Magic act

"I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE"
- Dan Gilbert. MSU '82



Couldn't get Izzo? Couldn't keep LeBron? I am pretty sure Magic is looking for a comeback venue.

LeBronedict

I don't care about the NBA, but anything that makes so many Ohioans so unhappy is alright in my book.

In my opinion, the sport is a baby step above professional wrestling in terms of actual competition. The LeBron-athon of the last week has been so nauseating, I am actually looking forward to watching the World Cup soccer final.

Thankfully, I had some old episodes of Two and a half Men on my DVR and missed the hour long ESPN "decision" special last night. From what I could gather, it was compelling television.

<---- Now the fun starts. Besides the incredible letter posted by Cavs owner (and Sparty grad) Dan Gilbert, the reaction to this circus has been simply awesome. The new material provided by scorned buckeye state fans will fill the gap until football season starts.

My favorite this morning is from James on WaitingForNextYear.com: Lebron, you are a worthless piece of crap. Enjoy being the second banana to Wade for the rest of your sorry career. Thanks for hosting an hour-long special to stick a knife in your hometown’s back. Thanks for quitting in the playoffs last year. Thanks for leaving, so the Cavs can get an actual superstar who will win on his own, and not hold the city and team hostage.

The front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer is nicely done. One thing I do know, LBJ had better brush up on his spanish.

Sleep well Cleveland.... Long live the King.

Fancy Pants....

HT to O_G

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A statement from Ohio State director of athletics Gene Smith:

“During spring, 2009, Ohio State was invited by Nike to participate in its Rivalry uniform program with several other universities from around the nation. They offered us a chance to try a new uniform product featuring cutting-edge fabrics and technology; participation in the program also offered us a one-time opportunity to salute one of those great championship teams that have built the Ohio State football tradition.

“Our coaches and players were excited to see the different elements Nike presented in the prototype designs and samples. The uniform elements are still in production, and we are extremely eager to see the finished product when it arrives.

“For this special program, we chose to recognize the achievements of our undefeated 1954 national championship team, winning the Big Ten title outright before capturing a Rose Bowl victory. These great Buckeyes celebrated their 55th anniversary with us at the Minnesota game, and this is another way for us to pay homage to their stellar achievements.

“Our fans will be able to get the first look at these unique uniforms on Sunday, Nov. 15, when we will share photos of the finished product on our website OhioStateBuckeyes.com. Fans can also take a look at the actual uniform up close that week in our official Team Shop in the Schottenstein Center. And our team will wear these custom designs when the Buckeyes take the field Nov. 21 up north in Ann Arbor.

“Again, this is a one-time opportunity to honor a great championship team. We have no plans to make any changes to the traditional Buckeye uniform for the foreseeable future.”

Here is more information from tUOS which includes a link to some little dude posing in the uni's.

And the examiner has pics from Nike.

I think the Bucks may have just jinxed themselves.....

Welcome to Michigan

At some point in the next 24 hours there will be a horde of scarlet and grey barbarians pouring over the border. The anticipation of a record 6th win in a row over the hated wolverines is almost too much for them to take -- and many of them will need to drop a duece at some point during their visit. Based on the gameday experience in Columbus we wanted to make sure our visitors understood the local sanitary customs and expectations.

Brilliant Buckeyes

ok---I should not be allowed on the internets....

here are a few gems from the fans to the south

do you think they will be gracious in victory???????

EXHIBIT A) where there is no sense there is no feeling:




EXHIBIT B) if this is how you treat your friends....




EXHIBIT C) Completely speaks for itself:



EXHIBIT D) I thought the only folk-song-singing-granola-lovin'-guitar-players lived in Ann Arbor????

Stupid is as Stupid Does.....

Ok, apparently the bright bulbs in the band decided to replicated the Krebs cycle....

here's their version of it:



and here is the actual Krebs cycle:























Gosh you guys make this blog stuff easy.

Ohio's Best team

HT: MATW and BAHammm

Oh my.... I don't know how I have missed this, but a local Cincinnati radio station is having a lot of fun with Buckeyes fans.

Radio Station WLW is the home of the UC Bearcats. They are undefeated and currently ranked #5 in the BCS standings and not very humble about it. I took a look at the future OSU football schedules and I see that the Buckeyes and Bearcats are scheduled to meet in 2012 and 2014. It looks like Governor Tressel needs to get his state under control.

A word of warning to Bearcat fans from a humbled Michigan fan: I am not sure how smart it is to antagonize these guys this way.

UC Radio 1: Two hands no thumbs UC Radio 2: Call your football team UC Radio 3: Pushed around by Navy UC Radio 4: Arbitrary UC Radio 5: Beat a ranked team

UC Radio 6: I'm gonna laugh UC Radio 7: Who is the second best ? UC Radio 8: Buy a ticket UC Radio 9: Bandwagon jumpers UC Radio 10: Embarrassing the state

Fried Buckeyes

Warning: The buckeyes in this video are the chocolate version, not the actual thing.

We all know that eating an actual buckeye would result in a slow and painful death.

The shiny, brown-and-tan nut of the Ohio buckeye tree, Aesculus glabra — is poisonous. Buckeye nuts contain toxic chemicals: glycosides, saponins and possibly alkaloids. The leaves and sprouts are toxic, too, especially in early spring. If the chemicals are ingested — taken into the body by eating — the ingester may get terribly sick with stomach, intestinal or nervous-system problems. Vomiting, muscle spasms, coma and even death may result.

Headless in Ohio

Local Ohio police are on the lookout for the person (or persons) that beheaded the statue of former US President James Garfield this weekend in Hiram.

The sandstone statue dates back to 1914 and was recently placed in front of the new Hiram College Garfield Institute for Public Leadership building. It is unknown whether the head could be put back on the Garfield if it is found.

Garfield was a student of the college from 1851 to 1853 when it was still known as the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute. Later, he served as principal of the school, teaching Greek, Latin, mathematics and geology. He left the college in 1861 to serve in the Civil War were he became a US General. He had the second shortest tenure as a US President (6 months and 15 days). He was shot 4 months into his presidency and died from the wound 2 months later.

Fearing the potential of "copy cat" crimes, local Pennsylvania police are standing by with loaded weapons.

Buckeye Barstool Update.

I couldn't resist posting this from The Rachel Maddow Show

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Andy edit: So I plugged in "Skeeter Watson's bar stool" into google to see if I could find out how much he is selling them for. No luck. But I did get the local Newark paper's story about the media frenzy surrounding the barstool. The reader comments bring the entire saga together for me in a way that I did not feel was possible. God Bless America.

Buckeye Barstool

And who says that Buckeyes are dumb ? Could a dumb person do this ??

An Ohio man has been charged with drunken driving after crashing his motorized bar stool. On March 4th, Police responded to a report of a crash in Newark (30 miles east of Columbus). They found a man with injuries who had wrecked a bar stool powered by a deconstructed lawn mower. He was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after he told an officer at the hospital that he had consumed 15 beers. Apparently the bar stool can go up to 38 mph.

Anticipating his upcoming move to a new city following the NFL draft next month, former Buckeye offensive lineman Alex Boone immediately ordered an extra large version of the stool.

HT: EDSBS

Happy Birthday Woody

Valentines Day is upon us. This day was originally a pagan festival. later renamed after a couple of early christians named Valentine were martyred. It has become a day associated with love, romance, and expensive dinners.

Today also happens to be the 96th birthday of Wayne Woodrow Hayes. Happy birthday Coach !

Maybe it was just fate this week a that former Ohio State student newspaper reporter (and Washington Post exec editor) Leonard Downie Jr. told a group of OSU students that Woody used to conduct post game interviews (when the Bucks lost or tied) in the nude. (HT: EDSBS)

According to Downie: "He was an ugly guy so it would clear the locker room out pretty fast."

I also laughed at the recollection Downie had while reporting on OSU campus riots after the faculty voted not to send the Buckeyes to the Rose Bowl in 1962.

"While other campuses were having anti-war riots, Ohio State was having football riots"

I didn't say it, he did.

T Shirt war

When your team goes 3-9, sometimes it is best to just shake your head, shut up and walk away. Unfortunately for me, that is not my style.

For the record: I am not a big fan of taunting t-shirts or apparel based scoreboard mockery. It just never seems like a good idea to me. One thing I am quite certain, eventually college football will give you the opportunity to place that shoe on the other foot -- and that t-shirt will end up on some homeless person. I thought it was insane when every Michigan State fan I knew went out and bought an Appy State t-shirt last year, only to lose to the team that lost to Appy State. I thought it was quite short-sighted for Sparty to print up "scoreboard" t-shirts after they won this year (as if we are never going to beat them again). I chuckled to myself a little last week when ohio_guy pointed out that the Buckeye Corner was selling t-shirts celebrating the Bucks 42-7 stomping of Michigan this year. I equate this laughable garment to a t-shirt made to celebrate the Indianapolis Colts 31-21 win over the winless Detroit Lions this afternoon. Nice job beating on the crippled kid guys. Go Bucks.

But not to be outdone, I have decided to design my own ridiculous "we scored more points than you in this game" t-shirt for Michigan fans to wear going forward*. Keep in mind that every time you hear that wonderful song Carmen Ohio -- it was caused by this 86-0 spanking by the 1902 Wolverines.

Wear it with pride Michigan fans. Go Blue.

* Not really, I don't want to actually deal with the battle the Collegiate Licensing Company would wage if I ever tried to print and sell this t-shirt.

Ohio Lotto Butler ?

I once had a statistics professor tell me "The lottery is simply a tax on the mathematically illiterate..."

Well now, if you live in Ohio, you can be both mathematically illiterate and incomprehensibly lazy thanks to Bryan Melendeze and his internet brain child : OHIO LOTTO BUTLER. For a monthly fee ranging from $8 to $50, they promise to do all the "dirty work" involved in ticket-buying, and to fork over the tickets if you win. You never have to leave your sofa.

I went to this site just to see if it was real -- and it did not disappoint. The page looks like it was developed by a 3rd grader, along with the red lettered scrolling "we are your loyal man servant" disclaimer.

But the most entertaining part are the quotes from customers, like this gem from Clevelands Bob Padgett: "I used to forget to play, or get home from work and have to drag my butt back to the store to buy a ticket... OhioLottoButler.com is perfect for me."

Halloween Hi-jinks

By this point just about every Michigan blogger in the universe has made a comment about Justin Boren's choice of halloween costume. While I would admit it is not a great idea for any high profile college football transfer to poke fun at his former school - most of you don't know the WHOLE story....

Rather that jumping to emotional conclusions and adding more fuel to the rivalry fire, we here at the Spawn of MZone have done a little bit of research on this very interesting night in Ohio's capital city. According to our inside sources, Justin Boren was originally going to a local TUOS campus Halloween party dressed as the Batman villain TwoFace, but right before he got dressed he took a phone call from a former Michigan teammate with some disturbing and shocking news. After what he heard, he was compelled to change his costume to respond to Rich Rodriguez, who apparently had a special costume of his own on Friday night...

Well, Justin Boren got dressed and eventually went out, had a few beers, caused a few laughs with his funny Michigan coaches gear ("....dude... they suck man....") and tried to use his official buckeye football id card to get closer to a drunk (and quite frankly not very attractive) blonde chick dressed like a crack whore in a playboy bunny outfit named Jessica. After getting shot down by Jessica he decided to walk to another bar when his worst nighmare came true... Apparently word of Boren's costume had spread quickly back up to Michigan -- and before anyone knew what happened Mike Barwis jumped in his car and headed south. What happened next is anyone's guess. No one from Columbus is talking, but someone did snap a picture with their cell phone.

O-H...

An Inconvenient Truth

As if a 2-10 season, the lost 33 year bowl streak, and the free fall into the laughing stock program in college football is not enough -- now we have to deal with this:

According to the National Wildlife Federation: global warming is pushing the growing range for the ohio buckeye tree north. Left unchecked this will make the buckeye tree more common in Michigan. Obviously this can NOT be tolerated - and a group of concerned environmentalists have started a campaign to STOP THE BUCKEYE. I saw them giving out information at the M-MSU game and saw a couple of billboards on 1-94 between Ann Arbor and the Detroit airport.

A little history: The name Buckeye comes from the folklore of the Native Americans who noticed that the nut of the Buckeye tree resembles the eye of a buck deer = a buck eye. The symbol of General William Henry Harrison's 1840 presidential campaign was a string of buckeyes and a log cabin decorated with raccoon skins. His campaign song called Ohio the bonnie Buckeye state, as a result citizens in Ohio became know as "Buckeyes". Harrison won, but after delivering the longest ever inaugural address on a very cold and windy March day, He developed pneumonia and died exactly a month after his inauguration. On October 2, 1953 the buckeye tree officially became the Ohio state tree.

The tree species Aesculus glabra is commonly known as Ohio buckeye (or fetid buckeye). It derives this unflattering name from the disagreeable odor generated from the flowers when they are crushed (seriously, how ironic is that ?). The fruits contain tannic acid and are poisonous for cattle and humans. People wondering if they can eat buckeyes can do so, but only after they have been heated and leached to remove the poison.

Inspiration

Sometimes my inspirations come from the most unexpected places.

Thanks to Mikoyan and Whetstonebuck for their comments which sent my mind spinning in a place that it has never been.

There was so much I could do with this... but I decided to keep it simple.

Red State or Blue State ?

The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning. ~Adlai E. Stevenson

McCain vs. Obama: yawn.... stretch/scratch... boring...

In Columbus, Ohio the race for the 15th District Congressional seat is between Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy and Republican Steve Stivers. And things are getting quite colorful...



HT: The Sporting News

O-H..... uh oh !

OK I will admit it, I am afraid of angry hornets, all kinds of snakes, and creepy pedophiles in buckstaches.



Just a word of advice to any adult seeking the company of a 15 year old girl that you met on an internet chat room, you are better off meeting Chris Hansen than me and the business end of a M1911A1 .45 Caliber Pistol.

(HT: MGoBlog)

Bemoaning Big Ten Network: tUOS Style

Many of you may remember the "war of words" that Bill Martin engaged in with Comcast over the Big Ten Network. In fact, he posted two letters on mgoblue.com discussing the issues. Well, apparently Gene Smith (tUOS' director of athletics) has fired the next shot........this time at Time Warner.

There's a glaring difference between the letters, however. Bill Martin speaks to the economic forces involved, the duplicity of Comcast, and the benefits of the BTN:
"The Big Ten Network is about more than just the 40 football games produced each year. We will have at least 13 men's basketball games on the BTN, at least seven of which are conference games. In total the BTN will broadcast 140 men's basketball games and 55 women's basketball games. In the past, coverage of our men's basketball game was sporadic at best (last year 10 games weren't covered at all, and 11 games were syndicated with limited local coverage), and coverage of women's basketball was virtually non-existent. When the BTN achieves its distribution goals, coverage for all of our sports will be much broader and deeper.The Big Ten Network is also more than just sports - it is really an extension of our schools, with 660 hours of campus programming and a dedication to no alcohol advertising and event-equity for men's and women's sports. We believe the network is totally in line with the values of our conference, institutions and fans."

Gene Smith's letter?????
"As the network enters it's second season, we are proud of all the Ohio State programming on the network and we are proud of how the network represents the rest of the Big Ten. In its first year on the air, the Big Ten Network featured more than 200 hours of Buckeye programming, including four football games, 22 men's and women's basketball games and two Buckeye classics, the 2003 National Championship victory over Miami and the thrilling 2006 defeat of Michigan." (emphasis added)

He also points out to his readers "Seven in 10 homes in the Big Ten states now have the network, versus 4 in Ohio. It is a shame that due to Time Warner's decision, nearly all Michigan fans have the network, but Buckeye fans do not."

That's right Geney. We win. You lose. No matter how much you pound on us on the football field we still trump. In fact, this week's BTN programming is ALL Michigan ALL the time. On Tuesday (Aug. 26), the Network will air Big Ten Legends: Lloyd Carr, debuting at 6 p.m., followed by the kickoff of season two of The Big Ten’s Greatest Games, which will feature Michigan’s 2000 Orange Bowl overtime win against Alabama, beginning at 7 p.m. (yeah, season premiere of Greatest Game doesn't involve you!) Then on Friday (Aug. 29) at 8:30 p.m., the Wolverines will be the focus on the season premiere of Big Ten Friday Night Tailgate presented by Nissan. This weekend will also mark the debut of former Wolverine tight end Tony McGee on the Big Ten Network. McGee joins the BTN this season as an analyst during the network's weekend football coverage.

So maybe you don't really want the BTN afterall........

HT: SiC