My favorite columinst on ESPN.com is Bill Simmons, he also has an excellent podcast, and a few years back? he wrote an excellent column about one of my favorite and probably one of the most important subjects of our time- the Rules for being a true fan.? In the article he lays down 20 rules.? I am gonzo for this type of stuff.? I have a favoite team for every major sport both professional and college except for the NBA and NCAA football.? ? And I take my fandom very serioulsy.? So I am going to go through all of them one by one.? It’s time for a Sleepy Remix.?

? Attire

1.? You can’t purchase a “blank” authentic jersey from your favorite team with no name on the back, then stick your own name and number on the jersey … well, unless you want to be an enormous dork.

This is beyond true. First you should never buy a blank jersey. I have a Manchester United road jersey without a name on the back, but it was a gift. The only other legitimate reasons to have a blank jersey are if you find one in the dumpster or a thrift store. Don’t cop out and say, “but I love them all”.? If you are a true fan and you follow your team like a? true fan there will always be a guy that you just go gay? over and have to let the world know your in love with.? If you go with a blank jersey it’s just as bad as getting your teams star player on your jersey and you might as well have your mom embroider “I can’t name more than three players on my favoite team” on the back in tiny letters.?

? Which leads me to another important clause.? Be wary of putting the name of your teams star player on the jersey.? This should happen? once every fifty years.? So the guy with the DiMaggio and Jeter Yankee jerseys in his closet is in the clear but the guy who has both a Mattingly and a Jeter jersey is suspect.? ? Once again this action is worth a special emboidery.?

I know this? is starting to sound daunting but if you are buying a jersey new you have to pick somebody from your team and put their name on their back. It says? a lot? about what kind of fan you are. Example, if somebody has a Kobe jersey they are either a big Kobe fan and could care less about the Lakers or the jersey is a leftover from Kobe?s days with Shaq and they are probably a fair-weather fan or they are a big time Laker fan but such a douche that they picked the best but least likable member of their team. Now if someone is sporting a Derek Fisher jersey than they? probably? got it during the Kobe-Shaq days but were a true fan who knew his team and picked out a quality role guy with a heart or they just recently purchased it since Fisher’s? return to the team for some of the? reasons listed before but with the hope that Fisher would spark? his team’s return to glory.

Now if you choose to put your own name on the back you?re just an idiot. And don?t think just because you wear it during pick up games or recreational league games that this justifies your egoistic choice. It doesn?t, it just makes it worse. Everyone at the game either already knows your name or doesn’t care.? ? Also, this? doesn’t add any pride to your surname.? If your entire family is made up of? Cowboy fans? and for Christmas grandpa? buys each family member? a? jersey with the family name on the back? you better dig through the roster? and find some reserve right tackle on the Cowboys with the same name so you can justify your family’s creepy cosa nostra fandom.?

? There is a third unjustifiable way to mess with a jersey name. You can?t put the name of your favorite grunge singer, politician, or Star Wars character on the back either. Don?t try to send two messages with your jersey. This is a whole new category of fanboy that is rarely seen but in the hobby of jersey watching it is the white-tailed eagle. I once had a friend who was a Phoenix Suns fan and a fellow philosophy student who put Heraclitus on the back of a Suns jersey during a semester when we were taking a course in Pre-Socratic philosophy. I never gave him any grief because I didn?t want to scare him away from wearing it. He ended up wearing it during the final. I think it had to be one of my favorite moments in college.

Filed under: slowblogger

Just when the slowtimer kids thought they were getting stuff done along comes a computer virus.? Last weekend?s electronic music/dance extravaganza Temple of Boom at Burt?s Tiki Lounge in the American dance hotbed that is Albuquerque, New Mexico, went off with a bang. The turnout may not have been what we had all dreamed but that didn?t effect the jams. Those involved performed well, especially Andrew Top-Hat, who played and looked like a man on fire.

? As a participant I have to admit the greatest fun was had preparing for the gig along with my fellow computerers. I learned a lot and had more fun than I?ve had all year. Four computer geeks together, blazing through bits as quickly as Dr. Phil spits clich?s. We were getting so much done. But the whole time I kept sneaking peaks at the monitor to my right.? There was some in our midst not? playing with music, they were playing a computer game.? ? They were enthrawled in another world and I was curious.? I later found what this person had brought into our work room wasn’t a game but a virus.? It was World of Warcraft.?

The virus jumped to my computer and three days later, playing on a free ten day trial account, I have become Snowsonis, a 7th level Night Elf hunter. I shoot a sick recurve bow and I?m currently decked out in a mean blue beard and short-shorts. I know the South Park episode spoofing WoW, (Make Love Not Warcraft) should have dissuaded me from entering this sick little world but I think it may have had the opposite effect. It only made it hip because now the joke was? in the open.?

I am already a 70th level time waster, this is just another way to do it, a fun way. I am classifying it under friendship maintenance since I have a at least one friend that plays who I? wouldn?t get to talk to very often otherwise.? I’m sure it will just be a phase.? I just want to get my riding animal,? I just want to buy a new bow, I just want to finish a few more quests, I just want? learn how to set traps,? I’ll only be on for a couple more days.? I swear.? ? But if you never here from me again you know what?s happened.

Filed under: slowblogger

Well, it finally happened. Mr. Top-Hat finally fixed his rattletrap of a site so that I could actually write on this thing. It’s been 17 years in the making and at last, I can finally post on the infamous slowblogger. I’m so excited that it almost makes up for the tragic loss suffered by the Dallas Cowboys last Sunday. Almost.

Well, the weekend is almost here and we all know what that means: Time to increase your body’s alcohol intake. Let’s face it, not all of us can drink as much as we want to during the week. Invariably, there are a few nights a week in which you must limit yourself. This is the reason why we all tend to welcome in the weekend much in the same way we would welcome home a long dead pet. So from Friday evening till Sunday night I urge you to drink up, America! Make up for those work week nights when you just can’t consume as much booze as you want. But be vigilant against acquiring the virus known as the cocktail flu, it is crippling and potentially deadly. I myself am suffering from this awful virus as I type this and there is no cure. It can strike a healthy adult down in a matter of hours even though symptoms may not appear until the hours between 6 and 9 AM.

Filed under: slowblogger

I don’t illegaly download movies. I have owned one downloaded movie in my life, Kill Bill Vol.1, which I later bought legitimately. I have watched three illegaly downloaded movies in my life. One of which was Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. I have bought a lot of movies in my day both in VHS and DVD formats. I love movies. I love wathcing them, I love buying them, I love collecting them and I love putting them in alphabetical order on my shelves. I don’t need to be told not to steal them. I make less than $25,000 dollars a year, so fuck off. I should be stealing from the rich. Don’t scold me and don’t hamper or stall one of the few good things left in my life. Get those stupid unskippable warning off the screen.

? And while your at it get those god-for-saken commercials out of the theaters. One of the best blog posts I have read on the web in the last few months comes from John Campea at The Movie Blog about this very subject. Check it out. It is also where I found the picture above. It is a great, frequently updated sight, with lots of up to date movie news and rumors? as well. They also have a podcast.?

Filed under: slowblogger