a bad sign

how can you tell "Transformers the Movie" is going to reek - well there are many reasons: Michael Bay, CGI, the fact that a summer blockbuster hasn't been good since "Die Hard II", the Bush administration can't be helping but the main reason is the fact that Shia Labeouf is I guess supposed to be "edgy!!" and how do you make him "edgy" - why put him in this T-shirt!! whoa!!

Paris

you only do two days in prison the day you go in and the day you get out - just ask Avon

from here on out

I'm in an exciting venture: I'm starting a sports blog and I'm pretty sure I'm getting paid to do it - therefore this site will be a lot like Perez Hilton except instead of focusing on Hollywood celebrities I'm going to focus on leading conservative legal thinkers of the 21st century

oh no he didn't!!


Sexy Scalia out and about!!

our only hope

Chief Justice John Roberts is clearly the only public figure in America who can save us (this based on his interview in the current Atlantic Monthly) and yes I realize his views on abortion might be slightly different than mine!!!!

Friday

I'm going to see Judge Richard Posner speak - at one point he was the "myspace" person I most wanted to meet - thus I become the first person ever in myspace history to meet the person I most wanted to meet

I bequeath this to you 2007:

the Office drinking game:

every time Jim makes the "Jim face" at the camera you must take a shot; this game will prove wildly successful as Jim makes the exasperated "Jim face" at least 45 times an episode

Note the following examples will count for Jim Face the game

most obnoxious saying of 2006:

"I like sports where the winners are decided on the field."

This phrase uttered by numerous sport media types and allegedly "hip" blogs was in reference to the lack of a playoff system for college football.

Note this phrase breaks the unprecedented 3 year reign of the previous most obnoxious saying: "We've brought freedom to the people of the middle east." which was in reference to the Iraqi war turned civil war turned living diorama of hell.

Both phrases can only be uttered correctly when said with a chin jutting sneer of certainty followed by a moment of silence as the person who said either of the above phrases thinks everyone around them is slowly being washed over in a tide of massive profundity

of course both phrases are totally wrong as we really didn't bring that much freedom to Iraq (for proof of this see any major newspaper from any day this year) -although bless little little man Bill O'Reilly for still thinking we did - as he points out in his random smattering of half formed thoughts known as his newspaper "column" - some parts of some provinces are doing kinda ok in southern Iraq - touche Bill touche - you have bested me again with your verbal rapier
and of course college football does determine its champion on fields - where the fuck do people think these games are played the space base in Moonraker? - the Texas/USC and Ohio St./Michigan games (the best two games of the year in any sport) were in fact decided on fields, trust me I watched them both (please see below for the difference between the Moonraker base and college football stadiums)

a note to Comcast

unlike some others I have no problem with you right now - but can you please do me a favor and in your TV guide stop referring to ESPN's "Sportcenter" as a "hip-Emmy winning production" - most of us recall that brief moment 11 years ago when Sportscenter was hip but 11 years ago for a brief moment Hootie and the Blowfish were hip as well - in fact these two phenomena combined for one of the greatest assaults on humanity since the failed Armenian genocide of the early 20th century (a video which oddly is not on youtube)

let me merely clarify: any show that runs something called the "Budweiser Ultimate Highlight" which appears to be no more than a really bad 10 minute Big & Rich song played over some low angle camera shots of special teams play is not hip

reeking of history

yesterday was Donald Rumsfeld's last day as Secretary of Defense; he had a going away party of the type usually reserved for teams that win the Rose Bowl -

Vice President Cheney called him "the greatest Secretary of Defense this country has ever had"; so true Dick so true:

non-Roger Angell entry

I couldn't decide whether to wax poetic on how much I love college football or instead defend college football's B.C.S. system but ultimately I think my Roger Angell impersonation would anger Ted very much so I'm just going to rotate a list of things that are great about college football with a list of why people who want a college football playoff are moronic - not Iraq war moronic - but still pretty moronic

1. It make me happy that in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a small island where Alice once hurt her back due to the nefarious working of a magic tiki thing a team plays games at midnight central time each week and runs an offense that averages 50 points per game

2. The two idiot color guys on ESPN and CBS think there should be a playoff system - if these guys told me to shop at Target I would shop at Menard's - and save more!!

3. In the NFL every team copies each other (witness how they all play the cover 2 defense now and run the west coast offense) and so all teams look alike - in college football there are a wide variety of styles from Hawaii's Run and Shoot - to Navy's Triple-Option to the Arkansas - "Let's hike the ball to the running back and have him throw 15% of the time" to wide open passing attacks.

4. The vaunted playoffs of baseball, the NFL and college basketball just gave us an 83 win team, a last-seeded AFC team, and a team that lost to the N.I.T. champion (twice!!) as champions so don't tell me playoffs determine who the best team in a sport is - TALK TO THE HAND BECAUSE THE FACE DON'T UNDERSTAND

5. don't you hate when your favorite team losses - like for instance they're 5 outs from making the world series for the first time since we dropped the bomb on Japan and some dude might have grabbed a ball and Moises Alou pees his pants, or your team make the World Series for the first time ever and then gets their collective asses kicked by the White Sox and 400 year old Jeff Bagwell pees his pants, of Brett Farve throws 50 interceptions in the red zone and the Packers fall to 6-10 and the state of Wisconsin pees it's pants - well college football has found a way around this - more on point 6

6. witness Wake Forest - the demon Deacons are bad at football - real bad - they last won their conference in 1970 (35 years after the Cubs last won the pennant but still) but this year they have had an amazing season - a season Wake Forest fans will speak of only in Nordic Verse - like Beowulf - they'll gather around a fire after a day of fishing for cod and hunting elk and speak of the year they went 10-2, won the ACC, and went to the Orange Bowl - the Orange Bowl!! that's where good teams go - teams that have a student body larger than 56 - will Wake Forest win the national title? no - would Wake Forest most likely lose to Ohio State by three touchdowns - yes - but does Wake Forest have a chance to end their season with an amazing win and not look back on this season and feel a sense of searing painful regret - yes and College Football is the only sport that provides that

7. have I mentioned Jay Mariotti thinks there should be a playoff and there isn't a soapbox strudy enough for Joe Buck to stand on when it comes to this subject

holy fucking shit holy fucking shit

my favorite thing about our President not calling the Iraq "situation" a civil war is that he wishes this was a civil war - they won't be selling ceramic figurines about the Western Anbar Province 130 years from now

but maybe the President is right Iraq really isn't in a "civil war" phase it's more of a "I no longer fear hell for I have been to Itchy and Scratchy land (or Baghdad)" phase

Iraq is bad and all but I need to support the troops right now - BY GOING TO WAL-WART and buying more for less!!!

going going gone

I saw a guy who looked like Timothy Busfield at Whole Foods yesterday

Then I realized every third guy looked like Timothy Busfield

The Timothy Busfield look is big at Whole Foods

you choose

For the past week I've been telling all who will listen (a select few) that I cannot stand the sports media's obsession with complaining about the Bowl System in college football and their incessant whining for a playoff system - which would of course ruin college football the only American sport that still has a meaningful regular season

and then today who piled on the argument opposite mine? the king of sport hackery himself Jay Mariotti - if this alone wasn't enough to eternally prove I'm right - there was also this pearl of wisdom in Mariotti's "case" for a playoff - his playoff system would have U.S.C. replay Notre Dame next weekend - even though Notre Dame just played U.S.C. this weekend and the game was a de facto playoff since it eliminated Notre Dame and allowed U.S.C. to remain in the title hunt - this apparently is not good enough for our sports media culture - no there must be another Notre Dame - U.S.C. game next week according to Mariotti and only that one would count really count
after all if we add a six-tiered playoff system to college football think about all the new witty retorts that could be screamed back and forth on ESPN's "Around the Horn" why who loses in that development besides 150 years of glorious tradition and anyone with an I.Q. higher than 68

Tribute

I remember being profoundly impacted by a Milton Friedman video I saw in 10th grade social studies class - it started my brief 6 year infatuation with conservative thought - girls wouldn't talk to me back then - but who's laughing now - I have a blog and they're all house frau's - and while I'm only a slight expert on complex economic theories I'm pretty sure Milton Friedman hated fucking house frau's - R.I.P.

scenes of triumph or how I learned to love America again

VICTORY

statement

if you're a college student you live in Montana and you campaigned for troglodyte Republican Senator Conrad Burns (who also happens to be fantastically corrupt) then you're a fucking idiot - I mean I realize you hate abortion and all but come on

nugget of wisdom

some people in my family consider the university of oregon football helmets "striking" -judge for yourself and vote in our online poll:

Online Poll

Conversations with my family

Me: It's been 20 years since the Mets won the World Series

Mom: Wow that's a long time . . .

Me: That means someone could have been born, grown up and been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq all after Bill Buckner made that error

Mom: Laughs

Last Night the Hold Steady saved my life

Last Saturday night I was riding on a northbound train of the type Rod Stewart likes to sing about - when I was confronted with a depressing spectacle; a bunch
of hyper-active exceedingly youthful 19 year olds on their way to some type of
party/orgy/drug-a-poolza, the fact that people who were born after the 1986
World Series are now old enough to engage in such activities is something that
causes me to stare out at a vast cityscape/countryside and shake my head in
knowing wonderment

As it usually happens though the very next morning I was saved from any maudlin
tendencies as I finally, two years after they broke, stumbled onto the glorious
music of the Hold Steady; the Hold Steady is basically a rock band for people
who read the New York Times (which is a good thing), a band that combines that instrumentation of the E Street band with the lyrics of a young, pre-Teen Vogue Rhett Miller, a band in which every member is not only unattractive but also, and this is key, way older than me - and most important of all the Hold Steady is a band that musically during any three minute song creates a flaming green light saber in your head that allows you to slash and destroy any problems in your life from work to school to people who don't understand you (because the fucking Hold Steady they
understand you) to loud oblivious 19 years olds on a train - against the Hold
Steady and you those kids don't have a prayer.