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Izzo’No

tom-izzo
Say it ain't so Tom.

Sports with Bob McFlurry

I’ve been watching the Cleveland Cavaliers courting of Michigan State coach Tom Izzo for the last week or two. It may be a surprise to you that I’m not most interested in whether he accepts the job and stays on to coach Lebron James. I am most interested in whether or not in the near future Michigan State is brought up on some sort of NCAA violations/sanctions. With high profile coaches like John Calipari and Pete Carroll leaving their programs for other jobs right before they were brought up (publicly) on NCAA sanctions it makes me wonder if Izzo might have some of the same motivation to relocate.

I do not have any proof of anything and I am not accusing Tom Izzo of any wrongdoing, however, it seems weird that after all this time at Michigan State that he might to opt for a pro coaching gig.  Money I guess would be one factor, change of scenery may be another, but there are so many “don’t do it” reasons to stay put in the college ranks where you are (hopefully) comfortable and successful. NBA players aren’t always “coachable”, they don’t necessarily need to listen to the coach to stay on the team and you are stuck with these players until their contracts expire or are traded. In the NCAA I think Izzo more or less looks to reload talent every couple of years, things stay fresh and the kids are looking to win a championship, hustle and play well enough and desperate enough to get drafted. There is obviously a higher level of motivation for the average NCAA player to work hard than the average NBA player who already signed a multi-year contract.

I wish the best for Tom Izzo, if he wants to jump to the pro’s for a position he wants he’s allowed to do so. I just hope it’s not a decision resulting from a pending investigation into NCAA allegations. I don’t think it’s just coincidence that John Callipari and Pete Carroll walked away from their positions right before being sanctioned and because of that we can’t know if Izzo to the Cav’s is any different unless we don’t hear anything in the next year or so.

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Lane Kiffin the Salesman

lane-kiffin
I don't know either they just keep giving me jobs?

Sports with Bob McFlurry

I don’t see what the big deal is with Lane Kiffin and why he’s a head football coach or was even considered for a head football coaching job. Yes he had some success as an assistant at USC in the mid 2000’s, more a product of the elite players the school collected than coaching in my mind. Yes Lane Kiffin took over recruiting for USC in 2005 but only after the program had restored itself as a national powerhouse. How hard is it to recruit players to a program that won a national championship the year before and finished in the top 2 or 3 in the years previous? It’s a sales job that I’m sure the Sham-Wow guy could do.

I’m not hating on Lane Kiffin as an assistant or a recruiter, I’m hating on Lane Kiffin as an arrogant son of a bitch. I’m hating on Lane Kiffin because he went 5-15 in the NFL and was miraculously given the head coaching job at Tennessee. I’m hating on Lane Kiffin because after he went 7-6 with a Bowl loss in 2009 he was magically given an even more high profile head coaching job back at USC after Pete Carroll left. So after a career head coaching record of 12 and 21 he somehow gets rewarded for not getting the job done. It’s the kind of promotions you’ll see in the government not in football.

One thing I do understand about the allure of Lane Kiffin is that he comes with his father Monte to run the defense. Monte Kiffin who is essentially the architect of the Tampa-2 defense that had the Buccaneers as one of the most dominant defenses in the NFL for 10 years or so.  I guess that really figures into the hiring process when you have your legend of a father in there with you at the interview.

He was lucky to get the Tennessee job, a job he kept for a year before moving to USC and inciting a riot on campus Knoxville. Now he’s being brought back to USC where he coached the player that got the University suspended from post-season play for the next two years. Not that it really matters. Judging by his coaching record I don’t think USC had a chance at a BCS game so the only thing USC loses out on is cash from the “INSERT SPONSOR HERE” Bowl. One thing is for sure though, Lane Kiffin is a hell of a salesman. Somehow he got 3 teams to buy his bullshit as a head coach.

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Why I’m not on Facebook

facebBy: Billy BeerSlugger

It always amuses me to see the shock and amazement when I tell someone that I’m not on Facebook. Then I give them the reasoning that the first thing Skynet does when it becomes self aware is to grab all the Facebook data as an easy means to find and kill you. Not everyone gets the Terminator reference but the ones that do suddenly have a troubled look on their face.

Maybe the Skynet scenario is a little extreme but don’t think that the government isn’t tapping into this info to form a better bio of tens if not hundreds of millions of U.S. Facebook users. Couple that Facebook info with data that Google collects including entire search histories and geo-location data, enabling whomever has access to the data to potentially find out information about you that your mom or best friend doesn’t even know.

Besides a personal want to live off the grid as much as possible (for fear of Skynet/Big Brother) , I just don’t see the allure of Facebook beyond its initial novelty, reconnecting with people. I personally don’t want to talk to anyone from High School past the people I already do. I either have a phone number or email address of most of my friends and acquaintances in college. I’m on at least two personal email chains that get daily attention from multiple people. I rock Google Chat from Gmail and my phone. That’s all I can really handle on a day to day basis. I don’t need to know that Jimmy A. is going to the gym or that Jenny B. is now in a relationship. I really just don’t care enough to read about my friends let alone people I barely know. I also don’t care enough to post my own info for people to look at.

There’s also something inherently contrarian about me, if everyone is on Facebook, I’m anti-facebook. If the general American public loves American Idol, Lebron James, and The Black Eyed Peas then I am almost automatically against those things. This likely stems from the thought pattern that likens most of the general public to sheep being herded and prodded in directions which best benefits the powers that be.

The last reason I will give that I’m not on Facebook is that my Mom is on Facebook. Yes the same woman who can barely retrieve voicemails off of her mobile phone is a blossoming member of the social media club that 500 million other people are on. I don’t need her looking at pictures of how wasted I got last weekend or trivializing over what my last post meant. I also don’t need her leaving me notes like the ones she used to pack in my lunches during grade school. Wouldn’t jibe with my uber cool BeerSlugger persona.

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Toddlers, Tiaras & To Catch a Predator

And the winner is... Pedophiles!
And the winner is... Pedophiles!

By: Billy BeerSlugger

I may be behind the times a little bit because last night was the first time I had witnessed the Soft Core porn for child molesters that is Toddlers and Tiaras on TLC. It is a show in which young girls under the age of ten get all glam’ed up with makeup, fake hair, spray tans, fancy dresses and prance around a stage while a bunch of house moms live vicariously through their children.

While I’m not one to tell people what to do with their children or in favor of making laws banning child beauty pageants, this is certainly a show that the world in general could probably do without. In a time where the European Union is considering saving all web searches in an effort to combat child porn (or just be big brother) and Dateline: To Catch a Predator is popular for catching Child Sexual Abusers TLC should probably think twice about the programming they are putting on TV for weirdo’s to consume.

The parents of the kids on this show should also be reasoned with. Aside from my reasoning that no child should be subjected to being on a reality TV show, I don’t think that the sexing up 3 – 10 year old girls is a good thing for America and I think really puts those kids into danger. It kind of gives child sex abusers an excuse, “I wouldn’t have kidnapped and abused the little girl on Toddlers & Tiaras if she wasn’t so damn sexy on the show.”.

Maybe your girlfriend watches this show, maybe your Mom or sister, it doesn’t matter; if you find pleasure in watching this show you are a weirdo. If you are a male and watch the show you obviously have some problems. If no one watches the show it gets cancelled and maybe you save some little girl from getting sexually abused. Think about that next time you turn on your TV.

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The John Butler Trio

butlerBy: Robby Ripchord

For the most part I’m not really into hippy folk rock jam bands like Dave Matthews and it’s funny that I’m writing this and The John Butler Trio opened up for Dave Matthews one summer on tour in the U.S.

Fronting the band is of course John Butler but it has had many members on bass and percussion. Butler was  born in California but moved to Australia at age 11 and has went platinum there a couple of times. He seems to be a very accomplished guitarist from the limited amount of videos I’ve seen on Youtube. He can remind you of Jack Johnson at times but more I guess I would have to say Rusted Root is probably the closest pigeonhole I can put him but I’d rather listen to Butler any day of the week.

All of Butler’s music is recorded and released independently which probably partly explains why I never heard of him since last week given the force fed crap on the radio and MTV. 

April Rising was released in late March and is how I discovered him on Lala.com and the album cover is this supremely kick ass shot of a lion head to the right. It debuted on the Billboard Top 100 at #36 in America. Highlights of the album I thought included One Way Road, C’mon Now, Don’t Wanna See Your Face, Take Me, To Look Like You and my personal favorite you can listen to below.

Check out the entire Album for free at Lala.com.

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Sandra Bullock vs Jesse James

bullockBy: Billy BeerSlugger

Why is anyone really surprised that this badass biker dude with tons of tatoos and used to be married to a Porn Star cheated on Sandra Bullock? Seriously? I know women are all up in arms about this but given the situation was anyone really taken aback by this infidelity revelation?  Let me go back a sentence and repeat the whole fact that he was married to and has a child with porn star Janine Lindemulder.

So dude goes from being married to an award winning Porn Star and probably being used to some pretty crazy shit in terms of the relationship to being married to Sandra Bullock, award winning movie star who is probably a lot less sexually adventurous.  Then James goes outside of the marriage to get some fetish sex or whatever he’s into and everyone’s like, “oh my God, how could you cheat on Sandra Bullock”.  No one saw this coming? Really? Seriously? You poor naive general public.

It is fascinating to me that this is such a huge news story. Jesse James has seen such a media backlash (somewhat rightfully so) but who’s really at fault here? Probably Jesse James for lying about wanting to be in a monogamous relationship (if that was even an agreement) or Sandra Bullock for marrying a guy who’s best known for making custom motorcycles, being a bodyguard for heavy metal bands and being married to a popular late 90’s porn star?

Just let that marinate for a little bit. I’m not saying that it’s right to cheat but couldn’t this situation have been avoided altogether if both people had exercised a little logical thinking?

BTW: Shocker this story comes out after right after Bullock wins an oscar. Nothing like a bitch using her body to make money, then make even more money by releasing the story about using her body to make money. It’s a disgrace to honest, hard working strippers and hookers everywhere.

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Lady Gaga: Telephone

By: Billy BeerSlugger

I kind of like Lady Gaga as an artist. She takes a lot of risks fashion wise, puts herself out there and the music is still a little teeny-bopper-esque but it’s usually catchy. She tends to also show a lot of skin which would be a lot cooler if she were hotter but that’s neither here nor there.

The reason I’m writing this is because she came out with a video for her latest song Telephone which isn’t a bad song really.  Thing is the video is kind of crazy with equal parts fashion, dancing, art and scantily clad women. At 9 minutes it’s long too and it kind of makes me mad that the music video has essentially died because this is a good music video. Not epic but certainly stylish and she tries to put the hermaphrodite rumors to rest by essentially getting full frontal nude in the video (though blurred out).

Anyway who gives a shit what I think:

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Do It Yourself: Friends and Family Edition

ambition_the_office_webBy: Billy BeerSlugger

They say you can’t please everyone all the time and that’s never more true in your personal life with friends, family and romantic interests.  As a given, people will complain no matter what it is, weather, location selection, crap about work, it doesn’t really matter. If you know enough people, then you know a couple people who will bitch and complain about pretty much everything under the sun and not only do nothing to fix their supposed problem but also offer up no suggestions or feelings before or during events transpiring.

It’s either too much money or the amenities could have been better if you’re the one that booked the trip.  The food could have used a little more spice or it was way too spicy if you’re the cook. Person A says we could have gone to this bar or that restaurant instead of the place you went out of your way to make reservations at or booked a party at. “This wedding reception isn’t as nice as it could have been”.

If you’re a “Do’er”, you’re used to being dealing with the negative feedback which will inevitably occur from people you know who have no bearing on the planning or decision making aspect of the events, food or general ambiance you try to pull off.

Not only are you dealing with people who as a whole probably never could be happy, but you’re also dealing with people who will complain about things even when they were asked about their input and gave no response or are indifferent at the time.

“Oh it’s way too cold out” says the person who just came into the office. “Man it is just ungodly hot outside” says the same person in the summer. Guess there’s no pleasing you huh? Maybe you should have moved to some sort of climate that doesn’t get too hot or too cold Goldilocks.

I guess my point here is that given a topic or situation, invariably people will bitch about something. I tend not to bitch about things, especially things I have no control over like the weather or traffic. If there is something that bothers me I’ll do my best to fix that situation instead of just talking about the problem. If I can’t fix the problem I’m not going to bore you with it.  This isn’t a situation where I wish people were more like me but in general, if you’re bitching and complaining about things instead of fixing them I have no patience for you.

ps. this article seemed better in my head. well fuck, can’t win them all.

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The Mark of the Beast 666

236223_400_300By: Billy BeerSlugger

I’ve long been interested in Doomsday scenarios. During a 2 day faked sickness in High School I smoked pot and perused the Book of Revelation in the Bible among other things.  I read it again after 9/11 as well as various Nostradamus quatrains looking for any correlation to what was happening at that time. I’m into Discovery Channel programs on Asteroids and other possible major threats to the Human Race. These things interest me.

One thing you can read in the Book of Revelation is that everyone will be branded:

“the Beast”: “He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”

This brings me to a Washington Post article I recently read that possibly fits into this scenario. There’s a bill in Virginia outlawing the involuntary insertion of microchips into the body which would hold medical info and serve other functions which could give away a persons location.

First, my dog has one of these things implanted in him. Should he ever be lost somehow the chip is activated via satellite and thus is able to reveal his location. It’s a great feature. Further, I’m sure that every parent of an abducted child wishes they had implanted one of these devices into their children and saved a whole lot of emotional or physical trauma to both parties.

Past children (or people with the mental capacity of children) and dogs though I really don’t see a need to have a microchip implanted into the body when you’re an adult. It’s an invasion of privacy in my opinion and whatever positive aspects the microchip could bring about the potential negative effects are far greater. Being able to track people’s movements is certainly not something I want to happen to me. I mean I’m not doing anything wrong but if I did happen to accidentally kill a hooker and have to bury her in the Pine Barrens, the microchip would certainly be a huge obstacle to getting away with it.

Not that the Revelations passage hasn’t been linked to 100 other scenarios including to things done by Caesar, Nero, Napoleon and Hitler.  However, this situation is certainly relevant and worthy of some contemplation.  Overall, I don’t want some microchip or other technology in my body unless it makes my dick really huge and even then I would have to think long and hard about it. No pun intended.

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Porn as a Driver of Technology

internet_forBy: Billy BeerSlugger

I don’t think it’s any secret that SEX SELLS! You already know this but do you have any inkling of how it has shaped the media you use to watch non-x rated movies or how the online Porn community pioneered e-commerce as well as helped the advancement of the internet in terms of broadening networks and to a certain extent internet speed increases.

Starting with the VHS vs. Betamax format wars which were similar to the Bluray vs. HD DVD format wars, it was eventually the porn makers who chose VHS that turned the tide and made it the dominant format. So in that respect Porn had a huge impact on how you watched movies in the 80’s through the late 90’s and even into the early 2000’s.  If you think about it, Porn on VHS was completely revolutionary. No longer did people have to go to a movie theater and spank off with a bunch of strangers (yes this happened and still happens).  People could buy a VCR and X-Rated video’s of their choice and now spank off the pornographic material in privacy of their own home. No wonder the public chose VHS as their preferred video media and made it the standard, there’s a lot of Porn watchers out there.

Further, we’ll focus on the Internet, the next evolutionary step in expediting porn to it’s inexhaustible customer base.  In the early 90’s, when AOL and Compuserve were gaining subscribers by the hundreds of thousands, it wasn’t the thirst for knowledge that was fueling the hype.  All at once, images that were once confined to the pages of Playboy and Penthouse were being shared freely over the internet. You didn’t need leave your house to grab naked pictures of Pam Anderson.

While still pictures pale in comparison to full motion video, I believe this was a major factor in why the Porn industry once again helped drive technology, in this case the internet to it’s current standards and availability. Streaming Porn videos and porn videos downloadable on the internet paved the way for sites like Youtube. The increased bandwidth consumption as more and more people used the internet as a Spank Bank caused Internet Service Providers to expand availability and data speed at an extremely rapid rate. Thus again, Porn helped shape the way we use technology.

With porn sites having to charge their customer base, Porn was pretty much the first adopters of online payments. Things like Ebay and Paypal may not have taken off without Porn companies ability to show that the internet could be a marketplace. Maybe the Internet without Porn doesn’t give us Youtube, Myspace or Facebook for another 10 years or so.  Maybe we would still be using phone lines to dial into the internet to check out news stories and check email. Who knows. All I know is that love it or hate it, Pornography has and will continue to be (to a certain extent) a driving factor on how we view media.

In this article I’m not saying the Porn industry fuels technology, what I’m saying is that most media technology has to be adopted by the Porn Community before it will be adopted by the general public. With Avatar kind of Pioneering 3-D movie making, can you see the first 3-D porno coming out within the next year? If it makes your masturbation experience that much more enjoyable can you see 3-D TV format being adopted at an incredible rate by TV networks  broadcasting in 3-D HD? Then the general public will clamor for 3-D HT TV’s.  May take some time for that to happen but how else do you see TV evolving?

Next time you’re spanking it to Internet Porn think how far we’ve come from coming from Jerking Off in shady movie theaters and how far technology has advanced because of it.