Arguments that chap my balls: spitting on a dead man's grave!

Starling Marte is cool and all, but this is what I really came here for.

I HATE, hate hate haTHEATHth the defenses of Paterno that involve "hey, let's focus on the real criminal here - Sandusky", "let's think of the victims", or "they just want to piss all over a dead man's grave and get their piss all over his bones!". HATE. They chap the everliving shit out of my balls.

Now, I'm not pro-child rape. You can say "ohhh, whatever Vern, you have pubes and those act as natural Sandusky repellents and you don't know what it's like" and that may be true. But I'm generally against rapin' kids and having soap fights and unleashing the tickle monster and playing "Uncle Jer's showertime hide-n-go-fuck". So don't get it twisted like Maurice Gibb's intestine, aiight y'all?

Let's go at this point-by-fucking-point (it is my favorite way, after all):

1. SANDUSKY IS THE REAL CRIMINAL

Well fucking of course, retards! "Why don't you focus on the real evil figure here?" Simple...BECAUSE EVERYBODY KNOWS SANDUSKY IS THE REAL EVIL FIGURE HERE! Nobody is arguing this. He went to trial. He was found guilty. He got like 80 years or something. Nobody thinks he's innocent! There is no FREE SANDUSKY! petitions going around. There is no "Sandusky is innocent!" Facebook page. There's no mood: Sanduskyish option on whatever remains of Myspace. There is no point to argue about Sandusky. None. Everybody knows. Do you remind people that summer is warmer than winter? No. Do you stop debate over how to get home from the bar to point out that you only got drunk because you drank alcohol? NO. You fucking don't because you have all of your chromosomes.

The debate here is about Paterno because he is the prominent public figure from Penn State football. Sandusky was some fucking guy who tickled 8-year old balls. Everybody knows that. People don't (or didn't) quite know with great certainty about Paterno and they wondered. That's why the fuck it's the main topic of debate. If you want to have a convo with me about "hey is raping kids bad", I mean, we can do it but it's only going to kill about 9 seconds of time before we have to talk about something else.



2. LET'S THINK OF THE VICTIMS

Ok. Let's think of the victims. Man, it sucks that kids got raped. Jeez, that must have been awful. I have no idea what that must have felt like. Ok, now that we've felt sufficiently bad for the kids, are they un-raped? What the fuck did we just accomplish? Do we feel good now that we think we have our priorities in place? Do you know that there are kids in Africa who are so hungry that they eat each other's dicks? Why don't you feel bad for them you fucking sack of fuck!

We get this. It's understood. Kids suffered. THERE IS NOTHING TO DEBATE HERE. If you guys want to hold candlelight vigils and think it's going to make you look like you have a heart and a soul and you are a better person than me, that's fine and you can go right the fuck ahead. In the meantime, I'll be talking about Paterno because he was Penn State football and he may have allowed this whole thing to get swept under the rug and that right there gives us SOMETHING TO FUCKING TALK ABOUT.



3. DON'T GET PISS ALL IN HIS GRAVE

Why? We can't talk about this now that JoePa is dead? What the fuck? Joe Paterno being dead doesn't make him any less of a maybe-kid rape coverer-upper. You know who else is dead? Franklin Pierce. And you know what? Franklin Pierce was a fucking joke of a President. Can you say that? Of course you can. And most people that have any idea of history would agree with you. You know what they wouldn't ever say?

"STOP PISSING ON FRANKLIN PIERCE'S GRAVE!"

No one would ever say that. You can ask 3 billion people and I bet not one would ever say that.

The Penn State scandal happened and Paterno's death doesn't change that. I don't see anyone telling you that you have to pretend to enjoy Laura Branigan's music 'cause she's dead. Mainly because she was fucking awesome but bear with me here. There is a kidrape scandal here, the NCAA just took like 40 scholarships away from the Vatican, and Joe Paterno may have played an active role in suppressing this news for a decade in which Sandusky continued to practice personal hygiene with pre-teen boys. We're supposed to forget about it for a little bit because Paterno just died? Fuck and NO.

And this is coming from a Penn State fan who only went elsewhere for college because I didn't think Joe would let me on his football team. Turns out all I would have had to have done was wink at Uncle Jer.

Fuck outta here with this, yo!

Randy Couture has defied aging!

 

Look at that old man. 46 years old. And he's fighting! Clearly defying the aging process, as Joe Rogan and numerous media outlets have noted. From ESPN:

Like fine wine, Randy Couture only seems to get better with age. Case in point: His dominating win over Mark Coleman at UFC 109.

Yep. Couture owned Mark Coleman, showing the young man how it was back in the day when they had to walk uphill both ways to school. In a driving acid rain. Wait...what?

Coleman's 45? 

So, let me get this straight. A 46-year old showed that he can get better at such an advanced age by...beating a 45-year old? How does that work? Does a 90-year old beating an 87-year old in a 100 meter dash prove anything? Age is pretty much completely irrelevant here. You shouldn't mention it. At all. It had nothing to do with anything. This match was fought in an age-vacuum. Justice will not be served until Ken Griffey Jr. repeatedly cockslaps Joe Rogan into submission for even broaching the subject. Fine wine...just because MD 20/20 Strawberry Kiwi tastes better than the Orange Jubilee flavor doesn't mean that it is fine f-ing wine. 

Now, maybe Randy Couture is...well, let's not say getting better with advanced age, but fighting particularly well for someone over 45. But, we aren't going to be able to definitively say that UNTIL HE BEATS SOMEONE THAT ISN'T HIS AGE.

Chapping my balls, Rogan.

Argument that chaps my balls: equal penalty distributions

It's been awhile since I've posted one of these, but please...don't let that cloud your beliefs into thinking that my balls have been somewhat chap-free. Because they haven't. My balls are always chapped by life's nuances, moreso at some points than at others. But there is ALWAYS some motherf-in' chap on my balls, yo.

Today's Blistex will be applied by touching on the notion that all sporting events should have equal penalty distributions. And this has nothing to do with Pens-Red Wings, although you can make a compelling argument that penalties are only being called in a way that keeps the calls evenly distributed. We heard it during the Caps-Pens series, during the Steelers-Chargers game, during NBA games in which one team shoots a pissload of free throws compared to the other, etc etc. And motherfuckers are always all "yo dog, this shizz is fixed! Look how many more penalty minutes Edmonton had! Y'all niggaz ain't know Edmonton was mad gangsta ehhhhh?", and I'm all like "S THE F UP". They aren't supposed to be even just for the sake of being even.

But why should penalties always be even or close to it just for the sake of equal distribution? An team like the Lakers, with Kobe, is going to shoot more free throws then a team like the Magic, who thrive on kicks to open shooters. If you are taking open J's, you aren't going to get fouled. Meanwhile, going to the hole effectively and drawing help from big men who come into the lane from the side and swat at the shots is going to elicit some whistles. So why the hell do free throws have to be even?

That goes for any sport. Say an NFL team has a terrible offensive line and they go up against some good pass rushers or a team like the Stillers that has a lot of disguised LB blitzes from a 3-4 defensive set...those linemen are going to get beat quite often and be forced to hold. Same went for the Steelers O-Line...with that level of combined suck and mental errors, they are going to commit quite a few holds. So if the Steelers go up against a team with a smart, cohesive offensive line, chances are that they are going to have a penalty defecit, at least as far as holding calls go. And I've never been one to hop on the James Harrison is held every play bandwagon...he kind of is, but so are a lot of leverage rushers, and you aren't going to get too many calls when the O-lineman is holding you with his arms close to his body. Whatevs, that's beside the point. Unless a lot of those calls are going uncalled to keep penalty distribution even...in which case it is the entire point. So what I'm saying is it's either the point or not the point. This is why I don't write for legitimate sporting outfits. FUCK YOU, ESTABLISHED MEDIA! They can be completely wrong but make sense while doing so. FOR SHAME!

Anyway, hockey seems to be the worst. Probably because penalty calls have more effect in hockey than in any other major sport. In the NBA you get a one-point shot. In the NFL, you lose some yards. Baseball doesn't have them. I guess you get tossed but get a replacement. Or a balk. You give up a base. Soccer has penalties that can be killers but only if you get a red card. Anything else doesn't really matter. But in hockey, every single penalty leaves you shorthanded. That's a pretty big deal. So, people are always spouting off about the discrepancies in penalty calls. Which is fine, if you cite actual instances to back up your reasoning. But just looking at the penalty minutes served by each team does not make any point by itself. It's just lazy. What if the Milwaukee Beer-Chugging Rapists are facing off against the Rochester Hasidic Jews? Would you not expect slightly more righteous play from one of these teams over the other? The Beer-Chugging Rapists probably deserve all the penalties they rack up when they hit the Jews away from the puck and grab their jerseys and slash them with their sticks and everything along those lines, while you just know that the game of the Hasidic Jews has strong foundations in solid passing and stickhandling. So don't start to tell me that the NHL is fixed just because the Beer-Chugging Rapists got 4 more penalties called on them than the Hasidic Jews. Get that weak stuff out of here.

So if penalties are to be distributed evenly, the following must hold:


- The fuck are people thinking buying two million copies of Lil' Wayne's latest mailed-in rapping effort? Not a single person has purchased a Gunpowder Jones CD. This must be rectified.

- So Kim Kardashian is blowing Reggie Bush...well, I call next. TO RECEIVE, SICKOS.

- On a related note, if I give you one pearl necklace, I will be required to do the same to all of your friends. Pearl necklaces! It will be like you all went to Jared's! Or, well, I did. Whatever.

- I want some of Rik Smit's last contract. SPREAD THE WEALTH, RIK!

- Pac-Man Jones has a lot of making it rain to do.


That's all I've got. CURSE YOU, TYPICAL ARGUMENTS!!!

Argument that chaps my balls: Play on words edition!

Lance Armstrong. Yeah, American hero and what not, beat cancer like it was Rihanna's face, has one ball. Great story.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't chap my ball(s) when people say "he's done more with one ball than you and I have done with two!". Well, yeah. He's much better at biking than me, yet I have twice the amount of testicles that he has.

Who the fuck cares? What do testes have to do with biking? And how is only having one ball not an advantage? I can't see how it hurts, at the very least. I mean, that's one less ball to get in the way of his pedaling. No one ever attributed a great stage in the Tour de France to having an abnormally large set of balls.

I just don't get it. Do you get bonus points for symmetry in the Tour? Or maybe you get time added if you can't give a good facial after you cross the finish line? I can't figure it out. Sure, I mean, it's a great story, yeah. I get that. And he's a hell of a worker. But that has nothing to do with Lance Armstrong having one ball, or everyone else having two, or Peter North planning on participating in the 2009 Tour de France.

If Lance deserves mad props for biking with one ball, then the following must also be worthy of praise:

- Paul Newman was able to create a large charitable foundation that benefited countless people in need in spite of his colorblindness.

- 50 Cent was able to rise to his current position as a high-profile rap artist despite having sold drugs as a youth.

- Joe Paterno, in spite of his age, was able to sit in a press box last year as his assistant coaches called all the plays.

- Zinedane Zidane will go down as one of the best soccer players in the history of the sport despite the fact that he lost his hair.

- Emmitt Smith secured the NFL all-time rushing title while fighting a lifelong battle with proper speech and grammar.

- Even though he is Japanese, Takeru Kobayashi was able to eat a fuckload of hotdogs.

- I was able to write this EVEN THOUGH I am currently at work. Wow. Fucking praise me, dicksicles.

Argument that chaps my balls: Big RBs wear down defenses

Above is Le'Ron McClain, FB/RB for the Baltimore Ravens. Bruiser. Big ass mother f-word. This week he says that he hopes to wear the Steelers out so that they don't want to tackle him in the fourth quarter.

And that chaps my balls.

And this is nothing against McClain, who is a good runner. Bettis said it, Eddie George said it, hell, everyone says it. "Big running backs wear down the defense. When that 4th quarter comes around...oh man!". I disagree. I'm about to get real assumption-y:

Now, let's assume that an elite NFL RB gets 20-25 carries a game. And this big guy is an elite RB. Let's say 15 or so of these carries are in the first three quarters. And we'll even assume that the secondary is not coming up and making stops on him. That means each of the front 7 defensive players averaged about 2 tackles on the big RB in the first three quarters. That's supposed to wear them down? Please. They are going to get worn down just playing the game, making any tackle, taking on blockers every play, etc. It has nothing to do with the fact that a big running back wore them down. Any running back will wear them down. It's just the nature of the game. And now they aren't going to each be able to tackle the guy one more time because of this? I just don't see it. Tell me I don't get football or something. I don't care. You'll just be adding even more chap to my already chapped up balls.

Argument that chaps my balls: Beating a team three times is so hard

You hear it all the time. "OMG, it's so hard to beat a team three times in the same season". Yes. It would be. Assuming you said this at the beginning of the season. But you never hear it then...only in the playoffs with one game remaining. And at that point...why is it so hard?

If you flip a coin 374 times, yes....getting them to land on heads 374 times is indeed extremely difficult. To the tune of...ok. My calculator can't even calculate it. Let's say you want to flip a coin on heads 20 times in a row. You have a 1 in 1,048,576 chance of accomplishing this feat. However, if you flip it on heads 19 times in a row, you still have a 1 in 2 chance of the 20th flip landing on heads. So if someone said to you, "you know, it's very hard to flip a coin heads up 20 times in a row", they'd be right. However, if they said it to you after you had done it 19 times and used it as their reasoning that it would be hard to do it a 20th time, you should be able to legally cockwhip them. The football example of this playing out cannot be that much different. And the statistics back up this claim.

It was broken down empirically here.

This post was written before the Cowboys prepared to take on the Giants for a third time last season, a game they did end up losing to the eventual Super Bowl champs. So you have to add that to the loss column of his stats. However, they are telling. 18 such instances have occured in which a team had a chance to beat another team 3 times, and in 11 of these instances, they did. 11-7, and 9-4 at home (odd that so many had to go on the road). This just shows that it is not hard to beat a team three times AFTER YOU'VE ALREADY DONE IT TWICE. That's the important part. Yes, few teams beat other teams three times. But that logic only makes sense at the start of the season.

"But now the losing team is more familiar with the winning team", you may say. I may then slap you. The winning team is also more familiar with the losing team. Might the Ravens win this weekend in spite of the statistical odds being against them? Of course. But it will have nothing to do with the fact that they lost the first two games. Think about it...if Jeff Reed misses that OT field goal in the first game and the Ravens drive down the field to win...are the Steelers now more likely to win this playoff game (assuming they are still at home)? No. Not an f-ing chance. If the Ravens win, it will be because both games this year could have gone either way. The teams have been evenly matched. It will have nothing to do with the fact that the Steelers went 2-0 against Baltimore in the regular season. At all. My balls have so much chap right now that you would think they were a young English lad.

Assuming this argument is true, the following must also be correct:


- It's harder to get away with beating your third wife if you got away with beating the first two.

- Didn't get AIDS the first two times you didn't wrap it up? Fuck. You are screwed the next time.

- If you have already killed two people in DUI accidents, you might as well keep doing it because you are pretty much in the clear at this point.

- Let's just say that this argument is the reason you never see "triple-penetration" in a pornographic film.

- Already ate two Subway $5 footlongs after hearing the stupid commercials? The third one might make you gay.

- The Chicago Bulls had two three-peats in the 1990s? No wonder Michael Jordan's wife divorced him.

- R. Kelly has carte blanche to piss on a third teenage girl. So don't be surprised if he's already done it and we just haven't heard about it yet.

- Twins are ok, but anytime you meet a set of triplets, they might tie you down and forcefully shave off your pubes.


Assuming that it is so damn hard to beat a team for a third time after already defeating them twice....well, then those must all be true!

Arguments that chap my balls: The disrespect card

Oh, look, I got a disrespect flush! I'm sure to win my upcoming competition. I've got a chip on my shoulder! I'm motivated!

Apparently, San Diego and its Super Chargers, whose logo features a gay horizontal thunderstorm, are planning to ride this disrespect wave to victory. The fans are fired up, reminding the Steelers that San Diego is 2-0 historically in the playoffs at Pittsburgh, and you can bet your rusted out steel-producing asses that Antonio Cromartie is going to find solace in Dan Fouts leading the Charge over Pittsburgh in the 1983 playoffs. Fuck, now I feel disrespected!

Some Pittsburgh columnist named Ron Cook wrote an article suggesting that the Steelers are likely to face the Ravens in the AFCG, and of course the bandwagon fans in San Diego took some time away from their surfboards to get all riled up. Reading the comments on San Diego's article was fun. You did it, Ron Cook! You disrespectedly motivated up the Chargers! Phillip Rivers wasn't even going to try to throw touchdown passes this weekend. But then he read Cook's article and he's fired up, so fired up that he intends to not intentionally throw interceptions to James Harrison. Nice job, Cook. Douchebag.

This begs the question...why do morons think that this has any effect on the actual teams? Why? "Steeler Nation is overconfident"....who the fuck cares? Does anyone think Ike Taylor is going to waltz around the defensive backfield now because Jim Lewis from Ambridge is overconfident while he slams Iron Cities at Tetanus Tom's Pub? Or because Ray Jenkins in Monaca already thinks this win is a foregone conclusion as he eats three orders of wings at Why You All Up In My Grille and Bar? As the Kenan and Kel guy says in the SNL Blizzardman sketches, NO. NO!! NO!!!!! It's not going to have any effect on Aaron Smith. Or Darren Sproles.

And so what if an article ends up on a team's bulletin board? We had bulletin boards in high school, for Christ's sake. Once you start playing the game, you forget about disrespect. And motivation. And looking ahead. And how good the opponent is. All of that. If there is a player on my NFL team that won't try his hardest in an NFL game until he is properly motivated by disrespect, I'll motivate him by cutting him immediately. If you can be motivated to play harder and better and be faster, then you weren't trying hard enough in the first place.

So fuck it. I'm going to disrespect the fuck out of the Chargers.


Oh look, it's Philip Rivers and his family. Your wife is smokin', Phil...she's got that whole Jerri Blank in Strangers With Candy vibe going on.


Oh yeah. I wouldn't fuck her with Billy Volek's dick and Norv Turner calling out the positions. And you, Philip? You define douche. Summer's Eve markets a product with a Philip Rivers scent. You'll continue to play out your career in a desperate attempt to perform better than Drew Brees, leading your Super Bowl caliber team to a miraculous 8-8 finish in large part due to a lucky last minute comback against the 1-23 Kansas City Chiefs. Nice pick in the end zone against Indianapolis, though...you really are playing with a hot hand right now. Chargers are on fire! Somebody douse those motherfuckers with some cold water! Please, two teams on winning streaks come into the game, meaning one of them has to win. And they proceed to slapdick around for 65 minutes until one team penalties its way into the end zone. Wow. Yeah, these teams were both dangerous.



You are so patriotic, LT! A real American! A real American who can't do dick in playoff games because you sit every single one of them out with a new vag injury. Detached groin? Did your labia split open or something? You cockguzzler. People still think you are one of the NFL's best players even though you haven't averaged over 4 yards per carry in like two years. You are done, Tomlinson. Done. You might as well take your gay earrings and leave and let some five-foot tall midget from Kansas State take your place. You really did the Chargers a favor by forcing them to run Michael Turner out of town. He was nearly the MVP...you are in the running for MVP as well, but all I can tell you is that the V stands for "vagina". I bet that visor is only there to protect your eyes from Shawne Merriman's skeet shots. LIGHTS OUT!



What the hell are you pointing at, Sproles? You have one decent game and now everyone's on your mighty undersized jock. 23 carries for 104 yards against one of the worst run defenses in the league. Before that 22 yard romp in OT, you were averaging 3.7 yards a carry. You are such a fucking weapon, Sproles. Very considerate of you to try and take some of the back-breaking turnover responsibility off of Rivers' shoulders with that end zone fumble, though. He struggles to lose games entirely by himself, and you really picked up some of his slack there. Hopefully some team still overpays for you next season to return punts for them. Also, your grandma has AIDS.



Hey, Cromartie with an interception! We saw that sight a whopping two times this year, even though the superstar in question promised to break the NFL INT record of 16 this year. You had a great year in 2007, Cromartie, and one particularly great game against Peyton Manning and the Colts last November. And believe it or not, you are still getting mileage off of that. Like, people still to this day think that you are really good because of that one game. Stop holding the ball like you are trying to jack it off, douchebag. You ain't Deion.


Fuck the Chargers. I'm disrespecting the tits off of them. They suck. They were lucky to keep it close when they played against the Steelers in November. That won't happen again. They are going down.

Put that on your bulletin board, cocksicles.

CLUTCH!!!!

Is that guy clutch? Apparently.

But I hate clutch. When someone tells me that a player is "clutch", it immediately chaps my balls like they were exposed to 20 minutes of a fierce arctic breeze. It chaps my balls so hard that I immediately throw on Ralph Lauren Chaps. And some assless chaps. And start calling friends "chaps". Because I am, through extension of my balls, chapped as motherducking fluck when I hear about "clutch". I hate this stupid argument.

And I don't care if FJM and others have pounded the no-clutch mantra into our heads ad-nauseam. This work must not cease until clutch is no longer recognized as a player's main redeeming quality. The reason Robert Horry got paid. The reason people actually think Jeter is the best player on the Yankees. Or why A-Rod sucks in the playoffs, even though he's far better than Jeter statistically. I guess it's the intangibles. Well, intangibles can suck on my chapped balls.

I was reading on a Steeler's message board about Hines Ward's clutchiness and Roethlisberger's clutchiness and saw the quote:

"If you are up at the end of the second quarter, what have you won - jack fucking squat
If you are up at the end of the fourth quarter, what have you won - the fucking game"

Brilliant logic. That reads as if Mike Tyson put on a retard condom and raped that sentence with it. And then kept raping it after it screamed at him to stop and maced him. And not only did he not stop, but he finished inside the sentence after breaking the retard condom.

Well, if Roethlisberger is so clutch, what happened in the Colts game? Or the Eagles game? Or even the Browns game when they could have iced it? IT IS NOT CLUTCH. It is a good QB having a good drive in which the situation of the game favor good QB play. Defenses back off, Arians is relegated towards using normal passing plays instead of moronic rollout tosses to Max Starks, and the offense has an extra down to work with. Good QBs will have success there. And sometimes, they won't. Also, didn't Hines Ward drop a big pass against the Cowboys that lead to a punt instead of 1st and 10 on the 15 yard line? CLUTCH!

I'll buy the argument of some players getting nervous and performing worse in the clutch. To a point. But don't tell me some players all of the sudden get better when there are 2 minutes left. Do they concentrate more? If that's the case, they should be cut for not paying attention during the first 58 minutes of the game, which still count, by the way. If you don't suck in the first half, then you might not have to lead a 90 yard drive to win the game at the end. And Nate Washington is not clutch for catching two absolutely wide open catches on that final drive. He's just an NFL receiver. He is supposed to catch the ball when no one is within 20 feet of him, regardless of what quarter it is.

It follows that these must also be true:

- If you beat the fuck out of your kids, but send them off to college at the end and they end up with decent jobs, you are a clutch parent. CLUTCH!

- Tom Brady does not drive an automatic transmission, because he is so clutch. He must drive a manual. With clutch. No paddle shifters.

- If you double-clutch a shot, like Michael Jordan did over Craig Ehlo, the shot is twice as clutch.

- If you have a kitten and keep forgetting to feed it and it almost dies but you hear it crying and finally give it some food to keep it alive, then you are a clutch pet-owner.

- If you wreck every car you have until your insurance threatens to cut you off and then after that you don't wreck your car that day, you are a clutch driver.

- Making an R&B CD where every song sucks except the last one makes you a clutch R&B singer.

- If you are a cop involved in a shootout and you shoot 8 innocent bystanders to death but then finally kill the terrorist guy before he blows up a building, well...that's just clutch policework.

- If I put together some terrible document that I have to send out by the end of the day and just really suck at it, and still slack off to the point that I barely get it done in time, and then it is deemed to be barely acceptable, then I am a clutch employee. Hey! I'M CLUTCH!!!!


So don't chap my balls, people.

Some people do not have a clue

In my spare time, you know, when I'm not busy actually working or writing words, I read words that were written by other people. Because I'm fucking cultured. One of these places is that listed about, "Wrap Around Curl", written by a young (presumably, I mean it is the internet, am I right? Am I right, Mayor Bloomberg?) woman who goes by the pseudonym of...well, Wrap Around Curl. Her blog covers a lot of hockey and random stuff, but the main point of emphasis there is on her following of a minor league hockey team in Spokane, WA. The Spokane Chiefs.

Now, you may be thinking, the Spokane Chiefs? Who the fuck are the Spokane Chiefs??? And when you say that, you will have made my point for me. Chances are, unless you are sweet at geography like I am, you will go to Google Maps and look up exactly where the hell this place is. Whatever, that's not important. Recently, a PR member from the Chiefs saw this free publicity and decided that the team would have none of it. They threw every made up rule in their made up book at her. Amongst their rules:

- You are not allowed to use the last name of the players on a shirt. They claim to own the names of the players.

- You cannot post your personal pictures from the games on the internet without a press pass.

- You will not be given a press pass if your website has bad words on it.

This is the public relations guy. Public relations. This is how this random minor league hockey team responds to the fact that someone has started a relatively popular (especially as far as blogs about minor league hockey teams go) blog dedicated to your team. They took the free publicity and pissed all over it like it was one of R. Kelly's 14 year old girlfriends.

They may have a few points, legally. Although copyright law was not written to cover the internet and there is a whole lot of grey area just waiting for a significant precedent to finally be set, they may still have some valid points. But...that's just a terrible public relations decision to go ahead and do that to someone who writes about your team in an overall favorable light. People that would have never heard about the Spokane Chiefs...well, now they had. And now, these same people probably think that the Chiefs are a bunch of douchebags. That's what this move has given them. They have become douchebags. That is the opposite of the intention of public relations. Especially as far as they took it, claiming to own the last name of the players.

I'm pretty sure they don't. Just the hockey likeness.

For example, I could not make a custom Cleveland Browns jersey and write Braylon Edwards on the back of it. However, if I wanted to make a jersey for the Dicksucking Albatrosses, and write "Edwards" on the back, I'm pretty sure the team cannot stop me. They can try, but it's probably not worth it for them to associate themselves in a situation they are unlikely to win and in which the phrase "Dicksucking Albatrosses" will become associated with the team. Braylon Edwards may have a claim against me, but the team does not, as far as I can tell. So if Tokarski has a problem with his name being used on a shirt, he can send her an email, and I'm sure she'd oblige. But when the PR member for the team does and claims to pretty much own the player's name? That's dickmove right there, Spokane Chiefs.

I'm guessing the only reason the team didn't have a lawyer send the email is the fact that they probably don't have one.

I bet the Penguins are glad the Pensblog has a huge following. It's good for the team, even if it does associate Charlie's gayness with them. People pay more attention. In fact, I bet their following amongst the gay crowd has gone way up since Charlie was introduced. I'll ask Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Crist the next time I see them. Apparently, however, the Spokane Chiefs do not feel the same way about blogs dedicated to their team. People clinging to this anti-blog old school mentality are gonna get left behind, just like Buzz Bissinger, whom everybody under the age of 30 now thinks is a douchebag. Maybe the Chiefs will give him an honorary press pass.

EDIT: Here's another fun example of a hockey team behaving in a Gestapo fashion. An NHL team! This is the kind of stuff that is exacerbating the collapse of newspapers and the old media.

Argument that chaps my balls V

Yesterday, I was listening to some talk radio in the morning when the hosts brought up something about Obama's 60 Minutes special where he talked about (insert what he talked about, because I'm done with this politics stuff for a few months and they don't make a fuck slight enough for me to give at this point). Well, at one point he got to talking about college football and it's need for a playoff system. Right on, Obama. You fucking tell 'em! Well, one of the hosts then made a ball-chapping statement that I've heard a few times in defense of the BCS...the regular season wouldn't matter without it.

Now hold the fuck on there, cowboy.

Wouldn't matter at all? If you took the top 8 teams?

Right now, I'll concede the argument that without the BCS, the most important games of the regular season would be less important than they are now. But these games wouldn't be important at all? Please. One game a week is important now. Here's what we have now:

Penn State playing Michigan State for the season finale this week - irrelevant

That recent LSU-Georgia game - meant nothing

Michigan at Ohio State - meaningless

BYU at Utah - Meaningless. I believe these are two undefeated teams. With an 8-team playoff, they'd be playing to see who gets to crash the BCS this year. Right now, they are playing for the right to go to the Apple Jacks Bowl.

Plus, just about all of the games that were important under this current system would still be important. Texas Tech - Texas would have been important because Texas Tech was #7. Florida-Georgia would have been important because Georgia was still alive. The games would still have meaning.

So don't chap my balls, man. It hurts.

Argument that chaps my balls IV

Joe Montana just wants to air that NERF out. He wants to go deep.

And maybe it will get him another ring! That would logically make him the greatest football player ever and surely better than Dan Marino, right? I mean, Dan Marino never won any rings. Joe Montana was like Saturn compared to Marino. Forget that there were 20 other guys making big impacts on the games and none of Marino's were named Lott, Rice, Taylor, Craig, or Norton. Or...well, maybe they were, but they weren't as good as the ones Montana had. Point is...fuck this argument long and hard like you found it drunkenly wandering around your front yard at 4 am. And then tell it to leave once it sobers up.

Montana was good...real good. I mean, he had rings. But do you know who had more rings? No, I'm not thinking Charles Haley. Keep guessing...


Yep. That's right...Sonic the fucking Hedgehog. Sonic had more rings than any of these cockflossers, and it wasn't even close. That means he was the greatest...I mean, it's simple. Look at the rings. Since rings settle all arguments on how good a player was, it logically follows that:

- PBR is the best beer you will ever drink because it won a blue ribbon in 1896.

- The Olympics are faster than Audis because they have more rings in their logo.

- Ringpops are better than blowpops because they come on a ring, regardless of how incredibly gay they are. Really, if you are gayer than something called a "blowpop", well...you are pretty damn gay.

- My phone is better than your phone because I have more ringtones.

- Your cat, even if it has feline AIDS, is better than Magic Johnson. Because your cat has ringworm.

- Rafeal Belliard won a World Series once. Damn straight I'll take him over Ernie Banks!

- The only song better than "Ring Around the Rosey" is Dr. Dre's "Keep Their Heads Ringin'". No other song is even close.

- Giving your wife a wedding ring makes her a better quarterback than Dan Marino.

I hate this stupid argument in a team sport. There are so many factors that go into this argument that you can't just say "but he's got the rings" to say you'd rather have Troy Aikman or Derek Jeter as opposed to someone else who is obviously statistically superior but spent his entire career toiling for the Nebraska Fucklizards. Unless, of course, you are a highly paid TV "expert", in which you can feel free to fall back on this argument without any reprocussion from folks who "didn't play the game" because they didn't have the "heart" and "natural athletic ability" and "access to loads of PEDs". But don't think that you aren't chapping my balls harder than a dry shave with a 2-month old razor.

Argument that chaps my balls part III

You are looking at two guys who just win games.

It's that simple. If there's a game, and it's not between two guys who just win, then the guy who just wins is simply going to just win. It doesn't matter what game it is. You get Steve McNair up against Ken Jennings in Jeopardy and I'm picking McNair every time. Fact is, he just wins games.

Before Vince Young got sad, he too was labeled as a guy who just won games. He threw about 9 more INTs than TDs last season, but guess what...his team won games! Forget the other 21 guys on the field, this was Vince Young's doing and Vince Young's alone. Vince willed his team to victory before crying himself to sleep later in the evenings.

Forget that they had a sick defense and a so-so schedule last year and still only went 9-7, good enough for "average".

Ignore completely that a guy like Kerry motherfreaking Collins has lead said team to a 7-0 record this year (albeit against a similarly questionable sked...but they did just beat the Colts).

Just remember that Vince Young wins games. This is all that is important.

Thus, according to the transitive property of retardation that states that if a=b, and b=c, then make a bunch of stupid jokes, it must follow that the latter are all true:

- Microsoft just wins operating systems...forget that they come bundled with everything you buy.

- Kordell Stewart just wins the hearts of gay men everywhere, regardless of the fact that they probably would have blown anybody.

- AT&T just wins wireless networks, regardless of what iPhones have done for them.

- John Mark Karr just gets the chicks...ignore the fact that she was 7.

- Jon Benet Ramsey just wins beauty pageants. I have no idea where I'm going with this one.

- Ben Roethlisberger justs manages games...don't bother actually watching them.

- All of the guys who won more games than Vince Young don't just win games, because only a few guys can just win games or else everybody would just win games and there would be no point in continuing to have games.

- Toni Braxton just unbreaks hearts. You heard the lyrics.

- OJ Simpson just gets his stuff back...disregard the life sentence he's going to get for it.

Next person to suggest to me that someone "just wins" wins a money shot to their face.

Argument that chaps my balls part II

While in the Chi, I was watching some ESPN, you know, the barnburner they had on Tuesday between Ohio and Temple. One of the worst games I'd ever seen, complete with fumbles and shanked 25-yard field goals. Delicious football, for sure. And during this game, they had a question asking who was better, Sam Bradford of OU or Colt McCoy of Texas. Of course they had an OU fan come off and spout nonsense. Then they gave the guy from UT equal time. And he said that McCoy was better obviously, "because they just beat Oklahoma!". Of course! It's that simple.

It must also follow that these be accepted as absolute truths:

- Ole Miss' QB, Whomever McRandompants, is better than Tim Tebow, because Ole Miss beat Florida.

- Oregon State's head coach, Notsure O'Clueless, is a better recruiter than Pete Carroll, because Oregon State beat USC.

- Vietnam is better than the USA at militaryness because they kind of maybe beat us in a war once.

- Al Gore is a better president than George W. Bush because he beat him in a presidential election once.

- Kyle Busch is better at NASCAR than Dale Earnhardt because he never died in a race.

- The Dodge Challenger is a better rocketship than the actual Challenger because it never blew up in space.

- Big Brown is a worse racehorse than that jokehorse that beat him in the third event of the Triple Crown simply because of that fact...that Big Brown lost to him in a match of racehorsery.

- Anyone who knows who that horse is in the above example is better than you, even though they should be made fun of for paying any attention to the horse racing world.

- Phil Huffman was a better pitcher than both Chuck Finley, because he never got beat up by his girlfriend, and Hall of Famer Addie Joss, because he never got tuberculosis while playing in the major leagues.

- I'm better than you because I have a much bigger penis than you do. Well, ok, maybe that does make me better than you.


Point is, the argument is stupid, especially since Bradford's performance was arguably better in the game. So, caller from Texas during that terrible Tuesday game, you are cordially invited to go and fuck yourself with keys to a Chrysler Crossfire until you bleed.

Argument that chaps my balls

Let's get one thing straight here, I do not like my balls all chapped up. They don't make a chapstick strong enough to moisturize these balls when they get chapped, and it puts me in a pretty poor mood. So please, work towards keeping my balls chap-free.

During a ride home from Orlando yesterday, the NFL games were obviously a topic of discussion. We were talking about the Chargers as a good team when a friend suggested that they might kind of suck, at least due to their record. And he had a point, they probably aren't a great team anymore. But I did mention that they should have beat Denver and had the game stolen away by this striped man shown above, Mr. Ed Hochuli, a man who once fractured both of his forearms while signaling a personal foul. Everybody remembers the play, and if you don't, well...just pretend you do. Well, my friend repeated the line you hear from all the talking heads and coaches on TV..."still, they had a lot of chances to win that game and there were tons of other plays that they could have won it on". God, do I hate that argument. Sure there are. There absolutely are. In any game. But, none of them are as unquestionable as the Hochuli call. If that call is made correctly, the game is over. That's it. You cannot make that argument definitively about any other play. And I think if you make this argument, you can never complain about a bad call in any sporting event again.

Ever.

Say a ref messes up and calls a last second field goal attempt wide right when it was really good. Say there was no time left and the team that kicked it was down one. By this logic, they are not allowed to say the call cost them the game, because there were plenty of other opportunities to win it. So no complaining. I don't want to hear it.

That basketball game in the '70s where the US played the USSR and lost on the third inbound attempt because the clock never started? Can't complain.

There is only one benefit to this rule...Seahawks fans will have to stop complaining about the fact that they weren't allowed to hold and push-off in Super Bowl XL. The only reason I think that the NFL wanted the Steelers to win that game was because they actually let Seattle make it to the Super Bowl. But really, there wasn't much else that they needed to do after arranging that.