May 07 2012
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Basketball

27 NBA Nicknames That Need to Happen

With the NBA playoffs in full swing, and almost all the first round series looking decided, I took a moment to assign nicknames to exactly three (3) players from each of the teams that have a real chance to be in the second round. As there are only nine teams still in contention, I took it upon myself to make AN ODD-NUMBERED LIST of nicknames that I invented just now because that is how  you win on the internet.

Los Angeles Clippers

1. Blake “Pads” Griffin

Because he wears elbow pads and sponsors Kia.

2. Ryan “The Brass City Strangler” Gomes

This would be better if he had a reputation as an elite defender, but I mean, he’s from Waterbury, CT, also known as Brass City, and this just seems like a good epithet for a serial killer menacing the northeast during the industrial revolution. Waterbury’s motto is “Quid Aere Perennius?” meaning “What is more lasting than brass?” Big ups to Horace, Brass City.

3. Randy “Foyer” Foye

Much like a foyer, Randy Foye is pretty forgettable, but not something anyone feels particularly strongly about. He’s the two-guard your team has when they’re waiting for something better.

Memphis Grizzlies

1. Lester “Granddad” Hudson

Lester Hudson is the oldest name I’ve heard since I learned DMX’s real name is Earl Simmons.

2. Gilbert “Shooting Star” Arenas

He has a really good jump shot, see. Oh, also that thing when he and Javaris Crittenton were pulling guns on each other after a disagreement over gambling debts, which would have been acceptable if they were play-acting about the Old West. Maybe it should be Gilbert “Wild Bill” Arenas.

3. Hamed “Tower of Babylon” Haddadi

Now, I know what you’re thinking, what a good nickname for a 7’2″ Iranian dude. The only problem is that Babylon was in Iraq, and that it’s the Tower of Babel, not Babylon. Nevertheless, there is no grander tradition in sports than racist-ass nicknames for foreigners. Do enjoy this Wikipedia page of baseball players with ethnic nicknames. It’s a treasure. There’s a staggering number of dudes forced to bear nicknames like Dutch, Heinie, Irish, and SuperJew.  Apparently Frederick Schmit was known as Crazy, but that wasn’t enough, so his other nickname was “Germany.” Jap Barbeau just sorta looked Japanese, so they called him that. So by that horrible standard, this is an entirely appropriate nickname!

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Apr 27 2012
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Astronauts

The O.G. Awareness Campaign Goes to Space

Before there was Kony 2012, Tying a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ol’ Bladder Cancer Tree and that Bully petition, there was Smokey the Bear raising awareness of the issue that plagues our increasingly urban and cosmopolitan population: forest fires. In retrospect, it’s weird to remember a bygone era where preserving the environment was uncontroversial. Also, that bear was dead effing serious. It wasn’t a juggling bear, a dancing bear or even a smiling bear. Nope. Smokey just stared dead into the camera and told you what’s what. In that way, it’s kinda genius because everyone’s first reaction is “Oh fun, a bear!” which is immediately followed by the PSA equivalent of being criticized by your second grade teacher for talking too much during class.

But now, Smokey is tackling  the final frontier. Checkit:

An American astronaut heading to the International Space Station has chosen Smokey Bear as his crew’s mascot.

This of course raises the obvious question: what is a space fire like. Apparently it’s basically a ball of flaming doom. And I never would have known that without Smokey inspiring me to look it up! Well played, Smokey.

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Apr 19 2012
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Television

Cash Cab Cancelled, A Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to Other Daytime Gameshows

The other headline I was going to go with for this thing was “Cash Cab Gab Cache / Lash Dab” (because I’ll be talking about it a lot, then crying over Cash Cab’s cancellation, see) but I think this one’s a little more to the point. But since the show’s now off the air, let’s all pour one out for our fallen show–well, after we get out of the Cash Cab, what with open container laws being what they are.

For the uninitiated, Cash Cab is a game show where Ben Bailey–described on Wikipedia as both an American comedian and a licensed taxi cab driver–picks up patrons, then asks them trivia questions. Three misses and you get out of the cab with no money, and at the end there’s an optional question to try to double your winnings.

This show is awesome for a lot of reasons. First of all, every time someone gets in, Ben Bailey goes “ayyyyyyyy, you’re in the Cash Cab.” I realize that doesn’t sound very exciting. But it is. It’s very exciting (that’s called using rhetoric to prove a point!). Then Bailey starts driving while quizzing the contestant. If someone conducting a game show while driving a car seems dangerous, well, yes. However, Cash Cab’s vehicular manslaughter incident was not Ben Bailey’s fault at all.

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Apr 18 2012
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Listicles

The 95 Most Influential People Who Wrote About the 100 Most Influential People

Time Magazine just released its 100 Most Influential Influencers of Influence or whatever that thing is called, because it’s April and the market on end-of-year lists is there for the taking. Needless to say, the list is flawless. I mean, obviously I know who Rene Redzepi is. He’s a…uh… chef. And why wouldn’t the fifth most-important person in The Help (aka the movie that re-defined our generation, at least until Girls re-re-defined it) make it?

But that’s not this list.

This list is of the people who write the short blurbs on those (usually more influential) people. The classic example of course being Gordon Brown’s hilarious letter of unrequited love addressed to Barack Obama. These sorts of lists tend to have a sort of even mix of “fame” and “power,” to which I say, “eff that noise.” I’m more from the power is power school. I don’t care how fun Linsanity was, dude is just less important than the President of Argentina.

Let’s Begin!

The No-Wikipedia Gulag

95. Time Social Media Editor Allie Townsend

94. Time Art Critic Richard Lacayo

93. Consumer Rights advocate Molly Katchpole

92. Time Staff Writer Ishaan Tharoor

91. Time Ideas Columnist Andrew J. Rotherham

90. Time Sports Columnist Sean Gregory

89. Time Sports Editor Bill Saporito

88. ONE CEO Michael Elliott

87. Time Beijing Correspondent Austin Ramzy

86. Time Middle East Bureau Chief Aryn Baker

85. Time Senior Editor Bryan Walsh

84. Time Senior Editor Matt McAllester (btw, who spells McAllister like that?)

83. IBM Fellow David Ferrucci

82. Law Student Sandra Fluke

Completely Irrelevant / People I Haven’t Heard Of

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Feb 29 2012
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Listicles

9 Leap Day Birthdays of Note

Some Leap Day Guy

And presented in countdown format, for no apparent reason other than to heighten the drama of who will be number one.

T-9th: Aileen “Monster” Wuornos and Richard “The Night Stalker” Ramirez

Two things on the Night Stalker: when they finally captured him and he went to trial, one of the jurors was murdered, which, of course had the effect of terrifying everybody. Fortunately (I don’t think this is how the word “fortunately” is normally used, but we’re going with it here), she had been murdered in her apartment by her boyfriend, not by, like Richard Ramirez’s voodoo powers or something. Perhaps even weirder, one of the many people he attacked survived because she held her car keys in front of her face when Ramirez shot her, making the bullet ricochet away. In any case, don’t go to the wikipedias for either of these two people because you can waste a whole day looking at serial killer wikipedias. It’s not the best use of time.

7. Antonio Sabato, Jr.

His career: underwear model, music video, actor, soap star, singer. As Henry Pollard would say, he’s in the overall handsome business.

6. Dinah Shore

I know nothing about Dinah Shore, except that she dated a lot of dudes in public with old-timey “I swear I’m a straight leading man!” actor names like Rod Taylor and Dick Martin and that she is described by wikipedia as “a longtime supporter of women’s professional golf.” Make of that what you will.

5. Giacchino Rossini

The William Tell Overture is allegedly partially responsible for the song “Still Tippin‘” by Mike Jones and a Shaq song. Who knew? In more exciting weird cover situations, here’s “Holdin’ on to Black Metal by My Morning Jacket and some crazy Thai song. I’m not sure who this interests, but I’m also not sure who this doesn’t interest. Check it out.

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Feb 17 2012
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Basketball

The Inevitable Jeremy Lin Post

Jeremy Lin Coaster - Part of a Set Commemorating (who else?) the 2011 Golden State Warriors by SBG

As anyone with an interest in sports (or humans) knows, Jeremy Lin is lighting it up for the New York Knicks. He’s hitting game winners and is wedged neatly in between Derek Rose and Kobe Bryant in PER (a sort of amalgamation of all the major statistical categories).

This is particularly weird for me because I played against the guy in high school, which, I think, gives me some extra insight into the situation.  Herewith, my insights as the internet’s self-proclaimed leading non-Asian Jeremy Lin expert:

1. It wasn’t just a big ol’ bunch of racism that kept him from getting a college scholarship

There’s been a lot of talk that Jeremy Lin was overlooked by colleges and then pro teams because he is Asian. There’s probably less to this than one might believe. When I played against him in high school, nobody was like, “Oh man, Jeremy Lin–he’s the best player.” Here’s a partial list of players who were pretty much as good, and in some cases better than Jeremy Lin from the Bay Area during my high school career: Drew Gordon, Decensae White, Chris Oakes, Dominic Cruz-Duncan, James Sandoval, Drew Shiller, Dominic Stewart, Jeremy Franklin, Collin Chiverton, Frank Otis, Rob Jones (who, incidentally has a much more interesting backstory than Jeremy Lin). Even among guys he played with at Palo Alto, you could say Brian Baskauskas was as good.

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Feb 15 2012
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Listicles

Roles I Wish Were Method Acted

Method acting: the art of immersing yourself so deeply in a role that every fiber of your being becomes that character, on-screen and off.  It is becoming the role so much so that even when nobody’s around you are not say, Tatum Channing, master thespian, you are John Tyree, letter writin’ Staff Sergeant in the United States Army. Needless to say, this is fucking insane and leads to things like Val Kilmer saying he understands what it’s like to kill a man and that he knows Moses better than Moses knew himself.

In any case, it is a lot of fun to watch TV and/or movies and imagine the actor off-screen behaving like their character. So here’s 50 instances where I hope to God that the actor went the extra mile and freaked everyone out, Daniel Day-Lewis-style with their intense dedication to the role.

  1. Peter Weller as RoboCop in RoboCop
  2. F. Murray Abraham as Salieri in Amadeus
  3. Jon Cryer as Duckie in Pretty in Pink
  4. Ashton Kutcher as Evan Treborn in The Butterfly Effect
  5. Harrison Ford as Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde in Cowboys & Aliens
  6. Jeff Goldblum in The Fly
  7. Any role Marlon Wayans has played in any movie
  8. Ernst Stavro Blofeld in any number of James Bond movies
  9. Keanu Reeves as Shane Falco in The Replacements
  10. Whitney Cummings as Whitney in Whitney
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Feb 10 2012
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Important Investigations

Are There Taco Bells in Mexico?

Map of Tony Roma's Locations Worldwide

The topic of today’s investigation: national pride. Specifically: does your country allow a crappy Americanized version of your food to be sold within its own borders? If so, then your country has no pride whatever.

The above picture, you may note, does not have Italy highlighted. You know why? Because Italians don’t want any Tony Roma’s. Tony Roma’s–whose motto is “Famous for Ribs”–has a location in Saudi Arabia, where, generally speaking, pork isn’t such a big product, but none in Italy. Because Italy does not want Tony Roma’s. They have actual Italian food.

In addition, there are not only no Olive Gardens in Italy, there aren’t any in the whole of Europe. But of course, Italy is not the only country to have its food bastardized in America.

Here’s a mostly complete list of countries that have managed to keep American chains out of their borders.

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Feb 02 2012
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Football

LSU Like, Totally Didn’t Even Want Quarterback Recruit Who Chose Another School

The news out of Baton Rouge (a city whose correct pronunciation requires that you huff and wave a handkerchief wildly) is that LSU’s football coach, Les “Fewer” Miles is blasting Gunner Kiel, the nation’s number one quarterback recruit whose name is not in any way made up.

“We needed a quarterback,” Miles told the crowd. “We lost two. We needed a quarterback in this class. There was a gentleman from Indiana that thought about coming to the Bayou State. He did not necessarily have the chest and the ability to lead a program, so you know.”

Burn! LSU is obviously too good for this guy they’re mad at for refusing their offer to attend their college for free. Now, generally it’s not good practice for college football coaches to be mocking 18-year-olds in general, and recruits specifically, so this Gunner Kiel must have done something bad, right? Well, he had committed to LSU until less than a week before signing day, at which point, well, his mom got in the way.

“From what I have been told, he is no longer coming to LSU,” recruiting expert Michael Scarborough of Rivals.com/TigerBait.com said Monday night. “He wants to come to LSU, but his mother (Aleta Kiel) got very emotional Monday and did not want her son to leave. He plans to enroll in classes at Notre Dame on Tuesday.”

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Jan 31 2012
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I Don't Know What To Tell You, Listicles

The Hottest New Internet Game: 80′s Band First Name, Latino Last Name

 

Genesis...

...Rodriguez!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re anything like me, you’re were very excited to learn there is such person as Genesis Rodriguez, who will be one of the stars in the forthcoming movie Man on Fire Wire A Ledge, which, fun fact, was written by the same guy who wrote O.J. Simpson’s semi-confession If I Did It. The game is pretty self-explanatory, except that only bands are allowed, no solo artists. So take out those baseball cards and LPs and see if you can’t add a few more to this list.

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