​2019 NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Stephon Gilmore, who is scheduled to make just $7 million this season (well below market value for a top tier CB), as expected, did not show up to mandatory minicamp today. 

Gilmore, who is 30 years old and in the final year of a 5 year-$65 million contract, will likely hold out for a new deal. I can't say that I blame him after the notoriously cheap Patriots handed out money like open mic night flyers this offseason.

Regardless if I agree with the strategy or not, after spending the better part of two decades obsessing over the New England Patriots, it would not shock me in the least if they ended up trading or even cutting Gilmore. I don't want to see it happen, but I'm frankly expecting it. You're likely familiar with Belichick's mantra of preferring to move on from a player a year too early, rather than a year too late, and this is a textbook example of that situation.

Enter scene, Jalen Ramsey.

There's no denying that Jalen Ramsey of the Los Angeles Ram is one of the better cornerbacks in the NFL, but he's also one of the most annoying sportsmen of recent memory IMO. 
​
Sure, I'm basing a lot of my disdain for him from NFL Films Mic'd Up coverage of the 2017 (2018) AFC Championship Game that saw Mr. Ramsey's Jaguars blow a 20-10 4th quarter lead against a Gronk-less New England Patriots, but now I'll never fuck with him.

Now it's personal, my guy. ​

​

Respectfully, suck my dick, dude. What tf is this shit? There's no need to poke that bullet wound. I know the Rams don't have a first-round pick until 2058, but the Patriots and their fanbase deserve a 3rd rounder, at the very least, for the intentional emotional distress this tweet has caused.

This is textbook tampering, and if Roger Goodell had an ounce of integrity (which we all know he does not), he'd strip Jalen Ramsey of his NFL privileges and lock him up for a least....let's say 50 years, in honor of Mookie Betts for this stunt. If I were a gambling man (which I am; TML was +48 units), I'd bet the commish will give the Rams an extra 1st rounder just to stick it to the Pats.

Even though I've been seriously considering reinstating my Red Sox fandom on a trial-casual-basis for socializing purposes (and low key missing such a big part of my identity for nearly 20 years), this is exactly why I'm not ready to move past the Mookie trade (even with him slumping this year). 

It was such a loser franchise/city mentality to trade away such an elite player TO SAVE MONEY WHEN YOU'RE WORTH BILLIONS. It's almost as stupid as the government giving Jeff Bezos 10 billy bailout when he's worth nearly 200 billion and probably will be by the time I finish this blog. Not only did the Sox ship away the best player on the team, but they've given every fanbase and even pro athletes in different fucking leagues ammo for the next 10 years. Boston was a loser sports city (outside of the Celtics) for 40ish years until the Patriots became the greatest dynasty of all time and the Red Sox broke the curse; now you've got guys referencing the Mookie trade to get more elite players out of Boston.

P.S.

I like Gilmore and want to see him stay, but I'm actually sort of okay with moving on, especially if the deal is right. He was banged up last year and is now "on the wrong side of 30". That being said, fuck you, Jalen. The Rams are super cap-strapped, and Gilmore wants a new deal. How would this even work? ​Let's not find out!

Talk about some fantastic, unexpected news on a Monday afternoon; we're going to get to dive deeper into the Big Mouth universe in a new spinoff called Human Resources.

Don't worry, Big Mouth isn't going anywhere just yet; it's still renewed for at least another two seasons, but according to Collider, there were stories about a Big Mouth spinoff dating back to 2019. Excuuuuse me if that escaped my mind after, in no particular order, a global pandemic, an attack on American democracy that the GQP wants to wipe under the rug, and Tom Brady leaving for the Patriots for scuzzy Tampa. My bad, I forgot about a story I probably never even saw—no wonder why I'm not a Barstool blogger!

Human Resources is set to give us a deeper look into the workplace of Hormone Monsters, Shame Wizards, and many more new characters helping guide humans through this crazy little thing called life. Nick Kroll and Maya Randolph will continue to voice their respective roles of Maurie and Connie the Hormone Monsters. In addition, Aidy Bryant, Randall Park, Brandon Kyle Goodman, Keke Palmer (all people I 1000% knew existed before reading this article) are set to join the cast as well.  
​
Randall Park's character is named Logic Rock, and I hoped to come across more information regarding his role, but only could find this:

While news like this is exciting, and I'm genuinely excited to check it out, I can't help but be a little annoyed that there's no release date. Who are you guys, Silk Sonic? How are you gonna leave the door open with no timetable? Are we talking later this summer, the fall, 2027? How hard is it to give us a ballpark? This isn't Oakland. Why even tell us the cast at this point?

Speaking of no release date, when are we getting Big Mouth season five? I'm sure COVID slowed production down, but I feel like an animated series is the ultimate socially distanced, isolated project. But then again, what do I know? I've been out of the TV biz since the 90s. Whatever, I'm sure I'll forget about this news in 45 minutes. On the other hand, I just finished rewatching Mad Men last night (my all-time favorite "serious" show) and could use a complete 180, so maybe it's time for Ole Dozo to rewatch Big Mouth.

Pride Month music continues with my all-time favorite Elton John song.

​As long as Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Robert Williams III are on the roster next year I'm good. I was going to do a much more insightful blog, but I just checked the ub** map, and there's an $18 surge by my house, and tbh I don't really feel like blogging today after another day in hell (Pr********* schools), but at least I technically wrote something today.

Honestly, I fucking hate UCONN and was super butthurt about the Kemba run my freshmen year of college at URI, so loving him as a Celtic never came easy...not to say I didn't have my moments. 

Plus, it always rubbed me the wrong way (Sublime, 1996) seeing him rock a Yankee hat on the bench, so I'm not really sad to see him go. Admittedly I don't get how the NBA cap works, and they'll probably have to give up someone of value to get him off the books, which is less than ideal, but so are most Celtics transactions. Kemba certainly had his moments (great filler when you can't think of specifics), but with the injury problems and lack of fit going forward, I bid you ado, sir. If the Celtics got past the Heat last September (still such a weird thing to say), this is likely a much different blog. Oh, sick, the surge already dropped during the time I wrote this hacky garbage. g2g

Editor's Note: I guess I'm not calling it a day to hit the roads! By the time I finishing posting my Kemba blog, the surge by the airport was not worth rushing out to clean my front seat, race over and hopefully get a decent ride that doesn't bring me to fucking Bridgewater, MA like the last time I got someone from the airport. Besides, I have a load of laundry in the wash and I'm not gonna run out of the house incase someone else needs to use the dryer. Hashtag good guy!

Every time I open Twitter, it's like playing Russian Roulette with my emotions. Will I catch a highlight from fill in the sport, get a quick laugh from some funny remark, or see our democracy continue to decay and bring myself to the brink of check-out time?

Luckily, one of the 63 times I opened twitter today (so far) brought me great joy when I saw that only 777 days after its debut, we FINALLY have a date for season two of Netflix's sketch comedy show "I Think You Should Leave."

Netflix broke the news with the help of Tim Robinson, Sam Richardson, and Phredley Brown in this mash-up of Season 1 quotes. Season 2 premieres on July 6th!

Hyperbole is an essential item in a blogger's tool belt (potential blog idea???), but no exaggeration, "I Think You Should Leave" is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. It's full of zany, cringe, awkward, anti-comedy comedy that is right in my cue zone. Most, if not all, of the sketches from season one, were rejected SNL skits from Tim Robinson's lone season (2012-13) as a player on the show (he spent one more season on SNL as a writer).


What's even more remarkable about ITYSL's following and overall internet relevance is how just six sub-20 minute episodes left such an impact. There are only 29 skits, and I'd say like 24 of them are fantastic. There are like 10 that I quote regularly, but "was that a toupee, you piece of shit?" is probably my favorite; A+ delivery. If you haven't seen the show, you've likely seen part of it in meme and/or gif form. I abused the stinky meme for months here on DOL. An ITSYL meme was trending on the Giphy homepage as of 5:52 PM on the date of this posting; I'd guess in reaction to people's excitement!

You could also go with:

When the news broke, my timeline was buzzing with ITYSL media, so you know I had to hop on the bandwagon and get those free likes while everybody was expressing their excitement.

ITYSL also inspired one of DOL's most successful non-#43Burgers IG posts.

If you still haven't seen it and have two hours to kill, I cannot recommend this show enough. So grab yourself your best TC Tugger, sit down, and enjoy (skip the Christmas Carol skit). I cannot wait for July 6th to see what Tim, Sam, and everybody else has in store for us, but let's not forget those who won't get to see season 2.

R.I.P.

Previous #TheChase blogs:

It Should Be a Federal Crime For a Game Show Host to Not Reveal The Correct Answer of a Question They Brought into the Universe

The Chase Season Finale Featured One of the Most Electric Contestants in Game Show History

​As the resident game show guy at DOL, I don't want to speak ill of a program that actively promotes "my brand."

​But, honestly, I was incredibly disappointed last night during the return of The Chase on ABC. There's been a DRASTIC change for Season 2, and I'm not referring to a new time slot (Sundays at 9 PM/8 Central) or the "addition" of the OG chaser Mark Labbett, aka "The Beast."

I'm talking about how The Chase slashed its cash builder round value from $25,000 a question to $10,000.

​I know COVID has affected everybody, but I think we're past that excuse; this is some John Henry bull shit. What's next "Who Wants to Be a Thousandaire?"

I don't know if this change is because they're expecting lower ratings for the summer season or they're trying to make up the difference for The Beast's salary as there are now four instead of three chasers, but as a game show aficionado, I'm disappointed to see that Cash Builder questions value went down by whopping 60% while the difficulty level remains the same.

I get, everything in life is a business, and it's all about the bottom line, blah, blah, blah, but how am I supposed to get fired up for a game show where the team is playing for like $120,000 to split three ways instead of well-over 300K?

It's like the Chris Rock bit in Killing Them Softly about relationships where women can't go backward in lifestyle and men can't go backward sexually. He says something like, "Once women date someone who takes them on vacation, every relationship from now on is gonna need a vacation." 

The same goes for game shows. 

You can't be giving out $25,000 an answer, then slap us in the face with this ashtray money bull shit and expect people not to care, especially when it's not like the questions are any easier. How would you react if you turned on Jeopardy tomorrow and Double Jeopardy questions weren't doubled in value, but were still twice as hard? Pyramid didn't go from $100,000 to $10,000 (although wtf was going on in the 80s?)

Beating Ken, Brad, James, or the Beast is an incredible accomplishment. Just last night, a team of three playing for a measly $175,000 (split three ways; even with Tabitha taking the lesser offer in here one on one battle) had a final score of 20 that Ken "The Professor" Jennings ran roughshod through. No team ever scored that high in the first season, and Ken made light work of them. He only got one question wrong, which the team was able to push back, and he still beat their score with 20 seconds remaining.

So, I went back into my DVR and looked at the results of every episode. The data below will show the Chaser, the number of people he played against, the amount they were playing for, how many questions there were, and if applicable, the amount of time left on the clock when the Chaser won.

Episode One: Ken lost to a team of two that split $145,000 (19 questions)
Episode Two: James beat a team of two splitting $200,000 (15 questions; 41 seconds left)
Episode Three: Brad beat one guy playing for $75,000 (13 questions; 16 seconds left)
Episode Four: James lost to a team of two that split $325,000 (19 questions)
Episode Five: Ken lost to a team of three that split $350,000 (16 questions)
Episode Six: Brad lost to a team of three that split $400,000 (16)
Episode Seven: James beat one guy playing for $200,000 (16 questions; 24 seconds left)
Episode Eight: Ken beat one guy playing for $250,000 (13 questions; 39 seconds left)
Episode Nine: Brad lost to a team of three that split $290,000 (19 questions)

​In nine season one episodes, the Chaser went 4-5. Winning teams left with an average of $302,000 to split amongst themselves. I love this show and want it to be successful, but how are you going to create more buzz this way? Nobody is getting fired up at the prospect of three people splitting $130,000 (BEFORE taxes) after beating a quasi-computer in trivia. All I'm saying is given the difficulty of this show and the amount of competition this show faces, the last thing they should be doing is castrating the prize money. Either make the questions easier so this decrease makes sense, pay the contestants a fair wage, or cancel the show that we all know will eventually be canceled and brought back in three years anyway.

​

As I continue to do myself no favors appealing to a larger audience; this blog is about a little MTV show from the mid-late 2000s called Human Giant.

Human Giant was a sketch comedy show that aired for two seasons from 2007-08 on MTV and featured future "stars" Aziz Ansari, Paul Scheer, and Rob Huebel. HG was appointment viewing while I was in high school and 100% influenced my comedic style (at least in my brain). The reverse To Catch a Predator with Jon Benjamin as the "predator" is one of the funniest things I've seen in my nearly 29 and a half years on this planet. If you've never seen it, I have the 1st season DVD and can loan it to you (hashtag good guy).

Human Giant was supposed to have a 3rd season, but this was around when all three guys' careers were really starting to blow up. Aziz had conflicts due to his new role as Tom Haverford on Parks and Rec, Paul Scheer would soon go on to play Andre on The League, and Rob Huebel was too busy trying to split Peter Klaven's Ferrigno commish. 

With season three out of the question, there was a possibility of a Human Giant movie for the time being. I had heard about this before but didn't know what happened and just assumed it was in development hell, or the guys simply moved on. According to Paul Sheer and fellow The League star Jason Mantzoukas, the script was in the works but was stolen. Both told the story on "Thursdays" w/ Rob & Paul. 

Apparently, old antique photographs are NOT the one thing you can't replace...add pre "cloud" documents to the list. I hope whoever stole it at least read it before selling the laptop for below market value.