Show Prep #12

Greetings and Salutations, people. This is Vertically Striped Radio, The #200th ranked sports show on BlogTalk and the show that is too controversial for Alabama! This is Vertically Striped Radio brought to you by VerticallyStripedSocks.com. I am pleased to report that this program has been banned in Alabama. A fantastic Alabaman known as Steve, or as he is known on the Dameshek.com message board, GravityDenied has taken it upon himself as a representative of the great state of Alabama to hear my plea from last week and ban my radio show within the state borders. So if you are in Alabama and listening to Vertically Striped Radio, know that you are doing so illicitly. My show has been banned there, and I couldn’t be happier about it. That’s right, this is the show that is too hot for Bama! Vertically Striped Radio!


Today on this very controversial program: It’s our fantasy football spectacular! I’ll share the most random poll of all time, Do you need a name for your fantasy football team? You’ve come to the right place as I unveil the greatest fantasy football team names of all time, Where in the world is my pal MJ?, I’ll break down my fantasy football strategy in shocking detail and dare the Shek Republic league to beat me, I’ve got another Great Moment in the History of BlogTalk Radio, all that, plus I would love to have your phone calls as well. The number to reach me is:

Give out the phone number - (646) 716-6831 OR 6-HOP-1-MOVE-1
Email address: radio@verticallystripedsocks.com

Okay, before we get to the news, I’d like to break out the Han Solo Edition blaster for a very special reason. I work in downtown Denver in an office that is NEVER visited by any clients or customers. We are an extremely laid-back office, and the dress code is not what one would call strict. I’m okay with my job, but I do it because I need to feed my family, not because I’m terribly in love with doing it. Let’s just say that if I won the lottery, I’d quit immediately without even giving it a second thought. However, the laid back dress code is a big plus in my world, and I’ve truly enjoyed it. Well, we have been able to wear sneakers for as long as I have worked there…that is up until this week, as this week a new HR person has darkened the door of the HR department and sent out a decree via email to the entire office stating that tennis shoes were no longer allowed. It’s not a big deal, but why go out of your way to irritate people you just started working with. So to the new lady in HR who installed this new policy, I say…JERK (Play Blaster Clip - 04)


Alright, now that that’s off my chest, let’s get to the news…
(Play News Music – Clip 03)

 
BEIJING (Reuters Life!) – A Chinese bride is hoping to enter the record books after getting married in a wedding dress with a train more than 2 km (1.2 miles) long trailing behind her. It took guests more than three hours to roll out the gown, complete with 9,999 silk red roses attached to it, in the northeastern province of Jilin, a state news agency said.
"Both the length of the dress and the number silk roses pinned on the wedding dress can make history," the report quoted the groom as saying.
Zhao, who has applied to Guinness World Records, said he was inspired after seeing a story on the previous record holder in Romania, where the dress measured just over 1.5 km.
"I do not want a cliche wedding parade or banquet," he said.
Bride Lin Rong "laughed and cried at the romantic gesture," Xinhua said.
The dress cost around 40,000 yuan ($5,856), which prompted initial opposition to the plan from his family.
"It is a waste of money in my opinion," said Zhao's mother. "Though I understand that he wants to show his love on the big day."

2. TOKYO (Reuters) – A customer banned from a Tokyo ear-cleaning salon was arrested in Tokyo Monday on suspicion of stabbing a young woman working at the salon and killing her grandmother, Japanese media reported.
Japan has many salons where workers, often women, clean customers' ears with ear picks, sometimes as the customers lie on the workers' laps.
The 41-year-old male customer had been banned from the salon, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.
He told the police that he was having trouble with the 21-year-old salon worker and had prepared knives to kill her, it said.
A spokesman for Tokyo metropolitan police department confirmed the arrest but declined to give details of the attack.
The worker was alive but unconscious after the attack at her home, the newspaper reported. The grandmother was stabbed when she answered the front door.
 
3. TORONTO (Reuters) – A YouTube video showing a 7-year-old boy at the wheel of a sport utility vehicle -- with his family cheering him on -- has prompted an investigation by Quebec police and family services, police said on Tuesday.
The video, apparently shot by the boy's father from the SUV's passenger seat as the boy drives and his mom and siblings watch from the back seat, was brought to the attention of Quebec Provincial Police on Monday, Sergeant Chantal Mackels said.
"We now know who the person is," Mackels said, noting charges are still being worked out.
Finding the family wasn't much of a challenge, given the father's enthusiastic narration of the video, including their location in Quebec and the boy's first name.
The woman in the back seat also calls out the father's name, apparently urging him not to distract the child. During the video, the father calls out to "Samuel" to smile for the camera. The boy, chewing gum, obliges.
The father also panned the camera into the back seat of the vehicle to show the mother, with an unrestrained young girl on her lap, and an older boy.
Police are considering both criminal charges and traffic violations and have also contacted the province's department of child protection to investigate the family, Mackels said.
And while she's seen cases of children driving under the legal age of 16 years before, Mackels said she's never come across a case where the evidence is supplied online, by the perpetrator's proud father.
"Like this, on YouTube? No. This is a new one for me," Mackels said.
Speaking as a father of a four year old, my first reaction was, “Great, so much for my foolproof “Designated Driver” plan.

I’m Craig, and that’s the news…(Play News Music – Clip 03)
(Check the phone lines to see if you have any calls)
 
Fantasy Football Strategic Breakdown: (Clip 12 – Fear the Llama) - Go to VSS Post
(Play Clip)
Great moments in BlogTalk History: This latest Great moment is very recent, but it was so good, I just had to relive it again. The first time I heard it I was at work, and I started laughing so hard that tears were streaming from my eyes. People were looking at me like I was insane, but how do you quickly describe the comic genius that is The Ed? It is impossible to do so justice to how funny Mr. Miller truly is. The Ed is the comedy gift that just keeps on giving. This week on the LCS Hockey Show, Ed called in and pretended to be the UFO expert who was going to be calling in a little bit later to discuss the space monkeys. The following is a portion of the call as Ed tried to fool Jerry and Mike into thinking that he was Joseph Blagabloo, UFO Expert. I’m not sure they were fooled, but they were certainly amused. (Play Clip 13)


Andy Peterson update: The Oakland Raiders correspondant (Play music - Clip 09) – Andy has promised he will call in this season to give Raiders updates to the program. Andy is an insane Raiders fan who works in my office, and every time I see him, he regales me with stories of hope for a winning Raiders season this year. I keep trying to crush his dreams by reminding him that Al Davis is still in charge of the program over there, and not to get his hopes too high. He keeps talking about how great the Raiders look in camp, and bragging about how the Raiders already have Darius Hayward-Bey signed and in camp. I keep reminding him how badly the Raiders reached for Hayward-Bey and how they are going to be quarterbacked by JaMarcus Russel, coached by Tom Cable, and REALLY coached by Al Davis behind the scenes ruining things. He sent me an email entitled “Here is why I think the Raiders could have a good season” and he had written a little paragraph of all the good things going on in Oakland’s camp. I replied to his email with a single sentence that read, “Here is why I think the Raider’s could have a bad season.” I then attached a photo of Al Davis, a.k.a. Skeletor. He laughed and said, “Point well taken.” I’m really excited to have Andy call this year, and hope to get him on soon, as his undying Raiders optimism is as inspiring as it is pitiable. He is a fun guy and he’s going to be great for this show.

 


Great Fantasy Football team names:
MJ’s names:
Jake Plummer’s Handball Team
Kyle Orton is my Savior (F bomb)
Kyle over Jay I am delusional

My names:
Star-Bellied Sneeches – Dr. Seuss
Big Naked Chicken
One Dozen Starving Crazed Weasels – Weird Al reference from “Albuquerque”
Hustle and Flonase
Ghetto Butter
Government Cheese
Goldfish of Death
Keepin it Veal – Logo with a baby cow
Peanut Butter Monkey
Blue Canary in the Outlet by the Lightswitch – TMBG Reference
Laser Wolves – Fiddler on the Roof Reference
Uncle Rico’s Time Machine – Napoleon Dynamite
Harris Smith’s Exit Wounds – Plaxico Burress reference
Ron Mexico’s Penicillin
Simpsons References:
Ogdenville Monorail
The Flaming Moes
Skittlebrau

(Get stuff from the message board.)
Mario Speedwagon - Jaeger Bombers

Fourthand26 -
-Triskaidekaphobiacs and
-74 Double Go, the play used to convert the 4th and 26 for the Eagles in the playoffs vs. the Packers.

Jerry Fairish –
Independent George – Football
Summer of George – Baseball
Winter of George - Hockey

Joe –

Baseball - Tejada's B-12 (was in a league with some friends who were O's fans)
Baseball - Low Hanging Fruit (tied for 1st in the NL side of the message board league, and a name that was inspired by saggy testicles)
Basketball - Josh Howard's Stash (this was a 2nd place finisher in the messageboard league here and a team that lilClay feared)
Football - ThrowingItInThePail (I went with this one last year, it was inspired by some of DD's old Kobe talk on The Sports Contraption)

Right now I have "Boing Alert" for the message board football league. I signed up after I had been watching an episode of Free Radio entitled "Buttons" and that's where the name came from. I'm thinking about changing the team name to "Twice She Said" to honor Cousin Brandon.





Major Minority - Personally, I like names with just a hint of innuendo...For example, carpet cleaners sounds just dirty enough. I've had a fantasy basketball team named "Cuntinued Success." I've had a fantasy baseball team named, "Ur Wife's Fish Taco." Anything with meat and innuendo is good... Salami Slappers, Turkey Tugger, Pastrami Pullers... who knows what it means, but it sounds funny.

Anyway, I find the best strategy for fantasy football, but only if you know everyone in the league personally, is to come with a different name each week to insult your opponent. For example, last year, a buddy of mine was going out with an ugly girl who worked at McDonalds, and then slept with her even uglier friend. In Yahoo, they allow you to write something under your name as well. So, when I face him, my team name was, "LenStoppedEatingMcDs" and underneath I wrote, "but he still loves Grimace." Another fellow's team name was Well Played. I had my team name as, "Better Played" when against him. Another friend of mine had herpes, so my team name was, "'S'uper TDs" or, as he would see it, STDs.


(Check the phone lines to see if you have any calls)
 
More “if I have time” discussion items:


The most random poll ever, first posted on my Yahoo! Fantasy Football website last season.

What is the difference between a duck?
o The Bill
o Florida
o Corn
o Barack Obama
o The Chicago Cubs
o The Flintstones
o Boo Berry Cereal
o The Financial Sector Bailout
o Jesus
o The Color Pink


Emergency material –
Argument Clinic by Monty Python (3:44 Clip 16)

- CraigDodge.com – What a travesty

-The Onion – Going Chinese: Allegedly had been purchased by the Yu Wan Mei Company, a fictitious - Amalgamated Salvage Fisheries and Polymer Injection Group. For awhile, the Website sported communist-ish logos and stories about things such as the absolute greatness of Yao Ming, the internet adding it’s 12th website, a child in America being unduly praised for learning the “simplistic American alphabet”, and a story about a grandfather being disrespected in his own home. It’s actually pretty hilarious stuff.

-What makes a good fantasy football team name? – Follow up with names from my file that I’ve been storing.

-Brett Favre – This was my quote in show prep from 2 weeks ago… “So he’s definitely coming back, right? Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the Vikings? (I say bad.)”

 
(Check the phone lines to see if you have any calls)

The Vertically Striped Music Recommendation: Our selection this week has it’s own theme song, so I have to start with that… (Play Clip 17)
Flood by They Might Be Giants (1990)

This is the one of the coolest albums that I actually liked from my early teen years that is actually still good. Young teens, while precocious and full of vim, vigor, and teenage hormones, are relatively light on discerning brain cells. I’m embarrassed of a large portion of the music that I used to like from the early nineties, (grunge music excluded), however I still love “Flood” by They Might Be Giants. I learned of them because of a bit on the cartoon “Animaniacs” in which they basically animated some stuff to go along with the song “Particle Man.” Pretty good stuff. However, this whole album is quirky and good. It’s not really the kind of music you’re going to put on to relax or to impress anyone with or anything, but it’s a lot of fun, and I hadn’t thought of it in awhile until Cousin Brandon brought out his 2 Part Songs he wants played at his funeral blog post over at 710ESPN.com. One of the 15 songs he chose (That’s going to be one long funeral, dude) one of them was “Dead” off of this Flood album. That is a cool one and we’ll go out with it today, but there are so many other great songs on this album. I recommend checking it out if you like your music just a bit weird. My favorites from this album include “Birdhouse in your Soul”, “Istanbul”, “Particle Man”, “Minimum Wage”, “We Want a Rock”, and “Whistling in the Dark” Plus this album starts out with a theme song for the album…Come on, that’s funny AND cool, you gotta like an album that has it’s own theme song.


(Cue Outro Music – Clip 15 - Dead)
-Programming Note: No show next Saturday, as I’ll be on Vacation up in the mountains all week, we’ll be back in two weeks!

Shalom and Good evening to you all!
(Play Outro Music – Clip 15 - Dead)



 
For next week:

(Check the phone lines to see if you have any calls)
AFC Over/Unders:
Broncos – 7
Chiefs – 6
Chargers – 9.5
Raiders – 5.5

Steelers – 10.5
Ravens – 8.5
Bengals – 6.5
Browns – 6.5

Jets – 7
Patriots – 11.5
Dolphins – 7
Bills – 7.5

Jaguars – 8
Colts – 10
Titans – 9
Texans – 8.5