A Slice of Bacon

29 and thanks.

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 09:20:25 -0700

Today is my birthday. I’m 29. People think 29 is still “young,” but that’s a long ass time on this earth, so I decided I’d like to thank a few people for keeping me around for almost 30 years.

To my mom — You’re the nicest and most caring person I know. Each morning I wake up and hope I can be 1/8th of the person you are. If I ever reach that goal my life will be a success. Thanks for everything you’ve ever done for me and will do for me.

To my dad — I’ve always looked up to you. You’re determined, hard working and loving more than you probably ever know. I’m so proud to be your son.

To my sister — It’s incredible the family I was blessed with, and I can’t believe the coolest person I know is also my older sis. Our jokes are my favorite thing in the world, and I’m also glad you’re around so that my “Friends” addiction doesn’t look as strange.

To my uncle Doug — I literally don’t know how I’d be able to live a regular life without you in the same city. If I can be half the uncle to my nephews that you were for me, then those boys are going to be very lucky men. It’s incredible how you lived your life so selflessly and how it just seems natural to you.

To my aunt Diane and uncle Bennett — I don’t know what my grandparents were eating when they created their three kids, but I WANT some of it. Diane, you could make a hungry baby smile, and Bennett, well, you know you’re awesome in just about every way so I just wanted to say screw off for always beating me in fantasy football. Jerk.

To my grandmother — You know those people that know everyone in town and nobody has ever spoken a bad word about? Yeah, that’s my Wawa. She took me water rafting and to Las Vegas before I was old enough to even spell “slots” and is always asking, “what can I do for you” as opposed to “could you do this for me?” Also, I’m pretty sure that “Oh the Places You’ll Go” book was written about her, but I’m not totally sure.

To my four nephews — Each of you are so completely different but share a simple quality that is extremely important - you are sweet, sweet boys that make every ounce of my being smile.

To my buddy Josh — We talk about 40 times a day, but I probably never tell you how happy I am to call you a best friend. If I had to be stranded on an island for the rest of my life and Mila Kunis wasn’t available, I’d probably pick you. I’ve never met a person that doesn’t like you, and I probably never will (strippers in line at Fat Burger don’t count).

To my buddy Andrew — It makes me look better being friends with you. Despite the chin stubble, I will always thank London for introducing me to the best guy I’ve ever met.

To my buddy Chris — You are the funniest and most thoughtful guy out there, and it physically makes me mad that I don’t get to see you more often. You light up every room you’ve ever entered, you are a caring man that thinks of others first (even if you don’t want to admit it), and I love you despite the fact that you still wear those horrible Nike shoes that smell like rotten coyotes. Seriously, throw those away, please.

To my buddy Rusty — Because I never had a brother and you’re the closest thing I’ll ever have to that, despite what “science” says about it. If I make it to 70, I still hope we spend at least one night a year driving around Marshall looking at Christmas lights, drinking skunky beer and just chatting. It’s literally one of my favorite days of every year.

To Chris Berman — You are really funny man! Keep up the schtick!!

To my buddy Justin — You’re a loyal, smart, kind dude and I figured if I didn’t put you on this list I wouldn’t get any more rides to and from the airport. Also, washers.

To Mike Stoops — Nope, never mind, you probably took years OFF my life, but hey, thanks for giving that head coaching gig the ‘ol college try.

To Will and Skylar — I think of college and think of you two exclusively. You make me smile where the sun don’t shine (and also where the sun does shine (hint: my face)).

To my buddy Chuck — You’re really great as long as you’re standing very far away from any moveable grills. Also, this video.

To my buddy Richard — Because I haven’t put any black people on this list yet and I didn’t want to come off as racist. Also, your good side? Really fucking good.

To my buddy Kevin — If someone had listed the characteristics that you’d bring to the table before college started, I would have laughed at that list, and then poured Natural Light on it. Thankfully people aren’t book covers, and that dude that drove the horrible yellow Mustang has become one of the greatest guys in my life. And also, can I get a table next week at SUPPER CLUB for, like, 8 people? Thanks!

To Everyone on the Gateway Tour — Thanks for letting me know I wasn’t nearly good enough to be a pro golfer. Tough lesson but I appreciate it. Oh, and also, don’t be such assholes.

To my sweet, sweet Nikki — You are my mom, just 30 years after her. You once told me in an e-mail that if you ever needed to just smell the ocean I’d be the friend that drove you there and I say the exact same thing about you. I can’t go to Bisonwitches without you in tow (and frankly don’t want to).

To my prom date Maegan — Hey, remember when we said, “If we’re single when we’re 30 we will just marry each other?” God we were dumb.

To Jake, Nick, Daren, Andy, Matt, Matt, Andrew, Ashdon — Never been a better group of idiots. You men are incredible, and also, fucking Jake.

To Candice, Austen, Derek, Blaine, Chris, DJ and Andrew — Because, well, you guys know.

To my buddy Ryan Wilson — You landed me my first pay-per-post job on the internet, and because of you, I’m writing for a living about a sport I love. You, my friend, deserve a lifetime of Zimas.

To teachers like Mrs. Degn and Mrs. Lewis — We grow up with teachers and TEACHERS, and you guys are the latter. A lot of people think they can do what you do, but the two of you proved early on that there are amateurs and there are professionals at this teaching thing and I thank you for pushing me to a place I didn’t know existed.

To Steve Jobs — This iPhone thing is really badass. Thanks for that.

dangerguerrero: LATEST SATELLITE IMAGE OF SANDY HOLY CRAP YOU...

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:43:59 -0700

dangerguerrero:

LATEST SATELLITE IMAGE OF SANDY HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS.

best drinks to have during a hurricane

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:31:13 -0700

If you’re in the path of Sandy, you’re probably thinking either A.) I should probably get drunk or B.) I should probably get drunker. Here are the most Hurricane appropriate drinks for this Monday.

Hurricane — 1 oz. vodka, 1/4 oz grenadine, 1 oz gin, 1 oz light rum, 1/2 oz 151, 1 oz amaretto, 1 oz triple sec, pineapple and grapefruit juice. Shake.

Dark and Stormy — 2 oz. Gosling’s Black Seal rum, 8 oz Ginger beer, lime. Pour over ice.

The Perfect Storm — 2 oz. Kraken Spiced rum, 6 oz. Ginger beer. Pour over ice.

Black and Tan — 1 part Guiness, 1 part Bass

Wicked Sandy — 1 oz. limoncello lemon liqueur, 1/2 oz. amaretto, 1/2 oz. Bailey’s, 1 tsp white tequila, 1 tsp Cointreau orange liqueur. Serve straight up.

Whiskey — Because, well, why not?

Just a quick reminder of the last time we handed the Lakers a...

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 08:57:51 -0700

Just a quick reminder of the last time we handed the Lakers a ring before the season started.

Posting this because I really, really, really want this to...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 08:31:46 -0700

Posting this because I really, really, really want this to happen, but wondering if I’m the only one that would benefit from it.

Beardown.

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:19:51 -0700

Back in 2002, when I was a young high school kid with a squeaky Texas accent and no real direction on colleges, I resulted to the sports fan deep within; I picked my college because of the basketball team.

Yes, the dart I threw at the wall landed in Tucson, Ariz. mainly because I knew their basketball team was going to be great that year. They were on the cover of Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine (back when people even looked at what was on the cover of ESPN The Magazine), and they had two preseason All-Americans that were both seniors and inspired.

So I packed my SUV, my dad packed his Dodge Truck, and off we went to southern Arizona. The funny (And slightly ironic) part of all this was that the other college that didn’t get the rose turned out to win the National Championship that year in basketball and my class was the first to ever go through all four years under Lute Olson without a trip to the Final Four (if you remember, I was in Tucson when the infamous Arizona-Illinois game occurred, so it wasn’t for lack of talent, more for lack of luck).

And really, Arizona has never been great at anything since I’ve officially been a Wildcat. The football team has always been a wreck. The basketball team has had some good runs but are still searching for that first Final Four appearance since I cursed the campus. (And yes, I was proud of the softball team in ‘06 and ‘07, but for some reason it didn’t get the fire in my belly going like one of the big three sports. Call me whatever pig name you want, it wouldn’t be the first time.)

So Monday night was extra special. It was special because I was actually rooting for that team that everyone that didn’t go to South Carolina was rooting for. It was fun because the team was on a historic run in a year they didn’t seem to have the right formula. And it was fun because this is the only team I honestly care about. Sadly, my love for the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos has faded as I’ve gotten older. I love watching the NBA but I find myself rooting against teams a lot more than I find myself rooting for someone. And major league baseball has been lost on me since I gave up my Kangaroo leather Nokona glove for my Winn grips.

And it was special because for some reason, sports fans really do believe they have some influence on things. People wear the same shirts during winning streaks and always sit in the same seats because they’re scared a move will jinx something. It is why I really believe I’ll never make a hole-in-one because of some stupid thing I coined “The Bacon Curse,” a theory that is derived simply because my uncle, my dad and myself have as many hole-in-ones as my 5-year-old nephew (that would be, zilch).

We sports fans have some strange mental theory that holds the team back, when deep down we know it doesn’t matter. It’s what gets us so involved, and why people fly across the country and spend thousands of dollars in hope that their team finally succeeds, and spends days in the dumps when they don’t.

But the Arizona baseball team winning the College World Series was a bigger deal to me than I ever thought it would. It had nothing to do with the sport itself, and more to do with the kids that make up Coconino and AZ-SO. They get to feel something I never got. They get to celebrate a true championship with their fellow students that will be splashed across the Arizona Daily Wildcat like “Dewey Defeats Truman”. It’s a community after all, and there is nothing better than when someone from your community succeeds.

Bear Down indeed.

i left a perfect game early and that's just fine

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:45:13 -0700

There is a great scene in “Good Will Hunting” where the soon-to-be Academy Award winning Robin Williams explains the first time he met his wife. He knew the actual date. The bar. What she was wearing.

With his grizzly beard he explains the moment intensely to Matt Damon’s character, who can’t believe that Williams would leave one of the most epic baseball games in the history of the sport to have a drink with his future wife.

“Wow… Woulda been nice to catch that game, though.

I didn’t know Pudge was gonna hit a homer.”

Enter Wednesday night. TaylorMade, a golf company that is having the golf equivalent of the iPod boom right now for Apple, hosted some journalists at AT&T Park for a pre-game golf event where a six-time PGA Tour winner hit drivers over right field into the bay and members of both teams oohed and awed as his balls consistently traveled over 330 yards. It was really impressive and fun to watch, and after, we got wined and dined. We were at the ballpark at 4:00 PM. The game started at 7:15 PM. I had already spent a few hours at AT&T Park the night before, and to be honest, I fucking hate baseball.

It isn’t anything about the game. I think baseball is beautiful and strategic and wonderful. But I just don’t care about it anymore. I don’t watch games on TV. I go to a few Diamondabacks games each year because one of my best friends can get us tickets and I enjoy that friend immensely. But I … I just don’t really like watching the game (and this is really something going from a golf writer).

But you know the rest of the story. Matt Cain took a perfect game into the fifth, and then into the seventh, and then into the ninth. I was on a bus back to my hotel when he retired the Astros in the eighth, and I sprinted out of the bus about six blocks from my hotel so I could catch the last inning.

See, that’s the thing. I will never let myself live down the fact that I left a perfect game, but in the same sense, I still got to see it. I watched the last inning in a bar with a ton of baseball fans, and while the energy level was a glass of tap water compared to the 64 oz. Monster that was AT&T Park, I still got to see history. Yes, it is a watered-down version, but history is history.

Never for a moment did I hope he wouldn’t do it. I’ve heard from some others that left early that they were rooting for a hit because they didn’t want to have to deal with missing such a monumental achievement. I never did. That isn’t me.

Why didn’t I? Because baseball fans that really, really love the game deserved to see that in person. There were 30,000 people at that park that will relish in that moment for months to come. They’ll frame the ticket. They’ll tell their kids about where they were doing this inning or how high they jumped when Gregor Blanco made that improbable catch. It’ll be a moment most will never forget.

And for me? I’ll have my little “Good Will Hunting” story. Anytime someone takes a perfect game into the seventh, and I’m frosting my top lip with an IPA, I can tell the stranger next to me about my brainless decision years ago about how I broke the cardinal fucking rule of baseball viewing; “don’t leave a game until a pitcher gives up his first hit.”

There is really only one way to put this in baseball terms that make sense. On Wednesday, I was scored as E-10.

dangerguerrero: Good morning. I made you this helpful chart.

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:01:58 -0700

dangerguerrero:

Good morning. I made you this helpful chart.

Holy hell this is talent at its best.

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:18:06 -0700

Holy hell this is talent at its best.

Shut up, Bob Costas

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 20:47:22 -0700

On Sunday night, Bob Costas opened the second half of NBC’s Sunday night snoozer between the Steelers and the Chiefs with a rant about touchdown celebrations. He ranted, and raved, and screamed and sounded, frankly, old and dated, which is interesting because it seems he’s spent plenty of money to make himself look otherwise.

And all of it was just … ridiculous. Like keeping Jay Leno or canceling “Community,” NBC seems to do anything to keep the youth at bay, and the rant on celebrations by Costas was just another example of their decrepit outlook.

I’ll make this simple, because it should be simple; the National Football League is a sport … a game … and it is out there because it entertains us. It’s a movie in real time, fit with fake-looking men with fake-looking muscles running at speeds none of us can comprehend and hitting with power we only see in vehicles fit for a ranch. We are passionate about sports, we care about them, and they make or break our year, but at the end of the day, it’s entertaining.

Did people really hate when Joe Horn pulled that cell phone out of the upright? And Terrell Owens with the popcorn? Or even when Stevie Johnson took it a step further and mocked a player that had idiotically shot himself in his own leg with a gun at a nightclub? Did that really take away from the game we were watching? No. It can’t. It’s part of the entertainment.

Deion Sanders was famous because he was really fast and incredible at his position, but he was a superstar because he was outgoing and entertaining, and, to other fans, annoying. That’s part of the sport. Flagging players for excessive celebration is pointless. Spending two minutes ranting about it is a waste of my time, and frankly, Bob, yours.

Is the NBA starting so late really a bad thing?

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 08:30:48 -0700

A sports friend of mine was in a rage last night. Rage. Sitting at a poker table in Las Vegas, his weekly post for work and hair-loss, my buddy simply wanted some sports on the ill-placed televisions around the casino to keep his attention when the cards didn’t quite find his seat.

Normally, that would be the NBA. The Pacers would be playing some meaningless basketball game against the Bobcats and he’d be partially paying attention because he’s a sports fan and that’s what we do. We watch whatever the networks will show us, and if that isn’t enough, we will shell out more money to see even more of the games we love that our cable providers won’t show us.

So my angry friend started texting me. He complained about the owners, bitched about the players, and in all that hysteria, made some valid points. He said cable companies and sponsors should be willing to offer teams money in exchange for their product because, frankly, they need the NBA. Maybe not now, but they will. TNT needs it. ESPN could use it. When the Super Bowl wraps and the national champion has been crowned, the country moves it’s attention to basketball.

And through all his bemoaning, the point that stuck with me was the idea that we don’t really need the NBA until after football. Yes, there are some basketball fans that are dying for ball nights, but the majority of sports fans can pass the time with the NFL and college football. We have baseball playoffs for the majority of our October, and then football hits its stride.

So why not do something out of this strike that makes sense? Why not push the regular season of basketball to Christmas? Wouldn’t that round out our sports calendar to perfection?

Before you stop listening, let me ask you this; what is the worst time for sports? The summer, right? Baseball is still playing pointless games, basketball has wrapped, football still isn’t gearing up for preseason and fantasy drafts. We have days when Sportscenter will run just about anything to fill the slot.

On top of that, what is the most hectic time for sports? Probably the spring, right? You have both the NBA and NHL playoffs running simultaneously and no matter if you’re a fan of one or both, you’re either trying to catch everything or sharing your sports bar TVs with the other.

Hockey playoffs need more attention. Frankly, it’s one of the sneakiest best sporting events of the year. I love watching NHL hockey, because like baseball, it really seems completely different than the regular season. Hardly any fights, great hockey, every team having a chance to win every game. I love it.

So why not give the NHL the playoffs to themselves during the springs, and as the Stanley Cup finals is winding down, the NBA playoffs kick off? They run until the end of July/early August, finish up, and now you have preseason NFL and baseball playoffs kicking off at the same time.

Seems easy enough, right? I know that this lockout means a shortened season, but why not just push it? Give NBA and the NHL a chance to breath on their own?

I know as a sports fan, I’d absolutely love this. Every summer I have to go through without much on just seems to go longer and longer.

Napoli.

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:49:05 -0700

There is a good reason why we all love sports. It isn’t because of guys like Peyton Manning or LeBron James. Yes, we love watching them play because they define logic, both with their athletic abilities and superhuman skills, but it isn’t Peyton and LeBron that make things like postseason sports so great.

At times, yes, they do. We can root for the Derek Jeters and Tiger Woods of sports because they’re supposed to be great, so when they rise to the occasion we all high five and nod our heads, understanding that we’re seeing a great athlete be great at that exact moment. It happens a lot with Tom Brady, and even more with guys like Roger Federer Rafael Nadal. The rich will be richer, they say.

But the main point of sitting around an entire baseball season and watching pointless regular season game after pointless regular season game is because of guys like Mike Napoli. A career .264 hitter, Napoli was drafted in the 17th round back in 2000. He spent most of his six-year career with the Angels before heading down to Arlington to become a member of a scrappy Rangers bunch hungry to fill the hole at catcher once left by Pudge Rodriguez.

The reason I bring up Pudge is because that’s back when I was the biggest fan of the team. Growing up a baseball player in an East Texas house, I distinctly remember a t-shirt my sister used to own that had four Rangers on the front of it; Nolan Ryan, Ruben Sierra, Julio Franco and Rafael Palmero. Quite a lineup, the Rangers had a string of big names roll through over the years without much success, if any at all. But that didn’t stop me from hanging a Nolan Ryan poster in my room and worshiping a picture my neighbor, a preacher, had hanging in his foyer. A God-fearing man to the core, my neighbor had, hanging up right when you walk into his beautiful two-story house, a picture of Robin Ventura entangled in the arms of Mr. Ryan as the seven-time no-hit man taught the young Chicago White Sox what exactly it means to have Old Man Strength.

I loved the team that were the Rangers, even as bad as they were. No big moves, always getting ride of their large acquisitions, Texas was always a team in flux. That was, until they decided to sign Alex Rodriguez. As strange as it may seem, A-Rod might be the man that brings this World Series to Dallas. It was a money-grubbing short stop that showed Rangers fans that the team was willing to spend the money if need be.

That was, as they say, the start of it.

But back to Monday night, when things seemed desperate for the Rangers. Tied 2-2 with a destiny-driven Cardinals team, the Rangers were down to St. Louis’ stud ace on a night that just seemed set for the Cards. That was, until things started to set up for Napoli.

It shouldn’t surprise you that Napoli is from a place called Hollywood, even if that is the one in Florida and not California. The 29-year-old catcher never seemed to be the star in a lineup that featured the likes of Josh Hamilton and Michael Young. But Napoli slowly started getting some big hits. In the divisional series. Against Detroit. And now, in the biggest stage of them all.

You see, sports are great because they make stars. These aren’t the stars we will remember for the rest of our lifetime. In 50 years, baseball fans will be able to recite game stats from Albert Pujos like they’re mandatory reading. No, it isn’t the Pujos’ of the world.

It’s Napoli. And David Tyree. And Shane Spencer. It’s the guys you will never remember five years from now, but for an instant, or a week, or an entire postseason, that bring something you’d never see from them.

In a spot where the Rangers desperately needed a hit on Monday, Napoli did just that. Again. And the fans chanted his name. Again. And for a moment, Napoli was Keith Van Horn and Christian Laettner, a guy that you will forever remember for what he did right this instant, and maybe for nothing else.

Sports are great sometimes. We can thank Napoli for these types of moments.

#thepeniwritewith is only a few percentage points dorkier than I...

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:41:00 -0700

#thepeniwritewith is only a few percentage points dorkier than I am

Gladly saying goodbye to Mike Stoops

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:24:05 -0700

When I first unpacked all my bags at the University of Arizona in 2002, I knew few things, but one of those things was that Arizona was a basketball school and only a basketball school. Lute Olson, Jason Gardner, Luke Walton … these were the kings of this city, and that was who you rooted for when you signed your checks over to the U of A.

But little did I know that the football games could be this much fun. Sure, I’d been to some pro games before and a few big college games, but to be at your own school, dressed in your own garb, it was exciting. Sadly, the football team was anything but. You went because it was the thing to do on Saturdays, and you left early because the team was constantly getting blown out. And then our coaches started to change. And we’d have random players show up and transfer. And you’d have those games that would show just enough promise that you’d get reeled in and then the next three weeks would be blowouts and you’d shake your head and wake up, much like a Sunday at McCarron seems to do to people.

So when Arizona decided to bring in Mike Stoops, the hype began (I actually still own a faded ‘I Like Mike’ shirt, playing off the old Eisenhower push in the ’50s). And we waited. And waited. And waited. And figured things would change this time for real. It was almost like that relationship you keep finding yourself in again, and you’re promised things are going to change this time, and you start to believe it, and you’re hooked, and then you get burned, only to find yourself back in that carousel eight months later.

That was the Stoops era. A bunch of broken promises and nights spent shaking your head, wondering why the hell you spent so much time invested in something that was doomed to fail.

And it’s time for him to go. Like, right now. Today. We’re done.

The reason it’s so frustrating to me is the Wildcats are all I have. I don’t live and die by any NFL team, and basketball is just the sport I like to see, not cheer. Nothing in baseball gets my hear pumping, but with the University of Arizona, the place I lived out my college days, the passion flows freely.

But it’s embarrassing. The Wildcats are not good, and haven’t really showed signs of being good. Yes, we won a bowl game a few years back and everyone was excited, some because of the win, mostly because it was in Las Vegas. And yes, the team started out great a year ago, but their schedule started off like the in-the-air part of the seesaw, only getting harder and harder as the season progressed, which we showed by dropping our last five games.

And the team just isn’t fun. No big plays, no incredible defensive stops, no imagination. Screen passes still make up a lot of our offensive playbook, and Stoops sits on the sidelines mostly chewing on the ears of the officials. It seems whatever situation presents itself, we always pick the wrong side of it (like not kicking the field goal in the Saturday loss to Oregon State with three minutes left, at least making it a one possession game instead of putting a quarterback who is miserable in the red zone again with the ball in the red zone, and ohbytheway, sticking with a kicker that has missed 18 extra points in three seasons … what, you can’t go to the club soccer team and find a kid that can boot a football 18 yards?).

The Cubs we aren’t, but that can’t stop us from wanting what they want. To be relevant. To be successful. To be respected. To be anything.

The thing that gets me so fired up is the fact that recruiting to Arizona shouldn’t be hard. It shouldn’t. No, the banners don’t fly freely like at Ohio State or Oklahoma, but it’s a beautiful place to live in a nice climate with beautiful, beautiful girls roaming the campus with their only worry being Dirtbags or Championship on Thursday night. If you’re a big-time athlete on campus, you’re the king of Tucson, because it isn’t competing with anything else in the city. It’s the Wildcats, and nothing else, and unlike Tempe or Los Angeles or Seattle, Tucson has no professional sports and likes it that way. Go Arizona, and forget about all the rest.

And Stoops just isn’t the answer. I have no idea what I think of the guy, but I know he doesn’t need to be the head coach anymore. He doesn’t breath “leader” like a lot of the other guys in charge of 80 college kids, and his antics on the sideline are a little too childish for my liking. Yes, every coach gets heated, but to do it constantly gets old, and he’s been dancing that dance for seven straight seasons.

A fellow Wildcat friend of mine sent me a message today asking why I let it get to me so much. “I stopped caring five years ago,” he told me. But this is what being a fan is all about. Caring. Wanting. Wishing. Hoping. With Stoops, I get none of those, and it’s time for all that to change.

I was once told “if you have to ask if you’re clutch, you’re not clutch,” and it’s something I think about a lot when I watch sports. Stoops is one of those guys that needs to ask. It’s time to find someone that just knows.

Finding humor in something terrible

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:49:47 -0700

I grew up in East Texas, right where the devastating fires are tearing up beautiful parts of that area. There is a place called Camp Fern north of my city that now has had four generations of my family, dating back to my grandmother, and with my nephew attending for the first time this past summer. My grandmother, now 86 beautiful years old, lives out by the camp, on the same lake, and god love her soul, isn’t exactly as sharp as she used to be. We were lucky; she was the type of woman that was just as quick at 75 as she was at 45, and always cared for us grandkids like we were the only people in the world. Now, the stories go around about some of the funny stuff she says, like every old person does, and as my mom and dad had to snag her from her lakehouse to bring her a safer location earlier this week, away from the fires, she told my mom something that made me chuckle, and brought a little light to an otherwise nasty situation.

She told my mom, “If the fires had come close enough to my house, I would have just got in the canoe and paddled out in the middle of the lake.” This is a lady that uses a walker, and has trouble sitting down. The image of her in a canoe in the the middle of the lake just proves how awesome she really is. She’s 86, and I’m sure if it would have come down to it, she would have tried her hardest to get in that old, yellow canoe and paddle out to safety.

If you have a minute, pray for the fires to stop. The last thing I want is my grandmother to have to rudder.

Tim Tebow: The 'want' was greater than the 'get'

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:26:55 -0700

My senior year of college, I started dating a girl I’d wanted to date since my very first class of freshman year. I was an insecure little kid from a town of 24,000 people in East Texas starting out at the University of Arizona in a town of nearly 1 million people, and didn’t have the slightest idea of what the hell I was going to do, but my first day of class I had a 10 A.M. astrology class and as I sat down on the west side of the auditorium, I looked across the hall and saw one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen in my life. I remember thinking that day that there was no chance in hell I was going to miss that class all semester, damn the pledgeship, hangovers and early morning tee times. Every other day, I’d get to that class in the morning and sit in the same area, occasionally making eyes with this young lady.

Second semester hit, and I had another class with her. Somehow we ended up sitting next to each other, and a chartered flight heading into the Pacific wouldn’t make my hands as sweaty as they were during that Russian history class. So when we finally dated three years later, life was great. It was something I wanted. And sometimes that longing forces you to look past what is actually going on. When relationships, as they seem to do more often than not, hit that “end this now” point, it’s hard to do that because you want it to work so bad. You long for the days of kisses and laughs and fun, and sweaty palms.

That’s the sports world with Tim Tebow now. Everyone wants him to succeed, because unlike most of these athletes in the world that have seven kids or have more drug possession charges than Pablo Escobar, Tebow was a saint, both in the flesh and on the field. He was the quintessential Duke guard for college football. A stand-up kid with raw talent and the ability to lead people, which to be honest, is rare these days in college sports. This kid was a leader. He was talented. He came off perfect. He was a saint.

And while I never really believed in that whole thing, I got the appeal. He’s the kind of player my dad likes, because he is what you want your kid to emulate. So as Tebow drops down the depth chart at Denver, it’s a story, because while it seems the general public wants him to work out, he just doesn’t have it. He can’t. It’s not in his blood.

It shouldn’t matter, really, because a ton of college quarterbacks hit the pros and can’t make it. They don’t have the chops. They turn into fullbacks or wide receivers or they move on to the UFL or AFL or DHL. As “Hard Knocks” has shown us through the years, it isn’t easy to make a roster in the NFL, no matter how talented you are, but Tebow is on the Broncos because people wanted to see him defy the odds. A white, slow quarterback using raw power to become a leader in the NFL. That story doesn’t happen much anymore, especially when you can’t hit your tight ends hands on a 10-yard out, but before the season started, it was a hopeful proposition.

Now, it isn’t. Tebow is now fourth on the Denver depth chart and falling fast. The coaches are starting to realize that it was just a pretty face, a good heart, but not much else there in the end.

It’s tough when it hits you, but for now, it’s the way to that Broncos should go, and football fans are feeling the sting.

The smart, smart side of Dane Cook

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:26:40 -0700

On Thursday night, I got set up for my usual routine; a quick dinner and then plop in front of my couch for “Louis,” my favorite show on TV. It isn’t really my favorite show because it’s necessarily entertaining or hilarious, it’s just real. It’s a guy doing exactly what he wants to do for 30 minutes enough and being smart and witty enough to do it. Viewers will go 20 minutes without laughing at times, but you’re still glued to this red-haired, overweight man, wondering when a crack is going to come to wrap it all together. I call it intelligent chaos, much like “Tree of Life” was, where you could mix up six different segments of it and it would still make as much sense as if you watched them in order.

But Thursday’s show had a twist; there was a man (playing himself) that is the complete opposite of Louis CK. If you’re a fan of CK, you hate Dane Cook. If you like Cook, you probably hate (or have never heard of) Louis. These men have had completely different careers, and while both are famous now, neither can really relate to the other. All of this is highlighted by some joke-stealing controversy that has caused even the most lackadaisical CK fans to put a target on Cook’s head. Stealing material in comedy is the “affair with your wife’s sister” of the joke world. There aren’t a lot of boundaries with comedians, but this is a huge one. It’s like how poker players will admit when they see an opponent’s hand. Everyone has some code they live by, and this one is that for the funny men of the world.

It was amazing that Cook was on the show for a number of reasons. Louis had him on it because it knew it would cause idiots like myself to write something about it, thus bring more attention to his show. Cook did it for another reason, and it was brilliant; he knew by doing this, it would bring street cred to people that hate him. He would somehow get a hall pass by Louis CK fans because most look at this and think, “Man, what a gusty move by a guy not a ton of people involved in this side of comedy like.” My first thought when the episode ended was that. I was impressed by Cook. I thought it took a lot to go on there, and it wasn’t like he really needed to. And while it is still a television show, a lot of answers occurred during their four minute conversation.

But Cook isn’t an idiot. He’s a guy that knows how to make money and bring fans in and do whatever it takes to entertain (even if that means taking a joke or two from more creative personalities). This move was nothing more than smart business. Go out of your comfort zone, be made to look a little snotty, and eventually come off like a regular guy that is just trying to be liked.

cajunboy: uproxx: Mila Kunis eating a sandwich one of the many...

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 10:55:25 -0700

cajunboy:

uproxx:

Mila Kunis eating a sandwich one of the many Mila Kunis Being Adorable GIF Wall GIFs

MILA KUNIS MILA KUNIS MILA KUNIS MILA KUNIS!

The ridiculous argument about what is or isn't a sport

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:59:24 -0700

I wrote about golf. That’s a fact. Most of you tumblr friends of mine probably don’t care about golf. Also a fact.

And I understand that. Golf isn’t exactly the sexiest of sports. It’s a four or five hour ordeal that involves very little contact (mostly between clubhead and ball, or Bubba Watson and the French) and less athletic ability than most of the other sports. But, it’s still a sport.

Some argue that with me, which is fine. I get that there are overweight people that have been successful at the game (most of the arguments) and that the main skill to it is a strong mental game.

Will I argue with someone that questions if golf is a sport? Sure, I don’t mind taking up for my favorite game. Will I argue with someone that tells me straight up, “Golf is not a sport”? No, because that guy is probably too ignorant to matter.

What does all this have to do with anything? On Monday, after one of the greatest sporting events in my lifetime occurred when the United States came back against the a strong Brazilian team to win the quarterbacks of the Women’s World Cup, a golf writer named John Feinstein was on a television show arguing that soccer isn’t a sport.

To be fair, it wasn’t as much arguing as it was ATH-ing (that’s something I call Around the Horn-ing, which is when someone just yells about something because they have to yell about it). Feinstein said that soccer isn’t a sport because the game is decided by non-soccer protocol, mainly the penalty kick situations at the end of the game.

His exact words were, “You can’t call something a real sport if you don’t decide it by playing the sport,” which is, flat out, one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever heard about anything.

Sport is defined as, “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature.” It isn’t defined as something that needs justification to make it such.

A lot of sports have situations that are different than the actual game. College football gives teams the ball on the 25-yard line (Where are the special teams?!). Tennis goes to a tiebreaker (but what about 40-love?!). Golf can go sudden death, or a three-hole playoff (You’re supposed to be playing the course, not the man!), and hockey can also go to penalty kicks (but Canada doesn’t count!!).

I just don’t get why anyone would argue that something isn’t a sport. Of course soccer is a sport. It’s probably one of the most athletic in the world. It is a game that gives players little competitive rest, and asks players to play both offense and defense all the time. It’s a beautiful game as we saw on Sunday when a header changed our country for the afternoon.

To sit around and argue the merits of the rules is one thing. To say that those rules make what you’re doing less interesting is a whole other, and it ends up making you come off as a blowhard that has nothing better to do than downplay one of the greatest single sporting moments of 2011.

The Joe Flacco wedding picture says everything you need to know about professional athletes

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:51:16 -0700

If you haven’t seen the Joe Flacco wedding photo, where the Ravens’ quarterback forces his poor wife and friends to act like it’s a football game and she’s the center (Seriously), go look at it right now. Go. I’ll wait.

…

Okay, so you saw it. And it probably took a few seconds to digest. It’s disturbing, obviously, but it is more than that. It’s telling.

You see, that photo is exactly why professional athletes act the way they act. It’s why celebrities act that way, too. The reason? Because the accountability to being a complete douche is completely lost.

Let me paint you a quick picture here and you tell me what happens. You, 28-year-old male, show up a party with some of your best friends. It’s a lively but responsible bunch, the type of people that wouldn’t be caught dead buying a t-shirt with sequins on it. You have a beer or two and then decide it would be super to take a dump in the toilet and not flush it, excited to stand outside the bathroom nonchalantly until the next poor sap goes in to relieve his or herself.

What does your friend say? Something to the nature of, “No, that’s fucking ridiculous. Stop being an idiot.”

That’s what friends do. Real friends. The kind that don’t really care if they piss you off. It’s why we have these people around. Accountability. They call you on your dumb shit so you don’t end up in jail or on some sex-offender website. They’re the guys that tell you to go home when you’re talking to the girl that hasn’t seen a treadmill this decade, and they’re the ones that take your keys when you shouldn’t be driving. Real friends are there for you and know that no matter what happens, you’ll be there in the end.

But big time celebrities don’t have this. They lose it. Everyone laughs at all their jokes and tells them how great they are and pushes them into some “comfort corner” that doesn’t allow outside influence. It’s why Bubba Watson bought a pink Lamborghini and why LeBron James went to Miami. Nobody calls you on anything. You’re the king, and everyone else is a peasant.

That’s the big problem with this Flacco deal. None of those guys had the gall to call him out on it. “Umm, Joe, you know you’re a quarterback, right? Professionally? Maybe just take some normal pictures and let’s go have a drink.”

No, they all lined up and took the picture because Joe is the kingpin and you don’t want to insult the kingpin. So you laugh along with them and do stupid shit and act different and end up on Deadspin with the whole world scratching their collective head, confused but not surprised.

People need those true friends to tell them when they shouldn’t be doing something. Celebrity-ism erases all of that.