Hey look! There's a Barcelona Dragons' Football in the Vomit Bucket!

Visit my basement and you will see autographed photos of baseball Hall-of-Famers Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson and Juan Marichal. There is a baseball from the 1983 All-Star Game (autographed for some bizarre reason by former Cubs Steve Lake and Scot Thompson. Exactly what all-star teams did they play for? The Northern Montana Independent League? The Great American Beer Palace Beer-Chugging Viking All-Stars?) and baseballs autographed by Roberto Clemente, the 1985 World Champion Kansas City Royals and the 1963 Chicago Cubs (including Cuno Barragan, Lindy McDaniel and, get this, Lou Brock). There is an autographed photo of Michael Jordan, a really cool replica model of the real Assembly Hall, and a game-used Billy Williams bat. There is also a hockey stick autographed by the immortal Jeff Shantz, a bunch of signed Chicago Blackhawks' pucks and a whole bunch of other stuff that I am awfully proud of.

(Cue the "We're happy for you" sound effect. And then cue Harry Teinowitz telling us how Brad Maynard is the Bears' MVP, Dan McNeil talking about how you should take Sacramento State over Cal-State Northridge this weekend and lay the points and Jurko discussing the effects that the extra large burrito had on his intestinal tract. And follow that up with a Heavenly Bodies commercial).

One thing you will not see, however, is a hockey puck emblazoned with the Charlotte Checkers logo. I assure you that there is absolutely no way that you will see a Checkers puck.

You see there are certain things that I simply do not do. I don't dance the Macarena, I don't get jiggy with it, and I do not, under any circumstances, reach into a urinal to retrieve a $3.99 cyndrical mound of galvanized rubber. Apparently, there are a number of people who do, however. Who even knew that Puck from the Real World, Booger from Revenge of the Nerds and the kid from your first-grade class who ate dead bugs and licked his desk clean moved to Charlotte?

The truth is that it was a rather simple marketing gimmick and a decent idea at that. Put the logo of the ECHL's Charlotte Checkers on a bunch of pucks and place them in urinals all over the city. The concept makes perfect sense and I can clearly picture how it was all supposed to play out. Billy Bob drinks fourteen Busch Lights and a quart of moonshine. Billy Bob goes to the john. Billy Bob stares into urinal while emptying his bladder. Billy Bob suddenly decides that rather than taking Ellie Sue to the Jeff Foxworthy film festival or the racoon eating contest, he will go to the Checkers game on Saturday night instead. Boy, better get the Billy Ray Cyrus wifebeater out of the trunk, put the stars and bars in the back window and soup up the engine!

And as long as nobody's looking... we'll looky here, I just got me a brand new hockey thing-a-ma-jigger.

Yes, hygiene conscious readers of the Random Thoughts, the fine folks in the heart of Nascar country are reaching into the urinals and stealing the urine soaked pucks. They must look mighty nice displayed next to a model of the General E. Lee.

At least, the Checkers' management has a sense of humor. In response to the stolen pucks, the Checkers issued a mock public service announcement, complete with a person with an exaggerated southern accent saying "hey look what I found...a hockey puck!" (try and read it like a drunken Jethro Bodine. It works better). The PSA ends with the President of the Checkers pleading "whoever you are, please, wash your hands." The PSA was coupled with a print campaign that includes highway billboards that read "The disgusting thing is not that we're going to play with the puck. It's that we're going to shove it down Greenville's throat Friday night." Genius.

* Somebody call the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse and get me Moises Alou. I have a great idea. I just thought of a terrific new way to toughen up one's esophagus.

* Quarterback Billy Volek was traded from the Tennessee Titans to the San Diego Chargers on Wednesday, a move that had been expected for more than a week. And so why wasn't the trade made earlier if both teams had agreed on the particulars? Well, Tennessee had a date with San Diego in week two and they understandably did not want Volek heading to the Chargers' lockerroom with the Titans' playbook in hand (not that the Bolts' really needed any help to beat that sad sack of crap). Can you imagine what the final score would have been if San Diego had a copy of Tennessee's formations and plays? They would have gotten beat worse that the Rancho Carne Toros. I can't even fathom such a situation where one team gets a copy of the others playbook save for the time that Fairview's dreamy star Jerry Rogers swiped Greg's playbook and Marcia was forced to face the cold, hard reality that guys just wanted to date her because she could help them win the big game or because they wanted to see if they could do the impossible and live up to what remains the greatest challenge in the history of mankind... deflowering the one and only eldest Brady daughter.

But, what would have happened if Volek (who was inactive but still listed as the team's emergency quarterback) had been forced into action and had to take the field knowing that he would in just a couple of days be saying goodbye to Trisha Yearwood concerts and visiting the childhood homes of Reese Witherspoon and the actress who played Lisa Turtle and hello to day trips to Tijuana ("the happiest place on earth" according to Krusty) watching Ron Burgandy on the Action News and helping Simon & Simon (who incidently are not brothers in real life, only on television**) run their private detective agency? What if Kerry Collins left the stadium at halftime for a long-overdue rendevous with a fifth of Jack Daniels? And with Collins passed out in a pool of his own filth, what if the proctor who administered Vince Young's Wunderlic test showed up at the game, causing Vince to curl into the fetal position like Pink Floyd after achieving his goal of becoming comfortably numb? What would Volek have done?

I suppose he would have been obligated to do his best and try to lead Tennessee to a victory. After all, at that point he was still officially a member of the Titans. But can you imagine if the Titans had actually won the game and, when all was said and done, the Chargers ended up missing the playoffs by one lousy game? Shawn Merriman, one of the best defensive players in the game with the potential to some day become the absolute best (is that better?), probably would have made him eat spinach from San Benito or Monterey County and forced him to fish San Diego Gulls pucks out of the toilets at Louie Kelcher and Chuck Muncie's old hangouts. Now that is disgusting!

* So which third baseman is going to win the American League Gold Glove? If I had a vote I would choose either Aramis Ramirez, Eric Soderholm or Herb Dorn. Yes, I know that one plays in the National League, one retired from baseball in 1980 and now runs a ticket broker service in Hinsdale, and the other only exists in the same world as Pedro Cerrano and Jake Taylor. But, apparently, thanks to good ol' Ozzie, voting for the Gold Glove awards should be taken about as seriously as Newman's claim that he was going to jump off the apartment building and commit suicide.

You see, Ozzie has announced that he is going to vote for Tony Batista. The problem is that Batista was released on June 14 and has spent the last three months back in the Dominican Republic selling bootlegged jeans, eating fried grasshoppers and helping Steroid Sammy find the Dominican equivalent of Flintstone vitamins. Ozzie openly says that he will be voting for Batista because he is not permitted to vote for White Sox third baseman Joe Crede, who he thinks should be the rightful winner, and does not want A's cornerman Eric Chavez to win the award.

Ozzie's reasoning makes some sense when one looks at the situation from a 50,000 foot level, but, like Homer said... "in theory communism works." The bottom line is that his action makes an absolute mockery of the voting process and the award in general. Everyone knows that the coaches who vote in the Top 25 college football and basketball polls take it about as seriously as Mrs. Krabappel took Bart's claims that there was a gremlin damaging the side of the Springfield Elementary School Bus, but this is the first indication that postseason baseball awards are treatd in the same manner. I can see Ozzie's ballot now... Nick Punto for MVP, Boof Bonser for the Cy Young and Bafia 99 for Rookie of the Year (crud, Ozzie cannot vote for a guy who is employed with the Sox can he? I guess he will just have to go with Les Wadrond). If Ozzie is serious about voting for Batista, and there is no reason to doubt that he is, his voting rights for all postseason awards rescinded immediately. Come to think of it, with the way he has acted for the majority of this season, he really ought to be sent to bed without supper and not be allowed to go to Joey Cora's upcoming birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese. Want to act like a child? Well then, we'll treat you like a child.

* You know, after last weekend, he really ought to think about voting Frank Thomas for MVP... Of course, that would be as shocking as seeing someone reach into a urinal to retrieve a batting donut with the Oakland A's logo on it.

* Anyone else thankful that those stupid Ford commercials with American Idol Taylor Hicks have finally run their course. Sheesh, they played those stupid things every four minutes. The only person who has received more air time was the guy who was jealous that all of his friends were getting Dell computers .

* Finally, thank you to everyone who commented in response to Monday's post about Eric Gordon and the Illinois - Indiana recruiting battle. It appears as though almost everyone agrees that IU has not enagaged in any unethical behavior in continuing to recruit Eric despite his verbal "commitment." In fact, this week, Gordon's high school coach publicly stated that the decision to "reopen" Eric's recruitment and talk with Sampson and IU was a "mutual decision," jointly inititated by the Iniana coaching staff and the Gordon family.

To follow-up, Gordon has announced that he will not make a decision this week, as expected, but will be in Bloomington with his parents this Saturday attending the Iniana (the football team has no 'd' either) - Connecticut football game. What this means is anyone's guess. It appears, however, that Gordon is still leaning (fairly strongly) toward Illinois, but his father is pushing him pretty hard toward IU and wants him to make one final trip to the Iniana campus before making up his mind. I still feel that Eric should do what is best for him and follow his heart, which I feel is leading him across the border and into Champaign-Urbana.

While waiting for Gordon's decision, the Iniana athletic department has been quite busy this week. Besides announcing $55 million in athletic facility capital improvements, that will include a renovation of the real Memorial Stadium and the construction of a state of the art basketball practice facility (expected to be ready in time for the '07-08 season), Sampson and AD Rick Greenspan also found time to meet with Mark Cuban who issued a statement of "full support" for Sampson and the IU program. How this all plays into the Gordon situation is unclear, but the timing is rather strange.

I gotta go. I just dropped my old Chicago Hustle mouth guard into the toilet. Have a great weekend!

** Today's Pop Culture Trivia Question: While supposed to be giving an academic report, who famously said "So you see, Simon and Simon are not brothers in real life, only on television?" Extra credit to anyone who can tell me what the report was supposed to be on.