Todd Marinovich: Ugly Mofo

RANDOM SHIT: Heavy metal lolcats

Oh hey, actual website update. Just in case you had too much of a life to know, there's this big thing sweeping the internet, where people paste goofy text over goofy pictures of cats, and it's really hilarious, but probably shouldn't be. But what's the one kind of photo that's more hilarious than a photo of an adorable cat in a goofy pose? Why, that would be photos of a heavy metal dude in a goofy pose, of course:

Click here to see the rest.

Chicago Bears PRESEASONSEASONPREVIEW Part Four - Receivers/Tight Ends

Things have gotten pretty interesting here in the off season. The big news that everyone's freaking out over is that Devin Hester, possibly the most terrifying force of touchdown-at-any-second fury in the National Football League, has made the switch from terrible cornerback to promising wide receiver/running back hybrid, in addition to his kick returning duties. He's got a ways to go before they start thinking about making him an every-down player or anything like that, but he'll be valuable, in that any time he's on the field, the opposing defenses will absolutely shit their pants. Look for a lot of fake reverses, followed by real reverses, followed by defensive players breaking their own ankles.

Meanwhile, the starters for now should still be veteran team leader guy Muhsin Muhammad and last year's big home run threat Bernard Berrian. Moose is old and slow now, he's still a pretty good possession receiver and, depending on who you ask, second only to maybe Hines Ward as far as blocking WR's in the NFL are concerned. Berrian is one of those super-fast deep threats the Bears have loaded up on lately, and had a nice 2006 season, but has had injury problems.

And speaking of injury problems, 2005 second rounder Mark Bradley is back healthy for a change and seems to be everybody's pick for this year's breakout superdudperstar guy. Makes sense, as seemingly every time he's played in an entire game, he's played like a Pro Bowler, but on the other hand, he seems to get injured every time he does something like that. Rashied Davis continues his semi-successful Arena League to NFL journey, returning as the slot guy/backup kick returner, but from there things get interesting.

Basically, there's one more wide receiver spot open, and seemingly a thousand guys going for it. A couple of guys have already blown it, with former AFL guy Timon Marshall and this other guy called Brandon Rideau that I never really saw do anything getting cut literally a few hours before I typed this. There's also Drisan James, a guy who seems to blow it by making one really dumb play in every preseason game my non-cable-having ass has to listen to over the internet, and he's treading water at best. And then, there are the two slow white guys. It's kind of a strange thing about Bears fans having such a soft spot for white guys whose 40 times can be measured with a sundial. I mean, Tom Waddle was great and all, but there's been no one else of note in like the last hundred years that have passed since Harlon Hill drank himself out of the league. But somehow, I can still remember this dude Glen Kozlowski getting a lot of love, despite the fact that he pretty much made no meaningful contributions to the team at all, and a lot of his teammates supposedly hated him for being a scab player during the '87 strike year. But oh yeah, back to 2007. The battle for the last spot and Snail-like Whiteboy Supremacy seems to be between undrafted free agent David Ball and last year's free-agent pickup Mike Hass, who came over from the Saints after having his roster spot taken by some seventh-round scrub named Colston. Ball had some crazy college stats, even breaking some of Jerry Rice's old tiny-college records, and at one point, some of the people on the official Bears message board were already penciling him in as the starter over Muhammad, (whaaaaat?) but in reality, he's just a slow whiteboy who has about as much of a chance of making the 53-man roster as I do becoming the new singer for Kool and the Gang. At this point, barring injury or arrest of bizarre circumstances, the last spot belongs to Hass, (and for the record, that rhymes with "ass," and doesn't sound like "Hoss," as previously thought) who has made a habit of making crazy-ass, Waddle-sized catches and contributing a few special teams tackles, which is a big deal for a guy trying to claw his way onto a team.
Overall, I figure things will remain about the same for Moose and Berrian, Devin Hester will confound and befuddle defenses with his glory, and Mark Bradley will have like one six-thousand yard game before rupturing his eyeball or something else season-ending.

Oh damn. That about sums up the tight end situation. First, there's Desmond Clark, who was like the absolute unsung key to the passing game last year, in that when defenses let him get open, Rex would throw for a million yards and cure cancer on every other play. But when the defense managed to keep him covered, those were the games where Rex Grossman fumbled every snap and gave everyone in the stadium AIDS. Like I don't know how, but he seriously gave like 300,000 people AIDS last year. That's how bad he was. But yeah, Desmond Clark is really good. But now, there's Greg Olsen, too. And he's nowhere near the blocker that Clark is, but he's potentially one of those crazy Antonio Gates Style unstoppable super tight ends that have been popping up in the last few years that are a lot like wide receivers, except they're like 6'5" and 250 pounds. So basically, look for the Bears to use a lot of two tight end sets this year and just completely be awesome and great and stuff. The smart money is on John "two catches all year, both for touchdowns" Gilmore returning as the third guy, unless Fontel Mines does something spectacular this week.

Personal Injury Blog # 34678

My fingernails had gotten to the point where they were actually grossing me out, so I began the usual exhaustive search of the premises for my fingernail clippers. And while I was on my hands and knees, looking under the desk with a flashlight, I felt something that did not feel like a good thing, and quickly looked at the general vicinity of my elbow. And there was a thumbtack in there, to the point where it was actually flush with my arm. Ow. Like I'm pretty sure it was all up in my skeleton bones. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. Came out bizarrely easily, though. But still; ow.

I sure hope I don't die.

Chicago Bears PRESEASONSEASONPREVIEW Part Three - Running Backs

The biggest change here is that Thomas Jones, the guy who came within a hundred yards in 2004 of three straight 1,000 yards seasons and seemed to be the only guy on offense who realized that Super Bowl XLI was actually being played that day, is gone to the New York Jets. There was absolutely no good reason to get rid of him, so they went with the bad reason that Cedric "Hey, that's my TV!" Benson was being paid way too much to be a backup or change-of-pace guy. He showed some flashes last year, really turned it on later in the season, and has one thing over Jones in that he will actually hit a hole, rather than dance around and get dropped for a loss half the time, but if the guy couldn't consistently stay healthy while getting the ball eight times a game, I don't think he'll be able to keep himself together for sixteen games while getting it 20-25 times a game. Add in fumbling issues, off-the-field behavior that hasn't endeared himself to his teammates, and some really shitty showings in training camp and preseason so far, and this could potentially be a disaster. And I think the coaching staff knows this, or they wouldn't have tried to sign Titans RB Chris Brown a little while back, and they wouldn't still be thinking about bringing a veteran in. Cedric Benson has the ability to be a top running back in the NFL, but so does Ron Dayne, and he hasn't done anything, either.

Behind him, the number two guy is Adrian Peterson (the Georgia Southern one, not the Oklahoma one) who is an odd case, in that he's so good at special teams that the coaches actually want to keep him away from the offense, so he'll stay fresh for kick coverage units. Normally, special teams is where players go who aren't good enough to contribute on offense if they want to make a team, but in Peterson's case, he IS good enough to contribute on offense - after Jones and Benson went down in '05, he came in and pretty much whooped ass - but is so insanely ridiculous on special teams that they only want him playing there. Talk about a Catch 22. So the deal here is that he'll probably only see time at running back if Benson gets injured, and the change-of-pace guy will likely be third-round draft pick Garrett Wolfe. He's a shifty little lightning-quick dude with the hands of a wide receiver, which means he'll probably see a lot of action on third-and-long situations, but he's one of the smallest players in the league (5'7", 186 lbs.) and probably wouldn't be able to take the physical pounding of being in the game much more than that. Then again, he did lead the NCAA in rushing yardage last year, so you never know. A wild card here is undrafted free agent Josh Allen, who's coming off a superdestructive knee injury that almost ended his college career before he could really even consider going pro, but has supposedly looked really good in camp. With Peterson being the special teams ace and Wolfe being Smurf-sized, he might actually make the roster as a fourth running back, if he can keep it up over the course of the preseason, as long as the Bears don't decide to bring someone else in.

At fullback, the big change is that for the first time in a while, Bryan Johnson won't be listed on the injured reserve list, as they were finally able to get rid of him. He was supposed to be a major addition to the team a few years ago, but seemed to stay hurt the whole time, and ended up going down in Bears history as more of a Merrill Hoge or a Craig Heyward than as a Brad Muster or Matt Suhey. Bummer. So Jason McKie returns as the starter, and I guess he's competent enough, but he's not exactly a threat to make the Pro Bowl any time soon. He'll catch a few passes here and there, but mostly, he just blocks. Or at least he tries. This year's backup is veteran Obafemi Ayanbadejo, who pretty much got talked into signing with the team by his brother Brendon. He's not much of a contributor as a fullback, but he's yet another major special teams guy, like Adrian Peterson or the previously mentioned Ayanbadejo brother. He's also suspended for four games for pulling a Jim Miller and not reading the vitamin bottle carefully before swallowing the shit. J.D. Runnels is still on the team, but after screwing his knee all up in minicamp, he'll be on injured reserve. His whole career has been a bummer so far, as this follows 2006, where he followed up a career of smashing people's faces as a blocking back at Oklahoma by spending the entire year deactivated, until McKie went down with an injury, when he served as the backup for backup tight end Gabe Reid, who got the starting nod instead. Ouch. Hopefully 2008 will suck less. Also, they apparently picked up Quadtrine Hill from the Patriots like five minutes ago, and I know nothing about him, aside from him having a really weird first name. I'm sure he's a nice enough guy. Hell, I dunno. and there's this other Jon Goldsberry dude I know nothing about, and him and Hill will be locked in an eternal preseason death struggle to see who gets to not play for four games while Ayanbadejo is out. It's clearly a preseason struggle that the entire season may be riding on.

Next: RECEIVERS

Chicago Bears PRESEASONSEASONPREVIEW Part Two - Quarterbacks

Rex Grossman. Rex Grossman could be the one thing that runs the train off the tracks this year. How do I know this? Because that's exactly what he did last year. Think of it this way. The Bears lost the Super Bowl by twelve points. Seven came directly from the arm of Rex, in the form of a pass thrown directly into the air to no one at all, that got returned for a touchdown. So right there, the Bears lose by five. They were within five with absolutely no offense, outside of the running game. So if they had a competent QB in there instead of the Sex Cannon, they probably would have scored another TD or two and won the game. You can point at as many things as you want to, but there's no denying that with a real NFL quarterback in there, the Bears chances of winning at least double. And the most sickening part of all of this is just how much he regressed over the course of the season. He went from potential NFL MVP in September to the subject of Matt Millen-esque "he must have some crazy blackmail photos to have not been benched by now" rumors by December. And while I guess technically, it was his first full year as a starter, and Rex apologists love pointing that out, but the dude was not a rookie. He's started games before. Playoff games even. And he's played football presumably since junior high. He is like a ten year veteran of dudes telling him and showing him how to play football. He should know by now that the answer to the blitz is not to close your eyes and throw the ball into the air at a 90-degree angle. They can say all they want about how much time he's spent watching film and working on his fundamentals or whatever, but I'm starting to worry that the guy just can't be fixed. The Bears haven't had a real franchise QB since Sid Freaking Luckman over 50 years ago, and I don't see that changing any time soon. (Yeah, I love Jim McMahon like everyone should, but the dude stayed hurt and never was really that good. Sorry.)

Behind him, there could be a shakeup here, as Brian Griese has looked horrible in training camp, and Kyle Orton has looked really, really good. Don't be surprised if Orton movies up to number two, and with the money they're paying Griese, he could be gone by the start of the season if he falls to third on the depth chart. If that happens, they'll probably go sign someone else to be the third-string guy, as the only other quarterback in camp is undrafted free agent pickup Chris Leak, a "but he was good in college" Florida guy in the vein of Shane Matthews and... Rex Grossman... who has looked pretty awful so far. He doesn't stand a Chinaman's chance in hell of making the team, unless hella-dudes get injured.
In a just world, Orton would be the starter, since a game-manager type QB who won't do anything flashy, but is guaranteed to not absolutely shit the bed and roll in it, would be a huge improvement over the Grossman roller coaster. Well, 2007 is Rex's contract year, and if he's actually good this season, they probably won't be willing to pay him more money anyway, so that might be the plan for 2008.

Next: RUNNING BACKS

Chicago Bears PRESEASONSEASONPREVIEW Part One - Intro

So last year, the Bears didn't suck. It was INSANE. The defense was crazy, and the offense had wide receivers and quarterbacks and stuff, and it was great. Well, then Mike Brown and Tommie Harris got hurt, Rex Grossman remembered that he's retarded, and stuff kind of fell apart. But the Bears were in the NFC, so they still finished 13-3 and lost what was possibly the most maddeningly boring Super Bowl of all time, which mainly consisted of Peyton Manning throwing an endless stream of four-yard passes that no one ever thought maybe to cover, interspersed briefly with Rex Grossman's ability as a football player having a public meltdown that ranked up there with the scene in Swingers where Jon Favreau leaves that one chick like a hundred answering machine messages and Henry Burris's NFL playing career. And then, in the offseason, things fell apart further. The McCaskey family's policy of pinching pennies until Abe Lincoln screamed ended up costing them a few major members of the coaching staff, mainly defensive coordinator Ron Rivera, and threatened to make Lovie Smith (then the NFL's lowest-paid head coach) just throw out one of those "eh, screw you guys, 16 more games and I'm gone" years like Bill Cowher had in Pittsburgh last year. Then, they traded offensive MVP Thomas Jones to the Jets along with their second round draft pick, just to move up a few spots in the second round. Then, the Tank Johnson situation blew up and he got suspended for 6-8 games, followed by thinking "zero-tolerance policy" meant, "listen, brother, it's cool, just so long as you stay under the legal limit when you drink and drive at three in the morning," and getting released. Then, Pro Bowl linebacker Lance Briggs got so pissed at the suggestion that he'd get stuck with a Franchise Player designation instead of a long-term contract that he actually publicly stated that he would never play another game in Chicago, and that he'd hold out all year if he had to. Then, defensive end Alex Brown demanded to be traded. But eventually, everything worked out. Lovie Smith got a new contract worth a ton of money. The second round pick they got for Thomas Jones eventually turned into second and third round picks in 2007 and third and fifth round picks in 2008, thanks to the Chargers reeeeally wanting Eric Weddle. Tank Johnson ended up getting replaced by Darwin Walker, a better player who doesn't miss games to do time. Lance Briggs decided to settle for a measly guaranteed seven million for one season and signed his Franchise contract. And Alex Brown... Well, he still wants to be traded, but at least he's being cool about it. Add in the way the Bears were the first team to sign all their draft picks, and things are definitely looking up in 2007. Well, there is one thing that could screw it all up...

Next: QUARTERBACKS

Today's learning odyssey

The finer points of making sizzurp, from the faqs.org community. Some of the finer points of wisdom contained within:

"I CAN TELL YOU BOYS AIN'T FROM H-TOWN, YA'LLAIN'T GOT NO IDEA WHAT YOUR TALKIN' BOUT. BOTTOM LINE: SYRUP---PROMETHYZINE W/ CODEINE POUR IT IN A SODA OF YOUR CHOICE AND SIP IT. THAT DXM SIPPIN AND ALL THAT IS FLAT OUT WRONG. YA'LLBE SENDIN' BOYS TO THE TOILET WIT' THAT SH*T... DON'T DO IT, GET THA' REAL DEAL... YOU COME TO THA' H WIT' NYQUIL, OR TUSSIN' YOU GONNA GET SLAPPED IN THA' HEAD REAL QUICK. JP"

"YO MUDA WACKAAS THI IS FIVE HW-E YA STILLA INT FIND ME THIS IS THE LAST CHANCE TO GET THE REAL DEAL DOAC_ONE ON DA HOUSE DIRTY SOUTH RYDAS THE ALBUM LISTEN TO THIS ALL YA LI L HOE ASS NI66A5 & MAY YA CAN GET SOME OF THE SOUTHSIDE INTOXICATION YA HEARD!! REAL DEAL REAL PEOPLE ITS THE DIRTY SOUTH"

"yall boyz wild it dont matta how much u pt as long as u can handle it but u betta eat b4 u sip or u gonna be throwin up purple yellow green red clear or orange it dont matta stay sippin 04"

"Yo mah jiggahs, y'all bust jaspy! Take it from a man who know the REAL sizzurp. Dr. P, Jolly Ree, Prometh/Codein, shaved ice -- if you gots a Snoopy Sno Cone, that make it jess right. Drank up you be leanin squareback! PREAKNESS YO!"

"Shiiiiit I drank syrup like water foooool"

And so on and so forth.

Had to use the card

But I have a new battery now. It takes less than a second to crank the car now, as opposed to the five minutes it took before. And I have hella cold cranking amps now. Like seven billion cold cranking amps.

Is this thing on?

Testing some stuff.

UPDATE: Hmm. Blog stuff is on the home server now, instead of blogspot.com, but archive pages for June and July are nowhere to be found. Uh oh.

RE-EDIT: Fixed~!

RE-RE-RE-RE EDIT: Huh. The other two blogs can only be set to upload to websurfnicaragua.com if I get rid of all the extra little crap Blogger lets you put on there. Guess those'll remain external.

The date on the spinach can had kind of rubbed off

I'm pretty sure it said April 2009.

But if I die tonight, it said April 2005.

Current status

Went to the gym last night - Back down to 210, which is pretty good, considering I've been eating nothing but crap lately. Also, on the bench machine thingy, got 255 up five times, and started feeling all huge. Then, I looked across the room and saw some dude doing many more reps of 315, and suddenly felt much less huge. And I'm not sure what's been going on in Norman, Oklahoma, but on the way home, the freaking ghetto bird was flying around. Huh.

This morning, a random neighbor showed up asking to borrow my plunger. It really sucked, because my plunger broke the other day, and that's totally something you tell a guy when you just don't want to deal with him, rather than actually having a broken plunger. I need to get a new plunger-head tomorrow.

Also, realizing that my stupid football card addiction was costing too much money, I've decided to stop buying so much stuff and start trading with other addicts online. So far, I've done two, getting a pretty cool Muhsin Muhammad for a relatively equally cool Vince Young a couple months ago, and tomorrow, I'm mailing off a package of stuff that includes such luminaries as Brodrick Bunkley and Brandon Lloyd to a dude trying to put together a set who's supposed to be sending me three $8 Walter Paytons and a $10 Brian Urlacher in exchange. Pretty nice. The Moose-for-Young trade was probably a pretty dumb move, book-value wise, since the Vince can go nowhere but up and the Moose can go nowhere but down, but hey, I traded a Vince Young card that there are probably thousands of with a little piece of a jersey that wasn't used in an actual game for a Muhsin Muhamad serial numbered out of fifty with a piece of an actual game-used jersey that's as big as my head. Works for me.

Also, here is this:

So I just got a credit card

Yeah, finally did it. Did okay, too, with a $2,000 limit, a 9.9% APR, and no interest until February. Basically, it's my sinister plan to pay this computer off at 0.0 percent interest, instead of the 29.9 that I'm paying now, because Dell were the only people on Earth to give me credit previously. Aside from that, I'm not really planning on ever using it, aside from maybe being the "oh crap, terrorists just slashed my tires and stole my battery" emergency fund. Well, that, and like maybe some huge plasma TVs, plane tickets to foreign lands, and one of those big diamond grills for my teeth.
Actually, I'm just joking about the TVs, plane trips, and grills.

OR AM I!?

Seriously, though, I'm kind of glad I never had a credit card when I had my old, rapidly deteriorating 280Z. Because I'd still be driving around in my wonderful car, but I'd probably be about $20 grand in debt by now, with about five-thousand of that going toward burned out alternators alone.