Bowl Pick ‘Em: Dénouement

With Bama’s drubbing of Notre Dame in the National Championship, the inaugural (Or did we have one last year?  You tell me.  Seriously, tell me.) ALDLAND Bowl Pick ‘Em Challenge is over.  I promised I would write a post about the winner, and so here I am, writing something again for the first time in what seems like forever.  The actual winner was blog founder AD, who is widely believed to have cheated to win.  Just kidding, I don’t want to tag him with that kind of label because it might one day adversely affect his candidacy for the Bowl Pick ‘Em Hall of Fame.  Since you know everything there is to know about AD already (quick recap: is a brony, believes he has a pen pal in Burkina Faso, although in reality it is just Chris Cunico humoring him, favorite athlete of all time is Bobby Higginson) I am going to write about the runner up DRTAZ 1.

DRTAZ 1 is an interesting guy . . . or girl.  The reality is that we don’t know anything about him . . . or her.  An APB was put out on the tweet yesterday which received no response, so I am just going to make stuff up, much like I just did about AD (or did I?).  DRTAZ 1’s name derives from his or her favorite Looney Toons character of all time, the Tasmanian Devil.  Interestingly enough, DRTAZ 1 hates Dizzy Devil, the Tasmanian Devil analogue from Tiny Toon Adventures as he or she thinks that Dizzy Devil destroys the integrity of the Tasmanian Devil.  Let’s be real, DRTAZ 1 is totally right about Tiny Toons.  That show suuuuuuuuuuuucked.  It was all about Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, am I right?  Anyway, DRTAZ 1 can often be seen wearing gear with the Tasmanian Devil on it and has many Taz stuffed animals lying around the house.

Now, you might have heard “stuffed animals” and said, “I know who DRTAZ 1 is: popular podcast humor fodder, Bad Jeremy!”  I can confirm that Bad Jeremy is not DRTAZ 1, because he knows absolutely nothing about college football.  Furthermore, he is not allowed to use the internet so he couldn’t fill out a bowl pick ‘em entry.  He is also not a doctor, which DRTAZ 1 obviously is.  DRTAZ 1 graduated at the top of his or her class from the University of Miami’s medical school, where he or she was best friends with Marvelous of 7th Floor Crew fame.  After graduation DRTAZ 1 decided that he or she did not want to practice medicine and instead embarked on a career making art using those little plastic things you put on a peg board and then iron so that they make a shape.  Contrary to what you might think, DRTAZ 1’s favorite subject for little plastic thing art is not in fact the Tazmanian Devil, rather it is the Busby series of video games.

I don’t have much to say about DRTAZ 1’s entry.  It’s linked above, so you can check it out for yourself.  He or she simply picked better than everyone except AD.  As such, he or she is entitled to a receipt signed by AD as well as a signed Andy Brink head shot.

Mid-week oral history jam

Forty-five years ago today, Stax released Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay,” a recording Redding never heard due to his death in a plan crash less than a month before the hit’s release and just eighteen days after the recording session. The Wall Street Journal has an oral history of the recording of the song.

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Previously
Up in smoke: Duck Dunn, dead at 70

Related
Time to retire #27?

What team would you rather have seen play Alabama last night?

I think we can safely say that Notre Dame wasn’t up to the task of competing for a college football national championship. The game was by some accounts “boring” and others “hilariously disastrous.” People tend to like to see these championship games be competitive affairs. What team other than the Irish do you wish played Alabama last night? 

Another question: Do or should any AP voters vote Ohio State #1?

The most essential national championship preview

If there’s one outcome-determinative piece of information I can give you in advance of tonight’s college football national championship game between #1 Notre Dame and #2 Alabama, it would be this: Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron brought along thirty pairs of shoes for the occasion. Everything else you’ll read is nonessential.

That said, I’ll add my prediction, which is Continue reading

ALDLAND Podcast

So the holidays are over.  The BCS games were mostly boring.  The NFL wild card games were also mostly boring.  You are probably sitting around pondering if life is even worth it any more.  Don’t fear, loyal listener(s), it is.  There’s a new ALDLAND podcast for you to listen to in which we discuss all that boring stuff and make sense of it.  As the great philosopher John L. Smith once said, “SMILE!”

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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:

This is what is right with Grantland

Earlier, Brendan told you what’s wrong with Grantland, and I can’t sit here and say that the world needs 3,100 words on a made up basketball statistic modeled after the play of Kobe Bryant.

I’ve already outlined my thoughts about the site in general, and nothing has happened since then to make me want to walk away from my generally positive view of the site

No sooner had Brendan fired his shot across Grantland’s bow, though, than I saw a post from Grantland’s newest writer and my favorite comedian, Norm Macdonald, about how he made a New Year’s resolution to resume his crippling sports gambling habit. Norm Macdonald is what is right with Grantland, and Grantland has never been more right.

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Previously
This is what is wrong with Grantland

Related
Writing about writing about writing: Grantland
1500 words to say that Conan never was that funny and he isn’t getting funnier and TBS doesn’t seem to care
Norm Macdonald’s 2013 PGA Year in Preview

This is what is wrong with Grantland

I was reading a recap of Michigan’s curb stomping of Northworstern last week and they mentioned what is called a “Kobe assist”.  So I thought that term sounded funny and googled it and the first result was a Grantland article on the subject.  More precisely a 3,100 word Grantland article on the subject.  I got like a paragraph in and lost interest.  No one needs a 3,100 word article on whatever a Kobe assist is.  That is why ALDLAND will always be the best “land,” other than of course Super Mario Land.

ESPN’s “Sources,” explained

It’s hard for the average sports fan to get worked up about the squabbles inside the sports media world. If you have ever wondered what’s going on with all of ESPN’s “Sources,” though, we finally have a substantive, authoritative development on that issue, courtesy of Steve Peresman, the news editor and coordinating producer of ESPN Los Angeles, via some forceful prodding by Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer and Dan Patrick Show producer Paul Pabst. If this is the sort of thing that interests you, Awful Announcing sets up the whole exchange here. (Take special note of what they call “a nuanced point, but a significant one.” I’d also say it’s the main point, the central theme to this everlasting spoof.)