Pleased to post that with the help of people far more capable than myself, Steady Burn was able to thwart a malicious attack by some Malware scoundrel.

Wanted to take this opportunity to post that the whole site is back up to snuff, and also thank a few folks for helping out of this bind:

Thanks Isaac from Guyism, Ethan from NESW Sports and the whole crew of sports bloggers who worked their contacts to get me some help.

Thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for the tips on Google Webmaster Tools, which should help me keep the Page Rank intact.

Thanks to Bryan, Steady Burn’s designer and my go-to web guru, for making some very necessary updates to my WordPress template that made it more secure.

Lastly, special commendation to Michael VanDeMar who fixed what had become a site-wide infection in one half hour flat. I’d definitely recommend him to any blogger facing a similar issue.

In the interest of taking the bad with the good, wanted to add that Steady Burn’s Tumblr now has 18 followers as a result of most of the intermittent posting taking place over there for the last few weeks.

If anyone has a blog that needs a similar treatment, feel free to email me. The word going around is that there’s Malware attacks going on that target WordPress blogs hosted on GoDaddy – which is like 150% of the blogs on the internet.

I should be back to regular posts almost immediately. MH

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I’ll give him credit, sometimes Jeremy Shockey does use Facebook to make a meaningful and positive connection with his fans, and I’m sure his 60,000+ Facebook followers appreciate the effort. Of course, other times he uses Facebook to:

A.) Speak in code (“Cngrts to mickelson.. good 1st tourny back for tiger”)

B.) Play with young girls hearts

Here’s that wall post from Friday that’s both stirring up conversation and embarrassing videos alike:

Ok LADIES heres the contest.. Post a video on the “just fans” section of my fbk fan page explaining why u deserve to have me take u on a date 1 nite this offseason… Contest ends sun night 4/18 at 8pm est… Lets have fun w this so be creative but just be careful its not too inappropriate where fbk deletes it!! good luck!!!

So far, of those 60,000 fans but three ladies have taken him up on this and posted videos. Two are almost unwatchable. The third is :18 seconds of a woman snowboarding in a bikini. She never actually defines herself as a contest entry. She might just be crazy.

With encouragement starting to trickle out from the bloggers – MJD writes, “Good luck, too, to the father out there who receives the following phone call: “Daddy, guess what?! I just won an internet contest to go out on a date with Jeremy Shockey!” – entries should start to pick up.

Become a fan of Shockey on Facebook here, ladies: http://www.facebook.com/Shockey

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For all you romantics out there, here’s what happens when you search for love on the internet – Google vs. Facebook…

Poems and bones.

Cookie dough & pillow fights.

You don’t want to know what the Twitter search revealed, or (goes w/o saying) any number of Craigslist searches.

Happy Valentines Day, lovers.

…and Happy Nat’l Real Talk Day as well.

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In honor of yesterday’s consumer product unveiling turned thinly veiled menstruation bruhaha, I give thee the top five pads of all-time (in photos) – found a bacon connection for numero uno too!

#5 Nintendo Power Pad

#4 Brad Pitt’s Bachelor Pad

#3 Padma Laksmi

#2 Goalie Pads

#1 Pad Thai

Bacon pad thai, get it? Leave your favorite pads in the comments…

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C/O @moneyries, sent after his highly, highly, highly obligatory Ipad joke (something about ‘heavy data flow’).

This YouTube upload itself dates back to November 2007, Jobs – you owe the nerds (and the fans of gross-out humor alike) an explanation.

Other hilarity re: Ipad from around the web:

(but not necessarily in reference to heavy data flow, #iperiod and/or #ibleed)

10 Other Uses for the Apple Tablet (Esquire)

Apple’s 9 Biggest Flops (The Daily Beast)

Apple Tablet is the Kindle in Technicolor (Tech Crunch)

Report: Sliced Bread Unimpressed with Apple Tablet, But Will It Impact Blogging? (How-to-blog)

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Remember when the Beatles said Everybody had a hard year, Everybody had a good time…and them some other stuff about wet dreams, etc.? You were probably too young. God knows I was, but I have heard that song, and I think that lyric pretty well sums up those of us who grinded it out on the blogging circuit in 2009. Guess we’ll have to wait until 2010 to quit our day jobs, comrades (kudos to those who actually did quit their day jobs).

To close out 2009, I asked a few of my fellow members of the sports and pop culture blogging intelligentsia to send me their best post from 2009. I’m proud to say that I at least retweeted most of these when they first went live, and had a chance to go back and re-read. This list revisits Barry Bonds, Brett Favre, cartoon characters who juiced, and the seemingly insurmountable number of Harry Potter-lookalikes in the sporting world.

Kind of makes the Huffington Post Year in Review look like remedial English, amirite?

I didn’t pick a best post myself, but my favorite post – or should I say community organizing effort – by another blogger came from Yardbarker’s Alana G back in late November, who through her site campaigned MTV Jams to air a Tiger Woods video playlist. I never did follow up, and ask if they played my submission (Usher – Confessions, Part II), did I?

Check out the rest of the links below. I hope this leaves you feeling good, looking towards the future.

Big League Stew (Jan. 16, 2009) With your help, we can bring Barry Bonds back to baseball

Gunaxin (Jan. 21, 2009 ) 2010 Winter Olympics Ice Hockey Preview

Major League Jerk (April 3, 2009) The WonderPets Teach Joe Flacco How to Avoid Double Coverage.

P.S.A.M.P (April 10, 2009) Everyone’s Getting Playoff Beards For The Penguins

Bugs & Cranks (April 27, 2009) The Wizard Of Copping A Feel: Ozzie Smith & Alyssa Milano’s Boob

Pippen Ain’t Easy (April 28, 2009) KG: Got the Ring, Still No Class

Sports Rubbish (June 14, 2009) Harry Potter Look-A-Likes In The Sports World

Midwest Sports Fans (June 14, 2009) What I Learned During the Most Bizarre Week of My Life

Paneech.com (June 19, 2009) Top Ten Cartoon Characters That Juiced

My Sports Rumors (June 23, 2009) Transformers – Revenge of the MLB Fallen

Yep Yep (June 25, 2009) Before They Were Music Stars

Zoner Sports (June 30, 2009) “The Real All-Time Home Run List”

Babes Love Baseball (July 16, 2009) Voodoo Sabermetrics: Milton Bradley

Joe Sports Fan (July 20, 2009) The United States has a National Slow-Pitch Adult Softball Team.

Global Sports Fraternity (August 5, 2009) Mets Trap

Hugging Harold Reynolds (Sep. 17, 2009) D.C BUREAU EXCLUSIVE Special Investigative Report: Mark Grace = Life Coach

Fansided (October 1, 2009) A Beer For Every NFL Team

The Viking Age (Oct. 2, 2009)  Smack Talk Friday: Burning [Brett Favre’s] Jersey? Really?

Epic Carnival (Oct. 8, 2009) The 25 best Sports Illustrated swimsuit videos of all-time

7th Inning Stache (Dec. 1, 2009) Barry Bonds MLB HOF Mustache

NESW Sports (Dec. 8, 2009) Luc Longley Craves Attention, Shrimp

Guyism (Dec. 2009) Couple making porn to pay for their wedding

….


If I missed you, leave a link to your best post from 2009 in the comments. Happy New Year folks!

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Like his Washington Wizards teammate and blogging kinsman Gilbert Arenas before him, Brendan Haywood has decided to retire from the blog game. When he started out blogging for Yardbarker earlier this year Haywood, the self-proclaimed Bad Guy, hoped to openly express his opinions w/o having to worry about people calling up the organization and inquiring as to why exactly he wants to buy Backstreet Boys records for Elin Woods? Well, as Victor Mancini would say, Hope is just a stage of your life (or blogging career) that ends – and can be seemingly be expedited when you support Mike Vick.

Haywood goes out on his Yardbarker blog saying…

I’ve had a great time blogging, interacting with the fans and letting yal know my points of view on different dicey topics but with the way this season has gone –at this point, I don’t want anything written about me that’s not basketball related. When you’re winning and you’re on top, you can really speak your mind and put your thoughts out there. When you’re losing and trying to stay afloat, you’ve got to know when it’s time to be seen and not heard.

I know some of my blog topics have been controversial but I just felt like writing a boring blog about how I went to the gym and got a certain amount of shots up just wouldn’t cut it. I tried to keep yal on the cutting edge and really let yal know what’s going on in my mind and it was hard to do at times. It was hard because a lot of times when you make comments, people really blow them out of proportion and interpret them in a lot of different ways than you originally meant them. Gilbert Arenas told me that it would be like that when I first started blogging but I guess I had to see for myself. I was amazed at how people cold really misinterpret my words!

Haywood won’t be concluding his blogging career on the heels of his own Blogger of the Year award like predecessor, Agent Zero. He did get 234 comments (not all negative too) on that Elin Woods post though. And speaking of comments, those who left comments on his retirement announcement post are mostly sad to see him go – there’s only six comments, but that’s six more than I’d probably get if I retired from blogging. Even Buster Douglas stopped by with some kind words for Haywood:

Dag, just when I was going to ask you for four Cavs floor seats!!!

Take care Brendan, now who’s going to fight with Chantelle’s?

Truly understand that people are going overboard.

I agree with not just blogging about your sport, because you want to show people who you really are.

Thanks for keeping it real!

Just another case of blogging bringing 7-footers and former Heavyweight champions together as brothers.

The legacy that is Washington Wizards blogging moves on to rookie JaVale McGee, who says the point of this blog secretly is to dare anyone with a Ps3 to a challenge on Call of Duty Modern Warefare 2.

This is turning into quite the lineage you created, eh Gilbert?

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No substantial amount of time for blogging today, Dr. Jones.

However, got something in the works that champions classic tunes like this…

Tag any relevant #musicmonday tweets as #slowjams also. If your tweet’s not relevant, make it relevant.

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While @Adam_Schefter was busy debunking the myth of @RodneyH37, and subsequently dispelling the rumors of an actual feud between Rodney Harrison and self-proclaimed leader of men Kerry Rhodes (stay savvy, Schefter), something far more compelling was happening in the twitterverse, tweeple…

(Side note: somewhere a kitten was just kicked into a coma because I used “twitterverse” and “tweeple” consecutively.)

I’m talking of course about the emergence of Jerry Jones’ Nose on twitter.

The Double J is kind of a live wire. I don’t see him enjoying his nose’s presence on Twitter. Although whoever set this up makes a solid case for a little creative leeway in the bio:

THIS IS *NOT* REALLY JERRY JONES’ NOSE TWEETING. Its just a random, automated script that’s tweeting as his nose. This is satire. Get a sense of humor.

At this time, @jerryjonesnose has a whopping seven followers. Maybe promotional rich media like this will help populate…

H/T to @mknell for the tip

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On September 14, 2009, the great Patrick Swayze lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and passed away too young at the age of 57. Swayze had a prolific acting career, one that inspired his devoted fan base to believe that if anyone could beat this disease it was him (Swayze played a bank robbing surf ninja and villainous sky diving enthusiast in Point Break. Cancer? No problem, compadre). He was diagnosed in January of 2008 with a sickness that most people will succumb to in under a year – he held on for 20+ months. During that time period, his 1989 film Road House was the most broadcast movie on American television in the past year according to Rolling Stone – airing 45 times on AMC, A&E and CMT. Maybe you were lucky enough to flip it on and catch a riveting scene like this…

In lieu of burying Swayze with Dalton’s medical dossier, each Tuesday during football season I’ll be awarding one player the “Pain Don’t Hurt” Award to honor Swayze’s memory. This week’s recipient: Frank Gore of the San Francisco 49ers.

On Sunday, Frank Gore was Loaded like a freight train. Flyin’ like an aeroplane, so to speak. GNR reference.

In self-serving Fantasy Football news, this brute’s 207 yards on 16 carries and 2 TDs scored me 40 points, and has moved me to rename the team “Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank.” I’m excited. Check out that pair of touchdowns here – the second coming on an 80 yard scamper to start the second half…

That first touchdown run, a lackadaisical 79 yards. He joins Barry Sanders as the only RB to have two 70+ yard TD runs in one game in NFL history.

Gore suffered an ankle sprain in the second half versus the Seahawks. The X-rays came back negative and he’s listed as probable for this Sunday’s contest against the Vikings.

Yahoo’s Mike Silver asks, If Frank Gore runs like he did Sunday, will he give the great Adrian Peterson a run for his money in the Metrodome this weekend?

The 2010 “Pain Don’t Hurt” Awards:

Week One: Brandon Meriweather

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