No this Blog is not Dead.

No, we aren't dead. Some brain dead jackass asked me this weekend if this blog was going to die, and the answer is no. As I've mentioned in every post I've made this month, although admittedly there haven't been many, I'm swamped at work and with weekend things going on all month. I promise once we hit August things will pick back up. Of course, it wouldn't hurt if one of the other contributors on this site would like to toss up a post or two. I know Dawger is dying to talk Twins. Anyway, I do have a little bit of time tonight, so I'll make a couple quick comments.

- I should probably go ahead and start with the British Open, since the winner is my arch enemy, the uncalcuably gay Stew Cink. Make no mistake, he got lucky and it probably shouldn't count. Think about it. How hard is it to beat an old man? An old man who has already played 72 holes in four days in the freezing cold and wind and rain? Most guys Watson's age would have been out by hole 11. Hell, most guys Watson's age would have woken up the morning after the first round and been unable to get out of bed and have to use that clicker thing or whatever it is that the "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady advertised. Seriously, what was it? A clicker of some kind? A phone? Wow, I can picture the lady but I don't remember the product. Is that good advertising or bad?

Anyway, I had originally planned to call Watson a choker, but now that I think more about it I'm guessing he was just a bit tuckered. Although there isn't much more disappointing than thinking you are watching the story of the year (at a minimum), but instead you get some bald-headed, gigantic sloth freak sneaking in the back door and stealing that 59-year-old leprechaun's gold. Crying shame.

And Ian Poulter should be ashamed of himself for that performance. From a solo 2nd last year to dead effing last this year. And he was even playing well going into this tournament. I have no clue what happened, but I'll never trust that dandy again.

- Speaking of advertising, Kmart's advert for lay-a-way is for a blow up shark. I mean, I like blow up sharks as much as the next guy, but are we really doing lay-a-way for them? I thought that was for poor people who can't afford a love seat, not average suburban white couple who need lawn water toys. I might have to look into this.

- In what has become a Twins' tradition, your favorite team needed help at a position and went out and signed the oldest, cheapest option available; this time giving a minor league contract to 39-year old second basemen Mark Grudzielanek.

I actually think is a pretty good idea. Minor league contract means no risk - probably the biggest reason they made the signing, but even last year Grudzy put up some decent numbers (.299/.345/.399) - not much for slugging the ball, but it's basically what Luis Castillo gave them that one year he was here all season (.296/.358/.370). And it wasn't a fluky season either - Grudzielanek has hit no worse than .294 in his last six seasons, and hasn't hit lower than .271 since his rookie year way back in 1995. No major risk here, especially when the Tolbert/Casilla/Punto trio is doing nothing but making outs at a prodigious rate. If he can still hit anywhere near his career average and isn't a total stiff in the field (major questions due to a late ankle injury last year that has had him sitting out almost a full calendar year), he's a major upgrade. Of course, since this is a Twins' signing, I'm going to fully assume that they essentially signed Steve Lombardozzi (the current, 48-year-old version).

- Since we're chatting about Twins' busts, how about a little Jesse Crain update (who I have pretty much completely forgotten about)? He's thrown twelve games down in Rochester so far, compiling 17 2/3 innings and a 2.55 ERA and 1.19 WHIP. Toss in a 22-8 K/BB ratio, and I'd say thus far the experiment with Mr. Seashell Necklace has been a success. Expect to see him up again soon, especially with the Twins' bullpen in full on implosion mode. I'm sure with the bullpen blowing leads and giving up monster home runs, Crainsy is feeling pretty left out.

- I'm trying to muster up the energy to give a crap about the most recent T-Wolves trade, but it's hard. I dig on how Kahn has come to town with a "Let's start this garbage over" mentality, because that was definitely what was needed. Madsen is little more than a crowd favorite, which means a white jackass who hustles and has no talent. He will be missed by drunken idiots with more money than sense only. Telfair and Craig "the Manatee" Smith, were able to put up ok numbers on a crappy team, but I'm pretty sure that was their upside. Telfair will be little more than a career backup, and Smith will eat himself out of the league as soon as he signs his first non-rookie contract (book it).

So by not losing anything, the Wolves automatically win this trade. Getting Q Richardson back isn't going to really add much to the team in terms of win, but it at least gives them a big-time shooter to replace Mike Miller. Plus, with $9+ million in salary coming off the books next off-season he adds a little bit of flexibility to any off-sesaon plans that little munchkin has cooking in his little brain.

Not a monster improvement, but a very good little trade. Although I will miss watching the Manatee cross mid-court on less than half his team's possessions.

- The Onion is almost always a guaranteed laugh, but this might be my favorite of all-time, "Derek Jeter makes easy play look easy."

- Another funny link: Ed O'Bannon is suing the NCAA for use of his image. I'm not even 100% sure what this means, but it makes total sense that O'Bannon would need money. The best thing he could do is shoot some sort of anti-early entry warning video. I know he didn't leave school early, but he's a great warning for guys who are great in college that they might not quite pan out as pros. Him, Shawn Respert, Adam Morrison, Randolph Childress, Pervis Ellison, Marcus Fizer, and George Lucas can get together and teach a class on dissapointing people.

- Lastly, you should know that Wonderbaby^TM is already the most advanced in her gymnastics class and might have to be moved up to the more advanced class. That's right, guess who is the only one in her class who can hang from a bar? Yep. Her teacher/coach/volunteer/weirdo loner cat-lady person already said, "She's really advanced. A real natural athlete." Hopefully this will translate to non-gay sports like basketball and softball baseball, but if she ends up in the Olympics, so be it. She'll be the Michael Phelps of gymnastics, but without the weed and overall douchiness.

I'll leave you with a picture of her showing off her skills:

Weekend Review

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Gopher football. I’m sure you spent most of your weekend trying to figure out where I would put them, in the awesome category or the suck category. Would I concentrate on the win on the road at Purdue, a tough place for the Gophers traditionally, and a road win in the Big Ten is never an easy task? Or would I concentrate on the ugliness of the game, and how Purdue is not only terrible, but the Gophers were facing a third string quarterback for a good chunk of the game, a guy I’m almost certain doesn’t belong anywhere near a D-I football field? Well, a 7-1 record, 3-1 in the Big Ten, and a #20 ranking nationally have me feeling pretty awesome. Please don’t F this up.

2. Penn State. Staying in the Big Ten, the Nittany Lions let everyone know they truly are the class of the Big Ten by the hated Buckeyes in Columbus 13-6 on Saturday, thanks in part to a late fumble by the right-handed Vince Young, QB Terrelle Pryor. I’m not exactly sure how high of praise “The Class of the Big Ten” really is, but look out, because they’ve picked up three #1 votes in the USA Today poll. The true good news here is that we won’t have to watch Ohio State get their asses kicked in the national championship game, we just might have to watch Penn State get their asses kicked instead. Also, I don’t know if this is true but I heard it somewhere that if Penn State goes to the championship game and the Gophers win out they go to the Rose Bowl. That would be pretty cool. I once won a chili cook-off and kicked a 40 yard field goal at the Rose Bowl.

3. Ryan Howard. Not the guy from The Office, things aren't so good for him right now, but the big fat slugging first baseman for the Phillies. After a very bad game one in which he looked mostly lost and confused and reminded me a lot of the Manatee, Craig Smith, he seems to have figured out Rays pitching, culminating in last night's 3-4 performance with 2 homers and 5 rbi, including an absolute laser of a homerun in the 8th. He has Philly on track for the win, as well as probably being the favorite for MVP at this point. Might as well toss Philly starting pitching in here as well, with Hamels (7ip/5h/2er), Myers (7ip/7h/3er), Moyer (6.1ip/5h/3er), and Blanton (6ip/4h/2er and a HR himself) pretty much dominating the Rays' bats. Congrats to the Phillies.

4. Texas Tech. You know, whenever there’s a gimmicky offensive team in college football it’s hard to take them too seriously. Whether it’s Houston or Hawaii and their super run-and-gun or Air Force with their wishbone/flexbone attack, I never really consider them a top team, no matter the record or the ranking, but it’s looking like this year’s version of the Red Raiders might be different. This weekend they beat a very good Kansas team in Kansas to the tune of 63-21, running their record to 8-0, 4-0 in the Big Twelve. The true test is still ahead, as their next four games are vs. #1 Texas, #7 Oklahoma State, and at #4 Oklahoma, and that’s where we’ll find out if their QB Graham Harrell (#1 in NCAA in Passing Yards and completions, 28 TDs vs. 5 INTs) is more Andre Ware or more Drew Brees.

5. Tyler Thigpen. If you happened to watch the Chiefs/Jets game, first of all you were probably really bored, but in contrast to Brett Favre (more on this below) you would have seen Tyler Thigpen look like an actual, competent NFL quarterback. He ended up 25-36 for 280 yards and 2 TDs with no interceptions, and more so even that that was making good decisions and showed good accuracy and arm strength. He may very well have even led the Chiefs on a fourth quarter drive with under 2 minutes remaining for the win except for a non-call on a fourth down possible pass interference. Basically, he looked like the kind of guy who could be a QB of the future for a team. If only the Vikings had drafted him, like in the seventh round or something. What? Oh. Go T-Jax!


WHO SUCKED

1. Brad Johnson. Holy noodle arm, watching him try to play QB is just painful. I knew he was a cranky old man at this point and I expected the Cowboys to slow down, but not to stop completely. Owens is worthless now. So is Witten. Barber still gets a few yards, but with 13 in the box on every play because BJ can’t throw, the going is tough. On any third down longer than 8 yards, they either run a draw, a screen, or Johnson ends up dumping it to a check down guy 3 yards down field, who then runs to just short of the first down before being tackled. Sound familiar, Vikings fans.

2. Brett Favre. As long as we’re on the subject of bad, old quarterbacks, Favre was vintage Favre on Sunday. No, not the “fourth quarter comeback”, although that’s all I heard from the announcers all day, I’m talking about the poor decisions and interceptions thrown right into the defenders arms. Favre had three of those, and I can’t adequately describe how poor these throws were, including one that the Chiefs took back for a TD, as well as another one right in the linebackers arms that was dropped. Look, he threw three picks to a team that had three thus far in the season, he had an INT returned for a TD in the fourth, losing the lead, and on the TD to take the lead back he horribly underthrew Laveraneous Coles who made an incredible catch to win the game. But all you heard about was the fourth quarter comeback and what a great throw he made by intentionally underthrowing Coles, although I’m 99% sure he was actually supposed to lead him and he made a great play. The media love for Favre continues, any other QB would have been ripped to shreds for this performance. I also heard he’s hooked on pain pills and young Asian boys.

3. Northwestern. I think pretty much every knew Northwestern was pretty much a sham at 6-1, but Saturday’s loss to Crapdiana pretty much seals the deal for any believers out there. Pretty much tells you the state of the Big Ten right now when this team is in fifth.

4. Big 12 Defenses. I always thought of the Big 12 as kind of a smashmouthy type of conference, but clearly that is not the case this season. The lowest scoring game in the conference this weekend was 28-24. In terms of scoring offense, Oklahoma is #2, Texas Tech #3, Missouri #4, Texas #5, Okla State #6, and K State #13. In passing yards, Tex Tech is #1, Oklahoma #3, Missouri #4, Kansas #8, Texas #11, Nebraska #12, and K State #13. That’s a lot of ball slinging, and a whole hell of a lot of fun to watch. Will be interesting to see if it’s just good offense, or bad defense once bowl season rolls around.

5. Evan Longoria. He's still a stud, he's still handsome, and it's a very small sample size no doubt, but Longoria has looked completely befuddled at the plate and in the field in the series. He's currently running at 0-16 with 9 strikeouts, and a whole bunch of fielding plays that he should have made, even if they don't show up as errors. I'm not exactly ready to give up on him or anything, but it would do him well to get a couple of hits tonight at least, so this isn't hanging over his head all offseason.

Corey Brewer vs. the World

Somewhere previously, I said Corey Brewer would be the best pick of this draft other than Greg Oden or Kevin Durant. I don't know if it was the excitement of seeing him slip to 7, the fact that he won Final Four Most Outstanding Player (where we had him at 10-1 odds), or my keen basketball sense, but I was sure he would be the man.

Using a sophisticated ranking system I call "Looking at Stats" it looks like he is #4 so far this season, using minutes, points, blocks, steals, assists, and rebounds. Beating him are Kevin Durant (of course), Al Horford, and Yi Jianlian. Brewer is averaging 21 minutes (5th among rookies), 4.9 points (13th), 4.6 rebounds (5th), 1.5 assists (4th), 0.7 steals (6th), and 0.4 blocks (8th). I think it's safe to say he's barely tapped his potential at this point whereas Horford and Jianlian are probably already at their peak, and will likely only fade from here - leaving Brewer as the best rookie not named Durant, and proving once again that I'm always right.

If you're wondering, the rookies getting at least 10 minutes a game who rank lowest are Spencer Hawes and Aron Afflalo. Also interesting is the fact that Daequan Cook is the second leading scorer amongst rookies. That one I didn't see coming.

On another T-Wolves note, I caught a little bit of last night's game on the radio. Somehow I heard that the games are on 106.1 FM now, and so flipped over. Well, it appears Craig Smith's new nickname is "The Rhino." I'm not really sure how I feel about this one, mostly based on the fact that the time I saw him in person (BC vs. Villanova in the tournament) he was fat and lazy. BC had to set up the offense before he even got down the court most of the time, and the majority of his points and rebounds came because he was fatter than everybody else. I'd be more inclined to go with "The Hippo", except hippos are really aggressive and kill people all the time, and Smith is too lazy for that. I'm going with "The Manatee."

That wasn't the point, the point was that right after I heard him refer to The Manatee as "The Rhino" he said "and Smith Rhino's it into the lane." That is, without a doubt, the single dumbest thing I've ever heard. I don't know who that announcer is, but he should be shot or beaten or killed or something.

Penn State -14 vs. Princeton
Vanderbilt -4 @ DePaul
Maryland -7.5 vs. Ohio
Cincinnati +20 @ Xavier
Boston College -5 vs. UMASS
New Orleans +5 @ Colorado
Santa Clara -6.5 vs. Pacific
Cal Poly +8 @ Portland St

Yesterday: 3-2
Season: 100-87