This might be the laziest attempt at filler ever

And that my friends is saying a lot. But, we need a post for today, and not all of you have twitter, so below for your reading pleasure (non-twitterers) is my night at the Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam. I'm copying and pasting my own tweets because I am that uncool, so start from the bottom...

Country Living (With Ned Beatty)

Almighty Yojo presents his debut song and animated video. Bow down to the Almighty Yojo!

Almighty Yojo provides high quality songs and low quality video. Both are deserving of worship. Why not bow down and kiss the Yojo?



Country Living (With Ned Beatty)

Step into the sunshine.
Step into the rain.
Daddy's making moonshine,
out back again.

Mama's in the kitchen,
with her big metal fork.
Ripping at the shoulder,
pulling that pork.

Living in the country,
where the sky is big.
Catch me a city boy,
make him squeal like a pig.

Living in the country,
where the peaches are free.
Going down swimming,
a pond is good enough for me.

Buy me a dirt bike,
it's a great fucking toy.
Ride in the forest.
Squeal like a pig city boy.

Thanks to Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and, of course, Ned Beatty.

Country Living (With Ned Beatty) by Almighty Yojo

Buffalo Ills

I became a Bills fan through a series of unfortunate childhood events. My father is from Hungary so he doesn't really understand or care about most American sports. For instance, he tried to convince me that it would be cool to learn how to fence. As in swordplay, not turning stolen goods into cash (which might actually be cool, in a Vito Corleone type of way). I managed to convince him that tennis lessons were a better idea.

As a result, I didn't watch sports much until I was about 9, when my mother met my stepfather, who grew up outside of Rochester. And although my stepfather is a kind and decent man, he and his family committed an atrocious sports crime upon me: they turned me into a Bills fan.

(Link) View more Yes Sound Clips and The Price Is Right Losing Horns Sound Clips

We flew to Buffalo for my stepgrandparents' 50th wedding anniversary in February of 1991. The airport stores had "Buffalo Bills Super Bowl XXV Champions" t-shirts for sale. It was like being kicked in the groin right after recovering from being kicked in the groin. In retrospect I should have bought a shirt but I was an irrationally bitter 16-year-old at the time and my only thought was to burn them all.

Thus I have fond memories of time spent in Buffalo.

As previously noted in this space, times are tough in the Rough Buff. Fortunately though, SUNY Buffalo is hiring -- check out these two jobs.

Although these employment opportunities good for the Queen City, they're bad news for fans of UB football. It seems highly unlikely that top-flight D-I football coaches get their jobs through Monster.com. I suspect that instead they hire the best representatives in the business and rely on connections.

Luckily I'm around to help. Here's my list of top candidates to fill these vacancies:

Alex Van Pelt

AVP knows his way around the Rough Buff after rocking a #10 Bills jersey for 9 years, and serving as Buffalo's offensive coordinator in 2009. Of course, the Bills scored the third-fewest points of any team in the league in 2009, but beggars can't be choosers and schools that advertise OC jobs on the internet sound like beggars to me. AVP's career game log is the stuff of legends; clearly he'll be great at consoling QB's after they have lousy games.



Turk Schonert



Turk Schonert is the guy Dick Jauron fired and replaced with Van Pelt just before the start of the 2009 season. Schonert is doubtlessly used to disappointment and thus should fit right in at UB.

(Link) View more Mandy Patinkin Sound Clips and Westley Sound Clips

Mike Mamula

Turns out Mike Mamula is from the Buffalo area. Apparently he scored a 49 on his Wonderlic test. I administered a few Wonderlic tests in college and no one received a 49 out of 50 -- but I think the scoring criteria were different. At any rate, Mamula is famous for moving up in the draft based on his combine performance, and this has to be a decent recruiting tool: "You won't win many games, but you'll score very highly on the Presidential Physical Fitness Exam." And he'll get you free tickets to the water park.



Wolf Blitzer

I tried to find a famous UB alumnus but they don't appear to have any. Wolf Blitzer is the best I could come up with. I guess that guy Starks who plays running back for Green Bay might be famous but he already has a football job. Wolf Blitzer sounds like a good name for a defensive coordinator so it's too bad that UB is looking for an OC. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed went to UB too. He's Somalia's Prime Minister, which means he's likely used to coordinating offensive stuff. I doubt he'd take the job though.



Charles Mingus

The link in the Blitzer capsule says that Charles Migus was a UB prof. I did not know that. But I also thought Maceo Parker was dead until he took a couple solos at that Prince concert a few weeks ago, so I'm not too up on my elderly jazz men. Fortunately Maceo is alive and I got to yell "Maceo what goes on Maceo what goes on!!" and thereby confuse the hell out of the middle-aged people in the luxury box. Unfortunately, Mingus is dead. But now I have an excuse to post my favorite DJ Premiere sample of all time:



Snow

Laugh if you want. Snow is from Toronto, so he's willing to live in a depressed frosty town like Buffalo; it's practically his home already. And who wouldn't want to hire a 42-year-old white Juno-Award winning Canadian dancehall reggae star to fire up the players and fans. C'mon, tell me this wouldn't make you run through a wall of would-be tacklers:



I know rob loves this hire.

Kris DeBlasio

A number of our editors, the editors over at our sister blog The Wheelhouse, and our readers think they know a lot about college football. More than anyone else, in fact. But they're wrong. Kris "Willy Lump Lump" DeBlasio knows more about football in general, and college football in particular, than anyone I know. He spent the past 10+ years breaking down and reassembling game and practice film for Lou Holtz and Steve Spurrier. He knows hoops too, as he was a film guy for Tubby Smith and Dave Odom. He also has a couple of great stories about going to noodie bars with famous athletes, so he knows lots about naked ladies, Cristal, and making it rain. And he briefly had his own AM call-in sports talk show, to which I called in once, asserted "first-time-long-time" status as "The King" from Teaneck, told him and his cronies that they were morons for ignoring Mariano Rivera in whatever conversation they were having, and then flubbed the rest of my call. Thus Kris knows how a quality D-I sports program should be run. This is the smart hire. UB likely won't make it.

Adopt-a-Team

We've made a habit here at G:TB of adopting a college basketball team that strikes our fancy. By habit, I mean that we've done it once before. Hey, every healthy addiction starts somewhere. Our little coke/hoops jones may be an every other year kinda thing, but it's nonetheless powerful.

Our previous adopted squad, the 2008-09 Wake Forest Demon Deacons (and isn't that a little ironic) were 13-0 when we anointed them, and finished the season 11-7, losing in the first round of the ACC tournament to Maryland and falling to Cleveland State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. So, y'know, we're sorry.

Apologies in advance, then, to Coach Randy Bennett and the Saint Mary's Gaels, G:TB's newly adopted darlings.When we last paid any attention to the plucky pride of Moraga, CA, Omar Samhan was leading St. Mary's to a berth in the 2010 Sweet Sixteen, knocking off Richmond and Villanova in the process. Samhan's shipped off to Lithuania, where he plays for team president Arvydas Sabonis and BC Zalgiris in the Euroleague.
The current Gaels roster doesn't have a player taller than 6'9", and nobody over 6'7" starts. And that's the way we like it. Backcourt tandem Mickey McConnell (15.1, 6.4) and Matthew Dellavedova (13.2, 5.8) average 28.3 points and 12.2 assists per game between them, with McConnell making an eye-popping 47.3% from three point range. 6'6" Rob Jones leads the Gaels in rebounding with 7.6 boards, chipping in 14 points. Supersub Mitchell Young gets a very efficient 1o points (on 64.1% shooting) and 4.5 caroms a game in a mere 18 minutes.
Stat guru KenPom rates the Gaels among the nation's top 10 in terms of offensive efficiency, ranking first in effective field goal percentage (you'll need to look it up). Coach Bennett's young team is 18-3, 6-0 in the Big West, with wins over St. John's and Mississippi State and no-shame losses to BYU, San Diego State, and Vanderbilt. KenPom rates St. Mary's as the 19th-best team in the land. No quibbles from us.

But we don't love the Gaels for any of that stuff. No, you need to go down under the stats and the records to grok our fondness. Beyond even their really cool logo, in fact. Ever since Patty Mills took his talents across the oceans blue from Oz, we've had a thing for St. Mary's. Five members of the team's current roster hail from Australia, with a Lithuanian tossed in for good measure. We love all things Aussie, except vegemite, so St. Mary's fits us like a Bondi Beach wetsuit. G'day Gaels, see you in March.

Yet another post for Dave to trump

I won free tickets to the work suite at Verizon Center tonight. I am going to see this:

THE ADVANCE AUTO PARTS MONSTER JAM

STARRING GRAVE DIGGER(!!!!!!!!!!!!!), IRONMAN, ILLUMINATOR, FULL BOAR, THRASH (isn't that a mouth disease?) and CRUSH STATION (or what Greg calls his room).

I am irrationally excited for this gathering of the unwashed masses.

This video of GRAVE DIGGER(!!!!!!!!!!) is aptly set to George Thurogood's "Bad to the Bone". I'm so fired up right now I want to be chugging Bud cans people throw to me a la Stone Cold Steve Austin.

You Can Do It

So, I was told at 8am today that there was a new post coming from someone with a snow day, but you know what, I never saw it. So you get this (cant wait 'til this gets trumped by Mr. Shoop in five minutes). There is only one winless school left in Division 1 basketball.

Centenary, we wish you well. I looked, and i couldn't find you a win. Sorry. Just take solace in the fact Dave or whatever dumb pseudonym he has created will trump this post shortly.

I have been promised a more substantial post sometime today...

But in the meantime, enjoy the work of Corey Hart:

Multi-Tasking

This video:

1) Continues our recent (long-standing?) trend towards laziness and YouTube-based filler;

2) Finally gets something up to replace Dave's text-heavy, yet edifying assignments; and

3) Encapsulates my message to the people that are still talking about Jay Cutler.

(Bonus - and features a cute girl "saying" naughty stuff.)

I Complete My Assignment . . . Will You Complete Yours?

Saturday, Rob and I met for our annual mini-mini summit at the Triumph Brew Pub in Princeton. The Triumph always makes me angry, because their beer is so delicious. I think to myself: why can't Harvest Moon make beer like this? Harvest Moon is a brew pub in New Brunswick-- a stone's throw from my house-- and I go there once a year, simply to confirm the fact that their beer still tastes like crap. The place has been in business for nearly twenty years, and they still haven't figured out how to brew a decent beer. If the brew-master from Harvest Moon is reading this, I have some advice for you: go ask the brew-master at Triumph for his recipe!

While we were drinking the delicious beers at Triumph, Rob gave me an assignment . . . and when you get an assignment from Rob, you get right to it. Since one of my hobbies is reading books, he thought I should give the G:TB readers a recommended reading list. I have decided to do him one better. I am going to give the writers of G:TB a personalized reading list. While each book is recommended for a particular person, these are all great books-- you can certainly go ahead and read someone else's recommendation. In accord with the subject matter, I should warn you that this post contains no pictures.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

This one is for Rob. It's about a married couple that run a carnival, but when business starts to fail, they decide to create their own freak show. Every time the wife gets pregnant, she takes various psychedelic drugs, and ends up bearing a brood of freaks. The novel recounts the bizarre interactions between the grotesque siblings. Why is it for Rob? The story is told by Olympia, one of the siblings, a hunch-backed albino midget. Rob=midget. Get it?

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

A fantastic graphic novel that tackles aesthetics, architecture, and the duality of consciousness. I think TR will enjoy this one, because of this post.

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

An incredibly smart book about time and the music industry. It also has a science-fiction element, and-- reminiscent of War With The Newts-- it dabbles in various forms and genres. This book has Zman written all over it . . . for a lot of nerdy reasons I won't go into, but also because, like the Zman at his finest, this book achieves something very difficult: it explains the way music sounds.

Everything Bad is Good For You by Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson is one of my favorite authors, and he is a very smart man, but in this short book he dumbs it down and tackles TV and video games. His thesis is that because of the advances of technology and the digital revolution, TV and video games have gotten progressively more complex, to the point where they are viable forms of mental exercise, and should be considered on par with great works of literature. I recommend this one for TJ, so he can feel good about himself, but I also recommend Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death . . . so he doesn't feel too good about himself.

How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer

Foer uses soccer to explain the vast forces of globalization, but this book has just as much travel and anecdote as it does economic theory. This one is for Mark, who knows a hell of a lot about basketball and football, but needs to brush up on the idea that sometimes soccer explains the world, and sometimes the world explains soccer.

Henry IV by William Shakespeare 
  
Perhaps Shakespeare's best play, it introduces us to two great men: Falstaff and Hal (who will someday become Henry V). Falstaff is great because of his size, his wit, his drinking prowess, and his loyalty to his friends. Hal is great because of his ability to get along with everyone: the folks from the tavern, the rebels, and the royalty in the court. This one has Igor written all over it; he is our resident Falstaff but he also has some Hal in him.

The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison 

For Dennis, of course.

If You Want Something Done

I had lunch with Person of Dave on Saturday. I hadn't seen him in a few months, and while his hair is generally fairly short, it was downright high and tight. The story, as it turns out, is good enough to cross-post. Apologies to the management team at Sentence of Dave if I've infringed upon their intellectual property rights.

"Thursday night, minutes before I had to drive my kids to indoor soccer, I noticed some stray and unseemly gray hairs poking from the right side of my head, and I decided that I would trim them with my beard trimmer, but-- perhaps because I was in a rush-- I slipped . . . and cut a dent into my hair just above my right ear, and in my attempts to "even things out," I made the situation much, much worse, but then I felt obligated to make it equally as "even" on the other side of my head, so that at least my new style would be symmetrically bad . . . and in the end, I essentially gave myself a mullet (and a poor one, at that) and though I frantically tried to erase this by trimming randomly around the back of my head, I couldn't fix things and I had to take the kids to soccer and Catherine was at a meeting about charter schools, so I went to soccer looking like a lunatic, which the other parents found highly entertaining, and then when I got home, I was slated to go out for beers, and so I asked my wife if she would fix my hair first but she said, "No way, I'm exhausted, I'll do it tomorrow," and then she laughed at my misfortune and took a picture of the back of my head . . . but I was happy enough to be getting out on the town and so I said, "Who cares what I look like, it's not like I'm going out to pick-up girls," and she said, "Not that you could," and then, luckily (or unluckily for my students, who would have really enjoyed getting a look at my sorry head) we had a delayed opening due to snow and Catherine used a number 1 to shave away my remaining hair and make things look decent again."

J-E-T-S...JETS! JETS! JETS!

I've been saying all week this game comes down to one thing, and one thing only really, because I believe the Jets and Steelers defenses and offenses basically wipe each other out. It's all about the goddamn kickers. And I'm telling you, I saw what this stadium did to Doug Brien 7 years ago (and what I almost did to Jerry's laptop on that final miss)...Nick Folk, this is our little corner of the internet putting you on blast. Please do not epically fuck this game up like I've told everyone you would do this week. Please man, make some kicks...

**Fun Update (unless you are Doug Brien):
That bastion of unchallenged internet truths, Wikipedia, informs us that Doug Brien is in fact "most well known" for missing the kicks I reference above. Well Doug, any press is good press, right? Right???

Science, for Any Occasion

I caught a little bit of The Time Traveler's Wife on HBO yesterday afternoon after checking into a hotel. I didn't think anything of it at the time.

I got up this morning and went for a run. It was unremarkable, other than the fact that it was 8 degrees here in Princeton, NJ. I spent 15 minutes in excruciating pain as my fingers regained feeling. (This isn't the first time I've had similar issues with my digits. My mother thinks I may have Raynaud's phenomenon - I think it was just really stupid to run in that kind of cold.)

I grabbed lunch with a fellow G:TB staffer and then hit the Princeton Record Exchange for some bargain music shopping (Mark and Zman will be happy to know that I picked up Beats, Rhymes and Life - with holographic cover - and Murs for President).

I haven't been able to feel the fingertips of my left index finger and thumb since my ill-advised exercise session. Figured it was a side effect of the extreme temperatures. And then I read this article at Wired.com and had my entire mind blown.

According to some really smart scientists (or very, very accomplished practical jokers), something called quantum entanglement provides the theoretical framework for time travel, but only for a limited number of particles. The proof of this theorem involves observation of indivual particles appearing as if out of nowhere and measurable changes in the temperature of a given space.

Friends, do you understand what this means? My moronic decision to run this morning may have consequences far beyond our understanding. If I read the Wired article correctly (and seriously, it would be hard to believe that I didn't), the tips of my fingers have traveled through time. At this very moment (or that very moment, or any number of moments), my thumb and index finger are communing with Aristotle, or manning a turret gun over Germany, or playing in Wyld Stallyns.

Or napping. Which is by far the more likely scenario.

This Week in Wrenball

A funny thing happened on the way to the cellar. Just as W&M's hoops fortunes seemed bleak, as the ghost of Chuck Swenson came rattling along the lonely corridors deep beneath William and Mary Hall, Tony Shaver's kiddie corps grew up just a little and delivered a pair of conference victories.

Freshman point guard Brandon Britt showed why the denizens of Tribetown (and fans of alliteration) are so excited about the future, scoring a career-high 25 to lead the Wrens to a surprise win over a Drexel team that boasts a victory over Louisville. Quinn McDowell added 23 and freshman Tim Rusthoven tallied 12 as W&M blew the game open by shooting 76.5% from the field in the second half of the 80-66 win. Drexel entered the game as the CAA's leader in defensive field goal percentage and scoring defense and left bewildered at how they let the Wrens shoot 60% from the field and 50% from behind the arc. W&M also outrebounded the Dragons, becoming just the second team this season to do so.

The Wrens validated their strong effort at home against Drexel by traveling to Towson and earning their first road win of the season, ripping the Tigers by an 83-68 score. Freshman guard Julian Boatner took his turn repping the youth movement, tying a W&M freshman record with 6 three-pointers on his way to a career-high 22 points. Britt added 16 points as all five starters posted double-digit totals. W&M made 14 of 27 longballs in shooting 55.8% on the game. The Wrens scored 80 points in consecutive games for the first time in over 5 years.

Measuring stick time comes tomorrow afternoon for the resurgent Green and Gold, now 6-12 overall and 2-5 in conference play. CAA heavyweight Hofstra comes to Williamsburg boasting a league-best 6-1 mark and featuring the reigning conference player of the year, Charles Jenkins. The 6'3" Jenkins is among the nation's leading scorers, dropping 23.2 per game. His strength and all-around game will be a substantial test for the Tribe's young backcourt.

Tomorrow's game with Hofstra marks the beginning of another 4-games-in-8-days sprint, as the Tribe has a winnable roadie against Northeastern before coming home to play Delaware and Mason. 2-2? Maybe? Please?

Hell, at least we're not going winless for the CAA season. Towson may not be able to make that claim.

Can't Stop a Nosebleed!

I'm adding Bart Scott to my list of people with whom I never want to make eye contact lest they rip my head off of my body.

Breakfast with the Beasties

You Scream And You Holler About My Chevy Impala...

"Post something"

Ah, the inspiring words of the Tiny Dictator...this most certainly counts as "something"...



[h/t to danielbissel's YouTube page]

In honor of Zman's concert tonight...

...and the copious amount of hoops I watched yesterday, I present today's morning filler:

Chappelles Show
True Hollywood Stories - Prince
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

Reasons to Be Happy, Reasons to Be Sad (NY Jets Edition)

Apologies to the founders of this blog, but two part-time editors are huge Jets fans, so this will/should be allowed as a segue into MLK Day.

Reasons to Be Happy:

The NY Jets put their money where their foot-loving mouths were. They got pressure on Brady with their front four, they covered excellently, they ran the ball for 120 yards (which not enough people saw as a huge game-changing opportunity), Sanchez made no costly mistakes, and the media finally realized that Brad Smith wasn't all that important. In related news, my wife gave the green light for a trip to Pittsburgh for the author, as tales of the city's blue collar ethic and the success of the Winter Classic created the impetus for G:TB's first on-location report for a conference championship.

Reasons to Be Sad:
According to continental.com, expedia.com and jetblue.com, my chances of finding a reasonable trip to the Iron City are slim-to-none. I've been to Pittsburgh multiple times for mundane work trips, and I've always been struck by the city's exorbitant air fares and brutal security lines. This trip seems no different. I'm dying to root for Gang Green, but I can't pay $700+ to fly in on Saturday afternoon and out at noon on Monday. I blame the whole Rooney family, Sidney Crosby, Omar Epps, Andy Van Slyke, the concussed corpse of Mike Webster and Mike Tomlin. We'll see if I can pull a miracle flight from out of somewhere.


One More Reason to Be Happy:
We beat these guys in December in their house when our D wasn't playing nearly as well. Spare me the "Troy was hurt" nonsense because there are ten other allegedly tough men on that defense. If Troy is that much of a bad-ass, then they all suck more than we think, including James "PED" Farrior, Lamar Woodley, Casey Hampton, etc. The Jets lost their starting nose tackle and starting strong safety and haven't bitched about it.

Jay Cutler and Playoffs: The Math Doesn't Add Up

Number of times Jay Cutler has played a postseason game (college or pros)?

Take the Seahawks to cover. And if you haven't already, scroll down and read Dave's post.

Charter Schools and Vouchers: The Math Doesn't Add Up

Once again, I have written an argument against charter schools and vouchers, but this letter might appeal to more conservative minds, as it deals with the financial consequences of Governor Christie's legislation.

Please read it, and if you agree, then get involved. Sign the petition, write letters to the newspaper and your political representatives, and pass the link on to all your friends with kids. If you don't agree, please tell me why. I appreciate that more than anything. And from here on in, I promise to return to my usual stupidity; I hate this kind of writing, but I'm doing it for my kids.

I know this is post is not very G:TB and I would much rather draw a cartoon of Governor Christie licking my taint, but I don't think that would help matters.

Playoff Football, Live from Jerome's SportsCave

You know him better as Wheelhouse Jerry, the guy who had such a week in late November that no one had heard from him since. Or something like that. His three TV set-up is perfect for sports viewing, so I'm headed over there for today's NFL playoff action (and whatever else finds its way to the other two TVs - college hoops, stoopid soccer, awesome darts, confusing Australian football, you name it). Because I am a lazy bum, I have chosen two video clips to represent our games today. No predictions from me, just hoping the games are 69% as good as last Saturday's fare.

Baltimore Ravens @ Pittsburgh Steelers, 4:30 kickoff
Three and a half hours of two teams beating the piss out of each other. Banging heads (or helmets), if you will...



Green Bay Packers @ Atlanta Falcons, 8:00 kickoff
I was gonna throw up the "Do you like making f**k Bezerker" clip for Greg, but I felt we had enough metal above. Instead, the thought process went like this: "Falcons...playoffs...wait, wasn't MC Hammer on the sideline back in their Glanville/90s run...oh yeah...."

Le Ghoogles

Yep, they're back...and to the person looking for the Mad Max 2 t-shirt, they do exist, hope you found the gem to the right.  And now if anyone looks again for quality Mad Max 2 threads they will know G:TB can deliver the goods...

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Why I Oppose Nut Shots

I have decided to get serious and oppose something too. Maybe not something as serious as this, but something deserving of attention, nonetheless. And I am ashamed to say this, but you are all to blame for this menace. I was once to blame as well, but I'm changing my tune from soprano to baritone. I am, of course, talking about the glorification of the nut shot.


The nuts . . . otherwise known as the jewels, the sack, the nut-sack, the balls, the scrotum, the tea-bag, the gonads, the purse, the testicles (if you're the scientific sort) and, my favorite: the junk. Despite the humble appearance of these wrinkled weebles, we must remember that they are where human life originates. No, they are not as elegant as the female genitalia; no, they will probably never achieve these aesthetic heights, but-- appearances aside-- they are half the equation in the creation of a new soul.

It is time for men to band together and protect their own. Everyday, billions of men go out into the world, naked, without the protection of an athletic cup, to earn their livings, eat large amounts of food, get drunk, and do many other very important manly things. And if one of those brave, unprotected men suffers a whack in the sack, what do other men do? They laugh. This is abominable and uncivilized. It is time for men to stop this derision towards their fellow brothers. Have you ever seen a group of women laughing at one of their own, just after she was kicked in the snatch?


There is no lower form of humor than the nut shot. There is nothing meaner than reveling in someones scrotal agony. I did some research-- make sure you scroll down-- and a nut shot is serious. There are a serious amount of nerves in the testicular region, plus even a "medium shot lowers sperm count." A nut shot can also cause you to double over because of abdominal spasms, and there is always the possibility of (gulp) a rupture. To laugh at misfortune is despicable. Especially if it is a fellow man doubled over holding his nuts. The Germans call this sort of humor "schadenfreude." And if the Germans have a word for it, then it's not funny. Good God! The nut shot is actually illegal in boxing, the most corrupt sport of them all (according to Igor).


If a brother man is hit in the nuts, we should not laugh, but empathize. Ask not what a nut shot can do for you, but ask what you can do for someone's nuts.

The digital age has compounded this problem. In simpler times, you saw maybe two or three nut shots a year. Perhaps at a soccer game, or during the breaking of the pinata at a kid's party. Now that we have access to nut shot compilations, we can see two or three nut shots a minute. Each and every day. We require more and more nut shots to sate our nut-thirsty habits. When will this end? Perhaps we will have learned our lesson when the American sperm count hits zero.


I can remember a day not so long ago, when Igor, Rob, and I sat on our freshman hall, hands over our genitals, eying our fellow men with suspicion, protecting ourselves from what we innocently called a "flang dang." Nut shots ran rampant for a few months on that freshman hall, and if I could get that time back, I would use it differently. Instead of oppressing my fellow man's junk, I would help that junk to flourish. There were girls right down the hall! Couldn't our time have been better spent? Spent procreating, freeing our nuts, instead of compressing them into painful oppression. And for what? A moment of laughter. This is no way to live. The next time someone tries to get you to watch a nut-shot video, look away. Just say no. Both your nuts deserve it.

A New Menace

A pair of seemingly unrelated news stories went largely unnoticed in the hue and cry around the Garden State's burgeoning educational crisis. If the two developments reach their logical synthesis, the implications are daunting. Or totally awesome, depending on your point of view.

Stanford researcher Ingmar Riedel-Kruse has successfully developed biotic videogames, allowing players to control the actions of living microorganisms to perform simple gaming tasks. Note that Riedel-Kruse is a real name, despite how close it sounds to Balki Bartokomous' pronounciation of ridiculous.

While Stanford pioneers the use of living creatures in gladatorial combat, raising the specter of mini-colosseums (colossi?) in every family room, our friends across the pond offer a humorous take on the ancient practice of fox hunting.


Iden, England's hounds are prohibited by law from hunting real foxes, so in the best tradition of Richard Dawson and Arnold Schwarzeneggar, the Coakham Hunt sends man's best friend over hill and dale in pursuit of man himself. Coakham's specially-trained bloodhounds hunt a pack of
humans, chasing the bleeding and panting homo sapiens for miles before tearing them limb from limb. (I assume this last part to be true - I stopped reading when I had enough material for this post.)

In this edition of G:TB's long-running series highlighting things that should make us all really, really paranoid, we offer a thought experiment about the potential conflation of these two modern-age curiousities. Three words: Human Pac-Man. Two words, depending upon how you feel about hyphens. Think about it, as you chuckle about the gene researchers playing God with the cute little paramecia in their laboratories in Palo Alto, and picture yourself being chased by a Hummer-sized amoeba while you have that gawdawful Pac-Man blaring in your head.

I think you all know what must be done. Riedel-Kruse can't be allowed to procreate. I've sent the Teej back to 1979 to stop him from being born. And to pick up some of those awesome Pittsburgh Pirates caps. Godspeed, my friend.

Igor and I felt this was an appropriate "next post"

Enough of the political discourse and rancor folks...just watch and enjoy:

The Anti-Filler

So, believe it or not, but the same guy that brought you this, this, and this, has been working on the following editorial all day. I'm sending it to the local paper, my congressmen, the governor, and Kim Jong Il. And I'm never writing anything serious again. It's painful, boring, and tedious . . . but I think all my anger has dissipated, and now I can go back to writing my normal fare for G:TB. 

And perhaps this will boost our Readability Level.

And if this makes sense, you can sign a petition to oppose this here.

Last year, Governor Christie cut aid to school budgets by 820 million dollars, yet he promised that he would not touch the money allotted to charter schools. He also promised that there would be more charter schools in New Jersey in 2011. This is illogical on many counts. Diverting money from already strained school budgets in order to open more charter schools, especially in towns with successful schools, will not solve any of New Jersey’s economic problems. It will also weaken the schools we have.

I live and teach in Central New Jersey. Both my town school and the school at which I work are very successful. Both have a high graduation rate, high SAT scores, and a high percentage of students that attend four-year colleges. Neither is a "failing school." These kinds of schools are never mentioned in Governor Christie’s rhetoric. Both schools now succeed despite the fact that budgets were cut because of Governor Christie’s “tool-kit.” My honors English classes are packed with students this year. Children are not getting the attention they deserve. My town's school has been reduced to a skeleton crew of supervisors. Any extra money in either town's school budget would go to excellent use, but in the town I teach in, Hatikvah, a Hebrew Language Charter school, is further draining the budget. My home town's tiny school budget is in similar danger. Tikun Olam, another Hebrew language charter school, has been "fast tracked" for state approval. Trenton has instructed our town to reserve money in its school budget to fund the charter school.

Why are charter schools being opened in successful districts? The citizens of both my town and the town in which I teach pay high property taxes to support good school systems. Now this money is being siphoned into an experiment in free market education. These districts do not need charter schools. This does not benefit the majority of the students. The “fast-tracking” of these schools is a political maneuver against public school teachers and unions. Governor Christie has effectively pointed the finger at the educational system for the State's economic woes, and he is supposedly using charter schools as a tool to balance the budget. This makes no sense. The cause of the recession is not competitive teacher salaries, and the solution is not more State funded schools. New Jersey already gives people a wide variety of choices in schools. People often choose where they live based on the school system.

Governor Christie never mentions this when he attacks New Jersey schools and their budgets. He also never mentions that New Jersey has the highest high school graduation rate in the nation. New Jersey sends an extremely high percentage of students to four-year colleges. Could certain schools use reform? Certainly. But to condemn the entire system-- when it is one of the most successful school systems in the nation-- is egregious. Christie's solution to the public school "crisis" is the free market. He believes more choice will solve the problem. Charter schools will offer this choice. And charter schools will do it on the cheap. Charter schools, though funded by the public, do not have to meet as many standards as public schools.  Apparently, the Governor bases his pro-charter school philosophy on one-sided, anecdotal documentaries like The Cartel, which he heartily endorses. The Cartel cherry picks a few stories of corruption in public schools and then makes a generalization, but making schools more like a business is perilous. A free market, while fine for non-essential items, is volatile and takes time to react to market needs. A free market in mortgage products resulted in our current recession. A free market in electricity resulted in both the economic chaos in California and the Enron scandal. Some things should not be subjected to the caprices of a free market, and our children’s education is one of them.

All I ask is that the Governor put down his remote and do more reading. I suggest that he reads Diane Ravitch's recent analysis of charter schools, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Ravitch, a former Secretary of Education, is as bi-partisan as they come. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton appointed her, and she has been critical of both conservative and liberal views on education. Her book provides comprehensive data that charter schools generally do not produce better test scores-- more often than not, they produce worse scores-- and she details the logistical nightmare of making students and parents consumers of education, instead of citizens vested in their town’s school. Years ago, Ravitch believed charter schools would improve the educational system. Then she analyzed the data and looked at the consequences. She changed her philosophy. Is our Governor capable of such reflection?

The public school is one of the last places where the local community can participate in democracy: vote on the budget, influence the curriculum, collaborate with the school board. Places with the best educational systems-- from Massachusetts to Finland to Japan-- have a strong respect for public schools. They have community involvement in the curriculum; well paid, well educated, unionized teachers; and ample funding.

We do not need more schools in New Jersey. We need to become involved in the schools we have. We need impassioned participation in our educational system from parents, students, teachers, administrators and politicians. Teaching needs to be an attractive job for our best and brightest. We need to ask tough questions about what we want our children to know. And our public school budgets should not suffer because of our governor’s political agenda. Please do what you can to ensure that your town's public school is properly funded. All of our children deserve it.

Well That Was Fun

Strong efforting all around in the comments section last night, ladies and gents. In honor of the imminent Nor'easter, let's continue last night's theme of animated characters that vaguely (or explicitly) reference illegal drugs.

In totally unrleated news, FIFA's World All-Star Team was announced yesterday. 6 Barcelona players, 3 Inter Milan players and 2 Real Madrid players were listed. Not one person from an EPL club. This surprise me a lot, but I am not nearly versed enough in international footie to know better. I believe Didier Drogba got screwed on this one, as his injury-prone Fall, uneventful Cup and poor hair overshadowed a strong Spring. Here's the country breakdown of the players: Spain (6), Brazil (2), Portugal, Netherlands, Argentina. A little too much World Cup impact for my tastes.

Oregon-Auburn. Points points points. I love points.

The final game of the College Football season is upon us and that makes me sad. Sad, but pretty excited too. The Oregon-Auburn matchup is intriguing on a number of levels, not the least of which is the possible offensive explosion on our hands in Glendale tonight.

We've all seen what these teams can do so I'm not going to waste your time talking. Not yet at least. I'm bringing back the G:TB Live Blog. Meet and me and my pal Cocaine Bear in the comments.

Mosh Monday

May your week be filled with moshing penguins.

Awesome? Awesome!

No words needed.

I'm a terrible gambler, so danimal will be wagering for me

He's taking the 7-9 Seahawks, proud winners of the NFC West...and 10.5 point underdogs. At home. Against the defending Super Bowl Champions. But TJ, you say, why should danimal waste his actual money on your asinine bet, with zero rationale to back it up? Let me stop you right there, voices in my head...I do have a reason. It's not the whole 12th man, home-crowd nonsense. It's not the huge injuries to 2 of the 3 Saints RBs, and the third fighting daily through myriad KardaSTDs. It's Matt Hasselbeck. Yes, that decrepit donkey. Oh, no, I don't think he'll lead them to victory at all after dumbass Pete Carroll started him today. Nope, I assume he will get killed somewhere in quarter two...and then The Whitehurst will rise again. He was competent last week, is a million times more mobile than Statuebeck, and yes, Chaz really really really looks like Jesus, or at least Family Guy's Jesus:

All that being said, I'm not backing Seattle to win, just to cover the spread. Brees does breesy-type things, Saints win 28-20, but danimal wins dollah dollah bills, y'all. Doofus Overlord out.

Fashion is...Filler

Take the space between us, and fill it up some way. Like with the jacket I bought Igor for Christmas.

Money

We all have some. We all want more. Here's what it looks like:

$1 Million, in $100 bills:














$1 Billion, in $100 bills:












$1 Trillion, in $100 bills (note how little the man with no face is on the lower left):












(h/t to Greg Mankiw's blog for the link)

Burying the Hatchet Job

Tim Kurkjian can come back in off the ledge. We finally have some news about Roberto Alomar that doesn't involve him spending time at Hivvy's. He's been voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility. Congrats are in order. I guess.

As the wee Mr. Kurkjian proclaimed in his squeaky soprano after last year's snubbery, the numbers on Alomar as compared with his fellow second basemen through the years are unbelievably strong. Only he and Joe Morgan manned baseball's "diamond tip" with such four-tool prowess in the last 60 years of the game.

.300, 210 HRs, 1134 RBI, 474 SB, 10 Gold Gloves, 12 All-Star appearances, 2 World Series, 1 spitting incident. One of the best 2B's of all time for sure.

Blah.

Blah.

Blah.

While there is not, to my knowledge, a website called www.firerobbyalomar.com, there did used to be a little blog in a quiet corner of the 'sphere (inappropriately) called Misery Loves Company: Two Guys Watch Baseball. Over there, someone took great delight in briefly chronicling, then lamenting ad nauseum the eerie transformation that Alomar underwent when he arrived in Queens in 2002. Someone with some serious deep-rooted issues. Someone like me.

Everything good you will hear about Roberto Alomar happened in San Diego, Toronto, Baltimore, and Cleveland. Everything bad that can happen to a baseball player's skill set happened in New York. And it drove us fucking nuts. But before I fall into another rant, I'll stop. Because (a) I've done this too many times already, and (b) let's face it, he's kind of gotten a whole lot of bad press elsewhere lately.

Go type "roberto alomar" into the Google bar, but like The Rear Admiral, don't enter it. See what comes up in the suggested searches:

• roberto alomar
• roberto alomar hiv
• roberto alomar aids
• roberto alomar gay
• roberto alomar stats

Oof. By comparison, a similar test with "rogers hornsby" gets you:

• rogers hornsby
• rogers hornsby stats
• rogers hornsby quotes
• rogers hornsby baseball card
• rogers hornsby biography

Yes, it seems as I was tearing Roberto Alomar a new one over at MLC, someone was tearing up his old one just as frequently in the back room at Tavern on the Brown. Not that anyone's surprised. Word always was that the spitting fiasco stemmed from Hirschbeck hurling a gay slur at Alomar. And to see Robby Alomar... well, he's the negative image of Gorman Thomas not merely because of his complexion and fluid turn at 2B.
And so I come here today not to bury Roberto Alomar any deeper than I have, but to acknowledge that the ulcer-inducing level of angst he singularly injected into the guts of Mets Township in a season and a half of stank may be evened out with the public rear-ending he's getting in the media. He may have already paid his debt to (our little socially inept slice of) society, and as such, I invite him to enjoy the accolades freely without further barrage from us Mets fans.
As an added bonus, when your name is looked up, Robby, may "infected" and "HIV" be supplanted by "inducted" and "HOF" in search engines everywhere from Fire Island to Key West to the Mission.
Not so fast, my friend. Before we go, let's run the highlight reel on Robby Alomar's time in the spotlight of MLC. I have culled out dozens of remarks in the interest of saving space, so this is just a smattering. Reprinted with permission.

“...lest they fester like Robby Alomar all season.”

“All-Star Voting: The only Mets on their respective positional leader charts are Piazza (hurt since May, still out) and Alomar (crappy since last May, still crappy).”

“In his last three years with Cleveland, Alomar put up an average season that looks like this: .323, 21 HR, 103 RBI, .405 OBP, .516 SLG. Awesome, Hall of Fame-type numbers, from a guy who was also one of the league's slickest fielders. In the two years he's "played" with the Mets, his numbers look like this (with '03 projected based on current stats): .264, 8 HR, 49 RBI, .333 OBP, .367 SLG. That's not bad, it's falling-off-a-cliff awful. Man, Mets fans must be happy to get this stiff gone.”

“It's still a kick in the groin, but at least it's not with a stiletto heel (raided from Robby Alomar's locker).”

“Forgetting the season-and-a-half-long enema that was Robbie Alomar…”

“December 11, 2001: Received Roberto Alomar, Danny Peoples, and Mike Bacsik from the Indians Matt Lawton, Alex Escobar, Jerrod Riggan, Earl Snyder and Billy Traber. Stink. Stank. Stunk.”

“Win it for Robby ‘Bait and Switch’ Alomar, who just retired Saturday after taking his career from ‘sure-fire Hall of Famer’ to ‘not so much,’ mostly while in New York. He would especially enjoy this -- not the winning of the World Series, but this teary, pouty discussion of it.”

“Of course, every time in the past two seasons that I've proclaimed that it was ‘Go Time’ for the Metropolitans, they've answered the call with all of the verve and vigor of a tea party with doll-babies in Robby Alomar's basement. Tea for two - and two for tea - I hit .332 - then .233 . . .”

“After the beauty of Games 1 and 2 of this series, watching last night's contest was like tweezing my eyebrows out hair by hair. (Robby Alomar used to do exactly that in the Mets' clubhouse, coincidentally.)”

“You've known since your first month in New York that the only 'run support' in that clubhouse involved Robby Alomar's pantyhose and not hitters driving in runners for you.”

“Aflac Trivia Question: Who was the last Pirate to lead the league in hits? I’m saying a pre-bloat Bonds. Of course, Robby Alomar used to be up there in hits, and he was a pirate of sorts.”

“Liken ourselves as we do to large-scale journalists (Rob, there's a bump-set there waiting for you), we get to enjoy some freedoms not known to mass media writers. We can bash people sans recourse: Roberto Alomar (‘horrid,’ ‘falling-off-a-cliff awful,’ ‘Bait and Switch,’ ‘the season-and-a-half-long enema,’ ‘fair Spanish lady,’ ‘the little boy down the street who plays with dolls’)”

“the Beelzebub of Flushing, Robby Alomar…”

“…we can only hope for an Alomarian plummet down the stairs, though the manhole, and into the sewer.”

“…Roberto Alomar’s singular disemboweling of not only the 2003-04 New York Mets (a.k.a. dues-paying time at MLC) but also the future general management of the Metropolitans organization as a whole”
“Being able -- obligated, even -- to come up with new and creative ways to explain Robby Alomar's putrid plummet into doldrumville kept me going.”

Fashion is...Clyde Frazier

A slight change of pace in our "Fashion is..." series. You see a jacket like this on Clyde Frazier, you post it. No questions asked. (it's almost liked they skinned the cow from "Top Secret!" to make it)

Thanks to @bandwagonknick for doing the world a service and putting this on the internet.

Whitney asked, so G:TB delivers

The Buffalo Bills 1st round draft history, back to 1990:

The Washington redskins 1st round draft history, back to 1984, just because it's fun to see how much Gibbs hated draft picks:

Have at it folks...