Bearcat Link Roundup 9-20-12

Last night my mom's side of the family had a get together. That get together involved drinking many, many, many margaritas. I had never had a margarita before last night. I think I might have had 5, but that's not entirely accurate because there was a point during the night where I never saw the bottom of my glass. For some reason unknown to all of mankind, I decided to watch Blank Check at 2 am. It was a thousand times worse than I remembered it being. It's a really sad movie. In fact, it gets paw points like this is a game recap for how sad it was. 

 Preston, the main character, is a total effing douche. He's a jerk to his brother for no reason, he is pretty self entitled, he wants his own room, even though we never find out who exactly he shares a room with. That was the weird part. Both of Preston's brothers have their own room. That's all the kids. Preston doesn't sleep with his parents. The only thing in his room are his brother's work supplies. He's got his own room. Yet the whole entire movie, he complains about having his own room. It does not make sense. 

Preston has no friends. Not a one. His brothers don't like him. His parents love him for the sole reason he's their son, not because he's a cool guy to hang out with or anything because he's a massive tool. His only 'friend' is the limo driver, who is just hanging around because he's getting paid to do so. The limo driver leaves the party at the end, then comes back an hour after the party is over and Preston nearly died, with a giant vat of ice cream that's in a container you would find a large amount of paint in. Preston says Macintosh isn't real and the guy leaves forever. 

Preston and the limo driver think "You got S-t-y-l-e STYLE" is going to be a thing, but it's clearly not a thing. 

The whole part with the bank manager makes no god damn sense. The criminal wants a million bucks laundered. So Preston brings in the million dollar check and the guy gets confused. For some reason, he burns the check and gives Preston cash. Now if he's just going to give the million dollars to Juice, why have the check in the first place? He's not going to use it. It doesn't matter. Plus, he does a really shitty job of laundering the money, because Preston spends marked bills. Just an all around shitty effort from a man who is running a bank where you have to have $200 just to open an account. 

The part with Preston and the FBI agent is all incredibly awkward. She trusts him for no reason at all. All he did the entire movie was lie to her about Macintosh and the existence of Macintosh. She says at one point "Macintosh is going to be there, Preston wouldn't lie to me." Hello, stupid. He has lied to you about the first 10 times you tried to meet Macintosh. The date that she goes on with a child is a complete joke. But what makes that even more implausible is that she goes on a date with a child who wears sunglasses indoors. She has taste. The part where they go to the fountain when she's in a skimpy dress and gets completely drenched and water goes up her dress was also weird. The brothers correctly peg her as a gold digger, which she was, and that caused a hilarious part where Preston storms away with the worst angry face in movie history.

The biggest kick in the balls for the FBI agent is that she shows up to the party with the FBI a good hour after the party ends. Macintosh isn't showing up and the FBI shows up so incredibly late and put a 10 year old's life at risk. That's bad police work. 

The FBI agent ends the movie by kissing Preston on the mouth in a romantic way and agreeing to date him when he would still be a minor in the future. She was a horrible FBI agent. 

Preston was keeping a log of every dollar he spent, yet when it was time to pay the 100 grand for the party, he was stunned he had $330 left. Not only that, but the dad and FBI agent walk into the room where that is visible the entire time. That ties into the last point.

Preston and his family are totally f dash dash dashed at the end of this movie. The criminal admits to being Macintosh, but that will easily prove to be false. Preston left all of his stuff at the seized house. That includes a computer with his full records of everything he spent. Now he can blame Macintosh, but when it's proven that Macintosh isn't the criminal, all that blows back on Preston. Not only that, but Preston spent 300 grand on his dad's project. That's 300 grand of illegal money. That's going to ruin his dad's business. That's going to cause an investigation into the ties between a known gangster and Preston's dad. There is also the fact that Macintosh was a gangster and PRESTON WORKED FOR A GANGSTER THE ENTIRE MOVIE. No one seems to put 2 and 2 together. If Macintosh was proven real, Preston would be an accessory to the crime. He was guilty as anyone. To top it all off, Preston still has no friends and his family doesn't really care for him. 

Oh, and this movie took place in Indiana, where the gangster's held Preston's rival hostage at the top of a skyscraper. While sitting on the edge of the building surrounded by 3 thugs, the kid still cracks wise to them. He is the real hero. 

That was a lot of words about Blank Check. Let's get to the links.

The man Paul Dehner Jr sat down with Mick Cronin for part 1 of an offseason conversation.  I found this quote interesting: 

"A team like New Mexico is hard because there's so many teams that think they're too good to play you. You gotta kinda find another Top 25 team -- which we both are -- that doesn't get enough respect from some teams that maybe get overrated and think they're too good to play you. So right now, UNLV is another one but we could end up playing them. That's kinda how our tournament came together. You know, Iowa State was really good last year, UNLV and Oregon so, you gotta kinda find teams. Because people say 'Why don't you play Kansas home and home?', well because they don't wanna play us home and home."

That is where we are in college basketball though. Kansas, Kentucky, UNC, Duke, Indiana, Louisville, Syracuse and so on aren't playing their toughest non-conference games on the road, outside of UofL and UK, without ESPN making them. All of their big games are neutral courts. Louisville and Duke could play in the the Bahamas. UNC goes to Maui. Kentucky and Duke play in Atlanta, so do Kansas and Michigan St. Kentucky and Maryland in Brooklyn. You have to be creative in your non-conference games in this era and it's great to see the Cats are. 

 If you ever wondered what a cheerleader with a camera strapped around her waist? looked at during the game with crappy techno music blaring, wonder no more. True story, Bearcats TV followed me for about an hour before it realized I was just a guy and stopped. 

UC soccer and volleyball are in action this weekend. Use the picture after these words and you can see every game for a total of $4. 


The volleyball team is 2-10 and need all the support they can get for Big East play. The soccer team is 3-5-1 and coming off a 7-0 loss to Notre Dame. They are on a 5 game losing streak. It's rally time.

Chris from Bearcats Nation wrote about the strength of the UC student section. The student section was late to fill, early to empty when I was a student. The turnaround the last 4 years has been pretty incredible. The key now, as Chris pointed out, is getting the students who are buying season tickets now to buy them when they are out of school. 

Matt from Down the Drive has a solid piece about Munchie Legaux. 

Andrea Adelson at ESPN talks about Cincinnati at the bye. 

Brett McMurphy wrote about the Big East expanding to 14 teams in the future. While that team is speculation, he shares the divisions. 

The Red Division would consist of Louisville, South Florida, Connecticut, San Diego State, SMU, Navy and Memphis. The Blue Division: Cincinnati, Central Florida, Rutgers, Boise State, Houston, Temple and the 14th team.

Cincinnati and Louisville would continue to battle for the Keg of Nails as cross division rivals. That is quite the horrific travel schedule. Especially if a trip to San Diego St pops up.

Bill Koch wondered what happened with Jordan Luallen. Butch Jones offers this quote: 

“He’s still trying to find his niche, trying to work his way into the receiver position as well. He’s very gifted with the ball in his hands so we’ll always have a package for him. He can also throw the football. I think he’s still learning the ins and outs of playing receiver. That only comes with practice and time. But we do know that he can do some things underneath center and you’ll see him there some still.”

That does not sound like Jordan Luallen is going to contribute a lot to the team this season. Unless he's a secret weapon later in the year. 

The News Record writes about the come back of Dominique Battle. 

Some amazing guy compared Cincinnati to Ian in this piece comparing the Big East to Big Brother. Ian won Big Brother 14 last night 6-1. That clearly means UC is going to go 6-1 and win the Big East. 

The UC ladies golf team set a 2 round record of 596 in the Cardinal Cup earlier this week, but they finished 4th in the event. They weren't even winning after the record breaking performance, they were 2nd. UC ladies golf will win a tournament one day. 

Finally, UC offered Mason's Corey Quallen. He's a defensive back. That's pretty much all the article says. Easy work if you can get it.