Pardon The Interruption, Dude

I've gotta take a break from my day to tell you, we have some painters who have been working right outside my window today, and they have been providing me with free entertainment ALL DAY. They are basically the white trash, non-sports version of Wilbon and Kornheiser. They disagree on EVERYTHING, and as each argument runs its course, it finally boils down to each guy just yelling "Dude!" over and over again at each other, just like that scene in BASEketball, until finally they start trailing off, mumble "dude" one more time each and then fall silent until the next round starts up again about 3 minutes later. If I knew they were coming I would've brought a tape recorder. Here is a small sampling of their topics this afternoon:

Which is the best Family Guy episode of all time?

What is the best flavor of girl scout cookie?

If Spinal Tap had been a real band and sold cds and gone on tour after the movie, would they have been successful?

Finally, for 45 minutes STRAIGHT, they argued about a bunch of obscure bands I had never heard of, and whether or not they were considered bluegrass, hippie music, or a jam band. This one almost got violent, until finally cooler heads prevailed (i.e. I poked my head out the window and said, "Dudes, c'mon. Everyone knows that Slip Fire Light is totally bluegrass" and they busted out laughing.)

Now I'm no court stenographer or anything, but I started typing out some of their girl scout cookie argument as best as I could, it's pretty accurate:


Dude, caramel deelites are for pussies. Thin mints are where it's at.

Dude, thin mints? You can eat like 400 of them before you're full!

So what? Maybe I want 400 of them!

Dude, that's how you get so fat!

Fuck you, dude, I'll race you right now.

Race me to where, the girl scout cookie factory to get some more thin mints, fatass?

Oh, like you're better than me because you eat caramel deelites. That is the gayest name for a cookie I've ever heard. Deeeeeelite. You pussy.

They're awesome, dude! You eat one and tell me it's not awesome!

Dude, that's my point, dude. I don't want to eat just one...I'm not counting calories like you are, you little bitch.

Dude! Harsh.

Dude!

DUDE!

DUDE!

Dude.

Dude. Thin mints. For real.

Dude, I can't even reason with you anymore. Fuck this, I'm done.

Dude....

Dude.

So Long, Curtis

After flip-flopping on the decision more often than Bergman when he was choosing his favorite college basketball team growing up, I finally decided to pull the trigger and get rid of the Altima and get a new car.

It was a good run with Curtis and I, he always ran beautifully for me, and he accompanied me to 24 different states over the last 5 1/2 years. However, he has a flaw that I could not ignore anymore: He gets randomly beat up by strangers for no good reason more often than Daniel LaRusso. He was broken into twice; dinged by other car doors multiple times; got banged up by a coyote who tried to take a charge on the interstate in Wyoming; was the victim of some Altima-on-Altima crime, courtesy of Schne one drunken evening at Culligan Manor; and most recently, was the victim of one of the drunkest guys I've ever met in my life. My car was the nerdy kid on the playground who had to give up his lunch money to the bully every day, then went home from school starving and his parents wondered why he always ate so much food at dinner when he was a really skinny kid.

I hadn't cleaned out my car for a really really long time, and was surprised at what came out:

keg tap (no idea where this came from...I suppose probably a keg)

can of Axe bodyspray with a sell date of October 2002

Beastie Boys Anthology CD booklet

Crown Royal velvet pouch

2 souvenir golf balls, one from The Masters in 2005, the other from the 2006 PGA Championship at Medinah

3 pairs of sunglasses

softball jersey from 2005-2006 that smelled like the inside of a wooden leg, filled with microwaved diapers

My golf clubs

3-wood and 5-wood, banished from my bag because I can't hit them worth shit

Golf spikes

Softball spikes

Baseball glove, is it weird that I have only used glove my entire life? Seriously, the glove I used for fucking tee-ball, I still use today for softball.

Tennis racket

Old wooden baseball bat used for bouncy-ball home run derby

Frisbee golf discs

Box of 15 Titleist golf balls, unopened

6 tennis balls

Roughly 15 baseballs, from when I used to be an umpire and I would get back to my car and realize I still had the game balls in my pockets (sorry, CJ.)

In other words, I was basically driving around with a used sporting goods store in my trunk. I should've named my car Play-It-Again.

There were requests for me to put up pictures of the new Element on here, but I can't in good conscience do that. I would feel like one of those kids who sits in the K-mart parking lot and revs his engine and talks about how sweet his car is, along with 12 other losers who can't find anything better to do on a Friday night. Go do something productive and jerk off to 'The Fast and the Furious' or something. Also, it's an Element. It's blue and gray and looks like a box. If you haven't seen one yet, then you have been living in a cave for 4 years, and I'm not sure how you have internet access in there.

"I'd Rather Throw It On The Floor Than Give It To You"

Here is the story behind probably the most influential 12 words of my sophomore year of high school.

We're sitting at lunch, all of us crammed around the table in the sectors, wings, and outer rim (this could be another post about high school lunch in itself. People practically fought to the death to get a sector spot. Ridiculous.) Haley finishes his lunch, pushes his tray forward, puts his silverware on top, scoots his chair back and relaxes. Clearly finished with his meal. Somebody (my money is on somebody like Delisle or Brun-sack, I can't really remember) starts to reach for his unfinished french fries, stops, and asks, "Hey, you're done right? Can I have these?"

Haley, for whatever reason (what reason did Haley ever have for doing anything back then?) looks at him, slowly grabs a fistful of fries, and asks him, very slowly and deliberately (think De Niro in Goodfellas) "These fries? These fries right here?" And then threw them full force into the ground at his feet. "No. You can't have them. I would rather throw them on the floor than give them to you."

Ohhhh boy that's all it took. A phenomenom was born right then and there. For the next three or four months, you couldn't ask anyone for anything without it getting dumped on the floor. People would purposely not finish their lunch, just in the hopes that someone would ask for something, then you could whip it at the ground, crushing their hopes for your leftover breakfast bagel or garlic breadstick in the process. Virginia, the lunch lady, was NOT impressed, but this led to one of our favorite catchphrases of the year, when one day she was picking up our collection of smashed food off the ground and we heard her mutter (in a British accent, for some reason) "Damn sticky-fingered children."

So one day, months later, I was tiring of this whole game. It was getting out of control. I mean obviously I've never claimed to be mature by any means, but c'mon. We were throwing food around like it was kindergarten again. Daily. So I figure if I can get Haley to call it off, everyone else will follow suit.

So Haley and I are in the locker room before basketball practice. I'm munching on one of those giant boxes of Goldfish, like the milk-carton style box that had probably 7.5 pounds of Goldfish in it. Pretty typical pre-basketball 'snack' for me.

Haley looks over and innocently asks if he can have some. I stop and ponder in my head. This thing was completely full. Oh well, fuck it. And I look at him, and I smile, and he knows what's coming next. I pour out the ENTIRE carton of Goldfish on the locker room floor and tell him, "I would rather dump out this entire box than give one single Goldfish to you."

As Haley was rolling around on the disgusting locker room floor, desparately trying to salvage whatever Goldfish were stacked on top of other ones, he repented over and over again for starting such a vicious and unnecessary game. And I smile and say, "Worth it." And that was the end of that.

P.S. Bergman has started a blog, his shit has been linked. As long as this doesn't turn into a replay of when we were 14 years old and he copied everything I said and passed it off as his own, to the point where people would dismissively shake their heads at me and tell me "you sound just like Bergman" then we'll be cool.

Grandmaster Flash And The Furious 5

Grandmaster Flash....

...and 5 paragraphs of furious Friday randomness:

Unusually stressful week at work, mostly due to me flushing my health right down the toilet last weekend amidst a swirl of mint juleps and leftover pizza. But I've found a stress reliever. I've discovered that the birds outside our building are the same as the ones in Augusta, Georgia (I'd recognize that chirping in my sleep.) I also have a portrait of the 12th hole at Amen Corner hanging in my office. So I just open my window, let the breeze hit me, listen to the birds, stare really really hard at my portrait like it's a Magic Eye or a Where's Waldo, envision Jim Nantz smiling and greeting me with "Hello, friends. Welcome to a tradition unlike any other..." and ba-zing, I'm at the Masters again. Stress level: declining.

I recently finished all 3 seasons of Arrested Development. I know that Cheese has already gone into great detail about how awesome that show is, so I won't belabor the point and beat Eight Belles (get it? Beating a dead horse? GET IT?!?!?) I'll just say that I agree that it is one of the funniest shows in history, probably top 3. If you haven't watched it yet, do it. That goes double for you, Jon-Jon. Just go buy all the seasons at once, trust me. Now normally when Alex and I are watching TV or a movie, I ALWAYS let her know who I think is hot, to the point of being borderline obnoxious, but she never says anything about dudes. However, she has a huge, huuuge crush on Will Arnett. I don't know if I should be pumped that finally she is verbalizing who she likes, or worried that she doesn't say anything about anyone, then goes f-in crazy over one dude.

I got ejected from a city league basketball game for the first time since moving down here. I won't go into details about what was said, since this is a family-friendly blog hahaha, but after putting up with some of these shenanigans the last few months, I'll just say that it was worth it. It was long overdue.

I might be the worst human-on-human Madden player in the world. I am a champ against the computer on the All-Madden level, I'll take anyone and go 12-4 with a first-round bye, unless I change the settings to favor the computer, so I actually struggle a little bit, which is more fun. That being said, I play another human in Madden, and I get rocked every time, especially by Lane, who is basically my daddy when it comes to video games. Pisses me off every time, and yet I keep coming back for more.

I read Bigsby's post the other day about athletes having kids out of wedlock, and it got me thinking: These dudes act remorseful and talk about responsibility to the media, but I bet they really have competitions and shit around the league. Like Travis Henry walks into Denver's training camp, and his teammates have all heard the news, but they're waiting for him to bring it up, so they're kinda doing their own thing, gettin' ready for practice, pretending not to notice him, and then Henry gets in the middle of the room, puts his arms around his chest in that gangsta-self-bear-hug, and yells, "AAAhhhhhh shiiiiiiit, I got's another one last month!!!!! Holler at your boy! Come over here and holler at your fuckin' boy!!!!!" and then everyone busts out laughing and gives him high fives and shit. I also can envision a big convention around the Pro Bowl, like a Playa's Ball or something, where they hand out awards to each other for "fattest baby mama" or "most consecutive years conceiving a child while scoring at least 10 touchdowns" and stuff like that.

Happy Friday. Simple and fresh, we like yes, y'all, yes.

The 134th Running Of The Kentucky Derby: A Retrospective Novel

Let me just start by saying that I'm not sure if it's possible to have more fun in one weekend than I just had in Louisville. I think that Vegas is still my favorite place on Earth, but I will say that the gap has decreased significantly. There's no good (or quick) way to retell the entire rundown of shenanigans, so I'll just throw out a series of disjointed mini-paragraphs, broken down day-to-day. And prepare yourself, this post will probably be longer than my final high school comp paper about Tupac faking his death. The cast of characters:

Kyle: eldest Schneweis brother, fellow Lawrence resident, 2nd Derby.
Schne: youngest Schneweis brother, Louisville resident, Derby veteran.
JV: Schneweis' roommate, Derby veteran. Whenever we are reunited it is certain trouble. I may or may not have a large man-crush on JV.
Scott: middle Schneweis brother, making the drive down from Minneapolis. 2nd Derby.
Me: the Derby virgin of the group.
The Girls: JV's girlfriend and her friends, all Derby veterans.


THURSDAY

A routine road trip. One funny interaction took place in southern Indiana, when Kyle and I stopped to pick up some PBR for the last 100 miles. Kyle is inside at the cash register, and me being in kind of a punchy, excited, stupid mood, decide to stick my head out the window of the car, wave, and give my stupidest grin. Well Kyle doesn't see me, but the employee does. She comes outside with a giant garbage bag in her hands and shouts at me, in her best redneck accent, "Boy, do you want me to put this here baaaaag on yo' hayyyyyyy-edddd?" Awesome. One of the themes of this trip is that most of the people we encountered all weekend in the service industry were, in fact, batshit crazy.

We arrive in the 'Ville, I'm a little bit buzzed and lot fired up, so we head almost immediately to the bar. We bar-hop a little bit and sniff some girls' hair. At one place I buy a round of beers costing $20, give the lady a hundred dollar bill, and receive five twenties back as change. I hand her a $5 tip. "You've been great, ma'am." That's why outside vendors who have no register to do their math for them are awesome. My fake name for the night is Josh Beckett. During the taxi ride home, Kyle asks the cabbie (from somewhere in the middle east) what the best thing about driving a cab is. His answer:

"Nothing. Is worst job ever."
"Well what's the worst thing then?"
The cabbie slowly turns towards Schne in the passenger seat, and gives him his most serious expression:
"Black people."
(Note: this is where I check out of the conversation. I am laughing too hard to speak for the rest of the drive home.)
"Black people? Why?"
"You know why."

And on and on it goes, Kyle and Schne egging the dude on, me with my head in my hands, dying of laughter.


FRIDAY

I'm not too hungover, as my eagerness to get to the track overwhelms any physical effect that lots of beer and little sleep has on me. After one of the best breakfasts of my life at some shitty-looking diner, we walk back out to Schne's car, where a meter maid (is it still a maid if it's a dude? What's the PC term here?) is placing a ticket on his car. Schne shouts for him to wait, we're leaving right now. The meter dude grabs the ticket off the car, and emphatically throws it to the ground before walking away. Picture Happy Gilmore's caddy throwing the rock in the pond when Happy is losing to Shooter McGavin, and you have an accurate picture in your head. As we pile into the car, laughing our asses off, we reflect upon the fact that not only did he NOT ticket us, but he just littered as well. That's three interesting employees in 12 hours, by my count.

We get semi-gussied up (we're not wearing suits or anything, but we have on khakis and nice shirts. Well, scratch that, Scott is wearing a suit, but that's S.O.P. for him) and head to the track for the day's races. Mint juleps and race programs in hand, we're ready to start betting. We figure our karma is good since the first celebrity we see is none other than Bill Self. JV gives me a crash course in how the program reads (there are a ton of random numbers which mean little to me) and I'm set. I develop a game plan early and it pays off for me all weekend: I put roughly 5% value on who JV says to pick, 5% on who JV's Contact Who Has Inside Info says to pick, 20% on the odds and other actual statistics about the horse, and 70% on the horse's name. I'm basically picking like an 8 year old out there, but I kept winning, so screw it.

My favorite horse of the day was named Better Than Bonds. It's supposed to be a reference to finances, but we decide that his name would be cooler if it related to teammates of Barry Bonds who were better than him before he took steroids. He went off at like 19-1, and I had a great time yelling, "C'mon Bobby Bonilla!!!!" as he unexpectedly came in 2nd place. Even though it rained all day and I lost my last couple races in heartbreaking fashion, my first day was a marginal success from a gambling standpoint. More importantly, it set the tone for the next day. Friday night was spent attacking a keg at The Girls' place, going to the bar, and putting on the greatest eating display since Jesus fed the 5,000 with a few loaves of bread and some fish.


SATURDAY

Now I'm hurting a bit. The battle between me and my hangover is so one-sided that, in comparison, Apollo Creed put up a pretty good fight against Ivan Drago. My breakfast consists of Vitamin C tablets, Tums, ibuprofen, and three bites of a McSkillet burrito. I wander around a gas station in a daze, desparately looking for anything to put in my stomach that sounds even remotely tasty. At one point I just kinda stop and stare at the hot dogs on the rotisserie, my eyes glazed over. How do I go from here? I'm at a crossroads. This is when a gas station employee, looking similar to Serena Williams (only short, fat, and semi-toothless) notices my plight, stops and grabs my arm and shakes me a little, and admonishes me:

"Hey! Let's go now! It's Derby day, boy, you gotsta be gettin' yo game face on!"

Words of wisdom, Ugly Serena. Words. Of. Wisdom. Let's get my Game Face on.

Background info: you are not allowed to bring your own booze into the infield at the Derby, and there is a pretty intense search process upon entering the grounds. Stories of sneaking in booze throughout the years are legendary: people putting fake bottoms in their coolers; sneaking in days early, burying kegs, and then digging them up later; even people getting wheeled in wheelchairs with blankets over their legs and a keg underneath the blanket. We opt for a more crude, yet just as effective method: duct taping bottles of whiskey to our junk. The 20-minute walk to Churchill Downs is a bit of an adventure at first, but after awhile I could hardly even notice that my manhood had acquired a new roommate in my pants, named Kentucky Tavern Whiskey. Plus I had taken Ugly Serena's advice and purchased beer from some dudes on the sidewalk, and I was feeling better already. Things were looking up.

We successfully sneak in (getting past the security guards who looked about 12 years old was surprisingly easy) and set up shop. The scene is wonderful. Fellow UND alumni, picture Springfest, only 20 times bigger, with gambling, horse races every 45 minutes, and girls wearing hot little dresses (since it's 75 degrees instead of like 40 degrees in North Dakota.)

I immediately catch fire with the ponies. I'm not even really pretending to know what I'm doing at this point; just picking sweet names and throwing around money. I can't even take credit for the absurdity of some of my picks, and two stories in particular exemplify this:

1) Looking over the list of horses for one of the races, I see a horse named Game Face. Remembering my encounter with Ugly Serena that morning and how inspiring that was, I conclude that I'm obligated to pick this horse to win, and that I should probably put a lot of money on it, even though the horse had terrible odds. So I do, and what happens? Game Face comes out of nowhere to win the race.

2) After a couple hours, I'm sauced up, but I've also grown confident enough in my newfound horse-racing lingo to leave the program behind when i go to the betting window....a dangerous combination. This results in me putting money across the board on horse #3 when I meant horse #4.....so then #3 promptly goes out and takes second place, while #4 struggles to the finish. Sometimes it's just meant to be.

As the day goes on, the betting window lines get more and more ridiculous; by the end of the day it's a 45 minute commitment to go place a bet. I get separated from the herd and wander into line by myself, and immediately begin complaining to whoever will listen that I shouldn't have got in line without a beer. Well, the girls in front of me listen, and I am immediately presented with two mint juleps. I am appreciative: they just gave me $18 worth of booze without hesitation, and this was probably what I looked like as I said thank you:




No, the guy on the left. I wonder what Dirk Nowitzki's screen name is for Golden Tee. I bet it's something badass.

Anyways, we get to talking, and after about 20 minutes I realize the girl from Tennessee might be my soulmate (Alex, earmuffs):

Her: So, what's your name?

Me: Well....I was gonna give you me fake name, but you seem cool....it's Jim.

Her: Oh really? What was your fake name gonna be?

Me: Brad Bradshaw. (I was in a douchey mood that day)

Her: No way!!!! Brad is MY fake name!

Me: Blah blah blah (I have no idea what I said exactly, all I know is that it was form of drunken rant where I tell her that girls shouldn't be named Brad, and I'm positive I threw a Hey Dude reference in there. I am a shithead sometimes.)

Her: Well, it's because my middle name is Bradshaw, my dad was in love with Terry Bradshaw when I was born.

Me: Well how about I be Terry Bradshaw, and you can be Lynn Swann?

Her: Or I can be Lynn Swann, and you be Franco Harris!

Me: How many 1970's Pittsburgh Steelers can you name? Will you marry me? We can buy steel curtains for our house.


Fast forward another 20 minutes, and her and her friend have successfully shamed me into shotgunning the rest of the mint juleps, and we have proceeded from there to tell the other girl and guy in their little group that the story of them meeting and falling in love resembles Princess Jasmine and Aladdin, and begin singing songs from the Aladdin soundtrack. So Leigh from Tennessee, if you find this blog, I've got an engagement ring waiting for you.

One last story, and this baby is getting wrapped up. In the middle of the madness is a row of about 25 port-a-potties. Sometime during the day, people decided it would be cool to start racing across the tops of them. Of course, the inevitable reaction from the crowd is to begin gunning anything they can find at these runners. One girl decides she wants to be a hero and run across. About four steps into her journey, she gets smoked in the back with a beer bottle and FALLS OVER the side. I don't think she was seriously injured...I mean, she wasn't euthanized on the spot or anything. Goes to show that girls can get hurt when they try and compete with guys. Isn't that right, Eight Belles? (Ohhhhh. Too soon?)

My boy Big Brown won the main event, but I only pocketed a little bit of money on that race, since I had a bunch of other bets on longshots that didn't pan out so well. I finished the day up a couple hundred dollars, counting beer expenses. We navigated a Lord of the Rings-style walk back to the girls' place, they cooked us some wonderful hamburgers, and then we drank for another 5 hours. All told, I was sober for about 14 hours total. I'll see you at the Derby next year.

Down The Stretch They Come!

Leaving town in a few hours to road trip it to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby. I am beyond excited, as this trip is a couple of years overdue. It's my first time in the 'Ville since Spring Break 2005 (a magical trip, if there ever was one); my first time reuniting with JV (a legend in his own right) in almost two years; and my first Derby experience, period. According to Schneweis, there are races on Friday, the main event on Saturday, and nonstop boozing the entire time. My goals for the weekend are simple, and they are few in number:

Don't get arrested.
Do get shitfaced.
Don't bring back more than $50. (unless there are heavy gambling winnings, let's just say I'm not too confident that I'll have to worry about that.)
Be coherent enough to remember the actual race, 20 seconds can go by pretty quick.

That's all. I printed out a few tidbits about the horses, so I at least have a fighting chance to win some money on stupid drunk bets. I'll study up during the drive down and place my bets accordingly. In my preliminary research, however, I happened to stumble upon a horse, by the name of Recapture The Glory, whose breeder's name is, I shit you not: Charles Jacobi. So I already decided that I'll be putting some ching down on that horse. If he loses, I blame you, Chuck.

Saturday is also Springfest up in Grand Forks, which means I won't be the only one of my friends that will be crushed by 11 am....which is a nice feeling. This will be the first Springfest I miss since the year 2000, which is a little sad. But don't cry for me, Argentina. Hot little southern belles in big-ass hats sipping on mint juleps, while I sniff their hair, mainline vodka beers and yell obscenities at random animals that cost me my hard-earned paycheck will keep me from getting too bummed out about missing the festivities up north.

Random thought that literally just popped into my head: what if there was the horse-racing equivalent to the Ron Artest brawl? OH MY LORD. Horses jumping into the stands, kicking the shit out of fans, people running onto the racetrack to challenge horses, then getting booted in the face, beer flying everywhere! If I see a horse lounging around near the infield, taunting the fans, I'm gonna lob my beer at its face and see what gets started, just in case.

Actually, on second thought, I'm not totally sure that an angry horse is any scarier than an angry Ron Artest.

Cheers.

Julian!

Julian Wright is awesome. Julian Wright dunks on Jerry Stackhouse often. Bring on San Antonio. The Spurs represent everything that is wrong with professional basketball: boring play, flopping, whining, and being rewarded for it. I strongly dislike the San Antonio Spurs. If you cheer for the Spurs, I believe that says a lot about who you are as a person.

Gettin' My Bandwagon On

Every year, I usually get a little bummed once March Madness ends; it's my favorite time of the year, and it's always sad to see it go, especially in years like this one, when I never want it to end. However, this depression only lasts a couple days, until I realize that baseball is in full swing, and then the Masters starts up, and then the NBA playoffs get going.

So now it's about that time of year when I shamelessly hop onto the NBA bandwagon and start actually watching games and ranting and raving like I'm a true fan. I follow the regular season pretty closely, reading a ton and forming opinions, but I probably only watched like 2 games start to finish, and one of those was when the Knicks lost by like 50 to Boston. Sweet.

Speaking of the Knickerbockers, I have grown disillusioned with the entire franchise to the point where I can't even really call myself a diehard fan anymore. I honestly don't know how to cheer for a team that is in such total disarray. The plus side to this is that over the last few years, I just become a fan of the league itself, enjoying individual rivalries, series, and players. It makes for pretty enjoyable viewing come playoff time.

However, I am finding myself cheering very hard for the New Orleans Hornets. Pro basketball is the only sport where I like multiple teams; every other sport is clearly defined by "my team" and "everyone else who sucks." I think this is due in part to the nature of the NBA, where individuals are easy to cheer for, making multiple teams attractive; and partly because the Knicks have been a travesty for 6 years now. In any event, I am troubled by the amount of love I have for the Hornets. I have never switched alliances like this before; it feels dirty already.

I'm not saying they are my new favorite team....yet. I don't know what this means for my NBA fan-dom. I've always been a diehard for one team and one team only, and I more or less sneer at fans who aren't the same way, but maybe this is the future for me and the NBA, just hopping around, not truly pledging myself to any one team. Obi-Wan Kenobi would be disappointed, I'm sure he would tell me, "You've let this dark lord twist your mind until now you've become the very thing you swore to destroy!" And I would have no answer for him. For now, though, I'm not gonna worry about it, I'll just enjoy watching New Orleans play. I'll deal with my newfound philandering ways after the season.

"I may be a bandwagon jumper, but have you seen Chris Paul play? He's unbelievable! And now Julian is getting prime minutes! And I LOVED Peja when he played for Sacramento, you've always known that! Tyson Chandler is badass, and I've liked David West since he was in college! All I know for sure, Obi-Wan, is that you're not....making me cheer for the Knicks.....ANY MORE."

The Top 5. Volume 7.

As promised, the Top 5 girls I was supposed to think were hot according to the show but really sucked:


Honorable mention: Melissa Joan Hart (Clarissa Darling, Clarissa Explains It All)

Props to Cheese for correctly guessing this one, even if it is only an honorable mention. I originally had Clarissa would in the top 3, but then I decided that she shouldn't technically be included since the show never really made her out to be quote/unquote hot. But she sure is annoying and unattractive, so I felt like she at least deserved mentioning. Oh yeah Sabrina the Teenage Witch sucked too. Interestingly enough, in the last post on SO's blog, there is a pretty sizable outpouring of love for Clarissa in the comment section. I found reading that kinda funny, considering I had just finished trashing her. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

#5. Kelly Brown (Bradley Taylor, Hey Dude)

She definitely isn't horrible looking, but it drove (drives) me nuts that she was the one that all the dudes were constantly chasing after on the show when Melody (now Ben Stiller's wife) was somewhere between 34-37 times hotter than she was. C'mon Nickelodeon, get your shit together. Props to Schne for mentioning Melody in the comments last time. Plus, Brad had a shitty, stuck-up attitude and, if I remember correctly, a manly voice. And she went by Brad, which is bad enough since it's a dude's name; but even worse, it's one of the worst names in the English langauge. A few months ago French and I each made a top 5 douchiest name list, and Brad made both of our lists, if I'm not mistaken.


#4. Staci Keanan (Dana Foster, Step by Step)

She was just a snotty, man-hating, too-cool-for-school bitch. Everything out of her mouth was negative, especially towards her half-brother JT (who did kinda suck, but still), and Cody (the guy who lived in the van in the driveway), who was awesome. Until, of course, she starts doing JT's best friend, and then she's dying her hair, and trying to be all hot. Too late, pirate hooker. I think she was just mad because her sister was hotter than she was, and then her half-sister, who in the show was supposed to be the tomboy, got REALLY hot, and she couldn't hold a candle to her mom (Suzanne Somers), so what did she have left?

#3. Danielle Fishel (Topanga Lawrence, Boy Meets World)




OK, so you're a producer of Boy Meets World. You've cast this weird looking girl to play the school freak show. Then she gets decent looking, so she becomes the main character's romantic interest. Understandable. Then, for like a year or two, she gets kinda hot, so now she is locked into a main role, and you're high-fiving each other. Then....she allegedly eats the kid who played Minkus, gains 135 pounds overnight, and now you're stuck with a land monster as your "hot girl." Unfortunate, but you knew you were playing with fire from the start. Oh yeah and thumbs down to the Bergman brothers for calling me out for not putting Topanga on the "hot" list. Get real.




#2. Tori Spelling (Donna Martin, Beverly Hills 90210)







I think we can all agree that Tori is one of the worst-looking girls in the history of television. But my reasons for keeping her out of the top spot are three-fold:

1) She gets an asterik, because the only reason she was cast in the show in the first place was because her dad created the show. So right off the bat, she's not even on this show under normal circumstances.

2) She played Screech's nerd girlfriend on Saved By the Bell for a bit, and she was actually better looking as said nerd. Don't ask me how.

3) Without her, there is no "Donna Martin graduates! Donna Martin graduates! Donna Martin graduates!" And that would be a crime. I'll give her partial credit for that.

So I feel pretty solid with her in the two spot. Look at that cleavage. It's like if you mashed a couple of fingers into raw hamburger.




#1. Kelly Shanygne Williams (Laura Winslow, Family Matters)

Oh man this one gets me fired up. You wanna talk about a girl who was mean to her obligatory 'nerd next door who chases after her'? Laura was about as big of a B as you can imagine. And that's all well and good. Sometimes you gotta just give it to him straight, and yeah, he might get hurt, but so be it. At least you're not leading him on. But I have a problem with this when you, Laura, are no basket of cherries yourself. She was aiming for the stars when it came to guys, when reality dictated that maybe she should be real and come down a notch or two. It would be like a somewhat-decent high school basketball player spurning scholarships from mid-major schools so he could go straight to the pros, where he wouldn't even be close to getting drafted.

But what pisses me off more was that any time Steve Urkel would jump into his little machine (side note: how the hell did Urkel create all that shit? He could morph into another person, travel time, make talking robots, etc. etc. He should've won multiple Nobel prizes) and turn into Stefan Urquelle, Laura would just go nuts for him. That was crap. If I was Steve I NEVER would've put up with that.

Add on top of that all the verbal abuse that Urkel took from Carl, and I would've snapped. Carl would always give him the whole go home routine: "Go home, Steve. Go HOME, GO HOME, GO HOME!!!" and Urkel would say, "I don't have to take this. I'm going home" Just once, I wanted him to say, "I don't have to take this. I'm going home.....morphing into Stefan, waiting til you go to work, coming back over, and plowing your daughter in your bedroom while your ugly wife videotapes it and Eddie cheers me on. I might even have her call me Carl, I don't know, I guess I haven't decided yet. Oh yeah, one more thing: Go fist yourself, fatass." That is my dream.

Others receving votes due to excellent reader suggestions: Becky from Roseanne, Brenda from 90210.

The Top 5. Volume 6.

A special two-parter, just for everyone who stuck with every college basketball post even though they were bored as shit. Although this top 5 is all about hot girls, so the female readers probably won't be too grateful. Anyyyyyyways, here are the top 5 TV characters I was in love with during my childhood. And I'm talking childhood too, like elementary school/middle school. So everyone who is gonna freak out and leave a comment about how I'm forgetting Hilary Duff can save it, she doesn't count, I was already old enough to realize how inappropriate my comments were. (Everyone gave me shit for thinking a 13 year-old was cute when I was 18, but I told you fuckers that Lizzie McGuire was gonna be smoking hot someday, way before she was popular. I stand by my statements, I don't care how creepy I sounded at the time.) On to the ladies:

#5. Jamie Luner (Cindy Lubbock, Just the Ten of Us)

Did anyone else ever watch Just the Ten of Us? It was about the high school coach (who may or may not have been Rick Majerus) who had a bunch of smoking hot daughters. I loved that show, especially Cindy. She was a huge ditz, was a red-head, and had a huge rack. A winning combination if I've ever heard one. I certainly wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers in there, if you know what I'm sayin'. I couldn't find any good pics of her when she was on the show, since no one watched it and all, but she is the one in the top right. Don't ask me why they are all wearing pajamas, it was the 80's and this show sucked, according to the non-horny, non-pre-pubescent boy demographic. I think she may have gone on to star on Melrose Place. Don't quote me on that.

#4. Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper, The Wonder Years)

Oh Winnie. If you look up "girl next door, sneak-up-on-you hot" in the dictionary you won't find a definition (I looked) but if there was one, it would feature a picture of Winnie Cooper. I don't know if the narrator in the show ever mentioned how fucking out of Kevin's league she was, but he should've. I should mention that I'm trying to post pics of these ladies from when they were on the show, not the semi-nude ones that are on google from when these gals stopped being polite and started getting real, but um....if you wanna take a couple of minutes to google Winnie Cooper and see how she has grown up, go ahead. I'll wait....

#3. Marne Patterson (Nicole Farrell, Something So Right)

OK now I'm sure not many people have heard of this show. I watched it for one reason, and one reason only. My girl Marne, who I first saw a couple years earlier in Camp Nowhere. A few years ago, I made out with a friend of a friend in Minneapolis because her name was Marne. Well, there were other reasons too, like she was hot, and at one point in the evening, she glanced at the TV at the bar that was playing SportsCenter, and she dropped this line: "I think Eli Manning has more talent than Ben Rothliesburger, but Ben just got put in an offense that suits his strengths better." Now that I think back on it, I probably should've just proposed on the spot. But I digress. I know that in my drunken stupor, the fact that her name was Marne was what sealed the deal for me that night. Of course, the next day Chelsey and St. Aubyn informed me that they thought her name was actually Marty, but that's neither here nor there.....

#2. Larisa Oleynik (Alex Mack, The Secret Adventures of Alex Mack)

I love a girl in a backwards baseball hat. I was pretty convinced for a while that if I ever met Alex Mack in real life, I could date her. Don't know why, she just gave off that innocent girl vibe or something. When I heard she was dating the little fucker from 3rd Rock from the Sun, I wanted to kick his ass. This was a serious crush. When I say 'was', I mean 'still is.'



#1. Tiffani Amber-Thiessen (Kelly Kapowski, Saved by the Bell)





Really no explanation paragraph necessary. I would expect Kelly to top a lot of dudes' lists. She was the triple threat: she could be athletic and look hot; she could be all sweet and innocent and look hot; and as she proved on 90210, she could be a dirty-ass whore and look hot. Multi-faceted game, son. The only thing I can deduct points for is when she cheated on Zack with Jeff the d-bag. Bitch. I'm sorry Kelly, I didn't mean that.

Coming next: the Top 5 Girls Who I Was Supposed To Think Were Hot According To The Show But Really Sucked. I already made the list, but leave your guesses in the comments on who you think I included in that list, I'm curious to hear who you predict.

Sleep Now In The Fire?

Today is the 11th Anniversary of the last time I went to bed before midnight. (to those who immediately question it, I know the exact date because the streak began the night we got evacuated from our house during the flood in '97.)

I've never needed much sleep to function, so even in high school when I would get to school at 7 AM (what the hell were we doing there that early? Breakfast bagels were not that fucking tasty. I digress.) it wasn't a problem. Then in college I for sure wasn't going to bed early, although St. Aubyn wasn't real pumped when I would refuse to shut the light off in Walsh 202A before midnight, taunting him by telling him he was a pussy for quitting on the day if he went to bed before it was technically done. Eventually he rigged up a bunch of old sheets around his bottom bunk so that he was surrounded in darkness and could actually fall asleep when he wanted. (Note: before everyone that doesn't know our freshman year stories starts jumping to the conclusion that I was a shitty roommate, just be patient. Someday I'll tell some of St. Aubyn's freshman year stories and you will realize that I am the victim here.)

At some point I realized the streak, and immediately that sealed the deal for me. This is the exact kind of stupid shit that keeps me entertained. There weren't many, but I remember a couple of instances over the last few years when I wanted to go to sleep early, but didn't because what would Cal Ripken say to me? I feel he'd be pretty disappointed.

Now since I have a big kids' job, and once again I have to wake up every day somewhat early, I am more tired than I ever have been. I can count at least 10 instances since September where I was DYING to go to sleep early, but haven't done it yet, for no other reason than this stupid fucking streak that nobody (repeat: nobody) cares about. Now I've hit the 11-year mark, and I'm wondering if I should just end this thing. Even Ripken finally took a day off, but he was batting like .225 at the time, and I don't feel like I've sunk to that life equivalent yet.

Here's my other concern: once I decide to go to sleep early once, I'm afraid it will slowly snowball, my body will start adjusting, and pretty soon I'll be going to bed at like 10 pm every night, and I do not want that. I like my free time.

So I'm looking for outside opinions. Is it time to just go to sleep when I feel like it, or do I keep pressing on like an idiot? I'm thinking since tax season is done, I'll be more well-rested, and I can go until at least next February with little or no problems. I feel like if nothing else, I should get to stroll around Camden Yards high-fiving people while I receive a 47-minute standing ovation. Thoughts?

"Awww what's the matter, you're a little sleepy tonight? Tough day at work? No time for a nap? I played through like a million ankle sprains and hamstring pulls, even a broken bone or two, you little pussy. Plus I missed out on a lot of the really good performance-enhancing drugs, so I had to recover from my injuries for real, not like that bag of shit Canseco. Do you know how tough it is to play in 2,632 games in a row? And you're worried about going to bed?!? Jesus, just drink a Mountain Dew or throw in some Girls Gone Wild or something."

Lunchtime Confessions Of A Fat Kid

So I'm attempting, slowly but surely, to improve my eating habits. Now I'm definitely not counting calories or anything, and whenever I feel like crushing a couple chili cheese wraps and a cheeseburger from Sonic I'm not gonna stop myself; but overall, my diet is improving a bit. This is extremely difficult for me due to three very key factors: 1) I'm very picky. There's not a ton of variety in my diet, compared to your average Johnny Food Consumer. 2) I'm very lazy. If it takes longer than a couple of minutes to prepare, or if there is extensive cleanup involved, fuck it, I'm out. 3) I'm very hungry. It takes a lot of food to fill me up.

If you combine my garbage diet with my general lack of exercise (especially now since I am unable to play noonball) I should probably be pushing three bills right now. My college days were filled with fast food, Hungry Man dinners, hot pockets, and microwaveable chicken wings. One of my roommates' favorite jokes would be, in the rare occasion that I would fire up the oven for a frozen pizza, that they would freak out and ask me if I was having a girl over for dinner, or if there was some sort of special occasion going on. Just because I was using the oven.

Any kind of cooking I received was a godsend. My favorite texties ever were the ones from St. Aubyn that I would get as I was leaving class, that said "hurry up and get back, I'm making us tuna casserole." To answer your next question, yes, we were pretty gay like that most of the time. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The point within that homosexual tangent is that tuna casserole was pretty much a delicacy, a treat beyond words. Ditto for the spaghetti dinners that Lindsey would make me every once in a while. Those meals were like Christmas morning.

So now I'm all on my own, besides Alex occasionally cooking dinner for me (she can tell you how abnormally excited about spaghetti I get. What can I say, it's my weak spot.) Lunches are tough, especially during tax season, when I'm eating at my desk most days of the week. I have already become the butt of many food-related jokes within the office, but on the flip side of that coin, the M.O.M. Squad kind of treats me like one of their kids (actually it's a combo of child/garbage disposal) when it comes to food.

(Case in point: the other day our office received lunch from another business in town. It consisted of a couple of sandwiches, (one roast beef, one mystery meat) some chips, and dessert for each of us. Our receptionist noticed me hammer down my roast beef, then begin to poke around at my mystery meat sandwich, so she adeptly ate the rest of her lunch, then gave me her roast beef sandwich, even though she likes roast beef, because she "knew you wouldn't be able to make it through the afternoon without your entire lunch." Pretty typical Mom move. Another time we received a group lunch, there was an extra sandwich, and it was automatically deferred to me since "I'm the big eater." Additionally, it is a commonly-known rule that before any leftovers in the fridge get chucked, they go through my office first.)

So I've been trying to eat a little better at lunchtime. Here are some of my staples:

Turkey, cheese, and pepperoni sandwiches. My go-to lunch, whenever I need a guaranteed good one. He's like Josh Beckett, only he gets the ball more often than every five days. I'm eating one right now, actually.

Pizza rolls. These are my innings-eater. It's not always the best, but it's always solid, and if nothing else, it tides me over til the next time. Kinda like Tim Wakefield.

Lean pockets. That's right friends, the 'hot' has been replace by 'lean.' They're probably still unhealthy as shit, but that one word makes me feel better while I'm putting down three of them, and restraining myself from a fourth.

Raw tuna. To everyone who used to make fun of me in elementary school for bringing tuna almost every day in a lunchbox instead of joining you bastards in whichever glorious meal the hot lunch program was serving up that day: Yes, I still eat tuna regulary, 15 years later. Enjoy your turkey tidbits, bitches.

A 49-cent loaf of day-old Jimmy John's bread and an apple. This is the meal the M.O.M. Squad laughs at the most, for obvious reasons. I like to call this my "Aladdin Lunch" because that's the shit Aladdin and his monkey were stealing off the streets before he found the genie, got three wishes, and started nailing Princess Jasmine. "Riff raff, street trash! I don't, buy that!"

Here is something that is definitely not a staple: those bullshit lean cuisine type meals. Alex bought a few of them and decided she didn't want them, so I gave them a try. There's a reason they're supposed to be healthy: It's like 4 bites of food. Filled me up juuuuust enough so that I could destroy only half a box of E.L. Fudge immediately afterwards. Get bent, lean cuisine.


And something I would like to make more of a staple: Friday lunch buffets at the Dirty Bird. I've only been there once so far, but there's just something about enjoying fried chicken, roast beef, and mashed potatoes and gravy while naked girlies are dancing 10 feet away that puts a spring in my step for the rest of the day.

Shomer Shabbos

Tax season is officially done, my office is closed tomorrow, and I am taking this opportunity to do nothing. Not one thing, all day long. This will be my day of rest. That means that I don't work, I don't get in a car, I don't fucking ride in a car, I don't pick up the phone, I don't turn on the oven, and I sure as shit DON'T FUCKING ROLL!!! SHOMER SHABBOS!!! Shomer fucking Shabbos.

For those who don't know, my dad looked EXACTLY like Walter Sobchak in like 1992. It's uncanny.

What I Learned In Management 301

In my fourth year of college, I had to take a Management class that was a complete joke. Basically, I had to be in attendance, but I didn't have to do anything (kinda the same responsibility a really hammered girl has when she brings home a really hammered guy from the bar, then decides halfway through sex that she isn't really into it.)

So after a couple weeks of playing around, drawing pictures (I know I had even resorted to passing notes with Sheri, wow am I gay) I needed something else to fill up the 50 minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So I started listing every single rap song I liked even a tiny bit. It was something like 450 songs. Then I just started making cuts til I was down to 100, then I put those 100 in order. It was fantastic, it took up most of the semester, and I still got like a 97% in the class. I give to you: my top 100 favorite rap songs of all time. (Note: I made a couple of changes since then (2004), but sadly I haven't had to make many since rap music is total fucking garbage now....unless you like songs about cars with neat rims, drinking shitty liquor, and dancing in clubs like a retard. Then I guess rap is pretty sweet for you still.)

100. Bow Down - Westside Connection
99. Let's Roll - Snoop Dogg
98. Feel Me Flow - Naughty By Nature
97. It Was a Good Day - Ice Cube
96. Fast Shadow - Wu-Tang Clan
95. Multiply - Xzibit
94. Noodle - Trick Daddy
93. The Message - Nas
92. Bitches Ain't Shit - Dr. Dre
91. Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang - Dr. Dre
90. First of the Month - Bone Thugs
89. Guess Who's Bizzack - Scarface
88. Life Goes On - 2Pac
87. Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta - Geto Boys
86. Number One Spot - Ludacris
85. Got Yourself a Gun - Nas
84. My Philosophy - KRS-One
83. Get Back - Ludacris
82. Fire It Up - Busta Rhymes
81. Bad Boy 4 Life - P. Diddy
80. Still DRE - Dr. Dre
79. Bitch Please #2 - Dr. Dre
78. Regulate - Warren G
77. World War III - Ruff Ryders
76. You Be Illin' - Run DMC
75. Whatcha Gonna Do - 2Pac
74. He Got Game - Public Enemy
73. Hey Papi - Jay-Z
72. Rat-a-Tat-Tat-Tat - Dr. Dre
71. Who We Be - DMX
70. Golden - Jurassic 5
69. Ghetto Vet - Ice Cube
68. California Love - 2Pac
67. December 4th - Jay-Z
66. Lodi Dodi- Snoop Dogg
65. Big Pimpin' - Jay-Z
64. Wu Tang Clan Ain't Nuthin' To Fuck With - Wu-Tang Clan
63. Express Yourself - N.W.A.
62. Fuck Dyin' - Ice Cube
61. Deeez Nuuuts - Dr. Dre
60. Benzie Box - Danger Doom
59. It's Tricky - Run DMC
58. No Tears - Scarface
57. Thug Luv - Bone Thugs/2Pac
56. Heart of the City - Jay-Z
55. Dangerous - Busta Rhymes
54. Ghetto Bird - Ice Cube
53. Shimmy Shimmy Ya - Ol' Dirty Bastard
52. Still Not a Playa - Big Punisher
51. Where You From? - Master P
50. Back Down - 50 Cent
49. Ch-Check It Out - Beastie Boys
48. Fantastic Voyage - Coolio
47. Shame On a Nigga - Wu-Tang Clan
46. Notorious Thugs - Notorious BIG/Bone Thugs
45. I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto - 2Pac
44. Hate Me Now - Nas
43. Where tha Hood At? - DMX
42. Shake Your Rump - Beastie Boys
41. Who Am I (what's my name?) - Snoop Dogg
40. Comin' 2 America - Ludacris
39. Sugar - Trick Daddy
38. My Block - Scarface
37. Forgot About Dre - Dr. Dre
36. Saturday - Ludacris
35. Poppin' Them Thangs - G Unit
34. Gangsta Shit - Jay-Z
33. Just To Get By - Talib Kweli
32. Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See - Busta Rhymes
31. Old School - Danger Doom
30. X Gonna Give It To Ya - DMX
29. H to the Izzo - Jay-Z
28. Brooklyn Zoo - Ol' Dirty Bastard
27. Woo Ha!!! - Busta Rhymes
26. From tha Church to tha Palace - Snoop Dogg
25. Take it to da House - Trick Daddy
24. Still - Geto Boys
23. I'm a Thug - Trick Daddy
22. Mo' Money Mo' Problems - Notorious BIG
21. Gin and Juice - Snoop Dogg
20. Without Me - Eminem
19. In da Club - 50 Cent
18. Give It Up - Publice Enemy
17. Natural Born Killaz - Dr. Dre/Ice Cube
16. We Don't Care - Kanye West
15. Hypnotize - Notorious BIG
14. Changes - 2Pac
13. Apache - Sugar Hill Gang
12. Fuck Wit' Dre Day - Dr. Dre
11. Act Afool - Ludacris
10. Yeah!!! - Killer Mike
9. The Gangsta, the Killer, and the Dope Dealer - Westside Connection
8. Gravel Pit - Wu-Tang Clan
7. Hit 'Em Up - 2Pac
6. Rollout - Ludacris
5. Juicy - Notorious BIG
4. Family Business - Kanye West
3. King of the Hill - Westside Connection
2. 99 Problems - Jay-Z
1. Let Me Ride - Dr. Dre


If you went through that entire list, email your home address to wowyoureadthatwholethingyougottafindsomethingbettertodo@hotmail.com and I'll mail you a rubix cube, so you have something else to pass the time.

Sometimes I Can't Help But Feel That I'm Living A Life Of Illusion

When you have wanted something very badly for a very long time, it's rare that when you get it, it is everything you hoped it would be. The letdown is almost inevitable. As the old saying goes, "Be careful what you wish for....you just might get it." I'll admit that in the past, when I imagined what it would be like when (if ???) KU ever won it all, the thought creeped into my head that maybe it wouldn't be quite the be-all, end-all that I had built it up to be. But I've gotta say, KU winning the national championship is everything I hoped it would be, and more.

Certain people are just predisposed to love certain things. Sometimes it's because of their parents or siblings or other influences when they're young, and sometimes that's just the way people are internally wired. This is me and sports. My dad is a pretty passive sports fan. The only sport he actively watches and follows is football. I know I was on the couch with him every Sunday when I was 3 or 4 years old, watching the Washington Redskins when we lived in D.C. But that's about it. He never really pushed sports onto me, I just kinda got absorbed in them. When I was about 6, I was into baseball and football about as much as any 6 year old can be into anything, besides picking his nose (and I'm pretty sure I was heavily into that, too.) My parents used to laugh at me and 'show me off' to their friends at dinner parties and such. I was a little bit of a freak show. I may not have been able to pronounce the name Jose Uribe, but I could tell you his batting average in 1987. It was all natural to me.

Then when I was about 7 or 8, I discovered college basketball; KU to be more specific. I don't know what made them my favorite team, probably it was as simple as I was 8 and the first game I watched, they were playing in. Shortly thereafter they made the championship game and lost to Duke. I was crushed but didn't totally understand, I was still young and hadn't yet realized that getting to the Final 4 was incredibly hard. As I grew older and as my obsession grew stronger and the disappointments piled up, I promised myself that if and when it finally happened, I would fully appreciate every moment of it. And now, 18 years later, I am.

Monday night was the final chapter of a story that began a long, long time ago. It's amazing how many bad memories can be wiped out with the creation of just one new one. It is also amazing how clear the distinction between my first and second loves has become. There was never really a doubt in my mind that I loved college ball and KU more than baseball and the Red Sox, but I was unaware how large that gap was until the last week or so.

Monday morning and afternoon was almost unspeakable torture for me, waiting for the game to start. I was sitting in my office with the Hansbrough Face going, eyes bugged out, mouth wide open, my head whipping around in confusion every time someone tried to ask me a simple question. One of my co-workers actually asked me if I was feeling OK at about 3 pm, because she said I looked awful. I wondered what it would be like to hyperventilate, because I couldn't have been that far off. I know I have been worked up for Sox games before, but never anywhere close to that.

Ummmm yep, sorta like that.

Things weren't much better once the game started. One of those games where you know within 5 possessions that neither team is going away. Lived up to the hype, that's for sure. I was feeling unusually optimistic throughout the game, until the 9 point deficit with 2 minutes left. I thought we were done, and was beginning to prepare myself mentally. By "preparing myself mentally" I mean clutching my stomach and trying to keep myself from passing out. Then the comeback began, and I was a complete shell by this point. As everyone around me was yelling and screaming with every made shot and missed free throw by Memphis, it was all I could do to stay on my feet. When Chalmers' shot went in, I just sort of crumpled, recovered, and then basically did my best Thomas Hill re-enactment for the next half hour, as KU cruised through overtime.

This was my facial expression for so long that if my mom was there, she would've told me that my face was gonna permanently freeze like that.

Speaking of overtime, remember when I broke down Memphis right before the tournament started? I mentioned the free throw shooting, but then again, so did everyone other person on the planet Earth, so I can't take credit for that, but my point about how Memphis would respond when things weren't going their way proved prophetic. That team was absolutely FINISHED after Mario's shot. Put a fork in 'em.

Once the game was over and the celebration in the streets began (40,000 people packed downtown, and I probably hugged around 37,000 of them) everything kind of hit me at once and that's where this picture comes in. It'll be hilarious to look at that when I'm 75...which isn't to say that it's not hilarious now. I look like Fredo after the Don gets shot in front of him in The Godfather. Awesome.

I suppose I would've ended up in this position somehow, win or lose.

Here's some more of my other favorites from the night:

Man-hugs were on sale in Lawrence on Monday night. We took advantage.

Jud was blatantly taking advantage of the celebration to kiss Ashley (and random girls.) Vegas had the over/under at 29. Jud is the MVP of aggressive, borderline inappropriate kisses though, so I can't say I'm shocked. You know on shows like Laguna Beach, where every time the gang gets together, even if it's just for lunch, they are all hugging and kissing when they greet each other, like they haven't seen each other for 4 years, and I sit there and yell, "Nobody does that! You just saw each other last night! What the fuck?!?" Well, some people actually do that: Jud.

So anyway now I look forward to being able to just cheer like a normal fan, or at least as normal as it is possible for me to be while watching sports. After a decade and a half of heartbreak, I have officially moved into "spoiled fan" territory. Phil Mickelson has won three majors, the Sox have won two World Series, and the Phoenix Mercury are WNBA champs, haha j/k, j/k. LOL :)

I think Fundy's texty shortly after the game summed it up best: "congrats at least you won't be sleeping on any bridges this year" Well said, Fundy. Well said.

Wow.

I'll write about the game soon; just gimme some time to collect my thoughts. If I tried to talk about the game right now, the post would look something like "AAAAHHHHH MARIO CHALMERS WHAT A SHOT HOLY SHIT I LOVE YOU MARIO MEMPHIS AHAHAHHH TOLD YOU THAT FREE THROWS WOULD HURT YOU IN THE END ROY TAKE THAT FUCKING STICKER OFF YOUR FUCKING SHIRT AND GO BACK TO CAROLINA DID I MENTION I LOVE MARIO CHALMERS AAAAAHHHHHHAAAAA."

So I'll wait a bit. After last night I don't even know what planet I'm on. Plus, I had kind of a breakdown at the end of the game and there may be some incriminating pictures that get released that you will enjoy. 3 things to know until then:

1. If you know me, you know I take sports wayyyyy too seriously. It's my main character flaw. I've tried to change, but I can't do it. It is what it is. When your favorite team has a history of coming up short in big games, year-in and year-out, it can be pretty rough. But then when games like last night happen, it makes it all worth it. Seriously.

2. It's amazing how badly a hangover gets dominated by a national championship...and by Cheez-its. Lots and lots of Cheez-its.

3. One way or another, my first-born's name will be Mario Chalmers Hammen. Hopefully it's a boy.

Best Hangover Ever

I sincerely hope that, at least once, all my friends get to partake in the kind of celebration that I was a part of last night. Unbelievable. Right now as I type, my head is pounding, my mouth is dry, my voice is gone, I can't hear a thing because my ears are still ringing, I'm oozing out a little blood from the cuts from my arms, from where we got a little carried away and hit the street (literally) during the chaos. And I couldn't be happier. I woke up without an alarm at about 7:15, took a couple of seconds to get my bearings, and a smile of realization slowly crept across my face, and that was that. I'm up.

I couldn't possibly string together any kind of rational thought about the game. No chance. So I'm listing random shit from the night, bullet-style baby.

• I'll start with giving some propers to the Carolina fans. I have quite a few of them, and every one of them showed a lot of class in defeat last night. (Side note: just so everyone doesn't think I was ignoring them, I made the conscious decision to not answer a single texty once the game started. It's one thing during baseball, where there are plenty of breaks in the game, but I didn't want my face buried in my phone during a basketball game. Then after the game was over, I didn't answer anything because I was too busy trying to decide which article of clothing to set on fire or which car to tip over next. (Side note to the side note: going through my inbox this morning was hilarious. I could've been stranded in the African Congo, with nothing but my phone, and I would know EXACTLY how this game went down, from the unreal start, to the scary second half, to the final run at the end, to the conclusion. Awesome work kids.))
• Also some heavy propers are due to Lane. Sasha Kaun has always been Lane's boy, and we have a little bit of a friendly rivalry due to the fact that my boy Darnell Jackson stole his starting spot. Anyway, before every game, Lane always tells me, "Look for Sasha to have a big game tonight." See the comment section from the previous post for an example. At the beginning of the year he was completely serious, he always thought Sasha would have a huge game. Once I told him that I had turned it into a running joke, trying to predict the exact time he would call me and tell me, that kind of ruined it, because now obviously he says it for comedic purposes. ANNNNYWAY before the game starts yesterday, Lane does his Sasha routine, then drops this one on me: "You know who might be our MVP tonight? Cole Aldrich." To which I replied something along the lines of "Jesus, shut the fuck up Lane." Well holy shit he couldn't have been more right. It was awesome, and hilarious, to the point where everytime Cole did something good, Lane was absolutely mobbed by everyone around him. So sometimes it does pay off to have blind faith in big, slightly uncoordinated white dudes.
• Random note on Cole Aldrich: he is about 6'10 or 6'11'', and a few months ago we saw him in Chipotle, and his girlfriend is shorter than Alex. Chew on that.
• Also some propers to Schne. Back in January he said "You know what? KU is really, really good this year. They are going to the Final 4, and I wanna be in Lawrence when it happens." So he bought a plane ticket right then and there, and KU made it, and that is turning out to be the greatest plane ticket he ever bought.
• It was nice to see KU play to its potential last night. The question with them this year hasn't been COULD we play well, but WOULD we play well. They just get inside their own heads so often, instead of just going out and playing basketball. To come out and play so aggressive, yet loose, at the beginning of the game was nice to see.
• I'm pretty sure I was the only person in the bar, probably in all of downtown Lawrence, that wasn't comfortable at 40-12. Partly because I'm a naturally pessimistic sports fan, partly because I knew Carolina was gonna make a run at some point. Well, they made a run, all right. If Carolina comes back and wins that game, given KU's tortured recent history, that it was a Final 4 game, that it was against Roy, that's gotta be one of the all-time toughest losses in sports history, right?
• Speaking of watching at the bar, I had never been a giant fan of that. In the past, I would much rather watch at my place, with a few buddies, drinking beer, whatever. Well that was because I never lived here before. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with 150 other people cheering just as hard as you are, sweating your ass off, living and dying with shots, booing and flicking off Roy and Hansbrough every time they showed him on screen, and then pouring out into the streets afterwards to celebrate....unreal. My advice to all my friends is that if and when your team goes to the Final 4, go to the hometown of that school. Durham, Chapel Hill, whatever. Just go there.
• Roy. Ol' Roy. Last night's game was pretty therapeutic. I have to say that my hatred is a bit diminished since we got that out of our system. When we were on the huge first half run, the greatest moments were when they showed a shot of Roy on the sideline. We went ballistic. Clearly the goal is to win the title, but I do have to say that I can be a little more objective about Roy since we beat him that badly.
• Speaking of winning the title, I don't have too much to say I guess, pregame. Maybe I will tomorrow. Basically both teams are playing their best ball right now. I am glad we play Memphis, because I have a little residual fear left over from UCLA from last year, and I. HATE. MEMPHIS. Almost as much as Duke or Carolina. And this hatred is more of a legitimate hatred. I hate Duke and Carolina for obvious reasons (and as we talked about a few days ago, they are kind of biased and unfounded reasons); and I hate them every year, just because. Well, I hate Memphis because I actually dislike their coach and their players. I think they are a team full of punks, and I am excited to play those bitches tomorrow.
• Except for Chris Douglas-Roberts, he's kinda cool. He reminds me of this guy in the Grand Am tournament we played in a few years ago. We were all in our prime, 21, 22 years old, and we're playing a team of 40 and 50-somethings, so we're pretty relaxed. Well this one guy with gray hair probably dropped 45 points on us. Scoring from every possible spot on the floor, using all kinds of crazy dips and scoops and different release points on his jumper. He dropped the entire old-man arsenal on us, and we lost by about 20 to bunch of Dads. That's who CDR reminds me of, and I have respect for that.
• Slide down the bench, Marquette Semifinal Game From 2003. I've got a new all-time favorite KU basketball moment...hopefully until tomorrow night.
• God bless google. When you google images for "KU final four" here's some of the pictures you get:

Word up, Jesus. It IS cool to love you...but how should I feel about the KKK and Lindsey Lohan in a two-piece?

Armageddon

Well, kids, this is it. Roy vs. Kansas. In the Final 4. You knew it had to happen sometime, and of course the basketball Gods decide to give us this matchup in the national semifinals. When both teams are playing amazing ball (except for an 8-minute stretch against Louisville for UNC, and a 40-minute stretch against Davidson for KU.) As if this wasn't a big enough game already...

Until I saw Bergman's comment from the previous post, this post was sure to be a rambling, completely incoherent blurb about my former love for Roy and yada yada yada. Now, since he gave me some questions to base things on, it will only be a semi-rambling, semi-coherent blurb.

Quick back story for the non-college-basketball-fans (let's pretend for a second that are actually some of them out there who have continued to stick with this blog for the last month): Roy used to coach KU, for 15 years. He was one of the most beloved coaches in the country. However, while he had Kansas in his heart, he had North Carolina blood coursing through his veins. Roy almost left for UNC in 2000, then gave a tearful, heart-felt speech turning down the job, saying he was a Jayhawk for life. Flash forward 3 years. Following a heart-breaking title game loss, Roy is asked if he is interested in the once-again-vacant UNC head coaching position. Roy replies, on national TV, "I don't give a shit about Carolina." Flash forward 1 week. Roy takes the Carolina job. Flash forward 2 years. Roy wins that national championship that proved so elusive while at KU.

First off, no, I will not be cheering any harder since this game is against Roy. The buildup will be more intense, making this probably the most intense sporting event in my life (that's scary huh Alex? Hope you have bail money put aside for tomorrow night), but every win in the Final 4 is special, whether or not we're playing Roy and/or UNC. My favorite moment as a KU fan was the semifinal win over Marquette in '03, and it is why I have a framed portrait of that game in my office. (We also threw a pretty decent rager at Culligan that night, featuring the girls from Minneapolis that St. Aubyn, Fundy, and Russell met in Cancun. Anybody remember that? I was blaaaaacked out!) I will be crushed if we lose this game, but no more crushed than when we lost to 'Cuse in '03, or Maryland in '02, or Bucknell in '05, or Rhode Island in '98, or Arizona in '97, etc. etc. you get the point.

On the same token, no, even if we win this game but lose the title game, it will not make things OK. Beating Roy in the semis will give me no consolation if we can't win the whole shebangabang. That will only help me for shit-talking purposes against all the Carolina fans that I'm friends with (and Baby Jesus knows there are a lot of them.)

However, on the other hand, will I still hate Roy if we do win the natty this year? That's a great question, one that I can't completely answer right now. As of this moment, I would be inclined to say not as much, no. That has more to do with just being at peace as a KU fan in general, however, than my hatred of Roy. I will not suddenly like Roy again, but if we win it all, a lot of basketball-related things I have bitterness towards (Roy, Gerry McNamara going unconscious, Bucknell, Keith Langford's bullshit foul call, shooting 12-30 from the free throw line, Juan Dixon, Lamar Odom, Mike Bibby & Miles Simon, Grant Hill's amazing dunk) will be diminished. That's just reality.

Since this is my only basis of comparison as far as my teams winning championships, and since it is a pretty decent analogy anyway, I liken this to the Red Sox in 2004 (the whole Roy to Carolina thing mirrors the Johnny Damon to the Yankees scenario, too, doesn't it?) Looking back on it now, yeah, it makes it sweeter that they came back from 0-3 down in the ALCS, and that it was against the Yankees, but at the time, all I was cheering for was a win. After Game 7, when it all sunk in what just happened, it became more special, but when you're in the moment, all you want is for your team to win, not for someone else to lose. So basically once the ball tips on Saturday night, all the Roy stuff goes out the window. However, having said ALL THAT, I would LOVE to see this image on a television set Saturday night:

Holy as I'm re-reading this right now, this is probably the worst thing I have ever written, as far as quality writing is concerned. Fuck it I'm not editing it. Can you tell I'm delirious about this game right now? That is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever written in my whole life. At no point am I anywhere near anything that can be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having read that. I award myself no points, and may God have mercy on my soul. Fuck it, dude. Let's get this game started.

"A simple 'wrong' would've done just fine."

Feisty Marlins

So I had a loooong day at work yesterday, and all I wanted to do was come home, fire off a couple of games of MVP Baseball on the Deuce, and go to bed. Instead, in the first game, the Marlins hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the 9th to send it to extras, and I eventually lose in the 13th. Then, in the second game, I put a run across three separate times in extras, only to watch those damn scrappy Marlins tie it in their half of the inning each time. An hour and 15 minutes after I begin the game, I finally win in 21 innings, and then of course I can't fall asleep cause I'm too fired up. I may have even had a nightmare that I had completely run out of pitchers, and so I had Doug Mientkiewicz warming up in the bullpen...but I'm not sure. So anyways, now I'm dragging ass this morning.

It's a rough life I live, I know.

Hansbrough & Redick

Wow, that was an absolutely fantastic comment that the Chuckwagon left regarding Hansbrough, Duke, and the hatred of both of them. I have had this conversation many times, with many different people, and I think it's a great topic. I planned on writing about it at some point (probably after Psycho T won a bunch of post-season awards) but since he asked, and since I'm on my lunch break, I might as well do it now.

Unless you are a Tar Heel fan, you cannot look at this picture without giggling a little bit. I defy you to look at that and not giggle. I'm giggling right now, as I'm typing.

First off, Hansbrough. Personally, I can't stand him. From the moment Fundy and I first watched him in the McDonald's All-American game, and Fundy wouldn't shut the fuck up about how awesome he was going to be, I hated him. But a lot of this is due to the fact that I knew he was going to UNC. Here's what I hate about him:

1) He either flails his elbows around or double-clutches on every shot attempt, drawing a million undeserved foul calls.

2) He gets his dick sucked by EVERY media person in the country, for being a hard-worker and hustler, when I play about that hard in my fucking Tuesday night city league. I've got scars from floorburns from fucking NOONBALL, and I know lots of others who do too, so needless to say if we were playing at a Division I school in front of thousands of fans (and millions more on TV) we would try hard too. This shouldn't be that big of a deal.

3) He is a gigantic nerd. I mean out of this world. His celebration after hitting the game-winner against Va Tech in the ACC tourney was the geekiest thing I've seen a white person do on a basketball court since Woody Harrelson was hustling Wesley Snipes.

4) His nickname. I would wager my entire checking account that at some level of basketball, a group of black teammates (or maybe it was just one guy; either way, they were definitely black) were making fun of the way Hansbrough acts on the court, and started calling him "Pscyho T." Hansbrough thought it was cool that the black guys cared enough about him to give him a nickname, and so of course he loved it and ran with it. There is just no way he would pick up that nickname any other way, unless it was 1995 again. I mean c'mon, "Psycho T"?!?!?! But the media thinks this is the greatest nickname in history, and trip over themselves blurting it out at every opportunity. You know what, fellow white guys, if we continue to accept these shitty nicknames that black guys use to secretly make fun of us, well, then....I guess black guys deserve to keep making fun of us.

5) Secretly, deep down, I know that he is pretty good.

So I had been going along hating Hansbrough just fine, until Kyle brought up an interesting point. Roy recruited him to Carolina, yet Hansbrough is from Missouri. Ipso facto, if Roy was still at KU, there is a 100% chance that Hansbrough would've been a Jayhawk. And, if he had, would I not absolutely love him? And the answer is yes. I believe Kyle's exact quote was, "I would honestly believe he was the second coming of Jesus." And considering that my all-time favorite player is Kirk Hinrich, who probably could've played Harry Potter in his high school drama class, I would be inclined to agree. All of a sudden I would love his dorkiness, and love his hustle, and probably be arguing that he should go to the foul line MORE. So it's all relative, I guess.

Which is the same argument one could use for Duke. People hate kids because they go to Duke, simple as that. For proof of this, look how the country falls in love with nerdy white kids from other schools. Drew Neitzel, Mike Gansey, Travis Diener, Wally Sczerbiak, Jon Godfread?, Adam Morrison (and every other white, lights-out shooter from Gonzaga in the last 10 years), etc. etc. etc. I mean, Adam Morrison? He is one of the most popular collegiate players of this decade. If he goes to Duke, he probably has to quit basketball because he would be in therapy full-time from the psychological abuse he endures during his college career (as opposed to real-life, where Morrison has used his season-ending injury this year to focus on luring young kids into his conversion van with the promise of new bikes and jolly ranchers. Did anybody else see him in the crowd during the first and second round games? Good lord. I thought the creepy factor on his child molestor hair-and-moustache combo was already maxxed out. I was wrong.) But yet, guys like Greg Paulus and Steve Wojoeialjdialklzipqski are only loved by Duke fans and their parents? Doesn't make sense.

There are couple of exceptions, in my opinion, however: Laettner and Redick. Laettner, by many accounts, was a douchebag, and this was proven once he went to the pros. Even Duke fans admit he was a shithead, so he's not worth going into detail about.

Redick was an asshat too, but his is a different story. I think, in his case, he sort of became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Does anyone remember him being a tool his freshman year? I don't. He had a little cockiness in him, but nothing out of the ordinary, from what I remember. But still, he was a white kid who could shoot and attended Duke, so people hated him. So in his mind, he probably said, "Fuck it. Everyone hates me anyway, and I'm the best shooter in college basketball history and can back it up, so I might as well be a total fuckstick." And there you go. He started talking a TON of shit, or throwing up the Shocker, or head-bobbing, or whatever else he knew would piss the crowd off. I would probably do the same if I were him. Going by J.J. probably didn't help much either. Someone from ESPN (probably Simmons) once wrote something along the lines of "If his name was James Redick and he went to Indiana, he would be the most popular player in the country." That is probably a true statement.

Best sign ever? I say yes.

Anyway, good work Chuck, and I would love to hear what all the Carolina and Duke fans out there think about this topic....if they're not too busy searching ebay for a soul.