College Basketball Preview: Fringe Conferences Part Two

MID-AMERICAN

This is one of those rare and odd Midwest conferences where the best schools usually aren't draped with the best players. Shayne Whittington has the chance to be dominant inside for Western Michigan in a league without much knowledgeable size. They may be the dark horse with 3 guys who red shirted last year as true freshmen. How those three do against Toledo will determine the West Division and possibly conference winner.

MISSOURI VALLEY

Wichita State is by far the class of this conference and should run away with it behind Cleanthony Early, a potential future NBA prospect. The Shockers lost 4 players from a 30-win team, but could repeat that number again. Indiana State will be a distant, but interesting second place team behind Jake Odum and newcomer Brenton Scott.

Cleanthony Early is going to be one of the best
mid-majorplayers in the nation.

NORTHEAST

Bryant may be an interesting choice because of newcomer Daniel Garvin, who has a lot of talent for this level, but Julian Boyd at Long Island may change all of that. Boyd, if healthy, is a 18-25 point per night guy which is the kind of scoring you need to be a breakout team in a league this small.

OHIO VALLEY

In the Ohio Valley, Murray State is always a frontrunner because of their history and consistency. They have some intriguing kids coming into the program, but with that said, they are quite young. I look for Belmont to top Eastern Kentucky, easier than some might thing, in the East with Southeast Missouri State leading the West. Overall, SEMS has more talent with Tyler Stone, but Belmont just has more experience and will win the Ohio Valley.

PATRIOT

Bucknell is intriguing as a repeat champion, but I just don't know if Cameron Ayers is enough fire power when it comes to topping Boston, who has a lot of depth. D.J. Irving, Dom Morris and Maurice Watson Jr. is a hell of a triple threat.

SOUTHERN

There may no longer be a Curry in town, but it is about time that Davidson rises back to power in this conference and as a legit March Cinderella threat. De'mon Brooks is going to be the Player of the Year and Andrew McAuliffe may be the best freshman at 6'8'', 225 pounds.

SOUTHLAND

The Southland is a mess. I can name 5-6 teams who shouldn't even be Division I. I mean, who is Incarnate Word? Are we taking everyone now? Eventually, this league will be like the Summit League was (Mid-Con before that) with Oral Roberts dominating year after year. But they are still feeling things out, so I'll give McNeese State the benefit of the doubt this season behind Desharick Guidry.

SUMMIT LEAGUE

I am a homer of sorts and would love to see IPFW make a run, but that is going to be hard after losing all-time leading scorer Frank Gaines, now in the NBDL. IPFW's season could be impacted by the debut of redshirt Stetson transfer Steve Forbes, Taylor Braun leads a versatile North Dakota State lineup, South Dakota State has depth with Jordan Dykstra leading the way, and Denver has the overall best player in Chris Udofia. This conference should be a sprint between these four schools, I am going to guess Denver rises to the top in the end.

Steve Forbes could be a beast at IPFW.

SUN BELT

Somehow, and for some reason, Georgia State has become an athletic darling of the low grade conferences. They are attracting decent athletes for no discernible reason. In their first year in the Sun Belt, a sophomore in R.J. Hunter is going to dominate. Behind him, Manny Atkins is strong. Louisiana-Lafayette will also be a contender, but just aren't as athletically deep as the Panthers and Coach Ron Hunter.

The fact that RJ Hunter is only a sophomore is just insane.
He is a NBA prospect with a lot more time to
make Georgia State relevant.

SWAC

The lowest of the low on the totem pole is the Southwestern Athletic Conference, who wouldn't come close to field a tournament team unless they were required to do so. If it wasn't for the explosive Demarquelle Tabb, this conference would be lost. Because of Tabb, who at 6'5'', almost averaged a double-double in points and rebounds last season, Alabama A&M will plow through the conference.

WESTERN ATHLETIC

In this geographically irresponsible conference, familiarity is king. New Mexico State is always the class of this field and they have a great coach back that probably should have left for greener pastures in the off season. Travel lag may become an issue, especially for the Chicago States and UMKCs of the world.

College Basketball Preview: Fringe Conferences Part One

Outside of the power and high major conferences exist 22 other Division 1 conferences in college basketball. They are the schools you might not know of, those with witty nicknames, the Cinderellas and those who will not even make the smallest blip on most of society's radar.

So here today is part one of taking a look at those leagues, their top players and top teams.

AMERICAN EAST

Vermont has been, for some time, in their own class here in the American East, even if they didn't happen to get the conference's bid that year. This year, it should be clear that the Catamounts run away with all five starters returning. Stony Brook possesses a solid three-man front, but I just don't see them topping Vermont.

Bernard Thompson could lead another very high profile run.

ATLANTIC SUN

People are calling Torrey Craig from USC Upstate a possible can't miss NBA Draft steal come next year. I'm going to pass, because this league is CLEARLY ALL ABOUT FLORIDA GULF COAST. The have the hype, they have the interest and they are the only thing salvageable about the A-SUN. They return four starters, Brett Comer and Bernard Thompson are back and Jamail Jones is going to be the best frosh. No stopping this team, who may be the next Butler or Gonzaga when it comes to Tournament time.

BIG SKY

This is like looking at Vermont in the American East because Weber State is insane. Kyle Tresnak is a beast inside at 6'10'', 255 and Davion Berry is the best player in the league. Kareem Jamar will be unseated this year and his Montana team doesn't have the depth to stop Weber State, who could easily see their second straight 30-win season and could even win all 20 conference games.

BIG SOUTH

I am a big fan of Javonte Green at Radford, and I really think he could be a breakout star because of the fact that he, like Demarquelle Tabb (Alabama A&M – SWAC), plays so much bigger than his mid-size guard frame. But VMI is my pick to topple High Point for the conference crown because of big man DJ Covington and his point man Rodney Glasgow. I'm also intrigued to see newcomer Trey Chapman at VMI, who could add a lot to this dry conference.

BIG WEST

The “Cali League” could be a very a close one this year with an array of UC teams at the top in any particular order between Irvine, Santa Barbara and Davis. And perhaps just out of sheer love for their mascot, the Anteaters, I am going to go with UC-Irvine this year. Will Davis II will be strong inside for this team and although I don't think they have a top-5 league player and Davis himself may be 8^th or 9^th best, they have some strong depth. The best part is, behind Davis are players of 6'10'', 7'2'' and 7'5''. That is a lot of REALLY BIG depth. Corey Hawkins and UC Davis will be a close second, while Hawaii could end up being the spoiler for Cali.

COLONIAL

Drexel couldn't shoot to save their lives last season, but I expect them to remedy that this season behind POTY candidate Damion Lee. They were 7^th in the Colonial last season, but they are so much more experienced now and bring back a lot of scoring. I expect a duel between them and Towson to come down to the wire for the Colonial, with the possibility that one could win the regular season and the other could head to the field of 68. Towson's Jerrelle Benimon is explosive and has the right pieces behind him in Four McGlynn and Marcus Damus.

CONFERENCE USA

That is right, I am throwing Conference USA into the world of fringe. Part of that is the now seemingly constant flux of the teams. There are eight....that's right, EIGHT new teams this year and next year, they will add another one while losing three of this year's teams. That is ridiculous. That said, maybe Southern Miss? It is hard to tell exactly what happens here. I go with Southern Miss because of their depth, which is why I pick most of these conference winners, but this may be the one conference where depth doesn't matter. I am intrigued by Rob Rucker of UAB, but I question if he has enough leadership qualities outside of his on-court play to help UAB rise to the top. I expect Louisiana Tech to be the top challenger to Southern Miss this season.

HORIZON

Consistency from top to bottom is the key in the Horizon, where the best players are on middle of the road teams. Youngstown State should be happy that they have such a dynamic player in guard Kendrick Perry, they should go back to the drawing board in that they basically have nothing else. Kelsey Barlow is a fantastic newcomer who could be what takes Illinois-Chicago to the top of the league by the time he graduates, but this is not the year.

I'm going to go with Wisconsin-Green Bay to rise to the top. The 5'11''/7'1'' combo of Keifer Sykes and Alec Brown bookends a deep squad that should rise over Wright State and Cleveland State in a league that has lost some flare since Butler's exit.

On a Horizon League side note, I am really intrigued to to see how Oakland does in this new league. They may provide the flare that the league needs and doesn't have. Greg Kampe has done such a fantastic job in his years at Oakland, making them a threat and perennial top team in the Summit League. I can only imagine he will do the same in the Horizon.

Tommy Amaker has changed the entire
way of thinking at Harvard.

IVY LEAGUE

OK, so Harvard wins and everyone else is busy in class. Does that about sum up the Ivy League in the Tommy Amaker era. Wesley Saunders is miles above anyone else in the Ivy League and Siyani Chambers is a strong play maker.

MEAC

Norfolk State proved two Marchs ago to be the top team in the MEAC and they will pick that up this year as one of the best fringe teams in the realm of having the potential to run away with a Cinderella story again. Pendarvis Williams is phenomenal and should destroy anyone who tries to guard him

METRO ATLANTIC

One of the many low level leagues completely up for grabs. Canisius, Iona, Niagara and Marist could all be top dogs here. I'm going with Canisius only because I think that senior guard Billy Baron, who is quite versatile in how he plays, could be the type of guy to give them a March moment coming off a 20-win season in 2012-2013. Chris Perez, a transfer from the often-transferred from Stetson, will help as well.

Coming Tuesday, Oct.29: Fringe Conferences Part Two
Coming Thursday, Oct.31: Major Conferences
Coming Friday, Nov.1: Final Analysis before Tipoff

Diego Sanchez needs to stop taking punishment

Diego Sanchez is likely always going to have a job in the UFC.

On top of being the original Ultimate Fighter, by winning a 185 pound bloat off with Kenny Florian, he always has and always will deliver high octane and exciting fights.

But, that isn't always a good thing for Diego. Saturday night highlighted once again why it may be time for him to leave those gloves laying in the middle of the cage, remembered for what he was while he can still remember anything.

Early victories over Nick Diaz and Joe Riggs showed that a younger, thriving Diego was capable of a lot. After his setbacks to Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck and a drop down to the Lightweight division, he plowed through back to back Fight of the Night honors against Joe Stevenson and an all-time great fight with Clay Guida. Including his 155 pound debut against Stevenson, he was won 5 of his last 9, with six Fight of the Night honors during that stretch. So there is no doubt that entertainment is his forte with his particular style.

The many faces of Diego Sanchez post fight.
They usually have a lot of (red) things in common.

I was excited about his return to 155 pounds, where he had his most success, culminating in a title shot again BJ Penn. It was in that title fight that he was mutilated. But going into Friday's weigh ins for his UFC 166 battle with Gilbert Melendez, Diego looked cut and like he could make another run at the top at 155. What happened after is being considered a fight of the year candidate, but to me that is just surface talk.

The reality, and a sad one to me, is that Gilbert trounced Diego all over that cage. While both men came forward with flurries worthy of being on UFC fight highlights and show openings for years, Melendez landed quicker and more precise. Diego himself, the instigator of the flurries, barely landed.

Instead he left after another decision, this one a loss, with a familiar combination of a massively swollen face and a fountain of blood running into every crevasse on that face. It's years of abuse, it's a lot of scar tissue and it's just in his DNA to bruise easy and bleed heavily.

But it's hard to watch, sad to see and makes me question whether now is the time for Dana White, or somebody else close to Diego, to say that enough is enough. Clearly Dana White has no issue making known how he feels about fighters taking too much punishment. He virtually pushed Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes into retirement, hinted vigorously at Forrest Griffin and after that same UFC 166 card, he was straight forward in how Junior Dos Santos' corner should have thrown in the towel midway through yet another beating at the hands of Cain Velasquez.

So why not feel the same about Diego? Just because the fight was entertaining? Dana has said many times things along the lines of Diego having a heart matched only by his chin. But both having a lot of heart and having a steel chin really only translate to one, similar thing, in MMA: you have, often, gotten the total crap kicked out of you.

When all is said and done, Diego's role in the UFC's development and his credit as perhaps the most entertaining fighter in the sports history, should be enough for Hall of Fame consideration. He will retire, whenever that is, as one of the very better fighters to never wear UFC gold.

But now is the time. Diego has taken too much punishment and is no longer doing himself or anyone else any favors.

13-6 is a respectable mark inside the Octagon, but I would really like to see his 20^th UFC fight as his swan song. Diego deserves a proper sendoff and as one of the guys who really set the UFC off (as much as Griffin and Stephan Bonnar get the most attention for that front, that night and that season of TUF), he absolutely deserves better than what he has been getting.

College Basketball Preview Day 1: The Hype Train is to Much

So this is how it goes in college basketball today.

1)      Have an over hyped and under talented recruiting class.

2)      Lost top player to injury.

3)      Miss the NCAA Tournament.

4)      Lose in the first round of the NIT to Robert Morris.

5)      Have previously mentioned top player go pro. (Why? We are still trying to figure that out.)

6)      Bring in new, possibly equally over hyped recruiting class.

7)      Be ranked #1 in the preseason.

Moral of the story: yesterday’s Anthony Davis and Nerlens Noel is today’s Julius Randle. Welcome to the wonderful world of Kentucky Wildcat basketball.

Nerlens Noel's plight last season is part of a sad trend of over hyping freshmen

.

 John Calipari is a talented coach and a solid recruiter. But why is it that we continue to kid ourselves with thinking that these freshman talents, or super teams, are going to actually be so dominant when all evidence is to the contrary. No, the 2013-2014 Kentucky Wildcats are not going to be the next (or better) Fab Five. And no, Julius Randle is not going to be the next Michael Jordan (or Lebron, or Kobe, or whatever today’s skewed standard of “greatest player” is.)

We have been doing this to ourselves for years. The last three “stud” freshmen have all been riddled by unrealistic standards. I swear, I am not just picking on Kentucky. But, for the last four seasons (including the upcoming one), Kentucky has supposedly had “that guy” for three of them.

Kyrie Irving. Duke. 2010-2011. Injured. Missed most of college career. Left School. All-Star caliber NBA career.

Anthony Davis. Kentucky. 2011-2012. Great college career. Left School. Injured. Mediocre/Underachieving rookie season.

Nerlens Noel. Kentucky. 2012-2013. Injured. Left School.

Julius Randle. Kentucky. 2013-2014. TBD.

Let’s just say, that immediate history does not bode well for Mr. Randle. Injuries? Missing most of his season? Going pro because…well why not? Maybe missing some time in that rookie year? A bench spot next to Darko Milicic?

And I know, we can all say it, Andrew Wiggins is supposed to the best player in this class (or is it Jabari Parker? I get lost in the whipping and winding crazy hype train.) But it has been recently that people (including ESPN) have been comparing Randle to Lebron. I assume they mean it as a good thing. If I said it, I would mean it as he is a crybaby underachiever who can’t win on his own and is afraid of pressure.

The fact of the matter is this: I cannot honestly see Kentucky being that good. Six All-Americans? Great. Your real “veteran” players are both sophomores. There is this thing called growing pains and I expect a lot for a team who couldn’t get by Robert Morris last season with arguably comparable talent.

So who is, in my humble opinion, the team with the best shot to win it all in March (slash April)? Stay tuned this week to find out!

Top 5 Songs to Pump you up

Any athlete can tell you that the right song, at the right time, can put you in an athletic zone all of its own. What player, on any level, doesn't have a pair of ear buds in (or in 2013, a pair of Beats by Dre on), head bobbing just a little, before any given game or match?

It is part of the sport itself. That is why athletes are so enthralled with music and vice versa.

With that said, these are, in my opinion (isn't it all?), the best 5 songs to listen to pregame. The best pump up songs that, at the very least, get me in the right mind frame whether competing or coaching.

Honorable Mention: Hall of Fame by The Script
This song is newer than the rest, but sets very upbeat tone. Fox Sports 1 recently adopted it as it's theme music during commercial previews of the new channel. What says sport better than a Hall of Fame? On top of the upbeat nature of the song, it is also motivational in putting that vision of you one day standing atop the mountain, in the 'Hall of Fame,' whatever that means to you personally.

Honorable Mention: We Are One by 12 Stones
This is, for sure, a song for a loner. Whether it is a singles sport or just a person who is a loner on their particular team. The opening beat with the line "We walk alone, in the unknown..." can be chill worthy.

5. Forever by Drake
"Last name ever, first name greatest..."

The opening line of the first verse alone makes this a great pump up song, but even better makes it great walk out music. Walk out music sets an awesome tone if it is selected right, whether you are walking out to bat or down the aisle to a WWE ring or UFC octagon.

The cadence of Drake's raps make his words legible and flows so strongly with the beat, making this a song that gets your blood flowing. The fact that, throughout this song, you also add in unique styles of Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Eminem, really makes you bob your head.

4. Bait & Switch by Saliva
"Back in the day, I dedicated myself to becoming a big rock and roll star...."

Saliva is known for songs often associated with sports, including their hit "Superstar," but this one stands out the most to me. To me, this song is less about lyrics and more about presentation, including the voice of then front man Josey Scott. This is a music strong song, amongst a bevy of songs that have lyrics that I think help dictate them being good pump up music.

3. Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne
"All Aboard! Ha ha ha ha ha...."

I don't know that this is the best song to have playing on your iPod to get you in the right mood to compete, but I don't know how many other songs can be considered better straight walk out music than this. I had a good friend in Virginia named Jacob Clifton who this song was often used as walk out music for. Now, I don't know if Clifton intended for it to be, but as a spectator, when I heard the opening line, I knew that someone was about to come hit the crap out of the ball. This MAY be the best baseball walk out music ever for that fact, if not others.

2. Remember the Name by Fort Minor
"This is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will. 5% pleasure, 50% pain and 100% reason to remember the name...."

Talk about a song that sends you into an immediate competitive nature. This is the 'I'm going to beat you, and it's not going to be pretty," song of this generation. The first time I heard this song was on the previews of the then-forthcoming Friday Night Lights show. Now while I wasn't a fan of the show myself, this song immediately had me interested in it because of the lyrics and the power that Mike Shinoda delivers them with. To me, Shinoda combined with Chester Bennington has always been what has sold Linkin Park over everything, but on this Fort Minor intro song, Shinoda proves that he can do it alone.

1. I'm Shipping Up to Boston by The Dropkick Murphys

If anything can battle Crazy Train for a baseball walkout song, this one is it. In my favorite use, it was the walk up music of former Fort Wayne Tin Cap and current Oakland A, Nate Freiman. And this is another song that really has nothing to do with the lyrics, but instead the intro music and cords that really can whip you into a frenzy.

But I don't feel like this is strictly a walk up song. Play this at any game, especially of the baseball variety, at it is a mood changer. Whether you are in Boston itself, or even at a rec. league All-Star game in Vinton, Virginia, this is an amazing song for any sporting event. It never has and never will fail to get that competitive mindframe flowing.

The Top 20 Basketball Films Ever

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Viacom Spits on Mixed Martial Arts (feat. Rampage and Tito)

Griffin-Bonnar. Pure Mixed Martial Arts at it's best? No. But a hell of a lot of fun to watch? You know it.

That is where my love affair with MMA really began. I had seen some here or there growing up, the worlds of Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie, without understanding any of the ins and the outs of what made this sport. And I watched that first season of The Ultimate Fighter, more out of my love of reality television than anything else. There I found myself cheering, more against Josh Koscheck than for anyone specifically. When the finale came, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar took my piqued interest and then made my head explode with their well documented war of attrition.

Two seasons of The Ultimate Fighter and a solid interest later, a coach/competitor trio of Tito Ortiz, Michael Bisping and Kendall Grove solidified MMA as one of my very favorite sports with the best season to date of the show.

That third season was seven years ago. Bisping has gone on to give me 2-3 heart attacks per fight since and I have continued to follow Grove move by move after his up/down UFC career ended.

And Tito Ortiz, the first ACTUAL fighter to enthrall me? He is currently a major player in the bastardizing of the sport he helped me grow to love. Why? No, not just because the aging Ortiz will take on the also aging, completely slower-than-his-prime Rampage Jackson this November. But mostly because last Thursday, on a live episode of TNA Impact Wrestling (yes, that is the “scripted” type of wrestling), Ortiz showed up....likely to begin an on-screen and scripted battle with dual entertainer Jackson, who is already been on Impact regularly now.

For most people, age in this future Bellator MMA pay per view main event is the biggest slap in the forehead factoid. For me, it is merely a turnoff. It isn't 2004 or 2005 or 2006 and nobody cares about Tito Ortiz fighting Rampage Jackson. I have always been a fan of both of them as fighters, but I also don't want to see Karl Malone go one-on-one with Scottie Pippen in 2013. It is going lack athleticism, they will either not engage or it will be the sloppiest fight ever, and they will both be gassed by the second round because you can't get your cardio very high when you are on the geriatric end of your professional sports career, regardless of the sport.

So forget a slap in the forehead. Age isn't the most disrespectful thing in play with this fight.

What is disrespectful is how Bjorn Rebney and the geniuses at Viacom have blurred the lines of this legitimate sport (growing and gaining more general appeal daily) and the male soap opera circus that is professional wrestling.

People, including Ortiz and Jackson, are often so critical of Dana White for a variety of reasons. But never has he really put the integrity of the sport in such limbo. With the possible exception of hiring Brock Lesnar after only one MMA fight, Dana is careful about who he brings in to fight in the UFC, what those people do while they are there and how they behave. He brought in James Toney, only to prove a point. But other than that, he has avoided making his brand and the sport a circus by avoiding pitfalls of “fighters” like wrestlers Dave Bautista and Bobby Lashley, an interested Shaquille O'Neal, an aged NFL-veteran in Herschel Walker and even (for the most part) the “hot-commodity” backyard brawler Kimbo Slice.

By not only allowing, but supporting and full-on promoting his fighters as professional wrestlers, Bjorn Rebney has not just blurred the line here, he has stomped and danced all over it.

I like professional wrestling to a degree. I have watched it since I was a little kid and still watch it on and off to this very day. But a bleach blonde surfer Sting to a reptilian-like Randy Orton don't match up in actual man-to-man combat with GSP or Jon Jones. I won't disrespect professional wrestlers by saying they aren't athletes. They are. But they are entertainers who are athletic, even if it is to a high degree. Professional wrestlers to mixed martial artists is like the cast of Coach Carter to the NBA.

Professional wrestling is fiction; it is Lost, it is Law and Order, it is General Hospital. And that is OK Rampage Jackson and Tito Ortiz wanting to participate in this medium is also OK It is no different than when Jackson portrayed B.A. Baracus in the A-Team movie.

But how any person can think it OK for them both to portray their professional wrestling characters building up for a fight AT THE SAME TIME they are building up for an actual fight, is completely ridiculous and I for one, as a MMA fan, am disgusted by it. And I'd love to blame Viacom. Look back at their history, they aren't very bright in general. And that is where Bellator's front man Bjorn Rebney, needs to put on his big boy pants and tell someone no.

But instead, he is locked up in a desperate attempt to make money, that he not only ignores that fact that his first pay per view will be headlined by two guys who haven't won a fight since Ortiz upset Ryan Bader TWO YEARS AGO. Two guys, who in fact, have gone 9-12-1 since Ortiz first captured my attention the aforementioned seven years ago. By the way, seven of those wins are Rampage's and he shouldn't have won his last two fights, boring decisions over Matt Hamill (Ortiz lost to him by the way) and Lyoto Machida (the king of losing questionable decisions). I don't expect Rebney to accept a fact that we all, outside of Bellator, know: sooner or later, Bellator will be Affliction, it will be Elite XC, it will be Strikeforce. This is reality and I know that. And I don't believe that Rebney should buy into that because when he actually does, will be the final straw in a demise that is likely in the grand scheme.

So go Bjorn Rebney and make money. But DO NOT disrespect a sport that you didn't even help build by blurring the lines and giving all of the MMA detractors more fodder by making it look like your professional fighting organization is fixed, whether that is really the case or not.

There are plenty of guilty parties involved, but in the end, Rebney, Ortiz and Jackson should know better. But because of their foolish attempts to make money and remain relevant, they are bastardizing and making a joke out of a sport that I, and millions of others, have grown to love. As much as Mixed Martial Arts has become the fastest growing sport across the globe in the last ten years, more stunts like this will force this beautiful sport to halt it's growth and make those detractors grow while supporters shrink. It is sad and it is going to affect everyone from War Machine and Ben Askren on Spike to Chael Sonnen and Junior Dos Santos on FOX, to the guys fighting down the road every third Saturday night, trying to feed their kids.

Seven years ago, Tito Ortiz found two other guys for his team that helped make me really love MMA. Today, he and two other “teammates” have found a way to make me question what the future of this sport will hold if they have their selfish ways. And it makes me sick