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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
A Mighty Wind
Ray Edwards (now ex-Atlanta Falcon) takes on Joe Schmoe in a boxing match (sort of) in North Dakota. (Bear Baiting Night is on Tuesdays).
Reminds me of Moe Syzlak's important boxing advice to Homer!
The Swedish "Black Widow"
Badass.
Got bit by a black widow spider. Kept golfing. Take that, Priscilla Arena of Long Island, NY!
As Holmqvist's leg started to swell and the pain became intense, she made the quick decision to take matters into her own hands (she'd just been informed that a Black Widow bite can kill a child in as little as 30 minutes). She pulled a tee out of her pocket ("it was the only thing I had handy," she told Svensk Golf) and used it to cut open the wound so she could squeeze out the venom and keep it from spreading inside her body.
"A clear fluid came out," she said. "It wasn't the prettiest thing I've ever done, but I had to get as much of it out of me as possible."
Awesome. And she finished the round with a 74.
I kid you not.
Which reminds me of a true story! I was once golfing with my boss, the esteemed Tod Castleberry. We were at Four Streams GC in Maryland, when he laced his tee-shot into an area of long grass and gunch next to the lake on #8.
After venturing in to look for it, Mr. C came ROCKETING out of there, cussing, and removing both his shirt and shorts at the same time.
Bees!
After getting dotted by at least 2 dozen yellow jackets (god, I HATE those fuckers! Why the attitude, 'Jackets? Why?) we let a group play through. Mr. C, being a gamer, played on gingerly.
As he lagged his putt for bogey up to about 5 feet, I looked at him sympathetically and said: "Pick it up Winnie The Pooh, you're good."
I think he threw his putter at my head. But when it was all said and done, he too could appreciate a good smart ass line!
Meet Some Names That Will Crush Your Spellcheck Software
Our genuine best wishes to one Nerlins Noel after he trashed his knee
Not only is the lone good "high top fade" now on the shelf for quite a while (maybe forever!) we'll just miss saying the buttery smooth name "Nerlins Noel."
At least we have Jadaveon Clowney as the OTHER bad-ass college sports name that is currently injured.
If you watch the above clip, you can compile you fictional favorites. Mine?
Tyroil Smoochie-Wallace
Jackmerius Tacktheritrix
J'Dinkalage Morgoone
A nice bit, but goes on about 2 minutes too long, and they could have paid for more than just 3 actors.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Snicky du Jour: Carrie Keagan
Carrie Keagan is a television personality, actress, writer and producer, known as the host of Up Close with Carrie Keagan, Big Morning Buzz Live on VH1 and for her appearances as a panelist on Fox News.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Not Exactly A "I Shouldn't Be Alive" Episode
On the Long Island Expressway.
In. Her. Car.
With that coat, and gloves.
Luckily, she summoned enough hand strength to write her kids lengthy "goodbye" letters.
Oiy. Just lahk a woman.....
FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — Stranded for hours on a snow-covered road, Priscilla Arena prayed, took out a sheet of loose-leaf paper and wrote what she thought might be her last words to her husband and children.
She told her 9 1/2-year-old daughter, Sophia, she was "picture-perfect beautiful." And she advised her 5 ½-year-old son, John: "Remember all the things that mommy taught you. Never say you hate someone you love. Take pride in the things you do, especially your family. ... Don't get angry at the small things; it's a waste of precious time and energy. Realize that all people are different, but most people are good. "
"My love will never die — remember, always," she added.
Arena, who was rescued in an Army canvas truck after about 12 hours, was one of hundreds of drivers who spent a fearful, chilly night stuck on highways in a blizzard that plastered New York's Long Island with more than 30 inches of snow, its ferocity taking many by surprise despite warnings to stay off the roads.
But many workers didn't have the option of taking off early Friday, Arena noted. The 41-year-old sales account manager headed home from an optical supply business in Ronkonkoma around 4 p.m. She soon found her SUV stuck along a road in nearby Farmingville.
"Even though we would dig ourselves out and push forward, the snow kept piling, and therefore we all got stuck, all of us," she recalled later at Brookhaven Town Hall, where several dozen stranded motorists were taken after being rescued. Many others opted to stay with their cars.
I got this email from Mike Johnson... sounds like..... uh... "fun."
Yes, the general population is soft.
I'm not here to prove anything or say how tough I am, but here is what I CHOSE to do a couple weekends ago:
Yes, the general population is soft.
I'm not here to prove anything or say how tough I am, but here is what I CHOSE to do a couple weekends ago:
- Leave my warm home after work in Milwaukee and drive 5 hrs north to Munising, MI, on the shore of Lake Superior.
- Upon arriving at about 1:30 AM local time, grabbed my backpack and head into the woods to meet up with some friends and set up camp. (yes, camp).
- Wake up, put on some gear, get over to a vertical wall of ice, and do this. (The video from a GoPro on my helmet, involving a lot of Smash, Smash, SUMM-ASH!)
- Go back to camp, sleep another night.
- Climb again, then drive 5 hrs home and catch the last part of the Super Bowl (wasn't real important to me this year due to Packer induced heartbreak).
The closest National Weather Service station in Marquette, MI lists the low temps for the two nights I was out as -6° F and -11° F.
My friends and I even had a good time out there. We sat around a fire and drank beer and whisky.
I did not write any letters. I did not write because there was no reason to think I'd die, even SLEEPING IN A TENT AT 11 DEGREES BELOW ZERO! By choice.
With my pack on my back, I actually walked past a hotel to get to my campsite, just to save $89 / night. Sure, I'd have preferred to sleep in a bed in a heated room, but at no point was I near death, or even very cold.
I know most people don't make that choice, but my goodness folks, the human body is able to sustain life well beyond conditions that most of us will ever experience.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The Long Game, Masterfully Played
Good for Gregg Williams.
He played the game. The long game, and won. Life is unfortunately like this. You have to eat a giant steaming plate of corporate crap, because you just... can't... win.
And I say this not because I like the guy.
I don't. He's a dick. This is a known fact.
Case in point: he essentially choked out Lavar Arrington's career as a Redskin here in Washington.
Following Lavar's contract dispute with Snyder - the one where Lavar rushed to sign an extension (without basically reading it!) only to find out he'd been "shorted" about $6.5 million dollars from what had been previously agreed to - ol' #56 was basically dead man playing.
Lavar went public with the dispute, embarrassing the owner and organization, and it dragged on for almost a year and a half before finally being settled. But it wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
While Lavar was certainly injury prone at this point, and a bit of a free-lancer, he was STILL a far better playmaker than his weekly replacement Warrick Holdman.
Yet Holdman started, and played most of the snaps, week after week. Finally, when Lavar got out of the Gregg doghouse, it was dramatic. He actually MADE PLAYS, whereas Holdman had the amazing ability to basically "disappear" during game.
As a weakside linebacker, Holdman managed to start all 16 games in 2006 and record just 53 tackles!
I dubbed Holdman "The Folding Chair." Because basically a folding chair would make as many plays per game, if you just let runners trip over it.
But the message was sent, and Gregg was the guy who kneecapped Lavar. "We KNOW the guy playing instead of you sucks, but we'd rather suffer some on-field production so we can basically run you out of town.
So there's that. I am no Williams apologist, or even fan.
But what the NFL did to him was a joke. They swooped in, took his career hostage with that "indefinite" suspension, and made him sing and dance for the league's little puppet show called "Bountygate."
Fox Sports' Jen Floyd Engel delivers a deeply thought and quite rational acquittal of Gregg Williams as he returns to the NFL - albeit looking a bit more like Tom Skerritt every day.
And also makes a point about a hit in the Super Bowl that the NFL - if it wasn't so utterly full of shit - would have been an easy 15 yard penalty for defenseless helmet to helmet contact.
Everybody is talking about San Francisco’s last goal-line play in the Super Bowl. It is all the rage to debate whether the officials wrongly swallowed their whistles on what looked to be a possible pass interference on the fourth-down play near the goal line at the end of the game.
The truth is, if the officials had correctly called the helmet-to-helmet hit on Crabtree the previous play, it would not have mattered. It is a call they made all year. It goes to the very heart of what NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was talking about in his state-of-the-shield address Friday of Super Bowl week. It is exactly the kind of play Williams was calling for in his now infamous pregame speech before the NFC Championship Game. The fact it went uncalled speaks to how the NFL really feels: When it really, really matters, you do anything — even dangerous vicious things, especially dangerous vicious things — to win.
What got Williams and Saints coach Sean Payton and a few players suspended was less about the Saints’ on-field actions and more that their inner workings were splayed open by Bountygate for all to dissect. I am afraid this has allowed us to pretend that Saturday meetings in other cities are all about preaching safety first and talking about their moral obligations to their fellow players. This is so ridiculous in its fantasyland premise it does not warrant discussion.I will admit that BountyGate was indeed a "bounty" for those of us in sports radio. Hell, it filled hours and hours, and weeks, and months of airtime.
I will miss it, sort of.
Because this off-season, we'll likely be reduced to arguing over Tim Tebow's prospects of starting for the Argonauts.
But as a worthwhile effort by the NFL to ensure "safety" and to "change the culture", it was nothing but an epic fail.
This time, Gregg will learn to keep the door prizes for big hits to himself, and to tone down the pre-game rhetoric. It would have been easy for him to climb a soapbox, and start burning bridges when the whole absurd spectacle came down.
But he didn't. He played the long game. And won.
And like most of us, we're just here to take their money.
Good for him.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Future Jumbotron at Yohoonye Field?
Not exactly.
But if someday I hit the lottery, OH HELL YEAH I am getting
The Ever Exciting Press Conference For an 18 Year Old Putting on A Hat
If this whole day is not the single most DYSfunctional day on the sports calendar, I don't know what is. I mean has anyone bothered to step back and think: "Why do we need to be here covering this event?"
Because everyone else is. Because it's been deemed a "big deal." Because ESPN said so.
The kids get even more inflated egos. Their respective programs pursuing them are incentivized even more to cheat or cut corners. The pressure on these kids to someday hit the NFL jackpot is ratcheted up by the phalanx of parents, aunts, uncles and cousins behind them (for support, of course, they'll never have their hand out to the kid. Nah...)
And in the end, it all means nothing.
The "science" of high school recruiting is so inexact, that it makes people who have a "strategy" of playing the lottery look semi-sane.
But here we are in the year 2013, with kids in front of ESPN's worldwide audience, 5 microphones in front of them, a whole extended family behind them, choosing a hat and saying like LeBron James.... "I'm taking my talents to...."
There may not be anything more pointless in sports.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Snicky du Jour: Super Bowl Webb
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The Night The Lights Went Out In Vegas
Septmber 5th, 2002.
Wisconsin Badgers at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Sam Boyd Stadium.
Thousands of drunken BAEDDDGer fans in town, betting like crazy on their team. Game is an easy cover for Wisky... the the lights go out just 2:41 until the game is "official" in the Vegas books.
We pick up the story, as written by Mark Anderson of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Of course, the power outage sparked conspiracy theories, some of which exist today.
Much of the suspicion is due to the heavy betting from the many Badgers fans who made the trip and pushed the spread from between 3 and 4 points to 7 for their favorite team.
When the lights went out, 7:41 remained in the game -- 2:41 away from making it an official result for the sports books. Thus, the Wisconsin fans who put money on their team to cover did not get paid winnings, but were simply refunded whatever they bet.
Major sports books would have lost only between $10,000 and $20,000 on the game, according to a Review-Journal article at the time. Their losses would have been offset largely because Badgers fans also pushed the total from 53 to 58 points.
'It surely wouldn't have gone over the total, and I'm sure there was a lot of parlay action on the total," said Ken White, chief oddsmaker for Las Vegas Sports Consultants.
Local radio co-host and noted sports bettor Dave Cokin said the theories amaze him.
"There's no way to keep a secret anymore," Cokin said. "It's why local politicians go to jail. So if it was some conspiracy with the UNLV-Wisconsin game, I think someone would've blown the whistle and made a lot of money. It's impossible. It's completely illogical and as stupid as someone believing in a curse on the Red Sox.
"There is no grassy knoll involved."
The early report by UNLV Police of a car hitting a transformer that was later discredited probably increased suspicions.
Sam Boyd Stadium manager Jeff Chalfant said an older cable that was part of "the main Nevada Power feed" burned out. That cable, he said, "burned through another."
And suddenly the stadium went dark.
Okay, let's finely tune the bullshit meter here.
1. Would there have been "motive" to pull the plug. Absolutely.
2. Opportunity? Yes, it's Vegas.
3. So what if OVERALL the sports books in Vegas would have only lost a paltry $10-20K? It doesn't mean that PERHAPS a prominent local Vegas "whale" might have had $200,000 on the hometown Rebels. HE would have a huge incentive to make that game "go dark."
And yes, the police report which was wrong, only adds suspicion. "One cable burned through another?" Do we have pictures of that? Was there a fire? What about backup systems?
Power surges, blackouts and failures happen. I get it. But they are quite rare when it comes to the THOUSANDS of major college and pro sporting events around the country, year after year, after year.
And there is also a misconception, that because a stadium has these BRIGHT LIGHTS that it must be a huge energy hog! Well, to some extent yes. But outdoor stadiums that have limited HVAC units, I bet use less juice than a typical mid-size office building or even an ice rink, or Costco.
Once things start adding up to being very, very fishy. Then get your noses out of your ass, and start sniffin.'
Mopping Up the Mantei T'eo Story
The hoax mastermind, Roniahah "I've Eaten Through A Lot of My Issues Lately" Tuiasasopo came "clean" to Dr. Phil about how he pulled it all off.
Well, sorta clean.
When asked to "do the voice" that Ronaiah purports to have produced HIMSELF as the voice of Lennay Kukua for MORE THAN THREE YEARS, at first Ronaiah balked.
Then he agreed to do it in "Part 2" of the interview. (Cha-ching, ratings hook!)
Then he only did it behind a "screen" and not on camera.
Whatever.
Voice experts claim the wave form matches. So I guess he's "in the clear" on that front. Sort of. I still think it would be GRUELING to keep that up for so long, and to never once slip out of character. Plus, he's gotta think and talk like a girl - ABOUT EVERYTHING!
I think the story has now settled deep into the silty bottom of "Who the Fuck Exactly Knows Lake" and it will take something unusual to ultimately recover the "full truth."
Mantei will be at the combines this month. There will be more questions. More media coverage. I bet however, he has a good set of defensive, evasive, say nothing-lets-move-on answers ready to go.
Consider me placing this one in the "cold case" file. Not closed, just cold for now.
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