Water Cooler, Asseeeeemblllleeeeeee!

Ah, August, the herald of my fleeting mortality!

The unicorns are whispering to each other and I can only assume it's because they're planning some sort of special hullabaloo for my birthday and it's frustrating because they think they're so damn sneaky but they can't whisper for shit.  Plus, whatever they end up doing, they'll just muck it up anyways.  They have hooves for Christ sakes.

The unicorns have magical powers but they insist on wrapping the gifts themselves and it just ends up looking like a box that's been bludgeoned by a bunch of hammers.  Then I have to put on this big production about how 'surprised' I am and it's...it's just awful.  They mean well though and I do appreciate the effort...you know...considering the hooves.

In essence I think August is my time for reflection.  What better way to reflect...than a water cooler!



WHAT THE HELL?: Today's 'What the Hell?' is brought to you in large part by Canada.  Kids, David Price is now Canadian.  In the latest twist in the Twilight Zone, David is back in the AL East and he's playing for the godforsaken Blue Jays.  Look, Toronto is a storied franchise with a long history of success and...oh who the Hell am I kidding...this is just ridiculous.  I'm almost positive that most casual baseball fans had no idea that there was even a MLB team in Canada and now one of the premier pitchers in baseball is playing there.

I'm sure Toronto is a nice enough place for anybody born there and doesn't know anything different but let's cut the shit here.  David Price isn't a Blue Jay.  John Olerud was a Blue Jay and he would wear his batting helmet on the base path.  That's a Blue Jay.  David Price has style...he has finesse...and he's also a free agent after this season.  We already ripped my heart out last year when the Rays traded him to Detroit in the Zero Hour of the trade deadline so why not finish the job?  Why must we prolong the inevitable?  Canada might think that they are sparing me with this trade but the fact is that I've been on borrowed time since last year.  Just put him in pinstripes already.

After this season, and free agency begins, and David inevitably and officially becomes a Yankee I'll probably vomit multiple times.  And it's not exactly a picnic right now.  Having this fear in the pit of my bowels (I didn't put it there, it just sort of happened) is like knowing ahead of time that Anakin is about to take his talents to South Beach and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

I'm getting all jumbled here...you see what this shit does to me?!  Do you see?!!



HAH!: Today's 'Hah!' is brought to you in large part by the great state of Texas.  Texas, what can I say, you really know how to mix things up at a singles party.  When the rumors were flying around that Cole Hamels was headed to Los Angeles, Texas swooped in and said "Hey! We're in.  How much?"

Now I don't know the GM of the Philadelphia Phillies but he's probably a sad sonuvabitch and he probably wakes up each morning saying to himself, "I gave up the family hotdog cart for this?"  But not even he could contain his laughter when he picked up the phone and it was Texas on the other end.  In fact I'm pretty sure he answered, "Texas, whom?"

Sometimes in the world of baseball, especially at the trade deadline, lines get muddled and teams aren't exactly sure if they should be buyers or sellers.  The Rangers took a page from the book of their previous owner, George W. Bush, and decided that they would do the exact opposite of what they should.  So they traded for Cole Hamels, a guy that's just gonna smoke all their weed and eat all of their chips.  When Arlington burns to the ground at least now we'll know it's because Hamels tried to drunkenly light all of his farts on fire.

Be forewarned, Texas, you are now in the rough, manicured hands of the Devil.  Well, you probably were before, but now you definitely are.



THAT'S ENOUGH BASEBALL: Today's 'That's Enough Baseball' is brought to you in large part by the disillusioned states that make up New England.

Arrogance.  Entitlement.  Extraction from reality.  God syndrome.  Douchebags.  These are just a handful of terms that can be used to describe the New England Patriots, specifically their owner, coach, and quarterback... or as they are colloquially known, "The Holy Trinity of Smug Assholes".

Roger Goodell recently upheld Tom Brady's suspension of four games for deliberately deflating footballs in the AFC Championship game and it was in large part due to Brady destroying evidence, a move that Brady picked up from his old pal, Aaron Hernandez.  The guilty party then went on the offensive and Tom Brady posted to Facebook to confirm that's how big of a douchebag he is.  He thought that the best way to proclaim his innocence was to make a Facebook post.  I'd like to think that right after he posted it, he liked it, shared it, and then went and stared at himself in the mirror for six hours.

Instead, Tom said that he switches phones every four months (because those FBI taps are ruthless on the drug trade) and that he gave the NFLPA permission to seek a federal court ruling on the decision to uphold the appeal of the initial four game suspension.  I agree, wholeheartedly with this, because if there's one thing that tax money needs to go to it's proving whether or not some air was released from some footballs and whether or not a man is lying about it.  Weak infrastructure?  Not in the good ol' US of A!

FEDERAL COURT to determine the air pressure of footballs.  Tom Brady has become the quintessential 'It's the principal that matters to me' when really he's become the guy that's guilty in the public court.  Tom said that neither he nor the Patriots did no wrong.  So why the suspension of the two ball boys that Tom was texting?  Why the sudden destroyed cell phone on the day that he was to meet the investigator?  I know cell phone contracts can be a bitch but there's easier ways around that, Tom.

At least some things never change in the Twilight Zone.  New England has no chance to turn back now.  They've lied, they've been caught in the lie, and have lied to cover up being caught in the lie.  The only logical choice from here is to keep lying.  Deny till you die.

By the way, the unicorns say you aren't invited to my birthday party, so take that, Tom Brady.

Float on, graceful swans.

21.

May Flowers

Dear God, it's the end of May, and that means that the dawn of my fourth decade of life is just barreling towards me like some sort of weird barrel based weapon.  Time sucks because it's always time to do something.  It's time to get up, it's time to go to work, it's time for your state approved execution...blah blah blah.  There's never any time for anything besides all the shit we don't want to happen.  Time is literally the harbinger of my doom, your doom, and the doom of all carbon based life forms.  Watches and clocks are morbid ways of checking the time that you have left and also when that meeting starts.  Time rolls on and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

I once believed that if I just stayed in bed all day then that day would never occur and time would stop.  That's how I lost my first job.

In three months time I'll be thirty years old and it's time to highlight some positives of that because I'm already depressed and we're not even there yet.  I'm like Queen Elizabeth to hamsters, goldfish, most insects, and celebrity marriages.  I'm a true testament of time in the very sense that it hasn't killed me yet, dammit, and it's time we get going.



The Miami Dolphins have inked Ryan Tannehill, my little Fuzzby, to a big contract that will keep him in South Florida and potentially pay him ninety six muellllllliiiioooon buckaroos.  Several of my friends have come up to me and asked me what I thought about this and every single time my mind kept going back to the Vietnam War for some reason but I think I'm ready to settle down and talk about it now.

It's dumb.  It's a dumb move.  Just because it's after the divorce and you run through a bunch of scumbags for a number of years doesn't mean you have to marry the first guy that's wearing slacks and has his hair combed.  You can probably, gee I don't know, LET HIM PROVE HIS WORTH FIRST!

Ryan's a great guy and I'm sure he's nice to children, old people, and dogs.  He could even go on to mesh so well with the tools the Dolphins have provided him this offseason and just wreck shit.  He could lead his team to the playoffs and be in title contention come the end of the year.  He could be an MVP candidate and hoist up the Lombardi trophy in South Florida for the first time in longer than I've lived on this planet...but...it's all hope and hope is absolutely dog shit in professional football.  If you are signing people to your team in the NFL based on hope then you better prepare yourself for a good old fashioned cry session in your bathroom while pretending to take a shower because that's where you are headed.

We now live in a world where Andrew Luck, who has been further into the playoffs each year he's been in the league, and Russell Wilson, who has won a Super Bowl and been to two, and were both drafted the same year as Ryan Tannehill and yet they remain on their rookie contracts.  And Robert Griffin Part III!  He was there too!

It's weird.  It's gotta be a great tool for when the time comes that I become a parent because every Sunday I'm cheering him on but in my head I'm praying to whoever answers that he just doesn't completely blow it.  But for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, in wins or in complete mediocrity each and every season, I am now stricken with a Fuzzby for the next FIVE freakin' years.

That's a lot of time.  And if every season that I've witnessed is some sort of barometer for how the next five will go...let's just say I'm not quitting the blog any time soon.


And now...NOW...it's finally time that I make my way to you, Mr. Thomas Gladys Brady, you cheating son of a bitch!  (His middle name comes from his father's favorite lunch lady in school)

When the time comes that I'm dead and gone from this Earth and you are too, and so are our children, and so on and so forth...but yet the SP remains for some reason...the time capsule of the NFL would be the period of time that the New England Patriots decided, "Hell, we aren't winning, maybe we should start cheating?"  And that would be for the last thirteen or so years. 

It was all an elaborate set up, from top to bottom, and it was undeniably brilliant but it was also the worst thing to happen to American sports.  Bill Belichick was a horrible failure as a head coach but as soon as he landed in New England he had one bad year and then was the best ever.  Tom Brady knitted wool caps for the rest of the Michigan Wolverines and wasn't drafted until the sixth round, pick 199, meaning that one hundred and ninety-eight people were considered better than him by people that spend their entire lives by evaluating talent and potential and yet now he is considered the best ever?!  How in the holy Hell did they accomplish this amazing feat?!  BY CHEATING!  The whole time.  We caught them with Spygate.  We have now caught them with Deflategate.  How many other gates did they get past us?  I'm now struck with a myriad of questions, questions like, 'Did they lose some games on purpose to not look suspicious?',  'Did the Tuck Rule start the flood and they started wondering how far they could press the stupidity of the rules of the NFL?', and 'Isn't this the fitting answer as to why Tom Brady, the most popular NFL player, and Gisele Bundchen, the most popular super model, never did a reality show?'  It's because he didn't want to be caught!

The thing that I don't get, the thing that bothers me, is how did the whole operation get exposed over a few underinflated footballs?  Incriminating texts between two lackeys, Brady's denial, Kraft's infuriation, Belichick's inevitable betrayal...it's not adding up for me.  Thanks to all the lawyers and media Deflategate has become a joke.  One of the guys that Brady had taking the air out of footballs called himself 'The Deflator' and now Brady's lawyer is saying that he called himself that because he was trying to lose weight.  Riiiiiight.  I think I can remember that being the pinnacle of the pyramid in the Jenny Craig plan to lose weight.  You start out as The Defiler, next is The Diarrheal, then The Defenestrator, and finally, The Deflator. 

I think it's time that Brady answers for his crimes.  Belichick has left him to the pyre.  Kraft puffed up his chest and then slowly backed away.  Brady is all alone now.



It's also time for this post to wrap up.  Hopefully, in time, we'll know the full story but if I were you I wouldn't hold my breath.  The NFL is very good at being dumb or they're very good at playing dumb.  I'm not sure which is worst.

Farts and Kraft

As New England stares down the barrel of a Nor'easter they decide that the best tactic to absolve the storm is through their own hot air.  That's all that seems to be coming out of New England these days.

Since Deflategate has gained speed, Belichick, Brady, and now even the Pats' owner Robert Kraft has taken the podium.  While each man has taken their own approach to questions about why they felt the need to cheat when it was so obvious that they didn't have to I found that Kraft provided the most insight.

I was actually kinda shocked that Senator Palpatine even took the podium in the first place but then I remembered that cameras would be there and hubris is pretty tough to have just by yourself aaaaaaaaand now we're here!

Bob (that's right I'm calling him Bob) shuffled up there in his million dollar loafers made from the souls of the forgotten, took off his lacy white glove and slapped it in the face of the collective media and or world.  That's right, kids, Bobby Kraft demands satisfaction!

An apology?!  An APOLOGY!?  What freakin' planet are these morons living on?  Hey, asshole, maybe you shouldn't demand an apology while there is an ongoing investigation on how your team cheated!

And if by some miracle of God, or however much you have to pay people to make things go away these days, that you aren't found culpable of removing air from footballs---well then sir---YOU STILL GET NOTHING!

You get nothing.

Tom Brady says his feelings were hurt.  Robert Kraft says that it bothers him that their reputations and integrity have been called into question and I'm over here playing the world's smallest violin because absolutely nobody should feel bad for the New England Patriots.

Did anybody feel bad for Michael Jackson when the second kid showed up in his bed covered in glitter and banana peels?  No!  You know why nobody is going to apologize to Robert Kraft and the New England Patriots?  Because they're mocking us.

I find it fitting that Ted Wells, the guy who investigated the great Dolphins' bullying scandal last year, is now investigating the Patriots deflategate controversy because the Patriots have been bullying the entire rest of the league for the last fifteen years.  There are 32 teams in the NFL and only one of them sees themselves in a higher light than the rest of them.  There is only one team's name that keeps popping up when we bring up the term "cheating".  Go buy yourself some compassion, Mr. Kraft, because we're fresh out over here.

An apology.  Hah!  Sure.  I'm sorry that you guys are such pompous assholes that you think you can literally get away with murder.  I'm sorry that we have to listen to you pompous assholes crying about how you're being targeted because you're the New England Patriots.  I'm sorry that you've developed some sort of weird 'us against the world' mentality when it was you, in fact, that separated from the rest of the world.  "They all hate us because we hated them so we're going to hate them for hating us!" - The New England mantra, also known as the Yosemite Sam defense.

After the press conference, Robert Kraft left in his melancholy limousine and went back to his less-than-fortunate mansion.  He then took off his blase suit and climbed into his huge bed covered in tiger skins--from a indigenous part of "Bad Asia".  There, he patiently waited, while drifting off into Billionaire Dreamland, for the apologies of all the people much, much less than him.

I'm so confused by all of this because I've never met people so unlawfully willing to cheat--and then still care about their public persona at the same time.  Are they insane?  I'm starting to think that they are insane.

Look, the end result of the Wells' investigation doesn't mean anything.  I've already seen all the stuff I needed to see.  The Patriots did something to their footballs.  Bill Belichick shifted the focus to Tom Brady.  Tom Brady stood up there and acted like he wouldn't know the touch of a football from a glazed ham.  Bill Belichick stood up there again and tried to blow us away with his vast knowledge of Joe Pesci movies.  Then Robert Kraft stood up there and demanded an apology for something that hasn't even been concluded yet.  This all makes perfect sense to the criminally insane.

But what does it all mean, Basil?

It means that the Patriots are legitimately shocked that the NFL would follow protocol and investigate a method of cheating that they would do for the other 31 teams.  It means that the New England Patriots are so far gone past the realm of actual humanization that they think they are owed some sort of apology for even being brought down to our measly level.  Robert Kraft wants to be apologized to for being treated like everyone else.

Float on, graceful swans, but stay the hell away from New England.  A bad storm is hitting them today.

New England's Taint

I sit here now, in the wake of the latest scandal from the New England Patriots, and I finally have them figured out.

They're the goddamn Cobra Kai Dojo.  They cheat even when they don't have to!

For those keeping score at home, the Patriots are now being investigated into deflating footballs during the AFC championship game last night against the Indianapolis Colts--which they didn't have to do at all to win the game--they're just assholes.  Bill Belichick, the capo of the underworld, has employed some unsavory tactics in the past and he's showing no signs of slowing down.

Although deflating footballs is something I would have expected to see in the script for Little Giants.

Really?  You were at home, in the rain, against a team you always beat anyways, and you thought, "Hell, let's take some of the air out of the footballs."  Cowards.

What's the point here?  A deflated football makes it easier to grip and catch.  Cool.  The Patriots ran down the throat of the Colts and also broke them down defensively.  A deflated football doesn't help in either of these situations.  That's the point.  New England is getting revenge for being caught for Spygate.

The maximum penalty for being caught with tampering with a game ball is $25,000 which is laughable and also shows how absolutely nobody does that shit.  The New England Patriots are now cheating for sport.  This is a new level of douchebaggery that was previously unknown to me.  Most cheaters cheat to gain some sort of advantage.  These assholes are now cheating to BRAG!  What the hell?!

Spygate was legitimate because it gained them a tactical advantage on game day.  Ideally, in football, you would like to know what the other team is going to do so you would guess to your best proximity and plan around that.  The Patriots knew what the other team was going to do because they sent spies to the other teams' training facilities and videotaped their game plan.  They were punished, as much as the favorite child could be, and life moved on and they haven't won a Super Bowl since.

Hmm.  That's weird.  It's almost as if one would think that Spygate was the integral reason behind New England's success only it was never reported that way because they're the media darlings of ESPN and HOW COULD TOM BRADY DO ANY WRONG IN THE WORLD WHATSOEVER!!!!???  It's almost like one would think that.

Then the Patriots drafted Aaron Hernandez, a goon that was specifically used for his size and intimidation factors.  These are known as "enforcers" in the criminal underground.  He's now sitting in a jail cell awaiting TWO separate trials for TWO separate murder investigations.  I wonder how many times he had brunch at Tom Brady's house.  Do you think Tom Brady ever had to hide a gun for him?  That'd be cool.  Giselle loves danger.

And now, once again, on the eve of yet another Super Bowl appearance (the sixth for both Brady and Belichick) there are whispers in the wind of another unsavory tactic.  Deflating footballs.  At my very core I wish this was like Al Capone getting nabbed for tax evasion but at least we still get an answer to a very important question.  What beats the New England Patriots?  Themselves.

The way something bad happens always starts the same way.  They'll suggest something that you've previously held to be outrageous so you laugh it off to see if they laugh too but they don't.  After they don't laugh you start actually thinking about it and coming up with varying means to an end.  Not after long you have a plan and like all plans it all hinges on whether you're caught or not but you can only be caught by people in power, and lo and behold, you have one on your side.  If I'm going into a fight I'm bringing a white billionaire too, Patriots, I get it.  And now all of a sudden the penalties decrease a little bit, the eyes of the power that be wane a little bit, and now we can put our plan into action.

Now we have the crown, the media, and are free to rule at our will.  Kids, might I remind you that the Commissioner works for the owners of the NFL and is not some free-standing entity that regulates dominion between the owners and players.  Robert Kraft always seemed like a nice enough guy but so did Senator Palpatine.

Like I told you earlier, it was raining.  The one thing that gets harder to do in the rain is catch a football.  Even with Tom Brady at quarterback, even with Gronkowski in the field, even with a superior running game...they still deflated the footballs.  They still used pre-cut boards.  Unbelievable.

Cold and unforgiving--the weather and attitude of New England.

If Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens can be vilified over things we think happened why aren't Bill Belichick and Tom Brady in the same light when we know they did things that aren't allowed?  Damn double standards!  I'm sure it's great to be a Patriot's fan but I'm also sure it has to feel a lot like being in the Nazi Party prior to D-Day.  Sure, things are roses now, but there's definitely a blot on the horizon.

Look, I'm obviously not trying to compare New England Patriot fans to Nazi's, that would be absurd.  I know that most of you are just blind followers of success anyways..

Champions? Pssh...

We're back in action, so soon after a posting because I couldn't help but think "Jesus, what the Hell are we doing?"  How are we barreling towards Year Five and we've almost reached the hundredth post of the Studly Pastures.  Which, by the way, keep your kids at home that night because we're going to have ourselves a disgusting/leave your inhibitions at the door, type of party that night.  Just sayin'.

I'd hang my head in shame if I knew how to properly describe that through text to faceless entities.

I mean what kind of churn out is that?  A post every 60 days?*

*That statistic was based off of the fact that I don't do statistics.  This isn't the Wall Street Journal where we track those brain-hurtin' types of things.  I consider my day successful if I can fry my egg properly at breakfast.  This is more like Fox News where the louder I scream the harder I get.

I'm still sitting here surprised that I got 'hundredth' right on the first go-around.  Just kidding, I speak pretty all day.

Kids, we live in a world where I was finally proven wrong.  I used to think that Vegas controlled Sports.  I capitalized Sports because I am including everything that may be considered a sport, so sit this one out: cheerleaders, interpretive dancers, chess enthusiasts, ribbon dancers, power walkers, competitive eaters, fat people that think it's the same as being a sumo wrestler, and hot yoga only because it violates the Geneva Convention.

I learned today that Sports is controlled by Big Television.  The final NFL teams that are matched up in the conference championship games that will determine who goes to the Super Bowl are: San Francisco vs. Seattle and New England vs. Denver.

Are you absolutely kidding me?  I like to sleep in to avoid this kind of daytime television drama.  RATINGS, BABY!!!?!!!!

These are the story-lines that were 'destined' from the start, right?

"Two division rivals face each other a third time in a do or die situation to make it to the Super Bowl!" -  every journalist on the West Coast right now.  I might have gotten the exclamation points wrong because there's probably more.

And don't even get me started with the AFC...Brady vs. Manning?  Brady vs. Manning?!  And it's the good Manning?!  Oh lord, why must you tempt me with such frivolities?  I'd like to consider the rivalry between Brady and Manning a lot like the relationship of Clint Eastwood and the Vietnamese boy in "Gran Torino."

Manning dies and leaves everything meaningful to Brady who just shits all over it by letting a dog sit in the front seat who also just shits all over it.  END SCENE.

Of course this game is the bane of my existence but the general public is a bunch of fodder-sucking, brainless shells that are told to go absolutely ape-shit over this match-up.  And so they shall, and many a vomit-stifling shall be had that day by yours truly.

Best case scenario for me?  Denver defeats New England and we're treated to another post-game interview with Manning with that red mark on his forehead because it's too big for his helmet...and another post-game interview of Brady blaming himself but secretly hating everybody on his team but the secret isn't so secret once you see his face because he's a terrible actor.

And then Seattle defeats Denver in whatever Roman Numeral Super Bowl this year is because Peyton deserves to be the new Dan Marino.  Congratulations, you have records that are impressive now but this is a progressive game...who's to say that anything you've done will be meaningful/remembered give or take thirty years?  You have a title, I'll give you that Manning, but people talk about Marino now as if he was the martyr of good but never great.

I bestow that crown on you, Peyton Manning, current holder of all that is holy except for anything that really counts and I challenge you to prove me wrong!

And usually when I do that on this blog I am caught with my pants down and stammering over my own words.  Peyton is, after all, my arch-nemesis.  I guess I'm just the same as the rest of you and we'll see what Big Television demands...