Video: Klay Thompson's 37-point quarter

Pardon my departure from Michigan sports, but this is too good to ignore:

Golden State Warrior Klay Thompson scored 37 points in the third quarter against the Sacramento Kings on his way to a game total of 52. It would have been amazing to be in the arena and feel the energy of the crowd during a run like he had, when he was 13/13 from the field and 9/9 from three-point land. Wow.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: Bo Jackson vs. Barry Sanders on Monday Night Football

I stumbled across this clip from a game between the Raiders and the Lions, which happened to be a battle between my two favorite running backs of all time. Jackson wasn't on the same level as Sanders and had a career that was too short, but he was really fun to watch.



It's crazy to see how much the NFL game has changed in the last 20+ years.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: Saturday Night Live, Season 40

As a fan of Saturday Night Live since I was a kid, I have become more and more aware of how great certain sketch comedians are . . . and how quickly others fade into oblivion. That discrepancy seems to have been made blatantly obvious over the past couple seasons, the last of which - season 39 - included a lot of cast turnover. New cast members pop up every year, but SNL seems to be in rebuilding mode recently. Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Jason Sudeikis all left before season 39, and then Seth Meyers left in the middle of the year. After the season finished, John Milhiser, Nasim Pedrad, Noel Wells, and Brooks Wheelan all left or got fired; the only one of those with any talent whoatsoever seemed to be Pedrad.

Now it's season 40, and there are still some decent talents hanging around but nobody who seems like a future star. In the days of yore, it seemed SNL always featured a guy or girl with enough charisma to move on to his or her own talk show, comedy, movies, etc. There are some people I really like, but nobody who looks like a Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Chris Farley, Kristen Wiig, etc.

So after watching the first half of the season, here are the current SNL actors from best to worst:

Bobby Moynihan: Moynihan doesn't have the same kind of physical presence as Chris Farley or John Belushi, but he has taken that chubby guy role and done some great things with it. He's good at improvising if things go sideways, and his facial contortions help him sell his characters. My favorites are Anthony Crispino - who's pretty sure his secondhand news is accurate - and Drunk Uncle, with some Kirby the Astronaut mixed in.

Kate McKinnon: McKinnon has "crazy eyes" that make her a little off-putting and intriguing at the same time. Her impressions are unmatched on the current show, and she goes over the top just enough with her takes on Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres, and Martha Stewart, among others. She's probably the most consistent actor on the show in committing to the sketch and staying in character.

Pete Davidson: Davidson is my favorite new-ish actor on the show. He's only 21 years old and so he shows his immaturity by occasional breaks in character, but he looks comfortable on stage and delivers his lines with an underlying energy like Jimmy Fallon or Adam Sandler. (Interesting note: Davidson's father was a firefighter who was tragically killed during the September 11th attacks.)

Kenan Thompson: Early in his career I thought Thompson was pretty bad, because he seemed to break character left and right. Now he's been around forever (he joined the cast in 2003 and has stuck around longer than Grandpa Tim Meadows), and he has grown on me. He still breaks character sometimes, but the creator of the knucklepuck has developed enough lovable roles to make him a comfortable sight on Saturday nights.

Taran Killam: Killam is pretty skilled impressionist, and he's currently the "good looking" guy on the roster who can play the role of a Hollywood leading man or a goofball. He's no match for Darrell Hammond at doing impressions, but he's versatile enough to fit into almost any sketch.

Cecily Strong: Strong is someone I can see becoming a supporting actress in movies or TV shows. She's good looking enough to make a passable Hollywood actress, she's pretty versatile with her characters, and she's relatable enough to make her a sympathetic character.

Colin Jost: Jost is the head writer and a standup comedian. After some early snafus, he has become pretty solid as an anchor on Weekend Update. Some of his deliveries are similar to those of Norm McDonald, and he has the face to make a convincing news anchor. He doesn't seem to have the same improvisational chops as some of the former anchors (Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Seth Meyers), so I can't see him moving to his own talk show. But he seems like a good writer and is coming into his own as a performer.

Vanessa Bayer: Bayer is a good bit player who can make a cute girl or play an androgynous role like, say, a Jewish boy. You need good glue girls like her.

Michael Che: Che has some funny moments as the co-host for Weekend Update. Unfortunately, he stumbles over the setups and punchlines so often that he's very inconsistent. For every joke that succeeds, at least one fails because the timing gets thrown off.

Aidy Bryant: Bryant is in her third year on the show, and while I liked her at first, her act has gotten a little stale for me. She plays essentially the same person in all of her skits, and her best one - co-host of Girlfriends Talk Show - has run its course. She has her funny moments, but she's too one-dimensional.

Jay Pharaoh: Pharaoh - whose Barack Obama impersonation has improved over the years - has never impressed me. You have to have someone around who can impersonate the President, so I guess he's necessary. But the guy just isn't that funny. Almost every impression he does is sold only by the people doing his makeup and costumes.

Sasheer Zamata: I have a feeling I will forget about her in a few years. Kind of like how you forgot about Paul Brittain.

Beck Bennett: Bennett's best professional moments came in AT&T commercials talking to little kids. Otherwise, his best role is Casey, a local skating talk-show host. Generally, he's too stilted and awkward and monotone to be of much use.

Kyle Mooney: As Bennett's co-star on the skating talk show, Mooney isn't atrocious. He makes an acceptable stoner. That's about all I can say for him. His impressions are disasters.

Leslie Jones: Leslie Jones is terrible and one-dimensional. I'm not quite sure why she was added to the cast, but I would be happy if she did not return for season 41.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: The Bachelor season finale

Juan Pablo Galavis (image via Bachelor Burn Book)

Here is where I submit my man card and admit that I've been a pretty consistent watcher of ABC's The Bachelor  over the past few years. I consider it a somewhat fair trade-off for making my special lady watch hours and hours of Michigan football games and listening to me rant and rave about Rich Rodriguez's failure to recruit more offensive linemen. And on top of the whole "fairness" aspect, it's not so bad to watch 25 or so attractive females prance around in bikinis and tight dresses to try to win the heart of the hunk du jour.

That "hunk" for the 2014 rendition of The Bachelor  turned out to be Juan Pablo, a single father of Venezuelan heritage from Miami. Juan Pablo won many Americans' hearts with his panache and sense of humor during the 2013 season of The Bachelorette, when Desiree let him advance several rounds before axing him. It didn't hurt, of course, that he's Latino and could appeal to the ever-increasing Spanish-speaking market in the United States.

For perhaps the first time ever (though I haven't been watching the show since its inception), the show went down in flames as Juan Pablo started to piss off a bunch of bachelorettes/contestants down the stretch. The first real signs of trouble appeared when Sharleen, a 29-year-old opera singer from Heidelberg, Germany, left the show early because she couldn't find a cerebral connection with the Spanish-speaking jock. I have known my fair share of opera singers, and they are all well educated and cultured. I have also known my fair share of athletes, and, well, let's just say they don't tend to be the most thoughtful bunch. However, the disappointment and surprise Sharleen showed because she couldn't connect intellectually with Juan Pablo was both sad and comical.

Then there was Andi, the 26-year-old assistant district attorney from Atlanta. She thought she had found a "great love" in Juan Pablo . . . until she spent the night in the fantasy suite with him and realized that he was self-centered and didn't ask many questions about her. After several weeks of dating a dwindling number of women, alas, he couldn't tell her what religion she practiced. The horror! The next morning she summoned him for a meeting and removed herself from the show prior to the rose ceremony, incessantly berating him for saying "It's okay" when she said she was leaving. She also claimed he said she made it that far "by default," but he insisted he didn't know what that word meant and had said she "barely" made it.

In the season's final barrage, there was 32-year-old Clare, a hairdresser from Sacramento. In my opinion, Clare was the most physically attractive girl on the show, but there wasn't a whole lot going on upstairs. On their final date, when no cameras and no audio could catch it, Juan Pablo allegedly said something like "I don't know you all that well, but I really liked f***ing you in the fantasy suite." She was upset but after a heart-to-heart with him later that night, she felt reassured that he was interested in her. During the final rose ceremony a day later, she came marching across the sand in a beautiful gown only to be told that Juan Pablo didn't see a future with her, implying he had chosen the other remaining bachelorette/contestant. Rather than taking it in stride, she shoved him away when he tried to hug her goodbye and yelled at him for not being a real man, saying she would never want him to be the father of her children. If he had got down on his knee and proposed, she would have said yes. Because the 50/50 proposition went against her, she insulted him and stalked off.

Last Monday was the season finale, and Juan Pablo was accosted from all angles during the After the Final Rose episode. Host Chris Harrison seemed miffed that the guy he hand-picked to be The Bachelor had not told the winner, Nikki (a 26-year-old pediatric nurse from Missouri), that he loved her. Clare hoped that her verbal assault would somehow empower other women to stand up for themselves, advice that will surely be heeded by the plethora of females who find themselves losing on the final round of Bachelor-like dating shows. Andi proceeded to make fun of Juan Pablo's accent and say she "wanted to strangle him" when he kept saying "It's okay." (I wonder how a long a male assistant district attorney would keep his job after saying in front of millions of people that he wanted to strangle a female game show contestant for saying "It's okay" in a foreign accent.) Kelly, a 27-year-old "dog lover" from Georgia, took the most irrelevant potshot at Juan Pablo; in a separate interview, he had made the mistake of saying that he wouldn't approve of a same-sex version of The Bachelor, and poor Kelly somehow found it surprising that there are human beings in this country who aren't 100% in favor of same-sex everything when she herself had been raised by a same-sex couple. Harrison, meanwhile, spent the last few minutes of the show alternately making fun of Juan Pablo and getting quite chummy with the new Bachelorette, none other than the wannabe strangler/accentist Andi.

All this is to say that it is at once riveting and tiresome to watch people who are so delusional. From educated women who so terribly misjudge ignorant and self-centered men; to ignorant women who let fairy tales (you know, all those fairy tales from childhood that include television cameras and 24 other women)  cloud their judgment; to television hosts who get offended when their chosen guests don't play their roles exactly as expected. Who's to blame for all this drivel on our televisions?

Me, and viewers like me. And for that I want to strangle us.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: House of Cards

Kevin Spacey is deliciously unlikable in House of Cards (image via Netflix)

Like many others, I recently finished watching season two of House of Cards, the Netflix show that seems to be the current "Best Show Ever" now that Breaking Bad  has run its course. If you don't want the show to be spoiled, then proceed no further.

Hit the jump for my thoughts (and please discuss in the comments).

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: Top Five 2014 SI Swimsuit Issue Pictures

I have no reason to post this other than the fact that the Sports Illustrated  swimsuit issue is awesome. So here are my top five pictures from this year's issue. (Photos with nudity were disqualified for obvious reasons.)

In honor of multiple family members, 50% of today's ad revenue and donations will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, an organization rated an A+ by Charity Watch.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: El Caminito Del Rey

Leslie Kay Nelson

This has nothing to do with Michigan football, but check out this hiking trail in Spain.  It's on the side of a cliff and hangs several hundred feet above the river below.  If I were one of the people in these pictures . . . well . . . I wouldn't be, unless the photographer got a quick snapshot of me before I hit the rocks below.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: Jill Costello

If you're a subscriber to Sports Illustrated, then you may have already read this article.  But if not, here's a link to "The Courage of Jill Costello" by Chris Ballard.

There's not much that I can add to it beyond what Ballard already did, but you'll be a better person for reading it.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: Goodbye, Sparky

Ex-Detroit Tigers manager Sparky Anderson

I rarely have the chance to wax on non-football related material during the season, but the recent passing of Sparky Anderson urges me to do so.  As a youngster growing up just outside of Detroit, Sparky Anderson was the leader of the only team I knew to exist.  Before I understood what Major League Baseball really was, Sparky was the face of the Tigers.  His name was synonymous with baseball.  I didn't even realize that other managers existed.  I assumed he was the Commissioner of Baseball, the Emperor of Everything I Wanted to Be.

See, when I was growing up, I was certain that I would play baseball for a living.  I was hooked on baseball as soon as I was old enough to hit off a tee.  I still remember my first baseball card.  Actually, it was a set of baseball cards; my parents took me to a sports memorabilia store and bought me a Topps team set of the 1987 Detroit Tigers, including guys like Chet Lemon, Tom Brookens, Matt Nokes, Mike Heath, and Darrell Evans.  During the summers, I would go outside and play baseball with my neighborhood friends.  After coming inside, I would invariably plop down in front of the television to watch an afternoon game, whether it was the Tigers, the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox, or the Atlanta Braves.  And if I didn't have a Little League game that night, I would force my dad to grab his glove and play catch out in the street.  Once it got dark, I would watch more baseball.

I was the type of kid who wrote down starting baseball lineups.  From memory.  For every single team in the league.

My dream of playing in the big leagues dissipated in middle school.  I went from being a dominant Little League pitcher to a kid unable to throw a ball without severe pain shooting from my shoulder to my forearm.  The doctor told me to take the summer off from playing baseball.  Instead, I moved from pitcher/shortstop to playing first base full-time.  That way I wouldn't have to throw the ball much, and in practice, I could toss the ball underhand back to the pitcher.

Baseball was my first sport.  I loved the feeling of striking somebody out, turning a double play, making a diving catch, sliding safely into home.  Every time I think of baseball, I think of the Detroit Tigers and old Tiger Stadium.  I think about how my grandpa used to have the Tigers game on every time I visited, and he'd make a remark about how "Ol' Sparky" threw a fit at the umpires for a bad call of one kind or another.  Then Sparky would amble back to the dugout, and the game would continue.

Yep, there was nothing like watching Sparky Anderson and the Tigers as a kid.  Back when it was all balls and strikes and home runs and stolen bases and umpires kicking dirt.  Back when Grandpa told me about the exploits of "Ol' Sparky."

Rest in peace.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: The Magicians

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

If Harry Potter had "relations" with Hermione Granger, met up with a Bret Easton Ellis character, found a Portkey to the Wood Between the Worlds, and then faced off with a 'roid raging Lord Voldemort . . . that might begin to approximate the events in The Magicians.

A Brooklyn high school student named Quentin has an unhealthy level of interest in a magical place named Fillory, which is essentially C.S. Lewis's Narnia. With few friends and not much of a relationship with his family, Quentin finds a Hogwarts-like school named Brakebills. He finds that he fits in well with the school and some of the other students, and being infatuated with magic, Quentin devotes himself to the tedium of learning magic. Unlike J.K. Rowling's Potter, however, Quentin isn't exactly a leader or "The Chosen One." He's just a regular wizard with a shortage of self-esteem.

Amid love triangles, drug usage, and heavy alcohol consumption, a fellow student named Penny finds a magic button (sounds familiar?) that transports its possessor to the Neitherlands, an endless city of fountains that are gates to other worlds. Penny convinces Quentin and a few of their friends to visit the Neitherlands in the hopes of finding Fillory. Once Quentin finds the enchanted land that he thought was only the figment of an author's imagination, he's tasked with a mission to save Fillory's equivalents of Narnia's Aslan - two rams named Ember and Umber.

Holding degrees in comparative literature from both Harvard and Yale, Grossman doesn't attempt to hide the derivative nature of his novel. The appearances of some of his characters and, especially, locations are almost laughable at times. He might as well be Gregory Maguire elaborating on the story of Snow White. But I suppose Snow White having a sex drive and an addiction to painkillers might sully the children's story. The story was so dependent on the series by Lewis that I stopped mid-novel to familiarize myself with The Chronicles of Narnia, the reading of which had somehow alluded me as a child.

One issue I had with The Magicians was the inconsistent pacing. At 402 pages, there are bound to be a few slow spots. The vast majority of the novel takes place in Brooklyn and Brakebills, with only the last sliver depicting the more exciting Fillory. Only the occasional exciting event occurs at Brakebills, and while developments happen with sufficient frequency, there is a bit of a lull in the middle. Fortunately, the last section of the novel flies by at a breakneck pace, concluding with one of the most terrifying fantasy scenes I've read. Lord Voldemort could learn a thing or two from Grossman's villain.

Overall, The Magicians was a fantastic read. Not only did Grossman build an excellent amount of tension, but he also has an impressively deep vocabulary. I'm a fairly intelligent individual, but more than a handful of times, I found myself cracking open a dictionary to keep up with the language. The climax left me wanting more, which is the perfect time for an author to close up shop.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: Matthew Albanese

Matthew Albanese photography

The most recent Paste magazine highlighted the art of Matthew Albanese, a New Jersey native who creates landscape art from household items and the contents of his spice rack. True story. The above photograph isn't an actual twister blowing through the Great Plains. The miniature set was created from steel wool, moss, and ground parsley.

There's more neat stuff featured on Albanese's website, like a Mars scene made from paprika and a volcano built from tile grout and cotton. Since I have no artistic skill whatsoever, I'm often enthralled by people who make unique art. Mr. Albanese seems to fit that category.

Self-Indulgent Post of the Week: Baby Wolverine

Baby watches replay of Denard vs. Western Michigan

A college friend of mine forwarded this contest to me and asked me to pass it along to any friends who might want to vote. I thought, "What Michigan fan could resist voting for a future Michigan cheerleader in a cutest baby contest?"

So here's the link.

Go blue!