Three cheers for Mathew Lecroy! Move over Matt Walbeck.

The best part is at the end.

I'm fucking pissed. The song is called "Do It To It"

Oh and here's the link to the darkest skit in tv history.

Here's Dircks doing the Pepsi challenge, except with vodka. Apparently he managed to squeeze some internet time in his busy life and found some nonsense about using a brita water filter on vodka. The results? 7 or 8 tasters rankings averaged Filtered Phillips over Ketel One.

Back in Action! Teeblah was down but not out. Just wanted to mention the cabin weekend June 1-4. Thats a Thursday - Sun. Me and Nicole will be leaving Thursday evening around 7:30. You can come up any time you want over the course of the weekend, we won't be doing a central booze/food deal again this year so BYO but there will be food and booze there as well as the corner store and local bars, so just get your butt up there. I'm thinking Grand Bocce Tourney on Sat afternoon. So to summerize: Club Shed vs Club Nip (5$ dock fee), Ridiculous Precision, Flaming golf balls, "Take your shirt off fag", "Tongue fuck it", Vag-kick.com...Comment here like an rsvp with the who and when so Nicole knows what she is in for.

So on soccernet.com the countdown to the World Cup stands at 30 days, 22 hours and whatever minutes and seconds have just passed while I typed this. Are we fired up? The US national squad, with the hopes and fears of an entire nation on its back, was announced one week ago. Not many people cared, and even fewer saw reason for hope this summer. Myself? I think I mumbled something about how hot Landon Donovan is and passed out.

It's not that I don't like the US national squad, or soccer, I'm really into soccer, I probably wouldn't be typing this if I wasn't, but I'm just not feeling Team USA. I've tried the MLS, I can't get into it. There's a few reasons for this. One, the quality of play is nowhere near the top levels of European soccer that I am accustomed to watching. Two, the star quality is severely lacking. In Europe, you have the world's best players on the world's biggest stage. Ronaldinho, Henry, Rooney, Totti, Messi, Lampard, Kaka, Shevchenko, Ronaldo, Ballack, etc. The list is endless. The MLS has Landon Donovan, who proved he couldn't hack it in Europe a couple years ago, Taylor Twellman (actually, I like watching him play, but, alas, he won't be going to Germany for the cup, and he'll probably be in Europe soon enough anyway.), Brian Ching, Jovan Kirovski, Terry Cooke and Dwayne De Rosario. Most of the better players on the national team (Convey, Keller, Howard, Beasley, McBride, Reyna,) are playing in Europe at the moment, and sadly, this trend will have to continue if the US wants to advance in to the upper echelon of soccer nations. There simply isn't the competition or coaching or resources available for US born players to thrive only by playing in the US. That last statement is almost laughable, saying the US doesn't have the resources or competition in anything is akin to saying there aren't enough people using myspace, but it's the truth. Three, even if I really wanted to get into the MLS it would be next to impossible because of the lack of media coverage the league is given. Although, the MLS has games on ESPN, and the NHL doesn't, so maybe this argument doesn't hold as much water as it used to. I can't really get into how to fix the game domestically because I don't ever think it will be done. The media and the general public simply will never let it get as big as it needs to/should be.

So, if Team USA is leaving me unsatisfied, do I root for other nations during the cup? Well, the first priority is the US, for blood and pride and jingoistic purposes, but whom else gets my attention this summer? Well, I think just based on the fact that I've grown quite close to the league and the players in the last 5-10 years, England should be my second favorite squad. I know way more about the innerworkings of their team, manager and players then I could ever hope to know about the US. They haven't won anything since 1966, which makes them underdogs/underachievers in a way, which I always seem to be drawn to, and their squad includes Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, all favorites of mine, and the 17 year old Theo Walcott, who hasn't even played a top-flight league game, but was chosen simply based on pure skill. Ballsy move.

A lot of drama with England as well, as their Swedish coach was totally busted a few months back talking a bunch of shit about his players to a man who claimed to be a sheik, but turned out to be a reporter in disguise. Needless to say, the shit hit the fan, and he announced his resignation effective as soon as the World Cup is over. Their most dynamic player, Wayne Rooney, or Rooonaldo to some, broke his foot in the second to last game of the season for Manchester United and may have also broken the chances of England at the same time. Manchester United has even purchased some sort of oxygen chamber to help his foot heal quicker. Madness.

As for squads I will not be rooting for? Brazil and Mexico come to mind right away, Brazil simply because everyone expects them to win, giving them the whole Yankees vibe, and Mexico, well, just because it's Mexico. How could I ever root for them?

If you're seeking some inspiration for the hours of action this summer, look no further than ESPN on Wednesday, May 17th for the European Champions League Final between Barcelona of Spain and Arsenal of England. Should be a cracker.

However the Cup ends up this year, it can't be worse than when MnRaul and myself stayed up all night in hopes of seeing the US v Poland in World Cup 2002, only to pass out shortly before kickoff. We lost anyway. Memories abound.

Anyone interested in the Twins-White Sox game next Saturday? It's a 6:10 game. I've got some tickets in Section 114, down the 1st base line. They're $26 tickets. Proceeds go to a great little softball team that plays in West St. Paul and is trying to raise some cash to go to a few tourneys. Anyone?

I was at work last night babysitting a couple of hormone fueled 16 year olds and the subject of music came up. Now, I've always considered myself fairly, not supremely mind you, but fairly educated on music and all things related. I'm not some indie music head who goes to the Triple Rock to catch some obscure band who some other indie-head told me was the new Steely Dan, but I get around enough to have heard a lot of different stuff.

Anyway, we started talking about music, and they asked what I thought of Fallout Boy and Something Corporate. Admittedly, I haven't heard a lot of either of these bands, but from what I have heard I didn't really like. I told them as such. I believe my exact words were "Those posers suck cock." That didn't go over super well. I tried to clairify my statement a bit with the reasons that they sound just like all of the other new wave punk bands (Yellowcard, Panic at the Disco, My Chemical Romance, A Simple Plan, All American Rejects, etc.) but was again quickly admonished. They know that I'm into my old-school hip-hop, so they countered with the notion that the Wu-Tang Clan sounds just like G Unit. This, obviously, is patently false. We went back and forth a little bit, then respectfully agreed to disagree.

It certainly did get the wheels turning for me though. Did Wu-Tang sound like G Unit? Is G-Unit the "new" Wu-Tang? I needed answers. So I did a little research until the wee hours. Fueled by Cheez-Its and Coors Light, I embarked on a musical mystery journey, passing many stops along the way, all the while laughing, crying, yelling, smiling, peeing, spilling and rejoicing.

I started off at Pandora, which is a sweet music site that finds similarities in other groups/artists to the one of your choosing, in this case, the Wu. The first song it pulled up was Do It Now by Mos Def feat. Busta Rhymes. It's a good little track. I've heard it before, I have the album in fact, but I'm not sure if it has a Wu-Tang type feel to it. The others it pulled up were "Brooklyn Zoo", by the O.D.B(R.I.P), but, fuck, he's in, or was, in the Clan. "Family Tree" by KRS-One, "The Bizness" by De La Soul feat. Common, which is another favorite song of mine, "It's Alright" by Jay-Z, "Woo-Hah (Got them all in check)" by Busta Rhymes, "Respect" by Notorious B.I.G, and "Get Money", by Junior MAFIA(how old do they look?), another great track.

The common themes in the explanations provided were "East coast rap roots, tight lyrics, boastful lyrics, a repetitive song structure, hardcore rap attitude, use of modal harmonies and acoustic drum samples." Those were the unifying factors in all the songs. G-Unit did not appear, although Jay-Z and Junior MAFIA did, both of which I consider to be a little bit closer to the G-Unit than Wu-Tang.

As for G-Unit's Pandora profile, it came up with this: The first song was "California Girls" by something called Fredro Starr, then, next, was, you guessed it, "Fast Cars" by the RZA. Other songs from Juelz Santana, The Diplomats and 50 Cent followed, but the RZA one was the biggie. The common musical traits in all songs? Well, "Hardcore rap attitude and east coast rap roots" were the only similar traits to the Wu-Tang Clan, so, if you're hardcore and from the east coast, you're similar to the Wu-Tang clan I guess, which means that you could probably include Lil Kim in the discussion.

I didn't fully buy into Pandora, and did a little more searching. I ran into a bunch of hilarious shit like this (scroll down for comments), this, a Village Voice article, some hardcore dudes bringing ICP into the mix, and more random thug message board stuff, all of which is awesome. It seems that the general Internet consensus is that Wu-Tang "pwns" G-Unit. I wasn't really looking for who's better though. I wanted to know if other people thought that they sounded similar. From what I read, it doesn't look like anyone really mentions it, only their similar profiles/backgrounds, which would be:

• Both large groups of individual style rappers
• Both were hooked up label wise with Mobb Deep
• East coast affiliation
• Forward thinking--changing the business of rap
• Thugged out pipe hittin' brothas

Nobody ever says that they sound the same, and I'm inclined to agree. It's really not that difficult to hear. I would like to get into a member by member analysis, but I'm afraid I simply can't listen to that much G-Unit without shooting someone.

Bottom line, my employees are douchebags for thinking that G-Unit sounds like the Wu-Tang Clan. I would have given them credit if they would have said that G-Unit has followed the same business model, albeit on a higher level, than the Wu-Tang Clan, and has many of the same characteristics, but I'm going to have to fire them regardless. I wonder if they did the same thing last night and researched all of their punk bands?

Other questions to think about:

• Is rap music going to be played on "oldies" channels in the next 15-20 years?
• Does our genral disdain for current mainstream rap music stem more from the music itself, or our age?
• Can you be too old to listen to rap music and still be taken seriously? (I say that because my employees told me I was too old for it.)
• What's up with U-God?

After the fantastic Twins weekend we just had, my brother and I were talking about the general poop-like status of Minnesota sports at the moment, and whether this was the low point of Minnesota sports history. I haven't really gotten into the past yet, and my memory is fuzzy at best, but I did do a study of the current status as compared to other cities with a franchise in the 4 major sports (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL). I added up each team's records from their last complete season, then threw the current season's baseball record in there as well. Here are the rankings (NOTE: I threw out all overtime/shootout losses/ties from the books. Simply wins and losses, so these are not exactly ironclad, but should give you a good idea of each cities' success.)

1. Detroit 214-145 .596 pct The Pistons and Red Wings do more than enough to offset the Lions and Tigers 2005 season, and the Tigers hot start to the baseball season adds fuel to the fire.

2. Dallas 214-147 .593 pct I included the Texas Rangers with Dallas, due to their proximity. The Mavericks and Stars, like Detroit's winter sports, carry the load here.

3. New York/New Jersey 420-366 .534 pct Included are the following teams, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Jets, Giants, Knicks, Nets, Yankees, Mets. Pretty impressive due to the amount of teams in the area, especially throwing in the Knicks and Jets' records.

4. Chicago 286-252 .532 pct The White Sox and Bears are the big timers in Chi Town, actually, if you take the White Sox out and just use the Cubs, Chicago goes under .500 (.480). I used both the Cubs and Sox.

5. Philadelphia 167-168 .527 pct The Flyers are the only non-mediocre squad of the bunch, but they did well enough to push Philly into the top five.

6. Phoenix 186-176 .517 pct See Philly's recap and substitute the Suns for the Flyers.

7. Boston 181-170 .516 pct I included New England football in the mix, and thanks to them Boston remains above .500. The winter sports squads, the Bruins and Celtics, are dragging the successes of the football and baseball teams down.

8. Denver 182-176 .508 pct Denver had a winning season in every sport other than baseball, where the Rockies' 95 losses last season put a huge dent in the winning percentage, accounting for more than half of the cities' losses. Their 15-10 start this year bodes well for the Mile High city.

9. Atlanta 175-183 .489 pct Atlanta was at .500 or above in everything until you hit the Hawks and their soul-sucking 26-56 record. In fact, as I was doing this, I didn't include Atlanta at first because I forgot that they had a basketball team.

10. Washington 170-185 .479 pct Once again, see Atlanta but subsititute the Capitals for the Hawks and you have the second worst winning percentage amongst cities with four major league franchises.

11. Minnesota 172-186 .478 pct You guessed it, bringing up the rear is your beloved Twin Cities area. Just barely edging out Washington, the Twins pathetic start doesn't help matters. The thing is, the Wild, Vikings and last year's Twins were all over .500. They were all close to .500 though, and the awesome season from the Wolves and mint Twins start drag them to the cellar.

Thoughts on this... This does not include major college teams, although the Gophers have done little enough to make me believe that the cities would be in either the same or worse shape then they are now. 8 out of 11 teams have over a .500 winning percentage, which leads me to believe that if your market supports all 4 major sports, you should have the resources to compete in most of them on a yearly basis. And for the most part we have, this year has just been particularly bad. The only problem is that it doesn't seem to be turning around any time soon. We'll see what the Wild do this offseason, with a few good additions they'll be contending for the playoffs, but no more than that. The Vikes are close too, I guess, although the jury's still out on them for me. They still look mediocre from my house. The Wolves are going nowhere fast, and the Twins are trying to keep up with them. Minneapolis/St. Paul is also the only one of these cities to have zero teams make the playoffs in the last year. That's sweet too.

My thoughts on this season's Twins squad and their manager have been well heard by everyone I've come into contact with, and I really have nothing else to say about them. I originally predicted 80-82 this season, but that might get bumped to 65-97 now.