John Hollinger, Jazzbots, Jerry Sloan. Suck, Suck, Suck.

Before we get into this week's panning of the blog actively kept up by the biggest corporate tools on the planet, we feel a real need to point out some new piece of absurdity promulgated by ESPN this week.

John Hollinger's NBA predictions: This week Hollinger, ESPN's stat guru who like many renegade physicists claims to have discovered a broad based theory of everything by developing his hotly-debated PER statistic, released a group of prognostications about how all 30 NBA teams would fare this season. Although he managed to avoid the classic pitfall of predicting an exact record for each team by actually making his total wins equal his total losses on a league-wide basis (some magazines routinely predict more total wins than total losses, apparently believing that if both teams play well that they will both be rewarded with a win and the player's parents will distribute juice boxes at half time from the back of their mini-vans), one implication of his win-loss predictions seems completely absurd. But before we get there, a simple point. If you met this man at a bar would you immediately trust him?

Me neither. In fact, that's the face of the guy I fully expect to try to sneak drinking out of the beer tap when the bartender isn't looking. Frankly, that's sort of how I feel about paying for ESPN Insider to read Hollinger's material over the last year, like every time I turn around there's just a little more missing from what he writes but I can't ever put a finger on exactly when it was ESPN pulled the rug out from under me.

According to Hollinger, teams in the Western Conference will have a net record that is four wins higher than their losses while Eastern Conference teams will (obviously) have a net record that is four wins lower than their losses. In essence, Hollinger believes that the West will only win four more games over the east than it loses. In the context of the last few seasons this is a completely absurd prediction. Let's review the East-West disparity over the last three seasons (since Charlotte was added and there was a divisional realignment):

2006-2007: 64 game difference in favor of the Western Conference

2005-2006: 36 game difference in favor of the Western Conference

2004-2005: 72 game difference in favor of the Western Conference

I am acutely aware that Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis and Zach Randolph all moved from the western conference to the eastern conference this off-season and that this in some measure will likely impact the inter-conference record in favor of the east. I'm also aware, however, that none of those guys were on a team that won more than 32 games last season so it's not like they were on teams that were good before and are now going to suck. I'm also aware that of these four players only Garnett and Allen made the all-star team last year and that there are serious questions about how much Rashard Lewis and Zach Randolph will actually help their new teams.

Of course there was also a rookie draft, but I think we all know which conference ended up with both Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. Hint: It wasn't the east. In essence, Hollinger is betting that those four guys are worth a 60 win swing between the conferences. On this point, I suspect he shall be severely humbled. Of course then we can look forward to that column where John Hollinger admits he was wrong about something. I know I've enjoyed reading that non-existent column for the last several seasons. As long as I'm dreaming I'd also like a pony.

Jazzbots Sucks #1: Although we're now seeing the second and third posts of many of the "jazzbots" bloggers, we've yet to see a marked difference in quality. This week was initially kicked off by a blog post by the Mueller family that I can only assume was written by the eight year old daughter because half of the post was about a 14 year old girl explaining that she knows something about football and about the family doing yard work.

I fully expect the next blog post to be about what the family ate for breakfast (I'm guessing gruel) with the Jazz vaguely mentioned in both the first and last paragraphs. I'm thinking this will take the form of "then I put my oatmeal in a bowl ... I wanted some fruit in my oatmeal but our bananas were kind of old and were starting to get brown and fuzzy ... The Jazz bear is brown and fuzzy .... Go Jazz!" Mueller family you have failed to justify your existence.

Jazz Poetry Part 1: Our favorite blogging 4th grade class wrote haikus this week about basketball. Given the poll results that Ms. Corbridge shared with us last week I can only assume that the class was divided by gender and then given separate assignments. Boys were probably told to write about basketball players and girls were asked to write about Jazz dancers.

Apparently Ms. Corbridge is a fantastic teacher who correctly informed her students that the classic format for a haiku is 5 syllables on the first line, 7 syllables on the second line, and 5 syllables on the third line. I can only assume that the teacher chose to showcase the best work product her class could produce given that the very first haiku she showcases only has 6 syllables in the second line, the second haiku has 6 syllables in the first line, and the fifth haiku has 6 syllables in the third line. Keep in mind she only posted 5 haikus so 60% of the ones that made the cut incorrectly applied the format. One can only assume that Ms. Corbridge's future Nobel Laureates might be spending too much time blogging about basketball as opposed to actually learning something. This, of course, would put Ms. Corbridge in the top half of Utah state public school teachers.

What's important though is that she clearly has a lot of love and warmth for the children. As long as we've decided that those qualities are more important than actual teaching ability though I think we should take this premise to its logical conclusion. May I suggest that next year's elementary school english instead be taught by Ms. Letourneau?

Harpring Sucks' extensive investigative arm has also uncovered a submitted Haiku by one precocious student who unfortunately had his submission rejected by the moderating staff at jazzbots.com:

Bad defense, awful

passing, two bad knees, ugly.

To wit, Harpring Sucks.

Reports of this child being told to write a report on the trial of Galileo Galilei before the Roman Inquisition after submitting this poem for publication are thus far unconfirmed.

If your children read Harpring Sucks, you're a fantastic parent. But seriously, don't let them read this part: This blog has been a little too G-rated for my personal tastes lately. Time to dirty it up some.

I recently received a rather bizarre phone call from a close friend of mine. At first he wanted an official ruling on how many times you have to sleep with a girl before you're officially dating her (for those of you scoring at home we decided on 5 times if sexual contact occurs, 3 times if no sexual contact but snuggling occurs on the theory that this implies emotional connection, and an infinite number of times if she's your mother). Such a question, however leads to a number of inquiries as to why the need for such information would ever arise. Somewhat predictably, it turns out he needed a ruling because he was starting to see a woman but wasn't sure if he was dating her yet or not.

The official answer: he's not dating her yet because they've only had sex twice. It's not that anyone is emotionally adverse to continuing the process but there's a hang-up: it turns out that she's on the physically unable to perform list because during their last "getting to know you session" he bruised her cervix.

Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.

Never one to be outdone, I assumed that if my friend could be an accomplished cervix bruiser then I too would be up to the task. Unfortunately there has been some confusion between myself and Madame Kicky as to where exactly the cervix is located. This has led to some embarrassing incidents culminating in bite marks on her thigh. Turns out that's not where the cervix is.

For guidance, I asked my friend how exactly he managed the herculean feat of bruising his potential girlfriend's cervix in the first place. You know you're curious too. This mystery answered later in the column.

Jazz Poetry Part 2: Our favorite jazzbots racist who told us all about the "Birth of a Nation" last week has written another blog post full of what he calls "blogoetry." Sometimes you don't even have to try to mock someone; they've done the best possible job already.

Given that Mr. Joshua Leavitt's photo features him wearing some sort of beret I think we can safely assume he enjoys coffee shops and poetry slam. In related news, artsy guys reputation for getting women still far exceeds actual women getting.

Notable Omission: Cameron Hanson tells us he's going to the University of Utah's homecoming dance. Note that he doesn't say he has a date.

Jerry Sloan as Commander in Chief: Last week I was joking when I said that I would do a Jerry Sloan as Commander in Chief decision flow chart. Such a task would clearly be ludicrous. Unfortunately this meant that a couple of my fellow bloggers (and the ever-demanding dragon lady Madame Kicky) actually expected me to do one. Damn, these things take a lot of time.

This just gives me more reason to hate the guy who wrote the "Jerry Sloan for President" blog post last week.

Without further ado:

Click to enlarge.

Stilted Writing 2: The Wrath of Khan: Last week we made fun of a jazzbots blogger who clearly never developed her writing skills past the middle school level because she started her post with a dictionary definition of the word convert. Apparently, she remains convinced this is a good writing tactic because she opens her most recent blog post with a colloquial definition of the word marriage.

I fully expect next week's entry to open with a definition of the word "hack." Oh yeah, and in case you all are wondering, they probably get more hits than we do by a full order of magnitude. *sigh*

As if there was any doubt jazzbots.com was an extended advertisement for the Jazz: Aaron Heaten made a blog post that was essentially an extended defense of the Jazz high ticket prices. He then suggested specific single game tickets readers should buy. Although the blogging positions on jazzbots are ostensibly unpaid, I'm beginning to suspect a kickback scheme.

A true WTF moment: Remember our breakfast-eating yardwork-doing friends the Muellers? Their 14 year old daughter took a turn writing a family blog post this week. Her stunning insight on the Jazz? Deron Williams is "hot." I'm sorry that's a misquote, he's "H-O-T!!! On FIRE:-)!!!" The 14 year old daughter then goes on to express a desire to marry the (already married) Deron Williams before acknowledging that it's all a joke because she's "already picked out [her] husband."

14 years old and already committed to sell herself into slavery early.

I anxiously await the launching of teenpregnancybots.com.

The solution to our earlier mystery (parents best stop their children here): When we left off with our cervix bruising friend it wasn't yet apparent exactly how he managed to go where no man has gone before (actually I know this girl and I'm certain at least 5 other men have gone there before, just not quite all the way to the heart of darkness known as the cervix).

Apparently the bruising occurred in this most uncomfortable place (as uncomfortable as the back of a Volkswagen) because, in his excitement while thrusting wildly while standing behind her, he became frustrated that she kept moving forward away from him with each thrust. Obviously he needed a solution to this problem that was preventing him from getting as close as he wanted to. He needed some restraining device, any restraining device, but it had to be within reach because he was sort of busy at that exact moment.

Frantically searching with his foot (remember that he's standing up so this means he's currently thrusting while on one leg, a maneuver we've dubbed Flamingo F--King) he came across a loose piece of cloth on the floor. Gracefully (well as graceful as a cervix bruiser can be) he flung the piece of cloth up from the floor with his foot into his hand where he discovered the girl's pink Hello Kitty underwear. Resourcefully he placed it around her neck, preventing her from moving forward, she bent backward on the recoil and, voila, bruised cervix.

This incident has led the Madame and myself to dub my friend the "Phoenix panty strangler." He believes this label is unfair. As he puts it "geez, a guy chokes a girl once in a hot way..."

Back next week with more guaranteed absurd jazzbots material. I'm sure those bloggers won't disappoint.