Some College Basketball Watching

I already watched the majority of the Michigan-Illinois game this evening, which Michigan won 72-61, the team's first victory at Illinois since the waning days of the Fab Five Era (January of 1995).  As the game was drawing to its conclusion, ESPN was doing promos for the upcoming game on the network between the nation's number one team, Kentucky, and Georgia from Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.

I decided to continue watching because though I have heard a lot about Kentucky's Anthony Davis and I believe he is as good as people say, I haven't actually watched him play very much this season.  And this seems like a perfect time to watch given that the season is getting close to conference tournament time and in a few weeks the NCAA tournament will begin.

But all of this is not what inspired me to write this post.  What did inspire me to write this post was an incident that occurred very early in the Georgia-Kentucky game, perhaps within the first minute, that will almost certainly make ESPN's highlights or perhaps their Not Top 10 Plays.  Georgia had the ball near the top of the key, with the player dribbling toward the right side of the court.  Another Georgia player cut toward the basket from the right side (I believe) and the player with the ball attempted a bounce pass to player cutting to the hoop.  And it is about this time when hilarity ensued.

Anthony Davis instinctively kicked out his leg as the pass was being attempted.  It was a great kick save as the ball deflected off of Davis's foot, launched in the air toward the out of bounds area,...and into the side of the face of the unsuspecting referee.  Good times, but oh, it gets better.  Well, the pass was hard enough that the ball hit the official with a considerable amount of pace still on the ball, the official was knocked off balance as he moved to the right side, and then finally he tripped and fell into the Kentucky cheerleaders that were sitting on the out of bounds baseline.

The whole incident was great as the good-natured referee had a smile on his face as he was helped to his feet and people checked on his well-being.  And the entire incident was great as I also had a smile on my face in laughter as the official was helped to his feet and people checked on his well-being.  For the record, the entire incident still would have been great even if the official didn't have a smile on his face as people checked on his well-being.  The guy got hit in the face with the ball, stumbled, and then fell in the cheerleader section!  Hysterical!

NBA All-Star Watching

Yes, I am watching the NBA All-Star Game, and I found the need to finally write something down as I have been sitting here.  The first half was entertaining as always as the players showed no hint of wanting to play any defense.  The West led big even early on, even though I think that the East probably has a better starting five.  But since the West, in terms of depth, probably has the better team, it was only a matter of time before they jumped ahead.

But this is standard NBA All-Star Game procedure - no defense, a lot of dunks, many, many alley-oop attempts, both successful and unsuccessful.  So why have I decided to write this now when I have been basically watching the same sort of all-star type game as ever?  Well, a few minutes ago, Kobe Bryant took the ball in the post being guarded by Dwyane Wade, he (Bryant) spun toward the baseline, headed for your typical All-Star Uncontested Dunk, but apparently Wade decided he was having no part of it.  And by having no part of it, I mean Wade seemed willing to take Bryant's head off to prevent him from going to the rim.  Okay, this is a slight exaggeration as I don't think that Wade was really trying to take Bryant's head off, but he did bloody Bryant's nose, and the announcers did point out as Bryant was preparing to attempt his first free throw as a result of the foul that Wade had apparently yet to apologize.  Ah, good times watching the All-Star Game.

Other favorite moments of mine as we near the end of the third quarter are every single three point attempt by Dwight Howard (he should keep doing this until Orlando wants to trade him away, even once the real basketball games start up again), Chris Bosh banking in an awful looking three point attempt, and then of course the fact that Russell Westbrook seems hesitant to want to pass the ball even in the All-Star Game.  I love it.

Many Words About Jeremy Lin

Ultimately I should have guessed that it was bound to happen - my mother sending me text messages and calling me up asking me my opinion of Linsanity.  And the first text message that I received from her was this past Monday, and then earlier this evening she called me up to discuss.  Now I do think that this run by Lin has been phenomenal, which I will discuss in greater detail shortly, but I definitely had to draw the line when my mom told me that she would have to email/text me with a list of ten of these 'Linsanity' type descriptors that have been given to Lin's string of performances.  And the reason for this is simple; I think that generally people are far less clever and far less creative than they think they are.

But I'll return now to occurrences of the last couple of weeks.  I have naturally been glued to the computer/television seeking updates on Lin's performances.  For me, more so than any other reason, it is because Lin is a Harvard guy.  Now during my time there, I never went to a varsity basketball game, men or women.  If I recall correctly, I did get dragged by a friend freshman year to part of a junior varsity men's game. It's only in recent years that I have started watching the team play on television.  And the reason for me is obvious; Harvard was never as good as they are right now and have been in recent years, and it seems exceedingly clear that Jeremy Lin is the best player to come out of the program, at least since I've been there and many years before.  (Let's be honest, I can't think of another Harvard player to ever play in the NBA, but I also don't feel like doing any research to find out.)  It's exciting for me to see that Harvard basketball is actually competitive (they've been ranked in the top 25 this season!) and a Harvard player is actually leading one of the most important sports franchises in the United States, if not the world.  It's mind-boggling.

As special as Lin's performances have been though, I do think that there has been some over-hyping of what he's done.  Now Floyd Mayweather has created some controversy with his comments over Twitter about the Lin phenomenon.  (For the life of me I don't understand why people use Twitter.  It just seems to me that it's only good for getting people in trouble, and who can say anything in just 140 characters?  And why would you want to even try to say anything in 140 or fewer characters when you can us thousands upon thousands as I am?)  But does Mayweather have a point - would all of this hype about Lin have arisen if he were a black player?  The answer to this latter question is that there is no way of knowing.  As much as anyone tries to tell you otherwise, there is absolutely no way to determine this.  I've seen a number of people, in essentially arguing against Mayweather's position, say/write that the hype would still be there because Lin is doing things that have never been done by anyone in the NBA, at least since the ABA-NBA merger.  They have talked about the fact that according to the Elias Sports Bureau, Lin is the X number player to have X number of points and X number of assists in his first X number of starts.  They have also pointed out that Lin had scored the most points in his first X starts than anyone since the league merger.  First of all, I think that most times people start quoting stats that are dug up by the Elias Sports Bureau you should be skeptical of the arguments they are going to present.  I'm of the opinion that the Elias Sports Bureau excels at producing obscure, completely useless statistics.  What bothers me about the statistics used to trumpet Lin's performances is the very huge qualifier that is given to them.  Each time that Lin's stats were quoted, they were qualified with them being in his first X number of starts.  Lin has done an outstanding job (in my opinion) in revitalizing the Knicks (and I cannot believe that this is the first time that I have even mentioned the team so far into this post) over these now last seven games, but because this qualifier has to be made that these are now his first six starts in the NBA, it demonstrates (to me at least) that despite the fact that I am enjoying watching the run that the Knicks and Lin are on, the performances are being exaggerated.  And the reason is that Lin had already played almost half a season in the NBA before these performances started!  If Lin had these exact same performances, but had already started five to ten games beforehand, or he came off the bench ten seconds into each of these games, the power of these statistics would lose some luster because people wouldn't be able to quote their stupid Elias Sports Bureau stats.  So to be clear, he could have the exact same statistics (all still impressive as far as I'm concerned), but since they didn't happen in his first X starts, the performances wouldn't appear as impressive because the Elias Sports Bureau wouldn't have been able to do any of their obscure statistics research.  (Hint, hint, because other people would have had similar runs before.)

Okay, to try to wrap this up (and hopefully end the trend where each paragraph is longer than the previous one), I will once again say that I am thoroughly enjoying this ride.  And this is mostly because I am excited to see one of our Harvard boys demonstrate that we do indeed have some good athletes that come out of Cambridge, MA, and not just squash players and rowers.  Keep up the good work, Jeremy Lin.  And thank you for giving me a reason to write this post and allowing me the chance to additionally demonstrate how much I despise the Elias Sports Bureau and their championing of useless sports stats.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

So I'm watching SportsCenter and just a few moments ago Linda Cohn posed a few questions to Barry Melrose, which is awesome because I think that any appearance by Melrose instantly makes said program at least one thousand times better.

But going beyond this, earlier in the program Cohn said something that was absolutely wrong.  While discussing the Detroit Red Wings, and the fact that the Red Wings had won their NHL single-season-record twenty-first consecutive home game, Cohn made the statement that the Red Wings had the best record in the NHL.  And this statement is absolutely wrong.

If you look at the current NHL standings (11 pm Central Standard Time - fake holiday - February 14, 2012), the Red Wings do indeed lead the NHL in points with 80, but it is actually the New York Rangers that have the best record in the NHL even though they trail the Red Wings with 79 points.  And the reason for this is quite simple: the Rangers have a superior points percentage.  Points percentage in the NHL is exactly analogous to winning percentage used in other sports.  Two points are awarded for a victory of any kind (regulation, overtime, or shootout), one point is awarded for an overtime or shootout loss, and zero points are awarded for a regulation loss.  If you look at the two teams' records (wins-losses-overtime losses), you have the Red Wings at 39-17-2 and the Rangers at 37-13-5.  So having played fifty-eight games, the Red Wings have 80 out of a possible 116 points for a points percentage of 68.97%.  However, the Rangers have played fifty-five games, indicating that they have earned 79 out of a possible 110 points.  And this points percentage is 71.82%.  So the Rangers clearly have the best record in the NHL right now (and they had the best record before the games of the fake holiday as well).

When it's all said and done at the end of the season this obviously will be immaterial, but this is one of those occasions where I don't think there is a legitimate excuse for getting it wrong.  Cohn should know not to simply look at points total (as I assume she did) to determine who has the best record in the NHL.

BCS Selection Show 2011

Alright, so I haven't posted in quite some time, but I felt I needed to say something as I have been watching this BCS selection show going on on ESPN right now.  I decided that I had to write something down because I have just heard within the span of less than five minutes two of the stupidest and dare I say it, ill informed statements about the BCS that I have ever heard come out of the mouths of supposed experts.

The first was said by Brad Edwards in discussing the computer poll rankings.  Now the big drama about all of this, as anyone who has been paying attention to college football would know, was who would end up finishing number two and play LSU in the BCS Championship.  Well to keep this as short as possible, Alabama ended up finishing number two with a BCS rating of 0.942 with Oklahoma State finishing just behind in third at 0.933. As it turns out, Alabama finished at number two on both human polls (with OSU three on both polls), while OSU finished at number two on four of the six computer polls (with Alabama finishing number two on the remaining two).  Now Edwards was asked about the numbers going into the final BCS ratings and said that the gap between the Alabama and OSU looked larger than it could if have been had OSU finished at two on five of six computer polls rather than just the four.  And this makes sense since each team's best and worst computer rankings are discarded.  (Had OSU finished at two on at least five computer polls, the rating would have been 0.9385 for Alabama and 0.9366 for OSU.)  So everything is cool at this point.  (Fantastic!)  But then Edwards said something that was truly stunning.  He said that if OSU had been two on five of the computer rankings, then the difference between Alabama and OSU could have come down to small little things on the field, implying, if not saying it outright, that a single score (touchdown, field goal) here or there that didn't influence that outcome of the games played, could have caused the separation in the ratings that would have been seen between the two teams.  (At least this it what it seemed like he was saying.)  This is absolutely absurd since the computer rankings eliminated margin of victory years ago for BCS consideration, and thus the only thing that could have changed the outcome in such a scenario would have been if more human pollsters had placed OSU over Alabama.

Now the second thing was said by Kirk Herbstreit.  At one point, a little after Edwards had been discussing the above, Herbstreit was asked about the fact that the SEC had won the last five (I think) BCS championships and whether this helped Alabama to get into the championship game even though they had already played against, and lost to, LSU earlier during the season.  Herbstreit started to argue that Alabama was hurt by being in the SEC since they had to play against LSU and were in the same division of the SEC as LSU.  I believe he mentioned that at one time the SEC Western Division had the top three rated teams in the country at the same time (LSU, Alabama, Arkansas).  Well all of this seems pretty reasonable so far...  But then he said something along the line of this: Think about it this way; if Alabama was in the SEC East, and hadn't played LSU during the regular season, then we wouldn't be having this conversation, and Alabama would be playing LSU in the BCS Championship.  Now the previous line is a paraphrasing of what he said, but that it pretty much the exact point that he was making.  Now this is absolutely absurd, even more absurd than Edwards's statement.  If Alabama was in the SEC East, had not played LSU during the regular season, and remained undefeated following the regular season, then they wouldn't face LSU in the BCS Championship, they would face them in the SEC Championship!  And I don't care how great that game would have turned out, but there is absolutely no way, barring a situation in which there were no possible opponents for the winner that had fewer than three losses, that the pollsters would vote to have another neutral site game between the two teams five weeks later.

It is just maddening to me when people do not think their points all the way through to the logical conclusions.

Learned the Name of the Song

It is indeed the moment all of you, my countless followers, have been waiting for - I'm semi-officially bringing the weblog out of semi-unofficial retirement! And what could prompt me to do such a thing? That's a very good question; I'm glad I asked.

Well, as it so happened, I was driving the other day and happened to have the radio on when I caught a song playing that I have long enjoyed, but had never been able to identify. I knew enough about the song by listening to it that Lionel Richie was the singer and that it was likely a Commodores song, but I never paid close enough attention to the lyrics, or remembered them long enough to get to a computer to run a search.

On this occasion, however, I was ready. Once I heard the song playing, I listened very closely. And then when I identified a passage in the song, I pulled over to the side of the street, turned my emergency lights on, took out my phone, and ran a search right then and there. (And yes, all of this did actually happen.)

And what was the result? Well, I'm not going to tell you what the song was, but I will post a link to the video right here, so that you can enjoy it as well. I'll be back sometime within the next day or so with an analysis of the song/video explaining why the song and video have both jumped to legendary status in my mind. Until then, I suggest that you watch the video constantly because this is a great song and a great video.

(Going one step further, if I was ever to start the habit of frequenting stupid karaoke events and I needed my own sort of signature karaoke song, this would be it.)

Chronicles of El Scorpio - Escape from the Desolate Wasteland

There was once a man who was simply known as El Scorpio. (El Scorpio!) No ordinary man was El Scorpio (El Scorpio!) and the tale of his true origin is a legend best left for another time. He was possessed of a mystical stinger with which he could eject a powerful and incapacitating venom whenever he grew into a rage whilst defending against those who would oppose the peace loving peoples. He was El Scorpio! (El Scorpio!)

These are the Chronicles of El Scorpio! (El Scorpio!)

El Scorpio suddenly awakes to find himself in an unfamiliar, desolate land. His head aching, he stumbles to his feet trying desperately to remember where he is, or anything else for that matter. No luck. El Scorpio wanders alone… (El Scorpio!)

After what seems like weeks (but is really only a few hours) of solitary meandering, El Scorpio begins to feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. He struggles on for a while longer trying to ignore his growing need for sustenance, but realizes that his thirst must soon be quenched. Then for the first time in this little saga it appears as if fortune is no El Scorpio’s side as up ahead he sees a spring! (El Scorpio!)

El Scorpio runs (or more precisely, shuffles) toward the spring. He cannot help himself as he kneels down and gulps down big handfuls of water. After he has had enough, he sits down, palms behind him, with his knees bent and feet flat on the ground. El Scorpio sits like this a few seconds before he suddenly hears a sound behind him. (El Scorpio!)

El Scorpio looks up to see the cutest, furriest animals approaching him. They were not overly large, perhaps about two feet long with tails half that length, and they very much resembled hybridizations of hamsters and cats. One might refer to them as hamster-cats. As the hamster-cats approach, El Scorpio develops an almost insatiable childlike desire to pet the creatures. Just as he is reaching out his hand to pet one, the facial demeanor on the creature’s face changes markedly from cute and cuddly to vicious and menacing. The creature pounces on El Scorpio and is quickly joined by the others. (El Scorpio!)

El Scorpio struggles to fight the now scratching and biting monsters as he attempts to gain the distance necessary to unleash his dreaded stinger. He is successful in escaping a few yards away from their teeth and claws and chuckles to himself as he is about to fire the venom. “Say goodnight,” El Scorpio says. But then nothing. He tries to fire again, but again nothing happens. “Oh crap,” El Scorpio says as he turns to run away. (El Scorpio!)

El Scorpio runs with surprising speed as he attempts to escape and fend off his relentless predators. He does much zigzagging as an intentional destination is not on his mind for the moment. The vicious creatures are now almost upon him again, and he believes that this time he shall not be able to escape when suddenly, El Scorpio finds himself alone in a grand chamber. (El Scorpio!)

In the center of the room lay a small dais and in the center of the dais lay a stone and protruding from the center of the stone was a curious sword. El Scorpio approaches the dais and the sword. As he gets closer, he begins to be able to make out words that are written on the stone. As he reads the words to himself, a spirit seems to appear before him, saying those very same words to El Scorpio. (El Scorpio!)

“I am Main-Gauche! Take me and you shall have the power to fight through this desolate land!”

El Scorpio reaches for Main-Gauche just as Main-Gauche reaches for El Scorpio… (El Scorpio!)

To be continued…

Preview: Will El Scorpio succeed? Will the combination of El Scorpio and Main-Gauche navigate through this dangerous desolate land? Tune in next week to find the answers to those questions!

The Subterfuge - Part XIX

As Bella stared out the window into the moonless night sky, she could not help but think about Edward. She thought longingly of him; where was he, what could he be doing right at this moment? Bella was of course thankful for the friendship and protection that Jacob and his friends had provided, but this was not enough. The Cullens had become Bella’s family and she wished to see them and be with them once again, if only for just one more time. But in her heart of hearts, she knew that none of the other Cullens really mattered; her absent love Edward Cullen was the only thing that mattered in the world.

As she sat there, hovering between fantasy and reality, she faintly heard what sounded like a knock on the door. Shaken from her daze, she walked downstairs and to the door to see who it could be. She wasn’t expecting anyone and in fact believed that she would be completely alone for the night. However, as she walked toward the door, her spirits started to lift with thoughts that maybe, just perhaps this could be her love Edward returning to her.

Overtaken by these hopes as she arrived at the door, anxiousness found a strong grip upon her, causing her to momentarily struggle with the locks. After what seemed an eternity to her of trying to negotiate this barrier between herself and her love, she finally opened the door. She had to squint for this was the night of the new moon and so this celestial body afforded no help in illuminating the dark sky. But then finally a tall figure walked toward the door.

But Bella quickly realized that she had no idea who this person was who entered the home. However, she certainly recognized the two figures that he carried, one in each hand. In one hand there was Jacob, and in the other hand, there was Edward, her true love. They both appeared to be completely lifeless and as this man tossed them effortlessly upon the floor, Bella could see that neither gave a hint of stirring. Stunned, she finally looked up at the man and asked, “Who are you?”

“My name is Viktor, but I shall do the talking now,” he said. “These pathetic abominations are what pass for vampires and lycans these days?! This weakness that has pervaded both species while I slept is unacceptable. I shall rally my Death Dealers and put an end to this debasement that has occurred to the immortals.”

Trying hard but unsuccessfully to fight back tears, Bella said, “He’s…he’s not moving… Did you kill Edward? Did you kill them?”

Viktor replied, “I did not give you permission to speak. But I will answer your question because you’ll be dead just as they are soon enough. But wait, perhaps I should grant you immortality, though you are not nearly as attractive or tough as my beloved daughter Sonja or my dear Selene. Perhaps you can be trained… I did kill them because they were weak. That vampire, and I hesitate to call him such, was a disgrace. He clearly spent more time applying makeup to his face and putting product in his hair than he ever did training to destroy the lycans!”

“But, but…” Bella stammered, now fully in tears.

Viktor continued, seemingly ignoring her, “I shall once again make the Death Dealers a force to be reckoned with in this world! We will hunt down these wretched cereal box-vampires and make the species strong once again! And we shall exterminate this pathetic rodent-like strain that these lycans have become. My old foe Lucian, I am thankful that you did not have to live to witness what has become of your brethren…”

“What, what…” Bella said, stunned.

Viktor now turned his attention back to the young lady and with his fangs elongated approached…

Epilogue: And what became of Bella next? The answer is unclear, but also irrelevant. Viktor, long thought dead, was able to reassemble his race of Death Dealers and was able to lead them, quite effortlessly, in wiping out the weak vampires like the Cullens that had infested the world. He then just as easily led them in destroying the lycans forever. With the task complete, Viktor sat upon his throne and contemplated his accomplishment. He thought about the ease in which it was all done (only taking eight days), and briefly longed for the time when he truly faced a formidable challenge.

The Subterfuge - Part XVIII

We’re just moments away from the opening bell pitting East versus West. In the red corner, the newcomer on the championship boxing scene, standing 6’5”, and weighing in at 261 lbs is the imposing cyber-trained boxer from the Soviet Union, Ivan Drago! And in the blue corner, the heavy weight champion of the world, hailing from Chicago, Illinois, standing 6’1”, and weighing in at 235 lbs, The Southside Slugger, Clubber Lang!!!

Confused? Unsure about what is to take place and whether this scene is reality or fantasy? Perhaps it has elements of both. And it certainly has elements of the unknown (for you). But soon enough such will not be the case. For soon you will know the answer to the question: what if Sylvester Stallone had not created and starred as the Rocky character in the movies Rocky III and Rocky IV and thus created the completely implausible scenarios in which Rocky Balboa defeated Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago?

Several weeks ago…

While taking a hiatus from boxing for the time being, Clubber Lang was doing what he ordinarily does when not training for a fight, moonlighting as a soldier of fortune in the Los Angeles underground. For those who had a problem for which no one else could help, and if they could find them, Clubber Lang was part of a team that was for hire. But on this day, the team was gathered around the television watching what was sure to be an epic fight between Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago. The team, perhaps out of a deep feeling of patriotism, hated the Soviets and all Communists and so was firmly in the corner of Creed.

But Apollo was not the first choice to battle Drago. The Soviets had sought out the champion of the world, Clubber Lang, but could not find him. Not being able to land Lang, and rather than going with a fight with Rocky Balboa, the Paper Champion, Drago’s camp arranged to fight Apollo Creed, the Master of Disaster and the Count of Monte Fisto. It was not entirely clear why Creed had Balboa in his corner. Many speculated that it was because Balboa was annoyed with constantly having to deal with his whiny wife’s complaints about how her first husband used to beat her and how her brother had had him killed and all kinds of silly stuff that Balboa was never able to completely verify. It was theorized that Balboa finally got sick of it and just needed to get out of the house for a while.

As the Creed-Drago fight was soon to begin, and as Clubber Lang and his team kicked back to watch, all of a sudden the team’s pilot stood up and started screaming hysterically and pointing at the television. When the rest of the team turned to look, they simply saw that the camera was focused on Drago as he was preparing for the opening bell. But it soon became clear that the rest of the team would not be able to ignore the pilot forever, and so they turned the volume all the way down on the television and listened.

What the pilot said largely made no sense, but they could make out the words power, grey, skull, power again, and the pilot kept insisting that Drago had a sword. And the pilot also stated that Drago had spoken all of this in Russian. After clearly giving too much attention to this madness, the rest of the team finally came to their own senses and did the right thing; they gagged and tied up the pilot and focused on the fight.

Soon after the fight began, the team could see that something was going wrong. Creed was getting pummeled by Drago. And then in the second round, Drago knocked Creed down and out forever. Clubber Lang jumped out of his seat and yelled, “Nooooo! It should have been me that beat that has-been Creed!”

To be continued…

Addendum: After watching the rest of the coverage on television where it was confirmed that Creed was dead, the team got around to untying the pilot. As soon as he was no longer gagged, the pilot blurted out, “See, I told you! He took out his sword and pointed it at Apollo and a ray beam shot out at him and Apollo turned into a ferocious green tiger with armor and sharp teeth. Then he, man, he hit him with the sword and Apollo the green tiger went to sleep.” Clubber Lang then punched the pilot.

The Subterfuge - Part XVII

This is a big week for goats as I’m sure everyone is aware that the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats opens in theaters across the country on Friday. Well, I don’t know a whole lot about the plot – I have shied away from reading any reviews for the film thus far, lest the movie be ruined for me before I have the opportunity to watch it – but from watching the commercials, things don’t go particularly well for the goats. It seems that there are individuals in the movie that have the ability to stare at goats (and hence the name of the film) and have the goats drop dead. Poor goats…

This was unacceptable to me because as you are well aware, I have a huge admiration for goats. So I’ve decided to retell a more uplifting tale of goats, if you’ll indulge me. There once were three goats called the Three Billy Goats Gruff. The Billy Goats Gruff were of varying sizes, and one day the smallest of the three wanted to cross a bridge so that he could eat the grass on the other side. The problem is that there is a powerful troll living under the bridge who eats those who attempt to pass. But this smallest of the Billy Goats Gruff was really hungry and so he approached the bridge. Sure enough, the troll emerged and threatened to eat the goat. The goat, thinking quickly, convinced the troll that he was too small and that the troll would much prefer to eat his bigger goat brother. So the troll allowed the goat to go. Similarly, the middle sized goat approached the bridge and was stopped by the troll and pleaded that troll would much prefer to eat his larger brother. The troll allows this goat to pass as well. Soon the largest of the goats approached and again the troll jumped out, but rather than talk to the troll, this largest goat gored the troll and let him fall into the river. The largest of the goats walked across the river to join his brothers in eating the grass.

Now we’ve always heard that this was the end of the story, but this is utter nonsense. And so the story continues… Soon all of the other goats, not just the Three Billy Goats Gruff, crossed the bridge to join in the delectable grass. However, this is what the troll had planned all along. You see, this was a magical and clever troll (as most trolls are) and certainly couldn’t be outsmarted by creatures such as goats who routinely faint when afraid. After all of the goats were across the river, the troll calmly stood up from where he had fallen in the river. He then stared at the bridge, causing the bridge to explode. The troll was a little bit dejected about losing the bridge under which he had lived for a long time, but he knew that he had gained so much more: an almost unlimited buffet of goats.

Journal Entry: And in another alternate ending to this story, the third of the Three Billy Goats Gruff did actually kill the troll (in this case the troll wasn’t magical because you can’t kill a magical troll) and walked across the bridge to join his brothers. The smaller two goats were of course overjoyed that the troll was dead. However, the largest goat was quite a bit pissed off at his brothers for having sent the troll after him and so he chased them off (or gored them, I can’t remember this part of the story exactly) and enjoyed a life of eating grass all by himself.