Put Your Money Where Your Dumb Is
My new preferred way of dealing with idiocy surpassing all bounds of reason—or "hobby" in XKCDese—is this:
From: Brian Cook [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Attn: twit
I run mgoblog. I will bet you your entire year's salary that Rich Rodriguez does not get fired after this season. Since you believe it's "obvious" he will be fired, this is an opportunity for you to make a cool fifty bucks.
-Brian
It's satisfyingly goading, and when the twit in question fails to respond it's a tacit admission that the assessment in the subject is correct.
This, of course, was in response to idiocy surpassing all bounds of reason that you may have seen linked and mocked various places already. Money graf:
First, it's pretty obvious to me this is going to be Rich Rodriguez's last season as the head football coach at the University of Michigan.
The rest of it is a bunch of one-sentence paragraphs that end up with Rodriguez landing at Marshall. It's not coherent enough to bother fisking, but one of the sentences says the alumni "hasn't" warmed up to Rodriguez. (No, guy on the message board thread, that's not proper usage. Alumni is a plural noun—alumnus is the singular version—instead of a singular noun (like "flock") that describes a group.)
We'll see if he takes me up on the offer. I bet he doesn't.
Even if things are slow now, this is pretty low hanging fruit...
Brian, this rules. Cut the "I'd rather not see MGoBlog sink to this level" nonsense. We read MGoBlog because it's not a newspaper. It's a goddamned mercenary. It's an E-Blog and - no sugarcoat - E-Blogs are supposed to stir shit up.
Poe wrote an epic piece of sensationalist and ridic garbage. Brian getting into prose-based war with this clown town would be akin to an orangutan getting into an arm wrestling match with Stephen Hawking. That rules and if you think otherwise, then you're obviously a limp-wristed pony lover. That's not fact, that's also e-pinion.
Plus, all of this is funny. What else is there to talk about right now? It's not like anyone is super cereal, either. Brian made fun of a shitty writer and said he made $50 bucks a year. Big deal. That's funny. I hope this hack tries to shoot back, only to get mowed down like McCauly Caulkin at the end of "My Girl."
Think about the vikings. Were they nancy boys, parading around in pantyhose, getting sensitive with each other? Were they worried about getting in e-blog slap fights with bumblenuts like Poe? Hell no. They shot arrows and ate pussy.
"I hope this hack tries to shoot back, only to get mowed down like McCauly Caulkin at the end of "My Girl."
Heh. I gave you a plus one just for that comment. I needed the chuckle.
I also enjoyed a hearty chuckle after reading that line. Well played sir.
"We read MGoBlog because it's not a newspaper. It's a goddamned mercenary. It's an E-Blog and - no sugarcoat - E-Blogs are supposed to stir shit up."
I read it not because of the medium it is or isn't, but because it provides consistently worthwhile in-depth coverage of Michigan sports, and because it exhibits a level of quality and professionalism not found on many other blogs. The sort of nonsense displayed in this post is something I can find anywhere on the internet, and it's pointless and tiresome.
How many slap fights has Brian gotten involved with over the years? Last year it was Alabama over-signing (though a different situation worthy of a detailed fisking.) This year its intentional controversy from WV. With the hundreds of posts Brian makes each year, surely you can tolerate one or two devoted telling people when they are wrong.
Besides, I think most people here find it satisfying to ridicule the worst offenders in terms even the internet morans (intentional internet meme) can understand.
As I said earlier, the Alabama oversigning posts from last year were very different: they were in-depth posts filled with solid facts and arguments with a few effective jabs mixed in. The problem I have now is that this particular post is the exact opposite: it's a thoroughly unveiled insult with nothing else to make it worthwhile. It's a YouTube comment posing as an MGoBlog post. That -- and the hundreds of posts that are nothing like this -- is why I don't think it fits here.
Eh, different strokes I guess. I found it humorous.
I like the way Ellen uses alumnus in this commencement speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JccudODwwY
Awesome comment back. RichRod haters are getting on my nerves too, especially these type of ones that present no info just saying Rich Rod is gone.
I read mgoblog regularly because I'm hoping any day now Brian's inherent fatalism will click in and he'll switch over to USC. I've been reading for four years, and each day he doesn't is another day of depression at the thought of college football's best writer writing about stuff I don't care about.
Except I kinda do care, now. I can name half of Michigan's roster. I don't want to care, either.
So, basically, this is how it is: this is below Brian. Of course it is. This post is still excellent because I love watching intelligent people eviscerate less intelligent people. Brian dropped two (2) xkcds on this poor guy. Overkill? I don't care.
Think about it this way: the higher road involves this post not existing, which means we all get one less Brian-item to read. I'd rather him channel his ire into one brief ball of flame than dissipate that passion in a show of maturity. Please put maturity in sarcasm quotes, because it is not mature to deprive the world of a classically executed take down.
I agree here. Brian is one of the best, natural writers around. I feel it's the subject matter that brings out the beasties and troll like replies. Subject matter being sports. I think we've all left some replies out there that have sucked. But because of Brian we're all still here able to comment and ramble.
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