Get To It

Get Rich Quick: So I’ve figured out how I’m going to finance my J. Oelschlager clothing line. The funds are going to come from the invention that is going to make me rich. The money that I am going to make from my invention is going to make the Rugged Luxury sales (the first line from J. Oelschlager) look like pennies.

What is this invention you may ask? I came up with it a couple of weeks ago when Austin and I were in Virginia Beach for a wedding. It was an evening wedding, so we got to spend some quality time at the beach in the afternoon. I was covered in sun screen and ready to go, or so I thought. When I was getting ready for the ceremony, I looked down and noticed that I had missed the same spot on both ankles, and they were burned to a crisp. I mean really bad. What sucked even more is that I had to wear dress shoes for the next six hours that perfectly intersected my sunburned appendages. It was brutal. It’s so annoying when you miss a spot when putting sun screen on, I thought to myself, there must be a better way.

That’s when it hit me. I needed to invent a little hand held device that you scan your body with after putting sun tan lotion on that tells you the spots you have missed. What a life saver that would be. I would pay at least 50 bucks for something like that, maybe more. And with the way the o-zone layer is going, those missed spots are going to be costlier and costlier. So that’s how I’m going to get filthy rich and be able to start my own baller ass clothing line, J. Oelschlager. You can start looking for some Rugged Luxury at a store near you. Now I’ve only got to figure out how to invent a machine that scans your body and lets you know the spots that don’t have sun tan lotion. No biggie.

Get Outta Here: I went to lunch last week at a local Italian deli. It was steaming hot outside, clocking in around 95 degrees. The woman in front of me in line, who happened to have a really annoying nasal voice, asked what the soup of the day was. Turns out it was chili. This woman goes “Mmmm, sounds good, I’ll have a big bowl of the chili”. What a lunatic. Who orders a fat bowl of chili at lunchtime when it’s scorching hot outside? I don’t think I could have mustered the energy to turn my car on if I had wolfed down a bowl of chili during a summer lunch, much less gone back to work. Get outta here, chili woman.

Get Some Just For Men: My good friend Peter King continues to write horrible columns for both Sports Illustrated and SI.com. Check out the picture of King they run next to his articles:

What the hell is that little blond patch, Petey? You tryin to look hip? Get some Just for Men dude and stop telling us about your coffee.

Get Some Tony Robbins: I was diligently following a Red Sox-Royals game on the Internet one night a couple of weeks ago, praying that Jonathan Papelbon would get the save and help my fantasy team. So you can imagine my confusion and dismay when I saw this flash across the screen:

Fielder’s indifference? What the hell does that mean? “No, I don’t really feel like throwing this guy out right now”. Thank god Papelbon got the next batter out or I would have been really pissed at that fielder’s lack of motivation.

Get Your Wallets Out: The US Open is this weekend at Torrey Pines and Tiger Woods hasn’t played golf since getting knee surgery after the Masters. He hasn’t walked a full 18 holes since Augusta. I predict that Woods will miss the cut or withdraw from the tournament. Remember, the only time Woods has missed the cut at a major was when he took a significant amount of time off to grieve the death of his father before the 2006 US Open at Winged Foot. US Open courses are completely unforgiving, and I think a rusty and gimpy Tiger, even as good as he is, will struggle mightily this weekend in Southern California.

Get Catty: Everyone loves a good catfight. Well, make that all guys love a good catfight. Katherine Heigl, uber hot girl from Knocked Up, recently declined to be nominated for an Emmy this year for her performance on Greys Anatomy. This is her explanation: "I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization". Burn! Talk about throwing the entire writing staff, producers and director under the bus. Now I’m no genius on office politics, but blasting your bosses to the media does not seem like a good idea to me. Rrrreeaaaarrrrr!

Get Shorty: In 2003, Bobby Knight declined to accept his $250,000 salary from Texas Tech because after leading the Red Raiders to a mediocre 16-11 record and commented “I don’t think I should be paid for that”. Now that’s being a true baller. Katherine Heigl biting the hand that fed her and made her famous? Busch League.

Get Down!: Mother Nature is rolling train on us right now. Cyclones, earthquakes, tornados and floods have been poppin up like hot cakes in 2008. Every time I check the news nowadays I expect to see a new volcano eruption or disastrous mudslide.

Get Out of My Face: Well, that’s it for this week folks. Summer is upon us and is it glorious. I hope everyone out there takes plenty of vacation and escapes from The Man for a week or two. Until next time, stay safe, keep it real and boot em up.

Bu-Bu-buuwwwwhhhaatttt? Stat of the Week

Hello there friends. Welcome back to the Oceanliner. I apologize for the lengthy absence of a post. I was very busy last week and had my 5th year high school reunion over the weekend. Hotel Oelschlager was chock full as I had six high school buddies crashing at the Ribrary. Excuses are for losers though, I just didn't write anything last week.

Anyhoo, I am proud to announce a new weekly feature at the Oceanliner, starting right now. If you follow this blog at all, you know how obsessed I am with the statistics that accompany the sports I love. Well, there are some pretty heady stats out there from years/decades/centuries ago that knock your socks off when you see them again. It is my imperative to bring these incredulous accomplishments back to light so all can admire their ridiculousness. That is why I am calling this new weekly segment the Bu-Bu-buuwwwwhhhaatttt? Stat of the Week. Numbers so nuts that you will shake your head in disbelief while your jaw hangs on the floor.

The first inductee into the Bu-Bu-buuwwwwhhhaatttt? Hall of Fame is the Great Bambino himself. Babe Ruth dominated his era of baseball like no one in history. There will be multiple seasons of Ruth in this weekly stat obsession, but the first that I am going to pull is his 1921 season, his second with the Yankees after being sold from the Red Sox for, get this, $125,000. Imagine how much Malox the Boston owner needed after looking at the Sultan of Swing's 1921 season:

.378 batting average, 59 home runs, 171 RBI, 177 runs, 44 doubles, 16 triples, 17 steals, 145 walks, .512 on base percentage

Insanity. Maybe the stat that jumps out the most is that Ruth's fat ass managed to hit 16 triples and steal 17 bases. Or the fact that the second most home runs in the league that year was 24. Or the fact that the Babe got on base over 50% of the time. Or that he won the RBI title by 32. Or the runs scored title by 45. Or maybe even that Ruth didn't win the Triple Crown because three people had a better average than his .378! Any way you look at it is incredible. And that is why it is fitting that Babe Ruth's 1921 season leads off the inagural Bu-Bu-buuwwwwhhhaatttt? Stat of the Week.

The plan for now is to try and do two posts a week, one stat of the week and one regular. So check back in later this week for hopefully all new pointless and selfish insights into the world of sports, entertainment and whatever else gets my blood boiling at the moment. Peace out honkeys.

Instant Coffee

Peter King is a football writer for Sports Illustrated. This is sometimes hard to believe when reading his analysis of the league. I regularly peruse his Monday Morning Quarterback column on SI.com, and most of the content leaves me shaking my head in dismay. A regular feature in King’s “column” is a section called “Ten Things I Think I Think”. The title itself is an indication of how much of a loser King is. In this section, The Ultimate Brett Favre Homer gives his thoughts of the week on the NFL. He does this every week, even though nothing will change until games are played in the fall. One of King’s “thoughts” from Monday left me in my normal state of incredulity.

I think as the days go by, I’m talking myself more and more into Jacksonville being a serious Super Bowl Contender. Maybe the most serious Super Bowl contender in the AFC.

This guy gets paid to write about the NFL? Does this guy really think the Jaguars are the team to beat in the American Football Conference? The same AFC that the Patriots are in, who were 2 minutes away from running the table last year? The same AFC that the Colts are in, who have won 5 consecutive South division titles (this is the Jaguars division by the way)? The same AFC that the Chargers are in, who underachieved last year and still got to the conference title game (one round farther than the Jaguars)? Jacksonville was lucky to get past the first round of the playoffs last year, and will be lucky to do the same in 2008. Hell, they might not even make the playoffs. In my opinion, New England, Indy and San Diego are all significantly better than Jacksonville. I also believe that Cleveland and Pittsburgh are better than Jacksonville. I think the Jaguars are going to be fighting for the last playoff spot in the AFC with the rest of the mediocre peons in the conference: Denver, Houston, Tennessee, Buffalo, the Jets, etc.

I don’t understand where King’s feeling about Jacksonville came from. David Garrard played well last year, but can he keep it up? Who is he going to throw it to? Jerry Porter, Reggie Williams, Dennis Northcut and Mercedes Lewis are not exactly what you would call weapons. Fred Taylor gave them a miracle 1,200 yards last year that will be cut in half in 2008 because of injury or age. They have an aging defense that will likely start two rookies on the D-line (Derrick Harvey and Quentin Groves). I see a lot of holes in North Florida.

King’s statement of Jacksonville being the top contender in the AFC is so preposterous that I am creating a new Oceanliner Original Feature. I am calling it Instant History. I am going to take predictions that are so bad in my opinion and put them in a time capsule to see how they stand up to the test of time. We can set the date to re open Peter King’s gut feeling exactly 7 months from today, December 28^th, 2008, which is the day the Jags conclude their regular season with an away game against the Ravens. We will then see if the Jaguars are the top contender in the AFC, or if they are just a bunch of jokers.

Inspired by this new Instant History feature, these are my quick hit thoughts of the week, all in Instant Coffee mode:

Instant Death: I went out to a Friday lunch last week at Chili’s and got the Jalapeno Smokehouse Big Mouth Bacon Cheeseburger. After consulting the online nutrition information, I could feel my arteries clogging as the burger was loaded with 1530 calories and 106 grams of fat. Add the serving of fries and the Southwestern Eggrolls appetizer that I ate half of and I clocked in with a 2400-calorie meal. And this was lunch! Excuse me while I go vomit, if I don’t have a heart attack first.

Instant Death Part Deaux: Seeing people smoking cigarettes on their way to work is so depressing. It’s 7:15 in the morning and you already need a cancer fix? Really? People that need a butt before the day even starts need to reevaluate their priorities. Like living.

Instant Embarrassment: I heard the WNBA has a new expansion team called the Atlanta Dream. Women’s sports have enough trouble gaining traction as it is. Naming all of your teams after emotions, ideals and nature is just another shot in the foot. In the WNBA alone there is the Dream, the Sky, the Sun, the Shock, the Fever (way to name your team after a disease), the Liberty and the Mercury. And this is out of a 14-team league! This is just another reason women’s basketball will never be taken seriously. Sure there are dumb men’s sports team names, but it’s not half the league. How the hell do you root for the Sky? What is their mascot? A cloud? A big storm cloud? Oh wait, they can’t do that one because Seattle already has a team called the Storm. Are the Storm and the Sky big rivals? Or is it the Sun and the Sky? Or the Sun and the Storm? Are the Mercury big rivals with all of them? Is their mascot a barometer? Are the Houston Comets rivals with the other outer space teams (Mercury and Sun) or the Earth bound nature phenomena (Sky)? Even the teams with tangible nicknames are bizarre. You’ve got the Monarchs, the Sparks, the Mystics, the Lynx and the Silver Stars. What are any of those things? This all wouldn’t be so sad/funny if all these nicknames weren’t absolutely true.

Why couldn’t they give the women’s teams’ normal names? Are they afraid huge catfights will break out if the mascots are even remotely violent? The WNBA nicknames are embarrassing, and will continue to deter whatever momentum the league has somehow sustained for 12 years now.

Instant Embarrassment Part Deaux: The nicknames of the teams in of the now defunct WUSA women’s professional soccer league were the Beat, the Breakers, the Courage, the Power, the Charge, the Spirit, the CyberRays (yes, the CyberRays) and the Freedom. Not going to go on a rant on this one, there’s no need.

Instant Awkwardness: I came out of the bathroom at the office one time obviously not thinking about anything important. I think it was a fantasy baseball trade that I was pondering. Anyway, the women’s bathroom is right next to the men’s and right as I walked out I crossed paths with a woman heading to the little girls room. She offered a smile and a friendly

How are you?

Lost in my fantasy baseball trance, I was caught completely off guard and managed to stutter,

Hi. Thanks.

Not only did I make the situation completely awkward, I didn’t even come close to responding to the right question. Oh well, chalk it up.

Instant Hilarity: Went to the Nats game on Memorial Day, which was absolutely sublime. I saw one person wearing a Vinny Castilla t-shirt Nats jersey and another wearing a Tony Armas t-shirt Nats jersey. You can’t make that up.

Instant Sadness: In 2002, the Expos (now my Nats) traded Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Cliff Lee for Bartolo Colon. Each time I hear this trade I look to the sky and think What If?

Instant Ending: Well, that’s it for this week folks. Until next time, stay safe, keep it real and don’t get a neck tattoo.

1st 1/2 '08 NVBSAS

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the Oceanliner is proud to present the 1^st ½ ’08 NVBSAS! For those of you how aren’t down with the lingo around here, this expands out to the First Half of 2008 Northern Virginia Bumper Sticker All Stars. These are decals, vanity plates and road signs that I have actually seen that make me laugh, cry, cringe or go ballistic. And so, in no particular order, lets get right into it.

Maybe the Hokey Pokey IS What It's All About!

*Hanging my head in shame*. As I referenced in my last post, this is one of those times where you want to sit down with the person who's car this is and interview them to determine whether they actually think this is a clever statement or they are just playing a cruel joke on the world by subjecting people to this corniness. If they actually think this is witty, my faith in humanity goes down even more.

Popularity is a Socially Transmitted Disease

*Slamming my head into a table*. This person must be friends with the guy who has the Hokey Pokey bumper sticker. But it gets worse, on this same car reads the following embarrassment:

Pimpin Ain't Easy

*Too angry to hurt my head*. I can at least see the appeal of a witty phrase. The Popularity sticker was an attempt at a witty phrase that failed horribly, but at least I see the intent. This one however is just too painful to deal with. So corny, so embarrassing, so unnecessary. Who are these people?

Blackwater USA

Wow, ballsy move by this guy. This is like the anti conversation starter of a bumper sticker. This is an "I'm gonna take the next exit even though its not where we are going" inducing bumper sticker if you see it. I hope there's not a laser on my forehead as I write this...

I Heart Just Plain Joe!

Am I missing something ? Is there a craze going on for the Midwestern simpleton? Women, help me out here.

Tree Hugging Dirt Worshipper

This woman did not pass Subtlety 101. Some great inadvertent irony though as she's not worshiping much dirt as she drives around in her CAR!

Fun Boot Camp For Women!

This was actually a sign I saw on the side of the road and not a bumper sticker. I can't even imagine the kind of women that would go to that. Buzz, your girlfriend...woof!

The More I Men I Meet, The More I Love My Cat

Hilarious. My fellow men and I are all devastated. You really zinged us with that one. *Trying to rub migraine out of skull*

I Love My Kids Whether Or Not They're Honor Students

Finally, a bumper sticker I agree with that also zings some loser parents out there. On the other hand, we all know this guy's kids are stupid as hell.

Well, that's the rundown on bumper stickers for the first half of '08. I'd love to hear of any turrible bumper stickers, vanity plates and road sings yall have seen out there. The more the merrier. The Oceanliner is very excited about Memorial Day Weekend. Possible plans include hiking, golf, a cookout and a the Nats game on Monday. I hope everyone out there has great plans for the weekend as well. So until next time, stay safe, keep it real and don't forget the fire sauce.

Literally

Everyone knows how much I like to rant on seemingly pointless and inconsequential aspects of life. Well folks, a recent TV commercial has riled up the Oceanliner’s engines, and now I can’t stop this banter from coming out. I get mad when I see things on TV that make no sense. It makes me want to sit down with the people that write these horrible scripts, come up with these awful ideas, and allow them to fly across our national airwaves. I want to shake these people and scream at them,

Are you serious with this crap??? Do you actually find this funny, witty, poignant, hard hitting or amusing??? Or is this some kind of sick joke and power satisfaction that you can succeed in putting this garbage on TV???

Part of me almost hopes it’s the latter, so that at least I know people don’t actually believe in some of the stuff they come up with, say write and produce. These terrible ideas can turn into shows, movies, services or products. There are countless examples of them all where you think,

This is lunacy. How many people had to approve of this terrible idea before it was official? This idea should have been killed the moment it was thought, and somehow its now real? How did this happen?

The most recent blood pressure raising example is a commercial for the esteemed online car store, Vehix.com, and their newest gimmick, the “video test drive”. This where you can log on to the site and watch a video of someone else driving a car from the drivers perspective. We can debate the worthlessness of this feature another time, but now let’s move on to the commercial.

It opens with this middle-aged woman sitting and hanging the trunk of her car with a really stupid looking hat on and she says

You can go to Vehix.com and literally take a test drive with their video test drive tool

Unh uh honey, no. It doesn’t work like that Vehix.com. A literal test drive would be exactly that, a person getting in the car and driving it. A video test drive is a fairytale; there is nothing literal about it. It’s completely fake. It is the exact opposite of a test drive in fact; watching a video on your computer instead of physically driving a car. Later in the commercial they cut back to the bowling hat lady and she says,

You are practically in the car.

You can’t get away with Busch league garbage like that Vehix.com. You can’t offer a literal service and then not offer it and instead provide a proxy. Other companies can’t and won’t do this. Imagine if a sky diving operation ran a commercial like that;

Come check out our website where you can use try our “sky dive video approximation” and literally be skydiving!

Or this:

Hey there! Welcome to BrazilianFartFetishPorn.com, where you can literally get laid! You can practically feel the farts hitting your face!

Sorry, but the world doesn’t work like that Vehix.com. The only thing that can be determined for sure from that commercial is that the marketing people at Vehix are literally retarded and that credibility for their company is practically nothing.

Wheeeuuu. Glad to get that out of the way. Now onto random sports thoughts of the week.

After the NFL Draft, I went back and checked out the first rounds of years past, both as a matter of curiosity and to see which prospects panned out and which were horrific failures. The most interesting thing I stumbled upon though was how freaking loaded the 2004 first round draft class was. It’s mind-boggling. The following list of players were all taken in the first 32 picks back in ’04:

Eli Manning

Larry Fitzgerald

Philip Rivers

Sean Taylor

Kellen Winslow

Roy Williams (the WR)

DeAngelo Hall

Ben Roethlisberger

Jonathan Vilma

Lee Evans

Tommie Harris

Will Smith

Vince Wilfork

Steven Jackson

Kevin Jones

Ben Watson

It’s a staggering list. Two of the three quarterbacks taken in the first round have won Super Bowls. The other (Rivers) has been to the AFC Title Game. 13 of them have gone on to the Pro Bowl, including 8 of the first 12 selections. I don’t know whether there was just more talent coming out of college that year or GM’s just had a great year of tabbing the best players, but it was a loaded first round. I wish it turned out to be like that every year. Then GM’s could maybe convince the public they know what they are doing.

Puzzling Judgment/Use of Resources Note of the Week: The Thursday morning front page of ESPN.com featured side-by-side pictures of Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett with a caption that read “Good to be Home”. The story was about how the Lakers and Celtics are both 12-0 at home during this year’s playoffs. It’s quite puzzling then at the pictures they chose to run with of KG and Kobe:

Could ESPN have picked two more awkward pictures? I hink not. Kobe looks like he is about to cry. In fact, it looks like the last thing in the world he is thinking about is the game he’s actually playing in. KG doesn’t look very graceful either, with a pose that looks like a cross between him bullfighting and pinching out a loaf. It’s just a little odd to me that out of the thousands of pictures ESPN had at their fingertips to put alongside that story, that this is what they chose.

Women’s Sports Note of the Week: Anika Sorenstam announced earlier this week that she is retiring from the LPGA at the end of the season. The Oceanliner wishes her well as she leaves the game after having an illustrious career. While reading the story related to her retirement on ESPN.com, I was shocked by one paragraph midway through the article,

Sorenstam dominated women's golf like few others, especially during a five-year period when she won 43 times and finished among the top three nearly 70 percent of the time. But for all her achievements -- the only woman to shoot 59, winning 10 majors and one of six women to complete the career Grand Slam -- she became most famous for testing herself against the men.

I was stunned at how shallow and insensitive the ending of that paragraph was. To demean Sorenstam’s great career with a jab at her being more famous for playing one tournament with the men than kicking ridiculous amounts of ass on the women’s tour. Maybe it’s because I’m a sports nut and know how good she is on the LPGA Tour, but I had honestly forgotten about her appearance at the Colonial in 2003. The first thing I think of when I hear Anika Sorenstam’s name is her sheer dominance on the women’s golfing circuit, then her text message friendship with Tiger Woods (where they would jab at each other for every major they would win), and then the fact that she kind of looks like a mouse. To me, the fact that she competed against the men is the last line in her bio, as a kind of anecdote. Certainly not the watershed moment of her career. Not in my mind at least.

That paragraph angers me for another reason; that the story is attributed not to a single writer but just as an Associated Press Story. It is one thing if an opinion piece made the case that Sorenstam’s defining moment was playing against the men in 2003. At least there it’s one person’s opinion and they can defend it. This anonymous AP story writes the paragraph as if its fact and that nothing can be done about it. It’s inappropriate and a coward move. I’m definitely not the biggest proponent of women’s sports, but this was a cheap shot.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. I hope everyone out there is doing well as glorious summer approaches. As always, give me a shout if you are going to be in the DC area and we can chillax. Until next time though, stay safe, keep it real and stuff your sorry’s in a sack.