Song of the Week

"Post To Be" - Omarion featuring Chris Brown and Jhene Aiko
This song has two strikes against it 1) it features woman-batterer Chris Brown and 2) it changes "supposed to be" into "post to be", but it also has a lot going for it 1) Omarion of B2K fame and 2) a sample of reggae classic "Murder She Wrote."

Near-Death Experience

There's an old joke about the baseball player who said he missed a home run by an inch. The listener asks "oh it hit the top of the fence" and the ballplayer replies "no, it missed my bat by an inch."
Similarly, I missed death or serious injury by an inch or two on the way to work a couple weeks ago.
The road wasn't particularly damp and I don't think it was raining or snowing at the time, but I came upon some sudden traffic, and the car in front of me braked suddenly, and I did the same, not jamming my brakes, and not getting anywhere near the car in front of me, when I hear a horrible screeching sound behind me. I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw a van skidding towards me (on a 3-lane road I was in the left, he was skidding between left and center, and the center laners were moving to the right lane to avoid him.)
I watched and listened and braced for impact, but he finally came to a stop, at a 20 degree angle, in both lanes, inches from my rear bumper.
Strange feeling sitting there watching a potentially serious accident come skidding towards you with nothing to do but wait and hope.
Thankfully it worked out fine, but my heart was beating pretty fast for the next few minutes.

World's Oldest Person Curse

This is Misao Okawa. She is about to fall victim to a curse worse than the Sports Illustrated cover jinx.

At 117 she is now the world's oldest person. That's because the previous world's oldest person died. Same thing happened to the one before that, and the one before that and you get the picture. Being named the world's oldest person is a curse. They're dropping like flies, usually within a short period after getting the title, they pass it on the next poor schlub who should being writing a will.

Here are some facts about her:
She was born in 1898
She has 3 kids, 4 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren
Her son is in his 90s
She has been a widow for nearly 84 years

Upon Further Review

I was able to find out more about the charges against Syracuse and Jim Boeheim that lead to some serious penalties.
And I haven't changed my mind one bit.
There are three majors things here:
1) A rogue employee of the YMCA had tremendous access to the players and there is good reason to believe he paid them, but at the very least they got credit for internships they didn't fulfill, and the University didn't take enough steps to make sure they did
2) Players had work done for them. One example says a player wrote a paper which fell short of the class requirements, but eventually handed in one that met those requirements, and that paper was found on the computer of a tutor
3) Players failed drug tests and nothing was done about it

That is a gross over-simplificiation but I figure if you cared enough you have already read this comprehensive summary and if you don't care enough, my above bullets are enough to get you to understand.

Based on those findings I understand why the NCAA had to deem players ineligible and dock the scholarships, but what is standing out to some people is the unprecedented 9-game suspension of head coach Jim Boeheim.

"...in his interview the head basketball coach acknowledged that he had student-athletes test positive and rather than call the student-athletes' parents, he brought the student-athletes in and talked to them. When questioned why he did not call the parents, the head basketball coach responded that the director of athletics did not require him to follow the policy and, in at least in some instances, "it would have been fruitless." At the hearing, the head basketball coach also admitted that he did not call the parents because his director of athletics told him he did not have to and he did not know that failing to follow the policy violated NCAA rules."

Here is what I gather and it seems totally plausible to me: Coach Boeheim didn't like the rules, he didn't follow the rules, he didn't think he needed to follow the rules and when questioned about it he said he didn't even know what he did violated the rules.

And he probably was rude and dismissive to the investigators.

If you're the NCAA, and you're going to bother playing whack-a-mole with this kind of stuff, you have to come down hard on Syracuse and Coach Boeheim. If you don't you look even more feckless than most people thought you were.

In summary, Syracuse committed a long list of violations over an extended period of time. They tried to blame it on outside individuals and dismissed former employees, but the University, the athletic department and especially Coach Boeheim showed little or no inclination to follow the rules, so how else to make them (and all the other schools doing the same thing) take the rules more seriously in the future, but him them with severe penalities?

Syracuse Gets Whacked

The NCAA finally coming down hard on Syracuse after a lengthy investigation into alleged infractions dating back more than 10 years.

Jim Boeheim will be suspended for the first 9 conference games of next season
The team will lose 12 scholarships over several years
SU must return money earned for participating in the 2011, 2012 and 2013 NCAA tournaments
SU has to vacate 108 wins for using ineligible players

That last one is the biggie. That really hurts Boeheim and adds and extra 4 years (at least) to his quest for 1,000 wins.

The violations included academic misconduct, extra benefits, failure to follow the drug-testing policy, and impermissible booster activity.

Other violations included impermissible academic assistance and services, Boeheim's failure to promote an atmosphere of compliance and monitor his staff, and the school's lack of control over its athletics program.

Do I believe that? Absolutely I do. It is not hard to imagine Boeheim sitting in his office and being above it all instead of monitoring what's going on. It's the same thing Joe Paterno did and Penn State and Pete Carroll did at USC. It's better not to know, and frankly they don't care. They just hope they don't get caught.

I hate Jim Boeheim because I don't think he is a good coach, and more importantly because I think he acts like an arrogant asshole. It sucks that school, the current players and the fans will be punished because a few individuals didn't do their jobs.

Hopefully this will hasten Boeheim's retirement instead of lengthen his career in pursuit of a milestone accomplishment.

Why I Created the "Typical Yankees Fan" Tag

Curt Schilling tweeted congratulations to his daughter Gabby for getting accepted to Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island where she will be playing softball.

As usual, the trolls had to chime in, two in particular. Hollywood (@primetime227) and The Sports Guru (@Nagels_Bagels) went back in forth with a series of vile tweets about her.

"Teach me your knuckleball technique so I can shove my first in your daughter."

"I'm sure she can fit a nice Easton in there as well for some DP."

"Curt bleeds more from his sock than Gabby does from her pussy when she's on her period."

"Curt rocked the mullet- business in front, part in back...Gabby prefers the party in the back. #ButtStuff2015"

Even though the last one is kind of funny, those are still terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad things to say -- about someone's daughter -- in a public forum -- fully intending for the target of the comments to read them.

To Schilling's credit he posted the entire thing on his blog and really went after them.

And in the end, he taught them an important lessons about trolling and consequences.

Adam Nagel has been suspended by Brookdale Community College.

"Hollywood" Sean MacDonald was a part-time ticket seller for the Yankees. He isn't anymore. The Yankees fired him immediately saying they "have zero tolerance for anything like this."

Song of the Week

"Touching Me" - The Ovations
Lead singer Louis Williams may be the one person who is a bigger Sam Cooke fan than I am. Williams clearly modeled his vocal style after Cooke's so much so that the first time I ever heard this song I thought for sure this was an unknown Cooke b-side I had never heard before.
The Ovations biggest hit was a remake of Cooke's "Having a Party."
Also the vamp at the beginning of this song sounds a lot like the one in Cooke's "Good Times."

In God's Hands

Former Knicks forward Anthony Mason passed away this morning from congestive heart failure.
Mason was a mainstay on the great Knicks teams from the early-90s, where along with Charles Oakley he ushered in a bruising style of defense to the NBA.
He was best known for having phrases shaved into his hair including "In God's Hands."

He was also immortalized in the 1994 rallying song "Go NY Go NY Go" "oh rebounds if that's the case we put Oakley and Mase in your face!"

Song of the Week

"Doo Doo" - Troy Ave
I like this upbeat ditty but I worked that people will pronounce it like DOOdoo (as in poop) as opposed to two separate happy notes. Although based on the lyrics maybe the title is intended to have a double meaning.

Two Big Reasons to Watch Dancing With the Stars This Season

Model Charlotte McKinney who was billed by some as the heir apparent to Kate Upton (it's apparent why) is headlining the latest Dancing with the Stars cast. I trust double-sided tape will be prominently involved.



Here are the other 10 "stars" she will be competing against, and I use that term loosely.

Suzanne Somers
Patti LaBelle
Michael Sam
Nastia Liukin
Robert Herjavec
Willow Shields
Rumer Willis
Redfoo
Riker Lynch
Noah Galloway
Charlotte McKinney

I'm Cured

Several years ago I was diagnosed with a peanut allergy, but I continued to eat peanuts, and only occasionally did I experience even a mild reaction. And even that hasn't happened in many years of eating Snickers and peanut M&Ms.
I have told Mrs. Poop and Poppy that I think I cured myself by slowly introducing small amounts to my system and they said I was nuts (pun intended). Basically that's what allergy shots do, give you a small dose of the allergen so your system can deal with it.
Maybe I am not as crazy as you thought. A new article in the Wall Street Journal says a new study contradicts everything we've been told about when to introduce peanuts to children. In fact, the study says, delaying exposure to peanuts may actually lead to those kids developing peanut allergies.

"The new study...found that 17.2% of the children who avoided peanuts until age 5 ended up with a peanut allergy compared with 3.2% of those who regularly ate peanuts..."

I strongly recommend reading the entire article to understand the study's methodology and how 14% of kids who initially showed no reaction to peanuts on the prick test (no that's not a JLeary test, different kind of prick) developed a peanut allergy when all they did was avoid eating peanuts.

Note: I am not a doctor and even if I were I wouldn't recommend force-feeding your infant a jar of peanut butter because in rare cases it could result in death by anaphylaxis.

Superman That --- OH!!!

The Superman punch is a rarely used technique in MMA. It starts as a sort of fake kick, and morphs into an overhand punch that seldom works. But it worked to perfection for Matt Dwyer who used to it KTFO William Macario.



You know the guy is out when he falls face first to the mat. Very slow stoppage by the ref, exposing Macario to four or five extra punches, punches Dwyer seemed reluctant to throw.

This one definitely goes down as one of my favorites in UFC history.

3000 Words

An old man finds giant 6-foot spiderweb in front of his garage. Claims spider did it overnight.

Dirtiest car ever?

Note: this was actually in the parking lot at my office. I thought someone was pulling a Costanza and pretending to sleep at the office, but there were no fliers under the windshield wipers.

I had to try the old hooded-sweatshirt popcorn holder gag.

Song of the Week

"Three Little Birds" - Bob Marley
I guess I never thought about it too much, but I just learned the song's real title.

What Do You Give Me For? Chase and Leon Spinks

Chase got head-butted by Diesel jarring out what was already a very loose front tooth. That image, along with the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing called to mind this famous picture.

Now You Can See Hannah Davis's Pussy

After all the controversy because we could almost see Hannah Davis's pussy on her Sports Illustrated cover, now we can. Building off the success of their Rob Lowe campaign DirecTV hired 3 models to star in their own version of the ads.

Here's hot, normal Hannah Davis

And now here's Cat Lady Hannah Davis

Now I doubt they knew there would be a huge controversy over Davis's "cat" when they shot this ad campaign, but it certainly is a happy coincidence.

Here's Chrissy Teigen

And Mom Jeans Chrissy Teigen

And finally, Nina Agdal

And Lunch Lady Nina Agdal

I like how they kept fidelity to the original pose and just changed everything else to make the pictures incredibly different.

I won't even bother with a WYB? on these because I know the answers are still 3 resounding yeses but in order of preference, I still think Mom Jeans Chrissy is kind of hot, Cat Lady Hannah is a little scary but Lunch Lady Nina is the worst.

Song of the Week

"Come On Down" - Crystal Waters
I was trying to find a song that samples "The Price is Right" theme and believe it or not there were quite a few to choose from.

Did Hannah Davis Fire a Shot at Kate Upton?

The incredibly hot Hannah Davis has had to spend the past few days answering questions about the photo of her on the cover of the 2015 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue where she is pulling her bikini bottom down so low, her clit is practically poking out.

After being pelted with questions about her almost-showing vagina, Davis came up with a pat answer "I think SI always tries to do something a little different every year, and I think this year, it’s the year of the torso.”

So this year is about torsos, and that's different than the last few years?

I think Davis might be subtly pointing out that Kate Upton is all boobs and her stomach is not flat, at least by bikini model standards.

Maybe she is jealous of Upton's ample blessings (not that Davis is flat-chested by any means) and the success she gotten because of them.

Maybe she just meant SI was going in a different direction, just to be different.

Or maybe I am reading too much into this. But I kind of like the idea of a Davis-Upton catfight.

Four Little Nuggets

This is the Bio-Bus which operates in England. It seats 40 people and runs on biomethane gas "generated through the treatment of sewage and food waste that's unfit for human consumption."
The waste is processed over 12 to 18 days through a process of anaerobic digestion. The result is a biogas rich in methane. This biogas is further processed before being upgraded to be the same composition as natural gas.

You can also donate your poop (I tried really hard to find out if this was a hoax, but if it is no one has caught on yet). Something called OpenBiome says poop transplants work to for people who have something called C. difficile by introducing new bacteria to their large intestines, via their rectums.
They are offering $13,000 a year for people who can commit to make a solid donation 5 days a week. But you have to live in Medford, Massachusetts, meet some other requirements and be able to go to their lab everyday. As perfect as this job sounds for me, I don't think I have the time.

But I do have the time, and the need, to poop at work occasionally, so this video came in handy:



And though NBC cut away from it just in time, those in the stadium caught Doug Baldwin fake-pooping the football during his touchdown celebration at the Super Bowl.

Stories suggested by Master Bates and Mrs. Poop

Timing is Everything

Syracuse imposed sanctions on itself, meaning the men's basketball team will not play in the postseason this year.
The timing of this is pretty good as the team was not likely to make the NCAA Tournament and had a significant chance of missing the NIT as well.
So far this season SU is 6-3 in the ACC but 4 of those wins came against teams with only one conference win and 5 games against top 10 teams remain (Louisville, Virginia, Notre Dame and Duke twice).
So Syracuse elected to take the minor pain now and hope to avoid more serious sanctions when the team is better next year.
The victim here is Rakim Christmas who obviously was not involved in any of the behavior being punished, all of which happened before 2012, and some of which dates back to 2007.
Although it hasn't yet been made abundantly clear what violations SU is telling on itself for.
How does this make me feel as an alumnus and ardent supporter of the team? Kind of bad.
Unfortunately, every single major program breaks the rules. I guess there's a kind of moral relativism in me being willing to accept misdemeanors, so long as there aren't recruiting or payment "felonies" included in this.