No, we’re not ready to actually make a top 25. Phil Steele (our only hope against Skynet) hasn’t spoken yet, and we’ll reserve judgment until then. It’s the only thing we’ll actually invest the few unmolested neurons we have left in before August. In the meantime, here’s the EDSBS staff’s offseason diversions list. Orson’s got odds; Holly’s got the evens.

Orson
25. Powerlifting. I blame Barwis, but I can’t go to the gym without doing something stupid with a bar and an Olympic rack. It’s way too fun doing moves that leave your whole body shaky like you just ingested a bad crack latte. It’ll be awesome until a disc flies out of my spine and knocks out grunty guy over on the fly machine over there.

Holly

24. Macrobiotic yogurt. The closest thing to cannibalism in your grocer’s refrigerator.

23. Mulberries. There’s a tree outside my door loaded with them. It’s like a squirrel-germ infested snack on the way to the car every time. I haven’t died yet, though I have found myself standing in the middle of the road feeling indecisive without explanation. (more…)

The world is a rolling hot mess, and occasionally in all the festivity some people fall under its glittery wheels. There happens to be an abundance of mayhem at this moment, much of it beyond the control of the people involved–meaning even a grizzled misanthrope like yourself may reach down in your wallet and pluck a doubloon or two from your fortune and donate to charity.

Tornadoes in Oklahoma and Georgia and the cyclone in Burma have one upside at least: they give you a chance not only to show how devoted you are to improving this “karma” thing Carson Daly’s always talking about, but we’re turning the nasty energies of college football rivalry into a positive force in the process.

You can take away our Checkers and billboards for gun shops and porno…but you cannot take away our desire to shame our opponents with our generosity.

Donations to charities assisting with either the tornadoes or the Burmese cyclone–where aid is slowly and steadily getting through despite the best efforts of the “murder-first” regime there–and we’ll keep tally of the donations as reported. Do good, feel shiny noble throughout your day, and embarrass the stingy bastards at other schools in the process.

The particulars:

1) Make a donation online to the American Red Cross, CARE, or the International Rescue Committee.

2) Email the donation confirmation to kevin@fanblogs.com and state your team affiliation by 8pm EDT on Wednesday, May 14th.

3) Results will be displayed at Every Day Should Be Saturday and Fanblogs throughout the week, with the final results shown by Thursday, May 15th.

4) The winning school will have its colors displayed at EDSBS and logo/mascot shown on every page at Fanblogs.

Florida’s currently up fifty dollars on everyone right now courtesy of yours truly, so let the games begin. If residents current or former in Florida are keen on any issue, it’s that of randomly being blown to smithereens by forces you can’t possibly defend yourself from in the least. (See: pass defense, for example, in 2007.)

Go get ‘em, you slaughtering vikings of charity.

Oh, no reason to post this video. Nothing to do with a particularly important college football player getting the boot from his team due to a failed drug test. No: we’re just huge Cab Calloway fans, that’s all.

This is Haven Nutt, Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt’s daughter. When you post something like this, you have to remind people that when you post something on the internet, or in any digital medium, really, it’s public and out there, even if it’s you drunk on camera (again) talking about your fondness for the drinks at gay bars, or doing the Needham Hex, or Most Definitely Not Looking Gay In Public At All. If you don’t want it out there, don’t put it up.

With that said, it’s a totally innocuous and funny crush-vid made by a teenage girl about Zac Efron, and aside from some intentionally atrocious lyrics, it’s a sign that Houston Nutt is doing everything right as a parent, and that Haven really, really likes Zac Efron. She likes Zac Efron, and would like him to take his shirt off before she rots.

And word for word, we feel the exact same way about Zac Efron I mean, Beyonce Knowles. Make her happy, Jay, you filthy rich bastard! (HT: Friends of the Program.)

What is this man saying? Quick, answer:

A. Go, Gators!
B. I will proudly stone the next woman who dares to learn to read!
C. Both

Hey, look! Even militant supporters of the radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr love…um…orange and blue? Welcome? To the family, guys? If they don’t get their autographed Tim Tebow Heisman jerseys stat, they’re gonna make trouble like you’ve never seen. In the meantime, though, consider making substantial donations to the UAA’s fundraiser this year. Just do it in cash through a third party, mind you, lest we get the Gator athletic department put on the terrorist watch list.

In related news, Pete Carroll has allied himself and USC with Kurdistan, and says he’s “jacked” about a three-star but undervalued kicker who he’s recruiting up in Erbil.

(HT: Weo, via AndrewSullivan.com.)

Your Friday Song of Crushing Glass And Metal Wreckage Falling From Great Heights: Mastodon’s “Colony of Birchmen.”

You had us at “run with death” and “this video was shot in Ruby Falls.”

Stuck in the airport, and cursing the nation of slackers who get up three hours behind we proper Christians on the east coast. What other madness do you people embrace? Exercise? Using your spoon as a fork? Ass-groping former weightlifter steroid freak Austrian governors?

The net result for us in experiencing the NCAA tourney from the vantage point of deep inside the smoky anus of Vegas is this: college football must never, ever have a playoff. Nevah. That’s our gut instinct right now after having watched the weird dénouement of the tourney’s first weekend in Vegas and realizing that the NCAA cannot effectively coordinate the mating of two donkeys, much less a major football tournament.

Because we’re typing this off our phone while waiting in line to be told that we’re not making our connecting flight in Phoenix, we’ll be succinct: the season remains everything in college football, and a playoff would tangibly devalue the regular season’s value. Man on moon, yes; but seeing the dispassion of turning the game into a neatly compressed lump of productmeat suitable for easy heat ‘n bake consumption made us irrationally sad.

As it stands, every team with a decent body of work gets their one moment in the sun, unless they get the Motor City Bowl, in which case they at least get a moment of glory in the rain of fiery ashes and locusts that has been pelting Detroit for 40 years or so. A playoff kills that dead.

Onto the plane. It’s strictly working on the lizard brain level right now, but the image of a season easily ended in tidy fashion on four screens in Vegas makes us want to split the rails of a playoff train’s tracks and watch the wreck ensue.

It’s just this weekend’s Colbert gut instinct, but it’s there.

The noise of dollars evaporating.

MP3 File

The Bulldogs may want to temper expectations of 2008 just a bit, as starting linebacker Marcus Washington is out for a long time. He will be undergoing surgery soon (surgery being the only thing someone can “undergo,” just like kickoffs are the only thing that ever “ensue”) and his recovery time is estimated to be about six months. That takes him to about the start of September, and that’s not counting the loss of lifting, conditioning, practice, etc. etc. so it looks as if a medical redshirt is in order here. Granted, it’s not as if the loss of one linebacker means it’s a one-way ticket to Fourandeightsville for the Dawgs, but any time you start losing senior starters, consequences are usually dire.

*Rejected George Washington jokes include hack references to wooden teeth, cherry trees, and the Delaware River. Also, we lie constantly.

This post is brought to you by Three Inches of Bloodsport (WARNING: Pops directly to loud audio, workers beware), the greatest concert you will attend today. Click the link, leave it open for 15 minutes, and bask in the glory. There’s nothing you can pay money to see that’s half as entertaining. Nothing. Goodbye, gorgeous: Those of you who are still members of the Virginia Tech Hokies, please raise your hands. Not so fast, Brandon Ore. Or Marcus Vick (What’s he still doing here? Security!!!). Ore was unceremoniously dismissed from the team by Frank Beamer yesterday, citing factors that, though comprising dozens of words, all sound exactly like “tired of his shit.” Ore is a redshirt senior, which means he’s about to make a I-AA team very happy next fall. Until they tire of his shit too, of course, but whatever. In the meantime, SMQ breaks it down harder than the fifteen seconds before Hammer Time. Nothing going on today: Boy, it’s just a lazy Thursday, isn’t it? Football’s over five months away, most teams aren’t in on the spring practices yet, baseball’s a few days away… not much to talk about in sports at all, is there? Nope. Oh, that: Yes, it’s the greatest day for college basketball, and here I am running EDSBS. This makes so much sense. Orson has taken the correct approach to filling out his bracket: a massive dose of firearms. Good luck with Belmont! Hey look, the trustees think they have a say in the matter!: Penn State trustees have announced that they’ll be looking at the Joe Paterno situation at their next meeting, which is adorable. Joe Paterno will take the field at Happy Valley next fall, either under contract or by Napoleonic force. Mock his diminutive stature and zoological classification of “mangoblin” if you must, but Paterno has the resiliency that only comes from absurd science fiction, like Rocky or Rudy or The Little Engine That Could (in real life, all three would have been sold for spare parts). Plus the last time PSU AD Tim Curley tried to talk to JoePa about leaving, his marriage was ruined.

Pardon the tardiness as I get myself acclimated with WordPress, if by “get myself acclimated” I mean “scream like Sam Kinison and gouge my eyes out with an old ballpoint pen.” We’re sure you’re all very, very concerned about the state of football today on this, the single worst day for football news of the year, but hang tight, we’re on it. Either that or we go legitimately call-the-cops-honey-make-sure-they-bring-the-taser crazy. No real middle ground on this one.

Late start due to late finish last night, so the management would like you to know that the Curious Index will be along around ten or so. In the meantime, it’s good to see that former Ole Miss coach Ed Orgeron’s keeping himself busy these days.

HT: With Leather.

The finest version of “Danny Boy” ever recorded, again in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

What? You assumed we’d pull out the stops and actually play Danny Boy? Hell to the blar-NO stone, and with good reason: it’s morbid as hell like all Irish music not focused on the topics murder and alcohol, and even with cultural fatigue from decades of “fuck me I’m Irish” bullshit that has made Red Sox/Pats fans the hemorrhoid on the ass of professional sports culture, it makes us cry like a scalded baby.

Ours got off to a smashing start. Latest decorating trend in Atlanta: carpeted indoor waterfalls.

Check the rest of the reportage on The Sporting Blog. It was, in the Doomsday Machine sense, cool as hell.

This is a non-football but busy time of year, meaning it’s only half bad, since non-football and non-busy usually winds up in lots of irresponsible consumer spending on things involving gunpowder, sharpened knives, defenseless animals, and over-the-counter drugs easily converted into harder drugs. Then, you combine these elements into a fascinating carnival of fun that lasts until your neighbors start minding the smell/getting suspicious/call the police, resulting in a week-long standoff. Again.

So, the busy part.

1. We have an interview with Ric Flair today. Feeling: WOOOOOOO!!!

2. We have an actual interview with an actual coach on Monday. Double WOOOOOOOO!!!

3. We’re posting from the SEC tournament today, and have learned that Tennessee fans can boo very loudly indoors, too.

4. We have a request: we want to interview Baghead. Yes, this Baghead:

The man responsible for FireRonZook.com has vanished into obscurity, and we’d like to talk to him. That request comes with the promise of complete anonymity, and the understanding that we are not him, and therefore will not just write up an interview with ourselves. For definitive proof, consider this slice of life from the archives of the blog:

My TENNESSEE SUCKS shirt will have to hit the closet for another long year. At least my fiance will be happy. She thinks I look like a redneck in it anyway.

We’ve been married for ten years, first. Second, TCOAN would applaud such as shirt as proper dinner wear.

Enjoy your weekend, and Baghead! Holla at your blogger!