Rangelife

Stop picking on wastewater management services

Tennessee: I know you're pissed off about Lane Kiffin appearing out of nowhere, mucking up your esteemed football program, committing some violations, crashing some cars, and then bolting for a better offer from USC.

So go ahead and deface boulders with obscenities. Go ahead and build nasty Facebook groups with names like "1,000,000 strong to tell Lane Kiffin to eat a dick." Go ahead and beg your athletic director to get USC on the home schedule before Kiffin is fired in 2012.

But do not insult the people who give you clean water.

Lane Kiffin Sewage Center Proposed

Ah, the not-so-sweet smell of revenge.

An attorney in Knoxville is urging the city to pay tribute to departed Tennessee football coach Lane Kiffin by renaming a waste water treatment plant the "Lane Kiffin Sewage Center."

Drew McElroy has filed paperwork that could lead to the change for the facility, which is near the university's football stadium, according to WBIR.

"We want to memorialize his stay here, and I think this would be doing it appropriately," McElroy said. "We don't have to rename the entire facility after him, just a part of it."

McElroy said just one cesspool would take care of it.

University of Tennessee student Paul Mills told the TV station that, "I think it'd be very fitting. He's definitely garbage."

Ha. Ha. Ha.

We tried this in San Francisco in 2008, with a ballot initiative proposing to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

In a city where George W. Bush would be welcomed with projectiles formed from the materials that flow through a sewage plant's "in" pipes, the renaming proposal was defeated soundly at the polls. Why? Once you stop giggling about the idea, you realize that the people who work at sewage plants have important jobs. Probably more important than yours.

So, Volunteers fans, revel in your rage at young Mr. Kiffin. But please don't take it out on the people who keep feces out of your Kool-Aid.

When it's okay to steal

Back in 2001 or so, I had the honor of publication in the Wall Street Journal. Sure, it was just a puny letter to the editor, but hey... the Journal!

These were the heady days of online file sharing platforms. Napster, Morpheus, KaZaA; we knew we were living in a golden era that would be gone in a blink. I primarily used file-sharing to sample songs by new-to-me bands (before dropping another $14 on a CD), and find older tracks that you couldn't buy if you wanted to.

The music industry, you'll recall, was outraged. File-sharing was theft, after all.

But my thought, and my letter to the WSJ, reasoned that I wanted to buy music online, but the industry didn't want to sell it to me. If you won't sell me what I want to buy, and I can get it for free anyway, I'll just take what's been made available. Is that wrong, if it's a digital good with no marginal cost to the producer? Maybe.

Someone must have read my letter, because soon iTunes, Rhapsody, imeem, last.fm and Pandora launched. You're welcome, America.

Which brings us to last Saturday night. The Saturday before Thanksgiving is always a killer weekend for Bay Area -- my dear, grubby Cal plays vile, snooty Stanford is what should be called "The Science Library Bowl" or "The Virginity Bowl," but is comically titled "The Big Game." The Big Game has had many historic moments over the years, none of which have impacted the BCS.

But people still love The Big Game. They love it so much, that they host big viewing parties, fire up the plasma screen, and turn to... um... ESPN? No, not there? ABC? Fox Sports Bay Area? Uh... anyone know what channel is The Big Game on?

It's on Versus. Yes, the Big Game is on Versus, formerly the Outdoor Life Network (OLN). Versus isn't all turkey shoots anymore; it now hosts the NHL, bull-riding, Indy racing, cycling; basically the leftovers ESPN showed in the '80s.

Versus is also owned by Comcast, and is no longer available on DirecTV, which balked at paying Comcast's fees. Comcast responded by saying DirecTV is insulting the fans. I think we can all see what's going on here.

The result was that only Comcast households in the Bay Area could watch The Big Game this year. Even sports bars didn't have The Big Game, since they're overwhelmingly on DirecTV so they can show NFL Sunday Ticket.

And now it's time to steal:

A quick search on a live-streaming website uncovered  a surreptitious stream of the Versus broadcast. And it was a hell of a football game.

Indeed, Comcast didn't earn any fee revenue from me, and they didn't even get credit for the ad impressions. But, again, this is a digital good that I couldn't otherwise access. Is it really stealing?

Louisiana football is all about class and sportsmanship

Wow! Did you see this play from Central High's game against Zachary High in Louisiana?

Yes, that's a rare behind-the-back spiral for a two-point conversion. Amazing, eh?

Wait. How did this come to happen? You never see a team run a gimmick play on a conversion. You only get one shot at points after a TD, and at all levels two-pointers are used in such high stakes circumstances that coaches usually stick to power runs or bootlegs.

And then you read that Central beat Zachary 58-0. So this pass was the equivalent of a Harlem Globetrotter triple-alley-oop with a ladder and a bucket of popcorn.

Note that although Central's kicker also went 5-for-5 on PATs, Central still tried for two (and failed, mercifully) after scoring a late defensive TD to go up 58-0. (See scoring summary.)

I'm shocked they didn't loot Zachary's treasure house, burn their plantations, and enslave their women. Central coach Sid Edwards is one classy guy!

ESPN.com confuses LeBron's commercial life with his real life

Either that, or or this is some kind of weird SEO:

LeBron, what's with the sad-sackery? You look like you're marrying off your daughter to a tow truck driver in rehab. Smile. You just won MVP, and you're buddies with Warren Buffett.

Now look closely at the title bar...

And you thought that was just for an endorsement deal...

Finally, Philly sports fans use their evil powers for good

The people of Philadelphia give Gov. Palin the treatment they usually reserve for Santa Claus or Michael Irvin's cracked vertebrae. 

Well, I was saying "Boo-urns."

***

Update: Gov. Lipstick should be arrested for child abuse:

"I've been warned that Flyers fans, they get so enthused, that they boo everybody at the drop of the puck," she said at a Philadelphia fundraiser Saturday afternoon. "But what I thought I'd do is I'd put Piper in a Flyers jersey, bring her out with me. How dare they boo Piper!"

She can see Russia, but she can't see Philly's hate.

Legally speaking, your football team sucks

Some sports teams are undeniably awful. Like, say, all the professional baseball and football teams in the Bay Area.

But how would your favorite shitty team's shittiness hold up in court? Does it take a transcendent form of suck for a jury to find a team worthless?

Say hello to Duke football! The Blue Devils recently backed out a contract to play a four-game series with Louisville. The Cardinals responded by filing suit, although the contract between the two teams required a $150,000/game penalty by Duke only if Louisville couldn't find a replacement of "similar stature" to Duke.

Now, last season Duke was outscored 398-215 by its opponents, en route to a 1-11 record. (Thank you, Northwestern!) They averaged a pathetic 2.0 yards per rushing attempt, and managed to make only 3 field goals all season. So perhaps finding a team of "similar stature" might require Louisville to survey Kentucky Pop Warner teams at most.

And Duke's attorney wasn't ashamed of it:

I think the Court can absolutely positively take judicial notice that Duke is probably the worst football team in Division I football. Everybody knows that. That’s no secret. The longest losing streak, the inability to ever win games... We certainly don’t have to go out and take six months of discovery to establish that for you... So the bottom line is how much discovery, if any, should anyone have to take, want to take or need to take to make the simple analysis of whether or not that was a team of similar stature? It’s judicial notice that they [Louisville] got beat by Utah. Maybe that’s part of the dispute – that they wish they’d played somebody weaker, like Duke which would have been an automatic W.

The court got it. Summary judgment:

The term "team of similar stature" simply means any team that competes at the same level of athletic performance as the Duke football team. At oral argument, Duke... persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower...

So, look up Raider Nation! At least your boys only go to court when they're trying to move stadiums.

(Photo credit: joeosb on Flickr. And yes, Duke had a QB named "Asack.")

Bigfoot My Ass

 

Source: de-noted

***

Apparently somebody has discovered Bigfoot, and the Internet is going wild over it.

It's bullshit. You know it's bullshit. It's always bullshit. I'd rather spend 90 seconds declaring my intention not to read about it, than to learn any actual details.

I can believe in UFOs. But don't tell me that any creature, much less a creature with no clear evolutionary relatives, has successfully evaded human capture or even a convincing photograph to this point in history.

Next thing you'll be claiming that those miniature Chinese gymnasts are 16.

***

I like this: What Would Don Draper Do?

Dear Don Draper, I found a copy of "On The Road" by that beatnik writer in my son's room. Should I call the police or just rough him up a little and kick him out of the house like his grandmother suggested?

Neither. You’ve dodged a bullet. It’s best he go through that phase while he’s still under your roof and you can keep an eye on him. Many men waste their money on college tuition while their pretentious kids self-indulgently deny they were ever taught accountability. Leave the kid alone and hope he moves on to better books before he moves out. Panic will only cause him to clutch the filth tighter and, worse, longer.

***

News from across the street from my house:

A local resident was bitten on her lower back by a man as she jogged on ___. She felt pain as she ran and saw that a man she had just passed was restraining her. A witness saw the woman run pass the suspect (described as a white male 18 to 24 years of age, standing 5'8" tall, weighing 150 pounds, with brown hair, wearing a blue and white checkered shirt, blue jeans and black and white checkered shoes) and then saw the suspect run toward the victim, crouch, and press his face to her back. The suspect fled south on ___. Glen Canyon was searched to no avail.

I've seen several creepy men living in the thickets of Glen Canyon, but never before did I suspect that one was really Marv Albert.

***

The only college football preview you'll need to read: The Balls Deep Hater's Guide to the Top 25. Example:

11. Auburn

Fun fact: In the entire history of the school, no Auburn student has ever graduated. In fact, they don’t even plan a commencement. Everyone just kind of wanders off campus around March or so.

***

Memories of playing Madden the "wrong way":

Late-Hit Bowl, the object was to get flagged for as many late hits as possible and if the other guy ended up on the one yard line or scored on the drive, you got his points.

***

Finally, since you can smell football season, enjoy "Ram It" by the Rammers, by far the most homoerotic of the many "Super Bowl Shuffle" knockoffs.

Bill Parcells: Leadership by Example

Bill Parcells likes his players conditioned to bring their A-game into overtime.

He also likes Boston Cremes and Vanilla Frappucinos and Lasagna-in-a-Bucket.

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Other headlines from today:

• Dina Lohan's way: Parent attentively, or else
• Hillary Clinton's way: Practice decency, or else
• Bill O'Reilly's way: Treat your people with respect, or else FUCK FUCKING FUCK!

WE BEAT MEMPIS NOT OUR GIRLS

For those who have yet to revel in this joyful tussle, check out this scene following UAB's one-point home loss to #1 Memphis. Honestly, this picture is so awesome, it's replaced my daughter on my PC desktop. (Temporarily, okay?)

See the high-res version here and see if you can spot 75 amazing things. Here's a sample:

The Dallas Cowboys' 2007 Season in Eight Seconds

From today's "Can't Stop Watching This" file, I give you...

I am off for a long holiday weekend in the Pride of the Nation. My weekend picks (2-2 last week, 6-2 overall for the playoffs): Green Bay over Jersey by a little; New England over the Bolts' B-team by a lot.