I think I’d rather be suspended 50 games for alleged PEDs usage.

Shoaib Akhtar has been withdrawn from Pakistan’s squad for the World Twenty20 because of a genital infection.

A PCB press release stated that a medical board had assessed the paceman, that he had undergone electrofulguration – a surgical procedure to destroy tissue by electric current – and will be reassessed in the first week of June. (Shoaib to miss ICC World Twenty20)

I think I’d rather snap both Achilles, and tear every ligament in both knees…and look like Hedo Turkoglu.

According to the BBC, Akhtar’s injury (sounds more like a biblical plague of one, right?) comes on the heels of a string of injuries (calf, knee) he’s suffered since coming back from an 18-month ban.

You ever think that being a bowler just might not be your thing, Shoaib, and consider walking away from the pitch?

He’ll miss Pakistan’s next match, scheduled for June 5 against England. Best of luck with the recovery, sir.

You may have noticed at little extra effort put forth with today’s TTB. I did a Google search for burner this morning, and the first page of results were nine quotes from Lester on The Wire, and one these daily Steady Burn link drops, and I got excited.

Allright, that’s not true. Actually, it’s a near perfect ten for ten links to CD-R burners on Ebay, Amazon, etc., and a link to the wikipedia page for bunsen burner. But I’m still going to be a little more comprehensive moving forward, because sometimes this is the only post I have time for during the day, got to make it count. Mark my word, they’ll still be times that I’m mailing it in (it’s called a hangover, genius). With that said, on with the show!

First, this girl. She’s far too adorable for the congratulations, you mangled the URL page. I tried to go directly to Ars Technica (because I’m geekier than you even could have feared), and I got this chick and bunch of Spanish-language links. Are there other glaring examples of the mismanaging of beauty like this on the internet (I don’t mean porn) out there?

SI.com Extra Mustard unveiled their 2008 Clicksy Awards yesterday. You now have the opportunity to vote on web highlights such as Best Sports Commercial (as portrayed on the internet). I liked Lebron pumping his new Nikes with a little help from the face of the Pussycat Dolls, but Heidi Klum selling me Guitar Hero is just so short, sweet, and tittilatingly (sp.) to the point.

…

I think it’s about 50/50 in terms of time spent actually listening to Chinese Democracy vs. time trying to figure out Axl Rose’s mental state. The University of Chicago press blog makes an interesting assertion, comparing Axl to Captain Ahab, among others. There’s a great quote here that I can’t spoil, but I will note that it concludes with, “…And yet, they all end up ruining the thing they want and destroying themselves in the process.”

…..

Iditarod competitor Jeff King became the World’s best known dog sled musher this week. Not because he’s revolutionizing the sport, because he illegally killed a moose in an Alaskan park. He was sentenced yesterday, and ordered to pay $4000 and had his hunting license revoked for three years. Didn’t he read that murdering moose, elk, or any other large game in cold blood is strictly prohibited in Iditarod: The last great race to Nome, the official Iditarod curriculum teaching guide? ,

…..

So, remember the feel-good story about how we, the U.S. taxpayers, are now paying to sponsor Manchester United with the $85 billion dollars we gave to AIG, the soccer club’s chief sponsor? Of course you do, it just happened. Fast forward a few months, AIG just announced they’re actually another 10 billion in the hole.

….

• New Zealander Brendan Nash becomes the first white player to represent the West Indies in test cricket in 35 years

• It was impossible to ignore a link that reads “Chuck E. Cheese…it’s like something out of a Tarantino movie”

• At the Australian Open, John Daly gets uncharacteristically violent with a fan for a professional golfer with one of his vintage John Dalyesque antics

• Top-10 Least Stolen Automobiles of 2008. I’d have thought a Benz would be a hot target for those who lift cars for a living

• Two straight days of riotous snow ball fights at the University of Wisconsin has caused the school’s administration to call in police and create roadblocks to quell the uprising

• Hoops is giving soccer a run for the money in the World’s Most Popular Sport category. I don’t see Football (American) taking the title anytime soon, since most of the World refers to it as footie

• Gibson Guitars issued the new No. 3 Intimidator Les Paul to honor Dale Earnhardt, with only 333 being made

Send submission for Toss the Burner to me here. Later, paper chasers!

Going to see Pearl Jam tonight at MSG! That’s a big one crossed off the list right there.

• The Idea of Superconferences in College Football (The Big Lead)
• Video Interview with the Refs for the Euro Cup Final (The Guardian)
• Zimbabwe Cricket Tour would be ‘Unwelcome’ in England (The Guardian)
• What are the Worst Covers Ever (Pop Candy)
• Five 80s Toys That Didn’t Kill You, Just Made You Stronger (Deuce of Davenport)
• IFC.com’s Jim Shearer has an Unnatural Love for the Beastie Boys (IFC.com’s Lunchbox)

When I first read that cricket is going to allow switch-hitting, I thought how archaic is this sport?

Guardian blogger Richard Williams defends employing switch-hitting, citing Mickey Mantle’s success switching to bat lefty so that he could pooch balls over the short right field wall in Yankee Stadium.

That was pretty revolutionary, progressive thinking…also happened over 50 years ago.

What these cricket ninnies – and cricket is a game played by ninnies – are actually talking about is if the batter (guh, batsman) jumping across the plate (errr, wickets) mid-pitch and then swinging. See for yourself:

Shoot, that was pretty hard core. After Kevin Pietersen hit those two sixes against New Zealand the other day (they look like garden-variety jimmy jacks to me) the MCC endorsed his improvisation.

One of the guvs was quoted saying: Indeed, the stroke conforms to the Laws of Cricket and will not be legislated against!”

That’s great…and geez take it easy, will ya?

According to a Gaurdian poll, 87% of people are against allowing the switch hit (also called the reverse sweep, or the Dominic Monaghan – whose voice it is I hear in my head when I read the Guardian.)

One the commenters on Williams blog asked, who can forget Mike Gatting’s disastrous attempt at [a reverse sweep] at the World Cup in 1987?

Gatting, bloody idiot.

Ah yes, there’s the fancy lad effeteness we’ve come to expect from cricket. I feel much better.

Guardian writer Steven Wells is all perturbed that us ugly American don’t know the difference between Cricket and Croquet.

This is is tiffed-off face.

Wells claims that the first Cricketeers that came to the U.S. back in the 1800’s were a band of salty, arrogant, muttonchop whiskered bastards look like they’ve stepped straight off some hell-bound pirate ship. They look like they gouge their own mother’s eyeballs out with a rusty cutlass for thruppence.

So if it was Davy Jones who brought us cricket, where could we have gone wrong?

I’ll offer Wells this theory on how things went astray…

I believe it was Dennis Leary who said it best when he said: The French gave us the croissant, and we turned that thing into the croissanwich.

I can only assume that England gave the French cricket and they turned it into croquet. And then the French gave it to us around the same time that pizza joints invented the delicious potato croquette, distracting most of the population for a time from even knowing that either of these games existed.

Thus, cricket and croquet get meshed in people’s psyches… and like most French imports both get treated nonchalantly (just like pasteurization and braille).

In fact, English people should feel bad for us! Cousteau gave you folks the aqualung, and Jethro Tull proved that to be pretty bad ass, did they not?

To his credit, Wells can’t help but admit that croquet is thriving in this country…

As you read this, young Americans are playing eXtreme croquet, colossal croquet and mondo croquet.

Mondo croquet… traditional croquet rules, played with a bowling ball and sledgehammer.

The 11th Annual Mondo Croquet World Championships will indeed take place July 27 at High Noon in Portland Oregon.


It happens during the Mad Hatter festival, so if you go apparently Wonderland dress is encouraged.