to subsist (solely) on candy for the next three weeks—or until all that’s left is candy corn (I hate candy corn) whichever comes first. Adults are ecstatic because they are expected to get drunk with no qualms whatsoever. It’s sort of the Halloween aesthetic really. Think about it; at Christmas adults get drunk, but you know they’re (sort of) thinking it’s wrong because they’re supposed to be concentrating on Jesus’ birth. Halloween doesn’t have that problem—probably because it’s a pagan holiday. O yeah, and I love it because it allows me the opportunity to do what I do four times a week anyway.
- I miss Mitch Hedberg
- A Pulitzer Prize winning book I read this week that others should probably read, but, you know, whatever: Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole- The new Black Keys album is stellar as is the new My Chemical Romance record. The new album by JET—Shine On—is kitschy.
- Again, listen to the Silversun Pickups and love them or I will fight you.
- Chuck Norris has a weekly column….I’m not going to link to it, but honestly I feel like people need to know this. Sadly, he has squashed the rumor that his tears cure cancer....And just like that, my faith in humanity is destroyed.
- I’ve often said that my reasoning for eating beef is that, “If a cow could, he would eat me, so I feel no remorse.” However, I’m not sure if this is entirely true. But I do know one thing, I will never stop eating chicken. Given the chance, those fuckers would eat me in a second.
- 1. Natalie Portman. 2. Scarlett Johansson. 3. Keira Knightley. Am I wrong?- Reasoning behind the rankings: 1. I guess the other two might actually be (objectively) better looking, but they seem a bit out of reach, you know. Natalie Portman seems like the absolute best looking—not to mention coolest—girl any man could ever hope to see in front of himself at the supermarket or wherever. She exists at the absolute edge of attainability (even though she isn’t). 2. Scarlett Johansson is gorgeous like Jayne Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe was. She’s curvy and all that jazz (even though this is only compared to other people in Hollywood) but she seems like a person that doesn’t really exist. I mean, I know she does exist, but you could never be in the same room as her, it would be impossible. Somehow, if you ever ended up in the same room, the fabric that holds existence together would implode and time would cease to exist. 3. Keira Knightley is very gorgeous.
- Where did the term “grassroots movement” come from?
- I heard this exact wordage in conversation before I got drunk last night; “I mean, its like President Bush is just so dumb and bumbling that we really have no chance in Iraq….(One minute later)….Obviously, the gas prices are dropping because Bush is trying to buy votes.” All right, now I’m pretty liberal—compared to everywhere except the city I live in—but this confuses me. How do the people in San Francisco live with logical inconsistencies such as this? So President Bush is too stupid to do anything and he has bumbled his way through his presidency, and he can’t even control something he has control over (our military presence in Iraq), but he’s got enough acumen to somehow affect an organization he has no control over (OPEC). I’m confused.
-Maybe this is me being xenophobic, but French People suck, and I'm out

District Deliberations: Primary and Roger Dodger Edition

2008-02-13T15:11:00.005-05:00

Whoo Boy do we have something to discuss. I mean, with all that’s been going on the past two days, Clemens in Congress, the Potomac Primaries, et al, can you believe that the Beagle won the Dog Show?! My God!

Just kidding. Ok, in real news, Roger Clemens has been testifying before Congress the past two days, and (from experience) I know the hill has been just a zoo. The best part about this whole thing is that Congress has outright said that Clemens is lying to them (perhaps in an attempt to convince him not commit any more perjury than he already has). However, Clemens is continuing to testify that he never did anything wrong. This is unbelievable because Clemens will face jail time if convicted of lying to Congress, yet he’s maintaining his story despite the mountains of evidence placed against him. It takes a certain kind of person to be that forthright, whether or not he’s innocent. Also, this has been fun to watch because I rest assured that every time Congressman Waxman tells Roger to be quiet or stop talking out of turn, Clemens gets all red in the face, probably wanting to do this to him.

A homosexual man in Columbus, Ohio is claiming that he was harassed on New Year’s Day by Cleveland Browns' Quarterback, Brady Quinn. Police were involved, but no charges were pressed. I really don’t care that this is news because I feel like it is a poor attempt by Brady to gain a public advantage on Derek Anderson, who has gained popularity for simply knowing Sara-Jean Underwood (oh and making that Pro-Bowl jammy). In addition, having been to Ohio, I know that nothing excites a Ohio resident more than a hot naked chick than some good ole’ fashion gay bashing.

As for the Potomac Primaries…WOW. After firing her Campaign Manager, HillDog expected at least some return in the three primaries held yesterday. WRONG. 08ama swept the primaries handedly, including several demographics Hillary has depended on, namely Women, Latinos, and Blue-collar workers. This is huge because Hillary is starting to run out of options. The big 4 that are left are North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and if Hillary can’t muster enough support there, it’s over. This is also a shock because I feel, unlike Hillary’s campaign, 08ama has a few tricks up his sleeve yet (Edwards, and maybe even Gore). On the other side of the Campaign, McCain swept the Potomac too, but it was closer than he would have liked it to have been. This is due to the support of Evangelicals and Born-Again Christians to Huckabee’s cause, but who cares. It’s not like those people are going to vote for a female or a Negro anyways, I tells ya. Ron Paul wandered into the primaries continuing to trail behind people who aren’t running anymore, which led me to believe that Keebler needs to do a better job locking up their elves.

Presidential Predictions!

If Obama wins the nomination/gets Edwards as a running mate, there is our next president. However, if HillDog manages some kind of miracle comeback, which we’ve never seen before, she’ll still get stomped in the election because ¾ of the nation hates her. Let’s be serious, the only reason she’s tied with Obama is because half the Democrats like her. If she gets the nomination, look for that other half to go the way of the independent and vote for the moderate McCain. Just for the record, its not that America isn’t ready for a woman president, Hillary just isn’t that woman.

But, on the topic of women, and the SI Swimsuit Issue release, here's cover girl Marissa Miller, the only reason I have an iPod...

Sports News Weekend Roundup

2008-02-11T10:42:00.000-05:00

This weekend was surprisingly violent in sports, especially hockey. The Rangers and Flyers beat the hell out of each other, with the Rangers finishing on top, and more importantly, nearly killed the referee. Florida Panther, Richard Zednik, is in stable condition today after a teammate, Olli Jokinen, slit his throat with a skate. This happens approximately once every 20 years, and is always horribly addictive to watch. I have to give a ton of credit to anyone who is an EMT at both respective arenas, in that they both did a great, quick, and efficient job on these guys, and we wish them a speedy recovery. So, thank God for those EMTs.

In some other remarkable displays of sportsmanship, Real Madrid beat Valladolid 7-0. Many say this is backlash because they lost last week. I think this is unnecessary. Brian McNamee, the trainer who is linked with all the Roger Clemens controversy, has admitted injecting Roger Clemens’ wife with HGH. This proves that if McNamee wasn’t lying about “injecting Clemens”, he should have at least been asked to clarify which one.

Now I know I have been critical of Tiki this past week, but thankfully I can say I jumped the gun way too soon. For it is because of Tiki’s ranting and raving and complaining that the Giants won the Super Bowl! If it wasn't for him, they never would have had the courage and ability to overcome his scathing remarks and find themselves as the champions they are. Wow, what a selfless act of heroism, Tiki. You inspired me to call home and tell my brothers to kill themselves for being losers. Surely now they will become Olympic champions and Wall Street moguls. You truly are a king among men. Finally, in the most awesome display of poor losermanship, and crybabyosity, fans of the New England Patriots have started a petition online to Roger Goodell to review the last 1:40 of the Super Bowl, claiming that the clock was severely mismanaged. Unfortunately for these naïve peoples, the clock was not mismanaged, the Giants had 3 time outs, and more importantly, there is no filter or limit to who or what anyone can write. Check the signatures for some good old fashion Pat hating. Smoke’s Girl was asked where her signature was, but declined to comment…post.

And for no good reason…Jessica Alba! Have a good day everyone and Shout Outs to our friends in Katowice, Poland; Carvin, France; and of course Philadelphia.

Happy Trails Quittin' Mittens, Howdy Republican Nominee John McCain

2008-02-07T15:41:00.000-05:00

So Mittens called it quits today…err…not quits, but he’s “suspending his campaign”. This is a brash move by the Stormin’ Mormon of politics. This says that he thinks he can garnish enough support to win, but not right now. So this means if McCain suddenly collapses (by Romney’s doing or not) he’s in, or this may just be a bid for a 2012 run. Either way, Romney has gained a lot of positive support today from the ultra conservative right (despite their mormon-hating-nazi-sympathizing opinions…just kidding!) because McCain has made himself present as a moderate. However, history has shown that moderates have not won/been effective as Republican Presidents. Those that have been elected have generally been considered way-right as well (see: Ronald Reagan, George W Bush). In all, I firmly believe that history repeats itself, but am open to new data with this upcoming election. Furthermore, this means that McCain will get the Republican nomination sometime in the next few hours. When asked for comment, McCain said, "BRING IT HILLDOG!" and then flexed and barked...

Shout out to Melbourne, Australia. Aussie Aussie Aussie!!!!!

District Deliberations: Winners & Losers (1=biggest)

2008-02-07T09:07:00.000-05:00

Losers

10. Boston – Unfortunate to name a whole city as losers here, but they were just such heavy favorites and its Bahston. On many gambling sites, they were as much as a 14 point favorite against an unlikely Giants team. For them to lose by three, well they just suck, and the fact that many "grown men were crying" inside of many local Bahston bars and pubs only clarifies this further. The chants of “Yankees suck” and “Go Sawks” never stop, but they were in full force when the clock hit zero on Sunday. For this Bahston fricken sucks wihked haad.

9. Bill Simmons- a native Bostonian and overall pain in the ass. Simmons writes as if Boston itself is the second coming of Jesus. He had plans to party with Tom Brady after a win and already had his championship perfect season article written. He bought a new Randy Moss jersey to commemorate the occasion. But then his trip to Arizona turned unhappy, when that Giants team won.

8. Career Builder.com and Sales Genie.com- These were two of the worst ads during the big game. Career Builder showed a woman’s heart (I thought it was something else) jump out of her chest and quit. It was creepy, inartistic, and disturbing. Sales Genie is even worse. Their openly racist cartoons featuring an overworked Indian dude and a Chinese Panda succeeding because of this website was awful. Very poor taste, and stupid.

7. New England Patriots – THEY LOST. LOOOOOSERRS! Tedy Bruschi…LOSER. Tom Brady…LOSER. Bill Belichick…LOSER…Randy Moss…LOSER!!!!! 17-14=18-1=LOSER!

6. Fox Sports Football Robot - This thing got its ass kicked by Terminators... Sorry dude, YOU LOSE!

5. Kobe Bryant - Just when you thought you couldn't get rid of him... SHAQ's BACK. The over the hill 7'1" big man just got traded to the Suns for Marion, and now I think Shaq will only play, if for no other reason, just to piss off Kobe Bryant. To remind everyone of the history between them, Shaq and Kobe won a lot, then Shaq left, and then only Shaq won, while Kobe faced a sexual misconduct proceeding and allegations of ball-hoggery. Overall, he's had to deal with a lousy Lakers team that will only suffer more in the west now that the Big Aristotle is going to be philosophizing all over his ass/Big Baryshnikov will dance all over his ass/ Dr. Shaq will be doctoring him all over the floor.

4. Smoke's Girl- this is more of a tragic tale then calling her a loser. Smoke’s Girl originally from Stamford, CT. Smoke’s girl is one of the fifth of Americans who can’t locate New England on a world map. Mistakenly she believes shes from New York even though shes a native New Englander. When Plax scored the winning TD, she should have been devastated, but instead she became one of the many casualties of the border war. (I think she attempted to engage in a “back bump” with Emo). Also, she hasn't written for the blog in a while...Loser

3. Henry Clay - This dude lost the presidential election in 1832, 1840, 1844, and the nomination in 1848. He lost his first criminal case. He is often referred to as the "Great Compromiser", yet during his era, he was known as an "old mackerel at night" for his constant stinking and then shining. He tied a duel because his opponent didn't fire at him, but rather into the air, after Clay had already missed twice. During his 1844 campaign, the most successful anti-whig pamphlet produced was one entitled "21 Reasons Why Clay Should Not Be Elected". After he lost the nomination in 1848, he exclaimed "I'd rather be right than president" which has been a catchphrase for bitter losers since then.

2. Mitt Romney- Sucks to be this guy. He was winning in several states before supporters of McCain and Huckabee colluded to not let him win. In West Virginia, Romney was way ahead with the other two split. Then all the McCain people threw their support for Huckabee (who was marginally ahead of McCain) and BAM. The Huck wins the Western Virginia, and Mittens loses.

1. Tiki Barber. I ranted about this yesterday, but Tiki left at what was the prime of his career. He left a team that he thought lacked QB leadership. He criticized the coaches. But then the won the Super Bowl. Also the Barber Shop on Sirius sucks. He's a beat reporter for NBC and never has anything of value to say. In this interview, I thought he was about to cry... Sorry Tiki, you were great, but this week, you lose.

Winners

10. People in Animal Costumes – most unexpectedly funny commercial of the Super Bowl.

9. John McCain - He seems to be gaining even more support. Like ELI and the G-MEN he was left for dead when he had no campaign money and his highest staff members left. But now, people are conspiring against his biggest rival (see: Mittens) in order to help get him the nomination. Also he's a war hero and a proud American (play: Hulk Hogan theme music). Maybe our next president?

8. Mr. Met - The silent jovial face of the NY Mets organization. Born in 1963, he is believed to be the first MLB mascot to appear in a human(oid) form. His popularity became so great that he was given a family (Lady Met and several baseball headed children). He has won 2 world series championships with the team, and his number 00 was officially designated to him when Tony Clark switched his jersey number to 52 in order to honor Mr. Met's service to the team. He has appeared in numerous sketches on Conan and Sports Center. His face is on Mets' currency, and he was, this past year, inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame and a spokesmen for subway safety on MTA. Hats off to this ball-headed hero.

7. Stains – the best commercial of the Super Bowl because nobody had any idea what was going on until the product was displayed. It was also very reminiscent of Steve Carell in Bruce Almighty.

6. 1972 Dolphins…. Are allowed to keep popping that Champaign and Mercury Morris still maintains being relevant… this might have to go to the other column.

5. Bud Light- had some of the best ads in the Super Bowl, especially Will Ferrell playing Jackie Moon, the wine&cheese get together, and the Dr. Dolittle spoof (came out before the big game, but still funny)

4. Noe Burgos – He got wasted in a New York City the night of the biggest upset in recent history. (G-Men!)Rumor has it Mr. Burgos bought DNYGF-Q a drink and is also now the proud owner of an Eli jersey. He also excels in law school and enjoys long walks on the beach. bELIeve…Fo Sho.

3. New York - As a native New Yorker, anytime we beat Boston in anything is good, but winning the Super Bowl is great! The Mets got Johan Santana. The Proc is visiting. The Prolific resides here. All NY Teams that play outdoor sports are getting new stadiums. Bloomberg is the Mayor. Things are good in the big apple.

2. The New York Football Giants - THEY WON THE SUPERBOWL!

1. Eli Manning - AND HE IS THE MVP. After all this poor kid has been through with being nearly run out of town, inconsistent, and not an elite qb, Eli has shown through sheer gut, grits, and determination that he can lead a team to football's highest honor. Best of all, he did it with a smile! None of this Phillip Rivers gloating bullshit, Eli manning accomplished this through poise and fortitude. This dude is a rockstar and a great role model. He doesn't showboat; he doesn't let the media effect him; he just does his job...well. Kudos Eli, you rock.

And for no reason, everyone's favorite secretary, Pam Beasley, and the happy met couple...

Get a Suns Jersey Fellas

2008-02-06T15:25:00.001-05:00

I had previously planned to write an article about a Laker’s Jersey Search. While I was slightly skeptical about the Gasol Trade, as a Laker fan I felt I needed to jump back on the bandwagon. I needed a new Lakers Jersey, because I had lost my old O’Neal one and couldn’t figure out which one to buy.

While Kobe would have been the most logical choice I couldn’t support the Mamba and quickly shot that idea down. Lamar? Are you kidding me, I still believe he should be traded so I wouldn’t buy his Laker Topps card much less his Jersey. Gasol? Not feeling the long haired Spaniard. Fish? Didn’t I used to make fun of a kid for wearing a Glen Rice Jersey based on the Chiggy rule (you don’t but jerseys for role players).

So I had finally decided Id just buy another Lakers O’Neal jersey and support the Lakers that way. Then it happened. Shaq to Phoenix for Marion and Banks. While this throws a wrench in my jersey buying plans and my moving to Miami plans to watch Shaq’s 5th titles. Phoenix is a much shorter flight and the timetable for his 5th ring got pushed up to 2008. Now the Laker jersey conversation is mute because I’m getting a Suns jersey fellas.

Fuck You's

2008-02-05T10:31:00.000-05:00

So since it took me 45 minutes to get to work this morning (accident and I live 2.5 miles away) I’m going to start off the day with a few Fuck You’s to everyone who needs to hear it.

Fuck You, New England Patriots Fans. No more of this 19-0 bullshit. No more perfect season. No more golden boy coming through in the clutch. Fuck you New England Patriots Fans.
Fuck You, pundits who try to say that the Patriots are a classy bunch of players. They’re cheaters. They’re performance enhancing pricks. They are not doing the world a great service by losing and sending their championship paraphernalia to different countries. Every team does that. Do not defend this team, they lost. Fuck you pundits who try to say that the Patriots are a classy bunch of players.
Fuck You, people who get hard for politics. Super Tuesday will never be better than the Super Bowl. I don’t get a half a second to revel in the Giants victory before all of this political bullshit gets shoved right down my throat. Fuck you people who get hard for politics.
Fuck You, Tiki Barber. What do you think of your former team now, you spotlight stealing cancer? This is the team that had no QB leadership. This is the team that had a hard-ass coach that couldn’t win the respect of his team. This is a team that was going to miss his ability to run and catch that they wouldn’t be able to win! Fuck you Tiki Barber.
Fuck You, Boston Herald. 19-0? You cocky sons of bitches. I hope that makes good tinder somewhere. Fuck You, Boston Herald.
Finally, Fuck You, Bill Simmons. Just because, you try to take the high road, when you knew when that clock struck zero all you were thinking was "Awww, fawk da Pats, Go Sawks!" just like every other Bostonian. This is because you can't pick games better than your wife. This is because you knew you had a championship article written like the Boston Herald had a book deal. Fuck you Bill Simmons.

17-14 = 18-1.....GIANTS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-02-04T17:22:00.001-05:00

It’s been a little over 15 hours since Eli and the mighty New York Football Giants ended the Patriots string of consecutive wins. I cannot be happier at this moment in my football watching history.

On draft day four years ago, when the Giants made a seemingly impossible trade, giving up Phillip Rivers for an unpolished member of football’s royal family, NY had high expectations that this risk would yield a huge reward. At this point, it was seen by many as the most undeserved coup in history. An SEC quarterback with “ok” stats, when you could get another QB who’s just as qualified? And at least you don’t have to give up another pick. This seemed ludicrous, but the G-men's front office knew what it wanted. This didn’t really matter early on though. Eli struggled through his first season, and NY and other media services jumped on his back to bring him down, as he didn’t make the playoffs his first year. The Giants had looked promising behind Kurt Warner, yet put Eli in half way through to allow for "growing pains". To put salt in the wound, the draft pick they surrendered for Eli turned out being Shawne Merriman, who has proven himself as a perennial Pro-Bowler/ steroid user / freak. Eli continued to progress, despite claims of inconsistency. The media continued to put him down as "Peyton's lil bro" and placed him as one who would never reach elite status. The media outlets touted him as trade bait this off-season due to inconsistency and used him as a scapegoat for Tom Coughlin's lack of success in NY. This year, Eli finally started to come into his own. Some struggles, but overall he looked like he had finally developed into the QB they had expected...most of the time. Finally last night, after 3 great playoff games before, Eli reached the top of the football pyramid as the MVP of the Super Bowl Champion NY Football Giants. So to the NY Giants, Eli, Strahan, et al, Congratulations, you deserved it.

On the other side of the field, everyone is trying to figure out what happened. Some have speculated that Spagnuolo (Giants Defensive Coordinator) had several different sets of signals that the Pats couldn’t steal, thus resulting in Belicheats inability to coach around the Giants’ defense. Others simply say the Pats just peaked too early. They had an unconvincing win against a battered Chargers team 2 weeks ago. They barely won against the Ravens and Eagles. Maybe they just couldn’t sustain being that motivated for that long? My theory is that Brady is hurt. He pulled out of the Pro Bowl today. He couldn’t throw the long ball accurately last night for shit(save the one on 3 & 20 that the Giant’s defended). He looked rattled and uncomfortable. He took his licks. There was a period of time where the Pats ran the ball at least 7 plays consecutively. I know the G-Men's D was great. That is a factor. But some of Brady's throws looked like there was a complete lack of communication or Brady just couldn't throw it the way he's used to. I'm picking the latter, and if anyone has a better idea of why he was so inaccurate and inconsistent last night, please let me know.

That being said, Eli Manning is the Super Bowl MVP. The Patriots go 18-1, tying the records of the 1984 49ers and 1985 Chicago Bears (both of whom won the Superbowl btw). I am jubilant to have a championship team in New York again. However, it was a Pyrrhic victory for me this weekend. The gambling site I use crashed as I was placing my bets, so none were entered. I called ¾ picks in my last post (which 20 dollars would have won you 68) and had so much more to bet, that would have won. Alas, I will walk away from the Super Bowl happy with a Giants win, and happy with the 50$ I won, that I had placed on them to win right after they beat the Packers. Bittersweet, almost.

So I guess we might be a sports blog

2008-02-02T18:56:00.001-05:00

Did y'all see, did y’all see that we got Pau Gasol? Did anybody see that? Did you see the move Mitch pulled off? Did anybody see what Mitch pulled off for the Los Angeles Lakers? Did anybody see what he did? We got Pau Gasol, so now we have a beast to throw the ball down to. They’re scared now, Yeah! We've got help now! We've got help now! We’ve got Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. Whatsup! Talk to me! I aint even got to tell you, you already know, Andrew Bynum on one side. Then you got a left hand southpaw switch it up, you think he’s shooting left but he’s actually shooting right.

Wait, a second why does that seem strangely failure. Everything about today seems like déjà. A huge trade, a (borderline) all-star was traded for pennies on the dollar. Everyone has heralded the trade as a steal. Nothing of “substance” was given up for a substantial upgrade in talent. Parades are already been planned in LA as the Laker roster is now seen as one of the best in the league. Personally this feels a lot like one of the numerous moves that Isaiah has been getting killed for making in New York.

(Alleged) Upgrade in talent: Check
Trading away Financial Flexibility/ Expiring Contracts: Check
Trading Away young talent: Check
Trading away multiple first drafts picks: Check

(A quick note about the draft picks traded away, they traded away 2008 and 2010 draft picks because based on the collective bargaining agreement: you are not allowed to trade away consecutive first round draft picks. You should think about this rule as a safeguard against GM’s engaging in numerous Isaiah/ Mitch “genius” type trades.)

Henry Abbot of True Hoops notes that Gasol will be making $50MM over the next three years, and that the Lakers significantly limited their financial flexibility. (Good Bye Free Agent signings!) Instead of patterning their championship quest after the Spurs/ Trailblazers (good character guys, great drafting, and a little bit of luck) they decided to take the Boston/ Miami approach and try to create a championship out of thin air. While I know Mitch was under some pressure to build the team to win now, Kobe Bryant is not a general manager. His goals are not in line with the long term goals of the Laker organization.

Theoretically this trade could work out beautifully if Kobe is appeased by the moves, the Lakers (and Bynum) continue to develop as expected and they challenge and eventually win a championship (s) in the upcoming years. In this scenario the drafts picks that they lose are low first rounders and are thus less valuable.
Here’s my problem with this scenario

Kobe:

This trade only makes sense if it appeases Kobe. If not and he walks after next year, then LA mortgaged their future to appease a superstar that is no longer a part of their organization.

Gasol:

Is he an NBA player who can only put up numbers on a bad team? A stat monster? I would like to see Dave Berri of Wages of Win’s analysis of the trade.

Odom:

What should LA do with him? Doesn’t he replicate a lot of what Kobe and Gasol do best?

Bynum:

How will the arrival of Gasol affect Bynum’s development? What is the status of his injury?

Basically my final analysis of this trade is that it is way too early to tell how the Lakers did in this trade, but as a fan I am glad that Mitch made a move. Only time will tell if it was the right move, but at least the City of Angels has something its basketball team hasn’t had in a while. Hope.

Super Bowl

2008-01-31T11:23:00.000-05:00

So if Hollywood is for attractive people and politics is the Hollywood for ugly people, what are sports the Hollywood of? Each of the former has their main event: The Academy Awards, the Elections. Yet still, neither of those rivals the yearly spectacle that is the Super Bowl. Nobody will pay 2.7million dollars for a 30 second spot for the Academy Awards. The only person I can think who’d spend that around an election is Mitt Romney (Ba-Zing!), but seriously this is a sports article today. In the years that Paul Tagliabue and Roger Goodell have been in charge of the NFL, football has displaced baseball as our modern “national pastime”. Nobody cares about the World Series anymore, yet on Sunday, millions, err billions, of viewers worldwide will unite in celebration of football…or to watch the commercials, but that’s a different pastime. This year is the pinnacle of the accomplishments of this league. Advertisements are costing an all-time high. The most viewers in the history of the world will be able to access the game. For those who care about the sport, a New England Patriots team will try to become the greatest team in the NFL completing the most perfect season in history. On the opposite side, a young Eli Manning, who has undoubtedly looked to be the sharpest quarterback in the NFL this offseason, is set to continue his family’s legacy of greatness following in his father, Archie, and brother, Peyton. Older brother Cooper lacks verifiable information, but may have been employee of the month at wherever he works for a significant time period. (way to go!) But enough of the surface detail…

The Patriots are the obvious favorite this weekend, yet lately they’ve proved to be vulnerable. They are banged up and on the news for it (see: Tom Brady’s foot/shoulder, Jabar Gaffney’s shoulder, et al). They’ve had difficulty stopping the run, as Chargers’ backup running backs, Michael Turner and Darren Sproles racked up almost 4.8 ypc. Yet despite this, they’ve been the most consistent team all year, and they are the best regular season team in the history of the sport. Their offense will be explosive, and pending a tragic accident, Tom Brady will play and lead this team. The Giants, however, are the hot team right now, and sometimes that’s all you need (see: 2006 Steelers, 2001 Ravens). They are banged up as well, missing valuable pieces Mathias Kiwanuka and perennial loudmouth, Jeremy Shockey, but their keys to success revolve around their ability to adapt to injuries. Kevin Boss has stepped up, in addition to rookie running back, Ahmad Bradshaw. Their defense has looked amazing, and they will use different schemes to rush Brady and get him unsettled. On offense, look for them to pound the ball against a Pats team that has done poorly against the run with Brandon Jacobs, and for a change of pace, they'll bring in Bradshaw. This should open up the pass game, especially young Eli’s play action. The Pats will need to find a way to stop the Giants’ run game and get to Eli. If they are able to give Brady some time, look for him to get the ball to Welker and Moss, much in the same way they abused a weaker Giants’ secondary in the last game. Since I am a gambling man, I will give you no predictions for the total outcome of the game. But as teasers…

Brady’s total completions Over 25 ½

Brady’s total TD’s Over 2 ½

Eli’s total TD’s Over 1 ½

Welker’s total REC over 7 ½

Giants +7 ½ …….for the first half…

That’s all I got. Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Let’s go Giants!

Lost _____________Lost

Definitely Lost_________Next?

Update:: In fact I am. If you are under the age of 13 and would like an invitation to this special Candy, Puppydogs, and Fireworks party held at the Chuckie Cheese, just shoot me an email, you cute commenting piece of jailbait. ;-)

District Deliberations: And Another Two Bite The Dust

2008-01-30T10:07:00.000-05:00

Today, after losing tremendously after spending the most in Florida, Rudy Giuliani has resigned himself from the presidential race. This really doesn’t come as a surprise considering he was finishing behind (already) presidential dropout Fred Thompson. What is more shocking (not really) is that Democratic Bronze Medalist in most of the primaries, John Edwards is also expected to announce that he will drop his bid for the nomination later today. The difference between these two, disregarding both their audacity in maintaining their bid for presidency this far, is that Giuliani has endorsed McCain for president, whereas Edwards has not endorsed anyone, and probably won’t until Obama makes him his Vice-Presidential candidate. So, to all of those waiting for the remaining nominations, the choices are down to President McCain, President Obama, President Clinton, President Romney, President Paul (o0o0o alliterative!) or President Huckabee in no particular order (yeah, right Huckabee and Paul don't have a chance). But basically what this means now, is that the presidential race just got a bit more convoluted, and I just became that much less likely to vote. That and (and I don’t want to paraphrase South Park here but have to) the race has just narrowed itself down to either the choice of A) a giant douche, or B) a Turd Sandwich (yet again). I don’t want to predict bad things, now, but I feel like whomever the next president is, their legacy will be similar to Ike Eisenhower / Jimmy Carter, and the next president will be scapegoated until the next JFK / Reagan. So at least that’s something to look forward to, no?

Shout out to Vatican City today. Salve, meum amicum! Also Jessica Biel!

District Deliberations: On the State of the Union…address

2008-01-29T11:23:00.000-05:00

Last night was the final time that George W. Bush will give a State of the Union address. This was met with much applause from most of the nation, and naps from most of congress (seriously everyone the camera panned to was passed out). Now Dubya, knowing full well he can put this in cruise control for the remainder of his term, set out to discuss many of his policies that everyone at the bar booed last night. He touched on “No Child Left Behind” as a “bipartisan victory” that in reality is just a lofty unreachable goal with its current organization. He talked of the success of the surge in Iraq that has mollified much of the daily violence that occurs. Antiquity will tell us if it’s true and was worth doing. In an almost scripted moment, the president talked of “nucular” energy, causing everyone to drink twice. He discussed a plan to cut taxes, especially for the rich, an idea that Democrats have been saying was ill advised for a long time because of the War and our rising National Debt (not to mention the special Fuck You! to the middle and lower classes). He didn’t really touch on immigration or the environment or China, all topics which were alleged to be addressed. He discussed how the economy is slowing, but that we will be able to be strong proud Americans in the near future. In all, despite how drunk we got, it was depressing, but hopeful in a way. History will not be kind to this presidency, and it will be marred with 9-11 and Iraq. However it is these events that makes the future more promising, as we as a nation need to recover from this low point. And much like a bad relationship, its just time to move on and find somebody new. I just hope as a nation we make a prudent decision, and don't settle for a sloppy rebound that gives us crabs.

UPDATE:: To those who may have been offended by the picture of John McCain asleep... This isn't the NY Times, it's a blog. I didn't call out McCain for falling asleep last year or this year. I said that there were a bunch of congressmen who appeared to be napping. I apologize if your favorite candidate just couldn't seem to stay awake and there are more images of him dozing during the first big speech of the year. Get your panties out of a bunch. For your enjoyment there is now also an image of John Dingell, asleep during the State of the Union last night.

Queens Queries--> NYFG O-LINE

2008-01-29T11:16:00.000-05:00

Welcome to QUEENS QUERIES....where I, the (not-so) Prolific), will ask questions about LIFE.....to be answered by either members or a particular individual I choose to interview....

Today, I am interviewing fellow Law School student Josyl, on the topic of the NYFG O-Line in their matchup with the Patriots D-Line and NYFG O-Lineman Chris Snee (because Josyl lived in the same hall as him during College)

1. Josyl, please tell me why Chris Snee and the NYFG O-Line will prevent the Patriots from getting to Eli?
Josyl: They'll protect mostly because they'll be running a bunch of short yardage plays, picking at the defense, and won't need to have max protect for a lot of long passes. this will especially be effective because the O-line blows holes open that our running game will exploit making the short passes and play action even deadlier. they're going to have to stack the line, and they'll over penetrate. as long as eli keeps stepping up into the pocket, we'll be successful.

2. Why is Chris Snee's nickname the Crocodile?
Josyl: I don't know.

3. Is Chris Snee's wife, Katie Coughlin, hot?
Josyl: Yes, she def is, I saw her walking around campus (BC) and she's gorgeous.

4. Does Shaun O'Hara (# 60) own an Irish Pub?
Josyl: If he doesn't, he better be in the market.

5. What type of name is La Kevin? (La Kevin Smith is a D-Lineman for the Patriots, who is going to get SHAT on, then again, he never plays)
La Kevin is the traditional type of ignorant-ass black parents name (think La Tisha, La Toya, La Quanda)

6. Do you know who La Kevin Smith is?
Josyl: No, I don't know who he is

EXACTLY

7. Any last words about Chris or anything else
Josyl: He's an amazing guy. He looks like a big angry bear, but he was genuinely one of the nicest guys I knew, and one of the few guys on the football team who wasn't absolutely full of himself. It's a great story, and I wish him the best.
Also, he used to give me so much shit for being a Giants fan in college because he was a Bears fan so i found it hilarious that he got drafted to the team. I saw him after the draft, gave a smirk, and said "welcome to the team".

Playoffs Guys and why ELI is good

2008-01-28T17:27:00.000-05:00

So the New York Football Giants are going to the Super Bowl

Since the beginning of the NFL Playoffs, I have followed the New York Football Giants (NYFG, not to be confused with the NYPD or the NYFD, which you may know from others sources) in their quest to finally get past the first round. It just happened to be that the day of their first playoff quest was the last day of the trip, when Chiggy departed to Cali. However, he did meet the first GUY in my 3 part NFL Playoffs (Playoffs?) , you know that guy series.

Drunken New York Giants Fan (Queens Edition, DNYFG-Q)

You know that guy.....
this is the type of guy that I have met at the local bar before while he was on a date during the last week of regular season baseball. He then proceeds to leave his date for half an hour. When he returns, I offer him some left over wings, which he shares with his date and high-fives me.
this is the type of guy that arrives at the local bar wearing his NYFG t-shirt early for the NYFG vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers Wild Card Round Game . By early, he was standing outside for the bar owner to come open it up.
this is the type of guy that approaches a group of young people at the bar. These young people composed of 3 girls and 3 guys. He then asks which team they support, although they are wearing NYFG jerseys.
this is the guy that starts hitting on one of the girls until he asks if she is dating one of the guys with her, to which she replies yes.

this is the guy that moves around the bar looking for the real “Giants” fans

this is the guy that is a real catch-22 for bar owners…..he is annoying as fuck, yet he is the best customer

this is the guy that says, “Eli is not bad, he is my favorite player, especially when he passes it to my favorite player ever Plaxico Buress, but he can only do that when he gets protection from my favorite players, the O-Line, who can protect Eli, my favorite player, when the running game has been established by Brandon Jacobs, my favorite player”.

this is the guy that emphasizes the PASS GAME of the New York Giants (however, he ended up being a prophet when ELI threw his first td pass to……..

this is the guy that whenever Amani Tommer (# 81 for the NYFG) touches the football screams out “IT IS NOT A TUMOR” like displayed below

you know that guy.

NYFG 24- Tampa Bay 14

Angry Dallas Cowboys Fan (ADCF)
You know that guy.
this is the guy that lives in NY and grew up in the area, yet his a Cowboys fan because of the early 1990s
this is the guy that comes to a bar dominated by NYFG fans with his die-hard NYFG girlfriend
this is the guy that guy that is annoying everyone by cheering overtly loudly at Cowboys plays before they are actually successful
this is the guy that when gummy smiled jackass (thanks Senator) threw that last interception just like he threw up on Yoko Romo’s parents that Saturday morning after he had that one too many Margaritas on Friday, left the bar and refused to go back in
this is the guy that would not re-enter the bar and had to wait outside in the cold until his girlfriend finished her last shot because of the NYFG victory

You know this guy....

NYFG 21 – Dallas Cowboys 17

Drunken New York Giants Fan (Manhattan Edition, DNYFG-M)
you know that guy
this is the guy that comes in with his friends after the NYFG victory over the Green Bay Packers with two of his buddies

this is the guy that finds the youngest people playing beer pong and oddly stands next to them
this is the guy that …LETS GO….BIG BLUE….LETS GO….BIG BLUE…..X45
this is the guy that angrily reacted when someone took their beer pong shot instead of yelling back, BIG BLUE
this is the guy then became one of my closest friends ever
this is the guy that leaves to buy the group beers, which he does. He is old…He has a job
this is the guy that in the process of buying beers, finds the bartender attractive and proceeds to take off his shirt
this is the guy that after taking off his shirt, gets on the bar and performs a semi-strip tease for the attractice bartender

LETS GO….BIG BLUE….LETS GO….BIG BLUE
you know this guy....

NYFG 23- Green Bay Packers 20

On a sidenote, I learned today in my Civil Procedure Class that the "know this guy" column is considered in some jurisdictions a possible intentional tort based on libel that could create legal problems for me.

As for Eli's transformation. I believe it is his care-free attitude. Also, word on the Streets of New York is that a certain Dalai Lama provided Eli with the following video...

Eli ignored the losers and brought his determination, A-game and drive to the field and success has followed him.

I live, work and am friends with degenerates

2008-01-28T16:09:00.000-05:00

With the biggest gambling day of the year on the horizon, I have been prompted to post my long promised gambling piece.

The reason for the delay is BS stole some of my thunder when he posted the following mailbag.

The basic premise for both our articles was that gambling should only be done within reason. You WOULD think this would be obvious but even fellow LGTS writers are degenerates (cough “the Senator” cough). It’s gotten so bad that my friends give me daily briefs on the benefits of betting First Half NBA lines/ College Bball/ Greek Soccer/ etc. BS had a pretty comprehensive set of rules however I would like to add a few.

LGTS Gambling rule #1: Only bet on Sports that you watch- You would think this would be obvious but my aforementioned NBA First Half Line Betting Degenerate friend ("NFHLBD") convinced another friend of mine who has never watched the NBA on the merits of parlays using the following logic. “You can win over 2 grand from a dollar bet if you get a 12 team parlay right!” Needless to say he put his dollar up, lost it in the first game and would have been better served “investing” in the lottery.

LGTS Gambling rule #2: Only bet on Sports teams that you have watched- Similar to rule # 1 and again you would think this would be obviously but “NFHLBD” decided to bet on Portland (note, not the Blazers but the university) v. Some unranked team. (I could get you the exact game but that’s exactly how he described it to me) Why did he bet on them, you ask? Their bodog stats were strong, and the other team’s bodog stats were very weak.

Ignoring the fact that these stats are HISTORICAL and therefore are not accurate predictors of the future, the guys here at LGTS have composed the following test to ensure that you are compliant with rule #2.

1. Do you know who plays on this team? If yes, you might be ok if no proceed to question two

2. Do you know one player on this team (preferably the best player)? If yes, then gamble at your own risk, if no then proceed to question three.

3. If someone was on the injury report do you have any idea what that actually does to your gambling risk profile? If yes you are walking the thin line of blasphemy but you might be ok, if no you are a moron.

Needless to say NBFHLBD failed all three of these questions, put his bet up and promptly lost badly. The best part was he parlayed the bet with two others that he easily covered because you know parlays are great! You can make a 500% return!

LGTS Gambling rule #3: Stop gambling when you start saying things like “100% return just seems so low, what can I do to make this bet look more attractive.” Can you guess who said the above line? If you think this might be the same person who bets on NBA first half lines you are correct.

LGTS Gambling rule #4: Only bet on games that you can watch- This rule is not as intuitive as the others as you can easily win bets on games that you didn’t watch but this rule was put in place as a safeguard against rules 1 and 2. The Senator bets on Greek Soccer! Greek Soccer! What's next IVY league basketball? The status of his current greek soccer bet is TBD, however you might have noticed a trend when people break the rules........

Sure you can research teams ad nauseum with the 24/7 information cycle but without actually watching the games you are counting on second hand information. Trust your eyes! Trust yourself! Do your own research! Watch the games!

And if trusting yourself means you are a loser then reading this blog has been a waste of time for you because there’s nothing that I can say that will make your gambling any better.

Update

Upon hearing about the creation of the following rules, the Senator had the following response “Being a gambling man, I will bet that we do not follow those rules"

Update II

Upon reading the blog NFHLBD took a moment to reflect and confided in me about his wavering confidence. He mentioned he had been losing horribly lately, and that this past week he had missed 6 out of 6 bets in his round robin (sort of like a modified parlay). Does this mean NFHLBD decided to get out of the gambling business? Nope he came up with this gem of a strategy. “I am seriously thinking about picking games that I would bet on and then making the exact opposite bet to see what happens, if I did the exact opposite thing, (on Saturday) I’d be rich”

GL NFHLBD, I can already see LGTS Gambling rule #5……

Update III

The Senator won both of his parlays including "English, Italian, Greek, Spanish, and German soccer” Needless to say I am impressed by the gambling ability of the Senator.

The 1st District Deliberation

2008-01-28T12:47:00.000-05:00

Today in politics

So, much to the disdain of Hillary Clinton, Ted, Patrick, and Caroline Kennedy all rallied today in support of Candidate Barack Obama for the 08 Democratic nomination. This comes as a shock as other members of the Kennedy family have explicitly held their support for Hilldog. However, being of a more liberal standing, and not wanting to see “Some er, uh, dumb broad run hir mowth”, Ted, Patches and Caroline specifically endorsed Obama, and in doing so fired back at every criticism Hillary has thrown at him. Needless to say, the speech was filled with a ton of JFK and RFK propaganda, as well as this group of “limousine liberals'” reiteration of their own progress for change and hope and blah blah blah who gives a fuck. Honestly, I never see the point in endorsing a candidate for the nomination unless you have something to gain. If you’re endorsing a specific democrat, its highly unlikely if that candidate doesn’t get a nomination that you’re gonna vote republican. Am I right? For the Kennedys this seemed a bit more opportunistic for them in that they are either getting cabinet positions or deliberately using Obama to fuck with Hillary(more likely) Also, while this does stick it to Hillary, Teddy Kennedy explicitly said in his speech that this does not take away from his opinion of his friends (hilldog and blinky) and how he just hopes for a democrat to win in 08. (cough::you're so full of shit::cough)

Well there it is. Obama has officially been endorsed by a murderer and another threat to anyone driving after happy hour. (I’ve no beef with sweet Caroline) And while I feel this could be a good move because the Kennedys are still America’s royal family and people love them, despite 20 years of the Clinton-Bush monarchy, I think this is more beneficial to their interests then Barack. While he gains some big name support, I think they are sucking at his youth to try and keep themselves hip and politically active for another 20 years. In addition, Kennedy’s admission of his support for a democratic presidency whether or not Obama is there is also a bit sketchy. So to summarize the entire point of today’s exercise in endorsements, I’ll go with, “Fuck you Hillary, unless you win the nomination, then we were just kidding. XOXO The Kennedys P.S. stop being a bitch”

Also to anyone interested in the State of the Union address tonight, here’s something fun that I’ll most likely be participating in. http://www.drinkinggame.us/

P.S. Shoutout to our friends in Gjovik, Norway, and Rosebank, South Africa… We here at LGTS appreciate your support in visiting our site, and continue to ponder how you found us in the first place. Cheers! UPDATE:::: my bad, and of course a special shoutout to those in Leuven/Brussels, Beligum. Op Uw Gezondheid!

And for no good reason...Elisha Cuthbert

Football Soap Opera Digest Weekly; I Hate That There Is No Football This Weekend (senior bowl doesn't count...fuck colt brennan)

2008-01-25T15:29:00.000-05:00

Ok so amid the nonstop stories about how crazy Britney Spears is and how Amy Winehouse finally went to rehab, recent tabloid reports have infiltrated ESPN even (God, say it ain’t so?!) to discuss the Tony Romo and Yoko Romo, sorry, Jessica Simpson relationship scandal. I’m paraphrasing ESPN last night on Sportscenter when they say they have obtained information (from OK! Magazine no less, a fine reputable periodical!) that Tony Romo tried to dump Daisy Duke last week. However, Jessica either did not follow the basic concepts he was trying to relay to her, or just refused to be dumped by this gummy smiled jackass. So in order to try and drive her away, Tony decided to take her on a hunting trip, to make her feel awkward and unwanted. This failed miserably, like his playoff record, and she and he are still dating…sort of. Basically there has been no resolution to the issue and Jessica is just pissed off that people could report that: A) she’d been dumped (by Tony Romo, no less) and B) people would print such things. Now, this all being said, I could care less what happens to the couple. I retain the last lingering amount of respect for Tony Romo only because he had the audacity to "hit it and quit it" with good ole’ Chicken of the Sea herself, but he can’t even do that right, so fuck him.

Moving on from one pretty boy QB to another…

Tom Brady was seen wearing a boot on his right foot this week, causing a media clusterfuck to report that he might not play, he’s more hurt than Belicheat is letting on, and other ridiculous nonsense not pertaining to anything really valuable. These reports were then nullified by interviews with Brady and his father with the two stating that virtually nothing could keep him from the game and that the boot was merely precautionary. Moreover he was seen later that night sans walking cast. However, today’s news reports that Brady has been absent from any media coverage at practice. This could mean something awful! Maybe he really is hurt! Maybe Belichick is hiding something! Or (and this is directed to any asshole believes anything in the past 3 sentences could actually be true) maybe the Patriots are all just full of shit. Tom Brady has been “Probable” or "Questionable" for the last 55 games, and he’s played in every last one. I wouldn’t be surprised if the boot and this entire media storm is just to fuck with the Giants' planning (though I don’t see how). Anyways, I don’t really care about Tom Brady. I think it will take more than him to win the Super Bowl, especially with the way he played last week.

That being said, I hate that football has been tainted by this tabloid nonsense. On the plus side though, I do not apologize for getting to use the gratuitous pictures of Jessica Simpson.

calling my shot. finally.

2008-01-25T14:43:00.000-05:00

so Chiggy called me out, so I guess I finally have to post. I'll take this time to call my far fetched a la Oregon's O-line shot:

When Eli and Big Blue win next week and destroy The Hoodie's reason to live, I'll name my first born son Elijah Manning.

Giants by a fg over New England...and a little baby Elijah Manning Almeida.

Football is Awesome because I hate French People

2008-01-25T14:41:00.000-05:00

Empirically, football is the most popular sport in America. There is no other professional athletic endeavor that comes close to creating such fervor among American sports fans. Football brings Americans together; it creates commonality and solidarity among people that have nothing else in common. It’s a beautiful thing really. What I’m wondering is, why?

I mean, sure it’s great that we’ve got some modern day gladiators beating the shit out of eachother in some modern-day Coliseum. Is the real reason we love football simply an extension of the id within American males? Can it really be true that we’ve not come any further than the Romans? Actually, that could be true, but I don’t think it’s the whole truth.

The real reason Americans love football is xenophobia. Football is the only sport still solely dominated by Americans. For every Christian Okoye there are 1,000 Dominican baseball players making it to the big leagues or humongous German shooters playing in the NBA. Football is the last bastion of American preponderance of power. The thing is, I’m not saying that this is some conscious anti-immigrant feeling that pervades American fandom. It’s just that, like always, we favor Americans, and in this day and age in a world system where we don’t really have any enemies who will show their faces, we juxtapose our old feelings of jingoistic fervor onto the closest approximation we have; sports, and by sports I mean football. Fuck. And. Yes.

fucking Heath

2008-01-25T13:02:00.000-05:00

so fucking Heath Ledger died...

that sucks, but at least he is done with Batman. Poor dude.

Anyways, is it gay to kinda be curious to watch Brokeback Mountain now just to see what the fucking big deal with it was?

January Thoughts

2008-01-24T16:52:00.001-05:00

I am really pleased with the start of our Trip recap, Prolific has successfully recapped day 1 (out of 10)

Joey has been on fire, his work so far has been nothing short of a Herculean Effort.

LGTS has hit 37 states and 28 countries, continue to spread the word.

The Smokes Girl has called her shot, she will have an article up soon (apparently she’s going to talk about “That girl”)

I have not been very blogductive; this should change in the upcoming weeks.

You Know That Guy (why i suck)

2008-01-24T11:51:00.000-05:00

You know that guy.....
this is the type of guy that invites two of his friends to his house in Miami, FL in order to do a road trip through the C.S.A., into DC, past the Mason-Dixon into the City of Brotherly Love and finally reaching Gotham.
this is the type of guy that decides it would be a good idea to live the dream.
this is the type of guy that wanders the streets of Philadelphia.
this is the guy that promises a blog post and delivers it 3 weeks later.
this is the guy that sucks it up at Law School, all day, every day.
you know that guy.

As Chiggy wrote earlier, we embarked on the Trip. On this Trip, we met some other guys....yea, those guys that you know. There were even some gals too. Since I am in Constitutional Law Class, I will give a quick run down of quotes and actions of those guys (Miami Edition)...that we all know.

Fake Angry Guy (F.A.G.)
You know that guy.
this is the guy that considers himself rugged yet wears that witty t-shirt that his mom bought him at "Hot Topic" for his last birthday because she heard that the t-shirt is what F.A.G.s like her son wear
this is the guy that plays beer pong (Beirut) at Barracuda's in Coconut Grove, Flawdah on the weekends. However, he does not realize he is perhaps the worst BP player to have two balls in his hands (ping pong balls)
this is the guy that when he misses a shot at BP, angrily screams FUCK, and punches the wall at a bar upset. This occurs every time he misses, which is every time he tries
this is the guy that 3 nano-seconds after the above act, shares laughter with his opponents and maybe even shares a "moment" with them. He follows this up by trying to flirt with average girls around him by pointing to his witty shirt.
this is the guy that enters a verbal altercation to the old dude at the bar and then, he gives him the finger when he sees him walking outside. because he is such a badass and he is a F.A.G.
You know this guy....

Real Angry Guy (R.A.G.)
you know that guy
this is the guy that is fat yet wears a wife beater to the bar, transforming the wife beater to a bra
this is the guy that is all tatteed up, yet none of his tattoos make sense
this is the guy that his friends abandon by going to another part of the bar
this is the guy that screams in random people's ear when the ping pong ball hits the ground
this is the guy that speaks in a neolithic dialect which resembles a pre-civilized version of Quechua, the Incan language
this is the guy that when I am setting up my BP game, starts chugging from my pitcher, causing a possible confrontation
this is the guy that gets angry when i take my own pitcher back
this is the guy that became my best friend when i offered him a cup of beer
this is the guy that said he would unconditionally have my back for the rest of my life because of this beer
you know this guy....

So much for a FLILF

2008-01-23T14:57:00.000-05:00

I know many of you out there are as disappointed as I, but alas, Fred Thompson has resigned from the 2008 Presidential race. This is a sad day because now the hottest potential First Lady is either Cindy McCain who looks as plastic as they come (more like someone poorly photoshopped her entire body next to John out of misplaced celebrity parts) and Bubba seen here being fellated by a dog. It makes sense that the candidate with the less desirable spouse will probably do a better job though, as they will be more likely to focus on their job or more focused on gettin’ down while maintaining a level of professionalism (JFK, Bubba, George Sr, and Thomas Jefferson). I mean our best presidents had ugly wives (FDR, George Washington, Lincoln), and with this in mind, maybe we should look to the Bill Richardsons, Mike Huckabees, and Rudy Giulianis. Judith Giuliani looks like she is a beaten sack of ugly. I’m sure Rudy would do great!

Just kidding…

UPDATE:: I know Obama's wife is pretty hot, but I'm not sure whether or not that means anything just yet...

I Have A Dreamsicle

2008-01-22T14:10:00.000-05:00

I have a dreamsicle....

I have a dreamsicle that one day my four small children will all eat wheels of cheese and then poo in the fridge. I won't even be mad because it will be amazing....I have a dreamsicle.

I Have A Dreamsicle

2008-01-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

I have a dreamsicle....

that one day my four small fat children will live in world where childhood obesity is laughed at and thought of as cute instead of a potential health hazard....I have a dreamsicle.

Down Goes Federer Except Not

2008-01-19T05:41:00.000-05:00

I’ve seen Michael Jordan pass a ball to John Paxson and Steve Kerr to win championships. I’ve also been witness to him draining a shot with 6.6 seconds left on the clock to douse any Jazz hope of a world championship. I’ve been party to watching Tom Brady operate in the 2008th year of our lord and I’ve seen each of his last minute drives to win Super Bowls. I’ve watched Tiger Woods go through stretches of near-invincibility on a golf course and I’m aware that Edwin Moses won about a million straight races, but I don’t know if I’ve ever been more aware of watching greatness than I was tonight while watching Roger Federer scrape and claw and wretch and scream his way through five tense sets before finally getting a key break in the fifth to oust some dude name Janko HJFKDJklfajkfs. You see, so often we overlook what true greatness is. We all understand that Jordan and Brady, Woods and Federer are the best there may ever be at their respective sports. We forget that they have to fight to win. I mean, they ‘re the best for a reason, you know. But sometimes, it’s important to rememeber that greatness is not defined by the amount of wins rather it is defined by how one wins.

Tim Floyd, the basketball coach at USC, says he loves basketball because when you watch basketball there is “nowhere to hide.” In football and baseball, a person can hide their emotions behind a helmet or under a hat, but in basketball they’re right there upfront and center. They’re on display for all to see. He said he loved it because you could really see what a person was made of. Did that player wilt under pressure? Well, the answer is written on their face; all you’d have to do is look.

Now, I understand that tennis is not all that popular in the U.S. It’s a given. We’re beholden to football, baseball and basketball. But it’s sad because that means most Americans didn’t care enough to look behind the veil tonight at Roger Federer. Andre Agassi once said he loved tennis because, “tennis is the only sport besides boxing where what you do as a player DIRECTLY influences what your opponent must do.” He went on to say, “and because I can’t take a punch.” But the gist is absolutely right. In every team sport, if you fail, there is someone to back you up, but in an individual endeavor there is no one else. You’re on an island. You can’t hide your emotions from the spectator because they’re upfront and center for all to see, and tonight that was not a bad thing.

Roger Federer was not perfect tonight. He missed more forehands in one match than I think I watched him miss in the last year combined. He looked mortal tonight. But that’s the thing about individual sports. It’s what makes them so cool. Watching Roger Federer at 2 in the morning on the West Coast, I’m reminded that greatness is not perfection rather it is overcoming imperfection.

Why Evangelicals and Mormons (uber religious types) shouldn't run for president.

2008-01-17T11:58:00.000-05:00

Two days ago, Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee appeared on MSNBC and discussed how he wants to change the country. The most remarkable of his comments was,

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

So much for that whole concept of separating Church and State. If this wasn’t enough, a friend of mine brought up another Republican hopeful’s comments. Mitt Romney has made it clear that he would never have a Moslem in his cabinet because he could not find a position that a Moslem would be a good fit. What the fuck? We’re not matching square pegs and round holes here Mr. Romney. In case you didn’t notice, Moslems are people too, and while nobody is forcing you to put a Moslem in your cabinet, don’t be such a narrow-minded ass! Also, where does this pretty haired jackass get off labeling people of the most prominent religion on the planet as security threats (I will hit anyone who says 9-11, that’s like saying all Catholics are Papists) over his religion, which the jury’s still out on whether or not it’s a cult. I’m not trying to fight bigotry with bigotry here, but come on. I’ll give anyone the benefit of the doubt, but there are reasons why modern western nations try to have a separation of church and state. Moreover, I liked how Huckabee would originally use his faith as a moral code in which to follow. He did well with that. It showed he had a moral sense to him, but wasn’t going to let his hickey backwoods Baptist crap get take over. And then it did. I’m not advocating that everyone be secular humanists or deists here, but I feel like these guys have proven that they are far too skewed to be competent leaders. What happened to the JFK attitude of “I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.” You don’t need to be super religious to have a moral compass, fucking republicans. Also, fuck Tom Cruise.

Whats up Man United?

2008-01-15T15:47:00.000-05:00

Ok so many of you probably won’t know this, but this summer, English football star Cristiano Ronaldo had a 5 hooker orgy party at his lavish home in England with teammates Nani and Anderson. This was Cristiano’s “welcome gift” to the two other teammates, and allegedly, he “felt tired and went to bed” without engaging the prostitutes. Not only did this mar the name of soccer’s pretty boy Cristiano, but it also started Manchester United down a dirty road of sexcapades that culiminated today with a new report. Moreover, at the Manchester United Christmas party, a scandalous event in which only the team’s players and the entertainment (no wives/girlfriends/other family are allowed to attend) there were flagrant accusations that one of the showgirls hired to entertain the team was raped. The team’s manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, who has strived to bring Man U to great heights, has cited this as one of the biggest disgraces the team has ever faced and threatened all parties involved. But just when you thought this wasn’t enough, this weekend, Cristiano, who seemed penitent for his prior behavior and skipped the Christmas party, was caught with an unnamed friend in Rome paying for another orgy. Keep in mind, this kid is a young rich baller type who has had some serious arm candy in the past. But for Manchester United, perhaps the world’s best known team, what the eff? These dudes can’t get laid any other way? This is the team that David Beckham started off with, and it’s not as if they can’t find girls to take care of them. It’s almost as if they just want to pay for hookers that look like trannys and get themselves into legal trouble with prostitution, solicitation, rape, and other sexual misconduct.

Joint: Defined…

2008-01-15T10:28:00.000-05:00

Any section where two adjacent objects meet, especially bones.
EX: The elbow is a joint in your body. The door meets the frame at that joint.

Prison.
EX My cousin Eleftheropolous just got out of the joint for gyro smuggling.

Any place, usually of ill repute.
EX. I hear that joint over there is actually a crack house.

An open juncture on a bridge.
EX: CAUTION: open joints on bridge.

A marijuana cigarette.
EX. Pass that joint so that I might smoke it.

Unintelligible reference to meat. (note: only described in situations around 40^th St in Philadelphia)

EX: Customer: Let me get one’uh’dem chicken joints (pronounced “jawns”)
Clerk: Pardon?

Customer: You know, one’uh’dem chicken jawnts.

Clerk: Well, do you want a grilled chicken sandwich? Chicken nuggets? Chicken Caesar Salad?

Customer: Nah, one of them chicken joints. (points over to pizza)

Clerk: Buffalo Chicken Pizza? Barbeque Chicken Pizza?

Customer: Yeah, one’uh’dem.

Clerk: You want a Buffalo Chicken Pizza? Medium?

Customer: Mah man, yeah, one’uh’dem chicken jawnts.
"Hey you! Lemme get uh lamb jawnt."

Hockey: Why is it not a major sport in America anymore?

2008-01-14T16:08:00.000-05:00

Hockey is not just for Canadians and other assorted Eastern/Former Soviet Bloc Europeans. That being said, I want to discuss several things that perplex me, especially with the new NHL.

Since the strike, the NHL, led by Gary Bettman, has actively tried to market the sport better. While I feel like Bettman has failed in certain regards (4on4 OT, not eliminating touch icing, less fighting, the RBK EDGE jersey system) many of the positives in the league right now are a result of his policies. The following is a list of positives and hopes for the NHL:

There is less parity in the league. Dynasties that could outspend smaller franchises in the 90’s have been eliminated. So this means that while teams like Detroit, Colorado, and the Rangers could all outspend smaller market teams like Winnipeg-Phoenix, Florida and St. Louis and usually crush them in the standings, the new salary cap now limits such egregious spending, meaning teams can only have so many high market players. (note: spending a lot of money had no effect on the Rangers' record in the late 90’s as they were awful). With the new league set up, while players might be underpaid in some respects, it creates an atmosphere that the NFL has patented in that on any given day, any team can beat any other team. This makes the sport more competitive and more interesting to follow. (note: Although again frustrating for NY Ranger fans as they have gone from the cellar to first and back again…seriously guys, get it together c'mon)

There is a youth movement in this league that hasn’t been seen in close to thirty years. Players like Dion Phaneuf, Niklas Backstrom and Patrick Kane are great, but mere footprints to the legacy that Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, and Sid “the kid” Crosby are already creating. Between Ovechkin, Malkin, and Crosby, there are already a number of postseason awards and more are definitely to come. They not only represent a new generation of hockey, but a new previously unseen talent level. Many are sure to have seen Ovechkin scoring from his back, or Crosby juggling the puck at this year’s Winter Classic. These are just a few examples of the great talent that this generation of hockey players exudes.

The advertising team at the NHL, I think, is doing a great job to make the NHL more marketable to younger people and niche crowds. A sold out stadium in Buffalo paid to see the Penguins play the Sabres an outdoor game. This was a great thing for hockey because many kids still get their start in the game outdoors on ponds and on outdoor uncovered rinks. Holding events like this gives the sport a pastime feel, and it portrays hockey as a vintage sport, that isn’t outdated and still has a following.

I think this sport should be getting more press in the states too because a lot of the young talent in the sport is…AMERICAN. The past two years, the top pick in the NHL draft has been an American player. While the US team struggled in the past Olympics, look forward to the next team being a new generation of American hockey, and a team that will possibly bring us gold in the next Winter games. In 2-3 years, I am hoping that America will readopt hockey as a member of the big4 in sports because of the resurgence of American talent. It will take a little while for these newly drafted players to really have an impact on their respective teams, however, and this could be a reason for the delay in populatirty.

Hockey players can be as marketable as other professional athletes; it’s just a matter of the cities in which they play viewing hockey as more than just a niche. Players like Jaromir Jagr, Henrik Lundqvist and Sean Avery have become familiar faces in NY. I think it is a mixed blessing too that hockey players are starting to infiltrate Hollywood. Mike Modano is married to Willa Ford (this chick that beat up now gay Backstreet Boy, Nick Carter) Sean Avery has been romantically linked to one of the Olsen twins and Elisha Cuthbert, and NY Islander Mike Comrie is engaged? to Hillary Duff. It may not mean much now, but it may draw a different crowd’s interest to the sport. (Note: I saw Lindsay Lohan at a Ranger game a few weeks ago...It was less spectacular than you'd think)

The new rules have changed the game to make it more interesting. Goalie Pads have limited sizes now; goal scoring is at an all-time high. There are no more ties, and the shootout, all of sports’ most exciting events, has been instilled as the tie breaker. Players have developed their own persona because of they way they handle their shootout technique. (here, here, and here) In addition, they have limited the areas where goaltenders can handle the puck to make the game flow more interesting, and the new rules dictate standards against obstruction and interference, which allows for faster players to have an advantage over the bigger goonier players that hockey players are stereotyped as.

The league has been receiving promotions and advertising from some of America’s largest sporting corporations. Nike has been one of the foremost in hockey equipment producers in the past decade. RBK has the official licensing for all the jerseys and a large portion of the equipment in the league. Crocs have become an official advertiser and merchandiser. Louisville, Warrior and Easton all have hockey products, yet are not generally associated with the sport. This seems weird to me because though it is a huge market for companies like Nike and RBK, you will never see any of them produce a commercial to be seen in the mass media. Nike will target runners and basketball players, and RBK will do the same. But what’s more amazing to me that these products remain at the top of their respective markets when there is virtually no major advertising done at all.

To diagnose the biggest problem with the game today, I will say that hockey is not more popular than it is because most of America has no idea who the players are. In addition, I think there is an overwhelming stereotype that hockey players just have ridiculous names. But to prove that hockey names are no more different than other popular recognizable names, I’ve developed a Hockey IQ test. In this test, I will compare two individuals side by side. Try to name which one is the hockey player. The other will be another famous person:

Vladamir Nabokov, Evgeni Nabokov
Sergei Fedorov, Anthony Fedorov
Vern Lundquist, Henrik Lundqvist
John Nordstrom, Matt Norstrom
Joe Juneau, Juno McGuff
Jaroslav Hasek, Dominik Hasek
Joe Francis, Ron Francis
Sam Neely, Cam Neely
Bobby Clarke, William Clark
Sidney Crosby, David Crosby
Dan Cloutier, T.J. Cloutier
Jim Carrey, Jim Caray
Darien Hatcher, Teri Hatcher
Marek Malik, Malik Yoba
Thom Yorke, Mike York

Answers: 1b- Evgeni plays for the Sharks, Vladamir wrote Lolita.

2a, Sergei plays for the Bluejackets and was engaged to Anna Kournikova, Anthony finished fourth in the 2006 American Idol competition

3b. Henrik plays goalie for the Rangers, Vern is a football commentator

4b Mattias Norstrom is a Dallas Star; John Nordstrom founded Nordstrom’s, the popular department store

5a Joey Juneau was a great player for the Boston Bruins and Washington Capitals. Juno McGuff is the title character from the hit movie, Juno

6b Dominik is currently on the Detroit Red Wings. Jaroslav was a Czech satirist famous for his affiliation with Franz Kafka

7b Ron Francis finally won a Stanley Cup with the Hurricanes. Joe Francis invented GirlsGoneWild

8b Cam Neely is a Boston Bruin’s hero and also starred as Seabass in Dumb&Dumber. Sam Neely is a country singer

9a Bobby Clarke is a Philadelphia Flyers hero and their current GM. William Clark helped map the country with Meriwether Lewis and Sacagawea.

10a Sidney Crosby is the best player in the league right now. David Crosby is an American folk singer

11a Dan Cloutier is a goalie with the LA Kings. TJ Cloutier is a regular on ESPNs World Series of Poker.

12b Jim Caray is the last American born player to win the Vezina Trophy for goaltender of the year. Jim Carrey was in such blockbusters as The Cable Guy, Me Myself & Irene, and Ace Ventura

13a Darien Hatcher was a Flyer and Dallas Star. Teri Hatcher is a Desperate Housewife

14a Marek Malik is seen making that sweet through the legs shootout goal. Malik Yoba was on NY Undercover and Arrested Development, and is in no way related to hockey.

15b Mike York is a Phoenix Coyote. Thom is the lead singer of Radiohead.

Lets be serious. This is why we watch hockey.

Honey Bunches of Oats

2008-01-10T18:36:00.000-05:00

Honey Bunches of Oats now has a Chocolate Chip Flavor.

Enough said.

Recapping the debates, primaries…

2008-01-10T16:33:00.000-05:00

So it’s that season again; the one where pundits and bloggers, and any idiot with a computer or access to some kind of medium will clutter the universe with more unnecessary bullshit regarding the state of American politics. With this in mind, here I am to recap the past week in politics for you all. Let’s start with the Republicans.

At the first major political event for the next season, the Iowa Caucus, two candidates were frontrunners from the beginning. Arkansas Senator Mike Huckabee held a slight lead over Massachusetts flip-flopper Mitt Romney. The rest of the candidates showed little consideration for this caucus, it being only the first of many. Rudy didn’t even go to Iowa. McCain put most of his focus into New Hampshire. I’m not sure Fred Thompson and Ron Paul are there for any other reason then to piss off Mitt Romney. In the end, this was the case: Huckabee won and Mitt, who finished second, was left to go fix his hair. Surprisingly, however, were the finishes of Fred Thompson (third) and Rudy Giuliani (sixth). Thompson who has been a dark horse candidate since he announced his intent, was given an unexpected amount of support, especially since McCain and Giuliani have at different points been considered frontrunners. This result demonstrated that this is going to be a closer race than most suspect.

At the Facebook Debates last Saturday night (1-night, 2 Parties, how fucking cheezy really), the Republicans started off with a bang, and then slowly followed with each candidate reiterating their stagnant and unwaveringly crappy responses we’ve all already heard and seen before. To recap:

No candidate agrees with any other on the topic of immigration reform. As soon as one candidate opened their mouth, someone else was there to argue them down. Nobody likes the war, but the debate kept on to how each candidate would continue to fight it. Most of them agreed that America has a great Health Care system which leads me to believe that in their heads they cannot distinguish between "Health Care" and "good doctors". The problem now is that we have good doctors, but not everyone can reach them. Thats the problem that they neglected through and through (except Ron Paul who turned the topic to the war, for some reason).

Each candidate showed tonight they all have some kind of skeleton hanging in their closet that separates them from what seems to be the true goals of the party. Fred Thompson, who has been unofficially declared the winner, has been deemed to not care enough about running or being interested in the party. However, his skills as a debater and public speaker (not to mention his hot hot wife Jeri) were enough to keep him in the race after tonight. Ron Paul continues to sway everything to the war because his winning viewpoint, to American politics at this point, is that he was anti-war from the start. Still he’s a creepy libertarian who favors some form of the gold-silver standard that William Jennings Bryan tried to push in 1896. Like Jennings Bryan, Paul will never be the president. Huckabee has had some difficulty when it came to issues pertaining to the war. He has been inconsistent on this topic in recent weeks and will need to “rethink” his strategy again. In his defense, Huckabee has an uncanny ability to talk to the common man. He may not even answer the questions directed at him half the time, but wow does he get your attention. I think its due to his unique way of oversimplifying the problems. After a question is posed he'll say quite simply what we need to do and add a “God” or “Jesus” or two for good measure, and the audience is captivated. He may not ever even propose a solution to any problem they pose to him, but dammit does he look good telling us that we in fact do need a solution. Giuliani did pretty well tonight as well, except he constantly reminds viewers where he was on 9-11. I was in NY during that time, and trust me, the guy did a great job, but stop bringing it up. Really, Rudy’s a smart guy, but he makes himself so aggravating and one-dimensional with this crap. McCain, though heavily favored in this state, didn’t show too much interest. He didn’t really lose any ground, but this being a huge medium; you’d expect him to be a bit livelier. Romney’s malfunction would be that he flip-flops and was once a pro-choice guy. Also he’s a creepy Mormon that nobody likes. My favorite point in the debate was when Mitt said “Oh no, I like mandates,” and Fred Thompson pounced, saying “I didn’t think you’d admit that tonight.” This gay joke got a high-five from Ron Paul, and it was approved by anyone in America watching who is A) a dude B) a cool chick or C) not gay, and even then I’m sure a few of them laughed too. In all, this showed that there is no real favorite in this race, but it reaffirmed what we all knew: everyone hates on Mitt Romney, and not to victimize him because he deserves most of it. Also, leave it to a bunch of middle-aged white conservative men to be catty with each other and totally disrespectful. I'm waiting for a slap fight to break out at the next debate, because then more of America would watch.

The NH primary proved to be another mountain for Romney to climb as McCain won handedly. This was the second time that Romney was a projected winner and finished in a distant second place. Huckabee, who had some difficulty at the debate finished in third, solidifying his position as a frontrunner in the race. Oh yeah, some people in NH also voted for Thompson, Paul, and Giuliani, but not enough for me to give a damn to write about.

Now, onto the Democrats:

Two weeks ago, everything was crystal clear for the Big D’s. Hillary has the nomination, Obama and Edwards would follow close behind. Richardson is the loveable goof, but Biden and Dodd would prove to be worthy adversaries. Kucinich shang hai's some kids at the end of a rainbow with the promise of gold. Then Iowa happened. Despite being slightly behind in the polls, Obama swept Iowa out from under Hillary. Not only did Hillary not win though, she finished third, behind John Edwards. This put a spin on the entire Democratic race because the favorite to win the nomination for the past four years now has tremendous doubts following her. In addition, by their poor showings, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Bill Richardson all conceded the race to these top three. Kucinich continues to prove that he is the democrats’ Ron Paul, and nobody will ever really care what he has to say. (damned leprechaun)

The New Hampshire debates proved to be more interesting. Having been narrowed down to 3 frontrunners, it was amazing that Bill Richardson even showed up. In addition between shots of his wife and Chelsea Clinton, this was not a very attractive debate to watch. Richardson remained steadfast with his position that he has the most experience with foreign nations. I, in turn, would love to know firsthand, how much of the New Mexico Governor’s recent experience is with foreign nations not named Mexico. (note: He was formerly a Bill Clinton appointed ambassador to the UN and worked on issues in the middle east…11 years ago) Hillary started off strong attacking Obama saying he changed his opinion on several issues (Pakistan and healthcare) and Edwards made himself even tougher to read on a few positions. He also might be working towards making the Democratic party the American Worker's party, because everything he says is about the middle class. Obama defended his choice for covering children in his plan for healthcare and said that some of Hillary’s workers were distorting his record. At this point it was made very clear that they had had enough of the bitch. (I’ll discuss this dynamic later on) I feel like after this, all the candidates were backed into a corner and forced to “rethink” (sic: lie and change their minds) about certain topics (the surge in Iraq being effective, Bush politics, etc) Then, in the worst debate topic forum in history, each candidate was asked questions directed towards them. Hillary was asked why America thought Obama and Edwards were more likable then her to which she responded, “oh, now that hurts my feelings” (don’t get cute in politics, you twit) Obama reiterated his disdain for her by coldly remarking that “[she’s] likeable enough.” The question that followed for Obama regarded the Republican candidates opinion of him, to which he responded that he didn’t pay too much attention to their debate because of the football game. (way to go Rockstar, but seriously that’s your competition there) The debate continued with Richardson insisting he was more experienced, Obama and Edwards began to collaborate in favor of the middle class against Hillary, and Hillary, though winning the first half the debate, was beaten down by Obama and Blinky. (seriously for those who have never seen Edwards talk on screen its so disconcerting. The guy blinks 300 times a minute and plays with his tounge in his mouth. Good guy, but creepy as fuck) In the end, Obama seemed to win because like Huckabee, even though many things he said may have been wrong or severely simplified, people wanted to hear him speak and he had a better following than any other candidate in the end. That being said he wins NH easy, right?

Wrong, and here’s why. I told you I would discuss this dynamic earlier, so now I will because it pisses me off. Hillary took her licks in the debate and in Iowa. This is quite clear. However, at the point in the debate when she gave that cutesy “hurts my feelings” remark, I knew she was up to some shit. The day before the Primary, she was seen crying on film at a coffee house in NH to a bunch of women about “how much she really cares about the country and how hard it is...” blah blah blah. Stop fucking whining. This is the same woman who voted for the war. This leads me to believe that she is a perpetual politician and full of shit. I’m not saying the others are that great, but fuck that, Hillary. Her vote for the war now tells me she just wanted to show American she would have the balls to do it if/when the time comes. That’s fine, play that dynamic. It worked for other asexual, possible men, like Margaret Thatcher. Be an “iron lady”. But no, Hillary realized she was losing favor in the polls because Obama is too dreamy and stealing the female vote with other pretty boy Edwards(where are your balls now, hilldog?) So she cries in front of a group of women. This was the most convincing argument to me that women’s tears are stronger than acid. (thank you Maureen Dowd for that gem) So basically, the primary went as follows. Hillary (39%) beats Obama (36%) who beats his soon to be named VP, Edwards (17%). The vaginal sympathy vote wins.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not sexist, I fully support any woman who wants to run for President, but at this point I feel like Hillary is weak and manipulative, and she just pisses me off. Also Bill Richardson has resigned from the race again, that big girl.

Also, stop mentioning Natalie Sarkisian. This poor girl died because they waited too long for a transplant, and Democrats, Edwards especially, have been touting this girl like a bloody flag. I understand their views for new forms of health care, but I'm sure this girl would not want to be strung along like this. Its getting to be sickening. Knock it off!

Now what this means is that the next 3 weeks up until after Super Duper Tuesday, there will be even more of a media shitstorm clogging up everything in the nation. So until my next post, let’s all just hope Bloomberg decides to run.

Cheers!

Top 5 Losses of the year

2008-01-10T15:25:00.000-05:00

5. OSU over Nebraska - Worst Nebraska loss in 49 years at home, in front of the 1997 NCAA Championship squad. This is the same OSU team whose coach went ballistic on a reporter for criticizing their QB.

4. Virginia over U-Miami – This was tough to watch. At their last game at the Orange Bowl, the U sucked it up against a surprising, but largely questionalble UVA team.

3. Pitt over WVU – WVU poised for its first national title bout, chokes to Pitt who has….well who do they have? I know they have Dan Wannstedt, but what the hell WVU?

2. Stanford over USC – The end of the first Pete Carroll dynasty as USC loses its first home game in 35. I’m a pretty big Trojans fan, but this was hard to swallow. Its ok though. Look for them to start out next year as either #1 or #2.

1. Appalachian St. over Michigan- Nothing will ever top this…ever. This set the stage for the entire season. This cost Lloyd Carr his job. This killed the Michigan program’s overwhelming and unwarranted pride. The Big 10 sucks and will always be overrated. Michigan football personifies this.

BCS postseason thoughts:

2008-01-10T15:15:00.000-05:00

They need a playoff. For once, I will support something that comes out of Georgia. Hours after LSU lifted their 2^nd BCS title trophy, UGA proposed a system that would have an 8 team playoff. I like this idea only because the BCS produces some of the most lopsided games this season. OSU got blown out, but managed to salvage some pride in the final seconds to LSU. Illinois shouldn’t have even been a BCS team, getting destroyed by USC. Same thing to Hawaii who was handled by UGA. While I do agree with this, I am even more excited with the prospect of more college football. J
Michigan will not be the same team next year, by any stretch of the imagination. Star Running back, O-Lineman, OLB, two wide outs, graduating senior QB Chad Henne, and the transfer of QB to be Ryan Mallett (6’7” Blue Chipper who’s leaving for Tennessee) Rich Rodriguez doesn’t have a QB yet for this new spread system that he will implement there, but look for him to push for Terrelle Pryor, a 6’6” 235 5 star recruit. In my degenerate gambler phase, I tried to put money on his team in the Army All American HS football game, which he won, but alas, the website I bet on didn’t have that.
Pete Carroll will not leave USC. Another website I check has him staying/leaving at 90/10. I think it’s less than that. Still, if Carroll does vie a move for the NFL look for him to want full control over a contender (Skins) as opposed to a complete rebuild at Atlanta. In all I think its all a bunch of overhyped speculation. Who would want to leave USC? You have a consistent talent class that is among the top in the nation. You’re in beautiful Southern California. You are the winningest football coach in college right now. Stay there Pete, bring Ole’ SC a few more championships before you reconsider the pros.
The Big 10 is overrated and will probably stay that way. Also OSU fans are among the most unbearable on the planet. I’ve spent time in Ohio (not even around Columbus) and though devout conservative Christians, these people would swear Jesus wore a sweater vest. Also there’s this guy. ‘nuff said.

Letsgotosmokes, The league, Update part II

2008-01-10T13:29:00.000-05:00

In case you missed the introduction to our Fantasy League you can find that article here.

2008 opened with a BANG. 2008 the year of FUN and it started off excellently.

January 1, 2008: I woke up at 3 am in the home of Prolific, texted an assortment of people on the west coast and got ready to begin the trip. We would spend the entire day traveling to Richmond and miss the entire day of bowl games (Fight on!). Prior to heading out, I went online to check out the fantasy results of the past week. If you remember a while back when I wrote the first article on the league I was in last place and was in the process of being beaten badly. Two weeks in and all looked lost for War KG.

12th out of 12 players, terrible!

This bright dawn I checked out the rankings and War KG had risen to 1st Place! I couldn’t believe how the tables had turned; I promptly wrote a taunting message on the message board and proceed on with the trip.

Flashback to San Francisco and Orange County,

If you remember my initial article on the league I had not met a couple of the players in our league. Double Deuce had invited me (Tuesday) to visit him in San Francisco and I gladly accepted. In San Francisco I did not know what to expect, but what I did not except was to meet, Meatspin and Benzo. If you remember Meatspin was my mortal enemy and my goal for this league was to make sure I beat his team (Currently War KG 1 Meatspin 0). He was a super nice guy and I decided that I would forgo my grudge and find some other motivation to dominate our league. Meeting Benzo was also a treat, he called me War KG the whole time (as I called meatspin, “meatspin”) and he constantly discussed fantasy and trades with me. He then invited me to his Christmas party in Orange County. The next week at his party, I was privileged enough to meet EMOB, who also turned out to be a nice guy. I was still lacking the required motivation/ nemesis to turn up my fantasy juices.

Currently the top 6 teams in the standings are,

Meatspin (Currently War KG 1 Meatspin 0)
Warriors (Jron) (Currently War KG 0 Warriors 1)
War KG
GreatBenzoGhost (Currently War KG 1 Benzo 0)
MasteroftheUniverse (JW) (Playing this week)
Renaldo for MVP (Currently War KG 1 Renaldo 0)

This is pretty consistent with what I expected, and I can’t wait until the playoffs. Wade and LO are back and my team has only lost once since they have been back. I was still looking for a nemesis until JW decided to blow up my gmail

His consistent trash talking inspired the following idea

My idea,

When I win this league I will go out of my way to buy a WWE championship belt. Hopefully I can engrave LetsgotoSmokes champ on it, and then I will force each and every member to buy me drinks all night if I wear it out with them.

So if you see me walking around with a LGTS League championship belt feel free to buy me a drink.

That Guy

2008-01-09T22:36:00.000-05:00

There are moments in your life when you realize you are witnessing history. October 15, 2007 was one of those days. While multitasking at my desk, I was introduced to Softball Guy and quickly made a note to im Prolific about it.

“That just happened!” I exclaimed.

I then went out of my way to download and forward the rant to Prolific, JW, Smoke’s Girl and Double Deuce. This spawned the creation of numerous hypothetical “guys” that we had all encountered in our life. Finance Guy, Law School Guy etc, Then the trip happened.

Needless to say we met many “guys” on our trip. Prolific will detail the characteristics of each “guy” in the following days.

Prepare to meet,

Fake Angry Guy
Real Angry Guy
Annoying Black Woman (Guy)
Annoying Giants Fan (Guy)

Enjoy!

Note if you want the full version of softball guy please let me know by commenting on the blog.

The Trip

2008-01-07T16:08:00.000-05:00

The trip has been completed. Noe and I will be constantly updating the blog with a recap of our exploits. I will begin with the end in mind.

Starting off, I would like to pontificate about future trips;

Alaska cruise? Vegas? LA? GEM Reunion Party?

Needless to say I will be heavily involved in the planning of all subsequent trips (playing it by ear)

Next I would like to acknowledge some individuals who allowed to the trip to be possible.

E. Valdez, Carlos, Asian Couple, Ani, Badu, Dome, Mr. & Mrs. Shawala, Emo, Albert, Ernie, Jess etc.

Special Thanks to Sr. Burgos, Luz, Mo NA, Joey and Lincoln.

Finally the trip would not have been possible without my road trip mates Prolific and P$

The Perfect Season

2007-12-11T21:27:00.000-05:00

Double Deuce stated it perfectly, sports are not important. However sports do allow us to gain insights into human nature. The NFL season this year is no different.

The Patriots! The Dolphins! It’s on CBS!

Their continued quest for perfection, the delicacy and the ebbs and flows of human perception have been on display this season. For two straight weeks, the patriots were seen as vulnerable, their aura didn’t seem as infallible as it had all year. Then Patriots came out and defeated a powerful Steelers team and now they are seen as infallible again. The Dolphins similarly have appeared pretty hapless and have been comfortably seen as the seen as the worst franchise in football. However the Dolphins were favorites against the Jets late in the season. They subsequently lost and now are seen as locks to finish the perfect season.

The beauty in which Brady hit Jabber Gaffney in the end zone can be contrasted with irony of Cleo Lemon faking the handoff to the empty backfield (aka Danny). Perception has now become reality and the differences have been on the margins.

Expectations create reality as the Patriots are seen grimacing after 20 point blowouts. Similarly the Dolphins can be seen enjoying themseleves while in the midst of the “perfect” season.

Now, if sports aren’t so important why have I taken the time to blog about it? Sports don’t really matter unless you have a rooting interest and a few weeks ago during the Ravens game, I realize, I am a Patriots fan, something is extremely intriguing their quest. Randy Moss has always been one of my favorite players and I would also like to see the end of the ‘72 Dolphins reign. Life is always changing and I would love to write a new chapter in the history of sports. The Dolphins quest make it even sweeter as it puts direct focus on the Dolphins history.

Let the games begin

Sports: Saving the World one Kennel at a time

2007-12-07T19:07:00.000-05:00

Lets get this out of the way right off the bat; sports are irrelevant. They don’t matter. Nothing about them matters. When you watch a pre-season game, the announcer of that game will continually jabber something along the lines of, “folks, the play has been a bit spotty today, but you can’t blame the competitors for their lack of motivation because these games don’t count yet.” Well, what does that mean? Aren’t all games, at their core, exhibitions? I mean, if Reggie Bush doesn’t get into the endzone again this Sunday, he’s not going to be executed. As much as die-hard fans want to believe it; football is not a life and death experience. This isn’t to say it’s not important—200 million sportsfans in 100 countries can’t all be wrong—because it is. But it’s definitely not substantial enough to deflect our gaze from things that are truly important; crime, education and the disenfranchisement of minorities to name a few things. Except that it does deflect our gaze. Apparently, Americans just aren’t multi-taskers. It would be impossible for us to enjoy sports and fix cultural and societal ills, so why even try?

All right, time to get down from my soapbox because I’m not purposefully writing an indictment of sport. Americans tend to deify athletes. We allow them to be paid too much while giving back nothing beyond entertainment. But this isn’t their fault, you know. There is another way to look at this. Sports aren’t of vital importance, and we can all agree on this. If we can all also agree that we place too much stock in teams that have nothing to do with ourselves beyond a shared tax base (and geographical proximity). Well, if we can all agree on all that garbage, saying sports aren't important, yet they retain this importance from so many of those same people then isn't it possible that sports actually are vitally important. Perception is reality, right. I mean, these people still care. Perhap, sports aren’t on par with food or water, but they’re close. Maybe sports are like the In-N-Out Burger of our diets. They aren’t necessary, but it’s no fun to live in a world without them. However, there’s much more to this analogy than simply saying, “It’s obvious, we like sports because they’re fun.” This is, most definitely, true. However, the same can be said about everything in life. Why do we love Casablanca? Because it’s a great movie, right? Is that the whole story though? Isn’t Casablanca a meditation on what the cost of doing the right thing is? What is the right thing anyways? And I know a lot of enjoyment can be sapped from things by intellectualizing them, but its one key to overcoming those people who would say we don’t need sporting ideals. It’s a way to say, “Hey, us pseudo-intellectuals love sports too.” These are the same intellectuals who decry teachers as the poor underpaid while neglecting to notice the sheer human excellence involved in the making of an athlete while glossing over the fact of the matter; way more people are qualified to be teachers than are qualified to be professional athletes.

Still, in the wake of tragedies like the Sean Taylor shooting I’m forced to wonder why we, as a society, place sports on such a pedestal. And this question quickly becomes even more elemental; why do I continue to place them on a pedestal? Like every thing that interests me, this argument comes back to me. But it’s the same for all of us. How do sports enrich your life? In my life, I tend to use sport as a prism through which I see the rest of the world. They allow me to create a worldview and they form my interactions with the world around me because almost everyone else has knowledge of sport to almost the same extent. This cannot be overstated. The fact that it allows me to see myself and to understand others is a reason for them to remain important. But there’s another even more important point to keep in mind. Sports are fun. They’re better than movies or theater because there is an objective winner, but they’re better than science because, played at their highest level, they are more art than science. Sometimes, an In-N-Out Burger is really a whole lot better than anything else.

A New Festure entitled "One Line at a Time"

2007-12-03T20:25:00.000-05:00

“I thought we were through with all this,” I screamed in her direction, “But, honey, I guess we can never outrun our future. It’s always there, right in front of us.”

The woman peered at me for a second before finally saying, “You realize we’ve never met.”

Holiday Roustabout: F& &/or Yeah

2007-11-30T15:27:00.000-05:00

You know, this is the time of year for merriment, giving, love and all-around happiness. I know this because I’m told by my television and radio announcers to have a “Happy Holiday.” Usually, this is the kind of herd mentality, mass marketing that would really grind my gears, especially because the ‘Niners are currently sporting a record of 3 and 8. But not this year; not this time. This time I’m going to push up my sleeves, wear something pastel in shade and pop my collar in honor of everything I’m happy about this holiday season.

I am eternally thankful that I know no less than two girls whom I call, “Heyyyyyy….you,” but that these girls continue to smile at me instead of pointing out the obvious and making me live down the mistake of constantly forgetting their names.

I could not be happier about watching a friend of mine sprain his ankle last night while leaving a bar. However, stay tuned for my after New year’s post entitled, “Karma Rubber Band Strikes Back,” or, “Karma’s a Bitch and its name is Matt.”

The return of the comedy has made me relatively happy this year. Seriously, if Knocked Up and Superbad coming out this year means that I don’t have to listen to American Pie 3 jokes about how wacky it is to get married anymore then Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow deserve every cent they earn over the next three or four millennia.

I’m ecstatic that laziness has taken the place of industriousness and is now a virtue, that Josh Smith is a monster fantasy basketball player and that white people are still decidedly bad dancers. It’s nice to know that while some things change; others never will.

Good Lord, I’m thankful for post-modernism. If you don’t really know what that term means then here’s a short definition. It means that instead of being creative and hard-working, I can just as easily be unimaginative and apathetic in writing this column because I’ve had the courage to point out the column's obvious flaws.

This holiday season has brought so much to so many. For example, for each person who reads this column a newborn angel will get its wings. However, when that angel flies over Africa, it will be shot by a poacher looking for condor, but do not despair each angel has the capacity to feed 12 starving African children and tastes great when cooked over an open flame. Save a life; read this article and don’t forget to thank your neighborhood poacher today.

Onto the Picks; as always Chigozie makes the picks and I write about them except when I decide he should. I don’t know; what do you want from me, huh? I’m at work. I’m just trying to write a fucking picks column, you know? Shit.

Atlanta +3 At St. Louis

It appears the NFL wants to fill American eyes with shit so that we don’t notice all the pig shit seeping into our river ways. What you didn’t hear about the pig shit problem? Well, didn’t the rash of manbearpigs roaming the countryside tip off the epidemic?

Buffalo +6 At Washington

The prevailing opinion is that The National Football organization has recently turned to garbage because of parity. I disagree; it’s always been mostly putrid except that now the putrid teams are on a revolving carousel of shittiness. This is still a bad thing; it makes it impossible for a young fan to identify with their team as either an asshat douchebag frontrunner who roots for a winner or a lovable idiot constantly rooting against his asshat overlords, hoping against hope that this is the year his shitty team breaks through. On a related note, I miss being a Forty-Niner fan in the ‘90’s.

Detroit +3.5 At Minnesota

Chigozie is an ignorant slut if he doesn’t realize the Lions have no business in this game. My prognosticators have informed me that Purple Jesus is ready to return from injury. I can tell you one thing, if he doesn’t rush for 200 yards or at least walk on water or cause a plague of locusts to be unleashed on the heathen Lions, I will have a crisis of confidence in my beliefs.

At Tennessee -3.5 Houston

Again, my chocolate friend is blinded my his mancrushes. The man has a ½ chub for Vince Young at all times. It’s actually really funny. If he’s doing the California Crotch Grind at a club and a girl mentions Vince Young, his boner actually grows. It’s science.

Jacksonville +6.5 At Indianapolis

This has all the makings of a game that could totally not suck. The NFL: Mediocrity at its most fannnnnn-tastic

NY Jets +1.5 At Miami

All right. I want you to think of all the things in your life that you suck at. Think of the things that you do on a regular basis that you just can’t stand. Now multiply that by infinity, and take it to the depths of forever, and you still will barely have a glimpse of how shitty the Dolphins are at their jobs.

At Kansas City +6 San Diego

The Chargers have a secret weapon in this game and his name is Ladainian Tomlinson. I know, I know; as gamblers we shouldn’t pin our hopes to unproven running backs whom no one has heard of this year, but seriously, I hear this guy is going to be good.

At Philadelphia -3 Seattle

Who cares?

At Carolina -3 San Francisco

Ugh. Watching the 49er’s these days is one level better than watching a train wreck when you’re on the train. I guess, I’m saying that it’s possibly the only thing shittier than quilting or going out to brunch with your girlfriends Cowboy loving parents.

At New Orleans -3.5 Tampa Bay

Perhaps if we told Reggie Bush that there was an endorsement in the endzone, he’d actually get there a few times.

Cincinnati +7 At Pittsburgh

The same goes for Fast Willie Parker. In fact an ode:

Willie Parker you are so fast
So why Willie Parker do you run out of gas
At the one yard line
Where it would be so fine
You must hate me; you are a horse’s ass.

Cleveland +1 At Arizona

The Cardinals only get one point against Horse Ball Anderson. What the fuck. That’s only like 17 points against the Patriots.

Denver -3.5 At Oakland

It’s really too bad that Horse Balls doesn’t play for the Broncos. That would be cool.

NY Giants -2 At Chicago

Betting on the Giants is like betting on a game of Russian Roulette in the Deer Hunter. You know you’re probably going to win a few times, but then at the end, Christopher Walken is going to get his head blown off while you cry into your hands. That was just me? No way.

New England -20 At Baltimore

After the close game last week, this line could be 74 and I’d halfway think the Patriots would cover it. They’re just that vindictive. But I can’t stay mad at them; I mean Boston’s a great town full of smart people who are always willing to give you directions on the best way to go fuck yourself. I mean, that’s true hospitality.

Corporate America II

2007-11-19T13:33:00.000-05:00

If you missed the first installment of Corporate America you can find it here

Ernie had been working at B&B for a little while now. The work world was completely different than the educational confines that he had spent his whole life in. The social and expectation landscape was completely different than anything he ever experienced.

Sitting at his desk on another Monday morning Ernie was worn out from a weekend full of unsatisfying slaying. It was hard work to live up to his college nickname and being forced to slay every weekend for his friends in relationships who vicariously slayed through him. This weekend he had met up with a Puerto Rican stripper that he had met in a club……..

It was the first hour of the day, and Ernie figured that he would ease into the day, check out out the Wall Street Journal, Sherdog and Espn before he started his assignments for the week.

“Hello!” said Chris

“Damn”, Ernie thought.

Chris: “How was your weekend,” “Mine was great, I had a Kung Fu competition and I totally would have won but then I pulled a muscle in my lower back. The other black belts in Newark were lucky this week but they won’t be so lucky next time!”

Ernie: “It was alright, I just hung out”

Chris: “Jess, Jess, tell Ernie about how we almost hung out this weekend, but then your dog suddenly got sick we were totally going to do something super sweet!

Jess: “Uh yea, it totally would have”

Mark: “Hey Jess, too bad your dog got sick, I would have loved to hang out with you too. I was too busy Skydiving, you know I am certified instructor and if you ever want to go out, I’ll protect you.”

Jess: “Yeah, I guess so”

Mark was the deuche who was constantly trying to hit on Jess in the office even though it was apparent she wasn’t interested. Mark was slightly above average in a lot of things and therefore thought he was great. He would always try to one up Ernie even though he pretended to be his friend. Even more annoying Ernie actually liked Jess and wanted to settle down with her even though he would never admit his feelings to her out loud.

Why are all these people talking around my desk, Ernie thought. “I mean I am not really working but they don’t know that, I don’t really understand why people think its alright to huddle around my cube and start long winded conversations.

Oh to be Monday at B&B, this is going to be another long week.

NFL Roustabout: Roustabout Harder

2007-11-09T13:34:00.001-05:00

It's a weird symptom that we, as Americans, are ensconced with. Wewant to cheer for winners, but are secretly happy when we witness failure. We stare at train wrecks, watch NASCAR because of the crashes and are glued to the screen during the Sopranos wondering if Tony really got whacked or not. We crave excellence but revel in its failure. There is something sacrilegiously beautiful about human excellence coupled with human failure. This principle makes Steve Nash likable; it garnered Phil Mickelson legions of fans and untilthis year made Donavon McNabb seem sympathetic. In fact, in almost every case, it is easier to root for the underdog than to side with the Tigers or Federers of the world. Think about it; for every person we love to see succeed, there are 100 we want to see fail. For everyMichael Jordan there are people who have won their sport's ultimate prize who become immediately unlikable, for whatever reason. These are the Tim Duncans or Peyton Mannings or Kobe Bryants of the world. And they can't care about this, because it has nothing to do with them. It isn't their fault—well, except for Kobe; it is his fault. In truth, the reason we can't root for them has more to do with us than with them. It tells us that we only say we want to see winners,when in reality we want to see people have their dreams stripped away, and we want this because it humanizes them. We feel like, for once,they may feel exactly like we felt when our dreams were stripped away.

This is what makes it so hard to root for the Patriots; Tom Brady in particular. They've been to the top of the mountain and are only now reaching their potential. Do I want to see them fail? Honestly, I don't know. Is Tom Brady a Michael Jordan character or is he Tim Duncan? I can't decide.

There's an old, apocryphal story about Marilyn Monroe that Norman Mailer tells. He says that after Monroe signed her first big movie deal, she said, "Well, that's the last cock I ever eat." This is incredibly relevant this week because this is the only week of the year when no team in the league is going to eat the Patriots' collective cock, that is, unless the Patriots can figure out how to beat the bye week. I don't put anything by Tom Brady's sperm. But if the bye week is really the only way to musket-whip the Patriots, then why play the game? Why get up off the couch and work until your body gives out?

I can't help but think this is what every NFL player is going through this year. This is a scary thought and it is only indirectly related to the Patriots ransacking the league. They have not lost, and may not lose. For a professional athlete, who is not a member of the Patriots, and who has devoted an entire life to being the best player possible during his physical peak this can be an incredibly depressingnotion. You've given the sport your best years not to mention all of your mental and physical energies and after all of that; it turns outyou weren't good enough. Wouldn't it be much easier to just coast and to not work hard enough so that after the Patriots wax your team, you have a built in excuse? Obviously, it would be, but we don't root for the type of people who'd do this. We root for them to get back on the horse and try again and we do this because we know someone's got to eat the Patriot splooge and if that's your team this week, well that's okay; there's always next Sunday.

As always, Chigozie makes the picks, I make the dick jokes.

At Tennessee -4 Jacksonville

What’s the score of this game going to be? I’m guessing 13-7 or so. Did you know Vince Young has yet to throw for 200 yards in a game? I do.

At Kansas City -3 Denver

Good lord, what a shitty game.

Buffalo -3 At Miami

It’s like I’m going to have to go out into the world on Sunday. See, this is what people don’t understand. College Football Saturday is the day I go out with friends, get drunk in bars and, mostly, just have a great time. But football can serve another purpose. Football can make me forget that I am ridiculously hung-over. It nurses me through the time that I don’t want to even think about on Friday at work, but, you know, it can only do this if the games make me forget that feeling in the first place. Thanks a lot, NFL. (Mumbling) Fuckin Buffalo versus Miami. Fucking cockstain of a game.

Cleveland +9.5 At Pittsburgh

Chigozie called it a lock that the Browns would cover. I just hope his brown eye is puckered up because he’s about to get railed by the Big Motorcycle Crash himself.

At New Orleans -11.5 St. Louis

My analysis: Brees throws for 500 yards and 4 touchdowns.
Bush runs for 187 yards with 5 total touchdowns.
This needs to happen.

At Carolina -4 Atlanta

I would rather take out my contacts with sandpaper than watch this game.

At Washington -3 Philadelphia

Games like this help me to understand why people become gay. When games like this occur, they don’t have to watch. They can go shopping or hang out with girls or whatever else they do.

Minnesota At +6 Green Bay

The Purple Jesus is running into a brick wall known as Micah Favre. Sparks will fly and the heavens will open, and there will be no losers in this game, except the Vikings, who will, in fact, lose.

At Baltimore -4 Cincinnati

Fuck this.

At Oakland +3.5 Chicago “Getcha Roll On”

I don’t even know what Getcha roll on means. Often times Chigozie forgets that I am incredibly white. He said the word momma yesterday to signify to me that an older lady fancies him, and I just figured he was talking about this mother for about half the conversation. Honestly, I didn’t even question it until he mentioned going out, and hooking up and whatnot. Then it got a little weird, but I just sort of went with it.

Dallas -1 At NY Giants

A while ago, I wrote that the Patriots would beat the Cowboys because football is like Chess and having Bill Bellichick call plays against Wade Phillips was like having Garry Kasparov play chess against a seven year old autistic kid. Well, football is still like chess, and Tony Romo is about to make Eli Manning his queen.

Detroit +1 At Arizona

I don’t see how this game is only +1 to Detroit. I can’t foresee a single outcome in which Detroit doesn’t win by 17.

Indianapolis -3.5 At San Diego

In honor of Hubie Brown this will be written in only the second person: So, you’re Ladainian Tomlinson, and what are you thinking to yourself. You know you were on a great, great team last year and that your whole team is back. So, why are you a middling franchise this year? You know the coaching change has been rough but you can start to salvage the season with this game. You also know that Hubie is old and hungry so why don’t you get the old coach a sandwich? Thanks, Ladainian.

At Seattle -10 San Francisco

Seriously, they’re going to play this game on Monday Night. I shit you not. Tony Kornheiser is already thinking about ways to piss off fans right now as we speak.

Womanese!

2007-11-08T18:50:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the World of Womanese!

What!

Womanese!

It’s no surprise that women speak another language. It’s also no surprise that most men do not speak or understand this language.

With this post, I will open you up to a whole new world.

Now, it’s time to break the language of Womanese!

For your reading pleasure, bold will be the woman, and normal text will be the translation. And italics will be for your host - JW.

I think of you as my brother!

or

You remind me of my brother!

I would consider sexual acts with you to be incest!

I’m not looking for a relationship right now.

I’m not looking for a relationship with YOU.

When you get a chance…

Do this immediately or else!

Have you had the time to…

Stop whatever you are doing, and DO THIS RIGHT NOW!

Of course I don’t mind paying for myself!

You cheap bastard!

I’m not ready for a boyfriend right now...

I sure as heck don’t want to settle down with YOU!

I need more space

You are becoming undesirable and unattractive to me.

I’m trying to focus on my ‘career’ or ‘education’

Even though my training and studying are tedious and boring, I find them to be more exciting than you’ll ever be.

You wouldn’t understand!

I don’t even understand, but I’m not going to tell you.

Hell, we ALL don’t understand!

I like you, but…

I DON’T LIKE YOU AT ALL!

This is the kiss of death and if a woman ever says this to you, you walk away, don’t waste your time with girls that have low interest.

Let’s just give it some time….

You are not high on my rating list. You are a good backup if someone better doesn’t come along.

Let’s Just Be Friends

You will never see me naked. I’m not attracted to you.

Every guy has heard this at least once, or has been LJBFed!

I don’t want to ruin OUR friendship

I want you to remain my girly friend, someone I can use as my emotional tampon!

We need…

I want!

How about you give me YOUR number?

I’ll add it to my trophy collection of guy’s numbers – pathetic guys who want me but I don’t want them!

NEVER GIVE YOUR NUMBER to a girl unless you already have hers.

I’m NOT UPSET YOU JERK!!!

I’m upset!

She’s very upset!

Am I fat?

Please tell me I’m beautiful

We need to talk!

I need to complain about something irreverent!

Where is this going?

Are you my boyfriend? Or, are we getting married?

Watch out!

No

No

Maybe

No

Let me think about it

No

I feel like I have known you my entire life!

We have a winner! I won’t let this prize get away from me!

No

Yes

"Letgotosmokes" The League

2007-11-08T16:01:00.000-05:00

I had meant to live blog for the “Letsgotosmokes” fantasy basketball league draft in which I am the commissioner. My trip to D-Town got in the way of that little project but I will perform a quick recap.

What motivated this recap? JW sending me taunting emails about my team, Double Deuce talking trash about his week one win and Jron lurking in the wings to make commentaries about his (probable) week 2 win. It’s all good ya’ll. I’m just playing a little rope-a-dope like my boy’s Ali and the Diesel. Yes the Diesel is playing rope-a-dope. He will continue to dominate and yes he will win another ship. But I don't need to defend him he stated it best, "I don't need earthlings' respect. When it's all said and done, my name will be there and it will be mentioned ... unless you earthlings try to erase it."

Problem I- Finding Internet

Somehow I managed to schedule the draft when I was supposed to be in D-Town. This was a bad idea, especially since JW does not have Internet, none of his friends have Internet and he did not access to his work computer on the weekends. To make a long story short, I ended up in Einstein’s Bagels with my laptop going strong till they kicked me out 30 mins before the draft. In a frantic rush the Corner Bakery free wireless connection ended up saving my butt.

Problem II- Not enough Players

Somehow our 12th player dropped out hours before the draft and you are not able to draft without even numbers. Luckily JW was next to me and I “forced” him to play. Discounting for slight technical difficulties like drafting two participants on the same computer, things were in line to work well.

The Outlook

I like to win, especially in fantasy. Jron and I had already completed a draft in another public league. This league will not be discussed on this blog except in passing but needless to say I will win that league. My competitive juices are flowing for the “Letsgotosmokes” league because I know the majority of the players personally and they are all my friends and LOVE to talk trash.

The Players

Noe “The Prolific”: Noe’s team is also known as team Heat as he tends to have an inordinate amount of Heat players even though they aren't a fantasy relevant team. I love them, can’t wait till they win their next ship but I wouldn’t draft any of their players except the one I got; Flash.

Double Deuce: His favorite player is Squirt Gun 47 nuff said.

Jron: His teams tend to be the fantasy version of the Mavericks, great regular season numbers, fizzle out in the playoffs not really a threat to the ultimate fantasy goal

JW: I forced him to play, he talks trash, I am sure I will constantly update the blog with his emails. Tends to like the Nugs, and knows absolutely nothing about basketball

Brek: He is a NBA fan but tends to like the Bruins more, too bad Kevin Love and Collison weren't in the draft.

Evan Obrien aka Emob Don’t know much about him, he is a friend of the Deuce’s tends to know his stuff. Can’t really remember much about his team.

Evan Price aka meatspin aka Vanilla Face: My mortal enemy hence the name. Vanilla Face you know I want you!

Cruz (not game): See EMOB’s comment and insert Prolific for Deuce

McRae: I liked his team, he tended to draft smartly. Unwisely turned down my initial trade offer and will be my biggest challenger to the title.

Benzo: Team Celtic! While I don’t think it is cool to war things other than pregnant women (not MOMMYs get it correct, pregnant women) and KG; I do not think the strategy will be the most effective in the long run.

R. Young: See EMOB’s comment

Chiggy: “The favorite” I got flack because the majority of my team is starting the season injured.

The draft
Needless to say I thought I drafted the best team. I was also impressed with the drafts of Benzo and McRae. Upon further review Jron might have got some gems late in the draft that I had not accounted for anyways I would handicap our league like this

Noe 5-1
Double Deuce 4-1
Jron 3-2
JW 15-1
Brek 7-1
Emob 6-1
Vanilla Face 3-1
Cruz 7-1
McRae 4-1
Benzo 3-1
R. Young 6-1
Chiggy 3-2

Updates will be provided throughout the season.

Currently Half my team is out Odom, Brand, Wade and I am in last place. But my mind right now can only think of the following joke:

(In the voice of a black football player) It’s the playoffs, Baby! It’s the playoffs, Baby! You win, You move on. You lose, you go home. That’s what the playoffs is about. Who doesn’t want to go home the most!

(Nerdy Black comedian) Well Sir, I am not too sure about that, What would happen in a football game between abused children and the Oakland raiders? I am pretty sure the abused children really don’t want to go home more than the Raiders. Do you think they could beat the Oakland Raiders?

That was very tangential, however I think my point was I don’t want to go home to most.

NBA PREVIEW PART III

2007-11-04T18:50:00.000-05:00

Shaq’s 5th Title

Today was a terrible day. Espn ran multiple articles outlining the demise of the diesel. There is only one problem with that Shaq has one more title in him. I had mentioned in the fantasy article he is currently playing rope-a-dope. I believe this to be true. However I don’t believe this will be the year. I am planning on moving to the MIA next year to witness the next Heat championship. Ideally Shaq would win his finally championship in two years and retire on top. Why do I have such a strong belief that Shaq will win another championship? He has the heart of a champion and the champion know how. Wade is a premier player and they will focus on building a team around the two of them to prior to Shaq’s retirement.

The Roustabout: Next

2007-11-02T14:55:00.001-04:00

Armageddon has many meanings. However, one of its meanings is most definitely not, “a game between two teams in Week 9 of a football season.” It’s already a bit preemptive to think that football could ever exhibit Armageddon-onical qualities, but for the sake of argument, let’s just say that it could. Even in this world I’ve created Armageddon could not happen in the middle of the season. So, why am I even mentioning this, right? I mean, who has called this Patriots-Colts game Armageddon. The answer; every sportswriter in the football world. They’ve all over-inflated the importance of this game. I mean, it’s going to be a good game, but its still just a regular season contest, you know. There are a lot of reasons this game isn’t the end-time (one being that the Catholic Tom Brady has yet to turn into the anti-Christ), but I think the clearest reason is semantic.

So what does Armageddon mean, exactly.

Any mention of it in the Bible has to do with the place where the final battle between good (God) and evil (the anti-christ) occurs. In the parlance of our times, it means something a little different if still very similar; a decisive and catastrophic conflict. So, is this Sunday Armageddon? In the biblical sense, no? In the football sense, though? The answer is still no.

The winner of this game will play another game next week. The Patriots will have seven more games left and the Colts eight. That is, literally, contrary to decisive. Hell, both of these teams are universally seen as the class of the NFL. In all likelihood, they’ll be playing again in late January for the right to go onto the Super Bowl and demolish whoever the NFC decides to send to the slaughterhouse. Perhaps, in late January, when Tom Brady has been revealed as the anti-Christ and it is revealed that the only path to enlightenment is to trust in Peyton Manning, perhaps then we can talk a bit about Armageddon, but for now I’d like to live in ignorance of the end-time for a bit longer.

Onto the write-ups of the worthy games. As always, the picks are Chigozie’s and the write-up is mine. If I think that chocolate face is being a damn fool, you’ll know.

Washington -3.5 At NY Jets

Green Bay +2.5 At Kansas City

Did you know that Brett Favre loves football. There’s a lot of things that I didn’t know. Apparently every year he goes and speaks the gospel at the Wailing Wall. He’s a modern day Micah. This sis something to remember when rooting for this game. If Brady is the anti-christ; Favre has been telling us about him for years and all of us pagans just overlooked it.

At Tampa Bay -3.5 Arizona

At Tennessee -4 Carolina

At Atlanta -3 San Francisco

I cannot believe I’m going to write this, but San Francisco is going to win this game. How do I know this, you ask. Because I heard it on the radio. The Niners’ cornerback, Nate Clements, guaranteed a victory, and the Falcons just don’t have the gumption or know-how to make him a liar.

At New Orleans -3.5 Jacksonville

Don’t tell Chigozie, but we have Drew Brees starting on our team this week. I’m back on the Brees-wagon, and there’s still some space available.

On another note, I peruse wayyyyyyyyyyy too many fantasy football magazines. Did you know, that Brees’ footwork looked atrocious in the beginning of the season, but that now he looks much more comfortable in the pocket? Really, that’s true? I haven’t even seen him play yet this year, but I feel like I’ve watched every snap. Thank you free time.

At Detroit -3 Denver

Cincinnati PK At Buffalo

San Diego -7 At Minnesota

San Diego ran 40 plays last week and scored 35 points. That’s the sort of information, you need to know.

At Cleveland -1 Seattle

New England -5.5 At Indianapolis

The winning quarterback of this game is the Anti-Christ because Gregg Easterbrook said so. And I think the chances of me ever writing that sentence were about the same as me writing this sentence: Chigozie Amadi has relations with a supermodel.

At Oakland -3 Houston

Dallas -3 At Philadelphia

You know what, there are a lot of good games this week. In this one I see Donovan McNabb as a beautiful bird who will throw passes that fly away from the Cowboys. The only problem is that McNabb is a California Condor and the Cowboys are power lines. This game is not going to end well.

At Pittsburgh -9 Baltimore

Losers becoming winners in the 21st Century or Things Are Looking Up For Me

2007-11-01T20:15:00.000-04:00

I wrote this in my younger and more formative years. It was the quicket thing I've ever written (I think it took me about 20 minutes), and I never even really gave it another look. It was originally published at elevationmag.com, but seeing as the best American sport is in the nascent stage of its current season, I thought it was an opportune time to put it on the web log.

When Did Losing Become Acceptable?

Guys; from the day that we understand random grunts in succession have meaning our fathers ingrain into our domes that we are meant to be virtuous. We are to pull chairs out for women, to pay for them, and to listen to them talk about shoes. We learn the difference between right and wrong, and good and bad. We are taught to win with grace and lose with dignity (And that losing sucks). In short, we are taught the meaning of nobility. A few years later we will forget all of it until (I presume; as I don’t, in fact, have a son) our own son is born and we teach him a bunch of things he’ll forget until (I presume) his son is born. Still, most rational people have a basic understanding of nobility and of its generally beneficial properties. My question is why do people seem more noble in defeat?

After Michael Jordan scored 63 in a losing effort, against the Celtics, Larry Bird said, “That was God disguised as Michael Jordan out there…”I guess, since the Celtics won, Larry Legend was implying that the 1986 Celtics could beat the all-powerful creator, but aside from that, Michael Jordan’s team LOST. Jordan is (perhaps) the greatest competitor to ever lace up a pair of sneakers and, obviously, the 63 points is not his iconic gift to the game, but it may be his most stunning singular feat. He scored 63 points against, maybe, the third best team ever assembled. (Definitely a top 5 pantheon team), and he lost the game. This brings me to another question: When did losing become acceptable? The thing is; I know it wasn’t acceptable to Jordan, but as time wears on it seems to have become acceptable to everyone else. Writers, pundits and fans remember it as one of the greatest games ever played in a losing effort. I’m sure Jordan sees it as a missed opportunity and a learning experience. Perhaps it was both but the question is; why do we care? I can’t answer the question, but I’d bet it relates to Clint Eastwood crying, metrosexuality and the continued marginalization of the All-American man.

To this day, when people (my dad) look back on Jordan’s 63 they always say it was one of the most amazing performances they have ever seen (It probably was). But his team still lost. Why is it that when a person leaves everything on the playing surface only to come up short, people suddenly martyr him? Did losing while scoring gobs of points actually enhance his legend? What if he had won? What would people say then? Would they have said Larry Legend and the Celtic 5 left it all out on the floor? Would the Celtics have then been sympathetic? More importantly, why does 63 points in a losing effort add to the lore and allure of Michael Jordan? I think something deeper is going on here. There is something sacrilegiously beautiful about human excellence coupled with human failure. That’s why people, in their minds, are actually happy when professional golfers chunk a shot…or they nod knowingly—and say they knew it was going to happen—when Donavon McNabb loses another close playoff game. It humanizes a group of people who, for all intensive purposes, are inhuman. For most of us, going an entire round without a chunky shot is impossible and the way Donavon reads a defense is both beautiful and infuriating; it is inhuman. But the fact that he loses on the biggest stage and in the most spectacular ways possible (the fact that he chokes) that is something we can all relate to. We crave excellence but revel in its failure precisely because they are doing things we can only dream about. But maybe there’s something more to this because the thing is Michael Jordan is now a winner whereas Donavon McNabb is not.

Perhaps Jordan’s 63 only add to his lore because of what he went on to do with his career. Six World Titles later the 63 against the Celtics was a happy afterthought. It was one singular game where his greatness was more apparent than ever before. But this is counterfactual engineering. What if Jordan had never won a title (Also counterfactual engineering)? At the time of his post-season scoring record, he had not yet won one. Would his career then have been remembered similarly to that of Dominique Wilkins’? Maybe he would have just been remembered as a no holds-barred gunner forever.

The thing is, he did win six titles so we can remember the game fondly, but my question still remains; why do we look back fondly on a game in which the greatest basketball player ever played his best and couldn’t manage to win? I think there are two possible answers to this query. It could be that as we look back on his career and we ruminate over his legacy it becomes more and more apparent that, in his prime, he was not human. If he hadn’t retired the first time he may have won eight straight world titles, but the fact that at one point in history he had given it his all and it hadn’t been enough reminds everyone that failure is okay as long as through failure one reaches greater heights than before. I wish this was true, but I know that its not. In truth, it probably reminded people of their own failures (especially) in athletics, probably in high school, when they just hadn’t had enough or weren’t good enough to win. Perhaps this is what Jordan’s failure showed America. The greatest basketball player in the world played as well as he could. And he lost. It must be okay to lose. Actually it’s not, but it does almost make losing seem more noble.

Rockie Fan v Eagles Fan

2007-11-01T14:49:00.000-04:00

Sitting in the Denver bowling ally this past weekend I had a flashback to PHILLY. Home of SMOKES! The World Series had just ended and Rockie fan (my friends) had a split second of disgust and disappointment in their eyes. It reminded me of being in the sports bar in Philly when the Eagles had just lost the Super bowl because McNasty had managed the clock like a five year old learning how to tell time.

I flash backed to a time when that disgust permeated the whole city and collectively leads to an extreme ruckus: Kicking trashcans, fighting (retarded) Pats Fan in pats gear; getting arrested; walking home. The look in Rockie fan’s eye reminded me of something I had grown to forget in the land of the angel, passion. But then it disappeared as quickly as it came and Rockie fan went on with their day. “It’s alright they said, we didn’t even expect to get to the World Series anyways. Maybe next year”

WHHHAAAT!! Maybe this reaction was confined to my location on the 16th Street Mall; I had to get closer to the stadium. But alas, I passed hordes and hordes of Rockies fan and they all had the same look in their eyes. Content, the team had given its all and has exceeded expectation. It wasn’t the end of the world or nothing; Rockie fan was going to sleep well that night.

The rest of the trip provided strict contrast to everywhere I had ever been. JW ranted on womanese (he promised the blog is coming). I once again succeeded in surviving the experience of Illegal Pete's, a dude bought me a drink on a plane and I discussed the return of my blog brother.

Life is good in Denver Colorado.

Update: I spent Halloween weekend in Denver and I had the best costume ever! I was "chocolate face". Apparently they had never seen anything like that before and I won the costume contest for the most originality. I thought my costume was ok, but I really like the slut costume that most of the girls had on. Too bad it wasn't that original! Basically almost every girl had it on. Even though I had a "costume" and I approve of the common slut costume (only for girls) I still think that anyone over eight who dresses up is a loser and you can't tell me otherwise.

NBA PREVIEW Part II

2007-11-01T14:34:00.000-04:00

Big Ticket and Company (The Big Three)

Is there any other story in the NBA more exciting than this? A once proud franchise fell on hard times last year. A cache of young players tanking for a chance to play with Oden or Durant, and then they fell in the draft lottery. All was lost in Boston and then a ray of hope came on draft day. Allen was coming to team with Pierce. But the team was a mismatch of youth and experience and the prospects for the season still did not look good. Seeing enough promise for a championship, KG agreed to a trade to Boston and the Big Three was formed.

Stylistically these three players seem to mesh well, and we all know that they have the fire. What is going to stop them from winning the east and playing for the championship? The common answer, supporting cast. However I do not think this will be the case and I think they will roll through the The eastern conference playoffs. Final eastern projections will come in the subsequent weeks

Updates, the Big three have looked good. So far they are 3-0 and have looked rather dominant.

NBA PREVIEW Part I

2007-10-31T13:17:00.001-04:00

Been slacking on the blog recently but I have a couple of post coming soon. Lucky for all of you, I am “that” guy and can whip out an NBA season preview in the matter of minutes. The NBA season is upon us suddenly and if you didn’t take time to prepare I can give you a quick update.

Top NBA Story lines (notice I didn’t say that I would choose 10, I think that is clichéd and it leads to writers and commentators reaching for additional story lines.)

K. O. B. E.

Let me throw this out there, Kobe WILL be traded. For who? For what? I think it is pretty obvious that Laker’s will not trade him within the conference unless they receive an offer they can not refuse (i.e. Amare and Nash for Kobe or Dirk and Josh Howard for Kobe). That brings us to the Eastern Conference. The team that has been garnering the most attention has been the Chicago Bulls (“Get a bulls jersey fellas”) and for good reason. It is one of the locations in which Kobe would approve a trade and also has the necessary cache of young talent and matching contracts. Well I can stop those thoughts right now that trade will not happen. First of all besides the fact that LA is not a Luol Deng city (insert Napoleon Dynamite “dang”). The two player’s that LA would need to get to approach fair value for Kobe, Deng and Ben Gordan have both refused 5 year $50 million dollar extensions within the last week. Why would the Laker’s trade for guys that they might not be able to keep? Also Chicago has a reluctance to include Deng in the deal which I for one am pretty confused by, Luol Deng or Kobe, Deng or Kobe. Tough Choice. I understand Deng has “TUP” and they are in love with his defense, “length” and “wingspan” but cmon. LA will not complete a trade with chicago with out Deng (insert Napoleon Dynamite “dang”).

If not Chicago then who? I didn’t think it could ever happen

The trade, Kobe to the pistons for Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince and Jason Maxiel and 2 first round draft picks. Why this will work. Kobe is sent out of the western conference and they Lakers are able to obtain some solid value for Bryant and get some young pieces. Think what you will but that’s just the way I see it. Issue number two of the NBA season will be discussed tomorrow.

I choose the Undergrad Bathroom

2007-10-25T17:34:00.000-04:00

Here's a random story about Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20;

So I was taking a piss in one of the two urinals in our bathroom. When I had come in, there was another dude taking a piss in the taller one so I went to the other one. I'm minding my own business when another dude comes up. So, naturally I look to my left. If I knew the guy I was prepared to give the little nod of acknowledgement. Well it turns out its Rob Thomas. So, I do a double take say, "How's it goin man," and go back to peeing.

He comes back with, "Dude, I'm happy you're using that urinal because you know what, I ain't hung down there, don't tell anyone." This is followed by about ten seconds of silence. It doesn't really say anything about me because there is a partition between the urinals, but geez, it just might be the single greatest reason to never talk while going to the bathroom, at least not to Rob Thomas.

As soon as Double Deuce recounted that story, I was immediately grateful that Thomas didn't pull a Craig on my good buddy. The public restroom is a dangerous place.

lets go to smokes

Dodger Blue

They'reGRRRRRRReat

Brett Favre Facts as told by Noe Burgos and Ravi Kantha

Bark like KG, Pierce like Paul

The Peasants Revolt!

MV Mamba

A Few QUick HIts

He Looks Like The Guy...

District Deliberations: On Today

District Deliberations: On Current Happenings

All black people do not look alike, but...

It's the one that says Bad Mother Fucker on it....Part Deux

Check my Wallet....which one's your wallet....The one that says bad ass motherfucker on it.

Madame Holly

District Deliberations: On the Rise of the Unlikely

Doubling Down to the Future

Doubling Down Part Deux of a 17,000 part series.

Double Down with Chiggy

District Deliberations: I'm Slacking...I Know

What it Means to be Fredo or Burning Out as Opposed to Fading Away

A Few Thoughts

Lady Katherine

Thoughts on New Awesome Websites/Videos

Wait! you have a blog? What do you write about? Me?

District Deliberations: Political Nonsensicals

Question That Need to be Asked Lest the World Never Find the Answers

Big News Day!!!

District Deliberations: More Winners & Losers

Ba(ra)ck To the Future

District Deliberations: Primary and Roger Dodger Edition

Sports News Weekend Roundup

Happy Trails Quittin' Mittens, Howdy Republican Nominee John McCain

District Deliberations: Winners & Losers (1=biggest)

Get a Suns Jersey Fellas

Fuck You's

17-14 = 18-1.....GIANTS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!

So I guess we might be a sports blog

Super Bowl

District Deliberations: And Another Two Bite The Dust

District Deliberations: On the State of the Union…address

Queens Queries--> NYFG O-LINE

Playoffs Guys and why ELI is good

I live, work and am friends with degenerates

The 1st District Deliberation

Football Soap Opera Digest Weekly; I Hate That There Is No Football This Weekend (senior bowl doesn't count...fuck colt brennan)

calling my shot. finally.

Football is Awesome because I hate French People

fucking Heath

January Thoughts

You Know That Guy (why i suck)

So much for a FLILF

I Have A Dreamsicle

I Have A Dreamsicle

Down Goes Federer Except Not

Why Evangelicals and Mormons (uber religious types) shouldn't run for president.

Whats up Man United?

Joint: Defined…

Hockey: Why is it not a major sport in America anymore?

Honey Bunches of Oats

Recapping the debates, primaries…

Top 5 Losses of the year

BCS postseason thoughts:

Letsgotosmokes, The league, Update part II

That Guy

The Trip

The Perfect Season

Sports: Saving the World one Kennel at a time

A New Festure entitled "One Line at a Time"

Holiday Roustabout: F*&* &/or Yeah

Corporate America II

NFL Roustabout: Roustabout Harder

Womanese!

"Letgotosmokes" The League

NBA PREVIEW PART III

The Roustabout: Next

Losers becoming winners in the 21st Century or Things Are Looking Up For Me

Rockie Fan v Eagles Fan

NBA PREVIEW Part II

NBA PREVIEW Part I

Holiday Roustabout: F& &/or Yeah