Author: aetchells

The Week in Review

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-It was Dorksided at O’Neals with a blowout win, 106-83, over Soylent Green: Now With More Girls. The Young the Old and Restless never got on track, and finished with a 69.

-The Great Mr. Peanut Controversy marred a hard fought contest at the Bards on Tuesday. It was the Sofa Kingdom who got the short end of the stick when Goodtimes 2nd guessed himself, and took off an extra point for loafers, which took the match to overtime. In overtime, it was the Narks taking home the victory.

–The Jams won by a single year at the Rendezvous. The weekly double question was, “Toy Story, Apollo 13, and Seven were all released in what year?” The Jams guessed right (1995) and Why So Angry Bob guessed 1996, and so the Jams took home a 94-85 win.

-The exact same thing happened at the Black Sheep. The Phils Will Win Before We Do guessed 1995 on the weekly double, Duane’s World guessed 1996, and the Phils walked away with a 97-88 win.

-An extremely tough picture round (Name that album cover) kept scores low at the Good Dog, and we had our closest game all week. El Jorge Curioso edged It Ain’t Over Till the Fat Man Sings, 86-85 to record their first ever quizzo win.

-The Sofa Kingdom returned to the Bards angry on Thursday, and took out their anger on the questions, ending the Hurtin’ Bombs four game winning streak, cruising to a 106-94 win.

Arond the Horn, brought to you by Piston Honda

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–Jimmy Rollins has his case for MVP made in Sports Illustrated. However, it’s a poorly written article, to be honest. J-Roll will not get MVP. This team will not make the playoffs, and there is no way that a choking, underachieving team is going to be awarded for a 2nd straight year with an MVP.

-We’re gonna start voting for best sequel on Monday.

-You know what I’m sick of? These iphone whiners who are complaining b/c Apple cut the price of the iphone. You see, resourceful (read: cheap) people like myself have made the fairly obvious observation that high technology always comes way down in price quickly (see ipods, HDTVs, computers, everything, etc.) and waited patiently for this to happen. Quit whining. You knew it too. You just wanted to be the first kid in town with a new toy, and you paid $200 extra dollars for that status. Hope it’s working out for you.

-It was on this date in 1978 that one of the most James Bond murders ever occurred. A Bulgarian dissident named Georgi Markov was shot at a bus stop…with an umbrella.

The Great Mr. Peanut Controversy

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Gonna be interesting to see what you think about this one, one of the greatest quizzo controversies ever. A question at quizzo this past week was as follows: List four of Mr. Peanut’s accesories (he has five). The answers I was looking for were a monocle, top hat, white gloves, a cane, and spats. One team answered “black loafers”. At first, I accepted that answer, since he is wearing black shoes. But after further reflection, I realized that that answer was wrong: spats are never worn with loafers, so his shoes cannot be loafers. Had they simply answered “black shoes”, I would have accepted it, but I simply could not accept loafers. The team in question lost in overtime. So the million dollar question: should I have accepted black loafers? Leave your thoughts below.

The Read a Book Controversy

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The video for Read a Book (NOT SAFE FOR WORK AT ALL! Lots of cussing) is stirring up a lot of controversy, and a lot of people are calling it racist. I find it interesting that no-one considers rap videos encouraging the murder of other African Americans racist, but that a rap calling for people for buying land instead of rims is. And God forbid a rap video actually be thought provoking. Watch the CNN “journalist”, who certainly never questioned Bush this hard in the leadup to a freaking war, attack the creators of the video (And Here is part 2). It is incredible how clueless this journalist is. Does he not understand the irony that if they had just simply done a normal song about reading, they would have never appeared on CNN? BET should have played it at night instead of the daytime, but other than that, I think that it is an excellent satire of how despicable and ignorant hip hop music has become. Here is the rapper’s website. And here is an excellent column about the video.

As you probably know, I coach a lot of young African American children. Trust me, most of what they listen to and see on TV is a hell of a lot more offensive than this. And I am qute confident that 12 year olds understand sarcasm and satire.

Phillies trade Tom Gordon for batting tee

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In an effort to lower the team’s ERA, the Phils have decided to trade Tom Gordon to a tee ball team in Newark, Delaware, in exchange for a tee. “We felt like we needed to upgrade our bullpen, and we think that acquiring this tee does that,” said general manager Pat Gillick. The Ducks of the Newark tee ball league were overjoyed by the trade. “We think that Tom will be teach some of the younger players the difference between 3rd base and the pitching rubber,” said Slim Widgeon, coach of the Ducks. “More importantly, in tee ball, the pitcher doesn’t have to actually pitch, so we don’t think that Tom will be able to hurt us in that department.”

The move was seen as a PR move by the Phils, as the tee has never beaten it’s wife or set any Venezuelans on fire. The Phillies also traded Antonio Alfonseca to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival for an interpretive dancer who specializes in “bringing moonbeams to life.”

Sports shorts

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-This amazing sentence comes from LJ Smith: This is a big test for me to see where my groin’s going to be. Um, LJ, you’re groin is going to be in the same place it always was. Or do some U.S. Americans not have groins? Oh, and I love the fact that today in Philly the most blue collar, football crazy hardasses will be spending their afternoon discussing another man’s groin.

-This just in: There is no such thing as momentum. The Phillies since sweeping the Mets: 2-3. The Mets since being swept: 5-0. And oh, by the way, if we do make the playoffs and Cole doesn’t come back, what would be our three man rotation? Kendrick, Lohse, Moyer? Wow.

-Chipper Jones had this to say after last night’s loss: Waaaaaaaa! I want my binkie! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

-The feud between Comcast and the Big Ten Network over who gets to show Big 10 games is getting pretty heated. Always fun to see heavyweights mixing it up.

-Speaking of heavyweights, the annual showdown between Temple and Buffalo, by far the two worst teams in D-I college football, takes place this weekend. And for the first time since 1793, Temple is favored to win a football game.

Around the Horn, brought to you by the Birthday boy!

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-I saw a picture of Natalie Portman and I thought she had a log neck, so then I started thinking about the women in Myanmar who wear neck rings. So I looked them up, and it turns out that their necks aren’t elongated at all, because that is impossible. It just pushes their clavicles down.

–Jessica Pressler, who is probably most famous (or infamous) in Philly for the renowned 6th Burrough article, is moving to, where else, Brooklyn. I don’t know what number borough that is, but as a fan of almost all of the stories she’s written (minus one, ahem), I wish her the best of luck.

–This is great: The Dallas Stars dropped the gloves and took a shot at the NBA referee scandal as part of its campaign to sell seats for the 2007-08 season. A billboard near the American Airlines Center, the building the Stars share with the Dallas Mavericks, carries the message: “The only thing we shave is the ice.”

–On the Road was published on this date 50 years ago. I can honestly say that the book heavily influenced my decision to move to Hawaii. Here is the famous NYT review when the book was released.

-Happy 32nd, Rod!