Get Those High Waisted Shorts The Hell Out Of Here.

I like pleated skirts and ponytails as much as the next guy but I don't think I will ever understand cheerleading. I get the appeal of cheerleading, I've seen all the Bring it On movies several times, but when I try and look at it through an objective lens, I can't shake the fact that it seems incredibly sexist. It was born in an era where women weren't allowed to participate but were expected to support the men and in the last 50 years it's been super sexualized to the point where no one even thinks twice that every NFL squad has a bikini calendar.

Yes, I know there's more to cheerleading than short skirts and Eliza Dushku bikini car washes but... I don't know, it doesn't seem like the more positive points of cheerleading culture offset all the weird sexist stuff. Anyway I bring this all up because the University of Washington put out a helpful infographic (seen above) to aspiring cheerleaders that just emphasized how weirdly sexist (and possibly racist) having cheerleaders is. Why do they all have to be tan with long wavy hair and no tattoos? Isn't it bad enough that you have this thing that's kinda sexist and almost exclusively caters to the male gaze but they also have to adhere to beauty standards of the 1950s?

That might be my real problem with cheerleading. Why do they all have to look like fembots? I think I'd be more forgiving if there were a few cool tomboy cheerleaders. Maybe just one or two girls with a mohawk on every squad.

The funny part about this is that the UW retracts this infographic saying it's inappropriate or some nonsense like that but they never say the tips were wrong. I guarantee you that if you want to be a UW Cheerleader you should still follow it's advice. Cheerleading is weird.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: The NCAA

Before you fill out your bracket Here's this week with John Oliver to remind you that the NCAA can get bent.

Stunt Fest is EXTREME CHEERLEADING YO!

Excuse me for a sec if I sound ignorant on the subject of cheerleading. I'd say 99.8% of my knowledge on the activity comes from the Bring It On movies, but when the H E double hockey sticks did cheerleading become an extreme sport? 2 minutes into this video and I kept expecting a mountain dew machine to start tumbling down the beach. Also this group looks like they smell like Axe body spray. A LOT of Axe Body spray.

Still, impressive video right?

Watch out ESPN, here comes Fox Sports 1

Looks like who ever is in charge of hiring all the leggy blondes at Fox News was also put in charge of hiring leggy blondes for the new Fox Sports 1. Which is a thing launching this weekend. Don't check your cable provider, it's probably not available yet and really there's nothing to watch on there right now anyway.

However, don't count these plucky young ladies out just yet. ESPN is ripe for a take down. Even the most brain-dead casual sports fan is tired of 24 hr Lebron/Tebow watches and HOT TAKES where two guys yell at each other for an hour. Don't even get me started on Stuart Scott's booyahs.

So I for one welcome out new Fox Sports 1 overlords. Their coverage of sports will probably be just as fractured and awful as EPSNs but at least they've given us something nice to look at.

Cosplay these Links

San Diego Comic Con 2013. Comic-Con cosplay posts take FOREVER to put together. So while you wait here's Sebastian Jespersen's flicker album. It's FANTASTIC. It might be a little heavy on the sexy ladies and light on the obscure comic characters but the pictures themselves are gorgeous. Good jorb Sebastian.

The very best finds on the floor of Comic-Con. Speaking of comic-con, here are a bunch of highlights from the floor. I'm not sure I'd call these the "best finds" but there's some pretty interesting stuff. Turn up the heater, full screen your PC and add a little BO and it'll be like you're really there.

Terrified NCAA Bails on Its Video Game License. Long story short, turns out it might actually be illegal to create a video game using real college players without actually paying those college players. Who'd have thunk it?

25 Great Sitcoms You can Watch on YouTube Right now. Oh man, was there a better, less appreciated sitcom than NewsRadio? If it had only been on during the 2000s I feel like it would have received a lot more love than it did.

Dunk City

In case you missed it because you were working all weekend, here are some highlights of FGCU's win over Georgtown and San Diego State. How did a #15 seed in the men's NCAA tournament make it all the way to the sweet 16? They employed the effective strategy of dunking. All the time.

Seriously I haven't seen this many white guys dunking since the last time I played on the 8 foot rims at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Ballard. BOOOMSHAKALAKA!


edit! I posted the wrong video... This one has WAY more dunking.

The 100 Best Links

The 100 Best Video Games of All Time. It's pretty much impossible to put together a definitive list of the best video games ever, but this one isn't too bad. I like that instead of ranking them 1-100 they just go by the dates they were published. My only real big complaint is that they snubbed Red Dead Redemption which is still my favorite game of all time (sorry Ultima IV).

Real Names in Games Mean More Money for the NCAA, Executive Argued. In my mind this is a big story that's getting very little attention. Former UCLA star Ed O'Bannon and a handful of other former student athletes are suing the NCAA for improperly licensing the names, images and likenesses of former D-I football and men's basketball players in various commercial ventures without the players' permission and without providing them compensation. Yeah, I copied and pasted most of that. The gist of it is that the NCAA makes a ton of cash from companies like EA who put the likeness of the athlete's into their videogames. I'm shocked it's taken us 20 years of college sports video games to get here and I hope in the end the players get their fair share.

Cowboys & Aliens Comic Writer Fred Van Lente Live-Tweets First Viewing of the Movie. Spoiler Alert, the movie turns out so boring he doesn't have much to say. Still an interesting little anecdote.

26 Examples Proving Spider-Meme Is The Best Meme. My son has yet to get into Spider-Man cartoons. We watched one a couple weeks ago and he was pretty ambivalent towards it. He's still all Thomas the Tank Engine and Wonderpets. This morning he did ask for "robots" so I put on an episode of Transformers. If he really likes it maybe in a week or two I'll write up a big review for seasons one and two of the original series.