Daytona 500, et al.

I know I am a week late with this post, but my increasing affinity towards NASCAR leaves me no choice but to write about the most significant race of the year (as I watch the following week's event, the exhilarating Autoclub 500). First of all, the Daytona 500 (and most other races) is too long for the casual fan. I had it on in the background for a few hours, not really watching it until the last 20 laps or so, when it gets exciting. Unfortunately, there were three cautions, so said last 20 laps took about 70 minutes. There was some noteworthy action, however.

- First, Kelly Clarkson performed on the infield before the race. I don't like her music, but she was wearing the skimpiest, loose-fitting top I have ever seen. It may have been a napkin. Or a pocket square. You got a visual, yet? My buddy, Tom, texted me a few times begging for a "tit shot." My sentiments exactly, Tom. I cannot believe that at least one fun bag didn't pop out. This was the closest attention I have ever paid to NASCAR TV coverage. What a sport.

- Nick Cage does the "Gentleman, start your engines" call in a very typical Nick Cage fashion. You know, disappointing. Maybe there are people that like him in the South.

- Because everyone hates on my boy J. Gordon (and loves Dale Earnhardt, Jr.), I return the favor by rooting for a Jr.-involved pileup. Of course, this happened, I laughed, sent Tom a derogatory text, then continued doing nothing on the internet.

- The last half mile was great, Mark Martin almost winning it for the first time (he's a NASCAR dinosaur)... that's made-for-TV drama for those of you scoring at home.

Anyway, a few other random thoughts:

- I saw the White Rapper show for the first time yesterday. It's pretty stupid, but I was sucked in. The episode I saw featured the three remaining contestants battling Detroit underground rap legends a la B. Rabbit... and getting the shit beat out of them. It was actually quite entertaining for such a moronic concept.

- Cari read our blog for the first time last night. Her comments: "It's basically a sports and 24 blog." That's it. She's listed as doubtful for ever reading it again.

- This has all the makings of Johnny Damon all over again. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2007/news/story?id=2779127

- Noticed a reference to this site in Sports Illustrated this week. http://www.outsports.com/ It's a website dedicated to gay athletes. They apparently included Tim Hardaway in their top 10 most likely NBAer to be gay list in like 2001. Those bastards on "Out Sports" beat us to the punch. No matter what is written in this blog, it is not the gayest sports forum on the web (go to outsports.com and check out the image link to the store on the left side - wow). At least we got that goin for us...

- St. John's coming back to national relevance in CBB? No way. I watched 3/4 of the SJU-Duke game this afternoon. God awful. The Johnnies only scored 10 points in the first half. That's like a middle school girls basketball score. Anyhow, the 'Storm made a solid run in the middle of the second half, but ultimately came up short because they played liked wheelchair basketball players who left their wheelchairs at home.

Ok, I'm out.

- The Dick

Not to Mention...

Thought I was done for the day? Please...

- A few more thoughts on Tim Hardaway before everybody beats this story to death. It really was only a matter of time before something like this happened. People are acting shocked by this, but did you really not see it coming? After Amaechi came out, any interview with an athlete over the ensuing few weeks was going to include a question about Amaechi or gay athletes in general. When you last played organized sports - high school I'm guessing - how would you have characterized most of your teammates in football, basketball, baseball, soccer, whatever: homophobic or not homophobic? Exactly. Add in the fact that the overwhelming majority of professional athletes are pretty fucking stupid and you get the Tim Hardaway Situation. Some athletes were legitimately behind Amaechi (rimshot), some were savvy enough to duck the questions or give meaningless, non-controversial answers, some gave stupid, but mostly harmless answers (LeBron, Shavlik Randolph), but you knew that somebody was eventually going to say something really dumb given the rampant homophobia and stupidity of professional athletes. And Timmy just beat the other morons to the punch.

- The second half of the question was undoubtedly the best part of the whole thing. Hardaway starts out by saying he would distance himself from the gay player and not really support him. Then LeBatard says his comments are blatantly bigoted and gives him a chance to back off the comments or explain them a little further. THEN, in the most ridiculous part, Timmy takes that opportunity to emphatically reinforce what he just got done saying. Almost like he thought to himself, "I wonder if everybody fully understands what I just said, let me say this in no uncertain terms: I hate gay people. I'm homophobic." I love that he thought he needed to make himself more clear, as though his original comments didn't paint the picture clearly enough. Unbelievable stuff.

- How bout Hardaway's "apology," imploring us to shift our focus away from his comments and focus on the troops and the war in Iraq? Heartfelt, contrite... these are the words that come to mind.

- OK, enough of that shit. How bout them Celts last night? A bittersweet victory for the blokes in green. Obviously, we can use all the losses we can get, but with the all-time losing streak staring them down, I guess I'll take the W. They're almost definitely going to lose their next five games on the upcoming road trip out West, so if they couldn't take down a Bucks squad without Redd or Mo Williams, 24 consecutive losses would've been a distinct possibility. What's actually kind of troubling is that the team was 12-20 with Pierce and an alarming 9-9 (9-9!) when Pierce and Wally played together. Somebody needs to break these two up. None of this winning crap, OK?

- Of course, all bets are off if we are led to believe this is true. Fair warning to C's fans: I just about fell out of my chair after seeing this one.

This is Division I Blogging!

I thought I could take a week off, but Dan Hawkins told me otherwise. Dick.

- Pitchers and catchers arriving as we speak. The Dice-man is already down in Ft Myers, Manny will be there sometime in June, only one question remains - where is the Sox closer? I'll tell you where he is - in Tampa, wearing a pinstriped #42 jersey. Wait, that's next year, when the Sox are reloading to defend their second title in four years (and third title in 89 years). I can't believe Rivera is getting the Red Sox treatment. You know, wait as long as possible to talk to/extend your best and most popular players. I can see it now: Rivera in the 8th, Devern Hansack in the 9th.

- How bout the Chargers bungling their coaching situation? Sure it would've been tough to win anything with Marty at the helm, but is it gonna be any easier with Jim Mora Deuce working the sidelines? Or Norv Turner? Way to leave yourselves some options SD! Too bad Lane Kiffin is already taken, he would've been perfect. However, isn't that job kind of like taking over the Bulls in 1990? That's a stacked-ass squad right there, all they need is someone not to get in the way (the anti-Marty).

- How dumb do the Cowboys feel now, though? I would love to see them demote or axe Wade Philips and hire Marty, just to see the shitstorm that follows. I would also like to see the Chargers interview a ton of people, only to realize that the best coach available is Marty Schottenheimer and then give him a 6 year deal with control over personnel.

-Friday Night Lights: pretty good show. Watched it for the first time last night and it seems like a keeper. The guy playing the coach does a pretty nice job as do most of the kids. This show gets the Trout seal of approval. I would have more to say specifically about the episode, but I'm guessing nobody watches this show. Get on that shit; definitely one of the better shows on a network right now.

- But not as good as the Hills. Troubling shit is abrew in the hills of Beverly (or Hollywood or East LA or wherever these hills are) and our man Spencer is responsible. He's my favorite character for sure (aside from Heidi, but you already knew that), but if he breaks up Heidi and LC - really the Manny and Papi of television - I'm gonna be pissed. I don't have a problem with this as long as Heidi remains a prominent part of the show. But if Spencer and Heidi no longer hang out with LC, does that mean the entire show will revolve around LC and Brody discussing how much they love each other's smiles, ears, left forearms, etc? Somebody get Liz Gateley on the phone.

- A prediction for the White Rapper Show: John Brown, aka King of the Burbs aka Ghetto Revivalist, is actually gonna take home the check when all this shit is said and done. He's consistently the best now that Sullee is gone, which I guess is kind of like saying Greg Vaughn is the all-time greatest Devil Ray. But still, this clown is gonna win $100K. After earlier applying the reasoning that "nobody is watching Friday Night Lights, thus no episode highlights," I'm not sure this blurb is justified. Whatever, you know you want as much Type Slow as you can get, so you live with it.

- I guess the one person who should be happy about this whole Tim Hardaway deal is Dan Hawkins. If Timmy wasn't such an idiot, we'd still be making fun of the Hawk. Oh well. Thanks for the best rant since Denny Green. By the way, if you haven't already seen this, check this noise out. Better than Hawkins, better than Denny, and right there with the great Jim Mora.

- Smalls, er Dick, where you at? This is the Big 12!

Mets sign Chan Ho

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2759773

$3 million?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

NHL

It's been a real slow day at work today, so I found myself reading John Buccigross's column on the NHL and thought this was particularly interesting:

"Will more goals mean better ratings? Maybe. At this point, the NHL has to continue to put on a better show. In a New York Times article from Feb. 2, Richard Sandomir reported that 736 people watched the Jan. 27 Devils-Panthers game on MSG ... 736. Here are other numbers from Sandomir's column:

• The Devils average 13,206 households for their televised games.
• The Islanders average just 7,336.
• The Rangers average 36,834.
• Of all Fox Sports Net regional channels, the Red Wings lead all NHL teams (average 96,915).
• This season's All-Star Game drew 691,000 viewers.
• 2.7 million watched in 2004.
• 6.5 million watched in 1996."

736 people!! Holy shit! This is a professional sport? Those are some pretty staggering statistics.

Amaechi... gay.

I googled John Amaechi and found some astonishing facts that separate him from the rest of the NBA:

Career Highlights:
- Named to the 1999-2000 NBA All-Interview First Team
- Scored the first basket in Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena, and the first NBA points in the new millenium on 1/2/00
- Tied for sixth in media voting for the NBA's Most Improved Player Award in 1999-2000
- One of only seven undrafted players to start an NBA game in 1999-2000

Is that serious? Can't you just see a team of interns struggling to meet the 4 highlight minimum set forth by the site's editors? Every one of those sucks. Now we can add "Most irrelevant person ever to come out of the closet."

Tonight and Stuff

- Lotta action tonight on the tube: Duke-UNC, USA vs. Mexico (soccer), Lost, Real World, American Idol, and some newly acquired Netflix (I believe we are getting Reds, Hoop Dreams, and something else). Mix that in with a little trout laundry and we're talking about a busy night out on Taaffe. Problem is, a lot of these are going head-to-head. From 8-9 it's easy - Idol, but then it gets tricky. Everybody knows the trout loves his soccer, but he also knows Duke-UNC is almost always great. I'm thinking first half of the soccer game is a must for me from 9-10. Lost, Real World and the games will be competing during that 10 PM time slot. I think I gotta go Lost, while flipping to the basketball game during commercials, and just hope the end of the game comes after 11 (saving Real World for the reruns over the weekend and the movies for another night). The other option, I guess, is to go Real World and just watch the game(s) after that and give up on the sinking ship that is Lost. Tough call. This is where Dick's "multiple TV" dream back in college would be good. That or a good DVR.

- John Amaechi ...gay. Do you think that means he's not one of my top 15 favorite players from the 1999-2000 Orlando Magic? Nope. Dick has issued a special request to submit all your best Amaechi jokes in the comments section, thanks.

- Celtics have lost 15 in a row and seem to be getting a lot of attention these days for it. With their noble run for DurOden coupled with this epic losing streak, this is the first time the C's have been relevant since losing the right to get slaughtered by the Lakers in 2001 (or was it 2002?). Now The Truth is on the shelf with some elbow bursitis, the first recorded case of non-Madden bursitis in recent times. Why can't we get players like John Amaechi?

RE: SB/24

- I don't recall saying that Rex Grossman is not that bad. Admittedly, he's pretty bad, but so are most quarterbacks in the NFL. You're right, though, he's not in the top 15 (although he's arguably better or as good as McNair, Losman, and Kitna, but definitely not as good as Alex Smith or Jeff Garcia). You know I was just baiting you to make a blog post, anyway.

- I appreciate your thoughts on Cinderella Tres. I also noticed these commercials, if only for the horrendous animation. Next time it's on, check out how poorly drawn everything is and contrast that with the original or any of the old Disney movies. At least they used shading and gave the impression that these characters were operating in three dimensions. They really must slash the budget for these lame ass sequels. Also, I think it takes some serious stones to fuck with classic fairy tales like that - kind of irresponsible on Disney's part to exploit the Brothers Grimm.

- I chose Milo over Morris last week in the Guess Who's a Terrorist feature and I'm still liking that pick, even though it looked dicey there for a minute with our man Morris. Here's a question: when Milo found out that Morris's bro was shacked up in the hospital but didn't want to distract him from his work, why would he have told Chloe about it? Cuz he knew Chloe would tell Morris and that Morris would react by going to see his brother/inadvertently help the terrorists, that's why. Milo? Definitely a terrorist, book it.

- Phenomenal episode of the Hills last night following last week's piece of shit. Let's recap the episode for my new favorite character in anything ever, my man Spencer: 1) sneakily tried to keep Heidi from seeing Audrina so he could continue playing both sides, 2) tried to fight a kid who told Heidi her clothes were inappropriate for work (which was awesome and clearly staged), 3) got caught hanging out with the Playmates when he thought Heidi was heading out of town and subsequently got bitched out for it, and 4) looked sad for like 8 seconds, cut his losses, and still left with Team Playmates! What a performance, the likes of which we will not be seeing anytime soon. Also, redemption for the Upper Lipless - I guess she's not gonna be struggling for air time after all. Unfortunate for us viewers only in that her presence will likely continue to sully the reputation of Spencer, resulting in further alienation of the most entertaining part of the show.

- Is February the worst sports month? I mean, after the Super Bowl, what do you have? College basketball isn't that interesting until at least the last week of the month, if not until March. The NBA isn't exactly holding my attention. I don't live in Florida anymore, so "pitchers and catchers reporting" day is no longer a "I'm definitely skipping school to go watch the Red Sox" day anymore. Maybe Smalls is onto something with his fake interest inNASCAR, cuz I think the Daytona 500 is this month.

- Finally, a word on the importance of lunch. Too many times lately I've been suckered into going to these shitty places for lunch. It's bad enough when you have to take your lunch back to your desk and don't even really get a break. But it's unforgiveable when your lunch tastes like poop. Nothing pisses me off more or disappoints me more than a wasted 7 bucks on crappy lunch. Seriously, what else is there to look forward to during each work day? People constantly rag on me for going to Chipotle 4 times a week, but inevitably that fifth day always disappoints me when I actually go out with other people. Socializing is nice and all, but I need good lunch. You know how many consecutive times Chipotle has gotten it done for me? 496. Never disappoints. There are a select few other places that are tolerable, but this "adventuring to new places" crap needs to stop. Adventure on the weekend, gimme the standbys during the week. I'm not counting on a lot of people agreeing with me here about going to the same one or two places, but surely you understand the enormous letdown of a mediocre lunch.

Full full clout, and I'm out.

SB/24

Before Sunday's big game, I couldn't remember a year where I cared less about the Super Bowl. Yeah, I kind of wanted Peyton to win, but only so that "expert" analysts would stop talking about his inability to win a championship. I was pleasantly surprised with the entertainment value of the game - thanks largely in part to the rain... and Rex Grossman.

While watching the game, Trout said something along the lines of: "Rex Grossman is not that bad. He's probably the 15th best QB in the league. He's definitely better than Charlie Frye or whoever Tampa runs out at QB." I said something in the way of: "No fucking way." I got a list, here's the order of my list that it's in -

It goes, Reggie, Jay Z, Tupac and Beggie, Andre from Outkast, Jada, Kurupt, Nas, and then me.

Ok, for real though:

1. Peyton
2. Palmer
3. Brady
4. McNabb
5. Brees
6. Bulger
7. Rivers
8. Favre
9. Vick
10. Hasselbeck
11. Young
12. Pennington
13. Romo
14. Delhomme
15. E. Manning
16. Kitna
17. Leinart
18. Roethlisberger
19. Losman
20. McNair
21. Grossman

Given the rest of the list (Leftwich, B Johnson, Culpepper/Harrington, A Smith, Frye, Cutler, Garcia?), Grossman's 21st ranking translates to him sucking hard. Would you seriously take him over any established QB in my top 20 or any other young, promising QB prospect (Cutler, Smith)? The Bears would have been better off with Trent Dilfer, who at least limited mistakes.

As for 24, I actually have nothing insightful to say about last night's episode. I did, however, want to mention a disturbing commercial that ran twice during the show. Disney's Cinderella III is out on video. First of all, what 24 fans would possibly react positively to that ad? I laughed the first time I saw it, then was confused when it was run again within the same prime time hour. It got me thinking, how could there be a sequel to that story? Does she divorce the prince? Maybe the prince comes out of the closet, hooks up with the dude driving the pumpkin coach, and throws Cinderella out on the street. And when did they come out with a Cinderella II? Are big Cinderella fans even interested in the finale (I can only assume this is the last) of this trilogy?

Nothing like another completely pointless paragraph from Smalls.

PS - I am changing my blogging alias. From now on, please refer to me as Dick Dastardly.