Tuesday, March 29, 2011

SCSD! Wins Gothic Madness, plus the FUTURE (ooOOooOOOooo)

Ladies and Gents, the final numbers are in, and we have a Gothic Madness champion:

Seth Curry Saves Duke!

Final standings:*

*Nobody has any of the current teams in the final game, so the pool is officially kaput.

1. Seth Curry Saves Duke - 10710
2. Crazie-Talk - 9670
3. The Devils Den - 9560
4. DukeHoopBlog - 9410
5. Devilwolfing - 9360

As if there was another possibility. AS IF.

This reminds me of the time a small child on the street suggested that Seth Curry Saves Duke! might not win the Gothic Madness pool. I nodded, keeping my cool, and asked him what his favorite subject in school was. He said history. I took out a globe, poured gasoline on it, and lit it on fire. Then I spun it around. And around. And around. That child saw a burning world, twisting away on the sidewalk, smelling like burning plastic, and he will never love history again. The Moody Blues erase history.

I'm just saying. There was never a doubt. Oh, and congratulations to our boy T. Hunter for winning the individual contest. You are the moodiest of all the blues, homes.

And while we're talking about the blog, I'd like to give you all a heads-up about the future of SCSD:

1) Very soon, probably within the month, I'll be making the leap to SethCurrySavesDuke.com. The new site will be hosted on Wordpress and will hopefully look a lot nicer than this one. There may be some advertisements. Most sentences will look like this one:

Hey, guys, you know what's awesome? Jeans.

Just kidding on that last part.

2) I'm sort of undecided on the format of the blog going forward. Duke basketball will be a mainstay, but the offseason is the question. Should I cover the Yankees, cover Duke basketball, or make this a Duke sports blog? There's problems with each. Covering the Yanks is probably what I'd most like to do, but it's difficult to get a piece of that action with a blog name that doesn't reference the team at all. Covering Duke bball is tough because not much goes on in the offseason and, try as I might, I'm not that interested in covering recruiting. And making it a Duke sports blog would be fun, but does anyone really care?

And speaking of recruiting: while I don't particularly enjoy covering it, I do enjoy reading about future Duke recruits. If there's someone out there who's got their eye on the Duke recruiting scene anyway and would like to write something on a weekly basis, drop me a line. I'd like to keep at least a tentative link to that world over the offseason.

Anyway, I wouldn't mention any of this if I didn't particularly enjoy my readers and think you all should have at least a vague heads-up of what's happening between now and summer. And if you have some advice, by all means hit me up. One way or another, the writing style and content won't change. I'll still spend most of every post dragging the discourse down to a level so low and crass that only the basest slice of humanity will want to read. And just when you think the blog might have value, there will be a picture of Coach K trying to bone a wildcat.

Now, because we're in the middle of the week and there's not much going on, I'm going to advertise the first ever SCSD! Mailbag.

Unlike most people who use a mailbag type format, I do not have nearly enough e-mails to sustain the feature on a regular basis. I'll be running this feature like once a month, max. Also, if you don't want your name publicized, I'll make them anonymous in that timeless Dear Abby style (go to hell, Ann Landers, you fucking HACK!). If you want to contribute to the first ever mailbag slash advice column (likely run date: June 2013), drop me a line at shane.spr8 at gmail.com. You can make it about sports, personal issues, romance, or my particular specialty, dining room etiquette.*

*Sample: When you wrap your napkin around your face for a hilarious bank robber joke, make sure the side that's stained with ketchup is facing inward. Otherwise, your girlfriend will call you disgusting and spend a mysterious hour on the phone with her mother.

That's about all I've got for today. I'll close out with some links and the best comment ever.

First, here's a lengthy but worthwhile article posted in yesterday's comments by bluefaced wherein Rob Kirkpatrick takes on the racial issues surrounding Duke hating. He talks in depth about how all the Duke players that people really hate are white, and how the people hating them are also white. Which leads to a broader issue: why is it that good white players on a team you hate are somehow more annoying? I am not at all immune from this strange racial bias. When I think back on the college basketball players I've really hated in my time as a fan, there are definitely some black players (Khalid El-Amin and Reggie Bullock, I haven't forgotten you), but by and large the white dudes have pissed me off way more. I know I'm not alone on this; white friends have described the same phenomenon. I honestly can't even form a theory as to why this is true. Why must I hate Tyler Zeller with such zeal? Am I a reverse racist? If anybody has an idea, shout it out.

Second, WHOA FOLKS, UCONN AND DUKE TONIGHT FOR A SPOT IN THE FINAL FOUR! The Lady Dukies take on the perennial bastards of the women's game, the UConn Huskies, for a chance to make it to Indianapolis. 7pm. I will watch this game. Go Lady Dukies.

Last, sometimes there's a comment so awesome, so transcendent, so frightening, and so weird, that it must be posted. I was checking the weekend post this morning, and somehow I'd missed an absolute gem from Saturday's Kyrie twitter post. A commenter calling him or herself "Darfur" (your guess is as terrified as mine) had a salient point to make about journalistic ethics. Warning: please only read this if you hate nightmares. It starts out fairly normal, but quickly takes a turn for the bizarre. And then comes back to poignant again, but only if you're an insane person.

Gutter Muck Journalism, is Gutter Muck Journalism. All that is required is a second rate want-a-be excuse for a journalist.

I might be more inclined to believe a person that was not accused of child molestation, and bestiality with a geriatric Chihuahua.

We feel the following post from the Chihuahua Don't Ask...Don't Tell blog, warrants a follow-up.

A recent post from the offended Chihuahua is now accusing the phoney "I am not Seth Curry" blogger with RAPE, after he lured her to a secluded dump under the pretense of actually being a legitimate Chihuahua journalist. Only upon her arrival at the secluded dump did she discover the phoney journalist to be a demented under endowed Tar Baby in Drag.

When the feeble 90 year old Chihuahua realized she had been duped by this SCSD TAR BABY PERVERT, she immediately attempted to make her escape on her speedy Hover Round, only to be overtaken and forcibly sodomized by the under endowed Tar Baby.

Later the Rape charges were dropped after the elderly Chihuahua admitted she did not feel a thing from her would be under endowed Tar Baby Rapists pathetic attempt at intercourse.

The Tar Baby Rapist could not be reached for comment, but according to a recent tweet it appears that the Tar Baby Rapist is on the lamb with its new found lover Harrison Barnes, who is known to go by the alias of “I am not Seth Curry”.

WOW! Lashing together a few raw slanderous assumptions, and calling it journalism is real fun, until you wake up and realize your not an under endowed Tar Baby loser pretending to be a real life journalist.

Just because you were not good enough to get in to Duke, is no reason to be hating everyone who was.

Fear not Tar Baby, as long as there is an MSNBC or Fox News your wishful fantasy career as a journalist shall never die.

It would appear that a job is what you will be needing real soon, if you keep posting unfounded slanderous remarks while using the name and image of another in a clear deceptive manner, while concealing your own is a defamation suit waiting to happen.

Ho-lyyyy shit. Also, if you had to guess what time this comment was posted at, what would you guess? 4:55 in the morning? Correct!

I'd like to state for the record that none of these accusations are true. Ahem. Now, if anybody needs me, I'll be shaking in the fetal position on the bathroom floor. Have a great day.

29 comments:

  1. I would like to point out that this mysterious person has a "your/you're" mistake in the fourth to last paragraph.

    "Lashing together a few raw slanderous assumptions, and calling it journalism is real fun, until you wake up and realize YOUR [sic] not an under endowed Tar Baby loser pretending to be a real life journalist."

    Any point he/she was trying to make just went out the window with the verb that is lacking from his/her sentence. Dare I also point out that the sentence in question also appears to contain a comma splice.

    I could be wrong,though. I haven't had my morning coffee yet.

    Journalism classes FTW!

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  2. Okay, understanding that there may be some future blog changes that I am not entirely comfortable with, in this current interim Blog-Type No Man's Land, can you PLEASE celebrate this particular week in sports with at least a LITTLE pre-season prognostication for Opening Day?! Like, you enjoy making proclamations. Make one of those about baseball.

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  3. Yes to reverse-racism.

    It's a lot more acceptable to be be openly and vocally racist against your own race. You feel more similar or inherently connected to them so in your mind it makes it acceptable to be more critical, racist, judgemental, whatever. When I say "you", I mean all of us btw.

    - TheLaettnerDays

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  4. Re: Topics for off season blog coverage........If it's not Duke vs UNC, then it must be the Yanks vs the Sux til college football puts us back with the Blue Devils vs Tar Heels rivalry. Somehow I think Dukies support the team from the Big Apple while the Heels don a red sock. I would also suggest a Phili vs Mets rivalry but no one in their right mind would support the Mets.

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  5. Love your writing and passion. Would love to have a sports blog.

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  6. Whatever. We're coming for it all next year.

    -#TeamCrazieTalk

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  7. Also, where is that fool UNC J-school grad now? HUH????? HUHH?????

    Shane don't need no effin traditional newspaper models.

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  8. Shane,

    Despite being a Tar Heel, I love your blog. Seeing what your writing talents have done to contribute to my knowledge of my school's rival, I'd love to fully appreciate that from the opposite side of the spectrum. As such, I'd encourage you to write about the Yankees mostly during the spring and summer months, and I guess otherwise focus on whatever else you deem important (lock-outs, etc?). There simply is no way to sustain an all Duke offseason, and while frankly I have no idea what kind of passion you have for non basketball Duke sports, but I'd assume it wouldn't inspire nearly the same style that you current put into Duke basketball. Seeing what you do best, you've got to write about what you love that's relevant, and if that is the Yankees, then write about he Yankees.

    As for anon two above me, I have no idea why you'd think Tar Heels are Red Sox fans. Yes, I see a lot of Boston caps around, but without a doubt given our own large Yankee or re-located Yankee (like myself) presence, I'd easily say there are more New York Yankee fans at Carolina than Sox fans.

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  9. go with the yankees with a little duke sprinkled in

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  10. Just keep it how you did last offseason. It was good, quality stuff, and you still mixed in the Duke stuff whenever it came around. There's honestly not enough on Duke recruiting to keep it going for 8 months. As long as you bring back the Pick 6 and other interesting things like that, you can keep talking about Robi-thon Cano for 8 months, and still keep it fresh.

    -Shaker

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  11. Guys, thanks for the input. I think you're all on the mark, and that's the way I've been leaning anyway. If I made a different decision it would be largely based on what I should do rather than what I want to do, and that's probably a bad decision.

    Carrie, brace yourself, amigo, full frontal baseball preview on the way tomorrow.

    Laettner, great call. I was going to posit a theory kinda close to that in the post, that we have stronger emotions about individuals of our own race primarily because we're more familiar, even subconsciously, and when we have strong emotions about another race we tend to generalize (actual racism). I'm sure there's some kind of sociological study that proves this.

    JAKE, YOU GOT SCHOOLED, SON. YOU'RE LIKE A UNC FAN WHO LOST THE ACC TITLE GAME AND HAS TO WAIT ALL OFFSEASON FOR ANOTHER CRACK! Summer's ours, biatch!

    -Shane

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  12. Oh, and Tar Heel, thanks for reading and I agree with the bulk of your comment. But I must say that in going to Tar Heel games this year, I saw a TON of UNC jerseys coupled with Red Sox hats. However, there's probably a selection bias there; I probably notice that combo more than I notice a welcoming Yankee hat.

    I think if there's a similarity between Duke and the Yankees, it's that they're pretty universally hated by fans of other teams because of an idea of elitism. The Yanks are supposed to be the evil empire with all the money, while Duke are the snobby rich kids. I think it's actually a little less pronounced with the Yanks because everyone likes New York City itself.

    On the flip side, I don't necessarily see a connection between the Heels and the Sox, other than the fact that both are basically royalty in their sports while sort of pretending not to be.

    -Shane

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  13. I'm pretty sure Darfur is Brad Stevens. He told a similar story to his team before they played Wisconsin. Obviously he made a few changes so it would be relevant to you and the blog.

    With regard to the future of the blog: Just write about fantasy baseball until basketball gets going again :)

    I couldn't care less about other Duke sports, but the truth is you could probably blog about breakfast cereal and how you prepare your tea and I would show up everyday and read it.

    Re: Reverse Racism - Lee Melchionni can eat a dick.

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  14. Just discovered this blog and it's right up my alley. I'm a Duke grad ('87) who roots for the Yankees behind enemy lines (I live in Boston). My car has this bumper sticker on it: "Our favorite teams are the Duke Blue Devils and the NY Yankees. Gosh, you must hate us."

    Looking forward to the Yankees stuff, now that the Blue Devils are watching the Final Four on TV. Maybe you should change the name of the blog to "Seth Curry Saves Duke and the Yankees" or "Seth Curry Saves Duke While Brett Gardner Saves the Yankees."

    And one last note on the Final Four. Isn't it interesting that one of the games features two coaches who are ol' slimy classless guys while the other game has two standup coaches who look like they are still studying for finals?
    --scooterb1

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  15. I think you should go Yankees, post some NFL thoughts esp. about the impending lockout, etc. Go for some draft coverage, Dukies in the pros, etc. Recruiting is not a hotbed, but I would love to hear if you watched the Elite 24 documentary on ESPN and what you thought of it.

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  16. You are a talented enough writer, who could probably make anything interesting. Enough people write about recruiting. I come here not just because of the Duke basketball aspect, but also because I enjoy reading your stuff. Do whatever you like, I will still come.

    Oh yeah #teamSCSD4life

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  17. definitely yankees....till duke season starts up bball again.

    i'd love to write about recruiting but im a horrible writer lol

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  18. I'm sure Numbers Benton has a few things to say about baseball season.

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  19. I'm not much of a baseball fan and honestly don't read many of the Yankees posts, but I agree with the others. I think you should continue to write about what you enjoy the most. I will add that I've also liked your posts on other sports (tennis, golf, soccer, etc), so I guess the bottom line is, just keep up the good work.

    Let me know if you need help with Wordpress. I've done a good bit of development on it as a platform.

    -William

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  20. Shane,
    I do not see how you can possibly not continue comment on the NY Yankees. I mean you have cornered the market on the most hated teams in America, it would be a travesty to miss the huge season ARod and Cameron are going to have as well as providing balance to sanfransoxfan. Pleeeze continue Yankee commentary. If not, I do have some great duck videos that you could post during the few summer months. I don't think your (correct usage) fans want more duck videos, do they?

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  21. Your not even on Dukes team why must you act as if they dictate your life or as if you know the players on the team in general.

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  22. Great point, George.

    -Shane

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  23. Channel your inner Drew Magary and rant away all summer.

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  24. I love Major League Baseball. Thus I hate the Yankees.

    I vote you stay primarily Duke, but during the offseason you just cherry-pick from all other sports PTI/Around The Horn/First Take style and write about whatever moves you from the world of sports that day. We'd love your take on just about any of it. It would be a great variety plus then we wouldn't have to hear you cry about the Yankees being in 3rd place in the division and having no pitching staff until the trade deadline when they acquire whatever they want and once again make a mockery of free agency and supposed level playing fields for the umpteenth straight year.

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  25. that fool UNC J-school gradMarch 30, 2011 at 12:30 AM

    Jake, don't worry, I'm still around. I didn't realize that I'd caused such a ruckus. And if that comment quoted in today's post was directed at me... wow. That was truly a singular composition. Frankly, I'm just honored to have been a part of it.

    But before you jump to conclusions, I should let you know that I'm not your average UNC grad. I merely used my experience at the J-school as a jumping-off point for a discussion of a topic that I find very interesting. If you must know, I'm actually a grad student at Duke right now, and that's how I learned about the blog. So, I hope you understand why I have no interest in getting into a squabble about whether UNC journalism or Duke English is the better program — I think they're both fine courses of study, and that students graduating from either (or both) should be welcomed with open arms into the high-paying occupation of their choice.

    [Although, as a side note, I should tell you that I was embarrassed to see what had become of the DTH's annual wager with the Chronicle. The quality of the paper has seen a significant decline in the past few years — it's nothing compared to what it was even just a few years ago. There was far more substance behind the obscenities in my day.]

    Though I do apologize for stirring up such a flurry of internet argument, I am glad that a discussion is being had about the role of sites like these in the larger media picture. It's a conversation worth having, I think. Thanks for the perspective.

    - N

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  26. Thanks for the shout out, T Fab P. I vote Yankees, too, at least for this season, as it means you will be spending a lot of time talking about the Red Sox, and you will be angry a lot, and you are really extra funny when you're pissed off (you cannot have too many commas, as long as they are correctly placed).

    Besides, it will give me a place to submit my photoshop of Jeter (who you know I actually think is a total class guy, which makes it funnier still) and his walker rounding the bases.

    Or, you could go with duck videos - just make sure to include some commentary.

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  27. I think you should do a season-long running commentary on Joba Chamberlain and the apparent risks of adhering to a diet that consists solely of nachos, beer and fried twinkies. You could even spice it up with some fancy scrolling duck images/videos.

    There is no shortage of sports-related material that you can run with from April through October in addition to the Yankees. Though when the Yanks are ten games back of the Sox on July 16, I won't blame you if you decide to go with an expository piece on the need to curb blood doping and concussions in Canadian women's curling.

    -Craig J.

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  28. I'm not certain what Craig J. said about blood and curling, but what I heard was "... when the Yanks are ten games back of the Sox on July 16..."

    Clearly we have the makings of a hot potato: On what date with the Yanks be 10 games back of the Sox?

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  29. You should talk about Duke because the Yankees suck. A lot. The only disappointing part of the Yankees offseason was that they missed out on the great Carl Pavano.

    No, seriously, not all Duke fans like the Yankees - Red Sox fan for life. But that's okay if you do - you're a very good writer, and should write about whatever's most interesting to you because you're clearly capable of finding something worthwhile to point out about it. Good luck.

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