The Old Blog

So is it too early to coin the term “Schiavo-freude”? I can think of two definitions:
1) The desire for someone to die, either literally or physically, or
2) The desire for something bad to happen to someone who vehemently opposes your beliefs, even when both of you are focused on a single instance of said beliefs, while thousands more examples occur every day, completely unbeknownst to both your tunnel-visioned selves.

For that matter, can I coin the term “tunnel-visioned”?

Because you all care, here are my NCAA picks:

1st Round Winners:
Ill., TX, AL, BC, LSU, AZ, So. Ill., OK St.,
WA, Pacific, GA Tech, Louisville, TX Tech, Zaga, WV, Wake,
UNC, Minny, Villanova, FL, WI, Kansas, NC St., UCONN,
Duke, Stanford, MI St., Syracuse, Utah, OK, Cincy, KY

2nd Round Winners:
Ill, BC, AZ, OK St., WA, Louisville, Zaga, Wake,
UNC, FL, Kansas, UCONN, Duke, Syracuse, Utah, KY

Elite 8:
Ill., OK St., Louisville, Wake, UNC, UCONN, Duke, KY

Final Four:
Ill., Wake, UNC, Duke

Finals:
Ill., UNC

Champs:
UNC, 71-61

“Everyone likes Minnesota…” says this Onion article about the state so nice it wouldn’t accept extra federal funding.

Especially funny to us here at SAW is the part about the asshole Boston native who moved to Minny–the exact opposite route we took.

Read this article by Harmon Leon about his dinner at Applebee’s with members of a white supremacy group, and then try to figure out whether to laugh or cry.

Rob Neyer takes on Jose Canseco’s credibility in his New York Observer review of the former bash brother’s book “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big.”

Neyer’s two most important points?
1) Canseco’s glaring factual errors pertaining to actual statistical information (how often he played, what game of the World Series he was in, etc.) severely undermine his credibility regarding unprovable activities that he claims to have witnessed.
2) Canseco is delusional if he truly believes that he could play just as well at age 40 as he did at 25 (as he claims) and that his middle-class, English-speaking ass was discriminated against because he was a Latino ballplayer in the mid-80s.

(Thanks to Steve Silver for the link to the review.)

For those of you who read Bill Simmons’ crazy “I wanna be Jamie Agin” intern applications and don’t know German, here’s a rough translation of the last entry:

First, the original:

Name: Stephen L.
College: Moody Bible Institue, 2003
Location: Chicago, IL
Current job: Singer

Oompha-auf! Stehen sie hier, und nur hier! Ja! Du kannst meinen guten Freund sein!

Guten Tag, Herr Sport Mann. Ich heisse Stephen, und ich habe die, um, Ambition, deine naechste Intern zu sein.

Was kann ich machen? Ich kann Deutsch sprechen, und das ist alles! Ich kann keine andere Dinge machen, weil ich in Dresden geboren war, und ich hasse die Vereignten Staaten der Amerika.

Aber warum bin ich heir in Amerika, man sollte fragen?

WEIL DEUTSCHLAND UEBER ALLES SEIN MUESSEN! JA WOHL! WIR SPRECHEN HIER SEHR LAUT, UND DAS IST ALLES, DAS WIR MACHEN KOENNEN! ICH HASSE GEORG BUSH! ICH HASSE KORBBALL! DIRK NOWITZKI KANN EINE GROSSE SCHLANGE ESSEN!

Okay, und das ist alles, das ich habe. Hoffentlich wirst du mich the naechste Intern machen!

Tschuess,
Klaus

Now, the translation (I haven’t actually taken a class in the language for roughly a decade, so excuse any mistakes):

Atten-hut! Stand up here, and only here. Yes! You can be my good friend!

Good day, Mr. Sport Man. My name is Stephen, and I have the, um, ambition, to be the next Intern.

What can I do? I can speak German, and that is all! I can do nothing else, because I was born in Dresden and I hate the United States of America.

But why am I here in America, you should ask?

BECAUSE GERMANY MUST RULE OVER ALL. YES! WE SPEAK VERY LOUDLY HERE, AND THAT IS ALL THAT WE CAN DO! I HATE GEORGE BUSH! I HATE BASKETBALL! DIRK NOWITZKI CAN EAT A HUGE DICK!

Okay, and that is all I have. Hopefully you’ll make me the next Intern!

Goodbye,
Klaus

Mary Kay Letourneau is celebrating by announcing her engagement to her former sixth-grade student–once she gets out of jail for banging him, that is.

At least, according to Boston Globe correspondent Sally Cragin, whose review of the show I’m in, “The Last Little Porn Shop in Manhattan,” is pretty damn good.

For those of you who want to see what has been keeping me from blogging more often, go here and buy a ticket! Come tonight, say the password “skippy,” and get three dollars off!

The Sports Guy’s “The Intern,” on the Doug Christie trade:
“If the NBA were Monopoly, this trade would be Baltic for Mediterranean.”

He also links to a story about Boink, Boston University’s very own student porn magazine.

At least, this is what I paid $5 to predict in the office playoff pool.

Wildcard
STL over SEA
SD over NYJ
GB over MIN
IND over DEN

Divisional
PHI, ATL, IND, PIT advance

Conference Championships
PHI and PIT

Your 2005 Superbowl Champions:
The Pittsburgh Steelers