Humpday: Tumblr is Pretty Cool (NSFW)

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Enjoy! Trust me you will thank me later.

R.I.P. Corey Haim (1971-2010)

Wow, I was quite suprised when I turned on my computer this morning, to see that the poster child for my generation passed away last night. It looks to be an apparent drug overdose. Haim, starred in a couple of my favorite movies growing up, The Lost Boys and Blown Away (I still crack it to imagery of Nicole Eggert). Though once considered a childhood acting star he never was able to really make much out of an acting career. He was able to turn that fame into enough hookers and blow to live a very fun 39 years, tragically it looks like he had a little too much fun.

The Life and Times of Big Ben

As you have probably heard by now, Superbowl winning Steeler QB, Ben Roehtlisberger, is being accused of Sexual Assault outside a night club in Georgia. Big Ben has hired the same lawyer that kept the Ravens Ray Lewis out of prison when he was with a group of guys that stabbed and killed a man. Now I don't pretend to know all the details of what happened, and for all I know Big Ben did sexually assault this poor college student. However, I do have an opinion for all those people that say, Roethy should have known better, and not put himself in this situation.

I have no idea what it is like to be rich in famous. But I am guessing it is pretty damn cool. Instead of sitting at home playing Call of Duty until the wee hours of the morning, you can call up your buddies, meet at some college bar, kick everyone that doesn't have a huge rack out of the club, and have some good ol fashion fun. It is so easy for a person to say man Ben should have used better judgement. I keep hearing "nothing good happens after 12 AM", "these athletes need to start using there heads", you cheat on your wife, you should expect to get McNaired". In my mind Ben Roethlisberger was doing what any guy in that position would do. Instead of being at home updating his twitter account, he was out cashing in on that fame. Now please don't take this as me trying to say it is ok to sexually assualt a women if you are rich and famous. I am not saying that at all, what I am saying is that these types of situations are unavoidable for proffesional athletes. You think a 2 week stint in rehab is going to cure Tiger woods obsession with strange? I sure as hell don't. Yeah i know he has a super model at home, a beautiful family, all that jazz. Yeah but he is Tiger Woods, quite possibly the 2nd most powerful black man in this country and with that comes a sense, of I can do whatever the fuck I want. You know why he feels that way? Because he can, he is fucking Tiger woods. Give me what he has, and I will have seven families in five different states all more beautiful than the next. People expect these guys to learn from the mistakes of others, and I am telling you that is impossible.

Now Big Ben has a big mess on his hands, and it is probably a good idea for him to lay low for a while. But once the smoke clears, I fully expect him to be back at the college bars with the boys, enjoying everything that comes with being a Superbowl winning QB. I sure as hell know I would.

The Future of Sports

Its been a while since the book Money Ball came out, but its effect on sports is still being felt in a big way. The book written took a look at how MLB general manager Billie Beane took a much different look at statistics, and how they should be valued. Beane and his colleagues thought that many of the games statistics, were out dated and didnt really determine what was most valuable. They used statistics like on base percentage and slugging percentage were the best statistics to measure how valuable someone is offensively. More importantly it opened the way for new statistics to be openly accepted and it was a way for a simple game to be examined through many highly advanced statistics. This is often referred to as sabermetrics, and I doubt you will find many baseball teams that don't employ some sort of stat head to examine to take advantage of this new phenomenon.

I have read bits and pieces of the book, and I don't find all the numbers to be that exciting. I do however think that this empirical way at looking at sports is very exciting, and I feel like it is changing the ways sports are being played. Recently I have been following this mans blog. His name is Wayne Winston, he is a former math professor, and recently worked for the Dallas Mavericks trying to examine how statistics can be better used to gain an advantage. He came up with a plus/minus system that looks at which line-ups play the best together. His contention was that there are a lot of statistics that measure how good a player is offensively, but very few take into account how good a player is while playing with other players. In basketball you have to play both offense and defense, so just looking at offensive stats by themselves will probably not be the best way to build a team. By taking a look at how good a player is over the average player you can see just how effective that player is. Again the numbers can be dizzying, but I find it amazing that this type fo stuff is just starting to become the norm. Have the old statistics in sports become outdated?

I remember a few months ago. Bill Belichek was taking a bunch of heat for going for it on the 4th down in his own territory in a game that they were winning against the rival Colts. I am almost certain that Belichek looked at the numbers when making that call, and ignored what was certainly going to be a shit storm, by not playing it by the book and punting the ball. The play ended up not working and they lost the game, but I believe that Belichek made a call based on statistics that most people just couldn't understand. I think he was way ahead of most of his counterparts in this regard, as much of the NFL is still called the way it is written the so-called "book". However those days may soon be over.

Over the weekend MIT held there annual conference on how analytic's can be used in sports. The link that conference can be found here. Some of the most innovative owners and GMs were in attendance including Billy Beane, Mark Cuban, Daryl Morey, Bill Polian, and Jon Kraft. There were some fascinating articles written on topics that range from how valuable an assist is to whether or not you should go for it on 4th and short in your own territory. I think the big thing to take from this is statistical data is being looked at in an all night light, in the last few years. No longer are the days when a simple box score is used to tell the story. Now in almost every major sports owners and GMs are looking for new ways to understand value. I find this to be a very smart and innovative way of doing business, and I think in the near future nearly every professional teams will be employing stat geeks to help make these tough decisions. I mean it is crazy to think that Tony LaRussa or Bill Belichek would go over in the middle of a game to talk to some MIT graduate on what call he should make, but I think the days of that are coming. Well maybe not that extent, but I do think advanced statistics will have a much bigger role in sports in the days moving forward.

Below you can find a link to the True Hoop blog, they did a great job of covering this years MIT convention.

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Damn, I Wish I Would Have Caught This

Zach G was on SNL over the weekend. I haven't watched this on Demand yet, but it looked to be pretty funny.

LMF - Justin Townes Earle

Justin Townes Earle played the High Noon Saloon in Madison last Friday, Feb. 26, 2010. The High Noon sold to capacity (approx. 400) well before showtime, and Mr. Earle did not disappoint the sell-out crowd. Following the earnest and poetic, yet down-to-earth folk stylings of Chicago's Joe Pug - who deserves his own ink - Earle's set danced back and forth seamlessly between old-time country, swing, pre-war folk and blues and gospel-based songs, ranging in tone from sad desperation to genuine country-boy rowdiness. While his recordings are somewhat subdued and brooding at times, his live show is a rollicking good time, worthy of any boozy honky tonk. Earle, all 6'5" of his scrawny frame, clearly enjoys himself on stage, exuding the energy of a nerdy-yet-naughty country boy using an "aw-shucks" charm to take the sting out of his shenanigans. It works for him.

He pleased the crowd with selections from all of his releases, including the 2008 EP Yuma ("Yuma," "I Don't Care"), his 2008 full-length debut The Good Life ("Hard Livin'," "Lone Pine Hill," "South Georgia Sugar Babe," "What Do You Do When You're Lonesome," "Ain't Glad I'm Leaving") and the critically acclaimed 2009 release Midnight at the Movies (title track, "Mama's Eyes," "They Killed John Henry," "Poor Fool," "Someday I'll Be Forgiven For This," "Walk Out" and a tasteful cover of The Replacements' tune "Can't Hardly Wait"). For good measure, Earle threw in a couple new, yet-to-be released tracks from an anticipated album, which found inspiration in gospel music. Earle half-confessed and half-bragged that his love of gospel and other church music "don't mean God wants me in his house." Don't worry, Justin, I think He'd make an exception if you brought your guitar.

Don't get wrong, Earle is a very entertaining stage presence with a quick wit, an almost nervously energetic vibe, a solid country voice and a growing talent for handling the guitar. Still, his songwriting talent is the real star of his shows. There are plenty of good players and singers out there, but when a songwriting effort is expertly executed through a traditional structure, but with a little twist of originality and wit on top that make it sound all but completely new, you can immediately recognize that you're hearing something that is just plain lacking in 99% of the music that is bought and sold. While being the son of the aptly nicknamed "Hardcore Troubador" and country songwriting legend Steve Earle, and being named after the almost mythical songwriting persona that was Townes Van Zandt, Earle carefully walks a fine line, managing to honor and appreciate that heritage without hiding behind it or riding its coattails. In short, JTE is legit. His dry songwriting wit and often painful honesty, coupled with a remarkable ability to pay homage to century-old traditions while simultaneously innovating and creating is more than enough to warrant our attention and respect, regardless of that weighty bloodline.

We were there with some new friends and some old friends, including my pal Trike who was celebrating a birthday. Justin graciously honored the occasion with a smiling photo-op, which Trike will frame and cherish, no doubt. I didn't find the same opportunity, but I did purchase the cocktail that Trike is holding in the photo, so I feel like I'm in the frame in spirit.



Every show has a defining moment for the interested observer. Mine turned out to be his performance of "Mama's Eyes," a redemption ballad that hits close to home for me. However, there was another memorable event that came shortly after that. Near the close of his primary set, the bourbon and I were rather rudely shouting out for him to play "Yuma," a sad, slow suicide ballad from his first EP. There were a couple of other drunks with the same idea. For a guy who has played as many shows as Earle, it wasn't difficult for him to shut us down. He responded to us quite directly, with a feined stern look and a good-natured scolding, "Don't tell me what to do!" Even so, he played the song in the middle of his short encore. (I'd like to take credit for it, but Youtube and show review evidence reveals that he has played the song on other tour stops this month as well.)

Perhaps the best praise I can heap upon this show is simply to say that I had been looking forward to the show for several weeks, and had very high expectations going in, yet I was far from let down and walked out of the High Noon an even bigger fan than when I went in.

Bottom line: The next time he's in town, I'll be buying a ticket again.

Here's about the best video of the show that I could find...

I Can Stop Caring About Hockey For Another 4 Years...

I am sure a lot of you caught the Gold Medal game yesterday in which Canada edged the US 3-2 in overtime to win the gold. It was a great game, and I literally could not turn away from the tv for the last 10 minutes of regulation and overtime. Though I knew the names of many American players, and knew the teams in which the ones with Wisconsin ties played for, I can honestly say my interest in Hockey will be absolutely zero until the next Olympics. Yes I may watch a playoff game if Golden Boy Crosby is matched up against the Alexander the Great. I may even tune into a few of the NHL finals, but to think that anybody is really going to care about NHL because of the success the Olympic team had is foolish. The NHL is a long way behind, the NFL, MLB, NBA, Nascar, and even Golf in this country, and even a great showing by the US over the last two weeks cannot change that. I will say this, the game can be fun to watch if you have a rooting interest, and I plan on following Bucky as they try and get through the WCHA tournament, and hopefully as they get back to a frozen four. But if you dont have a team to follow or if there isn't a gold medal on the line, there is no reason really to have any interest. I think part of that reason is the nobody knows the stars of the NHL besides the two mentioned above. I mean this first i had heard of Ryan Miller or Zac Parise was about 2 weeks ago, and they nearly carried the US to gold. I am not sure how the NHL goes about getting its brand out there and getting people to care about hockey (my thought is to contract the league some, and shrink down the overall talent pool), but I think it is going to take more than that great game to get people to tune in. I hope I am wrong because like I said it is a sport I do enjoy, but after the game yesterday I had completely shifted focus to NCAA bracketology and not whether or not San Jose has enough to win the cup. I am curious as to how everyone else feels?