I Smell a DL Trip for Yo

Today marked the fourth straight below average (at best) start for Yovani Gallardo. His ERA has gone from 1.20 to 5.70. I've looked into some of the advanced stats to see if he might be incredibly unlucky, but based upon my very average understanding of these stats, it appears that he has just sort of sucked for the last month. And you know what that means? That's right! Everyone's favorite game: the phantom injury!!! This happens, especially to pitchers, every year. Guy comes out, struggles in a few starts, gets shelled and obviously has lost his confidence, and rather than embarrass him by benching him or sending him to AAA (which I absolutely NOT suggesting they do with Yo), the player is suddenly injured and needs a 15 day DL trip. Jeff Suppan was famous for this. He went on like a dozen random DL trips in his time in Milwaukee (although his might be related to the voodoo doll I had).

Anyway, I bet Yo is on the DL within the next two days.

PS. Ardolis Chapman is fucking ridiculous. Dusty Baker is either an idiot for not using him in a bigger role (closer or starter). Or Dusty Baker has learned from the long, long line of careers he has ruined, and his trying to keep his innings down. Either way, Chapman seemed to have figured things out in the past two days. When you can throw 178 mph, and follow it up with a 90mph slider for a strike, hitters are fucked. That's analysis.

The NFL Has Brainwashed Me

Here is a good example of how much I love the NFL. I currently have DishNetwork. I received an offer from Time Warner cable that would lower my cable bill by about $50 per month for the same exact package. The price would be guaranteed for two years. It is an absurd deal. And I thought twice. I hesitated. Why? Because Time Warner doesn't have the NFL Network, and I might miss like 6 Thursday night games. I'm going to switch so that I can bitch about Time Warner again, and save a bunch of money. But I bet I'm not the only one that would think twice about switching for fear of losing a few games. That is why the NFL is the greatest league in the world.

I guess I will just have to spend some of that savings at a bar and watch the games there.

Happy Easter I guess.

Best Investment Ever?

No, I'm actually not referring to the Brewers signing Ryan Braun to a gigantic extension through 2020 (more on that in a second). I'm referring to the Ryan Braun jersey that I purchased two years ago. I'm always tormented when I go to buy a jersey of another grown man. Mostly because I don't want to get stuck with a horrible jersey a year or two later.

That $75 or whatever it was was sweet. I'm going to get TWELVE years out of that fucker. It might actually fall apart before he's gone or dead! I actually wish I would've dropped $200 on an authentic one now.

Onto the signing itself. I LOVE the message it sends, and I love Ryan Braun. Also I love Mark Attanasio. Honestly, in 2019 when Braun is making something like $16 million, it might end up badly. But would you rather have Braun making $16 million in 2019, or a 350 lb first basement making 20? Does this have anything to do with Prince? Probably not, but I feel a little bit like there might be a message here to Prince and to other Brewer players present and future. If you play well, and want to play here, we will try to pay you. Braun expressed an interest to be a Brewer for life, even though he just signed an extension through 2015 like five minutes ago. In exchange for a little more money now, he gave up the right to hold a gun to the Brewer's head in 4 years, and potentially make a little more money for the last few years. It is possible if Braun continues to progress, and inflation continues, he might have made $25 mil or so by the end of this thing. The message to Prince is "We gave you this offer two years ago and you balked because Boras promised you more money, so fuck you. We aren't giving you anything." Now, it is very questionable whether this message will mean anything. Because someone is probably going to be paying Fielder what he wants. But the Brewers likely could've waited on this. I feel like they wanted Fielder around when they gave Braun $10 million extra dollars yesterday.

Seriously though, this deal is another in a long line of deals that would've never happened under previous ownership. There is a serious commitment to winning, and a serious commitment to keeping their stars, that hasn't ever been seen in Milwaukee. I'm thrilled about that, even if Braun is hitting .212 in limited playing time in 2020.

MLB DODGERS

I'm not a Dodger fan, so I can just sit back an laugh at that disaster. I did want to throw this out though. Was McCourt "borrowing money for payroll", which seemed to clearly be a cry for help (if this is in fact true), done with the intent to get MLB to step in, thereby likely driving down the value of the Dodgers? Here is my thinking. He is going through a horrendous divorce. I can speak from experience that people that are going through a divorce lose their fucking minds. They will do idiotic things, that cost them thousands of dollars (for a normal person, millions for the McCourts), just so the spouse gets less. In this case, since Ms. McCourt is entitled to half, would the absurdly rich Frank drive down the value of this asset to fuck over Ms. McCourt? Probably not, since the Dodgers might only be a drop in the bucket for these two rich assholes. But as I said, people in the midst of a divorce are fucking insane.

REAL WORLD: VEGAS

Yes, I watch the Real World. It is one of the perks to being married to a woman that would watch just about anything if there was an MTV logo in the corner. I have an excuse to watch the Real World (because I'm forced to. What am I supposed to do, go in the bedroom? The TV is all small in there!). Anyway, this season has been really solid. We've been waiting since episode one for this one kid Dustin's big secret to be revealed. Which is that he's been in gay porn. Which is fucking hilarious. We see on the previews that it gets revealed in the next episode. The snippet might have been the funniest thing I've ever seen on TV, but let me set it up for you if you haven't seen the show at all.

Dustin is a gooney white dude from the South. He immediately started a "relationship" with a girl on the show, and they've been "hooking up" (I added the quotes because what I really meant is that they have known each other for five minutes, have been locked in a suite at the Hard Rock, got bored and drunk and fucked a whole bunch). So by all accounts he is straight. In the preview they show, the girl says "Is there something you want to tell me about your past?" Response (sounds like it is in his head) "She knows!". Girl "You are all over the Internet having sex. With guys." Dustin's response (which should win him a fucking Emmy) "A guy."

There you have it. In 2011, you aren't gay if you only had sex with ONE guy. I texted my brother "Best justification for gay porn ever." He replied "He could've told her he wasn't the catcher." Which would've been good too. You should probably watch next Thursday at 9 central, or one of the 7500 times they replay it. It is going to be epic. Prediction: he talks his way out of it and the girl fucks him again by the end of the episode because she is a stupid whore.

Tired of Uncle Sam

Tax season is officially (well I guess only technically, you could be one of those idiots in line at the post office at 11:58 p.m.) over. If you haven't guessed by past posts, my real job involves taxes for a few months per year. By real job, I mean the one I get sort of paid to do. Unlike my other jobs, which include: blogger, professional asshole, guy who bitches a lot, sports enthusiast, video game participant, beer connoisseur, and sex machine (just ask Sports Bottle). Unfortunately, I rather enjoy the jobs I do not get paid for, and not so much the one I do get paid for. I'm probably like 99.9% of America in those regards. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that I'm waiting patiently for the residuals that Bear has assured me are in the mail, to start rolling in, and for UCSB616's job offer from Herm Edwards and ESPN.

While I wait, I'm going to make an effort to post more. You've heard it before, I've said it before, and it probably isn't any more true this time. Fuck off. As the other "members" of this blog can likely attest to, it is much harder to come up with stuff to write about than it looks like. Said task has been made harder by the advent of Facebook (in 2001, member since 2010!) and Twitter (homeless people were on before I was). I tend to waste one or two potentially great blog topics on a 120 character zinger. Which is funny because it isn't that much funnier when I stretch it into 10,000 words. Meaning perhaps I should stick to Tweets. Fuck it, I'm not going to do that.

I have found that baseball is a very easy sport to blog about, because something new happens every day. I love to blog about the Brewers, especially when something terrible happens like last weekend. I'm much more efficient being negative.

We are 15 games in, and the Crew is 7-8. Can't say I'm that disappointed. Looking at the schedule, I would've expected about 8-7 at this point. Really, we could be 12-3 or some such, but such is the fickle nature of baseball. I realized this evening as I was watching Rickie Weeks fuck up a simple double play against the Phillies which eventually led to a 1-0 deficit, that I haven't blogged about my least favorite Brewer yet this year. There are many candidates, but first I should get the qualifications out of the way. It needs to be a player that routinely seems to fuck up, and/or play well below their physical gifts/potential. This player also needs to play much, much more than is warranted, and would lead one to wonder if they have some kind of nude photo of the manager and/or the manager's daughter to use as black mail. In the Ned Yost years (other than Ned Yost himself) my least favorite Brewers were: Rickie Weeks (who has since totally redeemed himself and become one of my favorites), Jeff Suppan (who stick sucks donkey cock), Derrick Turnbow (aka Turnblow) and Eric Gagne. See, it is much easier to hate closers because they have such an obvious effect on game outcomes. I hated Weeks because Yost would stick him in the leadoff spot even though he hit about .200, and he was an abortion at 2B. I hated Suppan because he was terrible.

Right now, the following are on my list: Randy Wolf, Carlos Gomez, Mark Kotsay, Yuni Bettancourt and Erick Almonte. I'm taking Wolf off the list because he dominated in his last outing. I'm removing Kotsay and Almonte because even though they are truly terrible, they are fill in players, and will eventually be in Nashville or bagging groceries. I don't have a great feel yet for Yuni. He doesn't seem to do anything very well, but his suckiness might just be so absolute that I don't realize how bad he actually is. Plus, I had really low expectations for the Yuni era. That leaves me with Carlos Gomez. Gomez is fast, and he plays reasonably good defense (mostly because he's fast). But he is a moron. He is a terrible baserunner despite his ridiculous speed. He can't hit ATT ALL (he just got an RBI double as I type this), and Roenicke keeps sticking him at the 2 spot. He frustrates me to no end. In addition, he's got Tony fucking Plush, who is nearly as good on defense, probably as fast or faster, is a good baserunner, and can actually put the bat on the ball. In short, he's got Plushdamentals. I hate that Gomez plays over Plush for no reason.

On to this weekend again. What a disaster. Swept by a bad team. Can't happen. And what the fuck is up with Yo? He was awful yesterday. We have to get the game tonight because we get Halladay and Lee the next two games. And we can't get swept again.

OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS

-CP3 is fucking awesome. Lakers will still win the series, relax.

-I purchased the new albums from Foo Fighters and Rise Against this weekend. The new Foo is absurdly good. The Rise Against album is solid too. One thing about Rise Against, and I've only heard the album before this one and maybe I didn't dissect it, but it seems like almost every song on this album is a political anthem. I didn't get that from the last album (although there were certainly a few). The music is great, but it is sort of a stressful and intense listen. No?

-Beer of the night: Mighty Arrow, the spring seasonal from New Belgium. A tasty pale ale if you are into it.

-Weather is calling for 6 to 10 inches of snow. This could be its own blog post. It is fucking April 18th. Seriously UCSB616, don't fucking move from California permanently. I realize there are a lot of problems there. But the weather is perfect. As awesome as we are in the midwest, the weather isn't worth it. It isn't. It is almost fucking May and I don't feel comfortable putting away my snowblower. Also, it was 40 with 30mph wind today.

-I did about 2 seconds of research. It seems that Tony Plush was created by Nyjer Morgan. The twitter feed is obviously not him, but he is a fascinating dude.

Let's Play Two

Why not? What else am I going to do besides watching six hours of Brewers v. Nationals today? I miss true double headers. Back in the 80's they used to schedule a few double headers a year, so that they could play October baseball in October and not November.

Yuni Bettancourt finally cost the Crew a game with his defense on Friday. His D had actually been half way decent up until Friday. It won't be the last game we lose like that.

Let's hope for a sweep today and some good Plushdamentals.

QUICK NATIVE AMERICAN CASINO RANT

I went to the local Native American casino last night. I went sober. I went with the full intention of giving them $40 worth of roulette spins and blackjack hands. Mission accomplished. It still strikes me that every time I go, 90% of the people there do not appear that they can afford the gas to drive to the casino. Yet there they are, plugging dollars into the slot machine, and bellied up at the $10/hand blackjack tables. But seriously, just throw it on the credit card, I will pay for it later when you don't pay the credit card, file for bankruptcy for the third time, and then the credit card companies lobby congress for some bullshit loophole tax hike that ends up in thier pocket. Also, I don't miss smoking being banned. It is clear that there were people there that were in the midst of a realization that they hadn't been able to smoke outside of thier house or car since July 4th, and were making it a point to smoke as long as hard as possible. I still have a fucking headache, and I was only there for a few hours.

Mish Mash Of Shat

As I venture into the last few days of tax season, and my life is about to begin anew, I had a couple of things in my brain to spew out:

-Excellent article by UCSB616, although I disagree on the best month of the sports year. My vote would be for October. NFL and College Football in full swing, and the entirety of MLB playoffs. I would argue that the NBA playoffs in April add little to nothing to my sports enjoyment. Wake me in July or August, or whenever the fuck the Finals finally start (unless there are Deer to Fear, which there is most certainly not this year). I will watch a smattering of games, but they won't be appointment television for the most part. It probably helps if you root for the Lakers.

-I love me some Tony Plush (aka Nyjer Morgan if you live in the 1990's and aren't on Twitter yet). He is my favorite Brewer right now. I just like the way he plays, and his gentleman alter ego helps. My favorite running joke right now is that I'm going to love him until he murders Braun or Yo in their sleep. Because he is allegedly crazy. But he hustles his ass off, he's fast, he's exciting, he seems to care (or not know where he is, I can't tell), and he can get on base. I'm enjoying this ride while it lasts. Tonight, he murdered Ryan Domut on a play at the plate, which is the second catcher he took out, and if remember last year, he has a bit of a history with this. I would post a YouTube video of this, but (Sports Bottle's) god forbid MLB allows YouTube videos.

-Barry Bonds is going to prison. I guess you don't fuck with the G. I guess I'm glad he got convicted because approximately .03 cents of my paychecks for the last five years (and every other American) was put towards the costs of prosecution.

-The NFL has a draft coming up in a few weeks, and I couldn't be less excited. Normally, I LOVE the draft, and get super excited for it. I'm not sure if I'm not excited because of the lockout garbage (probably) or because the Packers WON THE FUCKING SUPER BOWL!!!! and I don't feel like they need much. Part of me will feel guilty for watching the draft because I feel like I'm condoning these assholes. But not enough of me that I won't watch it.

-The Brewers-Cubs game Sunday was a success. I didn't get beaten into a coma for wearing a Brewer jersey, even though I'm 30 years old. My brother and his two friends didn't either. And there were a shitload of Cubs fans nearby. Had some beers, enjoyed the ridiculous 80 degree weather, and watched the Cubs fans cheer like they won the World Series after throwing out Weeks stealing.....after McGehee hit the two run pinch hit homer to put us ahead. Cubs fans are stupid. Also, as we were walking out, some random dude showed me a picture of a Cubs fan passed out inside Miller Park, and he pissed himself.

The Best Month of the Sports Year

Thursday, March 31 marked the beginning of the best month of the 2011 sports calendar year. The period starts with the baseball opening day and the final four, progresses through the Masters, and leads you right into the NBA Playoffs. Since we are smack-dab in the middle of the Masters as I write this, lets recap the first portion of April.

Dodger Stadium Debacle

How pathetic was the beatdown at Dodger Stadium last Thursday? For those of you that have never been to Chavez Ravine, save your money. If I weren't a die-hard Dodger fan I'd have stopped going to this dump years ago.

A perfect example is the bathroom situation. Even when sitting in the expensive seats, fans are subjected to Wrigley Field style trough urinals, which would be fine except for the fact that you are surrounded by vato gangsters straight out of Training Day. These creatures broke out of the barrio zoo, and are looking to eat you for lunch (or ask to see your "cuete holmes") if you so much as look at them the wrong way.

"Easy solution, just don't look at them" you might say.

Problem is, not acknowledging the vatos could be construed as "disrespecting" them, and such behavior could earn you your first stab wound. Never has Baltimore and Camden Yards looked so good (and yes, I've seen "the Wire").

Several years ago the Dodgers banned tailgating at Dodger Stadium. Clearly this was so they could sell more $10.00 beers, not to protect the fans from themselves, because the vatos have no problem slugging down 10-12 beers in the park across the street (illegal), then slugging down 10-12 more $10.00 beers before looking for a fight. It's been this way since Fox bought the Dodgers from the O'Malley's in the 1990's. A sad situation, and a big black eye on the face of a franchise that is clearly in disarray right now.

As I mentioned on Facebook last week, the cowardly act by these two thugs was inexcusable. Dodger Stadium is not your "turf," and Giants fans aren't members of a rival gang. This is reason 10,000 why Logan will be raised a Brewers fan (or a fan of the team of his choice). Although I'll always root for the Dodgers, I won't put the same economic embargo on alternate gear that I would if Logan were to pick up a Bears, Vikings, or Celtics jersey.

I've never witnessed this kind of behavior at any of the 22 ballparks I've visited around the country. Same can be said for the significant number of NFL stadiums I've visited (except for Oakland). I've especially never witnessed this kind of behavior at either Miller Park or Lambeau Field (exhibits A and B why Wisconsin is heaven). People drink wayyyyyyy more at Miller Park and Lambeau than they do at Dodger Stadium, yet still manage to refrain from stabbing and beating one another to death.

Sidebar

Angie kicked off the best 9 days of the sports calendar year sitting poolside at Caesars' Palace on a Bachelorette party when I called in a couple bets on the Final Four. Pretty nice that my wife would act as a gambling proxy so that Steve and I could get some action in on the games before she returned to a day of relaxing poolside in a cabana (reason number 1,000,000 why I have the most awesome wife possible, and why she rules).

Angie's return from Vegas (and the resulting stories) made me realize that last weekend is the absolute perfect weekend to schedule an annual Vegas summit for me and the crew. It's the beginning of Spring, there is a lot going on in the sports world, and it is a time of the year before we get really really busy with our annual respective late Spring/early Summer U.S. tours.

It's really interesting to hear a girl's perspective on a successful Vegas trip as contrasted to the 100 or so I've been on in my life. This party sounded like a lot of fun for a group of girls. It included a night at the bar, a full day of cocktails and food by the pool, a show where everyone kept their clothes on (presumably), a sit-down dinner, and a night at a club. Angie got home seemingly not too hungover, and had an all around pleasant experience. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me.

My trips to Vegas in the past 5 years seem to follow the same predictable (and lately downright boring) 20 stages:

1) Have 2-3 tall beers at the airport, plus 2 on the 45 minute flight;
2) Withdraw my first $300 from the ATM at McCarran International Airport;
3) wait in cab line;
4) stop at liquor store for smokes/12 pack;
5) hit the tables;
6) lose $200,
7) go out;
8) black out;
9) return to casino and withdraw a second $300;
10) pass out at 5am;
11) wake up at 10am;
12) eat McDonalds;
13) go to pool and consume 5 buckets of bud light;
14) nap;
15) shower;
16) eat drunken nice dinner;
17) walk around on the strip and gamble in random casinos, smoking nearly a pack of cigarettes;
18) return to home casino;
19) play poker or blackjack until 5am;
20) lay down for half an hour and wake up for early flight on Sunday morning wondering whether it was all worth it.

This pattern was epitomized by an August 2010 trip to Vegas that was supposed to include all 7 of my best friends, but dwindled to 3 by the time the weekend rolled around. Lost are the seemingly unbelievable stories bred by trips of the past such as the time I was invited to my brother in law's best friend's bachelor party in July 2008 as "entertainment" and wound up at the top of the Bellagio in a suite with Omar and Fadi the Jordanian Oil Tycoons who were betting $5,000 a hand and had a suite full of booze and trouble.

Was that 2010 trip fun? Hell yes it was fun. I was with a couple of my best friends and we partied all weekend. The problem was it didn't carry any of the mystique that is Vegas, and could have been any random weekend we decide to get crazy.

I think I've figured out the problem. A successful trip to Vegas is a function of who you are with and making different experiences. Angie's trip seemed pretty fun. It included: 1) people she hadn't seen in a long time; 2) some people she didn't know; 3) a schedule of things to do that didn't involve just hanging around casinos; and 4) it was only 36 hours long, so she was in and out of there pretty quick.

You don't need to reinvent the wheel, but you need to keep it in motion. I've been stuck in fourth gear for five years now in Vegas. It's time to take things up a notch. That said . . .

I feel like it's time for a Vegas summit with the UCSB crew to reclaim the glory of the past. It can't be just 3 of us, Paul, Pete, Jeff, Steve, Lazz, Ozzie and myself all need to break down and make it happen. Second, we need to get everyone on one blackjack table together, and we need to plan some things to do. Third, we need a hibachi dinner (I feel like hibachi dinners are always the catalyst to trouble).

Clearly we are past our prime, but if Fred Couples can routinely shoot in the 60's at Augusta once a year we can handle one big Vegas trip per year. Guys, if you read this, lets start planning now, then get an annual Spring trip on the calendar.

End Sidebar

Brewers Opening Week

No need to panic Brewer fans. Your best pitcher is on the DL and will be back sometime within the month, and good teams struggle in April. The Red Sox started 0-6 and nobody except their fans feels like they won't be in contention in September. Brewers will be fine too (and already look a ton better). All this stuff is a good reason why the baseball season starts about a month early in my opinion.

Final Four

The final four itself was pretty much a bust, although I managed to split first in a 15 person pool by virtue of Kentucky going to the final four. Unfortunately, those weren't the picks I posted on here, so only the other 14 guys in the pool know that I'm telling the truth. Bottom line, this year's tournament was more of a crapshoot than its ever been.

The biggest lesson I learned this year is that the mid-majors are killing the sport. These teams were everywhere, and Cinderella has jumped the shark. The VCU/Butler game was downright painful to watch, and I don't need to even write about the worst national championship game in history. Truly painful stuff.

The NBA is to blame here. Their stupid rule requiring players to be one year removed from high school has killed program continuity and allowed the Butler and VCU's of the world to have a chance. Much like I don't like TCU playing Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, I'm a snob for bigtime college sports. Please don't expand the tournament any further, and when the NBA returns sometime in 2013 please allow high school players to make the jump right away.

Thursday/Friday at the Masters

The Masters is one of my absolute favorite events of the year. I've been watching it since I was about five years old, and used to love watching it with my grandpa. He's been gone 13 years this year, and the Masters always makes me think about how much I miss him. He got me into sports by taking me to Dodger and Laker games when my dad wouldn't, and I would've been lost in life without his teaching me about the true treat in life that sports are.

This year feels like a changing of the guard at Augusta. As Tiger charges up the leaderboard while I write this, I predict that one of McIlroy/Day/Fowler/Barnes holds him off to win the Masters this year. McIlroy would be particularly nice given that he's been pegged as the next great thing since he played in the Walker Cup when he was 17. Should be a fantastic weekend.

For the record, I've got a trip to Augusta for the Masters on my calendar for next year. Even if I don't get tickets through the lottery I'm going to go ahead and pay the $500 or so to go to Saturday's round. It's a great event with cheap beers and a party atmosphere. Pretty much a must for a sports fan even if you aren't a golf fan per se. I had a blast at the 2010 U.S. Open and can only imagine that August is 10 times better.

I feel like the Masters is the casual golf fan's favorite tournament because even people that don't watch that much golf recognize the back nine at Augusta. If you don't watch it yourself, your dad or grandpa probably did, and outside of Pebble Beach there really isn't a prettier setting in golf. There is nothing better than the back nine on Saturday and Sunday. You can argue with me all you want, but I think it's exciting as hell. Plus, where else can you see stuff like this?

NFL Lockout Update

The parties went to court on April 6 and not much happened. Judge Nelson needs a couple weeks to render a decision, and when she does the losing party will immediately appeal. This thing isn't looking good folks. Although I'd handicap the odds of a full season at 8.5-1 I still don't like the fact that it went into litigation at all.

The union is a union, and should be ruled a union (jesus, that sentence kind of reminded me of a line from one of Logan's children's books). Therefore, this dispute should be decided by the NLRB and the Antitrust lawsuit should be thrown out the window, and the parties should get back to the bargaining table under the federal labor laws. Litigation is for the weak and afraid, which is exactly what the players are.

NBA Playoff Preview

Simply stated, Bulls look unstoppable in the East, Lakers look unstoppable in the West (even on a 3-game losing streak).

I find the NBA playoffs to be much better drama than the average guy, and am able to sit through pretty much every game in every series from the second round on. Even half the first round series are semi-entertaining.

I don't see a team out there that can beat the Bulls. I just don't. Miami isn't deep enough and doesn't play enough defense, and the Celtics took themselves out of it by trading away their size.

In the West, only Oklahoma City has even a prayer of beating the Lakers, and it seems like both the Lakers and the other teams know it. Even if San Antonio smacks them around at home this week they still know they are done. This Spurs team reminds me of the run and gun D'Antoni Suns teams. Great in the regular season, good enough to maybe get to a conference final, but not a serious title contender. Let's just hope people try to behave themselves this June when the Lakers win their third title in a row.

Six titles for Kobe vaults him into the top 3 players in history. You can keep Jordan and Russell up there ahead of him, but nobody except those two can touch him. The guy is an assassin, and I sincerely hope he gets this title, because it will likely be his last. I feel like the Lakers' window closes after this year and it will be time to re-tool.

How good does the Hangover 2 trailer look? Usually you can tell that a sequel is going to suck just by watching the trailer, but this time these guys look like they legitimately wanted to make a second movie as good as the first. Can't wait.

Finally, if you haven't watched the "unedited" version of Charlie Sheen's 20/20 interview, click on it now. Anything this guy touches right now is comedic genius. He knows he's batshit crazy, doesn't give a shit, and is smart enough to spin his meltdown into a clever marketing ploy. I love it, and sincerely hope he manages to keep it together just enough to keep doing weird things for the next 5 years. I'll watch anything, and am really disappointed that the Violent Torpedo of Truth isn't coming to Los Angeles in the next 3 months.

Speaking of "Violent Torpedoes of Truth," I've got my own warlock-style U.S. tour coming up in a few weeks, and will try to provide a recap of each event after I recover. This is a more hectic Spring tour than I've booked in several years, I only hope I can keep up. The menu:

4/23: 9 hours of death metal in the desert with Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax
4/30: Alumni weekend in Santa Barbara
5/7: hiatus
5/14: Lazz's bachelor party in Chicago
5/21: East Coast swing to find an apartment in Baltimore
5/28: Memorial Day weekend festivities
6/5: San Diego Rock n Roll Half Marathon
6/11: Lazz's Wedding on a boat in Newport Beach
6/18: Depart on week-long road trip to Baltimore and will be covering 5 ballparks

My liver already hurts. Stay tuned.

FAKE LIVE BLOG IV!- Final Four/Brewers-Reds Edition

So here I am. Home alone. Wife is off doing it with her friends or whatever (I assume this is what women do when their husbands aren't along). The Final Four is on. The first Brewer game not on while normal people work is on. What better time than now to give you a fake live blog/fake Simmon's style running diary. I am going to do this until I get tired of it, which may be a half hour, and may be five hours. Who knows? This first section is brought to you by Pasquale's International Cafe in De Pere, WI and their Windy City sandwich. It is a full half pound of Italian beef, onions, peppers and mozzarella cheese on a fresh hoagie roll. I had my Windy City cherry popped tonight, and I now know why the guy on the phone acted like I was retarded when I asked if it came with fries. So fucking good. If I fall asleep in like a half hour that is why. Also, this section is sponsored by New Glarus Brewing Co. Snowshoe Ale, which is what I'm drinking right now. Tasty as shit.

5:33-We pick it up after the 12 minute timeout in the first half of VCU-Butler, tied at 15 with 10:15 left. Hey, a Honda Crosstour isn't a bologna sandwich according to the commercial. Thanks for that.

5:36- Raised courts are awkward. It looks like the players are all giants.

5:38- Words along the side of the court. "And then there were four. Three. Two. One." Can I just say: What the fuck? Should I be surprised by this or something? Do the teams usually fuck each other and multiply? Look Houston. I know that you build rocket ships there or some shit, but get over yourselves. And do they even fly rockets anymore? Wake me when they land a manned spacecraft on Mars or something.

5:40- It kills Alicia Keyes that someone might not hear "Empire State of Mind" as if it was sung live. And only Beats Audio can give it to you. Or maybe she just wants to sell some computers. Whatever.

5:42- I'm predicting that if 75,000 show up for this round, 50,000 will be corporate assholes, 23,999 will be Kentucky assholes, 1 will be Ashley Judd. 1,000 will be Butler/VCU/UCONN fans.

5:44- Tied at 20 with 6:12 left. Am I the only one who thinks "skeet" when I hear Jamie Skeen?

5:46- Seriously, Butler was 14-9 at one point. How the fuck are they here?

5:47- Just saw the Butler student section. If I went to Butler, I would be the blackest person there.

5:48- 24-22 VCU. I love how media types lie about how they "saw it coming" that Butler would be a Final Four team after they beat UWM. Bull. Shit. Every media person goes 100% chalk on their brackets unless Duke is a 2 seed.

5:50- Shelvin Mack is "sharp as a steak knife" and just "sprayed VCU from deep". 25-24 Butler, 3:52 left in half.

5:53- Has anyone ever only eaten ONE peanut butter cup? I think not.

5:54- Butler inbounds. One second comes off the clock. Timeout. Back to commercial. Hate that.

5:55- Wake me when they invent a 3D TV I don't need to wear glasses to watch.

6:00- Guy in VCU crowd wearing Oakleys. Is it 1994?

6:01- I have an odd self-image. I still feel like these college players, some of whom are 12 years younger than me, are older than I am. What age do I stop feeling that?

6:02- Barbara Bush does not know where she is. To be fair, she looked the same way in 1992.

6:03- Fuck. I just rubbed my eyes and must've had some hot pepper juice on them. I can only see out of one eye.

6:04- Butler is winning the "glass eating game". Howard with an absurd two handed reverse lay-in. Butler 34-28. VCU fires a pass into the 19th row with 2.4 seconds left.

6:08- Halftime of the basketball game. Switch over to Brewer pregame. Of course, it is a fucking WMLW game, which means no HD. On the bright side, I just saw commercials for: Perry Mason, MASH, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I made none of those up.

6:09- This portion brought to you by Louie's Demise Ale by Milwaukee Brewing Company. Not as good as I remember. Definitely not as good as the Snowshoe Ale I just had. 6:11- I missed Brian Anderson. I did not miss Bill Schroeder.

6:12- (Sports Bottle's) God is this picture terrible. It looks like they are playing in a fucking snowstorm.

6:14- Nice three up three down for the Crew. Let me use this opportunity, if you have read this far, to invite you to follow us on Twitter. Myself: @Juicelaw_WI, Bear: @bearflash, Jon: @UCSB616. Twinkie has one too, but he only got one to follow me. I pretty much only tweet when I'm drinking or really, really bored. What a salesman!

6:15- Ueck in a Usinger sausage commercial. Classic. Speaking German, with heavy use of YAH! Good times.

6:17- Shaun Marcum just walked his first batter in a Brewer uniform. Welcome to Milwaukee!!

6:18- Marcum is on a "soft 80" pitch count. Sounds great.

6:19- Someone should tell Marcum that someone wiped their ass on his hat. Dude, it is game two. How does your hat get that dirty otherwise?

6:20- Drew Stubbs steals second, Wil Nieves who is a "great defensive catcher", bounces one 8 feet short on the throw. Then throws him out trying to steal third as I write. Never mind. Stealing third is dumb unless you are Rickey Henderson.

6:21- Marcum just destroyed Brandon Phillips with a slider. That was pretty.

6:22- Scott Rolen is 600 years old.

6:23- I would like Prince Fielder's beard/afro combination if he wasn't going to leave after the season.

6:24- Rolen just CRUSHED a 2 run homer. 2-0 Reds. Marcum's ERA is on pace to be like 27.00.

6:25- 4 pitch walk.

6:26- Back to hoops. It looks like Steve Kerr is sitting on Clark Kellogg's lap. Can we get a bigger table for these three? Jesus.

6:30- Do people still watch Survivor? Why? 34-31 Butler, 18:24 left. It appears from the PIP that Marcum finally got out of the inning.

6:31- Butler in 2nd half: 3 possessions, 3 turnovers. I've got the Brewer game on picture in picture small screen, Final Four on big screen.

6:32- VCU goes up 35-34 with 17:09 left. VCU started the first half on fire too, and Butler put them out.

6:34- By the way, "Fast Five". I purposely didn't swap to the Crew so I could watch the preview again. Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, The Rock, among others.

6:36- 33 year old Erick Almonte is making his first major league start for the Brewers since 2003, and his first EVER in the OF. Wow. Is he related to Danny Almonte? Did Danny shoot himself yet?

6:37- Back to hoops. Butler back up 36-35, 16:08 left.

6:38- Another hoop commercial. And now the Crew is also at commercial. And I had a really funny joke about Blake Griffing being Black/White/Native American/Ginger and it somehow got erased. Fuck.

6:42- Brewer game brought to you by Usinger's and Stienhafel's. No Germans in Wisconsin at all.

6:43- SKEET for three! 38-36 VCU, 14:44 left.

6:44- Skeet! And one! 41-39 VCU, 13:41 left.

6:46- 3-0 Reds Bottom of 2nd. Championship!

6:47- Brewers on big screen. Maybe Brandon Phillips just doesn't match up well with Marcum? 2nd K in 2 at bats.

6:48- Jesus Christ. Semi-difficult grounder to Weeks. Bounces one to Fielder, who should have caught it (hit him right in glove), and doesn't. 4-0 Reds. Fuck.

6:53- Butler back up 4. Skeet at the line.

6:54- I just tried to send a text to a buddy of mine named "Dan" and accidentally sent it to "Dad". Awkward. Fairly certain he doesn't know what a blog is so he's probably pretty confused.

6:55- Butler up 52-45 with 9:39 to go. Starting to get away from VCU again.

6:56- Meanwhile, Travis Wood just had a 7 pitch inning. SEVEN fucking pitches? Way to make him work Crew.

6:57- Speaking of seven. It is VCU's biggest deficit of the tournament. That is crazy. Matt Howard just picked up his 4th foul with 9:15 left.

7:02- It is strange to look into the Brewer dugout and not see Ken Macha's blank stare.

7:05- The National Championship tips at 8:23 CST. If you grow up on the East coast in the 00's or 10's, you will never get to see "One Shining Moment", and you will be missing out. That was a shout out to all of our 12 year old readers. Speaking of 12 year olds, I nearly got kicked out of my fantasy baseball league with the old guys because someone let a 12 year old join and I had an expletive laden message board post. I was promptly yelled at by everyone else. My response was of course: Fuck You. Then I got a personal email from my neighbor who yelled at me even more. I declared I am never posting again in the league. It is too fun to quit, plus I've got 20 bucks on it.

7:11- Skeet! For three! And one! 61-57 Butler, 2:32 left.

7:14- Braun hasn't given up. Beat out an infield single for the Crew's first hit. I bet he'd be even faster if he cut that gawd awful hair of his.

7:17- Butler at the line up 63-57 with 47.3 left. Probably all she wrote. Two FT's for Butler, and a VCU turnover. Ballgame. Butler in TWO STRAIGHT NCAA Championship games. Somewhere, Satan is having a good time with Brad Stevens' soul.

7:19- I'm starting to get a little sore already. Time for a short break.

7:25- Hey Oh! Erick Almonte hits an upper decker. 4-1 Reds, Top of 5.

7:26- This section is brought to you by New Glarus Back 40 Bock.

7:27- I was just informed that it has been EIGHT years to the day since Almonte's last homer. Which was also his FIRST homer.

7:32- Yikes. Steve Harvey hosts Family Fued now?

7:33- Seems like as good a time as any to tell you that I'm headed to Milwaukee next Sunday with my brother to watch FIBs get hammered on two martinis and then fight each other. Or as it is also known, our 3rd annual Brewers-Cubs trip. Aviators, popped collars underneath T-shirts, and BMWs owned by someone else will be plentiful because FIBs will be. I love/hate going to Brewer-Cubs games because Cub "fans" show up in droves because they can't tailgate or drink anything but Old Style at Wrigley, or as the t-shirt that I bought a few years back says " The World's Largest Gay Bar". In other news, I hate FIBs.

7:38- Jonny Gomes takes a chest high fastball for ball four. Schroeder "Don't know where that one missed." Classic. He will say that at least 700 more times this year. That'll be it for Marcum. 4 2/3, 4R, 3ER, career high 5 BB. Awesome.

7:40- Judge Hatchett, weekdays at 8am on WMLW. They need to stop making these shows.

7:43- This just in. At 8, my PIP will be over, unless I want to switch to "Eat, Pray, Love", which is being recorded on my DVR. I will think about it.

7:44- Back on CBS, Jimmer Fradette is accepting the player of the year award, his hair actually came to accept it in Jimmer's place.

7:45- The picture on this standard def channel is so bad that Rickie Weeks is at the plate, and between the Navy road alternate unis and the black advertisement behind the plate, I literally can not see his head as he bats.

7:47- And Carlos Gomez strikes out. I just lost a bet.

7:48- I think Russell Brand is funny. The previews for his movies always look good even though I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen one that he starred in. "Arthur" looks funny, and I'm aware it is a re-make. Perhaps I'm too young to be offended by this, because I don't believe I've ever seen the original, or if I did, it didn't resonate to me. I'm told I should be offended.

7:50- Interview with Shaka Smart. His team lost, but he doesn't have to give up his awesome name. 7:52- Sergio Mitre has a "slurvy slider". Wouldn't that make it a slider? Or at least a slurvder?

7:58- One. Two. Three for Mitre. Let me switch over to basketball to see if Four is next.

7:59- Which coach will commit the most NCAA violations during the game tonight? Calhoun or Calipari? I will take Calhoun and the points.

8:01- Prince Fielder is really good at the plate. A one-handed single up the middle on a slider down and away.

8:02- Calipari just committed an NCAA violation on Tracy Wolfson. How does someone with Wolfson's accent get her job? I mean, I know how she probably got her job, but still, she talks like fucking Snookie.

8:04- Aroldis Chapman up in the pen. I'm excited to see if he can hit 125 mph tonight.

8:05- Jay Bruce just made a ridiculous play to rob a foul ball from McGehee. Corey Hart/replacement RF-X makes that play 0 out of 100 times.

8:06- Over/Under on Ashley Judd sightings is set at 1.5. I will take the over. Cameras are panning, but haven't found her yet to my knowledge. She needs to fire her PR person. Speaking of actresses, I need to get this off my chest too. Fucking Natalie Portman has been in like 30 movies in the last year. Does she fucking sleep? What the fuck? Off the top of my head she was in: Black Swan, that bullshit romantic comedy where she fucked Ashton Kutcher, this bullshit medieval movie with Kenny Powers in it, and Thor, in the last like six months. Thor and the Kenny Powers movie open like a week apart in the next month. I'm sure there is a logical explanation, like there are two of her, or she has the power to teleport, or she is an alien or something, but it is getting scary. I half expect her to show up in the dugout of this Brewer game.

8:12- 2nd semifinal has tipped. Calhoun just slipped the ref a bennie.

8:13- I feel like Kentucky is a little more complete than UCONN. I base this on having seen each of them play about 2.5 times this season, and broad speculation.

8:17- Kemba Walker is good. 8-5 UCONN, 15:49 left.

8:18- Why are they going to commercial on Lady GaGa "Born This Way"? It makes no sense. 8:19- Fast Five!!

8:20- Still 4-1 Reds, Top of 8th. Craig Counsell is up with one on. So it is about to be 4-3. Nope.

8:23- The remainder of this, however much there may be, will be sponsored by Miller Lite and his brother Miller Lite.

8:24- Gigantic white Centers are a precious commodity. Especially ones that have a bit of game. 10-9 UK, 12:19 left.

8:25- Guy on the Miller Lite "Man up" commercial that "Worries about his hair" has the same hair as Ryan Braun. Also, Pauly D has similar hair.

8:26- Miller Lite is my only friend. 8:27- Magic Johnson is comfortable in his own skin. And he cured AIDS.

8:28- UCONN has 6 Turnovers and 5 FG attempts. That seems inefficient.

8:29- Kentucky is now 1-7 from 3. It seems like 1-100. An they were all bricks. Still up 12-11.

8:32- Top of the 9th in Cincy. Cordero on. As not great as Frankie is, I have a feeling we are going to be watching Matlock on WMLW soon.

8:33- Ooooh. Leadoff single for CarGo. Brian Anderson claims the "Boo Birds are out". I hear no such thing.

8:35- Cordero bounced a couple of splitters, and Anderson might be right. I think they want Chapman and his 132 mph fastball.

8:36- Holy shit, Phillips with an insane diving stab of a Braun liner, backhand flip. But Braun beats it out at first. One out.

8:37- Meanwhile, Kentucky apparently started running Bo Ryan's swing offense, because they haven't scored in over 4 minutes. 17-12 UCONN, 8:12 left in first half. The first game was played at a MUCH higher level.

8:38- Prince grounds softly to second, two outs.

8:39- McGehee with an RBI single. 4-2 Reds. Erick Almonte and his 2 career HRs in 8 fucking years is the "tying run". Of course 1 of those homers was tonight but still.

8:41- Jesus. Strike three (or ball 2 as the umpire called it) was right down the middle. And he swings and misses at the next pitch, 4-2 Reds final. Brewers are on pace to go 0-162. I think I'm done. Sleep tight kids.

8:56- Goddammit. I hit post, and the fucking thing eliminated all the spaces, so I just wasted 10 minutes putting them back in. You're welcome.