Kevin VanDam won the BassMasters Angler of the Year!

Who knew this even existed?

Technically, VanDam won the title by virtue of a two-day stringer of 10 bass that totaled 30 pounds, 6 ounces. In the convoluted formula that decided who was the best fisherman of the year in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year (AOY) race, however, much depended on what other anglers did to help the Kalamazoo, Mich., angler beat down a strong bid by Skeet Reese.

I have to say, I have no idea how they determine who is the Angler of the Year even after reading the story.

And I tentatively label this as "sports" because I have no idea what other category to put it in.

Tug of War in the Olympics?

Jim Caple imagines while contrasting it to one of the potential new Olympic sports (golf):

Tug of war was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1920 -- the U.S. swept all three medals in 1904 -- before being dropped for no apparent reason, and certainly no good reason. I mean, really. What would you rather see? Retief Goosen waiting for absolute silence as he leans over his putter? Or eight of our country's finest going against the eight toughest dudes from Iran (or whatever country we decide to hate in 2016), with each side straining every muscle and battling through unimaginable pain as their bodies scream "Stop! Stop! Oh, God, please stop!!!" but refusing to give an inch to those miserable foreign SOBs in order to prove whose country is the baddest-ass in the world?

Vegas clubs getting too wild -- even for Vegas

From the Los Angeles Times:

n July, gaming regulators slapped the Planet Hollywood casino with a $500,000 fine for its Prive nightclub's bad behavior, including "topless and lewd activity" and dumping club-goers in the casino "in various states of consciousness."

The same month, the Rio closed its Sapphire topless pool, managed by a local gentleman's club, after authorities arrested 10 people on suspicion of prostitution and drug crimes. Over Labor Day weekend, eight more arrests on similar charges were made at the Hard Rock Hotel's pool club, Rehab.

It's all part of a crackdown by authorities on what they see as clubs gone wild.

Man throws thousands of golf balls in Joshua Tree National Park

From the LA Times:

"Sometime around 2007, our rangers began discovering large quantities of golf balls in some turnout areas of the park," said park spokesman Joe Zarki. "We were wondering what was going on here. There were also some tennis balls involved."

Rangers also found cans of fruit and vegetables left in the desert along with park literature tossed about.

All in all, between 2,000 and 3,000 golf balls. Plus the other trash.

Apparently, for once, I agree with Jay Mariotti

Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech has been widely maligned. But, when I was watching it, I felt like Jay Mariotti. And, oh, man, that hurts to admit.

Man catches foul ball; gives to daughter; daughter throws back

Damn.



There goes her share of the inheritance.

Mexican-American astronaut calls for immigration amnesty; NASA freaks out

From the LA Times:

After the shuttle returned to this planet last week, Hernandez told Mexican television that he thought the United States should legalize the millions of undocumented immigrants living there so that they can work openly in the U.S. because they are important to the economy.

Officials at NASA flipped. They hastened to announce that Hernandez was speaking for himself and only for himself.

"It all became a big scandal," Hernandez told television viewers Tuesday. "Even the lawyers were speaking to me."

Paul Shirley: Oasis is better than the Beatles

I'm not sure if this is the crappy journeyman basketball player Paul Shirley being a contrarian, being sarcastic or just being plain dumb.

But he decided to write a column about how today's music is better than the Beatles -- which I guess some tone deaf people would agree with. But then he blasts this nugget:

I'd much rather listen to Oasis than The Beatles. Oasis, or any band that came after The Beatles, learned from The Beatles, improving on their work by listening to, building on and perfecting the styles pioneered by The Beatles. The result: The arrangements used by Oasis are more complex, the sound is denser, the production is better.

Seriously?

Shirley, stick to sitting on the bench and not playing basketball instead of trying to analyze music, OK?

Oh yeah, he also says Dean Koontz is a better author than Bram Stoker.

I'm surprised he didn't say that Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan.

People are suddenly rude! Also, get off my lawn.

Umm... OK. The L.A. Times trying to explain recent outbursts of rudeness (Joe Wilson, Kanye West, Serena Williams, etc.):

Some say it reflects a general collapse of manners, rooted in the anti-authoritarian strains of the late 1960s. Some offer a psychological explanation: that such outbursts reveal the person beneath the mask of a public persona. Some see an element of racial animus at work.

To which I say, Kanye has done this before, how many times did we see John McEnroe go crazy on tennis umpires/judges. And, as for politicians from South Carolina, the New Yorker reminds us:

In May, 1856, Charles Sumner, a Democratic abolitionist senator from Massachusetts, gave a speech in the Senate, denouncing the “crime against Kansas.” The Kansas territory had been created and opened to settlement in 1854, but the question of whether or not slavery would be allowed in the territory had been left up to the inhabitants of the state. “The South,” Donald writes “determined to create a new slave state in Kansas, had banded together ‘murderous robbers from Missouri,’ ‘hirelings, picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization,’ ” (in Sumner’s words). Sumner’s impassioned rhetoric against this pro-slavery faction enraged Preston Brooks, a Democratic representative from South Carolina. On May 22nd, he stormed into the Senate and beat Sumner with a gold-handled cane, striking half a dozen blows to Sumner’s head, blinding him with blood.

It takes 2,200 words to say that Jay Leno is an unfunny hack

Vanity Fair, trying to make sense of why Jay Leno is so popular, spends 2,200 words writing about the phenomenon when it could be said better in three words:

Lowest common denominator.

Does anyone out there think that Two and a Half Men is the funniest comedy on TV? Hell no, but it gets high ratings. Because it's familiar and unsurprising -- you always have a pretty good sense what is coming next.

Compare it to The Office or 30 Rock, and it's downright boring.

Jay Leno is the Two and a Half Men of late night TV.

Oh and this part is just 100 percent, completely wrong:

Although Leno is called a conformist and a hack and a survivor and all that kind of thing, he certainly positions himself against his network bosses more aggressively than the more rebellious-seeming Letterman or Stewart. Even with his face plastered on every billboard and bus stop in America over the past few months, he has, in press interviews, taken shots at NBC, questioning the network's wisdom for having unceremoniously nudged him, the No. 1 late-night performer, off the Tonight Show stage. Not exactly playing the good soldier, Leno has also said, with a laugh, concerning Conan's less-than-stellar ratings, “Not my problem.”

Yeah, because David Letterman and Jon Stewart never take shots at CBS or Comedy Central.

Get over yourself, Vanity Fair writer.