MMFU: Eff 600

1. ESPN and any other station interrupting regular programs to show A-Rod's at-bats

Alex Rodriguez is sitting on 599 career home runs and at some point in the near future will hit number 600. Good for him. Only six other players have ever done that. But holy shit is it really such a big deal that ESPN needs to interrupt whatever they're showing so we can watch every at-bat until he finally hits a bomb? Fuck. No.

Seriously, who gives a shit? A-Rod's in the prime of his career and might end up with over 800 home runs if he stays healthy. It's not like he's some declining superstar like Griffey clinging to the tail end of his career trying to reach one last milestone. Sure, it'd be kind of cool to actually be in the ball park when A-Rod hits No. 600 but I guarantee you no one in their right mind is watching ESPN during Yankee games and waiting for them to switch to an A-Rod at-bat.

It's fucking stupid and annoying and it really pisses me off.

2. Dez Bryant

Dez Bryant is making news this morning because he refused to participate in rookie "hazing" and wouldn't carry Roy Williams' pads after practice. And now we've got dipshits like Peter King praising him and saying it's good that someone is taking a stand.

Fuck that. Is hazing stupid? Yes. Is Roy Williams a shitty fucking receiver dipshit? Yes. But jesus, it's not like Bryant is being asked to do anything outlandish or humiliating. Just carry the fucking pads, asshole. Big fucking deal.

Enjoy being taped to the goal post later this week, rookie. What an ass.

3. The Weather Channel

Look, I know I shouldn't take the weather forecast to the bank or anything but shit, don't tell me it's going to thunderstorm all day and then have it be sunny and hot as shit with no clouds instead. Now you might be saying, "Isn't that a better alternative?" Of course it is, in most cases. But this time it meant having to do 4 hours worth of destruction on a wild rose bush in the blazing sun, cutting my hands and forearms on the thorns, and getting burnt to shit since I was too stupid to put any sunscreen on. My arms are going to be peeling like CRAZY in a few days.

F--k Lebron James

Fuck Lebron James. Fuck him right in the ear. This is a guy who hasn't won anything in his fucking life. He didn't win in high school. He hasn't won in the pros. Shit, he couldn't even win a fucking game when his team made the finals. He's a fucking loser. I hate him more than any other athlete in sports history. And there are a lot of athletes that I hate. A one hour TV show to announce where you're going to be next year? Fuck you, you piece of shit.

Even if he announces he's returning to Cleveland he's still a gigantic, gaping asshole. And if he doesn't return to Cleveland? Holy fucking shit. That would be the biggest fuck you to an entire city of all time.

Lebron didn't need all this time to make a decision. You can't tell me he hasn't had his mind made up this entire time. So why the fucking drama? Because he's an absolute dickhead, that's why.

To me, there's something telling about how no marquee players have come to Cleveland the past few years. And that's because everything has to be about Lebron. Win a championship? It's all about Lebron. Don't win a championship? It's about how Lebron wasn't surrounded by the talent he needed to win. It's about how the coach sucks. It's about how the GM is no good. It's all fucking bullshit.

It's also complete bullshit that he's giving the advertising money to charity for this one hour blowjob tonight. Hey asshole, you're worth a shit ton of money. You wanna give to charity? Then fucking give to charity. I guarantee you could give more on your own than is going to be produced by the show tonight. Fucking dick.

I hope he returns to Cleveland. And then I hope he fucking fails miserably and never wins a title. His legacy is, in my opinion, forever tarnished by this bullshit. If I were a Cavs fan I'm not sure how I'd be able to throw my full support behind him. It's his home state, practically his home town and he's treating it like ass. Fuck him. And if he goes to Miami or Chicago, well congratulations, he had to sell his soul and ditch his home state. Way to go, douche. You're the self-proclaimed "King" and you had to go somewhere else to win a title? Fuck you.

Lebron is an over hyped bastard. As a Cleveland Indians fan, I would love for the city to win a championship in any sport. But seriously, fuck Lebron James. This shit makes the Brett Favre stuff make me happy to hear about Brett Favre. And that REALLY pisses me off. Call me when Lebron wins a title. At 9 pm EST tonight I'll be doing something else besides watching this asshole jerk off to himself.

Fuck Lebron James. And fuck ESPN for allowing this bullshit on their airwaves.

MMFU: This Weekend Was Awesome

Since this weekend was pretty much fucking awesome for me we're doing something a little different for the Monday Morning Fuck You. Fuck Yous versus Fuck Yeahs! Let's jump right in!

1. Fuck Yeah: Hanging out and boozing with friends from college all weekend
Earlier in the week one of my best friends had his 30th birthday. He's the first in my group of friends to hit the dreaded milestone and his wife organized a surprise weekend for him at a condo up on Lake Winnipesaukee. I arrived first, early in the afternoon and as the day went on, 3 more of our friends, all of whom were in my wedding party, showed up with their wives as well. A 5:45am wakeup call to golf on Saturday didn't stop us from boozing until almost 3am shooting the shit, busting each other's balls and just generally having a great time. Like I said in Friday's post, that type of shit hardly ever happens anymore so we all wanted to take advantage.

Golfing on 3 hours of sleep? Fucking awesome. Cigars at 8am? Fucking awesome. Hanging out without the wives around? Earmuffs, ladies...fucking awesome. The only thing that would have made it better is if I had shaved 2 measly strokes off of my round to break 100. Fucking 101. Probably shouldn't have 4-putted that one hole. Balls.

After golf it was back to the condo for lunch and then beach time. It was cloudy and windy but so fucking what? It was still awesome. Watching the soccer game? Not so awesome, but we'll get to that later. The big birthday BBQ/Luau? You guessed it! Fucking awesome. All in all, just a kickass weekend that needs to happen way more often than it actually does. Getting old fucking blows.

2. Fuck You: The Soccer Game
Are you fucking kidding me with that shit? A goal in the 6th minute to start the game and then a goal in the 3rd minute of overtime? What the fuck? And can we get someone on the damn team who can actually finish? Jesus christ, put it in the back of the damn net, jerks!

I never felt comfortable about this US team's chances for one reason: Bob Bradley looks WAY too much like Dick Jauron. It depressed me every time they showed him because thoughts of Jauron's incompetence leaped into my brain instantly. You can't win with the stink of Jauron in the mix.

I know the diving and flopping and stalling and all that bullshit is part of soccer and it's probably not going to change anytime soon but the end of that game was a god damn disgrace. Hey ref, how about carding those fuckers to get them to stop with the bullshit for a little bit, huh? Everyone in the fucking world knew exactly what they were doing and I'm sure you did too. For god's sake that one piece of shit dropped dead after doing a bicycle kick with no one within 10 feet of him, laid there like a corpse, got taken off on a stretcher, and then immediately hopped up and walked around on the sidelines. That is fucking ridiculous. And the dude who scored the winning goal? He stopped play at the end of regulation because he got "kicked" in the chest and "couldn't" get up. And when he finally did get up after play was stopped he clutched his chest like Jack Bauer had just taken an axe to it. Poor thing. So what does he do after he scored a goal 5 minutes later? The motherfucker starts pounding his chest with his fist, a la Kevin Garnett. So I guess the "injury" wasn't that bad, huh?

The entire tournament is being marred by shitty officiating and the pathetic flopping. That kind of stuff was fine back in the day but now we've reached the point where tv coverage is so good that we get to see every replay multiple times and can see that a lot of the calls being made are complete bullshit. And we can see just how badly these assholes are diving to get calls from the officials. Unfortunately, FIFA seems content to just keep their eyes closed and their ears plugged and ignore the massive amount of criticism that is headed in their direction. Fucking assholes.

3. Fuck Yeah: Scotch!
I've discussed before how I'm effectively banned from having scotch, deservedly so. But this weekend? I had some! And it was fucking good! Next scotch appointment? August 9th. MY 30th birthday. I can already taste it. Mmmmmm.

4. Fuck You: Mosquitoes
God damn piece of shit bloodsuckers. I'm all kinds of itchy today because of you little fucks. And the most annoying part is that yesterday I wasn't itchy at all so I thought I had somehow escaped the weekend without being bitten. Yeah, not quite. Bur.

5. Fuck Yeah AND Fuck You: Cornhole, Ladder Golf, Washer Toss
Fuck Yeah because I fucking LOVE playing games like these. Especially cornhole. It's the type of stupid, random activity that I generally kick ass at. So after talking shit about the last time we were all together and Wifey and I went undefeated in cornhole you can probably guess what happened. Got fucking destroyed. It didn't help that my partner (not Wifey) was god damn worthless and didn't score a single point but still, not a good showing. Then it was time for ladder golf with Wifey as my partner and not only did we blow an early lead and lose, but she scored more points than me. Annoying. Yet still fun as shit.

6. Fuck Yeah: Baby Mark Show
5 total hours of driving with no stops because Baby Mark Show was perfectly behaved on both rides. Clutch sleeping at night in a house full of people with no crying to wake anyone up. Well behaved the entire weekend. Flirting his ass off with the girl baby who was there. Pretty much a no-hitter for Baby Mark Show. And he didn't even need 149 pitches like Edwin Jackson. Bravo, little buddy.

And to wrap things up, I know I said it before, but I'm saying it again...this weekend was fucking awesome.

This Weekend Is Going to Be Rad

Now that my friends and I are approaching our 30s, it's a major fucking pain in the ass trying to get together. Add Baby Mark Show to the mix and things get even harder. And that's why I'm excited about my friends and myself heading into the next couple of years with 30th birthdays coming up here and there. It's a perfect excuse to drag the wives and any kids that may be popping out in the next few years to a common location and hang out with all the old college buddies.

The last few years it was the wedding circuit, and as fun as everyone's weddings were, thank the fucking lord that shit is over. Yes, it's awesome seeing everybody but it can't beat a weekend of just relaxing and shooting the shit. And that's exactly what's going to happen this weekend and I can't fucking wait. Golf, BBQ, boating, cornhole, general shenanigans...it's going to be awesome.

And smack dab in the middle of everything is USA-Ghana at 2:30 on Saturday. Sporting events are always more fun to watch with a group of friends. I mean, shit, there's only so much texting I can do during a game, and I can do a fuckload of texting.

I expect the US to win on Saturday. I've heard people say that the US is always an underdog in the World Cup but that's just not true. I've read articles about how no one should be that excited about their chances because they could barely beat Algeria. And that, my friends, is a fucking load of complete bullshit. Have these shitheads been paying attention to this World Cup? Other than Germany's 4-0 win over Australia and Portugal's 7-0 assraping of North Korea (suck it, Kim Jong Il!) every game has been insanely close and competitive. For christ's sake, the 2 finalists from 2006 have already been bounced and there's a possibility that Spain could be ousted today, too. Not to mention the fact that Algeria, for some cowardly reason, packed it in on the defensive end and seemed content to play to a 0-0 tie instead of actually trying to win and advance. Fucking pussies.

The US can beat Ghana. The US SHOULD beat Ghana. And I'm pumped that I'll be watching it with some of my best friends.

USA! USA! USA!

Aaaaaaand We're Back!

Well hey hey! Anybody still checking this god damn site for updates? No? Jesus you people are demanding. You want updates more frequently than once every two months? Fine. I'd love to say that I've been super busy with no time to write but that's just simply not true. It's laziness. Pure and simple. So let's delve into some of the shit that's happened since the last time I wrote. At least some of the stuff I can remember, anyway. Getting old and senile fucking blows. Let's see, where shall we start? Oh! I know! I have a fucking kid now!

1. Baby Mark Show has arrived!

I plan on writing more about the joy/frustration/hilarity of having a baby around, but to avoid jamming 7 weeks of baby stuff into one post, let's just go with labor, delivery, and the first few days of parenthood for this one. On May 4th I went into work just like any other day and started my routine of checking email and catching up on all the shit piled up in my Google Reader cache.

Wifey called on her way to a meeting...or at least I thought she was on her way to a meeting. Nope! Turns out she thought her water might have broken so she was on the way to the hospital to get checked out.

HOLY SHIT! Well what the fuck do I do now? Just sit here and wait for you to call me back?? Do you realize how impossible that is???

So I sat. And waited. And fidgeted. And walked around. After like 4 days I finally got the call that her water had indeed broken and that she was being checked in to the hospital so that they could induce labor at some point.

This all happened at like 9am. I raced home. Grabbed Wifey's pre-packed hospital bag, packed my own bag, and hustled to the hospital. Well, turns out that there was no rushing necessary. Just because the water breaks, it doesn't mean that labor has started. So we waited. And waited. And fucking waited. We played games, we watched a movie, we had lunch AND dinner. FINALLY, at 7pm the contractions started coming.

At first they were ok, just seemed like some mild discomfort. At least to me, anyway. Hell, at 9pm I even asked if she wanted to watch LOST (um, no). And then all of a sudden, holy shit here comes the pain!

If you know me at all, you know that I kinda sorta like being in control of situations. There's a reason it's called The Mark Show, after all. Well, watching my wife go through labor was probably the most helpless I've ever felt in my entire life. There was absolutely NOTHING I could do to help her while the contractions were happening and seeing someone you love in that kind of pain is fucking brutal.

At 9:30pm, the doctor came in to check her cervix and announced that it was still only 1cm dilated. Are you fucking kidding me, lady? I think Wifey was ready to punch her in the face when she said that. So labor continued and at about 10:30 Wifey had had enough and asked for an epidural. The nurse said ok, but wanted to check her cervix one more time. Hey, no more cervix! No epidural needed! And now it's time to push...

Now this was the part that blew my mind...pushing was the "easy" part of the whole process. After all the screams during the contractions, Wifey barely made a sound during the pushing phase. I'll forever be amazed by that. Completely calm, just working to get the baby out. Fucking incredible.

Pushing took us past midnight and into May 5, 2010. Fuck yeah, Cinco de Mayo party baby! At 12:21am, the baby came roaring out. The umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck. Twice. Jesus, cut that thing! I was trying my damnedest to determine if it was a boy or a girl but I couldn't see and finally the doctor announced, "It's a boy!" WOOOOOOOOOO!

The nurse cleaned him off, swaddled him and handed him to me. And holy shit that is an incredible feeling. Indescribable, really. He was wide awake, looking at me, looking around the room, just checking everything out. No crying or fussing, just completely content, staring up at me with these huge beautiful eyes. So. Fucking. Awesome.

And now, let's get back to some sports.

2. One Quarter Away
It shouldn't have been that close going into the 4th quarter, which is what really fucking kills me. The Lakers won Game 7 because the Celtics couldn't get a fucking rebound and kept allowing second chance points. I would love to bitch about the refs, but other than a few calls, they were fine. I would love to revel in Kobe's complete and utter stinkbomb. I would love to make fun of Pau Gasol for looking a stupid llama (actually, I can still do that. Fuck you, Llama!) I would have LOVED for Sasha fucking Vujacic to have choked at the free throw line. God damn it.

I actually started cheering when Ron Artest launched that 3 with under a minute to go. I still can't believe that went in. In fact, I can't believe Ron Artest was the MVP of that game. Fucking unbelievable.

All they had to do was hang on for one more quarter and they couldn't do it. Bur.

3. The Cleveland Indians

Actually, no, let's not talk about them. Jesus christ what a disaster.

That's it for now, people. Just gotta the blog wheels rolling again. More posts coming soon. I swear!

Saturday Morning Thoughts

It's 7:30 in the morning as I start writing this post. I've been up since 6. Basically, my internal clock is a fucking asshole. I struggle to get out of bed between 6:30 and 7am every fucking day of the week when I have to get up for work, yet when it comes to Saturday? Wide fucking awake at 6am. It never fucking fails.

Our bedroom window faces east so as soon as the sun comes up our room gets lit the fuck up. Sometimes we pull the shade down but most of the time I kind of like waking up because of natural light instead of the heart attack inducing shriek of the alarm clock. But on weekends I always forget to pull the shade down and the sun and my dickhead internal clock always wake me up way too fucking early. Wifey has the ability to put a pillow over her face and go right back to sleep. I'm not nearly that lucky. I wake up and my brain is immediately filled with questions.

"Do you have to go to the bathroom?" Yes. /get up and pee
"Now that you're back in bed, do you still have to go to the bathroom?" Yes. Fuck /get up and take a dump
"Hey, how come you can't wake up during the work week but now you're wide awake?" I don't know, asshole. Let me go back to sleep!
DROID! /check phone to see a stupid email from Macy's telling me about a 10% sale. /put phone on silent
"Hey, did you win that late night Streak for the CASH pick?" Hmmm, lemme check. Nope. Fuck!

And so on...and on top of all of that bullshit are the fucking Canadian Geese that are fucking EVERYWHERE outside of my apartment building. And those fuckers do not shut the fuck up. Ever. They are such assholes. The only time I ever hear them make any noise is in the morning when I'm trying to sleep. Also, they shit everywhere. Earlier this week, some uppity geese decided to shit directly in front of the door to the building. Some day I'm gonna lose it and just snap one of their necks and cook the goose on the lawn as a warning to all the other geese. Fuck those fuckers and their incessant honking.

On another note, we're now through the first two rounds of the NFL Draft. If you follow my Twitter feed (@Mark_Show) you probably noticed that I wasn't really happy with the Patriots and how they handled the first round. I mean, really not happy. I was fucking pissed. I wanted Dez Bryant. They could have taken him and still probably gotten Devin McCourty in the 2nd round. Fucking shit. If Dez Bryant turns into a superstar....god, I don't even wanna talk about it. And if he doesn't? I will always believe that if he had come to New England things would have worked out differently and he would have been the greatest receiver of all time. Or something like that. Either way, it works out that I was right that the Pats should have taken him. I like that kind of fucked up logic. Makes me look like a genius.

However, now that it's Saturday, I've calmed down and my initial anger has subsided a little bit. I'm ready to see how McCourty works out. I'm ready to see if they actually throw the ball to the tight end they drafted with their 2nd overall pick. I'm ready to see if all the trading down benefits the team in the future. I'm just ready for fucking football! Unfortunately, the season is still over 4 months away. Balls.

As far as the NBA playoffs go, I really wish I had more time to watch the games. Especially the Western Conference games where there are some truly compelling matchups going on. But being on the East coast, I just can't stay up that late, which sucks. I wish I had stayed up to watch Kobe-Durant on Thursday night. Man I hope the Thunder can win game 4 and send things back to LA all tied up. I know it sucks for BoozeRob but even HE has to rooting for Durant, right? Am I wrong, Booze? If they could topple the Lakers in Round 1? God damn that would be fucking sweet.

And now we come to the Celtics. Going in to the playoffs, like pretty much everyone else, I really didn't have much in the way of expectations for this team. Game 1 happened and while I was happy that it looked like they were going to win, I couldn't believe that it was going to take ridiculous efforts from Glen Davis and Tony Allen to get it done. And then, of course, the scuffle happened. Paul Pierce went down, for whatever reason, and KG stood over him and then that little bitch Quentin Richardson came over and chaos broke out.

Now, I'm not going to defend KG here. He deserved his suspension. He let a fucking nobody like Q get in his head and he lost control. And he's a fucking asshole for doing that. But, Richardson can cut the shit for his quote saying that he only walked over there to get ready to inbound the ball. Not a fucking chance you piece of shit. First of all, the ball was being taken out from under the basket, dickhead. And second, everyone knows that you have issues with Pierce and the Celtics for some reason, which is pretty hilarious when you consider the fact that you're a shitty player with one skill, yet you feel like you can talk shit to anyone in the league. Get fucked.

Anyway, thanks to Pierce fucking burying the game-winner last night (why didn't the Heat use their foul to give?), it's now 3-0 and we're looking at a 2nd round matchup with Lebron and the Cavs. A week ago I would have said they had no chance. But after the the absolute ass kicking in Game 2 without KG and last night's gritty win, I'm feeling a little more optimistic. LET'S GO C'S!

Oh, and go Bruins. Wrap it up at home in Game 6, B's!

NFL Draft Tonight!

Sweet fucking tits it's NFL Draft night! So without further ado, let's jump into some draft and other NFL thoughts, shall we?

1. I'm pretty sure I think I like the new draft format
I'm pretty sure I like this new draft format. 1st round tonight. 2nd and 3rd rounds tomorrow night. Everything else on Saturday. I'm also pretty sure that by tomorrow morning I will fucking LOVE it. Yeah, I'm kinda annoyed that I'm gonna have to stay up until midnight only to have the Patriots trade out of the first round, but it's going to be awesome to spend all day tomorrow talking about who got drafted in the first round and who's left for the second round. And you absolutely have to love that kind of distraction at work. Fan-fucking-tastic. Plus, now that I'm married with a kid on the way it would have been harder and harder to keep blocking off an entire Saturday year after year.

2. Speaking of the Pats, please don't trade down
Look, we get it. Belichick likes hoarding draft picks and all that bullshit but let's face it, the last few Patriots' drafts haven't yielded much in the way of serviceable players. For once can we just fucking pick the best player for our team in the spot we're at? And I swear to god, if that player ends up Jermaine Gresham I'm going to fucking lose my shit. Yeah, the Pats need a TE besides Alge Crumpler, but spending another 1st round pick on a position that has such a minimal impact on the offense is fucking insane. Please tell me that the Pats have learned their lesson after Daniel Graham and Ben Watson.

As for who I want? One way or another (trading up, a player dropping down, whatever) I hope the Pats end up getting Rolando McClain, Derrick Morgan, CJ Spiller, Dez Bryant or Sergio Kindle.

3. Tim Tebow
Quite frankly, there's a small part of me that would like it if the Pats end up taking Tebow, if only because Dan Shanoff hates the Pats so much. The ironing would be delicious. But besides that, I can't see the Pats taking him the first round. Please God no. If he's available for one of the three second round picks that the Pats have? Well, fine. I happen to think that Tebow will make a good NFL quarterback. And if he sits behind Tom Brady, learning from the best, who knows what his ceiling would be. He isn't some one-year starter wonder like Tim Couch, Jason White, and every other bust that always comes up. The kid is legit. Even if I think he's annoying as shit and the continuous media blowjob of him is awful.

4. The Rams are making a mistake if/when they take Sam Bradford #1
I truly don't understand what the fuck the Rams are thinking. Bradford seems like a good guy who will work his ass off to be the best QB he can possibly be. But that doesn't change the fact that he just missed his entire senior year because some tiny ass college D-lineman fell on his shoulder and completely destroyed it. What happens when some beast NFL player hits him? And that's gonna fucking happen A LOT. Yeah, he won the Heisman, but a shitload of busts have won that award as well. To switch from a sure thing like Ndamukong Suh to Bradford just because he impressed everyone on his pro day, throwing without pads or defensive pressure, just seems fucking stupid to me. We'll see how it plays out, but the Lions are getting a fucking hell of a gift with Suh dropping to #2.

5. 2 weeks away from the due date
Baby Mark Show is two motherfucking weeks away. Holy fucking shit! I've done so much baby prep work in the last month and it's finally all done. Pretty much. But of course, the work is never going to end once the baby comes. And that's just fine. I couldn't be more excited. It's going to be fucking awesome. Just make sure to remind me that it's awesome when I'm waking up every three hours to change a poopy diaper because Wifey is sleeping between feeding the baby every three hours.