Bode Miller Had the Wrong Sponsors

I won’t get into most of my opinions on Bode Miller except to say that a week ago, I was full of disdain for him. I didn’t so much care that he shot his mouth off – if he had backed it up, I wouldn’t have said a word. But he bumped his gums and followed that up by doing little other than drinking like a champion after the sunset. Bad form. But now that the Olympics are over and I’m back on schedule with my Law & Order addiction, the irritation has subsided and I’ve had a chance to think back on Bode’s performance.

I’ve come to realize that Bode Miller isn’t a bad guy. He’s not a bust or a fraud or a bad American. He’s just a poor bloke that got stuck with the wrong sponsors! I mean look at this guy – he’s not right for Nike and Visa.. He needs no swoosh and he’s not priceless. Bode Miller is a two-fisted drinker that flips off the media and parties with… well, maybe the hot girl is on the other side of that blonde… but he parties like his blood is made of Absolut, so where’s THAT sponsorship?

Why isn’t there an ad with Bode standing proudly, knee raised high, on the top of some mountain telling America to get a little Cap’n in em? I woulda been down with that.. far more than I ever was with that bullshit ad campaign where Nike tried to convince the masses that he was Bodhisattva on skis. And what about a Sidekick campaign with Snoop Dogg? Or a Burger King commercial with the King? Or, and I know I’m pushin it, maybe even a new spot for Chester Cheetah?

The Sidekick aside, I vouch for all three of these things as kickass products who can offer great marketing possibilities for a guy that just wants to represent his true person! I hope he jumps on these ideas when he sobers up. If so, his performance in Turin, on the slopes, not at the Sestriere, will not have been in vain. Rah, Bode!

Reports False – Young Pounds Out a 16

Feel that breeze? It’s the sigh of relief collectively being exhaled by Vince Young, Vince’s agent, Mack Brown, UT, UT fans, the New Orleans Saints, the Tennessee Titans, and anyone else interested in Vince Young’s skills and marketability… brace yourself for it… the rumors have been proven false, as its been revealed that Young’s previous Wonderlic exam was incorrectly scored. Luckily for the Young camp, he pounded out a 16 on the retake, which erases the functionally retarded score of 6. I don’t like anything related to UT or its putrid fans but Young seems like a good kid, so hurrah – that’s good news.

Houston Chronicle
Indianapolis Star
Foxsports

Vince Young Possibly Scored SIX on The Wonderlic

That’s right – the savior of Texas Football may not have managed his jersey number. Even Forrest Gump could’ve pooped out a Jeff Georgian 10 if that Army recruiter hadn’t snagged him for Vietnam first. For the uninformed, the Wonderlic is a 12-minute, 50-question test that is written at a 6th grade reading level and is used by many corporations, as well as the NFL, as a makeshift IQ test. The average score for incoming NFL rookies is 19 (1 in 100,000 get a perfect 50), and if these rumors are correct, Vince Young has the lowest recorded score for a quarterback of all time… what about Terry Bradshaw, you ask? Sorry, the NFL has only been using the Wonderlic for 25 years.

Anyone who follows recruiting knows that Young didn’t score much higher than dullard when he left high school but in the fall of 2002, he managed to be named to UT’s Athletics Director’s Academic Honor Roll. I’m now getting the feeling that UT’s definition of "Academic" differs a bit from the accepted meaning… either that, or the FBI needs to head down to Austin for an investigation into their academic integrity – this is a government caliber cover-up and we all know we can’t trust the NCAA to have the stones to figure it out.

But still assuming he really did score a six, how will he handle the complexities of an NFL playbook?  At UT, the playbook had one page and it looked like this:

1. Hike to Vince
2. Wait to see what Vince does
3. React

And while that type of playbook might work for the Falcons, it’s not quite the NFL way. So what late first round team will splash millions on Young and the guy that took all his tests and wrote all of his papers? What, you don’t think that guy needs to be on the payroll? Without him, Young has project written all over him. He throws like Uncle Rico and must adjust to playing UNDER center instead of 5 yards behind it. They’d better draft his illegal test taker in the following round so the guy can convert the playbook into into paint-by-numbers pictures. Otherwise, it won’t be three years before Young will need to petition Michael Huff for a job at his new IHOP.

If you’d like to see what Vince and the boys were up against, ESPN has 15 sample Wonderlic questions for your egotistical enjoyment. Good luck.

 
*This story is running on the Rumor Mill at ProFootballTalk.com, so take it for what it’s worth.*

Chelsea’s Web Thugs Target Ref

While Thierry Henry and the Mighty Gunners were putting the wood to Real Madrid, the Chelsea Oligarchs were going down in flames in a Champions League match against Barcelona. After a questionably fierce tackle, official Terje Hauge sent defender Asier del Horno off with a red card. Chelski lost 2-1 with 10 men on the pitch and now their bandwagon fans are gearing up to rip shit. And no, they’re not preparing to riot and set things aflame like normal fans. See, Blues fans are internet toughs… last year, they managed to force official Anders Frisk into retirement after he sent off Didier Drogba in the first leg of Chelsea’s tie last season and now they’re back at it again.

On Chelski’s official fan site: "I hope the death threats pour in. Has anyone got the email address of Terje ‘dead’ Hauge?" Another said: "I promise you that you will receive a lot of death threats. Congratulations on your last game as an international referee."

Now, we all know that most demented, unstable fantypes are most easily found spewing hate and biased, misinformed opinions on message boards, so it may not be surprising to some that they went off like this but this is Chelsea we’re talking about [cue conspiracy theory music].. this is Roman Abramovich’s team and you don’t become Roman Abramovich without learning how to "get to" people. I discussed this briefly in my post about Chelski & The Big Red Sports Machine. And in this situation, if I’m a ref, I’m running for the bloody hills lest I fall prey to Red Mafia scare tactics! Should Chelsea get bounced out of the tournament, I hope Hauge manages to flee to safety… and if he doesn’t, I hope they leave him with, at least, one good leg. 

One-nil to the Mighty Arsenal! All Hail!

Madrid may be the wealthiest club in the world but the Croesus of Castille lacks the priceless talent that is Thierry Henry. The Frenchman scored a goal of the richest beauty and lead Arsenal to football history as they became the first British side to defeat Real Madrid at The Bernabeu. It’s only fair to say that the Spanish side was in less than proper form but injuries to key players and departures of senior leaders have crippled the Arsenal, leaving us long on youth and short on experience.

But quality was to be found in every area of the field, young and old alike. Fabregas was magic, Eboue was different class, Gilberto shut down Zidane while Flamini held off Beckham, and Henry was nothing short of dazzling. His goal was as stunning as it was significant… as painful as this season has been, it goes without saying that eclipsing Real in such fabulous form brilliantly demonstrates that youth is a superior alternative to investing in declining oldsters.

Though it would be foolhardy to draw too many conclusions from this one victory, I think it’s a relieving sign that the tide could soon shift for the Gunners and a return to glory lies ahead in coming seasons.

Complete list of English clubs’ competitive ventures to the Bernabeu:
Apr 8 2003 Champions League Manchester United (Lost 3-1)
Mar 3 2001 Champions League Leeds United (Lost 3-2)
Apr 4 2000 Champions League Manchester United (Drew 0-0)
Mar 20 1985 UEFA Cup: Tottenham Hotspur (Drew 0-0)
Nov 5 1975 European Cup Derby County (Lost 5-1)
Oct 3 1973 UEFA Cup Ipswich Town (Drew 0-0)
May 15 1968 European Cup Manchester United (Drew 3-3)
Apr 11 1957 European Cup Manchester United (Lost 3-1)

SportsbyBrooks: The FSU Cowgirl Returns

So Jenn Sterger, the FSU cowgirl who caused Brent Musburger to jizz himself during a 2004 broadcast of the Miami-FSU game, has resurfaced. She’ll be appearing in the next issue of Maxim with her friends who are not only less attractive but also have inferior boob jobs. For advance Maxim shots, as well as links to her Facebook and Fan Sites, go over to SportsbyBrooks. There you can catch Sterger along with the rest of my Tuesday update, which includes:

New Digs

Welcome to the new locale. After a hop, skip, and 20 hours of jumps, I’m fairly certain the move from blogspot is now complete, so please update your bookmarks.. we’re not goin back I managed to bring all 14 months of posts in the transition but as yet, have not found a way to bring the comments along for the ride (which is probably a good thing). If you want to read the old, obnoxious opinions about my old, obnoxious opinions, they can be found at the other spot.
So, why’d I move? To put it eloquently, blogger sucks it. There were only so many outages and lost posts that I could handle, and nowadays, enough of you stop by to swill my Kool-Aid that making this jump doesn’t make me feel like a pretentious douchebag… well, not completely. Let’s see… there are some new features, primarily for the archives. You’ll find an improved navigation feature, a search box, and groovy site categories that allow you to check out all the posts written about specific topics. In addition, you might see some different looks around here while I fiddle with the design but I doubt there’ll be any major changes. I’m also not sure if I’ll continue using Haloscan over the basic system now provided but if you have an opinion on the matter, speak up. So I suppose that’s it. Thanks for making the jump with me!
Cheers!

Moving Locations

Hey all, I’m in the process of leaving blogger for a webhost all my own. I’ll provide the new details when my move is complete but in the meantime (the next 2-3 days), I imagine there’ll be glitches and hitches and such, so many apologies in advance.

Cheers!

Poncho & Lefty: The Uncensored DVD

So I was contacted by a marketing firm that is promoting Comedy Central’s Roast of Pamela Anderson. They saw my recap of the original airing floating around the internets and asked if I’d post a press release and a review for the Uncensored DVD. Tune in next week for my super-quality review of the Uncensored DVD (I won’t watch it until this weekend) but for now, have a look at the release:

NEW YORK, January 30, 2006 — It’s comedians instead of Cupid shooting arrows at sexy vixen Pamela Anderson in the most-talked about and craziest “COMEDY CENTRAL Roast” ever. The event kicked-off with Anderson floating down from the rafters in an O-shaped chair while bubbles flowed through the air, followed by rapid fire quips, all at Anderson’s expense. Ex-lover Tommy Lee proved once again that he is truly “larger than life” and the Roasters made sure to give it to him when it came to his manhood. And who could forget all those Courtney Love moments? Jimmy Kimmel, host of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” served as Roast Master. Released via COMEDY CENTRAL Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment, “COMEDY CENTRAL Roast of Pamela Anderson: Uncensored!” DVD arrives in stores nationwide on Tuesday, February 14? and will also be available at http://shop.comedycentral.com.
“COMEDY CENTRAL Roast of Pamela Anderson: Uncensored!” DVD features the entire unbleeped, unblurred, and extended version and bonus material such as exclusive rehearsal footage with Andy Dick and Courtney Love, red carpet interviews and more.
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Highlights from the evening include: Bea Arthur reading sexually explicit excerpts from Anderson’s new “novel”; Tommy Lee giving an arousing musical performance with Anderson dancing her heart out; Courtney Love acting like Tom Cruise on acid; Andy Dick fondling Anderson’s assets; and Lisa Lampanelli, the Queen of Mean, unleashing a verbal assault that fired-up the crowd to a standing ovation.

Mike Davis, What Took You So Long?

Thanks to the need for higher education and advanced levels of sport, I reside primarily in Big10 country and have done so for the duration of Mike Davis’ run at IU. In this time, I’ve learned three things:

1. Mike Davis is a reactionary nutjob
2. Mike Davis is an awful coach
3. Mike Davis is only person in the State of Indiana that thinks Mike Davis is exceptional

Even though the Hoosiers went to the Final Four in Davis’ first year, I was suspicious of his actual skills but didn’t really think he could mess up a good thing. I mean, I knew he was a career assistant coach but all he needed to do was recruit well and not allow his own ineptitude to stand in the way. In hindsight, that was way too much to ask, so it’s probably for the best that the most sensitive coach in the Big10 has thrown in the towel and resigned. Further, the haters amongst you will be pleased to hear that Davis plans to lame duck it until the Hoosiers are bounced from the NIT. He wants the team to play free of the pressures to preserve his job and fend off criticism from the media.

In the seasons that have followed the Final Four, every press conference and interview has been peppered with his incessant whine, as he’s somehow managed to rationalize every possible influence into blame for the failure of the Hoosiers. It’s the media, the alumni, the fans, the players. He’s a career assistant that has no business running a sideline and he thinks he has room to bitch?? Mike Davis ought to be sending Bobby Knight a Christmas card, Christ, a birthday card, each and every year thanking him from the bottom of his heart for the only head coaching job he’s ever gonna have! “Thanks for the opportunity, Coach! Thanks for going over the edge and forcing these fools to give me this job!” If a Division I program hires this nut, they’ll assuredly go down in flames. I’m eager to see what hilljack athletic director thinks he’s a good idea.