Want another MP3? Yes, you do: This post is brought to you by Bill Withers, three of his friends, and a barebones performance of Ain't No Sunshine that proves that sometimes, a performance can be good on its own merits and without getting completely warped out of the realm of reality in the studio. Medical studies have proven that this 2:08 song will lower your heart rate by 10-15 BPM. Please, enjoy.
Right off the linkbat, we've got a very cool interview between LTP and Jeremy Poneman, the 16-year-old Evanston kid who just so happens to be a remarkable evaluator of basketball talent. Poneman wants to go to Northwestern, of course, but he's not exactly the enemy here:
DP: I am an Iowa hoops fan first (ed note: boo!) and foremost (its easier to be one of those than a NU fan), and i am also a NU hoops fan. I was born in Iowa, and we were season ticket holders until we moved here when i was 3.
And before you get on an OMG IOWA HE WILL RECRUTE kick, uh, not so fast:
However, i will not try and help the program too much, as 1) i don't want to get the program into trouble because of something stupid i do, and 2) if i discover a good kid and i only tell NU about him, i am doing a disservice to the kid by not letting him explore all of his opportunities. It isn't my job to dictate where a kid goes, only to give him the best possible opportunity to succeed.
All in all, he's got quite a level head on his shoulders, which makes us believe he's not really 16 at all, and just pulling a Drew Barrymore, Never Been Kissed-esque con job and pretending to be in high school despite the fact that he's damned near 30.
Reason #6,312 I am moving to Canada: Walkoff Walk has an awesome story about the Blue Jays newspaper blog, and while we're not saying it would never happen in the States, we are saying it has never happened in the States. Anyhoo, they mistakenly inferred that a colleague of theirs was dead, and this was their retraction:
"Shi Davidi is not dead. If the emails and comments are anything to go by, I may have given people the wrong impression when I noted recently that CP's estimable baseball beat writer is 'no longer with us'. I meant that in the literal sense, as in 'not in Florida'. Not as in 'has shuffled off this mortal coil'.
Shi himself messaged me. I'm sure his family was getting worried. I told him that my (virtual) powers are limitless and that the Star's travel budget does include a provision for witch doctors and raisings from the dead, not to be confused with the water cure.
So Shi is alive and well, though still labouring under the misapprehension (along with MLB.com's Jordan Bastian and the FAN590's Mike Wilner) that a constant Tampa diet of P.F. Chang's will not eventually kill him. They continue to insist to me that a nightly partaking of disstilled spirits will do likewise. We agree to disagree."
Bravo, bravo, bravo. Plus, just look at the guys.
...that sly come-hither stare...
Five new Fanhousages this week for your perusal: OSU keeping the cycle of self-loathing alive, Michigan loses a starting guard after he's forced to sprint for the first time in his life, Texas A&M has a weird yell leader (SUPERBONUS: Lone commenter calls me un-American), Arkansas's starting linebacker pulls a Pierre Pierce and is suspended while the University figures out whether he broke a team rule in doing so, and Meat market subject Stephen Garcia in trouble with the law. Again. No really, again.
Remember, Coach K wants you to grow as a human being too: We're not sure where titty twisters fall under the Mike Shoe-chef-ski Plan For Personal Growth, but Kyle Singler does, apparently. Duke keeps it classy, always. All credit due to The Mighty MJD and his Yahoo blog that I already forgot the name of (damn you, advanced Alzheimer's).
Casey McMillan, we have found your nemesis: Courtesy of the Sports Hernia. If these two fought, Tokyo would be in shambles.
Last, for those of you who wagered you would not see the terms "wombat," "Northwestern," "rape," and "Drew Barrymore" in one BHGP post this week, please remit payment to our bookies immediately: A New Zealand man is punished for making false rape accusations against a wombat. Again: FALSE RAPE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST A WOMBAT. It's too bad he withdrew the complaint almost immediately, because had it gone to trial, I'm fairly certain the ensuing spectacle would have boosted CourtTV's ratings by a factor of eleventy trillion percent.