Monday, September 24, 2007

Teams we can all root against

It doesn't matter what city they're in, what sport they play, or what uniforms they wear. Certain teams fucking suck. And there are a lot of teams out there who, we believe, everyone can collectively hate.

So we put together a list -- organized by sport -- of some teams that we think we can all root against together.

Call us out in the comments if we're way off. And, of course, leave your thoughts on the teams you personally hate (think: geographical reasons). Our list of teams we hate will lead things off.

Let the hate begin...

MLB:

Red Sox
- Most obnoxious fans, evah. Fack you, ya facking queers.
Yankees - Like we need a reason.

NFL:

Patriots
- See Red Sox comment. And Brady's a cockweasel.
Cowboys - You just know the owner of America's Team was once a card-carrying member of the KKK.

NBA:

Lakers - Yeah, ugh, Kobe raped somebody.

College football:

Notre Dame - Who's on your side now, bitch?
Alabama - Really it's just Nick Saban people hate. He's a cunt.

College basketball:

Duke - A few reasons: Laettner. Hurley. Battier. Redick. Coach K.
North Carolina - Powder blue is a fucking girl's color.

All right, folks. Spew your hate in the comments...

Charlie Weis is on MySpace

You've gotta head over to the always-hilarious Joe Sports Fan to check out Charlie Weis' MySpace page.

Go. Right now. Don't wait. Get on your horse and get moving, partna.

It will hands down be the funniest thing you read today. Unless, of course, you go re-read The Big Picture archives.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Blogger Interviews: Brian Cook


We're running a segment here at The Big Picture where we'll interview some of the biggest names in the sports blogosphere. What's the point? Well, these guys spend countless, thankless hours writing, so a little recognition from time to time is well warranted. Think of this as the blogger's version of a reach-around or something.


On the hot seat today is Brian Cook from the outstanding Michigan blog, MGoBlog. He also shares his college football wisdom at The FanHouse. We imagine he's been on a bit of a an emotional roller coaster of late, seeing as his beloved Wolverines are toying with their fans' heads. So go easy on him in the comments. But not too easy...

1. The rundown:

Name: Brian Cook
Age: 28
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation: Blogger (seriously!)
Favorite team: University of Michigan anything
Links to your favorite all-time posts you've written. (3-5)

Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Eleven Swans
Zen And The Science Of Third Down Conversions
And, while no UFR (Upon Further Review) is a treasure trove of bon mots, it has become something of a signature offering. A typical example:
Upon Further Review: Offense vs Notre Dame (2006)

Time per day spent blogging and perusing the blogosphere:
During football season: lots and lots, unless we lose to Appalachian State or something. (Like that would ever happen.) I would peg it at eight to twelve. During the offseason much less.

2. Take us through a typical day of blogging.

1. Wake up. If I have something prepared for the early part of the day, post it and enjoy a leisurely perusal of bloglines. If not, frantically scramble for something to put up.
2. Either way, I'm reading bloglines constantly for FanHouse items or MGoBlog stuff.
3. What happens after varies so much. I could be reviewing the game for UFR or compiling the stuff from bloglines into various things -- recruiting updates, link dump posts, a sidebar widget I call mgo.licio.us -- or typing out some screed I will probably be embarrassed about when I hit publish.
4. Put stuff up.
5. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's fairly typical, I imagine.

3. Your analysis and statistical breakdowns are incomparable. How do you do it? Have you always had a niche for making sense of numbers? Are these features of your site designed at all to help you stand out from other Michigan blogs?

Well, a large part of the reason the blog exists is my frustration with the conventional wisdom that gets thrown about constantly in both the media and the fanbase. A typical game review gives you a bunch of stats you could look up in a boxscore, describes the key plays, and offers no insight whatsoever that you couldn't have figured out from watching the game. And when newspapers or TV talking heads actually try to get down to the nitty-gritty detail, the results are facile. Robble robble don't turn the ball over robble robble time of possession (which is stupid) robble run the ball!

So how do you fix that? Making things not facile necessarily means putting some numbers behind them, or at least reviewing thing systematically to see where the points of failure and success are. It means doing something other than parroting conventional wisdom. Conveniently, I appear well suited for this task. I've always been good with numbers. This is where I note the engineering degrees: computer, two of them. I often joke about "not using" these degrees and how this distresses my parents, but that's not actually true. I use both the skills and the viewpoint the degree imparted to me, and these are both very useful. While the analytical features of the site were not specifically designed to make the blog stand out from other Michigan blogs, they do so because there aren't many engineers -- and I remain one of those at heart -- who ditch the whole well-paid nine-to-five for this adventure.

4. One of the things that impresses us most about MGoBlog is that it's a narrow focus, blogging solely about Michigan. Isn't it hard -- especially during the dreadfully long off-season -- to come up with enough material to keep readers entertained? Any secrets you have to finding content on painfully slow news days?

The blog does cover basketball and hockey, albeit not so extensively as football, so the true offseason doesn't hit until summer. There is always recruiting, and previewing the upcoming season. But the blog's focus does waver in the offseason. I post on the Piston playoff runs, USA soccer -- though not any more since the FanHouse is a great outlet for that -- and then just random things that bug me or come to mind. It's usually not that tough to come up with at least one thing every day. Sometimes, yes.

I don't have any secrets about painfully slow news days, unfortunately. Sometimes in the offseason you just have to put something of dubious interest up. I've found most people are forgiving enough of the occasional clunker.

5. Dream job? Go.

Aside from head coach at Michigan, Scarlett Johansson boytoy, and professional poker player, I think this blogging thing is pretty cool. I don't have to wear pants unless I want to. (When to I want to? When I'm cold.)

6. There are all sorts of wonderful blogs out there. A few you'd recommend?

I figure we can take the FanHouse, Every Day Should Be Saturday and Sunday Morning Quarterback for granted, right? Maybe not given SMQB's traffic, which is good but depressingly low IMO. Everyone with even the slightest interest in college football should be reading SMQB. He is without question the best person writing about the sport anywhere. No qualifications, no restrictions. He's the best. Read him. Also Orson is the unofficial king of CFB blogging. He is our leader.

I want to keep this brief, because if I list a dozen blogs it's like "why didn't you say mine"... so Hawkeye State. Er. Steve Alford's Hair Gel. Uh. The Hawkeye Compulsion. Er the second. Ah-ha: Black Heart Gold Pants, an Iowa blog that keeps frickin' moving but is fantastic. As funny as EDSBS. Seriously. Big Red Network is comprehensive and professional coverage of Nebraska; the Hog Blogger is a great Arkansas blog; Hey Jenny Slater and the Georgia Sports Blog are top-notch Georgia blogs; I love Troy Nunes is An Absolute Magician for its "Octonion" posts; Bear Meat is a deeply hilarious Baylor blog; Braves & Birds covers Michigan and Georgia with more dead-on WWII era comparisons than you can shake a stick at; Burnt Orange Nation and Rocky Top Talk are flagship Texas and Tennessee blogs, respectively; I have *completely* failed at my attempt to not list every blog on the planet. I should give a shout to Ron Bellamy's Underachieving All Stars, as well, a Michigan blog of erratic posting but one that is really gripping when you need to be gripped. And the M Zone.

7. Most rewarding parts of blogging? Most frustrating?

The most rewarding part is being able to write something that people need. For a given definition of "need," anyway. The first three posts above are written in the aftermath of big, remarkable wins that validated something about the program and by extension Michigan fans or the most surreal tragedy in the history of the program, when people sort of needed something to grab onto. Sometimes it becomes clear that the enterprise of MGoBlog is important to people, and that's a nice feeling.

What frustration there is lies in a sort of always-on mentality. I was doing this as a hobby for a while, then starting doing it for serious serious just over a year ago. Sometimes in the maw of the offseason getting something up seems a chore; sometimes in the heart of the season I end up with 95 tabs open at once -- this happened yesterday -- and a game tape to review and it's just a little much. Burnout is a threat at times. After the year's over I'm taking a vacation.

8. This might be a loaded question, but, in your opinion, what's the future of sports blogs? Enlighten us.

I think we're heading towards a sort of free agent punditry. Occasionally I will follow my blog's referrers, and of late I've noticed something interesting: people are referring to me by my full name. I don't even use my full name except on the FanHouse -- on MGoBlog it's just Brian. But certain people are catching on that I am this person and I write things here and also there and that makes me an Entity. I occasionally get into conversations with people and the conversation veers to these things and I end up saying things like "please don't throw me into a wood chipper, but I am a brand. MGoBlog is a brand, I am a brand, and given traffic vectors and suchlike and so forth this could end up being something major." Orson is a brand, too, as is SMQB. And as these brands grow to a stature where they are not dwarfed by what I often uncharitably refer to as "lolmsm" you're beginning to see credibility attach to them. As this happens and more people start finding blogs they like, the stigma of pajamas-wearing basement dwellers fades, and all we're left with is the content. And, frankly, the best content on blogs slaughters most tepid MSM offerings. It has to to get attention.

You can already see the landscape shifting in newsy things. In college football, Demetrius Jones provides an interesting exemplar of the change. Charlie Weis made a huge deal of not revealing his starter before the start of the season to surprise Georgia Tech and keep the pressure off whoever it would be. People jumped all over him for this. Then a few days before ND's opener a few blogs, including Rakes of Mallow, ferreted out that it was Jones via Facebook and just the general WOTS. Word spread like wildfire -- I threw it up on the Fanhouse -- and various newspaper articles picked it up. This is remarkable: they're reporting based on blog assertions now. Of course they did the standard CYA thing by attributing it to "blogs" in general, providing no links, and making it very clear that they regarded this information as extremely dodgy, don't know why we're even telling you this really, probably full of crap, these blogs, underwear basement where's my cranberry juice?

But Jones started. Then rumors started spreading on Notre Dame message boards that Jones was transferring. FanHouse's Brian Stouffer was the first person to report on this, and SMQB was the first person to note Jones' registration information popping up in the NIU online phonebook after industrious messageboarders dug it up. It was on ESPN hours later without accreditation. The Internet is becoming a source of information; it's always been one but now all the best information trickles out onto message boards before it hits newspapers. Every major school has Scout/Rivals/indie message boards populated by sources close to players and coaches and these days I know 75% of the actual news before it hits the papers. Knowing the dimly lit alleys of the Internet and knowing who is reliable and who is not is now just as valuable as being an actual journalist, and at some schools even more so.

This isn't to say newspapers or beat writers are obsolete. I think bloggers will reach par with the establishment in five years, though.

9. What's the ultimate goal of your site/your writing?

In Edmonton there is this dentist named Paul Laurieau (spelling not guaranteed). In addition to being a dentist, Laurieau also spends his evenings belting out national anthems at Oilers games. Edmonton adores this guy because he makes Oilers fandom better. I would like to be a version of that for Michigan.

10. The BlogPoll is a great feature that incorporates most of the CFB blog world and anyone else who's interested. Where'd you come up with the idea for this clever poll? Is it a huge hassle tallying up the ballots and putting out a finished product? Think the real pollsters -- those coaches and writers -- are taking notice?

I don't think I can take much credit for the idea, since the idea of polling supposedly knowledgeable people about who the best college football team has been around since zoot suits were cool. I just sort of thought "hey, what if we had our own poll" three years ago and then threw it together. The ballot tallying isn't a big deal anymore, since it's all done with PHP and MySQL -- I basically hit a button and go type out the weekly post -- but the original construction of the system was a remarkable exercise in procrastination and then rapid prototyping. Though I have a couple degrees in computer engineering, I had never done any web stuff outside of CSS until I realized that a spreadsheet was just not going to get the job done for the poll. I mean... *yes*, it takes an immense amount of time. I feel like that woman in the Rice Krispie Squares commercial.

As far as real pollsters taking notice: absolutely not if we're talking about coaches. To paraphrase Nick Saban, they don't have time for this shit. The AP? Maybe. Sometime last year they started making all their ballots publicly available in an easy-to-access database, something the BlogPoll has done from the start. Maybe someone noticed and decided this would help credibility. (It doesn't, because now we know exactly who is rating Appalachian State #13.)

11. MGoBlog gets a great readership now. The content speaks for itself, but it needs to get out there somehow -- especially at first. How'd the initial promotion of the site go? Message boards? Email strings? And a piece of advice, if you will, for some smaller sites how to build a steady, interactive readership?

The first trickles of readership came when I would occasionally link something I had written on The Wolverine, Michigan's Rivals site. I was never comfortable with this. It felt like cheating. If the content was good enough, it would speak for itself. But when I put together a big post I wanted someone to read it, so I'd head over to a message board or two to promote it. Also, when I published a big preview of another team I'd slap up a plug post on their message boards. Once I started getting a few hundred hits a day, I stopped virtually all self-promotion and focused on the content itself; this strategy has been pretty successful. It helps that my content is exclusive: there is no UFR elsewhere. There is no comparable free recruiting coverage. And no one else writes columns from the perspective of a fan without access to lose. It has a high word-of-mouth quotient.

As far as advice for n00bs as regards getting traffic and attention: 1) write something great and widely accessible. The Joe Cribbs Car Wash was way more obscure than it is now before it put up a definitive post comparing Arrested Development to the SEC. The "college football teams as rappers/Simpsons/shoes/elements" post is played, but the JCCW did such a good job of it that everyone linked to it and now that blog has something of a profile. This is good for letting people know you exist. Then you have to keep doing this on a regular basis so people bother to pay attention to you on a regular basis. This is part 2) write great content. There is no way around this. Hits follow content. The thing of suck is this: you kind of have to be the absolute best at X to get attention.

The other thing I would like to stress: don't write a goddamned picks column. This is a generally applicable principle -- attempt to make your content unique, don't follow the crowd -- but also specific: don't write a goddamned picks column. Unless you are beating Vegas something fierce we don't care about your half-baked opinions about this week's games. Do not write a goddamned picks column. Don't. Don't do it.

12. Dude, what's up with Michigan? Two brutal losses. A big, yet possibly deceiving win over a Notre Dame team that might lose to a good high school squad. We don't need your assessment on the team right now. Rather, how disappointing has the start of the season been? Still, the Rose Bowl isn't out of the question at all. That's gotta be a silver lining, right? What's the sentiment around Ann Arbor right now?

The start of the season has been the most disappointing two weeks in the history of college football fandom. This is probably not true, but you can't prove otherwise so I'm sticking by it. I call this "The Stewart Mandel Method". We'll know more about whether to care or not after this weekend: beat Penn State and the sucky Big Ten appears ripe for the taking. It would be a comedown after all the expectations heaped upon the program, but 10-3 with wins over Ohio State and in a BCS game would still be a satisfactory season. Lose to PSU and Michigan fans will be hoping for a New Year's Day bowl but mostly focused on one question: Tedford, Schiano, Rodriguez, or Miles?

In general I would describe the fanbase as pissed but not despondent. Michigan will have a new coach by January after the first national search for a coach in 40 years. That's somewhat scary, but also mitigates any depression we might feel at the program's shortcomings. I mean, it's not like we gave the guy a 10-year contract or anything.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Byron Leftwich is a Falcon

Byron Leftwich walks in to the Falcons locker room. He spots Joey Harrington and goes up to introduce himself.

Leftwich: Hey, I'm Byron.
Harrington: I know.
Leftwich: Yeah, we're gonna turn things around here.
Harrington: Who the fuck is "we?"
Leftwich: Ya know, like the team.
Harrington: I know why they brought you in.
Leftwich: To help the team.
Harrington: Sure.
Leftwich: That's why.
Harrington: Or to take my job.
Leftwich: Well, maybe you shoulda put up some more points.
Harrington: Well maybe you should go fuck yourself.

Leftwich: At least they didn't bench you.
Harrington: Who would they've put in?
Leftwich: Who's your backup.
Harrington: Chris Redman.
Leftwich: Oh yeah. He sucks.
Harrington: Casey Bramlet's our third-string.
Leftwich: The fuck is Casey Bramlet?
Harrington: I dunno. He's quiet.
Harrington: We also have D.J. Shockley. But he's hurt.
Leftwich: You guys have D.J. Shockley?!? He's fucking raw!
Harrington: His knee's all messed up.
Leftwich: Fuck if I care. He could out-run your ass in a wheelchair.
Harrington: Thanks.
Leftwich: No seriously, Coach Petrino was playing you over an injured D.J. Shockley?
Harrington: Yep.
Leftwich: We're fucked then.

Harrington: But aren't you supposed to be the answer to our scoring woes?
Leftwich: I'm not the starter yet.
Harrington: Really?
Leftwich: I mean, I don't think so.
Harrington: No shit. The fuck am I talking to you for then?
Leftwich: To welcome me to the organization.
Harrington: Fuck yourself, Backup. Go get me some water. Massage my fucking feet. You're my bitch.

Blogger Reach-Arounds

Blogger Reach-Arounds" is The Big Picture's link dump that runs every Wednesday. But sometimes Thursday. But usually Wednesday. Send your links -- current posts or those within the last week -- to zachls5@gmail.com by Tuesday night.

We're sure we're in the minority, but fantasy football is starting to piss us off. We end up watching the games, screaming at our guys to score, and when they don't, we make a smug comment like, "Steven Jackson can throw himself into on-coming traffic." We're usually pissed off on Sundays, more pissed off on Mondays...wouldn't things be more sunshiny if we just gave up fantasy football? Who's with us?!?! (Then again, we should probably just put better squads together).

We're juiced for tomorrow's Blogger Interview, but then again, when aren't we? And Friday, oh shit, Friday's gonna be huge. Make sure to stop by.

So what that Heather Locklear's like 100 years old? We'd run through her like a turnstile. A very sexy, blonde turnstile. With fuck-me eyes. And a killer body. And fucking great hair.

1.) Just Call me Juice may be RIP, but that doesn't mean Marco's outta the game. Be sure to check out the new, best college hoops blog around (aside from our shit at FanHouse, of course) at Storming the Floor.

2.) The Money Shot wants you to lay off of OJ...

3.) Champion's League predictions from the No. 1 soccer site in the world, The Beautiful Game.

4.) New site Erin Andrews' Diary looks at some 2-0 NFL teams who are for real...or aren't they?

5.) Burly Sports has launched! Check out one of the first vidoes...

6.) Have Irish fans quit on Charlie Weis? The answers lives deep in Rumors and Rants.

7.) Introducing Liston with a list of movies that you haven't thought about for about 15 years.

8.) Circular Ramblings at The Serious Tip.

9.) Mac Gs World has your poon updates.

10.) Our Book of Scrap is finishing up its Hottest Wife/Girlfriend in Sports contest. We're still pissed that Jennifer Walcott got bounced.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Big Picture Categories: brands of vodka

King's Cup might be the best drinking game out there. Everyone has their own version, there's ample drinking and sometimes -- on a few lucky occasions -- hot chicks end up naked. One of the best "games" in King's Cup is Categories, which often is represented by the Jack card. In Categories, the person who draws the card says a category (fast food joints, baseball stadiums, etc.) and everyone must go around the circle naming one until somebody stumbles. When that person fucks up, they drink. Make sense? Good.

Vodka is like the spectrum of hard alcohol. On one end you have the shit that tastes like rubbing alcohol. And on the other it's the stuff that makes for a perfect Martini. And just about everyone makes vodka. Fuck, if ESPN brands some vodka in the next year, we wouldn't be the least surprised.

So today's category is coming up with all of those brands of vodkas. We'll start and you guys continue in the comments. You can go again after every five comments. If you don't abide by the "every five comments" rule, we'll shove your hand down the fucking garbage disposal. First person to blow it has to play beer pong with cheap vodka as a substitute for beer.

We'll kick this shindig off with a college favorite: Three-Star Vodka. (Yes, it's as absolutely terrible as it sounds).

All right, folks. Get crunk in the comments.

Jerk it, motherfucker! Jerk it like you've never jerked it before!

We've never seen this video, but we've also never read The DaVinci Code, watched a Harry Potter movie or been to a Rolling Stones concert. Some will say we've yet to live. But since 133,000+ have watched this YouTube clip, it seems like it's been around the block like a 40-year-old pornstar.

But there's nothing funny about this video.We're not posting it to get a cheap laugh. We don't want you to even smile. No jokes. There's nothing funny about masturbation. Nothing funny at all.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Quinn: 'I can wait'

I don't give a fuck. I'll wait. Quarterbacking by Week 3 is for fucking bitches anyway. And I'm not a fucking bitch, Bitch.

Hey, it's cool. Derek and I are friends. I'm happy for him. Five touchdowns is good. It's fucking great. I like to be on the sidelines to high-five him and shit too. I'll fucking jerk him off if he wants. It's all about Team. Yeah, that's Team with a capital T, bitch. And we won. We're winners. I'm a winner.

I can wait another few weeks to get my first start. Cincinnati's defense is a fucking joke. Notre Dame coulda scored on that secondary. It's only a matter of time before Derek starts getting picked three times a day.

Derek's a good guy and all. Loves pussy. Fucking loves it. But he's not a very good quarterback. When we go to those family fun centers with arcades and shit and we play that football one with the two holes to throw the ball through, he always goes for the bigger one. He's a bitch like that. Fucking great guy though.

I'm used to waiting. Patience is my fucking middle name. Brady Patience Quinn. I waited 'til number 22 on Draft Day. I've waited 23-plus years to come out. I once waited two and a half hours in the car while Samardzija banged his girlfriend in the movie theater. I didn't really want to go in. They went to see one of those Borne movies. Action flicks are for bitches. I'll take Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant over Stallone any day.

My time will come. I know it. I'll save the Cleveland Browns faster than Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Dr. Quinn gives me a bad name. Dr. Quinn can fucking suck it. Her husband might be better though.

Romeo and I are dawgs though. Yeah, I call my coach dawg. With a fucking AWG. Dogs are fucking animals. Dawgs are fucking homies. And Romeo's my bitch. He'll have me starting by Week 5 at New England. The Pats will be tough. It's all right. After Baltimore butt fucks Derek in Week 4, I can go 10-31 for 78 yards, no TDs and five picks and be called the fucking savior.

And saviors can wait. I'm Brady Patience Quinn. Only bitches can't wait. And I'm not a bitch, Bitch.

Fun with pictures


Big ups to ImageShack, via 100% Injury Rate.

Friday, September 14, 2007

The Aristocrats

Seen the movie The Aristocrats? If you haven't read this first.

Since our big plans for today fell through, we had to come up with a makeshift post. So we're gonna have an aristocrats contest. In the comments, give us your best version of the joke. Winner gets a shoutout or link or handjob sometime next week. Bonus points if you make it sports related.

Here's what we could come up with:

Bill Belichick walks into a talent agency. He says, "Boy, do I have the act for you." The agent says, "OK. I'll take a look."
Bill is sitting in the corner and starts jerking off. Enters his ex-wife Debby and two sons, Stephen and Bryan. Bryan starts fucking his mom in the ass and Stephen starts sucking up Bill.

In comes daughter Amanda who starts tossing Stephen's salad. Bill's done with his hummer, and comes around Amanda and starts fucking her in the ass. Amanda, an ass virgin, loses control of her bowels and starts shitting everywhere.

In comes Grandpa who starts banging Debby, who, conveniently, is on her period. There's still shit everywhere and Bill gets pissed at daughter Amanda and cuts off her arm with a samurai sword.

Bill then makes Stephen start fucking the hole where Amanda's arm used to be. Everyone's masturbating.

Bryan can't go anymore and starts cumming everywhere. In comes Spot and he starts fucking Grandma. Grandpa gets pissed and starts fucking the dog in the ass while the pup's giving it to Grandma.

There's blood! There's shit! There's cum!

At this point, Amanda's losing blood, everybody's cumming and in comes Barbaro. Barbaro starts fucking Bill with his monster horse cock. Bill loses control of his bowels and he starts shitting everywhere. Debby pees on Barbaro and Barbaro releases a volcano of horse jiz all over the place.

Tom Brady, jealous of all of this, comes in and shoots everybody dead, except for Belichick. There's more blood then both can handle and they start fucking the dead corpses. Even Barbaro gets plowed, and he's now twice over dead.

Brady finishes his fucking and blows his load all over the shit- and blood-covered area. Belichick nuts again, all over Tom. They both hug, kiss and take a bow.
For the longest time, the agent just sits in silence. Finally, he manages, "That's a hell of an act. What do you call it?" And Belichick says, "The Aristocrats!"

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Blogger Interviews: Big Daddy Drew


We're running a segment here at The Big Picture where we'll interview some of the biggest names in the sports blogosphere. What's the point? Well, these guys spend countless, thankless hours writing, so a little recognition from time to time is well warranted. Think of this as the blogger's version of a reach-around or something.


Joining us today is Big Daddy Drew, one of the jiz-mopping geniuses behind Kissing Suzy Kolber. Drew recently signed up to do a weekly NFL column for Deadspin -- which, conveniently, runs today -- titled Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo. With the NFL season just a week old, this seemed like the right time to talk to one of the Web's biggest pro football fans. Let's kick this thing off right. Let him have it in the comments.

1. The rundown:

Name: Drew (Sorry, the last name costs you extra)
Age: 30
Location: DC area
Occupation: Advertising
Favorite team: Vikings
Links to your favorite all-time posts you've written (3-5).
Tuesday Morning Pretentious Douchebaggery
If Super Bowl XLI Were An Episode Of House
KSK Clip Show: The Best of Big Daddy Drew
Time per day spent blogging and perusing the blogosphere: It depends on my workday, and my work and my Internet perusing are tied together. Either way, I’m at the computer roughly 8 hours a day, doing whatever.

2. You juggle work, blogging and taking care of your family. That's a shit ton of responsibility. How do you balance it all? And take us through a typical day of blogging.

There’s more time in a day than most people realize. 24 hours is plenty of time to get shit done. KSK posts don’t take much time to write, and my job involves lots of waiting for approvals, so those can get done during the day. There’s no set routine to it. If I have an open window to do something during the day, and I have a good idea behind it, then I do it and post it. When I’m home, I’m usually away from the computer unless my kid is asleep.

3. One of the many things that impresses us about KSK is that it's a narrow focus, blogging solely about the NFL. Isn't it hard -- especially during the dreadfully long off-season -- to come up with enough material to keep readers entertained? Any secrets you have to finding content on painfully slow news days?

Sometimes it’s a bitch, but then stuff like Michael Vick happens and it makes everything easier. Since our focus is really on humor and NOT the NFL, it means we don’t have to necessarily depend on shit happening for us to write. I wrote about pooping on my towel once. It had nothing to do with football, but I found it funny, so up it went. And, frankly, when something DOES happen, the rest of the blogosphere is already on it in a nanosecond. Much better to just think up shit out of left field. That said, the off-season does fucking suck. That’s why we had to come up with shit like commenter drafts and kill kill kill. They were clearly fillers, but they were fun to do and I still think people enjoyed them.

4. Columns seem like the new trend with blogs, as MJD's The Debriefing, Ufford's The Prelude at FanHouse and your Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo at Deadspin are getting notice. What's up with this new movement towards longer, more thought-out (sometimes) posts? Is this where blogs are going? What's the future of blogging hold?

I said yes to the Deadspin column because A.) I was offered money, which I never turn down, and 2.) I’d be an idiot not to write for that bigger audience. I think it’s a natural progression. It sort of gives you a tentpole to build an audience around. But otherwise, I think the future of blogging is simply that it will grow, and grow very fucking fast.

5. Dream job? Go.

Head writer and bit player for Conan O’Brien or Stephen Colbert. Though I must say I’m quite happy with my life as is right now.

6. There are all sorts of wonderful blogs out there. A few you'd recommend?

I usually stick to the big blogs like Deadspin, With Leather and The Big Lead. If one of them links to something interesting, I go. Otherwise, the only other sports blog I frequent is Nation of Islam Sports. Someone recommended Cajun Boy in the City, and that’s pretty cool.

7. Most rewarding parts of blogging? Most frustrating?

Rewarding: instant reader response. Frustrating: formatting. I fucking hate formatting.

8. Your first-person narratives and 10 yards of awkwardness are unbeatable. Fuck. The Sex Cannon shit. Precious. How do you come up with this crap? Are you ever stuck when you go to write these, or do the ideas just come to you?

I don’t know if anyone likes 10 yards of awkwardness anymore. I think I may have milked that teat dry. Same with the Grossman shit. I really beat that into the ground. If I’m ever stuck writing something, I usually just stop and dump it. But usually a post is fully formed in my head before I write it down. Usually, the idea just pops up in my brain and grows from there. I try not to think too hard about it, as you can plainly tell.

9. What's the ultimate goal of your site/your writing?

Get paid lots of money. My life goal is to own a jet ski.

10. KSK, from the get-go, seemed to get tons of traffic and comments. A piece of advice to some smaller sites how to get a prolific, interactive readership?

I honestly have no idea. Sucking up to Leitch helps. But eventually, your site has to stand on its own. We’ve had the good fortune of being able to write shit people have enjoyed reading. I just try and write stuff I’d like to read. Lots of swearing helps.

11. You're on a deserted island. You have three people with you. Who are they? Your family doesn't count.

I swear this question was on five of the six college applications I filled out. The real answer is I’d probably take my two best friends, plus someone who knows how to build a boat out of driftwood. Apparently, that person is NOT Bear Grylls.

(Past interviews; also found on right sidebar: Dawizofodds; Matt Ufford; The Mighty MJD; Jamie Mottram; The Big Lead; The Cavalier; Will Leitch; Dan Shanoff; Dan Steinberg; Brooks; Unsilent Majority; J.E. Skeets; Henry Abbott; The Dugout; NFL Adam; Bethlehem Shoals; Orson Swindle).

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Don't wear Texas gear in Sooner country

Some things are obvious:

-All light beer tastes like shit.
-The sky is blue.
-Carmen Electra is dying to bang us.
-Two girls are better than one.
-Wearing a Texas Longhorns t-shirt in to an Oklahoma bar is going to lead to possible castration.

Looks like Brian Christopher Thomas didn't find that last one as obvious as we did.

According to police, 32-year-old Texas fan Brian Christopher Thomas walked into Henry Hudson's Pub on June 17 wearing a Longhorns T-shirt and quickly became the focus of football "trash talk" from another regular, 53-year-old Oklahoma fan Allen Michael Beckett.

Thomas told police that when he decided to leave and went to the bar to pay his tab, Beckett grabbed him in the crotch, pulled him to the ground and wouldn't let go, even as bar patrons tried to break it up. When the two men were separated, Thomas looked down and realized the extent of his injuries.

"He could see both of his testicles hanging on the outside of his body," said Thomas' attorney, Carl Hughes. "He was wearing a pair of white shorts, which made it that much worse."

Hang on. Let us put some emphasis on that last part. "He was wearing a pair of white shorts."

Whoops. Here: "He could see both of his testicles hanging on the outside of his body."

What. The. Fuck? There's fucked up shit and then there's nearly tearing off another man's balls.

And what was this Oklahoma fan thinking grabbing his nuts? Man, smash a bottle over his head or something. Or, ya know, just tell him to fuck off.

Blogger Reach-Arounds

Blogger Reach-Arounds" is The Big Picture's link dump that runs every Wednesday. But sometimes Thursday. But usually Wednesday. Send your links -- current posts or those within the last week -- to zachls5@gmail.com by Tuesday night.

We're real juiced for our weekend. We have tickets to the UW-Ohio State game, which, knock on wood, could actually be a good game. And we'll likely be pants partying before hand. If you're in Seattle, come on out. We look even sexier in person.

Sorry to keep bringing up our fantasy squad, but Matt Leinart made us real nervous Monday. Who knew STDs affected your accuracy?

We have another fun Blogger Interview coming tomorrow, and Friday, well, Friday depends on us getting a particular email. But be sure to stop by Friday -- things could be big. If not Friday, soon after...

Aggh!! Sterger's done at SI. There goes our editorial content for the next, oh, forever.

1.) All on the Field has some analysis on Washington's early-season success. But beware of that schedule, dammit.

2.) Armchair GM is having fun with pictures!

3.) The Pig Pen has pictures of the Dallas Stars' new jerseys. They should move 'em back the fuck to Minnesota, don't cha know...

4.) Vegas Watch tells us how if MLB switched the Divisional Round of the playoffs to a Best of Seven, people might make some money.

5.) The top 10 replacements for Jenn Sterger...an intriguing list brought to you by Armchair GM.

6.) Introducing Liston tells us how you -- yeah you, fuckhead -- can be an NBA players.

7.) The Hater Nation has an exceptionally good Post Mortem up this week...Adam even talks about Washington. Yeah, we're growing on him.

8.) Scott Van Pelt Style interviews its namesake.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Big Picture Categories: NFL players from Florida universities

King's Cup might be the best drinking game out there. Everyone has their own version, there's ample drinking and sometimes -- on a few lucky occasions -- hot chicks end up naked. One of the best "games" in King's Cup is Categories, which often is represented by the Jack card. In Categories, the person who draws the card says a category (fast food joints, baseball stadiums, etc.) and everyone must go around the circle naming one until somebody stumbles. When that person fucks up, they drink. Make sense? Good.

It seems just about every player in the NFL (or at least every player on the Baltimore Ravens) played college football in the fucking state of Florida. The U, FSU, UF...fuck, even Central Florida's turned out some folks.

So today's category is naming those NFL players who spent time at any Florida university. We'll start and you guys continue in the comments. You can go again after every five comments. There are fucking thousands of these! Let's try to break commenting records! First person to fuck up has to take a body shot off of an alligator. Or a crocodile. What the fuck is the difference, anyway?

We'll keep it local: Ken Dorsey - The U. (We're actually not sure if Dorsey's still in the league (Cleveland?), but we went to high school with him, caught a pass from him, and stole his girlfriend*).

All right, folks. Brag about your alma-mater-knowledge in the comments.

*Statement might be made up. Might.

Monday, September 10, 2007

CFB coverage > NFL coverage

Saturday:

9:01 PST: Wake up. With wood.
9:05: Get out of bed.
9:07: Get in shower.
11:42 9:29: Get out of shower. (It's a running joke with family and friends. We take really fucking long showers. And we don't even give ourselves a tug. Honest.)
9:31: Start watching Nebraska vs. Wake Forest.
9:32: Realize Bill Callahan is probably a bigot.
9:32 and 27 seconds: Switch channel to Miami vs. Oklahoma.
9:33: Decide that The U is more successful when undisciplined.
9:35: Morning wood starting to go away.
9:36: Switch to Marshall vs. West Fuckin Virgina. Enjoy a close game. (For a while, anyway).
10:05: Eat some french toast. With fucking cinnamon and nutmeg in the batter. French toast batter without cinnamon and nutmeg is like getting head with a fucking rubber on.
11:01: Leave for UW pre-game (or pre-funk, pre-party, pre-fiesta, pre-dag-nasty).
11:04: Ask if someone had taken a piss in our Bud Light can. (They said no, "But we have Coors instead." We held back a smug comment).
11:06: Continue watching multiple football games.
12:03: Get to Husky Stadium. Watch Huskies beat Boise State.
4:06: Leave Husky Stadium, go to work.
5:01: Arrive one minute late to work.
5:01 and 10 seconds: Turn on Penn State vs. Notre Dame.
5:03: Realize that Notre Dame is bad, Jimmy Clausen will soon be the butt of herpes jokes, and Charlie Weis would be fucking raw at sumo wrestling.
5:05: Change to Georgia vs. South Carolina. Watch for a while. Enjoy good, SEC football.
5:25: Check in on Texas vs. TCU. Blow out. Too much "Don't mess with Texas" bullshit.
5:26: Do some work...complain about it.
6:01: Tune in to beginning of LSU vs. VA Tech. Avoid making tasteless joke.
6:15: Start watching Auburn vs. South Florida.
7:31: Oh, Arizona State vs. Colorado is on FSN?! Fuck yeah.
7:33: What the fuck is Versus? Didn't that used to be OLN? Whatever. This Versus shit is showing Wisconsin vs. UNLV. Booyah!
7:41: In unison with coworker, blogger and college football homie, say, "College football is fucking awesome!"
11:14: Leave work late. (Don't ask). Arizona State game is still on. Blowout, but who fucking cares at this point? College football was on for over 12 hours!
11:21: Get home from work. Take care of late-night wood.

Sunday:

10:01 PST: Wake up.
10:03: Start watching Green Bay vs. Philly.
10:04: Realize that watching an NFC game is like watching paint dry or water boil or something else that's incredibly fucking boring.
10:05: Change channel to Denver vs. Buffalo. Root on Marshawn Lynch like a motherfucker. (He's our fantasy stud).
10:20: Look for third TV game. No luck.
10:22: Turn on our Slingbox -- fucking awesome invention! -- which tunes in to our Bay Area TV.
10:23: Notice the Bay Area is seeing the same two games.
10:24: Say fuck.
11:06: Start jumping up and down like a little kid on Christmas when Lynch scores.
12:55: With roommate, try to decide if Shannon Sharpe sounds like he has a ball gag in his mouth or just has an abnormally large tongue. Decide on ball gag.
1:10: Afternoon games begin.
1:11: FOX has local coverage. Seahawks vs. Tampa. See 10:04 comment.
1:15: Check CBS. Tennis. Fuck.
1:16: Check Slingbox. Oh good, Raiders vs. Lions.
1:17: Start tying noose.
1:18: Consider sending an email to FOX saying, "There are three afternoon games. Through the wonders of technology, we are watching two of them. We are not seeing Chicago vs. San Diego. Will you please consider throwing yourself in to the middle of the freeway? Thanks! Sincerely, The Big Picture.
1:21: Say fuck again.
4:02: Masturbate thinking about NFL Sunday Ticket.
4:15-midnight: Do some other shit that's none of your motherfucking business.

This would make Donald Duck hard

After seeing the Oregon Duck fuck up the Houston Cougar, our initial thought was "When the hell is Oregon playing Notre Dame?"



(An editor of our at The Seattle Times sent us the video, but Larry Brown Sports, With Leather, Deadpsin, and pretty much anyone else with a computer or two functioning eyes gets credit too).

Friday, September 07, 2007

Blogger Interviews: Orson Swindle


We're running a segment here at The Big Picture where we'll interview some of the biggest names in the sports blogosphere. What's the point? Well, these guys spend countless, thankless hours writing, so a little recognition from time to time is well warranted. Think of this as the blogger's version of a reach-around or something.

Up today is the man behind the brilliant Every Day Should Be Saturday and Das Fanhaus, Orson Swindle. EDSBS is perhaps the pinnacle of all things college football, so with the season fresh in our minds, Orson is the perfect guy to be talking to. Think of the comments as the goalpoasts at Appalachian State's Kidd Brewer Stadium: tear those motherfuckers down.

1. The rundown:

Name: Orson Swindle. That's not our real name of course. We were never in Vietnam, or a member of the Federal Trade Commission. Then again, the real Orson Swindle never interviewed Phil Steele.
Age: 31
Location: Atlanta, GA
Occupation: Never. We bow to no one, not even the dastardly Spaniards. Oh, you mean a job? Now that's nothing anyone wants to hear about, is it? Work? You might as well ask about my bowel movements...which if you're wondering, dwarf yours 24/7, of course.
Favorite team: Florida Gators.
Links to your favorite all-time posts you've written. (3-5)
We're fond of this one. And this one. Few other people are, sure -- but we like them.
Time per day spent blogging and perusing the blogosphere: a Shit-ton, a metric unit equal to somewhere between two hours and twenty of the day.

2. With EDSBS, EDSBS Live and the newly launched Das FanHaus, you must be a busy man. Take us through a typical day of blogging.

I wake up around six and spend around an hour dredging up everything I think might be relevant, usually missing somewhere around 40 percent of the things I should be writing about while inevitably picking on some poor copy editor's headline gaffe, digging up fart jokes, or making cheap double-entendres involving football and sodomy.

If something gets written that's halfway decent, it's likely that it was written between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Then I go to work, squeeze in other stuff during the day, and tharr you go, sailor. The garbage scow makes its way around the cape once again.

3. One of the things that impresses us most about EDSBS is that it's a narrow focus, blogging solely about college football. Isn't it hard -- especially during the dreadfully long off-season -- to come up with enough material to keep readers entertained? Any secrets you have to finding content on painfully slow news days?

Not particularly. With 117 teams, it presents a very daunting task to pay attention to everything. In fact, you could spend most of the offseason simply recapping every team's year, previewing the coming year, and paying attention to spring practice.

As far as a narrow focus, constraints can force you to be very, very creative. The hard thing is creating a sports blog without a particular focus, which is nigh impossible. It's counterintuitive, but most successful sports blogs focus on a single sport. (Deadspin: large, large exception.)

That would be boring, but it could be done. We prefer to just take tangents until they snap, especially on the smallest details of a piece. That will go a long way in the offseason. Having an extremely messy and immature brain seems to help, too, in the content creation department.

On slow news days, just troll message boards. There's enough insanity out there to keep everyone occupied for years.

4. You just roll out of bed one morning in February, 2005 and realized that starting a CFB blog was the quickest way to get some panties to drop? Or was the creation of EDSBS a more thought-out process?

It was the creation of being extremely depressed, underemployed, and starved for football. Absolutely no thought went into its creation, and little thought has gone into its growth. It's somewhere between a tumor and baby: it's growing, eating up resources, and not paying it portion of the rent while macking all the peanut butter from the fridge. And yet...you hand it the keys and give it gas money, either out of love or fear it will leave you.

5. EDSBS gets a great readership now. The content speaks for itself, but it needs to get out there somehow -- especially at first. How'd the initial promotion of the site go? Message boards? Email strings? And a piece of advice, if you will, for some smaller sites how to build a steady, interactive readership?

We got an RSS reader and subscribed to other people's blogs -- participating in that seemed to push things. (Can't remember if we did the "Hey, got this other awesome thing over at my blog" shit in comments, either. If we did, we apologize, because that shit is annoying with a capital "asshole.")

Other than that, we just posted every day and kept posting without really thinking too much about what we were doing, which should be obvious to anyone who's caught our thousand misnomers for players, factual errors, or bad formatting. The best answer is to socialize with other bloggers and fans without "networking" consciously. Networkers come off as lizards in peoplesuits. People can see the zippers.

6. Dream job? Go.

EDSBS, we suppose. Other possibilities would include demolitions engineer, 40s pinup photographer, and to be the keeper of Urban Meyer's magical motivational taser.

7. There are all sorts of wonderful blogs out there. A few you'd recommend?

The best college football blogger is Matt Hinton, a.k.a. Sunday Morning Quarterback. Brian from MGoBlog's Upon Further Review makes detail-oriented seem like a vague phrase -- we shudder to think of the cold, well-swept cubicles in his vast, powerful mind. The Wizard of Odds is the speed demon among college football bloggers -- the bastard posts at like 2 a.m. and beats everyone else off the wires with his encyclopedic news blog. His is an indispensable blog. Fanblogs and College Football Resource are other big, link-heavy news buffets. Blue Gray Sky has a staff of surgeons working on the ever-recovering patient that is Notre Dame football.

Other ones are less data-driven, but just contain awe-inspiring creativity and writing. BearMeat is the greatest blog devoted to an abysmal team. Rocky Top Talk is, despite being about the team we hate with the fire of six-hundred hell-hot hellholes the Tennessee Volunteers, boundlessly creative and erudite. Peter stomps Texas football flat at Burnt Orange Nation. Michael at Braves and Birds is relentlessly skeptical about not just football, but also about baseball and other sports that don't matter like basketball and any sport not named "football." Fire Mark May and House Rock Built though not daily still make the EDSBS bunker ring with laughter and its natural cohort, random gunfire.

8. Most rewarding parts of blogging? Most frustrating?

The interaction with readers. The fact that you can't sit at your desk and do it all day long.

9. You guys have had some fun with certain people and topics. Ed Orgeron, Houston Nutt, Dennis Erickson, and the Illinois football program all come to mind. Any specific story or person that you just can't resist blogging about? And are there any reoccurring stories that you'd deem your favorite?

This begins and ends with Ed Orgeron. The reason you can mock him is the fact that beneath the baby-eating, pit-fighting, Cajun monsterman myth is a shred of truth. He's one of the few guys who trumps any story you can concoct about him with something that actually happened. The day he leaves the SEC we will weep gusty tears of sadness. And then, he will hunt us down and turn us into boudin.

10. What's the ultimate goal of your site/your writing?

The same as masturbation, of course: to keep doing it every day without chafing.

11. This might be a loaded question, but, in your opinion, what's the future of sports blogs? Enlighten us.

I have no idea.

12. College football is here! Our Huskies aren't gonna go winless! We don't like predictions, so we won't ask for them. Rather, the BCS treated your Gators well last season, but often creates more heartache than happiness. What are your thoughts on the system? While it's controversial, it always gets people talking, and that's good, right? If you were calling the shots, what would the CFB postseason look like?

The system's terrible, but it's better than it was, which takes it up to "merely shitty." We'd probably just keep it like it is now: a tense medium between the popularity contests of the 70s and the soulless vacuum of a playoff. The soulless vacuum is coming, of course -- but in the meantime, there's controversy, something that does produce a lot of excitement. Then again, so do earthquakes, outbreaks of the Marburg virus, and car bombings.

(Past interviews; also found on right sidebar: Dawizofodds; Matt Ufford; The Mighty MJD; Jamie Mottram; The Big Lead; The Cavalier; Will Leitch; Dan Shanoff; Dan Steinberg; Brooks; Unsilent Majority; J.E. Skeets; Henry Abbott; The Dugout; NFL Adam; Bethlehem Shoals).

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Rick Ankiel, your 2007 NL MVP

No, we're not high.
No, we did not put cocaine on our French toast instead of powdered sugar.
No, we're not drunk.
Yes, we're pretty hung over.
No, the brunette chickened out and left, but the blonde, all alone, was still freak-a-licious.
Yes, we're sorta nuts. Just sorta though.
No, we're still not high.

Now that that's out of the way, let us present to you the logical reason why Rick Ankiel would be our choice for NL MVP if certain things broke right.

What would need to "break right?" Well, the Cards would need to win the Central. If they don't, our argument is history. Like that brunette.

OK, say the Cards somehow win the Central. At 68-68, St. Louis is only two back with a few weeks left in the season, so it's entirely possible they jump both the Cubs and Brewers.

Now enter Ankiel. Through Wednesday, he's hitting .338 with 7 home runs and 22 RBIs. Most importantly, the Cards are 16-9 since he's been up and have gained ground on both Chicago and Milwaukee.

Secondly importantly (ya know, like what comes after "most importantly") is that the NL MVP race is a joke.

Arizona doesn't have a good enough hitter. Eric Byrnes? Fuck no. San Diego? Same problem. The Mets have both Reyes and Wright, but they might steal votes from each other, and frankly, neither have overwhelming enough numbers. (We suppose Ankiel doesn't either, but fuck you). If Milwaukee wins the Central, Prince Fielder could be your boy, but remember, we're figuring that St. Louis wins the Central. So fuck you again.

Yeah, Rick Ankiel for President. Errr...MVP. MVP. Rick Ankiel is going to win the MVP.

The Mariners are a sinking ship

[Editor's note: This week's Blogger Interview will run tomorrow, not today like we earlier said. Sorry. Don't sue.]

Is it tasteless to make fun of the Titanic? No, not the movie. We might be the only people on Earth that haven't seen it. But we're sure it's fucking terrible. And Kate Winslet's tits probably don't look that good anyway.

We're referring more to the actual ship that sunk. And like helluv people died. That sucks. But regardless, the Seattle Mariners are a sinking ship.

They've lost 11 of 12 -- the latest a 10-2 loss to the Yankees after surrendering eight runs in the seventh inning -- and the mid-season question of "how the hell are the M's this good?" is becoming realizations of, "yep, that's more like it."

The folks at Lookout Landing have pretty much thrown in the towel and Geoff Baker, on his Seattle Times blog, says, "A team just can't collapse the way Seattle did two nights in a row and expect to make the playoffs."

Oh, and the bullpen. That's what carried this team for about four months and is now shooting it in the foot.

Yeah. The playoffs probably aren't gonna happen for the M's this season. Whatever. We just can't get over the fact that Jeff Weaver is still in the starting rotation.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Big Picture Categories: beers

King's Cup might be the best drinking game out there. Everyone has their own version, there's ample drinking and sometimes -- on a few lucky occasions -- hot chicks end up naked. One of the best "games" in King's Cup is Categories, which often is represented by the Jack card. In Categories, the person who draws the card says a category (fast food joints, baseball stadiums, etc.) and everyone must go around the circle naming one until somebody stumbles. When that person fucks up, they drink. Make sense? Good.

We're so stoked about the start of both college and pro football that the only thing we can think about -- aside from the games, we suppose -- is how to get loaded while watching them.

Today's category is brands of beers. Brands, motherfucker. Bud Light and Budweiser are the same fucking brand. That would get your ass kicked in this game. We'll start and you guys continue in the comments. You can go again after every five comments. If it's an uncommon beer or microbrew, provide a link if possible. First person who can't name a beer has to do a Power Hour in 20 minutes, which, now that we think of it, may defeat the purpose of a Power Hour.

We'll start with a favorite of ours: Newcastle.

Slang your beer-drinking knowledge in the comments.

Michigan-Appalachian State goes to Hollywood

(Click for larger view)

The fine gents at The M Zone should get a prize for this one!

Blogger Reach-Arounds

Blogger Reach-Arounds" is The Big Picture's link dump that runs every Wednesday. But sometimes Thursday. But usually Wednesday. Send your links -- current posts or those within the last week -- to zachls5@gmail.com by Tuesday night.

NFL action begins tomorrow! We've had our fantasy draft(s) and we think we've come out pretty well. Wait, wait, wait on QB. We got the guys we wanted late.

We made the move back to Seattle from a summer in the Bay Area Monday. Our sparratic posting the last two months should disappear. We're back to our regular schedule and things should be normal around here yet again.

We're bringing back Blogger Interviews tomorrow after about a three-month break and we're really excited about our guest.

If you think Pam Anderson's not what she used to be, well, you might want to question your sexual preferences. Check out these photos that What Would Tyler Durden Do dug up. Springs you up in a heartbeat.

1.) The Serious Tip has an interview with a Playboy model, who may or may not be an angel. And she says, if she weren't in a relationship, she'd give bloggers a shot!

2.) Awful Announcing is giving away an iPhone! You just need to win an NFL pick 'em contest, which is probably harder than scrounging up $600.

3.) East Coast Bias provides a list of why your favorite NFL team is going to suck.

4.) The Nosebleeds NFL Blog gets you ready for Steelers-Browns week, still perhaps the best rivalry in football.

5.) Whoopi Goldberg said some fucked up shit about Mike Vick on her debut of The View. Our Book of Scrap with the details...

6.) Stiles Points gets some answers about LSU football, via an interview with a writer for TheBaton Rouge Advocate .

7.) The Sports Hernia has key footage of the George Mitchell steroid investigation.