You know what the hardest part of blogging is? It’s coming up with a good title. It has to explain the post to anyone browsing on a search engine but it also has to make a potential reader click on the link to it. That is if your blog posts are actually listed. That would be the other thing that’s hard about blog writing. I’m used to writing and performing on live radio. I figure that means that a lot of my passive attacks and pseudo-sarcastic remarks don’t work as well in print as they do with my amateur radio voice. That doesn’t mean that I won’t try. This week I try to the tune of over 2300 words. Not Bill Simmons long but it’s a good start for someone that Jay Mariotti would characterize as having no life and living in my parents’ basement. Still, writing 2300 words on the blog is easier than writing that much for a university term paper.

Anyway, it’s been a tough week in the world of sports for a lot of folk. Usually we’re gliding our way into the dog days of summer and are just praying for the start of football or hockey or meaningful baseball games. Instead, we have all sorts of stories popping up. It’s a blogger’s dream… And ESPN’s nightmare. Among other folks.

Erin Andrews
The whole world has taken their shots at the blogosphere for being the reason why someone videotaped a naked Erin Andrews through her hotel room peep hole. Granted, it seems to be a very apologetic blogosphere apologizing for one man’s voyeurism. Maybe some of this is down to the blogosphere’s obsession with her but were the bloggers doing something unique for Erin? No. You can go to blogs everywhere obsessing over other celebrities but you don’t see naked videos of them when they didn’t know they were being filmed. This is one man’s act that will reflect badly on all of us for a long time. Assuming that it wasn’t, as TMZ suggests, an inside job. Of course, this doesn’t even get into the whole Jay Mariotti rant about how the blogosphere lives in their basement, no bloggers have lives and all have an unhealthy obsession with EA. He blames bloggers without blaming them for this. Again, one man’s voyeurism, Jay… I will grant him one point. Erin is a talented sideline reporter. One video won’t take that away from her. I just hope she doesn’t have to live with the fallout of Mariotti’s big mouth. Anyway, as Joe Buck would say “That was disgusting, disgusting act and we’re sorry you saw that.” I mean that I wrote something serious. Though I’m sure Joe would say the same about the video too.

Stewart Cink
You know you’ve made it when people vandalize your Wikipedia page. Within minutes of winning the Open Championship, his nickname was changed to “Jackass” and he was deemed to have won the tournament by beating up an old man. As I mentioned on Sunday, Tom Watson was the only reason I was watching the Open. So when Cink won the playoff, my whole Sunday was ruined. Even Family Guy couldn’t shake the feeling that Stewart Cink robbed me of the best moment of the golf season. We were supposed to see history made, dammit. Mark Martin is the old man who is a great story in NASCAR. He came out of retirement and is contending for the championship. Watson was going to be golf’s Mark Martin. Instead, that jackass ruined our weekends and made everyone’s time spent watching the tournament completely pointless.

Mark Buehrle
I was originally going to use this space to bash the mindless movie/book saga that is Twilight but I’m going to get plenty of chances do to that over time and perfect games only come around every once in a blue moon. Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle pitched a perfect game and simultaneously destroyed spell-checkers the world over. For the non-baseball fans, which would include me, it’s pronounced “burly.” Of course, it’s worth mentioning that he wouldn’t have done it if not for the amazing catch by journeyman DeWayne Wise. Purists could argue that changing players in the middle of a perfect game bid was asking for trouble and Buehrle would never have given up a near home run. Despite the near jinx, he did have some crazy voodoo going for him. His number is 56. The number of home plate umpire Eric Cooper (who was behind the plate for Buehrle’s previous no-hitter) is 56. And the White Sox’s line for the game was 5 6 0. Like I said, crazy voodoo type stuff. See, isn’t talking about that so much better than talking about Twilight? I’m sure Jackie will tear them apart when he talks about Comic Con. Don’t worry. I’ll have lots of Twilight bashing in the near future.

David Beckham
Becks made his triumphant return to the pitch at the Home Depot Center as the L.A. Galaxy took on A.C. Milan in an exhibition match. For those who don’t know much about soccer (which are many on this side of the pond, including me), the man formerly known as Golden Balls plays for L.A. in the summer and Milan in the winter. Though, I’m sure you do know that he wants out of the City of Angels. Since he’s made his demands public, he’s been public enemy number one among the LA soccer faithful and they let their feeling about him be known this past Sunday. They booed him mercilessly during the game. Despite later claiming he was trying to make peace with the fans, he sure looked like he was egging them on and even picked a fight with one at half time. He can lie to himself and the media when he says he was trying to calm fans down and that most of the fans like him but he’s really so full of shit that his eyes are turning brown. Like his teammate Landon Donovan said, his demands to leave LA and subsequent behaviour are very unprofessional. Though perhaps not as unprofessional as Becks accusing Donovan of being the unprofessional one. There’s an old saying in the States along the lines of “America: Love it or leave it.” Well, Galaxy fans would love it if Beckham left it.

Danica Patrick
She has major ambitions to make it in racing. As long as it’s in top level racing and in a competitive car. She could go to F1 with the new USF1 team but they aren’t competitive enough because they’re unproven. She could go to NASCAR to make a lot of money but only if it’s in Sprint Cup. In her mind, the fact that she’s an established racer means that she doesn’t have to learn how to drive those cars properly. She forgets two important things: 1) Tony Stewart got a year’s seasoning in the Nationwide (then Busch) Series to learn how to drive stock cars, and 2) Other IndyCar drivers that have made the switch (including some Indy 500 and IRL champs) have failed miserably. Does she really think that she can succeed where better drivers have failed without having any testing time? She spent some time last week touring a few Sprint Cup team factories which everyone figures is a prelude to a NASCAR move. It really comes down to three choices for her. If she wants to reach the pinnacle of racing, go to F1. If she wants to make money, go to NASCAR. If she wants to have a halfway decent shot at winning a championship, then she should stay in Indy Car. And she should keep doing the swimsuit issue. That’s a given. She’ll never disappear from the public eye if she keeps doing the swimsuit issue.

LeBron James
He’s a fraud. Did you see that blurry video on TMZ of LeBron getting dunked on? Shameful. An NBA superstar- The NBA superstar was dunked on by a college kid. This is disgracefull. How can we believe him as a legitimate superstar if he’s getting owned by a college kid? He’s best off signing with some bunch of scrubs that might be competitive in the D-League like the Knicks. Good rant, don’t you think? That is if you work for Nike. Nike managed to confiscate some but not all of the videos taken of Jordan Crawford dunking on LeBron James. TMZ spent $3,000 to get their hands on some blurry cell phone footage of the dunk. But they were punked by eBaum Nation who had clear footage from a better angle and only spent $5,000 for it. But we were really all punked. Nike and LeBron turned a non-story into a happening event. After all, LeBron must have been made to look horrible if he had the tape confiscated. Turns out that it was a nothing dunk in a nothing basketball game. I can walk out my front door and see kids getting dunked on worse than that. Nike and LeBron’s overreaction definitely disappointed us all given all the hype. Damn you, Nike and LeBron. Go to the Knicks and fade into obscurity.

Michael Vick
Guess who’s back? And guess who’s already been suspended? Yes, PETA’s favourite spokesman for all that is right with the world of pro sports, Michael Vick, was released from federal custody. And like any good ex-con, Vick spent his first night released from custody very quietly. He just wanted to unwind and have a good time with his friends. And where better to do that than at the Atlantis strip club in Virginia Beach with buddy Allen Iverson? Two witnesses (including the club DJ) put him at the club though Vick denies it. There’s nothing wrong with that. If I was stuck in prison and federally supervised custody for some 23 months, I’d probably stop at a nudie bar not too long after getting out too. And it’s not like you can get into much trouble at a strip club. Right Pacman Jones? No, wait, hang on… Anyway, ESPN has taken a break from not telling us about Erin Andrews’ video or Ben Roethlisberger getting sued for sexual assault to tell us that Vick is likely to have a four game suspension in the regular season. I don’t want to be technical but seeing as Vick is on indefinite suspension, he isn’t getting another 4 games, it’s just that he won’t play until at least Week 5. But that’s just me splitting hairs. Anyway, is anyone actually planning on signing him? Forget the whole PR disaster that he would be. He hasn’t played a competitive football game since December 31, 2006 (Week 17 of the 2006 season). If he is suspended for four games, the earliest he’ll play would be October 11th. That makes a 1015 day gap between real games. Sure he can practise and play in pre-season games when he’s signed but that doesn’t really count. So, does anybody want him now?

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Walt Disney is trying to make something out of nothing with this adaptation of the award-winning video game. One would think that the same company that turned an amusement park ride into a blockbuster movie trilogy could turn one of the greatest games of all time into a good movie. But having played PoP:SoT, I can tell you that Disney is going to have to pull off a near miracle to make a passably good movie out of the source material. This isn’t a knock on the crew at Ubisoft that made the game. The thing is that this wasn’t a plot driven game. Instead, this game excelled on the basis of amazing visuals and outstanding gameplay. The plot in a nutshell is that the Prince accidentally unleashes the sands of time, fights though a castle of sand-infused monsters (while solving puzzles and pulling off death-defying acrobatic feats), returns the sands and defeats the evil wizard who wants to use the sands to take over the world. Pretty generic plot there. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the Prince while Gemma Arterton plays Princess Tamina (known as Farah in the game). Not the first two I would cast in a movie that’s supposed to happen in the Middle East. When I hard about the BioShock movie adaptation, I thought it had promise because that was a plot driven game. PoP:SoT was all about the gameplay which means that there is no way in hell that I’m going to pay money to watch that movie voluntarily. And the Prince’s wardrobe for the movie is lifted from Pop: Warrior Within, dammit. At least pretend that there’s going to be character development with the Prince. In the games, the Prince goes from happy-go-lucky to world-weary to vengeful over the trilogy. He seems to have skipped a step. One more thing Disney is screwing up.

Canadian Football League
A while back I asked CFL commissioner Mark Cohon if the league was cracking down on “excessive celebration” after a touchdown. Specifically talking about Arland Bruce’s Michael Jackson tribute celebration, Mark gave me the impression that they weren’t going to crackdown on celebrating. The Bruce fine was just based on the excessiveness of that incident. After the league issued two more fines this week, I’m not entirely sure Mark was on the up and up with me. This week, the CFL fined two players for their post-touchdown activities. Paris Jackson was fined for taking off his shoes and doing a happy dance. Brandon Browner jumped in the stands after a teammate scored a touchdown and poured beer on himself. Both pretty harmless and low keys by most football standards, especially the CFL’s. At least 2008’s CFL celebration standards. The league that once brought us the Spiderman mask, the row boat, and duck, duck, goose, won’t let a player do a little dance. I know that the CFL wants to have a closer relationship with the NFL but they should adopt their draconian rules about celebrating. Jackson and Browner didn’t delay the game, offend millions of people, or embarrass the league. They were just having some fun and enjoying the moment. There’s nothing wrong with that. I guess we need a new TLA (three letter acronym) to go with CFL. How about “Cancelled Fun League”? No? We’ll figure something out eventually.

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