Basketball Officiating
Let’s start with the topical one. Like everyone else in the country, I’m currently getting my annual dose of 50 basketball games in 2 weeks time. I started betting on the games Saturday morning and I never stopped. Even now I’m sitting here rooting for an Oregon State team that I didn’t even realize existed. Ok, that’s not true. I knew they had a basketball team, but I doubt I’ve ever seen them play before.
However, Oral Roberts? Yeah, I’m positive that I had no idea that team existed….mostly stemming from the fact that I have never heard of that university in my life. To be honest, I’m still not convinced it’s real.
I’m not saying it’s a made-up college, but if I was going to make up a college scam, I can’t think of a better place to do it than Tulsa, OK. Nobody would know. And those that did know wouldn’t care.
So anyway, I’m watching all of these games, and it occurs to me that I forgot how dumb this sport is. The officiating is incredibly subjective. 100% of all close games are determined by who the refs decide to fuck over with a bad call down the stretch. Here is Exhibit A from the Texas vs. Abilene Christian game:
The foul call that gave Abilene Christian go-ahead free throw attempts pic.twitter.com/6IYgSky50F
— CBS Sports CBB (@CBSSportsCBB) March 21, 2021
Gotta love it. Foul on who? Or better yet, which foul are you calling? The charge, the travel, the block, the hack, the holding, the moving screen, or a sideline warning for the coach who’s inevitably standing 4′ onto the court?
The funniest part of that entire sequence is once the refs got together they decided it was a shooting foul on the guy that attempted to grab the rebound (not the guy who was shooting).
How do people watch this shit year round?
The best sports comparison I can make for this circumstance would be the hail mary at the end of a football game. You know how once a year some powertrip ref throws a pass interference flag on a last second hail mary pass? And then everyone collectively says “well yeah that was probably a penalty but why would you call it in that circumstance?”
That’s basically the equivalent of what you have in basketball except it happens 35 times a game. You can call a foul on every shot, on every drive, on every screen, and on every inbound pass. But the only time you’ll consistently get a foul call is at the most pivotal moment of the game. That’s when the refs really love to take the game out of the players’ hands.
Also one last note – if you scream “AND 1!!” while you are in the act of shooting you have a 90% chance of drawing a foul call. It doesn’t matter that you missed the shot. It doesn’t matter that you tucked the ball under your arm from the 3-point line and lowered your shoulder into some 5’8″ white guy that took a textbook charge. Trust me, you’ll get the call.
Skim Milk
Skim milk legitimately sucks. The stuff is straight trash. I know people like to make the joke that it’s just watered down milk, but I am genuinely asking if that’s what it is. Because it seriously tastes like someone simply used water to de-concentrate the milk flavor. Kinda reminds me of the old dining hall tricks in college. “Looks like we’re low on marinara tonight. Let’s do 1 part sauce to 2 parts water. They’ll never know.”
I think skim milk is kinda like that. But don’t take it from me. Expert of all manly things, Ron Swanson takes a more aggressive, but succinct approach in describing skim milk:
But the craziest part about skim milk is the nutritional misconception that comes with it. What your parents didn’t realize when they bought you skim milk growing up is that the reduced calories and fat don’t tell the whole story.
I’m not a food scientist by any means, but I used to get drunk with one in college. And I know from reading a few articles that skim milk contains a bunch of added sugar. From my minimal knowledge, I’m pretty sure sugar is like 1000x worse for you than any of the saturated fats, carbs, etc. Supposedly farmers regularly use it to fatten up pigs. So skim milk is actually a pretty good idea if you are looking to put on some extra pounds.
Ever since finding that fact out I associate skim milk drinkers with the type of people who swing through Mickey D’s and grab a diet coke. Completely missing the forest for the trees.
Last note on skim milk – I guess once they get done processing it “skim style” the shit is blue and chunky. Then they add some powdered milk to it to artificially turn it white. Idk who’s fact checking me on this website, but I came across that claim in multiple google search results.
Andy Richter (The Guy That Just Sits There on Conan)
What the fuck is up with this guy? Has anybody in the history of time ever looked at their tv and said “Oh Andy Richter is on tonight, he’s funny.” Answer: NO. The guy is garbage.
I don’t pretend to be a Conan watcher but every once in a while I’ll notice it on in the background after whatever I was watching 3 hours earlier has ended (Conan is always on around 2:30am I’m pretty sure). And without fail there’s this chubby guy just sitting on the end of the couch doing absolutely nothing but taking up space and potentially making the guest uncomfortable.
I think I’ve seen him speak once. He tried a joke that didn’t totally land and basically nobody laughed except Conan. Which would kinda make sense given the format of the show. I’m pretty sure Conan is the only guy in the world that thinks he’s funny and that he deserves a recurring role on the show.
Truth be told, I don’t even know if Andy Richter is still on the show. I wouldn’t be surpised if Conan got tired of dolling out $200,000/year for a guy to put on a suit and sit on his couch a couple hours a night.
That’s it for this installment. Garbage = Dumped.