This Week in the Twitterverse Comment Count

BiSB

PSA: For those of you who didn’t kickstart the Basketball/Hockey HTTV because you didn’t want an ebook, this is your friendly reminder that the magic number has been reached. The print version of the publication will be a thing. There is still time to adjust your Kickstarter to pre-purchase a copy, which will be delivered to your place of residence. CONSUME.

This is Getting Ridiculous. Or Awesome. I Can’t Tell.

On the heels of the You’re A Baller phenomenon, things in the recruiting world just keep getting weirder. Take Florida for example. SB Nation has a rundown of some of the more… interesting? yeah, let’s go with interesting… recruiting-related photoshopped pictures they have shared on social media in recent weeks. Among my favorites:

Florida WHA 2

Gatorade may have been slightly less successful had it been originally marketed as Gator Grind Juice

Florida WHA.

I’ve never seen Harry Potter, so I can’t make a proper joke

Harry Potter? Your best argument is literally “come to Florida because an imaginary guy at in imaginary school was good at an imaginary sport.” [Ed-S: This begs the question: what else can be made cool by adding a halo-Harry Potter to it?]

In fact, based on recent trends, I think I know who the perfect creator of recruiting materials would be: me, at six years old, narrating a battle between my toys:

Ultimate Recruiting Note In recruiting, it’s all about the Barbies

If you’re a recruit, TELL ME you wouldn’t be all over this letter.

And If You Don't Like It You Can GET OUT

The NFL draft kicks off this Thursday evening, and a very small battle is brewing. Over the last couple of years, a combination of ESPN’s coverage and social media have let the air out of the balloon of drama with a distinct flatulent noise. For the last few drafts, we knew whose name Roger Goodell would call before he called it, because (a) ESPN had a live shot of Large Guy in an awesome suit with a terrible tie talking on a cell phone, (b) Chris Berman would start dropping terrible puns involving Large Guy, and (c) everyone in the NFL Twitterverse would dutifully report LARGE GUY TO ________________. A minute or two later, Goodell wandered up to the stage and announced to the couple of hundred remaining people in the world who DIDN’T know: the people at Radio City Music Hall who didn’t have smart phones.

Brady Quinn

Wait for it…

This year, ESPN and the NFL Network have announced that they will try to bring some drama back to the proceedings by not tipping off any picks before they are announced. From ESPN’s perspective, that’s probably a smart move, because by tipping their hand they were essentially scooping themselves. The same, however, cannot be said for outside forces, such as CBS’s Jason La Canfora, who has announced that whateva, whateva, I do what I want:

I will be trying to get the information out as quickly and accurately as possible. What event is made more for Twitter than the NFL draft? If the teams have the information; if the guys in the production truck have the information; if the commissioner has the information; why wouldn’t passionate football fans want it as well?

His proposed solution? If you don’t want the information, don’t follow him on Twitter. In fact, just stay off Twitter altogether. Others have echoed this idea:

McIntyre

I’m not sure about this one. On the one hand, I get it. Being a reporter means reporting what you get. These guys’ job descriptions don’t include “maintain dramatic tension.” They report what they know when they know it. And some people may not want an advanced peek, but some probably DO, and people who don’t can just not look.  On the other hand, you can’t just say, “unfollow me and you’ll be fine.” That’s not how it works. If it was, Mike Valenti wouldn’t show up on my feed every day. If even ONE person I follow decides to retweet you, that’s the ballgame.

Here’s the question, though: is “you can always stay off Twitter” a legitimate defense? Can you put an entire social media platform essentially off-limits to people who want to use it? After all, there are a number of people (myself included) who would like to both watch the draft and simultaneously read the little factoids and nuggets of info that the internet provides. Besides, you aren’t “breaking stories” here. Your ‘insider info’ is going to become public in like 60 seconds. It’s like if you were watching a game, and you were one of like a dozen people in the world who wasn’t on a 30-second delay.

What say you?

Don’t Strain Yourselves, Fellas

The much-ballyhooed college football playoff enters existence in a couple of years, and we are all SO excited. Instead of only TWO teams competing for a national title, we now get FOUR teams. That’s twice as many teams! 100% more teams! BIG SUCCESS! Of course it’s gonna take until 2015 to roll out, but whatever.

This week, though they held the big roll-out of the shiny new name. And of course they named the college football playoff the College Football Playoff. It reminds me of when the Big Ten Was all, “HEY, CHECK OUT THE NEW LOGO” and this was the new logo:

Big Ten Logo

Mind: BLOWN

And sure, it took them months to roll out a name that was just a description of the, but it’s not easy to choose a logo. Wait, what’s that you say? They didn’t pick? They’re crowdsourcing it? Let’s see what our options are:

Logos

Yippee, amirite? On the bright side, though, I think they may have found an exception to the “don’t let people vote on things via social media unless you want Texas A&M to win by billions” rule. That exception is that you can let people vote on things about which no one anywhere gives the slightest crap. It also helps if their options for the thing about which they don’t give the slightest crap are all terrible. Who is going to hack this one so that the gazelle horn logo wins? No one is sending bots out in support of any of these. [Ed-S: WRONG! Vote Golden Vagina!!]   [ED-BiSB: On second viewing, and after consulting six-year-old me from earlier in this article, Seth is correct. ]

They also have a countdown clock that is currently at 615 days. Just thought I’d mention that.

I Do Not Think This Says What You Think It Says

After last week’s odd Sparty Sloopy license plate, eagle-eyed reader @dcesiel sent me this picture of an ill-conceived combination of a Sparty plate and a Sparty phrase:

Sparty Plate

It Burns When I Fuel Up

[He also pointed out that he took this picture about an hour before kickoff for the Nebraska game in a lot that was pretty close to Spartan Stadium. We aren’t the only ones struggling with home attendance apparently, though I’m not sure that’s the yardstick by which we need to be measuring things.]

Weekly Jose Canseco Updateupdate

Jose is back at the easel. All is right with the world.

Canseco Trump Dragon

The difference between a dragon and a dragondragon? The Adidas stripes on the dragondragon’s neck.

Comments

gbdub

April 25th, 2013 at 11:46 AM ^

I agree on the sad abuse of "begs the question" - but what idiom do we have that has the actual meaning that "begs the question" abusers are going for?



I guess you could say "raises the obvious question", but I don't think that has quite the impact people think they get with "begs the question".

Bigasshammm

April 25th, 2013 at 9:22 AM ^

Anyway I had no idea that the hockey/basketball wasn't a print option until it reached a certain goal. I did the 30$ kick start for both books. Will I receive both in print or do I need to up it somewhere? Just want to know so I can make changed before Monday.

GotBlueOnMyMind

April 25th, 2013 at 9:26 AM ^

Just a though. Jose Canseco isn't batshit crazy like he seems, he is an absolute genius, and, after findout out about This Week in the Twitterverse, he decided to kick it up a notch and start straight up trolling BiSB. 

Commie_High96

April 25th, 2013 at 9:29 AM ^

That Pontiac solstice must belong to Satan, it represents my idea of the Platonic Form of evil. Well, maybe if Dantonio drives the Bucknut a-hole was riding shotgun.

247Hinsdale

April 25th, 2013 at 9:42 AM ^

I enjoyed reading the descriptions to the CFP logos. They reminded me of high school me when I was asked to explain things such as the symbolism of a bike in a story and I would think "there is no symbolism; the kid is too young to drive and he doesn't want to walk so he rode a bike" but instead I would write "the wheels on the bicycle represent the solidarity of the brothers as they work in tandem, and when the front tire gets a flat it represents how Sylvester falls in with the wrong crowd and is no longer there for Frank".

DPUblue

April 25th, 2013 at 9:56 AM ^

Following Jose Canseco on twitter is one of the most frustratingly funny things I've ever seen. His addition to T.W.I.T. (kudos on lending this to a beautiful acronym) has be just awesome. I was hoping you'd feature his tweets to have time traveled and his ability to control his dreams...but there is always next week. Gracias Jose.

 

He also has a podcast.....................................................which is a rabbit hole I refuse to go down.

dahblue

April 25th, 2013 at 10:04 AM ^

Pick a logo...

That reminds me of Abe Pollin's decision to let the fans choose the new name for the Washington Bullets (changing from Bullets in 1995).  He held a contest with the reported top names being Express,  Stallions, Dragons and Sea Dogs.  It was reported, at that time, that Pollin's wife liked "Wizards".  And lo, a shitty team name emerged.  Why they didn't stick with Bullets (or choose Justice) is probably the same reason Harry Potter is recruited for the Gators.  It's a total fucking mystery and who doesn't like a good Sea Dog!

oldcityblue

April 25th, 2013 at 10:09 AM ^

I wonder if the Solstice owner realized before or after the plate was installed. If before, does he just say what the hell and install anyway, thinking no one would notice or care?

Or if he realized after, can you imagine the rush of adrenaline/embarassment he must have felt? (not to mention the awkward conversation with the significant other)

Or third scenario, it is the intentional truth from a proud fan.

jmdblue

April 25th, 2013 at 10:17 AM ^

there's a relationship between Jose's Trump Dragon, Sparty's celebration of venereal disease, and Harry Potter flying over a stadium in Florida.  I can't put my finger on it, but these are not coincidental bizarre bits.  These things are connected, and important, and suggestive of vast evil.

StephenRKass

April 25th, 2013 at 1:52 PM ^

You can't have it both ways . . . if you're fully connected, you can forget about manufactured suspense. This goes for the draft, but also for games and other news. Some people keep all their media open (facebook, cell, texting, twitter) all the time, so they can instantly be updated on everything. If you do that, you can forget about any suspense.

I was watching the Michigan - Kansas game on DVR (because of Good Friday worship earlier that evening.) One of the guys watching with us was was a bit older . . . pushing 80, and he received a cell call as we were in the last five minues of the game. The other two of us immediately yelled out "DON'T ANSWER THAT CALL!!!" The chances of a truly important call coming in when you're watching something at 10pm are pretty slim. In one sense, we didn't care who one or lost:  we just didn't want to know, either way. (obv., I want Michigan to win all games, and assume they'll win all games, but you get my point.) After the game, sure enough, it was one of his sons, a fellow UofM Alumni, calling to talk about the great win. You could only watch Trey hit the magic 3 pointer to put us in OT once.

I generally don't watch any reality TV, but have seeen bits of "Survivor" when my 11 year olds have it on. I suppose you could snoop around ahead of time and figure out who actually wins every competition, and who is booted off the island. But that would ruin the watching of it for most people.

Hardware Sushi

April 25th, 2013 at 11:01 AM ^

What say me about the NFL draft tension vs. twitter debate?

I guess I don't care. If you want tension, stay off twitter. If you want it fast, check out twitter. I don't really understand what the difference 60 seconds makes.

I love using twitter for following reporters and I love watching the draft. the 60 seconds between initial reporting from guy X on twitter and Goodell announcing it onstage are not relevant to me enjoying the draft.

InterM

April 25th, 2013 at 1:10 PM ^

and I planned to watch the NFL draft (as opposed to the Red Wings game), this would be my response as well.  The draft can hardly be considered a "live action" sporting event, such that a report a few seconds before the official announcement qualifies as a "spoiler."

bdsisme

April 25th, 2013 at 11:04 AM ^

The reason the whole "you can stay off twitter during the draft" argument is flawed is because people like Mortensen, Schefter, etc. usually tweet some pretty good factoids and behind-the-scenes stuff that they don't have time to say on air.  In one of the articles BiSB linked Mortensen says he only gets to disseminate 5% of the information that he prepares for the draft on TV.  I want this information (last year he tweeted some pre-written paragraphs about each player taken in the first round), but I don't want to know who will be picked until Goodell says it.  



I guess the solution is to read twitter on a 3-minute delay.  I guess that's easy enough to do (just make sure not to scroll up "too much"), but it'd be cool if there were an app for that.

MBloGlue

April 25th, 2013 at 11:31 AM ^

I can hear the MSU cheer now...

Herpes!  Herpes!  (clap) (clap) (clap)

 

If MSU would just change their mascot to the Trojans, then this wouldn't have happened.

BiSB

April 25th, 2013 at 2:20 PM ^

Not my best effort. Those five days straight days with strep throat and a fever impeded my ability to focus on what was happening in the world. Or the existence of an outside world. I did have some wicked dreams, though, if you'd like me to write about those.

I'm upping my Vitamin C intake. Don't worry, I won't let you down again.

Michigan248

April 25th, 2013 at 3:19 PM ^

lol just giving my honest opinion, I was hoping for something about the DJ fluker getting money tweet. I hope you get well soon, passion fruit teas work well for vitamins and immune system

BiSB

April 25th, 2013 at 3:28 PM ^

This is my 11th edition of this thing. Some are bound to suck, so I'm happy to accept criticism when that happens. Some weeks I can't wait to write it, some I just sit down and say, "well... shit?" This was one of the latter.

I didn't even see the Fluker thing, and I wish I had. Let this serve as everyone's weekly reminder/beg to send any interesting stuff you come across to @bry_mac.