A Debate Worth Coming Back For

It’s been a busy past several months for me, so the blog has obviously suffered. I’ve been working a full time job, raising a family, and also spending pretty much every waking moment building a house for said family to live in, so there hasn’t been a whole lotta free time.
Thanks to our family’s most recent bout witht the stomache flu, I have a little time off. Also thanks to the flu, I’ve come up with a new debate. And since the house is almost finished, the mind numbingly stupid musings should start to appear more and more frquently around these parts.
So lets begin.
Is there a difference between spitting up, and vomitting?
Now, when you include babies into this debate, you will quickly see two sides form.
One side being Mothers, the other every other person on the planet.
Don’t get me wrong, when you find yourself cleaning it up a dozen times a day, it makes you feel slightly better about your place in life to consider it spit-up, and not puke, but even that only gets you so far.
Obviously a mother will always say her baby has “spit-up” any time something is projected from the childs mouth. However, this logic no matter how good hearted it is in nature has some major flaws, which I plan to address in full.
First, low long does it have to be down before it moves from “spit-up” to full-on puke?
Nobody has ever given me a clear time frame for the ammount of time the food has to be down, and I don’t accept gray areas as anythign to base anything off of. Even if it is only down for less than a minute, and comes out with a burp, and not a violent heaving that adults experience, it is no different than puke. Young children have almost no development in what we call the “core muscles”. Try to make a baby do sit-ups, they can’t. So if there are no abdominal muscles, there isn’t going to be excessive heaving like what a sorority slut will have after an entire box of wine.
So that little feature of the spit-up debate has been shot down, lets tackle the time frame  dillema. A baby “spitting-up” breast milk/formula after less than a minute is still puke. Why?
Well, in my younger days, I would from time to time use a neat little contraption called a beer bong.
It’s very refreshing, a great way to streamline the nurishment that comes with drinking beer, and it simply gets you really drunk, really fast. From time to time, I would puke within seconds of bonging, or shotgunning a beer. I dare someone to watch a college kid bong a beer then immediately puke, and still call it “spit-up”.
Based on this, there is no set time limit for how long the food/liquid needs to be down before it switches from “spit-up” to puke, the time frame myth has now been debunked.
One down.
Another issue mothers seem to grasp to is that babies only eat one thing mostly. Either breast milk, or formula (or in SEC country Mt Dew.).
This one is also very easy to shoot down.
Lets say I have a lot to do, and don’t take time to eat anything, before taking some time to relax. I enjoy drinking scotch, as well as bourbon.
If I decied to have a little to much of either Scotch or Bourbon, with nothing else in my stomache, it’s no stretch to say that I am going to puke, which happens to the best of us. So if I drink nothing but Makers Mark on the rocks until I puke, and you use the same logic mothers use with babies only having milk=spitting up, did I puke, or do I fit into the magical “spitting-up” column?
I’m going to go ahead and cross that one off as well.
So lets take on the “it comes up when they burp” legend.
So simple to shoot this one down. Spend some time with a raging drunk, and this one is shot down in no time.
Make someone who is blind-stinking-drunk play a hand or two of cards, or something where they can’t get up to sober up, and keep them drinking. In almost no time at all, they will try to burp, and a huge mess ensues.
Now, if you see this happen, and say that this person has “spit-up”, you’ve got a major problem, and need help.
I realize it’s a parenting instinct to say “spit-up” when our children puke, but lets be honest, puke is puke.
If we are waiting for a baby to toss up half chewed french fries and Bud light before we call it puke, we’re only kidding ourselves.
There is no ammountof time it needs to be down, no determining make-up of what comes out, nor is there a method in which it comes flying out to make it anything but puke.
No matter how cute the kid is, or how often they do it, it can be summed up as simple as this.
If food/liquid/bodily-fluid comes flying out the way it came in, then it is puke.
Plain, and simple.

Once again,

So we have ourself another crossroad, where a seemingly meaningless event in sports meets a chance for me to have a cool head.
And yet again, I will keep a cool head about the Reds losing two of three to St. Louis, and the events of Friday night, and the actions of Tony Larusa, who is obviously the greatest baseball mind in history. Just ask him.
Now, LaRusa did not invent baseball, he did however point out a few key changes to help Abner Doubleday way back when.
Since then, he has no doubt been the most important thing to ever happen to not just baseball, but all of sports.
So maybe he from time to time gets drunk, and passes out while stopped at traffic lights. And from time to time he turns a blind eye to half his team blatantly abusing performance enhancing drugs, and risking their live’s to make the team better, and yes, he also turns around and hires some of them as assistant coaches, and he portrays an air of arrogance that is contagious and leads to his entire team acting like they are above the game, and coming off like spoiled bitches, but he’s a good guy.
Vaginier Molina, is also an amazing man. Clearly the greatest catcher in history. I love this guy, and would never want to see him mauled by homosexual Panda Bears.
Chris Carpenter is also a stand up fella. Never does he chirp at umpires and opposing teams, and I doubt there is any player alive that would want to see anything bad happen to him.
I also feel the same love for St. Louis Cardinals fans. I do not think they are hillbillies, inbred’s or jack-asses, who have a false sense of superiority about their historically mediocre team. I in no way root for tornado’s to rip through their various trailer parks, and Ozark mountain shanty towns.
That should do for now, I have to run down to the bar to help coach Larusa find his car.

Guess Who Sucks At Baseball?

I’ve came to the conclusion, that the answer to this question is the Cincinnati Reds.
They suck at Pitching, except 2 out of every 3 Arroyo starts, they suck at Baserunning, and right now, they really suck at hitting.
They are in a span of games against the worst teams in all of the National league (they can’t play themselves). Pittsburgh, San Diego, Arizona, and Arizona again. What do they have to show for it?
Maybe 3 wins.
Jay Bruce sucks again, Rolen is in a funk, Gomes is a nightmare, and whomever starts at catcher might as well be a pitcher.
Janish is quickly proving he destined to be a lifetime backup, that is until the Reds cut him and he goes to Houston.
Now, they get to go on a roadie to St Louis, and Millwaukee, after which they could very well be 9-16, after firing out of the gate 5-0.
We all expected big things from the Reds, but it appears last year was a mix of guys having career seasons, and a little bit of magic.
This team expects to win, they just don’t do anythign to actually help win.
A lot of people think they just need to hold on until their big arms get off the DL.
Who are these big arms?
Schilling and Johnson?
Nope. Cueto, and Bailey.
When your missing pieces are Cueto, and Bailey, you suck,
Cueto is solid, and Bailey can be at times good, but counting on them is a huge mistake.
The best part is, our Ace, is an absolute trainwreck.
Edinson Volquez has to give up 4 runs before he can be good, at which point he is lights out, but not only is it too late, he’ll have to come out in the 5th inning because he’s already thrown 120 pitches by then.
The only thing we have to look forward to this year, is how high they crank the radar gun up for Chapmans pitches, that is until he gets hurt too.

It’s You Bronson

It’s always been you.
The search for the Ace of the Cincinnati Reds starting rotation, is over.
It never should have gotten to this point, yet here we are.
Last year in the playoffs, Dusty went with Edinson Volquez to lead the Reds into their first playoff series in a long long time.
it went less than great, but seeing as how the other guy threw a perfect game, it didn’t really matter anyway.
This year for Opening day, Volquez again. Also that went poorly, but the Reds still won.
So as we venture into Volquez’s third start of the year, what should have been his first actual start since he missed the beginning of camp, we are seeing the downside of the guy with all the upside.
Volquez when he is at his best, is the best the Reds have to offer, but that best is hard to find at times.
He has the best stuff, the biggest upside of anyone on the staff, except maybe Cueto who is still on the DL. What he also has is moments where he can’t get anyone out. He can be up 0-2 on anyone, and still walk them. he wants to strike everyone out, throw the perfect pitch, when he should be just throwing to the plate, using his fastball, and letting the defense do what they do best.
Bronson Arroyo on the other hand, is as consistant as you will find anywhere. He may not blow anyone away, but he eats innings game after game, and keeps the Reds in position to win. The only issues he has, is when he has no command of his off-speed stuff, but no pitcher is judged by the rare bad days, especially when they are as rare as Arroyo’s.
He may be boring, he may be slow, but he is the best we have, and even though he will never hit the upper 90’s, he can go toe to toe with anyone.
Bronson doesn’t seem to care about being “the Ace”, or getting the first start.
Maybe that is his best attribute, as the young guys seem to fold when the moment gets too big.
Arroyo by all means should have made his 3rd straight opening day start this year, but like the previous two years, he stepped aside and let someone else take the reigns.
This year he has Mono, and is limited in what he can do, yet he is the only Reds Starter to go 6 plus innings. He’s 2-0, with just 3 hits in 13 innings, and zero walks.
If the Reds do happen to make the playoffs, no matter what the upside is for anyone else, Bronson Arroyo needs to take the mound.

Best Diet Ever

I’m leading a revolution.
I’ve stumled upon what I believe to be the greatest diet, in the history of the world.
This diet makes Jared’s Subway diet look like a trip down the buffet line. It makes Adkins look like a fat, clogged artery retard. South Beach Diet? Please, it’s got nothing on this. P90X, move aside.
Soon I will be on commercials, dumb-assed shows aimed at Soccer Mom’s, and on the cover of books, and audio books.
I may even get an app for my new diet.
It’s not for everyone, but it works, and you can eat whatever the hell you want. If you wanna have a few cocktails, don’t worry, the weight will fall off just the same.
What I’ve been doing, I call the “build a house diet”.
I’ve been working a full time job, and on top of that every spare moment I’ve had has been working at the new house doing all kinds of odds and ends.
I’ll rush home to get supper ready, or to help at bathtime, and then it’s back to work.
If all goes as planned I’ll go about two months without taking a day, or night off, and at the end I’ll have the Body of Leonardo DiCaprio circa the Growing Pains years.
I’m not sure how much weight I’ve actually lost, since I don’t own a scale, and whenever I got to the Dr. I only pay attention to blood pressure, and Choleserol, and my drivers license has the same stats as when I turned 21.
What I do know is, I’ve gained back two belt notches in the past week or so.
So without actual “facts”, and only going off the noticeable weight loss, I’m assuming I’ve lost between 20-60 pounds in the last couple of weeks.
Sure, these estimates may not be exact, but nobody can prove otherwise, so let’s continue.
I eat Granola, fruit, and yogurt for breakfast every day.
I have fast food for lunch almost every day.
I eat whatever time allows for at night, and may even polish off a beer or two.
Not even light beer, either Canadian full octane, or the best German beer in the world, and the weight keeps falling off.
The other day I worked a full day, and then laid a few hundred feet of subfloor, carrying a good deal of it up two flights of stairs myself.
Another day this week, I worked all day, and then insulated a tall, 3-car garage all by myself, as well as a few second floor interior walls. This is a good one, as going up and down a ladder dozens of times is great cardio.
Yesterday, I worked all day, helped unload a shitload of drywall, and also climbed up onto a 2-story 12/12 pitch roof to re-flash and seal off a chimney. This one is priceless, as the intense fear itself caused me to sweat off what I assume was about 15 pounds.
This weekend, I plan to lay tile for about 30 hours, and also drink beer, eat wings, and have some pie, all while still losing weight.
Now, this diet may be a little expensive, but it is worth it.
It also has some health concerns, as it is mainly fueld by coffee,about a gallon a day (gotta have the fluids) and intense cases of the liquid shits do pop up now and then with the whole dehydration, and lack of sleep thing, but it’s worth it.
Not only will I be in the best shape of my adult life, but I can move my family out of this shitbag apartment, and into a brand new house.
So even though this diet will run you easily six-figures, it’s totally worth it.
Instead of buying a treadmill, or some pills, or frozen meals, buy a saw, or a shitload of tile, or exterior drain tiles.
Anything you spend money on, (except beer) is going to help you lose weight, so it’s worth every penny.
Unlike diet things you see on tv, you can, and will actually use these diet tools when you are done.
No equiptment gaining dust in the basement, no DVD’s taking up drawer space, and no freezer burned low-carb pasta dishes going bad in the freezer.
You’ll have a floor to walk on, cabinets to put stuff in, and toilets for, well you know.
So to everyone out there.
If you want to gain some satisfaction, and get back into shape, all while being able to act pious about how you’ve lost weight even though the reason you gained weight in the first place is because you drank too much and were lazy, work a full time job, and just spend every free minute thereafter building a house.
Look at me, I’m living proof.
And by the way, I’m not just the founder of this diet, I’m also a member.
Yesterday I ate wings for dinner, polished off a few beers, and even watched Indiana Jones, and a Reds game, and woke up with my pants fitting even better than before I ate the wings.
Suck it Jared!

See it all playing out

So I’ve had this nagging feeling that the Bengals are going to waste an awesome draft pick, and take Cam Newton.
Not sure why, but I just see it happening.
Maybe it’s the history, or the fact that there is going to be just too many can’t miss guys available with the 4 pick, but I see how this is going to play out already, and it’s making me sick.
Peterson, Green, or a choice stud D-lineman/pass rusher just makes too much sense.
Waiting a year, knowing you are completely fucked at QB this year, and knowing you are almost garunteed a shot at either Matt Barclay, or Andrew Luck, and then being in a position to win year in and year out just makes too much sense for this team.
Throw in the recent buzz with Newton stemming from the Pro Football Weekly analysis of him, and all the hoopla surrounding that, and I can say with all certainty that the Bengals will draft Cam newton.
Oh why Oh why do I do this to myself?

Where’s The Outrage?

Seems like every year, you hear people complain about the Major League playoff, and World Series games starting too late at night.
Mainly because it’s too late for young fans to watch.
I myself am usually in this croud, especially since according nearly every stat out there, less and less American kids are playing baseball.
However, you hear hardly a peep about NCAA Basketball tourney games starting so late.
Now, even big time, close basketball games take nowhere near as long as a MLB playoff game, but still, they start just as late, if not later in some cases.
Why is this?
Also, since I live in Columbus my ears perk up a little when I hear complaints, or outrage about Jim Tressel and Ohio State, and their whole little “scandal” thing. However, I have heard very little about the fact that two of the teams in The Final Four are being coached either by a guy who has had two other Final 4 trips vacated because of major infractions (even one that was going down as he was hired for this job), and another being coached by a guy who will be suspended at the start of next season, if he comes back.
Callipari, and Calhoun have done a great job of making sure lower level assistants, and outside handlers, who seem to be pretty well taken care of have taken the brunt of the blame, even though anyone with half a brain can see their hands are as dirty as anyone, and chances are the things they have been busted for, barely scratch the surface.
So why is it, everyone nationally seems to want Tressel’s head on a platter, but Jim Calhoun (who pays AAU coaches) gets a free pass?
Where’s the outrage?
My answer?
Tressel is the new story, and college basketball may be the most corrupt sport in all the land, and we pretty much expect it.

I Feel Better

Now that I got a few words off my chest, some of which may have been a little harsh, I’m at peace with my Buckeyes losing.
Sure, I may have gone a little far initially, but I’m quite calm now.
Saturday was a new day for me. I had a moment to appreciate the Buckeyes great season, and count my blessings.
It was a fun year.
Today, it’s gotten even better.
If UNC can smack the cats, I’ll be right as rain.
Of course watching Kansas spit the bit helped more than a little to cheer me up.
Sure, I have no Buckeyes to watch today, no Big Love on HBO, and absolutely no shot at winning anything in my bracket. Well, at least I assume that, since I still don’t have the stomach to check the standings.
But seeing Kansas, who never even had to face any of the 2-8 seeds int their bracket, statisticly the easiest road to the final 4 a 1 seed has ever had, absolutely get kicked in the taint, I’m back not quite on top of the world, but perched nicely at the millitry crest of the hill.
Oh VCU, if only you could play Butler in the final, but knowing for certain one of you will have a chance to shock a perenial power brings me joy.
Best of luck to both of ya, VCU, and Butler, the new princes of Basketball.

At least we have our teeth

There is a cursed spot on this earth. The spot, that is stained from where John Callipari landed when he fell from his whore mother’s wretched cunt.
That pretty much sums this up.
Not bitter though. But still, fuck Kentucky, and everything that has ever came from that shitwagon commonwealth, except of course for Makers Mark, which is Louisville country, and that being said Rick Pitino, is a child molesting butt-fucker.
Seriously though, I’m taking this loss well.
No hard feelings, except the constant wishing for every God Damned Kentucky basketball fan to get slipped a date rape drug, and wake up in a bathtub full of ice cubes, to find their butthole has been removed.
Then, the entrance, and the exit will match. Toothless, shit-stained, cum-pockets.

Enough Already

I missed the NCAA selection show because I was out working on the new house. I have seen zero minutes of coverage (trying to get my 2 year old to watch The Empire Strikes Back/fend off the flu), and only had minimal radio coverage on my drive home.
I skimmed through two articles about the Big Dance, and gave a blank bracket a quick once over.
Already, I am tired of hearing teams complain about getting “snubbed”.
This year, there are 68 teams in the tourney, taking the grand total of teams who have no shot to win it all the way up to 60, as opposed to years past when the total ammount of hopeless teams was a mere 50 or so teams.
If you didn’t get in, chances are you sucked really bad at Basketball this season.
Sure, there are still teams we have to put in, even though everyone knows they are at best a one-and-done, but they did win their conference tourney/championship so they get in over slightly better shitty teams from bigger conferences.
 But this happens every year, and when someone like Princeton (I’m assuming they invented the Princeton style offense) wins a game or two, we’ll all go crazy.
Yes, there are teams out there like Colorado who had a few big wins over good teams, and still didn’t get in even though teams they beat got in ahead of them.
How can this be?
My guess is teams like Colorado played pretty much nobody early on in the season, and lost to a lot of shitty teams, thus cancelling out whatever “big” wins they may have had.
In this day and age, it is hard to not make the tournament.
The rules are quite simple.
Win your conference, or conference tourney, you get in.
Play a few tough teams early in the regular season out of conference, and you don’t even need to win, and you get bonus points.
Don’t rack up loss after loss to mediocre teams, or maybe even try winning more than one decent sized road game.
Try all of these things next year, and if that doesn’t work, try not sucking at Basketball.
My personal hypocrasy was tested this season.
I’ve always said, as long as Izzo is at MSU, and they still offer players scholarships, I don’t care about what their record is, they deserve to be in, because they never let you down in March.
This year is as close as I think we will ever come to proving this wrong. I don’t think MSU deserved a slot, but with Lucas healthy as a Senior, and Izzo on the bench, I am not putting any of my money against them.
I see the Big East has like 73 teams in it this year. What an amazing Conference!
I have yet to look at the full bracket with any detail, but I’m gonna go ahead and say there will be the same ammount of Big East teams in the Elite 8 this year as there are grocery stores that sell Unicorn meat.
Why?
Because it is the same thing year, after year.
So many different teams from The Big East catch our eye during a game here or there, and we fall in love. Then, that team loses to the next Big East team to win our hearts, and it just grows, and grows.
They say “The Big East” eats it’s own.
Not so.
The Big East feeds it’s own.
With the exception of the years UCONN won it all, and Carmelo Anthony’s little reign of terror (won me a lot of money), The Big East falls flat, each and every year.
For about 9 minutes in the middle of March, we here people say things like “maybe the big east wasn’t as good as we thought” but then someone says something about how playing in that conference takes it’s toll on all the Big East teams, and then right before the next season, the Bandwagon is as strong as ever, and the whole thig just repeats itself.
Look, The Big East is a great conference, and fun to watch. Something on my sports bucket list would be to go to the Garden for The Big East Tournament, but 95% of the time, Big East play does not fit in with NCAA tourney style ball.
It’s like the Pheonix Suns from years past.
Fun to watch, they can score a lot of points, and look amazing, but when team after team has no clue of discipline, and practices selective defense, you will not be dancing long in March.
You have to be able to win a game by only scoring in the mid fifties, as opposed to the fast flowing showtime style played in The Big East.
I’m not saying no Big East teams will win it, I’m just saying once again, I am betting against it.