Wait, let me first gargle with Draino for the similarity of that title to AJ Daulerio's work on Deadspin. It's not like I needed my taste buds anyway. I was wondering the other day, are there any sports bloggers who, like Simmons, could come off the Internet bench and immediately gain a large following at ESPN? I put together a top 3 list.
1. The Cavalier from Yaysports.com ESPN loves cartoons and multimedia in general, and The Cavalier's humor is PG, so it would be a great fit. Plus, The Cavalier's essays are pretty funny, too. I could see this working, as long as they didn't force The Cavalier to hit a certain word count.
2. Matt Ufford from The Prelude. Yes, I picked that particular site on purpose. Although some of the humor on WL and KSK would be banned at ESPN, I've been quite impressed with the football column he has on AOL's Fanhouse. I think he could balance the funny and serious nicely.
3. NOIS Sports Blog. Oh, I know, you're already telling me he'd be too controversial because of the race issue. But why should he just limit his gifts to race topics? I'd love to see a serious-sounding editorial about whether Romo's dating of hot women makes him less able to properly throw a football, or claiming that George Mitchell's report is biased against baseball players.
What's your list? By the way, Bill Simmons Week dies a terrible death today; let's not talk about my sense of timing in programming this against Christmas, ok? Check back tomorrow for a video interview.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Bill Simmons Week: Yup, this is our Bill Simmons!
For years, I wondered why Bill Simmons' writing can switch from bad to good and back again so quickly. Then I realized that the same trend repeats itself year after year. Here's your Bill Simmons Popularity Scale; does it look right to you? Click to enlarge.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Non-Sports Babble: Performance Enhancers and Me
So Jack Cobra recently wrote an article on his experience in taking Performance Enhancers (aka PED's) as a baseball player in college. It was well-done and deserves your perusal. Anyway, I had an phone interview for a jarb (pronounced in Coach Z fashion), and decided to try my own version of performance enhancers, just for fun. I guzzled a pint of energy drink before the interview. The verdict? During the interview I babbled like a 3rd grader describing his first visit to Disneyland. Don't drink energy drinks and interview, kids. What's worse is now I have all this excess energy, so I'm wasting your time with inane blog posts. By the way, that post below is my 200th post on this site. Woo-hoo for that.
Videocasting: Girls Talking Sports
I know it's nearly Christmas, and so maybe people haven't gotten a chance to read Extra P.'s column. But it is really well-done; please do comment and tell him so.
Anyway, one of my readers sent me an e-mail about my Sports Gal post yesterday. We debated for a moment whether a Sports Gal was really a great pick for a girlfriend/wife or not. So I decided to dump a few videos of other Sports Gals on here; make up your own mind in the comments, if you wish. (Yes, I know, this is a completely lazy post, but I wanted to fill some space).
The first is a Fanhouse Minute from ThisSuitIsNotBlack. If you're not watching Fanhouse TV, you're missing out; David's drinking of a raw egg, Miss Gossip graphics, etc. make for fun viewing.
The second is quick thoughts on the Mitchell Report by BGirl5. The fun part is the first 10 seconds.
The third is Fantasy Football Analysis by foryourhealth. The funniest part, for me, is she named her Fantasy Football team "Sunshine Puppy Bear" team. Can you imagine the burn of losing to a girl who calls her team that? Ha, I love it!
Anyway, one of my readers sent me an e-mail about my Sports Gal post yesterday. We debated for a moment whether a Sports Gal was really a great pick for a girlfriend/wife or not. So I decided to dump a few videos of other Sports Gals on here; make up your own mind in the comments, if you wish. (Yes, I know, this is a completely lazy post, but I wanted to fill some space).
The first is a Fanhouse Minute from ThisSuitIsNotBlack. If you're not watching Fanhouse TV, you're missing out; David's drinking of a raw egg, Miss Gossip graphics, etc. make for fun viewing.
The second is quick thoughts on the Mitchell Report by BGirl5. The fun part is the first 10 seconds.
The third is Fantasy Football Analysis by foryourhealth. The funniest part, for me, is she named her Fantasy Football team "Sunshine Puppy Bear" team. Can you imagine the burn of losing to a girl who calls her team that? Ha, I love it!
Bill Simmons Week: I Come Not to Bury Bill Simmons
As part of Bill Simmons Week, I decided to solicit posts on Bill Simmons from some of my favorite bloggers. Extra P. writes at the Extrapolater, CAAZone, and Storming the Floor, among other sites. His post is below, and it is fantastic. If you would also like to contribute to Bill Simmons Week, let me know via e-mail, and if it's good I'll put it up.
I come not to bury Bill Simmons, nor to praise him, but more to stand over his lifeless body with a puzzled expression on my face. To me, pissing and moaning about Simmons is pointless. He’s become the ultimate cautionary tale to those of us who might hope to derive some monetary success from blogging – he has collapsed under his own weight.
Hear me out. The reason we all feel so angry and irritated with Bill is because we loved him so much when he first rose to prominence. For one thing, did you see how I called him “Bill”? That’s because for a long time, he really seemed like one of those guys you knew personally. And if you didn’t know him, you knew a guy just like him, so he had that everyman appeal. When he told a story about being at a poker table in Vegas and seeing Michael Jordan and Charles Oakley walk in, it felt like he was thrilled, just as any one of us would be.
But somewhere in there, Bill started to get invited to actually sit at the table with his idols, and that’s when the trouble started (for us – I’m sure he’s having a wonderful time). The stories turned from “Can you believe Bill actually met Mike Tyson?” to “So here I was, sitting in the VIP section, and the President of Nike invited me to play Madden with Tiger Woods.” See what we lost there? We can no longer imagine what it would be like to be in Bill’s shoes – he’s part of the in-crowd and we’re not.
The second thing that went wrong is so ironic I can barely stand it. Bill, who snarks endlessly about the way his beloved Saturday Night Live has gone downhill, began repeating bits for cheap laughs. Live-blogs and lists and such were very entertaining when they were few and far-between, but once readers started clamoring for those bits, they started showing up so often that they became stale. The whole time Bill’s fan club was calling for him to write more often, I was shouting (to myself) that he should write less – the anticipation was sweeter than the delivery, and it gave him time to come up with something truly worth spurting out 3,234 words about.
The final thing that made Bill (and a whole raft of other people) completely unbearable was the resurgence of the Boston sports scene. It was interesting to read about a guy who was wishing and begging for his favorite teams to win just one championship between them. But since I started reading Simmons, the Patriots have won three super bowls, the formerly woebegone Red Sox have won two World Series, and the Celtics have assembled an all-star team in hopes of adding to the dynasty. Thank goodness the Bruins still suck, because if I had to read a self-congratulatory hockey column, I think I’d throw up in my own mouth. Basically, Bill Simmons has become an insufferable bass-bowl since everything started going his way.
The last piece of Bill’s that I really enjoyed was his pilgrimage to the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. That was the last time I felt that awe of athletics seep into the florid prose of Sports Guy’s World. And that’s what I miss. For a few years there, Bill represented my generation – we quoted the same movies, remembered the same sporting moments, and were willing to root for our lousy teams even if they never won a championship. Bill’s first book was the beginning of the end, because he started to take himself seriously.
I don’t think it had to be that way. I don’t think everything is ruined by success, and I don’t put much stock in the term “sellout”. But Bill Simmons has turned away from what made him unique because the greater part of society wants him to function as a pop-culture jukebox, spitting out those old familiar hits. He’s willing to do that, and it’s made him famous and presumably wealthy. And in the end, who am I to complain about that? I have simply done what others who value originality (and some form of editorial coherence) have done – I’ve stopped reading his columns. I imagine somewhere, Bill is laughing at all of us, and doesn’t really care that he’s “jumped the shark.”
I come not to bury Bill Simmons, nor to praise him, but more to stand over his lifeless body with a puzzled expression on my face. To me, pissing and moaning about Simmons is pointless. He’s become the ultimate cautionary tale to those of us who might hope to derive some monetary success from blogging – he has collapsed under his own weight.
Hear me out. The reason we all feel so angry and irritated with Bill is because we loved him so much when he first rose to prominence. For one thing, did you see how I called him “Bill”? That’s because for a long time, he really seemed like one of those guys you knew personally. And if you didn’t know him, you knew a guy just like him, so he had that everyman appeal. When he told a story about being at a poker table in Vegas and seeing Michael Jordan and Charles Oakley walk in, it felt like he was thrilled, just as any one of us would be.
But somewhere in there, Bill started to get invited to actually sit at the table with his idols, and that’s when the trouble started (for us – I’m sure he’s having a wonderful time). The stories turned from “Can you believe Bill actually met Mike Tyson?” to “So here I was, sitting in the VIP section, and the President of Nike invited me to play Madden with Tiger Woods.” See what we lost there? We can no longer imagine what it would be like to be in Bill’s shoes – he’s part of the in-crowd and we’re not.
The second thing that went wrong is so ironic I can barely stand it. Bill, who snarks endlessly about the way his beloved Saturday Night Live has gone downhill, began repeating bits for cheap laughs. Live-blogs and lists and such were very entertaining when they were few and far-between, but once readers started clamoring for those bits, they started showing up so often that they became stale. The whole time Bill’s fan club was calling for him to write more often, I was shouting (to myself) that he should write less – the anticipation was sweeter than the delivery, and it gave him time to come up with something truly worth spurting out 3,234 words about.
The final thing that made Bill (and a whole raft of other people) completely unbearable was the resurgence of the Boston sports scene. It was interesting to read about a guy who was wishing and begging for his favorite teams to win just one championship between them. But since I started reading Simmons, the Patriots have won three super bowls, the formerly woebegone Red Sox have won two World Series, and the Celtics have assembled an all-star team in hopes of adding to the dynasty. Thank goodness the Bruins still suck, because if I had to read a self-congratulatory hockey column, I think I’d throw up in my own mouth. Basically, Bill Simmons has become an insufferable bass-bowl since everything started going his way.
The last piece of Bill’s that I really enjoyed was his pilgrimage to the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. That was the last time I felt that awe of athletics seep into the florid prose of Sports Guy’s World. And that’s what I miss. For a few years there, Bill represented my generation – we quoted the same movies, remembered the same sporting moments, and were willing to root for our lousy teams even if they never won a championship. Bill’s first book was the beginning of the end, because he started to take himself seriously.
I don’t think it had to be that way. I don’t think everything is ruined by success, and I don’t put much stock in the term “sellout”. But Bill Simmons has turned away from what made him unique because the greater part of society wants him to function as a pop-culture jukebox, spitting out those old familiar hits. He’s willing to do that, and it’s made him famous and presumably wealthy. And in the end, who am I to complain about that? I have simply done what others who value originality (and some form of editorial coherence) have done – I’ve stopped reading his columns. I imagine somewhere, Bill is laughing at all of us, and doesn’t really care that he’s “jumped the shark.”
Monday, December 17, 2007
Bill Simmons Week: The Sports Gal
Although you didn't know it, it's Bill Simmons Week on Moderately Cerebral Bias. Read Bill's ESPN stuff here and his Wiki is quite detailed as well. I first started reading about sports on the 'Net due to a USA Today article about Page 2 being launched on ESPN.com. So I've been reading Bill Simmons from the beginning of his ESPN tenure. I thought him an interesting topic just because he's still the favorite sports writer of many a teen and 20-something guy. So how does he do it? Is he still any good? Or is it just the competition is so bad? We'll explore those questions and others at some point in the week.
Before diving into the good stuff, I wanted to start by defending the Sports Gal, Bill Simmons' wife. A few weeks ago, Bill Simmons had a column in which he wrote a letter to his 13-year-old self. Among the lines in that letter was "Don't get married until you're 45." For some reason, that line angered me. I'm sure The Sports Gal was a world-class grouch while carrying around those extra pounds during her pregnancy, but really, not get married until you're 45? Harsh, isn't it? Perhaps all you male models who read my blog are nodding your heads in agreement because you have your pick of the opposite gender, but I personally don't agree with that line at all.
Anyway, the Sports Gal's only bad trait that I've noticed from her writing is her whining, especially about various celebrities that make her feel less attractive or about Bill's sports addiction. But really, how hard is this to handle? So you goes to a party with lots of attractive women there, and your date starts feeling inadequate. All a man has to do is be a little more affectionate and complementary toward his companion. A hand squeeze here, a "You look so good tonight" there, and everything is fine. (Not so good idea; pretending that you didn't notice that bimbo or that you didn't really think she was hot. She's not stupid.) And come on, Bill whines a lot too. The two are perfectly matched in their whiningness; it's like the Napa Valley for whine, heh.
The good parts? She's a runner, she's really funny (according to her ESPN columns, love the acerbic sarcasm), and she's better at picking sports winners than Bill. Not a bad start. Also, I looked up some pics, and she looks exactly like what I'd expect. I probably shouldn't be posting this, and you all better be nice in the comment section, but if you scroll down, you can see a picture of her with Bill:
Kind of plain, but...HA! Just messing, that's actually Will Leitch of deadspin.com with Bill Simmons. But honestly, she's an attractive woman in her 30's who will still be reasonably attractive in another decade. In other words, exactly what you'd expect Simmons would go for if he were signing a long-term deal. Come on, Bill, from your whining one would think you had married Tara Reid and it had all been downhill since. You had your chance to be Mr. Single ESPN Guy before you married her. If that life was so good, you'd still be Mr. Single ESPN Guy. Buck up and admit that you have it pretty good for a married man, ok?
Oh, and by the way, while searching for Sports Gal, I came across Let's Go to Smokes, which also expressed his affection for the Sports Gal. It's a decent blog from what I read, go check it out. I also came across a guide for male sports fans on how to get their own sports gal that's worth a look.
Before diving into the good stuff, I wanted to start by defending the Sports Gal, Bill Simmons' wife. A few weeks ago, Bill Simmons had a column in which he wrote a letter to his 13-year-old self. Among the lines in that letter was "Don't get married until you're 45." For some reason, that line angered me. I'm sure The Sports Gal was a world-class grouch while carrying around those extra pounds during her pregnancy, but really, not get married until you're 45? Harsh, isn't it? Perhaps all you male models who read my blog are nodding your heads in agreement because you have your pick of the opposite gender, but I personally don't agree with that line at all.
Anyway, the Sports Gal's only bad trait that I've noticed from her writing is her whining, especially about various celebrities that make her feel less attractive or about Bill's sports addiction. But really, how hard is this to handle? So you goes to a party with lots of attractive women there, and your date starts feeling inadequate. All a man has to do is be a little more affectionate and complementary toward his companion. A hand squeeze here, a "You look so good tonight" there, and everything is fine. (Not so good idea; pretending that you didn't notice that bimbo or that you didn't really think she was hot. She's not stupid.) And come on, Bill whines a lot too. The two are perfectly matched in their whiningness; it's like the Napa Valley for whine, heh.
The good parts? She's a runner, she's really funny (according to her ESPN columns, love the acerbic sarcasm), and she's better at picking sports winners than Bill. Not a bad start. Also, I looked up some pics, and she looks exactly like what I'd expect. I probably shouldn't be posting this, and you all better be nice in the comment section, but if you scroll down, you can see a picture of her with Bill:
Kind of plain, but...HA! Just messing, that's actually Will Leitch of deadspin.com with Bill Simmons. But honestly, she's an attractive woman in her 30's who will still be reasonably attractive in another decade. In other words, exactly what you'd expect Simmons would go for if he were signing a long-term deal. Come on, Bill, from your whining one would think you had married Tara Reid and it had all been downhill since. You had your chance to be Mr. Single ESPN Guy before you married her. If that life was so good, you'd still be Mr. Single ESPN Guy. Buck up and admit that you have it pretty good for a married man, ok?
Oh, and by the way, while searching for Sports Gal, I came across Let's Go to Smokes, which also expressed his affection for the Sports Gal. It's a decent blog from what I read, go check it out. I also came across a guide for male sports fans on how to get their own sports gal that's worth a look.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Non-Sports Babble: Actress Ellen Page
Hey all. FYI, I decided while on break to occasionally do some non-sports blogs on here too. Won't happen too often, but on occasion, you'll see some. So needing to pad my hit count after a month off, heh, I'll do a post on an entertainer. Why, this could mean I could double my usual readership, to, um,...2 readers per day!
I first encountered the work of 20-year-old actress Ellen Page when I was in a hotel room a month ago. I was clicking around late at night and came across the movie "Hard Candy." Let me just say, if your girlfriend or date EVER says in a sweet tone, "Hey, honey, let's rent 'Hard Candy' and watch it together", RUN! Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just run, especially if she's smiling and holding a pair of scissors. Your balls are on the line, um, literally. Google for yourself why I say this, and why I could only take about 5 minutes of the movie before switching channels.
But anyway, Ellen was an impressive actress in portraying a middle-school vigilante. I have a personal theory that the age at which women can be the meanest is middle school girls. Middle school is just at the end of the phase where the boys haven't quite caught up to the girls in maturity or social skills, and the girls know that and use their power freely. There's a great horror movie waiting to be written about packs of backpack-wearing middle school girls attacking a small town and torturing the inhabitants with protractors and compasses. Um, wait, where was I going with this, besides reliving middle-school traumas?
Oh yes, Ellen Page is a Canadian actress, and you should know about her. She's in the movie Juno, out now, was in an X-men movie. Here's an excerpt from the X-men movie:
She's not beautiful in a model sense, but since when was that necessary for all actresses? More importantly, she combines an everyday-girl look with being smart and talented, and will be more famous soon. I'll even quietly whisper "Meryl Streep comparison alert" under my breath, in fact. Watch the youtube video below for her Internet thoughts, which I COMPLETELY agree with. Yes, it is interesting how the Internet both unites us and isolates us.
I first encountered the work of 20-year-old actress Ellen Page when I was in a hotel room a month ago. I was clicking around late at night and came across the movie "Hard Candy." Let me just say, if your girlfriend or date EVER says in a sweet tone, "Hey, honey, let's rent 'Hard Candy' and watch it together", RUN! Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just run, especially if she's smiling and holding a pair of scissors. Your balls are on the line, um, literally. Google for yourself why I say this, and why I could only take about 5 minutes of the movie before switching channels.
But anyway, Ellen was an impressive actress in portraying a middle-school vigilante. I have a personal theory that the age at which women can be the meanest is middle school girls. Middle school is just at the end of the phase where the boys haven't quite caught up to the girls in maturity or social skills, and the girls know that and use their power freely. There's a great horror movie waiting to be written about packs of backpack-wearing middle school girls attacking a small town and torturing the inhabitants with protractors and compasses. Um, wait, where was I going with this, besides reliving middle-school traumas?
Oh yes, Ellen Page is a Canadian actress, and you should know about her. She's in the movie Juno, out now, was in an X-men movie. Here's an excerpt from the X-men movie:
She's not beautiful in a model sense, but since when was that necessary for all actresses? More importantly, she combines an everyday-girl look with being smart and talented, and will be more famous soon. I'll even quietly whisper "Meryl Streep comparison alert" under my breath, in fact. Watch the youtube video below for her Internet thoughts, which I COMPLETELY agree with. Yes, it is interesting how the Internet both unites us and isolates us.
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