August 27, 2009

GOOSEBUMPS



That's what I got after I watched this video. I don't even care if you aren't a FSU or UF fan, if that doesn't get you hyped for the season, either you don't have a pulse, you don't like football, or you're crazy. I got a little nostalgic once it was over. I wish we could have a late '90s revival in college football. You know, the days of cut-off jerseys, taped stripes on belts and taking your helmet off in the endzone when you score a TD. Let's bring back Charlie Ward, Warrick Dunn, Peter Warrick, Tommie Frazier, Charles Woodson, Rocket Ismail, Desmond Howard, Reidell Anthony, Ike Hilliard, David Palmer (the Deuce is loose), Eddie George, Shaun Alexandernd those guys. Let's bring back the throat slash TD celebration, the Prime Time Shuffle, and the hand behind your head as you go in for 6. All other celebrations will be flagged.
And for the FSU fans, what about Mickey Andrews unleashing Wadsworth, Devin Bush, Derrick Brooks, Sam Crockett, Corey Simon, Boulware and the other pit bulls on opposing quarterbacks? Can we bring that back too? And dagumit, where is Chris Weinke completely turning his back on a play-action pass, only to turn back around to throw a 98-yard TD pass to Snoop Minnis?

Man, I'm geeked for the season.

Tim Tebow Wears Charlie Ward PJs

I was reading this article where Bobby Bowden allegedly says that Charlie Ward was better than Tim Tebow. I say allegedly because after reading the article a couple times, I can't find anywhere where he says those words. Apparently he was misquoted by a UF paper to create some buzz. He didn't say that Ward was better explicitly; he only stated that it was plausible. It is not nearly as far-fetched as Gator fans choose to believe.
First, let me say this, Charlie Ward was ahead of his time. There would be no Tim Tebow if it weren't for Charlie Ward. He was the first dual-threat QB. Before Ward, you were a passer or a runner. You had veer or wishbone QBs at Nebraska and Oklahoma, or dropback passers at FSU, Miami and the Pac-10 schools, but never both. Florida State tweaked its pro-style offense around Ward. They called it "The Fast Break," (after Ward's ability as a PG on the basketball team) and it employed a no-huddle shotgun that let Ward use his receivers, or streak from the pocket if he saw a hole. Charlie Ward paved the way for all the spread QBs (Vince Young, Tim Tebow, Graham Harrell, Sam Bradford) you see today. And he was doing it when Tebow was in a crib. In fact, Tebow should be indebted to Ward for the fact that he is even playing QB. In Ward's day, Tebow would've been playing LB or TE. The only way he would've gotten under center was if he beat him on a blitz, sacked the QB, and the center fell on top of him.
And what Ward did like a butterfly, Tebow does like a bulldozer. He's a TE playing QB. Tim Tebow is Charlie Ward Heavy. Ward looked like an honest to God athlete while he was making defenders look stupid. Michael Vick would be a better comparison. I'd say Charlie ward was the precursor to Michael Vick. The guy had a canon attached to his shoulder. And if that didn't get the job done, he ran like a wide receiver. He threw better than Tebow, had a better arm, and was more athletic.
POINT: Ward-transcendence.

Check it out, but unfortunately you'll have to type it in. Some jackhole disabled embedding on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1VTnrl645E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDCgOgtTRCU&NR=1

THE NUMBERS
Here's the ones UF fans would like you to see:

CHARLIE WARD: 473-of-750 passing (63 percent), 5,747passing yards, 49 TDs, 22 INTs, 889 rushing yards, 10 rushing TDs

TIM TEBOW: 448-of-681 passing (65.8 percent), 6,390 passing yards, 67 TDs, 11 INTs, 2,037 rushing yards, 43 rushing TDs

But those are career stats. Charlie Ward played two full seasons as the FSU QB. His statistics are skewed by his first season as a starter with no learning curve, hence 18 of his 22 career INTs coming in that season. Who knows what he would've done with another year under his belt. Tebow has been QB for 2.5 years. Of course his stats will be higher with additional games played. Let's compare apples to apples.

Heisman Seasons:

CHARLIE WARD (1993): 264-of-380 passing (69.5 percent), 3,032 yards, 27 TDs, 4 INTs, 339 rushing yards, 4 rushing TDs
12-1 National Champions (Loss in the GAME OF THE CENTURY @ Notre Dame) *Charlie also missed a game his senior year and bowl statistics didn't count for season totals at that time.

TIM TEBOW (2007): 234-of-350 passing (66.9 percent), 3,286 yards, 32 TDs, 6 INTs, 895 rushing yards, 23 rushing TDs
9-4, no bowl win

Put your tongue back in your mouth. People say Tim Tebow's Heisman seasons was ridiculous, but look at Ward's. Not too shabby. True, Tebow did more damage on the ground, but only because he was allowed to. Better yet, because he had to. Florida's running backs in 2007 were nobody. Tebow was the Gators' best running back, so he ran the ball. When Ward won the Heisman, the starting FSU running backs were Warrick Dunn and William Floyd—both first-round NFL Draft picks. Hell, the backup, Sean Jackson, was a fourth-round pick. Ward averaged 6 yards per carry—because he was that good—but Dunn, Floyd and Jackson weren't bad. Tebow was scoring on one-yard plunges that were being given to the RBs of FSU's team. If there was a touchdown to be scored on the ground, Dunn or Floyd scored it.
POINT: Push

RECORDS
Florida fans like to tout Tebow as some sort of transcendent competitor in the mold of Micheal Jordan. Career records see it differently:

TEBOW: 22-5 (81% winning percentage), 1-1 Bowl Record, 1 National Title (first one goes to Leak)

WARD: 23-2 (92% winning percentage), 2-0 Bowl Record, 1 National Title

If you really want to play the who-wants-it-more card, you will be sadly disappointed, Gator fans. In Ward's 2 years as a starter, he lost only twice. In '92, they lost to the 10-2 (at season's end) Hurricanes by a "Wide Right" field goal in Miami. In '93, they lost to the #1 Ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish in South Bend. Count 'em up. That's 2 losses. In Tebow's two seasons as the starter thus far, he has lost a total of 5 times—including twice at home—one of them to an unranked team. So why do people talk about Tebow like he "willed" his team to win? Is it because he cried after the Mississippi game? Probably. That stuff is for the cameras. I'll guarantee you the team didn't play any harder because Tim Tebow cried at the press conference. Leadership is done on the field, in the locker room and in the weight room. And I'm not talking about running down the sideline and hyping up the kickoff team when you're up by 20. That's easy. I'm not saying Tebow isn't a good leader, either. I'm just saying it's not for the reason's the media outlines. If he is the ultimate leader, it's because of stuff you won't see on a camera.
POINT: Ward (for now, but we'll have to see what Tebow does this season).
EXTRA POINT: Ward. You never saw him crying after a game. Not because he was tougher or anything, but he simply did not let the 'Noles lose games they weren't supposed to.

SCHEDULE
Some people like to say that FSU played a weak ACC schedule that year. Yes, the ACC was a joke back then. Everybody else was playing for second place in the ACC. And I'll admit, the SEC is tough (I'm from GA, so you're not going to get me to go against the SEC). But a schedule is conference games plus non-conference games. The year Ward won the Heisman, FSU played seven teams ranked among the top 17 in the country at the time they played FSU. Ward and the 'Noles played No. 17 Clemson, No. 13 North Carolina, No. 3 Miami and No. 15 Virginia in conference. They played No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 7 Florida and No. 2 Nebraska out of conference. Tebow played down teams all year. The only challenge was Oklahoma.
POINT: Ward

HYPE
Tim Tebow is big today because of exposure. True, there was a national media frenzy over Charlie Ward. But Ward's career came before the maximum exposure era of the Internet, blogs, and sports talk radio and also before ESPN became the monster that it is now, that is saying something. Make no mistake, for two years Ward was the No. 1 star in college football and a major media phenomenon that transformed the sport. Word on the street is that even Madonna—who at the time was the globe's No. 1 celebrity—wanted to meet Ward (Ward declined). That's huge. If Charlie played in this day and age, The hype machine surrounding him would be monumental, too.
POINT: Tebow

In the end, I guess it depends on which argument you want to visit. Who is a better QB? I think Ward. He was a better athlete. Also a better passer. That leads me to believe that Charlie Ward could definitely do what Urban Meyer asks of Tim Tebow, but I don't think Tim Tebow could do what Bobby Bowden asked Charlie Ward. Charlie Ward means too much, not only to his own team, but to NCAA football. Far more than Tebow has, or ever will, mean to his team, or football. Who is more decorated? Obviously Tebow. Who is a better leader? That's debatable. Who is the better athlete? Obviously Ward. But who is the best to play college football? I'll leave you with this: In 1993, Ward won the Heisman trophy by the second-biggest margin in Heisman history, beating a field that included Marshall Faulk by more than 1,600 points. In 2007, Tebow won the trophy by just 254 points. And no runner-up has ever earned more than Darren McFadden's 291 first-place votes. So if Tebow is the best player of all time, how then, at his best, was he just barely the best player in 2007?

I'll tell you this: Tommie Frazier may have an argument, but in my opinion, Ward is the best college player to never play a down in the NFL. Better yet, he's the best college football player to ever play in the NBA. Hell, he may be one of the best athletes of the last quarter century. He was a collegiate basketball and football player, a retired NBA basketball player, Heisman Trophy winner, Davey O'Brien Award winner and a Major League Baseball draftee (drafted as a pitcher by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 1993 free agent draft and by the New York Yankees in 1994, though he didn't play baseball in college). Ward still holds FSU basketball records for career steals at 236, steals in one game at 9 and still ranks sixth all-time in assists at 396. He was inducted in the College Football Hall of Fame with Emmitt Smith and Bobby Bowden in 2006.

August 26, 2009

They Keep Sayin' Whale, But My Name's Wale.

My friend put me on this guy Wale (pronounced Wah-Lay; don't say
Wall-ee, he's not a trash-compacting robot from the future). Check him out.
He grew up in Northwest D.C, and was was originally bred on the D.C.-indigenous funky, percussive hip-hop sub-genre called go-go. He blew up in 2006 when the track "Dig Dug (Shake It)" became popular in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The song became the most requested by a local artist in D.C. radio history, and was included on his first mixtape, Paint a Picture.
He has a Talib Kweli flow, a dash of Kanye's swag and bravado, and Wayne's metaphors and one-liners, without the non sequiturs. We'll call him a thinking man’s Weezy, minus the dope. His lyrics are smart, but not to the point where they get in the way. Mark Ronson describes him as, "A Cross Between Lil Wayne, Lupe Fiasco And Nas.
He describes himself as, "A little more Talib, less Jay-Z. A little less Nasir (Nas for those who don't know), more A-Z. A little more Consequence than Kanye, the underdog from the underground, Wale."
He's done five "official" mix tapes since 2006, three of which have received acclaim:100 Miles and Running (2007), Seinfeld-themed, The Mixtape About Nothing (2008) and Back to the Feature (2009). His Interscope Records debut album, Attention: Defecit, dropping October 20, is the exclamation point on four years of buzz-enducing mixtapes.
Aiming to break the monotony of hip-hop, you won't hear any two-step, lean back or snap on his album. One track, "Shades", featuring Chrisette Michelle, discusses inter-black racism, and ruminates on hip-hop's use of the n-word. The album also features songs about romantic dilemmas and maintaining his integrity amid the hype. On "The Bomb", Wale addresses whether his intellectual flow takes away from his street cred.
He spits: “I’m chastised. They say I’m not hood enough. Fuck it, I’m good – I just kill it with my rhetoric. A clip full of syllables, licking off shots like the last sip available. You cannot configure my particular curriculum. Ridiculous. You niggas don’t even deserve my syllabus.”
But he also likes to have some fun, so you won't need a dictionary or a textbook to enjoy the album. With production set to come from Mark Ronson, Cool & Dre, David Sitek, The Sleepwalkers, Sean C & LV of The Hitmen, and collabos from Bun B, Jazmine Sullivan, K'naan, and Marsha Ambrosius, the goal of Attention: Deficit is to be eclectic.
"I think it’s important to be a well-rounded individual, no matter what you do. And I apply that to the music I make — you have to let all of you show through. A part of me is very conscious, very politically aware and then there’s a side of me that thinks about girls 24/7, the side of me that likes to have fun." The album's first single is Chillin—which you may have heard—and features Lady Gaga.
I, personally, am glad. Hip-hop has gotten stagnant. Artists are trying to sell ringtones, not records. The rest are trying to sell drugs (or lying about selling them). I think Wale and Kanye are the link back to the old school. Yeah, Kanye whines a lot, and has a big ego, eh, eh, eh (no homo), but he's doing something different. You can hate on Kanye and 808s and Heartbreak, but nobody else in hip-hop was doing what he did on that album. Yeah, people were doing one or two tracks, but Kanye did a whole album. And it was on some real deal emotional stuff. To me, the monotony in hip-hop is disgusting, so this will be a welcomed change. Go to datpiff.com, or wherever you get your mixtapes, and pick up these. Make sure to grab that album when it comes out in October.

Wheels Of Change




What? I saw in Marshall's that they've redone the handicapped logo. I guess somebody thought the wheelchair contingent needed a pick me up. Or maybe they wanted to bring the logo up to date. He looks like he's put on some weight, which is good because his body has finally caught up to his head. And from the lines behind him, he's obviously in motion. I guess I'd be on the move too if I my toothpick body just grew into my bowling ball sized head, and I had my arms surgically detached from my wheelchair.

August 25, 2009

You Break It, You Buy It.




So, before I left to go to Winston-Salem, I went to Marshall's to pick up some things I needed. I passed by this sign in the furniture section. I thought it was pretty funny. I mean, I get it—they don't want people coming in and lounging on the furniture. At the same time, do they really think somebody is going to buy a chair they haven't sat in? Would you buy a car without test driving it? Would you buy a house you hadn't stepped foot in? Would you marry a girl you haven't...(I'll let your mind wander on that one)? Absolutely not. So what makes them think somebody is going to buy a loveseat their butt hasn't mingled with?
I'd hope they're not worried about the furniture breaking when a customer tests it out. If so, why are they selling it in the first place? I know Marshall's isn't Furniture Warehouse, but I don't expect my recliner to crumble as soon as I sit in it. God forbid you find out the stuff is crappy before you get it home. Then you can't return it. They're probably working on the "you break it, you buy it" principle, and all sales are final. I kept looking for a fat guy in the back ready to jump out like Chris Farley in Tommy Boy, "What'd you do," should you sit in it and it breaks. They should be more worried about selling shoddy furniture than somebody sitting in it. But maybe that's just me.

All The Single Ladies

It's come to my attention that there's a lot of complaining going on about guys in the sack. This guy doesn't do this. This guy isn't doing that. He can't get me off. How often do you hear guys complaining about a girl's bedroom prowess? Never? You know why? Because from the time a guy is 13, most of his life is spent trying to devise new ways to get in girls' pants. When he does, he's thanking his lucky starts it actually happened. There's no time to try worry about what he liked and what he didn't. Besides, you don't bite the hand that feeds you. To a guy, sex is like pizza: some is better than others, but it's all good simply on principle.
Ladies, on the other hand, don't have to worry much about. From the time they're 13, guys have been trying to get in their pants. If they want it, they know they can get it. And when they do, there's not much to think about. So they spend lots of time thinking about this thing and that, and if it was good or not. They know all the responsibility is on the guy to make it good.
But here's the real reason why there's a difference between guys and girls when it comes to this. As I said, guys are always trying, but unless you're Brad Pitt or Denzel Washington, things don't always go down as planned. There's a lot of self-exploratory that goes on in between time. At the end of this, we're pretty well aware of what we like and what we don't.
On the other hand, I've found a lot of women aren't into self-exploratory. So there's all this complaining going on, but what exactly are you bringing to the table? If you don't know what you like, how do you expect the guy to know? I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
And anybody who has tried to get with a girl who isn't one with herself knows what I'm talking about. It's like trying to figure out which switch controls what when a fuse is blown in the house. You gotta run down to the fuse box, flip one of the breakers, and run back upstairs to see if it worked. If it didn't, you run back down and do it all over again. It's tiring, and way too much work. It's the same way with a girl who has a car but doesn't work on it from time to time. You're constantly running back upstairs with that, did-that-work look on your face.

August 24, 2009

My Bad

I apologize for depriving you of the greatness that is my blog for so long. Ok, that's the only joke I'm going to tell today. Seriously, it's been too long. I have been thinking, though, just not writing. I have some backed stuff coming soon. To anybody who cares, I was in Winston-Salem, NC for two months. I was doing a two month internship that I was hoping would turn into a job. No dice. It's all good, though. I met some cool people. Shout out to Maureen (I told her I would). She took and passed the bar, so big ups to her. She also succeeded in blowing me off in more ways than I thought humanly possible. Big ups on that as well. She always made it sound good. Also, shout out to all the other interns. To everybody else, updates are on the way. Don't fret.