Random Thoughts
1. Don’t you hate it when you hear bad celebrity news about people you like? I went to Foxwoods last weekend and all the dealers were buzzing about what a prick Christopher from the Sopranos is. Apparently the entire cast of the Sopranos was at Foxwoods for some dinner or event or something. Anyway, Christopher was playing Blackjack while talking on his cell phone, which is a no-no. The Dealer told him to turn it off and he ignored him. Then the pit boss came over and told him to put it away and he threw a tantrum saying “Do you know who I am, blah, blah, blah.” Well, wouldn’t you know who ended up getting in trouble? The freaking dealer and pit boss got yelled at for not treating Christopher like a freaking demigod. I hate that shit. There are no cell phones at the table. I can’t use 'em and neither should he. And in some circles, El Presidente is a bigger American icon than Christopher from the Sopranos. After all, I’m real. As a side note, I should say that I didn’t see any of this happen live. But I heard at least 10 different dealers retell the story. And they were clearly pissed about something all night because they were dealing blackjacks to themselves like it was going out of style.
2. Did anybody notice that Party Poker has added blackjack to the site? This is like a drug dealer suddenly offering a more addictive form of crack. The last thing I need from Party Poker is the ability to go broke playing Blackjack while I’m waiting for my turn in Texas Hold 'em. And it’s not like Party Poker is being subtle with it either. They have that little “21” symbol on the screen at all times. I think it even heard it talk to me yesterday. I swear I heard it whisper “Hey Dave, just try a few hands, what’s the worst that can happen” I can honestly say that this new feature is going to keep me away from Party Poker because I don’t trust myself wandering into the Blackjack room and getting smoked. And if you think Blackjack moves fast in the casino, wait until you play it one on one vs. the computer. You can’t even see what happened.
3. MTV's Super Sweet 16 is one of my guilty viewing pleasures but after watching the most recent episode I'm demanding that MTV retire the show because no one will ever top Aaron Reid's party. When your dad is music mogul L.A. Reid there is a pretty solid chance that your party is going to beat what some car dealer from Scottsdale can throw together. But Aaron's party was so ridiculous that it is virtually impossible that any party, anywhere in the world will ever top it. You start by having the party at 40/40, Jay-Z's NYC nightclub. Probably works better than the Purple Shamrock. Then you get Sony to sponsor it. Decent. Hey, why not have Jermaine Dupri dj? Now you're talking. How 'bout a video with birthday wishes from the likes of Nas and Mariah Carey. Nice touch. Oh, Aaron's godfather just happens to be Diddy and he's at the party- that works. But what about entertainment? Wait a minute, your dad is one of the most powerful people in the music business so why not just make a call to Kanye West and get him to perform. Could make you a popular guy at school.
Usually this show makes me want to track down the birthday kid and sterilize them while they sleep but I couldn’t fault Aaron or L.A. If you're a music mogul, you have to have the most ridiculous sweet sixteen ever- that's just how things are done in that world.
4. It was a tough week for cheerleaders and heterosexual males in Australia this week. Gymnastics Australia, the governing body of cheerleading has banned exposed midriffs for all cheerleading troupes by the end of the year. Nerine Cooper, national cheerleading manager for Gymnastics Australia, said the decision was needed because cheerleaders often performed in front of family groups. "We don't want girls to feel under pressure to lose weight because of uniforms," she told Sydney's Sunday Telegraph.
So what’s the end game with this legislation? Does Gymnastics Australia want fat chicks to start cheerleading? Is that what they want? And who is going to pay the therapist bills when they get heckled for being fat? Seriously, what’s next? Pretty chicks can’t wear bikinis at the beach? I feel like this really hurts the reputation of Australia. I always kind of thought anything goes down there but I guess not.
5. COMSTOCK PARK, Mich.-- Two children were injured in a scramble to grab cash being dropped from a helicopter as part of a promotion after a minor league baseball game.
About $1,000 in cash was dropped Saturday from the helicopter over Fifth Third Ballpark's outfield as children lined the outfield fence.
After the cash was dropped, the children scrambled. A 7-year-old boy was trampled and taken to a hospital, while a 7-year-old girl got a bloody lip after being pushed onto the ground.
"It's for fun and games," spokeswoman Katie Kroft said. “This is why we have everybody sign a waiver."
Tino's grandfather, Ruben Rodriquez, said he was surprised that children as young as 5 were allowed to participate with others as old as 12.
"It was tiny kids against big kids," he said.” It’s like playing football. You can't put a 12-year-old versus a 7-year-old."
Ruben Rodriguez has got to stop crying over spilled milk. The kid signed a waiver. And if grandpa was so concerned he should have pulled the kid out before the competition started. The bottom line is that when there is free money being dropped from the sky anything goes. That’s the rule. My only problem with this promotion is that there was any age limit to begin with. It’s un-American. If the Stool ever has a promotion where we are dropping money from the sky it’s open to everybody. That’s a promise.
6. UConn basketball player and lone white guy, Ed Nelson won’t go away. First he made headlines earlier in the week when a rap tape he made surfaced on deadspin.com. Highlights of his mad spitfire include talking about knocking out queers and winning the Rookie of the Year in the ACC before he transferred to UConn and became a role player. If you were like me you probably thought that filled your Ed Nelson quota for the year. But lo and behold he is back in the news today this time for saying he is going to become a professional football player.
"I have gotten great feedback in the last week that I am an individual that NFL teams could and will be very interested in,”I am anxious for the chance to show scouts next week that I can help their team in the future."
The good news is that Nelson played youth football and did play one year of high school football. Therefore, there is no reason to think he’ll struggle making the jump from Pop Warner to the NFL.
Perhaps the weirdest part of the story is the following quote from Jim Calhoun regarding Nelson.
"He clearly has the talent to play basketball at the professional level, but if anyone can make the transition, it's him,"
Now I’m totally confused? So Ed Nelson could play in the NBA if he wanted to, but he’d rather play in the NFL? Am I missing something? Didn’t Ed Nelson average like 2 minutes per game for the Huskies? Now suddenly he’s Tony Gonzalez? I’m not buying it.
7. The St. Louis Cardinals have a pregame promotion where fans can send a text message to the centerfield scoreboard for $2.99 per text. I found out about this because apparently last Wednesday night a fan texted a bad word to the scoreboard that didn’t get caught and pissed some people off. Anyway, knowing how Larry Lucchino and Company squeeze every nickel out of the fans I’ve got to believe that this is something that will be coming to Fenway in the near future. So I guess now is as good a time as any to think about what I’d want to texted to the scoreboard. Here a few that come to mind.
“Two Words, Walk Greenwell”
“I got a lap dance from Damon’s stripper wife”
“Nomar would have had it”
“How many beers did Wade Boggs drink on a cross country flight?”
“Why is Kelly Barons dodging our interview request?”
“Dan Shaughnessy Sucks”
“Read Barstool Sports”
“Kristin Kreux, will you marry me?”
"I had Pacific +8"
8. CNN.Com - LIBERTY, Missouri (AP) -- A youth minister was charged with assault for allegedly knocking down a 16-year-old boy and kicking him in the groin after taking a head shot from the teen in a dodgeball game. David M. Boudreaux, 27, was charged Wednesday with one count of third-degree assault. According to court documents, the incident happened in February at Crescent Lake Christian Academy. Authorities said the teen missed Boudreaux with one throw but then knocked the youth minister's glasses off with the next. The boy apologized, authorities said, but Boudreaux pushed him backward, and when the teen got up again Boudreaux kicked him in the groin and left. The teen suffered whiplash and post-concussion syndrome and had blood in his urine after being kicked, according to court records. Boudreaux later apologized, prosecutors said."
I don’t want be considered an animal or anything, but I think this is case where you just have to let everybody play on. Dodgeball is a dangerous game and things are going to happen in the heat of battle. It sounds to me like this teenager thought he could get away with head hunting for free. If you’re 16 years old and you’re man enough to whip a dodgeball off somebody’s head than you should be man enough to defend yourself from getting kicked in the balls. Obviously I’d rather see this thing settled in the gym, but don’t go crying to momma when you get beaten up for headhunting. It’s the law of the jungle out there and hopefully this will be a good lesson for the youngster. As a side note, I wonder if the teenager tried the old “We're sweating like greased monkeys. I can't hold on to a ball” excuse.
9. There is a debate right now on the Barstool Sports message board about Tina Cervasio. She, of course, is the new sideline reporter for NESN during Red Sox games. I wonder how the internal job description at NESN described this role. It must have read something like this: “We need an attractive female, but not too attractive where it becomes obvious that we hired her because of her looks.” I mean what is the point of hiring a middle aged woman to do this job? There is nothing wrong with Tina and she’s certainly a milf, but if you’re going to go with a female let’s try and make her smoking hot please. I mean is that too much to ask? NESN clearly hired Tina for her sex appeal, but they didn’t have the balls to go overboard and make it obvious. Instead they just got stuck with a mediocre chick and everybody who follows sports knows there is nothing worse than mediocrity.
10. In a move that rips the soul out of chubby high school football players across America, the National Federation of State High School Associations has banned the fumblerooski. This is just wrong. Sure, there are some unbelievable high school offensive linemen- big, strong, athletic- but let's get real. Most high school offensive linemen are the slow, chubby guys who have to sit around and watch all the skill position players snag all the trim. The fumblerooski was the chubby kids' one chance at gridiron glory and now the National Federation of State High School Associations (what was the American Dodgeball Association of America already taken?) has ended that dream forever. For shame, NFSHSA, for shame.
11. The Improper Bostonian has finally one upped The Stool. Their latest issue features a stripper from Centerfolds in all her glory. Apparently the Improper Bostonian has scrapped the yuppie approach and jumped headlong into the smut business. Man, even El Presidente hasn’t gone there yet. I wonder if this opens the door for the Stool to do full nudity photo shoots now? I mean if the Improper is doing it and we’re supposedly the smut magazine, it only seems natural that we should be doing it. Regardless, I just hope that all the advertisers who say we’re to lowbrow for them stop advertising in the Improper now that they’ve starting featuring landing strips and such. By the way the ad is on pg 109.
12. I’ll admit that I haven’t watched a ton of Celtics basketball this year, but I’m starting to get Gerald Green fever. Let’s start with the headband. I’ve never seen anybody else rock one like he does. The first 15 times I saw him I figured he just got knocked down or something and would fix it on the next trip down the floor. But slowly I realized that Green intentionally wears his headband on the top of his head almost daring it to fall off which is an unprecedented move as far as I know. And he’s been wearing it like this for years and frankly I’m starting to dig it. More importantly, he seemingly can create his own shot whenever he feels like it. Sure half the time he’s not even close, but I feel like that will come with time. He’s just so freaking explosive. Forget Harold Miner, I think we have the real Baby Jordan.
13. Mirror.co.uk - Manchester United Striker “Wayne Rooney is refusing to pay a 1.5 million dollar gambling debt he ran up with a bookie as part of a secret England betting ring. Rooney is said to be bitterly upset that he was not stopped from naively wagering huge sums in an effort to recoup his losses. An England insider said last night: "Wayne feels very annoyed that no-one discouraged him from chasing his losses. That's how the problem got so big."
Hmm, is this a legit excuse? I’m going to have to follow this story very closely to see this turns out. Because I can say for a fact that my buddy Elio not only doesn’t discourage me from chasing my losses he flat out insists that I chase my losses. His logic is that once you can’t pay you might as well just keep on betting because it can’t get any worse. I can say with some degree of authority that this logic is supremely flawed.
14. The following story was on Deadspin.com yesterday. One of their readers sent in the following email.
“A friend of mine just told me he’s getting married. When he gave me the news I immediately thought of the time we were in Scottsdale at spring training, because it’s the best pickup story I’ve ever been a party to. It was about nine years ago, and I actually forget the bar. But my friend was seriously putting the moves on this somewhat attractive young woman, who was wearing leather pants and had a leather jacket draped over her lap. They had been chatting at the bar for about an hour, and my friend thought he was s in the house. I had never seen someone work so hard for a score.
But just as he was putting on the finishing touches, Chris Berman walks by. And without even breaking stride, Berman looks at the girl, points and says “You’re with me, leather.” And the girl looks up, instantly recognizes Berman, snatches up her jacket and walks out with him, leaving my friend in mid-sentence.”
Do I even need to make a comment regarding this story? “You’re with me leather” has to go down as one of the all time great quotes. It's so good that it doesn't even matter whether it's true or not.
15. I’m going to admit something somewhat shocking right now. I don’t really know who Tom DeLay is. I know he is in the Bush camp and got caught doing something wrong and was forced to resign. Beyond that I don’t know much and I don’t really care. I do my best to stay away from politics since it’s all such a joke. But I couldn’t help get a chuckle out of this story which was posted on The New Republic Blog. It is about Ed Buckham who was Tom DeLay’s chief of staff and came from an office insider.
"In the meantime, [Ed] Buckham had become DeLay’s chief of staff…. His win-at-all-costs attitude played out in strange ways around the office. He ran a fantasy baseball league that he always seemed to win, even if it meant browbeating young staffers into trading their best players to him."
Ha! Ha! This is hilarious. And I thought Montgomery C. Burns was the only one capable of pulling a stunt like this. What do you do if your boss tries to browbeat you into a bad fantasy trade? I think you have to quit. I mean if you let that happen you might as well let him sleep with your girlfriend.
16. The quote of the week comes from Darren “Dutch” Daulton.
“I’ve been thrown in jail five or six times,” Daulton says from his home in Tampa. “Nicole thinks I’m crazy. She blames everything on drugs and drinking. But I don’t take drugs and I’m not a drunk. Nicole just doesn’t understand metaphysics.”
This will be my new response for whenever somebody says I have a gambling problem. "You just don't understand metaphysics."
As a side note, how much would you have paid to be a fly on the wall in the locker room of the Phillies when they had Dutch Daulton, Wildthing, Nails, John Kruk and I'm probably forgetting a few more scumbags. It's no wonder Ricky Jordan never flourished with that type of veteran leadership.
17. LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Kiefer Sutherland has inked a multifaceted deal with 20th Century Fox Television. The rich pact, which is set to begin in June, calls for the actor to continue on the hit Fox drama for three more years and includes a two-year development deal for Sutherland's soon-to-be-launched production banner."
So this deal means at least 3 more years of 24. I've got to be honest. I'd say it's a million to one shot that Curtis makes it to the end of this new deal. If I were him I'd look for a big signing bonus and guaranteed money. I also say this puts Audrey Raines, Chloe, Buchanan, and Cuthbert in serious jeopardy.
18. Apparently Jeffrey Maier is not just a good glove man. I’m sure everybody remembers who this kid is, right? He was the 12-year old punk who reached over the right field wall and made a HR out of a routine Derek Jeter fly ball which helped propel the Yankees to the American League Pennant and eventually the World Series in 1996. Well almost 10 years after this incident Maier is back in the news. This time he is on the verge of becoming the all-time hit leader at Wesleyan University. I’ll admit that I think this is pretty cool. I would have bet a million dollars that I’d never hear his name again in my lifetime, but I obviously would have been wrong. As a side note while I never dreamed that I’d hear the name Jeffrey Maier again, I’m still waiting to read that Bartman was found dead lying in some back alley of Chicago still wearing his headphones and the same clothes he wore when he cost the Cubs the National League Pennant.
19. Have people been keeping tabs on the Derek Lowe divorce hearings that are taking place? Our friends at the Inside Track are treating this case like it’s the OJ Simpson murder trial. So far what we know is that under oath, DLowe has said he suffers from ADD, pitched on Ritalin when he was in Boston and that one of the reasons the Sox didn’t resign him is because they thought he had a drinking problem, something which Lowe still has never admitted to, but it seems pretty clear he has some issues with. Frankly I could care less about all this garbage. The thing that has caught my attention in all this is the fact that Trinka Lowe, who has done nothing but trash Derek since he left her, actually slept with him again after they broke up. And not only did she sleep with him but Trinka actually faxed Derek’s new girlfriend and former Fox Sports lady Carolyn Hughes to tell her about it. Yes, I said faxed. Apparently Trinka hasn’t gotten onboard the email train yet. Anyway here is what the fax said. “Carolyn, do you think your honey will sleep with his wife and have a great time making love to her for two days like he did on his last visit?” “How does it feel to be cheated on?”
Okay, so here is the million dollar question. Who has the moral high ground here? Is it Trinka Lowe or Carolyn Hughes? Talk about a mind bender. I think I’d have to side with Carolyn Hughes. It appears that Trinka Lowe just slept with Derek again so she could rub Carolyn’s face in it after the fact. Carolyn can always play the card that the Lowe marriage was in shambles before she ever became involved with Derek and it was headed towards disaster with or without her, which is probably true. She didn’t steal Derek away or intentionally try to hurt Trinka whereas Trinka clearly was looking for revenge. As a side note that must have been some intense sex between Trinka and Derek with all the animosity between the two of them. The bottom line here is you don’t want to f-ck with Trinka Lowe. This broad is crazy. Anybody who is sending faxes to people shouldn’t be taken lightly. I’d love to see her on the Bachelor.