The 2010 NBA Draft, or Why Can't I Stop Crying?

The short version: the Wolves went into this draft with five picks, cap room to make trades, a crown jewel to trade (Jefferson) and a few morsels (Gomes and a couple point guards) and came out of it adding Wesley Johnson and Martell Webster, and losing Ryan Gomes. None of the other picks will make a difference next year.

About the only thing I like about this draft is the Wolves used their second rounders to stash a couple centers away in development. Paulao Prestes sounds interesting if a bit raw, but he's young and can be stashed in Spain for a bit longer. it's got to be good for a team that's been weak in the middle for 20 years to have a center nicknamed King Kong. With a really late pick they grabbed another center, Hamady Ndiaye. He's 7 feet tall, a good defender and has a decent jump hook, all things that would be a delightful surprise to see combined into a Timberwolves player... I think for the first time. He'll hopefully be stashed on the Sioux Falls Skyforce for a year or two and then make the end of the bench someday.

I really shouldn't be this excited about prospective future bench players, but for many years under Kevin McHale the Wolves didn't take the draft seriously, throwing in a draft pick on every trade, and they conspicuously ignored Europe and never got anything in the second round. They still can't figure out what to do with first round picks, but at least we've started to use Europe and the D-league to bring more talent to the franchise. Where it's completely wasted, since the young players on this team all end up being cut or traded for proven stiffs who have the dubious distinction of being a “veteran” presence, or put another way, guys who know how to lose.

A Declaration of Independence, or Suck it England

This past year my sister married a wonderful Englishman, and while it has been a great joy to have him join my family, I find there is no room in my heart for his football team and it's delusionally arrogant fans. Accordingly, I submit the following:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the sporting bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all fans are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of sporting glory. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that associations long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future entertainment. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former friendship. The history of the present Queen of England is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the beautiful game. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

She has conspired with her subjects to create an endless series of excuses for failure... cited most often is the dreaded misfortune of being scored on by the best player in the world. (Maybe they've got something here... what reasonable person could predict that Ronaldinho would turn up in Shizuoka in 2002 and snatch an easy victory away from the clear world favorites? Or that a referee would mistakenly allow a goal in 1966, sorry I mean '86? Bad luck, Germ- I mean England.)

She has joined the European conceit that all tournaments must be reachable by train from St Pancras Station; the presence of footballers from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and these United States has apparently not served to make her majesty or her subjects aware that football is played in places not listed in her trusty 1966 Michelin Guide to Western Europe.

She has sent Wayne Rooney out in the world with spiked boots and in so doing, has fomented his homicidal rage and total disregard for the sanctity other people's testicles.

She has allowed her subjects to claim that beating a tiny nation 45 times in 110 matches (and losing 41 times) constitutes “total dominance”, in violation of all the laws of mathematics.

She has repeatedly laid claim to inventing the game of football, before inviting in a succession of Scots, Frenchmen, Swedes and Italians in a futile attempt to teach her subjects how to actually play it.

Her predecessor George VI endeavored through her newspapers to obliterate the achievements of the United States and her sportsmen, by binding all into a conspiracy to alter the news from Belo Horizonte on June 29^th 1950 and proudly present England as 10-1 winners in the next day's paper. (If you only have access to English newspapers, you may not realize that the actual score was 1-0 in favor of the United States.)

She has given us only one successful national team coach in the last 20 years: Glenn Hoddle, a man who did his part to promote physical fitness by claiming that disabled people were paying for the sins of a previous life.

She has, through her instruments the Football League and its several clubs, conspired to overprice every man of that nation with an English accent and a pair of boots, then whined endlessly about how nobody with any financial sense (like the rest of Europe) wants to pay £50m for the right back from MiddleofNowhere United.

She has sent her subjects out in the world armed with the cutting edge tactics of the 1950's, meaning every international company has a club team that tries to avoid passing to the English guys, knowing they'll just close their eyes and boot it upfield.

She has endeavored to turn the most innocent among us away from the game of football, by only allowing the ugliest, most terrifying members of her society to take the field, chief amongst them the monstrous creature whose unnatural, mechanical movements make a mockery of the grace and form of man... put another way, one look at Peter Crouch doing the robot and the world's children will be so paralyzed with horror, they'll never kick a football again.

She has through her instrument the Football League confined our players to the bench, no great sin until they were needed by their mother country, in which case they suddenly became indispensable to their club and unavailable to play for their country.

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses... oh no, my mistake, that one was King George. (Sorry.)

She is at this time transporting large armies of savage mercenaries in England tops and Burberry caps to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. (Except for the Burberry caps, we actually submitted this complaint to King George too.)

She is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. That's not a repeat, this time I'm talking about the WAGS.

She has conspired to impose upon us her servant David Beckham, his irritating wife, their incomprehensible whining accents and his collection of stupid haircuts. Sentencing disgraced members of the Empire to transportation was bad enough, sending them here is unforgivable.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions, including a friendly invitation to play in a tournament we held in the summer of 1994 have been answered only by repeated injury. A Queen, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to call herself a sports fan.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our English brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their clubs to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over our players. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States Soccer Federation, in General Congress, assembled for the 50^th anniversary of Joe Gaetjens' famous goal, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all friendly rivalry between them and the state of England, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and put a serious smackdown on the Three Lions come Saturday. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Bob Bradley

Arizona: Robbie Findley

California: Carlos Bocanegra, Jonathan Bornstein

 Maurice Edu, Landon Donovan, Hercules Gomez

District of Columbia: Oguchi Onyewu

Georgia: Ricardo Clark

Illinois: Brad Guzan, Steve Cherundolo, Jonathan Spector

Indiana: DaMarcus Beasley

New Jersey: Tim Howard, Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore

New York: Edson Buddle, Benny Feilhaber

Texas: Clint Dempsey, José Torres, Stuart Holden

Virginia: Clarence Goodson

Washington: Marcus Hahnemann

Wisconsin: Jay DeMerit

P.S. After all your years of bragging and telling us we don't know anything about football you really can't win by anything less than five goals without hanging your heads in shame... so even if you win, you can still suck it, England.

This calls for drug-addled poetry

After several days of ever-growing pain, the combination of sleep deprivation and prescription drugs has made me a bit goofy. Desperately needing something else to take the edge off, I came to the only logical conclusion: Drug Addled Poetry... and it's working. (By the way, in my head this introduction TOTALLY sounds like the opening to the A-Team.)

Can't believe the pain I'm in
Swelling void of missing tooth
Wow, I need more vicodin

For each hurt and in each sin
Acts of men but hid in youth
Can't believe the pain I'm in

Rue and guilt come with hurtin'
Part ego, but mostly truth
Wow, I need more vicodin

Poppy or scars, who will win?
Can the priest-king say the sooth?
Can't believe the pain I'm in

Will Ramsey let him slide it in?
PJ asks from in the booth
Wow, I need more vicodin

How did that gay porn creep in?
And what the fuck is a sooth?
Can't believe the pain I'm in
Wow, I need more vicodin.

To persistent pokers

 

Poke.

Poke.

 

Poke.

 Pokemon.

 Poke.

 Poke.

Poke.

 Pokerface.

Poke.

 Poke.

Just saying, keep poking me like that and somebody might poke you back.

Twins 5-2 Red Sox, or Opening Day

I still remember my first Twins game a quarter of a century ago, in the blue embrace of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. I learned two truths that day: that Kent Hrbek was the greatest man alive, and that the New York Yankees were the pure distillation of evil. (I still tend to be a bit manichean in my sporting outlook.) I also learned that ice cream is somehow better when served in a baseball helmet. But even after a lot of years of fond memories of the Humptydome I was really looking forward to outdoor baseball, seats that faced home plate with unobstructed views and just in general not watching baseball in the air-conditioned corner of a football stadium. I'd been dying for a year to get a look inside the limestone walls of the new place, our first real baseball stadium in my lifetime (besides Midway Stadium). Still, thinking back to that first game I probably should have expected it, but I was surprised on opening day by how much I missed the old place.

After the yawning expanse of the Humptydome where on a clear day you could sort of make out Torri Hunter under the giant wall of folded up seats in the outfield, Target Field just feels really small. I used to wonder how in the hell Jim Thome and Justin Morneau could hit the upper deck in right field, but Jason Kubel's homer on opening day just seemed like it had no trouble clearing the wall. It will take a while to grow on me, this cozy little field with its beautiful facade and Minnesota fir trees in the outfield, but it's already seducing me with the promise of fresh air and ample bathrooms. It's a new experience going to a sporting event in Minnesota where nobody shouts "Shoulder to shoulder, squeeze in!" while I'm urinating (and nobody giving me odd looks for standing shoulder to shoulder when it's not crowded).

Do Not Disturb the Kraken, and other mediocre re-imaginings

Seriously, keep the Kraken where it is. I know that sounds like something I'd say in the Captain's hot tub (possibly about that floating lobster) but it's still good advice: nobody needed to dislodge the Kraken this movie season. The Kraken looked like it was on a nice career swing in the last ten years after turning a cameo in Fellowship of the Ring into a feature role in the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, and I know the Kraken's gotta eat, but it's still sad to to see so many talented people (Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Mads Mikkelsen and Polly Walker, amongst others) slumming it in a movie that's sold by one of the worst A-list actors working today... I think Sam Worthington is the new Keanu Reeves, doing for facial expressions what Keanu did for awkward line readings. On the other hand, bad as she is in this movie Gemma Arterton is still a delight to the eyes as a brunette (Strawberry Fields the oil-covered red-head secret agent was one of the highlights of Quantum of Solace). Honestly Hades was so bad in this movie I was sure he was played by William Hurt, like my brain wouldn't accept the idea of somebody as professional as Ralph Fiennes going that far over the top.

Timberwolves 108-99 Kings, or how I learned to love Darko

(Forgot to actually post this two weeks ago, whoops. Fortunately nobody will read it anyways, so no harm done.) When I saw the Wolves beat the Kings, had certainly been a while since I saw them fail to execute a fourth quarter meltdown. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised. With a handful of games left in the season the Wolves have locked up the second biggest batch of ping-pong balls in the lottery. The Nyets won the head-to-head and clinch the worst overall record by virtue of having blown 20+ point leads in both games against the Wolves... basically the worst tank job I've ever seen outside of pro wrestling. I have two concerns over the eventual flop of the ping-pong balls: whatever kind of talent the Wolves might be able to add next year, and a rather low stakes gamble I made on a season ticket.

Sadly in a 2-player draft it's hard to imagine the league allowing the Timberwolves a crack at one of the top two players (there's a reason they hold the draft behind closed doors). They can't make it too obvious they're getting screwed, so I'd guess they're looking at the #3 overall pick which means my crappy "Pay the Pick" season ticket will cost $3 a game and I can only hope the Wolves do their homework and use a top 5 pick to find a player that has some impact. With six draft picks and 3-6 spots opening up on the roster next year, somebody's got to change up the dynamic of this team so by mid-December I'm not already thinking about rebuilding for next season.

What the hell is going on in Vancouver?

I don't know if they just got confused and thought they had until 2012 to prepare, but everything about the Vancouver Olympics is so slap-dash and even dangerous, if I were Canadian I'd honestly be ashamed of this.

Every time I turn on the TV somebody's getting hurt. NBC's decision to show that endless loop of Nodar Kumaritashvili flying into the support post at 90 mph was certainly grotesque, but it's amazing to me that it happened in the first place, that after trying to add inches to Canada's penis by having the fastest track ever there was just zero consideration for the possibility of an athlete losing control at the bottom, where the speeds are highest. Part of the fun things about the Olympics is that it gets athletes from smaller countries and smaller sporting programs involved in a global event, but that does mean there will be a wider range of skill and experience amongst the athletes... to be completely unprepared for the possibility of a crash after repeated warnings is just criminal.

Fare thee well, your Eminence

His Eminence Brian Cardinal and his expiring $6.75m contract is expected to officially be traded to the New York Knicks tomorrow morning, bringing the Cardinal era of Minnesota basketball to a close. It's hard to believe I'll never again see his Eminence come in for three minutes to give somebody else a breather, something he did every fifth game or so. Honestly, Cardinal was a nice player for the end of the bench who had a great attitude, came in and worked hard, and had very nice three point range especially for a forward. On the other hand he made $6.75m, and that's just insane. The funny thing is New York is just clearing roster space and shaving a little off their payroll in preparation for another trade, so the Wolves could theoretically take Cardinal right back when the Knicks cut him. This would clearly be worth it, just so they could still keep Cardinal's main contributions to games: the self-consciously creepy "This is ladies night!" promo he used to do on the big screen.

In exchange for Cardinal's expiring contract, the only thing the Wolves get for sure is Darko Milicic's slightly more expensive expiring contract. Darko was insanely drafted #2 overall just behind King James but ahead of Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and many other people who've had more memorable careers. (That was the year the Wolves drafted Ndudi Ebi and Rick Rickert so I feel your pain, Detroit.) The fact that he was a consensus top three guy with Carmelo Anthony and Carmelo Anthony does speak to his heretofore unrealized potential and 7-foot true centers don't grow on trees, so I'm glad to see the Wolves take a chance on him even if he does plan to go back to Europe at the end of the year. The Wolves desperately need a presence in the paint, and currently their options at center are stick-thin Ryan Hollins and Oleksiy Pecherov who's been buried on the bench for months. If Darko sulks until April and never gives the Wolves a chance we haven't lost anything besides a bit of Glen Taylor's money, but given the lack of progress three years after McHale blew up the team and started over, I would have liked to see a more substantial shake-up before the trade deadline.

Tiger Woods is a Weird Guy

I have to admit, I don't watch a lot of golf and I'm not that familiar with Tiger Woods oeuvre. It also always seemed to me that especially in his younger days Tiger conducted himself with a lot of poise amidst the discomfort a lot of people clearly experienced when he joined the tour, by which I mean the closet racism of people who saw him put on his first green jacket and couldn't quite put their finger on what just didn't seem right to them about that picture. As a public figure I believe Tiger Woods may have done more in the last twenty years to undermine unconscious racial barriers than anyone except President Obama (and maybe Oprah until she shut down her book club because there were no more books worth reading). So for that reason I've never really wanted to speak ill of Tiger but now I've started to explore Tiger's world through his video game, and from that and the glimpse into his personal life we're getting from the furious media storm surrounding his extramarital affairs and intramarital being chased by a blonde with a big stick affairs, I'm starting to think there's just something a bit off about this guy.

Vikings 34-3 Cowboys, and other random bits about football

I know I'm late in commenting, with the impending big game, but after six days I still remain giddy over the epic beat-down the Vikings gave the Cowboys. It's always funny when the national media picks a losing horse to ride, and they had all but guaranteed victory for the Cowboys... to show the depth of their disrespect, the crew calling the game was former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman (logical) and to balance that out... Joe Buck, who wouldn't stop wailing in horror when Randy Moss pretended to drop his pants and moon the Green Bay crowd in the '04 play-offs, and pouted when the Eagles referenced that in a TD celebration the following week. Being in the stadium one of the best moments was after the first turnover when it got so loud I thought my ears were going to bleed; I guess watching the game on TV had its own special moment when a speechless Aikman and Buck pouted and refused to call Sidney Rice's first touchdown. The bizarre contention that the Cowboys woes were due to the missed field goals and the Vikings putting an exclamation point on it with the final touchdown... that's just pathetic, to offer any excuse for a team that loses by five scores besides simple incompetence.

What does this weekend mean for the Vikings?

I suppose I could just wait two days and see what happens, but I've been trying to figure out all the play-off implications of this week's games. One thing is settled about the NFC play-offs: New Orleans has backed into home field advantage throughout the play-offs. Green Bay will probably be the top wild-card team, but it's down to the Vikings, Cardinals, and the winner of the Eagles vs Cowboys game to decide who finishes 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the play-off seeding, and to figure out how Packers and Eagles or Cowboys will fill out the wild cards. Here's how it works from the Vikings perspective:

Vikings beat Giants - if the Vikings win, they immediately check the score of the Eagles-Cowboys game.


If the Cowboys win, the Vikings have a bye week and home field against everybody but New Orleans, and would likely play the Cardinals in the divisional round (or potentially the Cowboys, Packers or Eagles).
If the Eagles win, the Vikings do not get a bye week and would host the Cowboys in the first round, then hypothetically travel to Philadelphia. They would only return to the Dome after a win over the Eagles if the Packers or Cardinals were to bump off the Saints.
Other amusing consequences: The Packers and Cardinals likely play a repeat game the following week (unless the Cowboys beat the Eagles).

KGB Pizza

Ever go into one of those businesses that looks fine on the outside but on closer inspection, you maybe start to notice some things? There's a new pizza place near where I work, and I was really happy given the odd schedule I keep to find that there might be more food available in the area (I can only eat so much tom yum goong soup). It looks non-descript enough, with a sort of Italian color scheme in homage to the motherland of pizza (mama mia!) and there are pizza boxes stacked everywhere and employees standing at attention, there's just one thing missing. When I run in out of the cold trying to grab a quick meal in between shifts, they never, ever have any f***ing pizza. Usually there's a long line of grumpy looking customers waiting with ever decreasing patience and an empty rack where they tell me they sell pizza by the slice, and some cheerful employee telling me if I just wait a bit they'll cook more pizza, but I can't help but wonder how long that's going to take with 20 people in line ahead of me.

But then as I'm ready to turn on my heel in frustration and look for another restaurant, I start noticing some things. Like despite being so busy they're completely sold out of pizza, the glass and aluminum rack for the slice line is so clean it's gleaming in the sunlight, not a drop of pizza grease or a crumb to be seen. It's possible they've got sucha JIT supply chain of pizza that every slice is cut and served within seconds of the pizza coming out of the oven, or maybe that they're just so far behind that their hungry walk-in customers devour whatever comes out of the oven, snapping like jackals. I could see that at lunchtime, but day after day business in the slice line has never slowed down enough to put a single pizza in the rack?

Amstelbooij's New York to-do list

1. Pop over to the Meadowlands to pick up tickets to see the New York Jets.
2. Head out to Shea to get my tickets for the New York Mets
3. Cruise by Atlantic Yards and think about getting tickets for the New York Nets
4. Slip down to the OTB and place some New York bets
5. Spend my winnings at a tapas restaurant ordering some New York croqettes
6. Remember to pass by BofA and pay my New York debts
7. Stop by Arthur Ashe on the way to play some New York sets (better loosen the nets so I'll get some New York lets)
8. Find a French-Canadian bar and watch the CFL with my New York Alouettes
9. Walk the beach and see some New York egrets (bring my speedos and get some New York wets)
10. Stop by the pet store and get some New York pets (and get them checked out by New York vets)
11. Reserve a venue and hire a caterer for my New York fetes
12. Got a sore throat, better find a bodega and pick up some New York sucrets
13. Head out to Sunset Park with my Vietnamese buddies and celebrate some New York Tet
14. Visit the Bronx Zoo and feed some New York marmosets
15. Because whatever Amstelbooij wants... New York gets.

Clippers 120-95 Timberwolves

Last night as I was watching the surprisingly listless Wolves get pummeled by the LA Clippers (I know, really?) it was kind of sad to watch the current Wolves be outplayed by a team stocked with former Wolves. I loved watching Sebastian Telfair coming off the bench, undersized but scary quick, but I did remember last night why I loved him, and why we traded him: after faking out a Wolves guard last night so badly he fell down (wow) Telfair couldn't come up with a way to take advantage of that besides an entry pass into the high post (er, wow?). But it got me thinking about this summer's Wolves-Clippers trade, where they traded Sebastian Telfair, Craig Smith, and Mark Madsen to the Clippers for Quentin Richardson, who the Wolves promptly to Miami for Mark Blount.

Trying to see how that trade worked out in the end, I started searching for who the Wolves had moved Blount for or when they'd cut him, and I was shocked to realize he was actually still on the roster. I hadn't noticed him down there through a third of the season, honestly. So they traded Telfair, a quick change of pace point guard; Smith, an undersized yet tough power forward who used quicker feet and crafty moves to create match-up problems; and Madsen, who had really suffered career ending injuries. Blount was theoretically at one time a center with a nice jump shot who could draw out opposing big men and open up room for a dominant low-post player, but really they just traded those guys away for a fresh start and cap room at best.

Cardinals 30-17 Vikings, or the Secret Scandinavian Sense of Doom

Since I got home from work after midnight last night, I got up this morning and watched the end of last night's Timberwolves-Jazz game and to my great shock they rebounded, didn't break down on defense under pressure, weathered their usual third quarter reversal of fortune and hung on for a win. I couldn't help but feel this creeping sense of dread as the Scandinavian blood in my veins insisted that it would be too much to ask to see two Minnesota wins in one day, especially after seeing the suddenly lucky Wolves tied their longest winning streak of the season (that would be one game).

The funny thing is my tivo tried to warn me, crashing during the first half and taking forever to reboot, like it secretly hoped I'd look for another distraction and get lost in Lego Indiana Jones 2. But like Tyr with his hand in the Iron Wolf's mouth, even knowing that the agony to come will rob you of a part of yourself that you'll never get back, you just have to smile and embrace the pain. I hope that crumpling at the first division leader they've met this season isn't a sign of things to come, and I hope the Vikings are better prepared for a potential rematch in the Metrodome (at this point I'd expect the Cowboys or Cardinals to come calling, followed by a trip to New Orleans). So what was so painful?

Amstelbooij's To-Do List for moving to Jersey City

1. Find new anthem to replace “Sweet Home Chicago”. Slim pickings for music fans under 60... perhaps Don Henley's “New York Minute”?
2. Say goodbye to all the guys at Steamworks... I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow!
3. Get ready to ride The Fairy from Jersey City. Oh yeah, baby... wait, what do you mean that's a boat?
4. Buy new flippers. Boy, the complete lack of aquatic life in the river will be much less distracting when scuba diving!
5. Get a cheaper bicycle with fewer gears, because there's no hills to climb in Jersey unless you hit a landfill.
6. Pick new football team, either the Giants or the Jets, or ummm... the Eagles or something. Fuck it, who's winning this year?
7. Learn the rules of baseball. (All I remember from Chicago baseball is Old Style beer and churros.)
8. Buy tickets on the Chinatown bus to New York... 800 miles for $4. (Or maybe just catch the Ang-Mo Town bus from Singapore.)
9. Get a map of the Pine Barrens so I can find the Jersey Devil and blow him. (Again with the gay jokes? Seriously?)
10. Get ready to live in a well-governed state where the last Governor isn't a punchline. Okay wait, maybe we should live in the City... no that won't help either. Damnit.

It's a stripper, it's a call girl, it's a... naked clothing model?

This is seriously the best ad ever. An escort service offering you the opportunity to take this girl's pants off (for a negotiable fee) would almost certainly get the phone ringing. Or if it's for some sort of nude panty hose or an invisible thong which conveys some benefit oddly unrelated to hiding your privates, I guess they've made their point. But really the reason it's so spectacular is the ad is promoting the f***ing bag.

It's like they're trying to tell us "This bag is so expensive I couldn't afford pants... but it's so groovy I just don't care!" I suppose if the ad was for that hat that might make sense, like it's the hat that keeps you so warm you'll find the rest of your clothes to be overkill. Or maybe it's the bag only used by people with a body so good they want to share it with the world... she's just smirking at you to say "Oh you have a body so good people can't stop staring? Well then where's your stripey bag?"

Sadly somebody already succinctly captured the lunacy of American Apparel advertising much better than I ever could, take a look.

Of Bears and Grizzlies, or "Hey look! My magic rock is working."

I was really glad to see the Vikings deliver such a crushing blow that they were able to once again let the Tardis finish the game. I don't know why there was such a requirement for the Vikings to only have quarterbacks with silly names... Tavaris, Sage, Rosemary, and Favre... perhaps the Superbowl is at Scarborough Fair? Tenuous attempts at humor aside, Vikings-Bears games are always head-scratchers, and after dealing with the crowd at the theater I scrambled over to the Dome just in time to watch the Vikings and Bears exchange turnovers, and the frustration and exaltation and general confusion of the crowd was like a warm, familiar blanket. Plus the company was delightful, but that's another story.

My favorite play of the game has to be the highlight sack in the red zone, although Allen grabbing the interception and forgetting which way to run is a close second. But watching the Williams Wall calmly pushing forward to efficiently collapse the pocket, forcing an alert Cutler to attempt to roll out to the right, only to bump into his own tackle who was giving up ground to Ray Edwards faster than Neville Chamberlain. Cutler scrambled left just as Jared Allen, who recently gave up drinking and immediately developed an addiction to quarterback flesh, broke free and came looking to kill him, and desperately seeking a port in a storm drowned in a sea of purple. While it was Kevin Williams who got his arms around Cutler, it was a sack that belonged to all of them, as they mercilessly closed in from all sides.

I ain't saying nothing, I'm just saying

Dear You Know Who You Are:

You know people are talking, I know you know that. And you have to know I know you know that. And they may not be saying all that, but they are saying things. And they know we're hearing what they're saying, even though they're not saying it to me, they know I'm hearing it all, here and there. It's a classic I know you know they know we know they know it situation, you know? I'm not saying anything about anything to anybody or everybody, and nobody's saying what they're saying to me but it's not like it's not being said... say no more. So like I said, I ain't saying nothing... I'm just saying. You hearing me?

Sincerely,
You Know Who