Hot Sports Wives, New Year's Eve and other fun shit

Been sorta crazy around here the last week or so as we've been on vacation for the holidays.

We'll be off tomorrow (who works on New Year's Day?), but then Wednesday we'll be back to a regular Monday-through-Friday schedule.

So we're curious what athletes do on New Year's Eve. Peyton Manning stay home and watch a movie and then turn to Dick Clark at 11:45? Tom Brady try to pull a three-way? Stephen Jackson try to light up a strip joint?

NFL coverage is making us un-fans of the NFL. Fuck the NFL. Fuck CBS and FOX. Why should we be stuck watching meaningless games when there are only like three ones worthwhile in the first place? Bullshit.

The NFL is considered the best league in the world, but until it starts getting televised the same way as college football, with like 15 games per day, we won't be believers. (We know this will never happen...)

Meanwhile, Armchair GM has compiled a list of the hottest sports wives ever. We don't agree with most of the list, but check it out for yourself and enjoy Lisa Guerrero, who could be covered in feces and still be hot as fuck.

The NFL is a friend of the environment

Great news, people: The NFL is going green for the Super Bowl!

The NFL is planting thousands of trees in Arizona forests blackened by wildfires
to help offset greenhouse gas emissions from the Super Bowl, to be played in Glendale in February. The league will also power University of Phoenix Stadium with clean energy sources from wind turbines to geothermal plants.

Wait, there are forests in Arizona? Really? Like, with trees? We fuck around in ‘Zona every year and it’s flush with cacti, but those are plants, which are smaller, less cool trees. Perhaps the NFL is planting a cacti forest. That, actually, would be pretty rad.

Turns out the tree-planting effort will offset the 350 tons of greenhouse gas produced by ground transportation during Super Bowl week, which, we’re told by scientists, is a lot.

We still aren’t buying this global warming business – the high in Seattle this summer was 68 degrees (we kid: It was 74) – but, hey, score one for nature.

So there you have it: NFL, environment -- BFFs. Al Gore must be so proud.

-Adam Landres-Schnur

Giants fans don’t give a shit about history

That end zone there? Might as well say “Patriots.”

Thousands of New York Giants fans -- in a move that screams passion, loyalty, dedication and other nice descriptors -- are selling their tickets to Saturday’s game against New England, when the Pats will attempt to be the first NFL team ever to complete a 16-0 regular season.

More than 200 [Giants fans] put tickets for the Patriots game up for auction on eBay within 24 hours of the 38-21 victory over the Bills. There were also 3,000 tickets up for auction Monday afternoon on StubHub.

Frankly, we can’t blame them. The Giants clinched the 5-seed in the playoffs and a first-round match-up against the Bucs. They’re going to rest their starters. And geez, New York’s a freakin’ expensive place (we’re vacationing there in January and might have to mortgage our future to do so. But we kinda can’t wait). Given the chance to make a buck, we might jump at it.

But to aggressively shop them?

One sales pitch urged potential buyers to ‘BE A PART OF HISTORY!’ Others offered parking passes.

The game's on NFL Network...a chance to BE A PART OF HISTORY!...free parking passes...

We’re there!

-Adam Landres-Schnur

Merry Christmas

Enjoy your trees, presents and Eggnog, assholes.

We'll be going to a movie, eating Chinese foods and doing other stereotypical things Jews do on Christmas.

What Really Grinds My Gears

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears (named after the segment on Family Guy, of course) is a new feature that will run whenever the fuck we want it to...but usually on a slow news day. It will focus on those pet peeves that, well, really grind your gears. It likely won't be sports-related. Fuck sports. This isn't a sports blog anyway...Oh. Right. Um, yeah, we'll see about making them sports-related. If you have any suggestions -- or would even like to guest write one! -- send your submissions to zachls5@gmail.com or Ballhype us or something Internet-y like that.

You know what really grinds my gears?

Holiday cards.

I mean, what the fuck? I don't care if you're sending me your Christmas, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, or Labor Day card. I don't want to stare at your family on a vacation, or by the fire place, or with fingers in each other's asses.

Really, what a pompous thing to do: "Look how perfect my family is." I could give two shits about your family. I don't care that you have a fucking Yellow Lab and your baby is adorable. That kid's gonna turn in to a coked-out, cum-gargling hooker anyway. So fuck you.

What if I took a picture of my balls and sent that out? Nothing says Happy Hanukkah like a fat nut sack. It's better than taking a posed photo with my family and then sending it out so all of the other families know that ours isn't quite as dysfunctional as theirs.

And while we're on the topic of holidays, you know what else fucking grinds my gears? Nativity scenes.

That's just fucking strange. And when you put it up in your front yard? Yikes. Try a basketball hoop or white picket fence. Nativity scenes scream, "Wackos live here."

Seen the movie Arlington Road? You should. Good movie. Anyway, one seemingly happy family (with a cheerful couple of Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack as the parents) are actually terrorists and fucking creepy as hell. They're the type of family that would put a Nativity scene up come Christmas time.

"Jingle Bells" fucking does some grinding too, but you already know that.

So if you're thinking about sending out your Holiday Card, well, don't. You're family isn't really that happy, not really that attractive, and certainly not that functional. Instead, send me a picture of your wife. Naked.

And that, people, is what really grinds my gears.

Bowl gifts are fun and neat and free

The Poinsettia Bowl is this evening.

Utah. Navy. Pre-cum is forming.

The games don't mean very much and watching Utah and Navy play a meaningless football game, in a half-empty stadium with a shitty flower for a name might be as exciting as watching your pubic hair grow.

Rather than watch the game, just know that the players, regardless of the outcome, will score some pretty cool gifts, just for showing up. Go 8-4, get a free trip to San Diego and receive a PSP Slim, Madden '08 and some clothing. Not bad for lousy bowl.

iPods and other electronics (camcorders, game consoles, GPS) are big this year. And clothes. Lots of clothes. You can see the full list of bowl shwag here.

Some other hightlights:


Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl: Apple iPod touch; Under Armour Aero sackpack; Cap. That iPod touch is probably pretty cool and the cap is probably instant pussy. The players could probably do without the sackpack though. Maybe something more Las Vegas-related would be better. Say, oh, a Penn & Teller show.


Pacific Life Holiday Bowl: Nintendo Wii, Madden NFL 08; Fossil watch; Sweatshirt or polo (TBD), cap. Again with the cap. These must be fucking awesome caps. Total pussy-finders. And you know that ASU coach Dennis Erickson will be losing sleep not knowing if he's coming up on a sweatshirt or polo.

Champs Sports Bowl: Party at Best Buy; $400 Best Buy gift card for each player; Timely Watch Co. watch; Panama Jack sunglasses; Panama Jack T-shirt, hat. A party at Best Buy?! Whoa! We're envisioning dancing camcorders, singing TVs and laptops trying to spike the punch. With plenty of streamers and party hats, of course.

Texas Bowl: Watch; Duffel bag; Hoodie, T-shirt, cap, Nocona cowboy boots. It's too bad Bill Snyder doesn't coach K-State anymore. He would've been a knock out in the cowboy boots.

The National Championship game isn't that sweet. Pretty much just a Wii and some games. You know that Les Miles was holding out for that party at Best Buy.

Wanna go to the Pro Bowl?

State Farm Insurance is sponsoring this season's Pro Bowl and wants us to help create awareness of it's new promotion. Why are we telling you about it? Because that's what we do; we're a puppet for advertisers. (They're also mailing us two surgically-enhanced hookers and some blow).

If you sign up...well, we better let them explain.

Fans can enter the promotion daily through January 6 at www.statefarm.com/NFL2 for their chance to win a trip to Hawaii or one of 35 other great prizes. The 2008 Pro Bowl will be played on February 10 and televised by FOX. The grand prize package includes:

-Round trip air transportation for four to Honolulu Hawaii
-Four tickets to the 2008 NFL Pro Bowl presented by State Farm
-First class hotel accommodations in Honolulu (five days/four nights)
-Meet-and-greet with NFL Hall of Famer, Howie Long
-A $1,000 State Farm VISA gift card

In addition to the five grand prizes, fans have the opportunity to win one of ten first place prizes consisting of an autographed Howie Long football and a $250 nflshop.com gift card. Twenty-five $100 nflshop.com gift cards will also be awarded to second prize winners.

So go sign up. Maybe you'll win. Probably not. But maybe...a "maybe" that could change your life.

Big Picture Categories: Feline-family mascots

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.

If you're talking about sports teams, you'll undoubtedly mention a team whose mascot is from the feline family. Ya know, cats.

Today's category then will be naming all those teams -- let's stick to colleges and the big four pro leagues (yes, the NHL counts) -- whose mascot is from the feline family. There are 800 of these, so don't be shy. We'll start and you guys continue in the comments. You can go again after every five comments. First person to blow it gets a cheetah for a pet.

We'll start with an easy one: Detroit Lions.

All right, folks. Slang some mascot-knowledge in the ol' comments.

Yahoo's 'projected' fantasy points are bullshit

In the land of projections, hypotheticals and unicorns, we are 6-5, hung like Ron Jeremy and have the looks of both Brad Pitt and Denzel.

And our fantasy football team, clearly, wins all the time.

But we don't live in that magical world. Rather we live in an "actual" world, where Willie Parker doesn't score touchdowns and Jeff Reed takes pictures of his penis instead of kicking field goals.

Fantasy Football has pissed us off all season; we see it as a sure-fire way to be in a pissed off mood on Sundays.

But our team is raw. C'mon, look at that team. Indestructible.

Naturally, we were "projected" to win our playoff game because Reggie Wayne was "projected" to go for about 80 yards and a score and Willis McGahee and the hapless Ravens were "projected" to be a professional football team.

We went down in the playoffs; bitterness followed. We were "projected" to win. "Projected" to take home the hot chick with big cans in the halter top from the bar. "Projected" to fall in to piles of money like those kids from Cruel Intentions.

But life isn't about projections. It's about actuality. And our team can go "actually" fuck themselves.

Vote for us...or else

There's this site called Busted Coverage that has a great idea that's terribly executed. They neatly put 64 blogs in an NCAA Tourney-like bracket to duke it out for bragging rights.

Though, rather than go with readership, talent or penis size, they went with Ballhype rankings, which are about the biggest load of shit on the Internet.

Anyway, we're a No. 16 up against FanHouse. We need lots of your help, though we'll totally lose, regardless. But make it more respectable. (Vote for us here). And feel free to leave a comment over at Busted Coverage about how the seedings are bogus.

Because they are. If seeding was done strictly on penis size, we'd be a top seed. We'd probably, somehow, be all four top seeds.

NBA coach drops f-bomb, world stands still

In an effort to get trite quotes from coaches during games, NBA commish David Stern has teamed with TNT and ESPN to mike coaches for certain games. Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was one of those lucky few, and, well, it backfired a bit.

From the Rocky Mountain News via Ben Maller:

During a Wednesday ESPN game, a miked Jerry Sloan used a four-letter word after addressing his team at halftime.

What makes it such a problem is Sloan's speech wasn't live.

"We apologize for the inadvertent expletive during a taped halftime segment Wednesday night during the Utah-Phoenix telecast," ESPN spokesman Mark Mandel said, reading a prepared statement. "It was said quietly, and we missed it."

ESPN and NBA officials have been in communication with the Jazz. NBA spokesman Mark Broussard said it was a "mistake" in that the "approved segment ran two seconds too long."

Ground-breaking stuff.

This post without video is about as meaningless as a porn website without porn, but hey, we like to swear too, so Jerry Sloan is our new favorite coach. YouTube is failing us though, so if you have super powers, send video ASAP!

So yeah, a coach said "fuck." Or "fucking." Either way...

In related news, the sun rises in the east.

Blogger Interviews: Matt Mosley

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 Matt Mosley of ESPN.com's Hashmarks. Mosley's a former newspaper guy, but recently jumped over to the Net and the riches of blogging. Since he's a real journalist, he talks to real people and does real life reporting. So play nice in the comments.

1. The rundown:

Name: Matt Mosley
Age: 34
Location: Dallas
Occupation: Sportswriter
Favorite team: Baylor
Time per day spent blogging and perusing the blogosphere: I spend at least 10 hours a day on the Internet.

2. Take us through a typical day of blogging.

Wake up at 6:30 a.m. and see if I missed anything overnight. Spend a couple of hours reading stories from around the nation. I start with newspaper stories and then try to look at some blogs. Sometimes I'll drive out to Valley Ranch and check in with the Cowboys. Most of the times I take a break from blogging at noon and start making calls. I call scouts, players and coaches. I do a lot of local radio and some national, so I'm having to constantly work around that.

3. Your résumé us loaded. Take us through your career path, starting with early internships, first jobs, etc.

I went to law school after graduating from Baylor. My father's a lawyer and it seemed like the best path. About a year and a half in, I decided to bail. I took a job with a popular local sports radio show in Dallas called The Ticket and started free-lancing for the Dallas Morning News. At first, I covered primarily high school athletics. In 2003, I worked on the Baylor basketball scandal. Just before Carlton Dotson confessed to killing his teammate, he called one of my old professors to let him know. That professor called me, and we had a national scoop the next morning.

I suppose that was my "big break," although it was a tragic story to cover. We won a couple of national awards for our efforts, and soon I was asked to become a Cowboys beat writer for the Dallas Morning News and DallasNews.com. In 2006, I became a columnist and launched a Cowboys blog called "Matt Mosley's Cowboys Blog." The blog had a nice following, and it's probably the reason ESPN.com eventually hired me. It didn't hurt that my old DMN editor John Banks had become the NFL editor at ESPN.com.

4. How'd you hook up with ESPN.com last January? You approach them?They come to you? Was the original agreement that you'd be the NFL blogger, or was it going to be primarily columns at first?

They hired me to blog and write columns. It took us a while to get the blog up and running, so I focused on writing columns for the first two months. ESPN.com approached me in late October and the process lasted until December. Again, they liked the Cowboys Blog and wanted me to do something similar for the entire league.

5. Talk about some similarities and differences between working for a newspaper and working for a major website. Are you edited the same way? Do you have more freedom at the .com?

I have a lot more freedom now. No one has to approve my entries. I have editors who might back read things, but I automatically post my entries. Just like a newspaper, I do have deadlines for most of my columns. With the DMN, I had my own niche. With ESPN.com, it's a lot larger playing field. I loved the newspaper business, but the Internet gives your work a lot more immediacy. And quite frankly, I just feel a lot better about where ESPN.com is headed than I do newspapers.

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

I like a lot of the same blogs I'm sure you guys like. Deadspin is always fun and Kissing Suzy Kolber, The Big Lead and With Leather are all regular stops. I really like what my friend Dan Steinberg has done with the DC Sports Bog. He's an excellent writer and he's funny. My pal Ethan Skolnick does a really nice job with his blog on the Sen-Sentinel Web site. I also love The Bastard Machine, which Tim Goodman does for the San Francisco Chronicle. If you're not on the blogroll, don't read anything in to it. I just haven't done a good job of adding links.

7. The blogroll on Hashmarks has a lot of well-known blogs, but --correct us if we're wrong -- the site doesn't seem to reference or link to that many blogs or non-MSM sites. Any reason for that? Does your background in MSM and not as a blogger (like TrueHoop Henry) influence it?

It's a good question. Quite honestly I need to become a lot more efficient in my research process. The problem with my gig is that I'm asked to express an opinion on pretty much every major story that comes along. Sometimes I couldn't care less about a story. I think I should be issued some free pass. You want me to write my 500th entry on Mike Vick? Nope, I"ll pass.

8. Most rewarding parts of blogging? Most frustrating?

Most rewarding is that you have a constant outlet. Most frustrating is that you have a constant outlet. We just had our first child and the time that a blog requires really dominates my days. It's frustrating when you to try to keep 32 fan bases happy.

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

I think sports blogs could end up making newspapers obsolete. Right now, the good ones do a nice job of posting pics and other features. I would like to be a blogger who continues to break news instead of simply linking to other newsbreakers. There are a lot of great blogs, but not many of them take the time to do original reporting.

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

I'll eventually return to a normal life of writing features and columns when I burn out from blogging, which could happen as soon as Monday.

11. You're having dinner win an NFL coach, NFL player and a super hot babe. Who are they and why?

Cardinals center Al Johnson, Seahawks special teams coach Bruce DeHaven and 49ers offensive line coach George Warhop.

If you want me to name a head coach, I have to go with Mike Holmgren.

Hot babe? Meredith Mosley

(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; Big Daddy Drew; Brian Cook; Awful Announcing; JoeSportsFan).

It's funny because the kid's a hick

Just when you thought 5-year-olds weren't dangerous, think again.

A 5-year-old Arkansas County boy killed a black bear Sunday weighing more than 400 pounds.

Tre Merritt, a descendant of Davy Crockett, was hunting with his grandfather Mike Merritt when a black bear happened upon their stand.

A number of questions arise, but the one we'll focus on is, why was a 5-year-old hunting? Maybe the obvious answer is that he is a descendant of Davy Crockett, who fucking slayed hundreds probably killed some people in the Texas Revolution.

Regardless, wild shit happens in Arkansas. And here's a quote that will likely further current stereotypes of Southerners.

"I was up in the stand and I seen the bear," Tre Merritt said. "It came from the thicket and it was beside the road and I shot it."

What Really Grinds My Gears

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears (named after the segment on Family Guy, of course) is a new feature that will run whenever the fuck we want it to...but usually on a slow news day. It will focus on those pet peeves that, well, really grind your gears. It likely won't be sports-related. Fuck sports. This isn't a sports blog anyway...Oh. Right. Um, yeah, we'll see about making them sports-related. If you have any suggestions -- or would even like to guest write one! -- send your submissions to zachls5@gmail.com or Ballhype us or something Internet-y like that.

You know what really grinds my gears?

People who use their brights on the freeway.

That's fucking stupid. It's like turning on a flashlight in the middle of the day.

Now I'm not talking about one of those deserted highways where if your car breaks down, you'll end up walking to a hotel where you'll be killed, raped or killed then raped. If you use your brights on one of those roads, you're prolonging your life. All the power to you.

I'm talking about the freeway. With lots of fucking cars and lots of street lamps and shit. Then turning on your brights fucking grinds my gears.

I mean, is the douche who's tailgating me trying to get in an accident? I look in the rear view mirror and I'm blinded by his lights. That's bullshit. I don't go up to a coworker and start flashing a light in his eyes. That's for doctors and assholes.

Flashing your brights on the freeway is different. I do that shit all the time. Especially in Seattle where everyone drives like a student driver. I'll come up behind a cockweasel who's doing 55 in the fast lane. I'll flash my brights at him to change lanes so I can continue driving like a person who has a sack. If he moves over, a courteous wave follows; flashing the brights worked. If he doesn't get over, I'll honk as I pass him, take down his license plate number, track him down and kill his fucking dog. (Just kidding. I love dogs. But his cat is fucking toast.)

So don't use your brights on the freeway. There are reflectors, lamps and other cars to illuminate the road just fine. If you keep those lights on, and you hurt my eyes, well, you've officially grinded my gears.

And that, people, is what really grinds my gears.

'Real Men of Genius': Notre Dame Sucks

"BC's got better Christians." Fucking classic!

Happy Birthday, Big Picture!

You hiring?

Happy birthday punks!
Snoochies,
Jenn

Happy Birthday, Big Picture!

My jerkin' hand is covered with rings!

Happy b-day, motherfucker.
Blow me,
Joe Torre

Happy Birthday, Big Picture!

You guys are shallow, chauvinistic and rude.

Happy birthday!
Hugs
EA

Happy Fucking Birthday!

The Big Picture turns two today! Happy Birthday to us!

Two's really a special number. Two arms, two legs, two breasts. We once heard about a porno where a dude had two fully-functionally penises. That could be kind of neat.

So we've officially been at this blogging thing for two years. That's 730 days of our life we've thrown away. Whoa. The fuck are we doing with ourselves?

Thanks for hanging out with us most of that time. The comments, the emails, the links...it means a lot. We certainly don't do this for the money or sex or fame or drugs or sex.

We have some birthday visitors today too, inspired by the hilarious jerkoffs at KSK. Some have already dropped by. Some will be by later today. So check back early and often.

If you have presents in the form of prostitute, ad leads or hookers, drop us a line. Otherwise, let's celebrate! It's our fucking birthday!

Happy Birthday, Big Picture!

I just had an important birthday too!

Happy birthday!
Kisses,
Allison

Happy Birthday, Big Picture!

Thanks for stealing our day, asshole.

Happy birthday!
Best,
Pearl Harbor Day Committee

Happy Birthday, Big Picture!

The pussy up here is to die for!

Happy b-day!
Love,
Barbaro

Heisman Talk

Instead of watching competitive football Saturday, we'll see four guys who play competitive football wearing suits and looking nervous, scanning the room for the guy who snuck in a flask.

For how wide-open this Heisman race is supposed to be, it sure seems that Florida's Tim Te-boner is gonna be the guy.

But should he?

It depends on how you interpret the award. By definition, the Heisman Trophy is awarded to “the outstanding college football player in the United States.” Under that definition, we'd go:

1. Te-boner

2. McFadden

3. Brennan

4. Dorsey

5. Ugh, Daniel?

But what if you interpret the Heisman as the most valuable player? Then, our ballot looks like this:

1. Dixon

2. Brennan

3. Dorsey

4. Daniel

5. Te-Boner

Big difference. Oregon had trouble completing a screen pass once Dixon got hurt. You say that Brennan's a system guy, and we'd tell you to put Brady Leaf in that system and see what happens. Glenn Dorsey showed just how valuable he was when his gimpiness (gimpiness a real word?) caused distress in the Bayou.

Let's play hypotheticals. If you get a vote, who you got? Give your winner (or list) based on both "most outstanding" and "most valuable" players.

Troy Smith, who gets a vote, is going with Dixon. Yeah. Fuck Te-boner. Though he's totally gonna win.

Yi Jianlian likes steak

Ni hao. (Nee-ha-ow). It's me again.

Things I like: steak, the Michigan Lake, analogies, cashmere, slang, sitcoms, Mrs. Dash, hiking boots, NBA, iambic pentameter, E!, Cherry Garcia.

Things I don't like: preservatives, the Eerie Lake, slam poetry, The Hills, serrated knives, Reese Witherspoon, Nutter Butter, jealousy.

I also like fitting in. And I'm really starting to fit in, on and off the court in Milwaukee. I'm adjusting well.

I joke around with my teammates, I practice hard and I know that "fuck" is a noun and a verb. I though Chinese was a difficult language, but boy is English sure tough.

I'm doing OK on the court too. I score some points, make some rebounds and fuck the other team's player, which makes them shoot free throws. My coach is telling me to not fuck so much, especially late in the game.

My "basketball" English is improving fast too. I know that Marbury is 非常疯狂. Look that up. I also know pick and roll. I do both!

I also like sarcasm. And Tiramisu.

Big Picture Categories: Athletes with legal problems

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.

Pretty much the third thing that came to mind when watching the Pats-Ravens game Monday was, "seems like half of the Ravens' D has had a run-in with the law." (The first two things that came to mind were "this is a surprisingly good game," and "those all-black unis are fucking raw!"

Today's category then will be naming all those notorious athletes who have had legal problems. Going to jail or court isn't even a prerequisite. Any run-in with the law counts. We'll start and you guys continue in the comments. You can go again after every five comments. First person to blow it has to come across Ray Lewis in a dark alley.

We'll start with one of those that never saw jail time: Ray Lewis (obstruction of justice after avoiding murder charges).

All right, folks. Help make the all-criminal team in the comments.

Mike Lowell's jock not appropriate for eBay

Because the undergarments of Major Leaguers is newsworthy...From the Boston Herald (Boston Herald?) via Ben Maller:

Red Sox captain Jason Varitek's game-used spandex undies sold for $255 on eBay the other day, but the cyber auction site couldn't support the sale of World Series MVP Mike Lowell's jock.

SportsWorld memorabilia man Phil Castinetti said eBay yanked Mike's well-used athletic supporter -- with his number on it -- from the site the other day, saying it was "adult-oriented" material.

Other things that eBay considers "adult-oriented" material: Pornography, Grape-Nuts and Brave New World.

Meanwhile, if you want a crash course in how not to get hired by a newspaper, click that Boston Herald link above. Really quality stuff.

College football is bowl of mayhem

Photos courtesy of Big Ten Poon and SEC Poon.

Get ready for six weeks of hearing how Ohio State will deal with LSU's speed. Or how Les Miles isn't going to Michigan. Or how Bo Pelini is going to Nebraska. Or how Jim Tressel once touched a choir boy.

The BCS games are set, there will be other bowl games too, and we won't have D-1 football for about three weeks, when Utah takes on Navy in the San Diego County Credit Union Bukakke Muff-Divers Poinsettia Bowl.

With all the mess that occurred Saturday evening, there weren't too many surprises during Sunday's selection show. It is what it is, and what it is is apathy. One game matters, the other BCS games aren't terribly appetizing and it's now time for college hoops, NBA action and meaningful NFL games.

For a full list of bowl match ups, click here.

BCS Got it Right (?)

Do we think Ohio State and LSU are the two best teams? No way. (We're still convinced Florida would win a tournament, if such a thing existed in a world where raindrops were strippers and strippers were made of gold).

But the BCS, evaluating records, schedules, conferences, etc. made the right call. Oklahoma's the only team who might have a gripe and they played in the far inferior Big XII. Sure, the Sooners beat Mizzou twice, but that's a Tigers team that beat, ugh, Kansas?

Who got jobbed?

Arizona State and Missouri are the biggest losers. ASU is a two-loss team from what was considered the second best conference. Nobody really thinks the Sun Devils are all that good, but that same argument goes for Kansas and Hawaii.

Missouri controlled its own destiny and destiny blue-balled them. Essentially playing in the Big XII Championship cost the Tigers a BCS berth.

Tradition is Bullshit

We like Illinois. Juice Williams is a fucking p-i-m-p. And anyone, in this day and age, who goes by Juice has some serious balls. (Or is unaware that O.J. Simpson killed somebody and stole some shit). We respect that. And Ron Zook gets points in our book for his gutsy calls against Ohio State.

But three losses in a weak Big 10 should get you a trip to the Citrus Bowl. Going 9-3 is usually good for a Citrus Bowl trip, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. The Citrus Bowl is like cubic zirconium to the BCS' diamond. (That's a good thing, we think).

But the Illini have no right to be in the Rose Bowl. Oh, Pac-10 vs. Big 10 tradition? Fuck that. Tradition went out the door when the BCS starting rotating the championship game between the four major bowls. Arizona State, with one less loss, in a much better conference, should be furious.

Virginia Tech, Anyone?

Any voter in their right mind put LSU ahead of the Hokies on their ballot because the Tigers mauled Tech earlier in the year, 48-7.

But if this was just any other week, VA Teach would have still been ranked higher in the human polls than LSU. The Hokies won the ACC Championship game against a good team and would naturally move up -- or at least not get hopped by LSU, which did not win decisively.

Not sure if this really means anything, but perhaps voters should have kept LSU ahead of the Hokies in every poll after LSU's 48-7 win.

Strength of Schedule Means Nothing

Northern Colorado, Charleston Southern, Youngstown State, Akron, Southeast Louisiana, Florida International.

Those are six teams that were beaten by Hawaii, Ohio State and Kansas, respectively. Shows the insignificance of strength of schedule this season. Play cupcakes, go to BCS bowl. Pretty simple.

Put Hawaii or KU in the SEC, they might -- might -- be bowl eligible. Ohio State would probably lose two to three games.

BCS Games You Should Not Skip in Favor of Hour-Long Masturbation Session

Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma vs. West Virginia
BCS Championship: Ohio State vs. LSU

BCS Game You Should Skip in Favor of Hour-Long Masturbation Session

Orange: Virginia Tech vs. Kansas

Best Non-BCS Games

Holiday Bowl: Texas vs. Arizona State
Citrus Bowl (Capital One can shove their $500 limit up their asses): Michigan vs. Florida

Enjoy the games, folks. It's been a fun season. Crazier than Lindsay Lohan on uppers.