Official Deathpool Rules

15 total: 14 real people, 1 TV character.

Requirements for celebrity status- to be determined by the 4 judges, majority rules.

Minimum 2 under 20, maximum 2 over 70. No known diseases.

Point system: 100 minus their age. 10 point bonus for a streak (3 person streak would get 20 points and on and on and on and onnnn, thanks Martellus).

1st gets 16 points, last gets 9 points, December gets 5.

Guessing cause of death gets you an extra 5 points.

You have to have at least 1 of the following categories: Athlete, anybody on TV/movies, musician, political figure/commentator, TV fictional character.

If the character comes back to life: if in 2010, doesn't count as death, lose those points. If in 2011, you have to do 2 shots of Rum Island Ice Tea.

Minimum 3 men, 3 women.

Draft: Either next Tuesday or Wednesday, 1 minute clock.

Possible updates in the future, suggestions in the comments, and most important, click the ad baby.

Sportsman of the Year

During the World Series I was talking with 1 of my buddies when I said something to the effect of "if we win the World Series there's a good chance the Captain will be SI's Sportsman of the Year". He responded with something to the effect of "who gives a flying ferret".

Of course this wasn't priority one for me since we still had a World Series to win, but it was in the back of my mind and moving closer to the front these last few weeks.

As anyone who knows me even a little bit should be able to tell you, Derek Jeter is my favorite player. Any sport, any team, no, forget favorite player, the man is as close to an idol as my religious conscience will allow me to have. The story has been often told but on an occasion such as this it bears repeating. In 1995 my favorite Yankee was Jimmy Key. During that season he got hurt and needed Tommy John surgery while also during that season we called up this kid shortstop. After dealing with the devastation that was the Martinez boys (and Griffey, and Joey freaking Cora, and scary Randy Johnson etc) ruining my Succos that year, 1996 began with said kid shortstop being our new starting shortstop. And I just knew. I just f'ing knew that he was going to be awesome, and that this was my new favorite player. (Could I have told you how awesome, or that he would be the absolute perfect role model in every respect imaginable? Of course not, only he's that good.) Sure enough in the first game of that magical year he hit his 1st career HR and made a sick over the shoulder catch.

He came at the perfect time. For most kids there is no stage in your life that you are as completely obsessed with baseball as much as ages 8-11, give or take a few months. That's when you can really appreciate baseball cards, your balls haven't dropped yet so girls still have cooties, when you have no responsibilities whatsoever and can therefore memorize your favorite player's stats (.314, 10 HRs, 78 RBIs in '96, I'll never forget that stat line). Opening Day 1996 I was 9 years old and the last 14 years rooting for Derek Jeter (and the other pinstriped people of course) have been as great as it gets. All of the jumpthrows, all of the Jeterian swings, The Jeffrey Maier HR, The Flip, Mr. November, The Dive (along with the moments that most people don't remember at all, like when he scored from 1st on a routine single) etc. etc. etfreakingcetera are all ingrained in my memory, and hopefully always will be.

For whatever reason SI's Sportsman of the Year has always mattered in some way to me. I guess part of that is because in most cases when you think back to any year since 1954 there's a decent chance the Sportsman of the Year selection will have been the greatest, biggest story of that year. Whether it was the first winner Roger Bannister, who ran the first sub-4 minute mile, or the 1980 US Hockey team, to last year's winner Michael Phelps. The combination of lifetime achievement award and still gettin' it doneness is very well acknowledged.

And now the man, the myth, the legend, the best there was, the best there is, the best there ever shall be, The Captain, Jeter Christ Almighty, 7-time American League Champion, 1996 Rookie of the Year, 2000 All-Star Game MVP, 2000 World Series MVP, 10-time All-Star, 4-time Gold Glove winner, 4-time Silver Slugger winner, 2-time Hank Aaron Award winner, 2009 Roberto Clemente Award winner, and most importantly 5-time World's Champion, Derek Sanderson Jeter is what we'll take from 2009.

Happy 23rd Birthday!

One of the top young players in the majors, and I'm not just saying that because he's on my keeper team, happy birthday Gordon Beckham.

And happy birthday to Sir and Lady Schlachter, those who don't believe in love at first sight obviously never heard of those two who've been together since they met in the nursery 23 years ago.

And even though they weren't born in the great birth year of 1986, happy birthday to Gracie Sheffield/Mia, Amy Poehler, Molly Shannon, Mickey Rourke, Tim "Rock" Raines, among many others.

And oh yeah, little ol' me. I'd be remiss if I didn't put this in:

Embedding disabled by request for whatever annoying reason, so go ahead and click this to watch.

All Hail

I was unfortunately unaware that these 2 legends would be chilling on the field before the game, otherwise I would've gotten there at 4 and jumped onto the field like a crazed lunatic to meet my 2 favorite active athletes.

Um, what?

The big NBA party starts tonight at midnight, and supposedly there's a decent chance we're getting Jason Kidd. All we have to offer, I would assume, is the mid-level exception. Considering the rumor that Dallas offered 3 years for 8 million each, and the fact that we aren't exactly a title contender, I don't see why Kidd would want to come to the Knicks. The only reasons are our main selling points, the fact that we're New York and have The Garden as our home court, and have D'Antoni and his most fun style ever coaching.

Be that as it may, I'm not a tremendous fan of this news. There are some obvious pros to this move. 1. He immediately becomes our best point guard. 2. He'll make everyone better, both with his on the court play and his off the court leadership. I would hope. 3. A lineup of Kidd-Hughes-Chandler-Gallo-Lee with Nate/the rookies/Wilcox/Darko coming off the bench is probably good enough to sneak into the playoffs.

Now the cons. Numbers are more fun than letters so the cons list gets lettters. A) He's old and slow and his defense is therefore terrible. B) Is it better for us to get Kidd and hope for a 7 seed? Or should we see what happens with Phoenix and Nash, or stay with Duhon and see what the Ghostface Killah can give us and build a better foundation for the future?

Our whole plan since DW/D'Antoni came to town was to gear up everything to the 2010 offseason. So if we sign Kidd for 1 year, then that plan is still in place. If we sign him to a multi-year deal, and don't somehow get rid of the Curry/Jeffries contracts, then our cap room for that offseason continues to go down. The chances of LeBron leaving Cleveland are slim enough as it is, but maybe the thought process would be that LeBron has always wanted to play with Kidd so he'll do whatever it takes to do so. I don't know. Plus we have to deal with D-Lee and Nate. It's gonna be a very interesting couple of weeks here in Knicksland.

All I know is you want your point guard to be a great decision maker. Therefore the picture below is troubling:

Giant Beam 1, Bret Michaels 0

Hilarious. And is that a dude dressed like a chick at the end? I don't get the Tony's but whatever floats their boat.

David who?!

You really learn something new every day. Turns out noted steroid cheat (well maybe not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt but come on, a friend of Angel Presinal is overwhelmingly likely a friend of needles) David "Big Pop-Up" Ortiz is not the man we thought he was. That's right, his name is really David Americo Ortiz Arias, and that has been confirmed by the fine folks at Wikipedia.

Very interested in why he decided to chop off the Arias and go with just Ortiz. Didn't sound Hispanic enough? Some father's name/mother's name stuff?

Either way, clearly I'm gonna be calling him Arias from now on and I encourage you all to do so too.

Twitter

So here's the deal, now on the top-right you got my Twitter link. Turns out I'm not really a blogger, more of a Twitterer. My main problem with blogging has always been that there's just too much forced words. If I'm watching/doing/listening whatever, in all likelihood there are other people around who I'm going to say my thoughts to, and then I'm going to have to go blog what I already said 5 times? Except for some rare examples, almost everything on this blog has been said to actual people many times before I typed it, and for the most part those are the people reading this thing, and therefore getting double doses of 95% of the stuff.

But Twitter, oh baby Twitter. That's just a whole different ballgame. Random thoughts as they happen along with the added challenge of keeping things under 140 characters, the way it can be used instead of mass-texting, the fact that it's easier to do on my 'Berry than blogging is. Not saying I'm not gonna blog anymore, but Twitter>Blogging, and it's not even close.

All Hail

5th player all-time with 2,600 hits, 200 HRs and 1000 RBI in his 1st 15 seasons.

First right-handed batter since 1930 with a .310 BA, 2,500 hits and 1,500 runs scored.

A 16-game hitting streak including a 7-game multihit streak.

I really have nothing more to add. All hail The Captain. The team is rolling right now, the swagger is back boys and girls. We're the best team in the world, try to beat us at your own risk.

Oh, and if you want to keep throwing at Teix, no biggie, AJ will just fire a fastball at Cruz's head.

RELAPSE Part 2

And we're back.

6. Hello
Shady, but not really crazy Shady. No real favorite lines, this song is just okay, maybe after a few listens I'll like it more. For now it gets a 5. The catchy tune will help its case in the future. Leads into...

7. Tonya (skit)
Not exactly sure who Tonya is. Unless she's the girl he wanted to say Hello to? I don't know, moving on.

8. Same Song & Dance
Shady. Okay, now the skit makes more sense, as she's just some random chick he carjacked apparently. Which reminds him of when he stalked/kidnapped/raped Lindsay Lohan and then the rebbetzin? The pills are starting to take affect on him, which I guess is the point of the CD.
"She played the little school girl when she first burst up on the scene and it seemed that the world was hers, she twirls and turns and flirts in skirts so bad it hurts", and "I'll share my valium with you cause I'm feeling you Britney" "ever since the school girl juvenile delinquent I've been feeling you". The Britney factor raises it from like a 4 to a 7.

9. We Made You.
Shady. This song has been a little overrated by the "mainstream" because since for most people the fact he mentions celebrities means it must be an awesome song, even if a lot of the jokes are the same ones he's made before just the names have changed. Let's see if my mind has changed on that.
I'm gonna stay on my high horse for this one, sure there are some decent celebrity digs, a nice Britney mention, and it's a catchy little jingle, but this is clearly a song just to get radio airplay, not that there's anything wrong with that, he needs to pay the bills. His albums always tell a story, so far it's been about his dealing with his addictions, his history coming back to haunt and influence him. Then all of the sudden we get the poppy celebrity song. It's a little out of place, and was mainly made to drum up interest from Z100, girls, and nontraditional males.
With all that said, I give it a 6. If anyone else sang it and there was no Britney mention this would easily be a 2. Just like Samantha Ronson. (See what I did there? Like I said, some decent digs.)

10. Medicine Ball
Shady again (noticing a trend, I'm not even gonna bother with that part of the review anymore unless Eminem shows up).
Now this song has better celebrity digs than We Made You, fits better with the album, but wouldn't work too well with the target market We Made You does. Naturally it's a much much much much (one more? I think so) much better song than We Made You. To the lines!
"I guess it's time for you to hate me again, let's begin now hand me the pen, how should I begin it and where does it all end" "I won't rape all the Pussycat Dolls, Nicole you kidding?" "I'll pee on Rihanna see man I do what I wanna, spray perfume in the sauna room crazy gluin Madonna to the Lazy Boy sofa, fold her in two then sit on her, imagine the visual for that man, who would thought I could ever be such a relentless prick unleashing the vengeance but the chick's so old she looks like she out-lived a life sentence" and an awesome line about his lyrical history with Christopher Reeves, "now everybody's pissesd at me like it's my fault his name rhymes with so many different words geez, so one last time" and finally, speaking in Christopher Reeve's robot voice with random inhalations "Eminem I'm coming to kill you, I've always hated you and I still do, you'll never fill my shoes, my Superman costume". This song gets an 8.

11. Paul (skit)
Awesome. Might be my favorite Paul voicemail ever.

Break time. Be back later or tonight with the rest.

RELAPSE!

Oh baby, here we go. Apparently Best Buy is retarded and therefore didn't have the deluxe edition so I had to settle for regular, but the other 2 songs are being downloaded as I type. Also we're gonna keep this PG-13 for all the kids out there. With that said, let the review begin.

First of all, great job on the cover, with the face made out of pills and the label looking like a prescription. Supposedly he's off the pills and is now addicted to Hey Arnold! (forgot where I read this but supposedly he's obsessed with the show now, only good things can come from this, maybe a collaboration with Jerald and Helga G. Pataki). Also, the lyrics are actually printed, well at least most of them, about time Eminem did that. Also a nice touch how all his pills have been prescribed by a legitimate doctor (Dr. Dre of course).

1. The CD starts with a skit called Dr. West. Supposedly, and it does sound like him, this character is played by Dominic West. Yes, that Dominic West. The great Jimmy McNulty from the Wire, who plays some f'd up doctor voice in Em's head telling him there's no big deal if he drinks/pops pills. Which leads into

2. 3AM.
Eminem (Lose Yourself, Till I Collapse, The Way I Am, Like Toy Soldiers, Superman, Sing For The Moment etc) or Slim Shady (Without Me, Real Slim Shady, My Name Is, '97 Bonnie and Clyde, Just Lose It, Ass Like That etc)? Shady.
Favorite Line(s): Classic Shady as he starts the 2nd verse with "Sitting nude in my living room, it's almost noon, I wonder what's on the tube maybe they'll show some boobs, surfin every channel until I find Hannah Montana then, I reach for the aloe and lanolin" shortly followed by "I'm just a hooligan who's used to using hallucinogens".
Scale of 1 (It's Eminem, who are we kidding, there's never been a 1) to 10 (Lose Yourself): Solid 7.

3. My Mom
Shady.
"slut, you need to leave me the f alone I ain't playing, go find you a white crayon and color a f'ing zebra" "Wait a minute, this ain't dinner it's paint thinner" and "I'll do it, pop it gobble it and start wobblin, stumble hobble tumble slip trip then I fall in bed, with a bottle of meds and a Heath Ledger bobble head". Yes he did just go there, which is why he's the king, I give this song an 8.

4. Insane
Shady. This song goes in the "holy crap what is wrong him" file.
"I was born with a dick in my brain, yeah f'd in the head" "took his eye out picked it up and played pang-pong, then he played pang-pong with his own dang-dong" and the way he says "I don't need no help peeing, I'm a big boy I can do it by myself see" and finally "I only get naked when the babysitter tells me, she showed me a movie like Nightmare on Elm Street, but it was X and they called it Pubic Hair on Chelsea, (then his "stepfather" saying ) "well this one's called Ass Rape and we're shooting the jail scene". This song gets a solid 7.

5. Bagpipes From Baghdad
I've been looking forward to this song, let's see if it lives up to the hype.
Wow. Shady. Definitely Shady. This song is retarded. The whole Mariah/Nick Cannon thing is classic Shady, as is the 3rd verse where he speaks of adventures with conjoined twins, there's really no PG-13 way to describe that, just listen for yourself.
"Nick Cannon ya prick I wish ya luck with the f'n whore"
Another solid 7.

So far every song has been very relistenable, with good lines and classic retarded crap. No awesome songs yet though.

I'm gonna take a break for a few minutes, handle some business, and be back soon to listen to the next 5 tracks.

And we're back. Again.

Done with finals, finally finished the Mehl paper, all I have left is Fordham and senior research. So now I have more time to blog! And let's be honest, that's really all that matters in life. So for now enjoy the greatness you see above, I'll be back later today/tonight/tomorrow/never with a) my Yankee thoughts, b) some playoff stuff, c) most importantly, a live Relapse recap as I listen to it since I have it but haven't listened. Yet. and of course d) a gigantic collection of random crap.

How to Fix The Yankees

Step 1: Fire Joe Girardi. He's a horrible manager who thinks he's smarter than everyone else. We never should have hired him in the first place. I don't want Bobby Valentine but I'd be fine with Tony Pena or giving the job to Don Mattingly like we originally should have.

Step 2: Get rid of Hideki Matsui. He sucks. He has sucked for the last few years. His numbers get inflated by 2 hot streaks that last for a combined 3-4 weeks. And the fact that he's a pretty significant reason we don't have Manny DHing doesn't help his case.

Step 3: Move back to Yankee Stadium. The new place is a soulless heartless tourist attraction that depresses me more and more each time I walk in. Not one Yankee fan on the face of the earth would rather be in the "Stadium" than in The Stadium.

If this plan is implemented right away, we'll be in 1st place by the end of the month. Guaran-Dachs-teed.

Urgent YouTube of the Day

The newest brand spanking new feature on the blog

Let's call it, what I'll be thinking about during the Rabbi's speech on Shabbos.

Naturally I'll do what I can to daven in a minyan without a speech, that's just how I roll homies. But the point remains, this will be the official Friday blog, where I preview the weekend in sports and whatever, both what I'll be thinking about what happened Friday night and what I'll be looking forward to Saturday night, Nisht Shabbos Goret of course.


First of all, after a night when we improved to 3-0 when I'm at the new place, the Yankees look to continue to handle their business against the Angels. I'd like to personally thank Mike Scioscia for bringing in Justin Speier in last night, it's not like we destroy him everytime we face him. Pettitte vs my good friend Jered Weaver tonight as we look to stretch our win streak to 4.


Then we get to our double main event. 1st, Celtics-Bulls Game 7. This series has been completely insane, with more OTs than any series in my lifetime. As we all know Game 7s are awesome, hopefully for the Celtics Wade Redden doesn't deflect in the winning shot on their own basket.


And of course, Pacquiao-Hatton. The pound-for-pound king, at least until Mayweather comes back, fighting at a weight heavier than he ever has, going against Ricky Hatton whose trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr. is absolutely hilarious, and more importantly has supposedly taught Hatton how to be more of a defensive fighter. It's the first big PPV fight of '09, time to get pumped and watch some 24/7.

On to the random predictions for the weekend:

1. D-Wade goes for at least 40 tonight as the Heat win.
2. The Blue Jays win tonight as Halladay pitches one of his gems.
3. Pac-Man by TKO in the 8th.

Random Crap Monday

Less than 24 hours removed from one of the worst sports days of my life, the return of Random Crap Monday!

An abbreviated version of the crap as the Yankee game's on but 2 main stories today.



First, Donald Brashear was suspended for 6 games. 1 for messing with Colton Orr during pregame warmups, 5 for attempting to kill Blair Betts. For some reason ESPN.com decided to report that Mike Green was also suspended but that's not true. See what happens when they try to cover hockey?

And in the other news, although this apparently isn't news since it's been known for a few years but hey I just found out now, Harriet from Studio 60 (Sarah Paulson) and President Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) are a lesbian couple. I don't really have a joke here, but this is the kind of thing that Random Crap Monday was made for.

Arg

The Rangers lost, the Yankees got swept by Boston, if you think you're getting anything more out of me today you're out of your freaking mind. I'm too busy watching Game 6 of the '96 World Series.

Gadlus of the Day

Biggest Sports Day of the Year?

I think to this point, this is going to be the biggest sports day for me in 2009. Let's break this party down:

We got the real NFL draft, since we traded our only Day 1 pick for more picks in the middle rounds, and now have 12 picks in the 5 rounds today. I highly doubt we actually make 12 picks, and actually hope we can package some of them for 2nd round picks next year. My favorite part of the draft so far has been reading the comments from yesterday on the great bloggingtheboys.com, where for the most part they tended a) to hate the fact that we didn't have a pick until 51 so Roy Williams better be awesome b) really hated the fact that most of our predraft targets got taken between picks 33 and 45 and c) my most favorite comments, wondering why the hell Wade Phillips was necessary in the war room, and commenting how it looked like he had gas. And as I type this the 'Boys are on the clock at pick 69. And we just took Jason Williams, OLB from Western Illinois. Full recap and thoughts about the draft later.

We got Game 6 of Rangers-Caps. Our great coach got himself suspended for benching Seanie in Game 5, or for throwing a water bottle at a fan, whichever story you like better. As our Rangers expert texted me last night, "he's a hypocritical loser". Maskim.

But in any event, we kind of need to win today because no one wants to play a Game 7 on the road, even if last year Washington trailed Philly in the 1st round 3-1, won Games 5 and 6 and then lost Game 7 at home in OT. As Torts said after Game 5, we need our best players to be our best players, not our kids. As great as it is that Callahan and Dubinsky continue to step up, guys like Drury (although he's hurt), Naslund and especially waste of space and crappy ex-Devil Gomez really need to step up. We know Henrik will be on his game after taking off Game 5, but we gotta score some goals on Varlamov.

In the middle of all this there are also the great NBA playoffs all day, plus the Hurricanes victory.


Of course this all leads to the main event of the evening. The Yanks. The Sawx. The 1st two games haven't exactly gone as planned but with Pettitte on the hill tonight I'm feelin it.

Side point about the Yanks: Just throwing out this completely hypothetical yet strangely possible theory. Bruney's injury turns out to be a little more serious than this 2 weeks we're being told it is. Wang figures out whatever's wrong, with some rest, some work on his mechanics, whatever. Hughes comes up Tuesday and becomes the beast we know he is, making it impossible to send him back down to not Columbus. Our rotation becomes Sabathia, Burnett, Pettite, Wang, Hughes. Joba goes back to the 8th inning when Wang proves himself ready to rejoin the rotation since he's going to have the innings limit anyway.

Anyway, today should be awesome, be back later with thoughts and recaps and YouTubes. The blog is back!