Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Lone Wolf

Not that anyone is paying attention to what I think, but the Boston Marathon bombing seems more along the lines of a Lone Wolf terrorist act than an Al Qaeda terrorist plot. I read Terry Turchie's book on the Lone Wolf terrorist (with Kathie Puckett) and even the use of bb's and nails as shrapnel was a signature of the Unabomber. Even the clowns on the news stations are comparing it to the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing (Eric Rudolph) and OKC bombing (Timothy McVeigh), without realizing what they're saying. I just don't see this as being an Al Qaeda plot because their plots try to kill as many people as possible. This bomb was intended to maim a ton of people, the people who died were probably just too close to blast. If the investigative teams have any brains at all, they'll bring in the same FBI people that solved the Unabomber case. In fact, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that the perpetrator was a Unabomber fan. I had all this stuff in my head when I was watching the news. I knew I couldn't post it on Facebook or Twitter, so I'm putting it here. I just hope they catch the SOB and blow off his body parts, one at a time... like they did in the opening scenes of RoboCop.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Nobody asked for my opinion on this, but in case Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy are curious, the 25-man playoff roster should be:

C (2) Posey, Whiteside – Yeah, Whiteside only gets in if Buster gets hurt or if one of the games goes 14 innings (or the Giants go up 18-0 in a game)

1B (2) Huff, Ishikawa – Ishikawa is the top LH pinch hitter, but probably won’t make the field as a defensive replacement unless again, the game gets out of hand

2B (2) FrSanchez, Fontenot – Freddy is way too fragile to expect him to play every inning of every game, plus Fontenot has proven to be a scrappy little hitter

SS (2) Uribe, Renteria – Renteria is a bubble guy, but might be used as a pinch hitter against Wagner because of his big 2-run bomb off Wagner in April.

3B (1) Sandoval – Fontenot is effectively the backup, or Renteria plays SS and Uribe slides over

OF (5) Burrell, Torres, Ross, Guillen, Schierholtz – This is the best combination of hitting, fielding, and running. I know Guillen bugs people, but who else off the bench could hit a home run…. Renteria? Ishikawa? I don’t think so. Besides, Bochy started him EVERY game against San Diego during the last weekend. That has to count for something.

SP (4) Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner – Well, duh.

CL (1) Wilson

RP (6) RamRam, Affeldt, Casilla, Lopez, Romo, Mota


BUBBLE and out: Rowand, Zito ($186M of suck)

Definitely out : Ray, Velez, Burris, Ford, Runtzler

Sunday, July 11, 2010

· Buy stock in Paula Creamer. While not in Annika Sorenstam’s league golf-wise (no one really is), she has more than enough camera appeal and personality to be a powerful force in the endorsement world, much more so than the gawky, dog-faced Michele Wie. The fact that she’s from my current hometown and was born in the same hospital as my kids has nothing to do with it. [Me, 6/20/05]


Props to Pleasanton native Paula Creamer, who is taking a victory lap at the US Women's Open.

And props to me for seeing the potential five years ago.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Not a new post, it's four years old...

The Commish’s Guide to the Winter Olympics

Now that the games have officially started (except in California where the opening ceremonies have been tape delayed just so they can squeeze a few more million out of Budweiser), and most of these so-called “sports” aren’t in the American consciousness during non-Olympic years, I feel compelled to offer my Guide to the Olympic Quasi-sports, including my level of “sport” with Rollerball (the James Caan version, not the Marky Mark version) getting a 10, and taking a dump (or rhythmic gymnastics or ice dancing) getting a 1.

Alpine Skiing – AKA “Go that way. If something gets in your way, turn.” Mostly, this consists of western Euros and Americans zooming down 60 degree slopes trying not to die. Couldn’t you win the downhill simply by rolling all the way down, like Bullwinkle? Or in some form of hamster ball, like you were in a giant game of Marble Madness? The slalom, Giant Slalom, and Super G all involve turns in increasing difficulty, though nobody knows what order and if the skier actually is on the proper side of the gate. My biggest complaint here is that the gates are made out of Giant Pixie Stix and actually bend when the skier pushes them with his hands. This is supposed to be a test of tight turning ability… ? Make those fucking gates out of tetherball poles and we’ll see who can turn the sharpest. Can you imagine the GONG sound of a guy hitting a gate then? Now that would be a sport. My way = 9, the real way = 3

Biathlon – Cross Country skiing and rifle shooting. Seriously, it sounds like a good test, if we’re thinking of invading Siberia. But a sport? If they add chugging a beer at every station, you’d basically have “getting dinner” in Canada. Either way = 4

Bobsled – I’m not big on driving being a sport, especially when gravity is the primary accelerant. Oh sure, they have that whole running start thing that always results in some major wipeout and a bobsled making it to the bottom sans occupants. But that’s part of the problem. See, this is a sport like Soapbox Derby or Pinewood Derby (remember Boy Scouts?) is a sport. If you made them go down the track six at a time and a good start got you the hole shot, maybe it’s more of a sport. Or had more tetherball poles as obstacles (notice a trend?). As is, it’s a 2 (and Nascar is a 3 or 4)

Cross-Country – Skiing on the flats. Wow. Next, walking up a hill will be an Olympic Sport. I’m telling you, if PreCor was a sport, my wife would be a contender. Anything you can buy on late night tv to exercise in your house and slide under your bed shouldn’t be an Olympic anything. Maybe stretching on a BowFlex should be a sport too. This is a cardio exercise, not a sport. 3 (you’ll notice that you get an extra point for shooting a rifle and calling it Biathlon)

Curling – Shuffleboard on steroids and on ice. I’ll be honest… it looks like it would be kinda fun to try. Those freakin’ stones weigh over 40 lbs, so it ain’t for complete wimps. But essentially, it’s just a cold horizontal dart board, and the sweeping is kinda spastic looking. I think it’d be fun to throw back a few beers and try it just to see what I could break, but that makes it outdoor lawn darts, and not a sport. 2.5

Figure Skating – Aside from watching flexible underage girls show their panties, this is just dancing on skates. And if I wanted to see flexible underage girls show their panties, I would just check Donkeypuncher's laptop. The closest this ever came to being a sport is when Tonya whacked Nancy. Here’s a quick tell… if it includes males in sequined unitards, it ain’t a sport. Now, if you combined this with the Biathlon, and had the X-country skiers shooting at the figure skaters, well, then you might have me. 1.5

Freestyle Skiing – Since when is this an Olympic sport? I guess the X-Games forced their hand… At best, this is a 2.5. The following SNL memory gets an 8.

Great moments in freestyle skiing history (from snltranscripts.jt.org)

Tom Tryman: Mmm-hmm! Well, I would have to say, it's a very fast time up to this point. Uh.. he's doing very well - and there's a very nice move - uh.. I would say, at this halfway point, he's gonig to take third, or maybe even a second-place.. [ a shot rings out, as Jean-Paul falls into the snow ] Uh-oh! Uh-oh! It looks to me like he's been accidentally shot by Claudine Longet! [ Jean-Paul regains balance on his skis ]
Jessica Antlerdance: Just grazed, I think, Tom.. [ second shot rings, as Jean-Paul falls back into the show ] Oh, no! That one got him, he's down! No, he's down this time.. no, no! No, he's getting up! [ Jean-Paul continues to ski downhill, albeit a little awkwardly ] Always the mark of a fine athlete is the ability to recover in difficult situations.
Tom Tryman: I can't believe he's going for the finish line.. and - [ third shot rings out, Jean-Paul is down for good ] Oh, no! Again.. again, he's been accidentally shot by Claudine Longet, and, this time, I think he's down to stay, Jessica.


Ice Hockey – Finally, a real sport! Still, with the lack of REAL checking from those weakling Euros, not as good as the Stanley Cup for drama. The skill level is there, just not the intensity of a Game Seven overtime game. A solid 7.

Luge – AKA gravity. Hell, might as well make shovel racing an Olympic sport. After that, snowball throwing and snowman building. Any self-respecting Minnesotan or Wisconsonian went on more dangerous courses than these wusses, albeit not in skin-tight leotards. Going down that big hill behind the farm on a shovel and trying to make the turn before the big tree… now that’s driving. Again, with gravity being the main propulsion system, no more a sport than sitting on a slide at the corner park. It’s a 2.

Nordic Combined – I think this has something to do with combining results from downhill skiing and ski-jumping. As it is, why do the Nords get a sport just for them? Might as well have an Olympic Sport called American Combined and have it combine the results from basketball and poker. I’m stunned that the DNC hasn’t jumped all over this and asked that they remove “Nordic” and call it the “Multi-Racial Combined” since Nordic implies that only white people can do it. Anyway, while ski-jumping is cool, combining shit just for the hell of it doesn’t deserve Olympic consideration. 3.

Short Track – Roller Derby on ice. Much cooler than regular speed skating because of the physicality and the “trading paint” aspects. Like I said yesterday, if they added throwing elbows and clotheslining and arm-whipping teammates, would immediately become the most popular Winter Olympic sport. 5 with potential to become a 7.

Skeleton – Headfirst luge. That’s it. Er, most people call this “sledding”. They really need to add a camera on a metal post right in the middle of the track. You’d get some awesome facial expressions as racers come up on that and get ready to hit it. Again, this is part of growing up for most of you in the Midwest. 2.2 (extra points for going headfirst)

Ski-Jumping – This would be closer if they didn’t have style points. In fact, Ski-flying is just ski-jumping without the style points (I think). This is one of the only Olympic “sports” that I don’t sit there and say “I can do that”. Hell, I could sit on a bobsled, skate in a circle, ski around some plastic tubes, but there ain’t no way in hell I’m going off one of those fucking jumps and flying over a football field. Eddie the Eagle be damned, this ain’t for the faint hearted. These guys get full props for putting their lives on the line for a medal that you could get on Ebay. Even though gravity contributes the speed, these guys have BALLS. Think of it this way, if you put the luge on the rollercoaster track at the top of the Stratosphere, then that would be a sport I’d watch. 2 for true athletic ability (most of these guys are anorexic Western Euros and Nords), 8 for balls, averages out to a 5.

Snowboarding - Quick prediction, the gold medal winner will use the word “Dude” during the post-ceremony interview. This, like Figure Skating, gives names to acrobatically unlikely moves that have no rhyme or reason. “Oooh, Shane (all of them are named ‘Shane’) just hit that 1080 Iggster and followed it up with a gnarly DrPauly on the lip! He is really stoked!” Again, only here because of the younger demographic and the X-Games. 3 mainly because there’s no ballet like in the freestyle skiing.

Speedskating – Another prediction. We’ll see tape of Dan Jansen falling twice and then winning. It’s like they think that’s the only way people will watch this. Face it, it’s like watching the 5000-meter run or the marathon, only two at a time, like some sort of Nordic-Ice-torture. The 500-meters I’ll watch, just like I’ll watch the sprints during the Summer Games, but the longer races are just round and round and round and round and round… zzzzzzzzz….. Short track racing is where it’s at. Long track gets a 4.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Big Mac to go, please

Gee, Mark McGwire did steroids? Really?!

The only thing surprising about the whole cluster-fiick of a confession was the fact that he actually did it. After his Congressional embarrassment, I was sure that he’d be one of the last guys to admit his guilt (Bonds/Clemens will be the very last). Here are the NON-surprising aspects of the media-suckfest:

- He claimed he did it to recover from injuries (AKA, the Pettitte defense). This is so his equally pathetic toadies can point to the confession and say, "SEE? He was thinking about his team!" It’s amazing how quickly the toadies and ex-teammates lined up to take this perspective.

- He cried, ostensibly from the burden of the suppressing his emotions from the shame for so long. What about the burden of, oh, I don’t know…. LYING to your family and fans for fifteen years?!?! And maybe he cried because steroids suppress your testosterone production… did you ever think of that?

- He also claimed in the Costas interview, which instantly became the Frost/Nixon interview of baseball, that he would have hit just as many home runs without steroids, that it was his own "God-given skill". Uh-huh, that’s why you kept doing it for your entire career.

- Tony LaRussa leapt to his defense. Listen, if there’s one single person to blame for the entire steroid era, it’s LaRussa, who presided over Ground Zero for the steroid boom in MLB, and did nothing about it. So it’s totally unsurprising that LaRussa would spout idiocies like "I’m prouder of him now" after his new batting coach admitted to committing a felony. Well done, Tony. You’ve affirmed my long-held belief that you’re a complete douchebag.

- The timing. Let’s examine that a little more:
o He just got 25% of the Hall of Fame vote, meaning that his standing among HOF voters wasn’t improving. He clearly needed to do something different to get in. How about confessing? Hey, denying doesn’t seem to be working…
o He had just accepted a job as hitting coach for the Cards, and was no doubt in for more questions and more media scrutiny than any other hitting coach in history. Might as well try to head this thing off at the pass.
o It’s NFL playoff time. Most of the country isn’t talking about baseball, they’re more concerned with their Super Bowl pool. Let’s try to slip this through in the middle of the playoffs to shorten the shelf life.
o It’s also entirely possible that MLB demanded this mea culpa as a term of employment. Since McGwire’s endorsement deals are roughly comparable to mine, he might actually need the job, hence his newfound conscience, which was heretofore silent.

I’m still waiting for a ballplayer to come out and say, "Yeah, I did steroids. So what? You didn’t seem to give a shit when I hit 50 bombs and you showered me with awards. I was paid to hit the long ball, so I did my job." Instead, we get sniveling, pussified "confessions" about the pressures of performing. McGwire whined "I wish I didn’t play during the steroid era", like the era existed before he and Sosa decided to play Dr. Frankenstein with their bodies… like it was "the times", and not his own desires to keep up with his fellow Bash Brother (who incidentally comes off as the Oracle of Delphi).

Costas actually pressed him on some points, which surprised me. I thought that he would play the Oprah role of friendly shoulder-to-cry-on, but he took the baseball purist role, frequent jabbing at McGwire’s self-serving, rambling PR stunt. This type of self-indulgent pity party has become far too prevalent in America today. It started with the frequently mocked Jimmy Swaggart tearful confession… it became a staple of Diane Sawyer softball interviews with disgraced celebrities… and it’s led us to Big Mac’s wimpy, cathartic blubbering.

I’m sick of it. But I watched every minute of it.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

One thing that I have learned about blogging. Since your past posts are archived, you can go back to previous posts, and re-read some amazingly prescient posts.

From August 6 of LAST year...


A Grim Favre Tale...
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Brett.
Brett was a spoiled little girl, but well-liked by the dairy farmers and
hayseeds in her town. She brought the town some notoriety with her cake-making
skills. Although she occasionally blew up the kitchen with some bad ideas, she
also made some amazing cakes and had actually won an trophy… once.

And
the town leaders overlooked all of Brett’s faults because of that ONE award,
despite all of the blow-ups. One day, Brett decided that she had made enough
cakes, and wanted to retire. The town leaders threw a big gala in her honor and
gave Brett a key to the city and a parade. Another baker was brought in to make
cakes. There was peace.

But people kept whispering in Brett’s ear “You
can still make cakes”. Brett heard those whispers and believed. So, months
later, the town leadership was rocked when Brett announced “I can still make
cakes. I want to go to VikingLand to make cakes.”

But the town leaders
said “VikingLand is our sworn enemy. You cannot go to VikingLand unless we allow
it. And we will not allow it.”

Brett said, “Well, if you will not allow
it, I want to make cakes again here.”

“But we’ve already replaced you.
There is no room for two cake-makers in our town”

“I wish to challenge
the new cake-maker to a duel then. Then you will see that I am the superior
cake-maker.”

“We do not care if you might be slightly better now. We are
thinking of the future of our town. And this cake-maker will be here for many
years. You will just leave the next time you feel tired.”

Brett began to
cry. Some of the dairy farmers became angry at the town leaders. “We can still
have one more year of Brett’s cakes!”, they argued.

“Suppose Brett blows
up the kitchen and makes no good cakes? We will have wasted our new baker for
nothing. No, Brett should stay retired.”

But Brett was not only a
spoiled little girl, she was also a vindictive psycho bitch. She went to the
good(ell) king of the entire territory to plead her case. “I am more famous than
the other baker. I have brought much gold into this territory. Make them let me
go to VikingLand!”

The king looked at Brett from behind his piles and
piles of gold. “Yes, you have brought much gold into this territory. However,
you overestimate your value because we would have had this gold anyway. I can
only force them to keep you, but I cannot dictate what else they do with you.”

“Then do it! I can still make cakes! I will show them!”

So the
king told the town they must allow Brett to share the bakery. But the town
leaders were smart, much smarter than Brett. They told Brett that he would only
get leftover flour, old pans, and whatever scraps of frosting he could find to
make his cakes. “You cannot make good cakes if we do not allow you. You betrayed
our trust by demanding a trip to VikingLand, and for that, you will pay.”

Brett began to cry again. By now, even the dairy farmers were weary of
Brett’s tears. “Go to the Bay of Tampa. Or the town of York. We no longer
care.”Brett did not understand. “I am a great cake-maker! The Earl of Madden
proclaimed me as the greatest cake-maker ever!”

The dairy farmers
snorted their disgust. “The Earl of Madden is a corpulent fool. You have only
won ONE cake-making trophy, and that was many years ago. Since that trophy, you
have blown up more kitchens than you have baked cakes. Your time has passed.”

And so it was that Brett, once the pride of the town, was dispatched to
the town of York to make cakes... York was ecstatic because they had not had a
good baker for many years. The town was ecstatic because they kept their young
baker. The scribes were happy because Brett was still making cakes or blowing up
kitchens. The only unhappy person was Brett, who wished she had stayed retired.

The saga continues, as the rotting corpse of Brett Favre signs with the Vikings, further ruining whatever legacy he may have had. Remember, he won as many Super Bowls as Mark Rypien and Trent Dilfer. He threw more interceptions than anyone in NFL history. His main claim to fame at this stage is the dogged man-love from John Madden.

And I can't even blame him. The Vikings are paying him $25 MILLION BUCKS to throw for 15 TDs and 20 INTs. Hell, I'd take some snaps for that kind of coin.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

If you're the first paramedic on the scene at Jacko's house, what do you do after you kick the naked, crying Cub Scout troop out of the room?

a) Start filling a pillowcase with memorabilia and get a Craigslist account?
b) Start snapping photos and start a tabloid bidding war?
c) Perform CPR on the hideously deformed child molester?
d) Call Mary Kate Olsen and tell her to pick up her prescription drugs
e) Check his pockets for loose change
f) Tiptoe out and pretend your radio is broken