NEWS AND NOTES

--Friday's Backyard Brawl will probably be your last chance to watch Shady McCoy play at Heinz Field (for Pitt, that is). [PG]

--Congrats to my W&J Presidents, 35-21 winners in their first-round playoff game against Christopher Newport, which is either a school or one singular guy who somehow made it into the D-3 playoffs. [Washjeff.edu]

--Here's the highly-anticipated Ryan Malone song, sung by a guy who is really bitter towards Ryan Malone. [The PensBlog]

--Big Ben brings his mouth to a gunfight...and wins. What can't he do? [SPORTSbyBROOKS]

--Ben Roethlisberger=Guy Fieri. You'll just have to click the link to see how it relates. [Hugging Harold Reynolds]

--The Phil Savage email fiasco is detailed at length by Joe Bendel, with photos. A definite candidate for story of the year. [Fox 970]

--Loyal Notre Dame fans spent Saturday hurling snowballs at their own team during the Syracuse game. Yeah, that Charlie Weis hire is really working out well. [AOL Fanhouse]

--Looks like Pitt inked a top-25 recruiting class for hoops. Some have it 9th, some have it 24th. [PG]

--The Pens get high marks from Scott Burnside in his quarter-season report. [ESPN]

--PacMan Jones' next misstep will probably be the end of his NFL career. Can we start calling him "Morris the Cat" at this point? [ESPN]

--Anyone curious to see what Macho Man Randy Savage looks like these days? [Zimbio]

--A simply unreal Barry Bonds tattoo. That is all. [Mouthpiece Sports]

--Is it me, or does this recap of the Bengal-Steeler game sound a little overly-optimistic? [Cincinnati.com]

--Is the world aware that there's an ongoing lawsuit between Taco Bell and 50 Cent over their offer to give $10,000 to charity if he changed his name to 79, 89, or 99 Cent? [TMZ]

--I know this is from last week, but I didn't get a chance to mention it: how stupid were the auto manufacturer CEOs who flew private jets to ask the government for money? [ABC News]

--The word 'meh', thought of to be introduced to the world in a 2001 episode of The Simpsons, makes the cut for this year's Collins Dictionary. [Wall Street Fighter]

--There are 34 bowl games this year, meaning that 68 teams will be playing in the postseason. That's bigger than March Madness. [Wall St. Journal]

--OK know-it-alls: here's 5 things you didn't know about the NFL. [Ask Men]

--Why are America's worst hamburgers all so tasty? [Men's Health]

--Want to lose some fat from eating all of those bad hamburgers? Read this first. [Ask Men]

--Check out this video of young Adam Bender, the boy who plays little league with one leg. [YouTube]

--It's a sad days for Dancing with the Stars fans: Julianne Hough has called it quits, ending her Steeler-like dynasty. [Yahoo!] TV

--Twilight took in over $70 million this weekend, probably because there was no Steeler game to distract the country. [LA Times]

--Here are the 25 worst-selling #1 albums of all time. If you're wondering, the Ron Artest album doesn't qualify, since it never reached #1. [Yahoo!]

--The follow-up to Superbad has a trailer, and it looks promising. [FilmDrunk]

--Here's a list of the 10 Most Memorable Posthumous Performances. Wonder if Heath Ledger made the cut? [Yahoo! Movies]

--The child of Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz has a name: Bronx Mowgli. Seriously. [WWTDD]

Send your news, tips, and links to Mondesishouse@gmail.com.

The News

--Story of the day: golf-course brawl!

--Throwing a bone to bloggers, the Pirates signed Craig Wilson to a minor-league deal.

--Coming soon: the first-ever competitive eating video game. Experience the fu of the 4th of July in your own home!

--FSN wisely chooses Penguins over Pirates.

--Former Oregon QB Dennis Dixon visited with the Steelers in the hopes of becoming the next Brian St. Pierre.

--The Steelers also hosted a batch of other collegians, including Woodland Hills' Ryan Mundy and UCLA's Matthew Slater, son of former Ram Jackie Slater.

--In this week's installment of Penn State Legal News, WR Chris Bell was booted from the team after a Monday arrest for threatening a teammate during dinner.

--Greatest jersey ever?

--50 Cent and Floyd Mayweather throw down...at a charity basketball game. And no, Mayweather did not get $20 million for his participation.

--DJ Gallo gives a hilarious look at Victor Conte's new book.

A LIST OF TODAY'S TOP LISTS

The Most Hated People On The Entire Internet (a must-click)
The Stories Behind 10 Famous Product Placements

Ten Careers that Pay More Than $50k the First Year
10 jobs with flexible hours

TSN's Top 10 NHL Plays of the Year

The Big Lead's 2008-09 NCAA Basketball Top 10

Top 10 skills every homeowner needs

NFL's top 10 draft classes in league history (Yes, the Steelers are represented)

The News

A recap of your favorite links, named in honor of Mike Tomlin
"I'm not telling a story. I'm reporting the news."

--How do you spell "MVP"?

S-I-D-N-E-Y C-R-O-S-B-Y

Mario's going to have to install a new trophy case

--The always-dangerous Nick Dougherty leads after one round at Oakmont. Tiger Woods shot a one-over 71 and was not involved in any Mayoral controversies.

Tiger Woods tees off at the first hole. Not shown: Luke Ravenstahl, lurking in the gallery.

--First, the Pirates bench Jack Wilson. Then, they bring up John Van Benschoten. Is it just me, or does that look like two logical moves in a row? Maybe, but it didn't help on Thursday night, as they were shut out by the Texas Rangers and Kameron Loe, he of the 1-6 record, 7.40 ERA and .314 opponents' batting average.

--How should Daunte Culpepper boost his trade value? I don't know...how about not get in a car accident?

--The New York Islanders are creating a seperate press box-type area for bloggers. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Pirates probably won't go this route.

--The San Antonio Spurs won the NBA championship last night, finishing off the Cleveland Cavaliers in a four-game sweep. And since this is a Pittsburgh-based blog, I'll understand if you leave my site right now for the mere mention of NBA basketball.

--If I mentioned the letters "NBA" and you're still here, I give you an Aaron Gray sighting: he's currently projected for the 37th pick, by the Portland Trail Blazers. Nothing like getting drafted as a center on the same team as Greg Oden to kick-start a career.

--50 Cent just got paid, so I'm guessing he'll have to change his name to $100 Million.

--How much is Wal-Mart projecting to lose from theft this year? If you guessed $3 billion, you win today's prize of getting to see an old man dressed only in a Wal-Mart bag.

--We close the morning with Cracked.com responding to a Bill Simmons column and coming up with a list of 13 Movie Plots Rendered Completely Ridiculous by Their Stars’ Behavior

Hefty Penguins Fan Witness to Shooting Incident

A Florida police investigation has just dragged a major Penguins fan right into the middle of it. And judging by his size, dragging him anywhere would take a considerable effort.

Jose Antonio Cartagena, better known to you and I as "Fat Joe" or "Joey Crack", was identified as a potential witness to a fatal double shooting in South Beach on Memorial Day. So far, His Fatness has refused comment, on both this incident and the news that Sidney Crosby became the youngest captain in NHL history. But I'll take his headgear as a major statement that he hates the Flyers, Rangers, and Devils as much as he hated 50 Cent. Also, this bears repeating: his arch rival...is a Bucco fan.

Fat Joe Wanted as Witness to Florida Shooting Incident [AT 40]

Afternoon Wrapup

--First off, a reminder that the Tuesday mailbag is coming...today is the last chance to get your questions in, so send your thoughts and questions to mondesishouse@gmail.com.

--For those of you who have asked, my Dave Dameshek radio segments are now available for download courtesy of the kind proprietor of sportscontraption.com. I'll be making another appearance on Dave's show on 93.7 on Tuesday night at approximately 7:45.

--This was interleague rivalry weekend, so the Pirates were playing...the Diamondbacks. And in typical Pirate fashion, they lost two of three, including a colossal meltdown on Saturday night. The only good news from Pirate country is that Tony Armas will be replaced in the rotation.

--Bob Smizik tells us that the Pirates' pursuit of .500 is an impossible dream. He's dead-on in his analysis, making this quite the depressing read.

--Tickets.com and Mobiqa introduced a new mobile phone system that allows fans to purchase baseball tickets via a cell phone. Tickets@Phone will send a barcoded message to the user's cell phone that will be scanned at the gate for admittance to Nationals, A's and Pirates games. So now you can use your cell phone to be one of the 9,582 in attendance the next time the Pirates host the Marlins.

--Nice job by NBC, switching away from the Senators/Sabres overtime game to go to a horse racing pregame show. Could this be the hockey equivalent of the Heidi game?

--Deep-sea explorers have uncovered possibly the richest find in shipwreck history: over $500 million in colonial-era silver and gold coins. Any chance the explorer is from the Pittsburgh area and is interested in buying a baseball team?

--Remember the guy chasing Hank Aaron around third base after he hit his record-breaking home run? It was TNT's ugly suit-wearing Craig Sager.

--Two plumbing services are fighting over the rights to the phone number 867-5309, made famous in a 1982 song by Tommy Tutone.

--Here's a tremendous gallery about your Google searches

--Anyone catch Ludacris on the Simpsons last night? What are the ramifications of this? Did the Simpsons jump the shark? Or does Luda lose some street cred much like when 50 Cent played at that girl's bat mitzvah?

Actually, 50 didn't lose any street cred because he was playing at a private event for a teenage girl. He lost it because he was wearing a Pirates hat.