Friday, December 31, 2010

December Guest Blogger -- Mark Titus


Mark Titus of Club Trillion

Hello Followers of the Hot and Bothered Effect.

As has been promised to you, once a month I will have a guest blogger from another blog come and post on the Hot and Bothered Effect so that you can get an appreciation for different writing styles, points of view, and blogs. It will also give other blogs operated by friends of mine to get some exposure for their blogs as well as exposing my readers to blogs that I like. This month's Guest Blogger will be Mark Titus who operates Club Trillion. His blog gave us a humorous lens into the world of college basketball through the eyes of a deep bench walk-on for Thad Matta's Ohio State. Upon his graduation, he now blogs about college basketball as well as whatever other topics happen to be on his mind. You will see that in the following post. I do not know Mark Titus and this post is simply an excerpt from his blog. I did not contact him about re-posting it, but that's because I believe in forgiveness more than permission. Should I recieve any cease and desist requests...I will take it down. Without further ado, here is Mark Titus:


Many of you have asked me how I feel about my beloved Vikings deciding to waive Randy Moss last week after trading for him a month earlier, so I thought I’d address it real quick. The truth is that I’m actually not that upset that Moss isn’t a Viking anymore, but I am upset that the Vikings front office (read: Brad Childress) ultimately threw away a draft pick because they couldn’t foresee Moss being a headache. This is like asking The Villain to be on your pick-up basketball team and then getting upset when he never passes you the ball. Or like letting The Villain borrow your car “for ten minutes” during your sophomore year at Ohio State and getting pissed when he returns it to you six hours later with less than a quarter tank of gas and a funky smell coming from the back seat. Sure it sucks that Moss was kind of a doucher, but ultimately it’s the Vikings’ fault for putting so much trust in him. That, more than anything else, is what is so frustrating. This whole ordeal is just another example of how other than murder, pedophilia, and rape, nothing in this world upsets me more than Brad Childress’ decision making, which is ironic because Childress looks like a guy who commits all three of those crimes on a regular basis. But enough about a mediocre NFL team. Let’s talk college basketball.

If you know anything about me or my blog, you know that there are three things in the world of sports that my life revolves around – college basketball, FIFA, and professional wrestling. And if the handfuls of emails I regularly get from the Trillion Man March are any indication, most of you also care about at least two of those three things. So, keeping this in mind and acknowledging that college basketball officially started this week, I’ve decided to team up with Keller to get you pumped for the season by bringing you what will surely be both the best and most irrelevant college basketball preview you will ever read.

For the preview, Keller and I intertwined our three favorite things about sports by likening different aspects of college basketball to aspects of both FIFA and professional wrestling. Keller knows more about wrestling than anyone I’ve ever met in my life, so he will be handling the wrestling section of the preview (warning – he wrote a ton). And since every time we play FIFA I beat Keller like he’s my ex-wife, I’ll be handling the FIFA section of the preview. Obviously, now that I’m writing college basketball pieces for ESPN and I’m therefore considered a college basketball expert, I’ll also be handing the basketball section. Finally, because the entire preview is longer than the list of people who wanted me to make a Greg Oden penis joke right here, I’ve decided to break it up into a bunch of parts and post a new part every couple of days (I would post a new one every day, but I can already anticipate Keller not getting his sections done).

With all of that being said, here is your 2010-2011 Club Trillion College Basketball Preview. Boom baby.

GUY THAT’S BEEN AROUND FOREVER 

This category is pretty self explanatory, but I’ll explain it a little bit anyway. These are the guys who you see either playing, wrestling, or on FIFA and think to yourself, “Wait, he’s still playing/wrestling? How old is that guy?” You know, guys like…

FIFA: David Beckham (LA Galaxy)
Beckham is kinda like the Brett Favre of soccer. Not only has he been playing seemingly forever, but he also has an immaculate stubble beard and there are pictures of his junk all over the internet (although, his junk is unfortunately covered by whatever underwear he is endorsing for that particular photo shoot – damn). Plus, the video game version of Beckham is also much better than the real version of him, just like Favre and his video game likeness. What’s more, Beckham and Favre both married women who are about one year older than them. In fact, the only difference I can see between these two is that Beckham didn’t cost the Vikings their first trip to the Super Bowl in my lifetime by throwing an inexcusable interception to Tracy Porter late in the NFC Championship. Not yet, anyway.

Pro Wrestling: Ric Flair (The Nature Boy)
As a man who currently has a 15-year unbeaten streak in Mercy, and who’s been shaving since the 7th grade, I’ve been conditioned never to cry under any circumstances. That being said, I stood helpless as my eyes welled up with tears while I watched Monday Night Raw on March 31, 2008. The night before, Ric Flair had lost his retirement match against Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania XXIV, and this night’s Raw was dedicated as a farewell show to the Nature Boy, honoring his multiple-decade career. Prior to this moment, I think the last time that I cried was during a 5th grade AAU basketball game, where an opponent who was no less than 12 inches shorter than me bit me in the stomach as I dribbled up the court. After yelling at the top of my high-pitched 5th grade lungs “HE BIT ME!!!”, the combination of rage, shock, and pain led to me sobbing on the bench for the entire 3rd quarter before re-entering the game and fouling the kid in retribution.

So imagine my surprise when I learned that watching the Four Horseman reuniting in the ring for the first time in 20 years caused the waterworks to start up. The sound of the greatest entrance music in wrestling history combined with the visual of Ric Flair sobbing in the ring was too much for me. This was the perfect send-off for arguably the greatest wrestler in history. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Flair wouldn't spend his final years toiling away in second rate promotions tarnishing his legacy for a few more paydays. Flair would be different. That is, until Flair would un-retire to toil away in a second rate promotion, tarnishing his legacy for a few more paydays. My tears were for nothing now.

When you're a stylin', profilin', limousine riding, jet flying, kiss stealing, wheeling and dealing son of a gun, you tend to acquire expensive tastes and multiple wives. Flair lived a lavish lifestyle (hell, even his famous robes cost upwards of $5,000 apiece) and let throngs of women ride Space Mountain (his awesome euphemism for sex). By giving out season passes to Space Mountain to not one, not two, not three, but FOUR different women, and continuing his free-spending ways to go along with those divorces, Flair essentially went broke after his retirement and was forced to come back. He signed a contract with TNA a year after his retirement ceremony, and sadly continues to wrestle to this day.

It's truly a shame it ended up this way too, because there have been multiple points in Flair's career where he could have retired on top besides the post-Wrestlemania ceremony. There was the time he went crazy, stripped off his clothes in the middle of the ring, and started elbow dropping his suit jacket. Or after his match with Sting on the final episode of WCW Monday Night Nitro. Or every time he talked sh*t to a fan by calling them "fat boy" or telling them that their mother rode Space Mountain and that they'd ride it later that night. Or when Will Ferrell paid homage to him as Ashley Schaeffer. Through the years there were plenty of perfect times for Ric Flair to go out like the Nature Boy truly should have, and not have to languish in 2010 wrestling in TNA, looking like a droopier-breasted Randy the Ram while every fan who cheered for him during his heyday looked on embarrassed (I say looked on in the loosest sense of the word, because TNA sucks and nobody actually watches it). Much like the Nature Boy never has learned to stop going to the top rope (at this point I would link you to a montage of Flair getting slammed from the top rope, but for some stupid reason there is no video of it on YouTube, despite Flair never once landing a top rope move in any match I’ve seen even though he tries every time), he's never learned it's time to hang up his boots.

College Basketball: David Lighty (Ohio State)
The official Ohio State basketball website says that Dave Lighty is a 5th year senior this year, but this is also the same website that once said that The Villain’s hobbies include reading and playing golf, so forgive me for being a little skeptical. I’m fully convinced that he has somehow been in the program for at least ten years. This is mostly because Dave joined the Ohio State basketball team before I did, yet I played four full seasons with the team and graduated, and Dave is still going to play one more year. Those of you who have followed Big Ten basketball for awhile surely agree that Dave has been playing for the Buckeyes forever, but if for some reason you don’t, consider this: Dave was college teammates with Greg Oden and Greg Oden is at least 82-years-old. You do the math.

BEST GUY IN A SUPPORTING ROLE This category is also self explanatory, but I won’t insult your intelligence like I did with the last one and explain it to you. Let’s just get to it.

FIFA: Kaka (Real Madrid) (Note: I know Kaka has an accent mark somewhere in his name, but last time I checked, this is America and we don’t use accent marks in America. You can either love it or leave it.)

Diehard soccer fans who follow real soccer being played by real people would tell you that Kaka is one of the best players in the world, which is something you would most likely respond to by saying that you “don’t give a s*** because soccer is gay.” The FIFA version of him is every bit as good as the real version, as Kaka would easily be the best player on just about every other team than the one he’s actually on. Unfortunately for him, he will have to settle with his role as sidekick because he’s teammates with Cristiano Ronaldo, who is without question the greatest player on a sports video game since Jeremy Roenick on NHL ‘94 (more on Ronaldo later on in the preview).
Other than being the best sidekick on FIFA, I think Kaka is the most versatile player on the game as well. His default position is in the midfield, but I’ve literally played (and dominated) with him at every position except goalie. I’ve also discovered that he’s a master of finishing rebounds that come from Ronaldo rocketing shots off the goalie’s nuts. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but I swear if there was an attribute for “being in the right place at the right time to score the goal and get all the credit, even though your teammate did all the hard work,” Kaka’s rating in that particular attribute would be at least a 96.

Pro Wrestling: Scott Hall (Razor Ramon)
On paper, Scott Hall had it all: legit size, loads of charisma, awesome shirts that make you consider spending $200 to get on eBay, a finishing move that you could easily break someone’s neck with, the list goes on. The only thing he never had was a world title. For someone with arguably the greatest stubble beard of all-time and the ability to make a full denim outfit look cool, you’d think that Hall would have spent the better part of the 90s as the heavyweight champion. But due to unfortunate timing and his inability to not get drunk and party six nights a week, Hall would settle down into a role as the quintessential second banana.

As Razor Ramon in the (then) WWF, Hall would consistently earn cheers like a main-eventer, despite the fact his only push to the main event scene came when the Ultimate Warrior did what the Ultimate Warrior did best (besides being insane and gay-bashing, which for him are mutually exclusive) and left the company without any advance notice, leaving Razor Ramon as an emergency replacement to lose to Bret Hart. Instead, Hall spent much of his time in the Intercontinental title scene, having matches that remain legendary to this day. He stole the show against Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania X by defending his Intercontinental title in the very first ladder match, which both males and females will excitedly remember as “the match where you got to see HBK’s bare ass.” The Intercontinental title would be the peak of Hall’s run in the WWF, excluding the time he made a couple of young kids’ dreams come true on the Jerry Springer Show. In ’96, Hall signed with WCW and continued his career living a real-life version of “always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” albeit he was a bridesmaid with some pretty awesome chest hair.

Despite being the first member of the New World Order to invade WCW’s shows, Hall was quickly pushed down the pecking order due to Hollywood Hogan’s heel turn and his own failure to power bomb announcers through the stage. For the second time in as many companies, Hall would win the second highest title (this time the WCW United States title), but never make it to the top. At first, Hall was stuck behind legendary WCW title moments like Hollywood Hogan and Sting’s feud that culminated at Starrcade 97 (a pay-per-view I’ll never forget, because for the first time in my life I convinced my mom to let me order a pay-per-view, only to have the signal be scrambled and the show ruined. Scrambled Spice channel I could deal with, scrambled Starrcade I could not.) and Goldberg’s 173 match win streak. Eventually though, Hall’s actions behind the scenes started costing him opportunities. His excessive drinking began spiraling out of control, with Hall even performing in the ring under the influence. At this point, you would have been more likely to find an attractive girl with a shrine to Jerry Orbach than a WCW executive who would ever have faith in Scott Hall being a main eventer. He would never again get past the midcard. Instead of trying to get Hall help, the brain trust at WCW decided to exploit Hall’s problems by incorporating them into an angle, as the last few memorable moments of Hall’s time in WCW revolved around him pretending to be drunk in the ring. While he never made it to the top in either company, Scott Hall is arguably the greatest wrestler ever in a supporting role.
(Note: I choose to ignore Hall’s time after WCW, because I refuse to believe that he would end up looking like he did)
hallbeforeafter_thumb2
Suddenly the stubblebeard isn’t as cool as it used to be

College Basketball: Nolan Smith (Duke)
It is a well-documented fact that Duke sucks. Since they’ve won a ton of national championships, I obviously don’t mean this in a “Duke isn’t good at basketball” way, but more of a “Duke fans are insufferable and the white guys on the team who slap the floor on defense make me lose all hope in humanity” kind of way. Duke fans think that people hate them because we are jealous and secretly want to be just like them, which is the same ass-backwards philosophy that made LeBron say, “They boo you because they like the way you play basketball.” No. We boo Duke/Duke fans/LeBron because they act like entitled pricks and think that the game of basketball couldn’t exist without them. Why is it that there are college basketball programs all over the country that have historically had more success than Duke, yet Duke is really the only team that is the bane of America’s collective existence? The answer is simple – because Duke sucks.

But despite the hatred we all have for Duke, there’s no denying that they historically are always a juggernaut, they have one of the greatest coaches of all-time, and they are probably the favorites to win back-to-back titles again this year. Now that Scheyer Face has graduated, Kyle Singler is the undisputed leader and best player on the team, but Nolan Smith is a senior NBA prospect in his own right who will be the Blue Devils’ leading scorer on many occasions this year. Like Kaka and Scott Hall, Smith is good enough to be the star on pretty much any other team, but he still embraces his role and knows that Duke wouldn’t be nearly as good without him. So, if you get the chance to watch him play this year, be prepared to be impressed with his skills. And if you do appreciate the way he plays, please remember to have the common courtesy to boo him as loudly as you possibly can. It’s the least you could do.

EVENT THAT’S A WASTE OF TIME This category was developed in protest to the absurd number of tournaments and events that are held in the world of sports every year. The truth is that nobody cares about the non-BCS bowls (except when the MudDogs won the Bourbon Bowl), the non-majors in golf and tennis (or even the majors in golf and tennis), or any race of any kind that isn’t the Daytona 500 or Indy 500. These things are meant to wet our whistle while we’re waiting on the important tournaments, but in reality they pretty much just get in the way.

FIFA: FA Cup (England)
Wikipedia tells me that the FA Cup has been around since 1871 and is the oldest soccer competition in the world, which would be impressive except “nobody gives a s*** because soccer is gay.” In reality, this tournament is probably a very big deal to people in England, not so much because it’s really old and has a lot of history but more because England sucks in the World Cup and this tournament at least guarantees English people that a team from England will win the thing. All that’s fine and well, but I’m not concerned with real soccer. I only care about virtual soccer and on FIFA, this tournament does nothing but get in my way.
When I play manager mode on FIFA, I play with Manchester United, only because the Premier League is the only competitive league and I kinda like Wayne Rooney’s game (I also like his soccer game). My only goal on manager mode is to win the Champions League or whatever they call it on the game. I have no interest in anything else. The only reason I even play regular season games is to finish in the top of the league so I can qualify for next season’s Champions League. At no point in time have I ever cared about winning the FA Cup, which is why I used to simulate those games. The only problem with this is that FIFA would sometimes screw me when I simulated the FA Cup games and I would get upset by a scrub team in the first round. When this would happen, my coach’s rating or whatever would plummet, I’d get fired, and I’d be stuck managing an MLS team the following season. Therefore, I have no choice but to play these FA Cup games and win some tournament that I literally could not care any less about.

Pro Wrestling: Women’s Wrestling (WWE)
Quick: can anybody name their favorite women's wrestling match of all time? I've been a fan of pro wrestling in some capacity since 1990, and I can still only remember four things about women wrestlers – that Alundra Blayze showed up on WCW Nitro and threw away the WWF women's title on live TV in a move that seemed extreme before the nWo showed up, that Mae Young gave birth to a hand, that Chyna has some not-so-womanly bodily features that the world saw in her sex tape with X-Pac (as has previously been mentioned in this blog before...Google at your own risk), and that I first learned how to clear my internet history to hide the Playboy pictures of Sable I had looked up. After scanning through my Wrestlemania, Royal Rumble, and SummerSlam anthologies, not a single women’s match listed on the cards brought back a memory, and I'm the same guy who can still tell you the home phone number of a girl I had a crush on in the 9th grade, despite never having the balls to actually call her. Even a Google search to help jog my brain instead produced results that were split between fetish female wrestling porn and sites completely dedicated to moments where a female wrestler's top came undone and their breasts were exposed on live TV.
And that's what seems to be missing on Vince McMahon and other people who run wrestling companies. The only time a male fan is going to watch a women's wrestling match is in the hopes that a boob pops out during a suplex. The unfortunate reality is that there is no amount of technical proficiency that can take place in a women's match that will make it compare to a men's match. Many women’s matches are filled with hair tosses and kicks when the fans want to see finishers like this, much like many WNBA games are filled with set shots and missed lay-ups when the fans want to see, well, men's basketball (I'm only slamming the WNBA because they can't slam things themselves!!!). And since, according to a site that I cannot even think about linking to because of the content, there have not been that many nipple slips in women's matches, that they're even happening at all is a waste of time.

College B-ball: Cancun Challenge (Preseason Tourney) Note: The teams playing in this year’s Cancun Challenge are LaSalle, Missouri, Providence, Wyoming, Morgan State, North Florida, Prairie View A&M, and Western Illinois.

I can’t tell if these “preseason” tourneys (by the way, calling them preseason tournaments is both deceiving and dumb – kinda like calling this a college basketball preview although the season has actually already started) have been going on for awhile and I just recently started noticing how many there are or if they are a relatively new fad in college basketball. My guess is that the success of the Maui Invitational gave the higher-ups the idea to create more of these things than any one person could possibly keep track of. Either way, I’m pretty confident that when it comes to preseason college basketball tournaments, the Cancun Challenge is the cream of the crap.

Cancun is one of the few places in Mexico that Americans can visit right now without being 100% sure that they will die (there’s only an 85% chance you’ll die), so the Cancun Challenge was probably created as a way to give these college athletes an opportunity to experience a different culture for a few days. Unfortunately, the organizers of the tournament failed to realize that the Cancun Challenge is really nothing more than a cocktease to the players. As cool as a free trip to Cancun seems, it’s not like these guys are going to be sipping margaritas and sexing senoritas the whole trip. For the most part, all of their time will be spent either practicing, playing, or falling asleep in film sessions, which means their trip to Cancun would essentially be the same as a team trip to Detroit in the middle of January.

As for the fans who are crazy enough to travel to the tournament, it’s a similar story. They pay ridiculous amounts of money for a vacation to Cancun, only to get down there and realize that their vacation is being ruined by subpar basketball games that are being played in a hotel ballroom (yes, the games really are played in a hotel ballroom). Throw in the fact that absolutely zero neutral college basketball fans are going to pay attention to games like North Florida vs. Prairie View A&M and Wyoming vs. Western Illinois, and it’s easy to see why this will be the biggest waste of time event in college basketball this year.
The Club Trillion College Basketball Preview moves on, as today we talk about guys who look the part, guys who kinda suck, and guys whose lunch money we could easily steal.  As a reminder, I’m in charge of the FIFA and college basketball sections and my good friend Keller is in charge of the professional wrestling section (just so you know who to be pissed at if we somehow offend you). Now let’s get to it. 5…4…3…1…off blast!

(By the way, if none of that made sense to you because you missed Part I of the Club Trillion College Basketball Preview, you can get up to speed by clicking here.)

BEST USE OF GEAR
At first, this category might seem like it’s focusing on fashion, but in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth.  I think of fashion as people using their clothing and whatnot to mask their insecurities and try to be cool.  In other words, fashion is for vaginas.  What we’re doing here is analyzing the guys who use their “gear” as a way to accentuate their attitude.  They don’t wear this stuff to make it seem like they’re cool.  They already know they’re badass.  These guys dress the way they do simply because it’s comfortable and that’s how they like it.

FIFA: Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)
No homo, but real talk I’ve always been a little fascinated with the long hair pulled straight back look.  This is most likely because both of the male members of the original DX rocked this hairstyle in two completely different yet completely perfect ways.  Seeing Triple H and Shawn Michaels raise hell and crotch chop all through my childhood made a lasting impression on me and I’ve been a fan of long hair ever since.  It should be noted, though, that the DX/Sergio Ramos long hair look is the only long hair style that’s awesome.  Examples of guys’ long hair looks that suck include the Bama Bangs, the Emo Bangs, the Polomalu, the Shaun White, the Bieber (Bama Bangs except the hair goes over the ears), the Asian Mullet, the Efron (pretty much a combination of the Bama Bangs and the Bieber), the Joakim Noah, and the Home Improvement Kids.

What makes Sergio Ramos stand out is that he takes his long hair to the next level with a subtle skinny headband.  By also wearing a sweatband on his wrist with the occasional long sleeve jersey, Sergio Ramos has the exact look I would have if I were a soccer player (again, no homo).  Unfortunately, a quick Google Image search of him shows me that he can be a little feminine off the field sometimes, which is pretty discouraging really.  I’m going to chalk up this perceived femininity to the fact that he’s European and it’s well-known that all Europeans are a little light in their loafers.  Nonetheless, the FIFA version of Sergio Ramos looks pretty badass and that’s ultimately all that I care about.

Pro Wrestling: “Ravishing” Rick Rude
When I was a kid, I absolutely hated Rick Rude. I disliked vegetables. I didn’t care much for girls. But I completely and unequivocally hated Rick Rude and would cheer for whoever he was wrestling to kick his ass every time one of his matches was on. As I got older, I really started to wonder why young me was such a dumbass on all those things (except for vegetables. Those still blow). The more I caught Rude’s matches, the more and more I started to like him. In fact, he was awesome. He was from Robbinsdale, Minnesota, and the only people I’ve known from Minnesota have been Jared Allen, two swimmers who bite the lids off beer cans to open them, and a total babe who owns multiple animal shirts, so he was good from location alone. Add in a mustache so manly that it generated testosterone into the air the way that trees generate oxygen to go along with the fact that he gyrated his hips inappropriately at both females and males alike, and already you can tell how stupid young me was for hating him. But the biggest thing I missed as a youngster when it came to Rick Rude was just how ridiculously awesome his ring attire was.

The first place to start is his robe. While not known for his robes in the way that Ric Flair (the runner-up in this award, obviously) was, Rude’s robe was still an integral part of his look. Adorned with jewels and with “Simply Ravishing” written on the back with a pair of lips, the robe worked on two levels. The first was that it was cool in its own right. The second level was that he used his robe as a great reveal, putting down audience members and reminding them that he was the sexiest man in the room and they were about to see for themselves. When he opened his robe, they’d get a glimpse of not only his steroid-perfected body, but also of the tights that lay him claim to this award for best use of gear. It’s an interesting dichotomy.
A quick aside: to the reader that doesn’t know any better, it would seem like Rude might have been gay. Between the bedazzled robe with big red lips on them and an entrance song that sounds like if Val Venis’ music had been composed for a Christmas present shopping montage in an 80s movie, to the untrained eye Rude would appear to be a homosexual character. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Rude would routinely bring female fans in from the audience to make out with him in the ring, leaving them swooning messes when he was done with them. He would even adorn his tights with female faces to show just how much of a ladies man he really was.

But back to the tights. You see, Rude wins this award because there has never been a wrestler in history with cooler tights than his. The exact look varied, but they almost always had either his face, some girl’s face, or something relevant to whatever angle he was in. When Rude was facing the Ultimate Warrior, the Warrior’s face ended up on Rude’s tights (if you’ve been clicking these links, you’ll see that Rude has a go-to pose, not unlike Same Face Guy). When Rude won the Intercontinental title, where a face would normally be was instead now an airbrushed rendering of the belt itself. Of course, Rude still had a picture of himself puckering his lips, just on the back of his tights now. With gear like Rude wore, it would be wrong to give the award to anybody else.

College Basketball: E’Twaun Moore (Purdue)
E’Twuan Moore’s look varies from time to time, but the reason he’s on the list as the best use of gear in college basketball is because of his occasional combination of shirt under the jersey and single sweatband on his wrist.  But, you might be saying, aren’t there tons of guys who wear shirts underneath their jerseys?  Yes, yes there are.  But in case you haven’t figured it out, sweatbands being worn on the wrist gets all sorts of bonus points in my book.  This is mostly because ever since Michael Jordan came along, everyone abandoned the wrist and started wearing their sweatband on their forearm.  Very few people have the audacity to take it old school and throw that sumbitch on their wrist, which is why I think it’s so awesome when someone does, especially when that someone is one of college basketball’s better players.
The truth is that picking Moore for this is somewhat reverse racism, but it makes perfect sense so I’m not going to apologize.  Even though there are tons of white guys who wear a wristband and a shirt under the jersey, the reality is that pretty much every one of them looks like a dweeb.  It’s a universal rule in society that black guys make everything cooler and this case is no different.  When a white walk-on wears a shirt under his jersey, he looks like he’s doing nothing but trying to hide his scrawny arms.  But when E’Twaun Moore dresses exactly like said scrawny white walk-on, he somehow makes it look awesome, simply because he’s smooth on the court (and he’s black).  And that’s ultimately what sets Moore apart from everyone else.  There are plenty of guys that look cool, per se, but only E’Twuan Moore really looks smooth, which is a completely different thing in the same way that William Buford will tell you that your “ol’ girl” and your “main squeeze” are completely different things.

HOUSEHOLD NAME THAT ISN’T THAT GOOD
For this category, we’re taking a look at guys who have become famous to the point that people who don’t pay all that much attention just assume these guys are really good.  In reality, they’re decent, but these guys are by no means as good as their level of fame would suggest.  An example of the type of person we’re dealing with here is how chicks who don’t watch basketball assume that Lamar Odom is one of the five best players in the world because he’s always on Keeping Up With The Kardashians and he’s won a couple NBA titles. Sure he’s a great player, but by no means is he as good as a majority of girls probably think he is (Now that I think about it, Hank Baskett is another example for the same reason as Odom, except Hank Baskett really does suck).  You get the idea.

FIFA: Ronaldinho (AC Milan)
In all honesty, Ronaldinho was the single reason I ever started to care about soccer and consequently FIFA in the first place.  Thanks to the combination of his crazy ball handling (or is it ball footling?) skills and the increasing popularity of the internet when I was in high school, a friend of mine showed me a few highlights on YouTube and I was mesmerized to the point that I decided to give soccer a chance.  I haven’t looked back since.  My guess is that there are tons of people like me who never knew anything about soccer but know about Ronaldinho because they saw a few YouTubes of him and were blown away at what he was capable of (mostly because it was fake). In fact, if my circle of friends are any indication, Ronaldinho is one of the most famous soccer players in the world to Americans.  Unfortunately, though, no matter how famous he is, at the end of the day his game is pretty much all show and doesn’t translate to FIFA all that well.
There’s no denying that the real Ronaldinho’s ball footling ability is pretty f’ing nuts, but the problem is that it there really is no place for it on FIFA to me.  I play a very disciplined, fundamentals-oriented brand of soccer when I play FIFA and Ronaldinho’s flashy brand of soccer just doesn’t fit (kinda like how it didn’t fit with the Brazilian national team, which is why he was left off their World Cup roster this year).  Besides, even if I do want to get flashy, I can just use Barcelona and Messi because he’s probably got better ball skills anyway and is much, much faster than Ronaldinho.  Plus, if I’m playing with AC Milan, I’m running everything through Ibrahimovic, if for no other reason than he can kick the piss out of the ball and I really want to see him burn a hole in the virtual net like he’s an on-fire Chris Mullin on NBA JAM.

Pro Wrestling: The Miz
I hate to say this, because he dresses like a total doucher and clearly used steroids and his previous fame to help him get where he is today, but I respect the hell out of Mike “The Miz” Mizanin. Here’s a guy who we only knew liked pro wrestling because he (awesomely) used to proclaim himself “The Miz” and cut loud promos when he was on the Real World: New York. This took guts because it always annoyed Coral, and she had huge boobs which he effectively ruined his chance of seeing by acting like a pro wrestler. Even later, when he’d used his fame from being a dominant player on the Real World/Road Rules Challenge to secure a spot WWE Tough Enough, The Miz worked his ass off to improve his in-ring skills after he got cut, and eventually got a full-time contract. All of this aside, for the amount of fame he might have to the random person on the street, The Miz still, well, sucks.

This might not be the case in 5 years, because he has natural charisma and is continually trying to get better. In fact, he even stopped wrestling in ridiculous-looking board shorts and moved on to actual wrestling tights, which can only mean good things. But at this point in his career, the recognition that The Miz gets as a pro wrestler from the casual fan or random stranger would make you think he’s been a multiple time Heavyweight champion. While he has had reigns as the United States champion and the tag team champion, The Miz has yet to serve any meaningful time in the main event scene. So despite his fauxhawk and half-Mystery Method, half-Tool Academy wardrobe having a high Q score with the general public, any pro wrestling fan will tell you that The Miz just isn’t as good as you think he would be.

College Basketball: Matt Howard (Butler)
If for some reason you don’t know who Matt Howard is, maybe referring to him as “the big white guy on Butler who had the dirty stache last year” will help jog your memory.  Thanks to an improbable run by Butler to the National Championship last season, Howard and his mustache got all sorts of national publicity, and rightfully so.  After seeing his mustache on CBS, college basketball fans collectively flocked to the internet to research Howard a little bit, and were probably surprised to find that he was the Horizon League Player of The Year in 2008-2009 before his teammate (and my high school teammate), Gordon Hayward, took the honor from him the following season.  Upon learning this information, the casual college basketball fan referred to the Morrison Theorem (wispy mustache + mid-major conference player of the year = someone who isn’t to be f***ed with) and assumed that Matt Howard must be one of the best players in college basketball.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

Before Butler fans get upset with me (“you’re just hating cause we beat you last year!”), let me first say that I have the utmost respect for Matt Howard.  As you should know by now, I’m a fan of both mustaches and wearing a shirt under the jersey, which is why I want so badly for Matt Howard to be good.  Sadly, the only thing keeping this from happening is that his game consists of nothing but pumpfaking, throwing elbows, setting illegal screens, and flopping so much that even Butler fans get uncomfortable with it.  Again, I’m not hating on the kid, because I did every single one of those things when I played in high school and practiced in college.  But that’s the problem – I can do all of these things (not to mention the fact that there’s a 45-year-old version of Matt Howard in every church league in America).  As much as I respect what he does and I think of him as an inspiration to all of us pumpfaking/flopping guys, the bottom line is that he simply isn’t that talented.

(Now that I think about it, this is more of a compliment to him than anything else.  The guy gets more out of his abilities than anyone in college basketball, which is something to be proud of, I guess.)

GUY WE COULD TAKE IN A STREET FIGHT
This category is simple.  We have no doubt in our mind that if we wandered into a dark alley to find these guys perched up against a wall with a leather jacket on and a look in their eye that suggests they want to anally rape us, we would not only deny all access to our buttholes, but we would also kick so much ass and take so many names that we’d probably get a key to the city or whatever it is they give all those awesome superheroes like Daredevil. 

FIFA: Lionel Messi (Barcelona)
First and foremost, let me make it perfectly clear that the real life Messi would beat the snot out of me if we were ever to fight.  Sure he’s only 5’7”, but the dude is one of the best athletes alive and is lightning quick, so there’s a very good chance that he could beat me silly before I’m even done with my warm-up jumping jacks (even if it is a spontaneous street fight, going through a proper warm-up routine is still very important).  There really is no disputing who would win this fight because I fully admit that I would stand no chance against him.  But, as is the consistent theme with this preview, I’m not concerned with the real life Messi.  I only care about the FIFA version of Messi, and it’s clear to me that I would make virtual Messi my b*tch.
To confirm my point that I could destroy the virtual Messi, I decide to create myself on FIFA 11 and compare my relevant attributes with Messi’s.  Here’s what I found:
Shark vs. Messi

As you can clearly see, Messi has better body control than me but I more than make up for it with both my strength and aggression.  And isn’t that really what would matter most in a street fight?  Virtual Messi’s best attributes suggest that if we were to fight, he would do nothing but duck and run away.  Meanwhile, I’m bringing a nine inch and 54 pound advantage to the table, not to mention my 91 in strength that would surely break his jaw in two.  As much as you might want to side with Messi, the bottom line is that scientific data shows that I would have no problem opening up a can of whoop ass on a virtual Messi in a street fight (two Stone Cold references in one sentence!).

Pro Wrestling: Bob Backlund
I thought about going a few different ways with this one. At first I considered picking the cruiserweight who I thought was the biggest pussy (probably Scotty 2 Hotty, just so I could do the Worm over his lifeless body), but then I realized that the smaller guys are usually legit, real-life badasses, like the “Lethal Weapon” Steve Blackman. So that probably wouldn’t be a great choice. Then I thought about going with someone like Sid Justice, who is arguably the most physically intimidating man with a blonde curly mullet to have been alive in the 90s, but who is also famous for being incredibly soft outside the ring (and for having arguably the most gruesome injury inside it. Click at your own risk). This was a man who once used a squeegee in a street fight with Brian Pillman, so maybe he’d be a good choice for a street fight against me. But even Sid, who was billed at 6’9” and 320 pounds and once went by the name Lord Humongous in the ring before everyone associated it with Greg Oden, had the wherewithal to stab Arn Anderson with scissors in his next out of the ring fight, so he’s probably not a safe bet for a victory. Then it dawned on me: Bob Backlund.

Backlund has the strange distinction of being one of the longest reigning WWF champions of all-time (over 5 years) while also being the loser of the fastest championship match in history (8 seconds, to Diesel/Kevin Nash). He also serves as exhibit A as to why I strongly believe all redheads should have some sort of facial hair to help offset how it looks like you have no hair  on your face at all from your eyebrows and eyelashes being so light. Seriously, there is absolutely no way that I lose in a street fight to a man who looks like a 60 year old version of the Gingers Do Have Souls kid. Backlund was apparently an accomplished amateur wrestler, but Adam Morrison is living proof that the better you are as an amateur, the more you’re likely to suck as a pro. Besides, this is a street fight. I’d like to see Backlund try and give me a single leg takedown while I’m hitting him in his temple with a lead pipe and/or stabbing him in the torso with a knife. Those are legal in a streetfight, right? Actually, on second thought, I’m not sure I’d even need them. Again, this is what Bob Backlund looks like. Just like he lost the 1996 Presidential election, Bob Backlund would get dominated in a street fight against me.

College B-ball: Mick Cronin (Cincinnati’s Head Coach)
Even though I couldn’t find Mick Cronin’s height with a quick Google search, I did discover that Bob Huggins is about 6’3” (one inch shorter than me) and Cronin comes up to Huggins’ shoulders.  Maybe you don’t know this, but this means that Mick Cronin’s face is at a perfect punching height for me.  As I would make contact with Cronin’s schnoz, my arm would be perfectly parallel with the ground, which I’m sure John Brenkus and his Sport Science would tell you is how to get optimal force behind a punch. Translation: Mick Cronin would be f’ed if we were to engage in fisticuffs.

Should the fight move to the ground and take on more of a wrestling dynamic, I’m just as confident that I could destroy Cronin.  My guess is that he’d be a wiry little fella that could escape from all sorts of holds and whatnot, so I’d focus more on restraining him with one arm and beating him senseless with the other.  As much as I’d love to put him in a camel clutch until he’s unconscious, I’d probably have to be a little more offensive and find a way to land a few punches instead.  Surely it wouldn’t take much more than two or three solid shots to the kisser before he’s had enough.  Of course, there’s always the chance that he’s a black belt in karate or Billy Blanks Tae Bo, which would throw a huge wrench in the system, but I still think I’d have the upper hand because I’m not afraid to play dirty and hit below the belt if that’s what it takes.

I’ve been going back and forth for the past few days about whether or not I should address Kyle Singler’s trick shot video that most people agree is nothing more than a blatant rip off of my critically acclaimed Mr. Rainmaker video.  Even as I sit down to write this I don’t know whether I should talk about it.  The truth is that I don’t think Singler has ever seen my video, so I can’t be too butthurt about anything he did.  But at the same time I’m pretty certain that people within the Duke basketball program have seen Mr. Rainmaker (I know some people who know some people who know some things), which means there’s a good chance whoever approached Singler with the idea for his video was inspired by my video.  Still, I think I should probably just take the high road for now.  I need some time to gather my thoughts and make sure I don’t have a Dan Gilbert moment and say something too emotional.  But that’s not to say that I’ll let this issue go away quietly.  Because quite simply, in the words of The Dude, “This aggression will not stand, man.”
While I think about the best way to handle this situation, I think we should all just focus on Part III of the Club Trillion College Basketball Preview.  Today we’re talking about the loss of hair, the loss of rules/morals, and the loss of one’s conscious when the game matters most.  As a reminder, I’m writing the FIFA and college basketball sections and my friend Keller is tackling the professional wrestling sections (to get up to speed on how the format works, check out Part I and Part II of the preview). 

PREMATURE BALDING
This category takes a look at the guys who would have every right to get upset with the genes they were given, if not for the fact that those same genes helped make them high caliber athletes.  I would call this situation a catch-22, but I’m not sure I even fully understand what “catch-22” actually means.  Maybe me not being able to use the phrase because I don’t know what it means is itself a catch-22? Or maybe the first situation really is a catch-22, and the fact that I was hesitant to use the term even though I would have been using it correctly is also a catch-22?  Holy balls my head hurts trying to figure this out.  Maybe we should just move on.

FIFA: Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)
Most of you probably don’t know about Rooney’s recent sex scandal because he’s an English soccer player, which is to say he’s irrelevant because he’s not American and he doesn’t play football, basketball, or baseball.  So allow me to fill you in.  Basically the gist of the story is that Rooney cheated on his wife (who he has been dating since they were 16) with a prostitute while she was pregnant with their first child.  Not that big of a deal, right?  I mean, common folk like you and I would never do something as dumb as this, but it’s almost expected of celebrities to go big or go home with their sex scandals.  And on a scale from 1 to Tiger, this seems likes it’s barely a Letterman.  Until you dig a little deeper, that is.

The issue here isn’t that that Rooney cheated on his pregnant wife (I’m sure my fiancee is thrilled with me writing that sentence).  The issue is that he had to pay a prostitute to do so.  Now, I know it’s common knowledge that every celebrity pays a prostitute for sex at least once in their lives.  But it’s a little different with Rooney because he publicly admitted to sexing up hookers on the reg before he even turned 18.  He’s clearly way ahead of the prostitute curve, which takes this from a one time scandal to a serious pattern of questionable behavior.  Again, the problem isn’t that he’s having sex with all sorts of women (that’s the norm for athletes/celebrities) – it’s that he’s paying these women to let him tickle their innards.  Someone of his fame and stature should be able to get his rocks off without paying for it, yet it seems like he has trouble getting some for free, which is why this scandal is a bigger deal than it should be.  Most believe that Rooney has to pay for sex because his premature balding makes him one of the uglier people in the world.   While I can’t say I disagree with this sentiment, at the end of the day I still think it shouldn’t take all that much for him to get laid.  After all, he’s still probably one of the more attractive people in England, since everyone knows the English don’t have time for hygiene cause they’re always too busy losing to America at everything. USA! USA! USA!

Pro Wrestling: The Rock
This was a tough one to award. For one, male pattern baldness is a side effect of steroid use, so about 99% of wrestlers are balding in some capacity (the 1% is clearly the Ultimate Warrior and Ted DiBiase). Asking me to choose the wrestler with the biggest receding hairline is like asking me to choose the stripper with the lowest self-esteem, or the most metrosexual blazer from Express in Danny Peters’ closet. There will be a lot of candidates. For two, many of the balding wrestlers choose to shave their heads completely to hide it (see: Stone Cold Steve Austin, Goldberg, and Gillberg).  And for three, nearly every wrestler who I was going to pick turned out to be like 40 years old from my earliest memory of him. I was going use this space to talk about how Dean Malenko was criminally underrated , but I don’t remember any of his matches before around 1997, when he was 37 years old. It’s not exactly premature balding at that point. Enter The Rock.
Rock Hair

Take a look at that picture. Ignore the earring, or the stupid outfit, or the awful length of the hair. Instead, focus on how far back the hairline recedes. This is The Rock in his mid twenties. His level of balding is embarrassing. When you are wearing a kindergarteners Thanksgiving project as a shirt and your hairline is still the most troubling part of your look, you know it’s bad.

Nonetheless, The Rock took his follicle shortcomings and made everything else about himself the focus, presumably to deflect from the fact that it looked like somebody photoshopped Borat’s mustache onto his shaved head. He started delivering great promos. He embarked on a singing career. He took informal polls on pancake enjoyment. He grew out some ridiculous sideburns. He hit Mick Foley in the face with a chair for the better part of an hour. Essentially, he stole the show every single week until you forgot about the fact that he had a giant fivehead. It’s impressive, really. If anybody could pull it off, it was The Rock.

College Basketball: Dallas Lauderdale (Ohio State)
Truth be told, the only reason I even came up with this category was to bring up Dallas’ new look.  After years of denial (and wearing a do-rag to “catch the hair that falls out”), Dallas finally went the Clyde Drexler route by giving up on the dream and shaving his head in the offseason.  I can’t say enough how much I like this decision (and the decision to grow a solid beard to go with).  Dallas looks leaner, quicker, and about 1,000 times more badass. Some would argue that he looks leaner and quicker because he lost weight and got in better shape, but I’m sticking with my theory – it’s all about the shaving of the head.
dallas before-after
Don’t let the smiles fool you - The guy on the left ended my basketball career and the guy on the right looks capable of ending my life.

In the four games I’ve watched this year (one of which was an exhibition game), Dallas looks like he’s markedly improved from last season, which is scary for the rest of the Big Ten considering he unofficially blocked 93.4% of shots attempted on him last year.  What’s even scarier for Big Ten teams, and really the rest of the country, is that Dallas isn’t even the best big guy on Ohio State this year (some would say that he wasn’t the best big guy on the team last year, and by “some” I mean Kyle Madsen).  But whatever the case, I think we can all agree that Dallas is the perfect example of how to handle premature balding.  Some people get dealt a 7-2 off suit and pray for a miracle to somehow turn it into a royal flush.  Dallas, on the other hand, got dealt a 7-2 off suit and decided that that s*** wouldn’t fly, so he pulled out his sawed-off shotgun, pumped lead into everyone at the table, and made off with all their money cause that’s just how he MF’ing rolls.

BLATANT CHEATERS
Even though this could absolutely apply to guys who put their wiener where it doesn’t belong, in this case we’re talking about the guys who blatantly break the rules and don’t play fair.  Not only do these guys cheat, but they do so in a seemingly unapologetic fashion, which is what bugs me the most (except for the WWE example, obviously).

FIFA: My Goalie on “Legendary” Difficulty
There are very few things in this world that I don’t strive to be the best at.  Wait, I wrote that wrong.  Let me try again – There are only a few things in this world that I strive to be the best at (that’s better).  Along with mustache growing, loving my country, and Facebook stalking, FIFA is one of these things.  I simply can’t stand it when I meet someone who is better than me.  Why, you might be asking, does it mean so much to me to be the best?  Because if rap music has taught me anything other than that “trifling” is actually a real word, it’s that two is not a winner and three nobody remembers.

Because I want to be the best at FIFA, I usually only play the computer on “legendary” difficulty because it’s the only level that gives me any sort of challenge whatsoever.  The only problem with this is that that challenge usually comes in the form of my goalie throwing the game.  A simple tweaking of the difficulty settings suddenly makes my otherwise stellar goalie unable to do fundamental things like “make an attempt to stop the ball” or “refrain from diving when there’s not even a shot because it would consequently create an open net for the opposition.”  I’m of the opinion that changing the difficulty settings shouldn’t make your team any worse, but instead should only make the computer better.  Unfortunately, this isn’t the case and I get stuck with Robert Green in goal every game I play on legendary (suck it, England! USA! USA! USA!), even though my goalie is rock solid when I play on any other difficulty level.  The only possible explanation for this is that my goalie hates me and is intentionally throwing the game.

Pro Wrestling: Diamond Dallas Page (Ready to Rumble)
If I hadn’t already given him an award, this would naturally be a slam dunk victory for Ric Flair, who when not called The Nature Boy was known as The Dirtiest Player In The Game. A quick aside on Flair’s nicknames: when I was in elementary school there was some doucher in our neighborhood named David who sucked at life but still managed to tagalong and ruin any gathering we had. We started calling him Nature Boy, only it was meant as an insult that quantified how much he blew, and not a reference to Flair. The lesson, as always, is that I was a dumbass as a kid.

Instead, this award is going to Diamond Dallas Page. Not the real DDP; he was too busy making people feel the bang in WCW to break any rules (though he would debut in the WWE to a gigantic pop when revealed as the Undertaker’s wife’s stalker, so he wasn’t always a good guy. Naturally, watching video of Page unmasking makes me think about the other time he hid under a mask, which made me think of La Parka, which made me think of La Parka punching a fan in the face, which made me think that that fan surely still thought wrestling was real to him, dammit. The slippery slope of wrestling YouTube videos). No, I’m talking about Diamond Dallas Page in the 2000 movie Ready to Rumble, starring David Arquette and Scott Caan.
In the movie, Page forms an alliance with WCW’s evil booker, Titus Sinclair (played by Joe Pantoliano looking sweet in a cowboy hat and fringed jacket. In that same year Pantoliano would star in Memento, a movie I’ve heard is pretty good and have been meaning to watch, but forget about by the next morning) to strip reigning champion Jimmy King of the heavyweight title. King is played by a Fat Oliver Platt, who is taken by surprise when DDP starts actually fighting him in the ring. Now, King is a slob who got winded during his pre-match rap of Run DMC’s “King of Rock”. DDP was a badass who partied with Bon Jovi and got Jay-Z to pay him for the right to use the diamond symbol. Page shouldn’t have needed any help taking King down. But he used it anyway, and that’s why he earns the title of biggest cheater.

First into the ring to interfere were “Page’s Goons” – Sid Vicious, Van Hammer, Juventud Guerrera, Prince Iaukea, and Bam Bam Bigelow, five men who had no significant interaction on WCW programming yet were grouped together in the movie. They help DDP beat King down, only to have “The King’s Men” (who sound like a LARPing crew but were really Jimmy King’s protectors) rush to the ring to aide him. Or so it seemed. Instead of helping King, the group of Curt Hennig, Konnan, and Perry Saturn instead joined in on the attack. It was 8 on 1 in Page’s favor. At one point, four of the wrestlers got on the top turnbuckles. Mike Tenay, a terrible WCW announcer who I can only remember because of his long-winded explanation of why Dean Malenko was a dick for removing Rey Mysterio’s mask and his propensity to overpronounce wrestling moves like he was Giada without the awesome boobs, informs the viewing audience that they are about to perform a Four Post Massacre. Tenay claims that nobody has ever survived that (a claim that’s probably true seeing as how it was never performed before the movie). After all four men land on King at once, Page pins King and steals the title. Since, to my knowledge, nobody has ever needed greater than an 8 on 1 assault to win a match, Diamond Dallas Page is the biggest cheater. 

College Basketball: Every Coach In The Country
This summer, both Jim Calhoun and Bruce Pearl got busted for breaking NCAA recruiting rules (Pearl just recently got suspended for 8 SEC games).  Pearl’s transgressions are considered much more serious not only because he lied to NCAA investigators but also because he was blacklisted from coaching awhile back for being a whistleblower, so the idea of him cheating and lying about it is pretty ironic really (wait, is it ironic? Do I know what ironic actually means? Could it also be a catch-22 somehow?).  Meanwhile, John Calipari might be the scuzziest coach in the history of sports and has committed violations at just about every school he’s been at, but instead of getting disciplined, he gets millions of dollars and is loved by Kentucky fans everywhere. The lesson here is that if you want to be a college coach, you have to be willing to cheat your ass off.  And if you somehow get caught, all you have to do is cooperate with the investigation, say it was all a misunderstanding and it won’t happen again, and flee to a new school before the NCAA comes to your current school and just starts dishing out sanctions up in that bitch.

Seriously, though, all college coaches cheat.  It’s just to the degree that the cheating takes place that sets them apart.  Some coaches practice too often or for too long and some give money to recruits. Obviously one is more serious than the other (practicing too much sucks and any coach that can’t follow that rule should be fired immediately), but in the end they’re both considered cheating.  Still, you can’t punish every coach for cheating, so it’s important to just go after the guys who either break the rules the most often or commit the most serious violations.

As a good rule of thumb, to figure out how badly a coach cheats all you have to do is look at his hair. If it seems as though the coach doesn’t care what his hair looks like, chances are he only commits minor infractions.  Coaches that style their hair a little bit usually commit more serious violations, but nothing worth investigating.  Coaches that use way too much hair gel are just about guaranteed to be doing some shady things, and coaches that use too much hair gel and slick their hair back are surely giving recruits thousands of dollars, changing SAT scores, and probably have some sort of ties to the mafia.  Using this template, I completely expect Steve Lavin to turn St. John’s into a national powerhouse within the next five years.

UNSTOPPABLE IN CRUNCH TIME
This is simple.  If there isn’t much time left and the outcome is in the balance, these are the guys who take matters into their own hands and do something about it.  These guys will let you get a little taste of victory, and then will swiftly cut your tongue out, make you lick your own scrotum, and have sex with your girlfriend just because they can.  All without really breaking a sweat.  So yeah, don’t f*** with these guys.

FIFA: Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
It’s no secret that just thinking about Cristiano Ronaldo’s abilities on FIFA gives me at least a semi-chub.  I’ve said many times that I think he’s the best athlete on a sports video game since Jeremy Roenick on NHL ‘94, but the more I think about it, he actually might be better.  Now, I know that the real Ronaldo is a puss who flops way too much and has that weird European mullet going on, but the beauty of FIFA is that the personality of the players doesn’t matter and none of the players are programmed to take dives.  All that is taken into account is pure physical and athletic talent, and there’s no denying that from a this standpoint nobody (not even Messi) can touch Ronaldo.  Ronaldo is so good, in fact, that if you created a virtual pro on FIFA, made it Ronaldo’s size, and maxed out its attributes, it still wouldn’t come close to having Ronaldo’s speed, skill, or strength.  In other words, you can’t even create a player as good as him because FIFA thinks its impossible for someone to be that good.  Think about that for a second.

So what does this have to do with crunch time? Well, obviously the best players throughout the game are going to still be the best players when the game is on the line.  Ronaldo not only is the overall best player in the closing moments, but he’s also got a specific go-to move that rivals my step-back three going left that I perfected during my basketball playing days (just ask Danny Peters how venomous my step-back going left is – he knew exactly when it was coming every day in practice and still couldn’t stop it).  It truly is the most unstoppable move on FIFA, and it only becomes that much more unstoppable when things get ugly and I desperately need a goal.  Unfortunately, people who I regularly play in FIFA read this blog and therefore would know my secret move if I told all of you, so I’m going to have to keep that vault locked. Sorry, but when you aspire the be the best like I do, giving away secrets isn’t a great idea.

Pro Wrestling: Hulk Hogan (At height of Hulkamania)
It’s hard to definitively say what goes into Hulking Up. I would venture to guess that it’s partly from having the most patriotic song in history as your entrance music, part dad strength, and part Hogan being a total dick in real life who refuses to lose any of his matches (when that last part is mixed with another dick who refuses to lose matches like Shawn Michaels, hilarity ensues). You have a better chance of getting that sweet Yoda backpack you wanted for Christmas than you do of beating Hogan in an important match. Nonetheless, when the match is on the line, Hulk Hogan turns into arguably the most unstoppable force in the history of the world.

It happened, among countless other times, at Wrestlemania VII, against Sgt. Slaughter. Hogan, bloodied and looking like he’d met his match, finds his inner strength and begins Hulking Up. He becomes unfazed by punches, impervious to pain. He takes shots that don’t affect him until he’s finally had enough. Out comes the point. This is a picture of Hulk Hogan pointing at you while Hulking Up (and this is a picture of a taxidermied squirrel riding a plastic horse). If you see this, the match is over. What follows next is pretty much set in stone, because they’re 3 of the only 5 moves that Hogan knows. First comes the punch. Then comes the big boot, which is supposed to hit the opponent in the face but usually connects with the right nipple instead. Finally, the leg drop. It’s never really been properly explained how dropping a leg on your opponent is somehow the most effective finishing maneuver in professional wrestling history (as opposed to this, or this for that matter), but it almost always leads to a three count when Hogan delivers it.  When it matters, Hogan delivers. Just ignore the part about him always delivering because he’s a selfish doucher who won’t let other people beat him. Hogan might be all-time quarterback a little too much, but he still gets the job done in crunch time.

College Basketball: Jimmer Fredette (BYU)
Before Jimmer Fredette came along, the only thing I knew about Mormons that I didn’t learn from South Park is the concept of “letting it soak.”  Now, thanks to Fredette, I’ve also learned that Mormons can apparently play basketball pretty well.  Fredette is a preseason 1st team All-American this year, thanks largely in part to a stellar season a year ago in which he broke the BYU record for points in a game by pouring in 49 against Arizona.  Call me crazy, but I think this solidifies his status as the best athlete named “Jimmer” of all-time.  In fact, I’ll take it a step further and say that he’s the best anything that’s ever been named “Jimmer.”  That’s something to be proud of, I guess.

There are really two reasons why I think Jimmer Fredette is the most clutch player in college basketball.  The first and most important reason is that I wanted an excuse to bring up “letting it soak,” because that might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of.  The second, and probably more relevant, reason I picked Jimmer Fredette is because of his performance against Florida in the NCAA tournament last year.  In one of the more memorable games of the first round of last year’s tournament, Jimmer scored 37 points as BYU beat Florida in double overtime.  Fredette gave the Gators a steady dose of buckets rainmaking (Mr. Rainmaker > Kyle Gets Buckets) throughout the game, but really ripped their hearts out in the second overtime by hitting two more threes.  Sure he didn’t hit a game winning shot or anything dramatic like that, but that’s only because he decided to take the game over so that a last second shot wouldn’t be necessary.  And really, hitting a last second shot doesn’t necessarily equate to being clutch.  Most of the time it’s just a result of being in the right spot at the right time.  Being clutch is really achieved when there’s about a minute left and your team desperately needs to score (either because they’re up by one possession, tied, or down by one possession). Fredette strikes me as a guy who is dangerous with the ball in his hands during these moments, as evidenced by the fact that he stepped up his play when it mattered most (second overtime of NCAA tourney).  That’s why he gets the nod (also, I really wanted to mention letting it soak).

By the way, through the first couple weeks of the college basketball season, here is my starting lineup of “White Guys Who Really Don’t Look Like Much But Are Actually Pretty Good”:
  • PG: Aaron Craft (Ohio State)
  • SG: Jimmer Fredette
  • SF: Would be Kyle Singler, but screw that guy
  • PF: Chandler Parsons (Florida)
  • C: Mike Tisdale (Illinois)

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The Lush Life Chronicles - - Volume 4: The Hobby





There isn't really any metaphor with the Fourth Pillar of the American Dream. It is exactly what you think it is. It's an activity that brings one excitement and relaxation. That means that you're probably thinking that this is a pretty easy pillar to achieve. I mean everybody has a  hobby, don't they? Well, not exactly. You see while everybody has something that they enjoy doing in their spare time...not everybody has readily achieved this pillar. Not all activities are hobbies and not all hobbies are created equal. This Pillar is about getting the most fulfillment out of your spare time as possible. Not just every hack job hobby applies in this situation. I'm reminded of the immortal words of Raylan Givens on FX's hit show Justified: "I figure everyone is entitled to their hobbies and I'm entitled to think those people are creepy." I'm not in a good position to judge what other people do with their free time, but in order to fulfill this Pillar of the American Dream there are a few parameters and ground rules that need to be adhered to. The Hobby is not about spending your free time...it's about investing your free time. So let's go over what you need to do achieve this deceptively elusive Pillar.

The Hobby cannot be something that you do for a living. You might love your job, and that's fair. Contentment in your occupation is very important when pursuing the Lush Life. But it's heavily irrelevant when we are talking about The Hobby. A job is still a job and it takes away from a hobby when somebody is paying you to do it. That means that they possess a certain amount of control over how you do what you love to do and that's not the Lush Life. You might love to cook, but by having to pander to customer orders this makes being a chef not a hobby. I don't care if you prepared the menu and you love to cook everything on it. If somebody is paying you then it is work. The fact that your hobby comes with obligations makes it not The Hobby. A possible loophole is if you run your own business...like making designer handbags and selling them on line. But at that point you don't have a job, you have a hobby that you've found a way to make money from.

I have consistently stated that I would not want to be employed to do anything that I love to do because it's bound to become not fun anymore when you make it into a job. The ice cream man doesn't go home and eat ice cream. And even though I love to blog, I wouldn't want to become a featured writer for some web site. I don't want some suit telling me when to blog and what to blog about. You can't say that basketball is LeBron James hobby and you can't say stand-up comedy is Chris Rock's hobby. This is because while The Hobby should be something that you are good at your hobby, it shouldn't come with expectations that will be lead to disappointment in others should you have an off night. If people pay to see a stand-up comic and he sucks they can be rightfully be pissed. If a comic sucks at an open mic night, the audience cannot reasonably be mad because they didn't have to shell out any big bucks to see this performer. The same goes for pick-up basketball. Sure you're teammates might be peeved if you're air balling threes but nobody is going to rip you on Around the Horn the next day. The purpose of The Hobby is to have excitement and get your adrenaline pumping but it's also to relax. I don't think Bron Bron ever gets to relax on the basketball court. Sports fans tend to make sure of that.

This brings us to another qualifier for The Hobby. The Hobby has a two-fold purpose. It must possess both the ability to excite and relax. If your hobby does nothing but stress you out then it isn't The Hobby. You might like to golf, but every time you slice a shot it can't set your blood boiling. If this is the case, then you need to know that golf is not The Hobby for you. Golf is The Hobby for me. I just love to be out on the course swinging some sticks with my homies. The same goes for bowling. I like to go out and roll rocks with my homies. But if I have an off day on the lanes, I let it roll right off my back. It's perfectly acceptable to be competitive within your hobby. That's part of the excitement that The Hobby is supposed to offer. But if you don't take losing well then this can be a problem. An example of this for me is Pub Trivia. Pub Trivia is certainly The Hobby for me...but it isn't always The Hobby. You're confused? Let me explain. I find Pub Trivia to be relaxing. It's a nice chance for me to get together with friends and use some of my cerebral skills. It also excites me as there is a sense of competition with prizes on the line and it keeps my brain constantly engaged to produce answers. However, when the Trivia Finals come around and $3000 is on the line, it no longer becomes relaxing. Losing becomes a big deal and every missed answer haunts my nightmares for weeks. At this point the stress that it puts upon my person stops it from being The Hobby. It doesn't mean that I'm going to stop going to the Finals because it is fun, but there is no relaxation present.

In all of my hobbies above I mentioned that I prefer to enjoy the company of others while I am living The Hobby. It is certainly possible to live The Hobby by yourself, but you can't always live The Hobby by yourself. You're confused? Let me explain. There is nothing wrong with living The Hobby by yourself. I know that after a particularly stressful day I enjoy winding down with some trivia and if nobody else is in the mood, I will go by myself. Sometimes I'll even take in a round of golf by my lonesome. However, The Hobby should be something that can be done by yourself or with others. I'm not going to make it a rule that you have to be able to do it by yourself. Racquetball is a perfectly acceptable hobby, but to be done properly it requires multiple people. However, The Hobby loses traction when your ability to live it rests too heavily on other people. In it's truest form The Hobby is something that you can do whenever you please, but the necessitated participation of others as well as the Hours of Operation of various necessary venues can limit this ability. There are also seasonal hobbies that require certain weather. However, The Hobby necessitates that it is something that can be done socially and that you can share with others. The Lush Life is about sharing and you can't just be greedy and keep your hobby to yourself. If you like to sing in the shower, but you're unwilling to flex the pipes for others than singing is not a hobby for you. Taxidermy and needlepoint are not usually considered as being The Hobby, but if you and your friends get together to partake of these activities then I don't know that they can't be. If you aren't proud enough to share it with loved ones it isn't The Hobby. Dexter might think that he has a hobby, but killing people in not The Hobby.

It matters less to The Hobby what you're doing than it does how it makes you feel. The purpose of living The Lush Life and achieving the American Dream is to be content and achieve a Zen-like state. Therefore, The Hobby has to provide you with some semblance of control over your mood. If it is not capable of altering your mood in a way that is predictable or that you can in some way harness, then it likely is not really The Hobby. The Hobby should be able to calm you when you need calming. The Hobby should be able to excite you when you need excitement. The Hobby should challenge you and keep you motivated. It's important that you don't let The Hobby become too routine. There should be a certain level of skill on your part with regards to The Hobby, and whether you possess this skill or not you should always be trying to improve. If you're too routine in your practicing of The Hobby it's bound to get boring. Mix it up. Variety is the spice of life. And the Lush Life is not about stagnancy. You can't just have the Lush Life. You have to actively live it. If you're not like a shark, always moving forward, you're going to lose it. So if you have a hobby, try and take it to the next level. Master your craft and challenge yourself, and if you're constantly pursuing new goals though your hobby then you'll be well on your way to The Hobby.

Friday, December 24, 2010

The Ray 100 - The Quarter-Century Mark (Part II)

This is the Ray 100. For an explanation and #100-51, please see my last post.


50. Emily Kenney - This is a friend from Xavier University. She was also the leading candidate in last year's frenemy post. Despite the antagonistic relationship that that implies, I still love her. She just has a smarmy way of eviscerating my every word, idea, or action. However, she is still greatly missed by the United States whom she abandoned in favor of joining Global Brigades down in Honduras. And I appreciate the fact that she reads this blog semi-regularly because I don't think the fact that I have over 50 hits from Honduras and the fact that it is my fourth most popular country for visits is a coincidence. She was a staple of my life for my final three years in college and my first two years after graduating. We had dinner parties together, saw midnight movies together, and participated in The Mole together. She was The Mole and I can't imagine we could have had a better one because few people are more sneakily deceptive and cunning than Emily. And I mean that as a back-handed compliment. She consistently used these skills year after year to trick me into bidding on things at her company's charity auction which weren't what I thought they were. I miss her enthusiasm for debauchery and her playful sense of schaudenfreude that she harbored for almost all of her friends. But most of all I think that I miss her tremendous calves. Let's hope that Honduras is keeping those in good form.

49. Kathy Kristof and 48. Moira Hummel - These are the aunt and mother of one of my best friends, respectively. They are also two of my mother's very best friends. Our families have become too deeply entangled over the past decade to the point where you can't untangle them at this juncture. I have spent countless Halloweens at her annual Halloween party and I see them across the table at every Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Fourth of July dinner. They've driven me home from school on countless occasions and every time my school, church, or boy scout troop asked me to go around hawking worthless wares for fund raising, they buy an Agrippa-load. They've helped me out with school projects and just generally provided support to my entire family whenever it was needed. Kathy is also the most successful blogger that I know personally. She writes financial advice for the Los Angeles Times and has a blog that is of actual repute.

47. Amber Sheehan - This is a friend from Xavier University and the bride at the first wedding that I ever attended. She is one half of my first set of married friends. It's good for me to have this friend dynamic because I feel that it is serving as my template for the norms of married life as approached by members of my generation. She and her husband, Trevor, are exceptionally gifted in the ways of time management. It seems that they bend the space-time continuum in their ability to carve out alone time, each other time, family time, and friend time. It's magical. They also were my first wedding which was very formative in it's own right. My family is set up in such a way that I never got to attend a wedding until I was 24. I am the oldest cousin by more than half a decade and almost all of my aunts and uncles were married by the time that I was of wedding-going age. You learn a lot at these things and you start to think about your own life and future. I'm sure that I will elaborate on that at some point in the future...say in a blog post coming in a few months.

46. Trevor Lowe - This is a friend from Wright State University and Amber's husband. That means that his wedding was also the first that I ever attended. He was able to beat his wife out by one spot because he plays poker with me on Wednesday nights and drops $20 into my pocket every other week with his obvious tells. I would also never combine them into one blurb because he hates having his marriage thought of as a singular omni-blob of humanity. The next time one of my friends calls him Tramber, they're liable to get a big old meat slap up the side of their head. While Amber is a fully-formed human being and much sweeter than your average shrewish sitcom wife...Trevor is very much a sitcom husband. He's got the bumbling pater familias schtick down perfectly. I would love to watch his life on a daily basis: celebreality-style. He knows how to settle his business and keep a happy wife but he also knows how to let loose with the boys for a good time. If I find myself about to tie the knot, he is who I am going to for a little pre-marriage counseling.

45. Sarah Gillian - This is a friend from Xavier University. She is the female friend that I see most regularly at the present stage of my life. She, like Emily Kenney before her, has taken on the role of my friend who questions every move that I make in the chess game that is life. I have seen her skeptical glare more times than I care to count. However, I need this in my life. Contrary to what people believe, I don't need everybody in my life to tell me that I'm always wrong...but I do need one person in my life to tell me that I'm always wrong. It keeps me grounded and let's me know that if they ever consent to an idea with their hesitant nod of approval that I have come up with a true gem of an idea. Still Sarah is more than just a dissenting voice of reason in my life. I thoroughly enjoy her presence at the smattering of dinner parties, pub trivias, and poker games that I attend on a weekly basis. She possesses a definite kindness to go with her snark and smarm.

44. Mark Cotter - This is a friend from St. Bede Elementary School and Loyola High School. We attended St. Bede from the time we were in kindergarten until our graduation in 8th Grade. We spent a good deal of time together because we both attended St. Bede's advanced math and reading classes because we were at the top of our class. We also both featured heavily on St. Bede's sports teams, him because he had a good deal of athletic prowess and myself because I have been over 6 feet tall since I was in the 6th Grade. However, we became significantly better friends when we began commuting to Loyola High School together. Loyola is approximately 45 minutes from my house and since he lived only three to four blocks from me we carpooled together for all four years. We had many an insightful conversation over this time and for this ranks as the highest football player on this list. Going to school so far away from where I lived has greatly contributed to the abundance of La Canada High School friends on this list and the lack of high-ranking friends from my own school, Loyola. It was really nice to have a Loyola friend like Mark who lived so close to keep me involved with people from school.

43. Ralph Valente - This was my principle at St. Bede Elementary School. He was also my confirmation sponsor. He was the first "great" teacher that I ever had. He taught a subject that I could get behind (history) and taught it in a way that made it interesting. I also liked the competitive nature of his class. I don't thrive in a classroom environment where everybody can succeed. I'm very competitive but only when I know that I'm competing. I really don't care if other students do better on a test than me. Unless I know that education is a zero-sum game. If you told me that only 5 students were getting "A"s on a test, regardless of how high the sixth score was...I am getting one of those "A"s. At that point the gauntlet has been thrown down and the challenge will be accepted. That's not how he ran his class...I was referring more to the fact that he turned his class into a game of Jeopardy (boys vs. girls) and used that sort of competition to motivate us. Still, it was the first class (other than PE) that I actually wanted to go to on a regular basis. He also used comedy in his teaching, thinking that if he could make us laugh, he could make us pay attention. It worked. And I think that that philosophy rubbed off on me as well.

42. Chris Caldwell - This is a friend of mine from Xavier University. He can also be considered a de facto roommate considering how many times I crashed on the couch at his house. He was the leader of the house where I spent a very substantial amount of time during my senior year. And if other members of this house don't agree that he was the "leader" then they should have had more details regarding parties that occurred there or the whereabouts of things that I left there. Chris had these answers and that's indicative that you run a house. He's also a very generous guy and consistently made me feel welcome at the house despite the fact that I wasn't paying rent. However, perhaps my favorite thing about Chris is that he is one of the better conversationalists that I've met in life. The criticism that Chris receives most often from his friends is that he talks a lot and that he talks at a very high volume. I have a problem with neither of these things. I always enjoy being in the presence of people who can facilitate conversation and who get excited about conversation. I also have always enjoyed the variety of subjects about which we converse whenever I see him. Conversational jack-of-all-trades are too rare in American society today. I blame the iPhone.

41. Steve Abbott - This is a friend of mine from Loyola who was on the ComedySportz team with me. I think that I can say without hesitation that he is the funniest improviser that I have ever worked with. He's not the highest ranking improviser on this list, but he is the one who can make me laugh the hardest. There are others who are as good as him when it comes to stage presence and sense of humor in scenes. However, the difference is that I see how hard other people are working to get laughs. Steve is just a natural. And you can see that difference most readily when everybody steps off of the stage. Steve is offstage what he is onstage, a non-stop laugh riot. He is also what I aspire to be as a comedian. I work hard for laughs. When I go up to do a set, you can rest assured that I have rigorously written and re-written jokes and tested my material thoroughly before it is presented to a live audience. This is always preferable. However, it also makes comedy sound rehearsed. I want the off-the-cuff wit and humor that Steve Abbott can bring to the table. I just want to be funny because that's what I am. I also want to be able to use those skills to be the life of the party in my everyday life.

40. Mary Bridget Mathews - This is a friend of mine from the Xavier University. She's sweet, she's quirky, she's funny, and she is the most impressive human chameleon that I know. We attended Xavier University together and during this time she associated with two very different groups of people. One group of people were very service-oriented and religiously inclined. The other group, while still good salt of the Earth people, loved to party. I have always felt that I need both of these types of people in my life, but whenever I interact with either side I always find that I am too much of a wild child for the squares and the activists and too straight-laced for the party people and the hooligans. However, Mary Bridget was always excellent at compartmentalizing the different aspects of herself and bringing out the ones that were appropriate for present company. I in no way, shape, or form am trying to imply that she would in any way be fake. She was and always will be Mary Bridget. She is just very good at presenting different sides of herself. She has an impressive balance in her life that I dream of being able to tap into within my own self. I have always wanted to learn how to separate the duality that exists within myself and better learn how to adapt my behaviors and desires to fit the situations that I find myself in. She is an inspiration and also a really cool friend.

39. Andy Busch - This is a friend of mine from Xavier University. He was heavily involved in Xavier Players and Xavier Singers, but I also enjoyed hanging out with off-campus as well. He is one of the best performers that I have ever met, despite being one of the shyest people I know when the he steps of stage and the spotlight is turned off. This has always puzzled me in that until I never met him, I was never sure that this was possible. I had always thought that performers performed because they loved the lime light and they developed a talent to seek that out. I never thought that there were people that were so innately gifted that they figured that they might as well share there talent, despite the fact that they could give a shit about the fanfare. He also might be the most paranoid person that I know. He is as straight-laced as they come, but as far as I can tell it does not stem from any moral code but rather an irrational fear of consequences that are highly unlikely. That being said, he is one hell of a nice guy and a great friend. His humility and general easy-going demeanor are more perplexing when you consider that given his stellar singing voice and dashing good looks put him in what I call the Point and Pick category. He just has to point to a girl and say "I want that one". 

38. Molly Rowan - This is another friend of mine from Xavier University. She is probably the first really good female friend that I made upon arriving at Xavier University. We met while we were both running for Brockman Hall's Community Council. I met her in the hall as we were both putting up signs telling our fellow dorm mates to elect us to the position of Vice President. That was awkward for a second. We were both running for the position because we figured that it had all of the executive input of the presidency without all of that stuffy accountability. However, after talking to her for a mere five minutes I decided that this was one cool chick that I needed to get to know a little better...so I went into my dorm room and edited my sign to say that I was running for Program Coordinator. It's one of the better decisions that I have ever made. Molly has been a great friend to me over the years. She even made me my first legal alcoholic drink when I turned 21. She's fun to talk to and I really like that she gives blunt advice with my well-being in mind and not my feelings. That's a quality that's difficult to find in friends because they often question whether your fragile psyche will want them around if they give you the hard truth. However, if you can't say what you really want to somebody...they aren't much of a friend.

37. Joe Platt - This is a friend and former roommate of mine while at Xavier University. Joe Platt was a legend in the hood. His tremendous feats and accomplishments are so whacked-out and preposterous that if I hadn't been there for most of them I would consider them to be the Big Fish stories of some old lunatic. He took on the Gallon Challenge with Whole Milk. He passed out under an RA's bed and had to sneak out in the morning without waking them. He took our couch cushions onto the roof of our dorm building and started a bonfire with them. If Xavier knew what was good for it, he would have been expelled about 20 times. However, they didn't and I reaped the benefits. Everybody needs a friend who brings that sense of adventure to their life and who makes for good stories. I don't know that he and I ever had that many meaningful conversations, but he certainly had my back whenever I needed it and his adventurous spirit led me into the great unknown. As he waded with me out into the deep end of college debauchery, it was all I could do to try and keep my head above water and keep from getting expelled.

36. Chris Oliver - This is a friend of mine from St. George's Pre-School and St. Bede Elementary School. He is my longest-running active male friend. We have known each other for about 22 years. And in that 22 years we have crammed in every stupid activity that kids should do. I had my first sleepover at his house. I attended my first hockey game with him. And after this hockey game we amassed over 120 free promotional cans of Surge and drank them over the course of the next ten days. I think we both have heart conditions today because of this. We did a lot of stupid things together. I distinctly remember we used to jump off his roof into his pool. In retrospect, that probably did not stem from sound decision making. But that's what I loved most about hanging out with Chris...he made me feel that a lot of my idiotic ideas were good decisions. I get called out for having stupid ideas far too often. My life would be significantly more exciting and dare I say better if more people would give in to my ludicrous ideas and let the adventures flow a little more often. 

35. Reid Faylor - This is a friend of mine from Xavier University. He is what I aspire to be in the world of comedy. I never want my occupation to be stand-up comic, but I would like it to be a part of my life beyond just being an occasional hobby. This is what Reid is doing. He and I participated together in Xavier's improv troupe Don't Tell Anna, as well as doing stand-up together in the National College Comedy Competition. I had always considered comedy to be a hobby, but Reid took it significantly further than this. He won the Funniest Person in Cincinnati competition and was invited to compete at the Rooftop Comedy Festival in Aspen, Colorado. The attention and effort that he devotes to his craft is enviable. And the best thing about Reid is that he approaches comedy as a relaxing and thrilling medium the same way that I do. He achieves accolades through comedy, but you still get the feeling that he doesn't care all that much about them. He cares about making people laugh. For too many people in comedy, it's about the glitz and the glamor and looking good and getting paid. I much prefer the Rodney Dangerfield approach to comedy: make yourself look like a complete buffoon for a chuckle.

34. Tim Bauer - This was my freshman and junior year English teacher at Loyola High School. He is the teacher whose teaching style most suited my strengths as a student and who most I had the majority of my college recommendations. His classes were focused heavily on literature. He left the more boring grammatical teaching to the aforementioned Terry Caldwell. And rather than lecture us about some less than fascinating symbolism in the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, he actually picked very interesting reads and let open discussion dominate the classroom. I believe that this is the way that education should be done. If this list has taught you anything it should be that I've learned far more from my classmates then I ever did from my teachers or my formal education. And that is why Mr. Bauer is the top teacher on this list. He didn't overteach. He facilitated teaching. The reason that America has fallen behind Japan and Sweden and over two dozen other countries in education is not because we don't have good teachers. It's because we put too much weight on the teachers and not enough on involving the students actively in the class room. Students that aren't passionate about learning aren't going to learn shit by sitting in a classroom and listening to somebody drone on.

33. Garrett Turner - This was the first person who I ever got into a serious brawl with. He's the third person on this list that I have not spent serious time with. I've met him all of about two or three times and I doubt that I will ever see him again. However, a man's first fight is a landmark moment and it's something that I honestly believe that everybody should experience. You learn a hell of a lot about yourself. It's something that you have to fall into, because I don't recommend starting the fight. That's being a bully and could have negative legal repercussions. But if you are lucky enough to get into a fight, you might find that wrecking somebody's existence is a very gratifying feeling. I'm often surprised when I hear how many people have never been in a fight. I honestly put being on your first fight on par with your first kiss and getting your driver's license at rites of passage. The phrase "I'm a lover, not a fighter" has invaded our lexicon, but I question why one can't be both. There's no reason to be a hot head, but everybody I know has had a point in their life where a fight was warranted. At that point, don't step away from confrontation. Step up and wreck somebody's shit.

32. Kacey Knauf - This was the first monstrous, breath-stopping girl crush I ever had. Sure I had other big crushes growing up. Kirsten Dunst and Brandy were two big ones. But this was the first one where I had to see the girl every day and be taunted by her feminine mystique. Not that I minded. For as obsessed as I was (and she must have thought I was as creepy as all get out), I haven't seen or thought about her in years. However, in making this list it occurs to me that your first huge crush has a long and profound effect on your views on future relationships. I haven't been in a dating relationship in a couple years and am able to count the number of relationships that I've had on one hand (four). This stems largely from the fact that I am somebody who should certainly consider settling, but who doesn't want to. Your friends and family will tell you that you deserve a great mate and that one is out there for you. Economics will tell you the opposite. It's called the law of supply and demand. However, I remember back when I was in the 5th Grade. I remember the butterflies I used to get in my stomach whenever Kacey would walk by. And quite frankly I've never wanted to consider being with anyone who didn't make me feel that way. Oh, we could fool around. I just wouldn't want to get serious with somebody who didn't make my insides uncomfortable. So while being both moderately unattractive and in a less than preferable financial situation does not lend itself to holding out...I'll take my chances.

31. Matt Morris and 30. Joe Hummel - These are two of my brother's very best friends. Matt I affectionately refer to him as "Big Fat Morris" and have for years despite the fact that he is neither big nor fat. He has been a consistent presence in the O'Brien household since I was in Elementary School. I've even appeared on television with him when we filmed an episode of Area (a Trading Spaces rip-off), in which we found out that Morris is not very good at sewing pillows. He is good at a great many things though. He was obviously good enough at film making to be admitted into the prestigious USC film school. Joe is also the younger brother of one of my very best friends. I've known him almost since he was born and he's been at tons of important moments in my life. We spend the holidays together and without fail he will try and waste my time with stupid Youtube videos every Thanksgiving and Christmas. And while these two are certainly my brother's friends and not necessarily my friends, I would gladly hang out with them on a regular basis and what's more...I know that I can count on them if I need to because they are like family.

29. Sarah Beattie - This is a friend of mine from La Canada High School. I often refer to as the coolest girl I ever knew, because she has most of the practical sensibilities, tendencies, and conversational habits of a guy while maintaining the appearance of an attractive female. I honestly don't think that girls take this as a compliment, but they should. It's difficult for a girl to be one of the guys, but with the proper smattering of skills and know-how it can be done. It is physically impossible for a guy to be one of the girls without publicly making it very clear that he is homosexual. That's just the way that the female dynamic works. However, there's nothing wrong with being able to be one of the guys. It just means that one is an adaptable human being. I'm sure that when in the company of other women she is very lady-like. However, I like a girl who can talk sports, fix a carburetor, and play poker. I first met Sarah when she played basketball for the La Canada Spartans and she remains a good friend who leads a very interesting life. The Hot and Bothered Effect will be trying to get an interview with her in the months to come.

28. Ben Hewitt - This is a friend of mine from Xavier University, though we didn't become good friends until after we graduated. I knew him at Xavier because while I was on Senate he was the Special Events Committee Chair on SAC and served as our newspaper's whipping boy because Xavier doesn't have enough money to bring Beyonce on campus for a concert. However, after we graduated he became my co-worker at the mighty Clubessential. Here he took time out of his hectic NetCaddy schedule on a regular basis to assist me with his superior programming skills. He also has graced me with his presence at weekly trivia nights and poker games. And I thoroughly enjoy sitting next to him at Xavier's basketball games. He is leaving for Denver this week (but isn't everybody) and Cincinnati will not be the same place without him.

27. Jennifer Downing - She is a friend of mine from Xavier and served as my committee leader and later Senate Coordinator within Xavier's Student Government Association. Czar Downing, as we liked to call her, ruled the Senate floor with an Iron Fist. Her reign of terror stressed secrecy, efficiency, and neat and tidy presentations and binders. However, despite all of this bureaucratic pomp and circumstance there is still nobody that I would rather have a beer with at the end of a long meeting. She was an unparalleled conversationalist and had a great heart...though somehow she approved of my schemes and pranks as long as they were targeted at people that weren't her. I liked that mischievousness. She is also the only person on this list to almost crash into a parked car with me in the passenger seat and kill me. Had she succeeded she would be in the Top 10, and for that I am thankful that she is safely here at #27. Bad driving aside and despite the fact that I have her on record as saying that she doesn't want kids for quite some time, I think she would make an excellent mother. She is extremely patient and nurturing. I know because she mentored me through my first year on Senate.

26. Katie Barry - She is a friend of mine from my time with the La Canada Falcons Track and Field team. I still talk to Katie to this day on a regular basis, but I first met her while running for the La Canada Falcons. We were both distance runners and saw a lot of each other because the distance runners all work out together and there weren't many of us. Little kids are instinctively lazy when it comes to running and they mainly want to run the 100 and 200 meters or run down a runway and jump into a sandbox. Being distance runners made us a different breed. And after we finished running track we got to be even better friends throughout high school. She (along with Eric Bell) attended just about every LC Girls basketball game with me and we attended countless parties together. I still see her on a regular basis and she is a joy to hang out with. Unfortunately she is bouncing around the United States at a rapid pace in search of a degree in physical therapy so trying to visit her is a lot like charting the stars. It's Delaware now but it will soon be Seattle and then Lincoln, Nebraska. But wherever it may be I look forward to making a visit, because she's worth it.

25. Pablo Carlos - He was my coach when I ran for the La Canada Falcons. For some reason, people are consistently balking at this selection. When my brother was perusing my list he stopped at Pablo and questioned the selection. When Katie Barry found out that she was one spot behind him, she had a similar reaction. However, what needs to be realized is that Pablo and the Falcons were a big part of my life. I joined the team at it's very beginning when it was still at La Canada Community Center and consisted of six or seven people. And my friend Daniel and I were the only two left when we graduated from a bustling Mecca of track and field that now practiced at Glendale Community College and consisted of almost 200 people. Pablo was our fearless leader the whole time, and sometime after we reached the 100 people mark he wanted us to switch from calling him "Pablo" to calling him "Coach Carlos"...and Daniel and I must have easily run 150 or so laps in our time for refusing to do so. The truth is that I think of time on the Falcons so fondly because it's the one thing that I was ever great at that I knew was because I was great. Almost every team I've ever been on has been the best incarnation of that team that people have ever seen. My time spent with the St. Bede Chargers, the Loyola Cubs, Loyola ComedySportz, the Hannon Theater Company, and the Xavier Players all came during their Golden Eras, the likes of which had never been seen before or after. I brought success wherever I went. However, since I was never the best contributor to any of these endeavors, I have always questioned the value of what I brought to the table. Even my very successful stint as a CCD teacher with Jessica Hummel comes into question. Were the kids so good at learning because of my teaching-style or would chaos have struck had we removed Jessica's heavy-handed bad cop discipline from the classroom? I consider making it to Omaha, Nebraska for the Junior Olympics as one of my proudest achievements because I know that running an 800m in 2:03 is all me.

24. Kasey Hurlbutt - She is a friend of mine from St. Bede Elementary School. While I met her well before we started high school, she did not begin St. Bede with me...she transferred in during the 6th Grade. Two hours into the school day we had Physical Education and she showed up wearing a knee brace and ready to hurl some handball. At this point I knew that we could be friends. She has been a very good friend to me in the years since. And I mean in mean in the love and support kind of way, not just because she was my only friend who had a hot tub. She was always there to help me out with various projects for my CCD class or for our confirmation group or my Eagle Scout Project. A former Prom Queen, she also had an exceptional way with people. She was very much a cult of personality and she used this to my benefit once or twice, as well. In 7th Grade she got me elected Powder Puff coach. And let me tell you, convincing half the girls in our class to vote for one of the biggest geeks in a popularity contest had to be no easy feat. I'm still marginally surprised to this day that somebody with so many wiles and powers chose to use them for good (or for me). But it isn't like she got nothing in return. I did get her a Sexy Men of La Canada calendar for Christmas...and Mr. December is pretty hot if I re-call.

23. Shigeki Tanabe - He is a friend of mine from Xavier University. He was also the first really good friend that I ever had who was not an American citizen. We met on the Xavier Senate where he represented the International Student Society. Every semester the ISS would put a candidate up for election and then throw their considerable 600 or so votes behind him or her to ensure an easy victory for their candidates. People that come from countries that aren't democracies sure seem to appreciate democracy. And Shigeki represented his constituency better than anybody, although he promised Japanese technology for a better Xavier and we never did get laser pointers introduced into the classrooms. He was hard-working, insightful, and hilarious. He also can bomb a golf ball further than almost anyone I have ever met. What's more is that he made me realize that I could live in places that aren't America. I don't know that I'd want to America is pretty great. But he was the first international person I ever knew who I considered a friend and who I could see myself hanging out with on a daily basis. He's also the main reason I want America to stop worrying about immigration and just let in the potentially awesome diversity that those other 194 countries have to offer.

22. Rosie Swan - She is a friend of mine from Xavier University. While interning during her the summer before her junior year, she also lived with me in Los Angeles for three months. She must have liked it quite a bit because she is still there now. She's always been a glitz and glam kind of gal. She was a star during her days with the Xavier Players and also appeared in Don't Tell Anna. However, when I say that she is glitz and glam I am referring to the fact that she was her home town's Maple Queen. It's kind of like Pasadena's Rose Queen...except Ohio. She also makes about the 17th best cookie in Cincinnati. But despite my consistent attempts to shatter our friendship through various quips, molestations, and social experiments we remain good friends. She's a driven yet caring individual. She's funny, out-going, and while surely intelligent is also a little gullible. By this I mean that she will fall for many a ruse in the bar scene. So give it you best shot, fellas. She's already been taken in by professional squash player and "Denmarkian" (not to be confused with Danish) prince.

21. Holly Cervi - She is a friend of mine from Immaculate Heart High School and a former girlfriend. Incidentally, she is the first girl that I ever kissed. They say you never forget your first kiss. I can't say that it was anything magical, though that's not necessarily her fault. However, it probably is fair to say that it's the kiss that you compare all others to. Some have been much better...others have been worse. However, more importantly she taught me a lot about myself in relationships, and what I shouldn't do. We went on several dates over the course of a couple months but the relationship was not one that I thought was going anywhere. I always see those movies where somebody has a good thing going with a relationship and then they manage to fuck it up with a hearty amount of self-sabotage and I always think that they are total idiots. The truth is that I've committed self-sabotage in a relationship as well. Looking back it was somewhat idiotic and it made me rethink the way that I approach relationships. Holly was one of the funniest and funnest people that I had ever met and being a visual learner I knew that when you break up with a girl they tend to take it personally. I still wanted to be her friend but I didn't want to be in a relationship with her so I responded with a lack of effort in the relationship and achieved the intended result of having her break up with me. We left good friends, but this produced some odd fallout on my part. This relationship set the groundwork for my current stance that I won't enter into a relationship if I can't see it going the distance. And it has challenged my other slightly ridiculous notion that I will never break up with a girl, if only because I don't want to deal with the resentment. I realize that this is childish and is not befitting of the way that a man should conduct himself, but the results speak promisingly.

20. Tammi Horst - She was a long-time babysitter of mine. This is just the name of one babysitter that I had. This spot partially belongs to every babysitter that the O'Briens have ever had. Tammi was just the longest-running and most memorable. This spot also belongs to Amanda, Shannon, Julie, and the list goes on. Sorry Braden, not you. My mother is the best selector of babysitters that has ever graced this planet. Because while my memory may be clouded by the vast passage of time, I re-call almost all of my babysitters to be smokin' hot 10s. Either that or I just had a raging babysitter fetish and that made them appear to be 10s. Obviously I think that pedophilia is a sick, twisted notion and one of the most deplorable practices that one can partake in. However, my stance on it was a little more hazy when I was eight years old and the charge of some wicked sexy college girl. I would totally have given them a pass. There are a bunch of hopeless guys out there who have to pay hot girls to hang out with them. When I was a kid my mom and dad were paying the hot girls for me and I didn't try nearly hard enough to take advantage of it. If I have a son and am a selector of babysitters I will have a similar hiring practice to that of my parents and hope that he is smarter than me and has a little more fun while his mother and I are having some fun. I'm sure I will use the bathroom stall walls of college bars as my official Babysitter Yellow Pages. Well, now that I've gotten that creepy 10-year-old sharefest out of the way...on to #19.

19. Brendan Harper - He is a friend of mine from St. Bede and Loyola. He is the highest ranking ComedySportz member on this list and the older brother of #55. He is the reason that I joined ComedySportz and got into the whole comedy game which is a large part of my life to this day. He was a year older than myself at both St. Bede and Loyola and was somebody who I greatly looked up to. He was a close friend of my best friend Mark Skeehan and we went on several trips and family outings together. When I first attended Mr. Skeehan's annual Big 108 golf outing, I was exceedingly nervous that my skills wouldn't live up to the quality of play that was expected by everybody else. However, it helped greatly that for my first match I was paired with Brendan. It's excellent to play in a Scramble with somebody of his 7-handicap. It also doesn't hurt that one of our opponents (Tim Skeehan) was severely hung over and proceeded to vomit his way down the back nine. Brendan is one of the funnier people that I have ever known and watching him perform on Loyola's ComedySportz team was what made me want to join and paved the way for my six years involved with organized improv comedy. However, I also severely wronged Brendan when I was in the 5th Grade. As I mentioned earlier, I had a severe crush on Kacey Knauf, and because of this, I voted for her over Brendan for our school's Vice Presidency. This clearly violates the sacred man rule of Bros before Hoes, and I am still waiting for the hammer to fall on my Man Card.

18. Lewis Horne - He was a good friend of my brother's from St. Bede Elementary School. He is also the first person who I knew marginally well that died. I have never had a family member that I have met die. Two of my grandparents died before I was born and the other two are still alive. I had a neighbor die in a fire, but I hardly knew him. And I had a hairdresser die of AIDS, but he cut my hair about half a dozen times and that was it. Lewis was somebody that I saw on a day-to-day basis. He was in a small intimate class with my brother, he slept over at our house on occasion, and we jet skied with him and his family at the nearby lake. His father was my Scoutmaster for several years in Boy Scouts. Whenever you lose somebody in your life, it's cause for reflection. However, the first time you experience a loss like this the reflection is exponentially greater. And when you factor in that this death was a suicide, there was obviously a profound effect on me. Most of my thoughts and feelings regarding death and suicide can be traced back to Lewis' death. As you grow up, there are certain stigmas and impressions about death that society builds into you. However, it isn't until you first see how death can tear through a family that you get a full appreciation for how powerful an event it is. And my mind has never been as active as it was in the 48 hours following Lewis' death, trying to figure out the meaning in a situation where there probably wasn't much of one. It's a part of life, but it's probably the worst part of life. So for everybody that I care about: please don't drink and drive, watch your cholesterol, and if you ever start to think that life isn't worth living, please give me a call and I'll do my best to convince you otherwise or make it a little more livable.

17. Nico Archer - He is a friend of mine from Loyola High School. He also happens to be the highest-ranking personality from Loyola on this list, just edging out Lewis and Brendan. He wasn't my best friend at Loyola, but he was a good friend. And he was my first openly gay friend. My friendship with Nico cultivated many of the philosophies that I still carry today regarding homosexuality. It's the basis for my very strong leanings toward gay marriage and equality. I like to think that I would harbor these feelings regardless of whether I have good friends who are gay, however, I don't have to play that hypothetical. There's no question in my mind that any decent person wants their friends to be happy. And how could I support a system that denies basic rights and joyful experiences to people based on their sexual orientation. Not recognizing gay marriage is the most unconstitutional practice I can think of that America espouses today. It infringes on 10% of our population's right to the pursuit of happiness. And I have yet to hear a single defense of it that takes into account a proper separation of church and state. If I have to hear it described as a "sacred bond" by one more idiot who thinks that "sacred" is a secular word, I will throw a Random House dictionary at somebody. Sacred has seven definitions: the first three use the word "religion" and the the next four use the term "reverence". Ranting aside, he is also the person who introduced me to theater. I had been an athlete my entire life because I had been big my entire life...so it seemed like a fit. Theater is something that I thoroughly enjoy to the core of my being and if he hadn't convinced me to try out for Sweeney Todd, I would have missed out on some of the greatest nights of my life over the next seven years.

16. Matt Burrows - He is a friend of mine from La Canada High School. There are two many good Burrows stories to count. I have relayed many of them to my Cincinnati friends, the vast majority of whom do not know his first name because he is simply "Burrows". Sorry, but I have a brother named Matt. If he wanted to be called by his first name then his parents should have been more original. He is one of the smartest people that I know and is the person that I would most likely use as my lifeline if I was ever on a game show (Nick Rosati's ego just took a shot, but I made a key decision that puts me closer to winning a million dollars or whatever a good game of Cash Cab nets you these days). He is also probably the most responsible person I know. Normally, I would consider this a negative thing as I appreciate a solid amount of debauchery. However, in this case it just makes any debauchery that Burrows gets involved in ten times more exciting and comical. The man is a walking quote wall. He is responsible for more humorous sayings that the rest of this list combined until we get down to my brother Matt. He is a great friend, a generous dude, and an excellent protector. I'm serious...even respectfully implying that his sister is attractive is the quickest way to get a beat down from a guy so nice that he is accustomed to placing spiders outside rather than squashing them. He'll make the best husband and father of almost anybody that I know, and he's currently single, ladies. So get in while he's on the market.

15. Andrew Smith - He is a friend of mine from Xavier University. This is where I realized that ten is a smaller number than I imagine it to be. Before crafting this list and actually seeing it on paper, I would have said that everybody within my Top 15 was in my Top 10. But that's 15 people and not 10. I would certainly have thought that Andrew was in the Top 10. We have had a long and illustrious relationship together. We served on the Xavier Senate together for two years and spent one of those years on the same committee. We had somewhat similar political philosophies and objectives and our friendship was truly formed when we ran for the Executive together during my Junior Year...and got crushed by over 1000 votes at a school of just over 4000 undergrad. Our friendship reached an even higher level after graduation when we traversed to the great city of Milwaukee and enjoyed many adventures there. Of all of the friends that I graduated with and regularly associate with, he is the one who is furthest in the direction that I would like to be. He has a splendid house and a rapidly advancing career. I also love having boisterously opinionated arguments with him and watching The Challenge in his basement. I would currently consider him one of my five closest friends. 

14. Rob Madden - This was my freshman and sophomore year roommate at Xavier University. I have to imagine that this is a fairly standard position for a college roommate and if somebody doesn't have theirs in their Top 100, then they are probably kidding themselves. Rob and I lived together for an exciting freshman year and then lived together again sophomore year before he transferred to the University of Wisconsin. I would not say that we had a lot in common when we moved in together, but we did have the one thing that most successful roommate pairings need: not giving a shit. The other person could basically do whatever they wanted without a care or fear of reprisal. We were both capable of sleeping with the lights at any level and the noise volume at any level. And I didn't mind being sexiled when his girlfriend came to visit once a month. He in turn didn't care that I am not tidy. He himself was a whirlwind of untidy when he got drunk (he ripped our bean bag chair in two and scattered the contents throughout the room), but I was clearly in no position to complain. This is why we got along perfectly. He was also a pretty cool guy with very different life views from me, which we enjoyed discussing. It takes a certain kind of person to live with me and he was that certain kind of person. We were never going to be besties, but he was a great guy to eat dinner with or play soccer with. And I would absolutely live with him for two more years if given the opportunity.

13. Tim Short - This was my junior year roommate at Xavier University. He was a roommate that I could be besties with. I previously called Steve Abbott the funniest improviser that I had ever worked with. Please realize that it is not a contradictory statement when I refer to Tim Short as the funniest person that I have ever known. And I have known a hell of a lot of funny people. Nobody is capable of making me laugh the way Tim Short is. And I rarely have as much fun as I do whenever Tim Short is around. We lived together for one all too brief year and I've never had more fun. We were involved in Don't Tell Anna together as well as Xavier's Workshop. He also captained Xavier's club hockey team. However, for somebody who commanded a room as well as Tim did, he was also a really nice guy. He generally cared about people and was drawn toward a certain type of person: people who like to laugh at themselves. He loved to have fun at people's expense, but only if they were also having fun at their own expense. If my intention for a night is ever to simply have an adventure, then there is no person that I would rather spend that night with than Tim Short. He is an enthralling conversationalist, a kind-hearted humanitarian, and a person so personable and interesting that I think everybody who reads this blog would love to hear from him. With that said, I will not rest until Tim Short is interviewed for The Hot and Bothered Effect.

12. Mark Skeehan - This was a friend of mine from St. Bede Elementary School. He was my best friend for the majority of my tenure in elementary school. Mark was like a brother to me, but he was also the yin to my yang. We were very different and even though we did several activities together these only served to highlight our differences. We were both in St. Bede's accelerated classes. Mark was in them because he was a hard worker and I was in them in spite of the fact that I wasn't. We both played sports at St. Bede and on the community level teams. Mark played shooting guard and free safety because he had agility and dexterity. I played center and tackle because I was a big oaf. We both served on St. Bede's Student Council together. Mark won in a landslide because he was beloved by the masses and I won allegedly by a single vote, probably because I was Mark's friend. He constantly invited me on family trips were significantly more exciting than many of my own family's vacations. We played charades, went fishing, I attempted to tip sheep, stole produce from orchards, and flirted with his sister's friend Mary Goodwin (this became immensely funnier when her younger brother joined me on Loyola's ComedySportz team). We haven't been nearly as close since we graduated elementary school. I saw him throughout high school and even into college where he apparently focused less on golf and basketball and became a more rugged rodeo and big surf star. I look back fondly at our time together and even though he's on his way towards the alter and my dad sees him ten times more often than I do these days...I'd love to grab a beer with him sometime.

11. Alyssa Deutsch - This is a friend of mine from Xavier University. She is a great friend and the most impressive "spotter" I know. For those of you that like to pump some iron, you will know that a spotter is the person who stands next to you and makes sure that the massive amount of metal that you are lifting does not crush your trachea Stafon Johnson-style. They watch out for you. Well, Alyssa is a life spotter. She is constantly watching out for her friends and making sure that they survive to see their next birthday. While an excellent protector in this sense, she is also fully capable of kicking back and showing you an awesome time. She is the perfect amount of funny, charming, and adventurous...which makes her an awesome person to spend an evening with. She also got me my first real job out of college, and to this day that stands as the nicest thing that anybody who isn't related to me has ever done for me. She is excessively complimentary and seems to give people more adulation than they gives themselves and sometimes more than they deserve. I know that she thinks more highly of this blog than I do. She sees the best in people and gives them the best of herself. She is also the most "driven" person I know, that I would not classify as "ambitious". That isn't to say that she doesn't have ambitions. It's just to say that she is driven to succeed and accomplish not for the sake of self-adulation and glorification, but out of some more profound sense that through determination and elbow grease she will improve her life and the lives of others by making her surroundings better.
10. Katy Murphy - This is a friend of mine from Xavier University. We've reached the Top 10. This means that we are getting to the superlatives in my life. I recently introduced you to Tim Short, who I said was the funniest person I have ever met...no small task. Well, Katy Murphy is the nicest person that I have ever met. Out of every person that I have met in my life I would have to say that my mother has the most unconditional love for me, Ray O'Brien. But Katy Murphy is the person who has the most unconditional love for everybody. I have spent thousands of hours with her and have yet to hear her mutter a single bad word about anybody. And I constantly personally benefited from her profound sense of charity. I would not have made it through college without her. Whenever, I found myself in dire straits throughout college, she would consistently drop what she was doing to help me. I should probably rip off about 20% of my degree and hand it to her. There were numerous times when I needed a car to run off on some emergency, be it to get a project copied at Kinko's or to take a friend to the ER, and she gladly lent hers every time. I must fully acknowledge that I am a frustrating human being and she is the only person who has spent more than a week with me who has never implied that she noticed. She was of course my year's uber-Fellow and after she graduated they basically disbanded the program since they figured that it had seen it's highest peak. I haven't seen her in over a year, but I hope to change that as soon as humanly possible.

9. Erin Swietlik - This is a friend of mine from Xavier University. She is my best female friend to come out of Xavier University. We first met freshman year when she was rocking a sweet page boy haircut. She was brought on to the Brockman Community Council that I was on freshman year to replace our departing secretary and the rest is history. We co-oped on programs so successfully the following year as the Presidents of Kuhlman and Buenger hall that Husman Hall's council filed some sort of anti-trust accusations against us with Res Life. She then became my running mate when we ran for Xavier's Senate during our sophomore year. She has been an exceptionally great friend to me and regularly invited me into her family home. She is by far my fanciest friend (bordering on schmancy). She also has by far the most polish of all of my good friends. She's 24 but acts like she's a thirtysomething CEO. I expect to see her as the head of a major corporation by 30. My favorite attribute about her is that although she is kind and tactful, she is also incredibly honest. It is for this reason that she fits into a very select group (about 7) of people I know. I am well aware that my life is kind of a wreck and I face a steady barrage of criticism and advice regarding various aspects of it. There is a select group of people whose input on my life actually matters to me. Only three of the eight people below her actually fit into this group as well. There are three main criteria. 1. You have to actually have demonstrated that you care about me and have my best interests at heart. 2. You have to not over-use your criticism card. 3. You have to have your own shit "together". No throwing stones from a glass house. Erin fits these criterion because she is somebody whom I respect and who has always been there for me in the past.

8. Krissy Smith - This is a friend of mine from La Canada High School and a former girlfriend. As the first girl I ever dated, she has obviously played an important role in my life and development. And even though the romance is long gone she remains one of my closest friends. I first met her at a Jessica Hummel Halloween party. I was sporting a pretty rocking chicken costume and she was wearing a Twister costume. We went on some dates and attended a few dances together and it didn't work out. However, I think that our friendship has worked out pretty well. To this day I consider her one of my closest confidantes and am willing to discuss things with her that would not be privy to most people...sometimes she probably wishes they weren't privy to her. She's incredibly intelligent, super athletic, insufferably nice, and unfailingly responsible. But she's not without her flaws: she shies away from conflict, lacks depth perception, and goes "deer in the headlights" when put on the spot. But she more than makes up for it with her warmth and jovial personality. She has a good sense of humor, an even bigger heart, an even longer mildly-erotic wingspan, and a keen sense of responsibility and loyalty. She's great to talk to because she's interesting, intelligent, and honest. Even though it does drive me crazy that when she does offer good-natured constructive criticism she slathers on way too much tact and gives the person a "Please Don't Punch Me in the Face" expression. I guess that's Flaw #4. She is easily one of the best friends of my life to date...even if she is my least best friend in her own apartment.

7. Nick Rosati - This is a friend of mine from Xavier University and a former roommate. He served as my roommate for the two years that directly proceeded my graduation and has been a running buddy of mine since our sophomore year of college. Nobody has spent more time with me over the past two years than Nick. My relationship with Nick is an interesting one in that in many ways we are extremely similar and in others we could not be further apart. He brings out many of the stronger parts of my personality such as my testiness, my intellect, and my competitive nature. We also have a lot of the same interests. That being said...we tend to disagree on everything. I fight with him like he's a member of my family. But I know that if I need him, he's got my back. While not as cuddly as the other Wisconsin natives in this Top 10 (e.g. Katy Murphy and Erin Swietlik), he is not without his charms. While I count sneakiness and vengefulness among his best qualities...it should be pointed out that I value these. And he also is capable of grand gestures of compassion, romance, and creativity. If you took the proper parts of myself and mixed them with the proper parts of Nick, I honestly believe that between each of our best attributes you could create the perfect human being. That being said...if you mixed the wrong parts of each of us you could potentially create the least functional human being in the history of history.

6. Jessica Hummel - This is a friend of mine from life before St. Bede Elementary School. She is my longest-running active female friend. We have known each other for about 22 years. Throughout our entire history together she has managed to ride her role as a sweet, unassuming, consensus-maker and pepper in some drunken outbursts when Moira and Brian (her parents) weren't looking. She is my closest female friend and I have stated that she is the only one who I wouldn't make out with. Seriously, I would make out with any other female reading this blog post who isn't related to me by blood or dating somebody who could beat me up. And the if asked to list her positive qualities I would have to say everything. Even if I attempted to name her negative attributes they come off sounding like positives. Let's try: #1: She tries to please everybody. #2: She is too tidy and organized. #3: She puts too much energy into helping people who probably don't deserve it. See what I mean? She is the total package. But there are a lot of great people on this list that I think very highly of. So what sets her at #6? The fact that I think she legitimately cares about my well-being, and that I can count on her to help me when I can't turn elsewhere. She has stated that our families are such good friends that she couldn't successfully kick me out of her life if she wanted to...but I don't think she ever would anyway. She is unfailingly loyal and keeps backing lost causes long after everybody else has given up on them. So, I'll see her across that Thanksgiving table next year and continue to accost her with my idiotic comments and my flippant mockery of her job baby-sitting fat people. It's called tough love.

5. Daniel Fishman - This is a friend of mine from La Canada High School. Every fulfilled life should feature at least one epic best friendship. This is mine. For the last sixteen years he has been the Lewis to my Clark...or the Clark to my Lewis sometimes. When I tell many of the Big Fish interesting adventure stories that have made up my life, Daniel is in most of them. It would be hard for me to tell that I was one of his closest friends if it hadn't been for the amount of time we spent together, because Daniel makes everybody feel like they are his closest friend. He is the quintessential people person and I have yet to meet somebody that he can't charm the pants off of. This is his gift and his curse: as he is also the person that I know who is most likely to have a Fatal Attraction/Single White Female-type stalker. I'm not sure where I would be without the longtime companionship of Daniel Fishman. He is the person whose advice and criticism I value the most because he throughout my first 25 years nobody has done a better job of making me feel important and valued than Daniel Fishman. My family loves me and I will never take that for granted, but I also have to respect that part of the reason for that is because we are family. Daniel isn't blood...he doesn't have to treat me half as well as he does. I've spent more time with him than with anybody who isn't related to me and I can't think of a single thing that I dislike about him. I even like his ridiculous patented basketball shot: The One-Handed Fishman. I don't think most people can name anything they dislike about him. Even people that he despises like him. Nobody has achieved more of the Lush Life that I preach than Daniel. He is currently in China teaching students, but once he comes back I thoroughly hope that we can resume our adventures because I'm ready to make some more of those Big Fish stories. And he can use them at my wedding where he'll probably be giving the toast...and then be stalked Fatal Attraction-style by multiple bridesmaids.

4. Matt O'Brien - This is my youngest brother. He's the reason that I never drank in high school or did drugs. Believe you me...I was offered. Despite screwing up here and there as a teenager, I think it can be agreed by my parents and almost any other set of parents that I was a pretty good kid. When you compare me to some of my friends, I was an absolute model citizen. Why I was this model citizen can be attributed to many variables and stimuli. You could credit my upbringing or some sort of fear of consequences or that I just never saw the value in debauchery. I never really feared running afoul of the law or my dad's belt. The real reason is that from the time Matt was born it was explained quite clearly to me that I was a role model. Sure, I had another brother who my parents tried to convince me that I was a role model to, but with him being less than two years younger...I never totally bought it. To this day, Matt is the one person who I least want to be disappointed in me. Sure, nobody wants their parents to be disappointed in them, but it happened so often during my formative years that the repetition made it lose its sting. I bought into my position as a role model figure and have tried to be the best me that I can be. I see a lot of myself in Matt and I see a lot of characteristics in him that I wish I had. He's loyal, cerebral, friendly, thoughtful, and hilarious. He would probably be the second funniest person I know...and the only person with more great unintentionally funny quotes than Matt Burrows. Despite what Will might think, he also is probably leading the O'Brien Family Inheritance Race with his acceptance to Notre Dame. He somehow took the same skill set that Will and I both had and did with it what we couldn't. But Matt is such a nice caring person with a strong commitment to family that I know that should I ever need some of that O'Brien family cheddar to send Ray V (or whatever the hell my wife wants to name our offspring) off to college...he'll lend it to me with a low interest rate. Will would run the juice at 10%. So, if not getting shit-faced while Matt was there to watch cost me any great excitement in high school, it was worth it...because he turned out to be one of the best kids I know.

3. Will O'Brien - This is my younger brother. It might seem pretty cold-blooded to put one brother in front of the other. The thing here is that I'm not picking a favorite brother. One has just had four more years to influence me than the other. Though, I'm not saying that they shouldn't fight for the title of favorite brother. There might be a Best Man spot in it for the winner. If Will and Matt each parallel one half of me then Will is the creative half but he's also the competitive half. He's one of the funnier people I know, and while we never got to play ComedySportz together since he didn't join until after the final match of my Senior year...I think we could have been a hell of a team. He's also a fiercely loyal person and somebody that you want on your side in any competition regardless of the parameters. He is not short on self-confidence and might be the most sure-handed person I know...whether that is always justified or not. While he often got credit for being the least book smart of the three brothers...he is probably the most street smart. He definitely is the best at working people. He has an innate hatred of losing and letting people get the better of him, the likes of which other people have trouble comprehending. But he is also one of the more thoughtful O'Briens and probably the most fun to hang out with. He's a people person and an expert at building and maintaining relationships. He's passionate and speaks his mind and depending upon how you conduct yourself he can be quick with both a compliment or an insult. For anybody roommate who ever thought that it was hard to live with me for a year...Will and I shared a room for close to twelve years. And even after all that time I know that if push comes to shove he's still got my back.

2. Ray O'Brien III - This is my father. It must also seem pretty cold-blooded to put one parent in front of the other when they both gander at your blog from time to time. However, I think that my father would be the first to agree that Patty should take the #1 spot. That is my father's way. He is always looking out for his family first, and himself second. Aside from being an excellent provider for his family, he has also influenced me as greatly as anybody. There is no question that I am my father's son. If I hadn't come out of my mother...I would request a paternity test to make sure that I was physically her son. We look very little alike. All of my physical genes are from the O'Brien strain and if mental and emotional attributes are a product of nature and not nurture, then I got most of those from his genes to. I act more like my father than my mother. He taught me all that I currently know about being a man. Personal responsibility, chivalry, and toughness: these all came from Ray O'Brien III. While my mother is responsible for more of my civilities and niceties, my father is responsible for my more functional skill set. He sometimes gets less appreciation than my mother does for raising three kids because in their finely tuned Good Cop, Bad Cop routine he often had to play Bad Cop. And in a way he is more of the Bad Cop. The Dwyers are a family that was raised on puppy dogs and rainbows. The O'Briens are a family that was raised on bickering and intimidation, but with a solid backbone of fierce family loyalty. They'd beat the crap out of each other, but if an outsider ever stepped to lay a hand or a verbal barb on one of them...then that outsider was about to get smacked the fuck up. It's here that I got my trademark toughness. When somebody is in a funk or depressed my mother consistently refers to them as being "in a bad place". It's thanks to my father that I don't have a bad place. He taught me to be tough and that it's no use getting depressed because whatever shit I'm in is my fault, so rather than sulk about it I may as well get my act together and hustle my ass towards a solution. So, it's understandable that my father might be the less cuddly of my parents, but it doesn't mean that he loved me any less or that he is any less responsible for making me the man who I am today. 

1. Patty Dwyer - This is my mother. She is the one who birthed me. Though I was a Ceasarian Section...so she had some help. She has spent more time in my proximity than any other person on this planet. Every child looks at their parents and either sees a role model to aspire toward or a cautionary tale to avoid. Tons of kids look at the way that they were raised and think about how when they are parents things will be different, that they will raise their children differently...and better. Well, I intend to raise my children exactly as my mother raised me. She is, without debate, the greatest mother of all time. She has approached my upbringing with an infinite amount of love and a seemingly infinite amount of patience and work ethic. While many of the traits that I appreciate in myself (competitiveness, craftiness, determination, personal accountability, etc.) come from my father...the traits that others appreciate came from my mother. If I have ever done you a service or a kindness, don't thank me. Thank my mother. She taught me to be generous. She taught me to help others and then say "No thank you" to reimbursement. The point of this list is to say that I wouldn't be where I am today without every person named above. However, my parents might be the only people on this list who if I had not had in my life, I can convincingly say I know that I would not like where I'd be right now. Had I had a different mother, all other things being equal...I would probably be a miserable man right now. I am a person who needs love and attention and she delivered it by the truckload.

So great is her contribution to my life that she gets a second paragraph. To be fair she is the equivalent of TIME's Person of the Year. (Side note: To hell with Mark Zuckerberg...The Miz got hosed! He was the true Person of the Year.) I have always had such high esteem for my mother that disappointing her has factored into the majority of decisions in my life. It was because seeing my mother cry is the one thing that I absolutely can not deal with to this day. The crazy thing about it is that throughout my life, everybody else has been the same way. Nobody wants to disappoint Patty Dwyer. Despite the fact that she didn't buy all of my friends McDonald's or let them drink in the basement, she was somehow the "cool mom". Though this never translated to me being the "cool kid". I can't tell you how many times friends would be doing something of ill-repute and ask me to not tell my mom. As though she would really care that their cheating in history class when she has her own kids and their not smoking reefer or getting girls pregnant to worry about. You just never wanted to disappoint Patty. I never wanted to disappoint her because I always felt that she was the one person who held me in as high esteem as I hold myself. If any other female ever does this I will make her my wife, no questions asked. I have a ton of stupid inane ideas, habits, and goals for my life and she has accepted most of them. And the ones that are truly too stupid and too inane she is able to disapprove of with more tact than anybody else I know. And so for helping me make it through my first 25 years, she has earned the title of Ray O'Brien Person of the Quarter Century.