Unverified Voracity: Central Asian Steppe Edition

First... an excerpt from my favorite email ever:

i am writing for my son, who is now in the peace corps serving in kazakhstan ... anyway---he says hi---perhaps it will help your blog to be able to say that you have the #1 michigan site in the central asian steppe.

Very little could be better than this. If he was in Kazakhstan apprenticing to be a pirate, well, that would cause me to cease checking email because nothing else could be anything but a disappointment. Anyway, this is by way of explanation for the change up top.

Doublemint weirdness: Ian's profile at Sexy Results claims he's from "Athens, GA, Kazakhstan." My profile at USCHO claims I am from "Ann Arbor, MI, Kazakhstan." As TMQ might say, this undoubtedly has some deep, powerful meaning, but what is it?

What to do? Bye week content: a recruiting roundup midweek sometime. Return to hockey coverage. Pre-emptive sniping at Ohio State. Nothing about Charlie Weis or Tyrone Willingham.

Media deconstruction ahoy. FO's Too Deep Zone explores the world of swagger, which is rapidly rising up the Best Selling Sports Cliche charts. Advice to those who do not want to sound like the get their talking points from the bottom of the sports talk radio ecosystem: leave the swagger at home.

I've weighed in against ESPN enough in this space so I won't do it again, but I will point to this savage NY Post article:

HERE'S how screwy things have become at ESPN: In the course of roughly the last six months, we've spoken with, I don't know, maybe 50 different ESPN staffers. And not one of them likes what ESPN has become nor the direction it continues to travel. And they don't know anyone at ESPN who likes what's going on.

Mmmmm that's some good lead. The meat of the article deals with ESPN's belittling of a ref getting smashed into during a recent NFL game. It seems like it's a bit of an overreaction, but take it from someone who's inveighed against ESPN and then returned to think I may have gone off the deep end: this sort of "I'm not going to take it any more" moment is the result of a vast accumulation of insults. That the triggering instance may seem innocuous is evidence of the vast injury piled upon whichever sports fan is having his mental breakdown at the moment.

(HT: The Sports Biz Blog)

More drinkin' answers can be found various places. The Georgia Sports Blog has a roundup, er, up, but I feel compelled to pull the Best Answer Ever out from the relative internet obscurity of EDSBS's comments. It's not clear if this is the "good" list or the "bad" list, but here you go:

How about former coaches?

1) Gary Moeller - obvious.
2) John McKay - You have to figure after the fifth gimlet that ol' Johnny Mac would lose the self-deprectating good natured humour and turns into Louis Black, spitting vitriol at every one in range. Plus, you could get all of the great O.J. stories he's been hiding.
3) Woody Hayes - Seems like the kind of guy who would go blind on monshine, pummel you lifeless in some deserted corn field, and then weep over your bloody corpse saying he'll never love another man in quite the same way again.

EDSBS commenter known only as "Sam," truly you are the king of goofy football blog commenting. Yes, you can put that on your resume. You can find other answers from a Michigan perspective at Schembechler Hall and RBUAS.

If you thought I was creepy for stating that Kirk Ferentz had a fine daughter or two, uh... I wouldn't click on this link that's coming up right here: "The Hottest Daughter in College Football." Thanks, SMQ, for giving me some company over by the punch bowl.