Blogging My Brains Out

If you follow me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter or follow me by peeping into my windows, you've probably noticed my recent transition in the blogosphere.

About a month ago, I joined a site called Examiner.com as the Indiana Pacers beat writer in an attempt to hone my column writing skills in a very laxed, nothing-to-lose setting while also making pennies on the side. I was having fun doing it, but I wasn't getting the kind of traffic that I wanted and I also thought the site's format and structure was set in 1909. The day that Scheid the Glide, the Photog and I got together in Columbus for some drinking, I told them about the site that I really wanted to write for -- Indy Cornrows. It's the best Pacers blog out there, and I was hoping that my columns would get noticed enough during the Summer and Fall that I could begin writing periodically for IC during the 2009-10 season. Just like certain other areas of my life that I don't like to discuss, things went off quicker than I expected.

The next day after I saw the two Whodi's, I was contacted by Tom, the guy who started Indy Cornrows back in 2006. [Brief background] A few months after starting the site, he joined the SB Nation blogging community and IC has been the staple and home for Pacers blogging ever since. Tom works with Pacers.com to provide stories, he gets media credentials to any game or event, he appears reguarly on Indy Radio shows and he works in cooperation with Yahoo! Sports.

Tom offered me co-control of the Cornrows, making me the first person to have the honor. I was thrilled and I dumped Examiner quicker than God dumped celebrities this week. My average daily hits on Examiner topped out at about 300 per day. IC has an average of 3,000 per day. After Thursday's draft where the Pacers made some noise by drafting Tyler Hansbrough 52 picks too soon, IC had 11,000 hits in two days. I plan on doing a weekly column on IC (which should get rough during July and August), while also helping out with the news as much as possible. I'm hoping to also get some press credentials to a couple of games during the season. Things really took off yesterday morning with my reaction column to Hansbrough. It has been plastered all over the Internet with a lot of support, while some people think I'm the worst thing since unsliced bread. Either way, when a site dedicated to paintball in South Africa links to your story, you know things are going well.

Point is...if you haven't checked out the IC yet, take a peak at it here. If the Pacers aren't your cup of rum, then check out the entire SB Nation and join your favorite team.

On to the links...

It's Beetles...with an A
With Michael Jackson's death, people in BeatleNation honored him a split second before spitting on his fresh grave by wondering who gets the rights to the Beatles songs. In one of the best business decisions ever, Jackson outbid Paul and Yoko in 1985 to buy the rights to the Beatles catalog and he's been living off of them ever since. Unfortunately, he wasn't the majority holder anymore because he needed to them to help pay all those debts for molesting boys, so Paul and Co. won't get much of a chance to own his songs. It would actually be more plausible to see Jackson returning as a zombie.

Hello, Mr. Radio
Don't have a name for this one, but I don't think it matters. Enjoy!

My Sox Are White
So...no more bragging about how awesome I am at fantasy baseball. Talk about all-time backfires. Although I'm poised to seal a win this week over the Err Dizz, I lost two weeks in a row to the two best teams in the league after my last post. Awful. My pitching went down the shitter, two of my best arms went on the DL, and my bats were dead in a cave somewhere. Hopefully, this week's resurgence is a sign of things to come, but I'm not guaranteeing anything anymore. Consider that lesson learned.

Mrs. Thug Mrs.
Lauren and Spencer are reaching out to Stephanie about her eating problem. Lauren also says that she's going to skip Kristin's premiere on the Hills.

Info for Bo
Here's a link to your blog. Apparently, you've forgotten that it exists.

You Tube...no, you're a tube
Best wedding invitation ever.

You Tube...Office-style

Had these two videos e-mailed to me today and I had to immediately share them. They combine the greatness of The Lonely Island songs with video from The Office. Nothing says Michael Scott like "I'm a Boss" and a hearty rendetion of "I'm on a Boat" to get you through your work day (which I don't have, but it doesn't mean I can't share with others).

Note: There is no "bleeping" going on with these versions, so if you aren't mentally, physically, emotionally and drastically prepared to hear the lyrics "Eat some chicken strips (like a boss), Chop my balls off (like a boss)" etc., then you should skip this post. For those of you who haven't chopped off your balls...enjoy.



And for the second one...

Link me...

Apparently because I've been expending so much energy on my Pacers blog, I have neglected my faithful, loyal and CatDog-like followers of this blog. So I'm going to keep the blabbing to a minimum as I focus on the lives of my readers in a "links-only" column. Enjoy...

Info for Bo
Batista. Oh how I knew thee. Poor guy. First he gets his arm torn from his body, then he's expected to wrestle in a cage match where he wins the title belt before getting his ass handed to him on a platter the next night by Randy Orton and his cronies. Then he has to act like a five-year-old girl as he's carried out on a stretcher while he cringes excessively while pleading to the medics to make the belt "not too tight" as he's carried into the ambulance. Awful. Pitiful. Sickly. Disgusting. Pick whichever adjective fits yer mood. Now, he's out for the next four months recovering. Not only that, but reports are surfacing that his contract is up in one year, but the four months that he misses will be tacked on to the end of the contract to make up for lost time. Not the best weekend for the legend Batista. In other news, Mr. Kennedy STILL released by the WWE.

My Sox are White
This Drunken Chuggers fantasy baseball league is going to be the end of me. The parity in the league is sickening. Here I am, the toast of the town, the hot dog, the big cheese, the "so black he's purple" professional athlete and yet, I'm still tied for first place. After rolling off to a thundering 8-1 season record, I am still tied with Team Sobucki for first place, while Team Deeb sniffs my ass with a 6-2-1 spot. After that, there's no one above .500. Awful. Pitiful. Sickly. Disgusting. Pick whichever adjective fits yer mood. Hell, pick em all. After I dispose of Team Maloney this week, next week's grandiose battle between the titans of Team Sobucki and Team Stevenson will be the main event. I've heard rumblings that the Commish is working out television rights to Versus. Right now, Sobucki has the upper hand as he is the only other team to beat me. What's he doing with his lower hand? More beating.

Hello, Mr. Radio
See video below for reason of photo. Enjoy.

Mrs. Thug Mrs.
So the wife has decided that she wasn't getting enough airtime in my blog, so she pulled a Yoko and broke up the band. Now she's gone solo. Visit her musings on education, money and life with the greatest man on Earth here. And yes, I was referring to the Err Dizz.

It's Beetles...with an A
The first reports out of England surfaced today that the two Beatles' box sets being released on Sept. 9 will cost more than a combined $600. For those of you counting at home, that's now more than $900 that I will need to spend that day to own the following: The Beatles: Rock Band video game, the complete stereo remasters and the complete mono remasters. Who's up for selling plasma again?

I Me Mine
This segment is dedicated to the other Sean Stevenson's in the world who somehow land in my news alerts/google search. Unfortunately, due to my recent celebrity as a Pacer bloggin' machine, the first four news alerts of "Sean Stevenson" are actually me. In fact, the fourth one is Cleveland.com referencing one of the articles I wrote. Excuse me as I celebrate like God after He sank the game winning 3-pointer against the Bulls in 1998.

But thank the maker for the Ogemaw County Herald. This award-winning newspaper's Web site goes in-and-out (and that's what she said), but a brief snippet of news shows a certain Sean Stevenson placing 15th in the discus by throwing it 108-9.9 feet at the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association team track finals. So Sean, thank you for bringing celebrity and greatness to our name.

You Tube...no, you're a tube
This is for everyone who only has dreams of a Saved by the Bell Reunion. I know I'm not alone in this and I'm glad to see that Zack Morris is true to the cell phone...

The Beatles + Video Game = I win!

I knew I needed to post something today, but I had no clue what to write about. I had topics that ranged from "Happy June", the fact that I'm broke and unemployed, the nice weather, how I felt ridiculously old watching the MTV Movie Awards last night, or a heartfelt goodbye to LC's last episode on the Hills.

Then I was saved. Can I get an Amen?

Hell, we are all saved by what happened this afternoon. The E3 Expo is this weekend, which is something I haven't been excited about since Madden announced it was adding a franchise mode that effectively changed the course of my life forever. This year, however, came a big announcement. I haven't played my Wii in forever, but this game got me excited about playing video games again.

My current status with video games is very murky. I've reached the stage where I don't know if I feel comfortable wasting an entire day by playing a season of Madden. Here I am at 25 years of age. That's got to be about the point where you go past the personal video game stage and enter the family fun entertainment stage. My switch from an Xbox 360 to a Nintendo Wii last year helped accelerate this process as I can no longer play EA Sports games (if you haven't played an EA Sports game on Wii, let me just say that you feel similar to a soldier who just trekked 59 miles during the Bataan Death March before falling to the ground, then you get stabbed by the bayonete of a Japanese soldier. Luckily, you happen to be the grandson of Filipino national hero Andrés Bonifácio, so your life is spared after a Filipino, disguised as a Japanese soldier, acts like he kills you but you're really taken off the road to help John Wayne lead the resistence before General MacArthur comes back three years later. So playing Madden on Wii feels like you're being stabbed after walking 59 miles, but really, you're helping John Wayne, so you keep playing even though it sucks. And I've had numerous people tell me they felt the same way).

Well, the game that could be my last personal gaming purchase will be released on Sept. 9, 2009. The game, affectionally known as The Beatles: Rock Band, was debuted today at the E3 thingy. The trailor is now up online. (See: below)

I was pretty ecstatic as I watched the gaming versions of John, Paul, George and Ringo play at the Cavern Club, Ed Sullivan Show, Shea Stadium and the Budokan, but the bird broke through the cage when the I Am The Walrus segment appeared. Awesome! And then it ends with them in the studio, on the roof and a scene where they play on a hill. Besides the hill thing, the looks are uncanny. The settings look real. They've captured all of the biggest moments and stages of their career. Dhani Harrison, George's son, has proved to be an invaluable asset to the game producers as he's provided historically accurate information.

That said, I am concerned about the Back in the U.S.S.R. segment, which featured the Beatles in the studio for the White Album sessions, with Ringo on drums. Obviously, readers of this blog know that Ringo temporarily quit the band when the song was introduced on Aug. 22, 1968. The three remaining Beatles, instead of halting recording sessions, finished the song in five takes in two days with Paul on drums (although two other drum tracks were overdubbed later, but these were thought to be added by either John or George, according to Mark Lewisohn). Ringo came back several days after the song was completed. So, really, it should be Paul playing drums in the game, and Ringo should be shown crying in his house as he wonders why the hell he just flushed his career down the toilet by quitting the Greatest Band on Earth. Obviously, anyone could be the drummer for the Beatles. C'mon Ringo. Get it together.

Now, you may be saying, "Wow, Sean. How about you try not to an effin' d-bag right now? They just made a stupid video game about a band that you've devoted more of your life to than God. Maybe you should lighten up a little bit." Two responses: 1) Why is there not a "God: The Video Game"? I mean, the Bible has violence, killing, blood, God, royalty, back-stabbing and snakes, which is everything you want in a video game. Let's recreate the Old Testament here. I want to control Moses by parting the waters and unleashing a plague that kills all the first-born babies in Egypt. I want to be David and sling the rock at Goliath's face. I want to be Noah and go Oregon Trial style by sailing the Ark around rocks, while fending off lions in the Captain's quarters. Someone get to work on this. 2) If I'm dropping $250 on a video game, the info better be right. If you bought Madden and it had the Packers as the best team in the NFL, then you'd want a refund because that's obviously bullshit. So let's get this fixed before the release date.

The only problem is that barring some miracle that I become employable, stay in school, graduate and own a teaching job by next June, I will never own this game as it's priced at $250 for the limited edition bundle, which includes the Hofner Bass. The September release date is also the worst month in the world. Not only will all my extra money (this "extra money" doesn't actually exist for the Mrs. Thug Mrs. and I, but we'll make it up for blogging purposes) going to four family birthdays that month, and I will be ensconsed in 15 hours of classes on campus, two correspondence classes, one part-time job and one day spent in a high school classroom per week. Also, the entire Beatles catalog is being remastered and released the same day -- in mono and stereo. Awesome. When's this economy turning around again?

Either way, I look forward to owning this game at some point in my life. Now if only I could design God: The Video Game...

You Tube...no, you're a tube
This should be obvious...