What do South Korea and Iowa have in common? Plenty. Both are rivals with a dictatorship led by an aging charismatic leader and his son. Both are blazing hot in the summer and ball-destroyingly cold in the winter. Both have a fondness for beer and chain restaurants, and both South Korea and Iowa love freedom and democracy. Iowa exercises their love primarily by its unique role in the American primary system, and South Korea does so by periodically erupting in the fiercest rioting on the planet, and in this sense South Korea really wins because their rioting looks fantastic when set to crushing guitar riffs.

The full video of the continuing synergy between Iowa and South Korea is after the jump, and we're just as confused as you are by this. The "Mr. Sparkle" episode of The Simpsons was real, and merely transcribed for your animated pleasure. (HT: Alberta Gael.

Continue reading this post »

Go buy Joe Pa's glasses, which are not only autographed by him, but were taken off his head by a Penn State student. Paterno has no plans to get new glasses, and will instead soldier through the rest of his career without glasses since he telelocates with an elaborate sonar system, and has since 1975.

The whales will understand me.

Our legion of anonymously quoted and possibly fictitious NFL scouts give you the inside information on the composite worst prospects coming out of college in 2010.

EYES: Jevan Snead. Suffers from rare condition "degenerative double image elision," where the victim sees one person in an area when in fact there are two, or sometimes even three in the space targeted.

HAIR: Jimmy Clausen. "56 strands of blond hair in rapid retreat. His hair lacks the moxie and leadership you want in an NFL quarterback."

BRAIN: Jonathan Crompton. "Too preoccupied with finding smaller fish, crabs, and small grubs in the murk on the bottom of the river to read defenses properly. Susceptible to being baited in play, and with any thing: a disguised zone blitz, spinning reel, or sometimes just by dangling a nightcrawler on the end of a hook."

SKIN: Joe Cox. "Definitely not the healthy, spot free russet Corinthian leather you like to see on a white quarterback. In fact, by this special NFL scout-constructed sample tab I carry with me at all times, it is at least 17 shades off the normal for Caucasian quarterback. Yes, we measure that, too. It's your largest organ, unless your name is Peyton Manning. And then the answer there is "forehead."

SHOULDER: Sam Bradford. "Self-explanatory."

NON-THROWING ARM: Tony Pike. "That thing has so many pins in it by now he can't legally be considered human. At this point he's more machine than man, twisted and evil--wait, no, actually scratch that, he'd be perfect here."

THROWING MOTION: TIM TEBOW. "We've taken to calling it 'The Frittata,' because it's fluffy, scrambled, and requires breaking eggs."

LEGS: CHRIS TURNER. "His slow 40 time shouldn't bother him, since surviving four years behind Maryland's offensive lines should more than prepare him for the tire-iron party he'll go through as an NFL quarterback."

BALLS: RYAN PERRILOUX "Anyone named as a person of interest in a federal investigation before the age of 22 has a name: future Mr. Cincinnati Bengal, sir."

BALL SECURITY: JARRETT BROWN. "He's like a punt waiting to happen, but instead of going in the air on 4th down for a field position-changing kick, it goes out of his hand on 2nd down for a fumble. So, yeah, nothing like a punt at all, and just a fumble."

PENIS: RILEY SKINNER. "Overexposed in college."

ARM: JUICE WILLIAMS. "If his arm were a television series, I'd call it Lost, since neither made any sense or had any direction after four years, either."

OTHER SHOULDER: Colt McCoy. "If you can't throw with a numb arm, you're just not going to make it in this league, frankly. Troy Aikman couldn't feel the right side of his body for three years, and what do we call him today? Great. A brain-damaged, slurring, and possibly IQ-dented great."

GAG REFLEX: DARRYL CLARK.

Today's Mustache of the Day: William Faulkner. He didn't use commas because they were all stuck in a majestic clump beneath his nose.

WP Mayhew remains the finest imitation of him yet.

HAPPY MUSTACHE WEDNESDAY, MOTHERFUCKERS.

The Fulmer Cup quantifies the offseason foibles and misbehavior of college football athletes so you, the college football fan looking to taunt with confidence, can safely accuse someone of having a school more prone to criminal behavior than yours. This week's sole update comes to you from Tampa, a good place to commit misdemeanors or suffer a stroke while shopping for adult diapers, since you'll never be alone in doing either.

USF racks up the only points of the week when DT Keith McCaskill, lacking even a convincing fake license like the one depicted above, was pulled over for driving on a "cancelled, suspended, or revoked license" this past weekend. It's only a point, but it does put the defending champions on the board in the Fulmer Cup for 2010. That's one point for USF in the Fulmer Cup, with no bonus points awarded unless McCaskill actually produced that very license to officers when pulled over by them.

Whatever your parents named you sucks.

Storm Johnson. Middle name? TRAINFIST. In all caps.

In the Kiffin family casting call, Monte usually gets off easy. Lane is Nelson Biederman the 4th, spoiled, entitled, and headed for some form of prison or downfall; Ed Orgeron is the wacky uncle with a thing for stimulants and marathon taxidermy sessions; and Monte is usually the clean-living, earnest, and just a bit kooky grandpa who closes episodes by saying something like "And I thought the pits were something in peaches!"

/LAUGH TRACK

Before it goes down the memory hole and over the horizon of things remembered, just note this from the AJC yesterday evening regarding the recruitment of Nickell Robey, current soft commit to Georgia who likely won't attend the school after the departure of Willie Martinez. (UGA fans will take this as an opportunity cost of not having Willie Martinez around.) Robey is looking now, and one contender is USC, who happens to be sending harmless Monte Kiffin out to dote and dodder around, since he's harmless, no?

He’s planning to visit Southern Cal next week. Monte Kiffin has been very persistent. He’s probably been in here more than is legal. Of course they don’t pay attention to the rules."

USC may have hired a good coaching staff, true. They also hired a horrible compliance crew, which will matter as soon as the NCAA shows any ability to serve as an arbiter of practices among its member institutions. It will do that. Keep waiting. Nope. Little longer. Any minute. No seriously. It's coming. Right around the corner. Over there. You don't see it? Stay patient. It's there. Promise. How was your day? Good? Mine? Not bad. Seriously, any second now--

None of this Tim Tebow as fetus exemplar bullshit matters, because Cthulhu's going to eat us all when and how he chooses, unless Raptor Jesus intervenes, and then best belee they gon drink and fight oh belee dat. RAPTOR JESUS WILL WIN WITH HIS ARMY OF RAVER CHILDREN BEHIND HIM:

If the Tim Tebow commercial during the Super Bowl is going to have its full impact, it does have to include the full list of Bud Light Super Bowl ad elements:

1. Cretinous alcoholic guy (you or your boyfriend/husband)

2. Disproportionately hot woman (you or your wife/girlfriend)

3. Bulldog

4. Chimpanzee

5. The man going to outrageous lengths for beer

6. The woman being outraged/maimed/hoodwinked in the name of beer

7. WACKY TAG SCENE

So you if you substitute "fetus" for "beer" here, and the guy has the monkey ride the bulldog to keep the woman from taking the bus to the clinic...no, none of it works at all. Clearly the ad should have been aborted stricken from the idea board altogether, as it gets not only filthy politics in our football, but gets otherwise intelligent people agreeing with Gregg Doyel. This cannot stand.

[end tag=DISMISSIVE WANKING GESTURE AT ALL OF THIS]

Jim Tressel is so uncool he's almost cool. Note that: almost. Devo still holds Ohio's crown for dork cool, and as endearingly retro as Tressel's sweatervest combos, complete obliviousness to the passage of time, and wearing an actual whistle a lot of the time may be, Tressel still fall just shy of being genuinely anti-cool cool. The illustration below analyzes Tressel's unique dork-chic, a kind of outfit out of what probably falls under the image category "football coach" in Drew Carey's imagination.

The clothes don't really do it, though: it's Tressel's deep, unsoiled whiteness that makes him so damn Tressel-ish. Pardon us: the better phrasing would be "it's Tressel's deep, unsoiled whiteness that makes him so goshdarned Tressel-ish." For proof of this, we performed a racial inversion experiment on Jim Tressel, and the stunning results follow after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Tebow went 4/6 with a few drops by his receivers in early drills, but also dropped two straight snaps in this exotic "under center' position they've been tinkering with in the NFL. More importantly, we all got to see Terrance Cody with his shirt off and marvel at the 370 pound mountain of masculine beauty in all his glory. No, please. Feel free to look. He's not ashamed, and neither should you be. He's both violent and erotic all at the same time, something those who've had the privilege of showering with him have know for years. Drink his manhood in with your eyes, and savor its rich, fatty aroma and texture. Attempt to deny the power of his performance in Precious, and fail.

The picture comes from AL.com, who really stepped up their SEO game with the url for this post.

Step one: this.

Step two: (click all photos to embiggen)

Step three:

Continue reading this post »

Go cure cancer

Go write the Great American Novel

Go start a Fortune 500 company

Go play the low end of a hi-low double tackle hobbling an interception prone quarterback, thus pleasing everyone outside the Minnesota state lines except Joe Buck and Peter King.

That's Gator alum Bobby McCray smashing the childlike ankles of Brett Favre in last night's NFC Championship game. You're welcome, America.

This message sponsored by The University of Florida: WE DO AMAZING SHIT LIKE THIS EVERY DAY.

ps. Percy also helped out by fumbling. We give, and we give, and then we give some more.

Dumbass friends can cost you. We had an acquaintance one time--let's call him the Scarlet Hipsternel--who, though from rural Tennessee, labored under the illusion of being Alex in A Clockwork Orange crossed with the dude from Blow-Up. He subscribed to the notion of "Having your friend's back in a fight" as a universal principle, and not something a friend had to earn.

This is important, because you undoubtedly have friend who, like a few of ours, have a few drinks and instantly begin looking for an excuse to "throw down," which in drunk terms means "take one cheap shot, be pulled apart by bouncers, and then act like you still want to fight as you're thrown out of the bar." This guy ended up with a jaw wired shut when, while "backing up a buddy," he was "hit in the face with brass knuckles." Dinner tasted great through a straw for six weeks, but HE BACKED UP HIS BRO, BRO.

So let that be a cautionary tale, but not as bad as it could have been. You could be Oregon's kicker Rob Beard, who ended up on the wrong side of intervening in a fight on Sunday morning. (Click the photo to go to the video, which was autoplay and DIE AUTOPLAY VIDEO DIE.)

Beard was reportedly kicked in the head until unconscious, and is in stable condition at a local hospital. All due good wishes his way, and let this be a reminder to carefully re-evaluate your decision to back up your bros in battle, because while looking out for your friends is certainly important, so is basic math. Unless you're Mike Vallely it's simply not a good idea.

Hinton's putting together his top five plays of the year, and considering the fifty plus games that happen every weekend in college football narrowing down every spectacular thing that happened into ten ideal plays is from the start a task you're born to fail at. However, we would like to remind everyone of the plays of the year in terms of survival, a title shared by three men: Russell Hill of Idaho State, Chad Jones of LSU, and Joe Adams of Arkansas.

First, we should honor Russell Hill for not dying of fright when he encountered an enraged Vontaze Burfict in the wild without the protection of a firearm or pepper spray. Neither would have helped, but it's nice to think so when heading out the door in the morning in a five hundred mile radius of his habitat.

For actual force applied to bodies in a cruel way, the award has to be shared by Joe Adams of Arkansas and Chad Jones of LSU, who met in a grotesque fashion at the goal line in in the wild 33-30 LSU win over Arkansas.

Continue reading this post »

There are no surprises when it comes to Colorado football and crime today, as the Buffaloes acquire a modest but colorful pair of points for two separate petty offenses involving weed and retro workout gear.

First, Gus Handler, offensive lineman, was arrested for stealing merchandise costing less than $50 in taking some headbands from the campus bookstore without paying. His rationale? He was late for a flight and didn't have time to pay it, a haste evidenced by the smooth criminal leaving his credit card behind at the scene. That's a point with no bonuses awarded for the purchase of retro-ironic hipster workout gear, though it is noted as being something way, way Colorado to do.

We have no file footage of the headbands, but it probably looked a lot like Luke Wilson's here, which he wore shortly before eating that falcon whole.

The second comes from an even less shocking department: weed. Freshman qb Clark Evans was smoking in his dorm room when campus police showed up and found him with over a gram of marijuana in his possession and "a blue-gray pipe" he used to smoke it, showing his freshman status by lacking a quality water pipe with an awesome ceramic sculpture at the bottom.

Two points total for Colorado in the Fulmer Cup, which is a meager total and something they clearly need to step up, as this is not intramurals and is in fact division one football.

Ruffin McNeill will be imploring his players to bite like a mosquito and dance like a fly as he takes the job of training the Little Mac of C-USA in continuing to punch above their weight. #RonPrince4UTDefensiveCoordinator

That's mayonnaise, and there's nothing wrong with mayonnaise. In fact, it's delicious as a side dish, especially if you're Belgium-ing it and doing the fries/mayo/beer combo, which is sublime and heart-stopping in both the good and bad way. We've even eaten mayonnaise on eggs, and contain just enough northern European DNA to say that it was good, but would have been better with some herring and heavy cream involved. BLTs without it are positively arid and prone to shredding the roof of your mouth like a crew of tiny ninjas let loose in your mouth with rusty katanas. Mayonnaise is the tits of condiments, and there shall be no dissent.

You don't, however, want it coaching your football team, East Carolina. (See: Mike Shula, the mayonnaise of coaches.)

Don Ohlmeyer, the current ombudsman at ESPN, was the man who fired Norm Macdonald made jokes about his close personal friend and total alleged double murderer O.J. Simpson. He also produced the original Monday Night Football and headed up NBC Sports before it was run on five dollars and Bob Costas' lunch budget, but that's all ancillary to the grave damage he caused to this nation by removing Turd Ferguson from the public eye and replacing him ultimately with unfunny turboWASP Seth Meyers.* Are these two events connected? No. Are we connecting them anyway? You're damn right we are.

He redeems himself somewhat by turning in a far tougher column as ESPN ombudsman on the coverage of the Adam James/Mike Leach episode by the network than we thought he would, though there is the requisite pulled-punching you have to expect from someone picking up dollars for a paycheck.

Continue reading this post »

The Big Ten Network is on 24 hours a day, supplying you with all you could possibly crave in the way of vintage football classics (Purdue vs. Michigan 2004! Catch it at 1 a.m. in the morning!) and helping the insomniac sketchoids of the universe pass long lonely nights by broadcasting women's volleyball at odd hours. Herbert Albridge of Platteville, Wisconsin thanks you, BTN, with his pants around his pasty ankles.

The Big Ten Network's low production values have to make it an extremely profitable venture so long as they keep getting quality advertising like the Barbasol, who are currently blanketing the BTN with their new ad, "Close Shave: Barbasol." We now take a closer look at the ad frame by frame.

The Ad:

The commercial begins as a man, presumably unemployed, desperate, and wandering the country in a truck he stole as it idled outside of a truck stop somewhere in Central California. Clearly on the run from law enforcement and without the services and companionship of a charismatic "Bandit-type," he takes the three remaning credit cards with room on them and wanders the nation looking for meaning, cheap methamphetamine, and the occasional release of a rest stop handjob from one of the Good Samaritans of the road.

Continue reading this post »

This picture is not related. Keep moving.

Sports Memes occupied most of our day, and are up over at SBNation, which is good since very little is actually happening in college football, unless you're really jacked over Louisiana Tech hiring Sonny Dykes as their next head coach which of course we TOTALLY ARE.

The offseason marks the return of Mustache Wednesday. We kick it off in regal fashion with college football's second finest mustache next to Schnelly's: Idaho coach Robb Akey.

Happy Mustache Wednesday, motherfuckers!

Robb Akey has so many laudable qualities all exemplified by his mustache. He could easily serve as a voice double for Charlie Donovan in Major Leaguei>; he coaches a team named "the Vandals"; he went for two rather than going to overtime in an insane Humanitarian Bowl against Bowling Green because he, being a man of testicularity, consulted his mustache for the decision. The actual dialogue:

Robb Akey: "Hey, I'm going for two here, mustache. You're down, right?"

Robb Akey's Mustache: "Apussysayswhat?"

Robb Akey: "Overtime, that's what a pussy says."

Robb Akey's Mustache: "Ace-Trips-Drag-Z-Over-40. That's how heroes die."

Robb Akey: "Right."

Robb Akey is also only 43 years old and looks somewhere around sixty. There are two kinds of men in this world: those that look prematurely aged because they've allowed life to take whole chunks out of their soul, and those who look that way because they've accumulated badass at a rate twice that of the normal man. Robb Akey is clearly in the latter group, and for that we salute him and his magnificent pudenda-saddle.

Of all the loose threads still dangling free from the tattered border separating the fabric of the season from the long, bland sheet of the offseason, the status of Urban Meyer has to be the most prominent untended end. Do not forget that he still is on a "leave of absence." The interpretations of this indefinite leave of absence vary wildly, but fall into two camps.

Florida fans: "He'll be back before August, and just needs to take a vacation/relax/smoke a bowl brah and watch some Tim and Eric for a while."

SEC fans not in the set of those counted as Florida fans: "He's gone leave after signin' day and woooo watch me swallow this fish whole!" /chokesonlivefrog

For the record: either is entirely possible probable. After the past four weeks we have no reason to assume that on the day after signing day Urban Meyer will step up, announce on a podium that he's leaving, introduce our new head coach Lane Kiffin, who will then immediately drive off in a leased SUV full of whores, killing himself and all aboard. Then Jim Leavitt will be introduced, announce Mark Mangino as his offensive coordinator, and after a week will abuse and slap themselves out of office. Then, down to our only real results, Florida will announce the pairing of Howard Schnellenberger as the new head coach with Mike Leach as offensive coordinator.

You think we'd enjoy this, but we'd be dead long before this actually happened after throwing ourselves headfirst off the nearest stairwell. The point remains: if you're a big David Hume fan like we are, that robotic coaching sun of ours might not come up after signing day, or after Wednesday, or in five years or whenever. Metaphorical points are awarded to Alabama fans, whose coach destroyed that coaching sun like a rampaging Hockeybear in the Georgia Dome in December.

A midget Saban blowing up planets? That's computer animation we'd watch. And yes, he's short. It's all we have left on him after the SEC Championship Game, and you can't take that away from us. We'd pay good money to watch him knock out a ring full of jockeys in a bareknuckle match and so would you.

Ah, a vintage EDSBS Live trainwreck. It had been a while since one, and the feel was so familiar: the velvety mouthfeel and opening notes of technological FAIL, the middle notes of confusion and dropping audio and chat, and then the finish of complete futility followed by a finish of panic and resignation in the face of machines we don't understand. It's a powerful vintage, and one we hadn't consumed in a while.

We will attempt a reboot on Thursday once those responsible for this have been sacked.