To the Series

One more to go...

Thunder Road

Forget the Miami Heat. The Thunder are on the cover of this year's SI NBA preview.

For the record, I'm not really an OKC fan, but I love Kevin Durant. And how good a guy is he? He asked that SI photograph not just him, but his teammates as well. LeBron probably would have had a press conference to announce he was doing that.

And in case you were wondering, the Warriors were ranked 13th out of the 15 teams in the Western Conference. Uh... We Believe?

160 Percent Effort

The University of Mississippi, better known as Ole Miss, has announced the school's new mascot. For those who do not keep up with college mascot news, Ole Miss' old mascot, Colonel Reb, was kicked to the curb a few years ago because he resembled a southern plantation owner just a little bit too much which conjured up bad memories of slavery in the south.


Yeah, okay, fair enough. This guy looks like he could be Colonel Sanders' racist cousin.

Anyway, the school set out on finding a new mascot that would keep up with the Ole Miss Rebel tradition, but also create a new image separate from the south's dark past which lasted from the early 1800s until about, um.... the mid-1980s. The final mascot choices were then put to a vote among students, faculty, and alumni, and the results are in:

62 percent voted for Rebel Black Bear (the winner).

56 percent voted for Rebel Land Shark.

42 percent voted for Hotty Toddy.


So let's welcome the Ole Miss Rebel Black Bear. Okay, so it's not exactly the coolest or most original choice for a mascot. But according to the university, the black bear has a "Mississippi connection" which I assume means that there are actually black bears in Mississippi. (Turns out this is true! In fact, there are almost 80 in the entire state!) I'm a little surprised, though, that Rebel Land Shark wasn't the runaway winner because nothing screams the south or rebellion quite like a land shark. And in case you were wondering, Hotty Toddy (the dude on the left) is the name of the Ole Miss cheer. So the mascot would have basically been... a cheer. Clearly creativity is not terribly alive down south.

But there is one thing that's particularly worth pointing out: did you count those percentages carefully? The total adds up to, not 100 percent, but an amazing 160 percent. Apparently math isn't terribly alive down south either. And you thought education in California was in trouble.

It's just a shame that the ultimate, all-time leader of rebels in the entire universe wasn't able to be considered for the position of Ole Miss Rebel mascot.

It's a trap!!!

On to the Next One

See you in Philly.

Countdown to Conan

If you've been watching the MLB playoffs on TBS at all, you've no doubt seen some of the ads promoting Conan O'Brien's return to late night in early November. Here's a link to the YouTube page with all the promos. (This one is my personal favorite.)

Anyway, if you know me at all, you know that I'm pretty excited for Conan to be back. I did some scrounging around and found some of my favorite Conan moments from the Late Night days. And why should I keep these to myself? These are obviously meant to be shared. Enjoy.

Conan helps out during the NYC transit strike.

On his trip to San Francisco, Conan visited Intel headquarters in Santa Clara.

Conan playing old school baseball. (The buffering might take a little time because it's some random Chinese YouTube-type site.)

The Walker Texas Ranger lever.

Max and Conan get a beer.

Possibly my second favorite Conan remote ever: Conan having dinner with his associate producer Jordan Schlansky.

And the best one ever: Conan's 1992 Ford Taurus.