JBorhood Quick Hit #2

First and foremost, congratulations to Shaun (WWTCD) for winning the third annual Jimmy (in truth, it's the first year we've called it the Jimmy, but I'm down with revisionist history). I'm working on doling out the final awards, but I want to make sure I don't miss any of the good, bad or ugly picks from the final brackets so I need to take a little more time. I'll have the awards up this weekend and notify all the participants via email. In the mean time, I leave you with this hilarious vignette concerning a fantasy baseball website.

Now wait, before those of you who don't care about baseball or fantasies leave (see, now you don't want to go, right?), I want to assure you that the following comedy takes absolutely no baseball knowledge to understand. That's right. Equal opportunity comedy here at the JBorhood. It's affirmative action for the wanna be sports fan.

So, I'm in a fantasy baseball league, which, for those of you who don't know, is a collection of men who form a league where they select actual baseball players to form teams and then use these teams as an excuse to berate one another. Good times. But this isn't just any league. No, this is a twenty team, gigantic monstrosity of a league that people take INCREDIBLY seriously. There's nothing at stake. No money, prizes, beer, women. Just pride. But that doesn't stop people from working themselves into a frenzy over anything that bugs them.

The current issue at stake is the website we use to keep track of our teams. We just moved from an old website, which sucked, but had a number of good features, to a new website that looks pretty and has flashy colors, but makes you want to set yourself on fire when you use it. I think the designers of the website showed three possible versions to three focus groups and chose the one where the users gouged their eyes out after usage, instead of the one where the users hung themselves or simultaneously drank poison kool-aid. (I'm only partially kidding.) This new website has lead to some spirited discussion about whether or not we should move back to the old crappy website or stay with the new, hilariously awful site. I'll spare you the majority of the details, but I wanted to share one managers thoughts on what the slogans should be for the old (TQ Stats) and new (Fanball) sites.

(From the mind of my Mike Oppenheim)

TQ: If you leave, you'll miss us like your kinda shitty ex girlfriend who gave decent head.

TQ: We promise to agitate you just a little less than the rest!

TQ: Where the bare minimum is considered a standard of excellence!

Fanball: You won't believe what six dollars will get you. Seriously, you won't believe it!

Fanball: we promise nothing, and offer nothing in return!

Fanball: Where the shit hits the fan!

Fanball: A retarded monkey with epilepsy could design a better functioning site! We went with a retarded genetically engineered chicken instead!

Bravo, Mike. Bravo.

(If you enjoyed that tirade, you can catch more of Mike's glib witticisms at www.mikeyopp.com. He's going to kill me for using that post as an intro, so please go read his stuff. It's great. I promise.)