There you go, big guy. Want another?

Cheer up, Jim. The world is just one big pastel-clad, muscle bound unicorn of an oyster.

Slurp it in.

With the ridiculous amounts of press given to Tom Izzo for helping a woman get her car out of the snow on Monday, the WLA decided to do some digging (HALOL) to see if any Michigan coaches did the same.  We found that Coach Brady Hoke was just as gracious, if not more so, by the act of simply lifting his massive finger (Just as CPS has shown).

Ann Arbor, MICH — Michigan Footbaw coach Brady Jonathan Hoke was driving to work in his eco-friendly AMERICAN automobile Monday morning when he noticed something that made him point in intrigue.

“I saw this lovely old lady with a snowthrower, and her motor carriage is at the end of her driveway, and I could tell she was stuck.  There was no doubt in my mind.  I know when someone is stuck and that lady was all sorts of stuck up in there.” Hoke said.

So he said to himself: “Goodness gracious, I am a most excellent person who is always touching kids and evaluating shoulders and butts, I’ve only helped 5 people out of the snow so far today, what’s helping another gonna hurt.”

He backed up, pointed at the snow and asked the woman whether she was stuck.

“MICH YEAH I AM,” she told him.

That’s when Hoke gracefully got out of his car on Stadium Blvd. and told his passenger — former MICH QB Tom Brady — to block traffic. (Brady had hitched a ride to campus with Hoke to attend a QB Drill with NARD DAWG.?)

Hoke quickly figured out that the woman’s snowthrower wasn’t helping, because he is a genius, so he started pointing. As he pointed with  massive force, the snow behind the tires began to move. And eventually the entire driveway had cleared. When it was clear, the woman got in her car and asked Hoke where she should go.

“I said, ‘is that a serious question? Why were you in your car to begin with?’”  The woman replied “DERP.”

But the engine started racing.

“I’m looking at the tires, and they aren’t spinning,” he said. “She had it in neutral so I pointed the shifter into drive.’”

It was rad.

“She said, ‘Thanks, Coach.’ I pointed, ‘No problem.’ It was the eighty billionth good thing I’ve done this month.”

Editorial Note: Photographic evidence was found of Tom Izzo actually farting the snow from the woman’s car, seen here.

If not for the Twitter, I would think Jay Feely was just an idiot kicker and not a regular idiot.

It’s not the people have gotten stupider. People have always been plenty stupid (and not just the French who have clearly been quite stupid throughout history.) In my day (we wore an onion on our belts…), when you were drunk and stupid (or just stupid with no excuse), the worst thing you could do was tell your buddy something dumb. If you planned ahead, then he was just as drunk as you and either agreed or forgot what you said. In the absolute worst case scenario, you could do was drunk dial your ex-girlfriend (which required some manual dexterity because you had to actually dial numbers on olde thyme phones unlike these devilish cell phones) and at least such phone calls had the possibility of having satisfying, if ultimately self-destructive, results.

Think I’m wrong? Let us check out the most popular college football blog in the known universe for today’s example of how Twitter is Satan’s toy.

It seems that a graduating Michigan football player whose draft status relies heavily on his combine performance vented some steam on the Twitter regarding frustrations with the new coaching staff. Does the charge have merit? We can’t say because we only know what read on the Twitter. Even so, it strikes me as unlikely that this is the way that young man intended to let the world know about his frustrations. If his desire was to bring the Brady Hoke Reunion Honeymoon to a screeching halt all he had to do was call up the local newspaper. I won’t link them but you know who I’m talking about. I won’t mention the Detroit Free Press or prodigal son Michael Rosenberg but you know who I mean. The Freep. That’s who I’m talking about.

I don’t think that’s what he meant to happen. He was just upset and blowing off steam and now rather than having those words fall down the memory hole they hang on computer monitors across the country and have been saved for all eternity by the Library of Congress. Really Library of Congress? Really?

If he hadn't felt the need to tweet about waking and baking, Santonio Holmes might be preparing to win another Super Bowl with the Steelers rather than complaining about Brain Schottenheimer and wearing a ridiculous hat thing.

Does it end there? No, of course not because now every idiot surfing the Twitter drunk on a Saturday night (?) can read those words and become inflamed with anger. They can then spread their anger to others by starting a 100+ comment thread on mgoboard.

Does it end there? No, because now just by typing the simple string “@desmondhoward” any idiot with fangers can alert Heisman Trophy winning, MICHIGAN MAN Desmond Howard of the developing injustice. Any drunk with a keyboard can righteously call in the cavalry. If Charles Woodson weren’t busy with that darned Super Bowl, we could enlist his aid also!

Only Michigan basketball assistant coach Bacari Alexander has found a way to use the Twitter as a force for good. He alone can continue tweeting with my approval.

Just to recap, we’ve got one upset young man who, rather than grabbing a beer with a friend or calling his dad (no QBForce jokes pls), mashed keys innocently enough on his cell in an emotional moment. The result is hundreds of comments on mgoblog and a plea for aid to Desmond Howard to say nothing of the potential complications in the young man’s real life.
Excellent. Ain’t progress grand?

In conclusion, 3% of the traffic on the Twitter involves Justin Bieber. (HT: max)

QED

*Yes, I got it. You can listen to your music everywhere but at the cost of being a deaf, mute menace on public transportation, in the workplace, and when jogging. Unfortunately, the death toll of Ipod-wearing joggers has not outpaced the spread of this nasty habit meaning one day some future Zola Bud will succeed in making me their own personal Mary Decker.

Addendum: In non-Michigan college football news, Mississippi State (last seen exhausting themselves running up and the down the field at the Gator Bowl) watched blue chip recruit C.J. Johnson jump ship to join interstate rival Ole Miss, citing Facebook stalking MSU fans as making the entire experience hell. Sanctioned, local bloggers have resorted to calling C.J. a little girl (for real people, I ain’t lying for once!) Sounds like MSU needs to get themselves a dex to clean up their corner of the internet.

Acclaimed thespian and former United States President Bill Pullman received his MFA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1977. During his time on campus, he fell in love with the maroon and white and has since become the world’s third most vocal Minutemen supporter behind Eli Wallach and Charo. President Pullman was kind enough to sit down with the WLA for a pregame interview as his Minutemen prepare to face the resurgent Michigan Wolverines.

WLA: President Pullman, thanks so much for joining us.

Pullman: Good morning.

WLA: You wear your emotions regarding UMass athletics on your sleeve. Has this week taken a toll on your family?

Pullman: Yeah, Mommy is sleeping now.

WLA: Well, with you stomping about in your UMass sweatshirts for days on end, who can blame her for needing a nap, right?

Pullman: Traitor.

WLA: Let’s just move on to the matchup at hand. This will be the first game in Michigan Stadium for UMass, but only the second one for Michigan’s players since extensive renovations were completed. What do you think of the new look?

Pullman: I don’t understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?

WLA: If you take one slice of pepperoni off each meat lover’s pizza for two years, you save $700 billion. It’s amazing.

Pullman: Liar.

WLA: No, for real! Anyway, people say Rich Rod’s seat may be cooling thanks to the great start, but one of the reasons it heated up in the first place was the allegation of violating practice rules. What did you think of the alleged violations?

Pullman: It’s a fine line between standing behind a principle and hiding behind one. You can tolerate a little compromise, if you’re actually managing to get something accomplished.

WLA: That was surprisingly topical. On the field, Michigan is off to a hot start thanks in part to great play by the offensive line. What do you think Greg Frey has been telling them to elicit such strong performances?

Pullman: Gentlemen! Let’s plow the road!

WLA: Several reasonable people predicted that Michigan would lose the first two games of the season. Connecticut was and is a Big East title contender, and Notre Dame has a glut of talent with a proven success at coach. But Michigan defeated them both. What would you say to people in Storrs and South Bend who are thinking of jumping off the respective bandwagons?

Pullman: If you feel compelled to leave these cities, please do so, in an orderly fashion.

WLA: Yeah! Peace out, frontrunners!

Pullman: In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world.

WLA: Like at an international airport? Ugh, don’t bring those up. I hate the delays.

Goldblum: Must go faster.

WLA: No fooling. Let’s continue, shall we? You’ve been following football for decades. What’s your preferred offense: a ground-based running game or an aerial attack?

Pullman: I’m a combat pilot, Will. I belong in the air.

WLA: My name is Nick—

Pullman: “Mankind.”

WLA: How did you speak those quotation marks?

Lloyd: “ ”

WLA: Weird. President Pullman, what do you expect from Michigan’s quarterbacks this Saturday?

Pullman: You will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind.

WLA: No faith in the secondary, huh? Been there. You just need to find your power animal, or James Rogers, whichever shows up first.

Pullman: We will be united in our common interests.

UMass corner: halp

WLA: Rumors of Denard Robinson’s extraterrestrial origins persist…

Pullman: Regardless of what the tabloids have said, there were never any spacecrafts recovered by the government. Take my word for it; there is no Area 51 and no recovered space ship.

WLA: Let’s fast forward to next Sunday and your weekly conference call with the coaching staff. What do you think you’ll have to say to Keith Dudzinski, the Minutemen’s defensive coordinator?

Pullman: The only mistake I ever made was to appoint a sniveling little weasel like you Secretary of Defense.

WLA: Harsh words. Some people thought Rich Rod used a conservative playbook against UConn to save some wrinkles for the next week. Against Notre Dame, what did you see in Michigan’s offense?

Pullman: I saw…their thoughts. I saw what they’re planning to do. They’re like locusts. They’re moving from planet to planet…their whole civilization. After they’ve consumed every natural resource they move on…and we’re next.

WLA: Let’s say Denard declares for the NFL Draft three years early. Illegally. His impact as a rookie?

Pullman: Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, destroyed.

WLA: How are you going to assuage the anxiety of UMass fans who are also schismatic Black Muslims and/or supporters of the Boston Red Sox?

Pullman: Address the Nation. There’s gonna be a lot of frightened people out there.

WLA: Tell me how UMass is going to stop Denard.

Pullman: What do you want us to do?

WLA: Touché. What if I told you Denard would be pulled from the game before the end of the first quarter?

Pullman: Then we’re being exterminated.

WLA: You address the team every Friday before the game. What can you possibly say to prepare them for a game on such a grand scale?

Pullman: We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. Perhaps it’s fate that today is the Fourth of July—

WLA: —it’s Septem—

Pullman: —And you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

WLA: UMass is so fucked.

Pullman: Good luck, buddy!

Mouton: WELCOME TA EARF

WILDCATZ are known for being smart.  Not only can we solve the rubix cube quicker than your best 40 time, we can also win footbaw games (on paper/field (50/50)).   This data collected regarding our Wildcatz shows the intellectual data to gauge the Footbaw teams successes and defeats using multiple equations and statistical data taken from previous games and academic accomplishments in time.  Not only is this data 100% accurate and FACT, it will also blow your mind in ways you could only imagine from a doctoral course at prestigious Northwestern University.

Below you will see the Win Scan equation.  This calculates Footbaw wins based on the proportion of talent, each players class schedule, Extracurricular activities such as glee club, chess club, math club, class government, Dungeons & Dragon scores, War Craft Character levels,   etc..,  SAT score as well as GPA (which is typically a given, 4.0 or better!).  Result: 7.5679 Wins.

Clearly moar chemistry sets needed in the locker room

The next graph shows the defensive quarterly trajectory & shibba dibba.  “Shibba Dibba” meaning “prowess” in the secretive language only learned and shared between Northwestern Students and Alumni.  Quite explanatory really, I don’t even need to explain it to you unless you’re a 4th grader.  But overall, the CATZ will give up around 22 points per game on defense.

Not bad, if you ask professor. Amirite? LOL.

Last but not least, the historical chart showing the teams ability to score over the 60 minutes of the footbaw match based on their most recent grade for an exam or assignment.  Clearly, when the majority of the team, especially the offense, gets an “A” or better on their most recent exam or assignment, the team is excited and accurate, thus scoring more points per minute in the game.  When the teams goes out after receiving an “A-“ or worse, scoring is rare, averaging just over 8 points in 45 minutes.  Historically, after 45 minutes, they sputter out, only worrying how to keep their GPA over a 4.0 after such an embarrassing display in the classroom.  Footbaw becomes an afterthought.

Clearly our WildCATZ need to focus on their studies in order to succeed on the field.  Better the studies, better the footbaw team.  It’s Science, seriously.

Imma make a bold statement, but stay with me:

Northwestern is the prettiest football program in the Big 10.

I know, I know, there’s a lot of competition. From Michigan State’s majestic East Lansing campus, to the sexy ‘stache of Danny Hope, the Big 10 is one fierce conference. But I set forth to argue that Evanston has the highest concentration of pretty this girl has ever seen.


Exhibit A:

Ryan Field



People are afraid to go to games, it’s that pretty. 350 of the CATZ biggest fans brave the magnificent stadium to support the CATZ every week, after tailgating on the lakefront with their cheese plates and wine coolers. That’s hardcore.


Exhibit B:

Head Corch Pat Fitzgerald

Two words: Dream. Boat. Those boyish good looks could sweet talk their way out of any NCAA hearing. And a family man! Even his children are gorgeous. He appears to have hired a nanny, but I won’t hold that against him.

(p.s. Corch, if you’re reading this, I’m available for the job if you want someone a little younger :) )




Exhibit C:

PURPLE CATZ

The only Big 10 mascot that can pull off menacing and cuddly at the same time. Bonus: purple looks good on everyone, making the Northwestern population one good looking group on a Saturday afternoon.




Exhibit D:

Defensive Coordinator Mike Hankwitz

So handsome. So bald. Need I say more? He is a Michigan grad….but this is a pretty party, so brains aren’t really necessary.  Plus, check out his style:

Gotta admire a man who makes cruisewear acceptable in northern Illinois.

I think I’ve presented a pretty solid case here.  We CATZ fans are the luckiest fans in college football.  Brains AND good looks?  Who could want more?  Not this girl.




(p.p.s. Corch for reals…call me :) )

Students briefly stepped away from their studies to scream in agony only to remember that they didn’t really follow basketball, or any sports for that matter.  They then quickly returned to their quantum physics homework at the local nerdery.

Corch Bill Carmody was distraught to say the least; “When we first started recruiting Kevin, I thought to myself, this kid is a total dork, no way he plays hoops.  Then, next thing you know, he’s our leading scorer, breaks his ankle, and returns to his true path of dorkness.”  Kevin’s mother, who was seen at every single game ever and mentioned by the BTN 40,000 times because of her battle against cancer declined to comment on her sons decision.

We here at the WLA demand answers.  Why come he decided to go back to skewl?  Does he not believe in NW tradition?  The team made it to the NIT tourney in 1983, 1994, 1999, 2009 and 2010!!!  Does he not want to carry on the prestige and honor that is considered GREATNESS in the Northwestern Wildcatz basketball program?  Why come you do this to us, Kevin?  Why come?

UPDATE: Coble got a B+ in physics.  What a looser.

Kevin Coble Makes a quick move to the check out counter at the NW Library

600 Communities who want Google internet. Only one of them deserves it, MINE.

1 Week until Austin Jackson has to become Curtis Granderson. No pressure. (Also, what a terrible website.)

15 I just have a good feeling about this one.

73 Days until the world invades Africa.

4 Awesome teams left playing in some sort of rounded ball tournament. Have you heard?

.5 Seconds is about how long I can stand to see these people on TV.

Comrades, as you know, the WLA is a blog of the people, dedicated to protecting you and your families from the tyranny of large, faceless corporations who care little for you other than what you can produce, or what your demographic can produce for them in advertisement revenue. We are saddened to report that certain blogs will go as far in games of petty retribution as to attempt to literally ruin your life.

Comrades, this is not rhetoric – we, at the WLA, have concrete evidence of representatives of The Buckeye Battle Cry willfully ignoring their published Privacy Policy to collect information on their readership for the express purpose of having a reader punished, and potentially fired, from their work.

How is this? It started some time ago when a writer of this blog posted a comment on a post at Buckeye Battle Cry. That blog, as is their unstated policy, deleted the post and banned the user, as the commenter had previously expressed an affinity for the University of Michigan in previous posts. The post was simple, and not very insulting:

Right, that’s Kevin from The Office. There was no text. No comment. Just this picture. Kevin’s not very intelligent, you see. The commenter was implying that the BBC’s post wasn’t very intelligent. This happened weeks ago, and he hasn’t commented since.  That’s not very nice, we suppose, but it’s par for the course on the internet.  It’s also fucking funny.  Herp. Derp.

The BBC, however, was not content with deleting the comment and leaving the commenter banned. No, they investigated the IP address of the commenter, who posted his comment from his work computer, and e-mailed his employer’s IT department, complaining that an employee of their’s had posted “offensive content” on their blog. How do we know this? Recently, an anonymous poster to our Uniscorn comment section, hailing from an IP sourced to Canton, OH, pasted the following e-mail into our user chat:

Dear Jeff,

My name is <Name> and I am the <Title> for <Company>. I received a notification that one of our employees may have posted offensive material to your website. I have also received the IP addresses you sent along.

Would it be possible for you to provide more detail with regards to the particular blog entries in question, such as what sites are involved? Is there guidance you can provide that would take me directly to any particular posts that you would like to point out as examples of the behavior in question?

Thank you in advance for any more information you might be able to provide me. I will investigate this matter further once I receive more specifics.

Regards,

<Name>
<Title>
<Company>

Name, title and company have been redacted to protect the innocent.  Even without a privacy policy, we adhere to common decency, unless you’re a spineless cockbag, which brings us to “Jeff.”  “Jeff”, of course, would be Jeff Seemann, the most frequent poster at The Buckeye Battle Cry.  The email was pasted to Uniscorn in response to the commenter referring to “Jeff” as “Jeff Semen”, when the IP address in question, handled “The BBC” came on to gloat after Michigan’s gut-punch loss in the Big 10 tourney to OSU.  We’re going to carry on that tradition here, because Jeff has earned it.

So what do we know from Jeff Semen’s email?  Not much, aside from the fact that he was offended by a comment from a rival fan on his little corner of the Internet and provided an IP address of the computer from which the comment originated to a third party unaffiliated with the BBC.  The problem with this, of course, is that SBN, and thus the BBC tells you that this precise sort of thing WILL NOT HAPPEN:

… we will never share your Usage Data, Personal Information, Non-Personal Information, or Shared Information (which we will refer to in this Privacy Policy collectively as “User Information”) with any third party without your permission.

It can be presumed that Jeff Semen and the BBC are obligated, likely by contract, to adhere to SBN’s Privacy Policy.  It is, after all, linked at the bottom of the BBC site.  SBN’s Privacy Policy can be found in full here http://www.sbnation.com/guide/privacy, but it can be summarized as follows:

SBN automatically collects information it calls Usage Data “each time you visit the Sites” (see § 1 – “Information We Automatically Collect”).  The Policy specifically states that an “IP address” is an example of Usage Data (see § 1) as distinct from other forms of data, such as user-submitted data (see e.g., § 2 – “Information You Choose to Submit”).

SBN then details its sharing practices (see § 3 – “Our Information Sharing Practices”), beginning with the above-quoted general policy.  Various exceptions are enumerated (see §§ 3(b)-(e)), including third party advertisers, third party recipients of aggregated data, third party services providers, and various other scenarios such as legal actions, law enforcement activities, illegal activity, infrastructure protection, affiliated organizations, and mergers or acquisitions.  For most of the exceptions, the Privacy Policy states that the information is not provided in a manner that would enable the third party to personally identify the user and/or requires the recipient to adhere to the Privacy Policy.

None of the exceptions were applicable in this case.  The user may identify any of the defined information as public, which may then be used publicly (see § 4 – “Public Information”), but needless to say, our colleague did not consent to be dimed out to his employer.

Indeed, the Privacy Policy specifically states that SBN strives to protect User Information from misuse and unauthorized disclosure (see § 7 – “Security”).  Yet Jeff Semen provided the IP address purely to harass and retaliate in response to a comment from a rival fan.  Although SBN acknowledges that security is not 100%, surely visitors to its Sites can expect that those authorized to access Usage Data, such as an IP address, would not misuse and disclose that information without authorization, particularly in gross violation of its stated and agreed-upon Privacy Policy.  Then again, maybe the BBC’s visitors can’t rely on promises SBN is making on their behalf.

The college sports blogosphere, and the blogosphere in general, really, is supported by millions of people who, largely, are seeking a diversion for a few minutes from the drudgery of their jobs. Many of the page views to any blog come, I’m sure, from a company computer. BBC, and, consequently, have demonstrated a willingness to flaunt their policies for the sole express purpose of ruining the life of a reader merely because he did not share the rooting interest of the blog in question. Doubtlessly, this puts every reader they have at risk – the sites collect IP addresses, and are clearly not afraid to use them.

So what do we have here? We have BBC writer, trolling a rival blog, so offended by someone mis-spelling his last name that he went back, scoured the logs of his Blog, and uncovered the person’s IP address for the express purpose of retribution, because he couldn’t handle being called a name.

Tread carefully, Comrades, as you venture onto an “enemy” blog - don’t express a word of dissent on any blog – you could be trying to support your wife and children on unemployment checks by the end of the week.

Large swaths of this were written by resident Law-talker CPS.

Don’t worry mom, I was writing in between the salvos.

Identities changed for their protection:

Act 1: Where We Stumble Upon the Soiled Grounds of the Uninformed