From the Weekend That Was

And what a weekend it was. There was so much that didn’t happen, it’s hard to remember what did happen. So let’s get right to it…

Emmitt Smith’s assault on grammar, complete sentences, and rational thoughts can no longer be seen ESPN. The Leader has elected not to renew Smith’s contract, thus ending his two-year run of making everyone else around him appear exponentially smarter than they actually are. May I present exhibits A and B:





The happiest person in the world today has to be Steve Young. I can imagine nothing worse than being stuck between Stuart Scott and Emmitt Smith for five hours on a Monday night. Poser hip-hop speak in one ear and a three-year “education” from the University of Florida in the other. This weekend might have been the first days Steve Young hasn’t cried in two years.

Go ahead and mark this down: Emmitt will join Michael Irvin’s radio show in Dallas. I can hear them right now yuking it up about the way they used to do it with the Cowboys. Irvin just repeating the same phrase over and over, “That’s how we did it! That’s how we did it, man! I’m sayin’, that’s how we did it!” And Emmitt just being Emmitt, “See when Mike and I was playin’, we didn’t have none of those things. None of them extra perts. We did without. Didn’t need them perts.” My condolences go out to the good people of Dallas.

Pockets of light stretching and jogging break out across Florida and Arizona. That’s right, today is the day the majority of major league baseball players report to their respective spring training camps. Thought it’s hard to believe that in just a little over eight months, the season will be over. But for now, players are getting ready for the grind of the season by taking two minutes to jog from foul pole to foul pole, fielding imaginary grounders from the pitcher’s mound, taking some light batting practice (light is the perfect word to describe any baseball related activity), and hoping they don’t have to pee in a cup.

Some people won and some people lost at the Oscars last night. I’ve never understood the appeal of watching award shows. I suppose there’s some excitement as all the nominees are being announced and there’s some drama right after the winner’s name is read (but I have a hard time believing someone sitting at home gets so emotionally attached to a movie that they’re genuinely nervous), but other than that I think it’s four hours of over-produced crap.

I probably didn’t help my chances of watching last night since I saw exactly zero of any of the movies (or films for the sophisticated crowd) that were nominated. It’s not that I didn’t want to see any of them, it’s that going to the movies is such a pain in the ass and not a good experience.

WARNING: AN OLD MAN-GET-OFF-MY-LAWN-RANT ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE. Seriously, going to the movies sucks. It’s expensive (or at least the price of a ticket has just about doubled in less than 10 years) and, without a doubt, there’s at least, AT LEAST, one jackass who unknowingly is out to ruin the whole experience for everyone (I say unknowingly because they’re too stupid to realize what they’re doing is pissing everyone else off). The talking out loud, either to one of their friends or, even worse, the movie itself, really should be considered an offense punishable by death. And I can’t even talk rationally about people using or, most heinously, talking on their cell phones during the movie. Just know that they should be executed on the spot, no questions asked.

ATTENTION ASSHATS IN MOVIE THEATERS: NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU THINK. FIND ANOTHER WAY TO BRING YOUR INSUFFERABLE PERSONALITY INTO THIS WORLD. OR, BETTER YET, FIND A NEW WAY TO RUIN YOUR OWN LIFE. AND IF YOU USE A CELL PHONE, PLEASE BE AWARE THAT IT COULD BE YOUR LAST ACT ON THIS EARTH.

Okay, glad we got that cleared up.

More coming later in the week, but it should be noted Ole Miss is now 6-6 in the SEC. I can think of about zero people who thought this was possible when Chris Warren was injured in December. Of the eight people currently playing significant minutes, five were not playing Division I basketball last year. FIVE. That’s pretty much all the evidence you need to name Andy Kennedy Coach of the Year.

LSU’s Trent Johnson will most likely win, but what Kennedy has done with this team after all the injuries, inexperience, and the cab driver fracas is, in my mind, a far superior coaching performance. I know the SEC would never give that award to a coach with a losing conference record (or to coaches who are involved in “international altercations”), so Ole Miss would need to go 2-2 the rest of the way to get to 8-8.

After Warren got hurt, I said I’d be impressed if this team won five games. Now, with four games left, they’ve got a shot at a winning record in conference play and an outside (like 1 in 1,000) shot at making the NCAA Tournament. You may now color me impressed.