When I woke up this morning, it was my intention to begin work this evening on my statistical breakdown of the Auburn Tigers, to which task I shall turn (quite possibly with atypical brevity, so I may end up giving you just the right amount of information) tomorrow. The plans changed earlier today, when I spoke to occasional commenter ProfDawg.
Today was ProfDawg's birthday, and, when I called to wish him many happy returns of the day, he informed me that, yesterday evening, he had gone out to the firing range with fellow Dawg Sports commenter College Buddy. In the course of their conversation, they mentioned Stewart Mandel's recent derogatory reference to this weblog, in which Sports Illustrated's resident nincompoop had this to allow:
While I made passing mention of Mandel's broadside after it was called to my attention by Year2, ProfDawg was hoping for a more lengthy retort. NCT had his own thoughts upon the subject:
But someone does need to correct his use of UGA versus Uga.
When I asked for a clarification, NCT advised that "a 'passing reference' would be fine. Or an impolite response would be fine. Just don't be nice."
Well, there are varying degrees of not being nice, aren't there? I mean, I could go on a gloriously profane tirade like Orson Swindle, but you'd never believe me if I attempted to echo Orson's claim to using coffee-scented man-wash in the shower. I mean, what am I . . . Mike Greenberg? I use soap, for crying out loud! Good, clean, 99 and 44/100ths per cent pure Ivory soap! I don't use some fru-fru scented body wash! To paraphrase Mike Gundy, "I'm a man! I'm almost 40!"
But, wait, I'm not being not nice to Orson Swindle, who is a fine fellow and who knows how to cook a halibut; I'm being not nice to Stewart Mandel, about whom I had this to say in the posting to which he referred when demeaning my hygiene:
No, seriously. He's Bozo the Columnist. His audition for a lead role in "Dumb and Dumber" went badly because he was overqualified. Sports Illustrated doesn't send him to cover golf because he weeps for his banished sister every time he hears the word "caddy." . . .
By employing Stewart Mandel, Sports Illustrated is depriving some deserving village of its rightful idiot.
I stand by that position, and not just because Mandel is a professional writer who didn't know any better than to split an infinitive in the very sentence in which he maligned my peers and me. Naturally, I don't mind at all that Stewie lumped me in with Jonathan Tu, who is touring college football stadiums around the country even as we speak, and The Nittany Line, who wonders just how deeply Mandel delved into his Google self-search, anyway.
We have long known that Stewart Mandel writes silly things solely for their shock value, but did he really have to go there? Instead of, say, maligning webloggers for our alleged lack of erudition, the Stewminator elected to trot out a tired stereotype and suggest that Galen, Jon, and I don't "actually shave and shower on consecutive days"? Seriously?
I mean, come on, Stew! The rest of us have real day jobs. We work full-time, with offices and people and everything. Blogging is something we take seriously enough to try to do it well, but it's a sideline, not our main gig. Mandel, on the other hand, writes about sports for a living. That's what he does. If MaconDawg and I have the time to write something at least halfway informative and entertaining when we're not earning our livings practicing law---a profession that requires not only bathing and shaving, but actual jackets and ties!---can't Stewart Mandel take the time to do something more than slap together lazy platitudes and cheap jabs when, you know, doing his dadgum job?
"[A]ctually shav[ing] and shower[ing] on consecutive days"? That's what you brought to the table? Honestly, truly, that's what you had in your hip pocket ready to bust out all over me, Stew? If you're going to go there, why not just go all the way and accuse me of living in my parents' basement and sitting around all day in my underwear while banging out my antisocial blog entries with pasty white fingers tinged with the dusty orange residue of the Cheetos I had for lunch?
I know you don't like to work too hard, Stewart, seeing as how your columns invariably are exercises in intellectual laziness, you openly regard research with disdain, and your insults are so tired and played out that you might as well tell your detractors to talk to the hand. That being the case, Stew-pid, I'll try to lay it out for you and I'll try not to use too many big words when I do it:
We know pretty much everything we need to know about you. According to Sports Illustrated's website, you "graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism" and you "currently reside[] in New York City following a five-year stint in Atlanta." I can only hope that my fellow North Georgians tarred and feathered you before running you out of Terminus on a rail.
Let me tell you a little about me, Stewie. I try to be forthright about these sorts of things, but you may have missed a nuance or two while you were skimming (and misquoting) headlines instead of engaging in that whole "reading" thing. I don't live in my parents' basement, or even an apartment in New York City; I live in my house. I'm not a moody loner; I have a wife, a son, and a daughter on the way. I'm not an uneducated lout yammering inarticulately; I'm a lawyer.
I bathe every day and I shave every day on which I'm going to work or church. Also, the Georgia Bulldogs team page at SI.com lists eight "Bulldogs News & Fan Sites": the University of Georgia team site, The Red & Black, the Athens Banner-Herald, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Florida Times-Union, Scout.com, the Georgia Sports Blog, and Dawg Sports. Apparently, your employer gives my fellow bloggers and me a bit more credit than you do, Stew; take the hint.
It's like I've been telling you for a while now, Stewart; you're getting nasty because you know your day is nearly done:
Putting bozos like Stewart Mandel out of business . . . would (as Brian says) be to everyone's benefit. If, instead of insulting my intelligence and the institution which informed that intelligence with education, Stewart Mandel were asking me if I wanted fries with that, college football coverage would be improved, even though I'm sure that bozo would mess up my drive-through order.
Still, that's a small price to pay for quality college football coverage.
Stewart Mandel, you're still an idiot and your smack-talk is as weak as your writing. You're an ignorant dolt, a no-talent hack, and a clownish buffoon whose act has grown stale. I know that informing you of actual facts will not alter your idiotic opinions in the slightest, but, for what it's worth, I'm at least as clean and well-groomed as you are at any given moment of the day, my alma mater's mascot spells his name "Uga" instead of "UGA," and you can go Google yourself.
Happy birthday, ProfDawg.
Go 'Dawgs!