It's always nice when our satire gets appreciated.

It's even better when it's spread nationally AND invloves banging on the Chicago Cubs.

Be proud Redbird Nation... we got ours: LINK HERE

Back in January, Hooks posted some paparazzi pics of Brad Penny and his dancer girlfriend Karina Smirnoff on a beach (ha - Dancing With the Stars...you thought Penny was a total sleazeball, pulling a Kris Benson there for a second, didn't you?).

It pretty much looked like a public opportunity to show off Karina's hotness, which is fine by us. Even better, Penny looked like he could have been Big Country Bryant Reeves' little brother. Although maybe the two lovebirds were on the show Blind Date, and Brad took her to the beach to play catch, knowing that she was going to wear a skimpy bikini - and have to constantly bend over to pick up the ball. Perverted Smart man, that Brad Penny is.

Fast forward to this past weekend, and the news breaks that Karina and Brad are engaged. She was at a big party in Las Vegas, showing off the ring. Thanks to OK! Magazine for providing a pic:

Yes ladies, there's a ring there (or so I've been told).

So after getting paid $7.5 million from the Cardinals last year for basically doing a month and a half of work, I guess Penny had house money to play with. He's a free agent now, and that reception isn't gonna pay for itself, sooo....time to call Boras. Unless Kyle Lohse is invited, he's got a lot of money to blow.

[As a bonus, I'll pass along this article as well. And I just want to point out to People Magazine that I know what 6'4", 230 looks like. Either he's not actually 6'4", or Brad Penny hasn't been 230 in ten years. At least.]

CBS has a show called "Undercover Boss" where CEO's and other corporate big shots of companies go and do the grunt work for several days and then learn to love their gilded life a big more (?).

Let's be honest- it's pretty much an hour-long infomercial on national TV.

But when Undercover Boss visited the Chicago Cubs this summer... we knew they were going to heap a healthy helping of FAIL on us.

They didn't disappoint.

Some highlights from last night's premiere where part-owner Todd Ricketts was the 'undercover boss':

+ Wrigley Field bathrooms are cleaned with a fire hose and, apparently, purple drank:

+ At first glance the 'crew clubhouse' appears to be a tremendous hellhole. But then you notice the Nomar Garciaparra jeresy tee hanging out and realize that we literally might be seeing hell.

Click READ MORE to get to the rest of this story...

Earlier this week we brought you THIS STORY about the U2 stage and how it's going to require the Cardinals completely re-sod the entire field after the July show.

Today, courtesy of my cousin's Facebook page, here's a rending I will now post here and gain the glory from:

HT: Matt Fields

Content.

We need content in the off-season.  So really it was only a matter of time before we ordered the “refreshingly meaty” bacon gift basket and had the Mad Librarian sample all of it’s contents.

Including:

• Bacon Soda
• Bacon Popcorn
• Bacon Lip Balm
• Bacon Gravy
• Surprise Bacon Treat

And yes, they seriously make bacon lip balm.

How’s it all taste? I’d assume AWESOME… but we’ll know for sure when she gets the goods and samples them for the first time.

And she’ll do it on video.

By ‘it’ we mean sample the bacon.

By ‘sample the bacon’ we mean she’ll literally try all the meat…

You know what- toss off. Get your mind out of the gutter, OK. This is a professional website with standards and an editorial board and….

LOL- Keyboard Cat RULZ!

Now what was I saying? Oh, Right. The Mad Librarian will be getting all this bacon crap next week, so when she has videos, we’ll be posting them here with the product reviews. I expect the whole thing to be crispy. Plus we’ll probably give away something too. So come back early and often.

Let’s check in on the CD’s official NFL Pick ‘Em contest.  We’re about half-way home here and  the winner will get 50 dollars at the end of the year. And that will probably bankrupt us. But whatever…

Show Me The Money, River City Rusty Trombones and Choke Artists are in a three way tie for first place, while the HookPicks languish down in the 19 hole.

Aaron Miles is Really Crappy seems to be in the hunt, but I think we all know how that’s going to turn out for them… BACK BITING!

And if you need something to read, how about my take down of the Randy Moss PASS by the Rams on SB Nation STL: LINK HERE

Now, the Friday Links…

• Band names in icon form. LINK HERE
• The longest Yahoo! Answer of all time. LINK HERE
• Joel McHale has become Enemy #1 of the Today Show's 4th hour. LINK HERE (HT: FWC)
• Now that's a close call, eh? LINK HERE
• Now we know how the UPS guy always misses you. LINK HERE
• Google has an "Elmer Fudd" option in their language translator. LINK HERE

That's a week, fools. Have a merry weekend and be sure to do whatever it is that you want to do. We encourage that.

O.M.G.

Did you hear? Bono. The Edge. On the same field as Albert and Holliday? Yeah, braugh. It's the best band of all time by a long shot* coming to the mothertrucking STL

* U2 is not th best band of all time. By a long shot.

But it is true, the tickets go on sale Monday and it's bound to be the event of next summer in St. Louis. Unlike The Eagles, I don't think that one of the hottest tours is going to have trouble packing the Cardinals home stadium.

Here's the rub, though. I think that this whole deal is more than foreboding.

Pray-tell, Hooks.

Well... buried in the excitement of this weeks announcement that U2 would be bringing their 360 tour to Busch Stadium in July 2011, was this little nugget courtesy of Kevin C. Johnson:

When the subject of a U2 show at Busch Stadium was mentioned in March in connection to the Eagles and Dixie Chicks at Busch announcement, DeWitt said the show was physically too big. He said U2's stage would take up the entire field, requiring complete re-sodding.

"That became too problemic," DeWitt said then. "We're about baseball games first."

But that has been reconsidered, and the show will take place on the entire field, which will be re-sodded after the show.

Hmmm.

Looks like the boys know how to grease the skids. And by grease the skids, I mean pay DeWitt and his merry band of accountants enough money to completely destroy the field of a supposed NL contender in the middle of the season.

Of course Punching Kitty was already snarking about this here. But seriously... they're going to re-sod the entire field in the middle of the season?

The concert is on July 17th. The sodding will begin on July 18th. One week later on the 25th of July the Cardinals will host the Houston Astros.

I've laid sod.

Probably not as well as the horticulturists, or whatever they are, that do it at Busch Stadium, but still, I've at least got a taste of sodding. And I can tell you without a doubt that the sod I laid was not in any shape to hold world class baseball 7 days after I got done flopping it down on the ground.

Assuming the Cardinals are contending by July 25th (which, no matter how negative you are, you'd still be hard pressed to tell me they'd be completely out of it by then) then you're going to risk having Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, Chris Carpenter and every other millionaire you employ have any number of injuries because you think that U2 is cool?

Well, shit. It probably will be cool. But still... nobody has really delved into what a risk this actually is.

Where is Joe Strauss with the grounds crew? How is Derrick Goold not testing sod methodology in Tower Grove? Matthew Leach. For the love of God!!!!

Maybe this is a gross over-reaction story with a headline intended to rack up page views for the next 10 months. But if one of these guys go down and those British bastards don't play 5 songs off Joshua Tree... LaRussa might cut a man.

What say you? Will this be an issue? Or do you trust the Cardinals?

Photo: JoeSportsFan.com (hell of a PS job, boys)

Especially if it has to do with their old, crotchety, racist, no-longer-with-us former owner.

Thanks to @star1021matt for passing this along (@LJIngram is pictured).  There are still no reports of anyone carrying around a cardboard cut-out of Bill DeWitt Jr or III on Halloween. Maybe that's too much like the real thing to find any humor there.

Two years from today Sarah Palin could be the next POTUS.

Part of me wants to see this just because I think her election would cause mass chaos not just in America, but pretty much all over the world. But another part of me is scared to death that Palin as President causes a mass defection of everyone in Hollywood and the first live televised suicide on MSNBC. Either way, is there any doubt this lady is gearing up for a run at the White House?

That's not for 2 more years, though. We've still got to deal with the 2010 election. The 2010 election is kind of boring.

I filled out my pre-ballot for MO and I can’t say that any of the races I’ll be casting a vote for is a position we truly care about. One US Senate seat is up for grabs, and I’ll be casting my vote against whoever the fucknut that voted against the 9/11 first responder I see on my TV every night. And if you think that’s a stupid way to vote, you’re probably right. But still- dude CAN’T BREATHE and we can’t slide him some jack?

On all the Judicial Circuit Court judges, I like to vote for pleasant sounding names in case I’m ever, you know, falsely accused of some crime. Angela Quigless sounds much more palatable to me than Robin Ransom Vannoy. I bet Ms. Vannoy is very, very vindictive. Like the old judge that threw the book at lady for not having her handicapped placard hanging from her mirror, then got caught that same afternoon doing the same thing.

Ahhhh… justice.

State Representatives are all pretty much uncontested, except in District 64 where there is a Democrat, Republican and Constitutional party member vying for the seat. I’m leaning CST since Mark Robert Opheim could be mistaken for Mark Robert Opium.

Opium would be an awesome last name.

The big prop measure in MO is some sort of deal to get rid of puppy mills. This one sounds so no brainer that I’m actually worried. These are the kinds of deals where everyone piles on something irrationally (PUPPIES? SAVE THE PUPPIES!) and then in 2 years, corn and milk are $500 dollars or something we totally didn’t expect. Why? Something with the puppy bill.

As a lemming, though, I have to vote for it.

None of these decisions are rock solid though. If you have a compelling case for me, put it in the comments and I’ll consider it. I'm not voting until after 5:30 anyway. I doubt we get any though. Most of the people that read this site are illegal immigrants we force pay farmers to force to look at until we get a sufficient amount of impressions served to pay the bills.

Say what you want about Brett Favre; I'm sick of the guy too. But if I had two broken bones in my ankle, I'd be milking that for every ounce of sympathy could wring out of it. The last thing I'd be trying to do is play professional football and/or getting the holy hell pounded out of me. Hate on the coverage the dude produces, but respect what he's doing. They don't make guys like this anymore...

Does anyone else ever want to comment on a Facebook post, but you see 10 other people have already said something and you don't want to get 10 e-mail telling you that someone else has also commented on a post? I do that all the time. I like to comment and then never think about it again...

There is literally no Cardinal news this week. Nothing. At all. Meaning also that the Cardinals are down to 50 or so weeks with Albert Pujols under contract. When we figure out when his contract officially ends, we'll make a countdown clock...

Mini Ron Washington is one of the joys of following sports. We didn't know this kid was out there, but do to a confluence of events, including the Rangers making it to the World Series, Mini Ron Washington is in our life...

The Rams are 4-4 heading into the bye week. It's hard to say you're happy with 4-4, especially since the Rams should be 6-2. But considering where they came from the past 3 seasons, It's damn refreshing to be completely average in November...

Last week I set the record for fantasy points in my work FF league. I spent part of Tuesday night crafting charts detailing how awesome I was in a statistical manner. This week I set the low mark for FF points ever...

Nolan Ryan was a great player. I always thought the dude was an all-time great. I also get that the Rangers don't have a storied history like the Sawx or Yankees or Cards to pimp out when they get to the big stage. But seriously, does Ryan have to be involved with EVERY ceremonial duty/opening pitch? It's getting a bit embarrassing at this point, no Nolan?...

Also, Barbra Bush scoring the game? Awesome...

Movie Snot: Killers- I happened to have to work on this project Saturday night and needed a mindless movie to take a break for 90 minutes. Let this be a lesson: ALWAYS check out Rotten Tomatoes before ordering a movie. My word, that was an awful, awful movie. As douchy as it sounds, I've always kind of liked Ashton Kutcher And Katherine Heigl looks like the girl I dated on and off throughout college, so I think she's fairly attractive. But OY. Just OY. It's so bad on so many different levels. But I guess the biggest error was in the casting. Neither role is believable at all. Kutcher is not a spy. Heigl is not a doting wife. Stay away from this one. Far away. Grade: F...

I'm disappointed I didn't think to be an Angry Bird for Halloween before this weekend. I spend 8 hours a week on that damn game...

Speaking of Halloween, people are wondering how the big party I throw with my friend Lindsay went on Friday:

That's thousands of people at the Great Grizzly Bear rocking their faces off. So, yeah, looks like we've still got the magic touch. And in case you're having a party in the next couple of weeks- play THIS SONG and it will get people rowdy. Just trust me...

Pujols was the subject of a nice rant on 30 Rock this week. And anytime Alec Baldwin decides to name check the Cardinals best player to America, we need to get the video, right?

Pretty. Damn. Cool.

And a big HT to FWC for alerting the staff to this gem.

Reading assignment? Yes. Reading assignment.

• How the Rams are like Jennifer Aniston on SB Nation STL: LINK HERE
• The XXX Chalupa ordeal on InsideSTL: LINK HERE
  

Now the Friday Links...

• An interactive tour of The Wire locations. LINK HERE (HT: FWC)
• Oh Trebek, you're a funny guy now, huh? LINK HERE
• An Internet classic! Drunk girl ruins wedding reception. LINK HERE
• Nordstrom. Doesn't get women, either. LINK HERE
• The news in SF is now reporting on smoking week. LINK HERE
• Carving a pumpkin with a GUN. LINK HERE

That's it. That's the post. Have a large Halloween weekend. We'll be back here when we feel like it. Don't expect too much from us. We've had enough of this site too.