The Sporting Life, How They Love

There's a lot going on right now in the wide world of sports.



The Red Sox are on an astonishing streak, winning their last 10 games (mostly on the back of the mighty David Ortiz). Of course, Pedro's pitching against them tonight, so the streak could very well come to an end, but Beckett's no slouch himself, and he's pitching at home, so we'll see what happens. We'll keep our fingers crossed.



How great is that picture?? VY was given the esteemed honor of being named the best college football player ever to wear #10. It was a very scientific process, I'm sure. He's up for a couple of ESPY Awards for College Athlete of the Year. His competition, not surprisingly, includes Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, JJ Redick, and Adam Morrison, owner of the greatest porn 'stache outside of Van Nuys.

Morrison is a projected top 3 pick in tonight's NBA Draft. My buddy Micah will be live-blogging the draft for the Atlanta Hawks, so check it out on their site by CLICKING THIS LINK. If he's as good as he was last year, then you'll enjoy it for sure. Speaking of the NBA Draft, I leave you with the greatest NBA Draft picture in the history of NBA Draft pictures. Ahh, memories. Misty, watercolor memories...

Selling Out, Volume Two

Recognize this guy?



No? Maybe you remember how he used to look. Before he sold his soul to the devil.



Yeah, Johnny Damon rejected the offer of salary arbitration from the Red Sox, his beloved team, his band of merry idiots, not to mention the town that deified him, gave him ultimate superstar status, and signed with the New York Yankees. The Evil Empire. The pricks in the pinstripes. Now, there's nothing wrong with what the Yankees did here (other than the fact that they did it while lighting their cigars with $1,000 bills after killing a bunch of puppies). They signed a guy who hits like a son of a bitch and can run pretty fast. He's probably the premiere lead-off man in major league baseball. Hell, they could afford him, why not go for it?? Who did they have playing center as of 3 days ago? Bernie Williams. Now, I like Bernie Williams. I have always liked Bernie Williams. For years, Bernie's been the only Yankee I have liked. He just seems like the kind of guy who you could be at a cookout with, and when he gets up from the table, you could say, "Hey, Bernie, will you get me another beer?" He'd just smile and say, "Sure, man." Good guy. Probably.

Anyway, the fault here lies with the Red Sox, for not working harder to keep him around, and with Damon himself, for fleeing for greener pastures and greener pockets after spending the past few years EMBODYING the spirit and camaraderie of the Red Sox. Was it all an act?? Was the whole thing just a big facade (pronounced fuh-KAYD)?? He "wrote" a f'ing BOOK, for crying out loud!!! It was in his book deal that he couldn't shave his beard or cut his hair. Now he's wearing a pink bathrobe (seriously, take another look at that pink robe up there. it's hilarious and really sad at the same time. but mostly hilarious.) after getting a facial and probably a pedicure while he's at it?? Jesus! No, Judas!!

This was the email that I sent in response to Ilyssa's "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" the other day (and I stand by my thoughts and feelings at the time, as they have not changed in the past 2 days):

i know, this is pretty ridiculous. the worst part is, this is bringing out some bad qualities in me.

i'm hoping for abysmal numbers, run-ins with asshole new yorkers that might end up in front of a jury of his peers, a high profile divorce after his plastic wife (who joins juwanna kidd as the hot new york athlete's wife who probably is exerting more behind the scenes pressure to go to/stay in new york than we really know about) gets caught on video and posted on some amateur porn website screwing some B&T (no offense) dude after being dosed at some U2 after-party at park bar.

but really, i'm not bitter.

now i understand how bostonians felt when clemens left. i never did, until now. and i refused (and still refuse) to dislike clemens because of it, but i do understand.

I just don't know, man. We lose that crazy bastard Manny Ramirez and we're gonna be eating the shit we're already neck-deep in after losing Theo, Damon, Millar and Mueller. At least we got rid of Edgar "30 errors" Renteria.

Love That Dirty Water

(listening to: Two Words, Kanye West)

This morning I got a call from one of the staffing agencies I registered with when I got to town, about a job starting on Monday (keep your fingers crossed, I think I find out tomorrow), and she needed me to fill out a conflicts inquiry and fax it back to her. Sounds easy enough, right? Unfortunately, there were some Dorfman-esque factors that were complicating this otherwise simple procedure. Unfortunately, our printer is down, so I could view it online, but I couldn't print it out. I then got online and found a Kinko's nearby where I could print the form and fax it in, as long as I could put it onto a disc and take it with me. Unfortunately, Amanda's laptop doesn't have a floppy drive, only a cd-rom, and we're out of blank discs. My next step was to get online and find another Kinko's not-so-nearby (about 2 miles away) that has internet capabilities, so I could get online there, print out the form, and fax it in. Unfortunately, my car is sort of dead right now, and I couldn't drive to the Kinko's, so I set out on foot for what would amount to roughly 3.5 miles roundtrip.

Here's where the story brightens up. About a block and a half from the house, I see this Box Store whose window advertises fax services. I figure, what the hell, let's see if maybe they have a computer where I can get online and print this sumbitch. A quick look around once inside tells me they don't. I'm discouraged, about to turn around and continue my trek, when the proprieter pokes his head out from behind a rack of rolls of bubble wrap and says, "Hey, nice hat!"

You see, I'm a Red Sox Fan. I have a Red Sox hat. I like to wear my Red Sox hat, and I was wearing my Red Sox hat today. This dude, the Box Store dude, he's from Boston. Turns out that was the turning point of this adventure. I asked him, "I see that you have fax services, but I need to print something out from an email and fax it in, do you also have a terminal where I could get online and print it??" He thinks for a minute and says,

"No, I don't ... but fahk it, you're a sawks fan, come on back."

He sets me up in his office, lets me get online on his computer, print out my 10-pager, sit there and fill it out, then faxes it in for me, and charges me way less than full price for the faxes. Unbelievable. Along the way, I picked up a few pieces of information:

1. His name is, quite predictably, Sean. I couldn't make this up. I don't know what his last name is, but I'm guessing it's either Sullivan or Murphy.

2. His father died in the mid-80's. His dying declaration was "Those fahkin' sawks."

3. Sean "shawt his wahd on the sawks" last season. He "watched Bucky Dent and Bucknah" and he just needs a rest. Maybe next season, he said, he'll be able to really follow them again.

4. If I wanted to go to Thailand, a roundtrip ticket might cost me around $700, but while I'm there, I can stay at a nice hotel with a pool for around $20 a night, and I could also get two hookers for the whole night for 30 bucks. Anybody got $750 I can borrow?? Just kidding, of course. Ha ha. Umm....

Anyway, Sean has restored some of my faith in humanity, not to mention the common bond of the Red Sox Fan.

In other news, I'd like to add that the title of this post has somewhat of a double entendre today. As I type this, there's a guy here to fix the disposal in the kitchen sink. A second ago, he says to me, "this stuff is gross because it's got food in it, it ain't just dirty water."

You got that straight, buddy. It ain't just dirty water.

Papi and Eddie Rent

(Listening to: Exit, U2)

They both homered last night to avoid the sweep. I guess I don't yet have enough credibility to have jinxed the Sox with my comments yesterday, thankfully.

And I totally stole the "listening to:" thing at the top of each post from Neola. Just wanted to give credit where credit was due. Thanks, Noles.

Also, best of luck to Big Game Timmy and my boy Manu tonight as they try to bring the NBA title back to Texas. Go Spurs.

Random Thoughts...

(Listening to: Fix You, Coldplay)

I hope the Sox win tonight to avoid being swept by the Cards, but winning those 4 in October sure make losing 3 in June not seem so bad. And I LOVE that the Yankees are struggling. One of my coworkers tells me that I often exhibit schadenfreude. I hope not too often, but in cases like this, I just don't care.

The Longhorns are playing the Rebels in Oxford for the next round of the college baseball playoffs to get to the College World Series. I'd like to see them both advance a little farther, but man, that one's a no-brainer. Hook em, baby.

One of the things I'm going to miss most (well, maybe not most) about leaving Jackson are my $4 haircuts. That's right. $4. Going in for what might be my last one on Friday at lunch. If you're ever in Jackson and need a $4 haircut, call Edsel at 601-956-2034.

I want to write, but there's just not that much going on right now. I think I'll talk about a few new cds I've been listening to.

Better Than Ezra, Before the Robots
In a word, awesome. It's pretty old school Ezra, much much better than their last album. I'm a HUGE fan of "Hollow," which I downloaded a live version of about 5 years ago, and had been waiting for them to finally release on an album. Also like the slightly tweaked version of "A Lifetime," which first appeared on their last album Closer. I guess they realized it was about the best song on the cd and were kicking themselves for never releasing it as a single, so they pimped it up a bit and now it's batting third in a pretty solid lineup. "A Southern Thing" is fun, if a little gimmicky, and "Daylight" is the one that's gonna see lots of 18-22 year old dudes putting their arms around whatever girl happens to be standing next to them in whatever bar Ezra happens to be playing in across the South for the next year or two. Speaking as one of what might be the last 27 or 28 hardcore fans of this band, who, for whatever reason, never realized their potential despite clicking on all cylinders in most of their songs, this cd gets me going, and I hope they make it out to the Left Coast sometime in the next 2.5.

Kings of Leon, Aha Shake Heartbreak
These guys have been opening up for U2 for a couple of months, and two of my friends who shall remain nameless (Debbie and Melissa) both saw a few of their shows and managed to catch the opening act as well, which is something I've not been too good at in my concert attending career. Anyway, having similar tastes in music, and almost implicitly trusting their assessment that this is a band I would really enjoy, I picked it up for $10 a week or two ago. I'm thinking of suing Debbie and Miss for $5 each. This album SUCKS. I mean, I have not enjoyed a cd less in a really long time. They sound like a really bad rip-off of The Strokes (who I love) with the guy from Rusted Root on vocals, but with half of his tongue bandaged up so you can only understand like every 17th word on the album. There are 2 redeeming songs on this disc. "Milk" and "The Bucket" (tracks 5 and 6, respectively) are actually pretty good, but the rest of the album makes me think that somebody lost a really expensive bet. Or won a contest. There's got to be an explanation for how something this horrible can slip through the cracks.

Coldplay, X&Y
Exactly what you would expect from the guys who are making a great case to be the next U2, i.e., The Best Band In The World. (Incidentally, if U2 keeps putting out albums like their last one, they're only helping speed up the transition. Sorry, Miss.) I don't know if it's better than their first 2 albums, but it's certainly at least as good. "Speed of Sound" is the big single right now, but since I don't really listen to the radio, I had no idea what it sounded like until Monday. I like it, and it definitely fits the "First Single" formula for an album like this, but I really (REALLY) like their emotional "it seems like it's bollocks now but it'll be ok" type of stuff like "Fix You" and "What If?" and "A Message," which this album has plenty of. Chris Martin (or are they going with Paltrow-Martin??) has this quality to his voice that I have never heard on anyone else, in that his voice is so smooth that you can't quite tell where each word begins or ends, yet every word is remarkably clear. Love it. If the election were today, I think the incumbent might be unseated.

Weezer, Make Believe
This is a good one. I'm generally a fan of just about anything Weezer puts out there, and their latest certainly didn't make me feel otherwise. They led the album off with "Beverly Hills," which was not only a strange song to open with, but a strange song to include on the album at all. It's way too beat-driven, too Offspring-sounding, with not enough of the sharp Weezer guitar that makes me want to turn up the volume until my ears hurt. The rest of the album is true to form, though, happily plowing through some sad subject matter, neatly packed into 12 songs, most of which are good enough to listen to and then listen to again, and none of them too long to be able to hear twice in a row regardless of how short your drive is.

Some others that don't quite get their own discussion yet (but might in the future, in some cases) are: Dave Matthews Band, Stand Up (Boring, uninspired and uninspiring. Color me disappointed.), Foo Fighters, In Your Honor (Really like it so far, but haven't listened enough to have anything intelligent to say about it.), and The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan (I like this one too, but not nearly as much as their last 2 albums. Is it possible that Jack and Meg have gotten boring??).

By the way, you have no idea how hard it is to even think about, let alone write about, a bunch of different cds all while listening to one disc the whole time. My brain is now officially tired.

I guess that's it for today. We have a new roommate moving in for the Summer and I have to go home and meet him and let him know that on Thursdays at 7, we watch the OC.