Introducing the newest member...









Seriously, who is gonna fuck with these guys?
- posted by Mike @ 1:35 AM 2 comments

 
Next Round










You know the drill by now.
- posted by Mike @ 6:38 PM 2 comments

 
Quick and painless
I don't have time* for a real post about anything, so just enjoy this picture and try not to let it haunt your dreams.













*I'm actually just lazy
- posted by Mike @ 1:37 AM 3 comments

 
Fantasy Season Wrapup
If you don't give two shits (or even one) about how my fantasy hockey and basketball seasons went you should probably skip down to the music post and vote.

After last season I had kind of lost interest in fantasy basketball. No one that I knew even wanted to try playing so I decided that I wasn't going to play it this season. The only problem was that last year I won the public pool I was in (thanks almost totally to KG). When you win a public pool the following season Yahoo allows you to play in a league with just teams that won their pools the previous year. Since I had never won a public pool before I wanted to see what these winners pools were all about. So to make a long story even longer I ended up joining a winners pool and two regular public pools (one I drafted and one I just let the auto ranking handle). Unless I won any of those pools this was going to be my last season of fantasy basketball.

All three of my teams were pretty mid-level all season and I ended up finishing the regular seasons 5th (winners), 6th (public draft) and 7th (auto draft). In the auto draft one I ended up winning the loser bracket of the playoffs, but thats not really worth anything. In the winners pool I got knocked out in the first round by the team that went on to win the whole thing. So using my logic thats almost as good as a silver medal. Thanks to Dirk Nowitzki and Yao Ming being monsters down the strech I swept through the playoffs of my drafted public pool. Looks like I've got at least one more season in me.

Then theres hockey. 3 of the 4 pools I was in were won by the team that had Jagr. In a pool of 14 teams he was taken with the 30th pick (3rd round). He went 18th in a 7 team pool (3rd round). And this one is the most embarassing: 13th round, 52nd pick of a 4 team pool. If "Ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts then we'd all have a Merry Christmas. Players I drafted before Jagr: Robert Lang, Milan Hejduk, Alex Tanguay, Glen Murray and Todd Bertuzzi twice. Every team in every pool had a minimum of 2 shots at this guy an no one took him. Next season he'll be gone by the 3rd overall pick in most drafts. Everyone knew Jagr's potential so its hard to call this a shocker, but in hindsight its hard to see how everyone missed the boat.

Anyway, on to the results. In my two head to head pools I finished the regular seasons 4th of 14 (Behind Steve in 1st and ahead of Tom and Dennis in 7th and 11th respectivly) and 2nd of 12 in a public pool. The 14 team pool saw me being knocked out in the first round and finishing 5th, while Steve continued the dominance he showed all season and walked away with the championship. Tom meanwhile put up a decent effort but lost in the finals of the loser bracket.

The other two hockey pools I was in worked on the point based system. One of them might as well have given out the trophy at Christmas. Team Asian Sensation used Jagr, Spezza and Staal to jump out to a massive lead early and never looked back. I held on to the 2nd place spot for a little while, but Tom took aim and claimed the silver medal with about 3 weeks to go in the season holding me to the bronze.

Lastly is my largest regret of the hockey season. I dominated this last pool on the strength of my goalies almost all season long. I was untouchable, the way my team was consistantly putting up points there was no way any of the other teams could catch me. Then nearing the end of the season I noticed something funny. The points my team was recording nightly wasn't the same as the points I was getting on the leaderboard. This is where my history of playing head to head pools almost exclusivly kicked my ass. You see, in a points based pool there is a maximum number of games played allowed at each position. Once you're passed that number you can no longer accumulate points at that position. So my stratagy of running 6 goalies in a 2 goalie pool gave me a big lead, but once I was out of games it allowed Tom to chip away at that lead over the final weeks of the season and claim victory.

After this season Tom now has a comanding lead for the all-time hockey championship title having won 4 of the 11 pools he has been in. Compared to the 1 for 12 that Steve and I are both rocking now. Its gonna be an intese offseason, I've got some serious ground to make up.
- posted by Mike @ 5:27 PM 1 comments

 
This is not the NCAA

This bracket makes George Mason look like nothing. Half of the two seeds got knocked out in the first round, and three of the number one seeds were sent packing early! Maddness indeed. Considering the matchups the two biggest shockers in my mind were Momma Said Knock You Out beating Shook Ones and The Offspring taking out Neil Young. I didn't think anyone actually liked that LL Cool J song. Thanks to the voters, Jona, Maine, April and Steve! If you didn't vote on the first round this is your chance to get in here, you dirty lurker you! If you did vote you know you wanna keep voting your favorites into the next round, so click on the fancy shmancy MSPaint bracket and do up your second rounders.

Day one of the NHL playoffs is over, Pat Quinn got fired, I finished exams and Foreman was a total dick to Cameron. These are some of the things I want to talk about, but I just started reading The Da Vinci Code tonight and it's already making me crazy! So if you don't hear from me for a while it's because I'm stuck in a book somewhere.
- posted by Mike @ 5:43 AM 2 comments

 
Pick 'em
Alright I've got my last exam tomorrow so I'm gonna try to make this quick. Here are my thoughts on the first round matchups, throw yours in the comments and we'll see who has the best record at the end of the playoffs.

Western Conference:

Detroit (1) over Edmonton (8) - I'm taking the Wings to win the Cup so it only makes sense that they'd win in the first round.

Dallas (2) over Colorado (7) - If Colorado had a goalie that might make this interesting. But they don't and they won't.

Calgary (3) over Anaheim (6) - The Ducks might not even score in this series. Thats how much of a freak Kiprusoff is.

San Jose (5) over Nashville (4) - The Sharks are on fire and the Predators don't have Vokoun to put it out.

Eastern Conference:

Ottawa (1) over Tampa Bay (8) - I think the Sens are going to get upset in the playoffs, but the Lightning don't have a goalie to do it.

Carolina (2) over Montreal (7) - This could be close. Huet could have that magical Montreal rookie goalie in the playoffs thing going for him, and Kovalev can score with the best of em. But do you remember what Gerber did to Canada in the Olympics? Thats when I really took notice of him. I think this could be one of the more entertaining first round matchups.

New Jersey (3) over New York (6) - If anyone can stop Jagr its Brodeur, and apparently Gionta is a goal scoring machine. Plus this is the first time the Rangers have seen the playoffs in like 50 years (at least it seems like it) so that can't help.

Buffalo (4) over Philadelphia (5) - Remember what happened when Calgary beat Detroit in the playoffs cause the Wings had some slow defencemen that got burned a lot? Well its gonna be deja vu for Hatcher, at least for the rest of the D this will only be the first time. The goalies for both teams are kinda sketchy. If Philly goes with Esche its a mistake, and Nittimakki could he hit or miss. I'll take my chances with Ryan Miller, but he could crash and burn pretty easy too.
- posted by Mike @ 4:31 PM 2 comments

 
And the winner is...
I was going to make my first round predictions today, but although we now know all the teams that will be playing for Lord Stanley's Cup, we don't know the final standings (damn the Eastern Conference is tight). So I've decided to put my two cents in on the individual hardware.

Hart Trophy: This goes to the player judged to be most valuable to his team. I'm taking Joe Thornton to beat out Jagr and Kiprusoff. I was ready to give this one to Joe when Jagr was still leading the points race. Now that Thornton has taken over that too (Jagr needs at least 3 points tonight to get it back) I don't think there is even a question. The turnaround that the Sharks team has had since getting Thornton from Boston is scary. Its like a whole new team. Jagr is a crazy individual player, but he doesn't come close to improving the Rangers the way Thornton does with the Sharks.

Vezina Trophy: This is probably the easiest of all the awards. Mikka Kiprusoff walks away with this one and no one is shocked. Manny Legace and Cristobal Huet are just honoured to be nominated.

Norris Trophy: I've got Lidstrom taking this one. He just did what he does year in an year out. Arguably the best player in the entire league, unless someone plays out of their mind all season I'd have Lidstrom packing up the Norris annually. My first runner-up is Dion Phaneuf, who is sure to have a couple of these trophies in his possession before we hear the last of him. There are at least 5 guys I'd like to put in the final runner-up spot so I'm just gonna throw Scott Niedermayer's name out there and move on.

Calder Trophy: This is the easiest award to give out since the Vezina went a couple seconds ago. Alexander 'The GR8' Ovechkin is a freak show. There is no one else on that Washington team for opponents to worry about and he still puts on a circus show. Dion Phaneuf and Henrik Lundqvist show up and smile for the cameras anyway. Yeah thats right, I'm not even nominating Sid 'The Kid' Crosby. Ovechkin outclassed him all season, and those other two guys were key parts of teams that are still going to be playing after tonight.

Jack Adams Trophy: I'll be honest, I have no idea who the coach of the Carolina Hurricanes is. If there were a lineup of 5 generic middle aged white guys I wouldn't be able to pick him out. I'd feel even dumber if hes not a middle aged white guy. Hes winning this trophy though. Depending on how tonight's games go the 'Canes could have the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference. Case closed. Runners up? I dunno...Buffalo's coach (Lindy Ruff?) and Nashville's (Pretty sure its Barry Trotz).

Alander Daige Trophy a.k.a. The I can't believe I took this guy in the first round of my fantasy pool trophy. Up until the Olympic break Mats Sundin had almost wrapped up this trophy, but since the break the guy has been a monster so hes off the list. The winner instead is Martain St. Louis, this former Hart Trophy winner was supposed to take full advantage of the new rules and light up the league. Instead he struggled all year and took home the Daige award of merit. Runners-up: Mario Lemieux and Marcus Naslund.
- posted by Mike @ 3:58 PM 0 comments

 
God doesn't want me to sleep in
So pretty much every morning just after 10am my stupid phone rings. Almost every single freaking morning. Problem? In most households probably not except in my house my dad is usually out shopping or outside and doesn't hear it. So my sleep is interrupted just so i can run to the stupid phone and he some person try to sell me some shit or a wrong number. I can remember within the last few months of one of these phone calls being something important... ggrrr.... just let me sleep!
- posted by steve @ 2:45 PM 1 comments

 
"You're With Me, Leather"
Its been a good week for sports...not such a good week for studying, but thats a whole other story. In case you've been more productive then me this week I thought I'd share some of the fun stuff that has been keeping me entertained.

The top of the list is easily the tales of ESPN announcer Chris Berman's pick-up line "You're with me, leather". This is the kind of thing that should be on Chappelle's Show Great Moments in Hook-Up History. Deadspin cracked this story on tuesday, and as of now there are only 37 Google hits for this ultimate catch phrase? C'mon internet, you should've taken this one and run with it days ago. "You're with me, leather" is even funnier then FIGJAM, and trust me FIGJAM is hilarious.

The Red Wings won the President's Trophy, the rest of the league cowered in fear.

"Ted Lily is a pimp, and the Red Sox are his bitches" courtesy of The Soxaholix. Did anyone watch that game? It was about 3 different kinds of awsome.

I think we all know how I feel about Beckie Scott around here, so it was kinda sad to hear that she was ending her competitive career. Hopefully she'll do some commentary at the next olympics like Catriona LeMay Doan.

Andy over at H77 has started writing some cheques that his team is going to have trouble cashing. But I'll save that one for my upcomming NHL playoff post (I'm just waiting for all the matchups to get sorted out).

Naturally, I'll leave you with a game. Have a good holiday weekend everybody!

- posted by Mike @ 11:25 PM 0 comments

 
Wake up to a Jesus piece like a Catholic nun...
Boy did I ever have an awsome dream last night. I woke up and actually started laughing when I remembered what I had just drempt (is drempt a word? or should I have gone with dreamed?). So it started out with me in the backseat of a car going up to a cottage with a couple buddies. But instead of using roads like normal folk we were driving through fields and over hills and shit, and everytime we'd meet a road there were always police cars there. So we'd freak out cause the cops would probably be pissed about the unothadox driving. But then we'd realize that the cops had actually pulled someone else over and just happened to be there, paying no attention to us. This happened like 5-6 times, it was like a bad (or good) Family Guy joke.

We get to the cottage, but we have to check in like at a motel. So I go in to get the key or whatever it is I had to do, and Method Man is behind the counter. Then I go "Oh shit, it's the M-E-T-" and he finishes it off "H-O-D" and we both say "MAN!". Good times. It turns out that there is a poker game going on in the back room so Meth (we're friends in the dream so I can call him Meth) and I head back and meet up with Michael Douglas and Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman is in total Rain Man mode "Its aces, definitly, definitly aces" and hes doing all the odds and calculations in his head but saying them out loud. "Four in the deck, throw away three, pick up two, definitly aces, 82%, uh-oh, five minutes to Wapner". This whole time Douglas is just getting more and more mad, finally hes had enough, jumps up and yells "FUCK! You're not the fucking Rain Man! Fold or call I don't care, just shut the fuck up!". So Hoffman calls, flips over his cards and in his normal voice just says "Definitly aces" and takes the pot. It was the funniest thing Meth or I had ever seen.

Then I woke up. I never thought I'd see the day that Michael Douglas showed up in one of my dreams. I'm gonna throw the remaining first round matchups up here for my ultimate music tournament. So get your votes in cause the 2nd round starts on monday. If you're reading this and haven't voted yet, scroll back through the last few post and have your say. It could change the course of history. Plus, if you don't vote you can't complain when we crown a winner.

(2)Shook Ones Part II Mobb Deep vs. (15)Momma Said Knock You Out LL Cool J
(2)Triumph Wu-Tang Clan vs. (15)Fu-Gee-La The Fugees
(2)Twist My Arm The Tragically Hip vs. (15)Horse With No Name America
(2)What I Got Sublime vs. (15)Clocks Coldplay

(1)Feel Me Flow Naughty by Nature vs. (16)Ice Ice Baby Vanilla Ice
(1)Da Rockwilder Method Man and Redman vs. (16)Poppin Them Thangs G-Unit
(1)Back in Black AC/DC vs. (16)Old Time Rock n' Roll Bob Seger
(1)Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park The Tragically Hip vs. (16)Are You Gonna Be My Girl? Jet
- posted by Mike @ 3:15 PM 6 comments

 
Its like a book on tape...but better!
I was just checking the TV guide to see what time the Jays game started this afternoon (its at 2 in Boston) and I spotted something else kinda cool. Robert Ludlum's Covert One: The Hades Factor (its on at 9 on whatever channel CH is), it's no secret that I love Robert Ludlum and all of his books, and I might be wrong, but I think The Hades Factor was the first one of his that I ever read. Problem? Well I don't have TiVo or a VCR anymore and its on at the same time as House. Why do they make me choose? I think my remote control thumb is gonna get a workout tonight. Aight I gotta go fire up the BBQ before the Jays get going, don't forget to rock the vote!

(3)Rapper's Delight The Sugarhill Gang vs. (14)Gin & Juice Snoop Doggy Dogg
(3)Still D.R.E. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg vs. (14)B.O.B. Outkast
(3)The Weight The Band vs. (14)Money Pink Floyd
(3)Redneck Gigolo Charlie Terrell vs. (14)Magic Carpet Ride (remix) Steppenwolf

Let's Go Blue Jays!

Seacrest, out!
- posted by Mike @ 1:43 PM 3 comments

 
Master of his Domain
Phil Mickelson won The Masters yesterday for the second time in his career. Yeah lefty power! I'm not as big of a fan of his as I used to be though. I still gotta cheer for him based on the lefty swing alone, but the combination of Mike Weir becomeing more dominant and hearing more and more FIGJAM stories (thats a kickass nickname by the way) has knocked him down a few pegs. So in conclusion if you swing lefty I will cheer for you. Oh and who wants to go golfing now? Hell yeah.

(4)People Everyday Arrested Development vs. (13)Baby Got Back Sir Mix-a-lot
(4)Whoa! Black Rob vs. (13)Watchout Now Beatnuts
(4)If I Had $1,000,000 Barenaked Ladies vs. (13)The Devil Went Down to Georgia Charlie Daniel's Band
(4)Punk Rock Rebel Millencolin vs. (13)Take Me Out Franz Ferdinand
- posted by Mike @ 12:27 PM 4 comments

 
This is how we do
The first week of the baseball season has been great. The Jays and Astros both look solid, and there have been some good games on TV. The Cubs are Cards are playing right now on sportsnet, I hate them both, but damnit this is good baseball. I've put on a couple of the Braves/Giants games on TBS too and boy is Tim Hudson ever looking shaky. I was going to post my fantasy rosters, but I'm still doing some tweaking so that'll wait for another day. Until then, onto the next group of matchups. Thanks for all the votes so far, keep it up!

(5)C.R.E.A.M. Wu-Tang Clan vs. (12)Gangsta's Paradise Coolio
(5)Break Ya Neck Busta Rhymes vs. (12)People Like Myself Timbaland and Magoo
(5)Mr. Jones Counting Crows vs. (12)You Can't Always Get What You Want The Rolling Stones
(5)Red Flag Billy Talent vs. (12)Fat Lip Sum 41
- posted by Mike @ 10:39 PM 3 comments

 
Just the basics
I don't really have the mental capacity to write a 'real' post, so heres the next set of matchups:

(6)U Can't Touch This MC Hammer vs. (11)I Wish Skee-lo
(6)Big Pimpin' Jay-Z vs. (11)Ruff Ryders Anthem DMX
(6)Keep on Rocking in the Free World Neil Young vs. (11)Come Out and Play The Offspring
(6)Bulls on Parade Rage Against the Machine vs. (11)Flagpole Sitta Harvey Danger
- posted by Mike @ 4:58 PM 4 comments

 
Blah...
so on wednesday night i went out to see Hard Fi with johnny and justin. had a good time, concert was pretty good and we had a few drinks... actually probably too many drinks. i think i discovered the worst kinda "drunk" on wednesday. i had enough to make me feel tipsy, but not to do anything stupid. then the next day i wasn't hungover but i still felt like ass. it was the very unhappy medium i think. not drunk enough to do anything stupid and memorable, but drunk enough to feel like ass the next day. blah.

yeah that was a pointless post :P
i'm working on a top 5... till tomorrow.... maybe
- posted by steve @ 11:52 PM 1 comments

 
Is it in you?
Had my last day of classes today, for some reason it didn't feel as good as it has in the past. Maybe because I didn't have as many classes to go to as I have in the past. I dunno, it was just kinda anti-climatic.

I had a bit of a break between my last two classes so I took the opportunity to head over to the nearest vending machine area to get some caffine in because I was really dragging my ass this morning. Unfortunatley when I got there the caffine machine was out of order, so I went with a Powerade instead. I got to my class and sat down beside one of my buddies and opened my beverage. Then I turn to my friend and say "Hey, y'know that seal on the top of Powerade bottles. Uh, this one didn't have one". So we spent a couple seconds trying to figure out who could be out to get me. While we were having that discussion the prof was handing out some papers and was right by us. Just as I go to take my first sip she has this look of horror cross her face and she says "Oh my God, you're not going to drink that are you?!". To which I reply "Well, yeah I'm thirsty". Then she just kinda looked at me in disbelief like I had pulled a rabbit out of a hat that had previously thought to be empty. Anyway to make a long story a little longer, I'm still alive and my thirst was quenched, so everybody wins.

On to the next round of matchups. If you haven't voted yet, scroll down another post and get started. If you have, heres the 7 vs. 10 sets:

(7)I Got 5 On It The Luniz vs. (10)It's Tricky Run DMC
(7)Role Model Eminem vs. (10)Through the Wire Kanye West
(7)Takin Care of Business BTO vs. (10)Layla Eric Clapton
(7)The Memory Remains Metallica vs. (10)Pressure Point The Zutons
- posted by Mike @ 12:29 AM 5 comments

 
April Maddness!
Okay so in the name of total procrastination I've made up my musical brackets. This will only work with participation though, so I'm asking for your input, just take a couple seconds out of your day to vote for who you want to win each matchup. I'm talking to you too lurkers, I know you're out there, you don't have to use your name or anything, just type out the 4 songs and be annony-moose about it.

The brackets are broken up by date and style. I chose 1996 as the divider between old and new school for no real reason, 10 years just sounded right. The style divider is really just rap/hip-hop vs. everything else cause thats how I roll. I'm going to start with the 8 vs. 9 seed matchup and work up to the one seeds. Lastly any tie goes to the highest seed, because I'm not voting so my ranking breaks any tie. Got it? Got it. So lets get at 'er:

(8)The Message Grandmaster Flash vs. (9)Big Poppa Notorious B.I.G.
(8)Da Joint EPMD vs. (9)Country Grammar Nelly
(8)House of the Rising Sun The Animals vs. (9)The Gambler Kenny Rogers
(8)Scar Tissue Red Hot Chili Peppers vs. (9)Got the Life Korn

If you haven't heard any of those songs, I recommend each and every one of them.
- posted by Mike @ 1:24 AM 4 comments

 
Who wants $100,000?
Head over to MLB.com and enter the Beat the Streak contest. Get to 57 games and win $100,000 sounds pretty easy eh. Oh and its free to enter and play. So if you decide to join, enter league name "Bacon Strips" and password "5555". You should also check out Beat the Streak: Home Run Edition and MLB.com Survivor while you're there too.

Okay, I should probably try and get some sleep now.
- posted by Mike @ 3:32 AM 3 comments

 
He's so big, it's so hot
Before I get into this top 5 I just want to bitch about the quality of commercials these days. There was a time in my life when I wanted to go into marketing, and right now I don't know if I would have just dominated the game or killed myself. Seriously there are some awful commercials running that should have gotten no farther then being spoken in an brainstorming meeting. Mr. Sub is probably the worst, I don't think they've had a good commercial in their history. But have you seen Pepsi lately?? First they had the Jimmy Fallon one which sucked, but that one never really had a chance. Then they do pretty much the same thing but they switched Fallon for Eva Longoria and switched the woman in the first commercial with rain in the second one. Its still just bad. What are the people at Pepsi drinking? Yeah, I know I just set you up with the greatest Pepsi-bashing line ever. Try to contain yourself, you're missing the point. They've got Eva Longoria, and its raining and they still can't pull a good commercial out of it. Rediculous.

Enough about shitty preformances though, on to some great ones. The Top 5 Christopher Walken preformances. Remember to say the accompanying lines in your best Walken voice.

5. Batman Returns
"Bottom line, she tries to blackmail me, I'll drop her out a higher window. Meantime, I got better fish to fry."

4. Saturday Night Live
"I gotta have more cowbell, baby!"

3. Suicide Kings
"Guys, if I don't bleed to death pretty soon, I'm gonna die of boredom."

2. Doe Dirt
"You're talking to me all wrong. It's the wrong tone. Do it again and I'll stab you in the face with a soldering iron. Hey, tell me, does your mother sew? *SMACK* Get her to sew that!"

1. Poolhall Junkies
"You watch those nature documentaries on the cable? You see the one about lions? You got this lion. He's the king of the jungle, huge mane out to here. He's laying under a tree, in the middle of Africa. He's so big, it's so hot. He doesn't want to move. Now the little lions come, they start messing with him. Biting his tail, biting his ears. He doesn't do anything. The lioness, she starts messing with him. Coming over, making trouble. Still nothing. Now the other animals, they notice this. They start to move in. The jackals; hyenas. They're barking at him, laughing at him. They nip his toes, and eat the food that's in his domain. They do this, then they get closer and closer, bolder and bolder. Till one day, that lion gets up and tears the shit out of everybody. Runs like the wind, eats everything in his path. Cause every once in a while, the lion has to show the jackals, who he is."

Is there a better movie speech then that one right there? I say there isn't. Someday this week I'm going to put together a march maddness-style bracket to determine the greatest song in the history of the world. You ever notice how much more elaborate these procrastination efforts get the closer exams are?
- posted by Mike @ 12:05 AM 7 comments

 
Official Predictions
The 2006 Major League Baseball season gets underway tonight so its time to make some predictions. My favorite part about preseason predictions is that so many things happen during the season that its really rediculous to take this seriously now, and by the end of the season no one is going to remember how wrong I was anyway. But if I get a couple of these right I can point back to this post and proclaim what a baseball mastermind I am.

American League:

Division Winners - Boston, Chicago and Texas

Wild Card - Toronto

MVP - Mark Teixeira

Cy Young - Roy Halladay

RotY - Ian Kinsler

National League:

Division Winners - Atlanta, St. Louis and San Francisco

Wild Card - Houston

MVP - Lance Berkman

Cy Young - Roy Oswalt

RotY - Jeremy Hermideia

World Series:

Houston over Boston


Don't like my predictions? Check out who ESPN is taking, or hit the comments up.
- posted by Mike @ 3:46 PM 1 comments