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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

High Times In Detroit Sports & Other Riffraff


// Blog Review: On your average idle Sunday, I get a glimpse at - on the average - about 10 new blogs. Not surprisingly, most of them suck. Actually, that's not fair. They don't suck at all, they're just not geared towards the things I want to read about. In my case, it takes a really well-written blog to actually ignite a new interest. Such is the case with the UniWatch Blog. Some of you might recognize the name UniWatch from ESPN.com's Page 2, where UniWatch author Paul Lukas is a regular contributor. Aside from his ESPN duties, Lukas started a daily blog (from which I eventually discovered the glorious image above). I'd been waiting for the right time to pimp his blog. It has been a mainstay of my morning routine for almost 2 years now, and I read Lukas' columns on Page 2 long before that. The straw that broke the camel's back was this column, in which Lukas goes through the long, intertwined history of sports figures and smoking (complete with countless image links, a nice touch). If you haven't figured it out already, UniWatch is a blog devoted to the aesthetic side of sports. Every day, there are interesting little tidbits about the uniform regularities/irregularities that happen on a nightly basis in sports. If you're a fan of great uniforms, minutiae, or even graphic design, the 'Stream suggests that you put UniWatch into your daily rotation. Top notch.

// Yesterday evening pretty much sealed the deal: these past couple of days have been spectacular to Detroit sports. The Wings are being very un-Wing and kicking some serious ass in the playoffs, the Pistons seem to have gotten their act together and look ready to dispose of the Sixers, the Tigers are on a nice mini-run and the bats are getting hot, and even the hapless Lions... wait, hold on. Gimme a sec.... OK. It took me a while to think of something nice to say about the Lions' draft; here's the best I can do. It's become an annual rite of spring that I get excited about the Leo's draft since about Stockar McDougle in 2000. Every time, those same drafts eventually prove to be awful. Actually, beyond awful. I think the best way to describe a typical Millen draft is "complete fiduciary misconducted crap-capade". The point is, I actually wasn't excited about this year's draft. I'd only heard of Kevin Smith and Gosder Cherilus (and the only reason I remembered Cherilus' name was because BC played MSU in their bowl game) and the rest were a bunch of anonymous chappies. That's got to be a sign, right? All of these guys are going to be Pro Bowlers, right? Right? I'm grasping at straws here, but as a Lions fan that's usually all I got. Super Bowl XLVI Champs!

// Check out this picture of the ceiling inside a smoker's lounge. I think that's actually pretty clever, albeit a tad morbid. However, that self-righteous, holier-than-thou cacophony is actually kind of annoying. If I could speak on behalf of all my fellow smokers out there: We get it. Stop being a bunch of hard-ons and go do some jumping jacks or whatever. (turn away, flip up collar on black leather jacket, French kiss smoking-hot girlfriend, peel out in very loud motorcycle, give middle finger)

// I stumbled across this great listing of The Worst Rolling Stone Covers. Aside from giving your average bored jackass (me) something to do between obligations, pop culture is great because it's what gives our country a sense of humor about itself. Look at some of those covers and try to avoid the chuckle. Also, look at the BSB cover. I dare you say you don't know the words to at least one of their songs. I feel like self-deprecating laughs are uniquely American. And that's pretty much the only thing that separated us from the communists.

// Idolator asks: Are there any acts who have come up since the turn of the millennium who can headline a 50,000-capacity festival? They raise a good point, even if the question sounds a little bit too-cool-for-school. The article mentions Jack Johnson as one. I'd say that's a good call, but some others off the top of my head (depending of location): Coldplay, Kanye West, Jay-Z. Those are the only locks I can think of. Borderline: The Killers and maybe Eminem, and that might be a stretch. So I guess the article has a good argument. Touché, Idolator.

// Royal Caribbean just announced that their Project Genesis ship (quick side note: why must we make every single project codename sound like an evil plan concocted by a mad scientist in a bad '70s sci-fi movie?) will have an area resembling Central Park on deck. (source) The park area will be THE SIZE OF A FOOTBALL FIELD. Who needs - or even wants - this much space? Have you even once ever been on a cruise ship and thought, "Man, I wish this boat was bigger?" Goodness no! As absurd as having a sea-faring gridiron sounds, keep in mind that "the next big thing" in the cruise industry is always less than 3 years away. Think if some guy out of Dubai made a cruise ship. You'd be able to pick dolphins out of the water like that stuffed animal crane game they have in movie theatre lobbies. Wait... I actually just had a killer idea that's not too far-fetched. How about a cruise ship that has a lazy river on it covering the full length of the boat? Do they already have this? If not, I hope there's an HR rep reading this. Dude could use a job.

// Time for America's favorite running blog segment: Young Idiots & Their Science Experiments. Let's make fun of some children!



The Code of the Meniscus

Here's a joke: What do you get when you combine renegade puberty, below-average word processing skills, the worst dress sense since Vanilla Ice, and a young man's weird infatuation with a Tom Hanks movie about secret messages in paintings? Give up? It's The Code of the Meniscus!!! Oh, how I wish I was there when this bloke (who looks kind of like a cross between Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and Gheorghe Muresan) unveiled this disaster. I think I actually would have paid money to see the reactions the poor sap got from the popular kids in class. Not too get all science-guy on you, but the meniscus is the bend you see on liquid in a narrow test tube. It has to do with surface tension and molecule attraction. What I think happened is this: my man up top read about surface tension and molecule attraction and - like I imagine happened a lot in his middle school years - got horny for no reason. In his excited state, he began careening down that line of thought like Animal from The Muppets. "If I knock my science fair project out of the park, it's 'Good-bye Yu-Gi-Oh' and 'HELLO LADIES!!'", thought the lad. Unfortunately for him, the same brain that imagined this scenario to be possible was the same brain that considered that sweater to be a wise choice. It's one thing to say, "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that." It's quite another when a sweater is so preposterous that a person says, "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that, and I left strict instructions in my will that if anyone wears that sweater to my funeral, they get beat up in the parking lot." But perhaps there's more to this project than meets the eye. Yeah, that's it. There's some symbolism here. The Code of the Meniscus really stands for a whole different code. The ultimate code. The code that he'll never be able to break. The code to the gated community in which his future stalking victim will reside.

// Last link of the day comes via my buddy Scrump, a fellow Spartan and legitimate threat to challenge Kevin Costner's character in Tin Cup as "the best (fill in the blank) who never made it to the pros". Just another reason why I would seriously cry if Tom Izzo ever left to coach in the NBA. Enjoy your day, readers. Look both ways before crossing the street.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

How beautiful is that logo? It quickly replaced the scenic Comerica Park as my background.

The Code of the Meniscus:
Man, I hate to say this. It's probably not civil to call out one of my best friends in elementary school. But scroll over that picture fairly quick, and tell me you don't see a little Jigga Joe in there.