soapbox

I try to avoid saturating the blog with too many sports-related posts, but honestly dactyl is probably more desperate than Steve Phillips these days, so oh well.

So, on to item #1, Brett Favre. I’m not even going to discuss his million-iteration retire/unretire cycle or the tediousness thereof, I’m just going to say that I’m really glad to not have been a Green Bay fan and that I’m not currently a VIkings fan. Favre is a gunslinger, a Jake Plummer who won a Super Bowl, the kind of guy who can win a game with a great play one game and throw 4 stupid INTs the next game – oh wait, he’s done that several times. This past game against the Steelers falls into the latter category, where just a couple plays after Adrian Peterson destroyed Steelers DB William Gay and illustrated who should have the ball with the game on the line, Favre gave the game away with a dumb scramble/fumble. Live by the Favre, die by the Favre, but it just irritates me when Saint Brett’s faults are ignored/explained away…

Which brings us to the second- and third-most overrated QBs in the NFL, Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger, you decide the order. Ben is really really talented but does stupid shit just often enough for him to lose my respect, and Eli just sucks, but they fluked into good teams that played into their individual strengths. The football aspect of this is that the Giants will actually be much better off if the NFC championship game is AT New Orleans, so that Eli doesn’t have to deal with NY winter weather – Brees has the arm to deal with windy/bad weather, and playing in the Superdome will actually work to even the playing field.

Item #4: I fully recognize that any time a team becomes a “dynasty”, a lot of people start to dislike them. Easy to root for the underdog, but once you become the favorite, then you’re irritating/arrogant/etc. And as such, it isn’t surprising to me that a lot of people don’t like the Patriots and thus when they destroyed Tennessee a couple weeks ago (58-0, ouch) there was much self-righteous pontificating and blowharding, decrying the running up of the score and the return to the bad sportsmanship of ‘07. Now, I’m not going to defend the general concept of running up the score, or the intent of Belichek and Brady to humiliate their opponents, but from a strictly football angle, those arguments miss one key element… the Patriots’ defense really really sucks. It was weak in ‘06, really bad in ‘07, and with injuries and trading Seymour, it’s not great this year. And this is what every critique of “running up the score” ignores, that the point of scoring 50 points a game is to (a) keep your own defense off the field as much as possible and (b) to prevent the opposing offense from gaining their rhythm. Additionally, if you can influence the playcalling of the other team into taking more risks (so as to be able to keep up) then you gain an additional advantage, especially if the other team’s roster isn’t designed for a quick-strike/high-scoring pace.

Anyway, that’s no defense for the Pats, I admit that WonderBoy and SuperCoach can be grating, but from purely football grounds, I totally get where they’re coming from. Up until the Titans game, Brady had looked pretty rusty/downright sucky, and so it also made sense for him to get in some more “practice”.

Is it hypocritical to trash Favre, Roethlisberger, and Eli Manning while praising Brady? probably, but that’s the prerogative of being a sports fan right? Objectivity is for PBS/NPR.

P.S. Great quote from my buddy Greg, huge Packers fan. “[Favre] has AP and gives the game away. He is who we think he is. Roethlisberger is him [Favre] 2.0, just as annoying, will be worshipped by home fans despised by others. one difference is that favre is actually pretty smart”

P.P.S. Tomlinson is DONE. Unlike last year where SD didn’t give him as many opportunities as he was used to, and tried to rest his legs by giving Sproles more work, the past couple games Norv has given LT multiple goal-line cracks, only to see the Visored One get stuffed. If you play fantasy fb and can get 80 cents on the dollar, sell! That said, do I blame SDs struggles on LT? no – blame Norv Turner. This is an amazingly talented team hamstrung by coaching that is sub-par both motivationally and strategically. And yes, Andy Reid deserves firing just as much as does Norv. Philly fans, I defy you to convince me otherwise.

We have previously addressed this item, when one comes across hotness in either an unexpected, unanticipated or unconventional situation, or instead when traditional hotness is encountered in an atypical wrapping.
It is in this second category that I submit the item below:

Everybody expects cheerleaders to be hot, or rather is at least not surprised when cheerleaders turn out to be hot (but don’t forget the importance of community service) – and disappointed when that hotness is not lived up to. But what is extra-, or should we say, sneaky-hot, is when you put a hot cheerleader in 1960’s throwback outfits. They didn’t quite make up for the awfulness of the Broncos uniforms – see below – but it was a good effort.

So, I friend of mine is looking at a position at Oxford and forwarded the “job description/job perks” page. I am particularly jealous of the maternity/paternity leave (26 weeks), “pensionable housing allowance” (£8,438), and 1 term in six of accrued sabbatical, up to 18 terms, but a couple other elements caught my eye:

The Fellow will be able to draw on an allowance for the purpose of entertaining undergraduate students (currently £435), plus a per capita allowance of £15 for entertaining graduate students to whom he/she is College Advisor.

Yes, that’s right, you get a little over 400 quid to “entertain” undergrads (cue Professor [redacted] joke here), but only fifteen for each graduate student advisee. Better save up for 50p vodka shot night at the Union?

*holding arms way way far apart* This much.

So, as we suffer through the Rays-Sox game tonight, K reminded me again why I love her so much.

“He’s the worst of all of them. He says nothing, and he takes a long time saying it, and he’s not coherent… and that’s from someone who knows nothing about baseball.”

Of course, just one inning after this fantastic assessment, he re-verified his should-be-fired-ness by stating “I don’t really like this (the Rays) rotation. Sure they have Garza and Kazmir, and some good young guys in the minors, but after that I’m not impressed.”

What a freaking moron. I leave it to Jeremy to tell us exactly where the Rays’ staff ranks in MLB, but I’d put it in the top 5 especially looking ahead a few years.

I really want to learn how to hack a DVR and install a voice-recognition-and-mute algorithm.

[P.S. K also said "call the post 'How Much Joe Morgan Sucks.' " Have to give credit where credit is due.]

Lightly muddle together the mint leaves and sugar with a few drops of water in the bottom of the glass. Then almost fill the glass with crushed ice and pour the Bourbon over it. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

mmmmmmm. Oh yeah, the race is ~6pm EST, fyi. Don’t forget your hat.

For details or clarification on the subject, I refer you to Nick, but it seems as though Utah has finally picked up on the idea that it might be a good idea to allow a person to just walk into a bar and order a beer. Up until a couple weeks ago, in order to enter a bar you had to be a member (or have somebody sponsor you)… or rather, all bars were required to be private clubs, and if you wanted to enter then you had to pay a membership fee or know a member. You probably have to be straight to be served, but all in good time, let’s not be hasty… there are still a bunch of other weird rules.

In case you are like my secretary and will be driving from Cali to Kansas tomorrow, or like me and don’t have DVR anymore (sad!), never fear – notable commercials for tomorrow’s Big Game* are already summarized/previewed for us, and probably available on the torrent-tubes.

Previewed commercials include the ETrade baby, Dennys, a 3D SoBe Lifewater commercial (grab Intel-made 3D goggles being offered at SoBe Lifewater retail stands), Mr Potato Head schilling for Bridgestone, and in a nod to Nick, Danica Patrick for GoDaddy.com:

Also notable is FritoLay’s little scheme, where five contestants who designed their own spots have a chance to win $1 million… if the commercial can wrest the top spot on USA Today’s “Ad Meter” from Anheuser-Busch.

FritoLay has already selected five finalists, involving dude-centric themes like a woman in lacy black lingerie, a cop who turns into a monkey, an ATM that spits free money and an office worker who gets hit in the privates by a flying snow globe. Fans can vote for their favorite at www.crashthesuperbowl.com.

Of course, I have to suspect that by offering five options, viewers are likely to split their vote and miss out on the cash – but not like FL is going to cry about a measly 1 mil even in this economy.

* I’m avoiding saying the SB word so as to avoid getting sued by the NFL, seeing as I’m not an officially licensed partner of the NFL/Big Game. You think I’m kidding.