Sweetbob’s Hipster Music Playlist: August 2018

I’ve been crazy busy lately and this upcoming month will be nuts! I have to do a lot of traveling and need to put up some NFL team previews and fantasy football content. It will be a crunch, but it will be done for you guys.

Why will I be traveling a lot? Well, my brother needs an LVAD heart pump surgery and it has to be done down in Indianapolis (a few hours away). He will be there for a few weeks and then I’ll be over at his house a lot to help in his recovery. He still has a long way to go in the long run since he needs a heart transplant, but this should help stabilize his heart while he is put on the transplant list. If you want to donate to my brother’s heart recovery, you can find it here…or feel free to email me for his address to send him a card.

I always keep an ear out for new music. I love discovering new bands/songs, it’s a habit from my days as a music journalist. Even though this is mostly a sports blog, I still add quite a bit of music and pop culture content. Keep sending me tracks via email or Twitter.

If you want to listen to songs that appeared on past playlists, you can listen to our playlist on Spotify or go here to view our past hipster playlists.

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Toy Crazy: Mattel’s WWE Elite Series 61

I’m a self-confessed vintage toy nerd. I collect vintage wrestling action figures from the 80’s & 90’s. I started purchasing some vintage toys out of nostalgia. Well, WWE and Mattel sucked me into their new stuff. I now buy a few figures a month. You can view photos of my collection on my Instagram account.

The lineup for WWE Elite series 61 feels a little ho-hum since there are so many recent repeats. I guess the bar was set high after so many great sets to start 2018. This is a set that gets Mattel ready for the Holiday season, since it’s important to get popular guys on the shelves this Fall.

The WWE Superstars included in Elite 61 are AJ Styles, Fashion Police (Fandango & Tyler Breeze, Shane McMahon, Big E and Kevin Owens.

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Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – July 29th

This is the 17th week of the fantasy baseball season.

The trade deadline is just days from now. The trade deadline in your league is a week or two away. If you’re out of the race in a dynasty league, it’s time to start playing for next year. Shoot for some can’t miss prospects if you have to move a stud.

Which hot hitters are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on July 29th, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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The 10 Worst Contracts in Sports Right Now

When a team has ample salary cap space, general managers tend to make poor decisions.

Most of the worst contracts are in the NBA and Major League Baseball. It’s really hard to have a bad contract in the NFL since nearly every deal is basically a series of one-year deals with team options. Bad contracts still happen in the league when guaranteed money gets out of control.

Many of the worst NBA contracts right now happened when the salary cap ballooned before the 2016-17 season. Many of those deals have teams already looking for relief by trading draft picks to teams just to take on a bad contract.

Here are the the ten worst contracts in sports.

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Top 5 Indie Music Festivals

For centuries now, culture remains one of the most powerful social norms in the world.  From dress codes, food, festivals, to wide-ranging traditional practices, how else would we talk about a world that reeks of rich diversities?  But, while the hype, frenzies, and thrills of culture keep up interconnect in one way or the other, it is noteworthy that some overwhelming take our excitements into the overdrive.

Indian Culture: An epoch for which we all crave

In the past few decades, India has not only outlived economic expectations of its citizens but also developed into a powerhouse of cultural attractions.  Everyone knows about the Indian Sari, a dressing code that is colorful from far and into the heart of New Delhi. But did you know Indians boat of some of the most captivating cultural shows worldwide, attracting millions every year? A case in point is India Music festivals.  If you are to partake in a work from home writing on this subject, you will probably run out of the count.

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Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – July 22nd

We are now officially in the second-half of 2018 fantasy baseball season.

I hope you’re still in playoff contention in your league(s) this season. The trade deadline is fast approaching real-life MLB and in your fantasy leagues. If you’re out of the race in a dynasty league, it could be time to dump a couple starters for some young studs.

Which hot pitchers are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on July 22nd, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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5 Fun, Time-Wasting Casual Mobile Games

I’m a big fan of time-wasting casual games to play on my phone and tablet. I’m probably ‘too much’ of a fan as I’m usually playing five or six games at a time throughout the day. I’m usually only playing them for a few minutes at a time, but I’m often nose-first in my phone while watching television.

Since I play so many of these games, I feel like I am a good judge of quality of these time wasters. Many games have came and went off my Samsung devices, so these are five games that I’ve been playing for awhile and don’t see future uninstall in the near future.

These games can be found on Google Play (and possibly the Apple App Store). I’m not an iPhone or iPad guy, so I can’t comment if the releases are different on that platform. I enjoy these games on my Android devices and think the developers really knocked it out of the park with these mobile games.

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8 Players That Changed the NFL Draft

Every NFL Draft there seems to be a new trendy way to grade a draft class. The grading process changes every year based on team needs and new play-calling trends.

There have been a few individual players over the years that solely changed the way NFL teams draft.

These players changed the ‘norms’ many NFL scouts thought about certain players and helped (or hurt) other players with similar skill-sets. Yes, not all of these changes were for the better.

Michael Vick

Vick helped open the door in two different ways: His success helped more African American quarterbacks get drafted in the following years, and more athletic quarterbacks were taken high soon after Vick was drafted in 2001.

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Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – July 8th

We are now fourteen weeks into the 2018 fantasy baseball season.

We are almost at the All-Star Break and the trade deadline is right around the corner. Teams will be going through some changes and you may need to make a few tough decisions. Roles will change and a reliable fantasy player could find less at-bats.

Which hot pitchers are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on July 8th, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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America’s White Boy’s 2018 MLB Un-All-Star Team

The 2018 MLB All-Star Game is about a week away and it has become a yearly tradition that we look at all the former MLB All-Stars that are having bad years.

The season is a little more than half over and it’s not too late for some of these players to bounce back and turn their seasons around. You can look at our Un-All-Star team article last year, a few bounced back and finished strong.

I’m a very active fantasy baseball owner, it didn’t take me long to make this list. I always keep an eye on fantasy busts and many on this list were selected in fantasy baseball drafts in March.

The old benchmark for an All-Star was thrown out with the bathwater when Bud Selig decided each team must have at least one representative in the All-Star Game.

Here is the America’s White Boy‘s 2018 MLB Un-All-Star team.

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Toy Crazy: 2018 SDCC Funko Exclusives

The San Diego Comic-Con is the biggest comic book convention in the United States. It has grown into an overall nerd-vana with movie trailer premieres and Q&A panels with Hollywood stars.

If you’re an action figure (or toy) collector, a perk about SDCC is all the exclusive releases.

Funko has been releasing exclusive figures at SDCC for years, but over the last few years, they have been sharing the exclusives with certain retailers. It allows collectors all over the country a chance to buy some cool figures.

Funko announced all the exclusives this year, but haven’t announced which retailers will carry specific figures. Once that information comes out, I’ll update this post (*UPDATE* I’ve updated this post to show where each figure will be shared at retail).

Starting on July 19th, you should be able to find ‘most’ of these SDCC Funko exclusives at your local mall. Here’s the list of Funko exclusives for the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con.

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Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – July 1st

We are now thirteen weeks into the 2018 fantasy baseball season.

There are some elite bats on the disabled list. Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, Josh Donaldson and A.J. Pollock still occupy many fantasy owners’ DL spot. It could be time to make a few tough decisions on long-term DL guys.

Which hot hitters are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on July 1st, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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