Is it Just Me, or Does Ray Lewis Seem a Little Emotional Right Now?

29 Comments

Now that I’ve finally recovered from the Falcons losing to the Niners last week we can start to talk about this Super Bowl. Somehow, Ray Lewis got injured and completely hijacked the playoffs this year. Somehow Ray Lewis is making a comeback and retiring at the same time. How does that work? At least we only have to see this one more time.

Yeah, that’s the old school version with the extra hip wiggle. I guess you don’t have to dance well as long as you dance hard. But Ray is so ridiculous right now, the dance isn’t even close to the most ridiculous thing he’s doing right now.

Did you see him at the beginning of the AFC Championship game? During the National Anthem, and we’re not talking about Beyonce here, I’m talking a three-part harmony country, “why are those other two dudes even there?”, version. Ray lost it like Whitney Houston came back to life to sing the Star Spangled Banner with Michael Jackson on backup vocals, Jimi Hendrix on guitar, and Jesus himself on drums.

I can’t take a grown man with face paint and a durag seriously. Ray is crying before the game, after the game. Crying at the crib thinking about the game. Crying while he’s watching the game tape. I don’t know how he can take it, because I sure as hell can’t take it anymore.

I understand football is an emotional game, but Ray can’t  manage to hold it together at all. What the hell is causing this? Was his rehab for the injury just watching The Notebook over and over again? Did he have a Rudy marathon before the Notre Dame national championship game and get inspired by Rudy Ruettiger living his dream? Did he have a sit down with Tim Tebow about his future in the league?

I’m actually scared of what will happen to Ray if the Ravens manage to win the SuperBowl. Here he is after the last win.

Ray Lewis is really putting in some religious work right now. If the Ravens get that Lombardi trophy, Ray might just go ahead and roll out a full sermon, die, resurrect himself, and try to make the holy trinity a holy quadrinity or whatever four holy things would be called. The Father, Son, the Holy Spirit and Ray Lewis. Maybe then, Ray would be able to quote some deeper scripture. “No weapon formed against me shall prosper?” Come on Ray, we all know that one. And what weapon are you talking about? Your triceps injury? Everyone loves you Ray. You’ve been in the league since the 90′s. I can’t name one person who hates Ray Lewis. Okay, maybe that dude you may or may not have murdered in Atlanta, but you can’t really blame them.

Ray, try to turn it down a bit this Sunday. I don’t want to see a man spontaneously explode on the field.

-brock

Diana Nyad: Woman Fails to on Fourth Attempt to Swim From Cuba to Florida

5 Comments

Sometimes there are amazing stories of human challenge and triumph. There are always inspirational tales about people pushing themselves to the outer limits of achievement. Diana Nyad wants to be one of those people.

Diana Nyad wants to make the swim for Cuba to Florida. Were talking about sharks, jellyfish stings, tides, storms, and a 103 mile swim. She’s tried it four times and has never quite made it. The first man to do it was Walter Poenisch in 1976. Diana on the other hand? Well… She made it about halfway, she swam for 55 miles and 41 hours and got stung by a bunch of different kinds of jellyfish before she got pulled out. It wasn’t pretty.

She was sunburned, swollen and exhausted. I guess she will have to try again later.

Here’s my question.

Since when was it so hard to swim from Cuba to Florida? If it is so difficult, how the hell did Elian Gonzalez get here?

Dude was 5. You’re telling me a grown woman can’t do what a five year old kid did? If it is so hard to get to Florida from Cuba who are all those people down on Calle Ocho in Miami?

When are we going to put all those people in the Guinness book of world records? Because I’m pretty sure they took the same trip. How does she train for this thing? Just jump in an olympic pool and swim for four days straight? That would be a safer way to practice…but even that sounds crazy. She’s doing it in the ocean.

How many more times is she going to try this before she figures out it is a horrible idea? Why can’t she find four days when there aren’t any storms? She can’t check Al Roker before trying to swim from one country to another? I check the weather before I decide to wear a pair of new Jordans.

Surely she can get a more accurate forecast than she’s getting.

Hey Diana, if it helps, I’m already inspired by your story. You’re super dedicated. Maybe switch it up to something on the land. Make a run from Miami to Ft. Myers and call it a life. If you tap out on I-75, at least you won’t drown. A run seems much more doable as well.

Get out now when you’re ahead.

-Brock

 

Man Up Monday: Joe Paterno’s Statue

8 Comments

There is never a great way to go out. It’s hard to be happy for someone who died just a few months ago. But Joe Paterno got out while the getting was still kinda good. Sure, he knew his boy Sandusky was already in trouble. Sure, he wasn’t able to coach that last game. But I’m not sure he would have made it through all of this anyway. His boy is locked up for the next 1,000 years. The list of boys who were abused keeps getting longer. The Freeh report essentially says everyone at Penn State knew or should have known what was going on, including Joe Paterno, and not they’ve yanked down the Joe Pa Statue.

They threw up the statue in 2001. You’ve gotta love when a guy gets his statue while he’s still coaching at the school. Joe Pa was a special case though, dude started coaching in 1966. That might lead you to believe he started coaching when he was 8, but no…he was 40 when he started coaching. Then he rolled with the job for 45 years. He actually was a living legend.

Jerry Sandusky couldn’t have been found more guilty than he was. The stories are so disturbing I just wanted the coverage to end. I didn’t need any of the details. Just let me know when and how long he’s going to be in jail. The trial was so ill they even had to blur out the faces of the accusers in the courtroom sketches.

What the hell is up with courtroom sketches anyway? If you’re gonna allow this, why not pictures? Who are these people who draw these things? How long does Jerry Sandusky have to sit still to get that drawing? And why is the picture talking about a bear hug from behind? Dammit that dude is a real-life monster.

So the NCAA is priming up to slap Penn State with what they are already calling the wildest and hardest sanctions ever. They were also trying to decide whether they were going to take Joe Paterno’s statue down. What was the debate again?

Look. Joe Paterno clearly did a lot of great things and is an icon in Pennsylvania. He lead a lot of players and changed lives. This doesn’t wipe out his legacy and there are a lot of people who still love Joe Pa. After all, Joe Paterno didn’t commit any crimes. Maybe he will be the new icon of the stop snitching movement.

Penn State is gonna be in trouble for a long, long time. I’ll update the post when it news comes down, but people are already saying it would be better for Penn State to catch the death penalty and lose their team for a year or two. How many scholarships and bowl games to you need to lose for it to be better to just shut the program down instead? So the statue is down, and in a crazy way, it has almost become a tribute to how terrible this situation is.

Hopefully they are planning on sandblasting that wall this week. Now it just looks like the ghosts of the football program are haunting the stadium. They couldn’t leave the football players in the back? Did random anonymous players 1-4 know too? They are really cleaning house.

Where’s the Man Up in all this? Oh yeah, all the players, students, admins, alumni and backers of Penn State who had nothing to do with this. The fact that Jerry Sandusky ruined lives both specifically and generally. There are 18 year old kids who have dreamed of playing at Penn State for their lives and had nothing to do with a dude who was abusing kids for the last three decades who are marked by this for the rest of their lives. It’s pretty horrible.

Penn State, Man Up! You’re gonna need it.

-Brock

—————-UPDATE———————

I see the Roger Goodell method of policy enforcement is spreading. The NCAA went on ahead and hit Penn State with $60 Million in penalties, a 4 year ban from the post season, 40 lost scholarships, and vacated every win from 1998 to 2011. Which drops Paterno’s wins from first all time to 8th on the list. At least when Joe died he had the record. That’s gotta count for something.

Is there anything worse than vacated wins? Other than the slap to Paterno in the record books, once again marking him with this story every time someone looks through the history books at his legacy, what exactly do vacated wins do? Those games didn’t happen? Do the kids who put up stats during that time even exist in the record books? Good news? If you were a second tier High School player who always wanted to play at Penn State, there should be some openings available soon. Look for the rest of the Big 10 to try to steal these players and reload. Prepare for a full exodus of any player with real skill to run away from Penn State in 5…4…3…2…

 

Man Up Monday: The Comedic Stylings of Daniel Tosh

9 Comments

Most days I love the internet. There is something incredible about the fact that anyone can actually have an opinion and publish it and people might actually get noticed. You can find someone talking about anything. You can find out all the weird things people are into. Slight downside, you might also be able to find pictures of those weird things. But there are certain points where I actually hate the “internet” as a whole. That’s because there are certain times when the internet becomes a faceless mass that is impossible to fight against.

You have to learn a few things about the internet. First, it is impossible to fight with ghosts. It’s like what I brought up when we discussed the “Shackle” shoes. Once it was declared racist, people who didn’t even know what the hell was going on decided they were racist and were ready to boycott Adidas forever sight unseen. The same thing is happening right now to Daniel Tosh.

Come on, how are you gonna be mad at that guy? Daniel Tosh is behind the show Tosh.0 which is pretty much the most offensive show on television. He’s pretty equal opportunity offensive which becomes it’s own defense in a certain “South Park” kind of way. He’s funny but, you kinda know you are either going to see something ridiculously disgusting, or he is going to say something so ridiculously disgusting that you will have at least one WTF? moment. His latest joke is his own version of “marry-fuck-kill” (offended yet?) called “Slap-Lick-fondle” where you take three people and choose who to do each of those three things to. He’s also come up with the theory that any contact less than five seconds isn’t actually sexual harassment. So he taped himself grabbing ass for four and a half seconds then letting go. I say all that to say this. His writing room seems like the most dangerous work environment ever constructed. Also, he’s created a character who is a complete dick. It is also hilarious. He also seems to get the essence of Us Versus Them.

So he’s in trouble this week because he told a “rape” joke in a comedy club one night last week. I’m not even positive it was a joke. I wasn’t there. I don’t know the set up. I don’t know what he was talking about. There were probable 100 people in the room, maybe. But somehow they are talking about it on the front page of cnn.com. You want to know how to make a joke NOT funny?

Take it out of context. Let a few “experts” analyze it. Treat it like news.

Jokes never have a chance in that environment. When I say Michael Richards what do you think of? His wild “n*gger” rant on stage, right? Dude made a decade of the greatest television, arguably ever. He created one of the most memorable characters ever on television. That shit happened in 2006. But it’s above the fold on his wiki page and I can get a video of it in three seconds. Fuck you internet! (Did I prove my point or mess it up by linking to the video? It’s so messed up there is video of that by the way) Tracy Morgan caught it for gay jokes last year. Now it is Daniel Tosh’s turn.

I get it, rape isn’t funny. Hell, I know I need to talk about the Penn State controversy, but it is hard as hell because there isn’t anything funny about a grown man creating an entire infrastructure dedicated to enticing and capturing young men underprivileged boys and sexually assaulting them. Not funny. But I guarantee “Penn State” will be a punch line for jokes for years to come. It’s now short hand for a horrible, horrible incident. Why explain something when you can do it in two words? So rape isn’t funny. There are very few things you can take from someone that are more valuable. But throwing something up on a blog that says Daniel Tosh said it would be really funny if five guys raped her in the Laugh Factory like some twisted performance art. See? Not funny? Also. Probably about 20 seconds of his 15 minute set.

That sucks. Comedians are just out there trying to figure it out. There are a lot of things in the world that don’t make sense and comedians pointing those things out and breaking them is a valuable service. Taking the most taboo subjects off the table is exactly the opposite of what we need. If we never talk about them they stay these super scary boogie men. I’m not saying rape jokes are funny or that rape is something we can make a lot of fun of, but the idea that comedians can be attacked by the internet if they slip up is terrible.

So Internet, stop being an asshole. Group decisions are made much worse on the internet. At least go check it out and get some context first. Tosh should lose his show? Not as long as it is the #1 show on Comedy Central he won’t. Nice try internet.

I’m not sure any of that was funny. But sometimes you just gotta buck shots on Man Up Monday. I’ll try extra hard to be funny on Wednesday. I’m thinking rape, oil spills, plane crashes, 9-11, hunger and famine. It’ll be hilarious.

Internet, Man Up!

-Brock

Tom and Katie: The Scientology of Breaking Up

2 Comments

I didn’t believe it when I heard it. I thought this one was actually going to last. Tom Cruise named a plane after her. They had their own nickname. TomKat was sounds so much better than Brangelina ever could. Katie used to dream about Tom, Tom always liked Katie. They were even able to have kids. That was supposed to be impossible!  It seemed like a match made in heaven.

But five years later it all fell apart. They had it all, what could possibly have happened?

Oh right. Tom Cruise was on that “we’re going to hook our five year old up to some electrodes and find out if she has alien blood” stuff. I’m sure that didn’t go over well. So Kate decided to get the hell out. She did it real smooth-like too. Set his ass up. Tom didn’t even see it coming.

Tom just out there smiling. Meanwhile, Katie is like, lawyer up bitch. It’s about to go down. This arm around your shoulder ain’t nothing, it’s all a set up. That head tilt says, “oh I got this dude right where I want him”. When she filed for divorce, Tom felt like this.

Tom is still stunned. So stunned he just went on ahead and settled the divorce.

They are certainly not going to release any of the detials, so instead of simply not talking about it, let’s just throw some wild speculation out there until we hit something that feels right.

Tom Cheated.

Tom is an asshole.

Tom is not human.

Tom wanted to upload Suri to the mothership.

Katie’s seen some things. Some terrible things.

Tom heard about Anderson Cooper and Frank Ocean coming out last week and wants some of that publicity.

Tom was so confident Rock of Ages was going to be awesome he agreed to release Katie from her marriage contract if it sucked.

Katie finally figured out Tom’s real name is Rumpelstiltskin and is now able to set herself and her firstborn free.

I like that last one. Whatever happened, it sounds like Katie had it all locked up before Tom even caught wind of it. There aren’t many divorces getting settled in less than two weeks. She either had extremely reasonable requests, or pictures of Tom doing the aforementioned terrible things. Kim Kardashian dumps Kanye and ends up with Tom Cruise in 5…4…3…2…

-Brock

Stacks on Stacks: The Lottery Hits $640 MILLION

6 Comments

Awwwww Shit. Have you bought your tickets yet? I’m not really a lottery dude, but when the winner gets more than a half a BILLION, I got to get a few horses in that race.

You will know if I win because Us Versus Them is going to be all blinged out next week. The final four in March Madnass will be televised LIVE during the championship game on CBS on Monday. I’ll by a few blocks of commercials at halftime, invite the ladies down and count the votes live. Then I’m gonna go buy like 30% of the Dodgers from Magic Johnson, call up ARod to see what it is like to have half a billi coming in, then I’m gonna hit up Floyd Mayweather and find out what bank he goes to to get his stacks of cash.

Then I’m gonna find an old Six Flags in Jersey and turn it into UvT Land.  It will be like a strip club amusement park. You know how fun house mirrors bend to make it look like you have a crazy body? UvT Land is actually going to have real chicks with crazy curves. Liquor stands. UvTees for sale. It’s gonna be great.

Actually I’d probably invest it in a responsible way. I’d trick off some of it, but there is nothing wrong with sitting on half a billion. Hell, do you know what the taxes would be on that much money. I’m pretty sure lottery and gambling winnings are at like 30%, so the federal government is gonna win at least $180 Million tonight. Party over at the IRS this weekend.

You know what is crazy about lotteries? Why don’t you ever hear about these lottery winners becoming the leads of major businesses. No famous rich dude has ever had the story of “I won the lottery in 1988 and made some real estate investments and now I’m sitting on $2 Billion.

Seriously, when you catch a $165 Million windfall, you should really be able to make some stuff happen. Meanwhile the dude who wins this half billion will buy a big ass house three miles from the house he lives in now. He will build custom, complete with gold pipes and Italian Marble. His contractor will get rich as hell and it will take him 2 years to get the house built. During that time some “money manager” will help him with his money and stick him for $100 Million. He’s gonna invest in car washes in NW Arkansas and an alpaca farm in North Carolina. He will go on a cocaine binge and his wife will take half. By 2020 he will be broke and buying lottery tickets again. How the hell does that happen?

My bad Allen Iverson…I know, I know, it isn’t that hard to blow through a lot of cash. I know.

So good luck tonight everyone. Here’s a protip, don’t tell anyone you won until you have police protection and the money is wired into your account. I guarantee there are a bunch of jackers looking for a sucker who doesn’t know how to handle that much loot. Get an unlisted phone number and don’t go back to the address listed in the phone book. Good luck everyone.

-Brock

 

When is a Dack Post Not a Dack Post?

1 Comment

Since Mr. Jezus in the comments let me know I’ve apparently unintentionally launched “Dick Week” without knowing it, I’ll just keep rolling with the theme.

By the way, do you think Rick Santorum knows how much he looks like a dick when he makes that face? He can’t be reviewing tape after these debates, because he makes that face the entire time. It looks like his response to every political point is “I know you think what you’re saying is important, but I know the REAL truth and you’re wrong. It’s just my little secret with myself.”

But that wasn’t the kind of dick I was talking about. I’m talking about the most disturbing picture I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying a lot, because I’ve found some crazy pictures this week. Things can be ”weird” disturbing. Where the image is so odd that it just makes your skin crawl.

Like this:

Which one is the real Drake? I don’t know. My guess is the dude in the second row in the white sweater.

Or there are things that will disturb you because they should be happy situations, but they went horribly wrong. When someone should be having the time of their life, but instead they find themselves in a situation that is too much for them to handle like this guy:

He still looks happy. But I’m not sure he knows what to do next. Her ability to hold the ceiling with her entire hand clearly demonstrates that this chick is the only female offspring of Andre the Giant. But how small is the dude? Hasn’t he figured out that it might be a good idea to lose the glasses? I think it would improve the experience for him.

But as disturbing as those last things were, this is WORSE. Seriously. It should be NSFW, but it isn’t. Only because of a technicality. Which I’m pretty sure is still NSFW, because if you have to explain as much as you would have to explain this picture, you probably are looking at the wrong stuff at work anyway. Seriously, on the UvT NSFW scale of 1-6 it swings from one side of the spectrum to literally off the chart immediately. I’ll explain after you’ve had the opportunity to see the pic.

SEE!

I’m sorry. It has an explanation built right in and it’s still awful. Most optical illusions are broken as soon as you know the secret. But this one is so crazy that you can bring it back at will. You literally have to keep reminding yourself it’s just a thumb.

Has a picture ever gone more wrong than this. It was the most innocent picture ever. A full on 1 on the UvT NSFW scale. Just some friends hanging out. It got a little silly when they both went to kiss him. Not my kind of funny, but I get it. Suddenly, the Bieber looking dude in the middle is smiling while he’s about to get tongued down by a dude and a half naked tranny. That’s not even a 6 on the scale, that is a 7…the image shouldn’t exist.

I wonder if the camera man fully appreciated the magic captured here. One step in either direction and this picture doesn’t happen.

So yeah, I’m sorry. I’d rather shorten the year to 51 weeks than have “Dick Week” here at Us Versus Them. It wasn’t my intent.

-Brock

 

Race Based Bake Sale: I’ll Have The Marble Cake

20 Comments

I’m sure you’ve heard this story by now. The Berkeley College Republicans at UC Berkeley came up with the brilliant idea to have a “Race Based Bake Sale”. No, it isn’t some sort of awesome marathon/food challenge like the incredible “Krispy Kreme Challenge” like they do down in Raleigh for the NC Children’s hospital. (That’s a 4 mile race with a stop in the middle to eat a dozen delicious Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Hilarity ensues.) Instead, the Berkeley College Republicans held a bake sale and wanted to get attention make a statement by setting the prices based on race. They were trying to prove that affirmative action efforts are not fair. That it isn’t equitable to sell they same thing when people have to pay different prices for them. Here’s how they did it.

That would be:

Native Americans $0.25

Black/African Americans $0.75

Latino/Hispanic $1.00

Asian/Asian American $1.50

White/Caucasian $2.00

$0.25 off for all Women

I guess I appreciate the sensitivity on the titles. They didn’t want to piss people off up front. Does it look racist? That was the point. The president of the college Republicans wanted to have something that was “inherently racist” because he wants to talk about how inherently racist affirmative action is. He believes “it is no more racist than giving an individual an advantage in college admissions based solely on their race (or) gender”. I get it. He thinks affirmative action is unfair. He wants to focus on the process and not the cause or the effect. He comes up with a stunt to get attention but he gets the analogy all wrong.

(side question…where did they find that brother to sit at the back sale table? Come on Bruh!)

If they wanted to get it right, here is what the pricing structure per cupcake should be:

Asian/Asian American $100

Latino/Hispanic $500

Black/African Americans $You aren’t allowed to buy cupcakes

Native Americans $If you have some cupcakes we would like you to give them too us.

White/Caucasian $Free CUPCAKES!  All you can eat.

Hot Women: Free Cupcakes for you too!

Not hot women: Do you really need a cupcake? Really?

See, the pricing structure above shows a lot about the mindset of the Berkeley College Republicans. They see affirmative action as something that costs them. They they have to work harder to get the same cupcake. That they have to pay a higher price to get the exact same cupcake. It makes it look like the road to a cupcake just gets easier and easier if you belong to certain racial groups. In reality, affirmative action is about giving someone who has never had a cupcake a chance to taste a cupcake. Finding a person who would become a master baker if they were just exposed to cupcakes. It is the hope that by letting someone get access to a cupcake, they would expand their world so that they might be able to get access to cupcakes for their children and their grandchildren.

You know what, let’s drop the metaphor, we’re talking about education. It isn’t easy for anyone. The opportunities are different and the effects are different in a way that hurts everyone. People can do great things when they get opportunities to learn.

In addition, how about the fact that I think it is racist to give other races access to sugar-loaded, carb-laden cupcakes at a lesser price? Here is the scene after the bake sale.

Sure, that looks like a “lay in” protest showing that a lot of people in the UC Berkeley were protesting against the Bake sale, but in reality it is just all the people going into diabetic shock because of all the cupcakes.

I know, I know it is a serious protest. I know the people running the table were there to educate and prove a very discreet point. Not mock the issue of race or trivialize the challenges that people face.

Wait a minute.

Two white girls just show up in hot pink indian headdress and they are good to go, huh? Let’s do the math. American Indian $0.25 with the female $0.25 discount. Free cupakes!

Sounds a lot more like the UvT pricing structure than the College Republican pricing structure doesn’t it?

Look. This isn’t the first time there have been racist baked goods. For instance:

Why do the brown cakes gotta be called “Ho Ho’s”? Huh? Where’s the protest for that?

I just want everyone to get along. Like I said above, I’ll take the marble cake.

No marble cake? Damn. Then I’m with Delonte West. You betta have my doughnuts.

-Brock

«Older Posts