Massive big updates from BYN

It's been a while since I've made a post. This isn't because of laziness or a lack of good things to blog about (which are my typical excuses). I attribute it instead to four factors:

1) My state-of-the-art 1999 eMachines eTower 400i is busted and, therefore, I have no home computer.
2) I've been busy at work.
3) I spent most of the weekend in the woods, getting exercise, being rugged and eating food that was terrible for me.
4) My parents are coming to visit this weekend, and, if my girlfriend and I can get our place clean enough, it will be that much easier to convince them to buy me a new computer.

So, without further ado, here's what's on the wires:

Sports

In Monday Night's preseason football game, the St. Louis Rams looked sharp as the shellacked the Detroit Lions in the Motor City. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported this was such a shellacking that, by the end of the game, Detroit fans were chanting "Let's go Red Wings."

That leaves this wire blogger wondering what the Detroit fans will be chanting when the St. Louis Blues dominate the Red Wings in back-to-back games to open the 2005 hockey season in early October. Let's go Wolverines? Let's go General Motors? Let's go Jack White?

Also, Big Yellow Nasty Sports Wire Services is pleased to announce live voice blogging, coming soon to a computer near you. We'll be coming to you live or almost live from the Student Section at Sun Devil Stadium, bringing you commentary on the action on the field and, more importantly, in the stands! It'll be Sun Devil Football like you've never heard it before! And unrated and uncensored!

Pop Culture


Our pop culture wires have been bananas this week, with news that's begging to be blogged about.

For starters, a 25th anniversary edition of The Blues Brothers hit shelves yesterday, containing an extended cut of the movie that is much closer to director John Landis's original than the "nobody wants to watch a comedy longer than 90 minutes" cut we've seen all our lives. DVD Talk has an interview with the legendary Animal House director/Phoenix Film Festival veteran.

But that's small potatoes compared to this next one. According to DVD Fanatic, and confirmed, I guess, on an unofficial-looking coenbrothers.net, we can expect a new special edition of The Big Lebowski on October 18.

In addition to some more special features, the DVD will also be available in an "Achievers Edition Gift Set," which will include such cool swag as coasters and a towel, which will really tie the room together. View photos and details and MSRPs on the official (and officially slow) site here.

That's all for now. I should get around to posting my plans for aiding the hurricane relief effort in the near future, unless those plans fall apart.

BYN wire news

The BYN Tech wire has been buzzing lately with news about the dismal future of high-definition video disc formats, terabyte DVR/DVD recorders in Japan, major delays for the new Zelda game (thus resting all the hopes for a good Christmas games on Prince of Persia and XBOX 360), Apple's plans to release an antibacterial iPod in Q2 2006, and Johnny Depp looking all surly on the cover of the 21 Jump Street season 4 DVD set.

Meanwhile, the fluff wires have been buzzing with random musings, which this site is reluctant to publish, concerning such issues as my brother, who was born in 1987, is now in college, and my sister, born in 1990, is starting high school. Prince of Persia may stand to usurp Zelda as king of adventure game franchises. Weekends are too short. I still don't know who the Half-Blood Prince is.

And that last paragraph should stand as a good indication why this dedicated hard-news blog rarely publishes its random musings, except on those rare Thursdays when the Internet fails to deliver any blogworthy content. See how that tech news paragraph gives you way more stuff to do?

On a side note, you people had better be laughing at my wire syndication and magazine repurposing jokes.

That being said, this just came in on the Extremely Urgent Breaking News wire:

Nasty to be rebuilt for camping trip

Tempe (BYN) - The cooler that inspired the cult hit Weblog will undergo a much-needed repair Thursday night in preparation for a camping trip, sources say.

Vintage Coleman cooler the Big Yellow Nasty will receive a new set of hinges and a strap, thanks to a charitable donation from the Turbizzi Foundation for Total Sweetness.

"We had to order the hinges and strap directly from Coleman," a Turbizzi Foundation press release said. "Although the cost was nearly half that of a brand new cooler, we feel that restoration of the Nasty is essential for the preservation of total sweetness."

The strap, which the press release said has been broken forever and a day, should lessen the strain on the new hinges, ensuring longer life for the cooler's lid-opening mechanism.

A pre-repair cleaning has already been performed by the foundation's executive special lady.

"We'll probably put some Natty Light in there," said an anonymous camper. "The Nasty needs to get serious about boozin'."

Early morning comedy

You know that annoying window that pops up when you log onto AIM? The one that, if you're not too lazy, you can just disable somewhere in your preferences?

Well, mine still pops up. And I got a good laugh out of it today.

You see, online dating is kind of a big deal. Single folks out here on this great big Internet are like lost pieces of a two-piece puzzle. The goal of looking for someone online is finding your matching piece, the one God or whoever cut with a jigsaw from the same piece of glossy cardboard. And once you've found that missing piece, the one that's a perfect fit, you've solved that puzzle of love and you're whole again.

At least, I guess that's what this ad was getting at. See for yourself:

Be Smart The right piece is out there. Find your Match.

Yes, it's all about finding a piece. The right hole for your peg.

AOL is so poetic.

More fun stuff later.

Karl Hoffman in Over There

It's the biggest thing to hit Kuwait since Desert Storm, and Big Yellow Nasty Magazine has the exclusive interview.

In a time of international crisis, the fate of two nations hinges on a top-secret mission in the Kuwaiti desert.

While freedom and Democracy hang in the balance, a ragtag band of misfits must band together to recover a mystical artifact and stop an evil cult from enslaving the peace-loving villagers.

One man, one soldier, will rise and prove he is more misfit that the rest. Forsaking the luxury of watching classic cartoons on dorm room computers, sacrificing the comforts of Louisiana strippers because the Army told him he has to, this fearless warrior prepares to strike a mighty blow for freedom.

The sand is going to hit the fan, but before it does, Big Yellow Nasty Magazine secured an exclusive interview with misfit mansoldier Karl Hoffman.

What follows is the epic Instant Messenger conversation that spanned vast continents and oceans. Given the sensitive nature of this mission, screennames have been changed to protect the innocent.

Karl: heya
BYN: Yo yo yo!
Karl: i'm in kuwait!
BYN: Jeez, your icon man is knocking that one kid's head off.
BYN: Kuwait!
Karl: isn't that [expletive]ed up?
BYN: Whoa!
BYN: That is [expletive]ed up!
Karl: totally
BYN: And here I thought the Army was going to be all good times and nailing strippers for you.
BYN: This is your first time overseas, right?
Karl: yeah
BYN: Is it just like the groundbreaking FX drama Over There?
Karl: i've never seen it, but yes!
BYN: Wow. (it's actually a prety good show)
Karl: oh
Karl: then no
BYN: Oh.
BYN: You allowed to tell me what you're doing?
Karl: i'm part of a ragtag bunch of misfits, battling against the boche
BYN: I imagine it's just like Kelly's Heroes, although I 've never seen Kelly's Heroes.
Karl: i think i have, only kelly was named hogan.
BYN: Hmm. They were both WWII, but Kelly was played by now-Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood, whereas Hogan was played by Bob Krane, who was killed in Phoenix as a result of some kind of gay porn scandal, I think.
Karl: haha
BYN: So how is it?
BYN: Like Phoenix with oil and more guns?
Karl: hotter.
BYN: [expletive].
Karl: 125+ in the daytime, around 100 at night
BYN: I had a cousin who worked as a supply clerk for the Army in Kuwait. He said he'd sometimes trade supplies for things like a ride in a helicopter out to the desert where he could shoot stuff with the machine gun as he flew by. You get any deals like that?
Karl: hah
Karl: no
Karl: i once traded some lemon crystal light for some raspberry
Karl: that do anything for ya?
BYN: Yeah.
BYN: I mean, no.
Karl:: that's all i got
BYN: So, can I post this conversation to my blog?
Karl: do i get royalties?
BYN: I'll give you 10 percent.
BYN: And top billing.
Karl: keen!
Karl: what's 10 percent of nothing?
BYN: It's a good cut.
BYN: You drive a hard bargain. How does 15 sound?
Karl: deal!
BYN: Excellent. You got any words of wisdom you'd like to impart upon the blogosphere?
Karl: er.....
Karl: no?
BYN: Nothing profound? Nothing classically Karl?
Karl: geez, man
Karl: what sort of thing am i likely to say?
BYN: I dunno. A shout-out to the homies, a battle cry, a bad joke, maybe.
Karl: i can do a battle cry
Karl: NOT IN THE FACE!
BYN: SPOON!
BYN: I miss The Tick.
Karl: indeed
Karl: i like to yell "I'M FULL OF TINIER MEN!"
at moments when you don't yell that sort of thing
BYN: haha!
Karl: a less recognized reference, to be sure
Karl: but by gum, i like it
Karl: anywho, my time is up
Karl: i must be off
BYN: Okay. Enjoy Kuwait!
Karl: i'll be glad to be gone
Karl: kuwait sucks
Karl signed off at 12:47:25 PM.

BYN Magazine will donate 15 percent of the proceeds from this issue to Karl Hoffman.

Posting AIM conversations as blog entries is not lazy when they're poignant exclusive interviews and you write epic introductions for them.

Never buy a used iPod

Urgent breaking news update from BYN.

Readers who disregarded the advice in my previous post, Uplifting news from the restroom floor, should be advised that they may now purchase a t-shirt to show off what they're doing with their mp3 players.

Take a stand! Buy this shirt today, wear it to work tomorrow, and show those squares at the office that "Generation Why" never stops rocking, not even on the john.

Warning: do not attempt to look at other shirts available from jinx.com. They are dangerously nerdy. Too nerdy, even, for readers of this blog. Do not click the link in this paragraph.

Big ups (in a little font) to Eilders for sending me the link to the t-shirt.

Walken the line

Alternate post title: Turbizzi misses the short bus to the blogger bandwagon

I got an interesting e-mail today.

On 8/18/05, Rood, Rundles* wrote:

Tim, can you do some sleuthing around and find out if this is for real or if it is just a hoax?

http://walken2008.com

I know we have had actors involved in politics, but Christopher Walken? It makes me go hmmmmm….

Rundles Rood

Me do research? Nah, there are plenty of bloggers with way way more time on their hands to answer these important questions.

Cases in point:

http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5833740.html

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/a/194062.htm

And while this may seem like a let-down, my advice is to keep faith. Even though the Web site may be a well-executed hoax (one that rocked the blogosphere and duped a handful of celebrity news sites), Walken never said he isn''t running for president. And even if he isn't running officially, we can sure as heck vote for him anyway.

The sad thing is, what's less likely than Walken making a run in '08 is the idea that we will even have the option of a centrist candidate who can focus on real issues, simultaneously supporting such things as a strong military and stem cell research.

And given that Democrats might nominate John Edwards or Hillary Clinton to run against a heroic crowd-pleaser like John McCain or Rudy Giuliani, they might want to give Walken some serious thought.

He could save the Democrats some embarrassment and sway some of the right-leaning swing voters who swear up and down that the best president of all time was an actor.

With all that in mind, I'm going to print myself one of those posters.

* Named changed to make it even more obvious who I'm talking about.

Beetle Bailey in the Big City

For one week last year, I was a self-employed New Yorker. I busted my hump over a 60-hour New York-style workweek, selling flip flops to Republican National Convention delegates.

I didn't really "make it" there (and, for a long time, I couldn't make it anywhere), but I went to there work. As a result, I never really got to be a tourist in the Big Apple.

Sure I saw Times Square, but I had to sell flip flops the next morning. I never even made it to Ground Zero or the Statue of Liberty.

And then, on the short day when Derek and I sold our last pair of flip flops, I talked him into indulging me the one touristy thing I wanted to see: the Empire State Building.

At the time, I was reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two kids who make it big in the funny book business in 1940s New York.

Kavalier and Clay's publisher, Empire Comics, moved its office into the Empire State Building once their book, The Escapist, took off. The building was an amazing symbol throughout the book. A dazzling picture of the building even graced the paperback's cover.

Needless to say, I was excited to see the building.

Derek and I braved a long line through hot, sticky hallways to get to the top, where we paid extra for the guided audio tour, recited by an authentic-sounding New York cabbie over little headsets they gave us. And wow.

Tony the cabbie, with the help of my amazing view of Manhattan, transformed me from a lost and confused outsider to a guy who new what was what. I felt in tune with the history and geography of the city, and New York seemed vibrant and friendly. Definitely worth the wait and the extra money.

But there's a new reason to check out the Empire State Building.

The New York Times reports that the Empire State Building will soon house the National Cartoon Museum, paying homage to the days chronicled by Chabon in Kavalier & Clay, days when the building was home to Timely Comics (now Marvel).

The Times reports:

The museum, to open in the fall of 2006, will contain 200,000 original cartoons from more than 50 countries as well as 10,000 books and 1,000 hours of animation, worth about $20 million. The displays will range over eight genres, including newspaper comic strips, comic books, graphic novels and memoirs like Art Spiegelman's "Maus," animation, political cartoons, international cartoons and illustration and advertising.

There will also be many special displays and programs meant to educate or amuse, including a 15-foot plaster head of Walt Disney showing all the characters in his brain and a timeline tracing cartoons back to the cave dwellers.

Moving the museum to the Empire State building from its old home in Boca Raton, Fla., signifies that America is accepting cartoons and graphic novels as legitimate media.

Gone are times like the 70s, when religious groups created a massive backlash against comic books, and the 90s, when Marvel filed for bankruptcy.

Now, thanks to Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker, we'll be able to celebrate cartoons properly. I'll have to go back to New York next year, only this time as a tourist.

Uplifting news from the restroom floor

Aah, the newspaper on the restroom floor at work. The perfect read for the one time a day where my attention span functions properly.

And here's what I found today.

It's an uplifting look at how "Generation Why" is changing office culture, from beer shirts to iPods at work. Print it out and head to the can to enjoy it as much as I did. But leave your iPod at your desk.

Everything but lights, action

I think it was Brian Pulido who said it.

It also could have been Todd McFarlane, but I'm pretty sure it was Pulido at this year's Phoenix Film Festival. Hang around these comic book guys enough, and you start to lose track.

He said that it wouldn't be long before we see high school kids making movies that look like Sin City in their basements.

I've seen these kids. They shop at Best Buy. And if they can save up just a little bit of cash, Best Buy now has everything they need.

Canon XL2: For $4,999.99, take home a camera that'll shoot in multiple pulldown modes for everything from razor-sharp digital to film-like smooth. You can customize this bad boy with lenses from Canon and other manufacturers (it comes with a 20x Professional L-series fluorite optical zoom), and it's got an optional set of powered XLR jacks for connecting auxiliary microphones. The downside: it's standard-definition. Read way more than you'd ever want to know here.

Sony HDR-HC1: Coming in at a low low price of $1,999.99, this baby'll put out a 1080i HD scan. Although it's got some of Sony's proprietary hang-ups, they say it's a solid camera. And it's a true high-def. Read an insanely comprehensive review here.

I'm no expert, and I'm not here to review cameras. And even if I were, my review would pale in comparison to those camcorderinfo.com guys. The point is that these pro-sumer camcorders are getting really good. And as (relatively) cheap as they are now, we're bound to see prices drop as the technology becomes more readily available.

In a couple years, I wouldn't be surprised if you can get a camera on par with the HDR-HC1 for under a grand.

In the future, I'll be able to record my kid's first steps in video that'll dazzle on my 30-inch 1080i Samsung. But so will everyone else.

In the meantime, we'll see 15-year-olds tearing up the art houses with their own Sin Citys. We'll see emergence of high-definition TV networks similar to Al Gore's new Current TV.

And we'll see guys like me realizing that the camera isn't what's holding them back from making movies.

Sin City available Tuesday on bare-bones edition DVD. Listen to cool interview with creator and co-director Frank Miller at dvdtalk.com.

Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

More news on the nostalgia front: the Bloodhound Gang is back.

Back in 1999, I heard a song called 3.14 playing on a hip St. Louis radio station on my way home from school. The album, entitled Hooray for Boobies, was supposed to come out November 9, if I remember correctly.

But it didn't. The album was changed. Then changed again, I hear, and the release date was delayed for months. This seems to be a fairly comprehensive chronicling of it, as it's the kind of news, I guess, that only survives in message boards and wikis.

But a guy I ate lunch with somehow got his hands on one of those rare September discs, and he sold me a burned copy of it for $10. Anybody who charges you $10 for a burned CD, even in those primitive days of Y2K hysteria, when CD writers were the ultimate luxury, is not your friend. Especially when your bootleg version cuts off the last second or so from every track. And I paid ten freakin' bucks!

But he put an extra track on there, a demo with almost a Kenny Rogers flavor, which discussed (in graphic detail) all different kinds of ... never mind.

Since high school, they have released only one single. Called Jackass, and featured on the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back soundtrack, the song opened with the lyrics:

Jackass
I'm a pimped-out Jedi Knight
Obi Wan meets Dolemite

Despite this excellent opening lyrics, it was still a bad song! Poor production, a weak melody, a lousy refrain and monotone singing made the song a low point on an otherwise stellar soundtrack.

And before the soundtrack's release, this song was kind of a big deal. It was originally slated for an album inspired by the TV show Jackass, but that album fell through. Then it was supposed to go on the American Pie 2 soundtrack, but the Bloodhound Gang withheld it, saying they were waiting for a better movie.

You've probably never even heard Jackass.

But you probably will hear the band's new single, cleverly titled Foxtrot Uniform Charile Kilo. I'll give you one guess what it's about.

Correct! In fact, the song's verses consist purely of metaphors for putting the this in the that.

Songs such as 3.14, The Bad Touch and Mope off Hooray set the bar pretty high. Had anyone listened to Jackass, the bar would be lowered to sub par. Foxtrot brings the bar back up to mediocre.

It's kind of edgy. It's kind of clever. And it's kind of funny when you think about it. But only kind of. And this is coming from a guy who once spent an afternoon sitting around a dorm room with his buddies, brainstorming similar metaphors for hours. The list included verbs such as "yammed."

And there's the video, which really disappointed me. While the video succeeds in establishing that breaking concrete with a jackhammer is sexy, its only laugh-out-loud moment involves a presumably gay construction worker eating a banana.

Bananas are funny.

But a banana-shaped car not so much. And the video climaxes (pun intended) with the car driving into a tunnel, which is a blatant Family Guy rip off. (I looked really hard for a link to a picture of Peter Griffin driving his phallic sports car into the tunnel in the season 3 episode "And the Weiner is ...", but I couldn't find one. Stupid Internet.)

The song itself gets no laughs, and that's my biggest problem.

This is the track that's supposed to get us back into the Bloodhound Gang. This is the song that's supposed to make me feel the way I did five and a half years ago when I would drive around in my '87 Ranger, listening to my bootleg CD and trying to memorize lyrics about Waffle House hash browns.

Maybe bands such as Tenacious D have raised my standards for funny music. Maybe I've grown up. Today's high school seniors probably will love Foxtrot.

But I think the truth is that, if Foxtrot Unicorn Charlie Kilo and Jackass are any indication, the Bloodhound Gang has lost a step. I hope their album, Hefty Fine, proves me wrong. Anybody want to sell me a bootleg copy?

Fragged!

I've been mpoing around the last couple days about the fact that there's nothing to blog about. Peter Jennings dies. Space shuttle lands safely. It's raining in Phoenix. The best news item since Sunday was Wayne Gretzky's official announcement that he will coach the Phoenix Coyotes.

And while I probably shouldn't talk about work in the personal blog, I can't resist bragging about this. I had the pleasure of being the online sports guy when The Arizona Republic broke the story. That means reporter Dave Vest sent it to me, I put it on the Web, and we sat back while ESPN scrambled to catch up. The original story, which wasn't much beyond saying that sources told the Republic the Great One would make an official announcement Monday, is no longer around, but you can see updated stuff here. Big ups to Dave.

Gretzky gets me fired up. Before he even signed with St. Louis in 1996, a bunch of my friends had bought tickets to a random game, which turned out to be his first home game as a Blue. I really feel like a douche for not going to that game.

The Blues made a great playoff run that year, losing to the Red Wings in double OT in game 7 of the Western Conference Semifinals (had Grant Fuhr stayed healthy, the Blues would have won the Cup). My friend Ben wept openly that night and retired his Gretzky jersey shortly thereafter.

At that point, Gretzky had penetrated my subconscious mind. I had a pretty vivid dream that he was turning down calls from the Vice President of the United States to sit on a park bench at Longacre and tell me that he really wanted to stay in St. Louis.

He didn't stay.

Anyway, that's not the news I decided was totally blogworthy. Check out this story from Reuters:

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said on Tuesday.

They should put warnings on those video games.

Warning: If you quit your job to facilitate a 50-hour computer game binge, you will die.

The sad thing is he was in an Internet cafe. When I die from a gaming binge, I damn well better be in the comfort of my own home, surrounded by pizza boxes and empty Monster cans.

I can only imagine his headstone will read something like this:

Lee
1977 - 2005
He owned the other team.
Frag master.
Sniper.
m4d sk1llz0rz.
GJP

Coming next blog: sensitivity!

For now, though, I have added a ling to Eric Spratling's blog, which is a quality read, especially if you're into outspoken but funny College Republicans-turned-Army men.

Widescreen TVs hurt pop star sales

By Hopscotch Mooney
Big Yellow Nasty wire services

Jessica Simpson may look slim as Daisy Duke on the big screen,
but the widescreen stretch turns sexy stems into tree trunks.

HOLLYWOOD (BYN) - While the camera was once said to add 10 pounds, the widescreen TV may be adding 37 pounds or more.

An AOL Time-Warner spokesman blamed dismal box office returns for the company's remake of the 1979 TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard" on a new phenomenon, known as the "widescreen stretch." The "widescreen stretch" is what happens to a 4-by-3 "fullscreen" TV image when it is stretched to fit the 16-by-9 aspect ratio of today's widescreen TVs, making people on the screen appear a full third wider.

"People were supposed to see this movie because Jessica Simpson looks hot in bikini tops and short shorts," said Warner Bros. spokesman Wakko Warner. "Then they see her video on MTV, and she looks chunky. What they don't realize is it's only because they're stretching the image out to widescreen."

Stretching an image from a 4-by-3 "fullscreen" to a 16-by-9 "widescreen" aspect ratio makes a picture 33 percent wider. After the stretch, a 110-pound pop star could appear as heavy as 147 pounds.

Only one in 20 American households have widescreen TVs. But executives say that 5 percent of the population represents a key demographic.

"[Widescreen TV owners are] the ones leading the charge to movie theaters," said Wiley Wiggins, founder of the Kramer Media Research Institute in Santa Monica, Calif. "They're tech-savvy, they have the disposable income, they buy the popcorn, the Pepsi, the DVDs, the T-shirts. you name it. They're the ones who go on the Internet and tell everyone whether or not they should see a movie."

Other pop stars are feeling the burn of the "stretch" as well. A source close to Lindsay Lohan says the teen queen had to drop major pounds for her role in the upcoming Robert Altman picture based on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion."

"Lots of people just think them NPR-listenin' nerdlingers gonna come out and see a movie cause it's intelligent," said the anonymous source. "But the truth is the movie's gonna make money 'cause teenagers gonna be jerkin off to my daughter on screen. And if she don't look good, they won't wanna jerk off.

"Bad enough she's gotta put up with tabloids saying she parties all the time and spreading lies about me, now they're saying she has an eating disorder. Tell that to the studio man who won't leave her alone about the widescreen thing."

Execs have blamed this phenomenon for more than just low box office.

"You look at Jessica's album sales two years ago compared to today," said Warner. "People didn't really have widescreen TVs back then."

TV industry experts say users and content providers are responsible for the problem.

"There's just not enough [high-definition] content available right now," said Best Buy salesman Scooter Anthony. "People buy widescreen TVs, but then they get mad when their so-called 'full-screen' DVDs don't look right. But if the content were available in HD, you wouldn't have a problem."

Asked about the Simpson video, Anthony replied, "I'd like to see that in HD. But since you probably can't, you have some options as far as viewing it. You can letterbox it, which will give you bars on the side but preserve the original aspect ratio. Or you can zoom in on it. That's probably what I'd do with Jessica Simpson."

You lost us there, Scooter.

TV networks, however, are reluctant to provide more high-definition content because of the high cost of filming and broadcasting in HD.

"The route we're going is a more cost-effective solution in the short term," said Warner. "We've got Jessica on a strict diet and training regimen for her next movie tie-in video. If she reaches her goal of 78 [pounds], she'll look 110 after the stretch. It's as simple as that."

Mr. 3000

First you endear yourself to America as a baseball star and Viagra spokesman. Then you waggle your finger in front of Congress, vehemently denying the allegations some douchebag made in his book about you using steroids. Then you collect your 3,000th hit. Everybody likes you. You are now a shoe-in for the MLB hall of fame, unlike Bernie Mac.

Then you test positive for steroids. You're still more likeable than Barry Bonds, but you've set yourself up as the guy who has to take the fall for the nasty little problem baseball has been hiding for decades.

Then your once-sweet baseball team starts to fall apart, and Congress starts investigating you for perjury.

And, If you're Rafael Palmeiro, odds are you won't get into the Hall of Fame. Ever. Heck, *movie spoiler alert* even Bernie Mac made it in eventually.

Barry Bonds will get in on his first ballot. He never tested positive for steroids, but he admitted to taking them accidentally.

So will Mark McGwire. In his heyday, the guy was caught with Androstenedione. The stuff was banned from the NFL at the time, but MLB didn't even have a drug testing policy in place. And who cared?

At the time, the game of baseball was little more than one big circus to showcase strongmen like him and Sammy Sosa. Longballs for short attention spans. I'll admit I was amazed by every swing and dazzled by the tens of thousands of camera flashes that lit up Busch Stadium every time he stepped up to the plate.

And when McGwire broke that record, when he was a hero to America and a god to St. Louis, our educators were quick to use him as a positive roll model.

My dad is always proud to tell the story of how my sister's elementary school class had to write a song about not using drugs. The song they came up with included a lyric about being like Mark McGwire.

Legend has it, my sister, as a second-grader, called the teacher out on the fact that McGwire was caught with Andro and creatine, performance-enhancing "supplements." The teacher, if I recall correctly, left the lyric in the song.

Seven years later, many of these kids are getting ready to enter the ultra-competitive world of high school sports. All of a sudden, they see their drug-free hero mumbling and stuttering in front of Congress, refusing to comment on whether he did steroids. And, let's face it, he looked guilty.

How do kids handle this new image of their one-time hero, a guy their hometown named a highway after? What's to stop them from using performance-enhancing drugs to get an edge on the competition now?

I asked my sister. Here's what she said:

umm...well, earlbert, I'd have to say I don't ever remember that happening, but I totally think its morally disgusting to make children sing songs about false heroes. I, for one, have not once even so much as liked mark mcgwire, and like him even less now because chance reminded me of him, and after what he did, I have learned that ppl who like that have MMS, aka, "The Mark Mcgwire Syndrome", and are complete losers who I will never look up to. If this story of me having to sing about mark mcgwire not being on the juice but being a hero is true, then I probably cried and fought against it the entire time. Aight, adios.

These are my thoughts

Eye-Laser

What can we conclude from this? It's obvious that I need to stop thinking like a member of the mainstream media, for one. Two, we're probably all way too obsessed with the steroids ting.

A coworker of mine reminded me that the reason everyone is so hung up on preserving MLB's integrity is the fact that the MLB "turned into professional wrestling" when the White Sox threw the World Series in 1919.

So everybody's going to freak out about Pete Rose betting on games or modern-day titans juicing up, how much integrity did the game have in the first place?

And who's really affected by it? Certainly not the children. Maybe it's the old guys who bought Viagra under false pretences.

On a more positive note, hockey is back. Here's what Coyotes captain Shane Doan had to say on the Edge Morning Ritual today when Vince suggested Phoenix hire Emilio Estivez to coach the team:

He led a very good team to the championship a few years back. ... His 'Flying V' was very effective. ... It's not used as much as it should be used.

You sunk my Cruiser!

It's official: God hates the PT Cruiser.

Here's a picture that was main art on azcentral this morning:

Photo by Heather Reich/The Arizona Republic.

Yea, and the Lord said, "Thou shalt drive thine clown car into the watery abyss." And it was good.

There are other good pix in a slideshow on the site.

More stuff later.

Silly Picture Monday

It's Silly Picture Monday! Here at The BYN, we're giving you the two-for-one special on silly pictures.

First off, a family classic. At the Aeropostale in St. Louis Mills, my cousin, my brother and I waited for nearly an hour last winter as my cousin Andy tried on jeans. The jeans were way too long for him, and the sales girl (whom he was way-too-obviously trying to flirt with) kept reassuring him that most people these days cut the bottoms of their jeans anyway. Besides, on him they were just a little long, like "this much," as she indicated with her thumb and forefinger while kneeling conspicuously in front of him.

Astoundingly, through what has been called the single greatest act of cell-phone photography ever perpetrated (I called it that in an email), I was able to get this shot. The girl later told him she was married. And we told Andy he'd better lock it up.

Next up: put up your cartoon dukes and see if you can last three rounds against World Cruiserweight Champion Chris Wagner! "Myeeeee right hook izzzz myeeeee a-deadliest weapon."

Just kidding, sportsfans! You'll spot right away that this fist storm belongs to none other that Adam "Hurricane" Hess, sporting his classic scraggly-hair-and-a-crappy-beard look, trading blows with a Dennis Rodman look-alike on the virtual boxing game at Golf Land.
And if you think that's mean, you should see him after he eats the can of spinach.

At this point, it should be obvious that I'm way low on blog sauce today. All I can do is sit back and hope this will be funny to the good folks who know Chris Wagner.

Little Yellow Nasty

In another attempt to make this site look less like a half-hearted cookie-cutter Blogger theme, I created this cooler-shaped bullet to replace the silly arrows. You won't miss those arrows.