Sports Tzu

Thierry Henry - The Return of the King

2012-01-09T18:03:00.001-08:00

Full disclosure: I think Thierry Henry is one of the greatest footballers to ever play the game. There, now that that's over with, we can have a rational, measured conversation about his epic -- and the word epic must be applied here -- game-winning goal today in the FA Cup over Leeds. For those of you who don't follow the world of football as closely as I do, and for the smaller subset of you who don't follow Arsenal as closely as I do, Thierry Henry, in one of the most dramatic transfers in my memory, recently returned to Arsenal on a two-month loan deal from New York Red Bulls. If you don't know what that means to Arsenal fans, just type in "Thierry Henry" and "Arsenal" into YouTube and say goodbye to your weekend. The greatest striker to ever wear the red and white returned to his club for what was meant to be a squad boost to a depleted front line and a locker room boost for an inconsistent, youthful team. What it became today, after his epic game-winning goal (have I mentioned it was epic?) in the , was something out of a fucking J.R.R. Tolkien book. I would apologize for my language, but I'm so freaking excited about what happened today that words of all sorts of fire and density are spewing forth like magma from an erupting volcano (AHHH!). And to answer your inevitable question, yes, volcanoes are awesome, which is why I used one as a positive analogy.

But for all the superlative adjectives I could use to describe Thierry Henry's career, what he meant to Arsenal, and what him scoring a game-winning goal (epic) tonight has done for a frustrated, albeit slightly-spoiled, fanbase, most football fans know the "Thierry Henry story." Even the staunchest anti-Arsenal fan is a fan of Thierry Henry's body of work, because, well dammit, he's just that good. He played a match tonight at a stadium where they've already erected a statue of him.

So I'm going to avoid talking about Thierry Henry's brilliant career, and talk about something small, something so miniscule-beautiful (it's a thing), that it single-handedly expresses what I love about football. When Alex Song (circled in red) received a pass from Andrei Arshavin at the top of the box, he had a myriad of options ahead of him. In this frame, Thierry Henry is off camera to the bottom left, doing what he does best: Finding a gap in the defense.

Song could've kicked it ahead short to Arteta, swung it out wide to an open winger, or pushed it into tight space where Aaron Ramsey was waiting. But Song stepped up and held onto the ball patiently, waiting for the attack to open up in front of him. He pressed forward with the ball, sucking the defense toward him, which appeared to open up a few passing lanes. From here, he still held full control of the situation, but remained patient.

Song's options were to hit the streaking winger to the top right, who then could've fed a cross into the box; pass short with Ramsay and try to open up a one-two to push him deeper into the danger zone (squealing guitars), he could've lumped it back to Arshavin, who would've had a pretty good amount of space in front of him to either hit the cross-field winger on a diagonal or take a long shot (he's good at those), or he could've tried to lay a perfectly-weighted pass in the direction of a streaking Arteta who was hustling behind the first layer of defense, but instead, he checked up, bought himself a little more time, and waited for the real chance to open up for him. Notice the four defenders forming the back line. Where are their eyes? All on Song. This is important when you see the next frame. Let's just take a big breath here, because the next frame is so beautiful it needs to be seen twice. Once without my fucked-up scribbles, and then once with them so I can actually explain what made this moment so spectacular.

Do you see it? Alex Song sees it. He's still got loads of options too, and he's collapsed the front line of the defense in on him. He basically single-handedly froze eight players just from pushing forward and holding onto the ball. Had he made a different decision, to just quickly pass it off to someone else, this whole play would've broken down.

All right, now I'll show you the same frame but with some scribbles. Get excited.

You'll notice the winger at the top right now, his arms raised, begging for the ball. What the hell? Why do people do that?! NFL receivers, Kobe Bryant, and wingers. They're all the bloody same. They all want the ball and they throw fits when they don't get it. But Alex Song is in no position to pass to that winger, and, frankly, even if he did manage to get it out wide, the left back would've had plenty of time to close and the winger would've, at best, managed to thump a cross into traffic. They're set up well to defend the cross, just not the player who snuck his way into the frame. See the circle there? That's Thierry Henry. That's one of the greatest players in the history of English football. He's completely unmarked. They're not even watching him. They're just locked onto Alex Song and the ball. And Thierry Henry, who just came back from holiday in Mexico two weeks ago, is hardly match-fit, and probably shouldn't have even played in this match, has such tremendous instincts that he immediately recognized the diagonal and made a run so sweet it should be watched and emulated by strikers around the world; it should be played over-and-over again by youth coaches to show their young strikers what a run is. He has to time it PERFECTLY, there can be no error at all, because if he times it wrong, he'll be offside and the whole thing could come crumbling to a halt. But he spotted the gap, took the chance, and we're all now better off today than we were yesterday having witnessed it.

(Also, I'd like to show this to you from a different angle, to shut up those conspiracy theorists among you who would try to ruin this incredible moment by shouting offsides. There, suck it.)

All right, back to the action.

Song threads a brilliant pass through four defenders and hits Thierry in stride. Snapshot aficionados will notice I've put an X through the winger again. He's fucking persistent, isn't he? The ball is already on the way to Thierry F&#%ing Henry, and he's still shouting for the ball. Put your hands down. Just watch. That's what the defenders will be doing in a couple seconds.

Thierry receives the ball and flicks it up in the air with a deft touch that brings tears to my eyes (his first touch is the opposite of Nicklas Bendtner's), stopping a difficult pass with tremendous skill and laying it out in perfect position at his feet. While he's running. While defenders are chasing him and a goalkeeper is about to come out toward him to close the distance. Thierry Henry's got some big ones, doesn't he?

Henry opens his body up, giving him a secondary angle to the far post, but he splits the goal in half and essentially leaves the keeper with a bit of a conundrum (left or right? Hmm!). Now, I've seen other strikers miss this shot so many times I've lost count. I've seen it smacked against the side netting, lofted over the keeper, rolled wide right (Theo Walcott's favorite one), or even just kicked right at the keeper. But I had no doubt what was going to happen when Thierry got in this position, and you can see an Arsenal player sprinting forward with his hands raised already. Apparently, he's done his Thierry homework like the rest of us (minus the defenders, who obviously watched a few MLS matches last year and thought Henry was a horse headed for the glue factory).

Look at it. Just soak it in. Let that beautiful shot make love to your eyes. Let the outstretched keeper toil in infinite space and time, the ball already behind him, 60,000 fans in mid-leap, the game, once tied, a millisecond away from being over.

Voila. The money shot. Henry sprinted down the touchline, his arms spread wide in unexpected -- but strangely expected, too -- glory. His teammates tried to mob him, but Thierry kept running down the sideline, shouting passionately at the home fans who've shown him decades worth of love and adoration. He looked like he'd just won at "Gladiator" (I'm really good at Roman history, obviously), and as he ran down the sideline, he embraced his coach, Arsene Wenger, the way a child hugs his dad after his first home run. It was fucking epic, and I got misty. It could've have been written any better.

That goal is why I love football, not just tactically, but because of the drama and the strategy behind something so simple as a well-timed run behind a weary defense. Thierry Henry is why I love football. And I'm sure as hell glad to have him back in an Arsenal jersey.

Quick Takes - Secret Santa, psychosis, and sports!

2011-12-20T15:31:00.000-08:00

I'm very glad you're alive.

I received a mystery gift on my desk today. It's not a small gift, either. It's quite larger than most gifts I receive. But I have to admit, I'm afraid to open it. Not because I want to keep the spirit of Christmas alive in my heart by waiting until Dec. 25th to open it. No. I'm more afraid that it's some sort of mail bomb, left by a mortal enemy who thought a finely-wrapped present would be a brilliant way to blow my face off. It's got hand-curled ribbons, people. If that doesn't say crazy I don't know what does.

I'll probably just have some holiday beer and open it later.

That reminds me of a weird story, about a "fan" who tried to kill Bjork. I can't fathom why anyone would want to kill Bjork -- she's an Icelandic fairy princess sent from the netherworlds to ease us into death with her haunting music -- but one particular fan thought it would be a great idea to mail her an acid-spraying bomb and end her musical career/life. He filmed himself making the bomb, filmed himself mailing the bomb, which I bet was the least-riveting part of his one-man documentary, and then he filmed himself blowing his brains out with a gun. A happy ending for all. Of course, the police intercepted the acid-spraying bomb and saved Bjork from an untimely death, which is awesome of the police to have done (Biophilia ruled). But what brings so-called "fans" to try to murder the people they love? And why doesn't that type of stuff happen very often in sports?

I'm not calling for it to start, obviously; I'm thrilled that crazy people seem to avoid sporting events, but outside of a few rare instances (like the Iraqi football player who was shot and killed on the field a couple years ago by an incensed "fan" after missing a crucial penalty), the crazies have left sports alone. Maybe it's because athletes, while otherworldly in physical traits, don't make the type of mental and emotional impact on people that musicians and artists do. When you watch an athlete, you're watching someone do something physically extraordinary. When you watch a musician or an artist, you're watching someone create. And while those two lines can blur with especially gifted athletes (Michael Jordan comes to mind), athletes are usually following a script more than writing one. They're fulfilling the strategies of their coaches, they're fulfilling the promise of their physical skills. I don't want to discredit athletes with this discussion either; athletes are incredibly creative and exploratory within their sports, and in order to transcend into "greatness" they have to tap into the emotional collective of the fanbase and their peers, but artists connect with people and people connect with artists on a different level. Whereas in sports, people connect with teams, and occasionally players, but more for the joy of watching them perform exceptional feats than for what they do to inspire and intrigue.

The Texas Rangers have won the negotiating rights to Japanese star pitcher Yu Darvish after posting a winning bid of $51.7 million. The Rangers will now have 30 days to sign Darvish to an MLB contract, or they'll get their money back and Darvish will go back to Japan. Damn. That's a lot of money. The Rangers said they didn't want to start out the bidding by "insulting" Darvish and his Japanese Club, The Nippon Ham Fighters (who I assume have some sort of pig mascot ...), by posting a bid lower than what the Red Sox paid in the Daisuke Matsuzaka sweepstakes years ago, but, come on people, it's baseball! Isn't there something better we could do for Japan than give one of their baseball clubs $50 million? There's still a ton of clean-up left to do from the earthquake and tsunami; what if the Rangers had made a bid of $25 million to NPHF (Neil Patrick Harris' Fighters) with a promise to donate the other $25 million they would've paid for Darvish's services to a tsunami relief fund? Did I just blow your minds?
A transformer blew at Candlestick Park last night, just minutes before the game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers was set to start, and it left both fans and players in the dark. The players, however, were in the locker room, which prompted a delightful question and response between a member of the media and 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh. Media: "Coach, what was it like in the locker room [after the lights went out]?" Harbaugh: "... It was dark."
And people wonder why the newspaper industry collapsed.
If you're wondering if there's such a thing as the East Coast Bias, this morning, the day after the 49ers routed the nation's beloved Steelers 20-3 in prime time, ESPN talking heads were still debating whether or not the Steelers are Super Bowl favorites (or at least in the top three after Green Bay and New Orleans). I think an NFC West team could win the Super Bowl and national broadcasters would still be arguing about how much better the AFC East is.
I was listening to the radio last night, and the local sports station, 710 ESPN, had their "Hot Stove League Show" on, where they were discussing everything under the sun (rain?) about the Seattle Mariners. When they got to Franklin Gutierrez, the light-hitting/great-defending center fielder for the Mariners, they decided that if Gutierrez can hit "12-15 homeruns with a .260 batting average" next year, then he'll be a top player for the team and worthy of a contract extension. Those of you outside of Seattle who are reading this probably just did a double-take ("Is that for a whole season?"), but things have gotten so bad here offensively that, when I heard it the first time, my reaction was, "Fifteen homeruns would be AMAZING!" Good thing we've spent all winter beefing up that offense.
Jimmy Rollins apparently turned down more money from the Milwaukee Brewers to stay with the Philadelphia Phillies: "You have to take everything in consideration when you've been somewhere since you were 17. To go somewhere new, at this part of my career, you feel like a rented player because you weren't part of the process of building the team up. From the first day I got here in the big leagues, it was about making this team a contender and then a champion. Those things have been accomplished, the champion part not as often as I would've liked. Obviously, when money is on the table, and it's guaranteed, it's tempting. But you think of everything else that you've done and what you will be able to do going forward and where it makes sense for you to do those things." ... Albert Pujols does not compute.

Quick Takes - The real Santa

2011-12-19T11:40:00.000-08:00

This is a test, children. Keep it together.

I was walking around downtown Seattle on Saturday, trying to immerse myself in the holiday spirit that comes with hundreds of thousands of people crammed together in a tight space. It's cozier that way. There was a huge line of people waiting to take their picture with Santa in Nordstrom's, and yet, only a few feet away, sat another Santa, a lonelier Santa, who struggled to find a willing child to sit in his waiting lap. Could it have been his hand-scrawled cardboard sign that read "Photos with Santa" in a depressing scratch? Could it have been his thin, ragged beard patched with flecks of grey? Or maybe it was his dirty costume that hung off his body like skin on a skeleton. Whatever it was (if not a combination of the three), there were a lot of people wasting their time in the Nordstrom's line when they could've had a much more authentic experience with the sidewalk Santa.

The real Santa isn't all about the flashing lights and lengthy lines. He doesn't want to make children cry out of fear or devour their parents' wallets with overpriced prints. He wouldn't try to recreate some plasticized North Pole that makes a mockery out of his world and the hard work his elves really do. The real Santa would've been that guy on the corner; a quaint sign in his spotted hand, tired and weary from busting his ass making toys for the entire world, seeking only the true of heart to sit on his warm (hopefully not from urine) lap.

Everyone who walked by the real Santa to wait in a line filled with gluttony, selfishness, and greed will surely have failed the big guy's test. Don't people get it? Wouldn't that just be so brilliant of Santa? To put two Santas across from one another -- one shiny and corporate sponsored, and another, with a cardboard sign and a smelly coat -- and test out who really cares about Christmas, who really appreciates the spirit of the season. It's like some sort of religious moral story that the entire city failed, and, if you look at demographics data from the country, that means ~75% of those people who walked by that hangdog Santa were god-fearing Christians who are preparing for what's supposed to be their f*#&ing World Series of charity and kindness! But no, no, it's better that you have the fancy Santa from the fancy Nordstrom's so your gold-plated scrapbook isn't jeopardized.

Just realized that if Justin Bieber had been the halftime entertainment during the game between Tom Brady's New England Patriots and Tim Tebow's Denver Broncos, our species would no longer have been viable after every young girl in the world exploded.
According to a source, Jacksonville Jaguars' owner Wayne Weaver's added a clause in the contract of his sale of the team to Shahid Khan in which Khan must pay $25 million to a charity of Weaver's choice if he moves the team from Jacksonville within five years of purchase. Hey, Sonics fans, does this sound familiar? Clay Bennett (*spit*) had to agree to pay the city of Seattle ~$50 million if Seattle didn't get a new franchise within a certain timeframe after "relocating" the team to Oklahoma City (*spit*). Of course it didn't happen, and of course Bennett was more than willing to give up $50 million for an asset worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and I'm sure Khan will have no problem parting with $25 million for the huge financial boon of moving the team to a better market. Do these owners think we're stupid? Or are they just used to throwing cash at their problems to make them go away?
Throwing cash at a problem to make it go away is also known as "Pulling a Kobe."
Although Kobe Bryant's wife did just file for divorce, so I guess his $4 million dollar "whoopsie" ring was just a Band-Aid. That's an expensive-ass Band-Aid though. I buy the cheap Kroger ones.
ESPN has announced that ESPN college football analyst/whiny dad/Texas Tech saboteur Craig James is running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Texas. If elected, his first order of business will be to make his son the starting wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers.
The New York Knicks have allegedly signed the waived-carcass of Baron Davis to a veteran minimum contract. Did they need someone to direct a documentary about the team's season? I can't think of any other reason to sign Baron Davis.
The Indianapolis Colts avoided a winless season the same day the Green Bay Packers lost out on an undefeated season. I think we know which team got their pictures taken with the real Santa.
Barry Bonds has been sentenced to two years of probation, 250 hours of community service, a $4,000 fine, and 30 days of home confinement for Federal charges of obstruction of justice. Seems like a bit of a light sentence, eh? For contextual purposes, let me just leave Bonds' estimated earnings over the course of his MLB career right here: $188,245,322. Boy, he's really going to think hard about what he's done.
I want to clear up a potentially-awkward situation: Yesterday I sent a message over Twitter to my friend Kevin, a Bears fan, that said, "Go Seahawks!" I was not watching the game at the time I sent that message, and it was only after I sent it that I realized that Bears WR Johnny Knox had just been taken off the field on a stretcher after being hit by the aforementioned Seahawks. Whoops. Can I buy all you Bears fans $4 million rings so you'll keep reading?

Quick Takes - Medium-to-Long Takes

2011-12-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

Get on with it!

There have been some complaints from my faithful readers (the two of you), that my Quick Takes are no longer "quick," but have morphed, instead, into something more akin to Medium-to-Long Takes. I apologize profusely for wasting your time with extra words. We are all busy folks with much to see and do on the Internet (especially if you're my friend Steve, who has gone to corners of the Internet the Japanese couldn't even imagine), and my meandering stream-of-consciousness rants are devouring your daily consumables. It will stop today. I promise. I'm not just going to ramble on about the daily sports news anymore, wandering through my brain like, well, like Steve wanders through the Internet (if you haven't guessed, I'm referring to weird pornography). You want hard facts, you want the ADD version of the sports world, because that's what you've grown accustomed to. ESPN delivers the news in bite-sized versions: A streaming ticker with one-sentence stories running 24-hours a day, sound bites, 30-second timers on talk shows before being forced to move on to the next subject by some obnoxious buzzer. We want our news like we want our needles, quick and bloodless.

But I like blood, dammit. Whenever I get a shot (I make it sound like it happens a lot ... it really doesn't), I always watch the doctor put the needle in, I watch them push the tubes up into the suction release and I marvel at how quickly they fill up. It's cool that we can just drain our own blood and it has almost no impact on our bodies. Blood? Pshh! That's what our bodies think, and that's what I think too. Which is why I profoundly rescind my apology and will venture forth writing Quick Takes however I please! "Quick" is an arbitrary term anyway, so either you need to re-define your definition or just learn to read faster. There are a lot of books available on speed reading (although that could be a frustrating medium to choose to learn that subject). I'm sure it's a useful skill. Not in the post-apocalypse or anything, but maybe if you're trying to ... read faster.

I weigh all skills against their usefulness in the post-apocalypse, and, surprisingly, speed reading isn't high on my list.

I want to further refine my argument yesterday about steroids, without getting too much into detail (I have a beast of a pro-steroids article cooking and don't want to waste it on a medium-to-long take). When I say I don't care about steroids, what I'm really saying is that the arbitrary decision to exclude steroids from professional sports is hypocritical and pointless in the grand scheme. Ignoring the fact that sports stars from the dawn of sport have used enhancers to supplement their above-average talents, the way leagues and Congress (who shouldn't be involved in the first place) have decided to put steroids in the cross hairs, while all sorts of other performance enhancers are allowed and legal, is just idiotic. Tiger Woods recently said he'd used PRP (blood spinning) to overcome knee and tendon injuries in the past, where doctors remove a small amount of the patient's blood, concentrate the platelets and growth factors, and then inject them at the site of an injury to promote healing. That's legal, but steroids aren't. That's legal, but blood doping isn't, where a patient essentially incubates his blood in a higher-oxygen environment and then has them reinjected into the body just before an event to sustain longer endurance and activity. We're just throwing darts here, people, and steroids have become the easy scapegoat to try to show fans that the leagues promote physical fairness. But steroids are an external enhancement, just like the insane supplements athletes take, the energizers, the muscle-builders, etc., they're all external enhancements. I could write about this for days, so I'll just end it with this: If an adult athlete wants to take steroids to perform better at his job, and he's willing to risk his own long-term health for the short-term benefits of increased performance (and increased $$$), then I say go for it. It's already happening, and players are already taking them (and not taking them, don't forget), so just stop the ridiculous parade; stop pretending like you care about athletes' health and the messages you're sending to kids and let these already-talented, already-above-average physical specimens do what they feel is necessary to compete at the highest level. Most will choose their health, but for those who don't, let them make that choice. You're already letting them make the choice to get concussions, to damage their brains, to become obese to play certain positions in the NFL, you're already letting them make the choice to take powerful enhancements and nutritional supplements, and you're already shooting them up with cortisone, vitamins, etc. and giving them pure oxygen and chemical solutions to give them energy and sharpen their senses so they can play at their best during a game, even if they're so injured they shouldn't be able to stand. Steroids are meaningless.
I think I just blew my pro-steroids article on a medium-to-long take. Oh well.
The New Orleans Sterns have finally traded away Chris Paul. After vetoing a deal to send him to the Lakers, then vetoing another deal to send him to the Clippers, the league agreed to send him to ... the Clippers! The Sterns will receive three players and a first round pick and will give up Paul and two worse picks. So it seems like everyone makes out okay. Everyone except Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who incurred a net loss on players he can creep out.
Chicago Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd was arrested at a steakhouse in Chicago last night on federal drug charges. Hurd told a CI (confidential informant ... I know what that means because of "Dexter") that he wanted to buy "five to 10 kilograms of cocaine and 1,000 pounds of marijuana per week for distribution in the Chicago area," according to a report by ESPN's Michael Wright, and now faces serious criminal charges. Hurd first came on the police's radar after a man was stopped with $88,000 in cash, intent on purchasing cocaine, while driving a car belonging to Hurd. The man told police that the car and money belonged to Hurd. Authorities confiscated the money, and Hurd contactedthem to get the money back. He called the police to get his drug money back! Awesome! You didn't see that on "The Wire," did you?
There are very few rivalries in sports as fun as Blackhawks-Canucks. And things have picked up a lot of steam lately with both teams using the media to trash one another. After Chicago center Dave Boland talked shit about the creepy Sedin twins, Vancouver head coach Alain Vigenault responded: "When you have comments like Bolland's, he's obviously an individual whose IQ is probably the size of a bird seed, and he has a face that only a mother can look at." It's a great attempt at trash talk, and he does well with the Monty Python-esque kicker at the end, but, dammit, he really lost it when he compared a measurable statistic to a physical object. I know what he was trying to say, but go with, "His brain is the size of a bird seed," or, "His IQ is quite low for his age," but don't say his IQ (measurable mental statistic) is the size (physical trait) of a bird seed (physical object). Let's just chalk this one up to him being French-Canadian.
This, right here, is what's wrong with the NBA, from an ESPN Truehoop article on young Clippers (now Hornets) guard Eric Gordon: "[Clippers head coach] Mike Dunleavy repeatedly begged Gordon, who loves to absorb contact off the dribble, to be more expressive with referees so he could earn more trips to the line." I hope David Stern falls in a chocolate river and can't be saved for what he's done to the NBA.

Quick Takes - Sigmund Newton

2011-12-14T10:13:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2011 NFL Rookie of the Year!

I am fascinated by dreams. I think they open a window into the subconscious that nothing else can. But then sometimes I have dreams that don't make any sense; that can't be gleaned for their symbolism to better understand my subconscious. I had one of those dreams last night, and it involved Cam Newton.

I was at a baseball field, "Sandlot" style, with a bunch of people I didn't know ... plus Cam Newton. Cam was on the other team, and he was so much bigger and stronger than everyone else that it almost seemed unfair to be playing sports against him. Should we be playing a game together that involves any sort of physical exercise? Can't we just go toe-to-toe digitally so that I can have the advantage? But no, we were going to play baseball and there was nothing I could do to convince anyone otherwise. But Cam was, as expected, completely unstoppable and everyone quickly lost interest in the game. I decided I'd had enough of his showboating and ... success ... and started to play dirty. I threw pitches at his giant head. I would try to trip him as he ran the bases. I was saying horrible things about him and being a massive douche at every opportunity. There was no explanation for it, other than that I hate losing. But after I'd tripped him for like the 300th time and buried his face in the gravely dirt, something came over me: Guilt? Remorse? A deeper understanding of my own fears and insecurities?

Cam stood up and said, "Man, can't we just play?" And my whole body sunk into a black hole (if it were a real black hole it wouldn't "sink," the gravitational pull would've ... well, you get it) of embarrassment. He turned out to be the nicest human ever (NHE) and I started weeping. Yep, I started weeping. And I was fully grown in this dream. I was current me, which makes this dream even more awesome. I had worked so hard to demonize him and make him look like an idiot, I had worked so hard to try to win, that I had become something I wasn't (damn, I sound like LeBron James right now). He saw me crying and said, "Whoa, it's okay, dude! It's just a game! Just ... don't trip me anymore, okay?" And I rubbed my nose clean like a 6 year old and said, "Okay," and then I walked around the field and shook every opposing player's hand and said I was sorry through tears. The rest of the game was fun, but I don't think I'm going to get invited back to that field ever again.

Here's a fun stat for you: Tim Tebow is dead last in the NFL in QBR (ESPN's comprehensive Quarterback Rating system) for the first three quarters of a game. He's also first in QBR during the fourth quarter. Maybe NFL teams should stop changing their defenses in the fourth quarter to try to manage a slender lead and keep attacking like they do in the first three quarters. I know. I'm an idiot. I'll go back to my cage now.
Steelers linebacker James Harrison was suspended one game by the NFL for yet another nasty hit on a quarterback, this time for lowering his head and going helmet-to-helmet with Colt McCoy, who had to leave the game with a concussion. Harrison was flabbergasted by the suspension and wrote a note on Twitter to show his dismay: "LOL." He also said that he isn't going to stop playing the way he plays because he tried it once and it "felt awkward," which is a good reason to continue putting peoples' careers in jeopardy.
If Ryan Braun's positive test for performance enhancing drugs is confirmed, should his MVP award be given to someone else? I've been thinking about that a lot lately, ever since news came out of Braun's alleged failed test during the playoffs this year. Steroids are obviously still a huge part of professional sports, despite dwindling prevalence in the post-steroid era of McGwire and Sosa, but the leagues are delusional if they think anything less than a lifetime suspension is going to work as a deterrent. The sad fact is that steroids provide results, and results provide paychecks and awards and records and Hall of Fame ceremonies, and if you happen to get caught, people will eventually forgive and forget (unless you're Alex Rodriguez, but that's just because nobody likes him). If Braun did take steroids, part of me says, "So what?" If he's willing to do something like that to his body for the potential benefits of a successful sports career, and I shouldn't have to remind anyone that he's an adult, then why does it matter? (Other than the fact that steroids are illegal, but so is marijuana ... just because something's marked 'illegal' by the government doesn't make it wrong). People have been cheating for years in sports -- there are more Hall of Famers in Cooperstown who cheated one way or another than those who didn't -- and you can do whatever you want to police it and remove it from the game, but players will always find another way to get the competitive advantage. The reward is worth the risk in their eyes. Just look at Ryan Braun. He just won the freaking MVP of the National League. He's got a massive paycheck and he'll be able to take care of himself and his kids and his kids' kids because of that risk. So, personally, I don't care about steroids. There, I said it. I don't care about steroids.
Cleveland Browns president (and former Seahawks coach!) Mike Holmgren said that quarterback Colt McCoy was not checked for a concussion after being hit by the aforementioned James Harrison last Thursday night. McCoy came out of the game for two plays and then popped right back in. The NFL would be the worst doctor ever: "Doctor, my chest is on fire and I can't feel my left arm." Hmm, what's your name, son? "Erik." All right, he's cured! And here's the keys to my Porsche, feel free to drive as fast and recklessly as you can with it in that school zone around the corner.
Manchester City players dressed up for a Christmas Party. Just bizarre. Also, they call Waldo from the "Where's Waldo?" series "Wally" in England? Who knew! Is that really necessary? Is Wally more approachable than Waldo in Britain? That'd be like us calling Harry Potter "Harlo Potter" in America, just for the hell of it. It's a name, people, I think it can survive the cultural divide.
Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss, Jr. wrote about an incredible encounter he had with LeBron James in 2010. Now, I've never been a fan of James, even when he was the golden child in Cleveland. His decision with "The Decision" was absurd and oblivious, and his attitude with the Miami Heat last year were immature and, I think, showed a lot about his true character. But, my word, this story just blows me away: "I've seen a lot of entourages, but none like his. In July 2010 I got an assignment from Nike to shoot LeBron right after his TV special announcing his move to the Heat. We rented the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, where the Lakers and the Clippers used to play, and there were 53 people on my crew -- including hair and makeup artists, production people, a stylist. I had $10,000 in Hollywood lighting. It was huge. When LeBron arrived, it was as if Nelson Mandela had come in. Six or seven blacked-out Escalades pulled up, a convoy. LeBron had bodyguards and his masseuse. His deejay was already there, blasting. This for a photo shoot that was going to last an hour, tops.This is how crazy it was: I wasn't even allowed to talk directly to LeBron. There was a liaison, someone from Amar'e Stoudemire's family. I would say to him, 'O.K., have LeBron drive right,' and then he'd turn to LeBron and say, 'LeBron, go right.'" Is LeBron James Tom Haverford in disguise?

Quick Takes - Battlebots thoughts

2011-12-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Prince Fielder hitting a homerun off C.J. Wilson?

The offseason is my favorite part of sports. I enjoy the offseason far more than the actual season, which maybe tells me that I don't really like sports, I just like the construction of sports teams. I've never thought about it in those terms before. I mean, I certainly enjoy watching sports and have since I was a little kid, and I love going to games and reading about games, but the games were just a byproduct of the transactions and decisions of the front office and the strategies and implementation of the coaching system. Each player is an essential component of a robot, and the game is just the Battlebots arena (awesome show, remember?!) where you finally get to see if that circular saw was a better choice than the BFH: The last word is hammer, I'll let you guess what the first two are. Right now, Major League Baseball is in the thick of the offseason, and I'm so freaking excited about possible transactions that it almost doesn't even register to me that the players actually have to play games next year. If the team makes the right transactions, can't we just pump the players' attributes into a computer and simulate the season? That way we can get to another offseason for more trades and free agent signings!

I think that type of thinking comes from the video game generation. And I'm not one to throw that "video game generation" nonsense out there lightly. I'm a part of that over-stereotyped and under-appreciated group. But we've had the luxury of playing games that let us simulate seasons so we could focus entirely on the offseason. Developers even made games (like Football Manager) that take the actual day-to-day gameplay out entirely and, instead, give you control over every aspect of a franchise, down to the janitors' salaries to the color paint you want the stadium to be. And now, sports games even let you simulate through the parts of the game that you don't want to play, so you can just play offense with your favorite NFL franchise and let the computer simulate the defense. You can just hit with the Seattle Mariners (they need the help), and you never have to bother laboring through boring pitching mechanics. We expect immediate results and responses from our sports now, and that translates a bit into how we consume them as fans.

That isn't to say I like the offseason more than the regular season because I'm a drone whose decisions are completely out of my own hands. I like the offseason because it aligns with what I enjoy the most about sports (the strategics before the battle), not because I'm a pre-programmed robot who's been taught to consume offseasons. But that doesn't mean I don't have a video game hangover either. I expect my teams' GMs to be pulling strings left and right to make my teams better. Imagine that. What's the wait?! Just go ... DO SOMETHING! That's how I feel, and it's completely absurd and unfair at times to expect, but real GMs are playing with completely different money than I am. Their jobs, their legacies, their careers are at stake, as well as the happiness of fans and the financial sustainability of the franchise, and when I'm at home playing armchair GM, my kittens' happiness is at stake if I can't sign that wunderkind striker from a tiny Tippeligaen team to join the Arsenal. The risk is null for me, and it's massive for them. But risk avoidance can be a crippling factor for a professional sports team; it's often the crippling factor that takes a successful franchise and turns it into a "rebuilding" joke. People become afraid to spend money or take chances on players, and so you end up with a constant recycling of the same mediocre talent through the league-wide system because it's safe and predictable.

That's the draw of the offseason though. It's finding players who can make your team better. Not just better, but playoffs-better. Finding players who are risky -- whether financially or schematically -- and watching the story unfold. In video games, we just simulate through that story because the immediate response from the system is there to tell us if our decisions are right. But in the real world, we have to watch each game, measure each season, and determine after multiple years whether or not our teams made the right decisions. It sounds more like politics than sports, but that's what makes the offseason so intriguing, it's that decisions are so volatile, but can also take so much time to seed, that impatience takes over for logic and reason.

The Kansas City Chiefs fired head coach Todd Haley with three games to go in the season, less than one year after Haley led the Chiefs to a division title (the Dolphins also fired their coach, Tony Sparano, after trying to hire someone else while he was still under contract last year, missing out on replacing him, and rewarding him with a "sorry" contract extension that they will now have to pay him as severance). A letter to NFL teams constantly shuffling in and out new coaches: Stop it. It doesn't work. Coaching, really anything, is about consistency. Coaches and players need time to learn and grow within a system built for their success. If you don't have that system, then sure, go in a different direction, but the persistent impatience doesn't help anyone be successful. Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski wasn't all that successful when he first started coaching basketball at the D1 level, now he's the winningest coach in NCAA basketball history. It takes time, people. I think coaching is really about two things 1) the right system, and 2) the right players. That's it. The first one is much easier to attain; NFL coaches are all at the level they're at because they understand the game and know how to win, while the second one is a completely random clusterfuck of chance, good luck, bad luck, and players' personal decisions and commitments to being great. If the team is failing, it can definitely be a systematic issue where the coach needs to be replaced, but I think losing (and winning) is based far more on personnel than coaching.
The NBA and David Stern have bollocksed a second Chris Paul trade from their league-owned New Orleans Hornets, this time with the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clippers offered up a boatload of players, prospects, and picks for Paul (too ... many ... Ps), but the league wanted more, and the Clippers backed out. David Stern will apparently have his cake and eat it too. And then eat your cake. And the cake of that little crying orphan over there. And that baby celebrating its first birthday? That cake's just going in the trash. Perfectly edible. Stern's just really full and doesn't want anyone else to get to taste cake.
I think NBA fans should file a class action lawsuit against David Stern for emotional damages.
After the Denver Broncos won in overtime against the Chicago Bears on a 51-yard field goal by Matt Prater (who also hit a 59-yarder to send the game to OT), cameras zoomed to find Tim Tebow, who let out a war cry and then yelled, "Thank you, lord!" How about, "Thank you, Matt Prater"?!?!
The New York Mets were granted a $40 million bank loan from Bank of America to continue operations until minority shares in the team can be sold. The team also took a $25 million loan from the league last year, which it has still yet to repay. Call me crazy, but don't you think you should have to pay off your first loan before taking out a second loan twice as large? Did the New York Mets consider filling out a FAFSA?
Albert Pujols' wife is pissed and telling everyone about it. After her husband accepted a $250 million deal to join the Angels, people in St. Louis gave Pujols guff about abandoning them and the city that gave so much to him. But Mrs. Pujols said the Cardinals lowballed them (for five yrs./$130 million ...), and that, "When [the fan backlash] came down, I was mad. I was mad at God because I felt like all the signs that had been played out through the baseball field, our foundation, our restaurant, the Down Syndrome Center, my relationships, my home, my family close. I mean, we had no reason, not one reason, to want to leave. People were deceived by the numbers." She's mad at god! Holy shit! We have a breakthrough! A religious person is actually blaming god for something (even though she's blaming him for ... her husband only being offered $130 million instead of $250 million ... or something ...), instead of falling on her sword and saying that moving away from everything they've known and loved for a better paycheck is all part of god's plan. This moment should be studied!
Amidst all the Aaron Rodgers zealotry, Drew Brees is putting together his own impressive season. Brees has 4,368 yards thus far, which puts him on pace to break Dan Marino's single-season passing yardage record. Plus, Brees is going to be on Sesame Street this Thursday! Top that, Aaron Rodgers!
Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher is taking an extended break from football because of a battle with ulcerative colitis. While it's always great to see Manchester United go down a man, especially the obnoxious Scotsman Fletcher, I'm really going to miss uncontrollably repeating "Fletchahhh" in an obnoxious British accent every time an announcer says his name.

Quick Takes - The Death Driving Circuit

2011-12-12T12:53:00.000-08:00

These guys get it.

I often wonder what sports will be like in the future. I wonder if the modern day sports even can be played in the future; if they'll even be transferable to some future Matrix-y world where people are consuming better, faster, more vivid information and entertainment. Will sports have to adapt and become more connected, more fast-paced, more violent and aggressive? Or is their stoic simplicity what has keep them surviving in our current era? Baseball has changed very little in the last 100+ years. The players have changed a lot, to be sure, and the stadiums have shrunk, but the game itself (and the fan experience, to a certain extent) makes baseball something of instant nostalgia. The same could be said for most sports. There's a consistency that allows their history to remain current and their core games to stay mostly untouched by idle hands. But is that sustainable? The one example I always think about is Nascar. Some people love Nascar, sure, but a dwindling fanbase and dwindling TV ratings have shown that Nascar is a "sport" in decline. The same could be said for boxing, although boxing has been sent to the nursing home by something bigger, stronger, faster, and more violent (more Daft Punk?), as opposed to Nascar, whose self-contained boredom seems to be forcing even the most die-hard fans to trim their mullets. But that's really the point. Boxing seems so tame compared to MMA, and fans have mostly rejected boxing for its grotesque counterpart.

There was a terrible movie that came out a few years ago, "Death Race," about a future world where convicted prisoners had to race and battle in suped-up cars for their freedom (or something ... let's be honest, I saw it once, and it didn't leave the deepest impression on my vinyl). While the movie is nearly unwatchable, unless for its unintentional comedy, I really feel like they were onto something though. If you want to make something like car racing watchable, make it hilariously-violent. Add jumps, spikes, cannons, machine guns, trap doors, tigers, whatever. That's how car racing will survive into the next century; that's what people want to watch and will shell out their hard-earned cash to see on Pay Per View. Nobody watches Nascar for the racing, they watch it for the crashes and the post-crash handbags. So just ... get on with it. You know? They don't even have to be convicted felons on death row, they can just be crazy people who volunteer (not actual mental patients though, that would be beyond disgusting to do) to participate in our death driving circuit (DDC!). Think of the heroism, the intrigue, the highlights! I'm not even a violent person, and I don't enjoy watching it in really any form (except theatrical), but how could you not watch it? At least once! It's like bull fighting, only the bulls are people, and they're volunteering, and there are guns and lasers and explosions (I think I just fixed bullfighting too).

That works for car racing, but would it translate to the unshakable beacons of human sport: Baseball, basketball, football(s)? Would exploding baseballs and land mines work? Would people want to see their favorite NFL player's leg get caught in a bear trap? I don't think so (maybe their least favorite player ...). I think the difference is that those other sports have remained mostly-unchanged and successful for as long as they have because the sports are already fun and exciting at their core. You can tweak, and you should tweak, but a full futuristic renovation will lose what's already beloved. While the technology and methods of fan consumption will surely change, the actual gameplay of our great human sports will probably stay the same. Unless we're talking golf and tennis; time to spice those bastards up.

The Yankees have apparently won exclusive negotiation rights with Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima with a $2 million bid. A star in Nippon Professional Baseball, Nakajima now has 30 days to negotiate a contract with the Yankees, else they lose their $2 million and their rights to the player. As a Mariners fan, I have to say, I'm the tiniest bit pissed off about this thing. I know I shouldn't expect every top Japanese player to end up in Seattle, and I'm not sure Ichiro wants to share the spotlight either, but for a measly $2 million bid (we've spent more on stupid free ballpark giveaways), the Mariners could've worked out a deal with a young Japanese star, at a position of need for the club, in the best market imaginable for his talents. I would've tossed some cash at a Kickstarter project to sign him for f*&%'s sake.
When the Chicago Bears were up 10-0 heading into the fourth quarter against the Denver Broncos, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that Tim Tebow was going to do something to orchestrate another late-game win for his team. I watched the score creep closer to equal on my phone while I drifted around the mall, soaking in the "holiday spirit" (ahhh shopping!). When the Bears gave the ball back to the Broncos up 10-7 with less than two minutes left, there was no doubt in my mind that game was, at the very least, going to overtime. Why the hell did I expect that? The easy answer is probability, but let's just call it religious magic instead. And sure enough, the game went to overtime, and as I walked deeper into the pit of the Christmas season (ahhh buying stuff!), there was a crowd of people huddled around a bank of TVs in the mall. It was all men, and they were all watching Broncos kicker Matt Prater line up a 51-yard field goal to win the game for the Broncos in overtime (Matt Prater for MVP?). My first thought was, "You can take a man out of his home, but he'll just recreate it somewhere else," and my second was, "This guy standing next to me in sweatpants yelling profanities at whoever would hear him is not safe." The kick went through, the Broncos won again, Tim Tebow thanked the lord profusely (He's a Broncos fan), and I slipped away from psycho-sweatpants and hid in a Gamestop.
This is how ridiculous this Tim Tebow delusion has gotten: ESPN has a poll that shows, state-by-state, which current NFL quarterback fans would want to lead their team to a 4th-quarter comeback. Aaron Rodgers thankfully finished first in the overall voting, with 41% of the vote, while Tom Brady barely squeaked ahead of Tim Tebow for second place (Drew Brees and Eli Manning finished behind Tebow ...). But in Colorado, 47% of fans would rather have Tim Tebow than Aaron Rodgers, who only received 30% of the votes! People in Colorado would rather have Tim Tebow than the quarterback of the undefeated defending Super Bowl champions and the QB who's threatening to break every passing record in the books this season. Serious question: Is winning ugly more fun?
I don't know why David Stern even tries to hide it anymore: Just remove all GMs from their teams, take full ownership of all basketball and financial operations for every team in the NBA, orchestrate and micro-manage every minute detail so your league is perfectly crafted to your personal liking, and invade Poland.
Wait, Matt Hasselbeck got hurt on Sunday? But that never happens!
Thanks to David Stern's infamous Chris Paul trade veto, multiple teams are falling apart and having to part ways with those included in the initial trade for pennies. The Lakers sent Lamar Odom to the Mavericks for a trade exception and a protected first-round pick, which made Kobe Bryant really happy, "I don't like it. To be honest with you, I don't like it. You're talking about the Sixth Man of the Year last year. He played lights out. I don't understand the criticism of reality shows and this, that and the other. I don't get it. I don't understand that. He had his best season last season, clearly wasn't a distraction, and he played his ass off. I don't get where that comes from." It comes from a team having to scramble to move Odom after stabbing a necessary knife in his back to pick up arguably the best point guard in the NBA, only to have the commissioner pull that knife out, show it to Odom, point to the team who did it, bandage him back up and send him back to his would-be-murderer like everything's going to be okay. And, the best part, the Lakers just made the defending Western Conference and NBA Champions better. What a disaster.
New Jersey Nets billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov plans to run for the Russian presidency this year. Let's see how he'll do: Money for bribes? Check! ... Looks like he'll do okay.
Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho, "The Special One," is going to be digitizing his talents for a cartoon series called, "Jose Mourinho and the Special Ones," where the Madrid manager will counsel children on how to be great footballers and great human beings. I could puke at how heart-warming that sounds. Never one to be left behind, the NFL has announced it will be airing its own cartoon series, called, "Rex Ryan and the Bleeping Bleeps," where New York Jets coach Rex Ryan will berate children in expletive-filled tirades before dunking them in sausage gravy and biting their heads off.

Quick Takes - Dear Major League Baseball

2011-12-09T09:40:00.001-08:00

I just want to order one of these. Thanks please.

Dearest Major League Baseball. I have tried to order a Greg Halman jersey through your online shop on two different occasions now, and both times the order has been cancelled. The second order was processed by your people over the phone. Clearly there's a glitch in the system. I know you don't know me, and maybe you think I'm trying to order a Halman jersey for insensitive reasons, which wouldn't make sense at all, but I am trying to order a Halman jersey because I really liked him as a player, was excited to see him grow and mature into an everyday outfielder for my hometown team, and I don't want his memory to be tied to the tragedy that occurred in the Netherlands last month. I want to remember him as a Mariner. As a baseball player. As someone who contributed and can continue to contribute to the franchise, even if it's through a shared camaraderie with my fellow Mariner fans.

So, I'm not going to bother calling a third time to try to understand why my order was, once again, cancelled. I'm not going to re-place the order again, only to wait a week later to find out it's been cancelled without any explanation as to why it was cancelled and then having to pointlessly re-order a doomed order. I'm not going to spend my time on the phone trying to talk to someone who doesn't know why this keeps happening either. Just stop trying to morally police my jersey purchase. I would love to wear the Greg Halman jersey to Safeco Field next year; to honor and celebrate his contributions to the team in my own way. Feel free to give me a call. Or e-mail me. Or do whatever you need to do to get in touch with me. Because I'm tired of trying to hunt you down to understand why this system keeps bouncing back my fandom.

Love, Erik.

If you thought the power struggle in the NBA was over because the lockout ended, holy crap, were you wrong. David Stern just put his foot down in a way that completely undermines the CBA and his role as commissioner of basketball. Stern vetoed a trade between the league-owned New Orleans Hornets and the Houston Rockets & Los Angeles Lakers that would've brought point guard Chris Paul to LA. The league said they vetoed the trade for basketball reasons, which is completely absurd, and are going to end up losing Paul next year for nothing. This was someone with a burnt ego getting revenge, and the repercussions this might have around the league could be massive. Stern has completely lost his mind. The trade was good, from a basketball perspective, for everyone involved, even for the Hornets who were losing the best player in the deal. The Hornets were getting multiple starters and a first-round pick. Talk about a good way to turn a disgruntled, wantaway player into assets. But no, Stern has bent over backward to keep the struggling Hornets in New Orleans (after allowing them to move away from Charlotte ... hypocritical asshole), even going so far as to set arbitrary attendance marks that the team needed to hit in order to stay in New Orleans, and then allowing the team to give away free or super-discounted tickets to fans to hit the arbitrary mark. He's decided that this team is personal, unlike the Seattle Supersonics, who he treated like a McDonald's cheeseburger, and he's going to force them to hold onto an asset that will lose all value at the end of the year, just so New Orleans can have decent attendance this year and not have to relocate. I'm just in utter shock. And imagine how the Rockets and Lakers must feel right now. They had the opportunity to make their teams better, and the league said, "Nope, sorry." Oh, and don't forget that the league, after purchasing the financially-dead franchise and promising to return them to a fiscally responsible system, pulled off a trade last year that increased payroll! Everyone was up in arms, but Stern and Co. just buried it and kept plugging away. This Chris Paul thing is the exact opposite of that, but it all comes down to the same thing: David Stern does whatever benefits David Stern the most.
Leave it to Charles Barkley to nail the Tim Tebow situation: ""I want to make a personal plea to Lance Briggs, Brian Urlacher, Mr. [Julius] Peppers, please stop the madness. I'm just so tired ... I like Tim Tebow. He seems like a good kid, and I wish him success, but I am Tebowed out. So this is my personal plea for you three guys, please stop this madness." I wish Charles Barkley would just follow me around and narrate my life. "These gas prices are turrible!" Indeed, Sir Charles, indeed.
In the past week, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Miami Marlins of Miami have spent over $500 million on free agents. Recession? Major League Baseball laughs at your silly "recession."
Cleveland Browns quarterback Colt McCoy got popped by Steelers linebacker Jerome Harrison last night and left the game for two plays. He returned shortly thereafter and ended up throwing the deciding interception in the Browns' loss. After the game, McCoy said he couldn't even remember the hit, and it was later confirmed that he had sustained a concussion on that play. Pat Shurmur, the Browns head coach, showed off the vast medical knowledge that most NFL coaches have and said, "He was fine to go back in." You nailed it, Dr. House.
A lot of people are questioning the value of Albert Pujols at 10 years/$250 million. The idea is that paying Pujols that cash right now makes sense because he's still very much in his prime, but even in five years, the Angels could be paying Pujols $25 million a season to sit on the bench and hold personal sunflower seed spitting-distance contests, which, you could argue, is not worth $25 million a season. But Pujols is moving to the American League, where he will have the opportunity in a few years to switch to DH once his legs and fitness start to go, extending his career and the value of that absurd contract. And with the increased attention and ticket/merchandise revenue the team is going to get from having him on the roster (in a big Latin American market), even if the final years of that contract end in a 41-year-old Pujols struggling to get his walker to the plate, from an economics standpoint, it still may be a financially-sound move. Alex Rodriguez's massive contract with the Yankees may have been a financial mistake, especially as his numbers begin to dwindle and his injuries go up, but a) the Yankees operate in a different economic world than the rest of baseball so they can absorb a bad contract and keep spending on top of it, and b) Pujols will be chasing big, historical marks toward the end of his career, and he will bring people to the ballpark regardless of how often and how well he's playing (plus he's infinitely more likable than Alex Rodriguez). People want to be a part of history, and Albert Pujols will be setting and re-setting records left and right in his final years in the MLB. So good job, LA. I wouldn't have given him that long of a contract (mostly because I don't believe in long-term contracts), but under these circumstances, it's hard to argue with his acquisition.

Quick Takes - Nocturnal admissions

2011-12-08T09:42:00.001-08:00

I would have gone with you to the end, Aye Aye, into the very fires of Mordor.

I am not a morning person. I'm so not a morning person that I often try to stay up late enough at night that it absorbs the morning entirely and I sleep until the afternoon begins. It's always been a great system for me, my brain is most active and imaginative at night, but then I got a real job that pulls me out of happy slumber day in and day out like some strong-armed Lucha Libre wrestler toying with a midget wrestler (that's not offensive because they actually do that). The only things that have managed to successfully pull me out of bed early in the morning are a) work, b) travel, and c) Arsenal matches. But even then, the 4:45 a.m. Arsenal matches are always a doozy, because going to bed simply isn't an option. If I go to bed, I'm sure as hell not waking up a couple hours later only to fall asleep 10 minutes into the match and miss the whole thing entirely. So instead I stay up, I mow through energy drinks and try to distract myself with "Borderlands." There has to be a better solution than this.

I'm not suggesting that the English Premier League play all its matches in the wee hours of the British night to allow the handful of American viewers streaming matches to get a few extra hours of sleep. No, what we need is a standard time ... for the WORLD. Our bodies are incredibly resilient and adaptable. I know I personally would have no problem becoming a nocturnal creature, and anyone who didn't want to be nocturnal could move to a place where day = day. Day sports would be played in those countries, and night sports would be played in night countries, and then us night people would get to watch day sports in foreign countries and night sports domestically, all during our waking hours. Problem solved. We would create an entirely new nocturnal economy and we'd battle with the day traders (battle is a generous word), all the while, we're getting loads of sleep, watching great sports all around the globe, and not worrying so damn much about when the sun's going down. The sun is always down in our world, and we like it that way. Plus, we'd undoubtedly go through some evolutionary changes and become bioluminescent and develop super-eyes. And I'm already pale, so no worries on that end either.

The Angels have ruined everything. Not only did they swoop in and steal Albert Pujols from the Miami Marlins (for 10 years, $250 million ...), who are now pursuing Prince Fielder in response to losing out on Pujols, but they're also in the same division as the Mariners, which means the Mariners are even more behind the rest of the division than they already were (that's a helluva sentence; ugh, I can't even look at it again, it's hideous). And to make things even worse, the Angels have also signed arguably the top free agent pitcher on the market, C.J. Wilson, and are assembling one of the better starting rotations in baseball. But don't fret Mariners fans, Seattle is looking to bring back 49-year-old Jamie Moyer, because if we aren't going to win games, at least we can feel nostalgic about when we did.
Seattle is also reportedly interested in former Mariners Jeff Francis, Carlos Guillen, and Arthur Rhodes. Next, they will hire a crazy German to plasticize Dave Neihaus' body and place him in a dramatic pose inside the broadcast booth.
Jose Reyes told reporters he doesn't mind having to cut his luxurious dreadlocks to join the Miami Marlins (they have a team rule regarding hair length ... don't ask me, I'm just the messenger). I think for $100 million dollars, I would let each one of my hairs be plucked from my body with tweezers, so why is this a big deal? Why is him agreeing to cut his hair for $100m an actual news story? Can't we all just go, "well, yeah, of course, cut your dreads, who gives a shit," and not hear about it for a week on ESPN? Of course not. Hooray for 24-hour news networks. You enrich our lives.
Yes, Eddy Curry is signing with the Heat! This is going to be high comedy. He does know they're a basketball team, right?
LeBron James may have finally realized that "The Decision" was a bad one, but that doesn't change the fact that he's still remarkably delusional and unaware. James gave an interview to ESPN where he candidly talked about the mistakes he made, how he played terribly in the NBA Finals and that losing in the Finals was something he didn't think he'd ever have to face (he only referred to the one with the Heat, I guess he forgot about getting swept by the Spurs in an earlier NBA Finals), and that he hated being cast as the villain. LeBron used an all-too-willing corporate platform (again) to tell people that they shouldn't hate him anymore; that he's not a villain and that he's just going to go back to playing happy basketball. But do you just get to announce that decision to the world and move on with it? Doesn't "the world" have a say in this too? Just telling people you aren't a villain anymore doesn't change the perception people have of you, and announcing it, while a rare moment of honesty for James, in an ESPN-certified interview just undermines what you're trying to say. If you didn't want to be the villain, you didn't have to publicly stomp on your fans in an hour-long TV special, you didn't have to go to Miami and have that ludicrous WWE-style introduction with an overwhelmed Dwyane Wade and an out-of-his-element Giraffe screaming to the rafters, and you didn't have to wait until a year later to come out and have an honest moment with your fans about your decisions and your emotions. Sorry, LeBron, you are the villain still, and it's out of your hands to decide when that status gets to change. So just play hard, don't be a douche, and stop running to mommy ESPN every time you're feeling sensitive and want people to be nice to you.
New rules in the NBA?! It all looks, surprisingly, very promising: Emphasis on reducing bailout calls by officials on offensive players actively working to get fouls while shooting (players jumping into other players' arms on jump shots; jumping into contact in the lane and throwing up a shot to ensure it's a shooting foul), and an emphasis on speeding up the game (strict timeout stop and start times; fewer times when substitutions can occur; instant replays only viewable during full timeouts, not 20 second timeouts). The only thing missing is a rule that during intermission of every quarter, both players and fans get to throw swords and axes at a giant blow-up doll of David Stern positioned in the middle of the court. Maybe in the next CBA.

Quick Takes - The Mrs. Clause

2011-12-06T11:30:00.001-08:00

No, Santa! She's too young!

I have watched "The Santa Clause 2" twice in the last week, which means it's officially the holiday season! I know, you're wondering why I get to declare the holiday season "official" based solely on my own arbitrary film selections; please don't ask questions, you just slow everyone else down. Tim Allen stars as Santa Claus (previously the cleverly-named Scott Calvin), and he's loving life as the big cheese: Santa approval ratings have never been higher with any other Santa before him. Pretty impressive. But then! He finds out that in order to stay as Santa Claus, he has to have a Mrs. Claus by Christmas! Twenty-eight days to find a wife or he goes back to his crappy life as Scott Calvin. Everyone in the North Pole goes freaking bonkers and Santa goes back to the United States to find himself a lady. It's the "Mrs. Clause." The plot is set.

But here's my question: Why not just have one of the elves volunteer to marry Santa? Sure, they might not have great chemistry or be a good match, but who gives a shit? No, really. All the elves love working for this Santa, and he's obviously doing a great job with toy distribution and child happiness, so can't one of those little lady elves bite the bullet and go for the arranged marriage? Are elves that ... wait for it ... selfish? Santa is supposed to be some sort of giant king elf, so it makes more sense for him to marry an elf instead of some random woman (aka a different species); are they encouraging bestiality in this movie? Maybe there was a sub-Mrs. Clause that stated it had to be a human to prevent this type of thing, but, man, who wrote this freaking contract? In the end, Santa falls in love with the principal of his son's school, tells her he's Santa and that he needs to marry her, she, naturally, freaks out and thinks he's a sociopath (which he sort of is, but that's neither here nor there), and all looks lost for Santa and the North Pole.

Even THEN, none of the elves stepped forward and said, "You know what, I'll take care of this. It can't be that bad, right? I'll have a lot of alone time. I won't have to do this bullshit sweatshop labor anymore. And I'll basically rule this place like the First Lady of Christmas. I think marrying that giant fat elf is worth it. So I will marry Santa and save Christmas. You're all welcome. Now get me some hot cocoa and cookies because I'm Mrs. Claus and I need to fatten up for my husband."

The Miami Marlins have one strategy this winter: Buy everyone ever. They don't care who you are, they don't care what your market value is, they're going to go after you and give you a contract worth $100 million. They don't want to have any negotiations, they don't want to talk, they want to pay you $100 million and go back to drinking mohitos on the beach. They don't care about their ugly ass uniforms or the federal investigation into their financial practices. They don't care that they just ripped off the fans in their own city to pay for a new stadium despite having a huge surplus of cash. They're just going to buy free agents. All the free agents.
Seattle Mariners target Prince Fielder is also a target of the Miami Marlins, because he's a free agent and, dammit, they're going to try to buy him, but who would want to live in humid, crappy Miami over the lovely town of Seattle? The night life may be great in Miami, but the real life is going to leave you wanting, Prince Fielder. We have everything you could ever want here in Seattle: Flying fish, mountains, volcanoes (ahhh!), the Pacific Ocean (best ocean ever!), a retractable roof, a delirious fanbase, and a huge audience in Japan. You think being a Miami Marlin is going to be good for your image? Sign with the Mariners and go to Japan on vacation. Seriously. Whatever bonuses you think you'll get from the Latin American community will pale in comparison to the Japanese adoration you'll receive as a member of the Mariners. You're going to be treated like a king (puns really don't get old, do they?). The Japanese love giant Americans who play sports, almost as much as Americans love tiny Japanese who play sports. It's a weird thing our two countries have going right now, and quite poignant that this is all coming up on the anniversary of the day the Japanese bombed Josh Hartnett.
Erik Bedard has a home, and, holy shit thank you baseball Jesus, it's not with the Seattle Mariners! Bedard has signed a $4.5 million deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates (he must've turned down the $100 million offer from the Marlins because Miami is hot and sticky), which means the Pirates basically just took $4.5 million and set it on fire. Good luck out there, you irritable, injury-prone bastard. And thank you, Pittsburgh. We owe you one.
The Green Bay Packers have a grandfathered rule that allows them to sell shares of their team to the public (NFL teams can't sell stakes in the team for profit, except the Packers ...), and have re-opened the bidding for 250,000 shares to the world. Over 1,000 shares sold in the first minute of bidding, all for the low, low rate of $250, and it's expected that all 250k shares will inevitably sell out. You may think that's a good investment -- buying a stake in one of the more profitable franchises in all of sports -- but you have limited voting rights, you don't gain any cash if the shares go up, you have no additional involvement with the team whatsoever from being a shareholder, and you can't sell your share after you've bought it. But you do get a paper certificate you can hang on your wall. Yay. Are the Green Bay Packers run by that "Get A Star Named After You!" company?
After rumors swirled around the NFL that Brett Favre would come out of retirement to helm the quarterback-less Chicago Bears, Favre is now unequivocally telling the media that no, he's not coming back if the Bears call, he's staying retired. And we know that when Brett Favre says he's retired, he's retired.
Tracy McGrady has agreed to a deal with the Atlanta Hawks. The Hawks' medical staff just collectively sighed. But hey, overtime is time and a half, guys!
Retiring Orlando Magic CEO Bob Vander Weide says he wasn't drunk when he totally drunk-dialed Dwight Howard the other night, which some are speculating prompted his sudden decision to step down as CEO in a last-ditch attempt to keep a disgruntled (and probably weirded-out) Howard in Orlando. We've all been there, Bob. We've all been there.
Both Manchester United and Manchester City were knocked out of the Champions League today, which means Arsenal is clearly the better team in every way, shape, and form. Carry on.

Quick Takes - Robot vicars

2011-12-05T10:22:00.001-08:00

This could get awkward.

I watched the last Arsenal match on my phone, in bed, on a Web site running Flash that I've never been able to access with a mobile device before. It was one of those wow moments in my technological life, which maybe says a lot about my life (let's just move on), but for all the struggles I had with the iPhone to watch Arsenal matches without having to get out of bed (let's just move on from this too), switching to an Android phone has been a revelation. Flash, on my phone, on a big, beautiful crystal clear screen, without having to even break the heat seal of the morning bed. I know that in a few years streaming matches will probably move away from Flash on the Internet anyway, so this will be a short-lived win for my streaming life (sounds like a shitty reality TV show), but for now, the mobile war I've been battling for years has a robot victor. As opposed to a robot vicar, which would be kinda awesome and would certainly not be programmed to molest altar boys, unless the programmer decided that's something a robot vicar should do (not sure why a programmer would do that, but programmers are weird and gross). That wouldn't really be the robot's fault, it'd the programmer's fault.

How in the world did I get to molesting robot priests when all I wanted to do is gloat about my cool new Android phone? Not that I'm molesting robot priests, they're "molesting robot priests" ... you see the distinction? Or maybe the proper grammar would be "molesting-robot priests," but that makes it sound like they are priests who only molest robots, which isn't accurate for either molesting robot priests or regular molesting priests. Okay, I've got it figured out, they're "molesting robot-priests." I swear I'm good at English and not a sociopath.

ESPN's in trouble again, this time for its selection for when/when not to use subtitles. ESPN chose not to use subtitles on a white girl with cerebral palsy who was difficult to understand, but chose to use subtitles on an impoverished black man who was equally as "difficult to understand." Their reasoning behind not using/using subtitles came down to a problem with overthinking: Too many focus groups, too many people being asked if they could understand speech, and a confirmation biased approach to subtitling; adding subtitles ahead of time and then asking people if they thought they were needed. "Did these subtitles help you understand that person?" Wait, there was a person? I was just reading text. Yes, that text helped me read better. Thank you, ESPN.
Greg Oden, or as I like to call him, Greg Lincoln, for his uncanny resemblance to Abraham Lincoln (and my suspicions of Marfan Syndrome being the cause for Oden's injury issues), is leaning toward accepting Portland's qualifying offer of $8.8 million for this year, allowing him to be an unrestricted free agent in 2012. A little word of advice for Greg Oden: You've been injured basically since you came out of the womb. Take the money. Take the ridiculous $8.8 million that Portland is mind-numbingly offering you. You have no idea how long you're going to be healthy and in the league. So take the money. There's nothing to think about. It's $8.8 million for god's sake. You probably won't even play this year, and they'll just give you money to not play. Take the money! Why is this even a discussion?!
The New Orleans Hornets are apparently approaching the Chris Paul situation (Paul has allegedly handed in a trade request to the Hornets to go to the Knicks and be with his BFF Carmelo Anthony) with "eyes wide open," according to David Aldridge. I think eyes wide open is the preferred method of negotiation, unless they want to try to lure him to stay with some weird sex party.
The annual MLB Winter Meetings are taking place in Dallas, Texas. What that means, for you laypeople, is that you can watch old white men walking around hallways on a live webcam! Finally!
I have to admit, I was really excited about the NBA lockout. I was desperately hoping that LeBron would star in "Kazaam 2," Delonte West's rap career would take off, and Metta World Peace would, I don't know, move to Nepal or something and try to get the Dalai Lama drunk on Hypnotiq. I'm a bit disappointed that it's over now, but there's a new form of excitement brewing in my belly, one of the post-lockout, where fat players desperately try to get back into shape, thinking they'd have a full year off to lounge about and pursue other interests and then using the next offseason to get back into shape, only to realize a little too late that they don't have enough time to get into proper shape for this season and running around gassed like Oliver Miller for the first 30 games of the season. Someone needs to make a drinking game to this: The NBA Fitness Challenge.
What the hell is happening in Denver, where the Broncos are now 6-1 under Tim Tebow after another dramatic win on Sunday? I chose hell intentionally because of Tim Tebow and his inability to say a sentence without referencing god and Jesus and religion, which is probably the most obnoxious thing in human history outside of Criss Angel's whole existence. I don't have a problem with Tebow's religiosity, honestly, I don't, but can't he find something to say that's his own, creative thought? Can't he find something to say that isn't a reference to god and the Bible, especially when asked questions about something as trivial as a sport? There's just got to be more to him than religious finger puppetry.

Golfpunk: The Icy Fairways, Part VI

2011-12-05T07:50:00.001-08:00

Written by Erik Ian Larsen & Lucius Wisniewski/Illustration by Lucius Wisniewski

Click the image to view in full resolution!

Quick Takes - Them!

2011-12-02T08:48:00.001-08:00

I've come to eat your carrots.

The largest insect ever found has been discovered by an explorer in New Zealand. Called the Giant Weta Bug, this creature has a wingspan of, wait for it, seven inches, and weighs as much as three mice. I'm not sure why they didn't just weigh it with a scale, instead of releasing details in cryptic mouse measurements ... "This human is 102 mice tall! Amazing!" The Giant Weta Bug is a known species, but none has ever been found this large, which makes this big bastard (see above) the largest bug on record and the number one enemy of humanity, thanks to our unnatural fear of insects. At least until the prawns arrive on our planet and are forced to live in shanty towns in South Africa because their mothership is stranded in the atmosphere without anyone to fly her away from the trigger-happy humans.

I've been trying to figure out why insects strike such fear in the human heart. Is it some sort of evolutionary thing? Where insects have represented something to our species for so long -- pestilence, crop death, disease, etc. -- that we are naturally predisposed to fear and dislike them as a means of species survival? Or, and this is where I think the truth really is, are we evolutionarily JEALOUS of the insect?! Oooo, you didn't see that coming, did you? Insects have pretty much everything figured out, and I think when we see their physical and social traits, we get a little butthurt and spray them with nuclear cans of Raid because we can't stand how awesome they are. Exoskeletons, organized societies and colonies, tremendous reproductive rate, population growth that would make India green with envy, super strength, super environmental resistance, poisons, pincers, cool jaws, stingers ... the list goes on and on! If insect brains got even close to a primatological level, we might as well just move to a different planet. Or join them as their pets and/or literary entertainers. I would volunteer to write insect-related fiction (sci fi, fantasy, insect sports columns, whatever they needed) to satisfy their insatiable thirst for the written word.

Some NFL teams have water boys who run out onto the field during breaks to give players a squeeze of fresh water, but the Seattle Seahawks have taken things to another level: Marshawn Lynch, the always-entertaining running back and purveyor of "Beast Mode" in the Emerald City, has his own personal SKITTLES COACH, who feeds him Skittles after touchdowns and even runs onto the field occasionally to give him Skittles during a timeout. Marshawn Lynch is fueled by Skittles. It apparently started as a kid; after he'd score a touchdown his mother would give him a bag of Skittles after the game as a reward. And now, as a full grown man and NFL star, he's decided, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Taste the rainbow.
In an effort to actually fulfill his role as the third wheel of Miami's "Big Three," Chris Bosh has added 10 pounds of muscle this offseason and has vowed to be more aggressive. Problem is, have you ever seen what an aggressive giraffe looks like? It's awkward and horrifying.
Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson was demonstratively apathetic during last night's brutal loss to the Seattle Seahawks (woo!), being caught on camera zoned out while quarterback Vince Young tried to work out pass routes with him, not running hard on routes, and warming up with the defensive linemen instead of the wide receiver group prior to the start of the game. When asked about his display after the loss, Jackson handled things like a pro: "If that's what they saw, that's what they saw. I don't have to sit here and answer them questions. My teammates know what it is. I'm not answering none of that type of question. If you're going to ask something about the game, do that. You're asking questions that don't even mean nothing. Next question." Aside from disappointing grammar, Jackson seems like he's got a good head on his shoulders, eh? This is why people love and sympathize with professional athletes, because of their hard work, dedication, and humility.
Is Bill Buckner headed back to Boston? The infamous first-baseman, who Boston Red Sox fans unfairly crucified for an error in the World Series decades ago, may be returning to the Red Sox as a hitting coach under new manager Bobby Valentine. If they can rig a machine that chucks live babies at the plate, Buckner would get those Red Sox hitters all batting 1.000. I hope I'm not the only one who obsesses over "Curb Your Enthusiasm," because if I am, everyone will think a) that joke is weird, and b) I'm weird. I guess the latter is true regardless of the joke.
Former Liverpool winger and current Hoffenheim star Ryan Babel had a run-in recently with Spongebob Squarepants. Not the actual Spongebob, because that's just impossible, but a man he hired to come to a kids' birthday party dressed as Spongebob to entertain the kids. When the man arrived, he took off his Spongebob helmet and started smoking cigarettes in front of the kids. Babel confronted him, and the man said, "EYY MAN ... EFF YOU AND THESE UGLY ASS KIDS ... I JUST GOT OUT, AND I’M HERE TO GET PAID." Spongebob was fresh from prison! And that prospect caused Babel to choke up, telling Spongebob that he could, in fact, smoke, just not to blow it in the kids' faces. The best part of this story is that Spongebob Convictpants was actually stand-up comic Kevin Hart playing a prank. Let's all laugh at Ryan Babel. He clearly hates children.

Quick Takes - Fact checking

2011-12-01T11:36:00.001-08:00

And which guns are these?

I saw a sign on the back of a totally douched-out pickup truck the other day, that said, "Guns don't kill people, abortion clinics do." No no, guns do kill people. Seriously. They do. Have you seen the news? Have you read a newspaper? They for sure kill people. Say what you want about abortion clinics (actually don't, just keep it to yourself and stop trying to force people to live their lives the way you want to live your own), I don't need to talk about them here, but guns for sure kill people. All over the world, people are being killed with guns. They're probably the biggest reason why people are killed, other than heart disease and car accidents (and Kathy Griffin's voice).

So if you're going to drive a douchey pickup truck -- and when I say douchey I mean lifted suspension, tinted windows, giant off-road tires that are super useful in suburban Washington, truck balls, No Fear stickers, crazy bumper stickers, and Dodge Ram accessories attached to every conceivable light -- with all sorts of unnecessarily-inflammatory bumper stickers just to be a massive asshole to every stranger who happens to drive behind your diesel-guzzling ozone killer, at least try to make a coherent point. Cite a few studies, show your sources proudly, treat your truck bumper like a research paper! And don't just use Wikipedia, really sink your teeth into the fact-finding mission. Who knows, maybe you'll stumble upon a scientific journal or two and, mistaking them for stereo instructions, end up reading something scientifically accurate and learn something new. Or just learn something period. And maybe you'll actually decide to change your mind, and you'll work relentlessly to pull the sticker off your bumper, only to realize that it's been on there too long and the glue has formed a symbiotic bond with the metal, so you just end up with this crappy white sticker-peach fuzz where your bad science once lived. Still though ...

A little personal moment I feel like sharing: I ordered a Greg Halman jersey today from MLB.com. Go Mariners. And much love for Halman and his family. I was really excited to watch him grow into his potential and become a great MLB outfielder for the Seattle Mariners, as I'm sure everyone else was too, and while I'll never get to see what he would've become, I can at least honor him and remember him every time I put on that jersey.
Japanese infielder Munenori Kawasaki wants to leave Japan and play in the Major Leagues, and has said he will only play for the Seattle Mariners. Wait, someone actually wants to play for our team?! Can someone get Munenori on the phone with Prince Fielder?
Josh Freeman likes to shoot guns in his time off from the NFL. Only the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback apparently forgot he had a thumb injury, which was supposed to heal over the team's bye week, and went shooting with his father. An unexpected recoil at the gun range re-injured his thumb and now it looks like he'll miss the team's next game. Freeman at least understood the stupidity of the situation, "In hindsight, it wasn't the smartest decision, but I've got to learn from it. No more shooting guns in season." Unless you're Plaxico Burress. Or Marvin Harrison. Or Aqib Talib. Or Shaun Rogers. Or Chris Cook. Or Laurence Maroney. Or Robaire Smith. Or Ronald Fields. Or Gerald Sensabaugh. Or Marshawn Lynch. Or Donte Whitner. Or Willie Andrews. You know what, we're all the way back to 2008 now. Let's just let bygones be bygones.
Leave it to an interim athletic director to come up with the stupidest ideas. Interim AD Paul Pendergast, who sounds like an unlikable character from Harry Potter, thought it would be a good idea for everyone in attendance at UConn basketball and football games to say the Pledge of Allegiance, including the "under god" nasty bits, before the national anthem was played. Not only is it exhausting and a bit humiliating to have to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance just to watch a goddamn sports game, but a) why are we so concerned with these public displays of patriotism during sporting events when half of the players weren't even born in America? Are American sports fans threatened by international success in American sports? And b) if we're going to say it, why don't we try it they way they said it for 150 years before the "under god" was pointlessly added in the 1950s by Catholics with ridiculous government power.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was named Nascar's most popular driver for the ninth straight year, which makes him 23,349th in the overall sports standings. Get it? Because people hate Nascar? You get it.

Quick Takes - The Club Card conundrum

2011-11-30T09:07:00.001-08:00

Dude, even I have a Club Card.

If someone came up to you on the street and offered you free money, would you take it? No questions asked, no strings attached, just here you go, sir, here's $10. Of course you would. Everyone would. So that's what makes what happened at the grocery store yesterday so goddamn frustrating to me. I was standing in line, waiting for the guy in front of me to check out. The cashier asked him if he had a QFC Club Card, a card that lets you save money on items you've purchased, and he said no. He said no as casually as you could say no, and he paid his bill and left.

I stood there flummoxed. How could you just say no and walk away? It's free. You barely have to give any personal information to get one. And you literally save money. Every single time I've bought something at the grocery store, I've saved money using my club card. I like to play a really fun grocery store game to try to see if I can save more money than the total purchase price after discounts. I've only done it twice so far, but the allure of finding the biggest discounts is intoxicating. Why wouldn't you want that?!

Based on what he was buying, he wasn't just randomly stopping by a secondary grocery store, and there aren't many grocery stores around other than that one, so he clearly shops at that specific store often enough to warrant a card. So why not get a card?! What's wrong with you?! Just get a card! If you're trying to "live off the grid," you wouldn't be shopping at a neighborhood grocery store in the first place, you'd be farming vegetables and raising alpaca for their wool and delicious meat. So just give them your phone number, and take their free money. Hell, just type in a random phone number, and if it doesn't work, just tell the cashier, "Weird, I don't know what's wrong," and then he'll type some code into the register and you'll save money that way. Just do something. Please. For the love of god.

Tim Tebow was asked by head coach John Fox to address his team before the Broncos game against the Chargers on Sunday. And Tebow, like any good Christian, decided not to speak from the heart, but to let the Bible speak for him and chose a verse from the Proverbs section: "Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." It's not a bad proverb for a pre-game speech, but I think he should've gone with something a little spicier, like this African proverb: "Blind belief is dangerous." - Luyia, Western Kenya.
A television station in Tampa Bay, WTVT, accidentally aired footage of a naked Buccaneer (an NFL player, not an actual pirate) from the waist down while interviewing offensive lineman Donald Penn in the locker room after the game on Sunday. The station has apologized for airing the footage of the unidentified player and has promised to bring in Paul McCartney to stand heavily-clothed in the background for their next interview.
Hey, look at this, it's actual NBA talk: The Boston Celtics appear to be doing everything they can to move Rajon Rondo, being linked with trades for Seattle Supersonics guard Russell Westbrook, New Orleans Hornets guard Chris Paul, and a yet-to-be revealed trade with the Indiana Pacers. If Boston is so eager to rid themselves of their bad attitude point guard, I think Steve Ballmer should just buy him, and 10 other players, and a renovated Key Arena, and then everyone will be happy. We can even give Boston some Microsoft stock or something. Maybe some free keychains? A copy of Kinectimals?
Seattle Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik, whose last name I can unfathomably spell from memory now, was suspiciously-mum when asked questions about the Mariners' pursuit of free agent slugger Prince Fielder, a player Zduriencik and co. drafted as members of the Milwaukee Brewers front office. When asked how hard the Mariners would pursue Fielder, Zduriencik said, "I don't think it's in our best interest to do that. I apologize. I wish I could tell you a little more, but I don't think it's fair for us." I think what he's trying to say to the media is: "Stop asking me questions you know I can't answer and then writing stories about my non-answers as if there's news there. Thanks."

Quick Takes - Funny losing

2011-11-29T09:16:00.001-08:00

Stop smiling! They're terrible! What's happening?!

If you haven't seen the newest Golfpunk comic, where we recreate an infamous historical event with surprisingly little offensiveness, then what are you waiting for?! Click here and look at how pretty Lucius Wisniewski can draw.

Now that the administrative things are over. It's about time we got serious. When I think about serious things, I think about old people, their faces all grouchy and wrinkled, shaking their fists at young kids doing things they did when they were young but are now too old to remember doing. I think about chimney sweeps. Not the Dick van Dyke kind, who sing songs and are surprisingly merry (drugs?), but the really hardcore ones, the kind covered in soot, breathing black dust day and night and croaking inside an especially-compact chimney, only to be discovered a week later by some urchin boy who fell down looking for raccoons (dinner!).

But when I really think about serious things, I think about losing. There's nothing funny about losing, unless you lose so much all hope of winning ceases to exist. Only then can losing be funny, which is a bit ironic. I've seen that type of comical losing living in Chicago and going to Cubs games, talking to Cubs fans, and just being a transplanted Cubs fan. Nobody really worries about winning, and it's funny when they lose. It's really the strangest thing ever. The only other place I've seen it is in video games, where players, whether new to a game or just painfully shitty at games in general, repeatedly prance to their bloody, gory doom, only to respawn and repeat the same psychotic actions over and over again. Also strange, and also hilarious.

But it's weird being a sports fan; someone who cheers for a group of strangers to succeed because they simply play for a team that you associate with; someone who feels physical and emotional joy when those group of strangers play well enough to win, while also feeling physical and emotional pain when those strangers lose. I've always wondered why fans seem to take losing harder than players. Maybe because it's out of a fan's hands. The game happens whether they're there or not, watching or not, and that complete lack of control is gut-wrenching to the human species. We love control! We build our whole lives around control. And we control what teams we choose for, yet we don't control the outcomes of the games those teams play. That's just rough on us. But the players do control the outcome, and while they take losses hard (see: Adam Morrison in the NCAA Tournament), they know that whatever the outcome is happened as a result of their actions and their teammates' actions. It's in their hands, sometimes literally (right, Bobby Engram?), and there's something comforting about that, even in failure. It's much more comforting than watching something you care about fail and not being able to stop it.

So where does funny losing fit in? Funny losing removes "control" and replaces it with something bigger: Superstitions, curses, deities. Chicago Cubs fans actually believe that a gypsy with a goat cursed the team nearly 100 years ago, which is why they haven't won a World Series in a century. No one has to internalize the arduous, angsty battle of control that plagues our species. There's no control to subconsciously battle over. Period. There's a goat curse. There's Bill Buckner. There's entire cities who are plagued by some anti-winning demon. There's nothing we can do about it. There's nothing the players can do about it. So let's all drink Old Style and sing obnoxiously loud during the seventh inning stretch.

When John Elway came out in a radio interview critical of Tim Tebow last week, the outlash that followed from butthurt Broncos fans could only be described as overzealous. Elway said he was "surprised" by the reaction of fans to his smart, measured comments regarding the starting quarterback of his team, but I'm not sure he really knows what he's dealing with here. We're talking about Tim F***ing Tebow. The most adored athlete in human history. The son of god him/her/itself. Questioning Tim Tebow's skills as a quarterback is the modern day equivalent of questioning the Catholic church in the 12th Century.
Chelsea star Didier Drogba will reportedly go "wherever he's offered the most money" whenever he inevitably leaves his London club next year, according to his agent. Well, that makes things pretty easy: The New York Yankees are buying a striker!
The Jacksonville Jaguars have fired head coach Jack Del Rio and are seeking to sell the team to a local Pakistani businessman who has vowed to "keep the team in Jacksonville," despite interest from Los Angeles to bring an NFL team back to the city of angels. If we've learned one thing from franchise sales and owners' empty promises in professional sports, it's that Seattle is going to get screwed.
Ndamukong Suh has been suspended two games by the NFL, and commissioner Roger Goddell has filed for witness protection.
A small tech company, Fuse Science Inc., has landed a major sponsorship deal to be on Tiger Woods' golf bag. The start-up company markets nutritional supplements and medicine that can be taken in drop form and absorbed quickly into the body. Woods is apparently working with them on a "Whoops!" 72-hour Plan B droplet.

Quick Takes - The return of the NBA

2011-11-28T12:53:00.001-08:00

Humbug.

The NBA is alive! Like an infected body reanimated by the virus within, the Zombie NBA is finally back and better than ever (I don't know what that means, it's just a thing I've seen people say. I'm a Sonics fan, so the NBA is definitely not better than ever.). Now that owners and players have negotiated an end to the NBA lockout, the real drama will begin, with a shortened timeline for transactions and training camps, a condensed season that will see NBA players have to play hard in every game for the first time in their professional careers, and the swinging body of David Stern drifting lifelessly from the proverbial rafters. While the players came out on top here, pulling down a deserved 51% of the revenue share and a unity that had been lost in their circle, David Stern is clearly the one man who took the hardest hit throughout this whole process.

The players have lost their respect and, really, their fear for the man who has worked so hard to craft his own personal Isengard to keep them at bay. He's pushed and pushed and pushed -- players, owners, and the fans -- for so long without any balancing force to keep him in check, but that balance came through the form of self-immolation during the lockout proceedings. Stern thought he was invincible, that he could just power through the process and come out on top like always. He wasn't prepared for the players to so angrily fight back, to so angrily spit in his face from his rampant, unchecked narcissism. And, more importantly, he wasn't concerned about what this might do to his legacy and the perception of the fans who give him a job in the first place. David Stern was always an enemy to NBA fans, but he was a sort of lovable enemy, a singular force that was fun to cheer against but who stood his own in return with sarcasm and wit. But this lockout showed something else: A bitter, entitled old man who forgot how to share.

And the fans saw it, they saw him pour gasoline over his head and set it alight on Sportscenter and in every interview he gave to whomever would listen. His attitude was disgusting and made something shitty into something completely infuriating. The fallout from this lockout will probably be minimal once the season kicks into gear and fans forget about this summer, but as long as Stern is still atop his throne, there will be a distancing from fans with the NBA. You support products you appreciate, you support local businesses who have great employees and owners, you don't support Ebenezer Scrooge pre-Christmas. That's what David Stern has become, but there are no ghosts to save him from his inevitable doom. He will not be remembered as the man who saved the NBA or broadened its appeal to a worldwide audience, he will be remembered as the man who nearly capsized it for his own personal and professional gains.

The Tim Tebow fable keeps growing. After another paltry statistical performance (although his 22 runs and 18 throws were the first time since the '60s that a QB ran and threw that many times in game), Tebow kept his team close and, sure enough, the Broncos freaking won 16-13 in overtime on a Matt Prater field goal after the Chargers missed a field goal of their own that would've won the game earlier. This Tim Tebow thing has gotten completely out of hand, but you know what? I'll buy into the hype if he starts dating a post-jail Lindsay Lohan, gets her off drugs and back into "Mean Girls" shape, and then puts a little Christian baby in her stomach. Then you'll have won me over, Tebow. We need our Lindsay back.
The best part of the NBA lockout being over isn't the fact that the NBA is back, it's that a handful of players didn't think it would come back. Multiple NBA players signed contracts with teams in China with provisions that they couldn't break their contracts if the NBA lockout ended. Now that the lockout has ended, they're trying to get released and are, of course, running into a great wall (nailed it).
Ndamukong Suh has worked very hard this season to tell everyone that he's not a dirty player; that he just plays hard and that he's surrounded by a bunch of sissies on the other teams who can't handle a little toughness. Well, all that went out the door on Thanksgiving day when Suh stomped on a Packers offensive lineman's chest that he'd shoved to the ground and was ejected from the game. Happy Holidays, America. Ndamukong Suh wants to eat your children for dessert.
Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stevie Johnson celebrated a touchdown in a 28-24 loss to the New York Jets on Sunday by miming a shooting (in reference to Jets receiver Plaxico Burress) and a plane crash (presumably miming Jets receiver Santonio Holmes who does a plane celebration thing ... or whatever). A few people were upset about the gunshot celebration, but in New York City, it seems that Johnson's plane crash was more offensive. Jets defensive tackle Sione Pouha said that Johnson acting like a plane -- something his teammate regularly does after scoring -- and then crashing into the endzone was "kind of a dagger" because of 9/11. Pouha also said Johnson should've taken into account that 9/11 is a "sacred moment." Firstly, the only thing people should be upset about is that receivers still think touchdown celebrations are cool/funny/badass. Secondly, 9/11 should not prevent people from miming airplanes. Even crashing airplanes. Even if they're in New York. Because we're all adults and we can still pay respect to what happened on that day without limiting our lives and our rights as American citizens. Just ... damn ... calm down, people.

Golfpunk: The Icy Fairways, Part V

2011-11-27T18:31:00.001-08:00

Written by Erik Ian Larsen & Lucius Wisniewski/Illustration by Lucius Wisniewski

Click our moderately-offensive comic to view in glorious full resolution!

Quick Takes - Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

2011-11-23T09:10:00.001-08:00

Earth can't come to the phone right now, but please leave a message after the beep.

This is probably a really stupid question, but couldn't we search for life on other planets simply by looking for planets/moons that are abnormally bright? There must be an estimable calculation that can determine how much light should be emitted from planets, based on distance from the sun, reflectance properties of the atmosphere, etc., so couldn't we (I say "we" like I would have a clue what to do) run all the best candidate planets and moons through a comparison calculation to see which ones are "brighter than they should be?" Advanced species, like humans, don't really like the dark so much. The dark is bad, the dark means death. There are tribes all over the world that still have myths and tales about the dark, and anthropologists have come to the obvious conclusion that those myths are so pervasive because people die more frequently in the dark than in the daylight. Pretty straight-forward, eh? For an advanced species that may be able to communicate with us and respond to any contact signals we send their way, maybe we should look for the light.

Then again, what if they're giant killer mutant cyborgs who see our blinking flashlight in space and round up the Super-Mega Death Squadron (SMDS), who travel through a wormhole in space and park just outside our atmosphere, bombarding the planet with alien bombs that rip massive anti-atomic tubes through the very fabric of the planet and leave nothing but a sprinkling of dust and gas where roughly 8.7 million species lived just seconds earlier. Then they'd send out the cleaners and collect all the precious compounds that once made up our planet and bring them back home to make their alien gas prices a few cents cheaper. Those bastards. We should send them bombs FIRST, just in case, and if they were friendly and were going to share technology with us or whatever, well, we can just try another planet. Although, really, any alien planet could send out the SMDS, so we should keep to ourselves like isolationist Japan and forget about all this "contact" business. We're fine without aliens, thank you. Please leave us alone.

The Denver Broncos have gone all-in on Tim Tebow, waiving former starting quarterback Kyle Orton in hopes that someone will pick him and the $2.5m remaining on his contract up. That's really bad sentence structure, but I think we can all get over it. The Chicago Bears just lost Jay Cutler, the former Broncos quarterback who was traded to the Bears for Kyle Orton and a bunch of other stuff, and now the Bears are reportedly interested in picking Orton back up to replace the injured former Bronco they traded Orton for! It's like "Human Centipede" up in here.
I made a prediction during the last Major League Baseball season, that the Seattle Mariners wouldn't have a single player to hit 20 home runs this year. Sure enough, Miguel Olivo hit his 19th on the second-to-last day of the season and then was benched for the final game. Any statisticians out there, has there ever been an MLB team that didn't have a single player to hit 20 home runs?
Turkish basketball giants Besiktas are pursuing Lamar Odom to play in Turkey when the NBA lockout officially kills the entire season. Odom is apparently mulling the offer, but he's getting some push back from his wife after she found the "No Kardashian" clause in the contract.
ESPN debuted a documentary earlier this month called "Unguarded," about Massachusetts basketball star Chris Herren and his battle with drug and alcohol abuse. And who did ESPN choose to sponsor the documentary? Jameson whiskey! Classy work, ESPN! And from a Disney-owned company too? Even better!

Quick Takes - Lessons from Super Mario

2011-11-22T09:31:00.001-08:00

Teach us your ways, oh wise Italian plumber.

When it comes to the pantheon of great video games, few stand above Super Mario World for Super NES. I recently started replaying Super Mario World and, from the moment I turned it on and got my controller out, I realized I was humming along to the tune with perfect pitch and accuracy. Beep beep beep BOP beep beep beep BOP BEEEEEEE beep bop boo, bum dun dun dun bum dun dun dun bum dun dun dun'l doo dee dum bummm, bom bum bum bum bom bum bum bum bom bum bum bundle bun dee dummmm bummm.

Why does such a simple game, with such an extraordinarily cliche premise (save the Princess, again? Why the face?!), have such a deep emotional attachment to me. It could be that it's a reminder of the proverbial "good ol' days," where I'd rush home from school, push up the purple SNES power button, and sit down for Super Mario World until my parents got home and made me go outside (bastards). Or maybe it's because in the ever-expanding video game world, with games of infinite wonder and story like Skyrim or complex strategizers like Starcraft II, something so profoundly simple that cuts to the core of the gaming experience makes all the superfluous complexity seem unnecessary. Super Mario World takes an Italian plumber with extraordinary calf muscles and turns him into a feeling: Of nostalgia, of joy, of community.

It's so simple, but there's something complex about the little guy's pursuit of simple perfection. When I look at sports, I see a lot of parallels to Super Mario World. Seriously. This isn't a stretch, just bear with me. The complexity in planning and execution has pushed the boundaries of the athlete's mind (and the Kinkos guy who has to pump out all those goddamn playbooks) to the breaking point. Players are expected to function not as athletes, but as databases of information. They're more computer programs than people, and the coaches are programmers spitting out complex code to get them to do, essentially, pretty simple things. Pass the ball. Run the ball. Hit the ball. Whatever. But every great athlete and every great coach always says the same thing: That sports are played at their highest level when the players can stop thinking and can just play.

If Mario were a multi-button combination play-calling RPG battle simulator, it might be a fun game, but the idea of just reading and reacting to the scrolling environment makes Super Mario World something sublime. Simple to play, but hard to master. I would love to see coaches and players take a step back from the over-complication of sports and try to get back to the core of the game. I realize it's easy to say that from atop my shiny Isengard, and the reason it's become so complicated is because coaches and players know more information about each other and each other's strategies than ever before in sports history, but that doesn't mean the answer has to be a complicated one. Maybe try Super Mario's methodology, and simplify the situation. Hitting a baseball is incredibly hard, but having to process through 45 coaches' notes on your swing and scouting reports of the pitcher and the advanced sabermetrics of what you should do in that particular situation and and and ... just hit the ball. You know? Just react. Just Mario.

Professional athletes are seriously detached sometimes. Jabar Gaffney, wide receiver for the Washington Redskins, told a Cowboys fan over Twitter to "kill urself" amidst a swarm of angry swearing and poor spelling after the fan Tweeted Gaffney the Redskins' record (3-7). Gaffney since apologized for the incident over Twitter, saying, and I'm quoting here, "I don't want the man to really kill himself it was just a way of saying fuck off and leave me alone to all u lames keep up or don't follow." So, if Rex Ryan is fined $75,000 for one swear word, and Gaffney rolled off four in total plus a "kill urself," I'm guessing Jabar will owe roughly $500,000 to the league (I quantified the "kill urself" at $200,000). I bet Mark Cuban is really enjoying the NBA lockout right now.
When asked about the prospects of Tim Tebow being the future quarterback of the Denver Broncos, John Elway, the chief of football operations for the Broncos and the unequivocal best QB in Denver history, said, "Uhhhh ... no!" Just like that. I heard it on the radio. It was pretty emphatic. For all the success Tebow has had this year as a starter (4-1 record), John Elway knows what it takes to play quarterback and win championships in this league, and his answer was as definitive as it could've been. They don't think Tebow can win them a championship. That's the bottom line. He can be America's Christian Anglo sweetheart, he can be the "Rudy" of the NFL, but he's not going to help his team win a championship unless he actually learns how to throw the ball. Personally, I think the Broncos should play with two quarterbacks. Have a traditional pocket passer and Tim Tebow both in shotgun at all times, the center snaps the ball to whomever the play is called for. If it's Tebow, he can pass or run, and if it's not Tebow, he can either take a handoff from the pocket QB or block and split out wide for HB screens. I would pay a lot of money to watch that team play football, and I don't even like Tim Tebow.
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim apparently took free agent left-hander C.J. Wilson to dinner on Monday night to try to woo him away from division rival Texas. But times are tough in professional sports right now, and Wilson was apparently less-than-impressed with the choice of "whatever Carl's Jr. value meal strikes your fancy."
Kenyan long-distance runner Marko Cheseto had both his feet amputated after being lost for two days in the snow in Alaska. Cheseto, a nursing and nutrition student in Alaska and a member of his college's cross-country team, got lost without protective winter clothing and was found suffering from hypothermia and severe gangrene. I think somebody took the whole "cross-country" thing a little too seriously.
A linesman in Spain was hit by a flying umbrella during a recent La Liga match, prompting the referee to run for cover with his fellow referees and abandon the game. It was later determined that the umbrella was accidentally flung by a child, who still had the handle in his hand as he watched the remaining piece fall to the pitch and slice a deep gash into the linesman's face. Even physics hates referees!

Quick Takes - Enemy of the deaf

2011-11-21T11:22:00.001-08:00

Damn, lady, I don't know you. Please stop fogging up my glass.

I used to be able to sign ASL conversationally in college. One of my best friends grew up next to a deaf kid and, therefore, had learned ASL to talk to his neighbor (he was a language buff and spoke five languages, so it's not like it was that hard for him). He taught ASL to me so we could use it on the el riding around noisy Chicago, and it actually worked really well. But one day, I was at a car show in Chicago and a deaf woman came up to me with an alphabet card asking if I could help her. I froze up. I knew sign language, but I couldn't remember any of it when I actually had to use it. I looked at her and said, out loud, "I'm sorry!" despite the fact that a) she was deaf and b) I knew sign language. She walked away, and I've never felt more ashamed in my life. I let down the deaf that day.

Fast forward years later to the Seattle Aquarium. It was 4 p.m., and the staff was preparing to feed their two giant pacific octopi, Noodles and Mae (Noodles > Mae in terms of octopus naming). I like to think I have an instinct for photography, it served me well in high school and college photojournalism, and so I scoped out a location that I thought would be perfect for taking pictures of the larger of the two octopi, a 45-lb. behemoth (the largest giant pacific octopus ever caught was 437 lbs., so she wasn't that big, I guess), and when some woman in a long tweed trenchcoat finally moved away from my scouted location, I slipped in and began shooting. I got some incredible shots, only to find out a few minutes later that I had, once again, let down a deaf person.

The woman in the tweed trenchcoat was deaf and had an ASL interpreter with her there. I would've never seen it, but my girlfriend informed me that, after I slipped into the open space in front of the octopus tank and began taking pictures, the deaf woman was furious that I would dare to block her camera-phone shots of the octopus ... even though she got up and gave me the space to shoot ... and there was no way for me to know she was there.

Behind my back, she was huffing and puffing and signing furiously to her interpreter, who was telling her to calm down and that it was okay. A few minutes passed and I ended up next to the deaf woman again, who started telling one of the employees at the aquarium about her personal experience snorkeling and seeing an octopus. It was the least interesting story ever ("I was snorkeling and saw one."), but because she was deaf, you had to pay attention and stand there until she was done. I think this woman is onto something, but that's beside the point, all the puzzle pieces had finally come together. She wasn't mad because I blocked her shot -- she'd been sitting in prime camera position for like five minutes before she got up and I started shooting -- she was upset because she thought she had some sort of higher personal connection with the octopus than I did, that because I'd never seen one snorkeling like she had, that I didn't deserve to take pictures or get as close to it as she did. The octopus was hers; not mine.

Seattle Mariners outfielder Greg Halman died Monday morning in his homeland of the Netherlands after police found him stabbed and bleeding and were unable to resuscitate him. There's nothing you can really say about a promising 24-year-old outfielder who was brutally murdered to death by his own brother (allegedly). I'm just deeply saddened by his death. He was one of my favorite Mariners prospects, a five-tool player who'd done relatively well in limited action in the major leagues, and someone with a lot of character who was always a great interview on radio or TV. I was really looking forward to him playing for the big club again this year and continuing to grow and mature as a player, and it's just beyond-words-shitty that someone, especially his own brother, would take his life away. Greg Halman had all the potential in the world to be a superstar outfielder for the Mariners, and I'm going to miss seeing him play next season. This is all just so surreal.
Justin Verlander has done it. The Cy Young award winner has locked up the AL MVP this year too, making him the first starting pitcher since Roger Clemens in 1986 to win the league's Most Valuable Player award. Personally, I don't think a pitcher should ever win the MVP, regardless of his stats, because a) pitchers already have their own "best pitcher" award, the Cy Young, which is given out to the one pitcher in each league (yes, hitters have "Silver Sluggers" too, but those are one per position and aren't even remotely on the same scale as a Cy Young award), and b) because pitching every five days, even if you're lights out, isn't the same as both hitting and fielding in 162 games. But let's get honest, handing out an award centered around "value" that uses arbitrary measurements to qualify what value even means isn't exactly the most scientifically-accurate approach.
Hey Seahawks fans, would you rather have Tarvaris Jackson or Sam Bradford as your quarterback right now? I'd put my money on Jackson for $4m a season and spend the rest of my cash on a better team. Like the one the Rams lost to on Sunday. It definitely makes you think about the NFL Draft though. The Seahawks will presumably finish outside of the top 10 in draft order, leaving them the second tier of available rookie quarterbacks after Andrew Luck, Matt Barkley, and Landry Jones are all taken in the top 10. Wouldn't you rather stick with Jackson and use that 10th or 11th pick in the NFL Draft on a top tier pass rusher instead of forcing a move for a QB that probably isn't worth the draft position and subsequent contract he'd get if drafted above his market value?
Outspoken New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan has been fined $75,000 by the NFL for swearing at a fan during halftime of a tough loss to the New England Patriots eight days ago. A Pats fan told Ryan that New England head coach Bill Belichick was better than him as he walked down the tunnel, to which Ryan responded, "Shut the fuck up!" Seems like a reasonable response, and at $18,750 a word, he did really well to keep it brief.
LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, and Carmelo Anthony are set to head a four-city "Homecoming Tour" next month as the NBA lockout continues to press the red button. I would honestly rather watch Saer Sene get his wingspan measured over and over again than watch LeBron and friends play "basketball" in their home cities. They might need to do it like pinball and just put multiple balls out on the court to keep everyone happy, otherwise it'll just turn into four grown men wrestling on the floor over who gets to shoot. Or, in the case of the Akron stop, four grown men huddled together to avoid flying beer cups. Any way we can get Metta World Peace to join the tour to keep everything calm and non-violent?

Golfpunk: The Icy Fairways, Part IV

2011-11-21T08:53:00.001-08:00

Written by Erik Ian Larsen & Lucius Wisniewski/Illustration by Lucius Wisniewski

Click the comic to view in glorious full resolution!

And click on the "Golfpunk" tag below to view the whole Icy Fairways series!

Quick Takes - Shut up, nerd!

2011-11-18T08:52:00.001-08:00

You want me to do what?

"Stargate" is a lovely tale about a nerd who uncovers the secret clues of an ancient Egyptian artifact that turns out to be a portal built by an alien to travel between locations in the universe (still with me?). So, obviously, I watched it the other night. I say obviously because I'm a nerd who enjoys ancient Egyptian culture almost as much as aliens who travel around the universe in giant pyramid ships. While I was wholeheartedly disappointed with the quality of the Blu Ray video (Clean the f%@#ing specks, people! We're in the future!), the movie was as good as ever. Considering that "Stargate" came out in the early '90s, it's aged remarkably well, but there was one scene in particular that drove me crazy. Crazy enough to do some math.

When Daniel Jackson, the super-linguist who solves the original stargate hieroglyphics in a few days -- after a team had floundered for two years to solve it prior to his arrival -- he and a crew of "hardcore" Marines head into the portal and are transported across the universe to find the sister stargate and, I guess, destroy it? The logic is a bit fuzzy, but whatever, we humans must stop at nothing to preserve our mediocre culture! The real intrigue begins when the crew lands on planet whatever and Jackson reveals that he can't actually get them back home through the second stargate because the tablet that would've shown the order of the return symbols wasn't there. Whoops! Guess he should've mentioned that on earth. Now, I'm not excusing Jackson from his actions, he obviously had a responsibility to the whole mission to let them know he needed the code tablet, but they could've sent multiple probes through the stargate to the other side to search for the it, and if they didn't find it in the sister stargate's location, they could've (and probably should've) aborted the mission. Everyone was too eager to go, so you can't really blame Jackson for being eager as well.

But when they get to the sister planet and find out that Jackson can't get them home, one of the Marines confronts Jackson and says something to the effect of, "What do you mean you can't get us home, nerd?! Just shut up and figure it out!" Jackson tries to reason with them to say there are "millions" of combinations that could lead to anywhere (I smell a TV series!), but without the right return tablet, they simply wouldn't get home ... so everyone should stop bitching and go search this sandy planet for the GD tablet. The disgust and disbelief from the Marines is palpable, and they obviously don't believe that Jackson can't just figure out the symbol combination. It was such a lovely allegory for the disdain most people have for rational logic, and it reminded me of everything from politics to religion to the education system, but it got me thinking ...

If the Marines were right, it should be relatively easy for Jackson to just "figure it out," and if Jackson was right, there would be so many combinations they could travel to nearly every corner of the universe before ever making it home. Let's say there are 50 symbols on a stargate (too lazy to look it up, sorry), and there are seven symbols that make up a portal sequence. To calculate the number of combinations, you use the formula 50^7. A quick input on my BFF site Wolfram Alpha spits out the correct number of possible combinations on a stargate:

718 billion, 250 million.

Sorry, Marines. Better start looking for the tablet.

Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow. There hasn't been a more interesting, and more divisive, story in the NFL that I can ever remember. I'm searching the old noodle, and nothing's coming up. The love and adoration being thrown Tebow's way by Broncos fans and casual fans is hilarious, and the disgust he's brewing in the minds of confounded statisticians is equally as enjoyable, but, in the end, results are all that matter. And Tim Tebow is 4-1 this year. Well, his team is 4-1 with him as a starter. And it's mostly been on the back of the defense and the running game, but you can't discredit, even statistically, what Tebow has done for an otherwise-shitty team. Yes, the elephant in the room is his completion percentage, which is an unbelievably-bad 47%, but he's running the ball extremely well for a "quarterback" and he's protecting the offense from turnovers. The Broncos offense has basically regressed to pre-1950s football, and, for some reason, it's working. Tim Tebow thinks it's god, and he thinks god has blessed the Denver Broncos with unselfish receivers, and he thinks god has given him a great support system (what normal people call "friends and family"), and he thinks god has done a great job believing in him, which seems a bit blasphemous if you look at the religious text (false idols anyone?). Isn't Tebow supposed to believe in god, and not the other way around? As my brother texted me last night, "I think Tebow may be the anti-christ."
If you're curious what an uncapped system can look like when its run amuck, look no further than the English Premier League. Manchester City reported losses today in the last fiscal year of £194.9m, the largest annual loss in EPL history. The team, recently owned by Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi, has spent more than £460m on players in the last three years, and while the methodology is absurd, they're currently leading the league and will make a considerable amount of that money back were they to win. I mean, a football team is cool and everything, and the Sheikh can spend his money the way he wants to, but for $730m, I think I'd rather have a spaceship or something. One Joint Strike Fighter costs $125m. He could have a fleet of fighter jets at his disposal. Isn't that better than a football team?!
When the Houston Astros make the switch to the AL West in 2013, that will even the AL and NL at 15 teams apiece and will open the door for two additional wild card teams to make the playoffs. That means 10 of the 30 teams in the league will make the playoffs each year. Think about that, at the beginning of 2013, the Seattle Mariners will have a one-in-three chance of making the playoffs, and they still won't be able to do it.
A friend of mine went to Las Vegas last week and ended up on the same plane as NBA and Seattle Supersonics legend Gary Payton. The Glove! Not only was my friend on the same plane as Payton, but he was in the same aisle. So I asked my friend, excitedly, "Did you say something to him?!" He laughed and said he did, and said that he tapped him on the shoulder, his brain racing, trying to figure out what to say to a Seattle icon and every little kid's childhood basketball hero, and said, "Hey, I was watching Monday Night Football the other night and you were there too ..." Gary Payton responded, "Oh ... yeah." And that was it. That's all he came up with! Not, "Go Sonics!" or "You were a hero of mine growing up, just wanted to say thanks for all the great years you gave Seattle, let's hope we get a team back soon!" No. None of that. Just, "Hey, I was at a place one time and saw you." Pathetic. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has apologized for offending anyone with his asinine comments about racism in international football this past week, but he says he will not resign. Because an insincere apology is worth far more than an awesome job.

Quick Takes - Kitty litter and skin lamps

2011-11-17T10:51:00.001-08:00

Han Solo, you are my coping mechanism.

Every single time I clean out the cat litter, I pretend I'm Han Solo and I just found Luke Skywalker freezing to death on the ice-planet of Hoth. I literally say to myself, out loud, "And I thought ... they smelled bad ... on the outside!" as I sift through granules of sand like the owner of the most depressing Zen garden in human history. The way we, as humans, learn to cope with awful things is fascinating. And we all do it differently too. When someone dies, every single person who knew that individual processes it in his/her own way. For the same person, you have people who secretly celebrate the death (which sounds horrible, but we all know it totally happens), and you have people who wail away like old Italian women. And you have actual wailing old Italian women too (unless that stereotype is just way off). There are people who probably love cleaning kitty litter. I'm not one of those people, but I'm sure they exist. Because for every crazy thing you can imagine, there's someone out there who's doing it. Right now. And probably enjoying it.

But even though we can rationalize that and say, "Of course there's someone out there making decorative patterns in their litter with a little wooden rake," the range of the human species is so expansive that we're continually surprised by it. Like when people found skin-lamps in Ed Gein's house. Really? You made lampshades out of human skin? You didn't think that was weird, Ed? And he didn't. And that's cool. I don't really have a problem with it (the skin lamps, not the murders ... those were bad, mmkay?). And I don't have a problem with people who have a problem with skin lamps, because, dammit, we're all genetically unique (except for those freaky identical twins), and whatever outputs that produces are just part of the human experience.

If we hate something and we have to turn it into a game to get through it (these tauntauns are making me thirsty), or if we love something everyone else thinks is weird, we don't owe it to anyone to have to explain it away. Coping is a wonderful thing. It's probably one of the things our species does best. We are incredibly resilient. I love seeing the aftermath of natural disasters, not because I like natural disasters (they are cool, just when they happen somewhere else), but because I love seeing how people cope. They're making homemade jet-skis in Bangkok right now to get through the flood waters. Homemade jet-skis! Just because they can, and because they need them, and because the alternative isn't even worth considering. That's what we do, we make "Star Wars" references and build steampunk vehicles out of empty barrels and salvaged motors, because we have an amazing capacity to move forward.

The biggest news of the day is obviously that the Houston Astros are headed to the AL West! Wow! After a lengthy battle to sell the team, contingent on moving the Astros to the AL West, baseball owners have officially approved the sale and the Astros will be joining the best/worst division in MLB in 2013. Congratulations, Seattle Mariners fans, you will now be following the second-worst team in the division.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who must have a weekly conference call with David Stern to discuss how to be a massive douche, is now facing calls for his resignation in the wake of his comments downplaying racism allegations in international football. Former Arsenal cult hero Emmanuel Eboue was especially critical of Blatter over Twitter, saying that the favoritism Blatter and his counterparts have shown toward Chelsea and England defender John Terry, while ostracizing the players who were allegedly abused, is pathetic and a testament to his true character. And a host of other players are calling for Blatter to step down. Of course, people like Sepp Blatter don't step down, they step on, and it's going to take more than a few angry shouts to remove him from atop the world's football association. Paging: Austin Powers.
Aaron Brooks has joined a handful of other NBA players to sign for a Chinese team. First they take our manufacturing industry, and now they're taking our NBA?! How dare they! Actually, maybe they can make it better and cheaper and then just sell it back to us.
Missouri football coach Gary Pinkel was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving last night. Pinkel has apologized for his actions and said he will accept full responsibility, which is the NCAA way of saying, "Nothing's going to happen to me so let's all just move on. Don't you guys need to beat the Penn State horse to death a little more?"
Tiger Woods really let the Golfpunk community down yesterday. No swearing, no fighting, no nuclear threats, just bad, bad golf.
The Seattle Seahawks offensive line has lost two rookie starters to season-ending knee injuries this week, with both John Moffitt and James Carpenter going down. Hey, if things don't work out for Tim Tebow at quarterback in Denver, he could always come play on the offensive line for the Seahawks. Will we see the first-ever offensive line draw play? "And the center snaps it to ... himself! And he's off!"

Quick Takes - Anthropomorphism

2011-11-16T09:14:00.001-08:00

No, I don't know why you have a sword.

I always cringe for overblown anthropomorphism. I don't mind it when it's clever, like in "Toy Story," or when it's intentionally ironic and meant to show us how absurd our behavior really is sometimes, or even when it's subtle but still from an animal's perspective, like in "A Bug's Life," but when humans make movies about themselves using animals that have human behavior, human culture, and human evolutionary priorities, prickly hives start forming on my brain that can only be cured with a heavy dose of David Attenborough.

I watched two movies recently that were especially overblown in their rampant use of anthropomorphism: One, a cheap, trashy Hollywood exploiter ("Puss in Boots"), and the other a revered part of the cinema canon ("The Lion King"), were filled with so many instances of our own behavioral projections that they might as well have been live-action clunkers made for teenage girls and 40-something singles.

"Puss in Boots" was almost offensively anthropomorphized, and I get that it's just supposed to be cute and fun, but dammit, it's not fun to see cats behaving like humans! They should behave like cats. Period. Make an animated movie about cats, not sword-fighting, sex-dripping stereotypes that make me very uncomfortable in the theatre surrounded by little kids who don't have a clue what they're watching. The movie opens with Puss telling a decadent white cat that he just had sex with that she meant the world to him as he leaves her owner's house in a hurry. They made a kid's movie about a cat nailing another cat and making up bullshit about how much he meant to her. Later in the movie, Puss and obvious-female-cat-character dance together, not once, but twice! And they don't dance like how a cat might dance (not that I know what that would look like), they dance like humans, with sexy swinging hips and pelvises thrusting together. I'm sorry. I know nobody else cares about this. I know everyone just thinks it's adorable and clever. But not me! NOT ME! If you're going to make a movie about animals that talk, make it about their behavioral ecology, not ours.

As for "The Lion King," I truly love this movie, and it's such an amazing piece of story-telling and animation, and it certainly is a marvelous moral story and teaching device for kids, but I could've done without some of the more painful instances of anthropomorphism. "The Lion King" is about one lion's quest to recapture his pride (good pun, eh?!) and avenge his father's death to bring prosperity back to the kingdom. Not only are the lions vaunted into some monarchical system above all the "common" animals, but they even discuss things like marriage! Mufasa tells Simba, as they're casually walking through the plains, that he and his young female counterpart Nala are already promised to one another. They're like ... 1 year old cubs! And they're lions. If Simba really is meant to be "king," he will do his best to impregnate as many female lions as possible when he reaches sexual maturity, not just Nala.

I can't comprehend why an arranged marriage trope showed up in that movie, but I guess that's every man's dream, to be promised the hottest lion in the pride when you're a little kid so you can focus on more important stuff and stop worrying about finding a mate. Here you go, Erik, it's young (insert female pop culture reference here), she's yours forever, so go ahead and go back to coloring and building LEGOs. Your job is done.

Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis doesn't appear to be the biggest fan of Tim Tebow's style of quarterbacking. Leading up to this Sunday's game against the Broncos, Revis told reporters that the secondary's biggest concern is "for us not to fall asleep" while the Broncos run the ball to death. You and me both, Darrelle.
In more Tim Tebow news, the Jets are using 41-year-old quarterback Mark Brunell to simulate Tebow in practice. Brunell says it best, "I'm left-handed and he's left-handed. And that's about it right there." You guys are both white too? And ... uh ... you both play quarterback? No wait, that last one isn't right.
New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman told reporters he wasn't sure Alex Rodriguez was the right choice to play 3B in the ALDS, as A-Rod was still not fully recovered from injury. Hindsight sure is nice, especially when Rodriguez went 2-18 in the series, but in the playoffs you always have to send out your big guns, and the alternative of Eric Chavez is no longer a big gun in any way, shape, or form. That'd be like going to war with NERF guns because your tank wouldn't always fire on target.
Tiger Woods has drawn Adam Scott to open the Presidents Cup, pitting Woods, once again, against his bitter former caddy, the obnoxious Steve Williams. I smell a Golfpunk episode!
A 12-year-old footballer has turned down the opportunity to join Chelsea FC, opting to stay with his hometown club Swindon Town after the London giants approached for his services. The boy recently signed a contract with Swindon that will keep him at the club until 2015. Let's see, when I was 12 years old, I was playing little league baseball and riding my bike around the neighborhood with an arsenal of NERF guns strapped to every inch of my body for our neighborhood game "Guns" (a complex game of armed combat, prison riots, tag, and dodgeball). Hmm, I feel like I could've spent my youth better.
With a rash of racism allegations between players flooding the international football world, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has said that racism isn't a problem in the sport and any disputes should be handled between players with a handshake. If only Sepp Blatter were around for World War II!

Quick Takes - Cloudy with a chance of something

2011-11-15T08:37:00.001-08:00

Niiiiiiiiiikolaaaaaaaaaaaaa (blows giant horn)

If you haven't seen the third installment of the Golfpunk series: The Icy Fairways, Part III, then I demand that you click that link and read it. Read it 100 times, read it until your eyes fall out and you have to carry them in water-filled Ziploc bags as they dangle awkwardly by the optic nerves. And then read it once more, from your hospital bed, and share in the laughter with your nurses and doctors. Because laughter is the best medicine.

I like to dabble in inventions. More conceptually than practically, because, come on, who's got that kind of start-up cash? This all really started when I was still in elementary school, and I dreamed up a crazy concept for an air freshener that you plugged into the power outlet of your car or home and it would use electricity to pump out a constant stream of scent while in operation. I thought it was a brilliant idea, only to be disheartened years later to find Glade had finally released one and was raking in the cash. Typical.

I had another idea for a floatable black box, so when an airplane went down they wouldn't have to scour the sea floor for months trying to find the black box. Just make it float, people. But it seems like the number of crashes over sea has dwindled, as has my market for invention. So it's on to new ideas, I suppose. But we live in a different world now. We have computers in our pockets more powerful than the giant desktops of a decade ago. Anything we need, we can get almost immediately. The allure of the "invention" seems less shiny; like it's been replaced by the comfort and convenience of the fast food status quo. But that's what I'm here for. To challenge the status quo! To push the boundaries of the human experience!

How about an automatic pill dispenser for old people? It hooks up to their heads like a bluetooth or something, and automatically dispenses pills and water at the programmed times! Never miss a dose! Or how about a mouthguard-toothbrush that you stick in your mouth and, when you bite down, the motors engage and brushes come swirling in from every angle to clean your teeth? It's like a mouth car wash! We can call it The MouthWash! Or what about a bird dropping collector that converts their tiny excrement into biofuel? It might take a year's worth of poo to power your blender, but hey, what else were you going to do with that stuff?

Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub is out for the year with a lisfranc injury (he hurt his foot), which means, drumroll please: Matt Leinart is now the starting quarterback for the playoff-bound Texans! Hide your kids, hide your wife! Do you think Gatorade makes a tequila-flavored sports drink just for Leinart?
Aaron Rodgers threw four more TD passes during Green Bay's thumping Monday night win over the hapless Vikings. Rodgers is now up to 28 on the year through nine games (with only three interceptions) and is on pace to challenge Tom Brady's NFL-record 50 TD passes in a season. Even if Rodgers breaks the record, Tom Brady is still married to a Victoria's Secret supermodel that he successfully impregnated, so he probably still wins (at least from an evolutionary sense). Sorry, Aaron, you're really good at football though?
You know what I hate? When sports reporters/writers use the phrase: "If the playoffs started today ..." They aren't starting today. There's no discussion to have. It's a cheap gimmick to give you something to talk about in the overbearing 24-hour news cycle. However, once the regular season is actually over, and the first playoff game is about to start, feel free to use it at your leisure.
While the NBA is headed for a doomsday scenario, with David Stern appearing in all his smug glory on SportsCenter last night to cast everyone else as the villain and take little to no responsibility himself, the British Basketball League (BBL) is dealing with its own scandal. Foxy, the mascot for the Plymouth Raiders, pulled down the shorts of Guildford Heat player Martelle McLemore last month. The Raiders have been fined this week, and Foxy, the canid-themed mascot, is finally going to be neutered: "We have drawn up a code of conduct for Foxy, and this will govern what he is and isn't permitted to do in future games," Raiders CEO Dave Briggs said. I'm quite pleased that there was no code of conduct even discussed prior to the incident and that it took him pulling down an opposing player's shorts to even consider a code of conduct. British basketball, ladies and gentlemen!
Former NBA center Shawn Bradley has recovered his gigantic bicycle after it was stolen recently from his barn in Utah. I say gigantic because Bradley, at 7'6" tall, is one of the tallest players in NBA history and had his bike custom-made to fit his frame. The crime was strange to both Bradley and police, because in the same barn where his huge bicycle was stolen were a host of ATVs, motorcycles, and regular-sized bicycles. A perplexed Bradley told reporters, "My brother is 6'10" and he can't ride it." Police were apparently able to apprehend the thief as he stomped through downtown Tokyo.

The Gunning Hawk >> The Arsene Wenger defence conundrum – Three possible solutions

2011-11-14T12:01:00.001-08:00

Arsene Wenger has a good problem on his hands: Too many good centrebacks in his defence! What's a manager to do?

http://www.thegunninghawk.com/2011/11/14/erik-ian-larsen-the-arsene-wenger-defence-conundrum-three-possible-solutions/

Enjoy.

Quick Takes - The Seacrest Incident

2011-11-14T09:37:00.001-08:00

Destroyer of dreams.

I had a dream last night that I was at Sea World, and Ryan Seacrest was there (my subconscious really didn't work hard for that correlation). A gaggle of gawking teeny boppers were following him around, taking pictures, asking for his autograph, and being generally obnoxious. But Seacrest wasn't phased, he was carrying around an ice cream cone and smiling calmly. I was surprised that he was so serene in this environment, but I thought, "Oh well, whatever," and began to walk away from the whale tank where he was standing. At that moment, the most boisterous (see: loud and horrible) girl of the group, a hefty girl in clothes that didn't even remotely fit, came screaming toward the Seacrest and collapsed at his feet like someone at a Michael Jackson concert in 1988. I turned and saw her fawning at him and rolled my eyes, but he gently helped her to her feet as she begged him, through tears, to take a picture.

He saw me turning away and said, "Hey, you! Come here, can you take the picture?"

I had a camera around my neck, "You want me to take the picture?"

He said he did, and that he wanted me to e-mail it to him when I got home. I was confused, why would he want me to e-mail him some random picture of himself and an obnoxious fan? But who am I to question dream Seacrest, so he gave me his e-mail address (OMG SEACREST'S E-MAIL ADDRESS!) and I stepped back to take the picture. As I pressed the shutter down, Seacrest shoved the girl as hard as he could, I heard the camera shutter click, and she went flying head-first into the whale tank. Everyone gasped and looked in horror, aside from Seacrest, who was laughing maniacally and rushed over like a little kid on Christmas to see if I'd caught it on camera. I pressed the "Play" button on my camera to bring up the last photo, and there it was, in all its glory: Ryan Seacrest, face lit up with glee, shoving a poor teenaged girl into the whale tank at Sea World.

He patted me on the back and said, "Great job. Don't forget to e-mail it to me," and walked away, munching merrily on his ice cream cone while trainers fished the panicked girl out of the tank.

Tim Tebow completed TWO PASSES in four quarters of play in the Denver Broncos' 17-10 win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday. His completion percentage was 25%, he completed TWO PASSES, and his team WON. Are you reading this? What the hell is happening?! I'd make a Robert Johnson/"Me and the Devil" joke here, but at least Johnson got better at guitar after selling his soul.
Lost in the shuffle of the NFL weekend was Jonathan Papelbon signing a $50 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday, who will pay the closer roughly $15 million a season. It's the second-richest deal for a closer in MLB history, behind only Mariano Rivera's last two deals. Basically, if this were a business, Papelbon would've just signed the equivalent of a $100,000/yr. salary with benefits for working 15 minutes a week. Don't check the math, just agree with the concept. Thanks.
Think the NBA is ready to end the lockout and play some basketball? Not even close. NBA players rejected the latest CBA offer from owners and called David Stern's (ironic) second ultimatum "extremely unfair." Billy Hunter, director of the players' union, said the union plans to file antitrust action, which means this season is pretty much dead. Hooray. At least Skyrim is finally out on PC ... who needs basketball when you can slay dragons!
In a year or two, I have this weird feeling that Quick Takes won't even involve sports. I apologize in advance.
Michael Vick broke his ribs on Sunday in a tough loss to the Arizona Cardinals. Something something dog fighting.
After Buffalo Bills wide receiver David Nelson scored a touchdown Sunday against the Cowboys, he ran over to his girlfriend, Cowboys cheerleader Kelsi Reisch (it's like Romeo and Juliet), and gave her a hug and the ball. Dallas-area plumbers reported a record number of puke-clogged toilets in the aftermath of the event.
Sometimes I think we, as fans, deify professional coaches, making the understandable assumptions that they couldn't have gotten to the point they have without superlative strategic brains and unfathomable comprehension of the sport. But then professional coaches decide to punt to Devin Hester, and I search NFL.com's careers section for any vacant head coaching positions.

Golfpunk: The Icy Fairways, Part III

2011-11-14T08:36:00.001-08:00

Written by Erik Ian Larsen & Lucius Wisniewski/Illustration by Lucius Wisniewski

Click to view in full resolution!

Quick Takes - Old man fashion

2011-11-11T08:51:00.001-08:00

Just a few more years, Erik ...

I love the way old people dress, especially old men. I feel like young men dress the way they do simply for evolutionary reasons: To reproduce. But once reproduction has occurred and the family has been created -- the genetic material has been passed along and the adult can melt into the ocean like a post-spawning salmon -- the man sheds his flashy peacock feathers and slips into something more comfortable. Thick, rubber-soled shoes. A breathable shirt or sweater that would be burned immediately were it not draped over a human's body. And khakis. Always khakis. I don't understand any of it, other than that old men just don't give a shit. But isn't that refreshing? All the hard work that people put into dressing themselves, all the countless hours we first-world humans spend in front of mirrors trying to make sure every last thread is properly in place, and old men just hit some magical age and say, screw it, I'm going to put on these comfy Velcro shoes and watch the Weather Channel all day. You take your fashion and shove it, I got this shirt for 99 cents at the drug store. Basic economics.

The old man is a beautiful thing. An immovable object of shamelessness, practicality, and common sense. But for all the grandeur of the old man, the middle-aged man is his awkward nemesis. He may have a family, or he may be well-to-do in his life to feel like he's accomplished, but the evolutionary pull to reproduce, to display those dramatic feathers and puff out the chest, still creeps to the forefront (emphasis on creep). Hey young lady, do you like fast cars? Because I have worked for 19 years at the same dead-end job doing data entry, and I have just enough money to afford this delicious used sports car. The middle-aged man dresses in some sort of fashion purgatory, where he is neither comfortable nor stylish, but instead wears oversized pants, shirts tucked in that display his impressive gut, and crazy curled dress shoes that give him the appearance of a lost Christmas elf. Embrace old age, sir, embrace it! For she is a warm and loving mother, and Velcro is a really cool invention.

A quick note to ESPN re: Grammar. When using the term "11s" for the accompanying graphic to the following text on the front page of ESPN.com, "To celebrate 11/11/11, we look back at some of the greatest 11s in sports and in history," it's best to leave the additional apostrophe in "11's" out of the graphic, like you did so well in the text. I'm sensing some siloing in ESPN's corporate structure!
NBA commissioner David Stern has now handed down his second ultimatum deal to the players to end the lockout, which makes me think David Stern doesn't really understand what an ultimatum is.
Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh is upset with the staff at Heinz Field for playing music that was supposedly "insulting" to his quarterback Joe Flacco during the Ravens win over the Steelers last weekend. The song played was Lynyrd Skynyrd's "What's Your Name," which features some lyrics about a little girl. Harbaugh was sure the "little girl" lyrics were in reference to his quarterback, who responded to reporters by saying, "I have no idea what you're talking about. They were playing a song?" ... John Harbaugh must think highly of his quarterback to make that correlation.
I'm going to apologize in advance for this soapbox moment, but I have to get this off my chest: The entire sports world has been consumed (and consuming itself) over this Penn State Sandusky scandal. And while it's definitely newsworthy when a major college program deals with the fallout of this type of horrific abuse, and when a legacy coach like Joe Paterno gets fired, that's newsworthy too, but the 24-hour news coverage has just gotten completely out of hand. Every radio station, every front page, every television broadcast, starts and ends with hours of talking heads debating the finer points of this tragedy. Just stop. Seriously. Stop glorifying college sports and Penn State like this while hypocritically calling out the students and faculty for doing the same to Joe Paterno that let this type of cover-up happen in the first place. Stop making this about you and your network and leave these people alone. No one cares what your morals are, because they aren't Jerry Sandusky's, and saying that you would've told someone about what he did or passing judgment on who should've done what is just the lowest common denominator type of reporting. It's easy to say what you would've done and to passionately announce that you wouldn't have passed the buck, but you don't know the situation, you don't know the relationships, and you don't even really know what was/wasn't said. We, collectively, don't know enough to spend every waking moment of our lives talking about an abuse scandal at a state university in Pennsylvania. And even if we did know enough, letting it consume us doesn't help the situation. It doesn't help the faculty, staff, and students of the university move forward, it doesn't help the victims feel safe and comforted when talk show hosts are clamoring for details and wondering why it took so long for this stuff to come out (come the f#%@ on), and it doesn't help the people who've been impacted by this -- whether the victims, their families, or Joe Paterno, or the current athletes who lost their coach -- to let their lives become your gossip. So just stop. We all know it's sad, we all know it's horrific, we all know that more should've been done. But let due process take its course, let those people who are responsible receive their punishments and disappear, and let the abused and their families have their freaking lives back.

Quick Takes - The baffling evolution of the kitten

2011-11-10T09:20:00.001-08:00

I think there are some holes in here, science ...

And now for a little shameless plug. My brother is the front man for the hard rock band Urban Collapse, and they've just released a new album that needs your vote! Go to this Web site and cast your vote for their album "American Dream," and a shower of gummy bears and gold-plated chocolate cherubs will rain down upon you. And you should probably listen to the album too because it's awesome. That is all.

I am often confused by the behavior of my kittens. Two nights ago, one of them, Sasquatch (that's her name, because she likes to hide in her own homemade caves ... just go with it), discovered the dark backside of the washing machine and dryer, and was unable to get herself out. What prompted her to jump down there, knowing that it would be nearly impossible for her to get back out? Was it hubris that slayed the beast? I eventually had to push the machines as far apart as they'd go and coax her out with treats, which is a super good use of my time as a human, only to have her jump down again a day later and get stuck in linty purgatory for a second time! I got her out again and rigged an ironing-board/pillow apparatus to keep her from falling down. So far so good.

But where is the evolutionary progress there? If her species' genetic disposition was so risky that they would routinely get stuck in places and starve to death without some sort of intervention, how did they manage to make it this far? Is it simply an environmental issue, that there's no genetic coding for "laundry room faux pas?" Or did she have a bag of survival tricks up her sleeve? I suppose, if things got really desperate, she could've latched onto a hose or two and Cliffhangered her way to safety, or maybe she'd worked out a cloak and dagger deal with her sister, Triceratops, to bail her out if she got stuck (I can't begin to fathom), but that seems like a bit of a stretch, and there's really no reward for the risk in the first place. Lint is not a reward, not when it clings to your fur and turns you into a walking feather-duster. So, from an evolutionary standpoint, I'm utterly baffled by her decision-making skills. Perhaps the trapped lint looked like food to her, and her instincts to hunt and find food outweighed the risk of getting stuck: "If this is where mice live, then yes, I can sustain a healthy supply of food. No, it's quite cozy down here, thank you. Please leave."

Joe Paterno, the legendary head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, has been fired effective immediately after the board of trustees decided it was the right time and the right situation to let him go. Considering the circumstances surrounding Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged 40 counts of child sex abuse and Paterno's knowledge, however limited it was, of some of Sandusky's behavior in the past, it's hard to argue with his termination. It's sad, because JoePa was always one of the great immovable objects of NCAA football, and he's had a tremendous legacy tarnished by someone else, but when you find out about something like that, you can't just pass the buck to someone else and wash your hands of the situation. You have to take responsibility, just like I'm sure he's told hundreds of college athletes and students over the years. What's sad to me is that someone of his obvious character, someone who would go out of his way for each and every one of his athletes, didn't do the same for those kids Jerry Sandusky allegedly preyed on. Joe Paterno had a chance to protect more children, or even just to do the right thing for the children that had already been abused, but it seems like his loyalty to the school, his program, and his coaching staff got in the way of his responsibility to those kids. I can't pretend to crawl inside his brain and know what he was thinking when he first heard about Sandusky's behavior, and we'll never really know how he may have interpreted whatever he was told (sounds like it was a big game of telephone), but you don't get in trouble for reporting someone to the police for this type of behavior, even if it turns out to be untrue. It may destroy a relationship, but isn't that worth the risk when you think of the alternative?
John Daly has quit the Australian Open PGA tournament after partially completing the first round (only 11 holes), and in the aftermath, Australian Open officials have called him unprofessional and asked for other events to not invite him. Daly, currently ranked 666th in the world, isn't qualifying for any of these tournaments, but is still such a fan favorite that he's getting sponsorship exemptions to play. After starting out poorly, Daly appeared to give up on the 11th hole and launched whatever remaining balls he had in his bag into the water hazard. Perhaps the drink cart girl should just go around next time.
In British horse racing (oh yes, I'm going there), jockeys who excessively use the whip against their horses will face lesser penalties after an amendment in the rules. Instead of a five-day ban for going over the allotted amount of whips, jockeys will now only get a two-day ban. The horses couldn't be more pleased.
Did you know that Tim Tebow is averaging 23.7 points per game so far in fantasy football? It's like every Denver Broncos fan's wet dream is coming true through arbitrary scoring, confirmation bias, and bad logic, "See, I told you he was good!"
Boston Bruins forward Daniel Paille was hit in the face with a slap shot Monday night and has since been sent to be examined by a specialist. Boston coach Claude Julien said, "The puck hit him in the face, in the nose area, so we'll probably know more tomorrow once he's seen by a specialist." There's a slapshot-to-the-face specialist?!?

A world without referees

2011-11-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

Take me out of the ballgame.

The referee is as much a part of sports these days as the players are. In every sport, whether it's baseball, football, or even boxing, the referee is there as the voice of reason, the enforcer of the rules, the maintainer of the peace. They often get more air time than the players as they explain rules, hand out penalties, and intervene in fights. But what would happen if we just got rid of referees? Would the leagues fall into complete chaos? Would players turn into wild animals and beat each other into oblivion? Would the modern day arena hark back to the gladiatorial era? I highly doubt it.

We've all played some form of "pick-up" sports before, and if not sports, some form of game, and there's an intrinsic human element to playing games that simultaneously establishes and enforces rules. It's more cultural, more embedded in our human nature, than I think people give it credit for, and that's because we've become so accustomed to having someone else (the "authority figure") tell us what we're supposed to do and how we're supposed to play that we feel like nothing can happen fairly without their presence. But players define rules, they have for generations of our evolution, and when rules are broken in a player-created game, there is always a penalty.

Children are masters at creating and enforcing rules. When a group of kids play freeze tag, there's an understanding between all participants of what the rules are and what a broken rule looks like. If a child tags another and he doesn't freeze (gasp), a nuclear meltdown occurs in the suddenly "Lord of the Flies" community, and that child is either kicked out of the game forever by his fellow taggers, sent home weeping to explain his indiscretion to his mother, or he's temporarily banished, locked in a longer-than-natural freeze, by the horde. It's a communal decision, not that all communal decisions are going to be correct (majority may rule, but it's rarely right), but when it comes to games, that type of enforcement works. The same thing happens for adults too. If we're driving and someone cuts us off, we honk our horn to shame the other person for breaking the understood rules of the game. If someone cuts in line, everyone behind that person will enforce proper behavior and send the invader to the back of the line, where he/she obviously belongs. We establish and enforce rules every single day, so why the authority in sports? Why the referees?

The obvious answer is that, while people inherently define and follow rules, people also inherently cheat, and without a neutral third party there to observe and watch for intentional rule-breaking, it can go unseen and unpunished and have an unfair impact on the outcome of the sport. And sports are all about money, and when that much money is on the line, it's almost as if every owner and player collectively agrees: "There's too much to lose to not cheat, so you better disincentivize it from a higher authority." But people cheat regardless of the rules, in both life and in sports. Does everyone come to a complete stop at a stop sign? Of course not, we bend the rules in our favor daily, and so do athletes, even with the presence of a referee. The only difference is that when there is no referee, the players will naturally even the score or hand out a punishment befitting the offense.

I can't imagine a group of NFL athletes arguing over a pass interference call or a disputed touchdown, but maybe that's because we -- fans, coaches, players -- are all so used to letting someone else define the outcomes and mediate the disputes that it's hard to conceive of the alternative. We don't know what it would be like if the players were left up to their own devices, and, based on how they continually act even with an authority figure there to police their actions, it's easy to say how much worse it would be. But there would be a certain evolution that would occur. It would have to occur. A different version of that sport would organically grow into something new, something unique. In the NFL, the players that couldn't follow the rules would be ostracized, the nitpicky-nature of refereeing would disappear, as would the chain-link measurements and the precisely-controlled maintenance of game play and game clock. It would naturally sort itself out, and, in the end, I think a better sport would come about, something more akin to a hyper-speed rugby than the jerky, clumsy NFL.

The same thing would happen in baseball too. The whole concept of a "strikezone" would probably go away, and another version of pitching and hitting would emerge. Something that was more definitive, more abrupt; something that would force action as opposed to inaction on the part of the batter. Players would come to know what was and wasn't an out and wouldn't need to appeal to authority to sell their story. Baseball players are notorious for arguing the strikezone and getting ejected from the game. But that's because they aren't responsible to their fellow players, they can focus their disagreements on the "other," instead of being accountable to the other players and the fans to keep the game moving.

The NBA is by far the worst sport when it comes to players complaining to officials. And many times, a player will be able to woo an official simply as a result of his incessant whining. Has that ever worked in a pick-up game? "You know what, you're right, you do deserve some free throws." Hell no. Things are self-policed. You know when you fouled someone and you raise your hand. If it's disputed, you just take it at half-court and start again. No free throws, no authority. Just a communal understanding of "this is slowing our game down, so just take it at the top of the key and start playing again." That's how you play a game.

Quick Takes - Bigfoot and me

2011-11-08T14:41:00.000-08:00

I want to believe ...

If you live under a rock and haven't read Golfpunk: The Icy Fairways, Part II, illustrated by the illustrious Lucius Wisniewski (see what I did there?), then you should be really disappointed with yourself and read it to feel better. If you already saw it but only looked once, you should be really disappointed with yourself too and should also read it to feel better.

When I was a little kid, I desperately wanted to believe in Bigfoot. Growing up in Washington, the home of the alleged cryptid, I took every opportunity when traveling in the mountains with my family to keep my eyes peeled for the hairy beast. And, obviously, I spotted it a few times from the car window. It was never pressing enough for my dad to pull over that I, the world's leading amateur zoologist, had finally caught the shy primate that had eluded scientists and pseudo-scientists for decades. But my dad is a smart man, and despite my pleas for him to pull over because I'd spotted Sasquatch, he knew, and, frankly, I knew too, that I was full of shit. I never spotted anything but some shapely logs and brownish mosses; I was simply a kid with a dream: To catch Bigfoot and integrate him into human society.

He could wear a green and yellow hat and go to a Sonics game, where he'd awkwardly try to mate with the costumed mascot of the Supersonics while I desperately tried to tranquilize him through his thick fur coat. We could go for a drive into the mountains and he could teach me his culture and the way his kind navigate and live in the mountains, and I could then take him to McDonald's and get him his first McRib. He could learn how to use a shower and trim his facial hair, and then I'd help him get a job working at REI where he'd teach seminars on wilderness survival. I could take him to Red Robin on his birthday and get him some celebratory cheese sticks while he wept giant tears of joy. Or maybe he'd play professional sports ... "And put your hands together, for the starting defensive tackle for your Seattle Seahawks! (dramatic pause): Bigfoooooooot!" (Raucous applause and the customary catch-phrase "foooooooo").

Did you know Prince Fielder was the only player in Major League Baseball last year to play all 162 games? Suck on that, food pyramid.
Kobe Bryant doesn't like where this lockout is headed, and he's got a good reason: "We need for the two sides to get together again before Wednesday, because we're too close to getting a deal done. We need to iron out the last system items and save this from spiraling into a nuclear winter." Holy shit, guys, David Stern has access to nukes? Give him whatever he wants!
San Diego Padres' top prospect Yoan Alcantara may have been using a fake name and birth date when he scrawled his much-practiced signature on a $135,000 signing bonus with the Padres in 2009. I'm sorry, but if I had to come up with a fake name to make it into Major League Baseball, I'd have come up with something better than Yoan Alcantara. How about Babe Ruth 2? Or maybe something comic booky, like "Ultimate Barry Bonds"?
PETA has, as usual, lost its mind. They are claiming that animal rights abuse violations are occurring in the new video game "Battlefield 3," because you can shank a rabbit in the game and toss its body around. Shocking, I know. PETA says that it opens the door for children who play the game to start abusing animals. I can't wait for PETA to complain that the digital birds that fly around stadiums in Madden and MLB 2K games are being abused because they have to fly for too long without a proper amount of rest.
Wigan defender Antolin Alcaraz has been banned three matches for spitting at an opponent during a match last weekend in England. The spitting incident caused a huge brawl on the field and a post-match video review of the event by the FA. The reviewers confirmed the spit (what a cool thing to say), but were stunned to find the word "S E X" floating in the spittle when they slowed down the tape.
If Penn State officials want to bury this horrific child abuse scandal that's rocked the NCAA and the nation, they should just privatize and become a Catholic university. Problem solved.

Quick Takes - Simulation lacking stimulation

2011-11-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

Wait, I paid money for this?

I don't really like sports video games. That isn't to say I haven't played them in the past--the amount of hours I logged on Football Manager 2009 is almost shameful--but I just can't bring myself to play sports games anymore. There's no joy in a modern sports game. It's a drab simulation that takes you through generations of guided motions. All of the great sports games of the past (Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, NBA Jam TE, Blades of Steel, NFL Blitz, Super Mario Tennis, etc.) weren't really about sports, they were about moving something familiar into an unfamiliar world and ramping up gameplay with feats of power and athleticism that extended into the surreal. Most of that's gone now, replaced by the modern clones of the actual sport (down to customizable crowd-signs, built-in injuries, and financial modeling that would draw a seasoned accountant into alcoholism). While those types of games can be great teaching devices and can alleviate the natural stress and frustration of following sports teams, there's no drama, no intrigue, no psychological or sociological discussion or revelation about the world and our humanity. Press A to pass to that guy. It doesn't matter that he's double-covered, it'll still be a touchdown. The digital crowd goes wild.

The whittling down of a sport to a few buttons, buttons that you control with artificial intelligence geared for a player's success, makes the game more babysitting than envelope pushing. If you want to trade for a player in practically any sports game, it's not a matter of if you'll be able to trade for him, it's simply when and how. That package didn't work? Try another one! You can trade hundreds of times for the same player, and the pixelated General Manager of the opposing team doesn't seem to mind. You must be in his Fave Five.

And no matter how many ways sports game designers try to tweak their games to make them "fair," sports games aren't concerned with fair, they're about winning championships, building dynasties, doing all the things that your real team could never actually do. That's what makes them addictive, that's the "hook." You can be the hero, a city's savior, you can turn the Seattle Mariners or the Chicago Cubs into perennial winners. And maybe that's the real allure to people who like and play sports games, just like the allure in other games is to "live out a fantasy that you couldn't experience in the real world." The star quarterback is a replacement for the dragon-slaying knight. The mastermind General Manager is the strategic genius with uncanny aim who single-handedly stopped the Nazis in World War II. They're all the same, except sports games don't have a story (unless you make one up for yourself ...). Give me dragons, give me intrigue, give me a point of view and a world to explore. Or give me slick, fun gameplay that pushes the boundaries of the actual sport and binds me to a quarter-sucking joystick at the arcade.

There was a game called "Super Tennis" for SNES that I used to play when I was a kid. I always chose this left-handed power hitter from Australia named John, and I was completely unbeatable at that game. Seriously, I only lost two sets ever*. I won so many tournaments that, eventually, the game went crazy and I had to travel to hell to fight the devil (seriously), who I beat in five sets using a complicated system of lobs and drop shots after *losing the first two sets playing my regular style. Step your game up, Madden.
Tim Tebow had a spectacularly Tim Tebow kind of game (which makes sense, I suppose). He rushed for over 100 yards, threw two touchdown passes, won the game, but only threw for ~150 yards and completed a dismal 47% of his passes. Bill James must wake up in the middle of the night vomiting black sludge and screaming "TEBOW!" into the nothingness.
When the Chicago Bears went to London to play earlier this year, Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher took the unique opportunity of being overseas to really branch out and immerse himself in the local culture by refusing to try any British food and eating nothing but pizza. A Chicagoan who will only eat pizza? You don't say!
Michael Jordan has been leading the charge for a group of hardline owners unwilling to bend to any player demands in the lockout negotiations. Things have become so contentious between Jordan's group and the players that one prominent agent called Jordan hypocritical and promised to never send another of his players to the Bobcats. Wait, so agents were willingly sending them there in the first place?!?
For all the love I have for hockey, I'm still a bit worried about PED use ruining the sport (not as worried as I am about the NBA though). Retired player Georges Laraque, a notorious enforcer for years in the NHL, said in a new book that steroid use has been rampant for years in the league, and that players used to sometimes take Ephedrine and other substances before games so they'd be desensitized before, during, and after fights. That sounds hardcore; in the old days, they just used Molson.
Fiery starter Carlos Zambrano was sent to pitch in the winter league by the Chicago Cubs after a disappointing season that nearly saw him released by the club. Zambrano made his first start for Carbies in the Venezuelan Winter League on Sunday and gave up two runs in 2 and 2/3 innings. After the game, Zambrano went into hibernation and won't be available to pitch again until Spring.
Forbes reported Monday that Michael Vick is the NFL's least liked player, according to a poll of NFL fans by Nielsen and E-Poll Market Research. He did surprisingly well with cat owners, though.

Golfpunk: The Icy Fairways, Part II

2011-11-07T09:19:00.000-08:00

Written by Erik Ian Larsen & Lucius Wisniewski/Illustration by Lucius Wisniewski

Click the comic to view in glorious full resolution!

Quick Takes - Witch-dragons

2011-11-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

We're going to need more air conditioning!

I am a Norwegian man, and, as such, I feel most at home in the frigid cold of the Arctic tundra. I do not understand the allure of warm weather. I don't comprehend how people can just sit out in the sun, baking, sweating; covered in various topical ointments and lotions while thin shreds of their remaining clothes cling mercilessly to their moist bodies. There's nothing good about the heat. You can't sleep in the heat; it's just an endless rock tumbler of frustration and soreness. And you can't work in the heat either; too ... warm ... getting ... sleepy. And when you're too hot outside, what do you do? Take your clothes off? That might be fine in the privacy of your own home, but anywhere else, you're going to jail, buddy (I'm not your buddy, fwend). Yet, when it's cold outside, you have loads of options to get warm without breaking any public decency laws. And fashionable ones too. A scarf? Lovely. Mittens? Oh, go on then. Puffy Gortex jacket? Maybe leave that one at home, Costanza.

But the cold is an additive property. Heat is a subtractive property. The cold can turn an impassable lake into an ice-skating rink or an Inuit gateway to formerly locked lands. The heat will melt that passageway and drown an entire village. Way to go, heat. You just murdered a community of noble Inuit. And where the heat is draining, the cold is invigorating, the cold preserves, both our food and our bodies (and for some cannibals, both), the cold tells nature, "It's okay, you take a rest, shed those heavy branches and take a quiet nap," where the heat demands constant production -- from nature, from the animals, from our exhausted sweat glands. And think about your dog. He loves the snow, he's going to eat it and disappear beneath its pristine surface, but leave him in the car in the summer, and surprise, you are no longer a dog owner.

Despite the obvious bonuses to the always-refreshing cold, there are a certain group of people who seem allergic to it. I shall call them "women." I have never met a woman who said, "Oh, I'm a bit warm, can you turn that thermostat down?" No, it always needs to be nuclear fallout warm. No matter the temperature outside, no matter the time of year, it must be blistering hot. It's like they're still in the incubation phase of their growth cycle, and once they reach a certain temperature, they'll shed their human husks, and giant, snarling witch-dragons will burst forth and spread smoldering fire across the countryside.

Nickelback is slated to play during halftime of the Detroit Lions vs. Green Bay Packers game on Thanksgiving Day. But if Lions fans have their way, Nickelback will never play a note inside their stadium. A petition has been started by Detroit fans to get the "awful band" replaced with someone better. It's a noble cause, and I support any movement to keep Nickelback's music from being heard, but I think they're going to need something stronger than a petition to keep those musical cockroaches away. A cloud of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane pumped into their tour bus should do the trick!
I know a lot about insecticides because of a particularly difficult experience in a garden-level apartment in Chicago. When it got cold, the bugs wanted to come inside where it was warm. But I was also inside when it was cold, and I didn't want to share my apartment with every large, terrifying insect known to entomology. And that's where the battle for humanity was waged. I'm not proud of the things I've done, and I'll be haunted by the images of insect death for the rest of my life, but until you've kept a can of industrial-strength insecticide on your nightstand, you hold your tongue, sir!
Jamie Moyer might be back in the MLB next year! Moyer has been throwing for scouts recently, who have been impressed with what they've seen. At 49 years old, it would be an absolute pleasure to see the old guy back out there whiffing hitters with his change-up and then riding a Rascal scooter back to the dugout.
Seattle Seahawks QB Tarvaris Jackson gave himself an "F" for his performances this year, saying that it's the quarterback's job to help his team get wins, and at 2-5 he's just not getting the job done. If Tarvaris Jackson gets an "F," what the hell does that mean for the rest of the offense? Do we need to invent a new alphabet?
It's officially the Hot Stone League in Major League Baseball, and ESPN Rumor Central has kicked things off by saying the Mariners are going to land both Prince Fielder and pitcher Chris Capuano. But don't bite, Mariners fans, "Rumor Central" is code for: "Pay $40 a year for an Insider account so you can read inflammatory snippets of unsourced hearsay."
Anyone know what I should do with the invitation the Big East sent me to bring my "prestigious football team [insert team name here]" to their conference?
Alex Ovechkin, arguably the best player in the NHL, was benched with a minute and a half left in the third period and his team down 4-3. Capitals coach Bruce Bodreau said that the line he put out there was playing well, and he felt like he needed to have the guys out there who gave them the best chance to equalize. They did equalize and went on to win the game in overtime. But Ovechkin didn't agree with the decision at the time, and asked Bodreau why he wasn't going on the ice. When Bodreau walked away after explaining his decision, Ovi appeared to call his coach a "fat fuck" on national television. I think somebody's been watching too much "Curb."

Quick Takes - Charles Barkley & chaos dunks

2011-11-03T13:53:00.000-07:00

I always thought NBA Jam TE was the best basketball game ever made. The Tournament Edition of the popular NBA arcade game took everything to another level, and many hours of my Super NES life were spent playing with Bill Clinton (I could've phrased that better, huh?). But along comes a challenger, a game with more plot twists than an M. Night Shyamalan movie and enough crazy shit packed in its tiny .zip file to make an unlockable President character seem altogether pedestrian:

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden

The title may be confusing to those of you who aren't video game aficionados, but the "Gaiden" is a nod to famous Japanese-style games (Ninja Gaiden), and, naturally, in BSUAJG, the player gets to enjoy traditional Japanese RPG-style battles and dungeons. "In a game about basketball?" you understandably ask. This game is as much about basketball as Justin Bieber is to music. The real difference is that plot for this game makes me cry tears of joy, whereas Bieber makes me want to kick a baby in the head. Ninja Gaiden!

BSUAJG, released in 2008 by tiny indie developer Tales of Game's Studios, is set in a post-apocalyptic New York, dubbed "Neo New York" (bit redundant there, eh?); the "apocalypse" was brought about after Charles Barkley pulled off the first ever Chaos Dunk to impress his son, Hoopz, who was in attendance for his first game. The Chaos Dunk killed millions, and basketball players around the world were massacred in the aftermath, in what is now known as the "B-Ballnacht." Another Chaos Dunk happens years later, killing 15 million people, and Barkley, the protagonist of the game, is supposedly the only player who can perform a Chaos Dunk and is subsequently blamed. Barkley has to escape Michael Jordan's B-Ball Removal Department and finds his way into the B-Ball Catacombs and to the tomb of LeBron James. James contacts Chuck from the B-Ball dimension and warns him to seek out the "Cyberdwarf."

From there, things get even weirder/more awesome. Charles travels through the sewers and finds the Cyberdwarf, meets a robotic Vince Carter (Vinceborg 2050) who joins Charles' cause, deals with a hostage crisis with Hoopz, runs into Larry Bird as a priest, tries to get a handle on the infamous ball from "Space Jam," Wilford Brimley shows up, as does a natural segway to diabetes, and, of course, an appearance from Bill Cosby as "Ghost Dad."

Your move, NBA Jam.

Shaquille O'Neal's autobiography excerpts keep getting better: "Our coach, Mike Brown, was a nice guy, but he had to live on edge because nobody was supposed to be confrontational with LeBron. Nobody wanted him to leave Cleveland, so he was allowed to do whatever he wanted to do. I remember one day in a film session LeBron didn’t get back on defense after a missed shot. Mike Brown didn’t say anything about it. He went to the next clip and it was Mo Williams not getting back and Mike was saying, 'Yo, Mo, we can’t have that. You’ve got to hustle a little more.' So Delonte West is sitting there and he's seen enough and he stands up and says, 'Hold up, now. You can't be pussyfooting around like that. Everyone has to be accountable for what they do, not just some us.' Mike Brown said, 'I know, Delonte. I know.' Mike knew Delonte was right." Holy crap, when Delonte West, the monster hunter himself, is the voice of reason in an NBA organization, you know you're in trouble. The Cleveland Cavaliers, ladies and gentlemen!
Apparently NBA commissioner David Stern and Co. believe that rules don't apply to them. In the same week the league fined Miami Heat owner Micky Arison $500,000 for a harmless message to an angry fan over Twitter saying he isn't the droid you're looking for, the NBA Labor's own Twitter feed harassed player Nazr Mohammed Wednesday with a message directed at him. Mohammed responded, "That's hilarious! I can't workout at our team's facilities or have contact w/ coaches but @NBA_Labor & @NBA can harass me on twitter lol SMH." As I'm not up to date on what lingo the kids are using these days, I'm assuming that Nazr Mohammed was interrupted whilst watching "Lord of the Rings," and that lol SMH stands for "Look out little one, Sauron makes haste!" Sigh, I hate myself sometimes.
Opposing players have been striking a prayerful pose after sacking Tim Tebow, known on the Internet as "Tebowing," but the Broncos quarterback doesn't seem to mind. Tebow said he figures other players are just having fun with something that's become an "Internet sensation" (like Sports Tzu, obviously), and that they aren't mocking him and his Christianity. He could be right, and everyone loves a good Internet meme, but maybe they're actually praying for you, Tim, because after two games your starting career already looks doomed.
Hey, look at me! I got through a Quick Takes bullet on sports & religion and didn't piss anyone off except Broncos fans! I'm growing!
Okay, let's play a little game. I'm going to give you a quote from an athlete, and you're going to guess what sport he/she plays: "I was lucky. It could have caught an eye, but it caught a good spot. It was pretty deep, so they had to start from the inside to get all the muscles and everything that was cut. It felt sore the day after, but it feels fine." If you guessed hockey you win a bucket of freshly killed octopi!

The Gunning Hawk >> Three Months Gone, A Look at Arsenal’s Nine Signings

2011-11-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

Arsene Wenger went on a shopping spree this summer. How do those nine signings look three months into the season?

http://www.thegunninghawk.com/2011/11/02/erik-ian-larsen-three-months-gone-a-look-at-arsenals-eight-signings/

Cheers.

Quick Takes - "Star Wars" space slug science

2011-11-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

Giant exogorth HUNGRY!

"Star Wars" is probably my favorite movie franchise ever. And, like any good human being, "Empire Strikes Back" is my favorite film of the series. But I started to wonder the other day after watching "Empire" for the 9,362nd time, when everyone climbs out of the Millennium Falcon after Han buries it deep within a large asteroid (space slug) to avoid capture by Imperial TIE Fighters, the only thing between Han & Co. and the vacuum of space is a little breathing mask and a handful of jagged teeth. The mask would be great for getting oxygen into their lungs, but it wouldn't help the rest of their bodies, which would most certainly be impacted by the vacuum, right? Was there some sort of habitable atmosphere inside the belly of the slug? Was that atmosphere a collection of byproduct gases from its digestive system, or was it somehow created by the heat generated by the multi-hearted internal structure of the slug fighting against the cold of space? And where did the minocs come from? Did they live inside the slug? It was certainly a large slug, a single tooth the size of an entire spaceship, so I suppose it could provide some sort of livable ecosystem inside its body, a pressurized cabin and a normalized temperature to sustain life, if you will, and something miniscule like a minoc would be the equivalent of a small, unnoticeable bacteria in our own bodies. But I've been really struggling to come up with some answers for that moment.

And that's why NASA exists, to help answer some of those tough questions. According to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, unprotected exposure to the vacuum of space for a short period of time is survivable: "If you don't try to hold your breath, exposure to space for half aminute or so is unlikely to produce permanent injury. Holding yourbreath is likely to damage your lungs, something scuba divers have towatch out for when ascending, and you'll have eardrum trouble ifyour Eustachian tubes are badly plugged up, but theory predicts --and animal experiments confirm -- that otherwise, exposure tovacuum causes no immediate injury. You do not explode. Your blooddoes not boil. You do not freeze. You do not instantly loseconsciousness." And the crew of the Falcon, at the very least, had a steady flow of oxygen from their masks and some sort of atmosphere generated by the internal workings of the toothed gastropod (oh yes, I went there). So they were one step above a pure vacuum, let's call it a "near vacuum."

NASA knows about those, too: "At NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center (now renamed JohnsonSpace Center) we had a test subject accidentally exposed to a nearvacuum (less than 1 psi) in an incident involving a leaking space suitin a vacuum chamber back in '65. He remained conscious for about 14seconds, which is about the time it takes for O2 deprived blood to gofrom the lungs to the brain. The suit probably did not reach a hardvacuum, and we began repressurizing the chamber within 15 seconds.The subject regained consciousness at around 15,000 feet equivalentaltitude. The subject later reported that he could feel and hear the airleaking out, and his last conscious memory was of the water on histongue beginning to boil."

Whoa. So, if the boiling point of water drops to below body temperature in the vacuum of space, why wouldn't the water on their exposed eyes boil, or the water within any exposed orifice boil? As my good friend Hickey, of Bathroom Science fame, says, "[That] only suggests that there was pressure." Indeed, Hickey. Indeed.

Miami Heat owner Micky Arison was fined, take a deep breath everyone, $500,000 by the NBA for violating the "league's censure on speaking publicly about the lockout," an extraordinary move from Commissioner Palpatine to regain control over the owners and the largest fine ever handed down in the NBA. Arison's violation was a couple harmless posts on Twitter, one washing his hands to an outraged fan talking trash to him about his involvement in the lockout, and an "lol" response to a fan asking Arison what he thought of Clippers owner Donald Sterling. That's got to be the most expensive "lol" in human history, unless you count Kim Kardashian's wedding.
Did Tony La Russa just screw the Cardinals? After winning the World Series last week, Tony La Russa announced his retirement from baseball. As many people know, soon-to-be-free-agent Albert Pujols was extremely close to La Russa, and is now demanding to know what the Cardinals plan to do at manager before even considering re-signing with the club this winter. Can anyone say player-coach?
In the NHL, New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella didn't take kindly to San Jose Sharks captain Joe Thornton calling his team "soft." Tortorella responded with a totally NHL comment: "Joe's a heck of a player, but here's a player popping off about our team, and Joe hasn't won a goddamn thing in this league. He could go down as a player, being one of the better players in our league never to win anything. So what he should do is just shut up. It was uncalled for, it was classless, and I've never had it happen like that before." Yes! Perfect! I appreciate honesty in sports more than anything, because it's so freaking rare to hear someone speak honestly and avoid easy cliches to brush off reporters. That being said, if David Stern ran the NHL, John Tortorella would've been water-boarded for that.
The Big East is desperately trying to expand to keep up with the rest of the NCAA, inviting six teams to join the conference. One of those teams, Boise State ... from Idaho ... alllllll the way on the other side of the country, is being invited for football only. People on the east coast sure are foggy about geography.
I listen to ESPN Radio in the morning as I drive to work, and I'm always amazed by the incessant advertising that's not-so-subtly slid into conversation. The promo for the "p90x transformative moment," where the hosts interrupt talking about sports to exclaim that p90x will allow you to "look good on Sunday and tailgate with a clear conscience," is clearly not targeted at regular men. It's targeted at men who go tanning before a game to get a good bronze, who think, "Gosh, I hope the rest of the guys like my sleeveless Seahawks tankini," not regular men who couldn't give two shits about how they look for an NFL game. Think about this! P90x thinks that men who go to football games, tailgate, dress up, etc. are worried about how they look. Has p90x ever seen a crowd at an NFL game? Did they forget to do market research before writing their ad copy? And, furthermore! Men do not eat food guiltily, especially when it's barbequed.
My boss, a die-hard Broncos fan, asked me, "What do you call it when they mix a tragedy and a comedy together?" My response: Tim Tebow.

Arsenal.com >> Talking Heads, Post-Marseille

2011-11-02T08:35:00.000-07:00

A 0-0 draw will do, but there were some warning signs after a lackluster performance at home against Marseille. Check out my post-match comments at Arsenal.com!

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/talking-heads-arsenal-v-marseille-verdict

Enjoy.

Quick Takes - Alfresco

2011-11-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

Attention all insects: Target acquired.

I don't know what the big allure is to eating outside. When I sit down for a meal, I like to enjoy what I'm eating in a quiet, controlled environment, safe from curious bugs, car exhaust, and the always ornery wind. Allow me to catch your napkin, sir, and drape it awkwardly across your lap. Again. Oh, allow me to bring you a fresh glass of lemonade, m'lady, now that your current glass of lemonade has two drowned bugs buried deep within the yellowed ice. Pardon me, shall I grind your meal into a liquid so you can drink it through a straw under your protective gas mask? Very good, sir.

I understand that it's "nice" to be outside sometimes, especially on a warm summer day (rare as they are in Seattle), and I certainly can't fault people for wanting to people watch other people on a crowded boardwalk (the people trifecta!). But I can do that inside too. That guy over there struggling with his steak? His dentures are coming loose. And his young trophy wife is so embarrassed she won't stop ordering appletinis and flirting with the 16-year-old bus boy, who's one butt-grab away from calling the police. That young couple over there obviously on their first date? Let's listen in on the conversation! "So, did you see 'Green Lantern'?" Ouch, he's off to a bad start.

Or better yet, let's guess what they're saying to each other! "You like your food? Is it good food?" "Oh my god, it's soooo gooood!" "Can I try some?" "Oh my god, nooooo, it's too good to shareeee!" In my mind, all men are idiots and all women are also idiots but they just hold their syllables longer. That's seriously what I imagine people talk like, and I know people, I talk to people every day! Nobody sounds like that, but in my head, everybody does. Maybe I do need to eat outside more often.

Take heart, Seattle Mariners fans! There's still hope left! CC Sabathia has decided to re-sign with the New York Yankees, blocking a potential coup for the Texas Rangers who were interested in Sabathia's services were he to hit the free agent market. CC agreed to a new deal with the Bronx Bombers that adds $30 million and an extra season to his existing contract, which will now pay out $122 million over the next five years. CC Sabathia is the 99%.
Shaquille O'Neal has written an autobiography, hopefully entirely about his experiences on the set of "Kazaam." But an excerpt came out about Kobe Bryant, and with their tumultuous history together, it definitely caught my eye: "He was so young and so immature in some ways, but I can tell you this: everything Kobe is doing now, he told me all the way back then he was going to do it," writes O'Neal. "We were sitting on the bus once and he told me, "I'm going to be the number one scorer for the Lakers, I'm going to win five or six championships, and I'm going to be the best player in the game." I was like, "Okay, whatever." Then he looked me right in the eye and said, "I'm going to be the Will Smith of the NBA." The Will Smith of the NBA. Hmm. They're definitely both superstars, and they're both from Philly, and both attempted rap careers. So there are definitely some correlations there, but did you know that Will Smith's real name is Willard? I hate to say it, but I think Kobe wins just on that. Will Smith will now be known as the "Kobe Bryant of Hollywood."
The Toronto Raptors have been a pretty embarrassing franchise for much of their post-Vince Carter/Tracy McGrady/Theo Ratliff era. They've traded away most of their stars, alienated one of the best fanbases in all of sports, and have whiffed on the draft more times than Ron Artest in a three-point shooting contest. But what's most embarrassing is that their mascot is scientifically inaccurate! Unless they intentionally chose a small, bird-like creature to be the face of the franchise, it's not actually a Velociraptor. It's a Deinonychus! Boy, their faces must be red.
You know, "the Toronto Deinonychi" has a nice ring to it. Start the petition machine, Igor.
Washington Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall is going to be selling anti-Dallas wristbands on his Web site leading up to Sunday's game against the Cowboys. The wristbands will say, "Hail Yeah I Hate Dallas," and partial proceeds of the sales will go to the D.C. Central Kitchen. Take note, President Obama, poor spelling and hatred can partially feed the homeless. The rest of the proceeds just go toward renovating DeAngelo Hall's mansion.
I always appreciate when Congress takes time out of its busy schedule to spend taxpayer dollars talking about sports. And Democratic congressman Bobby Rush (IL) is leading the charge this week. Everyone clap at Bobby Rush for spending your money! At a congressional forum on NCAA sports called to look at the impact of "back-room deals, payoffs and scandals," Rush compared the NCAA to Al Capone and the Mafia, because nothing says organized crime like young kids getting free college education and a nationally-publicized springboard toward a lucrative career.
Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres is justifiably under fire after pictures surfaced of him and his wife at a Halloween party, dressed as Jay-Z and Beyonce, in blackface. There's really no excuse to doing something that ignorant in this day and age, but I think what everyone needs is a little song from Gob Bluth's Franklin to really smooth things over.

Arsenal.com >> Talking Heads

2011-11-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Check out my pre- and post-Marseille match comments at Arsenal.com!

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/talking-heads-arsenal-v-marseille-verdict

Depending on how the match goes, there may not be any approvable post-match comments ...

Quick Takes - Here comes Halloween

2011-10-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

Oh these things? They're just super-powerful afterlife judgment scales. No big deal.

Okay, first off, if you haven't read the first ever Golfpunk comic, written by myself and the enormously-talented Lucius Wisniewski and illustrated by the aforementioned enormously-talented Lucius Wisniewski (he's a mouthful), then GO READ IT. Because it's awesome. And it's funny. And it's golfpunk.

Today is Halloween, which would be my favorite holiday ever if it weren't for the hordes of drunken whores that ruin it for those of us with a bit of whimsy in our hearts. Halloween, to me, is about celebrating and embracing death, which I've always thought is definitely something to celebrate (especially for kids!). But I don't like to dress up on Halloween anymore, mostly because I'm still haunted by being forced to wear the worst/best costume ever years ago by my friends (I'm looking at you, K-Mart), an artsy piece that we dubbed "Crouching Nipples, Hidden Penis," using well-placed Chinese-themed tiger/dragon temporary tattoos and a whole lot of whiskey to help guide the decision. These days, I prefer quiet genuflections at the altar of Anubis I set up in my apartment, thank you.

Last year, I got really excited for Halloween. It felt like my first real "grown-up" Halloween, and I bought tons of candy to hand out to kids who came to my door (if that's not being grown up, I don't know what is). I put all the candy in a bowl by the door and waited patiently for the first little fiends to arrive. But no one arrived. Ever. The entire night, not a single goblin child came to my door and asked me for free candy. It was the most depressing Halloween ever, until I realized I had a buttload of candy to eat and I didn't have to share it with any stupid kids.

Tim Tebow's success as an NFL quarterback lasted about as long as Kim Kardashian's marriage. Heyooo!
The Texas Rangers, fresh off a disastrous loss in World Series game seven, are apparently interested in Prince Fielder and will be pursuing him this summer. As a Seattle Mariners fan who desperately hopes the Mariners can woo the gigantic first-baseman to Seattle, I can't help but break this down logically and wind up feeling like Kurt Cobain in the sunshine. If the money is the same, there's basically no reason whatsoever that Fielder would choose Seattle. Seattle has a bigger stadium, a worse team, worse teammates, an unclear positional situation, a disassociated owner, minimal national spotlight, a tight payroll ... Okay, I have to stop, this is just morbid (yay, Halloween!). Let's hope Prince Fielder hates hot weather and has a sweet-tooth for smoked salmon.
After ranking dead last in Major League Baseball in homeruns since moving to their new park, the New York Mets have finally decided to bring in the fences at Citi Field. They will be moving the walls in by as much as 12 feet next season, lowering the height from 16 feet to eight, and changing the color to blue. No word yet on whether Bernie Madoff will be frozen in carbonite and displayed in left field.
The previously-winless St. Louis Rams, starting A.J. Feeley over the injured Sam Bradford, somehow beat the 5-2 New Orleans Saints 31-21. A.J. Feeley should pull a Tony La Russa and retire today.
Dwyane Wade is a snappy dresser, sure, but I think having a personal stylist should absolve anyone from being interviewed for a magazine about style, as Wade was recently by GQ. Why not interview the stylist? Wade doesn't pick out or buy his own clothes; his stylist sends photos of potential clothes/accessories to his iPad and he just says yes or no. If that's style, then every time I go to McDonald's I'm going to say I'm cooking.

Golfpunk: The Icy Fairways, Part I

2011-10-31T11:53:00.000-07:00

Written by Erik Ian Larsen & Lucius Wisniewski/Illustration by Lucius Wisniewski

Click the comic to view in full resolution!

Quick Takes - The greatest game of all time?

2011-10-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

I humbly disagree, LL Cool J.

Last night's World Series game was amazing. There's really no other way to describe it (except there is, and we'll get to that in a bit). The Rangers were one strike away, twice, from winning the World Series, only to have the Cardinals come back from two runs down in both the 9th and 10th innings before hitting a game-winning home run in the 11th to extend the series to a final seventh game. It was one of the most incredible finishes in World Series history, in baseball history no less, but a curious thing has happened since the game ended. Reporters and fans alike have begun calling it "the greatest game ever." It was certainly a spectacular game, and the drama it provided consistently over the last three innings is tough to match, but was it really the greatest baseball game in the history of the sport? There were loads of errors, managerial miscues, poor pitching, poor defense, and it merely extended the series instead of ending it. Is that the greatest game ever? Do all those negatives go away because of the drama and the spectacle of it all? And, more importantly, what does the "greatest" even mean?

We're quick to add that title to anything that's immediately prevalent. A successful film. A mind-blowing album. A breathtaking athlete. A cultural revolution in the Middle East. A mass protest against banks or the government or something. A game. Our collective context for "the greatest" extends only as far as our short-term memories and our own preferences, and that's even with the depth of statistics at our fingertips. Most modern NBA fans still call Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player of all time, and statistically you could make that argument, but people from a different generation and a different preference would point to Wilt Chamberlain, or Bill Russell, or Jerry West, or whoever changed their perspective and left that imprint on the game. And that's how "the greatest" forms. It's a moment that changes perspective. Last night was definitely a perspective changer, and it's prompted more discussion about a singular baseball "moment" than there's been in years, but does it eclipse everything that's happened prior simply because it happened "now"?

Normalized statistics are really the only way to accurately judge "the greatest" of anything. But statistics can't really pinpoint the right set of variables that would please everyone and establish a true formula for greatness. It's not a problem with statistics, it's more a problem with people and how we choose to categorize and canonize things. If an album sells the most copies, but it's poorly-reviewed by critics, is it greater than an album that sold a handful but critics loved? Do the masses determine the greatest of anything, or is there something more fundamental to greatness that's out of the public's hands?

I think it's the latter, but that's what makes last night's game and the subsequent beatifying of it so interesting: People are calling it the greatest because of how it impacted them individually, and as long as there's enough people who contextualize it individually as "the greatest," it simply becomes that thing in the public sphere (greatness in numbers?). The concept of "the greatest" ignores the fact that it's often difficult for anyone to come up with a better example, because few of us have the proper historical and statistical context to compare it to other so-called "great" games in MLB history, but that's really what the greatest is all about: 15 minutes of fame, sometimes extended because there isn't anything more pressing to disestablish it. Muhammad Ali is the "greatest" boxer of all time because no one's come close to pushing his legacy, his impact on the sport, his impact on popular culture, and his ability to be at his best under the brightest lights. But, statistically? There were better boxers before him and have been better boxers since him. Here's the real point: If the Rangers win tonight, doesn't that change the context and perspective of game six? Doesn't that change the "greatness" formula?

Does Nelson Cruz know how to play outfield? Based on last night's game, where Cruz misread an easy line drive with two outs in the 9th that would've won his team the World Series, I'm guessing no, he doesn't. But don't get too excited, Mariners fans, Franklin Gutierrez may have caught that ball, but he wouldn't have hit eight homeruns in the playoffs to tie Barry Bonds for the all-time playoff record. Also, he wouldn't have been in the playoffs, because he's on the Mariners. Damn, that was depressing, sorry about that.
When Miami Dolphins running back Reggie Bush used the adjective "stink" to describe his team's performance this past weekend against the Broncos, Dolphins safety Yeremiah Bell told reporters that, in fact, "He stinks," referring to Bush. Ahhh, teamwork, you are a fickle friend.
Of all the stupid shit I've read and wrote about over the past week, of course an athlete talking about god has to show up. Of course. We couldn't just have a nice, peaceful Quick Takes, make fun of a few people, make fun of myself, and all go home together to eat some Velveeta Shells and Cheese. No, religion and sports are, once again, inevitably intertwined, and I'm the one left to cover it rationally. Josh Hamilton, who I really like as a baseball player and respect as a person for what he's overcome (drugs are bad, mmkay?), told reporters that god told him he was going to hit a home run last night. And lo, the lord spoketh, and Hamilton hitteth said homerun, and so the lord's existenth is proveth! Hamilton told ESPN, "[God] told me, 'You haven't hit one in a while, and this is the time you're going to.' You know what? I probably had the most relaxed, peaceful at-bat I've had of the whole series at that moment. It's pretty cool. You ought to try it sometime." As to what the "it" he's referring to is, that's for each of us to decide personally (my bet's on mushrooms), but I sure wonder what god must think about Nelson Cruz, and Neftali Perez, and Darren Oliver, and Ron Washington, and, and, and. Not only that, but the inane idea that some omniscient superbeing is watching a freaking baseball game instead of helping out sick children, preventing murders, stopping brutal civil wars, or clearing the horrible flooding in Bangkok is so ridiculously insane that it makes my brain hurt. It physically hurts. And what makes it hurt even more is that a religious person may actually revel in something like Hamilton's divine home run, that it's some sort of justification for belief, and ignores the logical implication of what that god would actually be like if He chose to dip His hand in Major League Baseball instead of all of the aforementioned (and unmentioned) atrocities in the world. That's something to believe in? Sports fan Jesus who doesn't give a crap about all that other stuff aside from excusing it as "part of god's plan?" I JUST WANT TO WRITE STUPID JOKES ABOUT SPORTS, OKAY?!
Chargers all-pro left guard Kris Dielman suffered a grand mal seizure on the flight back to San Diego last Sunday after sustaining a concussion in a loss to the Jets. I don't know what it's going to take for the NFL to take concussions seriously and reduce the brutality of the sport (remove the pads, seriously, that's how you fix it), but I think we're one step away from finding out what that end is.
The only reason Tony Sparano is still the head coach of the Miami Dolphins is so they'll continue to lose in a desperate attempt to draft Andrew Luck, right? We're all aware of that? You too, Commissioner Goodell? For all the problems I have with David Stern, at least he tried to figure out a way to lower the incentive for teams to tank by introducing a draft lottery. Now, whether or not Stern rigs the lottery every year is a completely different discussion.

I present to you, Golfpunk

2011-10-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

This shot lands in the fairway, and you let our hostages go.

I was discussing the concept of literary "-punk" genres (cyberpunk, steampunk, etc.) with one of my best friends in the whole wide world (cue audience "awwww"), let's call him Lucius (because that's his name). It seems that new sub-genres of fiction are being invented daily lately, with marketers are overzealous readers attaching a -punk to everything. People in the Arctic? Icepunk. People on a boat? Sailpunk. The extent of this strange sub-categorization is out of control. But Lucius and I, always looking for the next big financial windfall (we're super wealthy), have decided to jump on the punkwagon and are going to corner the market on the next big -punk.

Trying to define what constitutes a "-punk" was difficult, because, really, it's just fiction and it usually doesn't need to be categorized to the point of absurdity. But we settled on the definition of a -punk genre as a story in an otherwise drab or unknown setting that is surprisingly gritty and badass. Cyberpunk transforms 14-year-old nerds playing World of Warcraft for 12 hours a day into tense international hacking escapades (nothing gritty about the word escapade, but you get it). Steampunk takes the stuffery of the olde Victoriane erae and adds guns and airships and sexy ladies. Normally boring locations or people, now kaboomed for your entertainment. After considerable debate about what our genre would be, there was one true standout amongst the crowd:

Golfpunk.

+++

President Kennedy lined up his tee shot on the second hole of Augusta National. The wind was warm and breezy that day, not out of the ordinary for a summer in Georgia, but the President knew his way around a gust. He stood with stoic confidence, the confidence only a man of his position and power could carry, and gazed out into the green ocean before him.

He pulled back a hefty wood driver and-

"Sir!" his top aide interrupted.

"Dammit, Johnson!" President Kennedy pulled a lightly-chewed cigar out of his mouth. "I thought I told you never to interrupt me during my back swing."

"But, sir," Johnson said panicked, "the Russians ... they've just launched their nukes."

The President turned around, his mere presence bringing the aide's eyes down.

"Where?"

There was a pause in Johnson's response. He looked up slowly at the President, afraid to answer the monumental question. Los Angeles? Would they dare hit the heartbeat of America and nuke New York City? Or would it be somewhere unimportant, like Nebraska. A distant bird chattered away, and the sound of a faint lawnmower filled the anxious void.

"Everywhere," Johnson finally gasped.

Kennedy placed the cigar back in his mouth and reset his taut body over the white ball. He waggled the driver and bounced his knees to settle in for his shot.

"Sir? What shall we do?" Johnson whispered.

"Hit them back; hit them back hard."

THWACK!

+++

In our next issue: Mutated giant nuclear gophers, a Russian spy with a surprisingly-high handicap, and an international crisis brews on the icy 14th green at Siberia's most notorious country club.

Quick Takes - Ambidexterity

2011-10-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

Great. Now try it with your left hand, Hanks.

A few years ago, I was obsessed with the idea of training myself to be ambidextrous. I like to think I'm prone to ambidexterity anyway, I don't know why I think that, but I just want to (I sound like a religious person now ... dammit), so I spent a considerable amount of time doing everything that I normally did with my right hand with my left. If my right hand already knew how to do something well, then why did I persist on using it? Why not try to learn something new and get my left hand up to par? I wrote left handed, I brushed my teeth left handed (surprisingly hard and painful); I'd even try to dress myself using only my left hand. The last one doesn't make sense in hindsight, but that's what happens when obsession grips you.

I gave up after realizing that it took years to learn how to do all those things with my right hand, and I didn't want to write like a 6-year-old for a lengthy period of time while I explained to a dwindling pool of friends and co-workers that I was "just working on my ambidexterity." As primates, we are naturally adept at doing many things with either side of our bodies, but the presence of a "strong" hand or foot is natural in the wild, so I've decided it's okay for me too. I'm no better than the noble gorilla or the boisterous chimpanzee. Not only that, but there is no tangible utility benefit to learning how to do most of the things that I do with my right hand with an alternate hand (an alternate hand ... like I have more than one alternate?). I'm not going to be kidnapped by terrorists who only bother to tie up my right hand. If I'm on a deserted island, I can pretty much scrawl an S.O.S. into the sand with any body part that's still there (after my pirate ship goes down in shark-infested waters and I lose an arm). And even if the S.O.S. is a bit sloppy, it's not like the rescue plane is going to turn around because my typography is sub-standard. And if the plane does turn around because of that, well eff those guys, I'll wait for the next one.

The Seattle Mariners will start using tech company Qcue's on-demand pricing software for all home games next season, which uses software analytics to set ticket prices in real-time based on actual demand for each game. Uh oh, this could get awkward.
Terrell Owens held a workout for himself yesterday in a last-ditch attempt to save his NFL career. A host of teams were supposed to be in attendance for the workout, but none showed up and TO was left to strut around for the media (who were all too eager to show up, of course). His agent said that no one showed up because they could just watch it on the NFL Network, and that Owens' "drills created buzz" around the NFL. It goes without saying that they still haven't received a call from a team yet, but damn, I think I need my own sports agent, someone to just publicly blow wind up my arse and tell me how great I am. "Hey, everyone! Erik just created some buzz at the grocery store with a savvy purchase of expiring steak! No one else would've thought of that but him! Now he's going to go home and cook it and watch 'Dexter' because he's freaking awesome!"
New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski had to apologize to Pats owner Robert Kraft after pictures of Gronkowski shirtless with an adult film "star" (...) in his jersey appeared on Twitter last week. The adult film "star" appeared on a radio station Monday alongside the tight end (no jokes, please) and said that she and Gronkowski share a mutual friend who played football with him at Arizona. They took a couple photos together and she posted them online. BFD. Are we so sensitive to sex in this country that an NFL player has to apologize to his owner for standing next to a woman who has it? And Patriots quarterback Tom Brady married a freaking Victoria's Secret underwear model! Is that really so different than an adult film star? What the hell is going on here? Why is Gronkowski apologizing?! I'M SO CONFUSED.
Tony Romo and his wife are expecting their first child. We all agree that Romo should stay as far away from the delivery room as possible, right? He gets a little iffy during important plays.
Former #1 overall pick and Oakland Raiders bust JaMarcus Russell is blaming sleep apnea for his lack of success in the NFL: "In the NFL, my first year, I had to be there at 6:30 (a.m.) before practice and be on the treadmill for an hour. Then meetings come, I sit down, eat my fruit. We watch film, and maybe I got tired. Coach Flip (quarterback coach John DeFilippo) pulled me aside and said, 'What are you doing for nightlife?' I said, 'Coach, I'm just chilling.' He said, 'I need to get you checked out.' I did the sleep test, and they said I had apnea." As someone who has dealt with my own sleep issues, I understand the preference for the nighttime over 6:30 a.m. treadmill runs, but I also know that they have a lot of medical options for managing sleep apnea, and if I were the #1 pick in the NFL Draft, with a contract that gave me $61 million, I'd try just about anything (Hyperbolic chamber? Surgery? CPAP machine?) to make sure my sleep problems were taken care of. I think it's a bit absurd for Russell to try to fall on that sword, especially when he forgets that we all watched his standout NCAA career, we all saw him gain 50 lbs. once he joined the NFL, and, of course, we all know about his preference for purple drank (arrested for codeine possession without a prescription).
NBA players have talked seriously about forming their own league as a response to this absurd lockout. I think it's a great idea and all, and it would certainly stick it to the man, but I, for one, hope that doesn't happen. Not because I don't want to watch basketball, no, it's for that very reason I don't want NBA players to form their own league. Did you see Kevin Durant put up a triple-double in a game the other night against a horde of fellow NBA players? Of course he did. Each team scored like 170 points. NBA players hate playing defense. They only do it because they have to. But take away the "have to," and what do you have? A full season of the NBA All-Star Game. Yikes.

Quick Takes - Death to the twist-tie

2011-10-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

From hell.

The twist-tie has to be the worst invention in human history. It does not save time, it does not preserve bread better than twisting the bag and tucking the remaining plastic under the loaf, and you can't re-purpose it for anything else when a loaf is done. The twist-tie may seem like a flexible, malleable option, but after three or four uses, it begins to fray, little speckles of colored material litter the countertops, and all that remains is an increasingly-useless bit of wire that Professor Farnsworth wouldn't even bother to save. If I buy a loaf of bread that has a twist-tie, I remove the twist-tie on first use and replace it with a hoarded bread clip. I save bread clips. Shut up. The bread clip is superior in every way to the twist-tie, and yet the twist-tie still holds a share of the market. How is this possible? Do people still use rotary phones? Do they still manufacture rotary phones? We have cell phones now! We have bread clips!

But that got me thinking, what other stupid inventions are still out there? What other trinkets do people use that make no sense to keep using but we're forced to continue because companies won't stop including them in purchased products? The first answer has to be that atrocious adult-proof packaging for things like knives, GPS units, and, as I found out recently after purchasing a child-proofing set to keep my damn kittens out of the cabinets, child-proof sets (apparently people want to keep murderous child-proofers with a bad sense of direction from seeing out their sinister plans). If I buy a knife, I don't want to have to use a knife to get a knife out of its packaging. You know? If I buy some child-proofing crap, I shouldn't have to violently wield a machete to get little bits of formed plastic out of their Fort Knox container. We have other kinds of packaging, packaging that works really well, that serves its ultimate purpose better than the adult-proof kind. So let's just stop making and using that other stuff. Thanks.

And what about shoelaces! Okay, I'll stop, I'll stop. On to Quick Takes.

The St. Louis Cardinals gave away game 5 of the World Series last night, thanks to a late-inning blunder by manager Tony La Russa. With the game tight and runners on base, La Russa decided not to use his best bullpen pitcher, closer Jason Motte, he didn't even have him warming up, and instead let Mike Napoli tee off another pitcher for the game-winning two-run double. But La Russa, either covering his own ass or covering someone else's, said to the media that he'd actually made the call to get Motte warmed up to come in and lock things down against the Rangers, but that the crowd noise was so loud the bullpen apparently didn't hear him ask for Motte. Twice. From a land line. To another land-line inside an enclosed bullpen. The Cardinals must use AT&T.
And to continue piling on La Russa, because it's really fun going after a guy who's clung to a mullet for 30 years, Allen Craig was thrown out trying to steal second base yesterday with Albert Pujols at the plate. Pujols said that he made the call for the hit-and-run that got Craig thrown out, which would be baffling if a player was making those types of calls (don't get me started on the sabermetrics behind base-stealing). Shouldn't the manager be determining whether or not to throw away an out and a potential run with one of the best hitters in baseball history at the plate?
The NBA is set to cancel another two weeks of the regular season, which means we're two weeks closer to LeBron James in "Kazaam 2!"
Ndamukong Suh, mentioned in yesterday's Quick Takes for having allegedly taunted an injured Matt Ryan while he squirmed in pain on the ground, fired back at the accusatory Falcons and said that Ryan's temporary injury was "karma" for all the dirty play Atlanta's offensive line was dishing out. No, what's karma is taunting an injured player, only to have him come back in the game and beat the snot out of you. But I don't expect the HOUSE OF SPEARS to be overly connected with Buddhist ideologies. Not that "beating the snot out of someone" is very Buddhist either ... god damn these electric sex pants.
According to the Associated Press, during Sunday's loss to the Broncos, desperate Dolphins head coach Tony Sparano pleaded with officials to review a late Denver touchdown because, "If I don't call a timeout, I'm (sunk) and now I'm getting fired, OK?" he screamed at two referees while pointing toward the team owner's skybox. The referees ignored his pleas and didn't review the touchdown. And Tony Sparano went home to begin mixing concrete for what he calls, "special referee shoes."
Oregon Ducks cornerback Cliff Harris was suspended by his team after being pulled over for, keep up with me here, driving with a suspended license, driving without insurance, and driving without a seat belt, this after being ticketed in June for driving 118 mph on I-5 with a suspended license. In response, Nike will design and manufacture $10 million robotic, self-driving cars for all Oregon Ducks players.
Manchester City forward Mario Balotelli is now backing a fireworks safety campaign (by standing for a photo holding a poster of fireworks), days after he set fire to his bathroom by using fireworks indoors. Balotelli has tried to clear up the story, saying the newspapers got the story wrong and "a friend" was the one using fireworks in the bathroom. Balotelli said he didn't know anything until he heard the shouting, but we all know that when you reference an unnamed friend, you did it yourself. My friend has this rash. My friend got his arm stuck in a vending machine. My friend ran over a guy. It was you, Mario, just fess up.

Quick Takes - Mystery meat

2011-10-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

These aren't the tacos you're looking for. Move along.

Taco Bell can be a rather unfriendly co-host at times. I haven't had it in probably a year, but this weekend, I decided to take the plunge and loaded up on delicious tacos + burritos. Hours later, I was genuflecting to the porcelain gods and wondering why I thought it was a good idea to get back on the wagon (is it on the wagon or off?). But was it really Taco Bell's fault? Was I subconsciously preparing my stomach for what could happen based on hearsay and the occasional past experience, which made a normally stalwart Viking stomach into a nauseous little girl who had too much candy's stomach? Did I convince myself that Taco Bell = X (fill in your own adjective so I don't get sued), and therefore Consumer = Sick?

Or was the combination of subpar meat and multi-colored mystery sauces to blame? I don't know, I'll never know, unless I go back to Taco Bell, order the exact same thing, eat the exact same amount at the exact same time of day, and then observe myself like a rhesus macaque in a cage, which I'm probably more excited about than any normal person would. I get to be my own science experiment?! Awesome! I get to observe myself like some sort of dual wild animal/primatologist?! Sign me up!

Someone should set up a Web site that proposes scientific experiments that people can volunteer to do on themselves (with the appropriate legal waivers, of course). Whether direct cause and effect experiments or even just simple observational ones (yes, I will eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a week and record my bodily responses), as long as there's some sort of cash incentive, I think there's a huge market for modern scientific explorers like myself to conduct contained experiments! Make it so, world. Make it so.

Aaron Rodgers is pretty much a lock for MVP in the NFL this year. The Packers QB has led his team to an undefeated start and is putting up historic numbers that have never been approached by another quarterback in NFL history. But what's really interesting to me is that the Packers receiving corps leads the NFL in drops. How much better would Rodgers' already-untouchable numbers be if his receivers could actually catch the ball? Scary.
And then there's the opposite: Tim Tebow. Tebow apologists out there are pointing to the dramatic come-from-behind, overtime victory that Denver pulled out in Miami (against the worst team in the NFL), behind two Tebow TD throws and a last-gasp Matt Prater field goal, but I don't know that I've ever seen a professional quarterback that looked so bad. And I live in Seattle!
One more thing about Tebow, and then I'll just walk away for the rest of the week (promise). I've heard so many talking heads on ESPN explain that they love and believe in Tebow because "he's a good guy," referring to his oozing Christianity and rampant positivity. But, and this should really go without saying, being a good guy doesn't mean a damn thing in sports. These are professional athletes, their job is to play sports, not to be "good guys" (whatever that even means). If he was running for office or something, sure, go ahead and list that as an attribute if you want, but him being "nice" is as important on the football field as him being Christian is. It's completely inconsequential, and if he keeps completing only 40% of his passes, he'll get to be another one of those nice guys who says it wasn't god's plan for him to play football.
The refereeing in the NFL has never been more atrocious than it is right now. The inability to consistently call anything has made the game frustrating to watch and, for the players, frustrating to play. I can't imagine that's something the NFL commissioner is shooting for. In the Seahawks game alone, there were a handful of questionable calls that made me want to go do something else (and I did, I went to Uncle's Games and bought Magic cards because I'm awesome). The personal foul call on Kam Chancellor for tackling the quarterback too hard (I seriously can't fathom what they flagged him for), negating a sack and causing an irate Pete Carroll to be forced off the field by the officials, was so ridiculous even the announcers were upset. And if you can wake an NFL announcer up from his talking coma, you know you've done something wrong. The point of a referee is to make sure the game is being played fairly and at the highest level possible. I think they forget that sometimes, hell, I think the league forgets that sometimes, and it turns the referees into trigger-happy police. Nobody wants to watch an NFL game to see close-ups of an old man in weird clothes explaining shit. Nobody. And nobody wants to see some of the best athletes in the world afraid to touch each other for fear of getting flagged or fined. NFL refereeing is a joke, and the only reason it's not a bigger deal is because the refereeing in every other major American sport is too.
Legitimate question: Do the Colts even like playing football?
Ndamukong Suh and a Lions teammate were accused of taunting Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan after he went down injured, with a Falcons player accusing Suh of "talking trash" and mockingly telling trainers to "get the cart." I think when you play against a guy whose first name means "HOUSE OF SPEARS" you should just be glad you get to go home at night to your wife and kids.
The Raiders threw six interceptions yesterday in a tough loss, three coming from new quarterback Carson Palmer. But don't worry, it always works out well to sell the farm to pick up a mediocre quarterback, right Arizona?
You know the old saying that the "best" player on any NFL team is the back-up quarterback, because of fans' idolization of what the back-up quarterback could be? Well, back-up quarterbacks are 1-18 this season after replacing the starter. Statistics make me happy.

Quick Takes - The eSports revolution

2011-10-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

And up next on ESPN3 ...

Return to Castle Wolfenstein was always my game. For nearly a decade, I played nothing but RTCW. Day or night, rain or shine, RTCW was this humming insect zapper that annihilated my desire to play other games (or to go outside). Even as the server populations started to dwindle (newer, better games kept coming out and stealing players ... those bastards) and hackers tried to ruin every single match, I kept plugging away because there was something exciting about playing RTCW at a high level. It was my "digital home," and there was a community of hardcore gamers who made it their homes too. But it wasn't just a home, it was a real, competitive digital sport, and it made me wonder about the future of both gaming and sports (and whether they could, or even should, join forces).

If Madden gamers could show up on ESPN2 wearing oversized NFL jerseys and doing that weird "cover your opened mouth with a fist because you've just done something well and shamed your opponent" thing, I felt like RTCW could've easily been there too. Digital sports, viewable by the masses. I spent my childhood sitting next to my brother and watching him play games or playing them myself. The viewing experience for me has always been more enjoyable than any other watchable consumption (better than movies, TV, anything). The quality of gameplay and the quality of the viewing experience within RTCW was on par with most live sports, let alone something relatively uninspiring to watch/play like Madden, and it came down to the sheer experience and precision of the players who turned first-timers, with those tell-tale white-text names, into pin cushions.

I knew every map and could maneuver through them with my eyes closed. I had studied the game religiously and learned how players moved and acted, what their inclinations were and what decisions they were most likely to make in every situation. I played the game so much that, after a dreadful night out drinking, I said goodbye to a toilet full of puke with a German "auf wiedersehen!" Not my proudest moment, but a reinforcement that I knew RTCW and it knew me. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book about the 10,000-hour theory (that it takes that amount of time to truly master something), and I felt like I really understood what that meant as a gamer. People would sit in "Spectator" mode to watch each other play, to watch the really good players play, or to watch teams go head-to-head in official matches. That was how people wanted to spend their free time. So where was the market for those people who a) loved to play games and b) loved to watch the best players in the world play them too? The answer came years later in the form of eSports, which are growing at such a tremendous rate right now that publications like Forbes are starting to cover them without irony.

The viewership numbers for eSports events are starting to get scary, and I think it changes the model for how we consume sports and what we consider sports as well. I'm not saying some kid in Korea playing Starcraft II is on the same level as Aaron Rodgers or LeBron James, but if Texas Hold 'Em poker or Nascar can show up regularly on television, I don't see why professional gaming can't either. It may not even need to be on TV, and you can certainly make the argument that television isn't the right format for six-hour death matches, but the mainstream sports media should embrace competitive gaming and eSports. And eSports should embrace the mainstream sports media too. That means professional announcers, professional graphics, and professional coverage.

Forbes released the following numbers from Major League Gaming (MLG) events over the past four months. These are concurrent viewers, all tuning in to online streaming matches at the same time. It's no "Walking Dead" with its 7.5 million viewers (cough ... the comics are better), but these numbers can't be ignored, especially when you consider that people are watching other people play video games:

MLG Columbus (June) – 117,000 peak concurrent viewers

MLG Anaheim (July) – 124,000

MLG Raleigh (August) – 138,000

MLG Orlando (September) – 181,000, with 3.2 million total hours of video consumed.

The NBA has finished it's marathon labor talk sessions with nothing to show for it, and now no new sessions are even being scheduled. One source said that some owners are prepared to miss the whole season instead of giving up too much of what they want, which sounds like "I'm going to take my ball and go home." The maturity level of these dealings has been baffling, from commissioner David Stern, the owners, and the players. They're all acting like children, except worse because a child would rather have one gummy worm and give his sister the rest of the bag than for both to get nothing at all (even if he really hated his sister). I'm not sure why the owners and players union haven't thought to just put together a short-term buffer deal so they can actually have a season and not have to rush to come up with the "ultimate fix" right at this very second. If you need more time, give yourself more time. Isn't some money better than no money? Isn't some gummy worms better than no gummy worms? (A+ for grammar.)
A.J. Hawk was fined $10,000 by the NFL for flipping the bird toward the Rams sideline last weekend. It's not my money or anything, but I still think it was worth it.
Albert Pujols made a critical error in game two of the World Series last night, whiffing on a cutoff throw that allowed the eventual game-winning run to advance into scoring position. Instead of facing the media after the game, Pujols sneaked out of the locker room and left his younger teammates to answer to the frothing pack of reporters. His punishment will be a 10-year, $200 million contract that he will be forced to sign this offseason.
I had a bit of a realization this morning re: Tim Tebow. People are excited to watch him start on Sunday, and I'm definitely curious (from a morbid sense) to see what happens, but the Dolphins are probably the worst team in the NFL right now ... Let's just say, hypothetically, that Tebow looks terrible against Miami. If he can't put together an outstanding performance against the Dolphins, doesn't that pretty much set the baseline for how he's going to play the rest of the year? I was going into Sunday thinking it would just be interesting to see how Tebow plays, but I really think this game could be a definitive moment for his whole NFL career. Pretty hyperbolic there, eh? It's what I do.
Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony is spitting up to the media about how great it would be to play with Hornets guard Chris Paul. Listen, if you guys already have a Heat-esque backroom deal worked out, just STFU and make it happen. I don't want to hear your BFF love letters to one another in the media for the next year before, gasp!, Paul somehow ends up in New York.
A streaker disguised as a referee interrupted the UCLA-Arizona football game, which prompted a massive brawl to break out between the two college sides. See, this is why nudity works. Nobody wants to get near a nude man. Ever. Not even people who are married. Nude men are just repulsive, ergo, they make the best streakers. And they certainly don't cause fights, except between security guards who have to rock, paper, scissors over who has to tackle the guy.

Quick Takes - Free throws? Please no!

2011-10-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

And the crowd goes wild!

I saw a story the other day about a homeless man who stole $100 from a bank in Louisiana and got 15 years in prison for his sentence. Juxtaposed to that was a story about a CEO who stole $3 billion dollars from his company and was sentenced to 40 weeks in prison. Perhaps our judicial system needs some retooling. You know what else needs retooling? The NBA!

This lockout is destroying professional basketball in a way that the narcissistic owners and commissioner couldn't have predicted (it's hard to see anything when your head is jammed up your own arse), and I think that means the NBA needs to start from scratch. It's really easy to just try to build off of something that's already existing, even if it's bad; you don't have to work as hard to make little improvements and to feel like you're fixing it (see: Internet Explorer). But when something's really broken, and I've thought the NBA is broken for years now, I think you just have to blow it up. Strap Acme TNT to the league and push the plunger. Whatever that means from a CBA perspective, that's for other writers who have more patience for the semantics of revenue sharing to discuss. What I'm talking about is the way the game is played.

The NBA is dreadfully boring to watch now. Say what you want about the talent of the players, and they're certainly bigger/stronger/faster/more PEDed up now than ever before, but the quality of the actual gameplay has taken such a dramatic hit in the "isolation era" that I find it hard to watch anything until the playoffs roll around. At least in the playoffs, the referees put the whistles away and let the players go at it a bit more. But during the regular season (and let's be real, the playoffs still aren't great), the lack of consistent play makes the game unwatchable. There are too many timeouts, too many TV timeouts, too many breaks, too many sideline reports, too much time between quarters, too much bullshit to sit through during halftime, too many fouls, too many free throws, etc etc. There isn't too much of anything good, it's just all the worst parts of the game exacerbated to the point of skull-splitting drudgery.

Dwight Howard has hired a scientist to help him shoot free throws, saying that in order for him to become a great player in the NBA, he needs to shoot over 80% from the line. And that's what's wrong with the league, right there. One of the most talented, gifted athletes we have ever seen in the league, a seven-foot giant with incredible speed, agility, and athleticism, is going to spend the entire offseason working on free throws, because that's all the game is anymore. Grown men, standing around, watching someone shoot uncontested foul shots. Awesome.

And what about Derrick Rose? The Chicago Bulls guard is one of the most awe-inspiring players to ever put on a basketball jersey, but NBA analysts have been criticizing his game for years because he "doesn't get to the foul line enough." They've been begging for him to change his game so he'll start running into a pile of people, make contact, draw fouls, and shoot 15-20 free throws a game, a la Dwyane Wade, Russell Westbrook, and LeBron James. That's how you become great in the modern game, you take the ball inside and you jump into contact. I've heard analysts praise Rose for "playing the game the right way," but then admitting that he can't play that way in the NBA and expect to win a championship. Sigh.

Let's get rid of timeouts. Let's put the whistles away. And let's get back to playing a real freaking sport.

Cardinals reliever Arthur Rhodes is guaranteed a World Series ring this year after playing for both the Rangers and the Cardinals this season. I'm not sure how the league doesn't have a rule that prevents a player who didn't, you know, win the World Series from getting a ring because he played a few regular season games with another team, but this is from the same league who determines home field advantage through a meaningless exhibition game. If I were Arthur Rhodes, I'd just hang out in the locker room, drink beer and order Popeye's chicken, and wait for my ring to arrive, but I guess he's not on the Boston Red Sox.
Does anyone else think it's creepy when ESPN fawns over high school kids? "Hey, kid, come check out our news van ..."
Rex Ryan seems to be vomiting words uncontrollably again, calling out Chargers head coach Norv Turner by claiming that, with the teams Turner had in the past, Ryan "would have had a couple rings." You'd think for a guy his size he'd know how to keep his food down.
On a recent broadcast of HBO's "Real Sports," the normally soft-spoken Bryant Gumbel compared NBA commissioner David Stern to a "plantation owner." Now, I can think of a lot of things to call David Stern, most of which I don't feel comfortable printing here as my mom would never talk to me and the FCC would come to my house to take my computer away, but to have the ignorance and audacity to compare Stern to a plantation owner is just pathetic and absurd. David Stern deserves all the vitriol writers and broadcasters (and players) can throw at him, but Gumbel should know better than to destroy his argument and his credibility by likening it to slavery of all things. It's basketball! Players are paid millions of dollars to play a sport. They are choosing to play the sport, as well. And they're not being ... you know what, I don't even need to finish this rant. Everybody knows how stupid that "plantation owner" comment was. Everyone knows how awful slavery was and how ridiculous it is to compare it to the NBA too. I'm done.
Are you ready for the 24-hour Tim Tebow news network? If not, you might as well just cancel your cable before this Sunday and move to a Buddhist monastery in Tibet.
Speaking of which, right now on ESPN.com, the main story is, of course, Tim Tebow, while the recap for game 1 of the World Series is buried below. Hilarious. I sure hope it's like this for the next 15 years.
The Philadelphia Eagles made a trade for Detroit Lions running back Jerome Harrison, only to discover during his physical that he had a brain tumor, thus nullifying the trade (obviously). What's fascinating about this story is that had the trade not been made initially, Harrison wouldn't have had a physical and who knows how long it would've taken for the first diagnosis. The tumor is now being treated, according to sources, and his prognosis for life and football are both positive (best trade ever?), but I'm starting to think regular physicals should be more common in the NFL. If I had to turn and cough every year in high school for my sports physical, why aren't pro athletes doing the same?

Quick Takes - We are all just delicate flowers

2011-10-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

This post does not apply to you.

I really like seeing things that remind our species of our delicate fragility. I don't mean watching a man-eating lion (hyena) maul a child at a zoo in China or something. That's just macabre (except when they don't shoot the animal to death, then it's okay). What I'm talking about are the little things. Things like stubbing a toe. Something so small and insignificant, a toe, a measly toe, can bring a grown man to the verge of tears and a hospital visit for X-rays and a walking boot. It's brilliant. I don't like to stub my toe, I don't willingly jam my foot into hard objects to experience my humanity to the fullest, I just like seeing other people do it.

I especially enjoy seeing someone trip on a slightly-raised bit of sidewalk, where her gaze is too high to perceive the miniscule height difference between concrete slabs and it takes all the two-legged balance of our evolutionary gate to stay upright. It kills me. Or watching someone walk down stairs and not realize that there aren't any stairs left, so he thumps down a horse-legged stomp on the ground and glances around sheepishly to see if anyone saw. I saw, my good sir, I saw, and I'm delighted.

We spend so much time trying to maintain the perception people have of us, even complete strangers who have no interest whatsoever. We want to be more than just an animal, we want to be perfect. No slip ups, no injuries, no awkward moments (unless you're Larry David, and then you're an awkwardness reactor), we must be pristine at all times! It's embarrassing to trip and fall in public, it's embarrassing to become frightened in a revolving door (not that I've ... done that ...), it's embarrassing to have to walk around with a cast and explain to people that you "got a little crazy" playing Wii, but what are we so embarrassed about? We're just animals.

Does a bear turn red when he swipes at a salmon and misses? No way, he just keeps swiping, because, well shit, he's hungry. Does a dog feel embarrassed when he has to go #2 in public? Not a chance, he rather seems to be enjoying himself. We're all just fragile creatures, delicately balanced in the ecosystem (although humans aren't exactly down with the whole "balance" thing anymore). We need not be ashamed by the occasional stubbed toe or paper cut on the skin between fingers (ugh). We need not be ashamed when the concrete isn't level or the sidewalk is a bit icy. Just laugh at how delicate we really are, because if you don't, then I'll just be that guy who's laughing at everyone, and then I'll be embarrassed.

NBA players, owners, and a mediator met for 16 hours yesterday to try to negotiate a new deal. They were unsuccessful, but I heard Pizza Hut had a record sales day.
Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu passed a concussion test and looks like he could be ready to play on Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals. From what I've heard, the concussion test consists of a pop quiz against Vince Young. Beat him, and you're ready for some football!
So the World Series starts tonight (hopefully filled with ads of children enjoying chewing tobacco), and I couldn't be happier for Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington, who's become the toast of Major League Baseball this year. If you didn't know, Washington used to dabble in cocaine (like a year ago), but the team stuck with him and now they're being rewarded with a World Series trip. Everyone keeps talking about how fun and laid back Washington is, which means he's for sure still clean, but I have to say, if I dabbled in cocaine, I can't imagine my employer a) not firing me immediately, and b) rewarding me with a contract extension and then parading me around town when I hit some corporate sales mark thingy (I don't know anything about the real world).
Speaking of drugs! Doc Gooden said in an interview that he missed the New York Mets' 1986 World Series parade because he was in a drug dealer's apartment, too high and paranoid to join in on the festivities. Baseball was so much more fun when the players were high and not the managers ... Anyway, my favorite drugs + baseball story is that of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis, who threw a no-hitter in 1970 against the San Diego Padres while on LSD. I'll let him tell the story, "I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. Iwas psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the glove, but Ididn't hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of battersand the bases were loaded two or three times.The ball was small sometimes, the ball was largesometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't. SometimesI tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking athim. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. They say I had aboutthree to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of aball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hithard and never reached me." He finished the game with eight walks, but the Pirates won 2-0 and Ellis' legend was born.
A 52-year-old man slapped Chicago Bears WR Devin Hester in the back of the head at a casino as Hester stood innocently in an ATM line and was arrested and charged with battery. There had been no prior confrontation between the two men, which proves, once again, that alcohol and Bears fans are a troubling combination.

Quick Takes - Jesus fishes

2011-10-18T11:32:00.000-07:00

And for my next trick ...

I'm all for freedom of expression, but whatever it is that we're doing to our cars needs to stop. I saw not one, but two Jesus fish on the back of a single vehicle driving home from work. One had an American flag inside the empty spot of the fish, because apparently there are now nationally-affiliated Jesuses (plural Jesuses ... shudder). My first inclination was to shake my head with a scornful smile, but I'm a people person, I work well with the masses, so I shook my preconceptions free (immaculately) and tried to process through the mentality of the driver.

Perhaps she received the first Jesus fish, much smaller than the second, as a gift, only to be so blown away by the larger American-flag Jesus fish that she had to also include it on the back of her burgundy Nissan Murano (hot). I can see her not wanting to take down the original Jesus fish for a larger, more adorned Jesus fish, because that would be super disrespectful to her lord and savior. But she couldn't not include the American flag Jesus fish, because how badass is that. Separation of church and state? Piss off. So she went for the two-fer, and, considering the rest of her vehicle was smattered with those serial-killer-producing family stick-figure stickers (she included her cats and a fish ...) and a bumper sticker that said "Purr more, hiss less," I think the double-barreled Jesus fish rounded things out with a touch of class.

Or maybe, just maybe, she bought the American flag Jesus fish first. This is where it gets interesting. If she bought the larger fish first, that would mean, at some point in her life, she realized that she wasn't giving enough of her vehicle to Jesus and bought a second fish.

I tend to mock myself with self-loathing humor 99% of the day, so it's always nice to find an article that helps reinforce my shattered self-esteem. A 100-year-old man, Briton Fauja Singh, became the oldest man to complete a marathon after finishing the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in eight hours, 25 minutes, and 16 seconds. Singh, born in India and migrated to England in the '60s, took up running 11 years ago (when he was 89, for those of you who can't subtract) after his wife and son died. He trains every day by running 10 miles, and he puts his stamina down to ginger curry, tea and "being happy." He finished ahead of five other competitors, who must've died on the course.
Four senators from cities hosting the World Series are trying to convince the baseball players union to ban chewing tobacco at games and on TV. The senators told the head of the players union that when players use chewing tobacco, they risk their own health as well as the health of kids who are watching the games on TV. Hey, guess what? These are grown men! There shouldn't be federal oversight and wink-wink suggestions from United States senators to the players union for how they should act and police themselves. Talk about an over-extended government. It's not illegal for the players to use chewing tobacco, and if the players union or the league hasn't banned it, that's their decision, not the decision of the freaking governmentTHATHASBETTERTHINGSTODOTHANTHIS.
On October 4th, the NBA lockout negotiations were apparently going well until Kevin Garnett showed up. One league official said, “We were making progress, until Garnett fucked everything up.” That's an actual quote! This lockout is so awesome, and it also reconfirms what everyone already knows about Kevin Garnett.
The Oakland Raiders are on the verge of trading two first round picks for Bengals QB Carson Palmer, who's barely touched a football in the last two years since his knee injury. This just days after Al Davis' death? And two weeks away from Halloween? The crypt-keeper lives!
Perusing the NHL headlines of the day and I'm noticing a trend: Jason Blake to miss three months; Doughty out 7-10 days with upper body injury; Carter has hairline crack in foot; Tyler Kennedy has head injury ... I'm starting to think hockey is a bit violent.
New York Knicks forward Amare Stoudemire said in an interview that Ronny Turiaf and Boris Diaw are the smelliest guys in the NBA. That stereotype about French people sure puts up a fight, huh?

Quick Takes - Dear Diary

2011-10-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

Met some new friends today. Ate them all. Lonely again.

When I was in college, I had a professor who demanded that we wrote for 15 minutes at the start of every class. It didn't matter what we wrote about, just that we sat down, pen to paper, and wrote until the time was up. We never had to read them out loud, we never had to turn them in, we just had to perform the activity of writing. It was often painful and embarrassing -- like having to write dreamy "Dear Diary" letters to yourself -- but it was an effective tool. Whenever I'm flummoxed by the blinking cursor of a virgin page now, I think back to those moments and force myself to start writing.

Of course, what comes out is usually complete, utter trash. Since I started this post, I have written poorly about warm toilet seats, fantasy football, "Star Wars," aliens (the creatures, not the movie ... although now I'm thinking about the movie and will have to force myself not to write about it), and the movie "Aliens" (damn). But the simple act of writing the previously mentioned trash begins to open up my mind.

I think about the "creative brain" as a house. When all the windows in your house are shut, you may feel cozy and safe, but after a day or two, a swarm of unidentifiable smells percolates through the air. Is that kitty litter? Dirty laundry? The old lady who used to live here who died in her bed? But if I start opening the windows, a cool breeze of fresh air comes rushing into the house, wraps itself around the boring, overused, unformed ideas and sweeps them away. What replaces those nasty smells are new ideas; ideas with context, some connection to the outside world. I don't normally like leaving my brain (or my house), but there's something necessary about doing so when you write.

After the San Francisco 49ers beat the previously-undefeated Detroit Lions on their own home turf, first-year head coach Jim Harbaugh skipped across the field toward Lions coach Jim Schwartz (be with you) and gave him a classic white guy bro-five (over-exuberant and delightfully awkward half high-five/half-chest bump). But before he'd nearly missed Schwartz's hand, he'd ripped his polo shirt out of his khakis (I don't actually know if he was wearing khakis, I just assume all men over 40 are wearing khakis 100% of the time) and bared his stomach to his defeated opponent. As someone who is passionate about primatology, I think we're all fortunate to wake up this morning having not witnessed a demonstrative genital display from Coach Harbaugh.
Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk flipped off the Rams sideline during Green Bay's blowout win on Sunday. When asked about the gesture, Hawk said, "It was a joke, and I kind of got caught up in the emotion of the game. I definitely apologize if any kids or anyone else saw it. I have a daughter myself, so I wouldn't want her doing that. I got excited and I got caught up in the game. It was just, I guess, a bad joke. I definitely won't do it again." There's still a long way to go on concussion research, everyone.
New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton tore his meniscus and broke his leg on Sunday after Saints tight end Jimmy Graham was tackled along the sideline and bowled over his coach (or as it's known in the NCAA, "Getting Paterno-ed"). Can someone explain to me why everyone has to stand so goddamn close to the field during the game? Especially the coaches? Is it just easier to yell at the referees from there?
More details are emerging about the Boston Red Sox clubhouse antics this year, with pitcher Jon Lester admitting that he and a few teammates drank beer in the clubhouse during games and "ordered chicken from Popeye's like once a month." Fuck me, I didn't know Popeye's delivered!
You know why I love football? Because of plays like this.
Business owners in Oklahoma City are stewing because of the NBA lockout, claiming that the missed home games are going to devastate the local economy. Allow me to remove the world's smallest violin from David Stern's puckered arse and play it for you. Go Sonics.
Former Seattle Seahawks linebacker Aaron Curry started in his first game with the Oakland Raiders, and he finished with a very Aaron Curry type of day: Three tackles, no sacks. But Curry is optimistic about his new team: "I feel like this is a defense that allows me to utilize what I do best, which is run. They blitzed me one time but my best attribute is when the ball is snapped, who has the ball and go and get it and play smart." It might just be me, but it seems like there's some incongruity to "who has the ball and go get it" and "play smart."
46-year-old light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins lost his belt to Chad Dawson on Saturday after a bizarre UFC-style takedown ended in a separated shoulder for Hopkins and a TKO "win" for Dawson. I only mention boxing because grown men hitting each other is apparently something other people are interested in.

Quick Takes - Shower of terror

2011-10-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

I want these motherf***ing kittens out the motherf***ing bathroom!

Showering has never been as difficult as it is after buying kittens. Before I go into detail, yes, I could just shut the bathroom door while I shower and solve 100% of my problems immediately, but I hate showering with the door closed because I have a mold phobia and the thin film of moisture that clings to every surface in the bathroom when you shower with the door closed might as well be molten lava. So there.

Now, I firmly believe that kittens are suicidal. They have an intrinsic need to destroy themselves and their bodies, and they will stop at nothing to find every little loophole you've left open to reach their goal. Their daily curiosity to discover new things baffles me. Yesterday, and the prior 200+ days, that full trash can in the bathroom was nothing to them. It was merely an obstacle they needed to work around to reach some hidden dust bunny behind the toilet. But today? It's a free candy machine. Every piece of balled-up toilet paper a glorious prize that must be extracted from the trash can and paraded throughout the house like the severed head of my kittens' greatest enemy.

I heard a scuttle and poked my head out of the shower to find the especially crazy kitten, Triceratops, neck-deep in garbage. I spilled out of the shower to shoo her away, the trash can quickly swept into the laundry room, on top of a shelf they can't reach, and one more issue was temporarily solved. I climbed back into the shower, slightly colder and mildly frustrated. You're probably wondering, at this point, why I didn't just shut the door after the first offense. I've been asking myself that in hindsight all morning, and, as they say, hindsight's a bitch.

Moments later, another noise, this one the unmistakeable sound of a cabinet door closing. I sat pondering in the shower, knowing full well that I've seen them make attempts to open the bathroom cabinets without any real success. So I decided to ignore it and continue showering. Then I remembered that I keep toilet bowl cleaner in there and freaked out like a mother who locked her baby in the car. I jumped out of the shower again, spilling water all over the floor, and opened the cabinet to find Triceratops basking in a mountain of pristine toilet paper rolls deep within the cabinet. She'd hit the jackpot.

You see, she loves toilet paper, and she's constantly being disciplined for snatching the end of the roll in her mouth and running down the hallway with a white trail behind her. So a whole pile of rolls? Her face was beaming, until I snatched her out of there, tossed her down the hallway, and finally shut the door.

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brandon Marshall has declared that he wants to get thrown out of the game on Sunday by the second quarter because he hasn't been playing with enough emotion. I'm all for setting attainable goals and everything, but maybe talk that one through with your coach, Brandon.
David Stern has suggested that if no deal is done in the NBA labor dispute by Tuesday that there could be no games all the way through Christmas. But what will we watch during awkward family get-togethers to stave off having to talk to one another?!
Did you know LeBron James is a minority owner with Liverpool FC? I didn't until today, when I read a story James flying to Liverpool this weekend to watch the Scousers take on Manchester United at Anfield. I'm surprised there wasn't an hour-long ESPN TV special where James picked which EPL team he was going to buy.
Just thought about a winter without the NBA, and it's cold and dark.
Two congressmen have decided to spend our taxpayer dollars on reforming HGH testing in the NFL. A stipulation in the NFL's new CBA said that the NFL had to start testing for Human Growth Hormone once there was a reliable and scientifically-proven method, and, for reasons I can't explain, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is leading the charge. Do they even know what the words in their committee title mean? At a time when government spending is rampantly out of control, budgets are being hacked left and right, and Presidential nominees are campaigning almost exclusively on reforming Washington spending, how does hte House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have the audacity to spend its time and our taxes on the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE?!
After the Vancouver Canucks lost in the Stanley Cup Finals, Vancouver fans rioted in the streets and ripped apart their beautiful city (yes, over a hockey game; no, I don't know why). It was a pretty awkward, surreal moment for the friendly Canadian city, but four months later, the Ecotique Spa and Salon is trying to single-handedly make it all better by offering $50 gift certificates to rioters who turn themselves in for their roles in the rioting, arson, and looting. I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I'm pretty sure $50 in spa services does not equal a prison sentence and accompanying fines/legal fees/community service hours. Admiral Ackbar alert!

Quick Takes - Anemone

2011-10-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

Ohhhh, who lives next to barnacles under the sea?

Spongebob Squarepants is a bit of an enigma to me. He lives in a pineapple, under the sea, and yet the pineapple never decays, it's never soggy, and it's never eaten by one the various ocean-dwellers prowling the depths below. I know that many of those deep-water creatures are especially ravenous in their pursuit of dropped morsels of food, rare as they are down there. A large pineapple would be a windfall for them. Yet why do they stay away? Does he coat the pineapple with some sort of fish deterrent? Is he a fish hunter, waiting for hungry seafood to come close to his pineapple before BAM! ... snapping them up in his electrified net and eating them raw with his super-sharp razor teeth? But he's a sponge. He should be water-logged to the point of incapacitation, how could he possibly move fast enough to catch anything that didn't fall directly into his mouth? Nothing adds up. Nothing.

And don't get me started on how he's a fry cook either. Are the burners heated by volcanic vents? What kind of meat does he use? Crab meat? Is that why they're called Krabby Patties? Or is it hamburger, and they're just called Krabby Patties because the owner is Mr. Krabs (inventive name)? If it is hamburger, how is the meat shipped to the bottom of the ocean? And how do they pay top-dwellers for the shipping? Is there a common currency that's exchangeable between their species? I am beyond frustrated with this show. Is it that hard to put together a scientifically-accurate kids show these days?

I think they should re-invent Spongebob. Make it "Anemonebob Tentaclepants," and he lives on a rock, under the sea. He affixes himself to a stone and waits patiently for food to fall into his poisonous nematocysts, before pushing the paralyzed creatures toward his mouth and digesting them ever-so-slowly. He has no friends, only enemies who try to eat him, and he's certainly not a fry cook. It would teach kids real science (instead of lies), and it would also teach them patience, instead of how to be an unstoppable psychopath, like the current show does.

As ticket prices continue to go up, and the cost of home entertainment continues to go down, I really do wonder about the future of live sports. What will leagues and teams have to do to keep people coming to the stadium? What can they do to incentivize sitting in traffic for hours, trying to find parking that doesn't cost $20, wandering through a sea of people to get to a tiny seat, paying $10 for a single beer, and then having to do the whole song and dance three hours later just to get home? In another five years, why will anyone bother? I don't think adding more cheerleader dances during timeouts and crappy gate giveaways is the answer. Here's how you fix it: Step 1) Lower costs. Step 2) There really is no step two. Just make it cheaper, you bastards.
Reports surfaced soon after the Red Sox's disastrous collapse this year that a handful of Boston players were going into the clubhouse during the game and eating fried chicken, playing video games, and drinking beer. Or as I call it, Thursday.
The Seattle Seahawks have finally traded away linebacker Aaron Curry. The #4 pick in the 2009 NFL Draft was sent packing for Oakland for a 7th round pick in 2012 and a conditional 4th or 5th round pick in 2013. The drop in his value over the course of three seasons is absolutely staggering, especially for the expectations everyone had of him coming out of college, but I'm sure it's all part of god's plan for him to flame out of the NFL and join the WWE.
Texas is one win away from the World Series. I don't have anything to say, really, this is really just a reminder to delusional Mariners fans. One of the best teams in Major League Baseball is within our division, playing a completely different style of baseball than us (power vs. pitching), in a completely different type of ballpark (hitter friendly vs. pitcher friendly), with a completely different style of ownership (hands on vs. hands off), and they're doing it for only $6 million more a season (until we cut payroll even more next year). Anyone who thinks this Mariners team is just a few guys away from being competitive has clearly been bitten by a malarial mosquito and is hallucinating.
I just thought of an awesome new superhero in the same, cough, vein as Marvel's Spider-Man (I apologize profusely for that awful pun). The Mosquito! Bit by a malarial mosquito, our hero's body reacts differently to the disease and, instead of killing him, it gives him super powers! He grows a proboscis and wings, hangs out in a pool of tepid water, and fights crime with furious pestilence. And he's best friends with Bill Gates, who conducts research on his DNA to try to find the cure for malaria. Tell me you wouldn't read that comic book. I dare you.
I have mentioned both the neat little flick "Drive" and Tiger Woods being attacked with a hot dog in Quick Takes recently, but I never expected that the hot dog-wielder would be inspired by the movie "Drive" to carry out his meaty attack. Brandon Kelly, a random dude from California, said he saw the movie "Drive" and wanted to do something "courageous and epic" in response. He chose to run at Tiger Woods and hurl a hot dog at him. I'm not 100% sure we watched the same movie.

Quick Takes - Ding Dong

2011-10-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

Aaaaaahhhhhhhh! I love the Food Network!

I have a great idea for a TV show on the Food Network. One of the main problems with being a home chef is that you rarely have the right ingredients to make a splendid, home-cooked meal. And the chefs on the Food Network rarely use anything but the best ingredients -- freshly caught, freshly bought, and perfectly ripe. So here's the twist: A world-class chef shows up at some random house with a camera crew, and he/she has to make a full meal out of only what the occupants have inside their home at the time! Awesome, right?

College student with two packets of Top Ramen and stale oatmeal? Lonely bachelor with a fridge full of mountain dew and a pantry lined with macaroni and cheese? Strange kitten with hot dog buns, Lays, and a stick of butter? No task is too great for our Food Network chef! Possible names for the show include, "I'll Have Whatever," "Expiration Notice," or, my personal favorite, "The Pantry Raid."

Bring me the head of the Food Network CEO!

The St. Louis Cardinals got back into the NLCS with a game two win over the Milwaukee Brewers. Some of us, who believe in science, would attribute their win to playing better than the other team. Others, including Cards manager Tony La Russa, believe that a squirrel was the catalyst. Taking a page from the Angels' Rally Monkey, the Cardinals have now fully embraced a random squirrel that ran onto the field as their lord and savior, and will be distributing 40,000 "Rally Squirrel" towels and selling $5 stuffed squirrels for game three. La Russa has also invented a backstory for the squirrel involving a sordid love affair with the pet turtle of one of his players. When asked by a fictional reporter if he was stressed out over the pressure and losing his mind, La Russa said, "No, why do you ask?"
Red Sox GM Theo Epstein has agreed to join the Chicago Cubs as their new GM and supreme overlord. Because Epstein has one year left on his contract with Boston, the Cubs will have to give the Red Sox some form of compensation in players and/or cash. I'm pretty sure the Red Sox would be fine if Epstein just took Carl Crawford with him.
Whatever sadness I feel about the NBA lockout is quickly smoothed over by the thought of Delonte West having a ton of free time to do whatever he wants.
Hey, Mariners fans: Adrian Beltre. Doug Fister. Are we all sufficiently depressed now?
After starting out the season poorly and lacking team cohesion, the Kansas City Chiefs started playing "Bags" (or "Cornhole" if you're from Indiana) in the locker room, and it's done wonders -- for their morale and their record. As someone who spent many drunken summer afternoons playing "Bags" on the sidewalk in Chicago, I can tell you that the morale boost only lasts when your team is winning. Otherwise it's a game filled with ridicule and mockery. It can tear relationships apart and bring the closest of friends to the brink of homicide. Tread lightly, Kansas City ... tread lightly.