Maryland 82, UNC 80

On the other hand, sometimes hate tastes good.

Yum.

Beating the Dog

Just once, just once I'd like to get a DCU post up on the tubes before that dogma-N person. Just oncet.

DCU came home last night, looking for their first win of the season. They didn't get it, although a win against the cruel Ning the Merciless, even at home, is a venti order for a team in freefall.

bDr and I differed, until last night, on the topic of the coach-scalp; when they flashed Tom Soehn's face on the screen of the Ocho last night, I began screaming for him to be hung from the Whitney Young bridge. This is mostly because I am a mean and petty son of a bitch, not because I know anything about anything.

But even then, the gods conspired to mock me, because ESPN finally got over its Ning-love just enough to tell me that Soehn was finally abandoning the once fashionable, but plague-stupid 3-5-2 and settling into the far more sensible (sensible, that is, for a team that prefers the other team not to score goals) 4-4-2 formation. Then, ESPN set aside its impulses to felch Taylor Fucking Twellman just long enough to note that 105-year-old striker (end Fiver) and true American Football Hero Jaime Moreno was sitting on the bench, glaring intently past his bleached bangs at the action unfolding on the field.

I was forced to revise my opinion of Mr. Soehn long enough to stop screaming at him and start screaming at the putrescence that is MLS referee Terry Vaughn. Fortunately? This worked, and Vaughn's ineptitude swung well into DCU's favor by the end of the game, although his booking of Emilio for diving after appallingly punkass bitch James Riley shoved Emilio down in the penalty box was a classic Vaughn moment of getting a thing exactly as wrong as it could be gotten.

On the other hand, thanks for sending off dickhead Shalrie Joseph on a brutal assfucking of an improper red card, Terry. Too bad DCU couldn't capitalize.

Note to Loud Side: Sing louder. We couldn't quite make out the lyrics of the Taylor Twellman song on the Ocho, not least because The Worst Announcer in Futbol and Eric Wynalda wouldn't STFU.

The Ocho completely fucked the game up. For starters, the Ninglove was overpowering--on those occasions when a bad call went against the Ning, Wynalda couldn't stop himself from loving Taylor and the Revettes, but on perfectly reasonable calls--and yes, Virginia, Moreno earned that PK--Eric needed an extra saucer of milk. For another, Wynalda was so pissed off at DCU that he couldn't stop the bile. Do you know why they wouldn't play off of the wing after Joseph went down and the Ning clogged the middle, Eric? Because they don't have any fucking wingmen, you metrosexual toad!

To give due credit, Wynalda's at his best when he's a bitter little queen; his performance in the booth during the last USMNT friendly, when he couldn't stop peppering The Traitor Bruce Arena with thinly veiled attacks over his mishandling of the last World Cup, was precious, just MasterCard priceless. And he's right far more often than he's wrong (contrast: Tommy "Poonch It In The Oonion Baag" Smyth, the third man in the booth last night). But when he gets a bug up his ass, he clenches down on that fucker and wanks away until he's ready to shit the fucking Hope Diamond.

Fun: Guy Kpene. Nicholas Addlery (but ineffective, unfortunately). The Incomparable Fred, who's a damn sight more entertaining than pussyboy Freddy Adu on his worst day and Freddy's best. Fecundo Erpen, but only because he's a fucking dolt.

Die: Taylor Fucking Twellman, you diving fucking pussy bitchboy. Die die die die die, not least of all for making me discommendate a Terrapin. The Ocho, for sperming its excitement all over the undeserving geezer Pat Noonan. Matt Reis, for being Matt Reis and for singlehandedly staving off DCU's last rush (which turned out to be its best chance to go ahead). Khano Smith, for being a dick. James Riley, for being a super mayamaya DICK. Steve Nichol, just because. Jay Heap, for obvious reasons and because it took ESPN to make me remember that you're a Dookie cocksucker.

And lookee there. We're up ahead of his Dogfullness. But only because we're shallow and vapid, and he's the soul of thoughty. Go read him.

Cher Does Coach K

You might think all this hatin' unseemly. Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.

In other stories, Rahm Emanuel is a megafucktard. Seems he told new Dem congresscritters to stay away from the Colbert show. Because he's afraid Colbert will make them look bad.

I have no words for this kind of asshattery, really. We just might want to reconsider that whole putting-Rahm-Emanuel-in-charge-of-getting-people-elected thing, though, if he's going to be all fascist about it. What a dipshit.

Enjoy part two of the holiday. Minions record so far? An acceptable, respectable, but unspectacular 12-4. We'll see what sorts of apple carts get upset today.

Variants on Nothing

Mmkay, so Ilse got a long-term substitute job at one of the best schools in the county. She is officially an English teacher. Of course, at the moment, she's an exploited temporary worker allowing The Man to tread on her back for His benefit (she'll be doing actual teacher work, as an actual teacher, for about 60 percent of the salary), but it's an in, and it's a fabulous opportunity. So good on her.

I inadvertently wronged a beloved friend with my original post when I tagged Goth as the greatest English teacher on the planet. Actually, I probably wronged a bunch of people, but the point here is that I wronged another one of my minions, and I really hate myself a lot when I do that. Take a bow, Kimmah. Sorry about that whole ass-fucking thing, babe. I'll try to give you some warning and an anesthetic next time.

There will be more--much more--about important things like laughing my ass off at Bears fans Goth and Ilse over the next week. But for now, I'll leave you with yet another reminder of how and why DOOK SUCKS.



Fuck the fucking fuck out of Dook.

But speaking of which, one of my two Dookie friends on this planet is getting married. If'n you can't keep getting the milk for free, Sparkles, well, then good on you, love. Congrats and good luck. But Dook still sucks.

The Athleticism of the Turtle

I'd just like to point out that, from a results perspective, I have yet to be wrong about the Terrapins' football season. Being wrong last week would've been just orgasmic, but as we covered in the post just before this one, that was not to be. In other Terps' football news, Ralph Friedgen is still fat.

Midnight Madness was Friday night at Cole, err, Comcast. Or Maryland Madness, or whatever the hell they call it now. We invented it, you know. No, seriously. Leftuh was the first one to do it, and it just caught fahr all ovuh this gray-uht nation of our'n. Our reward for this? Leftuh's kid is a fucking assistant coach now. Can we give it back?

So the Madness was mildly entertaining, of a sort. The men's team returns a passel of self-centered a-holes and brings in some moderately interesting younguns, including an energetic and potentially dangerous shooting guard from Venezuela, a gigantic bruiser who's hurt, a lanky "slasher" (who hasn't, to my knowledge, been portrayed by Tony Perkins) who will turn out to be a great honking disappointment, and the latest Point Guard Messiah, who looks suspiciously like the last True Point Guard Messiah, known secularly as The Alien Steve Blake, except perhaps slightly less skinny. The haircut, the ears, and the hype are about the same.

This team will lose a shitload of basketball games, because they're still poisoned with negative energy left behind by that douchebag John Gilchrist, who will forever remain The Worst Recruit Evar. The point guard isn't a point guard, and blew out his ACL eating pancakes for breakfast at noon an hour ago anyway, the vaunted shooting guard is a doofus, although he has clearly taken steps to rectify his hair-centeredness, our big boy is all elbows, and our new bruiser is, seriously, named Bam-Bam Osby. But the unadulterated point is the very first bit in this paragraph:

This team will lose a shitload of basketball games.

Far more exciting is our women's team. By which I mean this:

The 2006 National Champion Maryland Terrapins

Yeah, that's right. The Defending National Champions have lost precisely nothing, and they've added a couple of transfers. Most of what they haven't lost is...uhm, okay, most of what they haven't lost, by weight, is Jade Perry. But most of what they haven't lost in playing terms is the most outstanding young person on this planet, Christie Tolliver, the point guard and Jedi Assassin. This girl is a fucking killer, a stone-cold murderer who don't take no shit off no punks from blue schools. If you are a representative of a blue school, Christie Tolliver will eat your fucking punkass kidneys while your heart's still beating and still have fresh breath and a lovely smile, without having to brush her teeth. Christie Tolliver will cut out your brain stem and still go to Heaven. Christie Tolliver's shit don't stink. I am not being the tiniest bit sarcastic, and if you think I am, Christie Tolliver will come kill you while you fucking sleep but wake you up just long enough so's you know you're daid, you Dookie bitch.

Yessir, we likes us some Christie Tolliver. In fact, we likes us the whole Maryland womens' team, way the fuck more than we likes our mens' team. Come to think of it, we don't like our mens' team very much at all, although that's a condition that can easily be cured with three or four well-placed victories over blue schools.

We have yet another team of Defending National Champions, that being our mens' soccer team. Sadly, they just got punked by Jesuits, at home. Stay tuned--the ACC tournament is yet to come--but I suggest that homies of a certain northeastern institution that doesn't belong in our athletic conference protect their kidneys real good for a while.

U-Turns In The Night

This is a big picture of a fluffy bunny. If you are my beloved friends Germbabe or Sparkles, look at the big picture of the fluffy bunny and do not, under any circumstances, scroll down.

This here? Is not a big picture of a fluffy bunny. It is a picture of J.J. Redick.

Can you guess what J.J. did not long before this picture was taken? That's right, he committed a crime. No, no, not the poetry or the crying or the .025-percent lifetime NCAA tournament shooting percentage, although all of those certainly qualify. J.J. hung a U-turn in the night. An illegal U-turn. Right in front of a police drunk driving checkpoint.

Thank you, J.J. This was a sad bunny sort of day, until you hit the news. And there's only one thing left to say.



Except, of course, it's not.

The Privilege of Fandom

Dook sucks.

I got to attend my first Maryland basketball game of the season last night, in a less-than-packed Comcast Arena on the beautiful land grant that is alma mater. I'm still buzzing. The game was less than spectacular; my team is less than spectacular, although they won't repeat last year's shame of missing the NCAA tournament entirely; and walking halfway across the land grant because you don't have a parking permit is less than spectacular. And yet I buzz.

The opponent was the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, the game one in the annual ACC-Big Ten Challenge invented by ESPN a few years ago to create an excuse to let Dick Vitale broadcast at least one extra Dook game each year. Minnesota wasn't taking the thing entirely seriously; they only dressed nine players for the game. My perfectly rational response to a situation wherein the other team has a shortage of players is, "Damn the suspensions, kneecap the fuckers." Fortunately, My Lord and Personal Savior Gary Williams, the Finest Human Being in America, and the Coach of My Beloved Terrapins, takes a more dignified view of the sanctity of sportsmanship.

The first game I attend each season sets me to buzzing with the pageantry and ritual of it all. One proceeds to the campus, perhaps eating some sort of garbage en route, depending on the time of day. Back when I was a season ticket holder (in the days before our googletybajillion dollar new hoops house), this was an excuse to eat at Popeye's twice a week during the season. One arrives in time to see the teams shooting around and warming up, to hear the Mighty Sound of Maryland laboring its way through 70s pop standards, to watch, if one is early enough, the cheerleaders practicing before they dress in their hideous little cheersuits (considering that this is, at least technically, a Southron state, alma mater's lack of attention to the babeification of our cheerleaders is pretty appalling--I'd trade our cheerbabes straight up for Dook's any day of the week).

Most important, though, is an arrival in time for Our Local National Anthem. Because right after that? It's showtime.

Showtime at Comcast begins with the desultory introductions of the evening's visiting sacrificial victims (it used to be that we simply did not lose at home, except to talented in-conference opponents). The student body, which circles the court about 20-deep, picks up newspapers and begins to pretend to read them, ignoring the visitors. The shaking of 5,000 pages of newspapers is deafening. It should invoke terror in the bowels of the main course. Their identities do not matter.

Except they do matter, because as each victim is introduced, the crowd appends, "SUCKS!" to his name. "Starting for Gnechtegezoid State at forward, a 4-foot-1 freshman from Trailerton, Alabama, number 13, Bo Weevil!"

SUCKS!

The fun grows, as the names of the sacrificial assistant coaches are read (... SUCKS! ... SUCKS! ... SUCKS!).

I'm proud of my land-grant school. Aren't you proud of yours?

The loudest SUCKS! is reserved for the enemy head coach, wadded-up newspapers are tossed into the air, and the real fun begins. The lights dim, spotlights swirl about the floor, and loud, throbbing music begins to play. Everyone jumps up and down and sort of sings with the music. It's hard to describe, because the lyrics consist simply of "O", sort of moaned up and down in melody and time with the music. If I were a sacrificial victim? I'd be heading back to the locker room to take a leak right about now. A really long leak. Because this? Sounds like some seriously wackjob religious ritual performed by people who eat their young. Or anything else that crosses their path when they're hungry and fervid.

The Terrapin heroes are introduced, in some order roughly corresponding to how badly they've pissed Gary off in practice since the last game, although the seniors (with the exception of our giant loping Saint Bernard of a power forward, Travis Garrison) are usually introduced last. This makes mathematical sense, because they're the ones with over three years of practice at not pissing Gary off (with the exception of Travis Garrison, whose over three years of practice at not pissing Gary off do not appear to have sharpened his learning curve).

One by one, the starters are introduced to the screams and ritual fainting of the faithful; the aforementioned Saint Bernard; gigantic all-elbows center Ekene Ibekwe; Maine's Mister Basketball 2001, the insufferably Caucasian Nik Caner-Medley; chest-thumping local-boy point guard Chris McCray; and the undisputed straw that stirs the drink, the original Straw That Stirs the Drink's nephew, D.J. Strawberry.

D.J. is a fascinating kid. He's taken a lot of shit around the league for the last two years, first for being Daryl's nephew, then for blowing out his knee last season, a misfortune that fundamentally cost Maryland a berth in the NCAA tournament, DJ being the only kid on the team who takes his scholarship seriously enough to stay alert through 40 minutes of basketball. He is relentlessly energetic, diving after every loose ball, dogging ball-handlers until they almost inevitably pass the rock to a Maryland player, toss it out of bounds, or simply turn into whiny little puddles of goo that chirp, "Please, Mr. Strawberry, take this ball with my compliments and use it to run another fast break as you and your mighty Turtles rain points down upon our insignificant sacrificial heads like radioactive ash in a nuclear winter!"

Of course, by the time the victim gets all that out, DJ has swiped the ball, slammed it home, and stolen two more to pad the Terps' lead by another six points or so. Better call timeout, Victims.

This is not to be taken as an assertion that the Terps will win this year's national title or anything. Far from it. They're way too small--a big, deep team will grind them down like hundreds of millions of years have ground down the Appalachians, except they'll do it in less than 40 minutes. No, we're not going anywhere except the second round of the tournament, and that only if we're lucky. But at home, for mid-level Big Ten teams that don't bother to field enough players for a biggish road trip? Just fine, thanks.

And DJ will blow out his knee again by late January anyway.

After the introductions comes everyone's favorite part. The Mighty Sound of Maryland tries to play the fight song--actually, the Victory Song, because they only play the fight song when we're getting our asses kicked beyond recognition--in fact, in my circle, when the band starts playing the fight song, the correct conditioned response is "Shut the fuck up! Loser song!"

But The Mighty Sound of Maryland is drowned out by tradition. Tradition consists of Gary Glitter's famed sports cliche, Rock and Roll, Part 2. If you don't know it, you would if you heard it. If you need to hear it, there appears to be a MP3 file here. The lyrics to this song, as recorded, consist solely of "Hey!" At my land grant university, the lyrics consist of, ,"Hey! You suck! We're gonna beat the hell out of you and you and you and you!"

This is a fine old tradition, one universally indulged at Maryland sporting events. However, four years ago, after Carlos Boozer's mom successfully attacked the entire Maryland student body singlehandedly armed with only her considerable fangs and claws*, the school decided that "Hey! You Suck!" is "obscene," and banned the Mighty Sound of Maryland from ever playing Rock and Roll, Part 2 again, for all of history.

By the way, Gary Glitter is in jail in Vietnam for child molesting. Seriously. No lie.

Anyway, the student body of my land grant university is way smarter than the censors, and the song gets sung anyway. Loudly. Drowning-out-the-band loudly. Because, after all, you do, in fact, suck, and we are, in fact, going to beat the hell out of you and you and you and you.

One of my companions told me last night that J.J. Reddick, a noteworthy poncy, palming, diving pussy, most despised two-guard in the ACC, and nauseating poet laureate of the Dook basketball program, was asked recently who were the best fans in the rest of the league. He fondly recalled seeing a sign in Comcast during a Dook-Maryland game that said, "J.J. Reddick Drinks His Own Urine."

For my part, I note that J.J. did not deny this charge.

I'm proud of my land grant university. Aren't you proud of yours?

By the way, recent addition to the Minions family and cringing, censorial pseudomoderate PurpleState is proud of the same land grant university. Which he attends. He would like to very politely let you know that you suck.

So, Hey! You Suck! And so does Dook.

Oh. Maryland won. But check back when they're playing a big team.

*Germbabe will tell you that, actually, the entire Maryland student body attacked Carlos Boozer's mom with frozen bottles of Aquafina. Impartial observers will tell you that, actually, in the course of a riot that followed a game we hereabouts don't mention, some wanker (accurately) tossed a partially filled bottle of Aquafina at Carlos Boozer's mom's head. I will tell you that the riot was perfectly understandable and justified, I personally kept two ignorant Dookie sorority slatterns from being murdered in said riot, and it was really, really hard not to let the onrushing horde of very angry students--who, over the course of 54 basketball seconds, had just watched a 10-point Maryland lead dissolve into the worst defeat I have ever seen, because no one in a white jersey could sink a freakin' free throw--just stomp those little blonde bags of Dook into the floor of Cole Field House.

But I'm probably not impartial.

Why I Have Nothing To Say Today

1. See "Capitalism", below.

2. Bob Woodward? Yawn.

3. Canada is an evil regime (see the unlinkable place)? Yeah, I could manage some outrage, if I weren't so fucking self-absorbed.

4. Pajamas Media? Yawn.

5. People attacking Pajamas Media? Yawwwwwwn.

6. On top of everything, with only 12 business days left in my association with my employer, I'm having a really cranky-inducing week at work.

7. Actually, the General does give us a link to this story about a guy infiltrating a PromiseKeepers event. This story? Did not make me yawn. But I have nothing to add to it.

8. The President thinks my side is irresponsibly manipulating facts about how we went to war in Iraq? Wow. Nothing like a good game of Pot and Kettle, huh? Yawn.

9. Rude and Auguste are way smarter than I am. Why bother? Yawn.

10. Frank DeFord, decried by anyone who pays attention and this bloviating Dookie fascist, whines about why people don't like Duke basketball. It's simple: Coach K is a smug bully. His players are self-absorbed prima-donnas. Loyal minions should visit Truth About Duke, which should be Mecca for anyone who isn't a Dookie. Interesting poll results here indicate that by and large, the only people who give a rat's ass about Dook, or at least about the TAD site, are fans of UNC, Maryland, Dook, and UK. Stunning, that.