Coupla Things...okay, a lot of things...

* A good person helps the homeless. We all know this. It doesn't hurt to give a buck every once in a while.

However, my friend Kortney saw a homeless guy begging on the corner the other day...while listening to his IPod.

...

* Drunk Lithuanians? Angry giraffes? This can only end one way...

* So I just got done dieting, and I'm pissed about how much it costs to eat while dieting. It's fucking ridiculous, and there's no other way to describe it. $7+ for a fucking salad? $6 for four chicken tenders with no breading and no sides? It's insane. There's no reason for that, either. Both items I just listed are cheap and easy to produce.

Meanwhile, double cheeseburgers are $.99. All you can eat pizza is less than $5. Your taco places are all dirt cheap.

If we want America to start eating healthier, then we the consumer must start demanding not to be ripped off for eating that way. It's as simple as that.

Here's some tips for those who want to eat healthy cheaply:

$ Caesar or House Salad at Johnny Carinos ($3): Good sized & excellent salad. You also get bread with it, which is excellent. Good deal either there or to go.
$ Chicken Enchilada Soup at Chilis ($3): Best soup ever. Love this stuff. It's hearty, with a good amount of chicken, tortilla strips, and pico. Add a coupla crackers for free to give it more sustenance if you're not on a carb diet.
$.99 salads at Wendys: Caesar and house salads. They're not great, but they're not bad. Also, you can combine the $.99 Chicken nuggets (yes they're fried, but they're not as bad for you as you would think) if you want to add some chicken to it.
$ Chick Fil A Chicken Sandwich (Grilled or Fried) ($3): Even the Chick Fil A sandwich is not bad for you at all. Get the Sandwich only, add make it a Deluxe to get lettuce & tomato, and you're right at $3. No sides though.
$ Lean Cuisine ($2.50 or less): By far the best of the frozen food dinners. All of their Asian stuff is good (Thai Style Chicken is my favorite). Just experiment and see which ones you like.

* Have you ever seen the movie The Game, with Michael Douglas? Good little flick. Well, someone is actually doing what that company does in the movie! Not in such a grandiose (or somewhat sinister) scale, but still, it's impressive.

* Saw this interesting article on whether sex helps sell female athletics. The correct answer, of course, is who are you trying to sell to?

No, you're not going to get more little girls into swimming with Amanda Beard posing for playboy. I would think that would be a given. However, that's not the market you're trying to increase.

Remember, when it comes to expanding a sport's appeal/ratings/attendance, the Holy Grail is the CASUAL FAN. That's who everyone is going after. See, that little girl we were talking about a minute ago isn't necessarily who you are trying to attract to swimming. If she's a swimmer, she's going to watch swimming, whether Amanda Beard poses for playboy or not. If she's a basketball player, she's probably not going to watch swimming. It's as simple as that.

When a sport uses sex, they're trying to broaden their general appeal to non-hardcore fans. They don't need to appeal to hardcore fans. They're hardcore; they're already committed. They're going for the generic sports fan who flops down on the couch, has an hour to kill watching TV, and is flipping through the channels going "What sports are on right now?" That is the casual fan. That's who you're trying to entice to watch swimming, because all of the little girls who swim--and their parents--area already watching Amanda Beard in the Olympics because they are hard core.

Like it or not, the vast majority of the casual fan base is still made of men--though I readily acknowledge that that is changing--and the majority of casual male fans don't respect women's athletics near as much as men's athletics, for a variety of reasons (some legit, some not; I touched on this a little bit in a blog here). If you want to get that all-important casual fan to stop channel surfing and watch your sport for five minutes, it helps to have Maria Sharapova out there, looking hot as Hell. That's the simple truth. Will it increase your attendance? Minimally. Will it lead to long lasting patronage? Not really. But that's not what you're after. That's where you build your brand; sex is used for the quick and easy.

* So word is Kevin Durant could not bench 185 pounds a single time.

Don't get me wrong. I think Kevin Durant is going to be a fantastic player. The Sonics are incredibly lucky to have him.

But can't bench 185? Not even once? Are you fucking kidding me?

Kiss any talk of Portland taking Durant with the first pick goodbye. Oden is a 100% lock now. Durant is still a 100% lock as the second pick, and there's nothing wrong with that. He just can't possibly be #1 now.

* We have a word for a man who has no self-esteem, and has no backbone at all when it comes to standing up to his woman. We call that man a bitch.

Well, Tony Parker, you are a bitch.

And...because making fun TP never gets old...check this out.

Wow.

* Okay, I'm about to be an asshole. Again. As usual.

Josh Hancock. He's the pitcher for the Cardinals who died in an alcohol related car wreck at the start of the season. Everyone was immediately saddened, and memorials were erected, and teams started banning alcohol in locker rooms after games.

Don't get me wrong: I don't know how you can play a professional sport, and then immediately want a beer after the game. That's just gross to me. Give me some water, please. But let's look at the facts here:

Fact: He was double the legal limit for BAC.
Fact: He had weed in his car.
Fact: He was not wearing his seat belt.
Fact: He was driving 15 mph over the speed limit.
Fact: He was on his cell phone while doing all of the above.
Fact: Witnesses from the restaurant he was at said that he was so drunk "he could barely put a sentence together."
Fact: The reason he was driving a rented Ford Explorer? He had wrecked his Denali 3 nights before while driving drunk.

Okay. So is it really sad that this guy died...or is he just a fucking dumbass, and am I just happy that he didn't take a family of four out with him?

The facts speak for themselves.

* So check this out.

Welcome back. Is that not the craziest thing you've ever heard? My first thought was: man, you can convince a shrink of anything. But then I mentioned this article to several people, and a couple of them said that they had experienced this first hand. So I guess it's true.

I'm a very light sleeper, so I can't imagine doing anything and not being cognizant of it. I wake up if I'm sharing a bed with someone and they roll over (I've trained myself to immediately fall back asleep, but I still wake and am aware of it happening).

But don't be fooled ladies: as the article said, it's a rare disorder. The vast majority of the time a guy makes a move on you and pulls the, "What? I had no idea I was doing that!", he's full of shite.

* Finally, Lebron's game. As you can see from the top 5 list on the left, I think it is the second best postseason performance in NBA history. Probably top 5 in sporting history. Magic's Center game--where Kareem was out with an injury in Game6, and Magic--as a rookie point guard--played center, scored 42 points, and won the game and eventually the series. For his experience level, on that stage, and to have such fantastic success...you just can't top that. That being said, Lebron's game was close. His team's last 25 straight points, and 29 of their last 31 to basically beat the Pistons. It was amazing. It was fantastic. It was...legendary. It was a step in the right direction. Two things to note, though:

1) I thought Lebron's postgame remarks ("Why are you surprised that I did this? I'm Lebron fucking James") were hilarious. He kept acting like this was no big deal, and that he does stuff like this all the time. Lebron, it's okay to be excited the first time you do this, because as much as you think you're the best, up until that point, you've never actually been the best.
2) As proud as Lebron is of himself, and as proud as everyone is of him, let's remember this fact:

FACT: Lebron James still hasn't won shit.

Winning the pathetic Eastern Conference isn't impressive. Don't get me wrong; Lebron has done something for the ages, and is moving in the right direction. But before he thinks he's got everything taken care of, and starts focusing on being a "global icon", just remember Bron Bron: until you when an NBA championship, you ain't done shit.

And there is no way you're beating the Spurs, so you've still got work left to do.

Enjoy! Sorry it's been so long!