Hello Seattle

If you haven't heard - I'm moving to Seattle. It's a big deal.


Here it is:



I've only really lived in two places my entire life, Visalia (you're probably thinking "where the #$%^ is Visalia?") and Pomona (I know, now it's "where the %^*& is Pomona??"), I GET IT.

Now I'm moving to Seattle, roughly a 16-hour drive to the Northwest, and I'm ready for it. Living back home for the past eight months has been cool - I've met some good people and had some good experiences, but I'm moving to Seattle! I was there this past weekend and I'm convinced it's the most beautiful city in the United States, I don't have to see any others, because it's my freakin' blog and I'm always right in my blog.

This whole moving thing has made me think though - What are the five things I'll miss most about living in Visalia? So here are the top five, and one extra.

5. Free parking. Sounds stupid right? But to park in Seattle, in a public, ghetto parking garage where homeless people find homes, is at least $150 a month. It's a joke. I can't tell you how many apartment complexes I've found that appear to be perfect, everything I need for the right price - and then they throw on $180 more to park my truck. Good thing I hear the public transportation is outstanding.

4. My dogs. Literally, not figuratively. I don't mean my homies, or my boys... none of that. I mean my DOGS. Everyone seems to be searching for unconditional love, well guess what? DOGS GIVE IT.

3. Those little Mexican lolly pops. The ones that are covered in chile and really gross, you know? I dig 'em. You can buy them at like 75% of gas stations here, and I would imagine it'll be significantly tougher to do so in Seattle. Damn!

2. The comfort of home. There's something to be said for it, no matter where you're from, it's home and it's comfortable. I'm stoked to move to a city and experience new things, but despite all the terrible things you can come up with about Visalia and the Central Valley as a whole (and I've heard them all), it's home.

1. All of my friends, all of my family, all of my Miners (especially McGlassons and Sorbers classes). It's been a good stay in the V, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. The move to Seattle is especially tough since I don't know anyone there, so I hope you come to visit. I've already had two friends bail on me (Elliot, Grayson... you bastards), and I hope I don't have any more.

1a. The reliable wireless internet at my house. Sounds a little ridic, I know, but this wireless internet has allowed me to stream EVERY SINGLE non-nationally televised Cleveland Cavaliers game on my laptop, and I can only hope Seattle's internet treats me as kindly.



Song of the Week - The Australians didn't fare too well at the Vancouver Olympics - earning two golds and one silver. Sucks right? Well good news mates, the SOTW goes to "The Return" by Australian hip-hop group Hilltop Hoods. After the Aussie's read this I would imagine the Vancouver 2010 games will be a thing of the past. In fact, I just got off the phone with Australia's President, or Prime Minister, or Mayor... whatever they have - needless to say, he's stoked.

Back by popular demand...

That's right... I'm back baby.

Popular demand is a major understatement, and by major understatement, I mean major overstatement. So there was actually no demand, I made it up. Are you following this? Cool.

I've been trying to stay up late lately to watch the Australian Open. It's been tough, and I've pretty much failed every night, but that doesn't mean I wont stay up late tonight to watch the finals. Because I definitely will.

World no. 1 Roger Federer has now reached 18 of the past 19 Grand Slam finals, which is unbelievable. He's already the greatest player of all time with 15 Slam Championships (previous record holder Pete Sampras had 14), and I can comfortably say that Federer is still under-appreciated. Will someone eventually pass him as the greatest of all time? Probably. But we'll never see someone come up with the consistency he has.

As noted, he's now reached 18 of the past 19 finals, but he's also reached 23 consecutive Grand Slam semi-finals. It's not like he's fallen in the early rounds and had a few mental lapses, he's been in the final four 23 straight times. There's no equivalent to that in the world of sports, trying to make a comparison to baseball, basketball or football would be absurd - because he's better than that. (Note: Federer has so many career achievements, there's two Wikipedia pages, one for Roger Federer, and one for Roger Federer's career achievements. Two words : BALL ER)

I've heard people question the level of competition Federer has played against, saying there's not many clear cut rivals for him. After Nadal the field drops off - which is foolish.

If it weren't for Federer, I think Rafael Nadal would be the greatest player of all time. Pete Sampras was great, absolutely great, 14 slams, seven Wimbledon titles - Great. But like every sport, the game is evolving. We've never seen guys like Nadal playing tennis. He's 6'2, 190ish pounds, is the fastest guy tennis has ever seen, and he looks like this:



See? Sports are EVOLVING. Saying they don't is like saying the 1972 Dolphins, the only undefeated team in NFL history, would run the table again today. It's STUPID.

Tennis isn't a physically dominating sport right? Enter Nadal. Just watch one of his matches, against anyone, and he looks like a man playing with kids, and he's the one who's actually a kid at only 23-years old. It's sickening.

As the years pass, the game changes. I don't think Pete Sampras would fare as well today as he did in his day. Would he still be a great player? Of course. Federer and Nadal are that much better - and others are approaching quickly. Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin Del Potro and Marin Cilic are all guys on the rise quickly, and they're all under the age of 22. That's what's really scary.

In every sport, the age at which athletes are developing is getting younger and younger. We've known teenage baseball and basketball players could compete forever, but now every sport is seeing young guys come in and tear things up.

Song of the Week honors go to - "Too Much" by All Time Low. Kinda emo, I know, but what can ya do? We're all a little emo, I'm just the one writin' the blog and taking the heat.

Mahalo.

College football, and NASCAR? What the ... ?

You all know by now - Chris Henry, wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, died on Thursday, Dec. 17. It's a tragic story, Henry had his fair share of issues on and off the field, but it's a shame to see someone so blessed and talented go so early.

He was only 26-years old, and it was widely publicized that he'd worked hard to overcome the problems he'd dealt with throughout his career. After being suspended from the NFL multiple times for various violations of the NFL Personal Conduct Policy, and even being waived by the Bengals in 2007, he looked to turn things around. Henry worked hard to improve the life he was living, and the poor decisions he was making. He cleaned up his act, and earned a spot back on the Bengals roster in 2008.

It's truly an eye-opening incident, and it's another reminder of how short life can be. It's not worth our time for me to tell you what I think went wrong in his life like most of the media aims to do, because obviously I don't know Chris Henry, I have no idea what kind of person he was. I've read the same stories you have - he was a guy looking for direction, and often times found himself in poor situations due to his bad decisions. What's important is though, is for those who are even remotely similar to Chris Henry to value what they have, and don't make mistakes he made.

I understand he was a professional athlete, making big bucks, "How can we possibly relate to him?" - that's not what I mean. I mean those people who are also struggling to find a direction to go in life, a path to take; learn from Henry and try to right your wrongs. It probably wont be easy, but it is possible. We are so quick to take life for granted, but a life can be taken even quicker.



The Bowl season started the other day, with Fresno State blowing another game against an inferior opponent. It's become somewhat of a trend in their postseason games - Fresno State will beat the teams they're not supposed to (example: They beat Georgia Tech, UCLA, and Virginia from 2002-2004 and Georgia Tech again in 2007), and lose to teams who they should beat comfortably (example: Air Force in 2000, Tulsa in 2005, Colorado State and Wyoming the past two years).

It's depressing to watch, each year local newspapers are headlined by something about Pat Hill's Bulldogs crashing the BCS party; finally breaking through and becoming a non-BCS school to earn a bid to a January bowl (something WAC rival Boise State has done multiple times now). Based on the Vegas odds, of all 34 bowl games, Fresno State was one of the biggest favorites to beat Wyoming (they lost in semi-embarrassing fashion). It was actually a pretty good game, Wyoming's true freshman quarterback made play after play when he had to. Simply put, Wyoming wanted it way more than Fresno State; to me that reflects coaching.

Fresno entered the game 8-4 with three of their losses coming to top 25 teams, and they were all competitive games. 34-31 in overtime @ Wisconsin, 51-34 to undefeated Boise State (was 41-34 in the fourth quarter), and 28-20 @ undefeated Cincinnati.

Pat Hill has continuously done a great job getting his teams up for the big games, while letting the games against lesser schools slip away. I've always been a firm believer that good coaches are far more dispensable than they're made out to be.

More than anything, I've always believed recruiting builds championships. Time in and time out, the teams who contend for national championships also contend for the top recruiting classes. Is that because of solid coaching though? If you constantly have the best talent coming in, aren't you already better than everyone else? That makes sense right? Or you could go the other way and say it takes a great coach to recruit those players and manage all of the egos, in other words - make the team mesh. I'm not sure which one is more accurate, or if there's even a difference - I'm just rambling, and since it's my blog I'm allowed to.

Anyway, with college football the subject of discussion - Who wants to see a playoff system implemented? Probably most of you. But let me tell you - bad idea. If anything should change about the current system, it should add a "plus-one" game, rather than a four, eight or 16-team playoff. Let me tell you why:

Say an eight team playoff system were to kickoff this year (last time I checked, eight teams was the consensus choice), lets take a look at what teams would qualify: obviously Alabama, Texas and Cincinnati right? All three are undefeated in major football conferences. The following three would likely go something like this (in no particular order)- Florida, TCU and Boise State, that makes sense, two more undefeated teams and one-loss Florida who was ranked number one throughout the season. Leaving two spots, so who gets those? It's a toss up between champ Ohio State (Big Ten champs, 10-2), Oregon (Pac-10, 10-2), and Georgia Tech (ACC, 11-2). Regardless - a team who's deserving gets left out.

You'll probably be quick to say "Then make the bracket more than eight teams." But the same thing will happen again, where teams on the bubble get left out, and rightfully criticize the system. Trust me. It's exactly what happens in the BCS right now, and it's exactly what would happen in a playoff system as well, no matter the number of teams involved.

One of the main factors against a playoff system that I haven't even mentioned is the length of a teams schedule. If you create an eight team playoff, you're adding an extra three games a teams schedule. Three games might not seem like much, but in college football, where the regular season is generally just 12 games, that's a big deal.

For arguments sake, lets add a plus-one system into the current post-season format and see where that leaves us: In 2003-2004, the season ended with a split national championship. LSU topped Oklahoma for the BCS National Championship, while USC finished the season ranked first by the Associated Press. Wouldn't a plus-one system be perfect here? It would add one last game to the season, determining a single, unanimous champion, rather than leaving fans unsatisfied with two teams celebrating one title.

More recently, in the 2006-2007 season, Florida (12-1) and Ohio State (12-0) met for the national championship, which Florida won, finishing the season 13-1. When the final rankings came out, Florida was one, and 13-0 Boise State was ranked second, despite being perfect all season. In a situation like this, a plus-one is ideal. It would then add a final game to the end of the season, with Boise State playing Florida.

This year a perfect plus-one situation is likely to come up again, obviously the winner between Alabama and Texas will be undefeated, and the winner of the Boise State - TCU game will finish undefeated. Then the two winners would square off, leaving us with one true champion. Isn't that why we like College Basketball's format? Partly because it's pure chaos for the first week, yes, but also because it gives us one team to call the best, there's no arguing.

I'm not saying the plus-one would be flawless, so don't get crazy and look to prove me wrong with a bunch of stats and research. For example - this year, if Cincinnati were to beat Florida (I don't see it happening), that leaves three undefeated teams, and a plus-one wouldn't really solve anything. But more than you'd think, a plus-one would be far more successful than a playoff system.

One of my buddies and I were talking the other day, when we became stumped on one single question, "What's America's obsession with NASCAR?" And also What does NASCAR even stand for? Actually, forget that second question - I don't even care. Anyway, lets think about three things that NASCAR drivers do to qualify them as athletes:

1.
2.
3.

That's my list, that's all I could come up with... blank lines. The most athletic thing Jimmie Johnson does is drive a car for a few hours, while holding his bladder. I refuse to let a man's bladder dictate whether or not he's an athlete or not. Football players have to run, cut, throw, catch, and a bunch of other crap, all while avoiding being decked. Every sport at least requires some sort of physical ability in order to excel. Cheer leading (which is NOT a sport, by the way) requires MORE athletic ability than NASCAR drivers, and I just said it's not a sport! At least cheerleaders have to move, and jump, and do synchronized stuff. Maybe that's the direction NASCAR should head: have the drivers be super attractive (which I would imagine rules out like 99% of current drivers) and have them do stuff in sync, like jumping and shaking pompoms (I don't know how to spell pompoms). At least then it can be considered semi-athletic.

To add insult to injury, the man I just spoke of, Jimmie Johnson was just named the tenth best athlete of the decade by Sports Illustrated. Because of that, SI just lost a customer. For Christmas I asked for a magazine subscription, and now Golf Digest gets my service.

What a joke though, the tenth best ATHLETE? There should be a separate category called "Best entertainers of the decade" and in a smaller text say, "In the world of sports". That category can have all cheerleaders, drivers and professional cyclists they please, and they'll never see a blog from me about it. (Hahahahaaaa!!! Joking about the cycling thing, that oughta outrage some people I know.)

Song of the Week - "Can't Stop Partying" by Weezer featuring Lil Wayne. It's not because it's Christmas break and because I can't stop partying, it's just a dope song, and those are the kinds worthy of earning Da Blaaahg's SOTW honors.. Dope songs. Enjoy it, and enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas.

Tiger's out the cage...

Did anyone hear about the Tiger Woods scandal? It Just broke, like right now... apparently he was having affairs with multiple women. I'm happy to be the first to break the news, it's a huge honor... Oh wait, you did hear about it?!? My mistake - I should have known, because IT'S EFFING EVERYWHERE!

I really don't think it should shock people anymore that celebrities and athletes get their fill on the side. Remember the Kobe Bryant scandal in 2003? I feel like that kind of opened the door for everyone to realize, "Whoa, a celebrity cheating on his wife!?! That's nuts!" Another clue should have been when Kobe then proceeded to say Shaq does it too, he just makes financial deals with his lady friends to keep their mouths shut. The book, "Game of Shadows" came out in 2006 and included a ton of information from a Barry Bonds ex-girlfriend (he was married at the time. Shocker, right?) More recently, Steve McNair was fatally shot by a a 20-year old he was having an affair with. A direct quote from ESPN.com's story, "Interviews with friends revealed that... she suspected the married McNair was having a second affair with another young woman." See? It happens!

Regardless - Kobe, Shaq, Barry Bonds and Steve McNair aren't in the same class as Tiger Freakin' Woods. (I'm about to go off topic...) Kobe is one of those guys who, no matter what emotion he's playing in an interview, ALWAYS seems fake. (Definitely off topic now... crap) I hear him try to be funny, and instantly think, "That didn't look natural, maybe he's just not a funny guy." It took me a long time to realize this, and I must credit Bill Simmons (aka The Sports Guy on ESPN.com) for being the first to break the big news: Kobe, despite being ridiculously good at one thing, simply isn't a cool guy. He fakes it, and often times it's obvious. Bill has known it for years, he's genius. But Kobe isn't the only one.

It's like when fans see guys who are outrageously good at something - specifically athletes, musicians and actors - we automatically assume they're super cool too. I'm as guilty as anyone in this; every athlete, band, actor, anyone who I follow for one reason or another - is just automatically one of the coolest people in the room, regardless of where they are. It just makes sense. Can you think of someone who you absolutely admire and respect for their performing abilities, but who you can admit is a huge dork? Doubtful.

Kobe is a top two or three player in the league, some even think he's the best - so it's not possible that as a person he's just not THAT cool, right? No way, because he's KOBE BRYANT!
Except it is possible, and it's true. Just watch:
(I should note that I watched only 28 seconds of the video, it's all I needed to validate the last two paragraphs. Maybe in the remaining five and a half minutes he's really cool, but I doubt it.)



Did anyone else think his first answer wasn't that funny? It was a stupid question to begin with, but Kobe's answer and reaction were equally bad. After he was dying of laughing at his own (not funny) joke, he reached over to get some love from Marc Ecko and secretly said, "Dude, laugh at my joke, bail me out!" And if they're both laughing (two iconic multi-millionaires), there must be something wrong with us for thinking it was stupid! Right?

Barry Bonds is similar in a sense that he's just not a friendly person. He officially retired not too long ago, but for a very long time Barry didn't even bother to put on a front. The media knew what to expect from him in an interview, which is pretty much nothing, and he knew the media expected nothing, so there was no reason to act. What mattered though is that it was Barry Bonds - 762 home runs, seven MVP's, 14 All-Star game appearances... BARRY BONDS! His terrible interviews still garnered way more attention than an interview from any other guy in that club house, and even when they interviewed the other guys, they asked about... yes, BARRY BONDS!

I'm slowly getting back on track, promise. The point of that was - celebrities are not THAT much different than everyone else, despite the size of the pedestal we put them on. I've learned this through family adversity and elsewhere, and as the years go on I realize it more and more - no one has a perfect life. No one. If it's not one thing (lack of coolness - see Kobe Bryant), it's another (lack of people skills - see Barry Bonds). There's always something. For Tiger Woods, it obviously wasn't money, fame, or success... Because not only did he have all of those, he was the KING of all of those. He was the first athlete to earn $1,000,000,000. That's ONE BILLION DOLLARS! He was on top of the world, and he still wanted more.

That brings me to my next point though, which is how disturbing it is that a persons right to privacy has completely deteriorated over the years. I know Jim Rome made a great point a few weeks ago when he said, and I paraphrase (not quote) - "You can't be famous when you want to be, and not famous when you don't want to be." Basically saying, you shouldn't be playing professional golf at the highest level if you aren't willing to accept the consequences of being a superstar. And Jim Rome is pretty much always right, and I agree with him here to a degree, as well. But the Tiger Woods saga has gotten out of hand, last I checked (a long time ago, I don't bother updating myself with it anymore), there were ten women who came forward saying they, at one point or another, had affairs with Tiger Woods. Who knows whether or not all the stories are true, for all we know there could be far more. But on the flip side, for all we know there could be significantly LESS and we'll never know it. That's what pains me! Even though a man is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, cases like Tiger's are quite the opposite; he's already been labeled as guilty.

Before you guys flip out and say, "Wait, but Tiger admitted to cheating, he IS guilty!!!" I know, I read the statement he released on his website where he admitted to cheating, I get it. But he certainly didn't admit to cheating with ten different women. And if he does, it's the principle that the media already convicted him of being guilty, before he had a say in it.

Think about how simple it is for a low, attention craving woman to hear the story on the news, and say "Hmm... I could go for some attention right now, my life is a little dull." All she has to do is make a few phone calls, make up a few stories, and... YES! Breaking news - Tiger has now cheated with eleven women!

He's guilty until proven innocent, and it's a sad thing to see.

If this makes me sound like I condone what Tiger has done, or I approve of what Tiger has done, I apologize - because I do no such thing. But I truly feel for his family and what the media has made of this personal issue. How do you recover from this? I don't know if you do.

On a lighter note, you may have noticed in my last blog that I spoiled the season finale of Dexter. Actually, I didn't spoil it, because spoiling it would have been me releasing the ending BEFORE the finale, which I'd never do. But whatever - Sorry for not warning Dexter fans that I would write about the season finale. I can't guarantee anything, but it probably wont happen again. "Probably" is actually kind of a strong word, let's just say I'll try my best.

Anyway, Julie Benz, the actress who plays Rita, had a chance to read my blog. I swear. Let's see what she said:



What a woman, right? I almost responded with "Marry me?" But I thought a facebook proposal would be lame, so I'll wait till we meet to pop the big question. Moving on, I heard through the grapevine Julie was a sweet, genuinely nice, down to earth person. And I'd have to agree, she's great - all of the above. Did you catch that wink face I threw down at the end of my response? Yeaaaah boiiiii.

I've had a few requests to mention soccer in Da Blaaahg, and how it's relevant since the World Cup draws were released a couple of weeks ago. So by popular (but not really) demand - here's me talking about soccer: The United States caught a huge break by being in the same bracket as Slovenia, Algeria, and the only other team who's happier than Team USA - England. If Landon Donovan and Co. don't make it out of group play, it'll be a huge let down, and remind me again why I didn't intend on writing about soccer. How about that for a pep talk? Yes Bob Bradley, you may use it. Go get 'em team. (Note: I played soccer my whole life, I'm a big fan of the sport. It's just not "Da Blaaahg" friendly. There's no drama. None in English, anyway.)

My number one most anticipated event of 2010 (right behind me getting an actual job, but since that's not guaranteed, it's not on the list) - Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs Manny Pacquaio. March 13, 2010 at an undetermined location (by undetermined, I mean VEGAS), we will likely see the biggest boxing match ever. Two guys who are unquestionably atop the pound-for-pound rankings. I'm a notorious Floyd lover, so I'll try not to be biased in my prediction: Floyd wins a unanimous decision (I said I'd try... and I did, sort of). What the Pac-Man has done in the last three years has been great, absolutely great. He finished fights, and he never stops charging. His skills have brought fans back to the sport that was (and still is) in serious jeopardy. My basis for picking Floyd is as follows: There's a reason that before Floyd retired he was the unanimous pick as the pound-for-pound best boxer in the world. Pacquaio was still fighting then, but no one even thought twice about confidently picking Floyd. Then he retired for 21-months, Pac-Man won a few big fights, and now people are forgetting what Floyd Mayweather has done. He's unhittable (made that word up); He sports a 40-0 record and hasn't been knocked down once. NOT ONCE! It's unheard of. I think Pacquaio presents more problems than past opponents, with his blend of speed and power, but Floyd's speed, tactical defense, and overall perfection in the ring will likely be the difference. I wouldn't be surprised at the slightest to see this fight happen more than once, and you shouldn't be either. No one will be catching either of them anytime soon.

SONG OF THE WEEK - Your favorite, or least favorite part - I guess it would be kinda lame to pick "Seventeen Years" by Ratatat again, huh? Fine. When I was writing my last piece, I was going through a bit of an "Electronic music is the best!" phase, and it hasn't ended yet, making this weeks pick, "Electric Feel" by MGMT. You're going to love it. Enjoy.

A disaster for Stanford fans...I guess

This past Saturday night, the 2009 Heisman Trophy was awarded to Mark Ingram, Jr. from the University of Alabama. The sophomore running back won the closest Heisman race ever, with Stanford's Toby Gerhart and Texas' Colt McCoy falling just short. Since the announcement, I've heard how tragic it is that the Heisman went to such a fraud (Ingram), and that even though it's the most prestigious award in college football, or any college sport for that matter, it's lost all it's credibility. Coincidentally, every person I heard that from is a Stanford student or alum.

I get that Gerhart had a phenomenal year, and I understand his stats were more impressive than Ingram's, but you can't discount what Ingram did individually, and FOR HIS TEAM. They ran the table in the SEC, and he was clearly the best player. Essentially, that's what the Heisman has become, the best player on a top team. It's not surprising that the past eleven winners were all playing in a major January bowl (which Ingram is, Gerhart is not).
The Heisman winner is supposed to be, "The most outstanding player in collegiate football." (By the way - what an interesting choice of words right? "Outstanding". It can be interpreted so many ways... I bet they did that on purpose. So no matter what we think, they can counter with that the word really means. More on this in a minute.)

But that's rarely the case anymore, and Stanford fans - don't take it too personally. It's almost like Stanford finally has a football program worth rooting for, they're finally NOT terrible (first winning record since 2001) and they beat some pretty respectable teams to earn that. So it's like now they have a voice, now they can be heard and taken seriously.

I've even heard someone say that Toby Gerhart lost the Heisman because he was white, which is outrageous since seven of the winners since 2000 have been white boys just like him.

Anyway, back to the "outstanding" thing. If we take the word literally, and assume outstanding means "to stand out", is what Gerhart did REALLY more outstanding than Ingram? Gerhart rushed for 1,700+ yards and 26 touchdowns (also 10 receptions for 149 yards, 0 TD), on an 8-4 Pac-10 team. Mark Ingram rushed for 1,500+ yards and 15 touchdowns (also 30 receptions for 322 yards, 3 TD), on an undefeated SEC team, who's playing for the National Championship. It's also worth noting that Ingram averaged more yards per carry (6.2 to 5.6). So whose resume is more outstanding? (Damn I'm tired of using that word.) I'm not saying Ingram's is, because clearly it's debatable, but I'm trying to aid the Stanford fans in seeing the case that they're too blind (or biased, or both) to see. Just recognize that it's possible, it's actually possible, that even though you guys had better a better-than-average team, someone else actually deserved the trophy as much as your guy did, and though it was only slightly, the voters rewarded him instead of you.

The Heisman is never solely based on stats anymore, otherwise I'm pretty sure a guy like Deangello Williams would have won a few of them (holds the record for all-purpose yards and 100+ yard rushing games, sits fourth on the all-time rushing list - behind guys named Ron Dayne, Ricky Williams and Tony Dorsett. And yes, all three of them won the Heisman)

Anyway, enough about the Heisman trophy and college football. Let's talk about the real excitement of the weekend, the newest, (and self-proclaimed) biggest sport in the world... Mixed Martial Arts. (Just kidding. Never, ever will it be the biggest sport in the world. Never.) UFC 107 was on Saturday night, and BJ Penn thoroughly dominated another game opponent. He showed why, even though he looks kinda fat, kinda bald, super unathletic, acts like a huge tool, he's still the baddest lightweight (155 lbs) there is. If his past two challengers, Kenny Florian and Diego Sanchez can't even come close, no one will. He's too good at every aspect of the sport.
Anderson Silva (185) and Georges St. Pierre (170) have been atop every pound for pound ranking for basically ever, but after easily dominating two legitimate number one contenders in a row, (and in four months) BJ Penn really is making a case for himself. I know he moved up in weight to fight GSP, and even though I think we all know how it went, I'll recap it for you - BJ Penn throws a punch, misses, then gets thrown on the ground by GSP, who then proceeds to punch and elbow him repeatedly. Eventually they make their way back onto their feet, and the process repeats. For 20 minutes, it should have been 25, but BJ Penn's corner decided 20 was enough. It was embarrassing.

But is GSP destroying BJ at 170 really significant for pound for pound stature? He didn't fluctuate his weight at all, while BJ packed on the pounds for the first time since 2006, so it's hard to say. They're starting to remind me of each other though, it's pretty weird because they're such opposites. GSP is a nice, classy champion, never saying anything negative about his competition, while BJ feels it's necessary to start rumors and run his mouth. All the time. It's also worth noting, GSP is extremely ripped and LOOKS like a badass fighter, while BJ Penn looks more like one of my local mailmen - chubby, bald and harmless.

Inside of the octagon though, both have been beating opponents in similar fashion. When someone asks how GSP is going to win his next fight, almost regardless of who it's against, I say the same thing. "Via domination." He's going to win, simply by dominating the fight wherever it goes. If his opponent wants to stand and throw (see the Thiago Alves fight), Georges will do it, and he'll thoroughly DOMINATE (via domination means to DOMINATE) the fight. It's almost like, after a few minutes of that, he gets bored and wants to test his ground game, so he'll effortlessly throw his opponent on the ground, and start dominating (again, yes!) there too. If his opponent is a Ju-Jitsu guy (see second Matt Serra and Jon Fitch fights), he'll win the fight there too. It's like simply, barring a flash knockout or submission, he cannot lose. Many believe Jon Fitch is the guy who poses the most danger, because he is so versatile - a high level wrestler, black belt in Ju-Jitsu, pretty solid stand up - but when they fought, it was one of the worst ass beatings I've seen. If I can figure out how to post a picture on here, I'll do it, and you'll be pissed you had to see it. (I figured it out, isn't that gross?)


BJ is looking a bit like GSP now, Kenny Florian is a guy with a similar skill set to Jon Fitch - he's just really good at everything, and BJ Penn made him look like a guy who is just trying out MMA for the first time, he was never threatened the entire fight. He did the same to Diego Sanchez, who is effing insane by the way (just check out the vid)


Diego's motor is always running, he's always pushing forward. Always. And maybe that's the kind of guy it'll take to crack BJ's armor? Not even close, BJ won every round (including a 10-8 in there somewhere). He even licks his opponents blood off of his gloves after he wins, what a freak, right? Picture that - a bald, chubby, mailman looking guy, licking blood off of his glove.

Speaking of blood, conveniently (or coincidentally... or both?) the Dexter season four finale was on last night.
Through the grapevine, I had heard the ending was absolutely nuts. Supposed to be one of the greatest finale's ever. Cable TV, Network TV, Premium TV - doesn't matter, one of the craziest finale's ever.
And while I'm personally not too happy with the ending, the writer's deserve a ton of credit. The show (airs on Showtime) is about a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department, who's also a serial killer. Tricky, right? How could a show with that story line go on for 4 (and counting) seasons? With damn good writers, that's how. On a side note, I feel like writers/directors/everyone behind the scenes for EVERY good show/movie deserve way more credit than they get. It's really not the on-screen cast who make TV shows and movies good, it's the people who cast them, tell them what to say, when to say it and how to say it. They're the ones who deserve the most credit for making a production solid. I know actors and actresses are super talented, I'm just saying.

Anyway, the writers for Dexter really took a gamble here to end season four - they killed Rita. She's gone. And I don't think she's coming back. I'm not sure how I really feel about that, Rita was probably one of the cooler characters in the show, and by cooler - I mean she didn't annoy me at all, ever (and she was flyyyyyy in seasons two-four). They could have easily killed Debra, Dexter's sister who also works for Miami Metro PD. If Deb was gone instead of Rita, it would have made the show better for a few reasons - it would have been significantly less vulgar, because Deb unnecessarily drops the F bomb every 3.2 seconds. But Deb's disappearance also would have made the show, on average, better looking, something Rita's departure will affect as well. Right now the character hotness average is like a six, and Deb's right around a 5.1, bringing the average down significantly. Now that I think about it though, maybe it's just her unattractive personality that makes her ugly to me, there's just something about a chick dropping F bombs ALL the time that I just don't dig. Is that weird?

Lets not talk about her any longer though, I'm just really curious what direction the show is going to go from here. Is Dexter going to take care of Astor and Cody? (Rita's two kids from a previous relationship) How is he supposed to continue his serial killing ways if he has three kids (He and Rita had one of their own, Harrison) to handle by himself? That's basically what Rita did for him, she took care of the kids while he fulfilled his desire to clean up Miami. It's going to be interesting, we'll see in about nine months how the fifth season plays out.
All I do know though, is that Dexter is the best show on TV. Officially. It's not debatable either, because it's official. If you don't agree - that's unfortunate because it's my blog. I encourage to to keep reading and following, but you should know that I refuse to hear out your argument that might prove me wrong. Wont do it.

Finally - the first, hopefully not last, Song of the Week. This week it's "Seventeen Years" by Ratatat. I know it came out in 2003, but it's still great. If you disagree, re-read the last few lines about disagreeing with my blog. It's a great song, especially for those of you who like music that has no lyrics, because it has no lyrics. But also, it's a great song for all of you who like when people talk during the first few seconds of a song, because that happens too. They're words, but not lyrics. Ya know? Enjoy.