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with all the media frenzy that has been surrounding jessica simpson and dallas cowboys “qb-1″ tony romo, and the speculated impact it has had on the cowboy’s finishing the season on par with seasons 2-4 of the OC, i thought i’d just set the record straight by making this statement: dating a super hot celebrity does not affect your performance. well, at least not athletic performance. in fact, if anything, it may actually raise your game because you’re just so pumped all the time. while i may not be offering anything new by saying this, i’m setting it up to disprove another misnomer: namely that tony romo is the next hotness at quarterback.

to prove my first point, i cite the following athlete-hot celebrity couples:

1) tiger woods + elin nordegren. yes, even golfers can score supermodels. maybe not in high school (check), or even in college (check check), but i think if you win enough major tournaments, they’ll start to pay attention. the point here is that you don’t see tiger letting up at all in his career. they started porking in 2001, which as i recall, is one of the most dominating years in all of golf history…by tiger woods.

2) tony parker + eva longoria. she’s really hot. and he’s french even. argh, this one really hurts, i don’t even like tony parker. but seriously, the spurs have won 3 nba titles since he’s been there. and he donates tickets and stuff to underpriveleged youth.

3) tom brady + [insert incredibly hot supermodel not caring if they’re pregnant]. completely, completely, unaffected. this guy is not human in amount of hot girlfriends he scores, and how often he scores, on and off the field. he’s won superbowls with ‘the replacements’ as a supporting cast and is pretty much the only quarterback besides the cast of friday night lights where if you google image search him, you get more glamour pics than football pics. he’s the derek jeter of football, but upgraded to fix all the douchey bugs.

4) joe dimaggio + marylin monroe. just to throw it back a bit for the older demographic readership. nothing needs to be said about how sweet dimaggio was, nor how hot monroe was (good enough for jfk, baby!).

i could list several more examples, like lance armstrong and cheryl crow. but you get my point: despite having super hot celebrity girlfriends, these guys continue to dominate their sport. by that logic, we must only infer that tony romo really, really sucks, and jessica simpson’s hotness had nothing to do with how crappy he plays. if romo was sweet, dating jessica simpson would not faze him at all. he’s an a-list fraud. i mean, he’s from wisconsin. those guys can’t hang with celebs. especially if you look like the actor that played champ from anchorman:

as such, i predict a romo-simpson breakup in the near future (yes, i know i’m not omnipotent if i successfully predict a celebrity breakup). i mean after reading this, jessica just might realize that propagating romo-DNA just isn’t the best way to go.

i figure i need to post this quickly before it becomes old news. this is tough for me, actually keeping up on current events, but i’m having trouble getting over how ridiculous the tour de france is getting…got, whatever.

i barely followed the tour de france when lance armstrong was riding, and he was actually exciting to watch. when he left, there would maybe be a REMOTE possibility that i was going to click the cycling link on espn.com - mostly to see who of the next top riders might win now that lance is gone. but then THEY got busted for doping. c’mon! NOW, we’re forced to watch essentially amateur hour on wheels. i’d rather watch curling or or the NASA channel.

so, if we want to restore cycling to it’s competitive nature and watch the fans return in forgiveness, there’s only one thing left to do - MAKE DOPING MANDATORY. i’m not talking about just legalizing it for use so it becomes a choice of the athlete - you’ll still get those boring guys with morals that will refuse to dope and then whine about how they are true athletes and at least their you-know-what is the same size - well we don’t need them.

i’m talking about drug tests before races to MAKE SURE that the cylclist has done everything in his power to crush the competition. that he has AT LEAST a red blood cell count of a brontasaurus, and that his testosterone:epitestosterone ratio is about 100x that of the combined audience at a taping of “the man show” or ivan drago from rocky IV.

why throw out all this good science and research that went into making someone superhuman? i mean, if we put things in perspective here, if you were drinking gatorade in the 50’s that was doping. “well i would have won the race, but i choose not to use any electrolyte-replacing-enchancing liquids, like my competitors.” well get the net. EVERYBODY’s doing it now. and my guess is that 30 years from now, there’s going to be cereals like “EP-O’s” or steroids in powerade.

SO - imagine the outcome - the best cyclist will win, just like before, but they’ll be averaging about 50mph over the entire 2,000 mile race. the race may actually last 1.5 weeks instead of 3 weeks. the sprints to the finish line will start 30 miles back instead of 30yds. there will be guaranteed roid…er, road rage.

now THAT’s worth watching.

i’m so pumped up about this thinking about its application to ALL sports, i’ve decided to compose a poem:

800ft homeruns, two minute miles,
90yd field goals just makes me smile.
let’s liven up sports, they’re getting quite dull,
i mean there’s poker on tv doesn’t that say anything about how real sports are maintaining the people’s interest?

i’ve just decided that when (if) i become famous/reach celebrity status, and someone requests my autograph, i’m going to PRINT it. sure, i understand the efficiency of the scribbled, cursive autograph, but a printed autograph would be hilarious, especially in the arena of sports memorabilia resale. like a parent trying to verify the authenticity of two paint-by-numbered dog pictures on their refrigerator at home.

“yeah, sure that’s jordan’s autograph. it looks like an 8yr old did that…is that crayon?”

until that comes, i’m calling on all celebrities, and more so athletes to stray away from their penmanship roots and grab hold of the printed art. i want to see barry bonds with a toys-r-us “r” or annika sorenstam with a heart-shaped dot for the “i.” or tom cruise start spelling his name wrong, only to cross it out and rewrite it.

now that’s gotta be worth something.

dear duke university lacrosse team,

thank you. no wait, hear me out. my hatred for DUKE goes way back to the early nineties when the “coach k” era began, and therefore is deeply rooted in NCAA basketball, and how you guys think you’re so sweet; which by extension seems to be embodied by the entire school - and therefore i have grown to roll my eyes in disgust at what duke represents.

you’re such the perfect school. your academics are solid, your foundation, pure. your basketball teams are indeed always elite, and your athletes always praised as being “model” collegians, with good grades, good morals, and set good examples. they always make the right decisions, sign autographs for little clueless kids, and “go pro in something other than sports” if they aren’t good enough to make the big leagues.

well what’s up now, MORONS. your team’s forcible rape charges will provide endless material for analogies and metaphors revolving around being inappropriate and demeaning to women. you have single-handedly managed to give the school more negative publicity than michael jackson at a chuck e cheese, all while reinforcing the stereotype that players on alpha-male sports teams think they are invincible because of whatever flintstone vitamins they popped that day.

but that being said, it’s nice to see that duke is normal just like any other university. scandals, NCAA infractions, athletes facing jailtime, bad publicity. although what happened is still sad, i am sitting back enjoying the fireworks. like when you always get busted by mom and dad for your older brother throwing food or starting fights - but then they walk in on him smoking pot and even though he looks like he’s in a lot of trouble, you’re smiling on the inside.

duke lacrosse - you LOSERS. you’re hurting the reputation of duke’s chess team, and solidifying the stereotypes of testosterone-driven sports teams - mainly that they are big meanies.

sincerely,
andrew

ok i’ve had just about enough of the ncaa basketball crap. foolish of me to expect a big ten team to score over 50pts in a game. as such, i’m reproducing my actual shitty bracket below (left), and the coin flip one (right) for comparison so i can turn my attention to more important things…

like PIRATES. i read that the us navy has apprehended some “somali pirates” - ironically, off the coast of somalia. this is very fascinating to me, since it seems that the art of being a pirate was lost with the turn of the 19th century or so. apparently these pirates were firing on us navy ships. while there are “conflicting reports” of how the “gunbattle” began, i’m hoping it was over some “booty” or a treasure map. this resurgence of pirate lifestyle leads me to make the following statement: WE NEED MORE PIRATES. we need more pirate movies, we need more pirate stories, we need pirate reality tv shows, pirate cereals. pirate themed parties, bars, everything.

now, there has been a slight pirate revival over the past few decades to ensure their longevity and solidify their enigmatic lifestyle (minus “the swiss family robinson” - those pirates were pansies.) we have the ride at disneyworld (awesome), the pirate themed legos (arguably the best subcategory of legos, or any toy for that matter), more recently johnny depp/in pirates of the carribean. and of course we have captain morgan rum, and i’m pretty sure cap’n crunch was a pirate at some point. this is NOT enough.

i want more. when i saw “pirates of the carribean” i wanted that movie to last like 6 hours, and i really don’t know why, but i am willing to make a few conjectures:

1. pirates drinking and partying
2. really bad tavern lighting
3. deserted islands
4. STEALING SHIPS - this has to be the most hardcore thing about a pirate. stealing something so HUGE and so SLOW, that wherever you go with it, there is NO WAY to cover up the fact that it was STOLEN. but like pirates care.

so, if you do not agree with me, ask yourself this:

when was the last time you rooted against a pirate?
when was the last time you saw a pirate get his ass kicked?
when was the last time you saw a pirate get tricked?
when was the last time you did not cheer when you saw someone dressed up like a pirate?

the pirate embodies all that is immoral - raping, pillaging, plundering - yet we still cheer them on. additionally, the pirate embodies so many random concepts and physical attributes that make absolutely no sense that it comes off as pure concocted fantasy - so we cannot take their bad deeds seriously. peg legs, gold, talking parrots, eyepatches, “arrrr.” why should any of these ridiculous items be associated with someone that sails around in a ship and steals stuff? is a pirate more likely to lose an eyeball than a blacksmith? is there a communicative advantage on the high seas to the phrase “arrrr!!”? i don’t know, but i don’t care.

but what’s too bad is that real life examples of pirates are rare. so when i read a story like this it makes me smile and wonder if there really are small islands full of pirates - lost in time, drinking and enjoying themselves, looking for treasure, watching sportscenter. if so, i’d like to take a year off and hang.

well it appears after some hot dude on dude Rd. 1 NCAA tourney action my coinflip bracket got destroyed worse than the Big Ten in a game of H-O-R-S-E with an autistic kid.

totaling points according to the aforementioned system, this experimental bracket predicted a whopping 20/32 games correctly, coming in at 277pts. this is contrasted to my actual bracket which is sitting at 23/32 correctly picked games, but 339pts (from upsets).

the crappily updated “coin flip bracket” is below (soon, i’ll put up my actual bracket that’s bringing home the bacon, baby) . maybe next time i’ll have a monkey flip the coin; even then if the bracket goes to shit, i could still get a study like that published in a widely read scientific journal.

march madness is here, baby! people all over the country, whether they’ve ever watched a college basketball game or not, are making bold predictions with no basis whatsoever and getting up in each other’s faces about it (it’s really quite great). most people pick the winners of the games based on seeds. some people based on which team they heard a lot about. others, mascot toughness.

but this year, i’ve taken the guessing out of NCAA Tournament predictions. behold, THE COIN FLIP BRACKET. i have filled out an entire bracket based on the concept of HEADS (higher seed wins) and TAILS (lower seed wins).

to make this simulation SLIGHTLY more realistic, i decided to adjust for SEED DIFFERENCES as follows:
1) a seed difference of one or zero = one flip, 50/50 odds
2) other seed differences follow the simple rule:

(seed difference)/2 = amount of flips that MUST COME UP TAILS in order for the lower seed to move to the next round. if HEADS comes up at all during any of the coin flips, the higher seed wins.

EXAMPLE: (4) LSU vs. (13) Iona

(13-4)/2 = 4.5 ~ 5. TAILS must come up 5 times in a row for Iona to move on.

scoring is standard per all other bracket pools. rd.1=10pt, then 20, 40, 80, 100, 100. plus seed bonus (add seed number equivalent of points for each correct pick).

the completely filled out COIN FLIP BRACKET is below. it’s actually pretty messed up, as i’d never have UCLA or LSU in the final four, but whatever. check it out, compare it to yours. i’ll update accrued points as the games are played…

in lieu of the recent controversy surrounding baseball player Barry Bonds, i thought it appropriate to post a special “awareness article” about steroid use in elementary schools…

*******
River Hills, WI - It seems as though the effects of doping in Major League Baseball, highlighted by such sluggers as Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire, and Barry Bonds, have trickled down into foundations of learning: elementary schools.

Just yesterday, a report of recess violence at Woodview Elementary near the jungle gym (adjacent to the north entrance) which left five 2nd graders aching in pain from what was described as “the worst mass charlie horsing ever,” initiated an investigation into this unexpected outburst of anger. (more…)

i guess before i kick off the first of probably a few more installments of “weekend in review,” i need to mention my disdain for a particular phrase which we all hear everyday, but after the 13,254th time one of us has got to say something: “it’s amazing how quickly it adds up” among other variants such as “it all adds up,” etc.

commonly heard in checkout lines or reviewing bills of some sort, i beg to ask - what does that even mean? “how quickly it adds up.”

1) no shit it adds up. do the math, genius. that’s how the world works. it’s not like you can offset a box of cap’n crunch with a gallon of milk at the grocery store, and thereby, with a little strategy, end up paying $0, or, better yet, having the store pay you.

2) since when is there a time domain to adding things? this makes the least amount of sense. “it’s amazing how fast the cash register lady is scanning your items, and the rapidness of the calculator should really give you cause for concern.” it adds up. to a number. it doesn’t matter how fast, it matters how much. so really, if you have some sloth reading your bill or someone not good at math checking out your items, it really doesn’t add up that fast…so i wouldn’t worry about it yet.

that being said, here’s what’s in store for this installment, ie. why this weekend was, well awesome (the posts are broken up to retain reader interest):

(I) THE OLYMPICS
(II) NBA ALL-STAR WEEKEND
(III) DRUNK TREE

(I) THE OLYMPICS - the world’s newest reality tv show. it must have sucked back in the 1900’s when you had to settle for waiting a day or two before finding out who won a particular event. when there were no sweet designer steroids, no awesome photography/video special effects, no sappy-ass montages of triumph, and no watchful eye of the media, looking to dig up any dirt for a story.

welcome to the 21st century, baby! nothing has changed except everything that happens we know about. and a lot happens. and it’s great.

the LEON LETT PREMATURE HIGH-STEPPING AWARD goes to u.s. snowboarder LINDSEY JACOBELLIS. did you see this? she had a commanding lead in “the cross course,” essentially snowboarding’s equivalent to a downhill ski run with a motocross mentality (ie. all the racers compete simultaneously, and there are sweet jumps). then, on the last jump before the finishline (and a gold medal), she showboats in mid-air (grabs her board - somehow this is difficult to to do?) and totally wipes out. amazingly, she was still able to get the silver medal.

i swear i would have done the same thing, but probably with a slightly cooler looking jump. and you can bet if this was an NBA league equivalent event, she would have landed the trick-jump and taken the gold. but for some unfortunate reason, the karma of the olympics is pure and looks favorable upon hard workers and good sportsmanship…LAME.

NBC’s website devoted to olympic coverage has a photo slideshow of all the figure skating WIPEOUTS from the weekend which occurred in the ice dancing competition. awesome. thanks to ESPN and that, i feel i don’t need to watch anymore. i swear the winter olympics are like nascar. you have them on in the background and don’t really care that much, but you’re just waiting for someone to crash so the announcer can chime in “ooh, that’s going to cost her” or “you hate to see that, bob.” p.s. - some of those women ice dancers…HOTT.

a skiing event supposedly to happen on sunday was postponed because IT WAS SNOWING. heaven forbid people would have to ski in the snow. it’s like expecting to take a shower without getting wet.