Football and Fluff

It’s time to talk about football. I have been ignoring the NFL for way too long now. It’s also time, as always, to talk about amusing anecdotes that occurred since last week. It’s time for a Football and Fluff column.

Football: The most impressive team in the NFL right now is the Carolina Panthers. They play great defense, allowing less than 19 points per game. They run the ball amazingly well as they are 4th in the league in rushing yards per game and tied for 1st in yards per carry at an amazing 4.8. They have a fearless quarterback who isn’t afraid to take risks, although this could come back and kill the Cats if Delhomme has a bad game. They have a break-the-game-open wide receiver in Smitty and a superb possession receiver with Moose. They have done all of this while playing in a very hard division. If they lock up home field against the G-Men this week, the Panthers are going to be very dangerous.

One amazing thing about the Panthers is that DeAngelo Williams (who is 4th in the NFL in rushing despite sharing the load with fellow stud Jonathan Stewart) has not fumbled the ball at all this year in 224 carries. Having a baller-ass RB who doesn’t cough the ball up is huge, especially in the playoffs. Delving deeper into Williams’ career stats reveals that he has only fumbled twice in his NFL career. That’s two fumbles in 567 career touches. Spectacular.

Fluff: There is nothing more awkward than privileged white kids performing tribal African dance moves, yet choral conductors and music teachers from around the world continue to force this awkwardness upon us. On Sunday, Potts, Emily Austin and I went to the National Cathedral to see a Christmas concert (yeah, cute and trendy as hell, I know). The high school choirs from St. Alban’s and National Cathedral School performed, and they were excellent. Their last song was a native South African tribal song, and actually sounded pretty good. Their teacher however, made them do a little shimmy dance while they performed the song, complete with hand gestures and foot stomping. Every kid on stage looked embarrassed as hell as they did the moves, as they should. It ruined the performance. It works when, you know, Africans do African tribal dance moves. It does not work when rich white kids do them. This needs to stop.

Football: Earlier this week, Trent Dilfer was asked who he thought was the better team, the Giants or the Panthers. I immediately thought he was going to say the Panthers, simply based on the fact that they have won 3 straight games and the Giants have lost 2 in a row. Too many talking heads proclaim that the hottest team at the moment is the best team in the entire league (see King, Peter; putting the Eagles at number 6). They seem afraid to claim that the best team overall is the one that isn’t playing the best right now. Dilfer said that he still thought the Giants were the better team, and even though I thought he was wrong, I admired him having the nuts enough to say what he thought, and not what would make him look good. This paragraph is really confusing. Onto some more fluff.

Fluff: In my current rental car (an awful Chevy Impala), there is a feature where if you pressed the window down button for more than a second, the window would go down all the way even if you let go of the button. Great feature. But to roll the window up you had to hold the button the whole time. Why would someone design a window like that? Who would prefer a window that had an auto feature going down but not up? “I’m in Pychoville and Finkle’s the mayor!”

Football: It’s a joke that Brett Favre made the Pro Bowl over Phil Rivers. Rivers has the best passer rating in the NFL, much less the AFC. Favre is 15th. Rivers has thrown 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. Favre has 21 TD’s and 17 picks. The Chargers are 6-8 because Rivers has salvaged whatever he could from the season (and they should be 7-7 if not for the horrible Hochuli call in week 2). The Jets are 9-5 despite of Favre’s anti-heroics. Joke city.

Fluff: Last year in the Ribrary, Schling still made peanut butter and fluff sandwiches. I didn’t even know that stuff still existed.

Football: Adrian Peterson is the clear MVP of the league in my book. He is the leading rusher in football and still averages 4.9 yards per carry despite facing probably more 8+ man fronts than any back in the league. He is so good that he has made Gus Ferotte and Tarvaris Jackson look like decent quarterbacks this season. Without AP, the Vikes would be 2-12 instead of 9-5. Minny is 8-2 over their last 10 games. I wouldn’t want to play them in the playoffs.

Fluff: There is a street near my office named Temporary Road, even though it is clearly there to stay, as it is made with concrete, has a stoplight and gets a lot of traffic. Odd.

Football: Sammy Baugh, the legendary Redskins player, passed away on Wednesday. It wasn’t until I was reading the article about his death that I realized how ridiculously good and versatile he was. In 1943, Baugh led the league in passing, punting and defensive interceptions. What an extreme badass. He still owns the single season per punt average of 51.4 yards. He had one game where he threw for four touchdowns and also had four interceptions. He was also a hardass, playing his whole career without a facemask. He is one person who may have been able to out stone-face me. Sammy Baugh, the Oceanliner salutes you (I’m sure that’s his ultimate honor).

Fluff: This is the preposterous picture on the cover of the most recent J.Crew catalogue.

Seriously? So what this picture is telling me is that these two losers got in their fur-coated canoe and went to the Artic ice cap to get a Christmas tree? And that they did it with no oars? And that after going all the way there they picked out the smallest and pansiest Christmas tree of all time? I’m not buying it. Something fishy is going on here.

Football: In an act of high comedy, Chiefs coach Herman Edwards released a book called “You Play to Win the Game”, stemming from a hilarious news conference he once gave. Edwards’ career record as an NFL head coach is 53-72. What a loser.

Fluff: At a Starbucks recently, the woman who poured my coffee needed to dump some out because she had filled the cup too high. She proceeded to pour out some of the scalding hot coffee directly onto the hands of one of her co-workers who had just finished washing her hands.

Football: Please can it end, for the love of God. Don Banks, NFL writer for Sports Illustrated, referred to the Santonio Holmes controversial catch at the end of the Steelers-Ravens game as “plane-gate”, as in did the ball cross the plane of the goal line. Spygate was bad enough. Plane-gate is freaking terrible.

Fluff: I got nothing. I’m out of amusing anecdotes, that’s it for this week folks. There will be one more Oceanliner column in 2008 before I head down to Florida for Christmas and out to Colorado to ski the week after that. After that, you will have to wait for ’09 for more new and exciting Oceanliner original features. By the way, does anyone have a pair of ski pants I can borrow? Let me know. Until next time, stay safe, keep it real and boogie away.

The Frozen Tundra

Well folks, the Oceanliner and Austin recently completed our epic trip to Green Bay to watch the Packers play the Texans at Lambeau Field. And to chronicle that journey, I have decided to pull a Dylan (Dylan…Hawkins? Porter? Porter-Hawkins? Sadie-Hawkins?) and mail it in with a photo diary of the odyssey. This photo diary however, will of course include hilarious, poignant and witty commentary from yours truly.

The first step of mailing in a post is to choose the least original title possible, which as you can see, I have already done. Only a complete hack would choose “The Frozen Tundra” as the title of a post about a trip to Green Bay.

The fun began even before we got to Green Bay, as the Milwaukee airport provided some early amusing anecdotes. First was the Salvation Army bell ringer, who was dutifully doing his job…while talking on his cell phone. How annoying would it be to have a conversation with this guy while he’s ringing a little bell the whole time? I’m going with infinitely annoying. Plus this dude is taking some of the aura out of the whole bell ringing gig. One cannot help feel a twinge of sympathy in seeing a Salvation Army bell ringer standing stoically outside of a Wal-Mart in the freezing cold, ringing their bell in mime-like silence. The dude in the airport maybe could have pulled it off by standing and stone-facing walker by’s. Instead, he was sitting in a chair, yapping on his cellie and pretending like the donation jar wasn’t even there. F.

Elsewhere in the terminal, Austin and I walked past a vending machine that was selling bouquet’s of roses for the incredible bargain of $20. Here begins the photo diary with a shot of said vending machine.

Note the Solo cups of water being used as temporary vases. I’m just mad that they don’t have this thing at Reagan in DC.

“Austin! Here are you Valentine’s Day flowers! I saw these wilted, cheap, deteriorating Solo cup-held flowers in an airport vending machine, and I immediately thought of you. No need to thank me. Enjoy.”

While we are talking about airports, I would like to give a shout out to Midwest Airlines, who pass out 2 free, warm, chocolate chip cookies to every passenger on their longer flights. What a pleasant surprise that was. Delicious. (Sorry, no picture of the cookies)

Having safely arrived in Green Bay, Austin and I made our way to the luxurious Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel, only 2 miles from the stadium. Waiting for us inside the lobby of the HoJo were, and I’m not kidding, a miniature bowling alley and a 9-hole putt putt course. See for yourself:

You stay classy, Green Bay.

Since this was probably going to be the only time we ever spent in Green Bay, we figured we might as well do it right. So our choice for dinner on Saturday was of course, Brett Favre’s Steakhouse. Realizing the hilarity of this choice, I sent out the following text to some people I know would appreciate it.

I’m at Brett Favre’s steakhouse, my world is turning upside down

Within minutes, Gutie’s response came flying in through cyberspace.

Please tell me there is a menu item somehow related to interceptions

Sadly there was not. Then this from Glubiak.

If you are wearing your customized 49ers jersey, dinner is on me. You need to start a J E T S, JETS JETS JETS cheer.

Again, sadly, I was not. And lastly my personal favorite from Fish.

Ha. Where is that? Is it delicious? Did they send your steak to the wrong table to simulate an interception?

Classic. And while I can’t stand watching number 4 on TV, I have to hand it to him; he put together on helluva steak house. The local beers on draft were fantastic ( I had a Brett’s VooDoo Brew and a Spotted Cow), there were at least 7 HD flat screen TV’s in the bar/waiting area showing the Big 12 title game, and the food was first class (think Morton’s or Ruth’s Chriss). At the end of the meal, and Austin can vouch for me, I did something I have never done before and will never do again; I raised my glass and toasted Brett Favre. Not about his playing football of course, but for his contribution to the steakhouse community at large.

Brett Favre as local God note number 1: A gift shop in the Milwaukee airport was selling Favre Jets jerseys. The same shop had a hoodie for sale that had a pouch in the chest for a beer bottle. Only in Milwaukee.

Game Day. Austin and I leave the hotel at 9am for a noon kickoff. As we are driving to the stadium, we see a sign that reads “Green Bay – Pop. 102,000”. The attendance at the game is later announced at 70,000 people. Go figure.

I got the Packer tickets from my aunt and uncle, and we meet up with friends of theirs to tailgate. It is an amazing spot. The backyard where we park backs up to the stadium. This picture shows how close we were to Lambeau.

It also shows Austin looking hilarious, exposing as little skin as possible. This is a good idea because of how freaking cold it was. We later learn that kickoff temperature was 3 degrees. Three. It was not warm.

This is the fire that we hovered around for most of the tailgate to keep warm. It is also the fire that we had to roast our beers over because they had frozen in our car the night before. Our hotel room didn’t have a fridge and I though they would stay cold in the car. Well, that worked a little too well, and I’m lucky now they didn’t explode.

We met this hilarious old guy at the tailgate who was probably around 70. He had a fur hat on and I asked him what kind of animal it was. He tells me that was an otter, and that he had trapped it himself in central Wisconsin. What a hardass. He is also wearing a fur coat, that turns out to be raccoon. I was disappointed to then find out that he had not killed the raccoons himself.

We then go into the stadium, which is freaking gorgeous. The inside of the stadium is immaculate. I’m blown away at how awesome it is. It is one solid bowl of 70,000 people, with all of the luxury boxes built on top of the bowl. Here is a good shot of that.

And here is proof we made it to the game.

And here is proof on how ridiculously cold it was.

Yes that is a beer that froze, and it only took about 45 minutes. Like I said, it was not warm. The locals were even saying how cold of a game it was, and this is Green Bay standards. Yikes. But we made it through the whole game (code: Austin made it through the whole game), and it was an amazing experience.

Brett Favre as local God note number 2: You know how the media reported that Green Bay fans still loved Brett Favre, but were ready to move on with Aaron Rodgers? Completely false. Every time Rodgers didn’t make a play, the fans in our section would scream “Favre would have made that pass!” or “Favre would have run for the first!”, even if it was 3rd and 15. These comments were said half jokingly, but still, they would prefer Brett Favre.

All in all, it was an amazing trip. The stadium was incredible, the game was exciting (24-21 Texans on a field goal as time expired, and we to see Matt Schaub throw for 414 yards), the food was spectacular (on Sunday night Austin and I had a bowls of beer-cheese soup before dinner), the beers were fantastic (I think I counted having 6 local microbrews during the trip) and the people were nice. And of course, in true Murphy’s Law fashion, it snowed a couple of inches on Sunday…after the game.

Oh well. While it would have been heaven to have been at Lambeau during a snowstorm, I can’t complain one bit.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. For those of you that are interested, I have created a College Bowl Pickem group on ESPN.com. Here is the link to that game. Once you sign up, search for a group called Deke For Rhodes Scholar and join the Oceanliner and others. There is no password and no entry fee. Just pride.

Until next time, stay safe, keep it real and bundle up.

PS - I had to share this paragraph that Steve Czaban wrote about Peter King being a moron. One week after a great SI article, he comes back with this bologna. It’s like he’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in terms of print vs. online. Enjoy.

“How do you know Peter King is an idiot? He’s got Philadelphia ranked as his #6 ranked NFL team right now, ahead of the entire NFC South (Tampa Bay #7, Atlanta #9, Carolina #10). It will not shock anybody that King just happened to cover Philly’s win over a clearly distracted Giants team on Sunday. Like any mark, King is easily swayed by the last thing he saw, and by whatever he happens to cover in person. His blog at SI.com is very entertaining, in an unintentionally funny way. But it provides some of the worst NFL “analysis” of any writer who has covered the league for more than 5 minutes.”

Absolutely dead on. Priceress.

Quietly in to the Night

And with a whimper, the UVA football season slowly came to a close. The Oceanliner was in Charlotte for Thanksgiving and got to watch the Tech game with Austin, birthday boy Potts and Tyler, which was fun. Plus we gave the Hokies a better game than I thought we would have. We had a chance to win in the fourth quarter, which is all you can really ask for. But a Favre-esque back breaking interception from Marc Verica ended the game and Virginia’s season. Two things here:

1) It was a horrendous pass. Truly God awful

2) I don’t trust people name Marc who spell their name with a c. Weird.

The Hoos “offense” did provide some entertainment value however, by running the Wildcat formation for most of the game. I can’t imagine what people who don’t follow the ACC must have been thinking if they tuned in for the game.

“Wait, you’re telling me that the starting Virginia cornerback, who hasn’t taken a rep at quarterback since high school, has taken 75% of the snaps in the biggest rivalry game of the season? What kind of Looney Tunes ship are they running in Charlottesville?”

And they would be exactly right. Except I kind of liked it. If Vic Hall is in at quarterback and running every time, there’s no way Verica can throw an interception on the same play. It almost worked too. Hall ran 16 times. 13 of these runs were completely stuffed. But of the other three, two went for touchdowns and the other for 39 yards and into Hokie territory in the 4th quarter, only down by a figgie. Then Verica comes in and throws a pick. A horrific and putrid interception. His 16th of the season. That was tied for 5th in the country. Plus he only threw 8 touchdowns. Not good. When we were riding out four game winning streak, Verica looked good and seemed like he was steadily improving every game. Well, he must have hit a wall, because he ended terribly and looks very shaky going into 2009.

Another thing about that four game winning streak and the Hoos very strange season. If you look at our results against D1A teams (so excluding Richmond), we started 0-3 (losing by an average of 36 points per game by the way)…then won four games in a row…then lost four games in a row to finish the season. Weird again. After winning those 4 games in a row we were alone in first place in the Coastal. We finished the season 11th in the conference. Bizarre.

One last thing about us running the Wildcat. When Tyler and I saw us running it, we both thought,

“Oh no, they are going to start calling this something embarrassing like the Wild Wahoo”. *hanging heads in shame*

Not to be disappointed though, the ESPN announcers actually came up with something much worse, and started to call the formation the Wahoo Cat. Tyler and I were stunned. That just didn’t make sense at all. So we came up with a better name. If you are going to call it two animals, why not the Catfish formation? I like it. So if we start running this stuff again next year, call it the Catfish. Do it.

Quietly Perprexing

A week or two ago I went to the gym at my office before work to get a run in. When I walked into the gym, there was a small Asian man running on the treadmill…with no shoes on. Now this seemed strange to me, but the dude could have forgotten his shoes at home and still wanted to get his workout in. I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. But then the guy ends his run, turns around, sits down on the treadmill, and puts on a pair of shoes. Running shoes. Strange.

While we are on the topic of treadmills, I went to the gym at my parents’ apartment complex on the morning of Thanksgiving, so as to build up a bigger appetite. I get on the treadmill and it asks me to enter my weight…and prompts me for a number between 75 and 400 pounds. Two thoughts:

1) I’m no personal trainer, but something tells me a 400 pounder is going to need a little more than a treadmill. But hey, I guess you gotta start somewhere.

2) It’s hard to believe that the same piece or machinery, which looked very brittle and flimsy, would be able to accommodate both Mary Kate Olsen and Mark Mangino.

Quietly Complimentary

Peter King is a moron, but can still sometimes crank out a good article, and I must give credit where credit is due. King wrote an excellent piece in last week’s Sports Illustrated about linebackers in the NFL, and specifically how Derrick Brooks prepared for a game against Adrian Peterson and the Vikings. I highly recommend it. You can read it here.

It appears that when King actually has to revert to real journalism for a magazine article, instead of his Favre-idolizing and horrendous tangents in an online piece, that he can actually be eloquent and insightful.

Quietly Perplexing

At a rest area on the way back from Charlotte on Sunday, I saw a black guy wearing a Davis Akers Philadelphia Eagles jersey. I was puzzled. Why would a young black dude buy the jersey of a 33 year old, balding, white kicker? Why would anyone buy a David Akers jersey? Weird.

Quiet on the Court

In an NBA game a couple of weeks ago, David West of the Hornets played 36 minutes and only had 1 rebound. He is their starting power forward. What exactly was he doing? It seems like you would have to exert enormous amounts of energy to stay away from that many rebounds during the course of a game. Weird.

Loud and Clear

The NBA coaching carousel is a joke. When Eddie Jordan got fired by the Wizards recently, he had been the longest tenured coach in the Eastern Conference…with 5 years on the job. 15 teams in the conference, and not one coach with 5 years under his belt. Silly.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. Austin and I are heading to Green Bay this weekend to take in a Packers game at the Frozen Tundra. I am ecstatic. One, because it will cross off a major sports milestone in my life. And two, I don’t have to watch Brett Favre play. Thank God. Keep it real everyone. I already know you will stay safe.

Fashion Statement

Well, it’s that time of year again. College basketball season to be exact, when silly undergraduates annually look retarded by wearing XXXL t-shirts under their uniform. I caught my first glimpse of this train wreck last night while watching the Carolina-Kentucky game. Here is Ed Davis, prized freshman forward, playing for the number one team in the country, at home against a storied opponent in prime time…looking like a Busch league middle school kid wearing his lucky t-shirt under his jersey.

C’mon man, pull yourself together. There is a reason the NBA doesn’t let its players wear t-shirts under their jerseys. It looks stupid and immature. You are not in high school anymore buddy. I see it across most college teams in the country, and I wish it would end.

Now if Ed decides to get fashion advice from a teammate, it certainly shouldn’t be from Tyler Hansbrough. Pyscho T was rocking a black pinstripe suit with one of those trendy black business t-shirts while riding the bench last night, and well, it didn’t look good.

I don’t know if it was the colors, the Tiger Woods t-shirt, or the haircut, but it wasn’t flattering. Marcus Ginyard, sitting next to Hansbrough and also out injured, managed to put himself together quite nicely. Hansbrough just looks lost.

What do you think those two white guys are saying to each other next to Ginyard?

“Oh shit, the black guy is looking at us, don’t move”

or…

“Man, I gotta take a wicked dump, but we still got 15 minutes until halftime”

or maybe…

“How do you get your hair so silly smooth but still have so much volume at the same time?”

and finally…

“Tell me when that lady behind us looks away. She’s freaking me out with that botox grin plastered on her face”

Since this post has degenerated into a fashion critique (happy Austin?), I might as well bring up the “barista” at my local Starbucks who apparently doesn’t believe in belts. Seriously, every time I go in there the dude has his ‘Bucks “polo” shirt tucked into khakis with no belt on. C’mon, buddy, get with the program. Not only does it look stupid not wearing a belt, but it serves a valuable purpose, and this dudes pants are falling down.

I went and saw Quantum of Solace on Monday night, and it was hella badass. Daniel Craig is an awesome, hardass Bond who just loves to wreck people. And as we continue to walk down this fashion runway (runway, get it?), I must say I saw my vision of Rugged Luxury up on the screen. James Bond IS Rugged Luxury, and it is plenty obvious in the new movie. The costume designers must have read my post on J. Oelschlager and applied it to their creation of the Bond wardrobe. There’s no other way to explain it. When J. Oelschlager gets up and running, it will definitely be the official Bond wardrobe partner. Hell, the movie makers will probably pay me to dress Bond.

I finish this week with one of the more unbelievable anecdotes ever listed in this blog, but unfortunately you must be a UVA connoisseur to fully appreciate it. I was sitting around on Sunday afternoon when I got a text from a coworker of mine who was down in Charlottesville for the Hoos home basketball opener against VMI. It read:

Singing the national anthem…Benny Dodd.

I was flabbergasted. Floored. Stunned. The fact that the one and only Benny Dodd was honoring America at a UVA basketball game blew me away. I could maybe understand in February in the dog days of ACC play, if Littlepage got Dodd to do the national anthem because there was no one with a good voice within 20 miles of Charlottesville and tip-off was in 10 minutes. But this was the home opener! Benny Dodd! Well we know he wasn’t hard to find, all they had to do was go to Coupes. I immediately sprang to my phone and let everyone know and got these hilarious responses

From Rubiak; I hope that’s a good omen for our season but all signs point to definitely not

And from Eroder; He probably sang 8 words of it and let the crowd sing the rest

Maybe the funniest part is that I was told Benny didn’t even have his trusty guitar with him out there, he was just belting the anthem out!. I can’t even imagine the reaction of people there who didn’t know who Dodd was.

*For those who don’t know, Benny Dodd is a 400 pound, mammoth, waste of a man who has been playing cover songs (poorly, I might add) at the same small, completely underage bar in Charlottesville for the last 20 years.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. Godspeed.

Sidetracked

Are you ready for some football? If you are…well, you’re not going to want to watch Monday Night Football, where my atrocious Niners are taking on the Cardinals, on the road no less.

Sidetrack Number 1: I am no fan of Chris Berman at this senile and Madden-like point in his career. His nicknames have gotten out of hand, but he gave one during the MNF pre-game show that made me chuckle by calling the Cardinals stadium The Big Toaster, due to the awkward opening in the top ala Texas Stadium. Tears of nostalgia came to me eyes thinking about when Berman actually bestowed good nicknames like Andre “Bad Moon” Rison and Curtis “My Favorite Martin”.

Sidetrack to a Sidetrack Number 1: Speaking of tears, I had to put this in here.

I take absolutely no credit for this one. Glubiak sent me this one, and a Cheshire cat grin spread across my face. Even though the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets are winning games, Favre is still throwing the most horrific of interceptions, the ones where you can’t even see an offensive player in the screen. Bit I digress…

The 49ers are 2-6, have lost 5 games in a row and are starting the great Shaun Hill at quarterback. Yet I still sit here in my custom Oelschlager 49ers heresy pumped as hell about watching San Fran on national television. It doesn’t matter how bad they are or how many times Singletary drops his pants, its just exciting.

Sidetrack Number 2: So it turns out the legendary Shaun Hill is number 13. My custom 49ers Oelschlager threads are also graced with that luckiest of numbers. So I am inadvertently wearing a Shaun Hill jersey. Ye gods.

The ESPN idiots ran their usual 47 person pre-game show again, and useless banter was the norm as usual. One particular head slapper stood out on this night. Berman was talking about the Jets resurgence, and asked Trent Dilfer to explain how much of a difference new nose tackle Kris Jenkins had made on the Jets D-line. Dilfer replies,

“Boom, Jenkins has been indescribably good. He’s been a monster in the front, completely dominating the other team’s O-line…”

I stopped listening after that first sentence and a half. I was trying to wrap my head around what I had just heard. Trent, buddy, first you tell me that Jenkins has been “indescribably” good. Then, pal, you go on and try to, wait for it, describe how good Jenkins has played. I all for hyperbole, but this was ridiculous.

Sidetrack Number 3: I don’t know how I stumbled across this one, but there is a blog out there solely dedicated to covering terrible announcers. May I present the official Oceanliner endorsement to Awful Announcing at awfulannouncing.blogspot.com. It is a riot. And this isn’t one of those political if-you-do-me-I’ll-do-you endorsements. I have no idea who these guys are, but they are hilarious.

Back to the 103 person pre-game show on ESPN. (Their pre-game show is like Pig Gig. Every week/year it jumps by 34). They have expanded the pre-game pickem to a preposterous eight people. Stu Scott, Steve Young, Emmit Smith, Boomer, Chris Carter, Tom Jackson, Keyshawn and Ditka all imparted their sublime knowledge on the American people. And they all picked ‘Zone. John McCain is from Arizona and he lost. Idiots.

Sidetrack Number 4: This has nothing to do with anything, but how has Sean May gotten so fat?
I was doing some fantasy basketball research and clicked on May’s profile, and his picture made me jump back from my computer. Dude has more chins than a Chinese phonebook. Good god man, stop hanging out with Lendale White.

Sidetrack Number 5: Well, these aren’t really sidetracks anymore, more like my customary random thoughts. I was driving on the Beltway one morning last week and saw a woman who was talking on her cell phone and smoking a cigarette while somehow staying on the road. I wonder a lot how there are not more accidents on the road.

Sidetrack Number 6: Is the Sports Guy stealing from the Oceanliner???? Check out this column by Bill Simmons, posted on November 7th, 9 days after I decried the Toyota Saved by Zero commercials. You’re going to want to the passage after number 17 on the Saints. Look how eerily similar it is to my last post.

Here is Simmons’ column. Conspiracy?

Well, that’s it for this week folks. Take care.