Steve McCroskey: Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines
Read it, don’t read it, I don’t care…just needed to get some things off my chest.
In no particular order of chronology or importance…
NOT on the clock. Well, until the plane starts descending I suppose. No props, no checking, spelling and name errors are allowed, and blind as a bat.
Let’s turn and burn.
TWITTER: @fillerbuster11
1) They are like politicians sometimes it seems. They say what they think we want to hear into the microphone. They SELL it. We WANT to believe them. Then, they do otherwise, time and time again. Brian Kelly. You are a sell-out in my book. TOTALLY. You tell us you have your dream job. You take them to the championship game. Even after you got smoked, you STILL are the Notre Dame coach, one of the most prestigious coaching gigs in ALL levels of football. Then, you get busted already, within a couple days of that loss, INTERVIEWING with NFL teams. If I was a verbally committed recruit who didn’t know I should go to Notre Dame since Pop Warner, and if I was someone who had been courted by some other schools, I would get out. Not that there are a lot of schools out there with a coach who you KNOW isn’t listening to NFL teams, but I sure as hell would exit stage left of a guy who did it within DAYS of the final game of the season. I am glad you got SMOKED by Bama, Brian Kelly.
2) I am confused by Twitter. I don’t see the option to “tweet someone.” I haven’t looked and can’t now, but I assume that also means I don’t know how to “retweet” something either. I just send a thought out into space with some hashtags and hope for the best.
3) DAMAGING. Kevin Love has been ruled out 8-10 weeks. The Wolves (my sleeper team in the playoffs) are barely above .500 right now. That is a LONG time to lose a star for a team just trying to get a #4 seed so they can dodge OKC or the Clippers in the first round and have home court advantage. This is now shaping up to be a #7 or #8 seed team at best, and that ain’t good if your intentions are to be a sleeper.
4) Coincidentally, the Hampton Inn had hard boiled eggs this morning after my hook last night. Very cool.
5) RGIII is now all fixed up. Now comes the long road of rehab to being on the Adrian Peterson list. Good luck, kid.
6) The Leafs fired GM Brian Burke yesterday. When you don’t have a tentative agreement, are you not allowed to fire people? What? You are? Well, then this sucks for Burke, as I think that raised hopes of a season after a very long delay is an absolutely SHITTY time to put someone on the street. Hell, he could have been using this time for Monster or something.
7) A Seattle investor is looking into buying the Sacramento Kings. Very exciting, and I think that Seattle absolutely deserves an NBA team more than Sacramento. I hear the negotiations have stalled because the Seattle investor is figuring out a way to get rid of Demarcus Cousins before signing. Wouldn’t you?
8) Thank you Kansas City Airport. Not worrying about rental car companies making gas fees or people NOT finding a gas station within ten miles of a town they don’t know, you put a freaking gas station literally RIGHT outside the rental car return entrance. Thanks.
9) ACC POY QB Tajh Boyd will return to college. That is great news for the ACC and Clemson. I guess them beating SEC bully LSU in the bowl game and his present draft ranking probably made him say, “if not us, then who?” I hope you don’t pull a what I am calling a “Barkley.”
10) So, who CAN dethrone the SEC’s 7 year run? Names that pop to my head. Stanford (oh, what irony if a bunch of smart kids whip them), Oregon, Clemson, Florida State, Ohio State, Oklahoma always finds a way to reload, and Louisville (if you are laughing, then you didn’t see their bowl game and the youth of that squad this past year).
11) We were alerted on the wire that Annika Sorenstam sliced her finger in a cutting accident. I am not saying I am not concerned for her welfare. I am not saying she is not sports related. But, she is DONE playing professional golf actively. Why do I care? Are we going to report every bump and bruise of every athlete who ever laced them up? No. Let it be. I see no women’s tournament scores which will be affected by this catastrophe.
12) We are going to be late getting into the air. Maybe the pilot will try to “make up time.” As Jerry Seinfeld once said, if planes are ALLOWED to go faster within the regulations, then why don’t we GO faster all the time?
13) I don’t know if the Lakers are playing tonight as I fly, but my mind drifts and figures they will somehow once again find a way to lose.
14) There were a couple close college basketball games last night involving road heavyweights. Don’t WORRY about close wins, fans. In conference play in the Big 6 Conferences, you just WIN on the road-you don’t care how close it is.
15) Shit. There was a Rex Grossman sighting over the weekend, but I can’t remember where? Was it the Skins? NOW it makes sense that RGIII was out there. If you have rookie Kirk Cousins (I LIKE him as a player, but he is simply a pocket passing rookie still) and Rex Grossman in the hole, you fire that gun until you are out of bullets in a playoff game. If it wasn’t the Skins where the sighting was, then forgive me and ignore the hook.
16) If this ends up being really long, it is because I thought I had 5 minutes to start this thing at the gate, but boarding was delayed, and looky here…I am already on the 15th hook with a whole hour to write on the plane.
17) OK. I am back. We have reached elevation, AND there is an open seat next to me. Boom goes the dynamite.
18) Poor Iowa State basketball. You go into KU’s crib not having won there in a long, long time. You go down early, and then somehow mount a comeback. Then you give a bad foul on KU, walk and it is not called, and it is still somehow a three point game coming down to the wire. If Iowa State’s coach is not a “foul under 7 seconds when up by three” guy before, he is now. KU does get a more decent look than they should have, but it BANKS in. Ugghhh. Anyway, the game goes into OT, and at Allen Field house against a lesser opponent who already should have cashed in their luck thus far, KU rolls in OT. Crazy turn of Cousin Mo.
19) I keep writing down “6th round running backs and Shanahan” on my legal pad blog list that I constantly have on me, but evidently haven’t joked about it, him, Davis, Morris, etc. We are going into Friday. We will come back to this next football season evidently as we are days past the Skins game. Other things I am not “transferring” to a new list. Thoughts and prayers to Chandler Wiliiams, the AFL player who died. I think the Ford Fusion is a cool car for being not top flight. Good job on Arian Foster changing his Twitter profile picture to the article from that Boston writer that blasted him. I have never taken the time to learn how to blow bubbles with gum. And, I have a bug bite that is like half my thigh presently. Back to things that I DO want to talk about on my list.
20) A&M DE Luke Joeckel has decided to turn pro. Maybe your family is poor, maybe it is all about the money, or maybe you don’t want to risk injury. That being said, you DO know that Johnny Football CAN’T declare this year, right? You DO know that you guys are going to be pretty freaking good, right? Just checking, and good luck.
21) Dibs to Hampton Inn in Kansas City. Not many TV channels, but the right ones. All in a row…ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN Classic, ESPN News, ESPN U. Talk about not having to check any “listings.”
22) Classic in the Lakers-Spurs game last night. The TV microphone caught the ref talking to the coaches saying “You know what I am doing right now while I am talking to you, right? I am stalling. That is it, guys.” Nice.
23) Minnesota beat Illinois last night in college basketball. I need a flowchart for this one. I WANT Minnesota to be good, but am not totally bought in. I don’t think Illinois has the goods, and don’t want them to be good, so Minnesota beating them means nothing because…geez. I don’t know where I am going on this. It is a night flight and I am tired from the airport. Minnesota beat Illinois. That is it.
24) Tom Brady is one win away from the postseason record of Joe Montana for wins. Something tells me that even if the Texans have the night of their career and they somehow win, Tom has a couple more wins in his holster since he is “playing until he is 40.” Wouldn’t it be cool if Denver and New England won, and Peyton was the one who could STOP him from having it solo?
25) Ignore that last hook if Tom is already tied and they meant one win from BREAKING it. I am blind up here. Cut me a break.
26) The highlight of last night was briefly flipping on the Cal-Washington basketball game and hearing my favorite voice in the world. Bill Walton. I am SO glad he is still out there, he is so bad of announcer that it is awesome (think of a Bizarro Scott Hastings), and I listened in for a while hoping that I might hear one of his “that was the best blocked shot near the home team’s bench during conference play in the Pac-12 in an odd numbered year by a kid less than 6’4” who is left handed that I have EVER seen!!”
27) I assume people fly to Kansas City a lot. So, by rational thought, I will just have to assume that all of those people don’t use Terminal A. I assume either Terminal B or C are the “hot spots.” Driving around in Kansas City confuses me and I assume you could make a game of figuring out if you were in Missouri or Kansas. And by the way, Kansas City Airport, those mini pouches of gates are cool as far as security lines, but can’t you put one freaking pizza or sub place within the pouch of gates so we can eat INSIDE security?
28) The Jaguars fired Mike Mularkey today. I wish we would have had one of those coaching trades. Chicago could have traded the guy we LEAST expected to get fired and one to be named player for a guy we MOST likely expected to get fired.
29) MLB has agreed to in season HGH testing. Wait a minute. I thought we were already doing this, and if not, about TIME you jumped on this bandwagon. So, are we differentiating between HGH and PED’s? Because Cabrera got busted pretty late in the season for PED’s. On a plane, blind, and confused. Dammit.
30) Putting “stating the obvious” at a different level, MLB Hall of Famers were “glad” Bonds and Clemens didn’t get in. Thanks for clarifying. We the masses had no clue you would feel that way.
31) There is a woman sitting in front of me who has one of those fancy airplane neck sleeping pillows. I think she just bought it, because she keeps adjusting it and is not comfortable to the outside eye. Use a puffy vest, lady. It is heaven.
32) Doc Rivers said that Kevin Garnett was NOT talking about Melo’s wife in their trash talking. That is the problem? I truly believe anything goes verbally when playing basketball. Wives, girlfriends, mothers (see White Men Can’t Jump). At least that is how it went down on the Jersey courts.
33) Greg Oden says he plans on playing again in the NBA. I am SO glad he reminded me he was out there. I honestly kind of spaced out for the last few months, and haven’t mentioned him in a rant in a while. Note to self. The Oden injury jokes are back on the table (that was kind of a pun), and the Miami Heat are watching him VERY closely as they are starving for someone who can at least pretend to rebound and block shots.
34) Steelers RB Chris Rainey was waived today by the team because of his arrest for battery with some chick relating to a cell phone. I have to step up to the mic and crack hard on my own team. When Big Ben’s crap went down, people around me would tell you. I said I thought the Rooneys would let him go. The team is classy, and the Ben jokes still are out there hard (every other email from my ex-boss Vince). Then, they keep him, making it obvious that there aren’t too many 6’5” big QB’s out there that their scouts were telling them about. This was backing off what your classy history was just to keep the prize player. I admit it. You can even tell that MORE now, because waiving the most talented and dangerous RB on your team presently when he has a battery charge is definitively drawing a line in the stand…of course, AFTER you kept your star QB for rape.
35) LeHigh’s CJ McCollum says he might not return this year to make sure that he doesn’t further injure his leg and therefore chance his NBA career. It might be a great call, and it is HIS career. I just feel bad for all of you out there who won’t get him to lace it up one more time in college. The kid is GOOD.
36) Junior Seau’s brain tested positive for CTE. We expected this, and this will further the snowball that is guarding against concussion injuries. Chronic Trauma…something. Encel….something. Whatever. Moving on.
37) Ryan Kelly, the goofy tall guy from Duke who can flat out BALL but was probably made fun of when he was a kid (you know, because he looks so dorky and goofy), is out indefinitely. He is not as much of a loss because they now have some more depth with Marshall Plumlee back, but he is truly a glue / consistent guy who will be missed.
38) Lance Armstrong has asked the USADA for a “pathway to redemption.” Robert Plant read this and wondered what could have been. Don’t think about it, Robert. You chose the right title.
39) United. You continue to piss me off (except that nice stewardess who just gave me the whole Coke Zero can). I had 6 hours to kill in an airport (not really a problem when you have the workload I have). I go and ask about earlier flights, knowing the earlier one online was full. They say that there are seats on it. I inquire about switching. $75. THAT is not the kicker. The flight’s cost? $54. I just want to sit in the same kind of seat, drink the same Coke Zero, and arrive a couple hours earlier in Denver. Is that really an inconvenience to you, United? Geez.
40) That is it. Impending early descent because of turbulence in a true prop plane, and this is probably a long enough rant. Sometimes I write like I am not writing one in less than 24 hours. I am sure I will have some stuff to say tomorrow. Hey, Rant Squad. DO something. You guys are pretty quiet. Strippers, hookers, guns, drugs, monologues on a mic…whatever. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the rant. Will I blog tomorrow? That is a CLOWN question, bro. Peace.