Cru Jones Society

Part of the annual CJS Rendezvous is taking in a couple of meaningless baseball games in the beautiful March Arizona weather. Since we’re hooked up in Tucson, we’ve always been just a short hop away from Hi Corbett, and an across town jaunt to Tucson Electric Park. There’s nothing like pre-empting the end of the winter dregs with the refreshing tonic of warm weather, and the greatest game on the planet. You feel like you’re cheating nature. And you’re not alone. Per capita, spring training baseball draws more alarmingly old people than your average city council re-zoning meeting or Saturday morning trip to the bank.

And thanks to the incompetence of the City of Tucson, CJS has spent its last year enjoying Rockies pre-season baseball in our very own backyard. Here are some thoughts to send it off properly. Continue Reading »

It wouldn’t be the Olympics on NBC without a giant cock slap of promotion across your face every damn night, now would it? Two years ago I wrote about the poor sap that has to schedule this rotating carousel of vomitous promotional excess with the following passage:

“People who work at television stations are generally insane as it is, they’re moreso during events with live coverage and repetitive commercials. This is especially true when a network is forcing a couple of  semi-wretched looking shows down everyone’s throat and has to air the promos for them to fill in during extra commercial breaks on top of the already excessive scheduled airings.”

Glad to see nothing has changed at NBC in the last two years. But what of the shows they’re force feeding us this year? Let’s take a look… Continue Reading »

On Monday night, the CJS tweeted the following: “Curling, man. Why can’t I look away? Every freaking day I’m watching this ridiculous shit.” That was me.

Despite Erin Burnett and Mario Bartiromo’s ridiculous hotness on their Today Show updates that I inexplicably watch each morning, I have no reason to even acknowledge CNBC’s presence as a network. Jim Cramer is a hollering fool, market wrap-ups have as much utility as your local fortune teller’s latest palm reading, and the stock ticker at the bottom is like an even less interesting version of the college basketball scores that endlessly populate ESPN’s bottom line during February.

Yet, for the last two weeks CNBC has been the network I’ve kept on most. Why? One reason: Grown men and women chasing after 40 lb. stones with brooms for sport.

I don’t know what it is about curling. It’s not terribly exciting. There’s no threat of violence. The sport has been called “chess on ice” which doesn’t normally lend itself to compelling television. And, depending on which nation is represented (and which gender), you’re rolling the dice with either hot chicks or frumpy-looking housewives pushing circular stones at a target several dozen yards away. In short, this seems like a sport that should immediately following the Professional Bowling Tour on ESPN2 each Sunday.

Yet, I can’t get enough of it. Continue Reading »

The Olympics are truly an amazing event. For two weeks they become the central focus for most people. The water cooler talks revolve around Shaun White’s big air, USA wining a sweet hockey game, or the fall of some ice skating couple. Never wanting to be left out, I too become consumed by the Olympics and my thoughts are overwhelmed in the spirit. But sometimes those thoughts don’t generate much and we wind up with some random musings, Olympic edition. Continue Reading »

The past few days of the Olympics have left me disinterested. I’m not sure if it’s because I blew my load on the U.S.A. versus Canada hockey game or if it has been the airing of events like ice dancing and ski jumping. Either way the past couple of days have bored me and I started thinking about some other events I would like to see in the Winter Olympics. I doubt these would make it, but it would be fun. Continue Reading »

We mentioned when we started our Olympic coverage that if you had something interesting about the Olympic you would to share to drop us a line. We are now happy to present to you an article from one of our readers who took us up on our offer. Please enjoy our special guest columnist, CJS regular Corriander.

Tight pants?  There are no tight pants in snowboarding!

Uniform styles have always been a hot topic in all sports and the Olympics are no exception.  There was a ton of attention directed at Michael Phelps’ new Speedo at the Beijing games.  Now we have our own controversies for the Vancouver games and some of them are just ridiculous.  Think that they have something to do with new technology (like the Speedo) or with competitive advantage?  If so, you are wrong. Continue Reading »

We remain balls deep in Olympics coverage here at CJS, and the time has rolled around again for your involvement. Last week we asked you about your favorite Olympic events, so this week we changed it up and asked: What Olympic event always seems like a good idea, but ends up disappointing you?

Think of this question as the once every four years cousin to making microwave popcorn, watching “The Soup,” or checking out Japanese porn – y’know, just to change it up for once – you think you’re going to have a great time, but just walk away unhappy, dissatisfied, and/or disgusted. Our answers are below, yours below that, and the slackasses who join us in the comments section all the way at the bottom.

So let’s make like we’re all virgins again and get disappointed. Only this time, we won’t have any sticky mess to clean up and we’ll be surrounded by awkward European people. What are we waiting for? Continue Reading »

Shaun White is the greatest living athlete of our generation.

After watching him obliterate the competition last night in Vancouver, the argument is closed. No one is doing the things Shaun White is doing on the halfpipe, and few are even anywhere close. And while it’s fun to marvel at Shaun White’s technical ability and limitless ability to push the boundaries of the sport he now reigns supreme over, that’s not even the best part of watching him. So, what is the best part?

In a word: Joy. Continue Reading »

If you need one reason why the Winter Olympics are superior to the Summer Games, you need only remind yourself of that miserable, angry hedgehog who calls the diving competition. I still have no idea what her name is, and frankly I don’t care because that would likely only angry up my blood even further. You know who I’m talking about. She’s the one that no matter how perfect a dive looks, she’ll find something miniscule to needle about it and project much lower scores than the diver will actually receive.

So when I make the following comparison, please don’t take it as a knock against the generally pleasant ski jumping announcer. He’s basically fine. But watching ski jumping is exactly the same as watching diving in the summer. Continue Reading »

Poor Lindsey. She had to put up with hackneyed criticism of her misguided hot-dogging for four years only to fall short once again at the Winter Games.

By now you’ve all heard this story at length and probably watched Jenna Bush (of all people) inexplicably try to interview Lindsey after she clipped that gate yesterday. We know how she feels, which is not to say we’re elite level athletes (although I did go to the gym last night where some bitch on the treadmill in front of me switched from Olympics coverage to local Fox news), rather, she’s behaving in a way very near and dear to our hearts.

Lindsey Jacobellis is acting out as many scenes from RAD as she can. We’ll explain. Continue Reading »

When you watch a lot of Olympics coverage, as I do every two years, you become painfully aware of all the large storylines in play thanks to NBC’s god-awful coverage grabbing you by the lips, forcing your mouth open, and cramming the dominant narratives down your gullet to the point you feel like vomiting pieces of Lindsey Vonn’s injured shin all over your coffee table.

So, in the absence of actual quality coverage, you’re forced to find your own little moments to smile at. And my favorite thing from the weekend: The Biathlon Penalty Lap of Shame. Continue Reading »

Every two years I spend two glorious weeks watching the Olympics. Despite the fact I get sucked in and watch the games when the time rolls around, and seeing the best athletes, I still get blown away by the athleticism they demonstrate. Each seems that at each game there I watch a sport I never gave a chance to before and end up as a fan. For these games the sport to claim that title is cross country skiing. Continue Reading »

As I stated yesterday I love Olympic hockey. This has even extended to the point where I have watched a little bit of the women’s hockey tournament. My first thoughts were I love hockey and I love women therefore this can’t lose. Unfortunately hockey chicks look like a cross between hockey dudes and softball chicks. Calling the games was U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer Cammi Granato, and I was completely shocked and put-off seeing the classic hockey nose on a woman. But I’m not totally shallow and I can look past all those things and enjoy a well played game. Of the five games that have aired, I have watched maybe a combined one whole period and here are a few thoughts I had regarding women’s hockey. Continue Reading »

Welcome to the kickoff of your CJS Olympics coverage. Two years ago, we rocked the site with coverage of the Beijing games, and we’re going to do the same this year. Check out the bottom of this Confessional to see how you can get in on the fun. But for now, let’s get to the topic at hand, and the perfect way to begin our Olympic coverage: What event are you most looking forward to and why?

So enjoy the opening ceremonies, and stay tuned for two full weeks of Olympic goodness. Continue Reading »

The battle between good and evil is one that has engaged man for years. We can’t help but be compelled to watch these two opposing forces duke it out for our benefit. Pro wrestling is just another battlefield for this on-going battle.

While the soap opera-styled stories may tell us who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, we still need more of a reason to root for the good guys. This is where the bad guys really come into play. A good bad guy makes a great good guy. Where would Luke Skywalker be without Darth Vader? He’d still be working on his uncle’s turd farm. Without the Joker, or any other villain in Gotham City, Batman would just be an eccentric rich guy in a weird costume. Continue Reading »

Please welcome CJS Regular Chaddymac to the Cru Jones Society. He won last year’s Food, Sex, or Cars competition, and this is his article. Tying into our WWE-themed week, here is Chaddymac’s Top 5 Entrance Themes of All-Time. Give him a big CJS welcome!

I’m going to be upfront with all of you right now. I’m an engineer, not a writer, so I apologize for the step by step process that is about to follow but that is how my brain works.  When I set out to write this article, I had 2 entrance songs in mind that I had to include in my Top 5. That means I had to search my memory, since a top 5 wouldn’t be very good with only 2, and I haven’t watched wrestling in 6 years, which was coincidentally around the same time I got married (funny, huh?). 

So I went back to freshman year of college, when every Monday and Thursday Dagger would come over to Limon’s and my dorm room where we would watch RAW and Smackdown.  Once I was in the right frame of mind, I started spouting off wrestlers and with YouTube in front of me, proceeded to watch and listen to every one of their entrances.  Continue Reading »

Although my interest has waned in recent years, professional wrestling is live theater in its simplest form and remains one of my favorite “in the moment” entertainments. You’ve got a hero, you’ve got a villain, you’ve got conflict, and after plenty of (admittedly) contrived and semi-ridiculous violence, you’ve got resolution.

Individual matches are standalone stories, or can function like chapters in a book. Either you’ve got a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, or in some cases, when you string several of them together, you form a complete and fully realized story that, when executed well, rivals any form of entertainment on the planet bar none. Continue Reading »

Welcome to Raw is Cru Jones Society! We are very excited this week as we pay a tribute to something that was a big part of our lives, professional wrestling. It could even be said pro wrestling is responsible for CJS as Dagger and Hart first became friends over our love of sports entertainment. So we have a week of great articles dedicated to this form of entertainment, including a guest column from Food, Sex, or Cars? winner Chaddymac. Be sure to look for that one on Wednesday.

We start this week by getting a feel of your wrestling love, and to do that we asked you the question: Who was your favorite wrestler? We assumed that at some point in your life you watched some wrestling and had a guy you rooted for above all else. And you proved us right by sending in some great responses. As is the custom we’ll jerk the curtain and then your responses will follow. Continue Reading »

Monday Night Football is on tonight and the Green Bay Packers take on the Baltimore Ravens. Two teams that have names that are not completely dumb. Dealing with local history and daunting, soul eating birds. Unfortunately these are part of a small selection of non-asinine names used by teams or bands. There are a lot so we asked you: What are the best and worst team and band names out there? You responded in full force. So as usual the CJS staff is first and then we follow it up with your responses. Continue Reading »

“Oh God, not this guy…”

That’s what you think when you see certain guys staring across the line at your favorite team. These are the guys you fear more than any other, and are the guys that can turn the game in the blink of an eye.

Over the last few weeks watching the Avalanche and Broncos, three athletes have stood out to me more than all the others. Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks seems poised to become the next Eric Lindros (hopefully for him, minus the concussions) with the way he overpowers defenders and seems to find every puck in traffic. Even though the Avs won that game, I was terrified every time Kane had the puck. Ed Reed of the Baltimore Ravens spent the evening two weeks ago separating Bronco receivers’ heads from their bodies and destroyed McDaniels’ candy ass game plan. Same goes for Troy Polamalu of the Steelers who is an absolute force of nature. Polamalu looks like he’s moving at Bo Jackson speed from Tecmo Bowl while everyone else moves like Jonah Hill.  

But since I’m older now, none of these guys scare me the way the most intimidating athletes from my youth did. Let’s take a look at the 5 Most Intimidating Athletes from E Dagger’s youth. Continue Reading »