Bucks make their Free Agency move!

So the Bucks have been one of the earliest movers in this year's off season, they've made a few trades to bring in CDR and Corey Maggette and now they've struck one of the first deals in the free agency market by signing Drew Gooden to a 5 year, 32 million dollar contract. I like the contract's monetary value, not necessarily the length... 3 years, 20 million would have sat a lot better with me. Gooden is the epitome of NBA journeyman, he's been on about 6 teams in the last 3 years. I'm not sure what the logic behind this was, after we drafted 3 big men and already have Ilyasova. My major hope? This was the first step of a multi phased plan that Hammond has to make a trade to steal some players from teams looking to dump cap room for this monster FA season. Ilyasova's contract is very tempting for his value vs cap hit, so maybe Hammond is planning on using Gooden as a stop gap while the guys he drafted get NBA-ready and dealing Ersan.

Did I just use the term multi phased plan as if to insinuate that John Hammond was some sort of evil genius? You bet your ass I did. Fear the Deer.

Free Agent-mares

I had vivid dreams about NBA free agency last night. The dreams were so intense for some reason, that I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept at all. And I don't know why. Its not like the Bucks are going to sign LeBron. I legitimately think that the possibility of LeBron and Wade playing together is so fascinating to me, that I couldn't wait to find out. Of course, I woke up and realized two things 1) The NBA isn't that great, and draft/free agency are the two best parts. The season itself is boring. 2) The NBA I guess cares about rules, unlike the NFL when guys sign $100 million dollar contracts 30 seconds after midnight, when there is no way you could even read a contract that long, or even sign it, that quickly, because nobody had done shit by 6am. To be continued I guess.

BREW CREW HANGOVER

Lost two of three to the Astros. Can we stop this charade of pretending we are going to make up a 9 game deficit? Because the Astros are really bad. Thank You.

"Your Hard Drive Has Been Corrupted..."

Well thanks a fucking lot Dish Network. Fucking pricks. My DVR started acting up yesterday. Basically, it didn't work, and gave me some bullshit message about data not being available. So I "reset" the receiver, which did nothing. Today, I got home from work and went to watch PTI, and it gave me same message. After turning through the worthless help website (No fucking way am I sitting on the phone with those pricks), it said to unplug the receiver and plug it back in, which I guess is different than resetting it. Whatever, I did it, and it came back with a message telling me that "I may have difficulties pausing and recording live shows. And I needed to unplug the receiver" No shit Sherlock. So I did it again. And this time I got the "MY DATA IS CORRUPT" message and that the only option I had was to delete everything from my hard drive. If you don't have a DVR, you are Amish and probably also don't have the Internets, so I'm not sure why I included that phrase, but if you don't have a DVR, you don't understand what a problem this is. Because people that have a DVR tend not only to record shows that they really like and watch religiously, but they tend to get a little adventurous and record things they might like, or are curious about (midget cake fetish porn). Also, the "season passes", or the timers for every fucking show you've ever cared about watching, some of which have long been cancelled but you are too lazy to delete, disappear. And those take a long time to accumulate. Not unlike terrible posts on this blog. So those have to be rebuilt from scratch. Inevitably, you will forget one, and miss like 4 episodes of a show and never see them again.

Also, in my accumulation of shit, I had the entire series of "Breaking Bad" that I was four episodes into. And the entire season of "Justified" that I just watched pilot for. 5 or 6 random movies I recorded off of HBO a year ago that I was probably going to get to at some point, and the last 30 for 30. All of them are fucking gone.

So what am I going to do about it other than bitch? Probably nothing. My contract is another year I think and I have to pay like $10,000 to get out of it. I guess I could call and threaten them and hope for a discount or something, which usually works by the way, but I don't have any real leverage because I can't just quit and go back to Time Warner (which I still hate). So probably I will convince my wife that we either order Netflix or she will be forced to watch the Brewers trip over their dicks for another 80 games or so.

UPDATE: And I just restarted the receiver after deleting the hard drive (allegedly) and I can't even look at it. What the fuck.

2ND UPDATE: After 20 minutes on the phone, I was informed that the receiver had to be replaced, and they would mail us one, blah, blah, blah. Then I asked when my contract was up. The guy asked why? I said because I just lost 50 hours of shit on my DVR because your equipment sucks. He said it was up in April....And then he didn't offer me shit. What. A. Prick. Time Warner, which again is terrible, would've offered me a shitload of free shit to stay. They almost convinced me to stay when I quit them two years ago, their offer was so ridiculous. Fucker. Well, wait till my wife finds out. She will be PISSED. I can pretty much guarantee she will be on the phone within 5 minutes and will not get off until she gets in a shouting match, gets free shit, or cancels the service. She is scary.

To be continued....

What a Bust

Went on a Brewer bus trip yesterday and it was disappointing to say the least. The Crew lost, which sucks. I knew only 4 other people on the bus, and none of them got drunk, which made my desire to get drunk awkward and pointless. The people that I didn't know were all in their late 30's, early 40's, and were white trash. On the bright side, at least I don't have to pretend to be interested in soccer anymore. Although, I did find it very interesting that the U.S.-Ghana game was on all of the TVs in the Miller Park concourse. Miller Park is still the best stadium I've been to as far as the overall experience when you take tailgating festivities into account. This post was rambling and incoherent.

In other news, five straight wins does not a playoff team make. I still believe the worst possible thing that could happen is for the Brewers to go like 15-5 in their next 20, get to about 6 back, and think they have a shot. They don't.

OJSFA draft, the 5th annual, and the longest draft in sports, begins in earnest next weekend with the keeper portion. Bear has the honor of starting.

I swear I'm not on LSD. This was an absolute waste of a post.

Trade is official for CDR

Well the trade with the Nets is now official, the Bucks traded a 2012 2nd round draft pick for Chris-Douglas Roberts. We acquired that pick from the Bulls when we snagged Salmons and swapped first rounders with them mid last season. The Nets gave CDR away for basically free because they're trying to open up cap room to land one of the big boys in this year's free agency

Trade updates!

Now reports are that the Bucks are sending the 44th pick to New Jersey for Chris-Douglas Roberts.

EDIT: That's apparently already changed to not the 44th pick, but a different second rounder.

Welcome to Milwaukee Mr. Maggette

It's been announced that the Bucks have made a swap with the Golden State Warriors and moved perennial bench riders Charlie Bell and Dan Gadzuric for Corey Maggette. I don't think I need to explain who he is or what he does, he's a well known player, scoring swing man. Gadzuric had a decent sized contract, very unbefitting for his minutes and quality of play that came off the books after next year, that was the main trading piece for the Clippers. Bell? Who knows, he's a body in the mix, he never really got back into things on Milwaukee after his little contract spat where we matched his offer sheet from Miami. Maggette has 3 years and about 30 million left on his contract, so not a terribly long term investment. Does this mean Salmons is probably done in a Bucks uniform? I'd have to assume that at this point. I enjoyed the hell out of his half season with Milwaukee though.

UPDATE: Bucks also get 44th pick in deal. Woopie.

ANALYSIS: Ok, now that the story's been broken and is official and I got it out there, time for some analysis. Quick feedback from friends and sports radio is that Maggette is a slacker on D and a cancer in the locker room. Cancer? I dunno about that, show me a story where Maggette was the cause of something mischievous. He may have been on some shitty/shady teams, but that doesn't make a guy a cancer, those teams were cancers.

The defensive thing, I look at it this way, we needed a scorer to take the pressure off Jennings shooting 20+ times a game. If his defense isn't stellar or he doesn't buy into Skiles' scheme after a year or two, well guess what? Now he's another expiring contract we get to ship. This is not a huge risk trade, we gave them Gadzuric and Bell, who the hell did people think we were gonna get for them? Let their contract expire and sign someone? Who? Who's coming to Milwaukee? We have to use these contracts to trade for people or lock up guys we already have. Our biggest name FA in the last decade was Bobby Simmons, how'd that work out?

Twinkies: Round 2

Ah, it is pretty goddamn hard to get excited about the Crew (29-40) taking on the Twinkies (40-29). I'm not going to lie. Getting one would be a victory. I'm going via drunk bus on Saturday. Fun will be had by all.

Onto more fun things: June 17, 1994, the 30 for 30 movie, was fucking awesome. I had forgotten how insane it was. I do remember where I was watching that NBA Finals game (parent's basement, undoubtedly dreaming up this shitty blog that I would be writing 16 years later, even though the internets hadn't been invented in rural Northeast Wisconsin yet). I don't remember people SPRINTING down the streets of L.A. following the Bronco and the police. It was insane. And then crowding around the Brentwood Estate. All while it was known that O.J. had a gun and was threatening suicide (which I also didn't remember, or did I remember Kardashian reading the suicide note on live T.V.) and there were about 1,000 police officers with guns too. The GUY WAS ACCUSED OF DOUBLE HOMICIDE!!! And people were cheering and crowding a (low speed) chase. Watching again was the craziest thing ever. As with all the 30 for 30 (greatest thing ESPN has ever done), I highly, highly recommend it.

-Went to a bar in rural Northeast Wisconsin for a surprise birthday party. I was designated driver (which sucks). A random dude with a sleeveless t-shirt on walked INTO the bar with an open can of beer. Also, I got hit with a sandwich from about 25 feet away. I was not happy. Or drunk.

-The U.S. Open was kind of entertaining yesterday. I like watching pros suck balls (which looks a lot funnier than I meant it to be).

Death To Two Legends and a Newborn

This is going to be one of the last posts I write using my 2003 Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop. I finally ordered a new one. I probably could gut it out for another year or two, but things are getting pretty frustrating on the Internets surfing side of things. So it is going to be a sad day. If dogs age 7 years for every one human year, then computers age 15. Which would put this computer at 105 years old. It is time. I laughed the other day when wondering if 250 GB of memory was going to be enough for a new computer, and then realizing that this one has 40 (!!).

The last College World Series at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha starts today. I only lived in Omaha for three years, and only attended parts of two CWS, but the memories were fond. But the stadium itself wasn't really that great. It was quaint, held alot of history, and the neighborhood surrounding turned into one big party. But I'm guessing the new stadium will figure it out. As long as they continue to make tickets cheap, and there are places for drunk college students to hang out between games, and places for drunk southern rednecks from Louisiana and Texas to park their RVs for weeks at a time, it will be fine. I look forward to getting back down there some time. I had a pretty great time when the La Crosse crew descended on Omaha. Even though I got super hungover and pissy.

The newborn that died is me having any interest in soccer. Good work FIFA. Are they fucking serious with that call on the U.S. yesterday? And I say "that call" because nobody knows what the call was. I guess it is a foul to have your arms pinned behind your back? Fuck soccer.

Congratulations St. Louis!

I am of course, congratulating them for their 2006 World Series Championship which obviously happened last week, and to the NL MVP Jeff Suppan who is starting tonight's game. There is no doubt, that since it is 2006, Suppan will continue his success and lead the Cards to back-to-back (more?) World Series titles. It is too bad the Brewers could not put together a package to get Suppan to sign with them, because it is obviously still 2006.


What?


It ISN'T 2006? Suppan DID sign with the Brewers and post a 29-36 record with a sterling 5.08 ERA and a 1.60 WHIP all while earning $40 million dollars?!?!?!? Where have I been? More importantly, where the fuck has Tony La Russa been? (Other than the tavern). And is Dave Duncan in ultimate fuck you mode that he thinks he can turn Soup around? Is his next trick to bring back Turnbow and Gagne to close? For an organization that is allegedly the best in baseball, this is un-fucking-believable.


Prediction: Mariners 7, Cardinals 5. Soup 3 1/3, 6ER, 1K, 4BB, which would be a huge improvement. Also, fuck the Cardinals.

It Was Gonna Happen At Some Point

The sports gambling is still in full swing, in case anyone wondered. I won $90 on the Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup, a bet I placed in Vegas last July. NHL has possibly become my favorite sport. I either listened to, or watched, probably 70 Blackhawks games this year. Their radio play-by-play guy is fantastic.

Anyways, with baseball season in full swing I usually bet (and lose) on the Brewers every day. And then I make a large parlay bet, usually a 9, 10 or 11 teamer. The possible winnings are anywhere from $100 to $1200. Today I made an 11 team parlay. And I won $911. That's fucking right.

That's really all I wanted to say.

Girlfriend and I are heading to a Casino/Golf resort in Iowa tomorrow. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come for me at the blackjack table.

USA v. England LIVE BLOG III!

So, I just finished with my Gyro Kabobs meal, so I'm going to put that full pound of what is allegedly lamb meat to good use. I'm going to do a running commentary of USA v. England soccer. A few notes before we start. I'm not certain I've sat through a whole soccer game from start to finish. I may have, I just don't recall. And I only have a loose understanding of the rules.

Also, this should probably be a whole post, but I just wanted to quickly get the Nebraska to Big 10 out of the way. Great addition. Good fit. Football is probably on par with Wisconsin, with the potential to be better. The basketball program is fucking awful. The baseball program is good, but UW doesn't have one so nobody really cares. The biggest thing is that I will have no problem hating Nebraska, and they are probably now my least favorite team. See, I lived in Nebraska for three years. Nothing was more fun that rooting against Nebraska on Saturday afternoons. Nebraska football in Nebraska= Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin. So that should give you an idea of how out of control their fans are. The best time to grocery shop was during a Husker game because the streets were ghost towns. Except bars. Those were packed. 'Sker football is life to the state of Nebraska. It is annoying as fuck if you live there. And I have hated Nebraska since the days of Tommie Frazier. Finally, the basketball rivalry with Creighton (where I went to proctology school) was fun, and gave me another reason to hate them. In closing, I fucking hate Husker Nation, and I hope they never win another game.

And who is next? Texas? Notre Dame? Rutgers? They need four more I think. NCAA Football '11 is already outdated (sort of) and it won't hit stores for a month. I guess this gives me a reason to upgrade from '07 next year. And my plans to buy College Hoops this year will need to be delayed a year I guess.

Now onto soccer.

12:39- Those horn things are awful. Am I going to have to listen to those the whole game?

12:40- Why is it England? Is England technically a country? Shouldn't it be Great Britain? Or the United Kingdom? And why is it only this way for soccer? In basketball and in the Olympics it is Great Britain. I need this explained.

12:41- Players that I could pick out of a lineup: Landon Donovan, and maybe Wayne Rooney.

12:42- ESPN is solely responsible for me watching this, and actively looking forward to the game.

12:45- How random is it that this game is in South Africa?

12:46- Prediction: England 1, U.S.A. 0. And I don't get sold on soccer.

12:54- This game is never going to start.

1:00- "Less than a half hour to kickoff". Fuck you ABC.

1:15- I think Russell Brand is funny. Although he pretty much just plays himself in every movie I think.

1:16- Busted. ESPN is replaying shit from last night. Either that or Alexi Lalas has a photographic memory. Because he just word for word repeated what I saw last night in his prediction. Maybe there is a global conspiracy in telling us this is live, and maybe it is like Tuesday in South Africa right now.

1:18- I would consider watching "The Last Airbender". I would not consider watching the game show that throws things off a building. It looks awful.

1:21- What kind of person risks it and flys to South Africa to watch soccer? I dunno, the fact that like 10 million people have full blown AIDS is probably enough to scare me away. I think any place I have to take like 12 shots before I go means I probably don't want to go there.

1:22- I hate that English people call sports "Sport". It is annoying.

1:23- Those horn things sound like bees. Really off putting. At least they probably don't have to worry about getting hit with bags of piss like in Mexico.

1:24- Stadium looks kind of small.

1:25- What exactly does a soccer coach do? I've never really understood how you can differentiate a good from bad player. Which is why little kids play it over baseball and basketball, because they can suck and nobody notices.

1:26- Oh Christ. National anthems yet?

1:27- Wayne Rooney was not singing England's anthem. Almost none of the Americans are singing. Ungrateful fucks. And aren't you supposed to put your hand over your heart and not dance around with flags like the assholes in the stands?

1:28- Is it a rule that you have to paint your face and wear a flag on your head to go to a soccer game?

1:29- Huh. 12 on 12. News to me.

1:30- Why did the captians trade shit before the game? Do they share orange slices at half time?

1:30- So the U.S. only had 11 on their "lineup" picture, and England had 12. It looks like there may only be 11 on 11. How little do I know about this sport?

1:33- Offsides penalty. I have no idea what that means. Everyone just seems to be running around aimlessly.

1:34- GOAL! For England. Limey fucks. I'm not sure it even looked that hard to do.

1:36- Is it even possible to come back? I'm being serious. One goal in soccer is like 12 runs in baseball.

1:40- So I guess a corner kick is good? The U.S. goalie is pissed.

1:41- Oooh. The England goalie had to catch a ball. That should be worth like a half a point.

1:43- Is there a time limit on how long to kick a corner kick? They just keep running "plays" or whatever over and over. It seems like in bounds plays in basketball. And the Amercians stepped on their dicks.

1:46- Another offsides. And I still don't get it.

1:52- Apparently, Jay DeMerit from the U.S. team is from Green Bay. Hey, how bout that?

1:54- Relegation is a cool idea. What if the Detroit Lions got relegated to the UFL and the Las Vegas Locos got to come to the NFL. That would certainly make Detroit's December games more exciting.

1:56- Yellow card! It seems to be a bit like a technical foul in basketball. Announcer said it was for "persistent infringement". Always a dick? Why is the U.S. getting this free kick thing now? Because of the yellow card?

1:58- You know what I just realized? There are no commercials. Kind of nice.

1:59- The U.S. goalie is rolling around like he's been shot. I think he got kicked diving for a ball. It appeared to be a nice play on his part. Color me skeptical of how bad he is really hurt tough. No soccer player rolls around and doesn't get back up after he gets attention.

2:01- And the clock just keeps running. This is the thing that is odd about their time. They just add the time to the end of the half, without any real explanation of how long the time is extended. It seems random.

2:02- Back is getting sore already. Not a good sign since there is about an hour of game time left.

2:02- After a three minute delay, the goalie is miraculously fine.

2:09- Yellow care on U.S. for no reason.

2:10- GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL!!!! "One of the softest goals you will ever see at this level of football" Says the announcer. The goalie just couldn't grab it. It was almost comical. 1-1.

2:12- "A huge mistake at any level" says the other announcer.

2:13- They are already discussing the other goalie as if this English goalie is going to be murdered after the game.

2:14- "If you buy a ticket, sometimes you win a raffle." --says English announcer while watching another replay.

2:15- During the replay a bomb must've went off, because there are two English players rolling around as if they are full of shrapnel. I bet they are up sprinting in the next 90 seconds.

2:16- And they're up.

2:17- I'm actually sort of enjoying this. Mostly the pretty colors. But it is entertaining I guess. It feels important. Alot more important to me than a Super Regional NCAA baseball game, which is my current other choice.

2:18- ALOT of running for very little result, which is why I never played. That and my high school didn't have a team.

2:19- Another offside that I don't get.

2:20- Halftime I guess.

2:35- And we're back. Halftime is short in soccer. Those fucking horns are still going.

2:38- A couple of near goals for England.

2:39- The noise is just unreal. There are the horns, but then it sounds like a high school marching band is going on in the background as well. How is this enjoyable?

2:40- Some other offside. I still don't get that call.

2:41- Oh wow. Break away for England. ROBBED by the U.S. Goalie.

2:45- England's coach looks like a prick. Also, he is wearing a suit and the U.S. coach is wearing a windsuit. Is Bob Bradley the Bob Huggins of soccer?

2:46- Bocanegra= black mouth?

2:48- Another yellow card for England. U.S. guy has been shot. To be fair, it looked like it hurt. And he's up.

2:49- Another shooting of a U.S. player. And another yellow card. Got kicked in the thigh. Probably hurt. He'll be fine. Free kick at close range.

2:51- No dice.

2:52- Oooh. A bleep. Must've been a bad word. How long do you think it takes the satellite feed to get here? A minute? Less? More?

2:53- Corner kick for England. Near make.

2:54- I find alot less to comment on because there are no commercials. And commercials are gold.

2:55- Holy shit. U.S. guy burned the English guy down. Hit the cross bar.

2:56- Can't continue with blood ala the NBA. Didn't know that.

3:02- Yellow card on U.S. Don't know why.

3:04- Oh shit. Perfect pass to England dude, wide open shot. Stoned!

3:05- Another dangerous shot. Big save by U.S.

3:06- RE: the clock. Wouldn't it be easier to count down like every other sport, and if someone gets hurt, STOP the clock?

3:13- England just fucked up a 4 on 2

3:20- Extra time.

And it finished as a tie. 1-1. Good times.