Farewell, Football

So another disappointing football season has come to an end. The Heels finished their (little)up-and-(lotsa)down season with a record of 4-8. Last year they only won 3 games, so that's a 33% increase in wins! That's good, right guys? ...Dammit.

As for the Panthers, yes, they're still playing, and yes, they can technically still make the playoffs because they play in the NFC South, better known as the "TIMMAYYY!!!!" division. However, for all intents and purposes, I consider their season to be over as well. I submit the following two items for evidence:

1. After getting destroyed at home, 31-6, by the lowly Saints, Panthers QB David Carr was quoted as saying: "It's not like we were purposely not trying to score points out there." That's unfortunate in a way, because if he had been throwing the game, it would at least have explained the pitiful performance. On the other hand, if he throws a game as well as he throws a football, we'd never know the difference. If it weren't my own team, I'd bet against the spread in every Panthers game from here on out. It's just too bad sports gambling isn't legal.

2. Here's a collection of quotes from the News & Record on the Panthers latest game:

* "It hurts so much it would be laughable," John Fox, the embattled coach, said.

* "We're probably one of the worst teams in the NFL," corner Ken Lucas said.

* "We were just a fraction of an inch off," Carr said. [editor's note: David Carr is a dumbass]

The quote by Lucas was followed up by this hilarious note:

Lucas, who was called for a delay penalty for spiking the ball in anger, knew he'd helped sustain one of the New Orleans drives. He refused to blame the punchless offense.

"If we stopped them every time they got the ball, we'd be going into overtime every game," Lucas said.

Reading between the lines, he actually is admitting zero confidence in the offense. In other words, if the Panthers held their opponent to 0 points every time, each game would go into overtime because the offense will never score a single point. Now that's the kind of team chemistry that wins championships people!

Football, I wish I could quit you.

Great Names in Sports, Pt. 2

Here's a list of funny/cool sports names I compiled a few years ago and just rediscovered. It's amazing how many sportsmen have ridiculous names. Do some parents just pull names out of hats? Too bad Dick Pound is a lawyer and not an athlete.

Dick Trickle (nascar)
Jim Bob Cooter (ncaa fb)
Scientific and Majestic Mapp (ncaa bball)
God Shammgod (ncaa bball)
F$U's receiving corps, Craphonso Thorpe and Decody Fagg
World B. Free (nba?)
Jihad Muhammad (ncaa bball)
Ivanna Mandick (women's ncaa)
Peerless Price (nfl)
Dick Crum (nascar)
Wonderful Terrific Monds, Jr. (ncaa fb)
I.M. Hipp (ncaa fb)
Rusty Kuntz (mlb)
Joe Bonecutter (ncaa fb)
Coco Crisp (mlb)
Milton Bradley (mlb)
Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje (ncaa bball)
Chris Fuamatu-Maafala (nfl)
House Guest (ncaa fb)
Phthalo Green (ncaa bball... phthalo is a pigment)
T.J. Houshmandzadeh (nfl)
Tim Biakabatuka (nfl)
Dick Butkus (nfl)
John Holmes (unc bball!)
Pats' secondary: Ty Law and Lawyer Milloy
Oil Can Boyd (mlb)
NeNe (nba)

Great Names in Sports, Pt. I

I read in the paper today that Australian John Fahley is the new president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, succeeding Canadian Dick Pound. You may remember Dick Pound from his work with the International Olympic Committee, his strong stance against steroid abuse in the NHL, and his starring role in Butt-Fuck Sluts Go Nuts Vol. 18.

Alternatively, "Canadian Dick Pound" sounds like a move my first girlfriend (from lovely Edmonton, Alberta) wanted me to try on her.

Slash

Guitarist Slash (of Guns N' Roses fame) has followed suit by releasing his tell-it-all book, humbly entitled Slash. Guns N' Roses partied harder than any band of the 80s - possibly excepting the Crue - but even among those misfits, Slash was the worst.

According to the book, Slash was heavily addicted addicted to speedballs (heroin and cocaine) and eventually began seeing tiny demon men on a regular basis. One night, these evil homunculi turned against him and sent him crashing naked through a glass door. In his own inimitable words:

"They'd always been a welcome, carefree distraction, but this hallunication was sinister. I could see them gathering in the doorway; there was an army of them, holding tiny machine guns and weapons."

Drugs are bad, mmkay.

Phil Jackson

You know the sports season is picking up when great jokes made by athletes, coaches, owners, etc. are taken way too personally and jumped on by random special interest organizations. Here's the latest faux pas, courtesy of Los Angeles Lakers coach (and first-ballot Hall of Famer) Phil Jackson:

The Spurs made 13 3-pointers in their 107-92 victory, and Jackson was asked if too much penetration was leading to open outside shooters.

"We call this a Brokeback Mountain game, because there's so much penetration and kickouts," Jackson said. "It was one of those games."

First of all, I don't care where you're from, that's a great line. Secondly, when is everyone in this country going to stop being so damn sensitive? If nobody's perfect, then everybody should learn how to take a joke. Maybe after we get our collective panties untangled, we can actually learn to read comments like that and realize that it describes a lifestyle without passing any judgment on it. This country has taken PC to a new level far beyond what is even remotely necessary for tolerance.

The biggest joke here is the amount of hypocrisy we create by comparing these statements against our own actions. Yes, this is the same society where we blame all our problems on sex and violence in the media before sending our 12-year-olds off wearing tube tops and short skirts. Or blaming video games for youth violence while buying our kids pro wrestling tickets instead of a good book. And what guy hasn't had to hear about women not getting enough respect from a girl who drives home that night listening to some gangster rap song about bitches and hoes? Of course no one's going to listen to you. What did you expect?

If anyone should be bitter, it's straight white males like myself who apparently can't say anything negative towards anyone else, yet everyone has society's carte blanche to disparage us. But you don't hear me bitching up a storm, now do you? When's the last time we sued someone or put out a press release? Words can be hurtful, no doubt, but if mere words are the most evoking pain for you, then you should do a little more exploring in the realm of experience.

But no, let's keep blaming NBA coaches for stirring the pot which we have poured. At least Phil Jackson has earned my respect over the years, and quite frankly, I appreciate his wit no matter whom he offends. No one respects hypocrites, least of all themselves.

And to those who are offended: How many NBA championship rings do you have?

What's that?

None.

Basketball!

In honor of the unofficial start of basketball season (i.e. UNC's first game), I would like to bid farewell to yet another totally forgettable football season for my teams. I realize the season isn't over, but let's be honest, the Tar Heels and the Panthers aren't having years to remember.

Leave it to a Sports Illustrated columnist to say it best:

"When I die and go to hell, hell will be a Falcons-Panthers game prolonged indefinitely."

More for Gore

With the presidential race revving up for primetime, I wanted to give a shoutout to NFL/Political Columnist Extraordinaire Gregg Easterbrook on his op-ed piece published in the NYT. The story broke in February, but since I've been surrounded by hardcore environmentalists and left-leaning academians the past month, it's no surprise that it was never brought to my attention.

Apparently, sources revealed that beloved erstwhile candidate Al Gore uses TWENTY times more electricity and natural gas at his Tennessee home than the national average. Easterbrook ran Gore's power bills and ZIP code through an emissions calculator and discovered that the former VP causes 377,000 pounds of greenhouse gases each year. This usage, as Easterbrook points out, is the equivalent of driving 20 Hummers. Put differently, you'd have to plant roughly 40,000 trees just to neutralize the carbon footprint.

(Here's a good question: what the hell is Al doing in there? Building the world's first "green" nuclear weapon? Purposely raising emissions to support his cause? If he were smart, he'd be building a time machine to return him to Florida, circa October 2000.)

A Gore spokeswoman defended the bills by making sure everyone knew Gore bought offsets for the usage. Hold on a moment. Wasn't the entire premise of "An Inconvenient Truth" that we have to REDUCE emissions substantially in order to reverse global warming? Apparently, Gore doesn't understand that the offsets, by definition, only nullify his current use and don't actually decrease present emissions levels. And they gave this man a Nobel Peace Prize! Must have been a slow year in peace - which I guess it was.

If you're keeping track, here's what Gore did for the environment:

* Produced and promoted "An Inconvenient Truth," a popular film documentary on global warming

Now, here are some other things he did at his political apex (1992-2000):

* Failed to promote or even propose carbon trading
* Declined to raise fuel economy standards for automobiles
* Refused to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for consideration (or even push to ratify it)
* Said little to nothing about climate change
* Took no meaningful action against greenhouse gases

Perhaps he didn't understand the extent of the problem at the time. That's fine; very few of us did anyway. But it's not exactly an impressive record for someone collecting Oscars and Nobels promoting environmentalism, is it?

Gore is a politican after all, so we should've seen this coming. In retrospect, the 2000 election was best summed up by the Rage Against the Machine song "Guerilla Radio":

More for Gore
Or the son of a drug lord?
None of the above,
Fuck it, cut the cord.

The Office

All my friends love NBC's hit comedy "The Office." After seeing the British version, however, I refuse to watch the American one. Why? Because it will never top THIS!



Edit: I can't tell if the video is working or not, but you can always watch the clip on youtube HERE.

Sex Spam

My school's spam control system is managed by an elite team of drunken sea monkeys. I've had probably a dozen or so email accounts in my life, and I've never seen more crap come through than on this one. I've since graduated (twice), and after 7 years and two degrees there has been no progress in the war against spammers. Not only has there been no improvment, but I am convinced that this crack squad of bloated sea mammals is slowly but surely submitting to the onslaught of spam coursing through the system. Each month, I get more and more junk in my inbox - just like your mom.

To me, the most amusing aspect of this predicament is that the emails that actually make it through are so obviously spam that I can't imagine what is being filtered out. For instance, here are two lunkers from today's haul:

Your short sword could be much longer and win you more s'e_xual battles!

Positive changes in your s'e_xual life are not a chimera

First of all, there is no way these titles could represent anything but sex spam, which brings me back to my original question: what is actually being culled from this crop? Does the email have to read "HUGE COCKS POUNDING TINY TEEN TWATS!!!!!" for the system to flag it or what? Somebody wake those sea monkeys up!

Secondly, for as big of an annoyance as these emails are, I occasionally get a kick out of their laughable attempts at English. Take the second email for example. Positive changes "are not a chimera"? Really? Phew, that's a relief. Take it from me, you certainly don't want your changes to be of the chimera variety. Keep those part-lion, part-snake, part-goat creatures to yourself. I don't know about you, but those mythical monsters of Greek lore really get me hot. If they promise me pills to make my penis grow like a hydra, I may have to open my checkbook.

In honor of these hilarious titles, I've decided to keep a running list of the best ones right here in this entry. Check back often since I get about 20 per day (insert obligatory mom joke about 20 entries a day). Your "short sword" will thank you.

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"May i ask why you're so unhappy with your dic'k?"
At least he asked politely.

"Bored housewife is on the dryer waitin for mr. big"
Mmm, nothing like cold metal and the smell of chemicals to get you in the mood.

"Make your hot gf climax by stuffing her flower with your new big shaft!"
Wait, you mean to tell me my girlfriend keeps asking me for flowers when she already has some?