S14: NCAA Tournament 2nd Rd Sunday Top Returning Scorers

The first round has come and gone, and these are the fourteen guys stealing scholarships from more deserving young people to bounce a fucking orange ball around for big money for the universities on the TV that have scored the most points thus far in their allegedly amateur career in the NCAA March Madness tournament. This list shifted around a bit from the Friday one, because that part of the tournament actually was fun to watch...
#1: Sherron Collins (Kansas Jayhawks, 107 previous tourney points) - He must have bloggered himself and saw me talk shit, because he lit up North Dakota State like mad on Friday. Of course, that is just N.D. State, but still, perhaps I shouldn't talk so much shit. Haha, like anybody reads this, much less the people I talk shit about. I am public, yet anonymous. Welcome to the future. #2: Levance Fields (Pitt Panthers, 99 previous tourney points) - Had a quiet yet efficient first round game for the #1 seed Pitt Panthers, which is really what you'd hope for from a point guard. #3: Sam Young (Pitt Panthers, 98 previous tourney points) - Pretty much works with the above Fields to be the perfect complement and set-up pairing for DeJuan Blair inside. #4: Taj Gibson (USC Magnums, 85 previous tourney points) - Led his team over Boston College on Friday, and really, they don't have that bad a team, and if Taj can keep it hype, not shocking to imagine them beating a rather unheralded Michigan State team. #5: Earl Clark (Louisville, 84 previous tourney points) - Hard to really gauge what Louisville's all about after routing a #16 seed. #6: Edgar Sosa (Louisville, 80 previous tourney points) - PUERTO RICO! HOOOOOOO! BLACK PEOPLE! HOOOOO! #7: Jerry Smith (Louisville, 77 previous tourney points) - A common man's name builds a fundamentally-solid player to lay the foundation for his flashier teammate's success. I don't know all that to be true at all, but it reads well. #8: Raymar Morgan (Michigan State, 75 previous tourney points) - Raymar has promised to show the world "something you haven't seen" during this tournament. I am wondering if he's not an Al-Qaeda cell, fixing to blow up the Triple H Metrodome. #9: Jerel McNeal (Marquette Golden Eagles, 74 previous tourney points) - Honestly, as bad as they've played the last month or so, I was shocked they won. They were my 1st Round Upset Special Lock of the Week. Good thing I don't gamble. Unless you consider over-extending myself through credit to where it all could crash in on me at some point, causing me to lose what few actual financial assets I have amassed as gambling. #10: Derrick Brown (Xavier Muscatels, 74 previous tourney points) - I used to look at this hobo book at my college library, and there was this martini glass graffiti saying "THE RAMBLER". I thought that mentally noteworthy. One time, while walking four miles home from the used book store one Sunday afternoon while living on southside, where I'd bought a $1 Thoreau collection, being I only had $1, a train came and I had to wait for it to pass. And I saw a martini glass "THE RAMBLER" graff on a grey boxcar. I was adrenalinized by this. #11: Terence Williams (Louisville, 72 previous tourney points) - Another Louisville Cardinal. #12: Goran Sutton (Michigan State Spartan athlete, 66 previous tourney points) - Senior center, at 6'10" is a towering presence because, for some reason, nobody grows tall anymore, unless they are some weird oafy kid from Russia. You'd think with all the hormones in our food and milk, and how girls are all growing way larger breasts now, dudes would be getting taller, and we'd have more 7-footers in the NCAAs, but it doesn't seem to be working that way. #13: Jason Bohannon (Wisconsin, 62 previous tourney points) - Solid Badger contributor for a couple years now, and still has another season of eligilibity to go. Wisconsin vs. Xavier should give me time for an Andy Capp-style nap on the couch this afternoon. #14: Dominic James (Marquette, 62 previous tourney points) - And all he did was wave a towel around on the end of the bench. You've actually got to feel bad for the dude, being their best player, but broken-footed, and impotent to help out with the game at all, although he's got the same, if not more, emotional investment than his teammates does.

S14: NCAA Tournament 2nd Rd Saturday Top Returning Scorers

The first round has come and gone, and these are the fourteen guys stealing scholarships from more deserving young people to bounce a fucking orange ball around for big money for the universities on the TV that have scored the most points thus far in their allegedly amateur career in the NCAA March Madness tournament. The fourteen for this day are the same, in slightly altered order, from Thursday's first round list, which means no upsets occurred, which also means the tournament sucked on Thursday. And fuck Jay Bilas...
#1: Tyler Hansbrough (of the UNC, 242 tourney points thus far) - Again, I do not like Tyler Hansbrough, but honestly, having been near UVA and its ridiculously deluded fanbase which thinks getting VCU's Anthony Grant to be their new head coach is below them (even though the rest of the country knows he's a top tier candidate for any job), when I close my eyes to the certain invididuals like Hansbrough I do not like, I actually don't mind seeing that powdery blue-trimmed Tarheel uniform succeeed. It is a secret shame of mine. #2: A.J. Abrams (Texas, 174 tourney points thus far) - And Abrams pretty much lit it up from behind the 3-point line on Thursday, getting the Longhorns into their match-up today with Duke, who, unlike UNC, I could never root for, even if they were fighting AIDS. #3: Darren Collison (UCLA, 153 tourney points thus far) - Collison shut down Eric Maynor on the final shot Thursday, ruining what has been a glorious spring of VCU basketball fandom for me, where I took my 10-year-old kid to a couple games, and she was all stoked too. When she awoke Friday morning, I told her they lost, and she was sad. Actually, I made it all dramatic and explained how they were down by 1 with 13 seconds and Eric Maynor went down and took the shot... and missed. So fuck a Darren Collison (but even more so that weird Fast & Furious-looking Dragovic dude). #4: Antonio Anderson (Memphis Thuggers, 142 previous tourney points) - John Calipari's highly athletic team has been trash talking their second round opponent in Maryland, which won't mean they'll lose, but also shows what a bunch of streetballing all-star who can't properly conjugate normal verbs he has brought together. They'd be a shoo-in at Rucker Park, but I think, like usual, a Calipari-coached team will stumble somewhere along the way. #5: Wayne Ellington (UNC, 139 previous tourney points) - Picking up the inside/outside slack with Hansbrough well with Ty Lawson on the bench during their first round exhibition against Radford. #6: Ty Lawson (UNC, 113 previous tourney points) - And none of them this year. I haven't heard the reports about whether he's back for this second round game today against LSU or not, but the sports dork consensus seems to be the Tarheels need him back to win it all. I don't buy that. I think they're a better lock for the title with him, but even without him, that only downgrades them to amongst the five or six schools that have a shot to win it all. #7: Josh Shipp (UCLA, 110 previous tourney points) - Again, fuck UCLA. #8: Robert Dozier (another Memphis husky gentleman, 103 previous tourney points) #9: Danny Green (UNC, 99 previous tourney points) - The defensive minded starter in their line-up. #10: Scottie Reynolds (Villanova Wildcats, 88 previous tourney points) - And this should grow even more with the second round as they are playing a home game against a west coast team that travelled more than anyone. #11: Deon Thompson (UNC, 84 previous points) - Thompson, like Hansbrough, for some reason I cannot stand, and have to ignore his presence when I quietly and internally hope for the Tarheels to win. #12: Josh Carter (Texas A&M Agricultural Kids, 75 previous tourney points) - I hope this dude, in his senior year, lights it up today, because if I have learned to accept UNC in recent years, I have also learned I hate Connecticut more than almost any other team out there, other than Duke, because basically they're like Duke of the northeast with lower academic standards. #13: Damion James (Texas Syzzurp, 74 previous tourney points) - Wow, with the Longhorns facing the stupid Blue Devils tonight, I guess I'm pulling for Texas teams across the board today. #14: Greg Paulus (Dookie Blues, 74 previous tourney points) - Continuing a long tradition of fucking ugly ass whiteboys that Coach K constantly recruits to help them feel more empowered about being an ugly ass whiteboy. It is a cause close to Coach K's heart.

S14: NCAA Tourney 1st Rd Friday Top Returning Scorers

These fourteen dudes playing the basketballs today in the NCAA tourniquette, mostly all from major teams, have scoreded the most points in the previous three tourniquettes...
#1: Levance Fields (Pittsburg Panthers senior guard, 93 previous tourney points) - DeJuan Blair gets a lot of the gloss off this Pitt team, but Fields runs shit on the floor. #2: Sam Young (Pittsburgh Panthers senior guard) - And this guy is a hot shooter from the outside to complement Blair; really, it's a cliche, but having a pair of really good senior guards carries teams this time of year. #3: Tyrese Rice (Boston College Eagles senior guard, 76 previous tourney points) - Richmond, Virginia's, own gangstariffic b-ball scoring threat; I anxiously await him getting caught with weed on I-95 once he's in the NBA. #4: Sherron Collins (Kansas Jayhawks junior guard, 75 previous tourney points) - Highly overrated Kansas asshole, and you should never trust black dudes who end up going to play for Kansas, because I remember Menace II Society. #5: Earl Clark (Louisville Cardinals junior forward, 72 previous tourney points) - Rick Pitino has brought back quite the collection of thugonomic majors for what's probably his best shot at a national title since back when he had that Kentucky team with basically two five-man rotations of starters that he alternated using. #6: Edgar Sosa (Louisville Cardinals junior guard, 71 previous tourney points) - Matters not to me if he's from Puerto Rico or not because when I see him balling, Frankie Cutlass classics start echoing through my head, but all muffled like they're coming from inside a cinderblock building I'm walking past. #7: Wayne Chism (Tennessee Volunteers junior center, 70 previous tourney points) - Chism's style of wearing a headband all yamulke style is pretty damned pimp, but probably only because it goes well with Volunteer orange; if he played in red uniform or some weak ass dark blue, it'd look stupid, although maybe purple would look tight too; it's really a shame they don't let teams both wear dark jerseys because Tennessee/LSU games would be an aesthetic pleasure. #8: Jerry Smith (Louisville Cardinals junior guard, 70 previous tourney points) - I've never even heard of this guy. #9: Dominic James (Marquette Golden Eagles senior guard, 62 previous tourney points) - But won't be playing this year, as he broked his foot; still, he'll get to wear a suit at the end of the bench with class, doing his best Gilbert Arenas impersonation. #10: Derrick Brown (Xavier Muskateers junior forward, 61 previous tourney points) - My brain works like so - Muskateer turns into Muscatel, which makes me think of winos, which makes me imagine a pack of well-trained and groomed hoboes playing college basketball as part of a $1 bet by those two old white guy who switched Dan Akroyd with Eddie Murphy. #11: Taj Gibson (USC Trojans junior forward, 59 previous tourney points) - Saw O.J. Mayo come and go through Los Angeles, and now the media glare's not so bright this year; but Taj holds his own. #12: Jerel McNeal (Marquette Golden Eagles senior guard, 60 previous tourney points) - Must shoulder a heavy load with James gone from the active roster for the tourney, making Marquette one of the most likely early exits, considering they were a Top 10 team for half the year. #13: Raymar Morgan (Michigan State Spartans junior forward, 59 previous tourney points) - Tom Izzo's best hope to lead him to another big bonus for his already ridiculous college coaching contract. #14: Terence Williams (Louisville Cardinals senior forward, 59 previous tourney points) - Seems like he's been playing forever.

Friday Love/Hate

I love my family. It is a strange bunch, and the fake lord fucking knows the last thing anybody wants to read about is somebody else acting like they know shit about having kids. But still...
I hate writing with eyeballs in mind. The internet is for haters and the eyeballs have judgementality and self-import. I don't sweat it, but I think about how reactions will be reacted, which is fucking stupid. Like, typing this is stupid.

S14: NCAA Tourney 1st Rd Thursday Top Returning Scorers

These fourteen dudes playing the basketballs today in the NCAA tourniquette, mostly all from major teams, have scoreded the most points in the previous three tourniquettes...
#1: Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina Tarheels senior forward, 220 previous tourney points) - I have coached youth soccer for the past six years, and one major reason I do not like Hansbrough is because he looks like every asshole 7-year-old (yes, such things exist) who is less concerned about sharing sliced oranges at halftime than he is running up four goals on the assortment of halfwits, homeschoolers, and ADHD Christians I inevitably always end up with. #2: A.J. Abrams (Texas Longhorns senior guard, 148 previous tourney points) - Pint-sized sharpshooter with sculpted beard, so cuddly and soft in his little Allen Iverson armwarmer. #3: Darren Collison (UCLA Bruins senior guard, 143 previous tourney points) - Bruins written off pretty early by plenty of sports talking heads, but damn, Collison has played in three Final Fours already. #4: Antonio Anderson (Memphis Tigers senior guard, 129 previous tourney points) - Dude missed the potential game-winning shot in last year's championship game against the stupid Jayhawks, so should be playing with a burning heart of desire. #5: Wayne Ellington (North Carolina Tarheels junior guard, 114 previous tourney points) - Fucking inside/outside game with stupid Hansbrough and Ellington setting up to drain 3s... man I fucking hate UNC, and not so much because they're good but because they're stupid assholes that are good. #6: Ty Lawson (North Carolina Tarheels junior guard, 113 previous tourney points) - Luckily, he's got a sore ol' big toe right now, hopefully ruining UNC's hopes to cruise to another national title. #7: Robert Dozier (Memphis Tigers senior forward, 97 previous tourney points) - Another comeback from last year's rec-league all-star team John Calipari's mob-affiliated self-important ass, trying to help the ol' shithead get that national title he needs to justify himself to everyone who is tired of listening. #8: Josh Shipp (UCLA Bruins senior guard, 94 previous tourney points) - Is John Wooten still alive to be propped up in a luxury box to pretend he still understands what's going on and the UCLA faithful can feel like God is looking down on Ben Howland's newest collection of SoCal blue chippers? #9: Danny Green (North Carolina Tarheels senior forward, 84 previous points) - Well, they have like seven scoring threats, so Green concentrates on defense. #10: Scottie Reynolds (Villanova Wildcats junior guard, 80 previous tourney points) - Carried this team through extra postseason play last year. #11: Deon Thompson (North Carolina Tarheels junior forward, 78 previous tourney points) - Good fucking grief, the entire starting lineup makes this stupid list, meaning they play deep in tournament's every year, and they haven't really had anybody bolt early since Roy Williams' last national championship team, which I think was also his first. #12: Greg Paulus (Duke Blue Devils senior guard, 69 previous tourney points) - Somehow, during his illustrious whiteboy point guard career, Paulus got demoted down to coming off the bench for Coach K; only thing worse than UNC is Duke, and I'm pissed because the local CBS affiliate is running the Duke game instead of VCU's game, because it's so UVA-centric, even though everybody here hates Duke, and VCU is only an hour away. #13: Josh Carter (Texas A&M Aggies senior forward, 65 previous tourney points) - Shows you how solidly competitive, although unnoticed Texas A&M has been; they always make the tourney, win a game or two, then disappear into the maelstrom of second-tier major level college basketball programs. #14: Damion James (Texas Longhorns junior forward, 56 previous tourney points) - I don't even know anything about this dude to even maek a wisecrack about.

S14: Top 14 Scorers From Past 4 NCAAs

Since I will dork out and list the top 14 returning scorers (meaning scored the most points in previous NCAA tournament games) every day of the March Madness (because I did all that data-looking bullshit last year, so I'm gonna get something out of it, though it's mostly for my own entertainment, I just put it out inside the internets so people who know me think I'm weird and people who don't know me think I'm stupid), I figured I would share the top 14 accumulative scorers from the previous four tournaments, and where they is right about now...
#1: Chris Douglas-Roberts (226 total points, formerly of the Memphis Tigers, now of the overall past four years NBA's New Jersey Nets) #2: Tyler Hansbrough (220 total points, still with them UNC Tarheels, for one more stupid fucking year) #3: Corey Brewer (198 total points, formerly of the Florida Gators dynasty, now of the shitty NBA Minnesota Timerbwolves) #4: Joakim Noah (166 total points, formerly also from the Florida Gators dynasty, now with the Chicago Bulls of the NBA even though his teammates don't like his longhaired stuck-up ass) #5: Aaron Afflalo (166 total points, formerly of the mighty mighty UCLA Bruins, now with the NBA's Detroit Pistons) #6: Taurean Green (164 total points, used to be part of the Florida Gators Fab Five v2.0, now cold kicking it with Cai Zaragova in the Spanish League) #7: Brandon Rush (162 total points, was with the Kansas Jayhawks last year, with the NBA's Indiana Pacers this year... and I guess I don't need to clarify NBA) #8: Lee Humphrey (aka The White Guy on the Florida team, 159 total points, with the Gators like I just said, but now with Ratiopharm Ulm - which I think is a designer drug - in the German Bundesliga - which I think is some sort of S&M harness) #9: Stephen Curry (158 total points, still with Davidson in college, though the selection committee held out from mid-majors teams this year, so he's in the NIT, but he'll be back next year fools) #10: Randy Foye (155 total points, of the Villanova Wildcats, now also on the shitty Timberwolves) #11: Al Hoford (152 total points, was the final fifth of the Florida Gators, now starring with the upstart Atlanta Hawks) #12: Mario Chalmers (150 total points, on last year's championship Kansas Jayhawks team, now clocking groupie sluts with the Miami Heat) #13: A.J. Abrams (148 total points, was and still is a Texas Longhorn) #14: Darren Collison (143 total points, was and still is with the stupid UCLA Bruins)

Friday Love/Hate

Love: I love the way my simple assed paranoid mind works, that there's always a conspiracy behind things. I read the story of that Chinaman dude in Canada who cut the carney kid's head off on the Greyhound, and it made me think of how the one Chinese guy cut off a Chinese girl's head at Virginia Tech a month or two ago. I mean, cutting a head off a body can't be easy. But when I was reading the story today about the Greyhound killer (who got off because God had told him to do it), I got all spooked like there was some sleeper cell Chinese beheading crew walking among us all. So I went to the trusty internet (of course, started by the Department of Defense as an agent of disinformation), and the explanation was far simpler than I imagined. You see, in China, they still have public executions by beheadement, so it's not out of the frame of reference of your average Chinaman to have that in their minds when they get all bugged out and want to get medieval on somebody.
Hate: Pretty much everything. I haven't been doing shit creatively lately, haven't been working much at all, am broke as fuck, wrecked my truck into a deer, had to settle for aftermarket parts since no junkyard within three states had my shit, applied for food stamps, borrowed more fucking money from my mom, not much sexing going on, kids be needing thangs... it's just a lot going on. I have been reading more (meaning reading) which is nice. I never actually read books anymore because I feel it's a waste of the little free time I have. The thing is, I'm reading now because instead of thinking I'm gonna write dumbass books, I'm starting to think maybe I should just watch more old Hercules movies and forget about trying to actually do something with my life. I mean fuck it, I'm typecast by now. This all goes against my whole 36 year spiral of soaking it in, 36 year spiral of shooting it out theory that is part of the Rojonekku Redneck Ninja Manual (a work in progress), but I am full of contradictions. And then again, it's gonna be warm enough to kick it in the camper this weekend, rock out some hobo raps. The wife got her wizdom teeth yanked, so there's hydrocodone in the house. It feels like one of those rebirth spring weather let's get fucked up like the world's ending type of feelings building up.

S14: Top 14 Returning Scorers in the CAA Tournament

Like I said, I'm taking my eldest daughter to the Colonial Athletic Association semifinals and finals, which hopefully will feature my post-high school educational receipt giver VCU shooting for a berth in the NCAA tourney. It's been a while since I've been to a tournament style event, and I'm glad I bought the tickets when I actually had some money this winter. But anyways, like I promised, using my patented internet nerd-mining systems, here are the 14 returning players in the CAA tournament who have scored the most points in the previous three conference tourneys...
#1: Eric Maynor (VCU guard, 90 previous points) - Maynor hit the shit that knocked Duke out in the first round of the NCAAs two years ago, and he has been suggested as a possible NBA caliber player, though that's hard to believe. I don't know if anyone from the CAA is even currently in the NBA. But Maynor is good - ACC good, but somehow he slipped through the cracks. And VCU coach Anthony Grant is on the hot track to a major conference gig, so VCU is that perfect storm of a better than mid-major player with a better than mid-major coach, that could cause some damage in the Big Dance. Except this is a down year in the CAA, and the league will probably only get their tournament winner into the NCAAs, making this weekend all the more important. Coach Grant got a boxing-style title belt made up for the VCU team, which they will carry with them onto the court during all games from here on out, with the thinking being it is their title belt to defend, and as long as they win, they keep it and get to keep playing. That shit is great. I am stoked. VCU is the #1 seed and plays the winner of Friday's Georgia State/Delaware game at noon on Saturday.
#2: Dre Smith (George Mason guard, 87 previous points) - #1 in your hearts, and your program. Leads the #2 seeded George Mason into the CAA tournament, where they hope to steal a spot in the NCAAs from VCU. Smith is Jim Larranaga's floor general, which is what I would say if this was cornball normal sports copy. Instead it's what I started to write after 7 Yuenglings, and then four words into the sentence was like, "What the fuck?" Dre Smith is a black kid being exploited by a suburban D.C. university to make money for the school. Their run a couple years back bankrolled everything from the athletic department to extra tri-colored pansies in front of the library. Get your's Dre Smith, because they got their's. George Mason plays their first game Saturday evening around 6 against the winner of the first round James Madison/William & Mary game.
#3: Leonard Mendez (Georgia State guard, 64 previous points) - Mendez must be pretty good, because Georgia State has never been that good to go deep into the CAA tourney, much less beyond that. They were most famous for being coached by Lefty Driesell when he was completely washed up. They are the #8 seed this year, playing Delaware at noon on Friday to earn a match-up against #1 VCU in an arena that's a fifteen minute walk from the VCU campus on Saturday. Mendez better sank some treys if they want to avoid weekend traffic heading south on I-95 back down to Georgia.
#4: Danny Sumner (William & Mary forward, 64 previous points) - William & Mary's only notable run in the CAA was last year in the tourney where they knocked off #1 seed VCU in the semifinals. William & Mary is coached by Tony Shaver, who used to coach white ass Division III Hampden-Sydney College near where I grew up. He got them to the D-III Final Four a couple times, and they lost a title game one year. William & Mary is a perfect fit for him because it's basically a basketball team made of a bunch of smart white guys. Danny Sumner plays the role of the token black guy who controls the team, because pretty much any white guy heavy into basketball wants to be down with the black guys anyways. William & Mary, though, is no better than the #10 seed in this melee, and will play James Madison at 6 pm on Friday with the right to play Old Dominion on the line.
#5: David Schneider (William & Mary guard, 50 previous points) - Schneider would be one of the many white guys on the W&M roster. They make Duke look like a Rucker Park team.
#6: Louis Birdsong (George Mason forward, 44 previous points) - Birdsong is the heat catalyst on the Mason team, the guy who is liable to bust out a thunderous dunk on a motherfucker and fire up the Patriots bench. That type of player in invaluable, especially in the CAA, where your standard starting line-up features three guards.
#7: Eugene Spates (Northeastern forward, 41 previous points) - Honestly, I know nothing about Northeastern, and I don't get paid to do this stupid shit at 1 in the morning. I don't even know where Northeastern University is, though it can't be too much further than southeastern Pennsylvania or south Jersey, because I can't see any of these schools really wanting to spend that much money in travel. I guess there's a team in Georgia, so maybe this is the far-flung team from the other direction. Seriously, in the time I thought about this, I could've done a google search and figured it out, but I refuse to do so. You are on the internet if you are reading this, and could do that yourself. You came here to wait for me to say something stupid, not be all factually correct. Northeastern is the #3 seed and will play the winner of the Drexel/Towson State game in the late game on Saturday night.
#8: Matt Janning (Northeastern guard/forward, 40 previous points) - Janning looks like that wigger Jason Williams kid from West Virginia that probably still plays in the NBA somewhere. Thus, I can't hate on Matt Jannings. Hopefully he does retarded no-look bounce passes too.
#9: Manny Adako (Northeastern forward, 37 previous points) - Goddamn, they are really trying to force me to google search some of this Northeastern nonsense, but still, I refuse. Fuck the north and fuck the east and double fuck a college all proud to be from there.
#10: Josh Thornton (Towson guard, 35 previous points) - A little peanut-headed looking dude who actually transferred away from Georgetown, which means he's got major conference game, trapped in a Towson uniform. Their chances to sneak through this battle royal probably rest heavily on the young Thornton's shoulders. Towson is the #11 seed (of 12 teams) and will play the Drexel Dragons in the late game on Friday night.
#11: Peter Stein (William & Mary forward, 34 previous points) - Man, these William & Mary kids had a lucky four-game run last year (although they lost the last of the four), and will be lucky to see Saturday morning in Richmond this year. Fuck them, although I feel bad because it must be hard to have cocksure attitude as a basketball player on a campus full of lesbian poetry majors.
#12: Gerald Lee (Old Dominion forward, 33 previous points) - A yellowbone looking dude who is actually half-Israeli and played there before coming to America to ball at Old Dominion University. ODU is the #3 seed and will play the winner of the Hofstra/UNC-Wilmington game on Saturday afternoon.
#13: Tony Durant (Towson forward, 32 previous points) - Not Kevin Durant, but Tony Durant, although the Towson Tigers sounds abouts as major league as the Oklahoma City Thunderballers or whatever the fuck it is. How did Oklahoma City get a major professional sports franchise anyways?
#14: Darryl Monroe (George Mason forward, 32 previous points) - The worrisome thing that sets George Mason apart from VCU or Old Dominion or Northeastern is the fact they have such an array of interchangeable guys who can score, and have swagger being they are from the mighty little George Mason University. This bothers me, because I don't want to drive to stank ass Richmond on a Monday night to see VCU fucking lose.

S14: Top 14 Scorers From Last Four CAA Tournaments

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Zywiec Porter

AFFORDABILITY: Like the other Polock porter beer I talked of the other day, this one was around $3 for a just-over-a-pint bottle. The Zywiec also be claiming 9.5% alcohol. 6 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: 9.5% bro... strong enough to have a slight hint of burn like you’re drinking grown folks alcohol, yet still just a beer, and that touch of chocolate but not overbearing like a good porter would do. Shit, I missed out on this one on New Year’s Eve, because the other dude drank this one, and I went back to the fancy beer store to get a couple of these, and it got me nice, real nice. 4 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: Black, brown, burgundy, and gold colors, fancy shield with a crown and an old timey couple in old fashioned clothes dancing like it’s the wedding scene from The Deerhunter... fucking awesome. 5 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: Made by Grupa Zywiec S.A. of Zywiec, Poland, and the back label (which I had neglected to stare at to this point) has a black-and-white proud industrial communist picture of what I would assume would be Zywiec about forty years ago when the smokestacks by the river were still emitting profitable pollutants into the ozone. This is obviously made by good people, if by good you mean “knows how to get fucked up to forget how fucked up everything is.” 5 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: I also hadn’t noticed how the label said “FAITHFUL TO TRADITION” which is how I feel - faithful to my genetic tradition of being proud of drinking too much, yet another example of people being proud of the fucked-up places they come from. It is like I’m an Armenian or something. 4 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 4 & 4/5 STARS!

Ephemere Ale

AFFORDABILITY: From the Unibroue company of Canadia, so it came in a 4-pack, and probably was more than it should've been. But I'm fairly sure it was less than a 4-pack of Sammy Smith Nut Brown Ale. Therefore, 2 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: It is brewed with apple juice, coriander, and curacao, and is basically a fauntleroy hard cider, which means higher alcohol content, but also makes me feel like Fred Sanford’s gonna wave his hand for funny man sign language. So I only drank one to keep the rest for the ol’ lady, and it was tasty with a tingle to my belly, so I will give it the benefit of the doubt. 3 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: Fruity lettering font, plus a seductive yet classy fairy on the label - basically, it looks like an absinthe ad in the back of Spin magazine before absinthe was legal again. Interesting for a beer label, but I would feel gay for admitting I like it. 2 out of 5 (but really 4, just don’t tell no one I’m down with weird celestial fairy shit). One thing I wonder though is if a beer is bottle refermented, how can they be so scientific with their decimal point alcohol by volume calculation?
CORPORATE MASTER: The Unibroue company of Canada - which is cool I guess since that’s basically gay Alaska - but the French Canada - which is not cool because that’s basically like the lost colony of France. But I give them credit because they do the La Fin Du Monde beer that makes your head hurt like you fought a berserker, and the Maudite beer too, which looks more like a beer that King Diamond would drink than any other beer I’ve seen on this earth (granted, I haven’t seen all that much, but let’s pretend). 4 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: The coriander was a nice touch, yet I am not a woman, although I am not afraid to play one on amateur TV, so long as nobody sticks a finger up my ass. That never feels as good as people pretend it would. Or maybe I need to relax more. Hard to say. 3 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 3 & 1/5 STARS!

Friday Love/Hate

Man, I love me some beets, cooked from raw beets, not in the can. Steamed, or better yet slow roasted in the oven with some turnips as well, sitting in a nice vinegar in the Pyrex tray, smelling up the house with goodness because there's five cloves of garlic scattered in there as well, that is the fuel for my ass to keep moving along my lifeline. Kids running around the kitchen, wanting to play checkers, dancing wacky space dances because some electrofunk instrumental jam that I was into for like three weeks four years ago pops up on the iPod's shuffle madness, that's the shit. My family - the immediate one of my wife and kids, not the one we grew from that we all blame all our insufficiencies on - my family is strange and oddball and probably technically a good long rut below the poverty level, but we are blessed like a hundred Emmitt Otters, no doubt about it.
As for hate, man, I'm full of a thousand hates. Being broke, plus being self-unemployed (and looking at my schedule, most likely self-unemployed in nine days), and not really feeling positive about my ability to ever stop being a broke ass underclass fucker, I have lots of hate, most of it misdirected at people who have what I have not. I hate the players, hate the game, hate the whole fucking thing. Some days I wish for religion-crazed terrorists who somehow never learned compassion for human life in their spiritual studies to blow the whole fucking planet up into little lava rocks floating through space. It is during those times I try to reflect on my home family and the good scenes like described above. But then I stop at a light and only have 39 cents in the truck and the person next to me, big redneck diesel truck with small fu manchu Stone Cold Steve Austin fan sitting behind the wheel with his small penis, sucking on a Pepsi, and I think, "Man, I want a Pepsi. Why can't I have a Pepsi?" And I get all pissed off and full of hate again, overwhelmed by stupid material emotions of entitlement.

Jamaica Brand Red Ale

AFFORDABILITY: I was bedazzled by their 6-pack box looking like some sort of early-'90s Grateful Dead homemade sticker my wife would have put on her trunk. But it was over $9 a 6-pack, and my carefree world of holiday spree has come crashing back down to earth in post-holiday bills, with little work booked for the next two months while it's too cold to work outside, so not only is this an unbearable price, but fuck man, what a stupid fucker I am. Negative 1 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: The Jamaica Brand Red Ale is a bitter ale, and therefore I think I drunk one, maybe two. Not enough to put a cobra clutch on my tolerance level. 1 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: Rasta colors on bright yellow background, with a heart surrounded by a booming star, all done simplistic style like a hippie girl dreaming of following String Cheese Incident in algebra class would doodle and then color in at home with her art school level colored pencil set in a tin case while she was all high as fuck on dirtweed with her lava lamps plugged in and warming up, that one first thick sphere of wax just starting to float upwards. So even if it corny by today’s jaded hipster hodgepodge internet doofus standards, I have a fetish for hippie girls - I have often said it’s the bright flowing skirts but I think it might actually be the hairy conkshells - so I have to give this label mad love... one love. 4 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: Hahaha, it’s made by the Mad River Brewing Company of Humboldt County, California. That’s almost too stereotypically goofy to be true, but it is. And the 6-pack box even had suggestions of nice river trips you could take in the area. Hilarious. I hope I get the braid in the hippie pie. 2 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: My initial innocent joy at the goofy naiveté of the Jamaica Brand Red Ale was pretty quickly overridden by my cyber-hipster “LOL stoopid hippies” internal meme... yet now I am filled with regret. Can it be it was all so simple then? 2 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 1 & 3/5 STARS!

2009 Goals #4: Get Rich (Or Try Dying)

If the economic collapse of America has taught me anything, now that it’s finally seeking it’s creepy tentacles into my life, it’s that I’ve got to get rich, or at the very least less broke. I hate painting houses for the most part, unless I get hired to do wacky 17-color accent wall faux finish oddballing stuff, but that doesn’t raise up too often. Mostly I make white things whiter, and easier to scrub with a sponge. But I am bucking up, and have decided to be more professional this year, not really in the work I do but in my business outlook. I’ve set a monthly goal for net billing for the first three months, with the plan of adjusting upwards every quarter of the year as we move on. Then again, I’ve got to start taking Wednesdays off to chill with the kids so the wife can teach at this herbal clinic, which is good for her life’s desires long-term, but damn, she’ll make $75 and I’ll leave $200 on the table. But I’ll get to kick it with my kids, and will have to take the oldest two to ballet, which is always fun. Except that shit is $136 a month, which is far above what I should be paying for something that doesn’t put food in my belly or drive me to work.
But I guess that’s the point, to move beyond my bullshit, which has moved beyond my parents’ bullshit. My middle kid is only 5, and already halfway through her first full year of ballet school. I hate to be all Tiger Woods dad on my ovaried sperm grown into humans, but hey man, when I was five, I was smashing Matchbox cars with cinderblocks and hammers so I could recreate Dukes of Hazzard and Chips accidents in the backyard. I want better for my kids. (Of course, I did show them how to smash up Matchbox cars with a cinderblock to pretend there had been an accident in the sandbox and have ambulances and cop cars show up... the key is to have two copies of the same car so you can smash up one, keep it behind your back, pretend the good one has an accident, and then pull the switcheroo and pretend you didn’t see yourself do it.)
So yeah, lottery salvation hasn’t been giving me shit for a long ass minute, so I guess I’m just gonna have to, you know, work and all, like some dumbass. This of course means I’ll never be rich because rich people don’t work, they just rip motherfuckers off. (I am full of ridiculous stereotypes about how the wealthy have become wealthy. My father was an alcoholic chain saw mechanic with a 7th grade education, but had read enough books in his own adult time to understand how to put together a good conspiracy philosophy.)

Okocim Porter

AFFORDABILITY: The Beer Run store in Charlottesville is a nice store with plenty of selection of high end beers, plus they can get kegs of pretty much anything that is kegged up on two days notice. They had a nice big holiday beer display in their cluttered store (which also has a bar and serves lunch and the like), and on one shelf on the far wall was a bunch of porters from east Europe, which I had assumed was part of their holiday display. The Okocim was one a few Polish porters, promising high alcohol content, in just over a pint bottles, for $3, about the price of big molotov cocktail bottles of Sierra Nevada or Newcastle or Red Stripe at the regular grocery store, so I can tolerate that I guess. 3 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: I had actually bought a couple of Polish porters for New Year's Eve when another couple and their kids came to the house to throw down. Me and the dude cracked open a porter each, me choosing this one (and it promising me 8.3% alcohol). Turns out he was a full quarter Polish, like me. My grandfather was the son of Polish immigrants, and when he pass away this year, while we digging through his shit for legal effects, we found the green card my great grandmother got passing through Ellis Island. So me and the other dude bonded in our neglected Polock heritage, and happily and heartily rang in the new year sucking down these porters. And really the only testament as to the destroyability of the Okocim is the fact that by the time the night was over, I was lighting cheap Chinese fireworks on the picnic table, sloshy and loud, and woke up in a new cycle of the calendar boxes with oddly parallel burn marks all over my writing hand. I would assume this was from attempting to light more fireworks as already lit fireworks exploded beside me. 8 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: Nice black, brown, and ominous eastern European dark red, with words using far too many of the last five consonants in the English alphabet to seem normal to me. Plus, a little shield of a goat, full horns twisting behind his head while he drinks from a giant flagon of drunkwater. I would proudly wear this label on a t-shirt, especially since I go through shirt phases. One point, it was all Hawaiian shirts (which sometimes meandered into the similar genre of old black man button-down shirts), and then it was t-shirts where I put iron-on letter messages on them ( a blue t-shirt with “MY GRASS IS TALL” in a play on the one that one dude in Lynyrd Skynyrd is wearing in the Street Survivors LP), or when I was wearing knock-off football jerseys with color matched t-shirts underneath. But lately, as I’ve become bored with styles again, I just want to wear jeans and black t-shirts (perhaps relapsing to my early teen years) and the only two I really have to wear are one from some junkyard my homeboy Benji gave me (says “recyclers do it again and again”, wink wink nudge nudge heh heh heh), and an ominous Costa Rican beer shirt my wife got me when they all went to Central America and I was still here working like a fool. So yeah, nice label, and I want a t-shirt like this. 6 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: Made by the famous Okocim Brewery of Brzesko, Poland, which of course I don’t know shit about. But even the importers - Stawski Imports of Chicago - sound like good shit. My grandfather lived in Chicago for a while after running with some injuns after the war he was in. I used to be a pretty proud southerner, like lots of shitty people get fake proud of their shitty home to give themselves a higher level of low self-esteem, but in my meanderings, I have to say the strange ethnic identities of various white breeds in pockets of the north is interesting to me. In the south, it’s basically just white people, without knowledge of individual flavorings. But those ethnic whiteys, man they have some good looking sausages in their stores. Whitefish sausage? Sign me up. With some homemade countertop fermented sauerkraut? Fuck yeah. My mom was pretty emotional in memory mode this past Christmas, first one without her dad, so I think I’m gonna take some of these Polish pints of porter down there and we can burn up some old furniture in the back yard. 7 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: Maybe it caught me at the right time, remembering old acquaintances that shouldn’t’ve been forgotted, and it got me feeling good. And I might just be in impulsive semi-responsible, semi-degenerate mode, but this is the greatest beer ever. 9 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 6 & 3/5 STARS!

100 VINYLZ: #78 - Play Their Own Records LP by The Mummies

(1992, Estrus Records)
When I was running my stupid confederatemack.com website back in the day, a lot of things happened. But what probably made me giddiest inside was when this chick (who ended up marrying a friend of mines) passed along contact info and I got to do my goofy 23 Questions with the Semi-Famous with the dude who played drums in The Mummies. I can’t remember if it was my old roommate Ten Dollar David or my man Boogie Brown that first played me a Mummies 7-inch, but it was good shit, because garage rock hadn’t been overdone ridiculous at that point. Plus, the whole wrapping themselves in mummy fashion and riding around in a shitty Hearse, it put them over the top of all the wack-ass fuckers that would appear after all the Back From the Grave collections from Crypt Records started getting more circulated.
This record is a collection of their earlier 7-inches and motherfucking great. I would like to give you more specifics and all that hooha, but it is 34 degrees and icy raining outside and I am feeling good in my bootleg mesh Michael Jordan with the Bulls fake practice gym shorts and am going to walk out on the porch where the beer is stored and yell out “FOOD! SICKLES! AND GIRLS! FOOD! SICKLES! AND GIRLS!” until the cold sneaks past the Yuenglings in my bloodstream, and I run back inside, probably stubbing my naked toe on one of the screws working its way back out the porch boards.
Also, even though I don’t actually own it (and I’m not even sure if I ever did or just lived with someone who did), there is no better 7-inch cover ever than the one to The Mummies “Welcome to Shitsville” 7-inch. And fuck you if you disagree.

2009 Goals #5: Accumulate More Critters

My last goat has been dead for a while now, yet all I have hanging around the house are my daughters' cats (plus the stray one living under the trash shed). It's time to tear up some shit with retarded animals. And being a housepainter, I have lots of free brain time to think about stupid shit. So here is what I'd like to get, sectioning off our pasture into separate segments, and starting to cultivate some hawthorn bushes as hedges... A) more goats, preferably useless ones like I used to have, banded dehorned male goats, and I will want to give them evil named but they will get goofy girl names from my family, B) a pig, who will not get a name, because he will straight up be for eating later in the year, although I hear it is better to get pigs in pairs or they get depressed and unhappy, and the last thing I want inside my homegrown slabs of bacon is the energy of depression (this is why cheap pork products are so unhealthy for humans, not the meat itself but the molecular energy contained therein, due to creeping living standards of agribusiness pork farms, as well as the robotic slaughterhouse technology they use nowadays, where most pigs are genetically designed to be the exact same fucking size and shape, so the robot knives don't have to be tinkered with), C) a couple mutt dogs, because it's time to have some fucking dogs again, hopefully going to the SPCA for my birthday next month, and I had told my wife I wanted a yellow lab mix of some sort who I would name Ric Flair, but we'd make it one word to say fast like Ricflair, "C'mere Ricflair, sit Ricflair," and obviously for the other dog I'd like a hound dog mutt named Manson, because everybody needs a dog named Manson, although I guess that stupid Ben Stiller sketch from his stupid sketch show kinda makes that seem kinda gay, D) the wife and kids have wanted burros for a while, and I figure I try to emulate the Mexican man's chronic laziness and overpopulation of the world, so I might as well have some burros, and being we are retarded as a family unit and not just on my own, me and the wife thought it good to named them Manhattan, Staten, Brooklyn, Queensbridge, and Boogie Down, so that we'd have the five burros - a stupid pun, yes, but if we actually had five living creatures grazing lazily on our property to carry the stupid pun out to full effect, I guess that would make it beyond simply a stupid pun and something remarkably over-the-top stupid that I could be proud to explain uncomfortably to my mother, and E) a white tiger on a leash that eventually I run away with to live underneath a rock overhang in the Blue Ridge mountains, idly scribbling drunken ramblings into the rocks with old railroad spikes.

Lagunitas Brown Shugga Ale

AFFORDABILITY: This was the Wine & Beer Warehouse store as well, and I actually took it to the counter and asked eastern Euro-looking dude who worked there about it (all dudes who work at beer stores and used record stores are Eastern European looking, for some reason, unless they are non-whiteys) and he didn’t know nothing about it. I was intrigued by the promise of brown sugar flavoring, as well as the 6-pack box talking up how it was all a mistake and they never meant to make this but they did and here it was and it was awesome. It was expensive I think, but I took the last 6-pack off the shelf. Then, while waiting to check out, a young couple was looking for a sixer of it as well, and there was none on the shelf, so the other eastern Euro-looking dude, the older one, who worked there, looked it up on their computer and was like, “Well, it says we have 116 bottles, so it’s either in the basement or there’s a few six-packs up here,” and he starts looking in boxes with the top half cut off along the counter and wall. I start looking and the couple is looking, and the girl of the couple goes, “THERE’S ONE!” So the older eastern Euro-looking guy starts playing six-pack Jenga with beers and cardboard and eventually unearths it for them to check out. All the while, I’m chatting up the dude of the couple about it, because I’m reluctant to give a shot in the dark to a $9 6-pack, especially more than one (and I would bet my hands were full), and he talks it up a nice game, so I’m sold on what I was already ready to buy, but now with less immediate regret. The whole thing was a great moment of forced deliberation and unique experience that made the purchase secondary to the memory. 8 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: Aside from it’s other brown sugar sweet release promises, it says “Life is Uncertain. Don’t Sip.” It also says 9.5% alcohol. It helped instill in me a gangsta lean, so much as a rural white dude raising three wholesome daughters and trying to maintain a small business on his own can be considered gangsta. 3 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: A very plain light yellow label, but with giant red “BROWN SHUGGA” on it embossed in the blackness. Plus, there’s mad Dr. Bonner’s soap bottle style nonsense kicking it in such a small space. At first, I would’ve been all like, “Man, fuck this shit,” but eventually I was like, “Nah, it’s cool.” 4 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: It is a thing called Lagunitas Brewing Company of Pacoima, California (actually, Petaluma, but I like to say Pacoima more because Christmas just passed and I’ve listened to Cheech & Chong’s “Santa Claus and His Ol’ Lady” 139 times). I don’t really know anything about all this, but in my brain I have morphed together the George Lopez Show and the Drew Carey Show, and have imagined a funny sorta longhaired Mexican guy overseeing the assembly line of a beer manufacturing plant, and I’ve thrown in that scene from Take This Job & Shove It where they drink beer in bathtubs back in the woods (which is kinda warped now because of those dick drug commercials), and this all takes place right before lucha libre comes on Galavision on Tuesday night and I get to see Satanico teach Ultimo Guerrero & Rey Bucanero how to be properly awesome rudos, so awesome that that old guy rings his goofy bell like madness. 5 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: You know, after the alcohol dork store pre-drinking hype, I was a little let down by the delivery of this beer. But I only drank like 2 of them mixed in with other shit, melting pot genetics style, which makes it harder to recognize the inherent beauty of a single entity contained within the mix. The second time a few days later that I drank upon this 6-pack, the couple of beers gave me a glorious feeling. There are beer dork blogs and websites that pour beers in glasses and describe all those aspects to you, but I am not from that cloth cut. The internet is made for such people, with science in mind to explain their own madness, but in an entertaining manner for random strangers. I know I’m fucking retarded, and I know I drink too much. Way too much, and this is even without ever allowing myself liquor drinks. Yet still, through all this, I can say, when I put on my professorial air and like to pretend I’m more than the average drunkard and want to dabble in fancy-pants beers, I can assure you, this here Brown Shugga Ale bridges that divide, making a fancy-pants closeted homo turn into a good ole drunkard (which is not to insinuate homosexuals aren’t good, or old, nor as good as drunkards; basically it’s all just SHOCKING TERMINOLOGY which has all become pretty played out inside the internets but I still use it because I don’t allow myself to talk shit like that around my kids, because I don’t want to raise daughters who end up in public service announcement commercials with Wanda Sykes). 4 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 4 & 4/5 STARS!

100 VINYLZ: #79 - One Nation Under a Groove LP plus bonus 7" by Funkadelic

(1978, Warner Brothers Records)
When I was a young teenage boy reading Hit Parader and RIP magazine like a little dork, there was some company based in Brooklyn that I can't remember at all, but basically you sent them money and a list of bands you liked and they mailed you records back. It was something like 4 LPs for $10, 9 for $20, 25 for $50, and 60 for $100. I never did those bigger ones, but I remember saving up poker money to do the 9 LP thing a few times. Everything you got was still shrink-wrapped, but it was all cutouts, meaning records sent back to the labels from record stores (called cutout because the corner was cut off, or had a hole punched in it), so a lot of it was variations on things you listed, and often times not that great. I think I got every Rossington-Collins Band album ever made, for example. Although I did get Neil Young's Trans, which sucked and I sold while in college, and of course now is some uber-genius Neil Young dabbles in electronica must-have and probably worth a billion dork dollars (which usually averages around $23 on ebay). So most of the stuff I got wasn't that stellar.
I did, however, get my first actual in-the-flesh taste of P-Funk, by getting this One Nation Under a Groove album, by the Funkadelic branch of P-Funk (the superior arm of their attack on lame whitey sensibilities, in my opinion). I mean, I knew of George Clinton, but rap music was still too busy looting James Brown's music to have gotten deep into the P-Funk pillage yet. But this album taught me about things I take for granted now. Wacky gatefold art, for example, which was, as I'm sure you've probably heard some fag on VH1 talk about by now, was an integral part of the P-Funk LP experience. But really, you could be high (or sober) and read that motherfucker for hours. Makes me wonder what great artistic treasures were lost from this American world by black people not doing enough psychedelic drugs.
As for the music itself, you know, a lot of funk - even P-Funk funk - is repetitive and kinda gay. But I did dig "Groovallegiance" a lot. And more importantly than the actual LP itself was the bonus 7", which included a live version of "Maggot Brain". People, especially inside the internets but without academic backing, tend to overanalyze music to try and explain how something can be emotionally great to us in such unexplainable ways. We are more scientist than religious and need everything figured out. I say all this because the live version of "Maggot Brain" is one of the greatest musical things ever and a perfect example of drug music as high art, because now that it has made such multi-molecular sense to me under the influence of various drugs, the guitar solo plucks at your brain and actually sounds like you are under the influence of thangs, somehow. There is no college professor who can teach you how to do this, and the internet is full of drug- and alcohol-free individuals who feel themselves an expert on this or that who will try to lay such things out for you in an understandable and self-important way. But you can't. I can tell you right now, I don't claim to know shit about shit. I probably should've googled this shit to make sure I had the songs spelled right or that it was actually a live version of "Maggot Brain" and not an alternate studio version or some shit. But I don't give a fuck. I knows what I knows, and I knows that this "Maggot Brain" contained therein this LP on that little bonus chunk of vinyl is one of the greatest goddamned things ever. And you can download it probably, but it won't come in the shitty ghetto comic book art-covered gatefold LP you could cut the seeds and stems out your reefer bag upon, nor will you give it the same chance, because you know of George Clinton and you just read what I just wroted about all this. That shit blind-sided me as a naive, unsuspecting kid, hip to the metal and punk and angsty whiteboy musics of the time, but not so much music made by black people above the age of 30 at that time. This album probably opened me up to where I ended up wanting to go to college, as opposed to going to the Winn Dixie to shoplift Mad Dog 20/20. It didn't really, but wouldn't a normal internet fag write some shit about how "This LP changed my life!"
A great sidenote to this is George Clinton's barely concealed crack addiction. I know of two situations (second-hand) where young fanboy people saw Clinton doing crack, personally. One time, this dude who was attending to extra details for James Madison had to go pick up Clinton and others from the airport to drive them to the campus for a college concert. Clinton asks the kid, "You mind if I smoke?" Kid says no, but roll the window down it's a campus vehicle. So Clinton rolls the window down, riding through a small town, and fires up a crack pipe, right there in the JMU ride. The other time, this goofy kid who was like the only artsy kid at shitty private Hampden-Sydney College where tomorrow's white overlords lord over grades today, he got to design the outfit Clinton wore to another college concert (Clinton obviously knows how to keep his hustle going, and where the money is at for drugged-out meandering black hippie music), and he got to take the outfit to Clinton at the Comfort Inn, which at the time was the nicest hotel in Farmville, Virginia. Going into the "suite", the college kid, all stoked to meet an idol and give him a carefully created outfit, basically just had to drop it on the bed while Clinton and others sat around the table smoking crack rather obviously. These stories fill me with joy, because white kids (myself included when I was one) are naive as fuck, and crack is always seen as such a debilitating downtrodden drug. It's nice to hear about examples of successful people, financially artistically and otherwise, enjoying that hardened chemical form of cocaine which is mostly demonized by the lame ass media.

NFL WK 19: Divisional Playoffs

The big dork fuck argument after the wild card round was, "OH MY GOD! NFL OVERTIME IS AN ATROCITY AGAINST SPORTING SPORTISMS AND IT IS A HITLER AGAINST US ALL!" Whatever man. Who the fuck cares? I mean, I could see them saying, "Let's just play a 15 minute period and whoever is winning after that wins," but if they do the college bullshit, fuck that. That style is not of the enjoyment variety, just nonsense at the end of a game, doubling the score for everybody involved, and makes a mockery of sporting sportisms far worse than sudden death. I mean, if anybody wants to hear it, I've got a ton of ideas on how to improve pro football (you go one man down after personal fouls for one play, limited to four punts per half so that you save them and go for it on 4th down more, plus many others), but college overtime fixing overtime is way off that list. So quiet down shocked and insulted white sports writer talking head thinker guys, because you were denied your Manning Bowl or feel indignant about the shitty Chargers advancing through another week. So anyways, here's the rankings of the divisional round playoff teams, with wacky nonsense wordtalk accompaniment. I'd really suggest playing some of that Sam Snead NFL film music in the background while you read these...

#1: NEW YORK GIANTS (12-4, 1st overall) - And then there was one Manning. The Giants last year were underdog upstarts who rallied their way through the playoffs into holding shiny Lombardi justification. This year, they've been the most highly regarded team most of the year, and have struggled towards the end. Usually, in the NFL's engineering of storylines, tihs means they will win a game this weekend, to seem like they've got it together, sell some shit at the NFL Shopzone, but then they'll get trumped by someone else next week, most likely Carolina. The Eagles beat the Giants last time in New Jersey, which makes it seem POSSIBLE! And the Panthers lost a tough one that next to last weekend in primetime to the Giants, very similarly to how the Giants lost a high profile game last year to the Patriots the last week of the season. The Panthers have been set up man, mark my words. But the Giants will win this weekend, because the Panthers beating the Eagles means much less than them beating the much-ballyhooed Giants.

#2: PITTSBURGH STEELERS (12-4, 2nd overall) - The Steelers have quietly pumped up maybe the best all-over defense of my adult lifetime this year. Polamalu was already known as a headhunter, but Ryan Clark (former Redskin) has developed into quite the concussion missile himself. Fucking James Farrior, Lamar Woodley, a slew of other scary black men, all swarming on defense from unsuspected directions. Fast Willie Parker seems stuck on three-quarters, and Ben Roethlisberger has been apt to stand around in the pocket until people push him into the turf, but their offense, chugging along as best it can (usually better than normal when Hines Ward gets a chip on his shoulder for first downs and TDs instead of decapitating defenders under the guise of blocking like he usually seems to be looking for), if it can throw up a dozen and a half points, I can't see them losing. I know the Chargers are allegedly an offensive juggernaut, and I've already read people acting like they're better with Sproles than with Tomlinson. Ridiculous. Mike Tomlin got his boys amped the fuck up and the Bolts, reined in by Norv Turner's born loserdom, will be no match.

#3: BALTIMORE RAVENS (12-5, 3rd overall) - My homey who's a Ravens fan came by with his fam to watch the game this past weekend, and we put a hunk of venison in the crock pot I got from the cop fellow I've been painting for, through in some turnips and potatoes and a ton of garlic, drank beers, watched the Ravens win handily, all the while discussing the very obvious differences between the Ravens and Redskins, and then it was warm so we all sat at the picnic table and ate good fucking food while the kids ran around throwing meat scraps at the dog, and it was good warm January Sunday football time. I hope one day Dan Snyder will no longer own the team I've given my senseless emotions to for my entire life and I can enjoy such a Sunday in the Redskins favor.

#4: TENNESSEE TITANS (13-3, 4th overall) - Seems like every few years, a 13-3 team storms into the playoffs making false claims to the NFL throne. It is Tennessee's year for such an event. I trust rookie King of Maryland/Delaware/New Jersey tri-state region Joe Flacco far more than I would old drunken racist roofer Kerry Collins. And Chris Johnson won't be so quick to be quick after a Ray Lewis spinebreaker. And next year, I guess it's back to Vince Young, or they could just run a full-time wildcat formation. The Titans defense has carried them this season, and with Lord Albert Haynesworth not even close to 100%, consider them a sham of a contender.

#5: CAROLINA PANTHERS (12-4, 5th overall) - I see an engineered Panthers/Steelers Super Bowl, aka Cowher Bowl, except something happened to where Cowher decided he liked laying back on the pre-game tip, so they didn't set him up to be Panthers coach like it had been planned. But we will still get a Cowher Bowl, just not with Cowher in Carolina like originally scheduled. The Panthers will cruise past the Cardinals, who are still just the Cardinals. I can't wait to see what Steve Smith has airbrushed on his cleats this week.

#6: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (10-6-1, 6th overall) - Donovan McNabb dancing at the end of game, pretend snatching the football from people was hilarious. He knows this is his twilight, and he will enjoy it immensely. I am rooting for him to go another weekend, although I know it won't happen. It also seems retarded every team doesn't just have their most athletic linebacker shadow Bryant Westbrook constantly. Why even fuck around?

#7: SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (9-8, 13th overall) - The fucking Chargers, faking their way further, under the tutelage of that pockmarked loser Norvell Austin Turner. If anyone was ever a cancer on a team, it's him, because most alleged "cancers" are easily removed. You can waive a T.O. But Norv lingers and never quite goes away completely. Shit, the Redskins still suck because of him.

#8: ARIZONA CARDINALS (10-7, 16th overall) - I hate Kurt Warner almost as much as I hate Norv Turner. This, of course, means Warner likely will sign a multimillion dollar 4-year contract to play for the Redskins next year, probably joining T.J. Houshmanzadeh and their stellar draft class of a 2nd round pick and a sixth-rounder, with all the rest traded away for inactive players.

Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout

AFFORDABILITY: I had found a new store in Charlottesville that's been there my entire 9 years here called Beer & Wine Warehouse, but it's in a little den of nothing beside a Jiffy Lube hard in a busy intersection with no obvious escape route should it be full of wine snobs attempting to molest with me with corduroy elbow patches and snifters full of grey beard hairs, so I have never stopped there until the past week or so. Once there, although most of the store was all wine all the time, there was a glorious corner of beer on shelves, all sorts of fantabulous strange labels as well as the obvious. I stifled my desire to go, "'Scuse me, you got any Bud Light?" and ended up picking a few stupid things. This was my most exciting purchase as I am a fan of the idea of pumpkin beers, although I would say at this point most of them suck the life from me because they are pumpkin beers in the sense of having pumpkin on the label rather than having pumpkin in their taste. My dead grandma who died from the breast cancers used to make me a special pumpkin pie and set it on the dryer in the bathroom covered with a hand towel so nobody else ate it every Thanksgiving once I became grown, showing how much I appreciate a pumpkin and how much she appreciated my passion for stupid shit. Props to her, and props to teh Pumpkin Stout for being available, fuck affordable. (Side note: in my brain, I often ignore the fact that in beer "stout" means "tastes like a handful of plant" and I think of stout like I was in a locker room splitting a bottle of lemon-lime Mad Dog with a couple of dudes on the basketball team and we were talking about how cock diesel some dude on the other team was, but we were consulting our degenerate teenage brain thesaurus for synonyms, which would've said "stout".) 4 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: I drank four of these, kissed a girl, and I liked it. I hope my boyfriend doesn’t mind. He probably shouldn’t since it was my wife who was the girl. 3 out of the 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: A dark and ominous label, with shadowy fisher dude steering one of those old school wood wheels. The label is mostly dark colors but has orange letters and subtle almost-orange leaves, and talks a tale of the summer’s end and the impending holidays and hypes you up to drink their beer. But there is a strange Scooby Doo opening montage quality to the whole thing. 2 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: I don’t know much about the Cape Ann Brewing Company, beyond what is on their label in the little box with their name, which their logo is two lighthouses shining a light in opposite directions, and underneath all that it says they “Donated to the Northeast seafood coalition,” which means they help make it more likely I’m gonna eat some goddamned tuna medallions for dinner tomorrow night, conceivably. 4 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: It was good and gave me joy, but it was still not Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale, which is how I thought of it about with the word “pumpkin” on the bottle. 2 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 3 STARS!

Monday Morning Feedback

So what's going on? Who is here? Why are you here? What the fuck do you think? Let it be known. Point me in direction, even if the abyss. I am going to attempt to be regular (although secretly irregular) about this bullshit for the time being. I am sure that motivation will dissipate, as I have little respect for the insides of the internets. But nonetheless, this will be a weekly post for you to say what you enjoy here, what you don't, or ignore completely, or not even be here and I won't know and nothing will happen and the world will spin and I'll sit around and that's all that will happen.
This week my brain appears to be on beer, and beer appears to be on my brain, to co-opt that old rap lyric. It is a new year and I'm an old dude, but not for-real old, just internets old. I don't think it ever really got better than Madden' 93 and Kool G. Rap's "Ill Street Blues". I buy dollar coffees at the gas station and hit it hard with the butternut flavor fake milks, and then I waste the money I saved on magazines about cars that feature shiny enough things to trap raccoons in tunnels. That is my lot in life, and it's a partially retarded, completely perverted lot, but it is my lot. Well, not really, but I've been renting this lot for a while now, so feel emotional attachment to it fairly strongly.

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale

AFFORDABILITY: By regular man's standards, Sierra Nevada is never affordable, yet somehow women love it. Therefore, it is much like vagina itself - costly, both financially and on a personal level, yet unlivewithoutable. 3 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: I have mostly left this in the fridge for my wife over the holidays, and only tapped into it when it is late and I'm not sure what else is kosher for me to drink. On one hand, this usually means I am feeling alright like people not on a cruise ship with the Grand Funk Railroad, but on the other, how much can I attribute to this particular beer and how much can I attribute to its predecessors (much like how we should judge Obama’s impending inevitable failure as the President dude)? Still, benefit of the doubt is 3 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: Poinesettias and a log cabin. I would hate it if I wasn’t such a sucker for Little House on the Prairie, and it makes me think of Paw selling off his repainted wagon wheels to buy Maw that wood stove she’s wanted. And all the kids get stick candy in their socks on the mantle, and there’s no jingle bells because it’s Little House on the Prairie and they believe in God, not fat dudes in red velvet whored out in retail advertisements. And, of course, thinking of Paw painting that wagon wheel to sell at the general store makes me think of “Wagon Wheel” by Old Crow Medicine Show, which I’m highly apt to sing real loud inside the anonymous confines of my truck while no one is around, not even the God they believe in on Little House, since things like that aren’t real, although if Michael Landon landed in the passenger seat of my truck to convince me of it, I’d probably believe, although he’d probably have a hard time explaining it with one of the empty Pepsi bottles on that side of the truck stuck up his ass, which would probably be inevitable. 3 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: Dude, it’s Sierra Nevada. If it’s not in distro collusion with the big boys, it’s strong-armed its way nationwide because of the Mafia. Can’t truss it, although at this point what do I truss? 1 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: When they did that Mr. Show skit where they had the hippie pie, I laughed a hearty laugh that can only be laughed because you know it to be funny because it’s true. Because of such a truth in my blackened heart, I disdain Sierra Nevada like a hater of the player, ignoring the game completely. 0 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 2 STARS!

2009 Goals #6: Drink More Growlers

In case you ain't know, growlers are those big jug-like bottles of beer that more drunkerly smaller brewers make. I have decided to drink more of those this year, for a multitude of reasons. First off, hopefully me and the wife will jump back into homebrewing pretty heavily, and filling growlers with five gallons of homemade alcohol tends to go faster than filling 22 ounce bottles, although I'm not sure how the twist cap would help the bottle fermentation. But secondly, drinking something called "growler" seems like a good thing to put myself behind. Just saying sounds like a good drunk, walking the railroad tracks by the river and trying to figure out if you really know what stars you think you know you are looking at, but there's no way to check because you're just out there, so you figure fuck it.
There was a growler at one of the fancy beer stores when I went the other day, but it was like $13 for it, and I didn't feel like justifying that to myself. I think one of the local brewery places, which doesn't even sell their shit at stores, sells carry off growlers at their bar spot which is where you can usually only get their swill. I think a lot of our homebrew shit actually indirectly came from there through a friend of my wife's. Perhaps I shall try them for growler action. The worst that can happen is they'll say no, I can steal some empties from behind their building, and fill them with my own beer. I've got a pumpkin beer recipe I want to try, and I also want to try it with butternut squash. I've never heard of butternut beer, and there's probably a good reason for that, but I've never been one much for good reasoning.