two dolla

reggie miller: the homewrecker with saucer ears

Between freelancing and reading random articles on Wiki-wiki-wiki-pedia (I say it like that, too), I tend to learn a lot of random crapola that eventually has me following link after link to some random site about something I’ve never even heard about. And this is where I learned about quite possibly one of the funniest things of all time involving Reggie Miller.

Alex Von Furstenberg has this fiancé, right? Somehow Furstenburg finds out that his fiance has sent seXXXXXy (I just like to type it that way) pictures of herself to Reggie Miller. The fiance claims it was to get an athlete’s opinion (right.) on her body. Frustenburg calls BS on this one and rents a plane to fly over Malibu and various other southern California beaches carrying a banner that reads “Reggie Miller stop pursuing married women”. I personally am a big fan of the humiliation attempt here, but if those giant ears of Reggie Miller’s aren’t going to slow him down from hitting on the already committed ladies, I don’t think a little overhead flyby is going to do much either.

There was some good ol’ fashioned text messaging harassment and a restraining order thrown in for good measure, but once an airplane gets involved, I’m pretty sure all that’s null and void.

I’m considering doing the same, except maybe having it say “Reggie Miller: Your sister is better than you.” and seeing how he likes that one.

like finely aged cheez whiz

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Jones Soda. All opinions are 100% mine.

If it weren’t for my obsession with ESPN’s Streak for the Cash, the fact that I hadn’t sat down to watch a full NFL game this season is enough to get my sports fan membership taken away. I watched one Vikings game this season, but I slept through the 2nd and 3rd quarter. While that’s generally my preferred way to watch a football game (or NASCAR race for that matter), I feel a little bit bad since, you know, the Vikings are actually playing decently this year.

Had I chosen to move to Seattle instead of Minneapolis, I could be enjoying Sunday football with a 4-pack of Seattle Seahawks Jones Soda. How adorable is that? Maybe since it’s football-related, it’s not supposed to be adorable. As much as I love Jones’ sugar free green apple soda (and I really, really hate most diet soda), I would totally be down for something like that. At least the green would somewhat match the Seahawks’ uniforms. I’m not familiar enough with the Jones Soda varieties to figure out which one would be best paired with the Vikings.

I like how all of a sudden I’m pairing cane sugar based soft drinks with NFL teams like it’s some kind of wine and cheese party.

my favorite is still the spitball

When Stephanie and I went to Chicago a few years ago, we were determined to visit ESPNZone. We didn’t get around to it until our last day there, but despite her probably broken tail bone and my chipped vertebrae and jacked up right rotator cuff that I’d encountered a few days before we left (thanks to the great car accident of 06), we managed to get there and were way keyed up to play every sports game known to man. It didn’t really happen that way, though.

I’m pretty sure I spent all of my time playing pop-a-shot (because it’s my favorite game of all-time) and Stephanie was playing the hockey version of pop-a-shot… slap-a-puck? Before we left, I had to give it my best go and imitating my favorite Twins pitcher (at the time), Johan Santana, in the pitching game that they had. How convenient that I was in Chicago and got to pretend I was pitching against my arch nemesis A.J. Pierzynski. While I would have rather just thrown the ball at his head, I decided to throw it has hard as I could as close to the strike zone as I could get it. The sad part of this story? I don’t think it went much past 35 mph. I’m clearly cut out for slow pitch softball.

Ever since then, I’ve been thinking that I need a baseball radar gun to see how much I can improve the ol’ pitching speed. That’s completely logical, right?

And if it doubled as a radar gun I could use on cars, I’d totally spend my weekends in my front yard clocking all the jerks that come flying down our side street. It’s two blocks long. There are stop signs on both ends! What’s the point of trying to speed down it that fast?

copying the streakmaster

For the past few months, I’ve been extremely obsessed with ESPN’s Streak for the Cash. I’m not at all great at it. And I think that’s a good thing. If I was awesome at picking the winners of all these different sporting events online without having to put down any cash at all, I’m sure I’d be broke as all get out laying down real bets on this stuff.

Right now, my record is 164-146-10, which is a paltry 52.9% when it comes to accuracy. If you want to see it broken down by sport, I think you should be able to see this link. My highest winning streak has been 12 in a row; my highest losing streak has been seven in a row. Obviously I’m all over the board when it comes to accuracy.

The StreakMaster posts what he’s picking for the day. I was kind of impressed by it and I also realized that if maybe I did that, I wouldn’t be stressing so much about it all day long. I can only look at ESPN so many times during the work day before our IT department realizes it’s not really for networking activities. So, here we go:

Current L1 (that’s a streak of one loss for those of you that don’t know how this works); Current .529 (164-146-10)

United States Win. David Banda is the only person from Malawi (which is the U.S.’s opponent) I know and I’m pretty sure Madonna’s not going to let him play in the Under-17 FIFA World Cup.

Benjamin Becker. I’ve never heard of the other guy. (I told you I wasn’t great at this!)

Ottawa Senators. The Senators haven’t let me down yet this season. I know it’s still early, but they’re looking pretty hot so far.

We’ll see what happens and we’ll see if this becomes some sort of daily thing… I’m not counting on anything here.

no way, i got distracted?

I did some freelancing work tonight and ended up staying up later than originally planned. I was all set to go to bed and plan on finishing things up first thing tomorrow morning, but then I looked on the internet.

There’s a Woot-Off happening right now. I’m not really planning on buying anything, but the idea of things selling out as fast as they do is sort of amazing for me to even watch.

And then there’s the Yankees/Angels game that I’d picked the Angels to win. When the Shitheads Yankees jumped up 4-0 after three innings, I pretty much thought it was over. Now it’s 5-5 in the top of the 9th and I really need to see who wins.

There’s always time for sleep tomorrow, right?

i’m so behind

There was a day where I spent my mornings watching Sports Center the whole time I got ready for work. It usually meant watching the exact same episode over and over, but it was important that I stay on top of things. That’s changed quite a bit and now I fall behind on important things, like the inductees into the 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame: Michael Jordan, David Robinson, John Stockton, Vivian Stringer, Jerry Sloan.

Michael Jordan: There wasn’t a Chicago Bulls game on TV I didn’t miss from 1991-1998, even when they tried to play Pete Myers as a replacement for him at shooting guard. Living in Missouri, I watched the majority of those games on WGN, where Johnny Kerr (RIP, RED!) got powder dust in his face right before every game. I know everyone loves Jordan, but I really loved watching him play. He was always so focused and driven every minute he was in the game.

David Robinson: I hated this dude when he was playing. I always thought he was arrogant and cocky and was so glad when the Spurs drafted Tim Duncan, because I was sure that was the end of The Admiral. Not the case. They played together and they were awesome. But if it weren’t for David Robinson, the Spurs never would have been such a contender prior to the Duncan/Parker days. I mean, Vinny Del Negro running the point and Moses Malone still playing at 40 years old? How is that ever a good idea?

John Stockton: I hated Stockton more than I hated Robinson. I think it was because his shorts always went so far up his ass while all of the other players had finally moved past the short-shorts. He was the quickest little white guy I’d ever seen play the game and I hated that he was better on defense than Jordan.

Jerry Sloan: I almost peed my pants this season when I went to a Wolves game and noticed Sloan was still coaching. Without Karl Malone and Stockton running the floor for him, he’s continued to make his team a perennial powerhouse. Gotta love that about a dude who’s been coaching the same team since 1988.

Vivian Stringer: I really hope the C before her name stands for Coach. In any case, she’s one of those fantastic coaches that nobody ever hears about or reads about because she’s coaching women’s basketball. Never mind the fact that she’s doing a phenomenal job at coaching women’s basketball.

Congratulations to all of the inductees. And I’m still holding out that Johnny “Red” Kerr will make it in next year since he didn’t quite make the cut this year.

step it up, lynx. and i don’t mean in basketball.

You know what I hate more than pretty much anything? When I get professionally done emails (i.e. newsletters from stores and/or major sporting organizations) that have a glaring spelling order. It draws away my attention so bad that I can’t even take that email seriously anymore.

I just got this:

I mean, I get that it’s from the WNBA, so maybe they can’t afford proofreaders. But c’mon, it’s hard enough for people to make you think you have credibility as an actual major sports team, so when you don’t proofread your emails, it’s even harder for fans, like myself, to justify why  people should take the Lynx seriously and not as some waste of money/time/talent.

P.S. Thanks, Google Ads, for pointing me to where I can buy some Stinky Hockey Gear.

i know it’s an obsession

Jenni and Matt had been talking about ESPN’s Streak for the Cash forever, but becauase my internet time has severely diminished between a job that actually keeps me busy (and one I love) and The General that also keeps me busy (and another one I love), I kind of put it in the back of my mind. And then sometime last month, I got hooked on it. Badly.

Early in my random sports-picking days (again, we’re talking last month), I wound up with a streak of 12. TWELVE. I was justaboutthisclose to moving to Vegas and setting up shop at The Sports Book. Or whatever that place is called that I would end up losing my entire $27 savings account, especially if I started picking all-day long cricket matches like I did sometime last week. Bad idea.

Over the last week, I haven’t been able to get my streak over two, which made me cry a little. But now I’m feeling it – I’m back on a roll with a streak of 4 – only 9 more until I can get my free ESPN the Streak t-shirt (or other ESPN-related prizes associated with this contest).

Today, I wound picking the following to get myself rolling again:

• A qualifying match in the UEFA Europa League, where I picked FC Vaslui to win (or a draw in the match): Final Score: 1-1
• UEFA Champions League’ Qualifying 3rd Round, where I chose Sporting Lisbon over Twente Enschede: Final Score: 1-0 (and you don’t want to know my logic on picking the winner of that one).
• WNBA’s New York Liberty vs. Detroit Shock – I took the under, guessing that combined the teams would score less than 147: Final Score: 76-64 Shock
• I decided there’s be more than 1 HR hit in innings 4-6 between the Braves and Padres: Last I looked, I think they were up to 2.

As much as I love the picking who’s going to win matchups, I’m starting to get a kick out of picking over-unders and whatever stuff like that is called in the betting world. There’s hardly any logic to it, plus it helps me get back up to speed on all the sports I’ve been missing out on the last couple of years.

i like football hints

It shouldn’t be any question as far as how much I like sports. Between the sports-related blogs that I read and all the obsessing I’ve been doing over ESPN’s Streak for the Cash, I can honestly say I could carry on a conversation about any sport out there. Except for cricket maybe, although we did see some guys playing a game (or is it match?) on the way back from the northern suburbs today. I wanted to stop and watch, but thought that might be a little weird.

My favorite fantasy season is just about ready to kick off, though, so I’m a little excited about that. I’ll usually do a little pre-summer camp reading about various teams, but since Brett Favre and his fat head have taken up so much of the football news around this neck of the woods, I haven’t really been paying a lot of attention to anything else NFL related. And then I found WaiverWire.

I like football, don’t get me wrong. I just can’t remember the last time in three years where I’ve actually turned on a football game and watched it all the way through. I tend to nap instead. And when you’re watching the Vikings each week, it kinda doesn’t matter most of the time. It just puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to my fantasy football teams. While I don’t go all out and actually pay money to enter leagues, I do like to win… especially when I know I’m playing with a huge group of guys. It’s just funny when the girl wins!

The thing I like about WaiverWire is it’s comprehensiveness on pretty much everything – player projections, stats from the red zone, depth charts, etc. There are some weeks when I need all the help I can get in the fantasy football field and knowing there’s one site that can pretty much help me out with most of it makes me pretty happy. Who knows… it might even help me out in the Pick ‘Em League I’m always in where I find it mandatory each and every year to beat my second-cousin (or possibly 3rd-cousin?) Russell.

might be a bit behind

For the past couple of years, I’ve grown increasingly disinterested in NFL football. I used to be an obsessive Fantasy Football player, sometimes having the maximum four Yahoo teams going at once. Comparing that to this year, where I forgot to even do my weekly picks most weeks, I think it’s safe to say my fandom has strongly dissipated. I’m almost embarassed to say I don’t even know who’s left in the playoffs.

Next year, it’s my goal to pay a little more attention to the NFL football schedule and try to at least watch ONE game. I forget how much fun I have stomping all over male-managed teams in the various leagues I join. I always make my avatar something as girly as possible, so when a team callsed Jon’s Powerhouse Murdering All-Stars loses, it makes everyone question his manhood when he was paired up against someone whose team name was I Heart Clarissa Explains It All.

And, you know, maybe if I paid attention to the schedule, I could at least keep some tabs on my former hometown Kansas City Chiefs. I’m pretty sure Derrick Thomas is still their starting linebacker. Oh wait. He’s dead. At least Joe Montana’s still their quarterback – what? He’s not? I guess that probably means the Nigerian Nightmare is retired, too. I should probably just go play Tecmo Super Bowl, where at least I know all of the players’ names. High Def graphics are overrated anyway.