• I want a motorcycle, preferably a new Triumph Bonneville or one from the early 70’s.
• I want the guy with the Merrell slip on shoes who uses the handicrapper at work to see a proctologist.
• I want to make a short film.
• I want to make a humidor.
• I want to see B.J. Penn fight George St. Pierre.
• I want Jens Pulver to win and win often.
• I want boxing (here is a step forward) and the Oakland Raiders to become relevant again.
• I want to see Clutch live in Knoxville before the end of the year (September 30, 2008).
• I want a pontoon boat.
• I want a good recorded version of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
• I want the Yankees to miss the pennant race.
• I want to see Heath Ledger again as the Joker (sadly, this isn’t going to happen).
• I want to play singles tennis again (I want a new knee).
• I want a big back yard to play in with Turd Ferguson.
• I want Michael Phelps to dominate the Olympics.
• I want to believe in T. Boone Pickens plan to rid our reliance on foreign oil.
• I want to play Halo for a living. 
• I want an Apply iPod Touch with a better keyboard (I don’t own one for this reason. Is the guy who created this piece of crap a nephew of Steve Jobs or something?)
• I want my cat to quit crapping in my neighbors kids sandbox.
• I want to believe in a politician.
• I want a second season of Firefly and a third season of Jericho.
• I want a Ruger Mark III.
• I want new albums from At the Drive In, Sublime, the original Guns N Roses lineup, Nirvana, Sex Pistols, Elliot Smith, Jeff Buckley, and John Bean (Leroy Mercer)
• I want to see Paris and Venice again.
• I want to see Twiggy, the water skiing squirrel, in person.
• I want to meet the girl who messed up Greg Dulli.
• I want to waterski some more.
• I want less stress.
• I want to go to bed……

SLANG
SneezeNCeaser - This is a guy who comes in your office, sneezes, and the touches your office door knob last Tuesday. A-hole!
LidHole - This is a guy who gets you the wrong size lid for your drink at the Nixon’s Deli by BestBuy. You probably should have thought something was up anyway because what kind of dude gets another dude a lid for their drink. 
Putter - This is a miniature air biscuit that is released in your opponents general direction as he/she marks their ball upon reaching the green.
SesameSnoozer - This is a dude who apparently ate a Whopper at lunch and somehow managed to get a sesame seed stuck in the right side of his left nostril. Even though you advertently look the exact opposite direction so as to not view this nose ornament once again, he doesn’t get the clue. Then, for the rest of the conversation you are hoping that he doesn’t launch it onto your non-sleeved arm (the inventor of the short sleeve polo shirt needs a good neck punching) after one of his patented mule cackles.

This Jack Ascii post was brought to you by the inventors of the bolo tie. There is no better neck accessory to ensure you don’t get the job.

New names are coming, fresh talented players who believe more they can win against him and I am one of them. Suddenly he is worried a little bit.

This is coming from a man with 1 career grand slam win, talking about a man with 12 career grand slam wins. 

Congratulations Novak Djokovic, you are the Jackass of the Week. 

P.S. Novak is already sitting at home after a 2nd round loss to 72 year old Marat Saffin, while Roger has made it to the Quarterfinals at the All England Club.

A) This player set an NCAA college baseball record of 58 straight games with a hit (since surpassed).

B) This player hit two grand slams in one MLB game.

C) This player earned six gold gloves during his career, third most ever for the position.

D) This player got the crapped knocked out of him by a 46 year old Nolan Ryan after an ill advised charging of the mound.

Baseball Players: Andre Dawson, Mo Vaughn, Robin Ventura, John Olerud.

Click below for the correct pairings…

If you answered Robin Ventura for all of them, you have won yourself…. I guess nothing. Anyway, most people will only remember Robin as the guy a old Nolan Ryan roughed up. However, he was a great great college and major league baseball player. Here are just a few of his accolades (taken from his wikipedia listing):

Gold Gloves: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1998, 1999

All Star: 1992, 2002

90 RBI seasons: 8 (6th all time among 3rd basemen)

9 Grandslams in 1995 alone

Career Home Runs: 294

Career RBI’s: 1182

This Atlanta Hawks 2008 NBA Draft Analysis was brought to you by “The Portable Camp Toilet” and this guy. 

Beaver - An immediate redouble by a player who just accepted a double. A player who beavers turns the cube up one level and retains possession of the cube

Jack Ascii’s Redirect: This is an unacceptable term.

Clear from the Rear -  A good general strategy to use when bearing in or bearing off against opposition. You clear your highest point (1) first and avoid creating gaps.

Jack Ascii’s Rebuttal: This is also an unacceptable term.

 Cock Shot -  Entering from the bar with a roll of 6-2 and hitting a blot on the eight-point when the only open point is the two-point.

Jack Ascii’s comment: I am embarrassed for Backgammon players everywhere.

Bonus Term’s (presented by JackAscii.net at no extra charge)

Kibitzer - Spectator to a game. Good etiquette dictates that kibitzers not discuss the game within earshot of the players.

Jack Ascii’s Observation: I recommend never talking about Backgammon. 

Mammy Wong Proposition - The player on roll has two checkers on each of his lower three home board points, and three checkers on each of upper three home board points. The opponent has one checker on the bar, six checkers borne off, and the remainder on his one-point and two-point. Should the player double? Should his opponent accept the double?

Jack Ascii’s Interjection: Never in a hundred years would I have guessed a Manny Wong Proposition had anything to do with Backgammon. I think I’m looking at a broken Backgammon glossary. 

Double Bonus (a video)

This guy is actually talking about backgammon and someone actually filmed it. Nice pink hanky by the way.

Subject A: The Ultimate Fighter Saturday night saw the latest season of “The Ultimate Fighter” get crowned. The winner was Amir Sadollah, who now, after the win, is undefeated (he’s 1-0). I watched all of his prelim fights this season and what stuck out in my mind about this guy is he never quits. He doesn’t appear to be a great striker, wrestler, of grappler and his cardio also seems to be suspect. What he is good at, though, is winning. I don’t think he’s going to be a world beater anytime soon, but I think he’s worth keeping an eye on. Also, the guy has the type of personality that should endear him to fans; very humble and somewhat insecure (not your typical mixed martial artist). Before his quarterfinal fight against Matt Brown, he said something like “of course I’m scared, I’m going to get in the ring with a trained killer”. For the record, he subbed Matt in the third round. Other not so flashy winners (past and present): Chauncey Phillips, Steve McNair, Bernard Hopkins, Lloyota Machida, and Bill Russell.

Topic 2: I picked up the Flobots “Fight with Tools” album this past week. Good good stuff. I pretty much left played the whole album 2 or 3 times this weekend while I finished painting my deck. I especially like “May Day”, “Handlebars”, and “Fight with Tools”. I was a big 311 fan back in the day, and these guys sound a great deal like 311 (and there’s nothing wrong with that). Give them a listen - as always they are on the shelves at your local iTunes store.I also picked up Iggy Pop’s remastered “Raw Power” album, and Joy Division’s “Closer”. Both are great great great albums that I need not comment on. If you don’t have these I suggest you put some pants on and go pick them up presently.

Item III:  Jen’s Pulver. I like Jens Pulver. He is one favorite mixed martial arts fighters. He is the everyman’s fighter - he’s not rich, and this is his chosen profession. A few weeks ago he suffered a tough loss to one of the best, if not the best, featherweight fighters in the world; Urijah “the California Kid” Faber. The fight was kinda like a passing of the torch, as Jen’s is arguably one of the best lightweight/featherweight fighters to ever lace them up. I hope the guy doesn’t retire any time soon. Even if he is relegated to a gatekeeper for Faber for the rest of his career, I don’t care. I just want to see him fight. Anyway, if you “Jens” find yourself somehow ending up on this page, I have a suggestion for you (granted, this is highly improbable and the chances of me winning the lottery are significantly greater). I think you need to change your intro music. Might I suggest “Gimme Danger” by Iggy Pop and the Stooges. 

D: Tiger Woods is done for the year. Many sportswriters are predicting that this will have a significant economic impact on the rest of the season (I concur). Here’s an interesting fact that I believe John Feinstein recently mentioned on some sports show I was listening to on Saturday. Prior to Tiger joining the tour, there were 17 millionaires. Now there are over 100. That’s pretty impressive. I think I also read that Tigers caddy makes more in prize money that most of the other tour players. This got me thinking, what other athletes would have the biggest impact on the economics  of their sport if they missed a season?

Basketball: Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade. I think it would take having all three miss the season to have a significant impact. We already have seen a season without Dwayne, and although I have no clue what impact it had on the NBA’s  bottom line, I gotta think the league still did well.

Football: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, LT, Eli Manning, Randy Moss, Terrell Owens. As with basketball, I think it would take having all these guys miss the season to impact the NFL economic season. I think NFL fans are accustomed to seeing star players go down from time to time to have too significant of an impact on the NFL’s  economic outcome.

Baseball: The Yankees and Red Sox. I can’t really speak to baseball because I ussually don’t tune in until October anyway. If I didn’t have the Yankees to root against every year, I probably wouldn’t even watch in October either. 

One question I would really like to have answered is how much does sports (specifically professional basketball, football, ad baseball) contribute to the U.S.’s economy? If it’s significant, I wonder if anyone in any government agency thinks about this kind of stuff?