The True Price of Beauty

I’m not sure how to set this up or how to begin, so let’s just come out with it: I love Jessica Simpson’s new show. It’s insightful, meaningful, thought provoking; every time I watch it I feel like I’ve learned something, but even better, like I felt something. Yes, I have my doubts about Jessica Simpson as anything other than “blond with outrageously big boobs” – but she’s found the right forum for herself with this show, she doesn’t have to carry it, she just has to exist with it, if that makes sense.


Women face a daily challenge that men just can’t, nor will ever, understand. Forget self or societal-imposed pressure, the level of daily competition between women is absolutely staggering. That’s not necessarily groundbreaking of course, we’ve had enough Sex and The City episodes and Gwen Stefani songs to tell us this, but it’s certainly eye opening to see how these types of pressures extend across borders and cultures. As Ken Paves said in the closing of episode three: “when can a woman feel free to ever just be a woman?” A few years ago, actually a few days ago, I would’ve laughed at the statement and made a joke about Ken’s butthole and its diet, but I feel different now. I feel changed.


The show is worth watching for so many reasons. Some of the supporters are championing Jess as a new breed of feminist, I think we have to go further than that: Jessica Simpson is a humanist. This show doesn’t merely show the plight of the female in the harsh light of multi-faceted competition, the show demonstrates how the struggle of the modern woman affects us all. That is something worth cheering. I hope you’ll join me.


(*Note: not a word of this is true. Fuck Jessica Simpson and her dumb fucking show. However, claiming that I love it is decidedly less embarrassing than admitting that I love this Duke team and am pulling for them to win the championship. So there you go.)


JR

NCAA Pool Update

You know you're out of an NCAA pool when you're watching a game hoping for Butler to beat Oklahoma but the problem is Butler and Oklahoma haven't been playing for at least a week. Here's the current standings of our super nerd blog pool we're in. Keep in mind the hockey blog is in first place. Awesome. Our self esteem is sky high.

The Battle of California – 58

The Sports Lounge – 56

Gossip on Sports – 55

Apples & Moustaches – 51

The Play in CA – 48

Bears Necessity – 44

More to come...

The Sweet 16

By Magglio and Jericho -

Following the best weekend in all of sports we wanted to provide you with the top 16 moments that stand out in our minds. Of course these started out as just NCAA posts but quickly turned into whatever was on our minds. In no particular order…

1. Stanford’s Brook Lopez is a man among boys. This kid is amazing. He single handily won the game for The Cardinal on Saturday. There was no part of him that would let his team lose. This is the kind of performance that will lift him to a top 10 pick in the upcoming NBA draft. You know what won’t help his twin brother Robin’s draft status? His Krusty the Clown hair. It looks like he has Macy Gray’s dome in a leg lock. But one questions remains, why do they have girl names? Did their parents lose a bet? I can't take them seriously

2. When you hear the statement “hit the glass” do you want to take a phat bong rip? Or is that just me?

3. MLB officially kicks off tonight/tomorrow morning at 3am with Boston and Oakland battling in Tokyo. Reports say the entire Japanese media hangs on the Sox every word and then vacates the premise when it’s time for them to speak with the A’s. Not sure why this is news. It’s called the ‘Associated Press’ or ‘ESPN’ or any of those other coastists fucks who will suck off anything having to do with Boston or New York while ignoring the West Coast. Go A’s.

4. Look, I like OJ Mayo. He's like a cross between Ben Gordon and Tayshaun Prince. But at the same time can someone talk to him about his little mustache? He looks like an accountant, and there's nothing dorkier than a chest-bumping accountant.

5. If they were handing out top seeds for the tournament this weekend, we’d give the nod to UNC, Wisconsin, Louisville and Kansas. Sorry West Virginia and Memphis. You get a 2 seed. UCLA? Stanford? 3-seeds. You’ve got a tall climb ahead of you.

6. Tickets for SF’s Outside Lands show are on sale this weekend to the general public. But, click on this link if you want to buy tickets now. As far as we can tell only 3-day passes are available. Plus, whose call was it to put Jack Johnson as a headliner above Wilco, Beck and Ben Harper? Bold call.

7. Hey CBS! Way too much Clark Kellog and Billy Packer and not enough Seth Davis and Bill Rafferty.

8. Defense wins championships. We all know this. So who has the best defense right now of the 16 teams remaining? Our bet is on Wisconsin, Washington State or West Virginia. Those teams play smothering in-your-face defense. It’s like a team of Stacey Augmon’s out there. If WSU can somehow make UNC play their style of ball, then they have a shot. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s any chance for the Cougars. Can you believe the spread for this game is only 8?

9. For some reason the other blogs in our ‘Battle of the Blogs’ challenge are scared to post the results after 2 rounds. We’re not. Here’s how we stand:

Apples & Moustaches – 43

Gossip on Sports – 43

The Battle of California – 42

The Sports Lounge – 40

The Play in CA – 40

Bears Necessity – 36

Yeah, that’s right. We’re tied for the lead at this point. And tied with a chick none-the-less. We’re not worried about it. Of course, it’s still anyone’s game. Pitt hurt us but we’re banking on big wins from West Virginia and Wisconsin as well as Memphis to choke on their own free throws. We like where we stand. Countdown till Apples and Moustaches take over the universe! (or at least get to offend a whole new crop of readers.)

10. After looking at her recent bikini pics…we came to a startling revelation. Jennifer Aniston is hotter than Angelina Jolie. How the fuck did this happen? This is like waking up one morning and realizing the Monkees were better than the Beatles.

11. Stephen Curry reminds me of Monta Ellis. Quick first step, natural jump shooter, glider rather than a sprinter. He seems like one of those guys that will get drafted in the 20s or 30s, do nothing for the first 2-3 years and then come out of nowhere to be a solid #2 option on a team.

12. We offered resident donkey punch KK the chance to write something for this post…here is what he came up with…:

The first week of March Madness is the most exciting and entertaining week of sports bar none. Last week proved once again why college basketball is the premier sport and why college football is a couple steps behind. March Madness generates so much buzz for not only sports-enthusiasts but also for people who don’t give a shit about sports. What other sport allows you to discuss predictions and analysis with co-workers who are fucking useless when it comes to sports.

And that concludes our KK as a writer experiment. Sorry, buddy, but this isn't show friends, this is show business.

13. Another thing CBS fucks up is having way too much analysis and predictions in the pre and halftime shows and not nearly enough info about the schools themselves. Where the fuck is Davidson? Why does Xavier’s mascot look like it belongs on a frozen fish sticks box? Who did they beat in the regular season, who’s their best player and what kind of defenses and offenses are they susceptible to? Instead we get blanket statements like “Georgetown has to make free throws.” Oh really, you think so, doctor?

14. Is there a dumber column to read online than "revised tourney predictions?" Fuck you, man! I'm in last fucking place and so are you, just bend over and take it!

15. By far the stupidest NFL rumor right now is that the Bengals and Cowboys are considering a Chad Johnson trade. How would that work? Ocho Cinco and TO on the same team? That'd be like that show Big Love except with Chloe Seignvy and Gennifer Goodwin replaced by two enormous black guys that can't pronounce vowels.

16. I know Bill Parcells is a genius and a two-time champion and all, but nothing negates greatness faster than bitch tits. Have you see him lately? I keep reading draft articles about what he might do at #1, and I'm reading his quotes and nodding at the screen, but then halfway down they show him standing on the practice field looking like Oprah would look if the lock on her fridge broke. A good friend of mine once said, "you can't be a red neck with a shirt on." Which is amazing, but I'd also like to add "you can't be a genius with bitch tits." Thank you.

Underrated Day 4 – NCAA Tournament

First of all, a special fuck you to Jericho once again for his stupid ‘let’s do a theme week’ idea. Talk about a pain in the ass. It’s the first day of the NCAA tournament, let’s talk about who has the hottest cheerleaders (so far I’m thinking Arizona), let’s remember Pittsnogle, let’s talk about where we were when Webber called that fateful timeout (at Dave’s house, making fun of our friend Mike who LOVED that Michigan squad). But no, it’s ‘theme’ week so let’s try to squeeze a great post idea into something that can be called ‘underrated.’ It’s about as comfortable as the 1992 towel boy for UNLV was after close games. Not cool Jericho, not cool at all.

So, racking my brain, I came up with the following thought. There was a time in our lives when we could sit in front of a TV for the first two rounds of the tournament (Thursday and Friday) and do nothing but watch college basketball. And everything in this world was perfect. In high school we would all go over to the kid’s house whose parents weren’t home. We’d probably order a pizza. Find the dad’s stack of porn. Get hopped up on orange soda and watch basketball until our eyes were about to pop out. In college, we didn’t have to do any sneaking around. The pizza and porn was still there, the orange soda turned to Keystone Ice and our eyes were popping out from things besides staring at the TV. But we were free to watch those games however and whenever we chose to. This my friends was an underrated time in our lives. (see the connection? Sorta? Just go with it.)

Today, we hide in conference rooms with select co-workers and gather around a 10” monitor hoping our connection doesn’t cut out at a critical point during the game. We watch without the sound because we don’t want the dumb chicks around us to realize we’re not staring at our computer and working…we’re watching games for fuck’s sake. When it’s a big moment we have to celebrate in complete silence. We plan meetings around games. We make a joke on a conference call about wishing we were seeing the 6 and 11 matchup…1/4 of the people on the call can relate. We exchange updates with other dudes in the hallway who also 'get-it'. We go to longer lunches, eat shitty food and for a few brief moments feel like we were 18 again, watching the games from the comfort of our own couch. But then the bar starts to empty out a bit, it’s 1:30pm, people are returning to their cubicles and we’re left with nothing but a bill to pay for shitty buffalo wings and longing for simpler times.

Am I being a bit melodramatic? Perhaps. But what I wouldn’t give to be back at my friend’s house right now watching Adam Jacobson and Mark Boelter and Walsh Jordan and Dell Demps and Corey Anders (fuck he was so good) and hell, even little Scooter Thompson. Those days were underrated. No doubt about it.