According to this article Mark Cuban will be making an offer to buy the Cubs. I think that if i was a Cubs fans I would love it because the guy cares so much and will spend the money to make them a contender....but i can definately see some Cubs fans not liking it.

Cuban's Cubbies???

in order to get into the basball hall of fame? Answer. More than two, Ron Santo, along with every other eligible vet of baseball this year was not inducted in to the hall of fame by the vet committee. Santo who received the most votes was still short, (75% needed and 70% is what he received) which just blows me away.

I don't care if you are a Cubs fan or not, the man is part of some vary famous or infamous moments in baseball i.e. the black cat. This is beside the fact that he is beloved by all fans in baseball not just Cubs fans. Not to mention that Ron Santo loves baseball more than anybody else in broadcasting. Bob Uecker being a close second.

Long story short I guess baseball isn't about the fans so Ronny has to sit out yet another year. How pathetic.

To help my sonically challenged roommate and hetero-life mate out, here's what you should really be listening to.

The Thermals, The Body, The Blood, The Machine. Portland is becoming my new musical Shangri-La and these guys have a lot to do with it. Very political punk in the vein of Ted Leo + The Pharmacists.

Heartless Bastards, All This Time. Hailing from mighty Dayton, OH, this threesome is the balls. Erika Wennerstrom has a voice that is like velvety whipped cream. What she may lack in range, she sure as shit makes up for in heart. They were discovered by Patrick Carney, the excellent drummer for The Black Keys. The title track is currently on a Cinemax commercial. No, not that one, sickos. If you like Chrissie Hynde or Polly Jean Harvey, please for your daughter's sake, buy this album.

Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? If you told me that I would like a dance record full of break-up songs that all belong at a gay disco, you would need to forgive my cynicism. However, it would be me swallowing my machismo because as it turns out, I didn't know I liked gay dance break-up albums. Win-Win in my book.

Bloc Party, Weekend in the City. Not the sophomore slump I was expecting. I wasn't completely interested in buying this at first, but a few personal recommendations changed my mind. Some call it a bit darker than their debut (and I wouldn't disagree) but if you think about it, their first was fairly dark as well.

Bright Eyes, Live at Murphy's Lounge, 2/24/07. I've been to my fair share of Bright Eyes shows. And I've defended this sad bastard til my tongue was bloody. And this is exactly why. Throw a secret show at a venue not known for much outside of blues and reggae. Release only 200 tickets. Get dumped on by six inches of snow. Most of the material came from the upcoming release, Cassadega. And most were quite strong to powerfully strong. Similar in tune to the countrified, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning from 2004, but with an upbeat twist. I've never seen validity in the comparisons between Conor Oberst and Bob Dylan, but this show opened my eyes to why people make them. Mike Mogis made good things happen with every instrument he touched. Not only can Nate Walcott play a pretty impressive trumpet, his work on the organ and keyboards was pretty neat. Some new fiddler joined the lineup (he looks like the old bartender at the Holiday Lounge but with curly hair. You know the one--he always served us "coffee" past close. That one.) and had some pretty badass solos (I just realized solos is a palindrome.). The old drummer for the Decemberists, Rachel Somethingorother, held her own on the kit, though none of the setlist seemed excruciatingly drum heavy. Winding out the lineup was my main man Jake Bellows of Neva Dinova and after hours renown on bass and rhythm guitars. That motorboatin' son of a bitch. Like my night couldn't get any better. They played a couple of songs from the Bright Eyes/Neva Dinova split. Made this reporter sing along. The set ended with a piss break for the band. Everyone thought the show was over, and if it had been, no one could have complained. So as everyone refills their beers, Oberst takes the stage and proclaims, "Fuck you guys. We didn't need any encore applause. We're playing anyway." The crowd erupts in laughter, giving each other self-congratulatory smiles that only indie scenesters can give to each other. I received one or two. I can't lie. I'm not sure if it was the cozy venue, or the phenomenally fluid setlist, or the $2.50 Amstel Lights, but this was the best Bright Eyes show that I've ever seen. And apparently I lucked out because after driving through the night to Chicago, Pitchfork reported the band put on a bit of a lackluster performance the next day.

Labels: Bright Eyes, musc, Neva Dinova

Its been a while since anyone has posted about what they're listening to so I figured I would get the ball rolling again. Feel free to criticize as much as you want to.
1) Augustana - All the Stars and Boulevards (I like almost anything with a piano)
2) Gym Class Heroes - As Cruel as School Children (I know they resemble the shit brought to you by Crazy Town five years ago, but I still like a couple of the songs quite a bit)
3) Mika - Grace Kelly (Reminds me of Freddy Mercury)
4) Cold War Kids - Robbers & Cowards (This CD's just awesome, that's it)
5) Fallout Boy - Infinity on High (Insert Joke Here, this is due mainly to my girlfriend reigniting my enjoyment of pop-punk)
6) The Fratellis - Flathead EP (Its the song from the iTunes commercial)
7) Queen - Greatest Hits Vol 1&2 (Like I have to explain this)
8) The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America (Will NEVER get old)
9) The Good, the Bad, and the Queen (Unnamed British super-group with people from the Clash and Blur/Guerillas, Kingdom of Doom is particularly good)

Labels: list, music

I switched the blog to the "New Blogger" (and when I say "I switched the blog to the 'New Blogger,' I mean "I didn't have a choice."). You'll have to sign up for a Google account in order to sign in and do stuff.

UPDATE: I will say I love the label feature. Try to remember to use this; it is much easier to find old posts that you want to taunt people for writing (Kyle).

Labels: Annoying, Blogger

For the love of Christ...I mean, come on, Cubs! How can one possibly love a team that continually does things to annoy the piss out of them?

Look, I wasn't too excited about the fact that the Cubs drafted that Domer Jeff Samaradasdflkjdsafsdalkjasdfljsdka. But reading things like this in the Tribune makes me want to puke:

Meanwhile, quarterback Brady Quinn and several of Samardzija's other
ex-teammates will be among 330 hopefuls attending the NFL combine. They may have to text-message him their 40-yard times, as he currently has too much
information to process to pay much attention to their performances.

"I know it's on the NFL Network, but I'm not going to be able to watch much of it,"
Samardzija said. "I'll call my boys every day and see how they did. Brady, I
don't think he's going to run around too much."

Samardzija is hoping to last long enough for his crew to watch him pitch in a Cubs uniform. He said former teammate Tom Zbikowski and some other pals are planning a spring-break trek to Mesa to check him out. Some could wind up crashing on the couch of the newly minted millionaire."If there's a bunch of people in the stands acting stupid, it's probably them," Samardzija said.

In other words, stay the hell away from Mesa this Spring. A bunch of overrated douche bags will be there.

Christ.

Labels: baseball, Cactus League, Chicago Cubs, Douche Bags, Jeff Samardzija, Spring Training

I am very aroused.

I think my Astro's have a solid shot at winning the Central this year. The central is not going to be a very strong division and I like what the Astro's accomplished in the off-season. First off, they let Pettitte go and replaced him with Jason Jennings. Jennings is coming off a year where he posted one of the best era's by any Colorado Rockies pitcher ever. Plus, Pettitte sucked last year for the most part. I could seriously see his era being around 5 this year in the AL. If Woody Williams and Brandon Backe can stay healthy I will be very happy with this rotation. The bullpen is solid and could be even more solid if Brad Lidge returns to old form. From top to bottom, this pitching staff could be the best in the NL central.

Carlos Lee will be a huge help to the offense. He should be able to put up some big numbers pulling the ball down the line at the juice box. Most importantly though, he will give some protection in the order for the fat Elvis. Berkman was third in the MVP vote last year despite not having any protection at all. I plan on taking Berkman very early in my fantasy draft this year and recommendend you all do the same. I mean look at his numbers last year with no one hitting behind him: AVG .315 HR 45 RBI 136 OBP .420 SLG .621 Yeah, that's pretty good. The offense will need some help and hopefully some of the young players on the team will step up namely Chris Burke and Luke Scott. Oh and Ensberg, just like Lidge, really needs to return to his 2005 form.

Clemens recently said that he was 80% retired which means he is definitely coming back next year. 3 years ago he said he was 99.9% retired before signing with the Astro's. The Astro's do need to be in contention for him to sign with them though.

On another note, there seems to be a debate on whether Jeff Bagwell deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He was the best all-round first basemen of the 90's. He didn't have a weakness. He was a great base runner, he could hit for average, he could hit for power, he got on base, he won Rookie of the Year, he was an MVP, he was a Gold Glove winner, and he was a clubhouse leader that hustled on every play. And I might add, he was/is the only person in the world who could have sex with my girlfriend with out me caring. Infact, I would be thrilled. But seriously, what else did the guy have to do? Due to his arthritic shoulder his numbers dipped the last few years of his career and I think people forgot what a monster he was. To help remind everyone lets look at Bagwell compared to Bonds. Now it is believed that Bonds started taking steroids during his 15th season in the Majors so I am only comparing them based on the first 14 seasons of their careers. Here is the average season for Bonds during his first 14 years of play

AVG .288 HR 32 RBI 92 SLG.559 Walks 102

And for Bagwell
AVG .297 HR 32 RBI 108 SLG .542 Walks 99

People say that Bonds had a Hall of Fame career before he started juicing but if you look at the numbers, it looks to me like Bagwell might have been a slightly better offensive player than Bonds during that time period and he was playing in the spacious Astrodome, a pitchers park. So how is it that anyone can deny that Bagwell deserves to be in the Hall?

Baylor Style!

That is a hilarious blog...

With the season starting tomorrow morning i thought it was probably time to talk a little Husker baseball and give some predictions.

This team will go only as far as our pitching and defense can take us. I don't have as high of expectations for this team as i have the past few years. I am just not sure we have the sticks to combat big xii pitching. If people like Andrew Brown, Andy Gerch, and maybe one of the newcomers can provide some power I could be wrong. I expect Wherle, Opitz and Sullivan (when he gets completely healthy) to all be good avg hitters. Bryce Nimmo is a guy that has to step up this year and will be the key to the offense. In the first half of the season last year he was a very good leadoff guy...but went into one of the worst 2 mo. slumps i have ever seen out of a husker during conference and post season play. Defensively we are great up the middle with Wherle, Opiz, and Nimmo in cf, that is always a great thing to have. The biggest defensive question mark is replacing Jeff Christy at catcher. Christy was possibly the best defensive catcher in Husker history, that is a major hole to fill and i think we will struggle behind the plate this year.

This pitching unit makes me all tingly inside...we have great experience returning, not to mention a group that will bring a ton of velocity. Throwing Watson every friday night gives you a great chance to win every series you are involved in. I know that Dorn is throwing game 2 this weekend but i hope that he will be our Sunday starter in the end, he seems to fit that gritty, get-away day type of guy. He's got a ton of starts under his belt and even though he doesn't have the greatest stuff in the world would be probably the best sunday starter in the nation. I have my doubts as to whether Charlie Shirek can duplicate his performance of last year. I see that Anderson has decided to give Matt Foust the 4th start this weekend which shocks me (i believe he plunked more hitters than he had innings pitched last year, no joke). One other pitcher that i think has a chance to crack the rotation this year and to look out for is the JUCO transfer Drew Bowman, this kid is supposed to be nasty.

For as good as the starting pitching should be, the pen should be equally as good. I think Bird has the chance to become as good as Jensen was the last couple of years and Zach Herr was awesome last year and I hope he can duplicate it this year. I will love our chances anytime our starters can get into the 7th inn. and pass the ball to these two. Other names to watch for this year include Steve Edlefson (yes the same Edelfson that started a lot of games at 3B last year), freshman Mike Nihsen, and Luke Wertz.

Here is my guess at tomorrow's starting lineup

CF Nimmo
2B Opitz
SS Wherle
1B Brown
RF Gerch
LF Belafonte/Sullivan (not sure he will be ready this first weekend)
DH Weber
C Lanning
3B Mort (i would look for the 2 newbies Corriston/Tezak to both get a start at the hot corner as well this weekend)

As for my fearless preseason prediction i will go with a regular season record of 38-18 (16-11 in big xii play). I'll than say that we get a home regional but are not a national seed.

As always, I have plenty of tickets, let me know if any of you want to claim a certain game or two. It's a great excuse for me not to take the wife if one of you wants to go with me.

Quick, someone invite Zumaya to lil OC's next after hours party.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007702130316

Note: This link has been updated

Just had to toss it out there to talk about today.

...how about five Grammys for an album no one heard?

What a fucking joke the Grammys have become. You think that the Dixie Chicks even get looked at--let alone serious consideration--at Album Of The Year if they weren't shunned by the country music community? It is the first country record to win the award since Glenn fucking Campbell in 1969. I'm not saying what happened to them was fair or anything, but for Christ's sake. You don't give out Grammys just because someone makes a political statement you agree with. And if that is the case, give it to someone that actually DESERVES it, like, oh, any other album put out in the past two years.

"I think people are using their freedom of speech tonight with all of these awards," Natalie Maines said.

Fucking puke. Shut up, you self-righteous retard. What in the name of all things holy does this have to do with the quality of music????

There are so many other things that are equally retarded about the Grammys ("Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley not nominated for Song of the Year? Really? You mean the most transcendant song released, including "Hey Ya," since probably "Billie Jean?" Really?), and I know it really doesn't matter, because 90% of the music nominated for this stupid ceremony are crappy major-label acts anyway...but at least award the best ones there, not the ones who everyone feels bad about because a bunch of rednecks didn't like their anti-Administration stance.

Christ.

CRITICAL UPDATE: I cannot believe I did not include this, but I forgot to include a key sighting: Ian Ziering (or Steve Sanders from 90210), desperately eating breakfast by himself, eyeing every piece of woman that came through there. You could see the desperation in his eyes: "you recognize me, right? RIGHT??? Cool, why don't you come over and share some pan....fuck! She looked away, too! On to the next one...." Apparently the person I was with said the last three times he has gone in there, the curtains were lifted for the exact same performance each time. Priceless.


I have completed my trip to LA. I don't know how I turned a two-day meeting into a week in LA, but it was worth it. The city has more culture on one block than possibly the entire state of Nebraska. It is pretty hard to explain. And the sheer size of LA is staggering when you view it up in the hills. Incredible.

Got to go to some sweet stores (T-SHIRTS!), some overrated bars, and one of the best concerts I have ever seen. Some highlights:

-Telling--unknowingly until I actually looked up--Ashlee Simpson to scoot over so I could dock my fat ass on a bar stool. I have never really thought she was that attractive. Yep, wrong. And we have the same check card.

-Drinking a beer with the dude from My Big Fat Greek Wedding/Northern Exposure/Sex In The City. Mrs. GA Hill was particularly impressed with this one, and wanted to make sure that he was "still hot." I don't know, but he is a tall fucker.

-THE ROOTS featuring Jill Scott, Lupe Fiasco, and Akon. With SPECIAL APPEARANCES BY Talib Kweli! Dave Chappelle! GA Hill, in the front row! It was an incredible show. Akon opened and did a short set, then The Roots came on and played for about an hour. Then Lupe came out and played a song with them, followed by about 30 minutes of just Lupe. Then Jill Scott came out and played the song she does with Lupe, which led to her set. Then she played "You Got Me" with The Roots, which led to their final set + encore. The encore was electric, as they played "The Seed 2.0" into a James Brown funk session that lasted around 20 minutes, highlighted by the horn section forming a Soul Train line that everyone went through (this is where Dave Chappelle appeared). It was fantastic, my friends. Well worth staying in LA 3 days longer than I was supposed to!

Peace out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yEjyuw42YY

Watch this little bastard. Not only is he 8 years old and not only is he playing on expert but he plays a lot of the song without even looking.

The Recording Industry of America is suing a dude in Augusta, Georgia for illegally downloading songs. Here's the rub: dude downloaded FIVE songs. Not only did he download five songs, he downloaded from five already rich MFers:

"Automobile" by NWA, Priority Records, LLC;

"All Over You" by LIve, UMG Recordings Inc.;

"Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman, Elektra Entertainment Group;

"Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones, Capitol Records Inc.; and

"What Would You Say" by Dave Matthews Band, BMG Music.

(OK, I suppose Live and Tracy Chapman could use the money these days...)

If found guilty, the MINIMUM civil penalty is $750 per song.

Not coincidentally, the guy's name is Scott.

Well, kids, I didn't think it was actually possible, but Com & Kanye fucked around and did it: they made the best song ever. Ever, ever, ever, in the history of music.

It will be the perfect track to celebrate with tonight after the Bears trounce the Colts, 34-19.

Common Ft. Kanye West: Southside Superbowl