They Have the Internet on Computers Now?

I'm back! Here's Brian Bellows!



I got my old laptop with the O.A.R. sticker on it back from the homeland and now I am able to blog again. Like I said before, blogging on the campus of Eastern Michigan University isn't exactly a fun experience. Unless of course I was sitting there outside a building or in a cafeteria just blogging about what I saw and being an asshole via Internet to all those around me. That would be one of the most entertaining blogs ever. Maybe one of these days you'll get it. But until then let's talk about stuff nobody really gives a rat's ass about.

Is it just me or has all this Alex Rodriguez hoopla absolutely sucked the life out of spring training? Typically I love watching SportsCenter this time of year to get some decent baseball coverage with season previews and the like but this year it's been all A-Rod all the time on the World Wide Leader. Whenever I turn on ESPN there's the bottom line telling me how many times A-Rod wiped his ass after his morning deuce. It was at that point when the "Too Much Information" line was crossed and I have decided to just not watch SportsCenter anymore. In fact, this is the last time I will even mention A-Rod until the Tigers play the Yanks in a three game set at CoPa April 27th-29th. From now until then the words A-Rod, Rod, Alex, Rodriguez, or DoucheTurd (as he will be referenced forever post embargo) will not be written in this space. THE ALEX RODRIGUEZ EMBARGO IS NOW IN EFFECT!

Speaking of the WorldWideLeaderInSports, I watched the last 20 minutes of Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN2 (the "Dos") and found them borderline entertaining. As you know (well, as some of you know) ESPN is located in Bristol, Connecticut and was absolutely PUMMELED with a winter storm which forced ESPN to email its minions telling them that unless you are absolutely essential personnel you are not required to attend work. This led Golic to an epiphany saying, "Basically if you're sitting up in bed wondering if you're essential personnel, stay in bed, you're not essential personnel." Personally, I think it's a trick that ESPN is pulling to see who they can fire for not being "essential to the success of the network." That's what I would do anyway. A pink slip for every empty cube. Save millions of dollars just like that. Boo Ya!

Speaking of saving money, let's talk NBA. Apparently the NBA is hemorrhaging money and is getting something around $175 million for teams that are in danger of folding. Where's your god now David Stern? I tell you what though, at this point the entire Association could fold because my interest in the game has reached Teal Era levels. When the Pistons changed to their unis to teal with the horse head on it I just stopped watching. And that's the level I'm back to now. The Teal Era dark age led to a revolution of sorts and resulted in a championship. I don't know what to name this period of Piston history. The Period of General Lethargy? The Great Debacle Era? The End of Days? I don't know but I have noticed one thing just like the rest of you have, they have won two games in a row with Iverson on the bench...BUT I still don't care. The day they traded Chauncey away will go down in history as the day the music officially died in Auburn Hills. That's like the Wings trading away Lidstrom or Drapes, you don't trade away the blood and guts of a successful franchise and still expect to win. I don't want to talk bad about Joe Dumars but c'mon man, you serious? That's like the Pistons trading YOU away. Remember when I said time will tell if it was a good deal? Time just called, he said it was an experiement worse than when my high school chemistry teacher blew his hand up in front of a classroom full of students when he showed them what sodium does in water. That actually happened. It was hilarious.

Is it just me or is it kind of fishy that they Chiefs traded nothing more than a 2nd round pick to the Patriots for Matt Cassel and Mike Vrabel? KC GM Scott Pioli had a HUGE hand in the success of the Pats over the years with Bill Belicheck so maybe Bill was just throwing his buddy a little "thanks for helping me win three Super Bowls" gift. The idiots on Cold Pizza's (which was hosted by Michael Kim and former US Soccer player hottie Julie Foudy this morning because apparently the regular cast isn't "essential personnel" oh and Foudy looked like it was the first time she'd ever done live-ish televison. Seriously, I was laughing my ass off at how bad it was. It was a slow mo hilarious car crash on repeat for the 8 minutes or so I watched) First and Ten "Two Live Stews" say it is most definitely collusion and called for NFL Commish Roger Goodell to get involved. I whole heartedly disagree with that sentiment. If Goodell gets involved he's blatantly overstepping his boundaries and that's something David Stern, Gary Bettman, or Bud Selig would do. It's one thing to install a code of conduct for your players, I'm cool with that and think it's a great idea but when you start telling teams how to trade and who to trade with, well then you're just kind of taking the whole play fair thing a little too far. If the rest of the league doesn't like what happened, too damn bad, you should have hired Pioli before the Chiefs did.

The Lions reportedly were close to stealing Jay Cutler away from Denver. I don't know how, but they found a way to screw it up. Great work Mayhew and Crew! I can't wait to see the Lions be the first team to ever choose a kicker with the number one pick in the draft. I can see it now, "With the first pick in the 2009 NFL Draft, the Detroit Lions select...Diet Pepsi Machine?" It's like everyone they hire for the front office there in Allen Park graduated with honors from the University of Dipshit.

A couple of quick hitters here before I go and do something else with my life (like attempt to graduate).

Michigan Hoops at Crisler is a fun time. Went with Rowe on Thursday to watch them beat Purdue. My only regret is not taunting the "Boiler Up" Chanters behind us more. Boil this (insert crotch grab here) bitches! Then in the schizophrenic style of Michigan basketball, they lost yesterday to Wisconsin and unless they win at least two games in the Big Ten Tourney (they play Northwestern Thursday and then upon winning they have to play State for the first time ever in the Big Ten Tourney which should be fun. Basically, the bubble may have burst but who knows, maybe they'll hit a hot streak and win the damn thing. Doubtful but you never know.

Michigan Hockey beat Ferris State Saturday to secure second place in the regular season CCHA standings and a first round bye in the CCHA tournament. The big news was Senior Captain Mark Mitera played in his first series of the season and in his first home game, scored a goal and had an assist after being injured all year. Talk about great timing. With Mitera back on the blue-line, Michigan could be poised to make a run at another National Title. Too early to tell.

Ok that's enough. Here's a picture of Official Hot Chick of Tobacco Juice Sports Elisha Cuthbert for those who made it through the whole post.

You're the best Bellows!

*UPDATE*
I, like a total asshole forgot to mention former Lion defensive end Corey Smith's fishing boat going missing in the Gulf of Mexico. AP just reported (1:15pm right now) the Coast Guard has found the boat with one survivor. Kind of a downer. Thoughts and prayers. More info HERE.
And HERE.

The Chronicles of Wayne Smith

There ya go Wayne. You're mentioned in the blog.

Hi! Hello, and how are you? So the laptop I had was reclaimed by its rightful owner and the computer labs on campus aren't exactly condusive for creativity but whatever. I'll find a way to get this shit going again.

So I'm watching SportsCenter this morning and then switched it to Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN2 which was followed by Cold Pizza, I mean First Take. It was at that point that I realized something very profound...

ESPN SUCKS!!!

Yeah, I said it. It goes against all I believe in but damnit, ESPN's morning programming has turned into an absolute abomination. What's wrong with it? Well I could just say it sucks but that doesn't quite do it justice.

The SportsCenter LIVE experiment is an absolute failure if you ask me. Hanna Storm and the other guy are just terrible together. I would much rather just watch the previous night's SportsCenter on repeat all morning instead of listening to two mono toned slaps read the same highlights over and over. And it seems sometimes that they have no understanding of how the game on the highlight actually works. They spend the entire morning blowing Lebron and Kobe and the Celtics and then a hockey highlight will sneak in there and they absolutely butcher it. I hate to tell you folks...but hockey is passing the Association in the ratings. Maybe Hanna and Doucher should read up on it a little bit. And don't get me started on ESPN's coverage of college hoops. You talk about overkill...holy shit. It's on EVERY DAMN NIGHT!! I know it's winter and ESPN doesn't have an NHL contract but holy Christ...a guy can only watch Duke play and then listen to the talking heads talk about it for so long before he wants to blow his brains out. There is literally nothing good I can say about SportsCenter LIVE. It's horrible. Just horrible.

Equally as bad yet mildly more entertaining is Mike and Mike in the Morning. Now, I have to tell you that yes, I do occasionally like to listen to this show when I'm getting ready in the morning. However, I've noticed that MAMITM is nothing more than a low calorie version of SportsCenter with very mildly entertaining interviews thrown in. The only time it's watchable is when Golic is hungover and is tired of listening to Greenie's whining about God knows what.

Cold Pizza, or First Take as it's now known, is just shitty. It was ok as Cold Pizza but they found a way to make it nearly unwatchable. I have to say, when the annoying old dude and the Jemele Smith get on there to debate topics, it makes me wonder if Smith has even participated or even watched an actual athletic competition. It's a joke and ESPN needs to realize this and do something about it. The only way to fix it is to get Erin Andrews or someone of equal or greater hotness to be on the show every morning. Now THAT is something I'd wake up to.

And when you think about it, is there a better actual talent in the ESPN stable of reporters than Erin Andrews? Take away the rediculously hot factor and you STILL have a GREAT reporter who asks the right questions to the right people every time. She could save ESPN's morning programming. I'd much rather watch that than turn on a college basketball game and hope she might interview somebody.

So that's what I think about ESPN. They are too basketball heavy and they are constantly looking to cause some sort of controversy with their reporting. Like the reports today that the Texans were having contact drills during a mini camp last year. FOOTBALL IS A CONTACT SPORT YOU DIPSHITS! So what if it's in the collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the NFLPA? First of all, it was a pass rush/pass pro drill...ummm how can you NOT come into contact when you're doing that? Isn't that the point of pass pro? To get hands on and try to defeat or complete a block on the opposing player? There is no need to stir up controversey about that. If the players were that concerned with it, they would have sat out of the drill. And what kind of player would you be if you sat out a drill in mini camp because you thought it was too much contact? You wouldn't be in the league very long. ESPN needs to quit raking the muck and start reporting on actual sports news.

That being said, National Letter of Intent day was Wednesday and apparently everyone did very well. Which leads me to my next gripe...RIVALS recruiting service. Rivals makes its money off of kids who pay them to promote them. They send film and are assigned a ranking of 5-0 stars. Jimmy Claussen was a 5 star recruit out of high school. How's he doing? Exactly. On the other hand, Mike Hart who holds every rushing record at Michigan was a three star guy. Other three stars or lower were Pat White and Steve Slaton. Yeah, they turned out ok didn't they? Rivals pumps these kids up to be superstars before they even take a collegiate snap and that is unfair to all parties involved. Then you take ESPN and their signing day coverage and you create an absolute mess for these kids. Yeah, I'm sure the attention is cool and all but what if they don't win the Heisman? Are they failures as players if they don't dominate at the collegeiate level right after high school? Some idiots think so. I don't. They're just kids, they don't need all this attention. It's ruining college sports.

I'm going to talk very briefly about the Pistons...they suck. I don't watch the games but when I see the highlights or read about it in the papers (the online papers)I can't help but long for the good old days when the Pistons were, "Going To Work" but now they can see a teammate get raped by a goon from Boston and not even bat an eye about it. You try to do that with Mahorn, Rodman, Laimbeer or even Ben Wallace on the floor...you're gonna be missing some teeth if you pull a stunt like that. This team has no fight left in it. Sheed is a joke, the AI experiment has failed and Rip isn't at all what he used to be. They don't play defense anymore and they rank in the bottom five of the league in every offensive category. Something must be done. But at the same time, I hate to say I told you so. When they traded Chauncey away, the traded the heart and soul of the team with it. Now you have five individuals out there who don't give a shit anymore. It's sad when you think about it. It was 5 years ago that they were the second coming of the Bad Boys. Now they're just bad.

The Wings aren't fairing very well either. I was listening to 97.1 the other day and people were saying that Ozzie's time is up and they need to either trade for a goalie to take them to the Cup or let Conklin take over. I'm not opposed to letting Conklin get a few more starts here and there but you have to remember, Ozzie has won the Wings two cups and has been historically stellar in the playoffs. Sure, his numbers aren't very good right now but that can be attributed to the guys playing in front of him. If the blue liners aren't stopping the attack and leaving Ozzie out to dry every night, you're not going to be very successful. I have all the confidence in the world that they will turn it around here soon. Remember, about this time last year they went and lost like 9 games or so in a row, I'm not too worried about it just yet. Everything will fall into place and Kenny Holland will do what's best for the team.

The Tigers avoided arbitration by signing Verlander to a one year deal. If he doesn't bounce back, he won't be a Tiger in 2010, you can be sure of that. Oh and here's a radical idea...Manny is still available...why not take a shot at him right? Guy hits .350 with 120 RBI a season...I'll take the antics for a season of that. But that's just me talkin and I know it won't happen nor to I truly want it to.

The Lions...well...let's not talk about the Lions.

I hereby pledge to write in this blog at the very least two times a week from here on out. Bear with me and buy some T-Shirts from the store to help me buy a new laptop. Drink Up Bitches! T-shirts are great for St. Patty's day!