Technorati, which bought my second home Blogcritics last year, is going through a rather ginormous redesign very shortly, and one of their changes will be the introduction of their own writers. Their bright idea was to put me in charge of all those writers and editors, and calling the position an “executive editor.”

To date it’s probably the most responsibility I’ve ever had on the Internet, which is incredibly thrilling and terrifying to everyone. Remember when I was ruining the ability to comment on Deadspin by embedding Tetris games? Seems like just yesterday. But today they’d probably frown upon those kind of shenanigans.

So that’s what’s been occupying my non-Law & Order rerun time during the last month. It’s been a lot of policy drafting, editor hiring, writer recruiting, and fingernail biting. How will this redesign go? Aw, who the hell knows.

It’s quite amazing how much this gig feels a lot like my old job, in that I’m answering questions above my pay grade, troubleshooting technical issues, and trying to get folks on the same page in a small window of time. But at least I’m sleeping in my own bed, rather than in a room a thousand miles away in a town where fine dining is the Applebee’s at the edge of town.

So I hope you like what you see. (More accurately, I hope you can see it.) For the most part you’ll see a lot of work done by people with more programming knowledge than myself. And after that, you’ll witness the masterpieces of hundreds of bloggers and eight very special editors. And after that, you’ll see me, taking all the credit.

So maybe The Layoff Beard shall never die, as once promised. Perhaps I shall check back in occasionally, in the hopes that I shall always keep a state of mind as if I’m still on summer vacation. Or maybe I will finally be productive wearing sweatpants.

I haven’t seen all the music videos for the Video Music Awards’ nomination for Best Female Video, just the six snippets they pancaked together before announcing the winner. There were six relatively different setups (a wedding, a car, Bob Ross’s empty gray canvas), but the music? Sweet merciful repetition, if you would’ve told me that was all the same song, I’d have believed you. But, of course, this is not music. These are music videos, where the purpose and intent is to, I guess, try and make your head explode by trying to figure out what the hell is going on in the first place. If you can accomplish that, then you are a shoe-in to win a VMA Award and use your PIN number to withdraw money from an ATM machine.

Now to rag on Taylor Swift… somewhat. She said she had always dreamed of winning that award. Not a Grammy, but a VMA. Any award which is created by a TV station really doesn’t have much bearing. Athletes don’t dream about winning an ESPY. The home run record? The world’s fastest man? Most hot dogs in 12 minutes? Sure. But the ESPY is a throw-in. And pop performers’ dreams are probably similar. They want platinum records. They want to not become cokewhores by age 22. These are respectable dreams. To put your hopes and dreams into winning “Best Music Video,” a creation which was largely the work of a studio, a director, and a room full of marketers, is probably not what little girls hope to win someday.

Two years later, I recall doing a “blog but not really a blog” weekly wrap-up of each fantasy game. It was a terrific seasonal project that catered to exactly eight people. Okay, seven. One of the girls wasn’t really that into it. I used pictures and tables and probably the blink HTML tag, because kids in college who didn’t drink used the fucking blink tag. That was their demon drink.

As college ended and my pseudo career in Professional Sports Internet Commenting took off like an NHRA funny car, I began receiving more and more invites to fantasy leagues than one could handle. It was so intense, during my previous life as a Professional Newspaper Computer Show-How-To-User, I had a fantasy draft on the same evening as their big software conversion go-live day, and I cleared it with their personnel to make sure I had a couple hours to myself to sit behind my laptop and guess at which running backs would not get torn ACLs that season.

Then last year, I was in a league with one of my co-workers and his friends. I never showed up for the draft. I never made a roster change. I never even knew who I had on my team. I don’t even know how I finished.

It was probably then that I realized I was playing fantasy sports for the wrong reason: I was just in it to create hilarious* team names. That’s no validation at all.

(* – Hilarious to me. Kilroy Waz-Zahir.)

So I hereby announce my retirement from fantasy football. I have no use for it anymore. Maybe it’s all the conversations I have with people who tell me all the fantasy players they traded for. Those are about as interesting and useful as hearing about a dream someone you barely know had. (”And then I went to this Italian restaurant, but Maurice Jones-Drew was there, and I don’t know why he was there, because I didn’t draft him in three years … and then I don’t know what happened, but later we were on an aircraft carrier…”) But to enjoy fantasy football to the fullest, you have to be one of those guys that talks about their team all the time like it’s something tangible. And ESPN will cater to that reality by having Drew Brees appear in fantasy football commercials. It’s all too weird now.

Also, because I am retiring from fantasy football, based on recent events, I reserve the right to recant on this retirement at a moment’s notice. Perhaps as soon as next week.

But here’s something I never quite anticipated. What if I landed a part-time job? After some profound self-deliberation, it’s been concluded that a trimming is in order. Never mind that it would’ve probably been semi-shorn because the damn thing needed it. It gets hot under all this cheek hair, y’see.

Without getting too much into it, I now have part time employment starting on the horizon with a semi-prominent website. The sweet part is I’ll get to work from home, and hopefully in the coming weeks you’ll hear all about it. I’d tell you everything if they already announced something, but essentially I just want to drop a legitimate excuse on why The Layoff Beard, much like the actual layoff beard, will not be as heavy as it normally is. It’s because more meaningful work will be done. From home. (Just had to mention that again.)

Maybe it’s because of our dependence on technology and how much time we escape into the digital cloth. It’s true, all those glowing rectangles are quite amazing but ever-present in our lives. Could we, as a society, be losing the important quality of human contact because of our iPhones, tweets, Facebooks quizzes, and DVR? Do GPS systems help us lose our sense of direction and know where we’re really going?

Well, maybe. I used to be able to remember important phone numbers before I had a cell phone that could store them. Actually, wait, what’s a cell phone for anymore? Nowadays I can just tweet to my friends. I think I’ve forgotten how to dial altogether.

Dependence on technology is one thing. Yes, we’re probably a little too immersed in bits and bytes. But does that translate to intelligence? I’m no fan of “c u l8r” speak, and any grown man over 30 who writes e-mails like that should probably get a few slaps across the face with an unabridged dictionary. But I have trouble seeing how websites and TV shows that cater to the lowest common denominator are dumbing us down.

I see the logic, though. If planned premise television was thrown out the window, and shows about fat single girls trying to find boyfriends were replaced by something with something slightly more redeeming in value, we’d be a smarter society. But the thing is, there are already lots of shows on Discovery and The Science Channel and A&E pertaining to very interesting, highly sophisticated topics. When it comes to politics, NPR and BBC aren’t going away any time soon.

Text messaging and the Internet destroyed societal intelligence. Sure. They said the same thing about the television, rock music, radio, and perhaps the moving picture. Hell, I’m sure they had that same logic about the light bulb, the printing press, heliocentrism, and the wheel. (”You mean to say you need to CARVE a smooth object to get across that meadow because you ain’t smart enough to use your own feet? What have we become?”)

It’s pretty safe to assume that all those 2,000 comments at the end of any banal YouTube video were penned by toothless troglodytes who have walls covered in feces and keep running into the door because they forgot about the doorknob … which is also covered in feces. But 50, 200, 500 years ago, the common man never really wrote in front of the whole world. I suspect if a medieval kingdom’s peasants all wrote a letter to the lord expressing their views on the new tithing system, someone somewhere is going to call the lord a fag, and another person would compare the new tithing system to something Hitler would have done. And come to think of it, most of those peasants probably did have walls covered in feces.

I have to ask, when people say we’re getting dumber: what’s your reference point? When was the smartest year in the history of the world? Was it before or after the discovery of nanotechnology? If society’s getting dumb, are you referring to the aptitude of the 99th percentile, or the average ordinary citizen?

The discovery of idiocy kind of precedes everything else. There was always that caveman who thought it was a smart idea to yank on the mountain lion’s tail (hey, he was curious, plus he had good reason to think that’s how you start a fire), and the rest of the onlookers learned from it. (”Okay, no pulling on mountain lion’s tails. Your face will become mountain lion hors d’oeurves.”) Of course, there was that one cynical caveman, who worked in IT, that remained convinced mankind wouldn’t survive because people got eaten by mountain lions.

Let’s not focus on the stupidity and assume we’re doomed. Focusing on stupidity, if nothing else, makes us feel better about our own goof-ups, such as the time I … such as the time someone told the airport security guard he didn’t have a gun when the guard actually asked him if he had any gum. Nah, we’ll be okay. And if not, we just wait a few billion years, and the next generation of intelligent life will realize that their ancestors invented flavored dental floss.

But no. Upon looking for the video, it’s actually a Dell commercial, because they’re selling those little mini laptops (kneetops?), and they needed to remake an old song that nobody exactly liked in the first place. Ergo, it’s about effective as a knapsack full of coconuts to the solar plexus.

Jolly! I now hate the entire concept of miniature laptops.

This is my weakness, world. There are so many ways you could enslave me, render me penniless, and get me to do unspeakable acts that would make your children tremble for years. That was a fantastic home run. And I had no idea I’d be thinking about it when I went to Bed Bath & Beyond today.

Now, men only go to Bed Bath & Beyond with two people: your mother or your girlfriend/wife. If they walk into the store on their own free will, it is always an honest mistake, or that’s where the nearest bathroom is.

Sure enough, I was there with the girlfriend this afternoon, as she needed some kind of olive squeezer, or olive oil container, or something to do with freaking olives. I was just kind of mindlessly wandering through the aisles, waiting for it to be over. Every once in a while, they put a display of sportsy things like U. of M towels or cornhole sets, which I have to say is rather nice of BB&B to throw a bone to the men, so they have something to look at.

We kept walking. Suddenly a mound of Tigers crap showed up. There it was, hanging on the pole:

Yes, what you happen to see before you is a battery-powered bottle opener that, when used, plays a radio recording of Magglio Ordoñez’s 3-run* walk-off home run in Game 4 of the 2006 ALCS against the Oakland A’s off Huston Street to win 6-3.

* – For the longest time, I re-remembered this home run as a grand slam. I think it’s because I confuse the number of baserunners with Jason Grilli’s almost disastrous eighth inning where he walked three straight batters.

Do I even need a bottle opener? Probably not. Any bottles I buy contain non-alcoholic drinks, and they’re always twistoff. By all rational accounts, this was a frivolous purchase. But rational thinking can go to hell. This was — and I hope I’m not using hyperbole here — the best purchase I, or perhaps anyone in the world, has ever made. (A claim previously held by William H. Seward.)

So, if you need anything opened, I will gladly drive 30 minutes out of my way to provide this service for you, for the low introductory price of 75 cents.

Long before Create-A-Team, the Hit Stick, the juke button, and even QB Eagles, there was this crappy little game called 10 Yard Fight, released in 1985. This game is old enough to be a washed up NFL running back. And my God, the nuances of the game are so hilarious, it’s absolutely paramount it be played every few months.

There are a couple of different versions. One of them is an arcade-style game where you’re the all-time offense and just see how many points you can score. Interceptions are negative points. But the one I enjoy better involves playing defense as well.

See that? It’s the “Flying O,” known in the game as the kickoff return formation. Note how the guys behind the returner are protecting the return man from any possible pincer attacks, a classic guerrilla warfare tactic.

Ah, 9-on-9 football. Just like our forefathers planned. And I think that’s, what, Wing-T formation? Three QB stance? If you want your motion man to reach the left side, no problem. Just wait 20 seconds! All three men in the back are adept throwers … to the one wide receiver, who runs the Decapitated Chicken route. Clearly this 8-bit creation was an inspiration to Mike Williams.

Actually, passing is pretty much a frowned upon strategy. All quarterbacks decide to throw the ball two feet in the air, meaning if the ball so much as touches a defender, it’s intercepted. Option run!

I know where Tecmo Bowl got its necessity of the ball carrier to just keep shimmying left and right to shake defenders. (Just like in real football!) I’ve never gone more than 30 yards on a breakaway, unfortunately. And how in the hell do all of my teammates fail to follow the rest of the action?

Special teams were probably designed by a programmer whose idea of American football involved tons and tons of guesswork. Punt formations are the same as passing plays. There is no punt returner. But at least the field goals are fun! Just point to the goalposts and it’ll go through.

Oh well. It’s a terrible game. Play it.

(Warning, if you haven’t figured out by now: this is going to be a very sophomoric, suggestive post. I’m okay with that.)

More to the point, “wiener” is almost used less to refer to the edible frankfurter than it is a penis. I don’t know how we got to that point … well, actually, I know exactly how we got there. The shape of the food is almost exactly like shape of the appendage. It even has skin. But further down the line, everything became a phallic reference. If I have to give examples, I will: rod, stick, tool, banana, rocket, baby arm, and many others. Although I can’t explain how a male chicken became associated with that junk. (Ha. Junk.)

I was curious what the objects were that could have been called phallic, but aren’t. That way I can round them all up and ensure that these are not bitten by their innuendo-breathing brethren and themselves become penis slang.

Baguette. Perhaps that it’s French, and some macho guy somewhere didn’t want their creations to have that much credit? Maybe bread has an exemption because the “bun” associated with the hot dog represents something else.

Maybe bread alone does not a gutter mind make. As Quizno’s has shown, you need an oven with entry points and a name like “Torpedo” or “Bullet” to drive the dick point home. I’m awaiting their $5 Rocket sub.

Remote control. Could the buttons disqualify it? Or perhaps it’s such an advanced piece of equipment that turning it into slang gives the body part, which doesn’t emit radio waves, more credit than it deserves.

Yarn. Probably the thickness and rigidity. But the ball jokes, coupled with the fact with what the target demographic does with it, leads me to believe that’s the only thing holding it back.

Millipede. It could definitely be the feet. Not everyone is into that.

Stretch limo. The whole point of buying an impressive car, I’ve heard, is to, y’know, compensate. I don’t think a guy in his 40s who thinks his life is over will buy a stretch limo to try and feel younger, but maybe that’s because they’re rather inaccessible and hard to navigate. A stretch Hummer, on the other hand…

Cylindrical prism. Here’s one that completely baffles me. This is absolutely a phrase that rolls right off the tongue and can fit into everyday conversation. I guess I’m lucky that such an intellectual phrase hasn’t been sullied by dirty minds. Heh. “Fit into.”

Math is fun. (Damental.) And sports are fun too. Like peanut butter into one’s chocolate, or however the story goes, baseball statistics are like a mosquito bite. Sometimes scratching them is pointless, but sometimes it’s a sign to get the hell out of the forest before you catch malaria.

For instance, last night I noticed that Mike Lowell hit two home runs against the Tigers, and he didn’t even start the game. What’s more, he entered the game as a replacement for the helmet-throwin’ Zimmer-impersonatin’ Kevin Youkilis after he got plunked. That means he was a pinch runner. And only two other guys in history — the last being 30 years ago, and neither players you’ve probably heard of — hit two home runs coming into the game as a pinch runner. Thanks, B-R PI!

Clearly, that’s not a useful factoid. But the Moneyball generation of number-crunching general managers do understand the usefulness of them. New stats get invented all the time. (And soon, a ton will be invented.)

But here’s one I’d like to see. It’d be a more detailed ERA. Earned run average can be deceptive, as can WHIP, because hits aren’t always the pitcher’s fault. Likewise, when a pitcher gives up eight runs in four innings, that’s a bad start. But is it worse to do that against the Rangers or, say, the Padres? Is it better for a pitcher to allow a home run to Albert Pujols or, um, Scott Podsednik?

As I type this, I probably realize that someone out there has already come up with adjusted ERA and WHIP numbers that account for better/worse players and teams. Perhaps not, but I just thought of this on my couch, so I can’t be the first. But consider this a suggestion to those out there with access to databases of baseball numbers and the ability to weave baskets of geeky bliss. Maybe it’ll be useful for GMs (they could determine big game pitchers, guys who get the outs they should), or maybe it’ll just be another crazy mosquito that guys like us can scratch when determining Cy Young candidates.