Moving vehicles and other places you shouldn't rub one out in

Eddie Griffin (the Timberwolves player, not the Deuce Bigalow man pimp - I know, I had no real knowledge of this second Eddie Griffin's existience either) just keeps getting in more and more trouble up here.

After being the butt of literally thousands of ball-handling jokes around water coolers today, Griffin just couldn't resist the urge to respond to his critics. While I was going to link to this, I think the original story says everything you need to know. When this goes to the subscriber side soon, hop over to bugmenot.com first to gain access.

Innocent until proven whatever and all, but you can't make shit like this up without some time to think about it and the Star Tribune comes out in the morning.

Here are the two critical pieces of info from the Star Trib:

(Security tape seen by the newspaper) supports the statements of several store employees who said that Griffin repeatedly said he was drunk and that he didn't want to go jail.
At one point during the 50-minute tape, Griffin offers to buy the owner of the damaged sport-utility vehicle he ran into "any new car or truck, but not a Bentley."

Aaaaaaand:

Jamal Hassuneh, the owner of the damaged SUV and brother of the store owner,filed a lawsuit Thursday in Ramsey County District Court against Griffin and the city of Minneapolis.
The suit alleges that Griffin was watching a pornographic DVD in his SUV and masturbating when he crashed about 2:30 a.m. on March 30. Griffin, 24, had told the Star Tribune a day after the accident that a dropped cell phone caused him to crash.

Ladies and gents, we have a new euphemism for jerking off - "dropping the cell phone."

The one bright spot to the follow up story released by Griffin's agency is that attorneys for the Hassunehs sys that before Griffin denies he did anything that night, they'll show him the tape because he's probably hazy on the details.

Heh.

One other note for David Chanen, the reporter who filed the initial story, do not bury a detail like, "The suit alleges that Griffin was watching a pornographic DVD in his SUV and masturbating" in the 11th paragraph. This is your moment in the sun, don't be afraid to succeed, brother.

I can do no more with this situation to elicit cheap laughs than Griffin already has. This will get worse before it get better. And I thought Kanye West bragging about his porn collection was odd - at least he can wait until he gets home to start spanking the monkey.

Just throwing it out there

If I could invent an adhesive that sticks as well as the human booger, I'd be a millionaire.

Home cookin'

When the news came out that the Big Ten was setting up its own network, I could have set my watch to the time it would take Frank the Tank to throw a post up. I would have been a few hours behind, he got it up right quick in a hurry.

He's got a ton of good points, but non-sports fans should probably just skim the reading material - it gets a little thick if you don't give a damn.

Aside from citing it's appearance on the Total Choice (basic cable) tier as a sign of strength - I see it as an admission that most people wouldn't pay extra for the service - he's right on. It'll open doors for the conference as a whole and while I'm reluctant to believe it'll flood Direct TV's phone lines through the start of football season, it's a definite muscle flex for all Big Ten sports.

Even the hard core haters will have tough time finding fault with the deal and now the real Big Ten nuts will have their jones for Penn State basketball sated... so there's that, I suppose.

I'm no one to talk because I have the MLB Extra Innings package for the second year in a row after enjoying it last season. I got hooked last year and it more than paid for itself in a few weeks. This year was a no-brainer - we had it ordered before Spring Training ended this year.

Whereas last year allowed me to watch Red Sox games, this year means Cubs games and White Sox games if I have a real need to see local commercials from back home. This also means contending with Hawk Harrelson, so it's kind of like sticking your whole hand in your nostril to make sure there are no bats in the cave before a big date - it's painful, stupid and halfway through you have to ask yourself if there's a better way to go about it.

Granted, Cubs games have been at least as painful and I can't name half the starting rotation, but at least Kerry Wood is back to lying to the media, so at least it's familiar.

So to all you Illini fans in Oregon, you're going to love this on so many levels.

Granted, if your time in college was anything like mine, you'll have a pretty hard time recognizing any local commercials that aired past 9:30 p.m. Or where you live. Or, you know, an acceptable place to urinate.

(Image from Kare11.com)

It's pretty embarrassing when the Doctor licks his nuts in front of company

I'm checking people in at dog school last night and start talking to one of the folks who is about 15 minutes early.

We'd had a discussion a few weeks ago about dogs with people names - she has a dog named Amber and one of the trainers owns a Walter. Walter is an awesome dog.

Somehow we get on this topica again and I tell her that there's a dog who is registered as "Poop." She thinks this is hysterical and beats me hands down in the story department.

When she worked as a receptionist at a vet's office she had the following conversation over the phone:

Lady: I need to get my dog in to see the vet.
Receptionist: No problem, have you been here before?
Lady: No, I haven't.
Receptionist: OK, no problem - what's your name?
Lady: Mrs. Lady.
Receptionist: OK, and your dog's name.
Lady: Uh... Before I tell you, I'll warn you - my kids are 3 and 5 and they named the dog.
Receptionist: OK...
Lady: Well, the dog's name is Dr. Pancakes.

I'm pretty sure it's an honorary degree.

The Barry Bonds / spare ribs corollary

(Note: In a rare crossover post, this also appears today at the Siberian Baseball site as well.)

Newton had his apple.

Benjamin Frankin had his kite.

I had ribs for dinner tonight. It's serendipity, bitches.

In a stroke of genius so stunning that I nearly vacated my bladder, things couldn't have been more clear than when I put down a quarter slab of pork ribs and suddenly found the perfect description of how I feel about Barry Bonds and his quest to become the all-time home run king.

Without further ado, I give you the Barry Bonds/spare ribs corollary.

My grandfather was a butcher. My parents were both excellent cooks and my dad more than knows his way around a grill. I'm old school and wouldn't trade my Weber for the newest outdoor kitchen that passes itself off as a grill and a lifetime supply of propane.

Hank Hill can kiss my ass.

I grill on Sundays, making enough for a minimum of three or four meals during the week. My thinking is that if I'm going to have a sausage or a burger on Wednesday, it might as well taste grilled. It takes no significant increase in time or effort and helps keep cooking to minimum when we're busy during the week.

Despite my love of the grill, I have a dirty little secret - I rarely make my own barbecue sauce. I lean on Sweet Baby Ray's and use the stuff as a catch all condiment. It's my opinion that a meal can always use a little Baby Ray's.

In addition to making things easier, I can't come close to preparing ribs that are as tasty as slathering on some Ray's. Now, if I took the time, tried recipe after recipe and weekend after weekend to perfect a sauce, I'd probably come close or even beat the store-bought stuff, at least for my tastes.

Hell, I'd go so far as to say the when friends and neighbors came over after a summer or two of tinkering, they'd say, "Good God damn, that's some tasty sauce! Where'd you get it?" and I'd laugh and tell them I make my own because I'm hardcore like that and then tell them if they wanted I could send them home with some.

Then I'd bask in my own smugness because I'm a prick like that.

The bottom line is that I didn't really "make" the ribs. I bought the meat, threw some store-bought sauce on them and added heat. Not a ton of work considering.

Sure, I have a good family background like Barry and those base skills enable me to get as far as I do and perhaps keep me at better than average. Without an understanding of meats, convection cooking and the difference between direct and indirect heat, I'd be sunk.

While Barry's pedigree helps him hit a baseball as well as he does, it's his grasp of fundamentals that has kept him in the game this long. It's great to hit a ball 550 feet, but if you don't consistently make contact, you don't set single-season walk records and force discussions about rule changes with regards to intentional free passes.

Now, we can all agree that Barry used some combination of steroids, HGH, cream, clear or whatever to get where he is today in the home run pantheon. While not technically "illegal" in baseball, there was something more than milk and Flinstones chewables going into Barry's body.

Like my ribs, Barry had a lot of help in getting the desired results.

I like the ribs I cook. The Girl loves the ribs I cook. I see nothing wrong with serving friends these ribs with pride, but there is no way in a million years I could stand back and say, "These are without a doubt the best ribs on Earth. Behold, I make the greatest ribs on the planet! I am the all-time rib king!"

I didn't raise the hogs, select the hogs to be served or slaughter said hogs. I didn't dress the meat, ship the meat or package the meat at the supermarket. Likewise, I didn't select the spices, cook the sauce or anything remotely close to "creating" either ribs or sauce.

Do I make good ribs? Yes. For this house? Without a doubt. In the neighborhood? I'd take the Pepsi Challenge with any of the weekend warriors firing up their grill on this block. I make really fucking good ribs.

Do I make the greatest ribs of all time? Hell no! Not when I didn't really "make" much of the ribs myself when it gets down to it.

Can Barry outhit the rest of the Giants? Yep. The NL West? Can't see why not. Is Barry one of the better hitters of his generation? Why not, let's give the man that. Barry Bonds is a good hitter.

Is Barry the best home run hitter of all time? Hell no! Not when he didn't really hit the home runs himself when it gets down to it.

So while baseball purists and even casual fans will scream that Barry has no place in any record book and should be banned for life, I will sit quietly, wrapped in my newfound perspective on the subject.

While Barry may bring his ribs and blow everyone away at Grandma's 85th birthday picnic, you and I will know better. His ribs have been store-bought, which is fine as long as he doesn't start claiming that he alone makes the best ribs in the history of outdoor cooking.

Even a little bit of bottled magic disqualifies you as the greatest of all time regardless if you're slugging or grilling.

(Image from weber.com / rothcpa.com)

Because you can't spell "No one cares who the hell wins" without NHL

Seeing as the Red Sox are required by some obscure league rule to start a breathing human being regardless of talent tonight I am tuned in to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

This is only because How I Met Your Mother is on a repeat I've seen. Seriously, that is the only reason I went back to hockey before the third period. This is a pretty sad day for me.

Unlike Frank the Tank, I remember watching hockey (and the Blackhawks being shown the door by the St. Louis Blues year after year) as a kid. I came to the sport late and largely because of the the NHL series produced by Electronic Arts for the Sega Genesis.

I remember trips to my grandfather's house in Michigan which meant I could swing by a sports card shop and open pack upon pack of hockey cards in the car all afternoon. There was a time where the only way I could remember locker combinations and phone numbers was to associate them with past and present Blackhawks. It was a pretty sick time.

From there, I picked up street hockey pretty easily and played anywhere I could when I was out of soccer season. From blacktop to the ice and back again if we could play for free, we'd drop the net on top of my Ford Taurus station wagon and head out to play for hours on end.

Some guys snuck out to drink or raise hell - we found a schoolyard, dropped the net and went to work.

My first paying gig in newspapers was Junior A hockey in Green Bay, which saw two or three players from that team make the NHL. Of course, by the time that happened, I'd all but abandoned the sport.

When you take a year of storm warnings about an impending strike and couple it with a pointless holdout that sees two losers - the players were forced to knuckle under to financial pressures and the owners who cried poor showed that they could go an entire year without revenue - it's not hard to imagine that hockey is seeing death's door-type numbers.

If I got a bad taste in my mouth over it, I can only imagine how the NASCAR set is reacting. For the NHL, this is an awful position, especially considering how they've been alienating Canadian fans for the better part of a decade now.

For the quick recap:

Me: Grew up in an Original Six city; played countless hours of both ice and street hockey; attended a college where hockey was the major sport; covered Junior A hockey; lived with a hockey mad roommate in DC.

Average fan: Is pretty sure hockey is played with a squashed ball and not a real ball.

Way to shit the bed on that one, NHL.

While I hesitate to offer my own proposal on how to save the NHL (and Frank hit it pretty much spot on - hockey and college athletics are about the only two things we can agree on) I think it boils down to everything the Tank said and these key points.

* More Canada, less Florida. A good rule here is that if you can't normally maintain ice outside at some point in the year, you can't have a hockey team

* Return Wayne Gretzky to the wild in Alberta

* Every third male born in Ontario must be named Dougie to help replenish Canada's natural supply of hockey players with hockey names (note: after some deliberation, Cam is also acceptable in place of Doug)

* Allow fans of the anal violation teams (mainly Chicago and Boston) to control the teams via the Internet like the Schaumburg Flyers

* Canadian commissioner, minimum of half the owners are Canadians and let's try to avoid "investment partnerships" in the future. This is a Canadian game and I think they're just too polite to tell everyone to stick it. Seriously, how would you feel if the commissioner of baseball was from Sweden? Pretty outraged, huh?

* More Darren Pang

* Less Barry Melrose

* More Barry Melrose mullet

In short, the big story line for me tonight is that you have an uber-small market in Edmonton fighting a sun-kissed new market team in Carolina. Guess who I'm pulling for here?

If I'm the commissioner, I start hyping the games like they were WWE matches. Play good versus evil, tradition versus American expansion. Add a little spice. I saw hundreds of hockey sticks in cars and minivans up here this winter and the rumor was that the city of Edmonton ran out of beer in the playoff run, so someone's watching here.

Lost in the shuffle have been fans and casual fans. The hard cores seem to have come back, even if it was slowly at first, but everyone below that level was happy to wave goodbye.

My only question is why the NHL hasn't tried to court some of us back with something along those lines. When it comes to making chicken soup out of chicken shit, the NHL is failing miserably.

(Photo from telus.net / geocities.com/caloilers / thgworldwide.com)

Career Suicide

I was checking up on non-work safe sites when I got home today and found this on Tyler Durden.

Wow. Just, wow.

I can't even fathom how awful of an idea this is. Granted, it's cable on a show that no one watched, but still, there's the Internet and such. I can see this serving as the understudy to William Shatner's Rocket Man performance someday.

If there were any clearer way to announce to the world that a.) You're nuttier than squirrel shit and b.) There is no way you'd ever like to be paid for services of any kind in the future, then this might be it.

Connie Chung? Oh, she's that lady who went batshit and started making pinwheels out of horse semen and disposable cameras, right? (That's what the most common response to the name "Connie Chung" will be in 15 years.)

Start the clock.

Tomato, tomahto...

Ratification: rati·fi·cation (-f-kshn) n. - To approve and give formal sanction to; confirm. See synonyms at approve.

Radification: radi·fi·cation (-f-kshn) n. - To make rad or more rad. See synonyms such as the picture of the new addition to the truck below.

Paging Dr. Mario. Dr. Mario to surgery, please...

So, it may be a little late, but a few months ago Wired Magazine did a special issue on video games which went beyond the usual "Why 50 Cent: Bulletproof is a waste of money"or the big Christmas game blowout edition.

Wired went the extra mile and really looked at games as the world eases into fully functioning gamers becoming bankers, lawyers and (as they always have) IT professionals. While the frat rat crowd has driven the Madden series to pop culture juggernaut status, we are firmly entrenched in a society filled with people who play video games pretty regularly now.

Just look at the World of Warcraft players who continue to drive that game, not to mention the millions of gamers and hundreds of other MMORPG's (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). All of this should be very strange, but it's been a pretty slow transition overall.

Kid loves Nintendo in the 80s, grabs a Sega Genesis in the 90s and a Playstation in college a decade later. Makes sense that as productive members of society today those same people will buy PS2s and XBox 360s, right? When you look at it that way, seems like a natural evolution.

As I sit here and blog, The Girl who rarely picks up a controller except for fighting games like Def Jam: Fight for New York (I know, go figure, huh) has made requests that I stop playing baseball so she can play Guitar Hero. I think we might have something here, Sony. Addd to that other games that are targeted for social gamers - like Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution - games that are meant to be pulled out at a party to get everyone participating and you have the new millenium Scrabble.

The gist of several of the Wired articles revolved around how gaming has and will continue to fundamentally change the real world. From theories about how your status in an MMORPG could effect your job prospects (In a good way! Showing that you have tenacity and can work with people even online) to how the wired world will keep spilling over into everyday life.

Think that sounds strange? Consider this.

My mom is a lifelong nurse, primarily in the operating room. When I was about 10 or 11 she came home from a conference and dumped a handful of rice grains on the kitch table. From there, she grabbed some long tweezers and began moving the pile from the right to the left, all while watching her movements in a small mirror.

The point of the exercise was to get better at allowing your hands to move while watching the action go on "independently" of your normal range of sight.

Now, two more things. She'd been working in hospitals since she was 17, so it wasn't like she'd been dropped into a new technological world with this stuff. Secondly, she can touch type at secretarial speeds (both the profession and the racing equine), so it wasn't a coordination thing.

The capper was when she grudgingly admitted that the other suggested practice method was to start playing video games. Needless to say, I didn't have a new buddy for Mortal Kombat.

All of this was leading to revolutionary new techniques using endoscopes and tiny cameras to do interal surgeries that are now the industry standard. Any time you see Carnie Wilson get her pie bag stapled shut on TV, you can thank Metroid for a talentedd young surgeon. At least I like to think so. It was a differnt set of skills needed to watch something happen on a monitor and react accordingly with an interface. Like Duck Hunt with more blood.

Just as revolutionary as endoscopic surgery was, that may be the tip of the iceberg for crossover skills if you choose to believe Will Wright, creator of The Sims and a few other games since then.

He speaks of fundamental changes in generational learning and perspectives in life among the other hallmarks of the new kids coming down the line.

He says, in part:

Now an entire generation has grown up with a different set of games than any before it - and it plays these games in different ways. Just watch a kid with a new videogame. The last thing they do is read the manual. Instead, they pick up the controller and start mashing buttons to see what happens. This isn't a random process; it's the essence of the scientific method. Through trial and error, players build a model of the underlying game based on empirical evidence collected through play. As the players refine this model, they begin to master the game world. It's a rapid cycle of hypothesis, experiment, and analysis. And it's a fundamentally different take on problem-solving than the linear, read-the-manual-first approach of their parents.

How this will impact life in 20 or 30 years should be pretty stunning and maybe even a little shocking - like along the lines of the Summer of Love shocking - for those not entirely on board with what's coming.

I spend a decent amount of time in schools now doing technology installs and upgrades. One school principal told me recently that his classrooms are being fitted for computers, projectors and screens to help teach computer skills and to keep the most recent maps available at the push of a button. It's a different world now.

Add to this every kid over 5 or 6 running around with a cell phone or some mini gaming system like a PSP or Nintendo DS and it's already making its way through now.

I'm not too worrried, though. I totally speak their language and can't wait to call them on their bullshit when they claim they beat God of War on God mode on their first try. Yeah, right... Oh, and the time they took the Marlins to the World Series in MLB? Whatever, maybe on Rookie level... Punkass...

I just hope I don't have to do that in a job interview or anything... that'd be weird.

(Photo from: tecfa.unige.ch)

I have World Cup fever, possibly from my trip to Central America

I'll admit it, I'm kind of a sports freak. Not in a slapping guys' asses at work, "Go git 'em, Champ!" kind of way, but I'm really drawn to sports as a whole.

While this is its own posting about the things that are really great in sport (especially in a time of steroid scandals, flagging NHL ratings and childish stars writing their own tickets into and out of major markets) this one will focus on just one - soccer.

Each sport has its unique characteristics that make them special, more than just the X's and O's or the utter joy of competition. Each gives us a larger sense of belonging. Each gives us at least glimpses into the sublime from time to time.

When the world's most popular game throws a party this big, it shocks me that America can't be bothered to tune in and take notice.

Prior to the late 80s, US Soccer in international competition ranked somewhere between complete joke and unmitigated disaster. I'm pretty sure the governing body had to pay off foreign teams so that some of those squads could notch a win or two on home soil.

As a kid, I grew up playing soccer and kept playing right up to college when my body and talent levels collapsed suddenly. It didn't hurt that I'd lost my heart and was out of true playing shape for that level. Bottom line is that it wasn't fun any more.

A few years alter, I was playing in the parks of Chicago again, even gathering friends for the Wednesday Night Football Club where pickup games ran all summer. It was fun again and right in time for the last World Cup in 2002.

If you can feel like you're part of something bigger in getting lost in the history of baseball or the rampant adrenaline-fueled crowds in the NFL, just imagine how juiced you get when the entire world essentially shuts down every four years. Think about that. Bigger than the Olympics, towering over the World Series, making the Super Bowl look like a Pop Warner game in Anaheim.

Yeah, good stuff.

So, for all the Americans out there who look down their noses at whiny players taking dives, low-scoring games and hooligan-related incidents, here are a few redeeming qualities that might hold you attention just long enough to enjoy a match or two.

* One of the coolest shows of sportsmanship occurs in soccer, where the ref can't stop play for an injured player as they lay on the field. This is more for legitimate injuries, not the tumbling acts that some players are guilty of as they try to get a cheap call.

The only way for an injured player to get off the field is for a stoppage in play, which means that the other team routinely knocks the ball out of bounds to let the medical staff on the field.

Let's say the US is playing Poland and a Polish player turns an ankle and can't go on. If this happens when the US has the ball, one of the American players will kick it out to stop the game. This leaves Poland in control with a throw in, where they'll turn and boot the ball out intentionally to give the US the ball back for doing them the favor.

It's small, but always pretty cool to see. To my knowledge, no team has ever abused this for their own advantage. Pretty amazing.

* The ref keeps the clock and the scoreboard is only a suggestion. The only time that matters is kept by the ref and anything above the 45-minute halves is called "injury time" and accounts for time spent attending to downed players and other stoppages.

It's more exciting than I can convey to have anywhere between 30 seconds and five minutes or more remaining with your team up or down a goal at the end of the game.

I've been a player, a ref and a spectator and injury time helps to keep things lively at the end of a game. From a ref's perspective, if a team is trying to slow things down to run out the clock, you can just keep adding time as you see fit. Waste 30 seconds screwing around, the ref adds another 30 seconds to keep the game fair.

* As a fan, I've watched US soccer for nearly 25 years now. I've seen some great US players come and go and had a Bruce Murray poster in my bedroom as a kid. I went through the Eric the Red years and the Alexi Lalas marketing blitz. I know why Ernie Stewart had is name spelled two different ways in his career.

I played in my backyard knowing Lalas was going pro in the Italian leagues and figured if a defender from Michigan could make it that far, so could I. Teammates and I would see friendlies at Soldier Field and I snuck into the University of Illinois bowling alley to watch Cup games when I was down there for music camps.

The thing is, so did this crop of players. They grew up with soccer from a grass roots level, knowing of Pele, but never seeing him play. Seeing US teams slowly climb the ranks on the international stage.

They're the first generation which grew up knowing that someday they'd have a legitimate shot at World Cup contention someday. After their shocking showing in Korea, this might be the Cup where they start turning heads. They're currently fifth in the world and were fourth in April. This was unthinkable when I was a kid.

This is big news.

Hell, even the British oddsmakers have the US as 80-1 to win it all. A long shot, but it's not like it's out of the realm of possibility.

Here's the thing - let's say the US gets some lucky bounces and some good breaks on calls. Let's say the top teams run into some problems and the Germans slip a little playing under the glare of the spotlight focused on the host nation.

Let's say they play as well as they are capable of playing and make a run - it'd be a real shame if most of this country missed that build up. It'd be nice to have a little attention in the opening round, too, no? Nothing would make an uglier American than a bandwagon fan who rallies for jingoistic purposes and wakes up just in time to rub peoples' noses in it.

(Photos from eteamz.com / tribuneindia.com)

OK, wait, I'm confused

I've asked the Tank this before because of his law degree, but it bears repeating.

At the end of movies, there's usually a disclaimer about any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental... Why is this run at the end of some historical movies? I've never paid enough attention to it in biopics like Walk the Line to say for sure if it's there, too.

Worse yet are the Law and Order clones that do TV promos screaming, "Ripped from the headlines!" and then run the disclaimer at the end.

How does that happen? They just said two hours ago that it's a story taken from real life and then claim that any similarity to persons living or dead is a coincidence? How is that on the level?

TV confuses me sometimes and not just when Rachel Ray is on it four times a day with a thriving career. Yeah, figure that one out...

Some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant

One of the reasons sports make such an impact in some people's lives is because some of us use them to make some sense of the world.

Just as the Sports Guy once wrote that the Red Sox trying and failing to win the World Series was the single greatest factor in reminding him of his mortality, it makes the daily stuff easier to swallow if you can neutralize it a bit by painting it with the wide brush of sport.

One of the reasons I relate to baseball so well is that it gives an unending feeling of hope - no matter what happens, 161 times a year, there's always another game tomorrow. It's a long road and failing today doesn't mean you'll fail tomorrow. That type of perspective comes in handy more often than not.

Let's face it, for as many of us who can't seem to lose, there are the rest of us who spend everyday life as a relief pitcher - a half second too fast or slow in their release point, six inches too high or too low and some days your curveball just doesn't want to curve. I'm not ashamed to say that I spend a good 35 percent of my days snapping my head around to see a ball being deposited in the cheap seats in right center.

Granted, I don't spend much time thinking about this, but when you're taking stock after doing your time, it just helps sort things out.

We can't all be the quarterback, right?

On a somewhat related note, for all the guys in their late 20s out there, start lying about your birthday when playing video games from now on. I learned this the hard way when I created a player in one of the baseball games and probably won't make it to the majors before he hits 50.

Let's face it - a 28-year-old rookie ain't doing squat in the digital world.

That bear is a menace

The bear on the right is not well.

Every time he tears out onto the field on his four-wheeler, I fear for his safety and the safety of others on the field. Children, ballplayers, the grounds crew are all potential targets. Also, he apparently has a thing for guys in matching shirts. That's just odd.

It's only a matter of time before he does some real damage.

Like I said, that bear is a menace.

Despite this simple fact, I have to give it to the bear for his sheer athletic ability.

While other fans may joke about the mascot being better than the ballplayers on the team, I think the Twins fans might have a real point here.

Fact: The bear routinely beats out grown men in home run derby competitions held before the games.

Fact: The bear catches ceremonial first pitches with an oversized mitt. Often, he is better at catching the ball than the untalented hacks whipping the ball into the dirt two feet in front of the plate.

Fact: The bear does all of these normal baseball activities better than Rondell White. All of this while wearing a stifling sweat and urine-soaked suit with limited vision and mobility.

That bear may be a menace, but he's a hell of a ballplayer.

(Photo from: happinessemporium.com)

This has been my week

Monday - Off. Slept in. Ate donuts. Drank coffe. Watched cartoons. It was like being unemployed, but more profitable. I made a couple hundred bucks to sit on my ass outside of the office.

Tuesday - Worked on-site in a high school. Watched as students nearly threw a full milk into a several thousand dollar equipment rack. Also saw high school tough guy totally wimp out when confronted by math teacher/lunch monitor. Awesome.

Wednesday - Same as Tuesday, but with dog school at night. Dogs are less irrational than teenagers. I will remember this when I have kids.

Thursday - The Girl has book club night somewhere else, so I am not exiled. Watch TV and don't have to worry about keeping it on wrestling for "too long." (In our house 5 seconds or more is "too long")

Friday - Dog jumps over tables five times. He is trying to protect the Girl from soda and popcorn. I think he's concerned about her junk food intake and its long-term health implications.

I could be wrong.