this is it

685 posts and it's time to say goodbye.

I'd like to say that we're all grown up, but I shouldn't lie to you on the final day. Thanks go out to all our contributors - Tony, Justin, Josh, Ann, Jason, Jeremy, Matt, the other Matt, Eric, David and Julie.

Big Head still runs the Mizzourah ship, so keep them on your blogging radar.

I'll still be at InsideSTL for another month or so. And you can catch me at Cardinals Diaspora from here on out. They might even let me write about bacon.


Thanks.

Happy Pitchers and Catchers Day

Hey, it's officially baseball season! As our gift to you...we're quitting. Yeay!

Sure it doesn't make sense, but they didn't call us the "Donaldo Mendez of blogging" for nothin'.

The One Post With Poetry

If you haven't noticed (or assumed), there aren't any tags on the right bar that say "poetry" or "deep, meaningful thinking." We couldn't jam mindless commentary about baseball or bacon or chicks down your throats the entire time, could we?

So as a farewell gift, the remaining members of Bertflex (sans Annie Fresh, who was unavailable for comment) came up with some Haiku poetry to really make you think about what you learned from minutes years of reading Bertflex.

We're expecting to hear from Russell Simmons and the Def Poetry Jam crew any minute now. Here is what we came up with:

Sir:

Makin' movies, songs
Oh my God, it's Russell Crowe!
Fightin' round the world


Big Head:

Biel's ass online
Sandlot Slam up in yo grill
Bacon in my mouth

Chris Black Young mashing
Cheesecake Sabathia sucks
Butley drops F-Bomb

Bert has a goatee
Kansas Shitty here we come
Nintendo failure

Sir has burnt ass hands
World Series Grimace raping
Ice cream cools me down


HMW:

he steps to the plate
says "iiiiiii'mmmm albert pu-jol-zez...
not. gun. win. dis. game."

krispy kreme plus meat
who wants a donut burger?!
we are fat bastards

ate the entire
wheel of cheese and pooped in the
refrigerator?

blood spill on the floor
where is the fucking shamwow?
germans make good stuff


Big Sandwich:

Check out the flex time
Delicious bacon for all
Chicks dig the long ball

R B I baseball
Sir laughs at diabetes
Jah will help you move

The smell of springtime
Fantasy baseball draft time
I'll take Mark Prior

Buffalo Wild Wings
Beer, chicken, big screens with sports
Anything else Sir?

One Post of Reflexions, That's All

Up until a day or two ago, I wasn't sure how to handle the last couple days of this site. I thought about going through everything and making a giant post of "Best Of" articles, but that would take a big chunk of time to realize we never produced anything good. I thought about taking the day off today just to post a ton of crap for the hell of it.

And I thought of sharing some thoughts; about Bertflex, about me, and about life in general. The old me would have handled it all a little differently. Lucky for you, I'll keep my mouth shut this one time only.

I do a lot of rambling on here anyway, so I'm stepping aside for the Big Sandwich. The one thing I didn't want was a long, drawn out process of sad goodbyes. We're just a dumb little website, after all. But after reading this, I felt BS did an excellent job of summing up our thoughts of what the site was all about. Here is a scripture from the Book of Big Sandwich:

I really did enjoy our little piece of cyber domination with Bertflex. Unless you knew us personally, you probably didn't care about what we wrote about but I think our main motivator was self-absorption and our love of our own perceived awesomeness. For me, Bertflex was a way to keep up with the dorky lifestyles of my friends that I couldn't see regularly. Even though my contributions were few and far between, I believe my anecdotes about autographed Eddie Taubensee bats and hooking up with cougars fit seamlessly into this cyber reality we call our lives. I am proud of the way Hazelwood's Most Wanted continually churned out content to keep our site relevant while the rest of us slacked off. I will never retire my Bertflex jersey, I wear it more often than you would think. Bertflex made our dorky adventures and outings more official: Bertflex night at D & B's, Bertflex 4th of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, Bertflex trip to K.C., Skanksgiving at Al Hrabosky's, etc. Big ups to Bert Pujols, bacon, wiffleball, Todd Jones baseball cards, B dubs, fantasy sports, and anything else that inspired us. We turn the page on this chapter of our dorky lives but this book is far from being finished.

Phenomenal. Well said, Sammich.

We do have one special treat from the remaining cast of Bertflex coming up later today, so check back sometime this afternoon. Other than that, we'll say 'peace out' tomorrow and turn out the lights.

Finally I Can Make it Official

I didn't realize the Visa Black Card was out:

Growing up on the North Side made me kind of black, but I never had backup when someone questioned me on it.

Those embarrassing days are over. Now for the annual price of $495, when someone says "Shut up cracka," all I do is say "Wrong! Check out my Black Card! Wonk."

Pretty solid investment if you ask me. Too bad there aren't any stores left at Northwest Plaza to put this card to use.

If You Weren't Already Thinking About Bacon While Your Woman Gets Undressed...

Yesterday I posted on insideSTL the top crappy gifts to get your special lady for Valentine's Day. Those were all Cardinal-related, and shouldn't be taken too seriously, as they were truly craptastic gifts.

But one thing i can get behind (possibly pun intended) is a bacon strip thong from the fine folks at bacontoday.com. If you're spending a bunch of money on flowers, dinner, jewelry, or any other bullshit gifts for this upcoming "holiday," you might as well toss another 10 bucks into the mix and have a little fun.

The link will take you to Cafe Press, where they apparently have over 400 bacon-related underwear designs for you to pick from. I wasn't creepy enough to look through all of them, but there are some good choices.

I mean, if they had hot models wearing the bacon underwear, I would have glanced at a few hundred more to see what else was out there.

Billy Mays: Not Impressed by the Work of the Germans

As if we didn't have enough problems going on in the world, a big big rivalry is about to heat up. This doesn't have to do with Iraqistan or one of dem fightin' countries. And it doesn't even have to do with sports (luckily, since you don't come here for sports news).

Ladies and gentlemen - Billy Mays is pissed...

At Vince - the Sham Fuckin' Wow guy!

Dun dun dunnnn!

Check out this radio clip of Billy Mays, the pitchman for Oxy Clean and Kaboom! or Kapow! or Kablammagam!, whatever it's called. Stick with the entire three or four minutes as Billy drops some Muhammad Ali-esque shit talk towards the end.

Billy is a little salty that Vince pitches the Sham Fuckin' Wow, which is a direct ripoff of something called Zorbeez, which Mays pitched two years ago. He goes on to acknowledge that the original Shammy came out 30 years ago, but the guy who stole the idea from the guy who stole an idea is the one getting called out.

You followin' this camera guy?

So Billy Mays' solution is to have a pitch-off vs. Vince. I'm pretty sure I'll be the only person in attendance for that, so I'll let you know how it goes.

Until then, one thing we can all agree on? You're gonna love Vince's nuts.

Almost Done Attention Whoring...

Today's the last day I get to link this week's insideSTL article to the B-Flex. Click that link for seven of my Cardinal-related Valentine's Day gift ideas.

Some good news that you may or may not care about: we're approaching 30,000 hits; under a thousand away as of press time. Thanks to pervs doing Google Image Searches, we've received a shitload of hits lately from people searching for Jessica Biel's derriere. And who could blame them?

Because of that, this month (all 11 days) has been our most successful month of hits. I think that's kind of funny. And fitting.

Thanks for reading.

Also, thanks to RFT's The Rundown for linking the article. Always love their work.

Strategery

On rare occasions, it actually pays off to be living in New York. Okay, I can't say that for sure. I've never been to NYC, but I'm pretty sure I'd have a love/hate relationship with the city. Also I think it would be good in small doses for a polite*, young* Midwestern lad like myself (*notice I didn't say "truthful").

Recently I read that Will Ferrell is doing a Broadway show (trust me, keep reading) titled "You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush."

How awesome would it be to see that?

An MSN article says the 90 minute show is scheduled to run into mid-March and will be on HBO eventually.

If you're clamoring for some footage, I'm here for you baby. Google video has some if you want to stay up-to-the-minute, or play the video below:



And/or this:

Nope, Still Not Safe to Watch Around the Horn

Today's winner? Lil' Wayne.

And here is the proof. Wayne starts out strong with some football discussion (imagine that, on ESPN):


Midway through the show, Wayne is dominated by Michael Smith and Woody Paige. Jay Mariotti is still in the game, but Weezy needs a big choke-job by Woody. With his intellect, that would never happen, would it?


Oh but it did! Weezy fo' sheezy makes it to the Showdown vs. Michael Smith! This is exciting! What's gonna happen?!


After two basketball topics (insert racism here)...Lil' Wayne is today's champ. He even goes as far as using air quotes in his 20 seconds of face time:


Congrats, I think. Even better, Statboy says "Well said, G" after Wayne's rant on Lawrence Taylor joining Dancing with the Stars. Truly a banner episode in ATH history. Actually it's probably the banner episode.

If you'd like to hear the championship wisdom of Lil' Wayne, head to his blog on espn.com. Nope, that's not a misprint either.

I Can't Quit You: Rickie Weeks Edition

Dear Rickie Weeks,

Last week I saw that you and the Brewers avoided arbitration with your $2.45 million deal for 2009. It's amazing how you tricked the Brewers into thinking that you'll be that good this season, because I know what you're all about, Rickie Weeks. I know you. And you fucking suck.

Back in 2005 I was led to believe by the guy fittingly known as "Brewers Guy," (a friend of Annie Fresh) that Rickie Weeks would be a fantasy baseball savior. You know, since he was the greatest college second baseman - ever.

Brewers Guy must not have heard of Marshall McDougall, who is not only the greatest college 2B of all of the times, he has a case for greatest college player ever (at least in the mashing-is-everything culture of BertFlex).

And as Sir pointed out back then, good college second basemen are called shortstops.

Sir 2, Brewers Guy 0. Ballgame.

But I saw the numbers Stickie Rickie put up in college and I was intrigued. Towards the middle of '05, Weeks was called up and the hit parade was supposed to begin.

I, being the prospects geek that I am, nabbed Weeks for all my teams. A) He's a rookie B) he can hit (allegedly) and C) he's an infielder. It's the fail-proof recipe of destruction I like to load up on year to year for my fantasy teams. What's not to like about Rickie Weeks?

Years later, we find out the answer to that is: All. The. Sucking.

And here we are today, Rickie will be paid $2.45 Million. According to FanGraphs, the past three years he was worth $1.2, 1.3, and 1.1 million. The past three years he was on a ton of my fantasy teams. The past three years I believed. And the past three years, I ended the season pissed for believing in Rickie Weeks.

As the calendar turns to March, I wonder if this will be the year that I learn? Can I quit Rickie Weeks? The potential is there, guys...it really is.

I don't know if I can have three or four teams without Rickie Weeks on one of them. I would hate to miss out on THE year that he finally blows up. Come on Rickie, I need this, man. Don't let me down. No more .230 batting averages. No more injuries. No more sucking.

You're on a short leash Mr. Weeks. If you're still worthless in mid May, I'm going to Sir's "Rickie Weeks is Shitty" One Step Program and quitting my habit: You.

Until 2010 when he turns 27. Dammit.

Worst Thing Ever Alert

Being the young, successful, in-the-know businessman that I am, I read an article on Yahoo Finance yesterday about 15 Companies That May Not Survive 2009.

Some no-brainers are on the list, like Six Flags and Blockbuster. Everyone knows they're struggling. But one company on the list is a true heart breaker: Krispy Kreme.

From the write-up on Yahoo:

Krispy Kreme. (KKD; about 4,000 employees; stock down 50%). The donuts might be good, but Krispy Kreme overestimated Americans' appetite - and that's saying something. This chain overexpanded during the donut heyday of the 1990s - taking on a lot of debt - and now requires high volumes to meet expenses and interest payments. The company has cut costs and closed underperforming stores, but still hasn't earned an operating profit in three years. And now that consumers are cutting back on everything, such improvements may fail to offset top-line declines, leading Krispy Kreme to seek some kind of relief from lenders over the next year.

'Mericah has gone through some rough days recently, but could you imagine the countrywide depression we'd all go through if there were no more Krispy Kreme? I'm not talking about "Great Depression" depression...this is cry-yourself-to-sleep levels of sadness.

If I were you, I'd go buy stock in whoever makes Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, etc. Business will increase dramatically from Sir, Big Head, and I alone. In the meantime, we'll continue to be fat bastards with donut glaze all over our keyboards.

Go support Krispy Kreme. 'Mericah is counting on you.

Chris Jerk-icho

Uh oh. You probably aren't supposed to do this...



More info at Busted Coverage.

What You Want:: Wrasslin Talk

It's a big wrasslin Sunday here at the 'Flex. A while back I saw a Top 10 Wrestlers of All Time list, and I felt a little hatin' and debatin' was necessary. I chose friend of the site, Hollywood (CEO of The Indy Corner) as my partner, but not in that way.

We skipped past the "why is there a top 10 wrestler list on a real, journalistic newspaper's website?" and got straight to the point. So if you're looking for a riveting wrasslin' conversation, here you go:

HMW: Ignoring the hideous web design and having to navigate through them one at a time, give me some thoughts.

1) Flair
2) Hogan
3) Lou Thesz
4) Bruno Sammartino
5) Steve Austin
6) Bret Hart
7) Gorgeous George
8) George Hackenschmidt
9) Andre the Giant
10) George "The Animal" Steele

Hollywood: Ironically, I actually agree with 90 percent of this list, which is a real first. I say "90 percent," because what the hell is George "The Animal" Steele doing on this list? I mean, I liked him and all, but even dead last on the Top 10 of All Time is a stretch. Seriously, the Rock? Randy Savage? Sting? Hell, even the Ultimate Warrior makes more sense than George!

HMW: I'm not sure how old the author is, but I was mightily impressed with the inclusion of Lou Thesz at #3. Most "all time" lists nowadays (esp. sports...or in this case "sports") covers 1990-2009. There were a few old school guys on there, which gave him some credibility. It seems like Bret Hart should be higher than 6, but I won't complain too much.

The only case i could make for George "The Animal" is his mainstream status. Not saying The Rock and Macho Man don't have it, but people still know who George Steele is (and what he looks like). And I guess the author didn't want to lean to much towards the 80s/90s/00s?

Side note - I could think of some top 10 lists the Ultimate Warrior could be on.

Hollywood: I'm not knocking George at all. He's definitely an important icon of sorts in professional wrestling.

But his impact just can't compare to someone like The Rock. Even if The Rock's career was technically short and even if you want to somehow claim he "sold out" (fun fact: he didn't), his contribution to pro wrestling just makes poor George's look like small potatoes. Many casual fans believe wrestling started going downhill the moment The Rock left, and that's a comment no one's been able to make since the Hulkster took his first hiatus.

(also on that side note: Ultimate Warrior is in a list all his own, really, with his name listed as 1 through 10!)

HMW: I do agree with you on The Rock's part. I think I would have had him 6/7ish on my list.

But theoretically had i wanted to argue full-on for Steele, I would have won that debate, since i would have TYPED LOUDER THAN YOU AND USED ALL KINDS OF EXCLAMATIONS!!! YOU'RE WRONG HOLLYWOOD!!! YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!!!!

Moving on, the more important (and fun) question: who's on your "definite" list for Worst Wrestlers of All Time?

Hollywood: @#$%@ YOU, HAZELWOOD!! @#$%@ YOU AND THE @#$%@ING HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!!! YOUR OPINIONS PALE IN COMPARISON WITH MY OWN!!!

Honestly, I'm not sure where I'd put The Rock. I have a tough time deciding if he should rank higher or lower than Steve Austin. Still, he damn sure deserves to be on that list.

Now, for my "definite" worst...? That's not so easy as some might think, but perhaps...

Khali - he's big...but he's terrible in thing, awful on the mic, and about as charismatic as my dog when she's asleep.

Jackie Gayda (the girl from Tough Enough) - anyone remember that God-awful match with her Chris Nowinksy, Bradshaw, and Trish? (HMW note: youtube video here)

Giant Gonzalez - and he wrestled in a suit that made him look naked!

Mantaur - a description just wouldn't do him justice

Max Moon - he wore a jet pack to the ring...REPEAT...he wore a JET PACK to the ring!

The Gobbledy Gooker - while he never TECHNICALLY wrestled, he still REALLY sucked

It's the best I can come up with so far. Vince Russo definitely deserves an honorable mention for just sucking in general.

HMW: I was going to think of more, but how 'bout I just post this and we'll call it good?

Oh, and the Fourth Inning is the Beer Inning

I've got some Friday time-killing material for you. Even though we've got a week left of fucking around, this is kind of like your exit interview with us:

The Simpson's Softball Quiz

If you don't ace this, I didn't do my job. Mental Floss has a bunch of other quizzes - the Ralph Wiggum one is good, and the baseball card quiz will make you feel bad because all the expensive rookie cards you used to own have turned into worthless rookie cards in your mom's basement.

I've long contested that this episode of The Simpsons is the best episode of anything on television ever - it probably has something to do with the fact that I was a scrappy ten year old when it aired, thus being a symbol of my childhood. Or the fact that I play softball now and I can relate to the struggles of a minimal effort sport and the role that beer plays in each game. Whether you agree with my TV show ranking system, I don't think I'm that far off.

Thanks to the Asians, full episode is here.

Bonus feature: a new k.u.chebag entry over on Mizzourah last weekend. And the one from today (it's pretty good).

Whatchu Gonna Do?

I've been saving this old WWF ad for probably ten months, having no clue on how to work it into the site. Technically I should have worked it into every single post since it's so awesome, but I still don't have a clue and our clock is ticking.

So I figure I'll use this ultra-intimidating black and white of Hulk Hogan to ultra intimidate our trivia night opponents tomorrow night up in Hazelwood. I already wrote smack about you guys over a year ago. Soon you'll realize your time's up, as my Trivia Ninja Death Squad takes over the universe.

Well, the part of the universe that plays in trivia contests on Saturday nights. It should be a good time, including free booze for Big Sandwich. Memo to the BFHQ couch: you may have some company come midnight Saturday night.

Oh, and by coincidence, Koko B. Ware will appear as the 8th man for our trivia team. He didn't have much else going on.

Powder Blue Fever

For those of us in the Hardcore League, it is well-known that Sir has a mini stable of young Japanese talent in his minor league system. It is something I referred to earlier today as a "Jap-opoly." Political correctness at its finest.

If that wasn't enough to get Sir pumped up for Japan's pro league, the NPB, one of their teams recently revealed new jerseys. The Tokyo Yakult Swallows have a full array of uni's for you to pick from. I'd like to point out the homes say "Swallows" on the front. I know none of you will snicker at that, but I did. I'm 15 years old, what can I say?

More importantly, the reason this "news" is being posted: included in the Swallows' jersey arsenal are the ever-so-lovable powder blues! Yes!


Thumbs up to the Swallows for going 80s on their throwbacks. Now give us Tuffy Rhodes back.


ps. This kind of reminds me of a column somebody wrote on Poochie last summer.

The ILL-side: Now with Zombies

Illinois used to be known around here as the hometown of some of our fine contributors. After that, we were only concerned about the topless bartenders. But now the fun is over: zombies are all over the Ill-side!

Zombies, motherfucker. They gon' getcha!

Via ksdk.com, the sign says it all:




Other than the bad spelling of "closures," I know what you're thinking. I consulted with our IT Department on how to hack into construction signs. We wouldn't dare use it for evil, but just for uh, reference.

After a handy Google search, here is the quick and easy way to make any random construction sign your personal zombie warning board. Don't worry, we'll use all that ad revenue we get to bail you out of jail.

Follow Protocol

It's 2/4. It's Wednesday. It's time for you to check insideSTL for this week's column.

It's kind of about Groundhog Day. It's kind of about Bill DeWitt being cheap. It kind of infers that Chris Duncan leaves Roxy's at 8:30am every morning.

Oh, and it's kind of hard to write about stuff when nothing is going on. Come on Cardinals, help a brother out. Even if it's bad business, trade all the OF's and sign Manny, just for me.

As for the Flex, we're approaching the 10-day mark. We'll see if I can get it all out of my system before then.

Have a good day and thanks for reading.

Mmm...E-Bacon

So you think you had it all figured out? You combined your bacon with vodka. Then you combined bacon with chocolate. Then bacon with turduckens, cheese, and cinnamon rolls. Nothing could stop you.

But the one thing you forgot was the um...the uh, internets.

If you'd like to add bacon to any website, all you need to do is put http://bacolicio.us/ in front of any URL, and this is what you get:


Having a slice of bacon on your computer screen is pretty cool, but it makes me really hungry. And it gets in the way of the porn.