So, a while back I tweeted this:
@Truth_About_It does Porter have a nickname? If not I vote for #Slenderman
— Even Losers Can Win (@evenloserswin) December 7, 2013
And then, yesterday this happened:
BTW, credit for #Slenderman, aka The Washington Otto Show, still must be given to its originator: @evenloserswin https://t.co/KPRczUhp40 — Kyle Weidie (@Truth_About_It) January 23, 2014
If Otto Porter ever gets on Sportscenter and they call him Slenderman, you will know where it came from. And if that happens, young Mr. Porter and I will be forever…linked!
- The Wizards just CAN’T get over the .500 mark, falling in their latest attempt, in overtime. This is one of those weird sports things, that’s not really a thing, except that the longer the thing goes on it totally becomes, like, a THING. This Wizards season is becoming quite the checklist:
- Start winning on the road? Check.
- Stop losing to teams you should beat? Check.
- Stop every loss from turning into a losing streak? Check.
- Get over .500? We’ll see…
- Just because everything with the Wizards has to be all weird and stuff, Brad Beal was named to Team USA (at least the pool of players the team will be picked from), but John Wall wasn’t.
I liken my experience of being a John Wall fan to going to the symphony and everyone there is complaining about gangsta rap. #wizards
— Even Losers Can Win (@evenloserswin) January 24, 2014
- At least he can take solace in an improving jump shot.
- The Wizards will try getting back to .500 tonight in Phoenix and I’d expect to see Wall doing just enough for a win.
- Am I in here? No? Whew…
- You think the eyes of the Mona Lisa following you around the room was weird? Whoa, buddy.
- Huh. And all this time I thought it was just boobs.
- Drake was really good hosting SNL, as this ARod sketch demonstrates. Also, Kate McKinnon seriously channels Justin Beiber, causing some seriously confusing feelings…for, uh, some people.
- I wrote that last thing earlier in the week, before I learned the Beibs had gone full Lohan.
- The word you’re thinking of is, “Schadenfreude“.
#realtalk
- Speaking of which, a really fascinating story within (or about) a story unfolded this week over at Grantland.com. It started with, at least at the beginning, golf equipment, but quickly it became about much, much more: prejudice, fear, ignorance and the ease with which even good people can do the wrong thing. It’s worth it to read the story first, then the apology (if you want to know how to apologize for something in a public forum, this is a great example) and then, most importantly, the perspective. The story is, for lack of a better term, so meta in how the controversy swirling around the situation mirrors the unraveling of the story at the center of the storm. It starts with a revolutionary new golf putter invented by someone who’s background story doesn’t add up, but in the course of reporting the inventor is posthumously outed as a transgender woman, in a way that is shocking in both it’s ease and insensitivity. I say shocking because, as a regular reader of Grantland, I’ve found the overall vibe of the writing there to be so open-minded and lacking in prejudice that it is almost unfathomable that they ran this story. I don’t say that to pile on – I believe their apology is sincere and that they are, in hindsight, as shocked as so many others were that they missed it. But, it makes you wonder what incorrect assumptions and ignorances we’re all carrying. At least it should.
- Four years ago today, the Saints beat the Vikings to go to the Superbowl.
- The Pro Bowl is some weird kind of pickup game this year; maybe it has been the past few years? I, like the rest of America, don’t pay attention to the Pro Bowl until we’re flipping through channels and realize it’s our last chance to see NFL players for a few months. Anyway, a bunch of Saints are on Jerry Rice’s team. Good, he owes us.
- NOLA.com recaps some of the tough decisions facing Mickey Loomis and the Saints this offseason.
- You may have heard something about Richard Sherman after last weekend’s 49’ers vs Seahawks game. Basically, a football player got excited about making a big play, a bunch of people flipped out over it, then a bunch of other people flipped out over them flipping out, then it was on TV for 72 hours and then nobody gives a crap. Lost in all of this, at least to everyone except Sean Payton, is that Richard Sherman is a really good football player.
- We had some bad weather this week, so here is a good reminder of what to do if your car starts skidding. The most important things are to slightly steer towards where you want to go and don’t freak out. That’s good life advice, too.
- This interactive panorama of the moon, composed from images taken by the Chinese Chang’e 3 lunar lander, is, quite literally, out of this world.
- Google made a really cool interactive history of modern music. Warning, this is kind of experimental, so I had problems with it in some browsers, but if it works in yours this is a
awfulgreat waste of time. If you aren’t sure what you’re looking at there’s a good explanation here. - The Cubs lost out on Tanaka and I don’t care. Look, it would have been a nice get, but it’s not at all surprising he signed with New York. In the meantime, I am getting excited to see the youth movement start hitting the Cubs at the major league level at some point this season. To me a successful 2014 would conclude with a record somewhere around .500 and a lot of ducks in a row.
- Other than the usual purveyors of Cubs doom and gloom, there were a surprising number of rational posts about the Cubs failing to sign Tanaka, including this one and this one.
- Meanwhile, seven Cubs prospects were in the MLB.com Top 100 list and that is not too shabby.
- Baseball Prospectus named their Top 10 Cubs’ Prospects (subscriber content only) and Carrie Muskat gives her synopsis of the list. I just have a gut feeling that we’re going to see Baez at Wrigley before Labor Day.
- I used to dream of owning one of the rooftops across from Wrigley. Now I just want to spit on them – if I were to go at all.
- Jim Callis has some
wetdream inducing stuff, including calling C.J. Edwards fastball “unhittable” and predicting a Baez-Castro-Alcantara-Rizzo infield for the Cubs.
- I love this week’s Zen Pencils.
- The European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe woke up and said, “‘Sup, I gotta go catch this comet.“
- To celebrate the end of the Tanaka sweepstakes here is your Song of the Week.
