Heat Bobcats Basketball"Damnit MJ, I can't believe I let you talk me into making all those Super Bowl bets..."

Kelly Dwyer -- the only other basketball fan I know who can make a Steely Dan reference on the fly -- took some time to remind of the saddest NBA game ever. You know, aside from any of Cleveland's games this year.

Curious about the NBA's stance on baseball? Check out this now-deleted tweet. (h/t Bruce Arthur)
baseballAwesome.

I think we can all agree that the halftime show in this year's Super Bowl was footbawful at its finest/worst. Honestly, Black Eyed Peas, how do you make Slash suck? That takes effort. And putting a bedazzled top hat on him? Sigh. (And Usher? Really? Really?) Anyway, I took the liberty of compiling my favorite tweets from last night related to the halftime show. Kind of a long list, but how could it not be long? That was a long ass halftime show of failure and sadness. And white-suited guys with weird glowing boxes on their heads.
Bill Corbett from Mystery Science Theater 3000:
"Will.U.Are sucking"
"Holy crap, another Superbowl wardrobe malfunction! Will.He.Is has plastic crap all over his head!!"

Matt Sussman:
"This halftime show has been sponsored by the Foundation For A Shittier Life."
"The book of Revelations has come true."

Sports Pickle:
"Apparently in the future there will be a lot of awful music. Thankfully we'll all be dead."
"Troy Polamalu on guitar! Neat!"
"My God. Her voice is like hell. Hell as sound. In my ears. Burning. Burning hell ears."
"I hope this year's wardrobe malfunction is Fergie's throat spontaneously combusting."
"Fergie doesn't need auto-tune. She needs auto-kill. Dallas needs a RoboCop."
"Thank god Axel Rose isn't alive to see this."
"Those things the dancers have on their heads are the new NFL concussion helmets."

Bobby Big Wheel:
"The Black Eyed Peas dancers look like Tron sperm"
"I just like to imagine John Madden asking George W. Bush what the hell is going on in the halftime show."

Free Darko:
"This is like a Kim Jon Il sci-fi epic."
"Really would it have killed Axl and Slash to make up and spare us from this?"
"I wish Usher hadn't made that deal with the devil."
"YOU CANNOT EARNESTLY ASK WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD WHILE DRESSSED UP AS TRON."
"Nice product placement, The Container Store."

Fake Brian Scalabrine: "The Black Eyed Peas are like the Me of Super Bowl Halftime Shows."
Jeff Passan: "I kid you not: My 3-year-old just pointed to Fergie and said, "That lady has testicles." #kidsarethebest
Gus Ramsey: "Why is that guy wearing a Light Bright?"
JosephScrimshaw (during the start of the 3rd quarter of the game): "It would be so awesome if there was a random box head Tron dancer lost & wandering on the field right now."
ArkansasFred: "Let's get retar......er, it started in here!"
NHL player Paul Bissonnette: "Wish they woulda stuck one of those boxes the dancers were wearing on Fergie's head."

Speaking of Bill Corbett, he linked to this gem as well:


"My god, the Giant Spider Invasion prophecy just came true"


Worst of the Weekend in Pictures:

Cavaliers Varejao Surgery BasketballGood Lord, Anderson Varejao's Sideshow Bob haircut looks even worse in street clothes

Trail Blazers Cavaliers BasketballThis Cleveland fan isn't sad because the Cadavers suck -- he wears the bag all the time, and the woman behind him understandably rejected his advances

63337608Hey Doc, shouldn't you be coaching instead of checking out the dance team?

Clippers Heat BasketballInvisible Cigarette

Lakers Hornets BasketballBall.

Timberwolves Raptors Basketball"AAAAAAAAAAH"

Heat Bobcats Basketball"OHHHHHHHH"

Magic Wizards BasketballIt's impossible for a Stan Van Gundy picture to not make me smile

Nationally Televised Games:
Timberwolves at Hornets, NBA TV, 8pm: Anyone over at NBA TV want to explain the appeal of this game to me? The Hornets are slumping, yes, but the Timberpoops are frightened that playing defense might result in six more weeks of winter, regardless of whatever that groundhog said the other day. My prediction for this game? Pain (for the viewers, at least).

Suns at Warriors, NBA TV, 10:30pm: Speaking of no defense... Also, random Steve Nash tweet goodness (his response to the retweet is in parentheses).

All The Other Games:
Celtics at Bobcraps, 7pm: Ray Allen. Four treys away from beating Reggie Miller's record. Stephen Jackson. Four techs away from a one-game suspension. Can you guess which of these teams is in a better place right now?

Lakers at Grizzlies, 8pm: Heads up: the last three games between these teams in Memphis have been nail-biters. Also, Memphis has won the last two meetings between these two teams. Could be worth checking out.

Cadavers at Mavericks, 8:30pm: This game could be historical, record-breaking bawful. Why isn't it on national TV??? ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV, get your priorities straight!

Rockets at Nuggets, 9pm: Fun stat of the day: Denver is 28-6 when scoring at least 103 points, and 2-15 the rest of the time. Hey Rockets, just FYI, you might want to consider playing defense for a change tonight.

Bulls at Frail Blazers, 10pm: Word of warning: the Bulls do not fare well in trips to Portland. They've dropped 9 of 11 at the Rose Garden, and the Blazers have been putting up some nice offense the past few games. (Of course, playing against Cleveland will do that to you. Said Andre Miller: "You don't want to be the top headline: 'Streak ends to Portland Trail Blazers.' Guys took a little pride in that.")

Jazz at Kings, 10pm: Can someone please tell me what's going on with the Jazz? This team is just all over the map. Deron Williams is banged up and the entire team just looks like they don't want to be on the court. And yet they're still in much better shape than the Purple Paupers. Jerry Sloan FTW.

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16 Comments:
Anonymous kazam92 said...
Round of applause. B.E.P. was a debacle and some people had the gall to tell me otherwise. It's hard to believe Eazy E found them and they were actually respectable in the early decade.

Anonymous Stockton said...
Cadavers are so bad, one of the following will happen:

a) they'll get #5-8 in the draft
b) they get #1 in the worst draft of the millennium
c) they get #1, draft a potential superstar, who blows his knees in first practice

Blogger Wormboy said...
Good lord. Worst halftime show ever. The wife and I kept looking at each-other in astonishment.

There were a couple of deep truisms revealed here. First, if somebody asks you to dress in a wildly science-fictiony outfit for a nationally televised performance, you decline. Second, ditto with lights on your clothes. Oh, ditto! Third, songs with lots of studio gimmickry are difficult to make sound cool when played live. Fourth, decline ice cube lookin helmets for dancers. Fifth, hard rock-rap mashups only work well for Run DMC collaborating with Aerosmith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-L-Uq832v4

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
Okay, there's a bunch of conflicting opinions on the Halftime Show. I think it comes down to this:

If you don't recall or compare this year to shows prior to wardrobe malfunction year, the show was okay.

If you have seen BEP do other shows, and think they were lazy, you thought it was shit. You are also stupid for thinking the entirety of 100 million other people have seen those things too.

If you thought the tron shit wasn't somehow better than the pudgy fake fangirls cheering at 60 year old rockers, then I guess you thought it sucked.

If you thought Usher descending from the sky on a chain was fucking boss, you probably thought the show was good.

If you can't get over the LOIE stage lighting fail, then I guess it sucked.

If you are somehow in denial of the past 18 years of pop music, and don't think AutoTune would ever be used live, you probably thought it sucked and are also p much stupid. "The voices sounded robotic" has got to be the stupidest criticism of the show I've read today.

If you put money on the prop bet that Fergie would be dressed as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, you're probably pissed at yourself now.

So honestly the show wasn't bad, and accomplished exactly what it was meant to do. Bring in a safe bet for younger performers, re-introduce the unannounced cameo thing, and please the widest amount of viewing public, which are mostly people asking "is the girl Lady Gaga?".

Anonymous Czernobog said...
@AnacondaHL: This has little to do with otyher halftime shows. The Black Eyed Peas are to music as the Cleveland Cadavers are to basketball. Fact.

I don't blame them for the halftime show, I blame the tin-eared idiot who picked them.

Blogger Joe said...
I agree the halftime show sucked massively, but Usher wasn't bad. His dance moves were great as usual, but the mic level killed everything. It would have been nice to be able to see him. Plus something got screwed with the timing and he had to hurry to his spot to start the segment..made it look smooth though.

I think most of the anger at the super bowl has to be directed at the sound people and the lighting people.

Also..fergie would have been much better served to just sing that song in her voice instead of some wanna be axl voice.

Blogger Dan B. said...
The Black Eyed Peas are to music as the Cleveland Cadavers are to basketball. Fact.

Word.

Also, using Autotune to make your voice robotic is weak. If you want a sweet robotic voice effect, do it right and break out the Talkbox. Unfortunately, Roger Troutman isn't around anymore to funk some sense into people these days, cause it's So Ruff, So Tuff to find anything like that these days.

Blogger Dan B. said...
Also, yes. Cleveland. 25 consecutive losses. Unreal. I need to sleep on this one to let it sink in just how bawful this situation is.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
Supposedly, there was a sketchy call at the end of the Celtics game, somehow leading to hitting the over on 182.5. It's 87-92, Pierce has the ball, and Shawn Livingston walks upto him with his arms up as he jacks up a 3 with 3 seconds. Whistle. Pierce makes the first two, misses the third and fouls Gerald Wallace. Sinks two more free throws, game. 89-94. 183.

Blogger Wild Yams said...
Based on the evidence, I think a lifetime ban for Paul Pierce from playing in the NBA is required. Someone get his wheelchair ready for him.

Anonymous DKH said...
I'm not really a big BEP fan. Mostly, I find their music to be mindless, and it only fills the need to have something marginally catchy on the radio. So my overall opinion of them is meh.

Technical issues aside, I could have given the halftime show a pass as "it's just not something I care for," but the Black Eyed Peas weren't even close to in tune, despite some of the members using auto-tune. Overall, they just weren't musical enough to carry the show and I couldn't stand it. Find a good college marching band or two or something.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_txvgWWvSggs/TU8dKABSa9I/AAAAAAAAB5Y/mC7-QYN3JJw/s1600/boshstridge.jpg

Blogger Interstate08 said...
Ordinarily I'd say the show was pretty bad due to the weak vocals and crappy audio... but taking into consideration that the past 4 or so super-bowl halftime shows we've been inundated with 60 year-old fat guy has-beens singing bland awful anthems that were already tired and trite decades ago, I gotta say this B.E.P. show wasn't so terrible.

Sure this performance had a lot of issues, not the least of which being that Slash was likely a couple seconds away from bludgeoning Fergie to death with his guitar for butchering his song. But like it or hate it, you gotta admit the show was interesting. You'll remember it for a while, that's for sure. Anyone recall who played the super-bowl halftime show last year? It was The Who, and they sucked. A lot of you probably don't remember it because the experience was akin to being pistol-whipped by boredom into a coma. At least this year with the Black Eyed Peas, the sheer w-t-f nature of performance kept you awake.

I'm not saying it couldn't have been better, but at least they changed it up a bit.

Anonymous Marc d. said...
They should have had Kanye do the halftime show. Then we would've seen some fireworks!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I'm surprised that people think it was so awful. I'm not saying it was good, but it was the usual drivel I expect at an overhyped entertainment event. There is a lot of vehemence at BEP I just can't quite fathom.

I was really hoping for Duo Design, but alas!

Blogger Wormboy said...
The main problem with the show was that it was horribly executed. Clearly not well rehearsed, sound off, Fergie singing like a loose cannon. Just very badly produced all around. It may or may not have been the fault of the BEP. But they get the credit if it works, so they get the blame if it doesn't. The Peas also suffer because their songs have little musicality to them. Vocals are notoriously bad live, and worse the bigger the venue. But if you're the BEP, what is left?

Totally agreed about old guys shows. But they get a notch up on the BEP because there's at least a recognizable song there. What do you have when the "song" is rapping plus studio gimmicks, and your vocals suck in a live performance? Not much left, is there? But gotta give them credit. They could have pre-recorded that and tried to lip synch it. It would have sounded MUCH better, but the risk would have been blowing the lip synching somehow. Given that all of the non-music was pre-recorded, what difference would it have made?

I think more credit goes to people who put on good shows, because it's hard to do so in that kind of venue. Prince was actually quite good: too much guitar wanking for my taste, but a very well executed show. No Doubt actually did alright if I recall, and the Sting cameo worked well. Stones and Who suffered from old tired guy syndrome (and the Stones sucked live in the 70s, why would anybody expect them to be good now? OK, maybe not drugged out. But still.)

Who else? Springsteen's performance was OK I guess, but dull. I didn't watch the Tom Petty game. McCartney same as Springsteen, but older. U2? Vaguely recall it. It's not like they were ever a great band to begin with, just dramatic breathy vocals and clever guitar gimmickry (which, to his credit, the Edge usually pulls of live). But kinda dull. I missed the Janet Jackson shindig, since I used to just do something else for halftime shows.

Fact is, most halftime shows are either bad or bland. I think most people are arguing that they prefer bland. For all of those bland acts I mentioned, there was little sucking. That's what set the BEPs apart: their show was actually BAD, with poor execution, poor production, and flat out bad performances. People singing out of tune is bad. Fergie bellowing is bad. And the costumes....