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We abandoned this blog. Then we forgot about it. We’re writing, about sports and everything else, under our real names, someplace else, now.

Well, the other guy, Russ, wrote something. I’ll write something when I feel like it.

 

PS: I extracted little joy from watching the Packers last season.

We apologize for any service delays.

Sorry, for the lack of posts, but is’s moving time up north.  Hopefully we can get back to ignoring work to write 1000 word posts on a blog that no one reads soon. That’s the kind of productivity that our non-existent readers expect from us.  I leave you to ponder the apycolypse that is surly upon us, now that Rick Reilly is allowed to guest host PTI.  The Marrioti-Reilly endgame is surly soon to come.

Wojo, like Favre, is a dick.

Brett Favre is a dick. Everyone knows that. But what we don’t need are hacks like Gene Wojciechowski pretending he isn’t. Wojo can’t understand why the crazy Packers would rather not lose a 24 year old quarterback,  one they had spent 3 years developing , for a sycophantic over-the-hill 38 year old quarterback, who has had one good year out of the last three or four.

Wojo thinks the Packers owe Favre for not coming into training camp and competing with Aaron Rodgers. He forgets the 3 billion dickish things leading up to this point, or that Favre didn’t go to training camp because his little feelings were hurt, not because he is an awesome guy. Because he is not an awesome guy. Remember the whole huge alcoholic doped-up adulterer thing. No? Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.

Here are some of my favorite stupid things that Wojo says.

And nice job on accusing the Vikings of tampering (the Vikes were cleared of any wrongdoing). Plus, wasn’t it interesting that someone leaked a story that Favre allegedly called the Vikings on a Packers-issued cell phone (also untrue).

Isn’t it also interesting that Wojo is making the same kinds of libelous accusations that he is accusing Farve of making? Plus what’s interesting about the cell phone story, it is just a boring caveat to an all out media fuck-fest.

If this were a divorce, then Favre would be the one getting the alimony. The Packers were so eager to ditch the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yards, touchdowns and victories by a QB that they reduced the bidding war to two teams (the Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers).

First he left out interceptions. Writers always do.  Which is interesting, because interceptions are probably only record the Peyton isn’t going to break. Also, they didn’t reduce the bidding war to two teams, they talked to the only two teams outside of the division interested in trading for Jesus Farve, like you know every other single team in the NFL would.

Instead of Favre — who earlier last season helped lead the Packers to the NFC Championship Game and finished second in the league’s MVP voting — Thompson would rather have three quarterbacks on his roster with a combined zero NFL starts. He’d rather have Rodgers than the most durable quarterback in the history of the game.

Remeber Wojo, helped, that’s a key word here. Since Ted Thompsen is so fucking awesome at drafting players, basically everyone else from last years good young team is back, and will be around for a while. And being a durable quarterback isn’t the same thing as being a good quarterback.  Favre is thirty fucking eight, even if he has a good year this year, he will either actually retire(least likely) , pull the same shit he did this year(most likely), or more than likely really fucking suck when he comes back next year. Remember a lot of things went right last year for Farve to have a good year.  He played behind the top ranked O-line on passing plays. His wide receivers lead the league in yards after catch (which the quarterback doesn’t have any control of).  He will have neither of those things next year, which means he is going to have a substantially worse year, on top of normal regression to the mean.

But if I’m a Packers fan, I fly my team flag at half-mast today. Or better yet, raise a Jets flag.

They’re only $20 at Jets Shop.

Are you a fucking idiot? Your team trades one player, a player who should be retired anyway, and you think they should become Jets fans? What should they do when Favre actually retires? Come crawling back? Root for his beer-league softball team?   Remember a lot of these packer fans actually own the fucking team! I hate the packers and I think that’s pretty fucking cool. Yet, you are encouraging them to become bandwagon fans, bandwagon Jets fans, because their hero dicked around with their team enough to get traded.  A guy who gives so little of a shit about them that he wanted to play for the Vikings, again, because at best his feelings were hurt.  Fuck that guy, and hell, fuck you to.

Love,

DJ Fabulous Fred

Person Gene Wojciechowski

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Theo and Manny: A Torrid Love Affair

Editor’s disclaimer: This article is pure speculation. However, consider that the Red Sox traded two of their top prospects just so they could swap their best player for a worse player. What other explanation is there?

Theo: (Sits alone in a diner.  He checks his watch, yet again.) Oh, where could he be?

Manny bursts into the room.  He pauses for a moment to admire his grand entrance, and then smiles at Theo gently, oh so gently.

Manny: (still smiling) Theo; did you see me, when I came in just now? That was awesome!

Theo: Why, yes Manny! Why, yes it was. Please have a seat.

Manny: Okay beautiful. (Manny sits down).  How are you doing today?

Theo: Ok, Manny ok. Well that’s not true. Something has been bothering me.  I noticed you sneaking out of the apartment last night. I need to know… where did you go last night? Manny… where did you go?

Manny: Oh you see, I go down to ballpark, to work on hitting balls far, you know.

Theo: Manny, I know that’s not true. I checked with the security guards, you never showed up to the ballpark last night.  It was HIM wasn’t it.  It was the Big Papi, wasn’t it?

Manny: I’m sorry baby, but Manny just needs something more sometimes,you know. It’s just Manny being Manny, you know.  YAY, everything’s okay now.

Theo: I’m sorry Manny, but I can’t let it go. Not this time.  I am going to trade you to the Dodgers, while unloading two of our best prospects, just so we can get Jason Bay in return. Sweet, sweet, Jason Bay.

Manny: NOO! Don’t do it, Theo! That’s a terrible trade! I can be better, I promise!

Theo: I already did it, Manny. Thirty-five minutes ago.

Well, it must have gone something like that anyway.

All good things…

Looks like it’s pretty much over.

Finally.

Brett Favre has been a fixture for the Packers for, well, a long time. Longer than I can remember. I really liked having him as a quarterback and am uncertain about his departure.

But the retirement bullshit has been too much this season. I’m sick of it causing distractions, coloring every news report about the Packers, and causing all of football to turn into a game of he said she said mumbo jumbo.

I’ve already talked about it. Anyone with half an inkling about football has talked about it. It’s not worth it to spend much time on it.

However, reading about/watching/ listening to the Packer fanbase tear itself and the players, mostly metaphorically, to pieces causes me pause.

It reminds me why I wanted to get away from Green Bay so badly when I was younger.

Some things Packer fans need to realize/consider:

1) Good and evil, absolutes, dichotomies, and the like do not exist. Especially in football.
2) One player does not make a team… Actually, maybe that is true in cycling (but then one player makes a whole sport). It’s not true in football, though.
3) Regression toward the mean, regression toward the mean, regression toward the mean.
4) Stop yelling stupid, ill conceived, uncouth things at Aaron Rodgers. Wait until you see him play in an actual game to hang him. It’s what I’m doing!
5) The Packers organization is not the devil. Mike McCarthy is a winning coach. Ted Thompson has made sound decisions in the draft and in trades.

Have you heard of AJ Hawk, Greg Jennings, Aaron Rouse, Mason Crosby, and James Jones? Those, among others, are players he drafted. Remember Ryan Grant? I think, you know, those fellows might be good at football. Really. Open a book for once, you’ll see.

So, yeah. The coaching staff and management is not evil. They aren’t trying to destroy the team. That is, in fact, the opposite of their job! That would be like a famous chef attempting to make a chili that is not delicious (unthinkable and impossible). However, if you think that Brett Favre is the sole component of the Green Bay Packers, I can see how you would think the staff is trying to destroy the team. So, finally…

6) If you are not a Packer fan because someone other than Brett Favre is now the quarterback, you are bad at being a Packer fan. When you are a fan of a team, really a fan, you support that team one way or the other. High or low. Winning or losing. Without gunslingers or with gunslingers. You can criticize, but stating that you are no longer a fan of a team because they have a new quarterback probably means that you weren’t ever really a fan. You were probably a fair weather fan. And don’t know about the eighties.

(PS: If any of you “I hate the Packers now because TT AND MM ARE TRYING TO KILL MY BRETT, the gunslinger, blah blah blah, I have season tickets but will never again use them” fans somehow actually have season tickets, can I buy them? I will use the hell out of them.)

I can’t handle reading more about Brett Favre’s un-retirement, or about the accompanying idiocy of some vocal Packer fans not-fans, or about what Peter King thinks he thinks about Brett Favre’s awesome abs.

Looks like it is almost over. Phew.

We, those of us kind-of-rational Packer fans, can now, I hope, get to watching Aaron Rodgers hurt himself coming off of the bench destroy Brett Favre’s team eat a hotdog play a game involving a ball as the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers.

It’s about damn time.

Friday Conversation: Enduring Endurance Sports

It’s time for our Friday Conversation! Value Adjusted Phineas chooses the topic this week, so here we go!

Value Adjusted Phineas: I’d like to talk about something pretty dear to my heart today: endurance sports. I like them a lot.

As a kid, and now, I was never particularly “talented” or…uh…”passable” when it came to sports that involved things like kicking, throwing, catching, or doing anything involving other human beings. Normally, my adventures with these sports begin with me getting hit in the face.

Endurance sports, though, I’ve been able to manage those. I can typically do things like running, biking, inline skating, and cross-country skiing without getting a black eye. Endurance sports are great. They’re highly accessible, easy to learn, and pretty darn good for the ol’ cardiovascular health.

As a result of this stance, I’ve always wondered why there’s so little focus on endurance sports in our world. In the world of sports reporting, there’s nary a mention of endurance sports, despite the fact that there’s something going on in endurance sports at just about any time of the year. The only time the Tour de France even gets mentioned on ESPN anymore is when someone is caught cheating.

Perhaps more important, the world of sports education turns a blind eye to endurance sports. In school, gym class consisted of: football, soccer, basketball, racket sports, weight lifting, field hockey, and baseball. If there was time, there might be a unit that involves running.

I mean, my high school was in Wisconsin. We have, what? Three months without snow in the year? Have a unit on cross country skiing! It’s only 6 miles to one of the finest sets of trails in the mid-west! But, no, we have a unit where we go to a local bar and bowl, instead.

This lack of attention makes very little sense to me, especially in schools. Lifelong activity is VERY VERY VERY important. Why focus on activities that require specialized skills and multiple participants when individual activities with huge health benefits and low barriers to participation exist?

DJ Fabulous Fred: Well, I don’t think our aversion to endurance sports is anything surprising. For one, endurance sports are boring and hard. At the same time.

Look at American attention spans, we can’t pay attention to 45 minutes of soccer. We need commerical breaks at five minute intervals in everything to even begin to pay attention. We like to do activites that we like to watch, and no one likes to watch endurance sports.

When was the last time anyone said “Oh man, did you see when Chris McCormack’s nipples started bleeding in hour five of that triathlon? That was fucking awesome!”. Never, that’s when.

Anyway, we all know that endurance sports are just a testbed for the performance enhancing drugs that will create our next generation of supersoldiers

Value Adjusted Phineas: Wait. Are you claiming that cross-country skiing is boring? One could make the argument that it is hard, but I would counter: cross-country skiing is no harder than trying to hit a ball the size of a fucking orange when it is thrown at you by some barbarian in your gym class (2x your size).

But…boring!? You would claim that cross-country skiing is boring? You would call THIS boring!?

DJ Fabulous Fred: Ohh, the old exclamation mark-question mark combo, you’re bringing out the big punctuation guns. Well, yes, I do think cross-country skiing is boring. You have to remember that most of us weren’t born in northern Wisconsin. Most of us didn’t grow up cross-country skiing. Most of us don’t consider lutefisk a food group. Most of us don’t look like this:

(Value Adjusted Phineas)

I mean, looking like that, how could you not like cross-country skiing? I do like the ironic mustache by the way.

Value Adjusted Phineas: The Swedish Chef is an upstanding member of the world community, and I, as a person of Swedish descent, am proud to share his heritage.

But, fine. If all you fat fucks don’t want to take my advice and pay attention to or try cross-country skiing, or any other sport that actually requires you to MOVE YOUR FUCKING ASS MORE THAN 100 FEET AT A TIME for that matter, that’s fine by me. You guys have fun dying of cardiovascular disease.

Hate: I hate Derek Jeter

Look! Ponder the magnificence that is Derek Jeter! So thoughtful, so emotive, so fetching in black and white! Derek Jeter plays shortstop for the New Yankees. He is a very good shortstop. He has a career OPS+ of 121. That is very good. He is also the second best shortstop on the New York Yankees, but that is another rant for another time.

Derek Jeter is a very bad fielder. He handles balls hit right at him very well, but he can’t get to balls hit, well, not right at him. That means Jeter turns those ball from outs, into singles. This is a bad thing. Unfortunately, the only people who realize that are people who think about the game intelligently (read: not sportswriters). Bill James has written that Jeter “… was probably the most ineffective defensive player in the major leagues, at any position”. Worse than everyone else in baseball is pretty fucking bad.

But the media fucking loves this guy. Peter King thinks this guy is the best player of our generation. That is why I hate Derek Jeter. The guy is the worst fucking fielder in the league and he gets a gold glove, not once, but three times. What the fuck? I know that gold gloves don’t mean anything, unless Greg Maddux wins them (then they count double). (34 Gold Gloves! Holy Mother of God Fucking Shit!) However, not only is Jeter the media’s second favorite circle jerk material (BRADY!), but he has an even worse flaw. He’s fucking boring.

Derek Jeter might be the most boring player in baseball. He hits well. He doesn’t field ground balls. He is a gritty, gutty, winner. He dates models, who, while also pretty, are also boring (they can’t field short either). That is about it. He never has anything interesting to say, which is awesome for a guy the media fucking loves, and is therefore reserved a 15 minute block on SportsCenter every night. I get, you are going to give it 110%. 1 game at a time while not thinking about the next game. NOT EVER!

Fuck. I wish Jeter sucked A-Rod, at least then he would be interesting. But no, time to go date another lifeless supermodel. Lame. Jeter should kill a guy, like O.J. Peter King. Or bang hookers like George Herman Ruth (that’s what true Yankees do). Or recover from a crippling crack cocaine addiction, like Josh Hamilton.

Or pee on rookies, like Greg Maddux.

That guy’s fucking awesome.

Derek Jeter is not fucking awesome. I know for a fact he has never peed on a rookie. Wimp.

In conclusion:

this guy

and this guy

are fucking awesome.

This guy

loved hookers.

And this guy

is a douchebag who sucks at fielding.

Class Dismissed.

Rick Reilly: The Hack

Rick Reilly is the highest paid sportswriter in the country. He is also a complete hack. In this semi-regular feature we will take Reilly’s latest columns down, Fire Joe Morgan-style.

My favorite olympic sport? Translating anthems.

Who knew, Rick Reilly translator extraordinaire! Maybe that’s how he justifies his salary, because his 800 shitty words a week sure aren’t doing the job.

Here come the Olympics, when we are reminded of the unquenchable spirit of the athlete, the true fellowship of nations through sport—and the Spam-brained quality of most national anthems.

Really, Spam-brained? What does that even mean? Tasty to Hawaiians?

It’s so sad when bad anthems happen to good countries. America, for one. Ours goes up and down so many octaves only certain German shepherds can hear all of it. Still, I’ve covered eight Olympics, and our anthem doesn’t come close to these:

Is it really that sad? I mean, how many people actually listen to national anthems? And, anyway, isn’t the knock on our anthem that it is hard to sing? I can hear it just fine.

Also, apparently you need to have covered eight Olympics to have heard non-US national anthems.

Andorra. I look forward with great zeal to the day when a 350-pound Andorran shot-putter with phone booths for arms stands on the podium and sings: “I was born a princess, a maiden!” Hey, with today’s medical breakthroughs, it’s possible.

Wow, he starts it off with a tranny joke. Hey! Leave that alone, Rick! That there’s blogger territory.

Thailand. This anthem is played each day at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. It declares, “Every inch of Thailand belongs to the Thais.” Odd. Was anyone under the impression it belonged to Diddy?

No Rick, I think they are referring to the fact that their country has been under constant threat of invasion for the totality of its existence. Is that really the kind of zany national anthem lyric that deserves to be in a national column? I think not.

Algeria. “We have taken the noise of gunpowder as our rhythm and the sound of machine guns as our melody.” This is why no one invites your band anywhere.

Oh man, the Algerian Civil War was so fucking hilarious! Good one, Rick!

Sweden. Here is a national anthem that has almost nothing to do with the country it honors. It’s mostly about the Nordic way of life. Swedes are like that. Once, at an Olympic soccer game, I listened to Swedish fans chanting and singing. Finally, I asked one what they were urging their players to do. “The players?” she said. “We simply chant: ‘We are from Sweden, we have come a long way and we are drunk!’”

This is why Swedish people are cooler than Rick Reilly. Unfortunately this is the only reason Swedish people are cooler than Rick Reilly.

Russia. Another country that has gone through more national anthems than Amy Winehouse has rehabs. The latest, adopted in 2000 by order of then-president Vladimir Putin, goes like this: “Russia, our homeland, most beautiful of all nations, sing it loud or you’ll farm icicles in Siberia rest of days.” (Okay, I made that up.)

Blah blah blah, Amy Winehouse Joke, blah blah blah, Russia=Soviet Union, blah blah blah. Real topical, Rick.

However, it does seem Rick knows what Stalin’s mustache was up to. Kudos to him. Fuckin’ Commies.

And here’s a cool fact: Afghanistan’s anthem was banned during the reign of the Taliban. Now it’s back.

A cool fact? Not a depressing fact? Or maybe a horrifying fact? Wait, no, you’re right, the Taliban were fucking cool-guys!

That’s pretty much it. While I am disappointed I didn’t see much translation, just other national anthem’s lyrics, followed by hacky jokes, at least we got the hacky jokes. Oh well, see you next week!

My thoughts on the May-Treanor, Walsh win streak

The world of professional women’s beach volleyball is all a-twitter over the immense win streak the May-Treanor, Walsh pair have accumulated recently. Color me surprised that anyone actually knew there was a win streak. I didn’t know anyone actually kept score during a women’s volleyball match.

I thought people just…watched.

My dropped jaw aside, this win streak impresses me. I mean, 101 consecutive wins, that’s…well…a lot of beach volleyball to sit through and actually care enough to win. So, yeah, that’s pretty good…

Almost…too good.

Un-doctored image from http://www.southofboston.net

MLS has a long way to go

I like soccer. I find it quite nice to watch, well… when no one is broadcasting baseball games. Or NFL games. Or basketball games. Or episodes of the Simpsons, Futurama, The Wire, Pushing Daisies, Generation Kill, King of the Hill, and pretty much any show Adult Swim touches. So, as long as nothing else is on, I like to watch soccer.

I mean, what’s not to like about a sport that can feature guys like this? Or this?

But, really, I guess I should probably say I like football instead of saying I like soccer. I really don’t like watching Major League Soccer. It’s…just…kinda…boring. It’s rather hard to put my finger on the reasons behind this. I mean, besides the whole “everyone with great talent plays for teams in parts of the world that are not the United States” thing.

However, I think SI might have hit on a contributing factor.

Only by offering Eddie Johnson money — in the neighborhood of $850,000 — could MLS possibly keep Cooper happy in the league for the long-term.

Wow. That’s enough to keep a good player around in the MLS? An offer including a signing bonus of 2freakingtimes that much wasn’t enough to make Ryan Grant come to work today.

But such a staggering salary would elevate him to DP status and far surpass the salaries of strikers like Twellman and Carlos Ruiz, and make it much harder for the league to keep prolific goal scorers without busting open its coffers. It could also set a dangerous salary benchmark for a talented third-year league veteran who has hit double figures but twice.

If paying a talented veteran radically less than the Bears pay Rex Grossman to “play” “quarterback” has the potential to drain your professional sport league’s reserves of cash, well, you probably need to rethink you branding.

Maybe start calling it the Major Fun Soccer Mimicking Extravaganza League (of Awesomeness and Delight). And maybe give away some free bobbleheads! Or sell hot dogs for one dollar!

If it works for single-A baseball clubs, it will work for soccer.

Andy LaRoche clearly banged Ned Colletti’s wife

This is Ned Colletti. He is the Dodgers GM.  He is very bad at his job.  He likes Gritty old winners, like Andruw Jones, Juan Pierre, Jeff Kent, Nomar Garciaparra.  He dislikes players who are good at baseball, like Matt Kemp and Andre Either.  But he really hates Andy Laroche.

Here’s Andy. Hi Andy!  Andy LaRoche is a very good 3B prospect.  Baseball America ranked him the 31st best prospect in baseball this year. He is only 24.  Despite getting hurt this year, Andy LaRoche put up a 444 OBP in AAA ball this year! So, Ned Colletti rushes him into third base this season, since he can contibute now and will only get better. That’s what any sane person would do. Right?

Wrong.  Ned Colleti trades two good prospects for two months of Casey Blake.

Casey Blake is okay at baseball. He is pretty average at third base. Before the season, Marcel’s Batting Projection pegged him at an ok 760 OPS.  It also pegged  Andy LaRacoche at a 760 OPS.  So, we could expect roughly equal production from them this year.  But one of the players is a cheap 24 year old prospect who will only get better, while the other is a two month rental who costs two good prospects.

What does Ned Colletti do? He makes that bad decision.  The Dodgers really must hate Andy LaRoche, as he has only gotten 59 at bats this year. And they are trading away prospects so as to not play him. And Ned Colletti was seen throwing molotov cocktails at his car. And has written, “I hate Andy LaRoche” at least 150 times in his diary.

Clearly, Andy LaRoche is banging someone’s wife.

Vitriol: Not in the mood for sports today

I spent a little too much time reading about meaningful and soul crushing things this weekend (read: Iraq). I’m stuck thinking that everything I could write about here doesn’t even scratch the surface of true relevance – a notion which I have contradictory feelings about even when I’m not in this mood. I don’t want to soil any sports that I actually care about by writing about them when I’m like this. So, I’m going to write about something I consider so irrelevant and I care so little about that I don’t give a fuck if I come off as a snarky, pretentious dick: Nascar.

I just glanced at SI’s and ESPN’s Nascar section to find something topical to bitch about. I couldn’t linger for long, my hippocampus was beginning to atrophy. Apparently, someone named Kyle won some race recently. I think he drove in circles for a couple of hours. That’s as far as I got, because just reading about Nascar makes me want to stab myself in the eyeballs.

I have a bad taste in my mouth related to Nascar. In my hometown, there were many fans of Nascar. In my hometown, there were many people growing up with me that held racist beliefs. There was overlap. A house with a Nascar flag on my bus route also flew the Confederate flag. During my time in high school, there was an incident involving several white students wearing shirts emblazoned with the term “White Pride” to school. This caused some nervous shuffling and staring at feet on the part of the administration until the kids were told to take their shirts off.

I later asked around about the controversy. I hoped to write a short piece for the school/community newspaper (bit of a story about why it’s both) about it. Wanting to be fair, I interviewed one of my peers that had worn one of the shirts. I asked him why they had worn the shirt, he replied, “Well, the niggers and spics can wear whatever pride shirts they want. I’m white, we should be proud of our race.” (Suffice to say, I gave up on the article.) He was wearing a hat emblazoned with the number 3. I later found out that was a Nascar hat.

So, I formed a pretty negative view of Nascar. Everything surrounding it just seems charged in a sort of pro-White, pro-male, pro-Confederate/South, pro-laissez-faire, pro-conservatism manner. There’s what, one female in Nascar? I remember the sports media making a huge deal that there was finally another black driver – in fucking 2004 there had only been two. As though that somehow represents progress. The executives, the sponsors, and the sport itself seem dedicated to a kind of culture that fosters ignorance, sexism, and racism.

And the fans just follow along in this bullshit. While googling for this piece of writing, I found this. That seems like something the racist fucks I went to school with would just eat up. And, from the extremely slow pace at which racing diversifies (Nascar seems perfectly fine with the lack of diversity), it seems like this segment of professional racing promotes an environment conducive to ignorance and racism among its fans.

To say what I’m pussyfooting around: near every person I’ve met that follows Nascar closely had – at the least – ignorant, hateful, racist views.  Since I have no hope of writing anything objective today, I’ll just state my own ignorant and hateful view that I know not to be true: Nascar fans are a all a bunch of stupid rednecks.

Now, I shouldn’t say this. I shouldn’t do this! I shouldn’t hold the belief that certain people are ignorant or stupid or or racist simply because they like watching a few cars drive in circles at high speed for hours. I shouldn’t utilize my experience with a few Nascar fans to form an opinion about all of them. I really don’t. I know it’s not true. Not every Nascar fan delights in racism and ignorance. I know this to be true.

However, I also know that the fans and participants in Nascar have overwhelmingly voted for and supported Republicans in recent years.  So, let me have my fun. Let me make some baseless observations. Let me get something out of my system, because if I don’t, I might just explode.

The Nascar fans voted Bush. The Nascar fans voted for many of the men and women behind the disaster that is the United States’ current foreign policy. They voted for the people that capitalized on fear to motivate military action. They voted for the people that sent us to Iraq on false (and often vaguely, if not explicitly, racist) pretenses.

The people the Nascar fans voted for have gotten us into a disaster, unmitigated and draining.

Buy a Hummer/They can drive up mole hills

I was just driving to the store, listening to the New York v. Boston game. A-Rod was doing something or other, I don’t know, it was Yankees v. Red Sox. Who the fuck cares? If I really wanted that kind of douchefest, I would watch Baseball Tonight.

Anyhow, the game cut to commercial and I heard a very convincing car advertisement. It was a Hummer H3 ad. The ad spoke about all the great features of the Hummer, cash-lubricated transmission and poor person/minority repellent in the exhaust, but those weren’t the compelling part.

No, the thing that made me decide to make an illegal U-turn and buy a Hummer at that moment was something said near the end of the advertisement. The ad noted the drive for the need to have a Hummer in your driveway and on your all-terrain trips to the corner store: the ability of the Hummer to move you to the exotic, hard to reach destination of the Appalachian Mountains.

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Yep.

The Soullessness of the Fuwa

Look at the Fuwa. Ponder their deep, soulless eyes. Know that you are staring into the pit that is death itself. The Chinese know. They know the truth of these adorable doom-bringers. Each one portends a disaster. Each of those disasters befell China this year.

Oh, look! What a cute little panda!

WRONG! This cute soul-sucker caused the earthquakes in Sichuan. This little bastard has killed more people than all but three of the other Pandas! Maybe four. They’re sneaky like that.

Jingjing supposedly symbolizes the harmony between man and nature. You know, the harmony that involves nature continually killing fucktons of us. (Insert hacky global warming joke here/)

Huanhaun. This is the “rebel,” responsible for all of those disruptions of the Olympic torch relay. What, did you think people suddenly started caring about “human rights”?

Here’s a test:

Do people care about what Roger Clemens inject in his ass? Fuck yes!
Do people care about atrocities committed against people on the other side of the world (it’s so far away, what can I do!)? Fuck No!

Yingying resembles an antelope or something. He’s probably responsible for the “problems” in “Tibet.” Whatever.

Now this one, Nini, she’s a real little shit. The real terrorist of the group. Fucker takes out a whole goddamn train. Why? Because fucked up terrorist bird-panda-lizard mutants hate public transportation. You’re lucky this monster has no idea about buses.

Beibei. The eco-terrorist. A town using too much water? She floods the whole goddamn town. “They can have all the water anyone could want,” she says. And she stares.

You see? The Fuwa won’t be happy until we all slump, dead before the stare of their soulless button-eyes.

But some still doubt their horrible power. Oh, they are just cute, cuddly animals. What harm could they cause?

Well, Stalin’s mustache was cute and cuddly too. Look at how many people it killed.

Friday Conversation: Brawling on Brawls

Value Adjusted here. We’re debuting what we hope to be a weekly feature, our Friday Conversation. We intend for this to be a fairly free-form, back and forth, discussion of some concept or happening within the sporting world that had some significance during the week. The DJ and I will alternate choosing the topic of discussion. The DJ will choose the topic on the second and fourth Friday of each month, and I will choose the topic every first and third. If there’s an odd number of Fridays in the month, the topic will be determined by a poll of the readers! We’re hoping to do other things in the future to get readers involved with this feature, but we’ll talk more about that when we get…uh…readers. We might also try to get some guests on this, but Bill Simmons didn’t respond to our emails, voicemails, letters, telegrams, singing telegrams, or notes we left scrawled on his front door in rats’ blood. So, maybe next week.

Before The DJ starts us off, you should watch this shiny video! (Credit goes to: Awful Announcing)

DJ Fabulous Fred: For the first installment, we’re discussing brawls in sports.  As we all know, Brawls are so vital to the concept of sport, that their existence is required for an activity to become a sport.  Tennis, golf, swimming, cycling, running: no brawls therefore clearly not sports.  Football, baseball, basketball, and legislating: all clearly sports.  In fact, I think we all remember a few days ago when the WNBA finally became a sport. How could we enjoy sports without the threat of some hulking moron whipping a 90 mph fastball at our heads, sending us to the hospital?

I shudder to think of that world.

Value Adjusted Phineas: I think I’m going to have to mostly agree with the DJ. There’s nothing I enjoy more than seeing Kyle Farnsworth charging at, well, just about anyone looking at him askance. It really reaffirms the notion that I’m watching an athletic competition.

However, I think you may be a bit narrow in his brawl-based criteria for status as a sport. I think the three activities you highlighted are no-brainers; football, basketball, and baseball provide ample opportunities for brawling, thus satisfying this criteria for sport status.

However, I question where you draw the line in your selection of sports. Are only certain brawls applicable when considering whether or not something is a sport? Do we include athletic competitions that have had only a certain number of brawls as sports? Do the brawls have to have happened during a certain period of history? Must they have occurred at the professional level of the athletic activity being considered for sport status? And on and on. Perhaps additional criteria need to be set before this is a viable mechanism for determining status as a sport.

After all, I’m pretty sure these cyclists engaged in brawling while attempting to engage in a athletic event. Perhaps you can confirm, DJ.

DJ Fabulous Fred: Well clearly the brawls need to take place at the professional level for it to be considered a sport. Who gives a fuck about amateurs? Brawls don’t need to frequently occur, but you need that feeling that, at any given moment these fucksmiths could beat the hell out of each other.  As for those cyclists that was clearly a performance enhancing drug induced hallucination and not a brawl.  You know how those cyclists are. Have you every tripped balls on EPO? It’s Fucking Awesome!

Value Adjusted Phineas: Ah, do you then feel all brawls occurring in the proximity of the usage of performance enhancing drugs are hallucinations? Because, I think I’d have trouble including baseball (and football) as a sport, in that case…

DJ Fabulous Fred: Well first off, we know that no one in the NFL takes steroids. Except Shawn Merriman, but he’s sorry.

Secondly, we need to know what kind of drugs people are on. Steroids make you mad, not hallucinate. They just add to the aggression already present. Tripping just makes you look like you are fighting while you think that you are bouncing off lily pads on your way the cheesemoon. In conclusion, Steroids=Crazy Brawls EPO=Awesome Saturday night.

Value Adjusted Phineas: Well, I will have to concede that point to you. I clearly do not have the experience with the effects of performance enhancing drugs you have…

However, beyond what I still consider as a murkiness within this criteria, I wonder what impact utilizing this criteria will have. How do we, as viewers, understand these brawls (other than staring at awe of their display of unbridled human potential for rage and slapstick styling)? How are we impacted? What do they do to the people participating in the sport? For that matter, what do they do to the sport itself?

DJ Fabulous Fred: MAKE IT AWESOME!

Value Adjusted Phineas: Sigh.

See you next Friday!