At some point on the evening of Thursday, December 30th, I checked my Facebook notifications through my phone. I don’t know where I was, exactly, or what I happened to be doing at the time. I do know that the outcome of the Holiday Bowl had been decided and that the euphoria among the Husky faithful was still settling in. We were probably on the San Diego trolley, or perhaps already sitting in a bar. It was then that I read the comment that would inspire me to wake up at 8:30 this morning, jump in the shower, dress myself, pack up my laptop, and walk down the street in search of free wi-fi (shout out to the Mission Valley Doubletree, where they charge $15 a day for internet).
“The least you can do,” the comment read, “is go and get hammered and give us all a good story about it tomorrow.”
And by “it,” the commenter was referring to the purple-and-gold celebration that was in the process of ensuing at that very moment. Done and done.
Another special guest in studio as the one and only Matt Holt (pictured at left) joins the program, filling in for Ryan Divish, who has been abducted by aliens.
This week’s show features a new bit that we’ve entitled “Ask An Asian.” It’s pretty self-explanatory. Also pretty hilarious. Check it out.
We also discuss the Seahawks, the Holiday Bowl, get grumpy, and have our usual dose of fun.
An airport employee is directly to my right, talking loudly on her cell phone in a language I cannot understand. She has removed her shoes. It could be a while before this gibberish ceases. Once, many minutes ago, this corner of SeaTac in the B concourse was nice and peaceful, a place I could write and work and daydream simultaneously. Now, however, my slice of Utopia has been infiltrated by loud cell phone talkers.
It’s 10:18 a.m. I’m getting ready to board a plane that will take me to Los Angeles. From there, I’ll be hopping in a car with some friends and driving down to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl. I won’t be back in Seattle until Monday, January 3. Along the way, I’ll chronicle this journey both in writing and in video. Most of the video footage will consist of an open, anything-goes competition of skills between myself (Seattle Sportsnet) and my friend Bailey (Breakin It Down With Bailey). I’m confident I can win, in spite of the fact that there aren’t really any rules. And if nothing else, it should at least be fun to watch.
Written by the commissioner of the Pearce Fantasy League (best fantasy league on earth) and posted to our league page. This is really top-notch poetry. I was literally in awe after reading it. Even if you don’t understand all the inside jokes, you have to appreciate the wording.
Good work, Dave. You’re my hero.
(FYI: This entire poem is made even better by the fact that I’m one of the two teams competing in the Pearce Bowl for the PFL championship.)
‘Twas the night before Pearce Bowl, when all through the league All the players and teams had combat fatigue;
Special Christmas edition of Karate Emergency this week with guest host Andy Bunker in studio. We attempt to reach out to the long lost ghost of Ryan Divish but fail miserably.
We kick off the show with Grumpy Out The Gate, talk a little Holiday Bowl, clown on Alex Akita (that would be me), listen to Andy Bunker’s Christmas song about Matt Hasselbeck, discuss the Hasselbeck/Whitehurst saga, partake in a holiday-themed You Can Only Have One, and cap it all off with the news.
A few weeks ago, a group of local sportswriters started a website entitled SportsPress Northwest. A well-put-together online periodical, SportsPress Northwest was founded by Art Thiel and Steve Rudman, two former Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalists who had been struggling to stay relevant since the newspaper closed up its print operations in March, 2009. First glance at the website will tell you that a) this project was decently-funded, b) these guys have a talented supporting cast around them, and c) they clearly know how to write about sports. And yet in spite of all that, no one really cares.
It’s an unfortunate circumstance of the newspaper industry slowly falling to pieces, but unless your words are plastered on the pages of a daily print production, you might as well be Casper the Friendly Ghost. To remain apropos in the online world, you have to either do something that nobody has done before, or do whatever it is you’re doing better than everyone else who happens to be doing that very same thing. Most people don’t realize that. Thiel, Rudman, and their SPNW cohorts are guilty of this naivety.
*Editor’s note: My apologies. I failed to publish Issue No. 7, University of San Francisco, as Saturday was a rather busy day for the entire Seattle Sportsnet staff (i.e. me). You can still check out the USF Dirt by heading to the NEW Dawg Pack Dirt Facebook page. Don’t be afraid to click the “Like” button, either.
If social networking sites have proven anything to me over the course of the past few hours, it’s that you fickle Seattle sports fans are decidedly torn on who should be the Seahawks’ starting quarterback on December 26th, 2010.
Oh sure, there are some of you who are blindly optimistic about Matt Hasselbeck. God forbid anybody boo an underwhelming player. (By the way, don’t we have a right, as fans, to express our opinions on our team’s performance? Or do they not allow that anymore?)
We’ve all heard the excuses. It’s the O-line’s fault! It’s the receiving corps’ fault! It’s the coaching staff’s fault! Well, all or some of that may be true, but Hasselbeck is the one out there playing like crap. So point fingers if you must. But just know that the man isn’t performing. At the end of the day, performance is all that really matters. And if you don’t believe that he’s not performing, click here.
On the flip side, there are those of you who love Charlie Whitehurst so much that you’d like to see Hasselbeck sent out to sea on a sinking ship. He looks like Jesus, you say. Well yes, that’s fairly accurate. But really, that has nothing to do with football. And frankly, Whitehurst has only been so-so in his attempts at throwing things this year. If Whitehurst was actually Jesus, we’d be undefeated right now and he’d be almost as good as the all-99 player you just created in your own likeness on Madden.
We needed stamps at work today. I was ready for a Red Bull. So I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and go get stamps while simultaneously picking up a Red Bull.
As I’m leaving the office, my coworker says to me, “Get some cool holiday stamps.” Okay, I surmise. I can do that. I’ll go to the grocery store, get my Red Bull, then head to the post office and pick out fun stamps from the stamp vending machine. Should take no more than twenty minutes.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Hey, dumbass. They sell stamps at the grocery store. Why didn’t you just one-stop shop that shizz? Good question. But I had this theory as I was walking to my car that the grocery store only sold the stamps with the bell on them. My coworker had made it clear that your normal, everyday bell stamps would not suffice. And I’m a high-flyer. So when someone tasks me with going all out, I go all the f**k out.
Look, I’m just gonna be straight with you. This episode is a complete sh*tshow. In a good way, of course. But still. It’s all over the place. Like Yoshi, when Mario happens to get knocked off his ass. Get back here you cracked-out dinosaur. Carry me to the finish line or else.
We talk about a lot of things. Some basketball, the usual grumpiness, football, news…it’s like the “Potpourri” category on Jeopardy.
On top of all that, we welcome guest hosts Bailey Stenson (from Breakin It Down With Bailey) and Jerry Brewer (columnist for The Seattle Times and proprietor of The Brewery blog) into the studio as Ashley and Divish have gone missing for the week. Enjoy.
As you already know, we need a professional basketball team in this city. Ours was stolen from us like a pair of kicks from Foot Locker. This is where you come in.
Now as you may have heard, the NBA is seizing the New Orleans Hornets franchise, as their owner is basically a delinquent malcontent (okay, malcontent is a little strong of a word, but you get the point). The league is more or less foreclosing on the organization, looking to flip it at a discounted rate to the highest bidder. Being one of the richest men in the world, you’re as ideal a candidate as any to own this basketball team.
Of course, there’s the matter of an arena. I actually feel kind of bad asking this of you, but do you think you could go ahead and foot the bill for a state-of-the-art venue in the Greater Seattle area? Because that’s what it will really take to land the Hornets here in the Emerald City. The cost of the team is petty cash. It’s the new multi-purpose facility that will really set you back.
These precious gems can be yours for a starting bid of $49.99. Or, if you’re not one to handle the angst of an online auction, you can elect to Buy It Now for $80.
There are so many awesome things about these shoes that I hardly know where to begin.
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At some point on the evening of Thursday, December 30th, I checked my Facebook notifications through my phone. I don’t know where I was, exactly, or what I happened to be doing at the time. I do know that the outcome of the Holiday Bowl had been decided and that the euphoria among the Husky faithful was still settling in. We were probably on the San Diego trolley, or perhaps already sitting in a bar. It was then that I read the comment that would inspire me to wake up at 8:30 this morning, jump in the shower, dress myself, pack up my laptop, and walk down the street in search of free wi-fi (shout out to the Mission Valley Doubletree, where they charge $15 a day for internet).
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