Friday, August 19, 2005

Daily Brew 8/19

Randy Moss said that he has smoked pot in the past, and he "may" still do it. The biggest surprise here is that, at least according to him, he doesn't regularly smoke pot anymore. Is this really news? How many of us didn't think Moss toked? Lets not forget he lost his scholarships from Notre Dame and Florida State for grades, pot and fighting. He nearly ran a cop over in Minnesota and it was discovered pot was in the car. He says he never did it during the season, but last I checked that Minnesota incident occured in like November or December (during the season) and he did have marijuana in the car. In the ash try in a bag, that doesn't sound like he wasn't intending to use it, so I'm not buying that "I don't do it during the regular" season excuse. I might do it every once in a blue moon is how he put it when asked if he still does. That is priceless. I'm betting a blue moon is days not begining with sun, mon or sat. I'm personally calling for the Moss "once in a blue moon" Raiders poster, better yet, he just found the name for his autobiography.

Listen, we all know guys who still light the pipe, and are way too old to be doing it. We all have that friend with the goofy nickname who's still living in a college apartment, works part time, wears sweatpants and watches cartoons all day, so I don't really think this is a big deal. Yes it's illegal, but all the guys who call for Moss or Ricky Williams to have huge fines or suspensions levied on them have all tried pot too, or know someone like those guys. Why should we expect athletes to be different that what we are? Some guys do it, some guys don't, and some are hooked on it. Same can be said for all of us. I don't want anyone to read that argument I made for those guys and think I'm with them and I'm a big fan of the marijuana myself, I'm not. But, why is it that Randy Moss and Ricky Williams are catching as much hell as Ray Lewis did when he "allegedly" was involved in a murder? Look around your office right now, I garuntee you at least 1 out of every 6 guys in your office still uses marijuana. Again does this make it alright, no it doesn't, but lets not go pointing our fingers at the "pot head" players before we take a look around our surroundings.

Dave Bliss is a candidate for a CBA job. That is a joke, people should be more enraged about this than the above story. Why isn't this getting any pub? This guy should never work again, not only in coaching, but in society as a hole. He is a sorry excuse for a human being and what he did was aboslutely dispicable. He slandered the character of a dead man, covered up many unseedly things, and causes the biggest college sports scandal in the history of the NCAA. He should be in prison.

On a lighter note, the Crew got after the Rocket last night to the tune of five runs and picked up a huge win over the Astros 5-2. Game 2 of the four game set is tonight with Doug Davis taking on Wandy Rodriguez. Memo to Ned Yost, Rickie Weeks is not a lead off hitter. Just because your teams only leadoff guy is injured doesn't mean you bump Rickie up one slot. Find someone who can get on base to lead off. Hell let Bill Hall or Damian Miller lead off, but not Ricky Weeks. The biggest misconception about a leadoff hitter is that he needs to be fast, he doesn't. He just needs to see pitches and get on base.

Apparently Zeke is not going to land Dsagna Diop afterall, but he is going after a guy named James Jones? Exactly, this just goes to show you he may not always make the biggest mistake possible, but he'll at least make a big mistake. God love him.

I'm beginning to start to believe the Robert Ferguson trade rumors. Antonio Chatman has believe or not been steady and a reliable target for Favre, and they really like the young guys Terrance Murphy, Craig Braig and Andrae Thurman, especially Murphy. Ferguson has been steady, and a guy I've grown to love, but he looks like he's not going to be anything more than a third reciever, and they're paying him to start. I don't buy for one minute the "Ferguson and a pick to the Eagles for Coery Simon" talk, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's gone.

UW-Stevens Point mens basketball coach Jack Bennett has announced his retirement. Bennett has coached for 33 seasons, 9 at Point, and compiled a record of 200-56 while coaching the Pointers and led them to back to back Championships. His .781 winning percentage at Point is the second highest among all active D3 coaches and third highest in WIAC history.

I liked Gaddis' "Oliver Stone" conspiracy theory about Kobe and Jerry Buss, however I don't think Eagle, I mean Kobe and Jelly Beane (his pops) are on the best of terms, so I don't really think he'd get Henry Bibby fired so his dad could coach.

In a new feature to this site, Gaddis and are are going to take your questions in a column called WWZD, or What Would Zeke Do? You name the player, and the current contract and we tell you if Zeke signs him (usually does) and for how much (usually at least double what he's making now) or if he would pull the trigger on any proposed trades. It doesn't have to be just Basketball either. Let's assume Zeke is running every franchise for every major professional sports league. Send in the querries, this should be fun.

That's about all I got, can't wait till 5:00.

Pancakes...

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

311: Don't Tread on Me

In what will hopefully be a new weekly column, I am going to review at least one new record released each week. This week's selection was an easy one for me. As a life-long avid fan, I chose the new 311 album, Don't Tread on Me.

DTOM is the band's ninth studio album (including the Greatest Hits 93-03 disc which featured two new songs) and shows a continued evolution by the group. The early albums like Music, Grassroots, and Transistor were all hard rocking albums that featured their trademark blend of raggae/rock/metal.

The albums that have followed have all mellowed out and taken on an island chill feel to them. They have chose to stick more to melodic laid back writing, than heavy chord and bass driven rock, which is a bit of a shame because the group features some of the best individual musicians in Chad Sexton (drums), Tim Mahoney (lead guitar) and P-Nut (bass).

This album has some songs that remind you of singles and b-sides off the From Chaos disc (Thank Your Lucky Stars, Solar Flare, and Long for the Flowers) but it never hits the level they did on the first four discs. Whiskey and Wine and There's Always an Excuse have the same sound that came across on the Evolver album.

The first single and lead track, Don't Tread on Me starts the album off with a hard rocking single that features a catchy bass line and sounds like a song Bob Marley would do if he experimented with hard rock.

As a self-professed rabid fan I would give this five stars, as a music fan I'd probably give it 3, 3.5 at best. The fact is they are a live band who has gotten to the point of releasing studio albums for the sole purpose of touring. On a 12 track disc, they usually hit 3 or four home runs.

Rating: ***

Key Tracks: Don't Tread on Me, Frolic Room, Waiting, Speak Easy, Getting Through to Her, Always an Excuse.

Daily Brew 8/17

Sorry there was no Daily Brew yesterday, it was a hectic day at Charter Media for this production coordinator. Now then, here's some things you may have missed in the last 48 hours.The Brewers, more importantly Victor Santos defeated the Rockies last night. Read that again. So Ben Sheets gets the loss and is socked to the count of 10 earned runs, and yet Vic picks up a W and only allows 3 to the same team? There are better odds of Sheets giving up 10 runs ANY team than Santos only allowing 3 at Coors. Ned Yost got tossed in the game in one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen at a baseball game. You could hear everything both men were saying to each other. It was great, and the Brewers TV team didn't appologize for it.

As soon as he was tossed I knew the Crew was going to win, because Ned wouldn't be in there to get outmanaged in a tight game.

Speaking of the TV team, Daron Sutton was gone for a couple games this week, replaced by Craig Coshun. How is it possible that he even returned. When he was gone and replaced by a competant person, you're telling me that didn't get the wheels turning for the execs at FSN North? Hmm, so this is what a non-crappy announcer sounds like. Bill Schroeder even sounded better with Sutton gone. I can take one more sub .500 season if it means Sutton, Brainerd and possibly Schroeder (though I'm starting to believe that with the right partner he wouldn't be too bad.) Please FSN North, cut the cord on Sutton and Brainerd. I'll even contribute financially to the contract buyout.

Back to Yost for a minute, what's the Crew's record in games he's been tossed from? I'll betcha they're 4-2.

TO returned to camp today. Yippie. Seriously, how can anyone still defend this guy. Rodney Peete said it last night as well. He said when it first happened he had his side because of the whole player sticking up for a player thing, but he can't defend him anymore. Yet Michael Irvin and Drew Rosenhaus are the only ones to defend this guy. Rosenhaus even knows TO is wrong and this new contract thing is ludacris, but he also knows if he can get TO a new deal he will be the most powerful man in the NFL. Irvin is just a bitter old reciever forced to retire because of injury, sticking up for another wide reciever because "they're not paid as much as qb's." Shut up.

Barry Bonds is speaking of a September 1st return, as Nate said. Although I am a Bonds fan I have to admit, Filzen's quote of "Why September 1, do they stop testing for steroids on September 1?" was good. Damn you Nate Filzen.

Kyle Boller officially sucks on Madden 2006. I threw 5 picks with him the other night.

The Brewers had their first player busted for steroids. It was some minor leaguer in A Ball, whose name escapes me. Who cares he was playing in A ball.

Former big league manager (including the Brewers 63-65) Bobby Bragan became the oldest person to manage a baseball game last night when he skippered the Fort Worth Cats at the ripe old age of 87. The kicker, Bragan was tossed from the game in the third inning.

The NBA had their amnesty provision cuts the other day and get this, the Knicks used the "Allan Houston Rule" to cut Jerome Williams. This stuff is comedy gold, people wouldn't believe you if you made up half of these moves Isaiah does. What is David Stern thinking now? They need a New York team to do well, and Zeke is just running the Knicks into the gutter. Let's see cut Williams and save $19 in cap or cut Houston and save $40+ million. Obviously it Williams. Also don't forget Zeke threw big money at big disappointment Jerome James. I think James will be making more money in millions per season than he has averaged points in his career. Now he's going after even bigger lottery flop Dsagna Diop. This is awesome. Give this man a reality show now. Or better yet ESPN should do a new show like Teammates or Stump the Schwab and call it "What Contract Wouldn't Zeke Take On?" If you can find one, let me know. He'd resign Mike Utley if he was running the Lions. Okay that was low, sorry Mike.

Did you hear Ricky Williams petitioned the league to wear number 27 when he came back, and they turned him down because it would "cost too much" to reproduce Williams jerseys with the number 27. First of all do they realize while it would cost money, they'd also make a killing selling them to Dolphins fans and pot heads. And secondly, the reason why he wanted number 27 is such great stoner thought. He wanted it because 9 is the "perfect" number in the universe and 27 is 9 cubed. Whoa, that's like really deep brah.

The Real World picked up a little steam last night, but the show has still been disappointing since the first few episodes. It misses Danny, because more Danny means more Melinda and more Melinda means less Abe version 2.0 aka Wes.

I caught Tommy Lee goes to College last night on NBC, I'd have to say it's a pretty good show. More importantly, how about this guy who gets to share a dorm with Tommy Lee. What a lucky SOB. Did you see their dorm room? Needless to say it was bigger than the dorm room I had freshman year, it was almost bigger than my college apartment. I love how the roomate asks him how Pam is too, he's like "Oh she's great she's so real ya know?" The kid was probably like dude thats not what I mean, if you know what I mean.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Daily Brew 8/15

The Brewers finally snapped their losing streak yesterday with their 8-3 win over the Reds. The skid had reached 5 games, funny how it started at the same time as the wild card talk. The Brewers announced some interesting moves before the game. They announced that they have transfered Jeff Cirillo from the 15 day to the 60 day DL. This move probably unofficially announces the end of Jeff Cirillo's career as a Brewer. They also moved Matt Wise and Julio Santana to the 15 day DL. Hmm, the guys that Ned didn't want to, but yet he still did overuse just got placed on the DL. To fill the roster spots the Brewers recalled Kane Davis (yes the same Kane Davis who came to the Brewers in the first Richie Sexson trade), Jose Capellan and Corey Hart. Hart started yesterdays game in centerfield. I like that idea. Hart is tall and lanky, but he is surprisingly fast. He led the PCL in steals with 31 prior to his call up, and he may just have a chance of being their everyday centerfielder soon. Oh yeah, he hit a 3-run homer yesterday in their 5 run 8th. I'm really pulling for this guy, but I just have one request. Wear sunglasses to the plate and use Corey Hart's "I wear my sunglasses at night" as your music. That would be so awesome.

Ben Sheets pitches tonight at Coors field. Prediction, Sheets goes 7 scoreless and Corey Hart knocks out his second and third career home runs.

The Packers made an interesting move that really caught me by surprise yesterday. They cut Arturo Freeman. I was 110% sure he'd be one of their starting safties to open the year. The surprising thing isn't so much the fact that he's no longer on the team as much as it is they just let him go and didn't try to trade him. He signed with the Titans within four hours of his release, and his agent said 6-12 teams contacted him so there was obviously interest in him.

Seriously, why is Mark Roman still on the team? I'm going to start taking orders for the Mark Roman T-Shirt Jersey. The back will read:

Roman
20

The front:

New Number
Same Bad Play

Just when you thought T.O. couldn't possibly tarnish his reputation anymore, he shows up to a Falcons game and sits four rows behind the bench. What a jackass. Here's a dose of reality for all the people who called him a hero for playing in the Super Bowl. Although it was gutsy, it has become painfully evident that he did it for more bargaining leverage and reasons other than winning a ring. Oh and by the way stop calling it heroic. Playing a game while 80% healthy is not a heroic effort, jackass.

Phil Mickelson just won the PGA Championship with a birdie on 18. Phil has been my favorite golfer for the last 5-6 years now, and the only thing that disappoints me about this win is that it came one year too late. Where was this last year when I was following you around your final round at the Straits Phil? Filzen was just a bit off on his prediction of Sergio. Let's face it, he is never going to win anything and he and David Duvall will go down as the biggest disappointments of the Tiger Era.

NFL Network is carrying virtually every preseason game and replaying them for hours at a time. This is the greatest thign on tv since the OC. I literally killed an entire day watching it this weekend.

Wedding Crashers just wasn't as funny the second time around. I saw it again with someone who hadn't seen it yet, and I spent about 10 minutes talking it up. An hour into it I found myself thinking "huh, I remember this being a lot funnier." Still a good movie though.

Will Whitticker looks like he's going to open the season as the starting right guard for the Green Bay Packers. It is nothing short of amazing that the Packers found another 7th round linemen who might end up contributing in a big way (see Jim Ringo, Adam Timmerman, Mark Tauscher and possibly even Scott Wells). Whitticker is a big dude and it gets you salivating over close yardage sets where you'll have Whitticker, Tauscher and Barry all on the right side paving the way for Green. Matt O'Dwyer has remained hurt and I honestly don't see him making this team. Adrian Klemm looks like the starter on the left side at least for now, and according to Mike Sherman, he'll be backed by Scott Wells while Grey Ruegamer will move back to center behind Mike Flannigan.

Former Raider Barret Robbins was arrested on a marijuana possesion charge. Robbins you may remeber, is the Raider who went AWOL right before the Super Bowl and it turned out he spent the hours and nights leading up to the game in Mexico and San Diego Bars. Then came the incident in January where he was shot twice after allegedly fighting with Miami police who had reason to believe he was breaking and entering into someone's apartment. He was later found hiding in the Women's bathroom. He is still awaiting trial for attempted murder. This is just sad to see. Not the fact that a guy who had it all and was a professional athlete has made a mess of his life, but the fact that the guy has allowed his addictions to get the best of him. Robbins has bipolar disorder and stopped taking his medication. Football appears to be all the guy had and now he is in a sad state of depression. I can't say I'd be surprised if I read in a few months "former Raiders lineman found dead." For his sake I hope he can get the help he needs and stay clean and on his medication.

Remember last year when the Ravens were robbed of TO? A good analogy would be you buy a new Mustang, but within hours it's stolen and they guy who takes it totals the car. You get you're money back and decide "you know what, I'll just stick with the Ford Taurus." Well yeah, the Ravens lost him and only got I believe a fourth round pick out of this, but now they really could care less. I'll bet you right now, Ozzie Newsome would have taken a copy of Madden '06 for TO. God I love it. The only downside of him not going to Baltimore is missing the opportunity to see the inevitable "TO offends Ray Lews, and Ray Lewis kicks the crap out of him on the sidelines" spat. I would pay for NFL sunday ticket just to see that.

XBox live might be the single greatest video game invention of all time. I'll leave it at that.