Journeys of Jack Tripper

rofl

Posted by Timothy at 07:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Number of 2007 NFL Pro Bowlers who attended Kent State: Three
Number of 2007 NFL Pro Bowlers who attended Ohio State: One

Posted by Timothy at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Ace Davis, paraphrased:

The NFL draft exists to replenish players. Teams that don't subject their starters to a full season's abuse (i.e. teams that, like the Indianapolis Colts, don't play their starters in the final game and either actively tank or [as Tony Dungy did] passively allow the other team to win) are clearly at less need to replenish players -- and should be penalized by losing their first-round picks in the NFL draft.

It's reasonable, and it would end the disgusting charade of a football game we saw last night. Indianapolis tanked their game, not only to "protect their starters," but to ensure Tennessee (a division rival) earned a worse draft pick through their 10-6 record.

The Colts have damaged the integrity of the game far more than Michael Vick ever could, and I'm astonished Roger Goodell cares so much about the latter and not at all about the former.

Posted by Timothy at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Technology is fantastic.

We don't have NFL Network here, so I'm watching a most wonderful feed from Denmark. It's in Danish, but you can understand a lot of English phrases. One of the commentators just called Terrell Owens a "Gangsta." Plus, there's no commercials -- they send it back to the studio for every break. I have no idea how these guys keep coming up with stuff to talk about. Plus, it's 3:30 in the morning there, so they appear to be a bit soused and/or groggy. With grog. Or perhaps Glögg.

"Pass Interference" doesn't translate to Danish, apparently. Who knew?

Posted by Timothy at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Goosebumps.

Posted by Timothy at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Somehow I missed this development, but the NCAA has started a blog, one that while a production of the NCAA, seems to be fairly independent in its observations and is almost serving, so far, as an ombudsman of sorts for the college athletics organization.

I am no fan of the NCAA, finding them to be hypocritical at best and criminal at worst, but this seems to be a great move. So far, the Double-A Zone has covered the possibility of a DI-A playoff (citing none other than SportsProf, which has been linked to from this blog since its inception), Division II basketball, and perhaps coolest of all, the site is featuring player blogs, including one from North Carolina-Greensboro communication major (and SoCon basketball POY) Kyle Hines (thanks to Whelliston for that head's up) -- certainly a point of pride for my colleague and UNCG alum Antoine Hardy.

I love athletes who share a love for the game and their own education. Devil Rays minor league outfielder Fernando Perez has a great player journal on the MiLB.com site where he provides terrific insight into baseball, learning, and life -- that's not hyperbole. Perez majored in cultural studies (holla!) and creative writing at Columbia, so I suppose it's not a surprise that he can elucidate about sports in a way we're not accustomed to:

In this way I see baseball as an 'anti-modernity.' It feels as though the men who play and stay in the game indulge in a counter culture, the lifestyle in which all you have to do each day is play. It's rustic. These are reasons why I'm here.

It's no wonder that baseball is the sport that's written about the most. There's something about it that strikes a chord with people who have the patience to understand it. [...] If I had to point to something, I'd say that aesthetes are drawn to the way that it's played with calculated civility. The national pastime might be all about passing time outside. It can't do just to say that it's because of its history. I hate to use the pretentious superlative that it "transcends sport," although I believe it has some merit.

That's just a snippet. Perez' post is really beautiful writing, and I encourage you to click the link above and read it in its entirety -- and his previous entries. I'm sorry to hear that he won't be writing about baseball anymore, but I hope he starts his own non-baseball blog somewhere because he writes beautifully and is a tremendous autoethnographer.

Posted by Timothy at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ross McKeon of Yahoo.com Sports is a chapter chairman of the Pro Hockey Writers Association, and yet he seems to know nothing about hockey.

In his most recent article, a feature on the front page of the Yahoo portal, he highlights the decline in attendance at Detroit Red Wings games and claims that Detroit is "no longer Hockeytown, USA." He then presents arguments for why other cities are worthy of the title. The problem, of course, is that his criteria are entirely arbitrary (despite being predicated on home attendance). And get this:

Pretty darn good, in their own way: Dallas, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Jose
Nice try, but this doesn't really work: Tampa Bay

Let's look at average attendance figures from the past three years, shall we?

2005-2006

Tampa Bay: 20,509 (103.8% capacity)
Dallas: 17,828 (96.2%)
San Jose: 16,831 (96.2%)
Pittsburgh: 15,804 (93.2%)
St. Louis: 14,213 (74.7%)

2006-2007

Tampa Bay: 19,876 (100.6%)
Dallas: 17,914 (96.7%)
San Jose: 17,422 (99.6%)
Pittsburgh: 16,424 (96.9%)
St. Louis: 12,520 (59.6% -- last in the NHL)

2007-2008

Tampa Bay: 19,172 (97%)
San Jose: 17,496 (100%)
St. Louis: 17,492 (83.3%)
Dallas: 17,193 (92.8%)
Pittsburgh: 17,058 (100.6%)

As you can see, hockey clearly doesn't work in Tampa. Feel free to provide Ross some feedback on his misguided assertions.

Posted by Timothy at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been a tennis fan since, well, I was born. While I was cursed with an utter lack of athletic ability, my father's tutelage led me to at least become competent in the sport, and my favorite players ranged from Stefan Edberg in the 80's to Andre Agassi in the early 90's until somewhere around my senior year of high school, when I realized the women's game was more exciting and a better exhibition of fundamentals.

I quickly became a fan of Martina Hingis. While my friends in college all followed the flashier, allegedly prettier Anna Kournikova, I latched onto Martina as my favorite. She was better, after all, than anyone in the world, and I came to find her pretty hot on her own means.

Eventually Martina retired, and moved to Wesley Chapel, Florida -- where I lived for two years before moving here to Clearwater. I actually saw her around town, twice; both times she was driving in her yellow Lamborghini. If I'd seen her in person I probably would have turned to stone. When she announced her comeback, I was ecstatic. Now she's retiring again. Why?

Martina Hingis is a crackhead.

Now, I have been around the internets long enough that nothing fazes me. But cocaine? That's Jennifer Capriati's domain. Maybe she was just really sleepy, I dunno, but I wasn't aware Euros enjoyed the nose candy. Then again, she's been living in Florida a long time. Wesley Chapel is a strange place, an amalgam of meth-head rednecks and super-rich athletes holed up at Saddlebrook. I'm sad Martina is retiring, but I'm more sad that she's apparently joined the illustrious ranks of David Crosby and Stephen King. (Totally had King pegged for angel dust.)

In light of her final retirement, let us linger upon some of Martina Hingis' greatest quotations. She embodied a true paradox of sport: both great- and bad-ass. (Google Image Search the former if you don't believe me.)

When asked in 1999 about her rivalry with Anna Kournikova: "What rivalry? I win all the matches."

Why she terminated her doubles partnership with former Wimbledon champion Jana Novotna: "She's old and slow."

Why she didn't enter mixed doubles at the 1997 Australian Open, after having won singles and women's doubles: "I need to give someone else a chance to win an event."

Posted by Timothy at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the middle of qualifying exam question #1. Football is an unwelcome presence.

TAMPA, FL—Saying that their No. 2 national ranking is "not something we really want or need at this point," nervous University of South Florida head coach Jim Leavitt told reporters at the team's afternoon practice yesterday that he "more or less was hoping" that his team would lose one or more of their next several games.

Continued at The Onion...

Posted by Timothy at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mike Patrick on Virginia Tech's performance at LSU:

"They were murdered."

Posted by Timothy at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by Timothy at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

SunTrust building, downtown Tampa, Thursday night.

Posted by Timothy at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am, by my academic upbringing, an ethnographer. In this sense, I ventured outside my comfort zone of mid-major football and 24,000 seat stadiums to attend the Florida-Troy game on Saturday in Gainesville. Ben Hill Griffin stadium is a bit obnoxious, so I thought I'd make a video that tries to describe the experience from someone used to much smaller and quieter surroundings.

Thanks to the Grapefruit Gal for scoring the great tickets.

A captioned slideshow of the weekend follows after the jump.

Continue reading "A weekend in Gainesville" »

Posted by Timothy at 01:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm in Gainesville, and leaving in about 12 minutes to make it back to Clearwater in time for GameDay. Have a terrific Football Christmas, everyone, and GO BOBCATS! GO BULLS!

(looks over his shoulder for Grapefruit Gal)

GO HILLTOPPERS!!!!!!!!!

Posted by Timothy at 07:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So I edited together a video of Barry Bonds' 755th home run last night, as called by five different announcers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEO7XAP1Acg

Watch it! It's interesting. I think the most telling part I had to edit out because it came too late; the Padres radio announcer (who, you'll see, is clearly the most critical) says, once the game resumes, "And now to more important things, the game's tied at 1-1."

Posted by Timothy at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My sleepwear options change on a nightly basis. Sometimes I wear a white, longsleeve Texas Longhorns T-shirt with one of my orange pairs of J.Crew pajama pants. Sometimes it's a Napoleon High School Tennis t-shirt with forbidden gym shorts, or one of my many sports jerseys (few of which are actually mine, save the 1984 Bernie Kosar Miami Hurricanes throwback and the 1998 Carolina Hurricanes Sean Burke jersey). A trip through my closet is like a trip to the ultra-discount store, which is not coincidence as I obtained many of these items at the ultra-discount store.

This image courtesy the STARTER JACKET FETISH SITE. No, srsly.

"What happened to Starter Jackets (and related clothing)?"

Once the domain of athletes, gangsta rappers, and actual gangstas (and gangsta wannabes) Starter clothes have virtually disappeared from Foot Lockers and Champs Sports locations nationwide. Where once an Oakland Raiders Starter jacket identified one as an "O.G.," now the thugs and ballaz are wearing NASCAR gear (or at least they are here in St. Petersburg) proving that even the uneducated are capable of understanding irony. In the early '90s, Starter jackets found their way to the nightly news, as people were regularly shot and killed for their bulky, unattractive sportswear. The story of the rise and fall of Starter appears to be as-yet untold on the internets, so here I am, telling it.

Michael Wilbon says that throwback uniforms are today what Starter Jackets were in the late 1980's.^[1] The source of the success, he alleges, is the same: hip-hop culture.

Starter was once the darling of the sports world, having exclusive contracts with, among others, Major League Baseball; in 2000, MLB switched contracts to Majestic Apparel, and that seems to be the beginning of the downfall (though, notably, the New York Yankees consistently wore their old Starter Jackets throughout 2000^[2] ).

Contemporary news articles most often feature Starter Jackets in descriptions of crime suspects, such as:

Police were seeking a black man, 24, with a dark complexion, wearing a blue Starter Jacket with white lettering (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 27 August 2000)

Police say the gunman is a black male in his late teens, wearing blue jeans and a blue Starter Jacket (Little Rock Democrat-Gazette, 25 September 1997)

His accomplice was described as 25-30 years old, 6 feet and 200 pounds. He was wearing a ball cap and a University of Miami Starter Jacket (Columbus Dispatch, 21 June 1999)

A man wearing a black Starter Jacket, blue jeans, and brown boots got out of the car with a gun drawn, punched the victim in the side of the face and demanded money (Newark Star-Ledger, 17 April 2003)

Elyria police Detective Chuck Gallion said Steckman used candy, beer and Starter Jackets to persuade pre-adolescent boys to have sex with him (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 16 September 1997)

Starter Corporation was founded in New Haven in 1971 by David Beckerman. By the mid-90's, it was selling $365 million in sports apparel. Did the association with crime (both in suspects' descriptions and murders over the jackets themselves) lead major sports organizations to end their affiliation with Starter?

As it turns out, Starter faded into obscurity for a several reasons:

1. The hockey and baseball labor stoppages of 1994.

Hockey didn't start its 94-95 season until January, and baseball's season ended August 12th -- making for a quiet sports autumn. Starter, which had exclusive contracts with both, saw earnings fall $33.3 million in 1994 and the company never recovered. While the $4.8 million deficit did improve to a meager $1 million profit line in 1995, shareholders weren't impressed, and the company that went public at $21.50 a share was staring at $5 a share only two years later.^[3] It's possible this is mere coincidence, but the association is striking.

2. Starter made inferior merchandise but sold it at upscale establishments.
because its products sucked. "No one ever bought a Starter Jacket because it was the warmest jacket out there," explains a retailer, "They bought it because it was a cool brand."^[4] Nike and Reebok were much better-prepared to produce quality athletic apparel, and were prepared to sell it at discount prices -- something Starter refused to do.

3. Brand extension instead of brand expansion.

Starter could have mitigated its problems by seeking new markets for athletic wear (a brand expansion) like non-licensed performance apparel (a role now filled by Under Armour) or non-mainstream sports (soccer, Arena League). Instead, they extended their brand to children's wear by Disney, school supplies, and socks.

In 1996, Brandweek wrote "Once the ship is righted, the vision is a Starter that could look a lot like Nike or Reebok."

As it turns out, Starter declared bankruptcy in 1999, and was purchased for $46 million by a consortium led by, yes, Value City (bringing this post around full-circle if you bothered to click the link in my introduction).

So that's where Starter went.

Posted by Timothy at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

he was also a safety in college dipshit, oh and he runs a 4.3 40 and bench presses nearly 380lbs. check the facts next time before you clown on someone else. oh and by the way i bet your butterfly tatoo on your back would go great in the nfl too

I dunno, knowing such intimate details about a punter? Sounds kinda... you know. He has an Indiana State email address, though the punter went to Illinois, so who knows.

If you are replying to a year-old blog post, it means you're searching for that name. I dunno what the phrase was, exactly, all StatCounter says is "handjob Indians game" which I'm thinking is someone else.

Posted by Timothy at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yes, this is in the category of "sports."

Today is "Independence Day" in the United States. What is "Independence Day?" Perhaps we should consult Encyclopedia Dramatica:

The 4th of July is one of several United States holidays created to whip up patriotic American feelings and remind the rest of the world that they better not fuck with us. Also known as Independence Day, it was originally started by a small terrorist gang because they hated the civilized, British way of life, with its incessant tea & crumpets routine, and loose talk about abolishing slavery. Since then, the 4th of July has become an endearingly fetishized annual occasion for parades, picnics, and sex parties, that make the USA the world’s most admired nation.

I love the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating competition at Coney Island in New York. I like it so much I recorded a song about it. It's maybe the best song ever written about hot dogs. Evar.

Evar!

Anyway, so last night I celebrated with this girl and her boyfriend, by running around in the LA Hangout with sparklers while hitting on the girl, in unabashed fashion. Oh, and we did Mudkip shots. (Citing ED twice in one post? Crazy.)

Apparently I am seeing some band play in St. Petersburg tonight. i don't know what band is playing, but I know who's opening for them, so we have that going for us. It's Basic Rock Outfit, a band that somehow avoids the natural suckiness of being from Tampa.

Oh, yeah, and then there's the hot dog eating competition. Click the jump to read about that... LIVE.

Continue reading "Liveblogging Nathan's famous yellow mustard belt and "Independence Day" NOW WITH KOBAYASHI UPCHUCK GOODNESS!!!" »

Posted by Timothy at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Only because I can.

10:59 - The party went well. The cleanup is a pain in the ass. Parties suck when you're the host. The Miller Lite in my hand just told me not to hold your breath tomorrow for the commercial review. #1, I missed almost all of this year's ads (being a host and all) and #2 I'm going to bed now. Look for the commercial review on Tuesday, my day off.

10:15 - Peyton Manning, how does it feel to be the most "by default" MVP in Super Bowl history?

9:30 - People can't figure out why I'm cheering for the Colts to win and yet was begging for a reversal on the INT challenge. And now Bob Sanders just intercepted Rex Disgustingman again. This game is OVAR.

Also, Jenn is upset because I told her the dude who was going to propose to his girlfriend in a Super Bowl ad didn't come up with the money. Plus I just got a text message from The Girl that she sent the other night, something I probably should have responded to, you know, that night. Or yesterday. Or this morning.

9:14 - NO MORE SCORING! I want my 22-17 prediction to seem prescient.

9:00 - People keep getting drunk and leaving... there's only about ten people left here, and for some reason four of them are from Philadelphia and are proudly wearing Eagles gear. Jennifer has an odd coterie of friends.

8:26 - I forgot to mention I put the 13" color TV i bought in Wiki Wachee (sp?) on the way to the GMAC Bowl in my bathroom tonight, and everyone loves it. One of my roommate's friends headed to the bathroom at the beginning of the halftime show, saying, "I'm gonna go watch this in the bathroom." I might just have to make my bathroom TV a permanent fixture.

8:20 - Covering Dylan? The Foo Fighters? Brilliant. Best halftime show ever. At the very least, best halftime show since the wardrobe malfunction. Dammit, Prince melts my face off. I still have goosebumps.

8:16 - See, it's cute, get it? It's purple out, and it's raining? In all seriousness, this halftime show makes me want to shoot my roommate for not letting me set my home theatre sound system up in the new house.

7:50 - Two more fumbles. I want to take back what I said about the MAC. This game is more along the lines of a Class-AAA high school game. These guys don't resemble professional athletes in any way.

7:16 - First part of the Coke "GTA III" ad: genius. Second part? Had me searching under the cushions for my lost masculinity.

7:13 - My landlord's wife, an Auburn fan, is screaming every time Grossman drops back. "I'LL BE DAMNED IF A GATOR WINS THE SUPER BOWL!!!"

6:52 - Sorry, we have enough food for about 50 people here, and I'm trying to do my part. Meanwhile, can I please turn in my late-November bottom-of-the-barrel MAC game and get the NFL Super Bowl I ordered? This really isn't up to my standards. Oh, and I haven't really seen any ads yet. I've been too busy stuffing my piehole.

5:52 - Oh, God, they turned football into soccer. Or something else limp and Euro.

5:49 - The TV on the patio is SD, the TV in the living room is HD. The HD set is delayed several seconds, so the smokers on the patio actually get to see everything happen before those of us inside.

This isn't a huge deal, but right now, with this weird-ass music, it creates a bizarre pre-echo that really makes me wish I was drinking Absinthe instead of Coors Light.

5:38 - My roommate just confirmed what I'd suspected all along: she is entirely uninterested in the game, and would prefer we fast-forward through them to get to the commercials. "The Tivo doesn't work that way," Rob answered.

4:58 - When did Katie Couric get amazingly hot?

4:48 - Today I was watching Back to the Future part II and I realized that in that world, HDTV had yet to be invented in 2015. Watching Hines Ward's mother, I longed for those days of standard TV... because I just lost my appetite.

Posted by Timothy at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Thanks to my roommate for not complaining too much about me simulating a football game in Tecmo Bowl while she's trying to clean. We're throwing a huge Super Bowl bash tonight, and she's going a bit nuts over it all.

I'll try and do the Super Bowl ad review this year (I know, I took a year off last year, bite me) if I don't get too drunk.

Posted by Timothy at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is the 20th anniversary of the day I cried harder than any day in my life to that point, and, save for the day 19 years ago yesterday, the hardest I cried in my life.

And ESPN is making me relive it, right now, on SportsCenter.

I am, of course, talking about The Drive. I need to go to bed, because this on tv ... it's ruining what was a fantastic evening with a young woman of whom I've really very fond. (I'll write about it later. It was a four-page night, and it's 5:37am.)

Elway. I still want to punch him in the face.

Posted by Timothy at 06:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I posted a photoessay at Bobcat Attack of my visit to Akron last night.

Go read it.

Posted by Timothy at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There's these two guys I know. Their names are Chris and Antoine, and they're probably the two coolest dudes I've met since moving here. Maybe that's a stretch, or a commentary on the people I meet on a daily basis. Either way, they're guys I don't spend enough time with -- mainly due to my living far, far from campus these days.

So the three of us were talking in the lobby during a break in class today, checking out coeds, et cetera. I dropped out of the conversation to take a leak, and on the way I passed a skinny white dude wearing a LeBron James jersey... with no shirt underneath.

White dudes look ridiculous in basketball jerseys. It's true.

Certified ridiculous.

He looked ridiculous like people look ridiculous in those "hata blocka" sunglasses. He looked ridiculous like those girls wearing gaudy Tiffany's charm bracelets. Ridiculous like people wearing baseball caps with an ironed-flat brim. Ridiculous like wearing two polo shirts at the same time. Ridiculous like wearing one polo shirt, but with the collar popped. Ridiculous like exposed bra straps, socks with sandals, and jeans with sequins.

Ridiculous like spelling ridiculous "rediculous." Two million idiots and counting.

So I chatted with Antoine about this observation, and he suggested I blog about it, which is what I'm doing. I generally think white dudes look ridiculous in basketball jerseys, black dudes look ridiculous in baseball jerseys, and everyone looks ridiculous in football jerseys.

Women, however, look amazingly hot in hockey sweaters. (Yes, they are called sweaters. Not jerseys. Sweaters.

Proof:

Posted by Timothy at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

When I was a kid, I loved hockey. I went to bed every night during the season listening to WJR out of Detroit, and Steve Yzerman, Joey Kocur, Bob Probert, Steve Chiasson, and Petr Klima were my best friends. I had a babysitter one summer who was from Buffalo -- a huge Sabres fan, and we'd watch ESPN's fantastic coverage (though in retrospect they seemed to highlight Gretzky and Gretzky only) while my parents were out doing whatever grownups do.

One night I watched an amazing hockey fight between the Soviet and Canadian junior teams that was being talked about on SportsCenter. I'd pretty much forgotten about that fight until someone brought it up in a Fark thread about SI's greatest fights -- and how it was left off the list. Helpfully, a poster provided a YouTube link to television coverage of the fight. It's one of the more amazing things you'll ever see.

Truly awesome, especially when they turn the lights off. Perhaps Kurt Cobain was referring to this incident when he wrote the words, "With the lights out/It's less dangerous."

--

Had you come up to me in high school and asked me to list my five favorite bands, I'd probably have answered thusly:

Counting Crows
Gin Blossoms
Soul Asylum
Toad the Wet Sprocket
The Refreshments

One of those bands has been active since then. Two of them broke up, and the other two (Soul Asylum and Gin Blossoms) have been on hiatus... until this summer. Both bands released their first albums in several years (eight for Soul Asylum, ten for Gin Blossoms) and I anticipated their release with baited breath.

Reviews for the two records criticize that the bands' sound hasn't changed despite the lapse of time. Critics blame the bands for being "stuck in the '90s." Yet I argue that if you're going to emerge after a long hiatus, you HAVE to sound like you used to. Otherwise, you have no audience. An old band that returns with a new sound is going to alienate the only guaranteed buyers of your record. Plus, I LIKED how those bands sounded, and I'm happy that they sound like they did when I was a pimply-faced high school sophomore without a date to Homecoming.

So here are my reviews.

Gin Blossoms - Major Lodge Victory

Some say the Gin Blossoms' downfall came before their first full-length record, New Miserable Experience, was even released. At the end of recording sessions in 1992, the band fired Doug Hopkins, guitarist and writer of NME-bound tracks like "Hey Jealousy," "Found Out About You," and "Lost Horizons."

The record eventually became a huge success, Hopkins committed suicide, and critics proclaimed the Gin Blossoms a one-album-wonder. Their followup, Congratulations I'm Sorry, didn't find the same commercial success from the previous album, and the band faded away into county fair and rib-fest headlining obscurity.

After four years of promising rib-fest fans "A new album is on the way!" it was finally released a few weeks ago. What's missing? Strangely, not Doug Hopkins -- I got over that part early on. Sadly, longtime Gin Blossoms drummer Phillip Rhodes elected not to join the band in creating the new record, and his absence is conspicuous. I feel people ignore drummers a bit too often when they listen to music -- overemphasizing the singers and lead guitarists. Rather, I argue the drum beat is the primary component of a band's signature sound, and changing drummers can considerably affect how a band comes across.

That having been said, Major Lodge Victory isn't a bad album. It sounds considerably like vintage '90s Gin Blossoms. Just different. And more boring. The first two tracks, "Learning the Hard Way" and "Come On Hard" are fantastic, but after that, things sort of fall off. It didn't hold my attention very well, and I've only listened to it a few times since then. Is it better than 90% of the records that have come out in 2006? Absolutely. But music sucks.

I once saw Soul Asylum and Gin Blossoms back-to-back nights at a venue in Kentucky that no longer exists. Interestingly, the first time I saw the bands play they were also back-to-back -- literally, performing consecutively at the 1995 concert for the opening of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at the late Cleveland Stadium. Gin Blossoms performed the Beatles song "Wait" and Soul Asylum rocked out with Iggy Pop.

Eight years later, in that dingy garage in Covington, Jarvin P and I stood watching Dave Pirner thrash around onstage with Soul Asylum in front of about 150 dedicated fans. "This guy used to f*ck Winona Ryder," I whispered to him, and wondered if Pirner was thinking the same thing, now that he's in a garage singing to your average Sociology 101 class.

The Silver Lining is Soul Asylum's return from the grave (dancer's union). Referring, I assume, to the death of bassist Karl Muller (which happened amidst recording) and Katrina (New Orleans being Dave Pirner's adopted hometown), the record is even more like vintage Soul Asylum than MLV was vintage Gin Blossoms. You've probably heard at least one track from this record already: ESPN uses "Stand Up & Be Strong" all over the place during college football highlights. It's a good song, but the intermission track of "Standing Water" is maybe the best song the band has written since "Runaway Train."

All this being said, the greatest surprise for me is the hidden track. The iPod revolution has changed the nature of looking for hidden tracks; simply by looking at the time remaining on the last song one can ascertain whether or not there's something extra afterward. Most hidden tracks are throwaways, and maybe that's the case with "Fearless Leader," but two seconds into it I recognized one of my favorite songs.

That's an interesting aspect of The Silver Lining. Most of the songs are actually quite old, and finally making their way to an album. "Fearless Leader" was written almost 20 years ago, during the Reagan Administration -- yet it, like Grave Dancer's Union track "Black Gold," could be a current criticism of President Bush. "Fearless Leader" was originally a B-side to the CD Single of "Misery," released in 1995, if that tells you anything. "Success is Not So Sweet" dates back to the multi-platinum days of 1994. "Slowly Rising" refers to "Weapons of Mass Destruction" yet was written long before 9/11 -- and the aforementioned "Standing Water" could be a perfect paean to New Orleans, and it is... but it was written years before Katrina.

Perhaps the prescience of these tracks makes the record what it is. What I do know is this: this record melted my face off, and having been conditioned by Major Lodge Victory to be disinterested, it was a real shock to find a record I was jamming to amidst rush-hour traffic. I hope this record sells well. I hope pop music hasn't evolved while we were all holed up listening to Replacements records (btw, Replacements bassist Tommy Stimson replaced Muller for the rest of the tracks on Silver Lining). I hope. I do.

Posted by Timothy at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There might not be anything more hilarious than a tatted-up punter. Anyone who saw the Bucs game today knows what I mean. Here's the only pic I could find of him on the Saints' website:

He's inked all up and down his arms. Way to go, punter.

What's even better is the Saints' caption for the above photo.

P Steve Weatherford makes a tackle of a Titans return man.

..yeah, he's really wrapping Pac-Man Jones up. Then again, maybe he's just showing some professional courtesy to a fellow thug.

Posted by Timothy at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Dual CRTs are sexy.

She has a hot voice. She's 37. Think she's single? She's not bad looking. She has a Harvard Ph.D. (!!!)

Anyway, you know what she's talking about if you know why I'm taking time out of our holiest of holy days to post about it. She and her New York Times blog have been up, down, over, and under the Lonelygirl15 hoax | conspiracy | drama | fake drama | debate for a while, though we're still waiting for more of those vaunted emails she claims to have.

Oh, and the daughter of the dude who registered that trademark we talked about yesterday? She just happens to run the Young Writers' Workshop in L.A. (and volunteers for SUMMER CAMPS IN L.A. at the Painted Turtle Camp, affiliated with Paul Newman's Hole In The Wall Gang foundation).

So, here's my current stance on the story.

Bree goes to USC, meets Daniel, decides to put on the world with her elaborate hoax.

Hoax starts to get out of hand, and after receiving email from viewer about the selling of Lonelygirl15 merchandise (four days to be exact), the trademark application is filed. Read about that here, though it's the lg15.com forum so... don't waste your time.) Bree knows her friend Lisa (whom she works with either at the Young Storytellers Foundation or at Painted Turtle Camp) has a father who's an attorney, and asks her to ask him to protect her service mark.

So the application is filed, though since it has nothing to do with his work, he uses his home address on the application.

I think it all makes perfect sense.

Football picks for the day:

Ohio 35 Tennessee-Martian 7
Ohio State 42 NIU 24
Notre Dame 35 Ga Tech 14
Cal 10 Tennessee 7
Penn State 21 Akron 17

Posted by Timothy at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Today we launch Blogtracks, a musical accompaniment to your reading pleasure. Hopefully it catches on and more bloggers offer a streaming, relevant soundtrack to their posts. Stream today's by clicking here.

In today's episode of Journeys, we'll cover some major Lonelygirl15 hoax - scam - conspiracy - fakery news, talk with lonely Northwestern alums, and rock out with our collective jocks out to celebrate Football Christmas.

Big news in the Lonelygirl15 world, and hopefully the elaborate ruse all comes crashing down upon someone very soon -- as we here at Journeys have way better things to be doing than talk to attractive law school students over IM and fire emails across continents. Here's what's gone down in the last 24 hours.

Lonelygirl15 (I'm pretty much resigned to not calling her "Bree" anymore) posted a new video -- and it's time for making cookies! Though, conveniently, they make the cookies... in her bedroom. So we don't get to see the rest of the "house," or as I refer to them, "sound stages." The video, to its credit, is on face quite dull, but contains all number of clues to those of us on the investigation trail. "Bree" drops a few Myspace names, and "Daniel" is seen, almost ludicrously so (in the manner that they REALLY WANT TO MAKE SURE WE SEE), reading this week's Rolling Stone. Okay, so the videos really are recorded with a decent amount of recency. Or not? One poster matched a screenshot side-by-side with the actual cover and declared it a Photoshop job. You be the judge.

That's the least interesting discovery made in the last day, though.

Let's start at Tech forum site Anandtech. Anandtech is one of those sites you had bookmarked back in the late 90's owing to the forums constantly buzzing with news of free coupons, free shirts, and free DVDs. The late 90's were a jackpot for freebies, and those of us with the right connections ended up with piles of swag from websites that don't exist anymore. Except for this one called Google, who sent me a T-Shirt back in 1999 which reads, "I Google" (using the trademark as a verb, which they would really like you to stop doing).

ANYWAY, longtime Anandtech poster "edprush" lets this bomb fly:

Later posts explain she's been asked to attend a private school in Oregon or receive private tutoring. Apparently other cousins inform him an appearance on Leno or Letterman is in the works.

No surprise that he also has a YouTube account.

IT. GETS. BETTER.

Intrepid Lonelygirl15.com users tracked down a development at, of all things, the United States Patent & Trademark Office.

Yes, kiddos, Lonelygirl15 is now a trademark. Its owner? *drumroll*

Goodfried, Kenneth INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 17341 Cumpston St Encino CALIFORNIA 91316

Um. Okay? And the text of the application?

IC 038. US 100 101 104. G & S: Broadcasting programs via a global computer network. FIRST USE: 20060524. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20060524

First use in commerce? You mean this is commercial in nature? It's not just some girl and her friend making videos from her bedroom?

I feel so disillusioned.

So now it's time to track down Mr. Goodfried and find out the truth. Is the end in sight? And why is a labor attorney filing trademark applications? Using his home address (a modest-looking place right off the 101)?

Meanwhile, the mysterious informant Mr. T is speaking more Jibba-Jabba in the LG15.com forums:

she graduated from McAuley High School in 2003

That doesn't jive at all with what edprush was saying, but, then, what's McAuley High School? There's McAuley High Schools everywhere -- including Cincinnati. I'd do some Myspace school searching, but Myspace sucks. Seriously, I'm not sure how Myspace is so popular, as it's a standing example of how not to engage in web design. Not only is the site horribly ugly (which could be fixed by, oh, three minutes of CSS adjustment), but IT DOESN'T WORK. Seriously, try doing a search based on networking or high schools, or browsing schools by city -- it just doesn't work. "An unexpected error occurred." No, I've long come to expect them, thank you.

So Myspace sucks.

Mr. T would also like us to know "she spent 2004-apr2006 in miami florida" which ... means nothing. He won't tell us much more, because he "doesn't want to face litigation." Seriously, check it out here. I think the dude's nuts.

For what it's worth, there are people getting paid to do what I'm doing here, and so they're doing a better job of it. The L.A. Times (thanks milo) has latched onto the story, and yesterday published a long expose on the subject. Here's the highlights:

If you freeze the frame at one minute and 36 seconds, you will see (according to some) a shadow sweep over the lower left-hand corner of the video; a shadow which, it is alleged, was likely cast by a boom mike — proving the use of professional equipment on the set.

(In regards to a YouTube message poster:

However, when contacted by ToLD, Johnny replied by saying: "i am sorry i am not at liberty to share any information with you. i apparently signed a Non Disclosure aggreement in feb 06. which legally keeps me from responding. again I apologize." (sic)

The fact that a major international newspaper has something called "The Trail of Lonelygirl15 Daily" on the front page of their Entertainment section is phenomenally surreal. It's the big time, kiddos, and those of us scooping up the dirt on the sidelines are headed for the bench, unless we keep up the due diligence. Now I know what it was like for Pauly when the big-timers showed up just in time for the Main Event and muscled the bloggers out of the way.

Finally, one of the forum kids made this parody. It's smart, but if you're going to make something smart, get somebody not tone-deaf to sing it. Gilbert and Sullivan weep in their graves.

Some of us are just gearing up for the backlash.

--

Yesterday was Football Christmas. To celebrate, I attended my local BW3's to watch the Northwestern-Miami game and whatever else they'd put up ... which wasn't much. Sat next to an excited Northwestern alum who had nice things to say about Athens. He was okay, but the $3.00 22oz Coors Lights were better. So was the Chase Club bartender next to me from Bay City, who wouldn't leave me alone, not that I wanted to be left alone.

The most miserable part of Football Christmas -- and there's always a miserable part -- is the fact that more than half the televisions at BW3 were set to the Buccaneers' preseason game. And the ones that weren't were being roundly ignored. These ignorant 'necks care more about meaningless NFL preseason games than FOOTBALL CHRISTMAS. Oh, and Delmon Young has a higher batting average than he does on-base percentage. God, I love baseball stats. Psyched to see Delmon in person tonight.

Behave, kiddos.

Today's Blogtrack featured 7L & Esoteric - "Play Dumb" and Goldfrapp - "Fly Me Away (Ladytron Remix)".

Posted by Timothy at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On Monday, June 12th, Major League Baseball suspended Jason Grimsley 50 games for his role in a federal investigation involving human growth hormone (HGH).

The suspension of the already-unemployed Grimsley -- a folk hero of mine for his role in the Mission Impossible-style replacement of Albert "Joey" Belle's bat in 1999 -- precipitated a torrent of attention toward the substance now considered a bigger threat to fair play in professional sport than steroids, which, unlike HGH, can be detected in testing. Baseball's launched its own investigation into HGH abuse, and sports talk radio has latched onto the HGH debate as its primary topic of conversation.

Thing is, they're all about 20 years late into the conversation. This isn't a matter of closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, it's more an issue of returning to the farm after it's been a Wal-Mart for a few decades.

In 1988, I was a ten-year-old fifth grader at St. Augustine Catholic School, a tiny K-8 institution in my hometown of Napoleon, Ohio. My father, coach of football, basketball, and tennis, also