Sorry for making your naughty bits shrivel up with repulsion just now. But let me draw your attention to a dating column on College Humor. One hapless reader writes in with his tale of woe:

A while back me and my GF were having sex. I put on my iPod for some mood music, but instead of putting on a playlist I just hit shuffle. Twenty minutes into our love making session, the music ended and a podcast I had downloaded of PTI (Pardon the Interruption) from ESPN came on. Neither of us wanted to stop to change it, so we finished to the soothing voices of Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon. I no longer listen to PTI.
-Anonymous

Good god, man. That can't be healthy for you, as you'll never be able to do the deed again without thinking of Tony and Michael debating Tim Tebow's NFL potential. And I hoped you used protection; any kid conceived under those circumstances has no choice in life but to become Stat Boy.

Dating, It's Complicated [College Humor]

I thank him because he did the sportswriting profession proud in his three years on Monday Night Football. Kornheiser technically isn't a sportswriter anymore, having escaped the dying newspaper business like many of us, but when he was hired for one of the most high-profile assignments in sports television, he was dismissed by many viewers and critics as a columnist painfully out of his league.

As it turned out, he often carried the prime-time broadcast with his sharp observations and well-grooved wit, providing the background knowledge necessary to pull off the sideshow shtick. ... Kornheiser, a journalist at heart, knew that the style couldn't exist without the substance.

...

I'm sad to say that no one's going to be putting another sportswriter in that booth or any other booth. Kornheiser is the first and last of a breed.

The column is a bro-hug from one increasingly irrelevant sports columnist-cum-TV personage to another, which I suppose is sad in its own way. But then here comes Mariotti, basically using Kornheiser to loudly proclaim his own value in this modern age, when "the written word stopped being more powerful than the spoke word."

I am one of those writers — a regular on Around The Horn, the lively, seven-seasons-and-running debate show that precedes PTI on weekday afternoons — and our target audience of thirtysomethings, twentysomethings and teens clearly likes to watch more than read. ... AOL has an enormous monthly audience of sports readers on FanHouse, and when the site launches video, that's when quantum leaps in viewership will take place. It's a video age.

Point being, the people on the video screen have to be informative and compelling.

People like Tony Kornheiser, Mariotti writes, and here's wagering he can think of another. The psychologists, I believe, call this projection.

Admit it: You'll Miss Kornheiser on MNF [FanHouse]

Gruden, who lost his defensive coordinator to Baby Boy Lane, then lost his job running the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has found a new career—listening to Ron Jaworski explain the mechanics of three-step drops. It shouldn't take longer than three or four weeks of lousy MNF blowouts before Gruden will probably do something scumbaggy and Mike Tirico will stare wistfully off into the distance as he imagines what life would have been like if he'd stayed with the circus like his parents wanted. Carnies never judge.

Of course, we all know that Gruden is just biding his time until next summer when it's finally revealed which NFL team has drafted the toughest quarterback who ever lived. Jon will then arrange for the "extradition" of that team's head coach, taking his place as mentor and idolater of The Tebow. Then he'll be replaced in the booth by Cody Gifford and the circle will be complete.

Jon Gruden to replace Tony Kornheiser on 'Monday Night Football' [USA Today]

As far as I can determine, the videos below were made by Verona, Pennsylvania native Gavin Jenkins, who teaches English at a middle school in Shenzhen, China, where he's been living for about a year. Much of his teaching plan revolves around sports, which is always fun. It's all undoubtedly part of a bigger plan: When our financial overlords eventually come here and put us to work in their sugar mines, they'll have to know how to speak our language. What better source for that than Wilbon and Kornheiser on Pardon the Interruption?

Also entertaining: Chinese PTI with girls. But for more advanced students, there's the class on NHL trash talking.

It's the sign of a highly advanced educational system when your midterm final includes the sentence: "Flyers fans have the IQ of sweet potatoes."

Chinese Students Learn English Imitating PTI [NESW Sports]
Chinese PTI (Part I) [Douchebagabroad]

Kornheiser is in the bottom row to the left with the goofy hat and clutching the trophy like man who would only release it if you pried it from his cold, dead hands. He looks like any guy robbing a liquor story in a "Dirty Harry" movie. If only he would remove his hat, so we could see if the comb-over was in its early stages of development or still a few years away from being born.

*******

Now, let's watch Matt Sussman do that funny thing with his fingers and live blog us through the night.

Thanks. See you tomorrow. Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin and...The Fightins.

Go Phils.

Following a replay of the Felix Jones kickoff return for a touchdown with audio from the Spanish-language call of the game, Kornheiser said, “I took high-school Spanish, and that either means ‘nobody is going to touch him’ or ‘could you pick up my dry cleaning in the morning.’”

ESPN's official statement about it is, "After the comment was made our production team, including tony, discussed it. they agreed that making the apology was the right thing to do."

Okay. Is there some stereotype about Spanish people Latinos and dry cleaning that I don't know about? Kornheiser's subsequent apology seemed stilted and that he was completely annoyed to do it. It probably was a little overly cautious, but then again since it is Hispanic Heritage Month, you'd hate to anger the Spanish dry cleaning business owners out there with your pithy one-liners. I actually found Kornheiser's joke less offensive than listening to Mike Tirico over-enunciate Vaqueros.

Kornheiser Makes On-Air Apology [PFT]

Photo courtesy of Midwesterner's Guide To NYC

We hear that Tony Kornheiser's car was stolen from the ESPN garage in DC, last week causing "mad drama," to quote one source. He dropped his keys in the garage, someone took the car and now he's demanded extra security because he claims its a stalker.

Wow, that stalker was really lucky that TK dropped his car keys. In a wholly unrelated note, Joe Theismann has been released after questioning.

Kornheiser's Car: Stolen! [Media Bistro]
Tony Kornheiser's car may have been stolen by a "stalker" [Awful Announcing]

"I called my source back and they talked to the other people who were at Big Fish that night and corrected themselves, saying it was Kornheiser's wife who was worried that he might be "too famous" for the place, meaning they wouldn't be able to have a civilized meal without being bothered. (They were celebrating Kornheiser's 60th birthday this past weekend.) At this point, who knows if it's even true that his wife felt like that.

"With that said, I no longer have any confidence that he said, "I want what I want when I want it." Maybe the people who saw this exchange were Kornheiser haters, who knows. Either way, I wasn't there so I can't help clear these muddy waters. And since I actually enjoy Kornheiser's work, I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt and not assume he was being a crabby jackass on his 60th birthday."

Then another, unnamed source e-mails us late Tuesday and tells this version of events:

Following up on your post yesterday, I spoke with someone who was in the Big Fish Grill when Kornheiser was there. It turns out, the real story is a little different than the Pulp Culture blog had it. According to my source, Kornheiser and his wife went to the restaurant and when he saw that the only available table was at the front of the establishment, right in the view of everyone, he decided to leave and come back another time. After walking out, they were followed to the street by a tall gentleman who offered the couple a table behind the host station. Kornheiser obliged, was still spotted and signed a few autographs after sitting down.

As for the, "I want what I want when I want it," my source told me that is patently untrue. Tony ordered a dish on the menu and after eating some of his salad, was told that the dish was unavailable. When his waitress offered a replacement, he turned it down, stating that his salad was big enough. The waitress took it upon herself to go next door and get the fish for the dish. I was told that Tony was very thankful for the waitress, including an autograph on the menu for her boyfriend and a very handsome tip.

If there are any other witnesses who would like to step forward, we of course would be happy to air your views. But keep in mind, of course, that you must be holding the conch before you are allowed to speak ...

Tony Kornhesier Is Very Fussy About His Shellfish [Deadspin]

"I'm not all that good at it. I'm not as good as I'd like to be at it. I'm really not. I don't really care that much about football. And I understand that there's a game going on. And I think what I'm best at, the kind of yodeling that I'm best at is in a little bit of a longer form than is allowed in a football booth. And there's three people in there and I'm the third guy and, you know, and all of those years having a radio show and all of those years writing a column I'm used to having the microphone pretty much all to myself. And, so, it might not be the best circumstance for me. I'd like to think I got better at it. But frankly, it may not be the best thing for me."

So, will this be his last year in the booth? He seems to give off the impression that his time is short. That would be a shame because he does add some much-needed levity and insight into that booth. But, jeez, it looks like one of the most coveted positions in sports media will once again be for the taking — probably by someone who, you know, actually likes football.

Listen to the segment here.

Tony Kornheiser Has Hernia — Lands On DL [On The DL]

After an interview with the On The DL's podcast show yesterday, it appears that the comforting student-teacher friendship these two once had is gone forever:

With Tony [Kornheiser] it’s been more problematic and it goes beyond that, but as I like to tell people about Tony, who I’ve known forever and haven’t now for, actually, several months – if not more than a year – to paraphrase Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, about his mother, ‘Tony is dead to me.’

Looks like somebody has to call a sit-down between these two.

Thoughts on Kornheiser [On The DL]

Kornheiser announced it on his radio show this morning.

"All I ever wanted to be was a newspaper writer," he said, which is not something that anyone under the age of 30 will ever say again. "This other stuff is great, but I don't care about it," he continued. "In my mind that's what it says on the headstone, it says 'newspaper guy.' "

But he also said he signed the papers to take the Post's buyout last night. He said he still might contract with The Post to do his Talking Points videos and his Page 2 excerpts, and he said some people in the leadership asked him to stay but didn't really insist, and he said he feared he'd never have the moral high ground again. And, as any longtime listeners would expect, he was plenty wistful when discussing what happened yesterday. "There was not enough wine in the world, there wasn't, not last night," he said.

How sad: Not only does Kornheiser have to announce his buyout, but he has to do it while hungover.

We appreciate Kornheiser's sadness about all this, and can't imagine how it must feel. Though, to be fair, we suspect his buyout package, along with the ESPN and radio money, should make for quite a comfortable golden parachute; the column seemed to be getting in the way of everything else anyway. We should hope that everyone else being bought out at newspapers across the country, the arts critics, the beat reporters, so on, so forth, will be so fortunate.

But godspeed, Tony: We'll miss the columns. Though we suspect we'll still be seeing you, oh, about as often as we do now.

Kornheiser Takes Buyout [DC Sports Bog]

We loved how, postgame, Tom Brady claimed that he heard the whistle before his fourth-and-1 call, and that's why he didn't get the first down. Right. It's impressive that the Patriots' search for dominance is so complete that they can't even admit that things went wrong when they didn't officially happen. They're not just undefeated; they're ministers of information.

And say what you will about ESPN, but their telecast matched the spectacle last night. They will never, ever have a more timely guest in the booth than Don Shula, watching the Pats threaten his most enduring legacy in the city where he became famous. When the Ravens scored in the third fourth quarter to take a touchdown lead, Tony Kornheiser pointed out that Shula had grabbed his back in excitement. Shula pretended like he wasn't rooting against anybody ... but we knew. It was an exhilarating game, and it's exactly why, ultimately, the Patriots are great for the NFL this year. Everything they do is now draped in history and drama, and they're going to be unmissable, pretty much for the next two months. We can't wait.

Because he wants to focus on ... his other TV and radio gigs!

DCRTV is hearing more rumblings that Washington Post superstar sports columnist Tony Kornheiser will not be returning to ESPN's "Monday Night Football" next season. We're told that Kornheiser wants to focus on his local morning radio show, which resumes on new talker 3WT in January, and on his ESPN "PTI" afternoon TV program. Kornheiser's decision to give up the "MNF" color spot could cause some hurt feelings at ESPN, which removed sports media rival and former Redskin great Joe Theismann from the "MNF" broadcast booth before this season's shows started. However, Kornheiser has publicly said that he and Theismann have a friendly relationship.

It would seem a shame, to us, if we went through all this just so we could go back to playing the old, "Kornheiser says something over-the-top anytime he wants a paid 'suspension,'" game. We're all a bit old for that now, aren't we Tony? That said: If this is true, we're one step closer to Frank Caliendo in the MNF booth. Admit it, it feels inevitable.

Kornheiser Leaving MNF? [DCRTV]

The charges, as levied by Rockies blog The Latest Word. First, Dinger:

We here in Denver play home to the absolutely worst carpet-covered, shit-and-Febreze-smelling, sorry excuse for a cheerleading, anthropomorphized cartoon fossil. We even have a state dinosaur and the Rockies couldn't even bring themselves to put an androgynous stegasaurus in a jersey with no pants.

And on Kornheiser:

Like most sports commentators, Tony Kornheiser is too busy falling all over himself for the Phillies, or, more accurately, reporting the Mets "historic collapse" like it was the fall of the Alamo. Kornheiser is self-deprecating enough to confess his East Coast bias and admit his pick of the Phillies over the Rockies is due in large part because "I can't name anybody on the other team." But to claim an inconclusive call at home plate is the primary reason the Rockies are in the post-season, or, worst yet, imply that a World Championship would be tainted because of it, is to misrepresent the Rockies entire storyline to millions of viewers.

It does indeed seem ludicrous to imply that, in an age of rampant steroid abuse, that Monday's call at home plate on Matt Holliday would somehow taint the rest of the playoffs.

As for Dinger, the most efficient way to get rid of him is to alert Barney's copyright lawyers as to his existence.

Petition To The Rockies Concerning The Killing Of Dinger [The Latest Word]
Pardon This Interruption, Bitch [The Latest Word]

Yes, the addition of Ron Jaworski to the booth has already dramatically altered the whole dynamic in there. (We're not the only skeptic turning around on this.) Jaworski looses up Tony Kornheiser — he, lo, laughs at his jokes! What a concept! — and lets Mike Tirico work as a sort of moderator (which is what he does best), but what he brings most to the contest is ... well, he actually knows what he's talking about. He breaks down plays in a smart, accessible way, without sounding like a snot about it. He's likable and informative. See? It's really not that hard.

The jury is still out — it was just one preseason game, after all — but yeah: We might have to get used to not despising the entire "Monday Night Football" crew, people.

Official "MNF" Review: Game One [Awful Announcing]