You Guys Read the Internet?

Me too! I even have a blog: [URL NOT FOUND]

You follow professional sports? Me too! I happen to have a preference for Boston-based teams, including (but not limited to) the football squad that recently got their (gorgeous) teeth kicked in by one from New Jersey! (No, not that one--the one with the head coach who mistakenly thinks that he can bury his self-loathing under a pile of fried foods, narcissism and sexual perversion.)

According to the internet, the New [LOCATION PERSISTENTLY UNDEFINED] Jets are the best foot-based sports team ever now and they will never, ever, lose again.

For real! It's on the internet!

Is New York City Actually "Gotham City" and Batman Therefore Real?

Batman has got to be real. Otherwise, there would be no explanation for the existence of New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino--whose mind-boggling hate speech could only reasonably be credited to a 'Penguin'-esque fictional supervillain.

Disagree? The next two things you'd tell me would be (1) "the first black American President has a shot at a second term" and (2) "heavily-sponsored white folk driving vroom-vroom machines in a continuous left-hand-turn 'til somebody done get smashed up and burned real good isn't recognized throughout America as a 'sport'."

Celebrated Sports Person Does Thing; Mortals Angry, Happy, Sad

LeBron James used an hour of television on Thursday night to announce to the world what everybody already knew: that he is leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and signing with the Miami Heat.

Sorry, Cleveland fans. Bully for you, Miami fans (and watch out for that drug dealer!--ah, too late).

Everybody else? Shame on us a little bit for paying as much attention as we did to this vacuous charade.

Beat On that Red Sox Mickey Mouse All You Want, Anaheimans...

Those futile swings won't bring your prop-board shantytown any closer to being an actual city (like, say...the one from which your baseball team embarrassingly pretends to be).

[OC Register via Deadspin]

Rap(e)id Fire

Now the Celtics know how it feels to be a hotel employee in Eagle, Colorado.

Stay Classy, San Diego Clippers*

*Which they will, despite not having existed for the last twenty-six years...at least in contrast to their current city's big sister team, if Los Angeles Times sportswriter Ted Green is any indication of the Lakers' level of class.

Wrote Green of the Celtics' Paul Pierce (who miraculously survived a violent attack on his life in 2000): "Pierce's idea of a fun night is going clubbing and getting stabbed. Good times!"

HAHAHAHAHA--yeah, good times. Almost as good of a time as Paul Pierce is going to have watching Banner #18 be hung in the rafters of TD Garden, you sub-literate dicktard.

Maybe I Don't Understand Major League Baseball Rules (And Maybe I Don't Care)

What, exactly, was Yankees manager Joe Girardi complaining about on Tuesday night after my sad-sack Red Sox scraped out a win against their vastly superior (this season to date) AL East rivals?

Something about Manny Delcarmen taking too much time to warm up in preparation to relieve one of the Red Sox's five godawful (this season to date) starting pitchers? Something about one of those pitchers, Josh Beckett, not actually being injured?

Cheese and rice, Joe: Your team's about a billion games up on the Red Sox. If you're going to protest something, protest the fact that the Yankees are currently trailing a team whose fans will remain nonexistent until it faces yours in the division series. (And then they'll be all like, "Hey, our city has a baseball team! I love that dude from 'Desperate Housewives'!")

One Rapist Short = One Point Short

Yay, Celtics.

(Now, if only Kobe Bryant were out forever and you guys weren't so old and busted, I'd feel good about your theoretical-postseason chances.)

And Now They Stink

Remember that decade (that is technically still this decade) when the Patriots were good?

Ah, memories.

Seattle Schadenfreude

From birth to present, I've been a New England Patriots fan. Following the team's first (non-joke) Super Bowl appearance in 1997, Pete Carroll became their head coach; he skillfully took them from good to mediocre, to bad, to a joke (again) in a scant three years.

The year after I graduated from the University of Southern California, that very school (because Yahweh knows I'm a football fan and hates me) handed Patriots-ruiner Pete Carroll the reins of its vaunted football team.

Over the next eight years, I was left to impotently try to explain to my fellow alumni that Pete Carroll was a terrible football coach while he ostensibly "led" USC to two national championships and received (unwarranted) credit for returning the Trojans to prominence.

Finally, in 2009, the emperor's new clothes were revealed as USC sucked goat balls. And what has Pete Carroll done as a result?

He has bailed, taking a wholly-undeserved sick contract to coach the NFL's Seattle Seahawks.

While I feel bad for the football fans of Seattle and the meager-hope-trumping failure that they will experience in 2010, I am very excited to say to Pete Carroll:

Best of luck in in the Pacific Northwest, you mealy-mouthed sonofahamster. The ghost of Drew Bledsoe's career-that-could-have-been awaits you on "ESPN Purgatory".

Cold as ICE

Is there anything more American than the New England Patriots?

There is if you ask America's Immigration and Customs Enforcement--who, on Thursday, detained dozens of Guatemalan workers that were en route to Gillette Stadium to shovel snow for this weekend's playoff game.

Or maybe ICE is just a bunch of Ravens fans.

[via Deadspin]

Old Men, Take a Look At Us Now

It was reported on Wednesday that the Boston Red Sox have reached a preliminary agreement with the Texas Rangers to trade Mike Lowell for minor league catcher Max Ramirez.

The deal could still collapse--because Mike Lowell is an old man with a bum hip--and the emotional side of my Red Sox fandom kind of wants it to. On the other hand, Mike Lowell is an old man with a bum hip and the Red Sox desperately need a new catcher because their current one--whom I love dearly--is an old man with a bum everything.

I don't know how to feel...other than old.

[UPDATE (12/20): No deal.]

Metroville's Movie Corner 2026: Shia LaBeouf IS Terry Francona in 'Reverse the Curse'*

I've been telling my wife for years that Boston Red Sox manager Terry Francona is an older version of Shia LaBeouf. At last, I have found two video clips of the aforementioned individuals that (sort of) prove my case:






*(That might not turn out to be the exact title of the film; perhaps it'll be based on Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan's book.)

'Belicheat...'? 'Belichoke...'?

Nay.

I'll sacrifice alliteration for the sake of game-specific bluntness and propose "Beliterrible"--as in:

That was an absolutely terrible call that Bill Belichick made on Sunday night when he decided to go for it on fourth down, in doing so handing the game over to the Indianapolis Colts for no good goddamn reason other than that he's an egomaniac.

...

"Belimaniac"? Nah...sounds too cool.

Attention, Football Fans of Maine

You like the New England Patriots? I do...because I was born and raised in Massachusetts--34 miles from Foxboro--where the Patriots actually play.

By comparison, your state [capital] is two states and 199.23 miles away from Foxboro--which is in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal.

You don't like same-sex marriage? Then you don't like the Patriots.

Go ahead and abscond to Canada...and its socialized medicine. (GASP!)

(Seriously, though, Maine: Fuck you.*)


*Not you, Stephen King... You love the Red Sox and are dope.

Celtics Defeat Yankees, 92-1

As any deluded sports fan knows, the best (irrational) way to cope with one season's team's failure is to carry over the resultant disappointment to the next season's team in the (meaningless) hope that the latter will, in victory, take the sting out of the former's most recent defeat.

When such a victory occurs on the same night as a decisive thumping of your former season's team's archrival...well, that's just Phantastic.

Idiot

Following the (suckass) Generally-Pacific Coast Angels of But Also Maybe Portugal?'s improbable victory over the (suckass) New York Yankees (actually of New York, unlike the NFL's Giants) in Game 5 of the ALCS on Thursday, the Yankees' ballerina-armed centerfielder Johnny Damon--the Judas who conveniently ended his tenure with the Boston Red Sox by grounding into an out that ended the Red Sox's postseason in 2005--was knuckleheaded enough to make the following statement:

"It gives them a couple more days of hope, and hopefully that hope ends on Saturday because anything can happen, especially with as tough of conditions as we’re going to be playing in... They still have to beat us two times at our place, and hopefully that’s going to be tough to do.”

Anything can happen? No shit, Professor Recall.

God, I hate both of these teams so much.

GO--uh...THE RETROACTIVE CANCELLATION OF THE 2009 MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL SEASON?

(Yeah, that works.)

'Pessimism vs. Optimism': A Play in One Act

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

METROVILLE, a smart guy.
MRS. METROVILLE, his wife.
MALE FRIEND, Female Friend's fiancé.
FEMALE FRIEND, vice versa.
THE CAT, Metroville's strikingly handsome cat.


SCENE 1

A patio area at a (vaguely douchetastic) sports bar in Los Angeles. Amongst the CROWD are METROVILLE, MRS. METROVILLE, MALE FRIEND and FEMALE FRIEND. On television is NBC's broadcast of a USC-Notre Dame football game at halftime: "Saturday Night Live's" SETH MYERS is performing a live mini-version of 'Weekend Update'.

METROVILLE: Wow...NBC really has nothing. Is it possible for a major broadcast network to fold entirely?

MRS. METROVILLE: Why are you so cynical?

On TV, Seth Myers partakes in a gag referencing the "balloon boy" story.

MALE FRIEND: Did you see that kid puke on two different TV shows? What was up with that?

METROVILLE: What's up with that is that the kid's dad is a psycho attention-addict and the whole thing was staged. Kid's got crazy-parent vertigo and probably some sternum bruising.

MALE FRIEND: Heard that.

FEMALE FRIEND (to Male Friend): Why are you saying that now? Is that your new thing?

MRS. METROVILLE (to Metroville): No, you were asleep while the whole "balloon boy" thing was happening, so you don't know. We were glued to the TV at work, freaking out. When the balloon landed and he turned out not to be in it...god, I could cry right now just thinking about it...it was unbelievable.

METROVILLE: No shit it was unbelievable--whole thing was horse poop from jump street.

FEMALE FRIEND: I don't know. The dad seemed pretty genuine in that first press conference.

METROVILLE: This is a dude who was on "Wife Swap" twice.

MALE FRIEND: He was on "Wipeout"?

METROVILLE: No... What?

MRS. METROVILLE: I also heard "Wipeout".

FEMALE FRIEND (to Metroville): I think you're thinking of "SuperNanny".

METROVILLE: I'm thinking of "Wife Swap", 'cause that's what I said.

MRS. METROVILLE: You mumble.

METROVILLE: You know what kind of people choose to appear on reality shows? Psycho scumbags. And the fact that this dude--the "balloon boy" dad--forced his family to participate in that garbage on two separate occasions renders it mathematically near-impossible that he'd find himself in the national spotlight--by accident--a third time. Dude set the whole thing up, I guarantee it.

MRS. METROVILLE: You're wrong.

METROVILLE: I'm right. Bet me.

MRS. METROVILLE: I'm not going to bet you. I feel bad for you that you walk around with this dark view of the world.

FEMALE FRIEND: You guys are cute.

MALE FRIEND: Kid puked twice just on the "Today Show"... Fuckin' nuts.


SCENE 2

METROVILLE is in his office at home, browsing on his computer. He comes across an article (on MSNBC.com)...and gets very excited.

He rises from his chair and skips jauntily from his office, to the living room, and finally to the bedroom...where MRS. METROVILLE is struggling to reclaim possession of a sweater from THE CAT.

MRS. METROVILLE: I hate this fucking cat.

METROVILLE: But he's so handsome.

MRS. METROVILLE: Still hate him.

METROVILLE: I love it when you talk negative.

MRS. METROVILLE: I never talk negative. I just want my goddamn sweater.

METROVILLE: Embrace it, baby: When all cards are on the table, pessimism--

Mrs. Metroville wins the fight, freeing her sweater from the cat.

METROVILLE: ...pulls us through.

MRS. METROVILLE: Save it. I beat your douchebag cat with positive thinking.

METROVILLE: Good intentions triumph over evil, love conquers all...that kind of thing?

MRS. METROVILLE: Exactly.

METROVILLE: Remember that "balloon boy" thing we were arguing about earlier today?

MRS. METROVILLE: Yeah...

METROVILLE: Guess what?

MRS. METROVILLE: What.

METROVILLE: "Charges to be filed."

MRS. METROVILLE: You're kidding!

METROVILLE: I am not! How you like that?!

MRS. METROVILLE: I don't like it at all. I think it's super-fucking sad. Guy's got a wife and three kids... This could tear the whole family apart.

METROVILLE: Yeah, okay, but... How about a high-five for me being right?

MRS. METROVILLE: No, thank you. I'm taking a bath.

Mrs. Metroville passes by Metroville (without high-fiving him) and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Metroville looks at the cat.

METROVILLE: You got me, though, right?

Metroville picks up the cat and sort of makes it high-five him, getting scratched in the process.

METROVILLE: Ah, what the hell.


EPILOGUE

Later that night, METROVILLE is heading from the kitchen to his office. THE CAT approaches, rubbing against his legs.

METROVILLE: No dice, chief. We're still fighting.

Metroville's mobile phone buzzes in his pocket. He produces the phone, reading a text message...and frowns.

METROVILLE (calling OFF STAGE to Mrs. Metroville): Yankees won in the thirteenth! You gotta be fucking kidding me. I'm certainly not sad that the Angels lost, but the fuckin' Yankees? Major playoff in my favorite sport...

MRS. METROVILLE (from OFF STAGE): What about the National League?

METROVILLE: I'm talking about real baseball, not the pseudo-Canadian version with a guaranteed failed bunt in every lineup.

MRS. METROVILLE (from OFF STAGE): You're funny.

METROVILLE: I appreciate that but please do not distract me from my rant. Major playoff in my favorite sport and I want both teams to lose and neither to win. How am I supposed to enjoy that?

MRS. METROVILLE (from OFF STAGE): Maybe pessimism doesn't always pull us through, smart guy.

METROVILLE: Heard that.

Metroville goes back to work.

(THE END)

Oh, NOW They 'Bumble'...

Shut up, baseball. I hate you.

Red Suckers

Here's a screenshot of what arrived in my inbox ten minutes before the time of this posting:


Yeah...let me just grab my credit card and do that, billion-dollar franchise made primarily on the backs of the middle- to low-income people whose souls you crushed not 48 hours earlier. Can I throw in an extra few bucks for your thoughtful timing?