Worst Facial Hair in Sports

I want to do a list of the five worst facial hair styles in sports over the past year. This will draw more heavily from the NFL than any other sport because, well, MLB and NBA bore me.

5. Ricky Williams - Everyone's favorite pot head, Ricky, after returning from a year off and a suspension in a cloud of blue smoke, sported this lovely rug on his face. He looks like he spent the last year doing something really manly like wrestling lions barehanded in the Savannahs of Kenya rather than sitting around and blowing grass with Lenny Kravitz. Well, sadly, he's not really that rugged, he's just really strange. Who knows what sort of mayhem will get to see in the next season?


4. Jake Plummer - The quarterback for the Denver Broncos who can't stop turning the ball over. He was my starting fantasy quarterback this year, and everytime I played him I felt like I needed to shave. He's got some sort of weird Kenny Loggins/Charles Manson look, and for some reason, it just doesn't seem right for a quarterback. He had one of the best season of his career, though, so I'll bet we see Jake the Snake with an even bigger beard next season. I still will be a little concerned that he'll start singing "Danger Zone" while brainwashing women to kill people.


3. Apollo Anton Ohno - I know this speedskater won gold and two bronze and I should be thankful for representing our country and winning the 500m race, but really, when I look at him all I can think is "You know that guy is a total douchebag. Just look at his soul patch." Also, the fact that women think he's hot, he has the same name as a god and he's an Olympian. Any one of those four things would immediately cause me to jump to the conclusion that this may be a fellow who likes himself a lot. But mostly it's the facial hair. I was happier when I thought he was an Italian.

2. Adam Morrison - The leading scorer in the NCAA and an ugly, ugly kid. His mustache is a little hard to see, it's the bit around his mouth that looks like dirt and shadows, and that's exactly why he belongs on this list. This guy is going to play in the NBA and he's wearing the same facial hair as that kid who wanted to look grown up in 6th grade. Adam Morrison's mom could grow a better mustache than that. J.J. Redick is making fun of him for looking ridiculous. Shave your face, Adam. And stop crying on the court.


1. Kyle Orton - The starter for Chicago last season after Rex Grossman went down (again) sported what may be the ugliest neck beard in the history of facial hair. It was a tough call between Adam Morrison's dirty upper lip and this, but ultimately, I couldn't pass up the chance to write that previous sentence. He just looked like an Indiana bumpkin while cleanshaven at Purdue, but now that he's moved on up to the big time, he looks like the sort of fellow you'd see in a tattered suit coat on a streetcorner downtown with a 40 of OE in a brown paper bag. But don't worry, since Chicago now has Grossman and Griese, we'll never see him again! Interestingly enough, on a team with people named Grossman and Griese, it's the guy named Orton who looks disgusting.

CHEEAP WAY TO BIGGER UR SHORT && THIN D11CK taught

Gmail is usually pretty good about catching spam. However, one got through today, which made me chuckle. After than chuckle, I wondered how much humor there would be in my pile of inbox spam, and it turns out, the answer is a lot.

The title of this entry was one subject line. I was a little taken aback at first, given the implications and directness of language. I opened it, to see just how Ms. Kera Yan proposes to bigger my short && thin d11ck, and unfortuntely, I began to suspect that English was not Ms. Yan's first language. I was a little disappointed, too, because she did say her way was cheeap.

The way that the names attached to each e-mail address is also quite fascinating. They usually put two randomly selected names together so that it is conceivable that there is a person on the other end, sending you information on how to get illegal pharmaceuticals for rock bottom prices. (Maybe Bud Selig needs to start snooping in Barry Bonds's spam collector.) The fake name technology in unwanted spam mailings, however, must lag behind the Madden fake name technology because I'm pretty sure that out of the six and half billion people roaming this planet, not a single one of them is named "Scraped J. Bethlehem." It might be tough to find "Antechamber K. Eula" on a novelty license plate in the tourist traps and if you were to ask the folks at Disney World to "Shipboards B. Bacchanali" on your mouse ear hat, they'd probably look at you funny.

I understand that there is very little human oversight in this field, but really, why would something like "Burl Willis," "Deterrent O. Sequoya," or "Waclaw Macintosh" even be in the database that the randomizer draws from? That Nigerian widow, Dr. Abacha, was much more polite and believable than "Vigor I. Shoestring." If I'm going to by vlitagra, levitora or cialmis, I'm going to buy it from her. After all, she is a doctor.

I'm right on this. Trust me.

I hate it when writers or speakers in any media use the expression "Trust me" following a statement of any sort. It is a sort of condescension that makes me feel like I'm talking to a college freshman who is taking a 300 level class who thinks he knows something. "Stalin could've beaten Hannibal in a spelling bee, trust me." It features often in internet message boards (which is a post all its own) with things like, "I happen to know a guy who sits next to Joe Montana at his kids' basketball games. He wasn't complaining about money at the Super Bowl, trust me."

The words always follow something that is either absurd or unprovable. If it wasn't, then the words "Trust me" would be entirely unnecessary. "The natural log of e(x) is x. Trust me." I'm sure of that relationship. After all, the word "engineer" is in my blogger name. Do I become more trustworthy by saying, "Trust me"? No, I become less, because I am suggesting that the words I am saying cannot stand on their own merits, like Nick without Jessica.

If I see it in print, it's doubly offensive, because in order to take anything serious in a newspaper or on an article on a website, the author must be trusted. By asking me to trust them, they make me doubt whether that initial trust was misplaced, since he obviously isn't sure that he is getting it. From now on, whenever anybody says "trust me" after anything to me I am going to immediately distrust them and demand proof. "It's three o'clock right now. Trust me." Not so fast, pally, you better prove that one. "Trust me, I'm not going to break into your home at night and murder your pets." Yeah, right, I've heard that one before. "That baby cannot start as fullback for the St. Louis Rams, trust me." I think you may be lying. "Trust me, you don't want to pick up that snapping turtle from the front." I don't know, why should I trust you?

It's one of those things that if you have to ask, you don't deserve it. Like a free round of drinks, an invitation to a party, a compliment, or to get married. If you force it, it just seems unnatural and awkward; you just have to earn them. Don't believe me? Well, you can go to hell.

Mediocre Bowl

I watch the commercials. I love the good ones (mostly just Geico right now) and complain about the awful ones. I also like football. I like college better than pro, but we haven't seen any college games for like a month, so I gotta deal with these guys. But the Super Bowl is the showcase for both of these cases. It also gives me a chance to see how women view football for a day.

Here are my top five and bottom five commercials. A few ground rules, though: No movie trailers, no commercials for shows (so Shaq crying for Desperate Housewives gets a pass, unfortunately) and boring ones don't get much attention. The bad ones will be offensive, not dull. The list of good ones will mostly be my favorites, the bad ones, though, will get some pretty serious analysis.

High Five
5. Sheep Streaker (Budweiser) - A shorn sheep streaked through a football game of Clydesdales. Personifying nudity in animals is pretty funny, especially when that animal makes a "baa" noise.
4. Russian Yakety Sax (Sprint) - A guy with a Russian accent explains that his phone can download a song for any occasion, and the song for couch on fire was Yakety Sax. I can think of no situation, though, for which Yakety Sax is inappropriate.
3. Crime Deterrent (Sprint) - Two guys compare their cell phones, and the Sprint guy says his has crime deterrent and throws the phone at the guy and hits him in the face. Could have been improved if they were playing Yakety Sax, though.
2. Magic Fridge (Bud Light) - A rotating panel in the wall is used to hide Bud Light from guests, but the neighbors receive it as a gift instead. This could've taken the top spot, but it finished kind of weak. Just like an actual Bud Light.
1. Machete Enthusiasts (Emerald Nuts) - Eagle-eyed Machete Enthusiasts Recognize A Little Druid Networking Under the Stairs. Every single one of theirs is dynamite. Dynamite!

Low Five
5. Mick Jagger in HD (Pregame) - This isn't really a commercial, but it would be criminal of me to not mention the fact that seeing Mick on a 126" projector in HD is like staring at the sun and when you close your eyes you see Roseanne naked. While taking a poop.
4. The one with just the monkeys (Careerbuilder.com) - Careerbuilder.com does commercials with monkeys. We've seen like 3 of them before SBXL. I put this one on the list because it was lazy and everybody else liked it. Well, I'm here to tell you it really sucked. The jackasses were really fully though. They were wearing pants! But the other one was crap.
3. Littler Monster (Hummer) - Ultraman and the grandmother from the old tv show Dinosaurs got it on and had a kid: the H3. No wonder the damn car is so ugly.
2. Whopperettes (Burger King) - This abortion of a commercial lasted like a minute and a half and an orgy of condiments really doesn't do it for me. I'm not surprised that idea came out of the same people that produced that weird king mask. Even referring to him as "The freaky king" wasn't enough.
1. Jay Mohr/Diddy (Diet Pepsi) - Either of the commercials would have fit, but I chose the music one. I have only seen like 15 Super Bowls in my life, and I have absolutely no problem with saying that this was the singular worst commercial in the history of Super Bowls. It may have been the worst ad ever created. I am including everything in the Taco Bell catalogue (which dodged a bullet not making the list). I am including the ED commercials. This is it. This is going to be one of those things that people remember forever about Jay Mohr. Nobody liked Diddy before, but I was on the fence with Mohr. There is no longer fence sitting now. When I saw this, I missed looking at Mick Jagger in HD.

Just put it on my tab

This may seem surprising, but on Friday night, for the first time ever, I opened a bar tab. I normally pay in cash. I have to say, opening a tab is far superior in everyway to simply paying cash. I may never pay cash at a bar again. It's akin to the very first time you try boxers instead of the kiddie underoos. It's liberating. And it makes you feel like a big boy.

The first thing that happens after the tab is opened, the bartender asks, "What can I get you, Mr. Sighted?" He doesn't say my name when I pay with cash. Who doesn't like to hear their name, even if it's from a stranger who only knows it because I gave him a card that says I promise to give him money? Not me, that's who. I don't not like that a lot.

Later on, you don't have to worry about making the right change, if you're going to accidentally throw your wallet halfway across the bar while removing money or maybe drop it into a small pile of spilled vodka. You simply say, "I'll have a Jack and Coke, sir, and please, put it on my tab." What an empowering phrase that is. "Can I get you something? I'll put it on my tab!" If only everything worked like that.

Actually, I guess that's pretty much how a credit card works all the time, but it doesn't have the romance of the bar tab. Next time, I think I'll open two.

You're welcome, ass.

I was recently (by recently I mean about 10 minutes ago) driving back from the lab when I decided to be nice and let somebody into the line of traffic out of the parking lot. After all, it was a red light. You know what the driver, after pulling into the spot I so generously left her in traffic, didn't give me while doing that? I guess literally everything could be an answer to that question, but I'm going for a thank you wave here. You know, if you read your history, not getting a thank you wave is what caused Kaiser Wilhelm to invade Belgium in 1914. When someone lets you into traffic, give them a thank you wave.

Doing Whatever a Coach K Can

I try to watch Clemson basketball whenever I can. I went to the Wake Forest game, it was fun. I couldn't make it into the Duke game, but I did watch it on tv. I watched Clemson beat Georgia Tech today, and that was great. But the important thing is what I realized while watching the Duke game on tv, and it's entirely unrelated to Clemson basketball.

In case you don't know, Duke is coached by Mike Krzyzewski, the man below. Nobody knows how to pronounce or spell his name (the spelling above is an approximation, like 3.14 for Pi), so they just call him Coach K.

He is a fantastic coach. He is probably the best college coach out there, and I respect him for it greatly. However, I can't get over the fact that he reminds me of a goblin. Especially when he is angry. It gets distracting when I am watching basketball and Duke is playing. And since Duke is Duke, every one of their games is televised by ESPN, because everybody loves Duke. At least, everybody who doesn't love a competing team. They're like the Notre Dame of college basketball. People just like them for no reason. Unless they hate them. None of this, however, changes the fact that the man looks like a goblin. It has changed my whole viewing experience; so when most people are watching the basketball court and seeing something like this:

Which isn't particularly unusual, since Coach K is frequently looking angry while directing his Blue Devils using some sort of hand signal towards the court while pointing at his unit. What I see, though, is slightly different; it is actually something more like this:

Duke got beat today by Georgetown, it was their first loss of the season. Their next game is on the 26th against VTech, I'm sure it'll be on ESPN. Just watch out for pumpkin bombs.

There's only one thing that they're good for

Super Bowl season is upon us, so my mind is thinking about commercials since nobody in the country expects anyone other than Indianapolis (motto: Indiana's not that bad) to win this year. The big news is that Levitra is no longer an NFL sponsor, so we won't have to waste our time with a smiling, middle aged man throwing innuendo through a tire swing. (Or was that Cialis? Who gives a damn?)

I do look forward to commercials put out by the Anheuser-Busch Corporation. This year, however, I have my doubts. The reason for this, as you have probably already guessed, is a fictional character named Ted Fergusun, the Bud Light Daredevil. This is an unfortunate campaign, mostly due to execution. It's a pretty funny concept that was poorly cast and directed, leaving the once great advertising brand forever stained, not unlike Aerosmith appearing on the Super Bowl halftime show a few years ago with NSYNC and Britney Spears, or releasing Just Push Play.

So far, I have seen three BLDd commercials, and really, if you've seen one, you've seen them all. It's a nerdy guy dressed in skate pads and goggles preparing to do something inane (but daring) like staying late at the office or filling up with low test instead of medium, followed by falling down after grunting, getting oxygen and then asking for a Bud Light. There is always a cut to Bud Light titles followed by a poorly delivered one-liner that isn't funny.

Here's an example:
[Shot of BLDd in skating pads with angry look on his face]
BLDd: I'm going to try my hardest stunt yet! Try to eat clam chowder with a fork!
[Dramatic music - cut to BLDd at a table with a fork and a bowl of soup in front of him]
BLDd: (scooping) I got one clam and no chowder! (grunts)
Off frame voice: Time!
[BLDd grunts and falls down]
Off frame voice: Get him some oxygen! All of our dialogue ends in exclamation points!
BLDd: (whispering) Bud Light!
Off frame voice: Even the whispers!
[Cut to Bud Light titles]
BLDd: Don't try this at home!
[End]

If they made that one, it would be in at least the upper 50th %ile of Ted Fergusun commercials. I have never used "%ile" in writing before, and I must say that I like it. It would not, however, do so well in comparison to the other Anheuser-Busch commercials. Like the pilot jumping out of the airplane for Bud Light or the Budweiser lizard ("Never send a ferret to do a weasel's job"), for example. So, Bud Light advertisement guy, give us a good one again this Super Bowl, and we'll salute you as a real man of genius.