Blog Wars!

Anything better than two faceless names arguing over the Internet about something that means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of life, much less sports?

Yes. Many, many things are much better.

But I feel like I am walking on clouds right now. Skipping in fact. Very merrily.

The best Thunder blog - nay, best NBA - nay!, best blog PERIOD on the Internet has plugged my dear little project. I've estimated that five, maybe six people read the incoherent crap I write on here, but evidently one of them is Internet pretend-celebrity, Claymate from super-blog "Bend It Like Bennett." (I mean, he did get interviewed by And One. Oh baby. OH Baby! OH BABY!) If there was ever a true wordsmith that could encapsulate everything I've ever wanted to be - a true scribe that can zing anything, and I mean anything - Mr. Mate (if that is your real name...) is that person. He's bitter, angry, vulgar, crude and mouthy and that's why he's great. He'll say it and say it in your face - the elderly, women and children included.

Evidently, one of my harmless little digs at the City of Bitterness and Sorrow got to the great Clay. Enough so for him to pen a nice 500 word feature about it. Which was incredibly kind of him - my readership probably doubled! And with it probably came some of his devoted Seattle readers. Awesome. And by the way, people still use the Internet catchphrase, "Wow, friend, just wow"? Are people still saying "Raise the roof" and "that's bad" when something's actually good? And we're friends? I wasn't aware. I eagerly await your Facebook friend request to make it official, guy.

Anyway, to recap the situation: I said I would like to buy a No. 40 Shawn Kemp Thunder jersey or a No. 20 Gary Payton uni. Evidently, this touched a nerve with Mr. Mate. Maybe he didn't get "it." That's ok though, "jokes" can be hard to "get." And Clay's humor on his award-winning blog is so sharp it could cut iron, I can see why it would be tough to "get" something as clear and obvious a joke as I wrote. Maybe if I just did neato photoshop pictures of every little thing, it could bring this bad boy up another notch and then Clay would "get" "it".

Here's how Clay quoted me on the matter:

“I've told friends I'm getting a custom Thunder Gary Payton #20 jersey or a Rain Man, Shawn Kemp #40 uni, but the price is pretty hefty. Maybe I could get a discount if I just got a Detlef Schrempf #11. Just one thing to make sure of: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT get a custom jersey with your name on the back. There is nothing worse than some fat guy sitting in Loud City with a No. 35 jersey with "Stravinski" strapped across the back of it. News flash: You don't play for the team. Kevin Durant does - so wear his jersey."

Here's what I actually wrote:

"I've told friends I'm getting a custom Thunder Gary Payton #20 jersey or a Rain Man, Shawn Kemp #40 uni, but the price is pretty hefty. Maybe I could get a discount if I just got a Detlef Schrempf #11. Just one thing to make sure of: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT get a custom jersey with your name on the back. There is nothing worse than some fat guy sitting in Loud City with a No. 35 jersey with "Stravinski" strapped across the back of it. News flash: You don't play for the team. Kevin Durant does - so wear his jersey. Or get a throwback like me and support our rich history (zing)."

Maybe Clay lost interest in my story and couldn't make it through. I'm sure the new Oklahoman will be to his liking since the stories are shorter and there's more pictures. Maybe soon Clay, they'll have a pop-up newspaper for you to read! Wouldn't that be cool?

But you see what I did there with that last little line? I obviously pointed out that getting the Kemp or Payton jersey was you know, a joke, and just a little dig at our very, very, bitter friends from the Northwest. Just to be funny, right? Kind of like what Clay has done with his whole outfit.

Actually, I'm betting he got the zing but conveniently chose not to include that line in his post because it really would've nixed his little diddy. Times must be tough at BiLB now that Clay is having to resort to calling out other lowly blogs and ridicule those just excited to have a pro sports team. I guess you can only burn the team name, colors, logo, Darnell Mayberry and Berry Tramel so many times before you have to move on to bigger and better things. Or in this case, smaller and worse things.

Look, I've grown very tired of everyone jabbing OKC at every turn over the whole team thing. Like I've said, get over it - it's done and time to move on. But some people have trouble with it. Some email Bill Simmons constantly and whine about it. Some refuse to call the Thunder, "Thunder." Some make fun of the name, the colors, the jerseys, the city and everything else associated with the team. Or some make a low-brow blog dedicated to covering all the aforementioned areas. Yeah, Clay. That's you.

This will be all I'll say on the subject seeing as Clay is much more clever and much more witty than I and will likely embarrass me with his next post with some awesome photoshopped picture of me. And Lord knows I don't want to become the Jerry Seinfeld to Clay's Sally Weaver - just giving him more and more material to illustrate how I'm the devil.