Gratuitous Soapy Cock Shots

So I knew it would be a weird day when I got out of the shower and sat down to put on my socks only to look up and see a Neil Diamond sex scene on the TV at nine in the morning. Little did I know I'd be in for a gaggle of soaped up cocks during a YMCA montage in a PG-rated movie from 1980. Lucky for me, they were there. A bunch of bare ass, a few sudsy cocks, and a pair of buoyant tits later I was struck with shock and awe.

I'm of course talking about Can't Stop the Music, the fictionalized account of the rise of the Village People starring Steve Guttenberg and Bruce Jenner--well, maybe starring is too strong a term because neither of their performances a worthy of a star. I've now seen a few Guttenberg movies from the early 80's over the past few months, and I have to say he's the gayest actor I think I've ever seen. And I'm not meaning that as the slang "gay" for bad or undesirable. I mean that in the sense that he acts gayer than anyone else has ever acted before. He acts more gaily.

And then there's Jenner. What a cheesy tool. Terrible actor. Shoulda stuck to decathlons. There is a great scene on the street where they're on their way to the Y and Jenner is wearing a crop top and cut-offs and the Gutt is in very short shorts and a tight T-shirt (alas, it was not a crop top...). Then they go into the Y and there's all that cock and male ass and I woke up a few hours later with a sour taste in my mouth, unable to sit.

Whatever.

I guess now I know how all those teams that the referees screwed on UCLA's path to the Final Four feel like.

If you want to know what I feel like, here's a snippet.

I hope you feel violated now, too.

Celebrity

So I'm not really sure why, but I was in a situation where I was around this famous person (who shall remain nameless largely because I didn't know who she was) for an extended amount of time yesterday. When this pretty young person was departing, some of the people wanted their picture taken with her. Now, she was just trying to enjoy some time out with a friend on her friend's birthday, and these other people decided they needed to get a photo taken with this person for what exactly?

I don't know any famous people really, and have only had a few encounters with anyone of note, but I surely didn't feel like imposing a photo op for my Fame Album on them, especially if I came across the person in passing.

I just gawk.

Consider my mind blown

Maybe I'm crazy and it was well known that a certain Judd Hirsch star vehicle from back when there were Judd Hirsch star vehicles was a remake of another show, but I shat myself when I heard the opening credits for this...

For you completists, the rest of the episode (in at least five parts) is up on YouTube and can be found by affixing the words 'christmas special' to the name of the show in question.

For you purists, here is a palate cleanser in the form of an original idea...


I, for one, can state that my life has been much worse since Christopher Hewett's death.

I still love you, Lynn Aloysius Belvedere.

One Worthy Highlight

This will probably be the only highlight worthy of ever putting up in celebration of a feat performed by a Royals player, so savor it.

Too bad this didn't happen in a real game.

He jumps Japanese pitchers in a single bound. He is Joey Gathright, your backup centerfielder.

The Boys are Back in Town

Or at least I am.

As I stated in some posts last week, I was visiting my parents in Alexandria, VA. They moved there last year from Southeastern Minnesota and seem to be doing all right for themselves. It's actually kind of weird. Since they had kids (me, to be exact), my mom didn't work full-time. Now that's not to say that raising me wasn't a full-time job, but she wasn't going to some shitty office and logging 40+ hours behind some desk for the man. She was a stay-at-home mom. Once my younger brother went off to school, she started substitute teaching in the area, but she hadn't gone back to full-time teaching until they moved to Virginia. When they moved, she decided to take up teaching full-time in the classroom, and she's taken to it pretty well, all things considered. Granted, teaching kindergarten in a district where almost all of her students don't speak English as their first language (she has one little white girl in a class of 19 kids) is bound to have its ups and downs, but she's making due. It's kind of funny because my dad has actually taken a job that is much more relaxing than his old one, so they've kind of switched job-related stress levels.

Now, here comes the weird part. Anyone who knew me as I was growing up knew that my parents were never cutting edge technology-wise, and that was intentional. Excepting two years in which they didn't have a choice, we never had cable. My parents didn't get an answering machine until after I was in college (so, 1999 or so). They never had cell phones when they lived in La Crescent. Well, suffice it to say, I was what some might term 'shocked' to find my parents living the high life with their cell phones and their digital cable and their *gasp* high-speed internet with a wireless router (which now works thanks entirely to my patient brother-in-law). To top it off, my parents go out on the town all the time, living the high life in the big city. Honestly, it's nice but pretty weird that my parents have become these urban people who go to downtown to get a drink now that they're approaching 60 years old. Nonetheless, it was nice to see the family, who I rarely see as a result of my brilliant decision to move to Austin, Texas.

Speaking of Austin, I got back into town yesterday after a harrowing connection in St. Louis in which my plane from the Baltimore-Washington Airport arrived at the gate 15 minutes before my flight from St. Louis was to depart. I had to wait for valet service on my bag as well, so I was coming perilously close to spending a fair portion of time in the St. Louis Airport. Apparently, they have an Applebee's, (as became evident when the people in front of me pulled out some awful fried something-or-other, which then stank up the entire area surrounding them--and engrossing my seat, which calls to mind another plane situation in which I got a migraine because the woman in front of me was wearing an obscene amount of perfume--people: if you're going to be travelling in an enclosed space for an extended period of time, show your neighbors some respect and don't bring shit that stinks into that space--and yes, Funyuns stink, dickhead) so I could have spent my time there, I guess...

But I did get back, so all is well. The old lady and I then made dinner to celebrate the tradition of Zombie Jesus. Smothered Pork Chops, Potatoes (the 'e' is only in the plural spelling, Mr. Vice President) Au Gratin, and Baked Asparagus and Brussel Sprouts were the main courses with a beautiful Strawberry Shortcake for dessert.

Then, we hauled ass cleaning up, and I partook in another live fantasy draft at the homestead. I ended up with a shitload of players I don't really like (at least for head-to-head fantasy purposes, if not disliking them straight-up) but had to take, like Beltran, Bossman Junior, Aramis Ramirez, Adam Dunn, Kazmir, Carlos Zambrano, A.J. Burnett, B.J. Ryan, and Brad Lidge. This year worked out better than last year, as we moved it to someone's house rather than having it in a bar, which had led to having to track down the less involved from their secondary post at the dart board...

One more draft to go, this one with weird statistical categories to spice things up a bit.

Before I leave this post to history to decide its worth, I'd be remiss if I didn't wish one of my favorite songwriters, Patterson Hood, a happy birthday, so Happy Birthday, Patterson Hood!


And since he was mentioned earlier in this post, here's the former Vice President...

getting a can of Texas whoop-ass busted out all over him.

And lastly, I'd like to wish Kazuo Matsui a swift recovery. We miss you, buddy.

Upswings, Downturns, and Irritation

It's articles like this (thanks to bases on the KC Star board for the heads up) that give me, a Royals fan hope.

I guess things could be worse. I could be a Giants fan. They're apparently interested in Kotchman and Mathis, who are not nearly enough to help the Giants, who promise to be an historically bad offensive team as evidenced by this article, which was a front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle according to my sources in Santa Cruz.

And, as a keeper owner of Jay Bruce, I'd like to step out and say I have joined the legions of baseball fans who curse Dusty Baker's name. I blame him solely for the signing of Corey Patterson and the subsequent demotion of my boy back to AAA-Louisville.

I should also note that my little brother, who has been known to comment here, has his own blog, to which I put a link to a few weeks ago. It may veer towards the Twins-centric, but he is a Chiefs fan, for which he can be granted a pass.

Lastly, in a sportsless note, my boy made the Post today (registration required)--and it wasn't for making sweet sweet love to Jimmy Kimmel (link included for the one person in the world who hasn't seen that).

Post-script: I finished watching the clip I linked to, and there was this weird-ass Meat Loaf stuff tacked on to the end. I thought about changing the link, but I almost think it's better to have that link there and as the video changes over, you can sit there and wonder what the fuck VoomGurl49 was thinking when she put that file up.

Highlights for Children

I have more or less stopped watching sports highlight shows like SportsCenter. I used to watch them all the time. I do watch a fair amount of Baseball Tonight, I guess, and I will occasionally throw on Sportscenter, but there has to have been something pretty significant that I missed getting to see for me to tune in. Maybe it has been the dumbing down of SportsCenter. Maybe it was that retarded "Who's More Now?" bullshit they were doing last year. But I think it boils down to my having grown weary of their non-stop catch-phrasing and substanceless coverage of sports that has finally worn me down.

That being said, I do watch Inside the NBA. I watch it almost every week. Barkley is great. EJ holds down the fort well. The Jet has grown on me some. Their crew seems to have a good sense of humor, even if the end product of what they do is sometimes on the simple side of things. I think it boils down to Barkley, though. He just called Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti numbskulls. Every week, if you tune in, you are going to get to hear Sir Charles call someone out. At this point, I really think this is the only program that is consistently entertaining. Moreover, I think Charles Barkley actually provides some pretty accurate analysis. And he'll give you gems like "Bill Cartwright is rolling over in his grave right now" when talking about the sorry state of the Chicago Bulls.

Maybe that's just me, though.

Royals 2008 Preview

We are coming up on another baseball season, and Royals fans more than likely have little to look forward to this year. This isn't to say I don't think they'll be better, or that I don't think that things are looking up. But realistically speaking, the odds are not in their favor insofar as making the playoffs are concerned.

However, I don't think third place in the AL Central is out of the question.

The Twins will more than likely experience quite the fall-off, as Torii and Johan are gone and Liriano probably won't be locating his pitches well until next year. Delmon may be great as soon as this year, but their pitching staff is so suspect that I really can't imagine their offense being good enough to balance out their deficiencies when they're on the field. In short, they are vulnerable.

The White Sox were trailing the Royals in the division late last season, then the Royals shat down their legs in September. I am not convinced that any moves Kenny Williams made in the offseason will make the White Sox better in the short- or long-term. Personally, I hate the Swisher deal for the White Sox, and I fail to see how trading Garland for O-Cab helps them at all. If anything, I think the White Sox get even worse this year.

Obviously, the Indians and Tigers are better than the Royals, even if they do have big question marks (i.e. can Hafner return to his 2006 self? can Carmona and Sabathia repeat what they did last year? why trade the future of the franchise in Maybin and Miller for Cabrera and Dontrelle (?)? can Dontrelle stop the annual climb in the ERA and keep it below 6.00?), but the Twins and White Sox are both within the Royals grasp.

Now for this to happen, the Royals need a few things to happen. None of these are sure things. Most of them are possible.

First, Alex Gordon needs to become the player everyone thought he'd become last year. I think this is the most likely of all the things they'll need to happen. I think .280, 85, 25, 90, 15 is very possible this season. If I didn't, I wouldn't have traded Mark Teixeira for him in my keeper league this offseason (there were other players and factors involved in this trade, but it boiled down to that).

Second, Billy Butler provides them with the big bat he flashed last year. This seems probable, as well. He hit very well last year and already shows some pretty impressive power. No one thinks that he can't hit. His bat will find its way into this lineup, even if his glove won't find its way onto the field.

Third, Gil Meche continues to prove his worth. I think this will also happen. The optimist in me thinks he'll become the late bloomer that Chris Carpenter and Jason Schmidt became, as there are many similarities, but the realist in me thinks that's not very likely. I do think I can hope for slight improvement on last year's numbers and the team will help him out quite a bit more. As Posnanski pointed out in his very long Royals preview, Meche had a 2.89 ERA in his 12 no- decisions. That was as good an ERA in his no-decisions as C.C. Sabathia in four more starts. He was definitely unluckly last year, and I'd be very surprised if he didn't come out and win at least 13 games this season with a comparable ERA.

Those were the three most likely things. Now, in no particular order we'll look at the less likely...

Brian Bannister finds a way to replicate his season last season. His 2007 BABIP is well known at this point. He knows he was pretty lucky. We know he was pretty lucky. He seems extremely intelligent and does in-depth statistical analysis regarding his pitching. If he can find a way to maintain his success, I'll be very happy. I'm hesitant to say it can happen.

Zack Greinke is the Zack Greinke we all saw after he got moved to the bullpen last year. He somehow became this flame-throwing, shut-down pitcher after the move (barring a couple of rocky outings against the Yankees and Red Sox, if memory serves me correctly). When he came back to the rotation at the end of the year, he was dominant. He's gotten lit up a couple of times this spring training, but his last outing gives me hope. I have no idea what to expect here. If he makes good on what he showed last year, the Royals are in great shape. The odds are just as good of him losing it as they are of him doing that, though. The talent is there. Let's hope it finds its way onto the field with him.

Mark Teahen and David DeJesus recover at least a little bit. Both were pretty awful last year. Both should have been much better. Teahen really could be very good. DeJesus could realistically be 15/15. They should both be hitting in the .290 range. Who knows what will happen with them.

Jose Guillen proves he was worth his contract. I don't think it was an awful contract. There wasn't much talent out there. The Royals need to prove they are willing to spend money and dedicated to winning before they can hope to lure bigger name free agents to Kauffman. He's a little older than I'd like for the contract to which they signed him. If he produces like he did last season and provides some stability in the outfield, I think he makes them better and I think that was worth it.

Joakim Soria retains his shut-down ability as closer. He should surely benefit from a full season as closer, and I think he has great control and stuff. Ideally, they'd be able to move him to the rotation and get another reliever to replace him because all Royals fans want him in the rotation, but for now, he'll do as the closer.

Now I have quite a bit of faith in Dayton Moore. It seems as though the Glasses have relinquished control as he requested, and his moves seem to have worked so far. They've acquired some solid talent and wound up giving up less talent in acquiring said talent so far. I love the acquistions of Cortes, Callaspo, Bannister, and still have some hope for Lumsden and Shealy. I think he'll also be able to turn guys like Tomko and Grudzielanek for some prospects at the deadline.

I like Trey Hillman's attitude so far. I don't mind that he seems to call his guys out as he sees fit. I think he has the attitude of a winner, and that can be contagious. His hiring gives me a lot more hope than keeping a guy like Buddy Bell around.

There are issues which will need to see some resolution. I'm hoping Hochevar has made his case for the rotation and that he can be solid in the four or five slot. I hope Tomko doesn't implode for extended stretches of time. I hope they can find some way to get value for Huber since they can't seem to find a way to get him into the lineup. They've got to figure out what to do with German because he seems to be the same player as Callaspo, only with a reportedly worse glove. Their bullpen needs to keep leads for Soria to close out, and I'm not sure how I feel about nearly every one of their other pitchers.

Needless to say, there are a lot of question marks surrounding this team. At least Royals fans can rest at ease that they're not trotting Mark Redman or Brian Anderson out on opening day. I think a few of the bigger question marks can break the Royals' way. The lesser issues I am less hopeful on. I doubt enough of the issues are resolved in the Royals' favor to have them finish above .500, but I don't think a record around 78-84 would be out of the question. As it is, I'm predicting 75 wins, which should be more than the White Sox and right around where the Twins end up. Cleveland and Detroit will be above .500, but I don't think they'll both be over 90 wins with Cleveland winning the division by about 5 games with 90 wins.

Tiresome coverage

I'm really growing tired of the media coverage of this election. The 24-hour news networks have to fill up so much time with garbage and seem so intent upon lowering the level of discussion to its basest point that they've come to see statements of candidates' staffers and supporters as absolutely reflective of what the candidates believe themselves.

How many times must we hear the Wright clips that they continue to play? How many times must Geraldine Ferraro's statements be spoken about (note: I didn't elect to say "analyze" or "reflect upon" because there's very little of either of those things going on over at those networks)? How are the statements of staffers or supporters actually news?

None of the candidates can completely control what the people around them do. The people in their lives and working on their campaigns do not necessarily speak to everything the candidate him/herself believes. To attempt to hold them somehow responsible for what those people say seems more than slightly flawed and frankly reeks of laziness on the part of the media who feel compelled to try to turn these things into news rather than actually investigate the myriad injustices, tragedies, and problems in the world.

Wouldn't it be nice if the media actually tried to raise the level of discourse? Maybe that's just me...

A trip in the way back machine

takes us here...



*****************************************

Also, congratulations to the La Crescent Lancers High School Boys Basketball team. They just beat the Stewartville Tigers for their first ever trip to the Minnesota State Boys Basketball Tournament. If memory serves me correctly (and I could be wrong, they were close in 1999, also), the last time they got to the Sectional Championship game they were thwarted by a Randy Breuer led Lake City squad. This followed shortly after the football team made it to the Section 1AAA final, the farthest they'd ever made it. Good teams abounding this year, I guess. I'm sure it won't be long before my old coach, Mark Abraham, has the Boys Cross Country team restored to its place atop Section 1A. He's managed to get the Girls' team there.

Out of commission

So, I've been travelling the world over.

Well, not really, but I was in Chicago for the weekend and now I'm with the folks and my sister and her husband in D.C. We went to Montpelier and Monticello today. They were both impressive.

In Chicago, my keeper league did its post-keeper draft. I drafted Shaun Marcum, only to be laughed at and told that he was out for the year with a torn labrum. If you are sitting there wondering why you didn't hear that (just like I hadn't, but I'd not been thoroughly scouring injury reports, so the possibility was there), that would be because he didn't tear his labrum. He's fine. Someone confused Marcum with Casey Janssen. Disaster averted, but I didn't find out until today that the Kansas City (Excelsior Springs represent) native was just fine, so I spent the last two days beating myself up for my presumed oversight.

Awesome.

I also had a scare at O'Hare. I thought I was flying American Airlines after giving a quick glance to a sheet of paper that I had printed off, so I went to Terminal 3, got in line at the American Airlines domestic flights counter, looked at my sheet, and realized that I was flying on fucking United. It was 11:00 am. I was to fly out of O'Hare at 12:00. I had to bust ass back to Terminal 1, where I had to wait in a long line at the United counter, hoping that I would get there early enough to still get a boarding pass while I impatiently tapped my feet. I did end up getting to the gate about two minutes before they started boarding, but this was the only time I've ever cut it that close. I can't wait for Sunday, when I have all of 40 minutes at the St. Louis Airport to get from one gate to another, assuming the first flight is on time...

Wish me luck.

I may or may not be able to write again this week.

I have to help my parents figure out what's wrong with their router, which should be fun.

It is nice to see the fam, though. I don't get to see them often enough. I guess that happens when your dumbass decides a move to Austin is a good idea.

Now, speaking of a good idea... Chad. Mark. Do the words and music of Alan Thicke make you think about something that needs to be done?

Breaking News!!!

I finished a book? I mean, I finished a book! Good timing, too. I had my dad's copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It was pretty damn good. I'll be able to hand deliver it to him on Sunday, having read the whole thing.

Sadly, it's the first book I've finished in something like six months. Time to get cracking again.

Hopefully, I can now bust through the last 400 pages or so of the John Adams bio before I get back and find the HBO miniseries clogged up the ol' DVR.

On to high art...

I'm so happy that Hot Fuzz is making the rounds on the pay-cable networks. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have really found a niche that filmgoers were sorely lacking. Their comedic takes on genres which pay respect to those genres instead of simply sending them up disrespectfully is so refreshing in this era of Fill-in-the-Genre Movie skullduggery. Personally, I think Hot Fuzz was one of the best films of last year, and better than Shaun of the Dead, which was also a damn fine movie. Their love of the action film comes through in Hot Fuzz and the allusions (I'd reflexively typed 'illusions' there--must've had Bakula on the mind... well allusions isn't really the word I wanted anyway, so I'll provide the edit myself on the site just to give you a little insight into my complex thought processes), rather, homage and inclusion of genre-defining Point Break is more than welcome, especially in light of dear Patrick's struggle with cancer. And the dude's got cancer, let him have a smoke in peace. It's not like it's lung cancer...

I'll leave you with this:


And this:


Reflect.

By the way, "She's Like the Wind" singer was a clue on the New York Times Friday Crossword a couple months ago, so clearly Will Shortz loves him, too.

Following the stream

Now, in the past four hours or so, I've talked about Rocky IV and Craig T. Nelson, so logically my subconscious was telling me something. That something was this:

Now, when you add the power of his performance as Apollo Creed to the wattage that his starpower gives off in Action Jackson and then multiply that sum by his hulking physique on display in Predator the equation gives you a result of full-fledged superstar.

This bears the question, "Wha' happen?"

If any one has the answer to that question, please share it with the rest of us.

And here's some weird-ass shit...

Maybe you don't know Peter Johansen, but I think this should make you wish you did...

SXSW: Disaster Averted

South By Southwest,
How do I hate thee?
Let me count the ways...

I'm actually leaving town this year during SXSW. Sure, it's coincidental, but when I realized that my nerdy trip to Chicago fell on this particular weekend, I was elated. I get to escape Austin's transformation into a zoo of hipsters and industry assholes who overcrowd every restaurant in town and make my life just a little bit harder. Now a lot of the people who come here are all right, I guess, but there are a lot of jackasses walking around with their Bluetooths stuck in their ears talking to themselves and flashing their badges to get in to venues to see five minutes of some band they heard someone talking about while actual fans wait in lines to Laredo hoping to see someone who they're actually enamored with (or at least in to for the next ten minutes, but at least their friend let them listen to the record, which is more than these in-and-out, have-to-be-seen fucks can say for themselves).

Anyway...

I'll be in Chicago for the weekend for a fantasy baseball draft,--yeah, I said it, fantasy baseball draft--and then I get to see my parents and sister and brother-in-law in Virginia for the week that follows. To all one reader of the blog, I'll probably write very sparingly, if at all, but perhaps I'll have the time to look up Coach, since he's a cop in The District last I heard, and relay his well-wishes to you all.

Shocking Realization

Upon getting home from a late dinner, I flipped on the television and the training montage in Rocky IV was on. As I watched the contrast between good old American hard work and performance aided by dirty science, it dawned on me that I've not yet used this platform to espouse the virtues and global importance of Rocky IV. First things first:





Now this milestone in cinematic history is followed closely by the end of the Cold War. Granted the power of what you just saw above, one can then logically conclude that this was responsible for the end of the Cold War. In beating this steroid-aided behemoth, Rocky--the hard-working, blue-collar American--wins over the Soviet people, including their leaders, and the fall of the Iron Curtain comes shortly thereafter. And why wouldn't it? Rocky shows them the value of the American way of life, and they simply can resist its allure.

Obviously, I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that there was a little help a few years later...

but I can say with the utmost sincerity that were it not for Rocky IV and its steadfast belief in the innate ability in every person to change and embrace other peoples from adversarial cultures the United States would still be mired in the mess of the Cold War, fear ruling us all.

If only the current administration would have watched this before getting into their quagmire...

Backin' yer peeps

In this race for the Democratic nomination for President, I can respect that people feel strongly one way or the other about each candidate. I, obviously, strongly support Obama, but I can also understand where someone would strongly support Hillary. I can also understand why women would largely support Hillary in what is still a largely male dominated society.

What I have a hard time understanding is when Clinton backers bring electability into the equation. It seems to me that someone who is starting from a point at which 48% of the electorate disapproves of them that there isn't much room for that candidate to win over independents, who will obviously make up the decisive block of voters in the General Election. As much as the religious right segment of the Republican party may be slow to get behind McCain, there's no way they end up defecting to the Dems, and they're not likely to abstain from voting if the key issues they are concerned with are at risk of being undermined by whichever Democrat is nominated.

If that key block of voters, the independents, is so vital, and the Obama campaign has been consistently doing better with the independent voter than has the Clinton campaign, then it would seem to me that the electability argument when made in support of Clinton is extremely flawed.

Now I'm not saying that electability should be the key factor in deciding who to vote for--in fact, I'd prefer that it not factor in at all, as everyone should be voting for the candidate who they actually believe would be the best President, and electability in the eyes of the Democratic voters brought them to John Kerry, and we all know how that worked out--but for those making this argument, please take a step back.

*****

In an unrelated note, I have still yet to vote in a Presidential Primary, Caucus, or General Election and have the candidate I supported win said race. Obama won more delegates in Texas, and he did win the Caucus while losing the Primary, so I guess that's the kind of victory that you could only have in the Democratic Party these days, but I managed to vote for McCain in the 2000 Republican Caucus in Minnesota only to have him lose to Alan Keyes (seriously???) and George Bush, Al Gore in the General Election only to have him lose to the Supreme Court, Kerry in the General Election in 2004, and now Obama. Why do I even try?

Does any Canadian want to marry me so I can get citizenship?

Missing Brett

I feel for Green Bay fans, right now. Brett Favre will be missed. As a quasi-Packers fan, I can say I don't know how much I'll enjoy watching Aaron Rodgers calling plays. I'd be especially concerned with the drop-off from this last season's NFC Championship Game also-rans and next season's team that will probably struggle to win the NFC North. Maybe Rodgers learned enough by Favre, but I certainly wouldn't count on it.

Oh, Warren Sapp retired. If a tree falls in the woods...

The Offseason has begun!

And the Chiefs are already making a losers list. Awesome.

Now, I am actually fine with all of the players they've released so far with the possible exception of Jason Dunn, who I think still has a little juice left in the tank. I think Clayton is maybe getting a little ahead of himself in stating that the Chiefs aren't going to be able to get better after releasing the likes of Law, Bell, Reed, Bober, Welbourn, and Kennison. All of them were marginal contributors at best last season, and many were worth far, far less than they were getting paid, if they weren't so bad as to be absolute liabilities. I do agree that perhaps signing another linebacker was maybe a little misguided, as their linebackers were the one thing that could have been considered a strength last season, but a little depth never hurt anyone. Maybe, just maybe, they're planning on going 3-4 on me, which would be like a wet dream.