Deadspin Is Awesome Today

I mean, you start the day by posting pictures of me, and the average reader has to wonder, "How can today get any better?" I didn't think it could, but damn it if Deadspin hasn't proven me wrong today.

First they actually convinced Bill Simmons to write a post there today (the best thing he's written in years, by the way), and now this video from the Basketball Jones' J.E. Skeets making fun of the whole Costas Now/Buzz Bissinger fiasco.

Brilliant. (Some very NSFW language going on here, so turn the volume down a bit. Just don't do any actual work.)

Damn I'm Good Looking

It's unfortunate that Will Leitch never figured out the best way to pull in readers to your website was by posting pictures of me before his second to last day as editor of Deadspin. Still, as long as he brings my beautiful face along with him to New York Magazine, I'm sure he'll be just fine.

I'll miss you too, buddy.

Asshole Of The Week: Buzz Bissinger

Welcome to Asshole Of The Week, where every Friday your trusty Foul Balls editor picks out the one person from the previous seven days who makes him think, "Man, what an asshole." It could be anybody from an athlete, an owner, someone in the media, or just anybody who happens to catch my ire.

This week's Asshole Of The Week is none other than author Buzz Bissinger.

Shocking, I know. For the last few days the entire sports blogosphere has been ablaze with the story about Bissinger's tirade against Deadspin's Will Leitch and sports blogs everywhere on HBO's Costas Now. (If you haven't seen it yet, go here.)

Now, I hadn't seen the show until yesterday but had been reading about it everywhere, and going off what I read on other blogs, I was expecting Bissinger to turn green, quadruple in size, and rip Will's head off before defecating down his exposed throat.

After seeing it, I think my fellow bloggers were overreacting a bit. Don't get me wrong, Buzz did act like jackass (see below), but I think the anger many expressed stems primarily from protective feelings towards blogging and Will Leitch. Let's face it, a lot of the readers of Deadspin are sycophants worshipping at the altar that is Will, and when their savior is questioned, they respond in such a manner.

I don't intend that as an insult, because I'm a huge fan of Leitch's writing myself, and having downed beers with him and heard him sing karaoke in the real world, I'm an even bigger fan of him as a person. When Bissinger accuses Will of being "full of shit," he couldn't be more wrong. Will is as genuine a person as I've ever met, and trust me, what you see is what you get.

On to the matter at hand, Bissinger did make one or two valid points. For example, when Buzz started talking about Will posting pictures of Matt Leinart partying at his house with some girls during the offseason, and questioned what exactly makes it news, I agreed with him. I don't think it's really news, either. It's just unfortunate he offered his opinion in such a maniacal manner, an approach that makes it too easy to dismiss him as a has-been scribe terrified that he and others of his ilk are becoming increasingly more irrelevant with every passing day.

But Bissinger's other criticisms just didn't make sense. He brings up Leinart party pics but doesn't make any note of the fact that there are thousands of posts that have been on Deadspin that have absolutely nothing to do with drunk athletes.

I'm not even going to get into the hypocrisy that is Bissinger's railing against Deadspin and the sports blogosphere for its vulgarity and profane nature by using nothing but profanities himself. (He came off as someone who suffers from a combination of Tourette's syndrome and a methamphetamine addiction: "You motherfuckers cuss too much and show too many cocksucking motherfucking titties! It fucking makes me sick! Shit, cock, tits, balls, asshole!") And let's not forget Buzz's comment that Will is like "Jimmy Olson on percocet." Yeah, saying things like that in no way conflicts with the argument you're trying to make.

But what Bissinger did on Costas Now that really pissed me off was that he jumped feet first on the bandwagon of journalists who question what makes a blogger qualified to offer any opinion at all. To Bissinger we're nothing but a bunch of ignorant morons who know nothing of what we speak because the majority of us don't sit in a press box, and many don't possess the sheepskin that certifies we can write.

What bullshit.

I don't need to watch a game from a press box to see what's going on. In fact, I get a better view from my television at home. As for where I find the nerve to share my opinion, it's that little thing our entire country was founded on called the Bill of Rights featuring my favorite one line, something about "freedom of speech."

This may come as a shock to the learned Buzz, but you don't need a college degree to understand how to form complete sentences, and then put them alongside other complete sentences and form paragraphs. I learned how to do this in grade school.

What also drives me nuts is how he implies blogs are solely responsible for the impending downfall of newspapers and other types of print media. That's just asinine. Yes, it's all Deadspin's fault that the newspapers are going down the crapper. It's not the fact that a few huge conglomerates, like the Chicago Tribune, are buying up all of the local papers, slashing funds and shedding most of their experienced staff, which in turn leads to much smaller and more poorly written rags. (Trust me, I'm one of the few people in my age group who still reads the newspaper every single day, be it the print version or online.) Nope. It's that post on Deadspin in which Ben Roethlisberger is wearing a t-shirt that says "Drink Like A Champion Today" that's killing American journalism.

Buzz has the nerve to say we're responsible for the dumbing down of America? Really? Corporate-produced television has nothing to do with this? Have you been watching lately? While there are actually smart and informative shows still on - you just have to look for them - the majority of air time consists of glorified karaoke performances, "celebrity" dancing, and washed up rock stars trying to find "the one." I'm guessing that there are a whole lot more people who can tell you who got eliminated from American Idol last night than there are that could tell you who is running for the democratic nomination right now.

I'm also sure the dumbing down of America has absolutely nothing to do with the increasing impotence of our public schools as funding continues to get slashed, schools are forced to ax vital programs, kids are crammed 30 into each classroom, and undeserving students are passed just so the schools don't lose what little funding they do receive. Nope, it's that damn Big Daddy Drew! Damn him and those dick jokes!

I guess I'm just sick and tired of being viewed as ignorant by people who claim to judge me and my fellow bloggers without ever actually reading what we write. Sure, I take my shots at writers like Jay Mariotti from time to time, but I actually read what he has to say first. It's called "research," something I'm apparently incapable of doing since I've never been in a press box.

Also, did you ever notice how there isn't this great divide between the "establishment" and bloggers when it comes to other areas? How come politicos like Tim Russert, James Carville, and George Will never complain about all the political blogs out there? They don't get all bent out of shape when somebody who doesn't have a political science degree, or doesn't work on Capitol Hill, shares opinions on issues they don't have intimate knowledge of.

Yet, in sports, which in the end are utterly meaningless and have no effect on anything of real importance, there is this huge rift between the "have credentials" and "have nots."

C'mon, folks, sports are nothing but a distraction from our everyday lives. An escape from the mortgage, the boss, and the wife.

And this leads me to the one thing that pisses me off more than anything else. Buzz Bissinger is arrogant enough to truly believe anything he's ever written has some sort of value in the world. It doesn't. At the end of the day, nothing he's ever written, nothing Will Leitch has ever written, and nothing I've ever written will ever mean anything. Trust me, one hundred years from now nobody will be saying, "Man, Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights changed the world."

That Buzz thinks otherwise is what truly makes him the Asshole Of The Week. Congratulations, Buzz. I hope you're dumber for having read this.

Commit To The Controversy

So the Blackhawks are starting to work their way back into the public consciousness of Chicago sports fans. That's great. Really, I mean it. As I've often said here in the past, I have nothing against hockey and I used to enjoy it a bit. It was just that Bill Wirtz caused me to abandon the Blackhawks, and the strike caused me to abandon the sport all together.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who left for these reasons because now that Dollar Bill is dead, people are showing up to the United Center again, and people are actually talking about the team again. Seriously, you hear about the Blackhawks on sports radio in this city again. For the last five years or so, the only time you heard about the Blackhawks was if somebody was making fun of them.

Still, being back in the public consciousness also leads to problems. When nobody pays any attention to you, you can do whatever the hell you want and not worry about the consequences. When they are paying attention to you, you can get yourself in trouble from time to time.

Which is what seems to be happening at the moment. Remember last week when coach Denis Savard ripped into his team after a 1-0 loss, and told them they had to "commit to the Indian?"

Well, as you'd expect in this politically correct world we now live in, the phrase has rubbed some people the wrong way. Take the Chicago Sun-Times' Carol Slezak for instance.

The phrase has struck a chord with Hawks fans, many of whom would like to adopt it as the team's slogan. President John McDonough has been inundated with e-mails suggesting ways the Hawks can market the phrase, and you already can buy ''Commit to the Indian'' T-shirts online. Clearly Hawks fans are rediscovering their passion for the team, and that's great. But not everyone is happy about the way they've latched onto Savard's poor choice of words.

Count Podlasek -- executive director of the American Indian Center at 1630 W. Wilson on the North Side -- among the unhappy.

''For a fan base to use that statement as its motto is terrible,'' he said. ''What are they teaching the kids? These old symbols perpetuate the belief that American Indians are a thing of the past and that natives don't exist.''

Hey, it's Chief Illiniwek all over again!

I'm not going to get into a big debate about whether or not teams should have an Indian as it's mascot, but I will say that it doesn't bother me in the slightest. What I don't get is how the Blackhawks using an indian head logo is going to "perpetuate the belief that American Indians are a thing of the past and that natives don't exist."

Really?

I'm willing to bet that if the Blackhawks weren't named the Blackhawks that the majority of children in this city would grow up never knowing what in the hell a Blackhawk was, let alone whether or not they ever existed.

Now some people might say that I don't know what it's like since I'm not a native American, and I can't possibly know what it feels like to see my heritage exploited. These same people ignore the fact that as an Italian, I've spent my entire life seeing Italians in movies portrayed as nothing but members of the mob.

When I meet somebody and they hear my last name, I'm inevitably going to get the "Are you in the mafia?"

Does this bother me? No. Just like it doesn't bother any of my Irish friends that Notre Dame calls it's sports team the Fighting Irish, perpetuating the stereotype that all Irish people do is drink and fight. (Actually, that's not a stereotype. That's 100% true except they also eat a lot of corned beef and hash in between the two.)

The truth is that sports teams are just entertainment sources for people, they're not the moral compass of our society. Anybody who thinks otherwise isn't somebody you should be listening to.

Foul Balls

Bustin' Caps At Kams - I wrote about this at FanHouse last night, but I'm going to write about it here as well because I can. Yesterday it was announced that the Illini had suspended freshman linebacker Erique Robertson indefinitely for violating team rules.

That's all we got at first, but then later in the day Robertson appeared in court, and we all found out exactly what he'd done.

University of Illinois football player Erique Robertson has pleaded not guilty to felony charges for allegedly firing a gun at a Champaign bar.

The 19-year-old freshman is charged with reckless discharge of a firearm and two counts of aggravated unlawful use of weapons. Both are felonies.

Champaign police spokeswoman Rene Dunn said Robertson was arrested about 1:45 a.m. Sunday in front of Ellusions, a local bar. No one was injured.

I have no idea why Robertson brought the gun to the bar, and no idea why he fired the thing. What I want to know is where the hell is Ellusions? It sure as hell wasn't there when I lived in Champaign, and I don't remember seeing it anytime I've visited since then. Is it a townie bar?

No, wait, it can't be a townie bar. They wouldn't let a 19-year old into a townie bar, and everybody has a gun.

Any U. of I. students want to fill me in in the comments?

Gilbert Gives Leitch Two Thumbs Up - I got my copy of Leitch's "God Save the Fan" last Thursday, and I was finished reading it by Saturday. I don't tell you this to impress you with my reading skills (admittedly it goes over great with the ladies) I only say it so when I tell you it's a good book, you know I've actually read the whole thing.

But hey, if you don't want to take my word for it, take Gilbert Arenas'. From Gil's blog,

Have you seen the new book that came out, God Save the Fan? Will Leitch came out with the book. Thank you Will Leitch! Got to give a shout out to Will Leitch and Deadspin for coming out with the book God Save the Fan. I’m just going to tell you guys to go get the book, because I’m in Chapter 2. I mean, the title might be a little hard for some of you to read, especially since me and LeBron James are best friends. It’s about me and LeBron and it’s somewhere along the lines of “Why Gilbert is Better for the Game than LeBron” … it’s somewhere along those lines. I don’t want Cleveland fans to get mad at me, I didn’t write the book, I just read it. It’s kind of funny because me and him have been best friends over the five years since he’s been in this league. I was just grateful being mentioned with him. When I’m done playing and after all is said and done and he’s compared in Jordan likeness, I’m going to show my kids the book and be like, “Look at this here. Y’all see this, kids? Told you I was somebody. Y’all thought I was playing.” LeBron and I are really friends though, the whole free throw thing in the playoffs was just trash talking.

I know what you're thinking, and I'm shocked as well. I had no idea athletes could read either. Kinda makes me want to watch what I say around here.

Michael Wilbon Had A Heart Attack - When I sat down to watch Pardon The Interruption yesterday, like I do every day, I was pissed when I saw that Michael Wilbon wasn't on the show. Instead he was replaced by J.A. Adande, and I told myself "At least it's not Dan Le Batard."

Tony Kornheiser explained Wilbon's absence saying he was under the weather and had some minor chest pains. Turns out, Willy Buns had a heart attack.

Michael Wilbon acclaimed longtime columnist at the Washington Post and Pardon the Interruption (PTI) co-host suffered a minor heart attack this morning. It was reported that at 3 a.m. he complained of chest pains to his wife who took him to the hospital. Doctors found minor blockage in his heart and performed an angioplasty, which successfully removed the blockage.

Though he is weary he is expected to be back at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona tomorrow.

Get better, Wilbon. And lay off those sticky buns.

Kenny Williams Should Run For President

You know, I've been under the impression the last few months that I'm not the only angry White Sox fan in this city. Whether I'm having conversations with friends, listening to local radio, reading comments here or at FanHouse, the theme has always been the same: DAMN YOU, KENNY WILLIAMS!! DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

A little over the top, sure, but sports fans have never really been known for their subtleties.

So when SoxFest took place over the weekend, I figured it was probably going to be the longest three days of Kenny Williams life. Sox fan after Sox fan was going to line up and hurl insults, and maybe even some rotten tomatoes at the embattled White Sox general manager.

I didn't go to SoxFest, as my head currently feels as though it's in a vice, and if I stand up and walk for more than 10 seconds right now I start getting dizzy. From all accounts that I read over the weekend though, there was no animosity. Sure, there were a few questions directed at Kenny that were along the lines of "How many drugs did you take before you made the comment that you thought the Sox could match up with Detroit?" Other than that though, Sox fans were pretty tame.

Hell, by the time Kenny was done talking, he got a standing ovation. Seriously. It seems other Sox fans know something about Carlos Quentin that I don't.

Foul Balls

I've Been Saying This For Years - So you're sitting at your desk right now reading this, and you probably think I have the easiest job in the world. I mean, all I have to do is wake up in the morning and start typing. I don't have to shower, I don't have to get dressed, I don't even have to leave my bedroom.

But it isn't easy. Do you know how hard it is to find something that interests you enough to write a few thousand words a day on? Especially at this time of year where there isn't a god damn thing happening in sports that really matters.

Well, Deadspin's Will Leitch recently wrote a book (Did you know that? I'm not sure anybody's mentioned it.) and in a column over at Publisher's Weekly, he wrote something I've known for some time now.

It's easier to write a book than be a blogger.

Much has been written about the relative lack of sales success for books written by bloggers, as if bloggers were an ethnic group, or some sort of easily charted genre. Every blogger is different from the others; I can't think of a single shared characteristic among bloggers, save for lack of a tan. The one thing we do do, however, is write. A lot. I've worked for newspapers, magazines, television stations, doctor's offices, you name it, and no job requires more daily effort than being a professional blogger. If people have a slow day at the office and do a little less work than usual, hardly anyone notices. If I have a slow day, every commenter on my site lets me know immediately.

I once worked at a paper factory, piling magazine pages into a sorter, and if I fell behind for as few as 120 seconds, a red light would go off above my workstation and the entire machine would stop. Professional bloggers have that red light looming over their heads every day. Blogging is not a job for those who are afraid of writing, and it forces you to let go of all those niggling bad habits you had when people weren't waiting for your next post all day.

This is my third book; I'm proud of it, and I hope it does well, but if it doesn't, I will not shrivel up and die. I'll just write another one. (Okay, I might cry a little, but I'm sensitive.) This is how those who have mastered the art of online writing—where every minute is another deadline, when you have to bring your best game every day—have been trained. We are not looking at a blank page and trying to fill it; we are looking at yesterday's work and realizing it means nothing. The next thing you do is all that matters; every day—every minute—is a test to grab eyeballs with something fresh and inspiring. You write because that's your job; you won't hear a blogger ever say they're “blocked.” Writer's block is the luxury of those who have no one expecting to hear from them today.

Preach on, brother!

I'll be totally honest with you right now. I didn't want to write today. As I've mentioned 15 times already in a desperate plea for sympathy, I'm sick as a fucking dog right now. I can hardly breathe, let alone think of something intelligent to say. (So what's my excuse for every other day?) But I'm here anyway, slapping away at these lettered buttons on my laptop. Why? Because for some reason I would feel bad if I didn't. If you came here this morning, and there was nothing new on the site, I feel as though I'd have let all six of you readers down.

That and there's nothing on television on Monday morning to watch instead.

This Kid Is Special - I have no idea what point this kid is trying to make here, but I'm captivated by his waving arms and feel the need to post this. I should mention though, that even though Leitch is correct in saying bloggers can't have writer's block because they have to put something out every day, we do have a resource that somebody writing a book doesn't.

We have YouTube.



Thanks to Shoals for the video.

Will Leitch is Far From the Maddening Crowd

So, I came home last night to find my very own copy of God Save the Fan by Deadspin’s Will Leitch.

Of course, I eagerly tore into it (it was that or watch Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? which, sadly, I already know the answer to) and I must say, it's a great read. Basically Deadspin in long form with a heavier environmental footprint - and unlike Deadspin, you can drop food on it while you're reading!

All in all, a big thumb's up. Go buy it. Now. And while you're at it, stock up on a few for your friends and family.

But...

I have one nit to pick with Will and his book: his entire premise.

Will's central theme is that "we the sports fans" are being left out of the mainstream sports media equation and that it's time we wrested power back from the evil ESPN overlords and took control of the stories that really matter to the fans.

Never mind that the first example Will used as proof of media bias and ineptitude was the lack of national coverage of Michael Vick's herpes (cuz when I think of problems with football coverage, my mind immediately races to genital cold sores). I'm talking about the bigger issue Will presents, as he states in his introduction:

"It's natural that [the sports media] would be threatened by fan empowerment; after all, we're the ones who pay for all this. If we all realized that, hey, we don't need to listen to these idiots on television screaming at us... they'd be out of a job. But it's vital for sports fans to realize that we don't need them, that we can choose what we want now. We just have to take charge and realize our power. Hopefully, this book will help with that."

Huey Long lives! Let the people decide! We can choose what we want! No longer do we need bombastic talking heads and agenda-laden sportswriters telling us what the story is! We can do it ourselves!

There's only one problem with that: Will doesn't believe it himself.

Deadspin is the Pakistan of sports blogs: democracy as appearance, not reality.

You see, Deadspin controls who is allowed to comment on their blog. You need to be granted a "backstage pass" before you can leave any bon mots on the site. So, like a gated community or a hot college frat, prospective D'spinners have to jump through the appropriate verbal hoops to get permission to be heard. And good luck if you write something stupid cuz Deadspin is now even using rejected commenters tryouts as fodder for some of their stories.

Don't misunderstand. I think exclusion is a good thing. God knows, in a country where 15 million sports fans cheer for a team solely because they like the color of the uniforms, it's smart to be a little careful about who you let in. If you want to see what pure democracy looks like, try this - not pretty.

But let's face it: Deadspin and its commenters are about as representative of the US sports fan base as this lass.

It's kinda hard for me to buy the whole premise Will is selling when his actions prove he knows that the majority of fans are as stupid, short-sighted and boring as any ESPN talking head.

(Witty, funny brilliant) pot, meet kettle.

Foul Balls

Savvy Observations - Well, it only took fifty games and a piss-poor 23-23-4 record, but after his teams' dismal outing against the Columbus Blue Jackets last night (the friggin' Columbus Blue Jackets?) Blackhawks coach Denis Savard finally let it rip, reaming out his players in the press conference that followed:

"This is a divisional game, we're fighting for our lives here, we want to get into the playoffs, we had a nice crowd and this is what they give us? I think they forgot last summer or two summers ago or three summers ago what we gave them (contracts). We committed to them. They were very happy when they signed it. Well, commit to us, commit to the jersey, commit to the people here. They don't want to commit to the Indian, let's go upstairs and get them out of here."

You heard him, boys. Best commit to the Indian or the Indian will [insert funny but undoubtedly racist one-liner here].

Why Condoms Are Good - Chicago Bears' Brian Urlacher finally gets to spend time with the result of his one-night stand: his two-year-old son.

After a day of meetings on Thursday, a Will County judge dismissed all pending litigation between the Bears linebacker and infamous star-fu**ker Tyna Robertson, after the two agreed on a new court order requiring Urlacher to drive their son back and forth to spend time with each of his parents.

"It was a great day in court," Urlacher said in a phone interview Thursday evening. "I achieved what I wanted to achieve, and that was to see my son more. That was the goal from the beginning. All she wanted was money and fame."

It's good to see that a sports star can be just like us. You know, go out and get shitfaced, get in the wrong chick's pants and and have to pay the price for the rest of his life. Except for the part about him living in a $5 million dollar lakefront villa instead of a cramped Schaumburg studio apartment that reeks of garlic from the neighbors next door, we're all just the same!

Dear God! Tom Brady Is In A Boot!

Wow, I was hoping I could hold out longer than a day before I started writing about the Super Bowl or NFL again, but I'm a weaker man than I thought. There just isn't anything else going on right now.

The first "big story" of this Super Bowl season was the boot that Golden Boy Tom Brady was seen walking around in yesterday while in New York. Yes, that's right. Tom Brady had a boot on his foot after the Patriots beat the Chargers on Sunday. But why?

I have no idea. Maybe Richard Seymour stepped on it.

I mean, the Patriots list Brady on their injury report every week even though he's not hurt, so I figure it's highly possible that Brady was faking the whole thing just to mess with the Giants.

Of course, if Tom's going to try and pull that one off, he should probably be smart enough to wear the boot when he goes out later that night with Gisele.

But do you see what happens here? Are we so desperate as sports fans that we just can't go back to our normal lives for the two weeks in which we don't have football?

Who really cares if Brady is wearing a boot the day after a playoff game? Maybe you forgot, but football players are generally sore the day after a football game. It's true. Something about violently hurling your body into men who are doing the same thing to you for three and a half hours tends to be hazardous to one's health. In all likelihood, Brady got off easy. Sure, he has a boot on, but at least he's out and about walking around and buying flowers for his girlfriend.

There were probably other Patriots, or Giants, or Packers, or Chargers, who couldn't get out of bed at all yesterday. I know Philip Rivers didn't, or at the very least, he didn't want to, but more on that later.

For now, just know that Tom Brady is going to be fine, and that nothing you hear or read over the next two weeks really matters. Well, nothing you hear or read that doesn't come from me anyway.

Foul Balls

The More On That Later - I haven't really been a big fan of Philip Rivers in his time in San Diego. The way he's constantly running his mouth, be it to opponents or opposing fans, just kind of rubs me the wrong way. Not because I have a problem with trash talking, that couldn't be further from the truth, it's just the fact I've always felt like Rivers is riding the coattails of his defense and LaDainian Tomlinson and acting like he's driving the car.

Then Rivers came out on Sunday in obvious pain, and had he had Tomlinson to help him out in the red zone, he may have been able to pull off an upset over the Patriots. I earned a lot of respect for him for it, and now that the true scope of his injury has been made public, I respect him even more.

Philip Rivers' anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee is “totally gone” and he will have reconstructive surgery soon.

The recovery time for the surgery is not known but Rivers said he definitely will be 100 percent by the start of next season.

The man played without an ACL. All week the Chargers had been saying he had a sprained MCL, the same injury as Tomlinson. Turns out, Rivers had to have arthroscopic surgery last Monday just so he could play this week. He effectively put his entire career on the line to try and help get this team to the Super Bowl, and now I understand a little more as to why his teammates stick up for him.

Some White Sox Moves - I wrote about it at FanHouse last week, but the White Sox made it official this morning and announced they've signed Octavio Dotel to a two-year deal.

They also signed Cuban defector Alexei Ramirez to a four-year deal.

Of course, to add players to your roster, you must subtract players from your roster, which is why the Sox also had to designate David Aardsma for assignment.

The White Sox have 10 days to trade Aardsma, who after coming south from the Cubs was awesome in April, and terrible from there on out last season. With the additions of Dotel and Scott Linebrink, there's just no point to keeping him around.

Will Leitch Is Everywhere - My friend and Deadspin editor (when introducing himself he prefers to be introduced as Tom Fornelli's friend), Will Leitch has a book coming out today. If you haven't already bought it, you should go here and buy it.

Of course, when you have a book coming out there's that big whirlwind promotional tour you have to go on. There are book signings, radio interviews, articles for Penthouse, there's just a ton of shit you gotta do.

Sometimes you even have to go on television.



I think Will did a fantastic job there, but mostly because he was able to go an entire 5 minutes without punching that long-haired douche in the face. I don't think I could have done it.

Also, for those of you in the Chicago area who have bought the book and want to get it signed by the internet legend that is Leitch, he'll be at the Borders Bookstore in Oak Brook on February 11th at 7PM. The next day he'll be in Champaign at the Illini Union. So go there and behold greatness.

Pants Party Recap

From L to R:Andrea, PeteJayhawk, Pete's friend, yours truly, Will Leitch, and Purdue Paul

Unlike what Panger told you on Saturday, I did not in fact get arrested at the Pants Party on Friday night. I still had a good time, though.

I didn't spend much time paying attention to the baseball game going on, but I'm told that the White Sox won.

As for thoughts on the people I met, everybody was fantastic. Will Leitch might just be the nicest guy on the planet, and it was great to meet him and hang out for a while. It was also nice to meet my fellow Fanhousers Michael David Smith, and PostmanR. R didn't actually go to the game but he did meet up with all of us at the Pontiac Cafe afterwards where we got drunker and sang karaoke.

I'd also like to thank Pete Jayhawk for organizing the entire thing. It wasn't easy, and he had to front a lot of money to do it, and I am eternally grateful for it.

If you would like to see pictures of our idiocy, you can always go to Lady Andrea's Flickr page where she's posted a whole bunch of pictures from the event.

I'd say more about what happened at the Pants Party, but what happens at the Pants Party stays at the Pants Party. That and I drank a lot, and the memories are a bit fuzzy.