Hollinger gets something right, Marital Issues, and Jazzbots

This blog is scheduled for Thursday, but it's coming out on a Friday. I'd apologize, but I'm not really sorry.

John Hollinger, a favorite Harpring Sucks target, released a list of players that he put on the "all-decline" team. In essence these are meant to be players that are going to be substantially worse this season than he was last season. Prominently featured on the list was this man:

In particular Hollinger wrote about Führer Harpring (so named because many Jazz fans cite leadership as his best quality):

The numbers say he's 31 and is likely to do worse anyway, but this one is mainly a subjective call. Harpring had more knee trouble in the offseason, and was already quite possibly the league's slowest wing player -- something that became obvious when he was asked to guard anyone with even a modicum of speed. The worry here is that any further diminution in speed will compromise his quickness to the point that he can't defend the position any longer.

While John (I'm assuming I can call him John after writing about him so much) correctly points out that Harpring is generally slower than a sloth doped up on Ambien he fails to point out that the reason for this is that he falls over every other time down the floor. Using complex statistical formulas compiled from data gathered entirely by Harpring Sucks, it has been determined that players that fall over frequently on average run substantially slower than players that remain upright while propelling themselves forward.

Of course John also points out that rigor mortis has set in for Harpring's lower extremities, and that this makes him so bad defensively that it is questionable whether he can defend anyone at his position any longer. Harpring Sucks believes in fairness in journalism and would thus like to point out that there is one league where Harpring could play adequate defense:

We anxiously await an appropriate trade.

Girlish Screams: The Mueller family essentially acknowledged this week that they’re closet Indianapolis Colts fans by talking about screaming at games. Oh wait, the Colts crowd noise is entire artificial. And people say that the Patriots are evil at least they’re not trying to win through the use of disembodied voices.

In any sense, given the admission of lots of screaming on the part of the Mueller family Harpring Sucks provides the following helpful guide for finding the Muellers in Energy Solutions Arena.

#1. Follow the dogs that are inevitably attracted to their high pitch, high volume yowls.

#2. Look for the grumpy old man who’s frantically searching for his earmuffs to block out the noise of his unanticipated seat neighbors.

#3. Look for the guy who keeps ordering more and more beer to drown out his wife and daughters.

#4. Listen for which section gets noticeably louder when the Bear walks out but acts disappointed when the game starts again.

#5. Look for the obnoxious signs that display a vaguely team-related message using the initials of whatever network is broadcasting the game. By the way, people who display these obnoxious signs are hellspawn incarnate. If given the opportunity, I would leave their ancestors off of Schindler’s List.

There you go, glad to help whomever really wants to find the Muellers. Of course, given the average age of the posters in the Mueller family the person most likely to try to find them would be Peter Lorre’s character from “M.” I’m glad to know that Harpring Sucks is finally fulfilling its stated mission of aiding child molesters.

John Amaechi might hold you a little too closely: Annie Whittaker proposes that NBA players should hug each other when they get into an altercation rather than have the NBA impose fines.

Harpring Sucks thinks this idea is fine but doesn’t go far enough; institute deep tongue kissing instead! This has the opportunity to prove my theory that Zaza Pachulia would be the most tender lover in the NBA (just look at those soft lips!) as well as provide great unintentional comedy every time Rasheed Wallace gets a technical. I also anxiously await the first “Baron Davis needs to shave his beard, his face is too scratchy” press conference after a good tonsil-mashing with Scott Pollard. For bonus points imagine 5’9” Nate Robinson trying to French Yao Ming. The prospect of the refs bringing out a step-ladder to aid in disciplinary proceedings is too good to pass up. Best of all, the NBA will make in-roads into the WNBA’s primary audience with all the man-on-man action.

Jackie Corbridge’s students apparently watching a different game than tatermoog and Capt. Sig: Jackie Corbridge’s much maligned fourth grade class took a break from eating paste, playing extreme-tetherball (4 fatalities recorded this year), and butchering the educational system to take an impromptu poll on which Jazz player is the MVP so far this year. And I thought all-star voting began too soon!

Sadly, this question seems designed to cut out one specific student who thus far had answered every poll question with something involving the food at the game. I’ve privately been affectionately referring to this student as “Gordon” because it feels right. I imagine he looks like this:

This purposeful tailoring of the question leads to me to believe that Jackie Corbridge hates fat people. So if you’re fat and take umbrage with this obvious discrimination against both Gordon and yourself waddle slowly over to Lucille Reading Elementary School and let Ms. Corbridge know what you think.

As to the substance of the children’s responses they largely seem to think that Deron Williams is the clear MVP of the season thus far. However one student cited Carlos Boozer’s defense as the reason he’s the MVP of the team. That will be embarrassing for him in a couple of years given that Boozer defends the basket about as well as Paris Hilton defends herself from herpes.

Prison Exercise in the Phillipines: This makes me feel like I was born in the wrong country. As it is I'm strongly considering flying to Manila and joining the ranks of the dancing undead.

Award Time: Jazzbots received an award this week from the NBA for being the first official team blog. Before jazzbots gets all in a tizzy about how great they are because they got an award Harpring Sucks counters with the following two points.

#1. This is the league that gives ridiculous awards all the time. Remember Aaron McKie won the NBA’s sixth man award recently, gave Elgin Baylor of the generally awful Clippers the Executive of the year award, and facilitated awarding Anucha Brown Sanders $11 million after Isiah Thomas repeatedly tried to pull a Joe Namath on her. Getting an award from the NBA apparently requires little more than showing up and getting lucky.

#2. Harpring Sucks has been awarded the equally prestigious “Harpring Sucks award for excellence in the field of superior achievement” by a completely independent panel. Additionally, while many have received the same commendation received by jazzbots we are, of course, the only website that has been given our particular honor. Not only that, rumor has it we’ll win next year too.

Dear Pot: You are Black. Love, The Kettle: Laurie Nylund complains this week about the poor quality of sports radio coverage of the team. Harpring Sucks will refrain from pointing out obvious irony in the interest of good taste and maintaining good relations between the two websites.

Speaking of Awards….: Tammy Rasmussen wins the coveted Harpring Sucks “Bad Writing Award given out at arbitrary intervals” for her recent article about steroid use in athletics. As a preliminary note, it’s worth pointing out that basketball is frequently considered the sport least likely to suffer from a steroid problem because the sport generally rewards long lanky players and successful beefy players are the exception rather than the rule. Many NBA players don’t even lift weights because they're worried about how the extra bulk would affect their shooting stroke and how smoothly they could move.

Some choice excerpts from the article:

Athletes are out there and so many are role models to our youth.

In case you were convinced that athletes weren't out there.

So, what are steroids? Steroids are classified as anabolic.

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Ms. Rasmussen we give you an award equal to the highest you've probably ever earned:


Special Thanks to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for granting Harpring Sucks provisional authority to award certificates.

The Race to the Bottom: As I'm in my early-mid twenties (having recently turned 24, I've discovered it's easier to rationalize my aging by adding lots of prefixes) many of my friends are tying the knot and this has raised substantial debate as to what to do about their last names. Although everyone acknowledges that it's far more convenient and easy to explain that you're a new family when everyone involved has the same last name some people are understandably loathe to follow the traditional path of having the bride give up her last name. After all, it feels just an eensy bit sexist.

This has led to a number of proposals. Many people have opted to go with hyphenation of the female's name. Besides the fact that this doesn't really solve any of the problems because the bride still has a different last name AND it's still sexist because only the bride is changing her last name it has one other problem: what happens if you divorce and remarry? Do you eliminate the previous husband's name or go for double hyphenation? If you're a polygamist how many hyphens do you need? Just too messy and doesn't solve any problems. This is clearly not a good option.

Other couples have gone for the permutation of the bride and groom's last names. So for example if Luther Head married Randy Moss they might make their last name "Headmoss" which sounds strangely like the next product produced by the Ronco Corporation. The problem with this option is that some people have last names just unpermutable. For example, let's say Stanko Barac married anyone. Could his last name really be permuted into anything that didn't sound like mushmouth? Besides this potentially doesn't solve the sexism problem either because it can become a huge issue as to whose name becomes the first part of the permutation. Thus, Harpring Sucks can't endorse this option either.

In lieu of either of these options we suggest a proposal called "Race to the Bottom." In order to solve the problems of one person having to sacrifice their name in favor of their partner's, Harpring Sucks believes that both parties should be equally inconvenienced. Consequently we suggest that both parties abandon their last name and mutually agree upon a new, entirely invented last name.

This has a number of obvious advantages because it solves the problems outlined above but it also creates exciting new opportunities. For example, the Madame has a friend with the last name "Hassenpflug." That name is fantastic. When the Madame eventually marries someone far hotter than myself and someone with better things to do with his time than write for an ostensibly NBA-based blog she could make her last name "Hassenpflug." Admittedly this could cause small problems with her friend who may feel like Pam from the Office when attending Phylis and Bob Vance's wedding when she sees an invitation to a wedding with her own last name on it, but this is a clear "omelets/eggs" situation. Additionally, I've always wanted to name my first son "Slash" and now I could select a fantastic last name to go along with Slash. Some powerful. Maybe Patton.

Of course this would also lead to new divorce issues as it would become highly contentious who got to keep the new, presumably cooler, last name. Of course this would provide our own JohnDeereJerry with a whole new line of work, which is unfortunately because he'd post on Harpring Sucks even less than he currently does.

Finally I foresee one other possible complaint: people who like genealogy complaining this would make it very difficult for future generations to make their family trees. To these people, I say simply: Get a real hobby.

Karen Chatterton soon to be contacted by Child Protective Services: I like the Jazz and all, but not enough to sit through a game while in labor. One can only imagine Ms. Chatterton refusing to teach her 6th grade class because she's reading Morris Almond's blogs about why he's on the inactive list and Dee Brown complaining that he's not good enough to play in the NBA.

Bad sportsmanship: Ross Siler practiced character assassination this week by arguing that Morris Almond's blog is better than Gilbert Arenas' because Gilbert tells his thoughts to another person who then types them out instead of physically sitting at the keyboard. Never mind that Gilbert's are actually entertaining and Morris Almond writes about being on the inactive list.

One assumes that Ross Siler also prefers "Tuesdays with Morrie" to the Bible because Jesus didn't actually write any of his own material.

Unintended effects and an actual apology: Apparently the best way to motivate Harpring Sucks to produce more material is to post a picture of Kathy Bates in a hot tub on the front page. Fellow bloggers will do anything to get it off. Sorry guys, can I offer up official Harping Sucks hot chef Giada as recompense?