2008 Woodie Awards
The other night I decided to call my fiance, let’s call him Ralph, to occupy my time. As we began our usual daily phone conversation about each other’s day, me being somewhat random, decided to ask him if he was planning on having a stripper at his bachelor party.
I’m sure the very first thought that popped into his brain was “hopefully” but he responded to me with “I don’t know.” This unsure statement struck me as funny. Did he really have no clue since it’s his brothers job, the best man, to decides what festivities they will partake in or was he hiding it from me until after we said our vows?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I know people have to make money somehow. I mean, why else would we have drug dealers, prostitutes, or even 60-year-old McDonald’s workers? Who aspires to work at McDonald’s full time?
Anyways, knowing that his two brothers are typical guys, no offense. A woman dressed in a ensemble made from the loose thread off of someone’s shirt collected together to form some form of bra and underwear parading around shaking everything her mother and even farther gave her is something no guy would say no that unless he was gay.
As our conversation about having strippers at his bachelor party, I mentioned that if he had strippers that clearly means I can have tarzans in loin cloth thrusting everywhere. This statement clearly closed the door in Ralph’s mind because the meer second I said it, his thundering God like voice came out with a “NO”.
What the heck? He can play motorboat with a pair of ta-ta’s but I can’t watch a muscular beef cake try imitate some form of dancing? I don’t think so. I immediately told Ralph, if he gets to watch strippers stript then I get male strippers. If there are not strippers for him, there will be strippers for me. His reply was that he can’t control his brothers and what they plan and to be honest, I really can’t either.
I can threatened, stomp around and plead with them all I want. If they want Ralph to see Sunshine’s boobs, I can’t stop them because if I tell Ralph he can’t have a bachelor that means I don’t get a party either. His brothers could sneek him out of the house and take him to wherever they want.
Basically, this conversation was getting us no where and both of us were getting annoyed with each other. To salvage our conversation, I had to simply change subjects.
I’m not holding a white flag on this issue until I know exactly what to do. This topic, strippers, has probably broken up more marriages than I can think of but I have decided it will not break up ours.
It’s completely stupid and as long as he doesn’t cheat, right? But how is cheating defined? It’s different for everone.
All I know is that this topic isn’t going away for me and Ralph until I know for sure. Until then, I just have to play the waiting game and hope Ralph doesn’t need to see a fresh pair the week before he commits to me forever.
When world class sprinter Marion Jones confessed yesterday to lying about her steroid use, track and field lost even more support. This is the second Olympic 100m champion to have been caught in the past two years, further burying the sport I love in America. I’m sure if you ask a random American sports fan, i’m sure he or she will know the world’s best bowler before the world’s best sprinter. This is beyond sad, and I’ve always blasted these morons for not being able to appreciate athleticism at its purest form, but now, it’s hard to blame people for turning away from track.
Though track’s demise upsets me greatly, it’s far from the key issue here. Marion Jones, because of her stupid confession, which was likely forced, is facing a 10-year maximum sentence for lying to a grand jury. That’s right, 10 years. Taking steroids to improve your own career should not be punished by jail time. It was a choice that came with consequences but the federal government in no way should be involved. Ban her from track, fine, but don’t lock her up for running a little bit faster than she normally would. The same goes for Barry Bonds. Baseball, if they ever get any solid evidence, should suspend or ban him for his actions. He should not be facing a grand jury about something as simple as steroids.
Mike Vick may only get one year for strangling dogs, Leonard Little got three months for drunkenly killing a woman, and Ray Lewis, who lied to the police about a murder, gets off. Jones shouldn’t be running anymore because she took advantage of athletes who are playing the game right (if there are any), but she should be punished by the appropriate body. Let the federal government deal with important issues, like poverty and crime, but to have it involved in on-field improvement crimes is ridiculous.
I used to be that guy who would dog on all the girl’s sports. I hated the idea of watching the WNBA or women’s soccer, and was sure that I could never enjoy a woman playing sports.
I was a fool, and it took the Northwest Missouri State volleyball team to show me that.
I was assigned the Bearcat volleyball beat by my editor at the beginning of the trimester. The problem was, I knew nothing about volleyball. Volleyball strategy, and skill, and stats were all foreign to me. My first interviews with head coach Anna Tool had to sound like Ashton Kutcher asking Tom Hanks about acting. But she was patient. I think she understood.
After a few volleyball games, I wasn’t that impressed either. The women had some amazing athleticism and skill, but I just didn’t have the experience of a hottly contested volleyball match. When it came, it was somewhat of an out of body experience. I was sitting courtside during Northwests’ 3-1 loss to Washburn, and I caught myself sitting on the edge of my seat, unable to take notes for fear of missing the action with my eyes. Like a fish the team had hooked me.
The ‘Cats finally reeled me in with their exciting win over Nebraska-Omaha. The energy courtside forced me to care about what I was watching. Women were diving all over the place smashing volleyballs so hard I was suprised they stayed inflated.
The Northwest volleyball team got me hooked, maybe they’ll hook you too.
The minute after a woman gets engaged, what crosses her mind? Or at least in my mind, it was the dress! I think it’s one of the most crucial decisions a woman will make when planning a wedding. I mean, who wants to wear a dress that is way too tight? Or makes your butt or hips bigger that what they actually are? Not me. I began my quest for “the one” a month after I got engaged by thumbing through countless, ridiculously expensive bridal magazines at Wal-Mart. Every single dress I saw was beautiful, some more for the fashionista types but still how can you choose? Placing a pink Post-It note to every single dress I liked, I realized I had no freaking clue what kind of dress I wanted. A-Line? Trumpet skirt? Princess? I’m indecisive, I can barely pick out a movie to rent, let alone a dress that I have to look fabulous in. It’s not like I can change my mind the day of or before the wedding and plus, I’m part of the main event. Family, close friends and the friends that are secretly judging every move I make, will all be watching me when I tumble down the alter steps and rip the back of my dress revealing my rhinestone “Bride” underwear. Ok, I’ll admit it. I have nightmares of crazy things happening on my wedding day. I just hope none of them occur.
After narrowing down to two different styles of dresses, I made a phone call to a bridal shop to set up an appointment for that Saturday. Tagging along a few buddies and my mother, we entered the shop Wizard of Oz style. But me being the cowardly lion, any hopes of finding “the one” was crushed as soon as she smirked at me. I was intimidated. Scared out of my mind.
As she kept asking me questions about what style, fabric and price range I was looking for and showing me a different dress every 10 seconds. I became extremely overwhelmed. Not knowing what to do, I agreed to try on the dresses. With every dress I tried came the same response basically. “Oh, that fits you good” or “Let’s add a veil so you can see how pretty you look” or my favorite “Breathtaking”. What crap, not every dress fits everyone perfectly or is ‘breathtaking”.
Like finding a guy to marry, it takes time to find ‘the one”. For example, you love lasagna and it’s something you don’t fix everyday. Therefore, when you go out to eat at a restaurant your order it if it’s on the menu. Well, what if you didn’t like the sauce used with the lasagna at one restaurant and thought the noodles weren’t done at another. With every new restaurant you’re going to keeping searching for the best lasagna, right? You’re not going to give up and settle for the one that is dry. Same goes for a dress and even men. Who wants to settle for the “might be guy”?
My advice for those searching “the dress”, don’t let pushy sales personnel dictate what you wear. Bring an honest friend with you. Someone you know will say if you look bad in something and forget all the stuff sales people feed you.
Trust me, that one dress is out there. You just have to find it, like the way you found your fiance.
There’s nothing better than a good ‘ole fashioned coaches tirade. Of course I’m referring to Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy. I absolutely love them from Bob Knight to Jim Mora.
Granted this is not as good as Knight taking out a whip to the press conference room, or Dennis Green smacking the podium and saying if the media wanted to crown the Bears, they should, after his team gave imploded with a rather large lead.
Gundy’s tirade is a little unique, though. He wasn’t upset after losing. As a matter of fact, his Cowboys out-gunned Texas Tech to a Big XII win. Instead he was rather upset with a recent article posted in the Daily Oklahoman by Jenni Carlson.
As a member of the media, I’m going to go against the grain and side with Gundy. Maybe he was a little over the top, but some editor had to have read that article, and they still let it run, despite it using a multitude of unnamed sources. So this paper will let any Joe Blow write anything they want, as long as it causes controversy. They knew what they were doing, and now I hope they get what they deserve.
Unfortunately this has given the paper national attention at the moment, but in the long run it may not be so good. Coaches will trust the paper even less, which is hard to do, and advertising revenue may drop, especially from businesses in support of the Cowboys.
For the past three football seasons, I have been involved in some sort of fantasy league, but never taken it that seriously or devoted a substantial amount of time to it.
It would start out well, with the live online draft and me taunting and harrassing 10 of my friends for two solid hours as we selected the players we would be associated with for the next four months. You know, when some idiot takes a kicker 4 rounds too early or drafts the token player who retired in training camp and moron drafter x didn’t hear about it. Oh the insults run rampant and I always get pumped for the year.
Well, except for last year when I was randomly given the number one pick only to screw it up royally by taking Shaun Alexander over LT and Peyton. Turned out to be the fantasy equivelant of the Bengals’ Akili Smith selection in ‘99 once Alexander broke his foot in week two. This led to the eventual league champion getting Tomlinson and McNabb, the two MVP candidates before Donnie Mac tore his ACL. Man, the verbal beating I took was merciless. Despite the blunder, I tried to stay involved, but having no computer at school forced me to indirectly give up on my team.
This year, since I’m in Wells Hall for half my life, I’ve decided to commit myself to winning a championship. A title that has eluded me for about four years if you count fantasy baseball. After a solid draft, I managed to sucker a knowledgeable owner into giving me Marc Bulger and Rudi Johnson for Drew Brees, which looks like a genius move now but I guess could backfire later.
Anyway, it’s a solid time investment and helps you get to know players better. For instance, I would not care in the slightest if Roy Williams scored a meaningless touchdown in the fourth quarter of a game that’s not even on TV, but since his numbers affect my team’s status, this greatly impacts my Sunday.
I would also recommend fantasy ball for girls who date sports fans (a.k.a. a massive percentage of men) for several reasons. 1. When Joe Cowboys fan insists that you watch Dallas games with him weekly, he would be uber-impressed and probably a little intimidated that you’d mention Terrell Owens’ health status or how Julius Jones never gets red-zone carries. 2. It would score points and you could parlay those points into required chick flick viewings. 3. If you happen to beat him at his own game, the bragging rights would escalate to unheard of proportions and his personal pride would plummet considerably with every well-timed insult.
It’s a good way to follow the game and, as long as you don’t run into too many situations where you have to consider rooting for the opposing team’s running back, fantasy ball is a can’t miss. Even though it’s torturous sometimes like when you make a crucial error by drafting Tarvaris Jackson and can’t get anyone to trade even a linebacker for him, it’s still fun and makes the NFL a little more enjoyable. If that’s even possible.
The results of my fiance and my marriage test or FOCUS assessment are in and…we got a 96 percent. Thats right, a flipping 96! Which means we only have to take one class (simply because you have to take one class no matter what score you receive).
While my fiance and I beamed at each other when she showed us the graph with all the whopping high percentages, I realized that the test just shows us that we agree with the church and each other 96 percent of the time. Although, I find the test completely stupid, it was still reassuring to know that we agree on several issues, and the ones we didn’t agree on was because we haven’t discuss them yet.
I have no clue who is going to pay the bill each month or when we will have kids.
We have no idea when we want to have children and now that I have brought up that topic, we also had to talk about sex.
Not about techniques, although that would have made my blog a heck of a lot more interesting to have been talking about techniques with a complete stranger in a holy vicinity, but about contraceptives and how its important to focus on each other in that way.
Which I agree, boy, I do love mine and my fiance’s alone time. If it were up to me we would focus on each other every day, but sady, we are a long distance couple making our alone time short and sacred.
Getting back to my point, as we discussed our family planning method, or tried to, we realized that we don’t have a planning method. I mean, do we really need one? I thought most babies weren’t planned? I mean how many movies are there where they show a couple in love or falling in love and someone ends up pregnant. It happens, it’s part of life. I personally feel if I am suppose to have a baby right after I get married, I will.
It it suprising that she brought up family planning since I always heard that catholics opposed contraceptives, but apparently they are stepping out of the middle ages…finally.
I shouldn’t complain that we did get a 96. We just have to take one class in October, and then we can focus more on each other.
I deal with coaches and players every day. Some are great and articulate and polite and kind. Some aren’t, and I’m ok with that.
What I’m not ok with are coaches who don’t understand my job, and speak poorly of my abilities because they don’t like the way I present their teams. My job is to relate the facts to the public. If that means writing a story to tell everyone that a coach’s team lost, then that’s what I’m going to do. I can’t spin it. I can’t say ‘Oh they lost but it was a moral victory.’ If they lost…they lost. There are no two ways about it. You would think that by entering the world of coaching people might understand that dealing with losing is a part of the job.
I would never intentionally bad mouth a team for losing. Everyone loses. But I will also never cover a game with the intention of making my home team look good whether they win or lose. That is lying. Sugar coating is nothing more than lying to the public.
Any coach who can’t handle the coverage the media gives its team, good and bad, should simply lose their coverage. If you don’t want someone like me, who covers things in an ethical manner, to write about your team, then you don’t want to be covered at all because I guarantee there are people out there much harsher than me.
Jim Thome hit his 500th home run Sunday against the Indians and I got to thinking. Does 500 home runs mean anything? The milestone has really lost its appeal in the sports world today. Three players have reached the milestone this season with Frank Thomas and Alex Rodriguez in front of Thome. The only player that has the better story is A-Rod. At 32, he’s already hit 500 home runs with no question about the legitimacy of his power, while Thomas and Thome are in the twighlights of their career. You look at the numbers and there shouldn’t be any doubt that 500 is still a milestone. Only 23 players are a part of this club. I think it’s losing its appeal, because more players are hitting the milestone more frequently. I really don’t have an answer to this question, but just a wandering thought.
I know exactly how most of you react after the weekend’s match-ups are finished. Leaning back in your Lazy-Boy, you smugly smile, and tell all of your friends that you knew that Appalachian State was going to upset Michigan. But what you don’t know is that your friends are thinking you’re crazy, and they consider you a condescending moron for even thinking they believe you.
Well the sports team at the NW Missourian has a solution for that condescending moron image. Instead of gloating Monday morning with no evidence, provide your friends with solid proof you thought that Iowa State would beat Iowa.
Our newly designed page 4 (The Extra Point), is becoming more interactive with our readers and we want you to compete with our college and NFL picks. All you have to do is log on to nwmissourinews.com, and check out what 16 games we picked as a staff. You pick the same games, and then check the NW Missourian (every Thursday) to see if your picks were better than ours.
So now instead of acting like a condescending jerk with no proof, you can master the art form of being a jerk with solid evidence. So check out nwmissourinews.com every Monday to see what games we’re picking. Then make your picks and see if you could be featured in the NW Missourian.
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