You Know You Make Me Want To Say So Long...

...You know you make me want to say goodbye...

I love Around The Horn. It's a great show for sports fans (such as myself) who want to hear all the news of the day from a couple different viewpoints, but don't have time to root through ESPN.com, SI.com, The Boston Herald, etc. searching for pointed opinions. There are two things I hate about ATH, though: Woody Paige and his dumbass chalkboard, and Jay Mariotti.

Mariotti always has something to say, yet never says anything. He is constantly lambasting players, coaches, and owners, yet it is rarely constructive. I think his commentary is mostly to hear himself talk, and I, along with all the other panelists quickly tire of it. In fact, I usually don't watch if he's on.

"What's the point of all this?" you ask. Well, after 17 years, Mariotti resigned from his position at the Chicago Sun-Times. Upon his departure, the Times issued this gem, perhaps the funniest press release I've ever read:

"The Chicago Sun-Times had the best sports section in the city before Jay Mariotti came to town -- that's why he signed up with us -- and his departure does not change that.

We still have the stars -- respected veterans such as Rick Telander, fiery newcomers such as Greg Couch, quirky voices like Carol Slezak, not to mention seasoned beat reporters tracking the Cubs and White Sox toward their eventual collision in the World Series, plus the Bears, the Bulls, the Blackhawks, and all the other teams that make Chicago the sports center of the nation. We could have a World Series in Chicago in a couple of months ... talk about excitement!

The Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com will continue to have the scores and the stories before anyone else, anywhere, and the deepest and most comprehensive stats and standings. We wish Jay well and will miss him -- not personally, of course -- but in the sense of noticing he is no longer here, at least for a few days.

A paper, like a sports franchise, is something that moves into the future. Stars come and stars go, but the Sun-Times sports section was, is and will continue to be the best in the city."

Original Source - Poynter

Lost.fm

I just logged in to my last.fm to install the scrobblah on my new MacBook. Apparently, I was on hiatus.

Your New Favorite Blog

http://renz-o.blogspot.com/

Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pantsuit

I lol'd. But it really was a helluva speech.

All I Wanna Do Is Drink Beer For Breakfast

A few months ago, I submitted out electronic press kit to a contest Harpoon Brewery was sponsoring. It's called the "UFO Unfiltered Band Search," and it's basically a competition to fine the top unsigned band in the northeast that best exemplifies the Harpoon brand. The initial reason I submitted for it was because every band who signed up, provided that all members were over the age of 21, received a free case of UFO Hefeweizen, which I happen to be a huge, huge fan of. It cost $10 to submit, and a case of UFO costs, oh $22.99, so I determined that it was a pretty good deal regardless of the outcome.

But that was months ago. In fact, I had completely forgotten about it until last Thursday. That's when I received an e-mail in my inbox from Sonicbids saying that my submission status for this event had been updated. So I logged in and checked our status. Lo and behold, we had been selected as a finalist for the competition! So that was pretty exciting. I browsed my way over to the competition website to see what the grand prizes were: a slot playing at the Harpoon's Summer Session 2009, a day in a recording studio, a one year feature on the UFO site, and a free mp3 download hosted on the Harpoon site. Pretty cool stuff.

Then, I scrolled down to read the paragraph below the grand prizes. It read as follows:

Each of the 10 finalists will be featured for one month on www.UFOHefeweizen.com as a UFO “Band of the Month” and will receive a UFO gift package, and a one-year supply of UFO Hefeweizen.

Wait, what? Yep. We done won ourselves a year's worth of free beer. For someone who loves beer as much as I do, that's like a fat kid winning free cheeseburgers for a year. I am stoked x100!

Voting opened yesterday at noon and runs through September 12th. Go to www.harpoon.com and click on the big yellow button halfway down the page on the right.