Monday's Musings

I promise that I plan to get back to doing the week in review type posts every Monday, but Easter weekend was hectic as all hell and by the time I finally got to sit down on a stupid computer it was late Sunday and I just didn't have the energy or care enough to slap together something.  Plus, that wouldn't live up to the fine tradition I've started here of high quality postings every single time.  I couldn't possibly betray you that way, gentle reader, so I just didn't type up anything.  Instead I'll just put together my thoughts into this evening's post.  Just like this:

-  Tip o' the ole cap to our buddy Grandslam for bringing this to my attention, but guess how much money Kyle Lohse is going to make this year.  Go ahead, guess.  You're way low.  It's $12 million.  Nope, not in his career, but this year alone Lohse will make $12 mother-effing million dollars.  And in 2009 and 2010 combined he made about $16 million to deliver right around a combined 200 below-average innings to the Cardinals.  This, my friends, would be why you don't suddenly throw a 4-year, $41 million extension at a pitcher with a history of mediocrity simply because he has one slighly above average season, especially when advanced metrics can tell you, if you take the time to put down the binoculars and game worn miniature scorebook pencil, that he was a little bit lucky and you can fully expect him to regress back to the same mediocre pitcher.

Now Lohse is off to a 3-1 start and coming off a gem of a 2-hit shutout against Washington (WASHINGTON!!), and has a low ERA and WHIP, but honestly you don't need advanced metrics to tell you he's not that good (note:  he's been very, very lucky so far).  He's an average pitcher at best who has just enough of a live arm that he's going to jump up and give you a good start or two here or there - he did it for the Twins, he did it for the Phillies, and he's done it before for these very same Cardinals.  But guess what?  There's not a chance in hell he's worth $12 million.


Want to know the best part?  When they extended him they also gave him a full no-trade clause.  L-O-freaking-L.  Who's running this team, McHale?  I'm expecting another extension any day.

-  And since we are on the subject of former Twins' pitcher who define mediocrity (or worse) guess who currently has a no-hitter through five innings against the Yankees?  Phil freaking Humber.  I know there's no way this can last more than another batter or two, but could there possibly be a bigger kick in the nuts?  Player acquired for former superstar who the team couldn't afford to keep who washes out pitches a no-hitter for a hated division rival against the old team's arch nemisis that's bounced them from the playoffs the last three times they've been there?  Honestly, the only way you could possibly make this worse is to have it be a playoff game.  But yeah, this will do.  Ouch.

- Greivis Vasquez plays a meaningful role for the Grizzlies?  I had no idea (but I guess why would I when it pertains to the Memphis NBA team).  I've been watching this game for about four game minutes and he's hit two buckets as well as a three-pointer.  I think he might be MVP.

-   Humber now through six.  Still hitless.  If he can get through the seventh (Granderson, Texeira, A-Rod) he'll have a chance.  Of course, that still lives Cano.  Wait.  I got it.  He's going get all the way to the last out, which will be Jeter.  Jeter will break it up. All announcers/journalists everywhere will collectively mess their shorts to race to their typewriters to write up an article about how tough he is and his intangibles.  One journalist will out-crazy them all by writing about how he believes "some part of Jeter really didn't want to break that up, because he knew what a great story it was, but he's such a competitor that the though of lying down never crossed his mind."  Book it.

-  I just realized A.J. Burnett is on the other side of this, and he's only allowed 2 hits and one run.  This is like bizarro-world.  There must be a five-hundred mile per hour wind blowing in, the infield grass must be three times longer than normal, and whoever is umping home plate obviously is calling everything a strike tonight.  That has to be it, no?

-  Moment of silence of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who died nine years ago today.  You may remember her as the crazy as shit broad from TLC who burned down Andre Rison's house, but what you might not remember is that Andre Rison died exactly four years ago today.  Creepy, right?  But I should mention that I actually have no idea if Andre Rison is dead or alive, and if he is dead he probably didn't die on this date.  But he could have, and that's creepy.

-  I just read that a judge or something lifted the NFL lockout.  I'm not going to lie to you.  I have no idea what this means.  All I know is I want scab players in at least one NFL game.  Come on.  Tell me you don't want to see Adam Weber throw a TD pass to some 33-year old slob who was selling cars or schlepping concrete last year.  How much fun would it be to go through the rosters and see guys you remember as the third WR on Michigan in 2002 and be all like, "Ronald Bellamy!  I remember that guy!  He's a fag!"  Seriously, it would be like Christmas.

-  A-Rod breaks up the no-hitter with one down in the 7th.  I feel both relieved and saddened at the same time.

-  That Joe Mauer/Troy Polamolu commercial creeps me out.

-  I know what you're wondering.  You're wondering what's going on with the NBDL right now.  Well I'll tell you.  They've reached the finals (which is a best of three affair) and the Iowa Energy are up on the Rio Grande Valley Vipers after taking game one by a score of 123-109.  Iowa was led by Curtis "The Curt Man" Stinson who notched a triple-double (29-10-10).  Also apparently Stinson was MVP of the D-League.  How proud of that would you be?  I'd say it's kind of like getting into Harvard and getting a communications degree.  I mean, it's better than slinging crack or living off welfare, but even so you gotta feel like you didn't quite get everything out of life that you maybe should have.

-  I don't know how anybody could root for the San Antonio Spurs.  You have the world's most boring superstar surrounded by a bunch of commies and some ooh la la frenchman who probably smells like Drakkar.  Gross.

-  Speaking of Drakkar, Memphis is about to be up 3-1 on the Spurs tonight and I can't help but a feel a bit of a pang of jealousy.  I know this would be their first playoff series win ever, and they picked up their first playoff win ever earlier, and I also know the Wolves did have that nice run the conference finals, but Memphis being successful when the Wolves are in the pooper makes me, and baby jesus, cry.  How can Zach Randolph become a leader?  How can a backcourt of O.J. Mayo, Mike Conley, and Tony Allen do, well, anything?  And the Wolves are not just worse, but significantly worse.  That feels like a place to end.  Plus I have to go stab myself in the temple with a crossbow quarrel, but before I go I want to leave with this piece of wisdom...."The eyes are the groin of the head."

-  Wait, I just realized I didn't even put a picture in here. So here's a pic of Alison Brie. Top 10, easy.  Should also drive some traffic because cash money ya'll.

Week in Review - 11/30/2009

Guess what I can't bring myself to talk about right now?  Yep, Gopher basketball.  I know this is supposedly a gopher basketball blog (and Twins), but I just can't do it.  I am livid.  Liv.  Id.  But it's really my own fault.  Here I somehow started to believe this was a "special" team, meaning a sweet 16ish type.  Now I'm coming to realize that it's not even close.  It's just like last year - and why wouldn't it be?  It's pretty much the same team.  All the same warts.  So we can expect to be in a fight for a bid, probably make it, and be happy with that as the upside.  Great.  Better than the Monson years no doubt, but I feel like a kid who just found out Santa isn't real.  I can't even come close to rationally discussing this right now.  And, as they say, if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.  So I won't.


WHO WAS AWESOME
1.  Cincinnati.  If not for some Tim Donaghy-level reffing (huge foul disparity, blown call on game-winning layup attempt) and an unfortunately timed foul shooting meltdown (2-7 in overtime, with two misses by Deonta Vaughn (career 80+ shooter), the Bearcats would be returning from Maui as the champions of the Maui Classic - as it is, they return instead as a legitimate contender for the Big East title after beating two top-25 teams (Vanderbilt and Maryland) and losing in overtime to Gonzaga.  I told you people this team was going to be good, and there are some very good things.  Freshman Lance Stephenson has Carmelo Anthony-type potential.  They have other potential stars both outside (Vaughn) and inside (Yancy Gates), are very deep, and are an excellent defensive team.  I still think they have final four potential.  Sure, there are some things they need to work on - they settle for too many jumpers and struggle against athletic big men, and I'm not sure about Cashmere Wright at the point just yet, but they could make some noise in March.  And don't forget, Ibrahima Thomas won't be eligible until December. 

2.  Purdue.  Even with all the cross-pollenating tournaments and all that jazz, it's still rare to get a matchup of two teams ranked in the top-11, so when that happens this early, the winner should feel pretty good about themselves.  In this case and using this tortured multi-part sentence, I'm talking about Purdue and their very good 73-72 win over Tennessee in the Virgin Islands on Monday.  It was the three usual suspects bringing the Boilers to victory - Robbie Hummel (20 pts, 7 rebs), the "College KG" JaJuan Johnson (11 pts), and E'Twaun Moore (22 pts) - and those three will be the key to how far the Boilers go this year, but a lot of credit needs to go to Keaton Grant, who's being forced to fill in at the point with the injury to Lewis Jackson and doing a nice job.  I'm not sure when Lew-Jack is supposed to be back, but Purdue hasn't missed a beat without him.

3.  John Shurna.  Wasn't Northwestern supposed to be dead in the water after Coble got hurt?  It certainly isn't looking that way, especially after they won the Chicago Invitational by beating Notre Dame and Iowa State, two teams with NCAA Tournament aspirations, and completely on the back of Shurna, the 6-8 sophomore who won the tournament MVP award - quite an accompishment consider Luke Harangody and Craig Brackins were both involved.  And where did this come from?  Shurna was a lightly recruited, 3-star player out of high school who ended up at Northwestern because they were his best offer and has suddenly turned into a Coble clone.  He's the same guy, although I think Coble would beat him at horse, but he's got the same inside/outside, unathletically effective game, and he defintiely came to play this weekend.  He put up 25-8-4 against Notre Dame (Harangody:  21-9-0) and 23-7-4 against Iowa State (Brackins:  18-9-3) to lead the Wildcats to what must surely be their first place trophy in anything basketball related.  I hate to say it, but with Shurna and Thompson both back next year with more experience, the Coble injury might have been the best thing that could have happened to them.  If they don't get their first ever NCAA bid this year, next year should be it.   

4.  Richmond.  After losing earlier this season to William & Mary, a Spiders team that was supposed to challenge for the A-10 crown was looking like more of a CBI caliber team.  They made up for that loss, however, by winning the South Padre Invitational with wins over Mississippi State and Missouri, wins that aren't what you would called marquee, but very nice quality wins that should end up looking good on selection sunday.  They also got a boost with William & Mary's win at Wake Forest this weekend, which shows W&M is a legit team and softens the sting of that early season loss.

5.  Florida.  The Gators won the Legends Classic in Atlantic City by beating Rutgers and Michigan State (yet another Big Team who bombed this week), and started the week by crushing Florida State.  I wasn't sure exactly what to make of the Gators coming in to this year, but the newcomers have been great (Kenny Boynton leads the team in scoring and Vernon Macklin is in double-figures as well), and Erving Walker is settling in as a pretty good point guard.  Looks like they'll be back in tournament, and not the NIT this time.


WHO SUCKED

1. Oklahoma.  Losing Blake Griffin will obviously make things a little rough, but the Sooners had Willie Warren and Tony Crocker back as well as a really nice recruiting class with two projected starters in it, so the thought was that they would be ok.  Well, the Great Alaska Shootout showed that perhaps that isn't exactly the case since the Sooners came home with a prestigious 7th place trophy after going 1-2 in the frozen north.  They lost to both San Diego and Houston prior before drawing the now 0-8 Nicholls State Colonels, who actually led 47-41 at one point in the second half before falling 81-60.  This was basically an unequivacable disaster for Oklahoma, who were ranked 25th before this tournament.  Neither Houston nor San Diego is awful, and both will probably be on the fringes of the bubble come tournament time, but you just can't do this if you're a major conference school who has hopes of competing for your league's championship.  They shot 33% and were out rebounded 39-30 against San Diego in game 1 and then turned it over 18 times while allowing Houston to shoot 46% from three in game two.  You can probably just go ahead and cross Oklahoma off your NCAA bid list right now.  I'll bet anything it's because of Tony Crocker and his retarded long sleeve t-shirts.  Either that or they miss the power of Austin Johnson's mohawk (and his Miles Tarver-look-like-ness).

2.  Greivis Vasquez.  Maryland had a rough go this week at the Maui Invitational, losing two out of three games - to Cincinnati by 12 and Wisconsin by 9, and picking up their only win by beating tournament host and noted high school program Chaminade in the opening round.  The main issue here, is that their main man and 8th year senior Greivis Vasquez suddenly can't shoot.  In the three games, he shot 2-7, 5-17, and 6-13, which is a combined 35% and actually a nice improvement on his season-total of 30% field goal shooting.  Now, his other numbers are good, he's averaging a career high 6.0 assists and 2.2 steals per game, his 2.1-1 assist-to-turnover ratio is his best as well and his rebounding is right in line with his career numbers, but his scoring is at just 9.8 per game, exactly half of last year's average, and his shooting, as mentioned, as Nolen-Level atrocious.  The Terps can't win without Vasquez scoring, as shown last week, so he needs to get it together if they're going to make the tournament.

3.  Illinois.  You know who hates Las Vegas?  And no, I'm not talking about Dr. Acula, I'm talking about the not so Fighting Illini, who had an awful Las Vegas Invitational.  It should have been a nice resume building weekend.  Beat a crappy Utah team on Friday night and then take on Oklahoma State on Saturday - win or lose, it's overall going to help your resume.  Well, things didn't quite work out, because Illinois managed to screw it up and lose to Utah on Friday, despite having a 32-16 lead at halftime, the same Utah team who lost to Seattle earlier in the week.  Then, instead of at least salvaging the weekend by winning the consolation bracket with a win over Bradley, the go out and get beat by four instead.  Obviously this doesn't exactly look good for the Big Ten, but hey, maybe the Illini are actually terrible and it will be a couple of easy wins for the Gophers.  Special props out to "star" freshmen Brandon Paul and D.J. Richardson, who combined to shoot 6-27 in the tournament.  If I'm an Illini fan, I'm very worried right now.

4.  UCLA.  Well you knew this was coming, but there's just now way to avoid pointing out the colossal flop the Bruins pulled this weekend.  Even in a down year, would you ever expect the Bruins to finish 8th in an 8-team tournament?  The loss to Portland is obviously not that bad, and the loss to Butler isn't a killer, but to then drop a game to Long Beach?  Especially after having already gone 0-2 they knew they needed this one to salvage, well, anything, out of this, and instead got destroyed by a Dan Monson coached team.  Ouch.  And what the F ever happened to Drew Gordon?  He was supposed to be the stud daddy, but had an awful rough weekend to go along with a subpar career so far.  He failed to break 10 points or 4 rebounds in any game of the tournament, bottoming out in him just playing 12 minutes against Long Beach.  I don't exactly know what's going on down in Westwood, but this is the worst I can remember the program being since I started watching basketball.    

5.  Arkansas.  Most of the teams in either category are pretty obvious this week due to the tournaments and such.  Insert winners into "awesome" and insert 8th place teams into "suck."  Pretty straight forward.  Arkansas (an NCAA hopeful, mind you), on the other hand, had three cupcake games this week - all home games - versus Morgan State, East Tennessee State, and South Alabama.  Well guess what?  They lost all three.  ALL.  THREE.  This is, perhaps, the worst week an NCAA hopeful has ever had this early in the season against this level of opposition.  Now, I know the Razorbacks are a bit hamstrung right now with Courntey Fortson still out due to some sort of disciplinary issue, but these are not losses you see from an NCAA team no matter who they're missing.  In any other week, this would be by far the thing that sucked the most.  But not this week.


The thing that sucked most this week was Dayton coming back and beating Towson after being down by 18 with just nine minutes to play.  That would have given them an 0-2 week capped off with a loss to one of the worst programs in history, and given me an excuse use the Towson picture I have.  Craptacular.

Actually, when am I ever going to have a chance another chance to use a Towson picture?

Bloody Awful Blood Surf (Live Movie Blog)

So here's the scoop. Mrs. W went to Dr. Acula's wife's birthday party (we couldn't find a baby sitter so I'm at home watching the kid) and had a shot or two and is now staying over at their house. So I'm here all alone, and unsure what to do with myself. I know you are all used to me live blogging while I watch Shark movies, and I think we can all enjoy that, but from time to time, a guy has to branch out a bit. Take in some new culture, new types of entertainment, and experience new things. In that light, I thought I would take a step away from the usual shark movie, and bring you something completely different.

I present, "Blood Surf", a movie about a giant crocodile. Your summary via DirectTV "A monstrous saltwater crocodile terrorizes a group of documentary filmmakers in Australia." Sounds good. And possibly somewhat realistic. No mutants. No prehistoric creatures come back to life. No revenge (I hope). Call me cautiously optimistic. I know, I know, two live movie blogs in one weekend? I must be in heaven.

- This was directed by someone named James D.R. Hickox. Tell me that doesn't sound like a director of more, um, adult, entertainment.

- We start out with a close up of an eyeball, and then cut to an Asian in some water, and back to the eye, and back to a different asian, and back to the eye, and so on, getting faster and faster and faster until the tension is so thick I feel like I could puke. It starts moving too fast to really tell what's going on, but I saw some teeth and some bloody water (or Blood Surf, if you will) at one point. I have a feeling this one is going for "artsy-fartsy." That always works when your antagonist is a giant crocodile.

- Now there's a bunch of stoner/surfer types in a float plane above some kind of tropical paradise. They are using words like gnarly and shredding. I really hope they crash and get eaten, and that this isn't our intro to our main characters. Cautious optimism waning.

- One of the stoners, who I am starting to suspiciously suspect are our main characters, references the movie Jaws. I take it as a good sign that the writer of this crap has at least heard of that movie.

- Oh man, I just got the main plot point of the movie, and I can't decided if it's awesome or stupid. These stoners are going to chum the water to attract sharks, and then go surfing in shark infested waters. And they are going to call it, "Blood Surfing." Wow. Since this is a crocodile movie, I'm guessing a croc shows up and ruins the fun. Which makes no real sense, because what could one crocodile do that a whole mess of sharks couldn't? God damn it why do I always try to rationalize these stupid movies? Why do I even expect anything to make sense? Why do I even watch them? I'm an idiot, aren't I?

- I was rewatching Mean Girls the other day (still one of the best movies of the 2000s) and holy cow the amount of talent in that movie was sick. Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried, and Lacey Chabert? Holy wow. Plus Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. And one of the best written movies in a long time! Just a great flick. Add in the janitor from Scrubs and that movie had it all. This movie doesn't.

- Jesus we're only 3 minutes into this movie. The opening credits are still rolling. This is going to be the longest movie blog ever. Rock on.

- NBA draft early entrants have to make their decisions by Monday, and there are still a few interesting fellas who I feel I should comment on.
AUSTIN DAYE, GONZAGA: Probably a mid-first, but doesn't have a guarantee of first round. I really hope he stays another year in college, because he is absolutely one of my favorite players. Reminds me a ton of Keith Van Horn, but blacker.
PATRICK MILLS, ST MARYS: This guy is a big one because I read the Wolves have a lot of interest in him, and I'd love to see him on the team. I don't really see how he can improve his stock much, so this year would be the time to go.
GREIVIS VASQUEZ, MARYLAND: Snacks loves this commie, and he is a very solid all-around player. It appears he isn't likely to go first round, so he should probably stay in school, but he has a lot of skills and honestly I think could be a Manu Ginobli type. I hope he stays in the draft and the Wolves get him late.
JODIE MEEKS, KENTUCKY: Big time scorer, and yet not projected to go until round two. I don't really know what else he could do to improve his stock unless he goes to John Stockton camp and learns how to really handle the ball. Might as well stick around and help his legacy at Kentucky so he can become an assistant coach some day. He's not an NBA player.
LUKE HARANGODY, NOTRE DAME: Not a first round pick, but apparently he might be ok with that. I don't see him hitting the first round at all. He's Michael Madsen, who I once played in a softball tournament against - very spastic there too.
There are plenty of others, but I'm tired. Plus I'm super excited to see what happens with this movie.

- They just showed some jackass surfing with an angle from below, and guess what? Yep he looked just like a seal. Seriously, why even add the chum in the water when surfing is already the most dangerous thing in the world? You're basically playing russian roulette already, but now they want to add chum? It's like playing russian roulette with a bazooka. This movie is already irritating. I need another drink.

- The main chick in this movie looks like Molly Sims, so that's what we are going to call here.

- The two main surfer dudes are super homo-erotic. Think Iceman/Maverick levels of sexual tension going on here. Even though one of them just hit on Molly Sims. That doesn't prove anything. Maverick hit on Kelly McGillis, and it turned out she was a man.

- They just hired this movie's version of Quint to take the boat out and chum the waters and all that about the Blood Surf or what not. Except he reufsed to do it, saying he would be "an accessory to murder." His girlfriend is this movies version of "super hot chick in a 95% see-thru tank top and no bra" - who is now shakin' that thang in the middle of the bar for no discernible reason. It's kind of like in Roadhouse how when that one hot blonde girl does a striptease in the middle of Dalton's bar for no good reason. Man did I rewind that part a lot. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, for some reason her dancing in the middle of the bar convinced her husband, Quint, to agree to take the surfer guys out to the sharks. Makes total sense.

- I just looked this movie up on IMDB, and it's original name was "Krocodylus." That is the most awesomest name ever. Why would they change it.

- By the way, if you google "Shane Schilling drunk" now, we are the first AND second link. Awesome.

- So we have Quint, Quint's girlfriend, hot foreign chick, some asian chick, a more annoying Matthew Lillard-type with spiked hair, Molly Sims, an old asian dude, a pretty boy, and the mastermind who looks a lot like DJ Tanner's boyfriend all on the boat going to the "lagoon" where all the sharks are (and apparently Krocodylus). Got it?

- Asian chick and asian dude just did a prayer circle to protect the surfers. I bet it doesn't work.

- Well, their chum has fish parts in it. They're already a big step ahead of Megalodon.

- The sharks showed (still no Krocodylus, unfortunately) and it was pretty underwhelming. Jazzy music, hyper fast effects including sharks moving way too fast accompanied by "whooshing" sound effects, and shots of great whites, blue sharks, and bull sharks (and what I think was a tuna). Oh they tried to make it dramatic by having the camerawoman (wearing chain mail so pretty much 100% safe) get surrounding in about ten feet of water, but it didn't work. Twenty-nine minutes in and nobody has bothered to die yet. Lame. Man I really wish I could have a bunch of drinks, but seeing as I'm the only adult here, I'm going to have to limit myself.

- Ok, message received. A shark just got kilt, but all we saw was a fountain of blood and then some bubbling blood in the water. Krocodylus? Or Shark-exploding AIDS?

- Did I ever tell you that Wonderbaby^TM can recognize a shark, and say the word? Whether it's on TV, a real picture, a stuffed animal, or a drawing in one of her books, she see's it and she says, "Shark." Seriously, she knows like, 15 words and one of them is shark. That's so awesome.

- So right now more-annoying version of Matthew Lillard is banging Foreign chick, and DJ Tanner's boyfriend and Molly Sims are going at it too while Pretty Boy Surfer is out on the water by himself. Sounds like a good time for Krocodylus to appear.

- Random asian chick just jumped in the water too, which makes no sense because Asian chick and old asian dude are the ones that are all hyper about their being too many sharks in this area of the lagoon. yet she's all like, I'm going in the water and he's all like ok even though he is the one who was having such a spaz earlier. Once again, really top notch writing here.

- Something bumped the boat, which knocked old asian dude into the water and then there was a blood spurt and I guess he's dead or something. Because crocodiles ram boats all the time. I guess it's contagious and they caught it from all the sharks that are swimming around. I'm still waiting for my first Crocodile roar. That would really make tonight complete.

- And there he is, roar included. He just ate the foreign chick. It's nighttime now though, and nobody has even acknowledged the missing asian dude. It's like the WW2 interment camps all over again.

- Damn, they keep answered all my questions. They just found the arm of the asian dude, and the boat is missing. Well, not so much missing as sunk. The crocodile sank the entire boat. As we all know, crocs hate boats, so it makes sense.

- I have no idea what is going on. The dock is exploding. Not with fire, but exploding nonetheless. Sequentially too. Like, there's a little explosion, moving closer to shore each time, every two seconds or so. I don't get it. I wish this movie was over already. This is by far the worst one yet.

- Oh dear god. Apparently this island is populated by Pirates. Pirates. PIRATES. Most movies would be better with Pirates. That crappy cheerleader movie from last night would have been 10x better if Pirates showed up to raze the cheerleader camp. Think about how much better Forrest Gump would have been if suddenly pirates showed up and destroyed the Bubba Gump boat. What if pirates showed up to F with Frodo and Rudy? Awesome, right? But when you already have sharks and crocodiles, you don't need anything else. What's next, bring in the ninjas?

- Anthony Swarzak grew up a bit today. Even though he had a couple of good starts to start his career, a big knock on him was that he was getting lucky. He was letting a lot of runners on base who were luckily not coming around to score, and he had a 1-1 BB/K ratio, a number that essentially guarantees a pitcher's doom. This bore itself out in his next two starts where he got killed, and honestly things were not looking good for our young friend. Today against the Cubs, helped by Jason "the awesome" Kubel's massive bomb of a home run, Swarzak picked up the win. He stuck around for seven innings, giving up just four hits and one walk while striking out six. Those are some very solid numbers. Based on this last outing, and the movement I see on his fastball, I think he's going to end up being pretty solid.

- Ok, so I'm barely paying attention here, but the Pirates decided they were going to rape Molly Sims since she's the only girl left. Right as he's about to get into it, Krocodylus leaped out of the water and grabbed the potential rapist by the head and took him down for a nice meal. And they were on the second floor of the boat. And the boat had a roof. So it jumped about twenty feet in the air with perfect aim to get it's snout threw the window to grab rapist guy. And our heroes pushed every pirate off the boat in the confusion and started to drive away but then a Pirate shot at the boat and hit the gas tank and now the boat is on fire. Confusing to you? Trust me it's every bit as confusing to me watching it. I don't know if I can get through the rest of this movie.

- That Quint guy just showed up to take the good guys back to the safety of the island. Turns out he wasn't actually with them the whole time. My watching comprehension skills are sorely lacking.

- Ooh, they aren't safe yet. Instead of trying to get everyone to safety, he's trying to attract the salt-water croc because Quint hates them. Turns out he had a cruise with some people, and they all got killed by a croc so, in a huge twist, he's out for revenge instead of the animal (I guess only shark's are in the revenge business). We learn all this info from Quint's girlfriend who is now wearing a slightly different, 80% see thru tank top with no bra.

- IT'S THE SAME CROC!!!!!1111111!!

- Now he's fishing for the Croc with some kind of crazy bobber that looks like the bouncy kickball Wonderbaby^TM likes to kick around the house. Yep, it appears I'm raising a soccer player. Kill me now. Any tips, Snake? Other than hunting squirrels, which I know you love to do.

- Serious question: If you could be a vampire, would you? You'd have to survive on blood, but you could get around the whole killing people bit by eating rats or deer or mexicans. And you'd live forever, and think of all the crappy movies you could watch. I pick yes.

- Fun fact: I was all prepared to comment on how the Croc roars constantly in this movie, but I actually wasn't sure if they do in real life or not (my animal's that don't roar expertise only extends to sharks) and according to this site which ends in .org so it has to be legit, they do. So, you know, there's that then.

- Molly Sims was in the water to film them catching Krocodylus, because they are still trying to make their documentary, and he got off the line and came after her and she escaped by climbing up a ladder and he couldn't get her. Keep in mind this is the same creature that leapt twenty feet through a window to get a rapist. Clearly, crocodiles hate rape and it motivates them to incredible feats of athleticism.

- No worries, he got to eat Matthew Lillard instead, despite him trying to stab his head with a knife and having it make the same sound as banging two cooking pans together. Fun fact: Crocodiles have heads like stainless steel pots.

- This fake Molly Sims has a nice rack (middle):


- Ok, this movie can just die. DJ Tanner's boyfriend saw a surfboard floating on the water and decided he was going to take the surfboard back to safety, even though it's a half day away by boat - you know, with a motor (their boat is grounded or something, I don't know) because apparently that's something someone would actually do in real life. Of course, he "surfs" right into Krocodylus's mouth. As Michelle would say, "How rude." Pretty Boy's reaction, "Well that sucks." I'm going to assume he's talking about this whole movie.

- Krocodylus just ate Quint in pretty much the identical scene from Jaws. Flooded boat, animal's head poking in through into the boat, tries to fight but basically falls into his jaws. If Pretty Boy ends up killing it by shooting an air tank it it's jaws I'm going to be pissed. Actually that would be kind of awesome.

- The Pirates are back. Jesus Christ.

- I found that scene, but it's in like, french or something - which explains a lot.


- So they blew up the great Krocodylus. Or, more accurately, they blew up the rocks around him which fell on his head. Of course, it's still sitting there, not moving or anything but they are sure it's dead because "If that didn't do it, nothing will." Twenty bucks says one of the three people still left dies, and fifty bucks says it's Quint's girlfriend because the other two are romantically involved (Molly Sims jumped on Pretty Boy as soon as DJ's boyfriend died).

- Yep, Quint's girlfriend decides to kick the "dead" croc in the face while shouting "I hate you" over and over again (which sounds like kicking a cooking pot, for some reason) and the croc wakes up and eats her face. Also Pretty Boy keeps calling the chick Sis which confuses me like you wouldn't believe because they were making out pretty hardcore a few minutes ago. What is this, Star Wars?

- It jumped at them and landed on a pointy tree. It is now impaled, as if Vlad Tepes had risen from the grave and orchestrated this himself. Please let this be over.

- They're making out again. WTF?

- Ah ha! Her character name is Cecily. Thus, it's Ces or Cis or something, not Sis. Still weird.

- Thank god it's over. I'm not going to lie, that was seriously the worst movie ever, outside of Jaws 4. I'm now going to cry myself to sleep.

Bring on the Terps

The NIT field was announced tonight, and the Gophers will host the Maryland Terrapins on Tuesday. You can find the entire bracket here. As always, it's hard to figure out which teams will treat this as a chance to play well and prove to the world how good they are, and which teams will be pissed and unhappy to be there and mail it in.

The Gophers are seeded fourth in their bracket, which includes Syracuse as the #1. Assuming the Orange get passed Robert Morris, they would take on the winner of the Minnesota/Maryland game, I'm assuming at Syracuse. The other #1 seeds are Ohio State, Virginia Tech, and Arizona State.

Maryland will present a difficult challenge for the Gophers, and despite being seeded below Minnesota they are the superior team. Maryland was on the NCAA bubble for most of the season, a place the Gophers pretty much never even sniffed, until a late season three game losing streak - including a monumental collapse against Clemson - sealed their NIT fate. The Terrapins rank in the top 100 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, and have some players I don't know if the Gophers can handle.

Greivis Vasquez starts things for Maryland. He's from somewhere foreign, and is a very effective point guard when he's on, such as his 13 point, 9 rebound, 15 assist performance against NC State. The good news for Gopher fans is that when he's off, he can be way off. He struggles shooting the ball at times, shooting just 44% on the season and 31% from three. He also can turn the ball over if he's not careful, as he averaged a whopping 4.5 turnovers per game, canceling out his 6.9 assist per game and created a pedestrian 1.5 A/TO ratio. Given the Gophers' propensity for turning the other team over, this could play into their hands. Wake Forest has a very similar ranking in turnovers created, and in the two games against them, Vasquez turned it over an average of 6 times per game.

The guy I'm most worried about is 6-9 forward James Gist, and who the hell is going to guard him. The Gopher guards are good enough to check Vasquez, but outside of Damian Johnson they don't have a player who can matchup on Gist. Gist is a powerful player who can score in the paint, with just enough of an outside shot to be doubly dangerous (31% from three). He is adept at getting to the line (10th in FT attempts in the ACC) and can make them at a 75% clip. He is also an excellent rebounder, pulling in 7.8 per game. If the Gophers want to win this game, Gist is the #1 guy they'll need to control.

The last two guys I'll mention are Maryland's two other double digits scorers, center Bombale Osby (11.2 pts/6.5 rebs) and shooting guard Eric Hayes (10.3 pts/4.4 apg). Osby is going to be a handful for either Tollackson or Williams, and not just because he has the sweetest 'fro since Oscar Gamble. He's a load at 6-8, 250 lbs. and can control the paint on either end. He too is adept at getting to the line (9th in the ACC in attempts) and he and Gist team up to block more than 4 shots per game. Hayes doesn't get the pub Vasquez does, but is a far superior shooter (40% from three).

I'm really don't think the Gophers can win this game, but, of course, you never know who is going to take it seriously. Considering Gist is a senior and the team leader, I'm guessing he'll have the troops fired up and ready to play. I don't think home court advantage will be enough to save the Gophers.

Maryland 70, Minnesota 65.