Dumping Them Out: Matthew Tkachuk vs Joel Embiid
Welcome back to another episode of Dumping Them Out. This episode is coming to you from the Newark airport. I'm working from the Chicago office this week. Wish I would have realized the office was closed for President's Day before I decided to fly out Sunday night. I forgot that we're in an era of respecting Presidents again. That's on me. My only goal while I'm there is the break the longest drive record on the golf simulator. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm pretty sure Brandon Walker has it, and I'm pretty sure I can outdrive him.
I opted to watch the Four Nations tournament over the NBA All-Stars Skills Competition/Dunk Contest last night. Everybody blames LeBron, and NBA superstars as a whole for killing the dunk contest by refusing to participate. And it is their fault. But the internet is what really killed it. As soon as everybody saw that the real best dunkers in the world were on YouTube dunking in random empty gyms in front of nobody, hitting dunks NBA players other than Mac McClung could never dream of hitting, players just tapped out. Once everybody realized NBA players weren't the best dunkers in the world, it was over. Even if you go back and watch that famous 2000 Vince Carter dunk contest, it still hits because it has star power, but even Vince Carter's dunks aren't mind-blowing dunks. The Cleveland Cavaliers pulled some random white guy off the street who dunks at halftime, and his dunks are on par if not better than anything from the 2000 dunk contest.
Now, aside from Mac McClung, it's just hilariously bad. There was dunk in last night dunk contest that I genuinely think if I had spent the prime of my athletic life learning to dunk, I could have done myself.
But the hockey game was a delight. Really cool fights. Really cool Tkachuk brothers. Very brave, very American stuff. It's too bad Matthew Tkachuk checked himself out in the 3rd period when his team needed him most. He had no problem soaking up all the glory, being Captain America for fighting at the opening face-off. But when it came down to crunch time, he wanted not part of it. As the great Herb Brooks once said, the lower body is a hell of a long way from the heart. You know who never checked himself out of a game when representing his home country of the United States of America? Despite a career of devastating injuries? True American hero Joel Embiid. He was available for the entire Olympics.
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Just kidding, guys. Just kidding, Matthew. That would be a pretty sick take though. If I were Canadian I would be all over that one. But for serious, after watching last night's game between the U.S. and Canada. Watching the United States face-off against a true political enemy that is the country of Canada. The only thing this tournament is really missing is Russia. Having Russia in this tournament would really make it pop off. They're good. I think we still don't like them. They're the perfect hockey opponent. I hate how the world, whether it's FIFA, the Olympic Committee, or whoever is in charge of international hockey, bans countries who don't follow the rules from competing. Those are the best countries to compete against. What better way to teach Russia a political lesson, and prove our prowess as a nation than by beating them in sports? If they do this tournament next year, they gotta get Russia involved. Also if we could get China become really good at hockey overnight, then we can ditch Sweden and Finland entirely, and really make this whole hockey tournament about international politics.
If I had disposable income, or if I just hit a big parlay just one time and even had $10k to burn. I would like to run an experiment to see if I can make money by strictly letting incessant Twitter reply bots who say they can make me rich (I'm assuming via crypto?) manage my money.
I love the idea of a person coming across one of these tweets and following up with the person like, "Hey Jenifer, I've seen your name spammed incessantly in the replies of random tweets with 50 likes and thought you would be a good person to handle my finances. Where do I send my money?"
Honestly if they're just investing in Bitcoin it probably works. I don't know why you'd need a stranger on Twitter to do that for you. But it would be very funny if someday I was able to retire on the back of @JeniferMercy_'s sage fiscal advice.
When I got engaged I thought, "Finally, I can stop sounding like a douche every time I start a sentence with 'My girlfriend…'" But since I've been engaged, I've realized that "My fianceé…" is equally bad, if not worse. Like do I think I'm French or something? It's so obnoxious. Anyways, the other day my fianceé told me the one thing she doesn't like about basketball is the constant obnoxious squeaking of shoes on the court. I'd never thought about that before. But now it's all I can think about. I think broadcasts are piping in squeaks. How is the squeaking of shoes louder than the damn announcers? You can barely, if at all, hear players when they yell across the court at one another, but every time they run down the court it's the loudest fucking cacophony of squeaks you've ever heard. Are the mics in the floorboards or something? It just seems like we shouldn't be hearing the squeaks as much as we do.