Things Mike Bibby Probably Does

As we all know, Mike Bibby is probably the worst. But how much the worst? Along with blog bro Devine, here are some things that are most likely true about Mike Bibby.

Mike Bibby seems like he would...

• think it's funny to not flush the toilet.
• DVR "Mind of Mencia."
• talk about getting a motorcycle a lot.
• always be saying, "did you see that three I hit last night?" when he knows you were watching the game because he gave you tickets.
• have a cousin named Doug. (CONFIRMED)
• see Tyler Perry movies to seem sensitive, then totally bag on them with his boys.
• get bad tattoos. (CONFIRMED)
• make his entourage get bad tattoos. (CONFIRMED)
• insist on having an entourage. (CONFIRMED)
  
• think LL Cool J should make more records.
• know all the words to "Put It In My Mouth."
• blow a .07 then tell everyone how the secrets to beating the system.
• try to grow a full beard, but when the cheeks didn't fill out, tell everyone beards were wack.
• buy the Kid Cudi record.
• always get himself a bowl of cereal and not even offer you a bowl when he knows you love Lucky Charms.
• put his feel up on your couch without asking if it's cool.
• call your dog fat.
• tell Ellen Hickle that you can't dance, right before you asked her to dance.
• say that 8 Mile should have won an Oscar.
• call Jay Leno and Tim Allen his favorite comedians.
• wear cubic zirconias and try to pass them off as real.
• buy a $10 supermarket gift card as his Secret Santa present.
• front about everything.

Add yours in the comments.

Italians Stick Together

Italia!

Italia!

ITALY!

Eh?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

Italia?

Italia!!

EXCLUSIVE: Crittenton Points a Gun at Arenas

Whoa. I was just reviewing the tape I acquired through shady underground connections. I don't know how I missed it the first time I watched, but things are getting worse.

Check this out.
And Javale McGee is just smiling it up in the background. This is getting scary, guys. I never took Javaris Crittenton to be a 'point a gun at a teammate' type, but apparently he is that type. There's an old saying that goes, "You just never know with guys named Javaris." That seems applicable here. He's also not great at insults because "I'll shoot you in your surgically repaired knee" is pretty wackintosh.

1000 Words: My New Favorite Picture

Let me tell you my story about this picture.

I found this picture on Monday night, just looking through pictures because that's something I do on the reg. At first I was like, "chill out, Andre Miller. You're not Juwan Howard." And then I moved on.

But I was compelled by something to go back to this picture, and I'm glad I did. Just take a look at Brandon Roy's face. It's like his face turned half serpent-half stone because he looked at Andre Miller's crazy face.

So I'm looking at this Brandon Roy snakeface and I start giggling. Nothing too loud, but I can't stop. I keep looking at this picture, and I keep giggling. Then the giggles turned in to full-on laughter, which turned in to dying laughter. Like making little shriek noises. My wife was sitting next to me, doing something with work, and I'm just laughing from looking at a picture because whoops that's your husband. This lasted for five minutes. Seriously.

Anyways, I still can't look at this picture without laughing. I can't even come up with jokes about it. I thought maybe a fable or something about getting this tattooed on my back would be good, but everything just pales in comparison to just spending a good five minutes laughing at this picture. But I am going to get that tattoo.

The "Word Up, Juwan Howard" Chronicles, Part 1

Tracking Juwan Howard's career-defining stint with the Portland Trailblazers...

Word up, Juwan Howard. That's a pretty slick jam that you're doing on that guy's face. I'm impressed, unlike everybody in the crowd. They're all like, "neat." Especially Gerard Butler's brother Garrard Butler over there in the first row. He's like, "SPARKLAAAAAAAAAA...oh cool dunk, better go star in a movie with Katherine Heigl's sister Cathy." But still, wicked googly, man. You're really LivingStrong.

Word Up, Juwan Howard

EXCLUSIVE: Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton Gun Fight Pictures

Through my shady underground connections I got my hands on the footage from the locker room when Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton dropped guns on each other. It wasn't easy to obtain, but the good part is that these stills I captured from that fateful night prove that this wasn't that big of a deal. Here's how the events played out.

First, Arenas pulled out one of his guns.

Not wanting to be punked, Crittenton responded in turn.

After they realized how silly they were being, they got over it and gathered around for a picture to squash the beef. Crittenton even disarmed himself, trading his gun for some throwing stars.

See, it's no big thing. Just a couple of bros with guns in the locker room. They were even smiling the whole time.

Case closed.

The 2010 Blowtorch State of This Website

There are two times a year that I thoroughly reassess what is going on with my life.

1. The end of the year.
2. The end of the NBA season.

During these times, for discussions relevant to this website, I contemplate the future and direction of this website. Mostly, I just try to think about how many times I can say "this website" before anyone catches on. Apparently, three.

Anyways, the year end assessment isn't new, even to this website, but it's helpful. A year, it seems, is a pretty easy demarcation for reflection. 2009 was a good year for The Blowtorch. Traffic increased about 25%, with each month other than August showing an increase from the previous year¹. Additionally, RSS subscriber numbers consistently increased.

This past year also saw the debut of Trey Kerby at Yahoo! Sports, with the Phenomenal Swag column so graciously offered to me by friend of the Blowtorch JE Skeets. That column did well, even occasionally ending up on Yahoo!'s front page². This tells me two things.

1. The Blowtorch aesthetic is marketable.
2. The Blowtorch is viable.

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Over the holidays I did a lot of reading, and there were a few lines in things that I read that challenged me. First, from a delightfully insane GQ profile on William Shatner:

GQ: "You know," I say, "Kelsey Grammar once said something interesting about you to our magazine."

Shatner: "Kelsey's a friend of mine! What'd he say!"

GQ: "About your acting technique. He said "It's total self-delusion, and it works!"

Shatner: "Well, what'd he mean by that?"

GQ: "I think he was suggesting that you're some sort of accidental genius, someone so far up his own a-- that he somehow manages to come out the other side with something truly sui generis and brilliant to offer."

And from Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur chapter on ABBA:

"They were not attempting to replicate or refute anything else that was happening in pop; they were living in ABBA World, where ABBA Music is the only sound that exists."

Both of these passages say essentially the same thing: that to succeed, you need only to develop what works for you. We see this in Zach Galifianakis becoming hugely famous at age 40, or Jay-Z releasing Reasonable Doubt independently. Time after time, people who believed in what they were doing were right because they kept doing what they were doing, no matter who was paying attention.

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Commit. Embrace. Grow.

That is my mantra for 2010, my action words, if you will. Commit fully to whatever it is being created or experienced -- ain't no half-steppin'. Embrace the triumphs and failures associated with those experiences, and learn from them, either good or bad. Grow, whether learning a new skill or developing an already present skill. There is always some way to get better.

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2010 is a year for getting better. What this means is up to you. For me, it means really trying to do what I want by being who I am. Tiny, small, inconsequential personal wins governed by staying true to that idea prove that life-changing successes are possible. That's what this year means to me.

1. August 2008 was an aberration based on my legendary post "A Guide to Wearing Headbands."
2. Probably my two greatest triumphs of 2k9 were two posts on basketball shoes gracing Yahoo!'s main page.