This is just basically a random thoughts column, but I didn't want to call it that. Kind of like putting a new coat of paint on an '85 Ford Escort. Anyway, some of these are sports related, most aren't Can someone explain to me.... .....why most baseball managers coddle veterans and call out the young guys? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Granted I'm only going by the last 3 Pirate managers, and as an ass-backward organization I'm sure they aren't the best gauge as to what everyone else does .......the appeal of Paris Hilton? Now don't get me wrong I'm not like most people and hate her cuz she's a boring, spoiled idiot who's famous mostly for being famous. After all, who amongst us wouldn't like to be like that? At least the famous part. My big problem with her is she's just not that attractive. She's way too skinny, which by itself isn't all that bad. However, from the neck up she looks like Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wearing a blonde wig. And to the ladies, what makes her an appealing role model? Is it the goal of every woman to basically be a living blow-up doll? Actually, that may not be such a bad thing in some cases, so maybe I'll be quiet. ...the physics of the "Keg Stand". You know, the frat party staple where the keg-standee is held upside-down while drinking straight from the keg. People say it makes the beer go down faster, but if you're upside-down the beer has to go up the esophagus.I would think the "fastest" way to make beer go down would be to just, you know, stand normally. If it's possible it makes keg parties look even more retarded. .......why big mega-corporations even bother making commercials anymore? Especially whizzing millions upon millions of dollars for Super Bowl commercials. Even if some rube doesn't see a commercial for McDonalds for a year, but sees it every time he goes to work or other such places will he say to himself "Gee, I haven't seen a McDonalds commercial in a long time. I wonder if they went out of business". No. Of course exceptions can be made for when "Lemon-Cherry-Lime-Chocolate Coke" comes out and you want people to know. They would save countless millions of dollars and put it back into more important things, like bigger golden parachutes for CEOs. Lastly, when you're established but make a commercial you risk making commercials so bad that they actually keep people from using your product, as happened recently with me. If you listen to the radio you may've heard a commercial for Coors light where they attempt a kind of Irish drinking song. Now, I'm not sure what sound Barbaro made after his leg snapped in 3 places, but it couldn't sound much worse than the singing in that commercial. So no more Coors for me. .....whose bright idea it was to put little rickshaw type things for babies for the backs of bicycles? "You know, not enough people get hit by cars riding bikes. Let's make something so that idiots can get their kids injured along with them!"

Do I at least get to be on the fake finalist list again this time?

This blog is mainly for whomever, or whomevers (if that is indeed a word), will be judging this blog for consideration into the NGS finals. The rest of you can click back unless you just want to read stuff you've already read before. Or if you haven't read it before, feel free. Now, should my blog be in the final 16? Good question. I believe I'm one of the 16 best on here, but I'm obviously biased. So I'm going to show some examples of my best stuff and discuss my qualifications, and just talk about myself in general. It's something I normally abhor doing but I figured what the heck, nothing to lose really, think of it as an application. But this is going to be kind of long, but it'll be worth it. My areas of expertise in regard to the sports world are the NFL , college football, MLB, college basketball, and to a lesser extent the NHL. I know the NBA as well as a guy who doesn't have a team to root for can. Lastly I know soccer at least a little better than most people here, which is to say not all that well but I know who Theirry Henry and Roberto Carlos are at least. I feel that my biggest strength as a writer is that I can be equal parts funny and insightful, and even informative at times. A lot of "funny" sports writers are either not funny or don't know enough about sports, or both. That's not me, I know the subtle nuances of a 3-4 defense as opposed to a 4-3 as well as I know that the word "underpants" is funnier than the word "underwear". Also, I'm a passionate sports fan (which doesn't necessarily make me any different than anyone else here), but I'm also very logical and objective. I'm not going to pounce on A-Rod and Kobe just because it's the cool thing to do. However I'm also not going to go all "Skip Bayless" and just go against the grain to get attention, I'm an honest guy, and I'm going to tell what I really think. The only weakness I'll acknowledge (even though I'm sure there are more obvious ones) is that I can be a bit crude at times. Rest assured however that I'm well aware that if I'm going to be in the Final 16 I'll have to tone it down. And I can do it without hurting the overall product. The following are some samples of my writing with links to the entire blogs they come from, if you have the time to read them all. If I had to pick one for you to read over the others however (to save some time) it would be the final one (the Barry Bonds one). But please make an attempt to at least peruse the others. ________________________________________________________________________ This first writing sample is from Jan 1st, a few weeks earlier I decided to pick the winners for every single college bowl game and reason why. Some were serious analysis, some were just trying to be funny. This however was from my column going over said picks and either taking full credit for being right or making excuses for why I was wrong. Here are a few of them, because the whole thing would be too long to put here. : GMAC Bowl : UTEP v. Toledo: : What I said then: :: This marks the return of Mike Price to Alabama, so hide his ATM cards. Jordan Palmer (Carson's brother) helms the UTEP, and if he falters they can always turn to backup Jimmy Roethlisberger. Toledo comes in after not making it to the MAC title game for the first time in a long time. They boast future NFL backup Bruce Gradkowski and guys who were either a little too short, a little too slow, or a little too unknown to play in a BCS conference. That is not to say they aren't a good team, and they are indeed the pick for this game. Pick: Toledo Winner: Toledo 45-13 What I say now : Gradkowski had his expected game, 298 yards and 5 touchdowns. For this game UTEP stands for: Unpleasant Time Earns Pity Hawaii Bowl Central Florida vs. Nevada What I said then: Central Florida lost the Conference USA title game to Tulsa. They get to go to Hawaii in the middle of December. Tulsa gets to go to Memphis at the end of December. Shouldn't C-USA address this problem so that teams actually try to win their title game? Nevada gets to leave northern Nevada in the middle of winter. Winner: Both teams Actual Winner: Nevada 49-48 in overtime : What I say now :: A joke answer that actually turned somewhat prophetic. Considering the game went into overtime and was decided by a missed extra point. Who's to say had the guy not missed the extra point that they wouldn't have gone to so many overtimes that the refs just said "Okay you both win"? Huh? Huh? Peach Bowl Miami vs. LSU What I said then: This is kind of similar to the Alamo Bowl because it is a bowl lucky enough to have the two participants fall in their lap. The only downside is Miami supposedly doesn't travel well, even if it is only one state north. These are teams with great defenses and inconsistent, and sometimes downright bad, offenses. LSU choked like a groupie backstage at a 50 Cent concert in the SEC championship game. Usually the teams who lose their conference championship games lose their bowl games, so I'm going with that logic here Pick: Miami Winner: LSU 40-3 (?!?!) What I say now : Oh right, like you saw it coming? The Rest of That Blog ________________________________________________________________________ My first attempt at serious pre-game analysis was for Super Bowl XL, which admittedly a lot of other people did also. But I feel mine was well thought out, insightful, and downright accurate as it turns out, here's a sample (article in italics) From Feb. 1st Seattle Passing attack (13th overall in the NFL) vs. Steelers pass defense (16th overall) Potential problem for the Steelers The biggest key to Seattle making the Super Bowl this year as opposed to being one and done like last year is this year their wide receivers actually, um, receive. On the other hand they don't scare you deep. Darrell Jackson is probably their best deep threat, but he's no Chad Johnson, and he's no Marvin Harrison, both of whom were non-factors in the playoffs. However, the question is, do you match up Ike Taylor (who has quietly become one of the best CBs in the NFL) on Darrell Jackson one on one to wipe him out? If you do you leave 6'6" inch Joe Jurivicious with 5'9" Deshea Townsend. Or if you switch you'll have Deshea covering Darrell Jackson, and like I said in a previous blog, Deshea is vulnerable against deep threat receivers. See: last year's AFC Championship game, or even the first play against Cinci in the playoffs this year. Of course, the Steelers are a mostly zone coverage team, so that point may be moot anyway. Outside of Jackson, the Seattle WRs are okay, but old and slow. Jurivicious and Engram were playing for Penn State when JoePa was still "The new guy", or so it seems. Matt Hasselbeck will have to be very on his game with the dink-dunk stuff for the passing game to succeed. Jeramy Stevens has talent, but hasn't used it much outside of the last game. That combined with his pseudo-bulletin board material this week makes him a veritable Fast Freddie Mitchell in the making. Joey Porter tends to disappear when matched up against the elite tackles, like John Ogden. But he did very well against Pro-Bowler Tarik Glenn of the Colts, but Walter Jones is better than he is. The other pass rushers are less explosive, but more consistent than Porter. Polomalu is everywhere. If you remember back to the game the Steelers did have a bit of trouble against the Seattle passing game early in the game. And Joey Porter may as well have been me (all 6'0 170 lbs) pass-rushing against Walter Jones. Finally Jeramy Stevens did, outside of his TD, "Fast-Freddie it" so to speak. The Entire Article This Segment is From ________________________________________________________________________ The majority of my writing recently has been of the opinionated variety, about a variety of subjects, mostly all in the same blog. One of the segments I liked the most was a piece I wrote in response to an article written by foxsports.com writers bashing the XFL on its 5 anniversary. From Feb 15th Reuniting with your XFL They ran an article on here talking about how lame the XFL was, which ironically enough is pretty lame in itself. Well I'm here to tell you, the XFL very easily could have worked, they just made 2 big (and extremely easily avoidable) mistakes. But first, why it could have worked For one thing, and people forget this, there was a tremendous positive buzz for the XFL before it began. Sure there were a few scoffers in the media asking if the players would wear Mexican wrestling masks during game, but they sold out every opening game and had a record Saturday night TV audience. Vince McMahon may not be an honest man, or a humble man, or even a good business man, but he is a tremendous marketer. He knows how to get people to watch something. Whether or not it's something worth watching, weelll, that's another story. They were way ahead of the curve on production values. You see ideas the XFL came up with (i.e. the overhead camera, other camera tricks, et al) in the NFL today. The "promoting the individual" aspect of the league could have really taken off, right along with the "pick your own nickname" angle. The fact that people still remember "He Hate Me" 5 years later proves that. Now, the mistakes: Perhaps the biggest, costliest, mistake was going straight into the regular season with the teams only having played a couple of scrimmages. Okay, think of our favorite team's first pre-season game, and think of how sloppy and un-watchable it was for the most part. Now imagine that there was a fantasy draft so that no one player on your team had ever played with another player on the team. Now imagine that instead of it being the first pre-season game it was the first regular season game. Not a very good way to introduce someone to something they've never seen before is it? These weren't the most skilled players to begin with, now add not being on the same page with anyone else and you have a big ol' mess. The games got better and better as the weeks went along, but by that time the damage had been done. The saying "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" applies here more than most situations. Especially when the aforementioned media members were poised and ready to denounce it at the first sign of crappiness Slightly less important, but nevertheless just as damaging in the long run, was the decision to play the games in prime-time. Had they played those first few crappy games on 3 PM on a Saturday or Sunday the "first impression" damage may not have been as severe. It could have been given less of a harsh spotlight and given more of a chance to gain an audience instead of giving it an audience it wasn't ready for right away. I for one liked the XFL, especially once the teams actually got acclimated and the games got better, maybe I'm a sucker. But sometimes in any business venture the smallest things you don't consider can come back to bite you big time. About 3 months later Ethan was drafter in the 7th round over established receivers like Martin Nance of Miami (OH) and Greg Lee of Pitt. Coincidence? Yeah probably ________________________________________________________________________ This last piece is the most well received thing I've done, and it's probably the best thing I've done thus-far. And, if you notice it's from only a few days ago so I'm rounding into form From May 16th I come to slander praise Barry Bonds, not to praise slander him. He is about to pass one of the most over-hyped greatest marks in all of sports. And he's done it hopped up on more HGH than your average pro-wrestler with a class that rivals a 2 year old in the candy aisle Henry Aaron and Winston Churchill combined. Who among us hasn't marveled at Barry's continuous need for bigger hats each year magnificent talent? I couldn't be more proud of the former Pirate who I'll always remember as the guy who couldn't throw out Sid F'n Bream won 2 (and it should have been 3) MVPs while a Pirate. He's certainly the cream and clear of the crop among all active players. This story has been beaten to death covered by the media to the point that I may throw up at the next utterance of the number 714 I can't wait to see what's next!! I mean, he's about to pass a guy who holds no significant records and has been dead for almost 60 years The Babe!! A player who didn't play against black players and went against pitchers who were always on about a day's rest transcends sports, even to this day. Why, if the Babe were alive today I'm sure he would ask where the nearest brothel was congratulate Barry and his achievements. As for Henry Aaron well, I have nothing bad to say about him he will always be one of the greats in baseball history, even if Barry eventually surpasses him. Which will happen when they invent the cure for "washed up". If Barry were to pass Aaron, I'm sure Hammerin' Hank would go up to Barry, take his neck hand, shake it, and say I hope you're really proud of how you did this a-hole well done sir. Because of the all-time great names involved the media is justified in just falling short of preempting the president's speech last night its subdued coverage. Please sir, can you rip my ear-drums out? can I have some more? As for Bonds apologists defenders, aren't they a delusional great bunch of guys? Obviously people are accusing Barry of steroid use because they have adequate vision and reasoning skills are racist! C'mon guys, people only gain 40 or so lbs. of muscle in their late 30s through needles in the hind-quarters a strenuous workout regimen. Of course Barry is fully responsible blameless for his attitudes and actions towards people, it's all not his fault he's a jackass to most people moody guy. And of course no one is saying anything about Mark McGwire being on steroids because he's been retired for 5 years you morons white. When McGwire testified before congress with his quivery lip and crocodile tears the media raked him over the coals, you really don't remember? It was only a year ago completely ignored it because they were burning crosses on poor Barry's lawn. It is because of baseball's stupidity..... okay stupidity that this whole steroid issue has even grown to this proportion. And of course even if he did take steroids after the 1998 season, you all know who the greatest player in baseball was before that right? You guessed it, Frank Stallone, er um, Ken Griffey Jr. Barry Bonds So when the dust settles and Barry has finally hit number 714 *vomit* you can rest assured that I'll be right there watching Beavis and Butthead on DVD it and cheering ________________________________________________________________________ My favorite thing I've done was something I reposted about a week ago, so I don't want to beat a dead horse. But here's a link if you'd like to see it Raw Stuff ________________________________________________________________________ Okay, like I said that was long. But hopefully you were able to bear with me on it. Thanks for your consideration

I come to slander praise Barry Bonds, not to praise slander him. He is about to pass one of the most over-hyped greatest marks in all of sports. And he's done it hopped up on more HGH than your average pro-wrestler with a class that rivals a 2 year old in the candy aisle Henry Aaron and Winston Churchill combined. Who among us hasn't marveled at Barry's continuous need for bigger hats each year magnificent talent? I couldn't be more proud of the former Pirate who I'll always remember as the guy who couldn't throw out Sid F'n Bream won 2 (and it should have been 3) MVPs while a Pirate. He's certainly the cream and clear of the crop among all active players. This story has been beaten to death covered by the media to the point that I may throw up at the next utterance of the number 714 I can't wait to see what's next!! I mean, he's about to pass a guy who holds no significant records and has been dead for almost 60 years The Babe!! A player who didn't play against black players and went against pitchers who were always on about a day's rest transcends sports, even to this day. Why, if the Babe were alive today I'm sure he would ask where the nearest brothel was congratulate Barry on his achievements. As for Henry Aaron well, I have nothing bad to say about him he will always be one of the greats in baseball history, even if Barry eventually surpasses him. Which will happen when they invent the cure for "washed up". If Barry were to pass Aaron, I'm sure Hammerin' Hank would go up to Barry, take his neck hand, shake it, and say I hope you're really proud of how you did this a-hole well done sir. Because of the all-time great names involved the media is justified in just falling short of preempting the president's speech last night its subdued coverage. Please sir, can you rip my ear-drums out? can I have some more? As for Bonds apologists defenders, aren't they a delusional great bunch of guys? Obviously people are accusing Barry of steroid use because they have adequate vision and reasoning skills are racist! C'mon guys, people only gain 40 or so lbs. of muscle in their late 30s through needles in the hind-quarters a strenuous workout regimen. Of course Barry is fully responsible blameless for his attitudes and actions towards people, it's all not his fault he's a jackass to most people moody guy. And of course no one is saying anything about Mark McGwire being on steroids because he's been retired for 5 years you morons white. When McGwire testified before congress with his quivery lip and crocodile tears the media raked him over the coals, you really don't remember? It was only a year ago completely ignored it because they were burning crosses on poor Barry's lawn. It is because of baseball's own stupidity..... okay stupidity that this whole steroid issue has even grown to this proportion. And of course even if he did take steroids after the 1998 season, you all know who the greatest player in baseball was before that right? You guessed it, Frank Stallone, er um, Ken Griffey Jr. Barry Bonds So when the dust settles and Barry has finally hit number 714 *vomit* you can rest assured that I'll be right there watching Beavis and Butthead on DVD it and cheering

Recently there was an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Pirate's beat writer Dejan Kovacevic (try pronouncing THAT one) about the lack of black players in major league baseball. If you're wondering why he had to dip into the ol' clich