The Airing of Grievances

I Don't Dig on Schadenfreude...

...but that was kind of awesome. Who would have ever thought that "The Patriots can't beat the Giants in the Super Bowl" would become a theme in the sports world. So check it out...that happened AND I had both Pats-7/Giants-5 and Pats-7/Giants-1 for squares winning me a couple hundred bucks. I also won tennis matches on both Friday and Saturday night. That's what you call a weekend, folks.

Oh...you wanted honest analysis? Fine. Let's check in with the wife of the losing team's quarterback...

“You [have] to catch the ball when you’re supposed to catch the ball,” she said in a video posted by TheInsider.com, via TBL. “My husband cannot f–king throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can’t believe they dropped the ball so many times.”

I can't believe it, either.

Anyway, as you know Klompus, I'm no stranger to watching my team lose a Super Bowl but you know what I found to be incredibly therapeutic last year? You guessed it.

Sagan.

 

No charge for that.

"Oh Come On...It Was a Great Game!"

 

Oh, sh-sh-sh-shut the fuck up. I don't care how great of a game it was. I am a Steelers fan. I want the Steelers to win. When they lose, I don't enjoy watching it. When they lose in a playoff game, I really don't enjoy watching it. When they lose like they did yesterday in a playoff game, it puts the lives of nearby kittens and small children at risk. So don't tell me it was a great game.

I don't care if the QB that went to the college you liked played very well for a team in a city that you've never been to. I don't care how entertaining it was. For me, the most entertaining Steeler games are the ones where they beat Cleveland 48-3. I like the Saints-Packers games and the Lions-Bears games of the world to entertain me. They can be thrilling as fuck. Matt Forte can heroically lead his team to victory, scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 58 seconds left, and I'll watch intently. Because I don't give the slightest darn who wins.

But the Steelers...that is the team that I am a fan of. So I want them to win games ugly. I don't want them to lose games pretty. So don't tell me how great that game was. BECAUSE IT SUCKED. Tim Tebow's team winning a wild card game in overtime does not show how great God's love is. Unless you believe that God hates Troy Polamalu and Ike Taylor. Why aren't you also saying this to other people who have watched their "team" lose?

- Hey, Germany...come on guys. It was a great war. You guys fought hard. Seriously, it looked like you had it there until the end. But I wouldn't go into Russia. May want to replace the coach if he's going to make decisions like that.

- NASCAR fans...come on guys. I know Earnhardt was killed there at the end but he was in 3rd place coming into the turn. That's a damn good performance. It really was a great race. Plus, his son was able to pick up second. You really can't ask for more. Except for maybe Earnhardt not dying.

- Taxpayers...come on! I know you are paying for banking bailouts and also for your own fuckawful mortgages but last fiscal season was AWESOME! Everybody was getting houses. BAM! House. POOF! Condos. Man, was that an exciting construction season. Sorry you lost your house, though.

- Hatians! Come on gu...nah, I'm joking.

But come the fuck on, friends. Don't tell me it was an exciting game. Or an awesome game. Or a Godly game. Or that it proved the critics wrong. Because I don't care. I DO. NOT. CARE. And everytime you mention something about the game, I'm going to Photoshop ejaculate onto a Denver Bronco.

Hidden Tiger

By AARON "PUDDY" BOND

What Tiger Woods needs isn’t a reprioritization of his private life. It isn’t knee surgery. It isn’t the requisite time away from the game to come back 100 percent.

It’s Rory McIlroy.

Now hold your horses. It isn’t that Tiger needs McIlroy as a foil to regain his identity as a golfer. Years have passed with several players attempting to prove themselves as a long-term rival to Tiger. Some have fared better than others – Phil Mickelson winning four majors, Padraig Harrington claiming three, Angel Cabrera and Retief Goosen two – but we are mostly left with a stream of one-timers who weren’t trying to do anything differently than everyone else: string together four good rounds at the right time.

McIlroy, for all his talent, is still a one-timer (insert Tiger Woods philandering joke here) and is still three or more majors from meriting the kind of talk that he has generated following his win at Congressional. Rory’s is a great story rife with similarities to Tiger but he has neither the mass appeal nor the mind-blowingly singular skill set that Tiger had relative to his peers following the 1997 Masters.

Rather, what McIlroy stands for is that, for the first time since Tiger uttered “Hello World” prior to the 1996 Greater Milwaukee Open, Woods isn’t the biggest story in professional golf.

Tiger Woods is one of a handful of athletes who have lived their sporting lives with one publicly stated purpose. These athletes didn’t just come out and give 100%; they told you explicitly that they were focused on winning and winning only.
Michael Jordan lived this. Michael Phelps made no secret that he would be disappointed if he didn’t break Mark Spitz’s records. Ty Cobb would injure you to get the upper hand.

Ray Lewis: Making It Too Easy

Ray Lewis is awesome. He's full of enthusiasm and is a great football player. He's an inspiration to young athletes everywhere and a testament to longevity in an unforgiving sport. He also, more than likely, killed a guy. Maybe two guys.

That said, Ray decided to go on TV recently and make the declaration that if there's no NFL football this year, crime will go up.

Also, from the article:

When asked why he thought crime would increase if the NFL doesn't play games this year, Lewis said: "There's nothing else to do Sal."

To be fair, Ray was simply relying on his years of criminology experience in the Baltimore PD and saying that, without football to watch, people would have more idle time, and in that listless diaspora away from our sports bars, our thoughts would inevitably turn to criminal behavior. Largely because we're a society of latent degenerates that kinda sorta want to stab each other, but lose motivation by the third quarter. And you're not at all projecting, Ray. Not a bit.

By the same logic, you can also expect to see an increase in pregnancies, better ratings for whatever else supposedly comes on TV Sundays (Heroes maybe?) and maybe an uptick in church attendance. But coming from a guy who's not guilty of murder, rather than innocent, it has a slight mafia vibe to it.

Like he's not saying anything, but maybe Roger Goodell's kids don't make it home from summer school one day. There's a lot of crazy people out there. These things happen. Maybe Roger's wife has an accident outside the beauty parlor and don't look so pretty no more. I don't know nothing. I'm just talking amongst friends.

Anyway - I just posted this because, between this and the Jesus freaks missing a Rapture, I'm sure Vandelay is too busy screaming at his walls.

The Passion of the Rondo

Look, I would never have the audacity to even imply that Rajon Rondo isn't currently the most courageous man in the universe for attempting to play a basketball game with a hyper-extended elbow but can't we just maybe ease up on the hyperbole a little bit, guys. I mean, there are other people on the court doing some pretty impressive things. When the fuck did Marv and Reggie turn into Bill Russell and Tommy Heinsohn? The other night for instance, after Rondo cut through the middle and beat like three guys to give himself a wide-open lay-up on the left side of the hoop but layed it in with his right hand.

Reggie: OH MY GOD...I THOUGHT HE WAS GONNA LAY THAT IN WITH HIS LEFT HAND!!!!

Ummm...did you happen to see him cross-over dribble to his left hand perfectly and without even flinching just to get to the hoop that quickly, Reg? Furthermore, what was with the trainers carrying Rondo off the court after that happened? He had a dislocated elbow...not a knee! Do we really need to feed into the victim complex of the Boston sports fan anymore than it already has been? Have we not learned anything from Pierce's bullshit drama? I'd think as a fanbase, you'd eventually get to a point where you cease eating this shit up but...nope.

Of course, I'm not saying that Rondo is faking his injury, but maybe we can stop acting like he just ejaculated the second coming of Christ. Deal?

Wait, What?

I read about this press conference last week and forgot to follow up on it. Better to have the genius of Norm MacDonald highlighting it anyway. Normally when you read about something like this, you think it's gotta be exaggerated. It couldn't have happened, right? Not with Gloria Allred involved. I hope these greedy douchebag parents are happy they were able to humiliate their kids on a national stage.

On an aside, aren't the parents paying Allred to represent them?  Why does the dad (Justin) play the part of the coital receptor in the demonstration?  You'd think if he was going to volunteer to be part of the puppet show, he'd at least take the dominant role. Then again, maybe it's symbolic of the attorney-client relationship.  At the very least, it supports McDowell's original theory on Justin.

If Justin has any friends, I hope they fuckin' taunt the living shit out of him until the day he dies.

Double whiskey to Big Al B. for sending this link.

The Official 2011 AofG Mock Draft

Alright fools. This is Newman speaking. I’m now blocked from the AofG. Soon I’ll likely be blocked from Word and I’ll have to type these up in Notepad, print them out and fax them to Vandelay. But it will not stop me from occasionally wasting mine and everyone else’s time with pointless posts. First up is a mock NFL draft!
Why? Because everyone does them and I WANT IN. Sure, I’ve never heard of some of these first round picks until a few weeks ago. But who the fuck cares? I have sources on every team and I may as well use them. So let’s get to work.

ONE. CAROLINA PANTHERS – CAM NEWTON, QB
I have to type one because Microsoft Word is stupid and no matter how many times I tell it not to go into numbered list mode it does it anyway. But we aren’t here to debate with the paperclip. We’re here to predict who goes number one in the draft…and my sources say Cam Newton. My sources on this one were Google and ESPN.
Newton looks like a black Tebow, which is good minus the black part, and he is far ahead of Tebow as a throwing quarterback. However, I continually read accounts of his fake smile and that is something that I will NOT tolerate out of my starting quarterback. You have to smile like you fucking mean it, man! I’m supposed to watch my QB throw touchdowns while fake smiling like he’s laughing at one of Dennis Miller’s jokes? Not on my watch. However, I’m not the Panther GM and I cannot speak for him. Newton is also very versatile as numerous sources say he’ll help the Panthers sell tickets, however, I think that position would best be filled by minimum wage employees while Cam focuses on football and emotion.

2. DENVER BRONCOS – MARCELL DAREUS, DT
Josh McDaniels is out, so I would look for the Broncos to stop drafting like retards. Seriously, that guy couldn’t draft his way into Vietnam. The Broncos have horrible defensive linemen to go with their subpar LBs and ok secondary. Just happens that a very solid DT prospect is available at number 2. Putting 2 and 2 together and getting 4, I’m sending Dareus to Denver. However, the Broncos may forget to carry the one and end up drafting Colin Kaepernick or something.
Dareus has better measurables than Nick Fairley, he was not a one-year wonder, and he’s not a crazyperson, so I think that he will be the choice. My sorcerers back me up.

Peyton Manning Needs That $60K

Oh, hey AofG. What's up. I've been blocked from GMail, Zuckerbook, and all the other popular websites at work, so it may be time to get back into this whole typing words thing. I doubt it will hold as I'm lazy and was kinda liking the brevity offered by FB status lines, but we'll see. A playa can't be on them spreadsheets all day without a little break, naw-mean?

Anyway, as you may have heard, the NFL's got some labor strife going on right now. And it's the kind of strife that we care about, not that stupid stuff going on over on top of Africa. That ain't gonna affect the Super Bowl. Ohhhhh, Khadafi's a dictator. He's killing his own people. Too bad...the National Guard has already been deployed because the BRONCOS ARE KILLING THE PATRIOTS!

So, in preparation for the possible (and now actual) lockout, the NFLPA (while it existed) created a lockout fund with the dues it collected from its players. Or something like that. It came out to about $60,000 per player, which is crazy because damn thems be some serious dues. There had to be something else there, too. Maybe they had Antonio Cromartie donate sperm on the side.

Anyway, now the time has come to pay out from that lockout fund. And a rich motherfucker by the name of Demarcus Ware, he of a fresh $79 million contract ($20 mil of that in one chunk for the signing bonus) has decided that he doesn't need this pittance and maybe it should go to some of the lesser ballin' players who took their $50,000 bonus and immediate bought Range Rovers (and it looks like the money came from withheld licensing fees as well...cool). From that article:

 

Other players who have cashed in — including the three big-name quarterbacks whose names have been attached to the antritrust lawsuit that goes to mediation today — should donate that money to help younger players who truly need the money.

 

So Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning took their money. Tom Brady, a guy who took less than he could get on the open market to allow the Patriots to build around him (a foreign stance to Mr. Manning), really has a use for this money? Sure, they've earned it because they contributed to it, but...why? These young role players (and Dez Bryant) are going to be broke in about three months. How are you gonna hold strong against a lockout when your entire kickoff team can barely afford to eat? What's Brandon Marshall going to do with $60K? How many laywers does Big Ben still need to pay off that this money's gonna find good use?

These guys need to be team players (e.g. communists) or there's no way that they're gonna last. Hell, Dez was broke even when he was getting paid. Then again, maybe some starve-time's just what he needs.

 

 

Preventable?

By now the entire country knows about what happened here a few days ago. I write about it for two reasons. One, because there is a discussion that can occur in light of tragedy. And two, because this event happened a few miles from me and was responded to by co-workers of mine. Needless to say, everyone is a tad shook up.

This is one of those stories that happens every so often in the Sports world. A kid, seemingly in the best shape of their life, playing a sport they love, all of a sudden drops dead from a heart attack, leaving a school or community in complete shock, wondering where they go from there. It is called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, which, simply put (because do a lot of you really care if I go all techno-babble on you about this? No.) a thickening of the heart muscle that impedes blood flow out of the heart. Some of the more famous incidents include Hank Gathers, Chicago Bears Defensive End Gaines Adams and Oakland A's pitcher Joe Kennedy.

Now, in the face of this tragedy, the community is grappling with what to do. They secure a perfect season, given to them by this star athlete who hits a last second shot, then dies on the court minutes afterward. Do they play another game? How do they honor this kid? So on and so forth.

So is this what people locally are saying about this tragedy?

Not really. They're bitching at the school, parents, medical community, etc. "This should've been prevented" was one comment. "How many times will this happen before something is done?" was another. "Someone should sue the school district" was another. Really? A lawsuit? C'mon.

Look. I hate when this shit happens. It's always a blame game. I get that a 17 year old star athlete shouldn't die at all, let alone this way. So, what do you do? Cardiac Caths, MRI's and EKG's should be part of physicals for athletes of all ages? But then the bitching will start about cost, inconvenience, blah blah blah. So yeah, it is preventable, sure. But I'm pretty sure the kid would play anyway, regardless of those results. Why? Because it made him happy.

Does it suck? Sure. Is it preventable? Maybe, maybe not. Should we get all up in arms over something that is purely genetic and, shit, it just happens? No. People should think about that, mourn, and move on. He's happy he went out doing the very thing he loved...playing ball, celebrating a victory, living life.

We should all be so lucky.

Go Fennville.

Disrespecting the Packers

Warning...this will be quite vulgar.

 

This is it, people. The Super Bowl! The Big Game! The Final Cumshot! Steelers! Packers! History! Exclamation points!