12.28.11
Gome of the Week
Never cross nerds on the internet. Especially gaming nerds.
And I will laugh.
This Week's Link That's Probably Not That Great
BEAT IT WITH A REAL JO-BRO - I'd probably hang with this dude.
This Week's Movie You've Probably Never Seen
CNN Sports: Best of Play of the Day (1991)
20 years ago, crazy sports highlights were video gold. Not only was the internet not around, but games weren't filmed as frequently, so there just wasn't as much wild footage to satisy diving-catch-hungry dudes. Plus, companies seemed to hoard the good stuff: If you wanted to see 30 minutes of wacky plays all in one place, you usually had to cough up $19.95 for a video like this, or at least pay up front for a subscription to Sports Illustrated.
CNN's Sports Tonight was the only show that could ever compete with Sportscenter, thanks not only to the buddy-comedy combo of Fred Hickman and the late Nick Charles (and of course the incomparable Southern charm of Van Earl Wright), but also its segment du jour, The Play of the Day. It was the thing that made you stick around till the end of the hour, and if teenage me ever lucked into it, I was the governor of Stokelahoma.
This vid collects the best-of-the-best from the first decade of Sports Tonight, and though it should have been about five hours longer, it was still pretty sweet: busted backboards, hockey goalies scoring, Kevin Mitchell catching a fly ball barehanded, the Stanford/Cal band-on-the-field debacle - everything you'd expect from an early-90's sports compilation.
My favorite parts of these videos are when they insert zany sound effects into clips of people getting seriously injured. Add a little springy, conky, cartoon-mallet sound, and maybe that guy getting thrown from the horse didn't just get paralyzed. Play some kooky music, and we can all look past the fact that those two colliding outfielders probably just shattered their noses and suffered career-threatening concussions. Hilarious madcap tomfoolery!
Because the internet is awesome, you can watch this whole video here.
This Week's Record You're Probably Not Listening To
Homer and Jethro - The Best of Homer and Jethro (1966)
If this record had been in my house when I was a small child, that old dude on the bottom with the greasy blond wig and the serial-killer drunk-clown makeup would have haunted my nightmares and never let me sleep. I'm still mildly troubled by him and am considering incinerating this LP sleeve as soon as I'm finished writing this blurb.
These two were doing the Weird Al before Yankovic got to it, recording parodies of popular songs and changing the lyrics to make them "funny." For example, they take Hank Snow's "Let Me Go, Lover" and change it to "Let Me Go, Blubber," a song about how they do not like fat chicks. Classic material!
I'm going to go bury this record under a slab of concrete now and pray that the dude with the liberally applied blue lipstick does not come to life and devour my face.
This Week's Hip New Slang Word or Phrase
droppin' a Cocker - A sweet way to describe taking a strenuous deuce that finds you resorting to Joe-Cocker-at-Woodstock-like convulsions to get the job done.
Origin - Joe Cocker, 1969.
Usage - "Oh, dude. I just had a rough time in the ol' bathroom there."
"Dude, I would say so. You're drenched in sweat and look mildly confused."
"Dude, I was droppin' a fevered, all-out, once-in-a-lifetime Cocker in there."
"Dude, sounds like a legendary performance. Nice work. I only wish I would have filmed it so I could produce an award-winning documentary about the whole experience."
This Week's Top Ten List
The Top Ten Surprising Things I Got for Christmas:
10. Adult onset diabetes
09. The complete Dokken discography on cassette
08. Respect from my family
07. Clean needles. Finally
06. Six pairs of irregular, deadstock Code Bleu acid-washed jeans
05. That pony I've been carrying on about
04. 30 minutes alone to drop a Cocker at my in-law's place
03. An Atari Jaguar - that's hot gaming!
02. Forgiveness from Jesus (the hispanic dude who lives down the street from me - I got a piece of his mail and forgot to give it to him for like a week)
01.
Jarred awake by Santa admiring my sweet record collection
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