Troll responsibly

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Ted Berg

In other things mentioned on the forthcoming podcast:

Because of the endless entertainment (and significant traffic) I’ve found in archiving embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels, I felt it seemed appropriate to make a small gift in his name to his eponymous charity as a small token of appreciation for his efforts on and off the runway. The money I gave will pay for a desk in the school Hamels is establishing in Malawi. If you’ve enjoyed yourself some embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels in the past, I encourage you to do the same.

It will help impoverished children and make Hamels as happy as this autographed guitar did:

So what is Shane Victorino doing exactly?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Ted Berg

This, via MetsBlog, appears to be classic Shane Victorino stuff:

First off, is that two separate plays? Second, what’s he trying to do? Stop Murphy from running into him? Push Murph’s left foot out from under him? Try to throw Murphy off by weirding him out a little?

Tom Brady busts out Modified Gumby

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Ted Berg

Not a lot of guys can pull off this hairstyle, but that won’t stop Tom Brady from trying.

It’d be easy to taunt the guy for it, but the photo’s from the Met Gala that he gets to go to for being a rich, handsome, awesome quarterback with a billion Super Bowl rings, alongside his beautiful Brazilian model wife. Man, I hate that Tom Brady.

Via Yin.

Can I hold $1.5 million (and a much larger apartment)?

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Ted Berg

Heritage Auctions is holding its Natural History and Fine Minerals Signature Auction in New York on May 20. Items up for bidding include this skeleton from a Tarbosaurus, a member of the Tyrannosaurus family:

From the description:

This is an incredible, complete skeleton, painstakingly excavated and prepared, and mounted in a dramatic, forward-leaning running pose. The quality of preservation is superb, with wonderful bone texture and delightfully mottled grayish bone color. In striking contrast are those deadly teeth, long and frightfully robust, in a warm woody brown color, the fearsome, bristling mouth and monstrous jaws leaving one in no doubt as to how the creature came to rule its food chain. Equally deadly and impressive are the large curving claws, with pronounced blood grooves.

Pronounced blood grooves! I don’t even know what that means but it’s almost certainly the name of my next album.

Via Boing Boing.

Girl-drink drunk

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Ted Berg

I’m hardly the authority on masculinity, but there are a slew of commercials now (and probably always) asserting that real men should choose one specific beer or liquor over another. And it strikes me that ordering drinks based on what a commercial says is manly is probably, in truth, about the least manly thing imaginable.

I enjoy so-called “girly drinks” without shame. I developed a taste for bourbon about five years ago so I don’t enjoy big pink beverages as often now as I did before that, but I’ve never had much patience for dudes getting broken up over my pina coladas. Have you had a pina colada, bro? It’s a f@#$ing coconut milkshake that gets you drunk. I’ve got nothing to apologize for. Same goes for daquiris, mojitos, mai tais, and — heaven forbid — beer with some sort of fruit slice in it. If it tastes good, I could hardly care less that you think there’s some sort of stigma attached.

What I have come to admire about Cole Hamels in my three years of archiving the web’s most embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels is that it seems like he really doesn’t care what people say or think about him; he’s happy to pose for embarrassing photo after embarrassing photo because he’s certain he’s awesome.

So the following photo, posted to the Hamels’ Twitter account, might actually be the most embarrassing photo of Cole Hamels yet. If he embraced the Strawberry Cosmo (or whatever it is) with a face that said, “yeah I know it’s pink, but screw everybody, I’ve got a 10:1 K:BB and I’ll drink whatever’s in front of me,” I’d probably still post it for general silliness but it wouldn’t rank anywhere near the top of the list.

That Hamels is trying his best to look exasperated by the drink’s presence (and making a typically silly Hamels-face in the process) is what’s so embarrassing, as if he’s trying to say, “Get this girl stuff out of here, I like Nickelback and boobs and play sports!” And he can’t even quite pull it off because he’s kind of intrigued by the strawberry:

Upon further review, it’s still not nearly as embarrassing as this one. And I think ol’ Colbert’s just having some fun, and maybe even making fun of the type of guy who’d react violently to getting that drink. It has been added to the archive regardless, since it is undoubtedly embarrassing.

Also, obligatory:

True bromance

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Ted Berg

How satisfying was that series? How awful is the Marlins’ bullpen?

Almost everything is awesome right now. Mike Pelfrey’s going to need Tommy John surgery, so that’s less than awesome.

Athletes and sandwiches

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Ted Berg

The SI Vault has a photo gallery of athletes and sandwiches. I’m not sure David Stern counts as an athlete and a few of these are definitely not sandwiches, but it’s certainly worth clicking through.