We were at the wacky Twins game last night

Yesterday around 5 I was sleeping/ watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when I got a phone call. On the other end was Bez offering me a ticket to go to the Twins game with him, Neubie and another friend of our... awesome, I love free baseball. Little did we know that I would get even more free baseball than originally thought. We figured that the game would go long because boof was pitching but we never expected to get the game that we did.

Minus the two HRs, the first of which I called as we walked to the ballpark, Boof cruised into the 7th and I though we had the game in hand. Back in the fourth I bet Bez a dollar that Everett wouldn't reach 1st. He did and Bez told me not to worry because Casilla was up next and the inning would be over soon and we'd still be down. About 5 seconds later we were celebrating Casilla's bomb... he hit that ball hard. Now Alexi Casilla and Everett both both have more home runs than Delmon Young and Joe Mauer, unbelievable.

Around the 8th when we were still down Neubie claimed that there was no need to worry because Delmon Young was going to tie it up. To my surprise he was right, young got a triple and Mike Lamb brought him home. Gardy put it all on the line (or so we thought) when he began pinch hitting in the 9th. Monroe and Redmond made appearances we got lost figuring out who was playing where when the 10th began. That confusion was quickly replaced by trying to figure out why Rincon could not be replaced in the same inning with 2 on. I may love baseball, but I don't carry a rule book in my back pocket so I didn't know that Gardy couldn't come to the mound after Rick Anderson had already been in the same at bat.

We figured that the game was over with the bases loaded and a call-up on the mound, (even adjusting out caps out of the rally position) but Korecky came through big time. We figured we had it made once Korecky got his first Major league hit, scooted to second after jumping over Harris' grass burner and touched down at third after they walked Mauer. Korecky became the first Twins' pitcher to get a hit in an A.L. game since the inception of the DH. Cuddy and the good Doctor disappointed that inning. Korecky came back and sat down some very good players to give us our opportunity in the 12th.

Go-Gomez made it on base and flustered the pitcher before reaching second when Young grounded out. Texas figured it was best to walk Mike Lamb to get a shot at career AAA player Howie Clark. We figured Clark was a goner and were really hoping to get to the next player. The next player to bat was to be Livan Hernandez, who has repeatedly asked Gardenhire for the chance to pinch hit in such a situation. Unfortunately for Hernandez, but fortunately for the Twins Clark roped athe ball right over Josh Hamilton's head and the game was over.

Insane... almost as insane as half the crowd getting to their feet at the end of the 9th and taking off. I don't care if you have a day job sit down and cheer your team on for at least one extra inning. Probably the best game I've been to ever, nothing that happened was expected and everything was exciting.

Dat Defense is D-D-D-Dangerous

The Vikings have acquired Jared Allen from the Chiefs for what appears to be a hefty price, though Allen will almost definatly prove his worth alongside the Williams boys. According to Jay Glazer, who at this moment is the only member of the media giving actual figures, the Vikings will give up their 1st (17th overall) and both of their 3rd round picks (73rd and 82nd). Glazer also says that Allen's new contract will make him the highest paid defensive player in the league.

The deal is for six years and just under $74 million, including a stunning $31,000,069 guaranteed — 69 is his jersey number.

Allen has a red flag on his record for having 2 DWIs but the Vikings say they've taken a long hard look into his background and believe him when he says that he hasn't had a drop to drink in over a year. He does, however, still own Jared Allen's Sports Arena and Grill. You need to look at that link, the man serves "Jared Juice" consisting of fruit punch and EVERCLEAR and the motto is "Wine 'em, Dine 'em and 69 'em." Classy, Mr. Allen

The Vikings are left with the 47th overall pick (Secondary?), the 117th pick (4th round, QB?), the 150th pick (5th round, no clue) switched picks in the 6th round giving us the 170th (if that info is incorrect we draft 182) 193rd (Thanks for that Tice), 209 in the 7th round for trading Adam Goldberg to the Rams. Its strange to thing that only 16 spots make up the difference in talent level between Troy Williamson and Adam Goldberg. Here is a look at where every team picks as of 3 days ago.

As most of you know Allen lead the league in sacks last year with 15.5 and has averaged over 10 a year in his 4 years as a professional. This spot was a definate need after Kenechi Udezi was diagnosed with leukemia. It was already fairly weak considering Erasmus James' knee problems. Ray Edwards will most likely start opposite Allen with Brian Robison and James filling. Edwards and Robison combined for 9.5 sacks last year and with the Williams wall and Allen commanding the line I expect that number to increase... they only have 3 years experience between the two of them.

We've got six picks left, filled in the gaping hole that will make our passing D much better than before, and the sickest runner to hit the NFL in many, many years. God, L.A. is going to love this team.

SlamBall Is The Shit

And its coming back thanks to Pat Croce and the original creators. Spike needs to pick this back up... I'm sure your audience can do with one less hour of "That 70's Show" or "CSI: whatever city you happen to be in."

Slamball gives hope to people my size to happen to not be afraid of trampolines or physical violence on a basketball court. I happen to not be a member of either group, but back in 9th grade before the trampoline/basketball court incident I might have been encouraged to pursue this sport.

Steve Nash - Training Day

Steve Nash is awesome. I'm sure everyone has already seen this commercial and is asking, "whats so special about this?" Well, my friends, besides the fact that Nash is a really good soccer player and rides a skateboard he also directed the commercial himself. It sounds like Nash plans to make films when he retires from basketball. He has set up his own production company to make independent films. The Arizona Republic interviewed a few people in the film world about Nash's commercial.

"The spot is like Steve Nash himself - very spontaneous,"(Chris) Lamont(Phoenix film festival president) said. "Guerrilla-style filmmaking really lends itself to the type of work. There is an improv quality, which is like his play . . . I give it a thumbs up."

I can't wait to see what he does when basketball is no longer his main focus.

(via Kotte.org via truehoop with an assist from the Arizona republic)

I AM LEGEND's Alternate Ending WAY Better

Gerald Green's Birthday Cake Dunk

Here it is Ladies and gentlemen, The Wolves one and only appearance in the All-Star festivities. Gerald Green may not have won the contest, but this was pretty good.

Too bad Big Al won't get to play in the All-Star game tomorrow... pretty sure he got jobbed because our team sucks.

Thou Shalt Not Become the First Female President

I was fiddling around on Gawker when I stumbled across this map which combines the tornado touchdowns with the results from super Tuesday.

I have no major problem with Hillary Clinton, but something like this is too good to pass up. I had to share it with all (5) of you. If Obama didn't have momentum coming out of Tuesday already he may have just scored the prized religious democrat vote.
(Thanks to Richard Blakeley for having the presence of mind to combine the two images)

Guess Who Still Sucks at Stuff

Its Troy Hudson. Golden State agreed. When the Warriors decided to clear a spot on the bench for Chris Webber they chose the dreaded one's spot. Its cool though, cause now he has time to work on his rap career.

Straight outta Carbondale, UHHH!

Spike Jones Made Something Pretty

This is the intro to the "Fully Flared" video from Lakai. Mr. Jones didn't really do too much except slow everything down and add some explosions but he does it without becoming Michael Bay. I dig Spike Jones and his love of skateboarding and music videos. I like that the only time he makes feature films they are interesting and artistic. He made Being "John Malkovich" and noe hes working on "Where the Wild Things are." Granted he always shows up in the Jackass movies and TV show, but who wouldn't want to hang out with those guys no matter how lowbrow the comedy is?

I wouldn't mind having his career or life. The same way I want Nate Dogg's career (sans stroke)or Don Cheadle's career. I'd love to work on the projects I wanted to when I wanted to, have a low enough profile where I can go out to dinner and live a normal life, but every once in a while someone comes up to me and says, "Hey man, I really enjoy what you do."

I used to think wrestling was not awesome

It still isn't, but I've gained a lot of respect for this particular wrestler.

I saw a similar clip at The Big Lead, but found one with some more info for you guys.

Thank God Almighty!

The Wolves won. Their victory made me realize that I have my own dream.

Two years less a score Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner, in whose symbolic shadows we stand today, signed the expansionation proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light to thousands of Minnesotans who had been frostbitten by the winds of withering injustice. It came as a joyous ray of sunshine to end the long winter of discontent.

But eighteen years later, the Minnesotan is still not free. The life of a Minnesotan is still sadly crippled by the manacles of ineptitude and the chains of it's ownership. The Minnesotan lives on an island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity (Portland?). And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

We have come to this hallowed spot to remind the NBA of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promise of victory. Now is the time to lift our team from the quicksands of injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to making winning a reality for all of the shivering children.

It would be fatal for the ownership to overlook the urgency of the moment. This freezing winter of the team's legitimate discontent until there is an invigorating spring of defense and teamwork. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in Minnesota until the Timberwolves are granted the right to victory.

But there is something I must say to my team, who stand on the warm threshold which leads to the palace of parquet and iron: in the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for victory by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative defense to degenerate into violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of physical force with contact on the ball and the ball alone.

We cannot walk alone. (Travel)
And as we walk, we must pledge that we shall always push the ball forward.
We cannot turn our back. (on the ball handler)

There are those that will ask the fans, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the team is victim of the unspeakable horrors of road losses. We can never be satisfied when our bodies, heavy with fatigue and travel, cannot gain the upper hand in the Arenas along the highways and the Gardens of the cities.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. it is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that this team will rise up and live out the true meaning of it's creed, " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all teams are created equal."
I have a dream that Al Jefferson will make us all forget about Kevin Garnett.
I have a dream that Randy Foye can make up for his not being Brandon Roy.
I have a dream that Sebastion Telfair is the truth and not just a throw in to make the money work.
I have a dream that the Wolves will actually get the number one pick when they deserve it.
I have a dream that one day I will open the front page and it will contain these four words- McHale, Whitman, Murder, Suicide

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that Theo Ratliff's contract along with the other expiring contracts will be enough to coax a worthy free agent into the snow an blistering cold.
I have a dream that we will make the right decision when deciding which SG/SFs to keep and get good value out of those who no longer remain on the roster.
I have a dream that this team will free itself from the dungeon that is the bottom of the NBA standings. And we will let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every lake and every hill, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Protestants and Catholics, we will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Spiritual

free at last, free at last
Thank god almighty, we are free at last!

This is meant in no way to be disrespectful to Dr. King or any of his beliefs. He has done more for this nation than a good number of presidents and did it all in a way that would seem impossible if I hadn't seen the footage with my own eyes. If you have taken offense to this I sincerely apologise. Unless you are Kevin Mchale- seriously, its time to leave dude.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

This Man has Balls of Steel

Wachovia, Brinks and The FBI will never live down a robbery for so much money that happened on Pennsylvania Avenue. This is D.B. Cooper type shit!

If this dude ends up in jail he will automatically be made king of the miscreants. They will bow to him and throw cigarettes at his feet. He will have the power to stop and start riots with the snap of his fingers.

He will be carried from place to place by the lesser criminals and they will ask his advice about various acts of villainy. Nasty Nate will give him his cocktail fruit, and squirrel master will gladly run security for the man.

The FBI will probably hire him to think of other innovative ways to rob a bank in order to not be shamed this way in the future.

If only I could get away with something so glorious.

What's it gonna be?

the Post Office Rocks

I just spent the last 20 minutes or so at the local post office waiting to send off one of my graduate school applications and I had a blast. The place was packed with people who were probably getting their x-mas gifts sent off in time for the holidays. I guess they could have been sending off their Hanukkah presents as well but those aren't going to arrive until Tevet and that could be a problem. If today was any indication of what a normal day is like I'll likely be spending my time away from work just hanging around over there. I talked to an old lady about the differences between the post office in Montana and the one here, which contrary to popular belief is actually an interesting conversation, and I ran into Nubile's ex-ladyfriend.

*Me- " Whats crack-a-lackin'?"
Her- "Nutin'."
Me- "aight."
Her- "Aight, peace."

I think my favorite part of the whole escapade took place at the counter around the corner from the single-file line that everybody stood in. The man at the station was calling the next person in line up to his counter and I happened to be one of the lucky customers beckoned into the bowels of the post office. After paying my $4.60 (I had to send it priority because I waited until the last second to decide that I did, indeed, need to get me some more learnin') and not paying the bullshit 60 extra cents to track the package i was witness to one of the greatest arguments ever.

The clerk was a salty, rotund little man who obviously hated his job. I got all of this from his attempt to sell me the previously mentioned bullshit extra 60 cents and his subsequent scowl when I told him why I didn't want to. As I walked back to the desk a man came in the door and followed me. Before I even finished my transaction he forced a $20 bill in front of me and demanded a roll of stamps. The clerk told him that he was not in line and would have to wait his turn. The man told him that he was in line now and demanded his stamps. They went back and forth a bit longer with the clerk yelling at the top of his lungs about how he had cut line and the customer smirking and being a dickhead. I swear to god I thought the clerk was going to go postal (pun fully intended).

When the man asking for the stamps finally went to the back of the line around the corner the clerk looks at me and goes, " That guys crazier than you think. I know him, he sells houses. You don't even know." Those three sentences left me dumbfounded. The origin of the argument left me dumbfounded.

If someone could please explain what makes a realtor crazy (outside of that whole subprime loan business) I would be much obliged. I am vexed... this is terribly vexing.

*dialog may not match actual conversation

This Kid Looks Hungry Too

...For Yards! Purple Jesus done done it again setting a record for most yards in a game with 296. Wanna know whose going to break that record? Adrian Peterson... Kid is a freaking rookie, he's got time to improve his game. Purple Jesus is crazy ridiculous. Nobody can touch him, and if they do he just knocks them over and keeps on going. Somebody should figure out how many yards he averages after first contact cause I'm willing to bet it better than a lot of starting running backs regular average per carry. Oh yeah, and his line did a great job. Especially that right side that gets so much flack, Ryan Cook and Anthony Herrera. I kind of think the key to the line was starting Herrera.

As for the rest of the team stuff went well. Tarvaris Jackson got injured again... If Adrian Peterson is Purple Jesus Tarvaris Jackson has to be Purple Judas. I know that early in the season I was pulling for Jackson and calling for Bollinger to be cut, but Jackson has proven nothing but the fact that he holds the ball too long, passes the ball too far away from the receivers and his bones are made of china. Bollinger hasn't done too much but he was 7/10 for 95 yards, 40 of which went to Sidney Rice for a TD.

The D-Line held LT to 40 yards. An amazing feat considering he is the best back in the league not wearing purple. Ray Edwards had a great game on the outside of the line. The secondary did a great job, too. Antonio Gates didn't exist, yet another amazing feat. The third amazing feat was that the secondary held their own with a combined 5 years of experience at corner. Cedric Griffin is a solid second year guy, Marcus McCauley is a rookie who has been targeted for much of the year and Charles Gordon got an interception.

The only thing I was not happy about was Chilli's field goal attempt at the end of the half. We had a tie game and were out of Longwell's range. That could have killed us. Last year that would have killed us. I still have no faith in Childress. Its just too easy to call a run play for number 28 and get an automatic first down. If Childress wants my vote of confidence he needs to show me something like a comeback win that takes an air attack.

I didn't think Peterson would have a better game than the one against the Bears this year, but I was pleasantly surprised. Hopefully we can do the same against the Pack next week.

P.S. we scored more than 24 points.

This Kid Looks Hungry

Lets feed him. Seriously.

I was searching the internets today after work when I came across With Leather's power rankings (I just wanted to see a picture of Scarlett Johanson) when I found their link to Freerice.com. This is super cool... All you do is choose the best definition for the word and the UN (and the multinational corperations whose logos appear on the bottom of each screen) will donate 10 grains of rice towards world hunger. I got to vocab level 30 before I decided to share this with you and aside from the fact that the rice I won was probably big enough to give that little guy up there a malnourished baby sized portion of a meal some of the words started getting tough to define. Kids studying for the SATs, ACTs and maybe even the GRE could learn a thing or two while feeding the kids.

Since October 7th people playing the game have donated 589,305,670 grains of rice to those in need. Crazy. And its kind of fun.I need to start one of these where every time someone solves a math equation I get a penny. Maybe not math... people hate that shit.

It's like Christmas morning

If you're not hyped up yet the following videos should help.









Enjoy. Go Hawks.

The Sharkman Is Crazy Stupid!

This is Michael Rutzen and the above statement is to be taken literally. Rutzen is crazy and stupid. This video does him absolutely no justice... and he is swimming with reef sharks using only medieval technology as protection. Wanna know why? His goal is to do what you are watching, he calls it tonic immobility, but with Great Whites.

Rutzen lives in Gansbaai, South Africa which is the capitol of the world. Coincidently its also the breeding grounds for the jackass penguin... I kid you not. Jackass Rutzen didn't even have the chain maille prior to meeting up with someone who could actually perform tonic immobility.

I'm so glad my cousin has On Demand. I missed Shark Week on Discovery and never would have seen "Shark Man" had I not been in Chicago this week. I highly suggest stopping by the Discovery channel every half hour or so until you find the special in rerun. I still have to look for it because I only got half way through, the most I saw him do with great whites besides offer his arm as a snack was hitch a ride on one's fin.

Regina Spektor - That Time

This is Regina Spektor. She's super awesome and this song just made the all-time rotation for being wacky and up tempo. She didn't make this video, but she makes equally awesome videos and speaks fluent Russian. I used to live by some Russians... one of them stole my bike and the other owns the first set of boobs I ever saw. They were awesome too.

(Video by Pizzicotta)