Are you ready for some football? Because the Pack isn't

I'm trying to get up for the NFL, I really am.

My teams are dead in the baseball postseason, the Twins are dead in the postseason and hockey?

Well, hockey has been dead to me for a few years now. In fact, it's nothing to me now. It's not a brother, it's not a friend. I don't want to know it or what it does. I don't want to see it at the hotels, I don't want it near my house. When sees our mother, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be there.

It's that bad - but that's for another time.

In just five short weeks, though I have developed a foolproof way for filling out my pick sheets in Frank the Tank's Pick 'Em League. At the risk of tipping off the other guys, I will share these simple rules.

Quickly, a Pick 'Em League requires that you pick the winner of each game each week. Some require you to pick with the spread in play, ours lets you weight each game in order of confidence. You pick your game that you're most sure of the result in and weight it with a 16 and if it ends up the way you'd guess, you'd get 16 points towards your week's total.

I know, if you're really interested, you know how this rolls and it you needed and if you don't care you quit reading at the headline... moving on.

The foolproof system this year runs as follows -

Pick against:

Raiders

Texans

Lions

Packers
Dolphins

Pick for:

Bears

Colts

Ravens

Saints at home

Patriots

That's it. Just that simple.

I swear that if you're struggling in your league and you do that, you'll be better than average in January. For anything more than that, you've got me... I always suck at fantasy football.

(Photo from GodfatherFilms.com)

Great white hype

Nikolai Valuev versus Monte Barrett just wrapped on HBO and I'm pretty sure The Girl was not impressed with her first extended viewing of a prizefight.

Then again, I hyped the fight as a beating at the carnival, so that might not have been the best line to take on this one.

Valuev is a seven-foot tall Russian who took Barrett's lunch money for 10 rounds before Barrett's trainer needed to step in and end the fight. That was a decision so rational that Mike Tyson would have made it, so that's where the fight stood near the end there.

It was distracting to watch and a pretty sad fight overall and it makes me a little nostalgic for a time I wasn't even around for. Most of the recent big-name title fights have fallen flat and so it's no surprise that boxing has lost its audience.

No longer are there hordes of men in there 20s clamoring for title fights in their hometowns (Don King arranged a fight last year in Chicago at the United Center that was far from a sellout and this fight was downgraded to Rosemont) and why would they?

This is not even the heyday of Mike Tyson when I was in grammar school and everyone knew he was the undisputed champ, even snot-nosed fourth graders.

Now, of the four fighters holding belts today, they are all Eastern European (which isn't very appealing to an American audience) and there hasn't been a decent high-profile fight in years. When I think back to the Lennox Lewis/Michael Grant fight I remember that the fight lasted a few minutes and that the highlight of the evening was the undercard that went the distance.

Lewis/Tyson? Same story. That was just a pitiful showing, despite the bales of cash collected for the pay-per-view. While there are fights that appeal to the hard core boxing fans, for the casual fan like me, it's a bummer that there hasn't been a decent bout in recent memory.

To put it in perspective, imagine if the last five Super Bowls had all been 45-7 blowouts or if the only teams in the World Series were from tiny markets and comprised of players from the Eastern bloc. It just takes some of the fun out of it.

I don't really have a point in all of this, except that I wish things were different and that there was a reason to book a flight to Vegas or Atlantic City with a group of friends to see a big bout.

Well that, and a boxing world where nine out of ten passersby on the street could name the heavyweight champ. Say what you will about Mike Tyson, but at least everyone knew his name.

(Photo from HBO.com)

Jeopardy! A lifetime of shame

Remember Ken Jennings? The guy who ran up the score on Jeopardy! He has a blog.

Well really, who doesn't?

It's worth a quick giggle and one of these days I need to compile an All-Star Team of pseudo-celebrity blogs. I'll probably post a picture of a train wreck next to it.

That's not why I'm checking in today, the real reason is something that's rattled around in my head for a few weeks now - how badly it'd suck to be on Jeopardy.

A friend of The Girl's is dating a guy who just got word that he'll be on Jeopardy! (enough with the exclamation points, already! Damn, I did it again.) and I have nothing but an uneasy feeling in my gut for the poor bastard.

Remember the school spelling bees in grammar school? And how the smartest kid in the class always seemed to bow out pretty quickly? Then for weeks, people would badger them about the two L's in llama or how to spell "yacht?" Well, do you think any of us have grown up at all?

Forget the outright jerks of the world, what about the well-meaning tactless yokels?

Let's say for the sake of discussion that the answer Alex wants is Vitamin E and you guess Vitamin B - do you think you'd hear the end of that within a year? A decade? A lifetime?

I'd like to be enough of a grown up to say that the reason I'll not appear on the show is that the process or my lack of general knowledge, but instead I'll blame my friends and coworkers. If you guys weren't suck pricks, I'd totally be on easy street by now.

(Photo from cbsnews.com)

Easy come, easy go

If anyone gets a chance, Showtime on Demand has a "documentary" on about a homeless man who the filmmakers gave $100,000 cash to, you know, just for giggles.

Reversal of Fortune is a passable exercise in hypothetical math, though I'd be lying if I didn't tune in to see if it would be a train wreck. While it could have been a major exploitation of Ted, the homeless man involved, they pretty much gave him the cash and backed away.

***SPOILER ALERT***

The guy pretty much pisses away every dime on trashy women, weed and a new truck worth nearly $40 large. Oh, and he didn't bother to haggle down the price and bought all the add-ons. Let's just say it shed quite a bit of light on how things got to be so bad for him.

I'm not saying that he was homeless because he wasted his money as a younger man, but when you're given a lump sum, maybe you shouldn't start dumping money into top-of-the-line trucks when you don't even have a drivers license.

It's worth noting that he was thrown to the wolves by the producer - a financial planner and homeless advocate were both quickly dismissed as carpetbaggers - Ted decided he knew what was best and saw his life didn't necessarily get better with the cash.

Mo money, mo problems, I suppose.

Anyways, it's easy to overlook this movie, but it's pretty quick and disgustingly entertaining. If you have a few hours to kill, it's worth a look.

R.I.P. Maxim Magazine

I am a big fan of streaks.

Hitting streaks, unbeaten streaks, games with a touchdown or defenses holding teams without a touchdown, I really dig stringing together unbroken runs.

When I had more time, I'd keep track of unofficial blog streaks - number of days with one post per day, number of days with 20 or more hits - so I tend to pay attention to that sort of thing.

Since college, I've subscribed to every Maxim Magazine that's been available. While I missed the first two or three, a friend at the newspaper I was working at tipped me off when Maxim ran a feature on the 100 greatest guy movies and those of us in the house took it as an unofficial challenge.

Keep in mind, these were the pre-Netflix days, so you really had to hunt down titles as you worked to complete the list. It kept us busy all summer.

Since then (and this year in particular) the magazine has really fallen off the table to shockingly low levels of quality when you look back at the first few years of issues.

The first step to mediocrity was when they became more of a softcore porn magazine as opposed to a guy's magazine. This might seem like a subtle distinction but what was once a magazine focusing on music, movies, video games, cars, grilling and fashion with sexy women splashed on top, Maxim has switched the formula of late to invert the ratios.

Adding insult to injury, while you used to get fairly meaty (hot dog meaty, not steak meaty) features on adventure stories and football/baseball previews, those have gone bye-bye as well.

This year's football preview was barely noticeable after 30 pages of half-naked cheerleaders. Wait, why am I arguing against Maxim again? Oh, yeah, the actual football portion of the football preview was two or three pages at best.

The features and reviews that used to pretty right on are now simple sentences strung together with fewer words than the average barfly can muster after a night of heavy drinking. In short, a magazine that used to be entertaining, well-written and locked in to our generation's tastes is now just a cheap excuse to show someone in their underwear.

Gone are features and tech articles that, while light reading, were actually worthwhile.

I used to defend Maxim to those who would dismiss it as the frat version of Playboy I won't be doing that any more. I guess the phrase "It's like a male Cosmo," can now be striken from my vocabulary. While Playboy has maintained its edge as a smart and well-done publication Maxim has lost its way and this subscriber.

It's always such a shame to see a streak come to an end. Then again, there's no shortage of frat boys to take my place on their list.

The calm before the storm

OK, I think we have everyone on board who needs to be notified, so I can drop a quick line to apologize for the lack of posts this weekn by announcing that we got got engaged this weekend so the week has been a little bit of a blur.

I've been picking out china patterns and playing with floral arrangements online in every scrap of free time this week, so you know how that goes.

I can't wait to start picking out shoes for the groomsmen and pretending to go to church and such in the next few weeks.

Quick programming note

I switched around a few of the links off the right side of the blog.

Gives a little higher priority to my blogging homeboys and as funny as having"McCarver can blow me" written along the sidebar, it was time to move that along, too.

Anyways, one of the better blogs I'll check because it changes weekly is PostSecret. You have to see it to understand it. People mail in their secrets and the art and sentiment expressed on the site will at times make you laugh, be somewhat inspiring or break your heart.

It's usually a grab bag of all three in each week's grouping.

In any event, it's worth checking out - it's quick and really amazing.

Oh, I've had those days...

Well, technically, I never bit a panda but I know that feeling.

I really can't do much more with this because I can't stop smirking and snickering whenever I look at the link. You know those Internet stories you read out lud, word for word to the person sitting next to you?

This is one of those puppies.

You see, a Chinese man got drunk, climbed in with a panda, got bit and bit the fucking bear back... Happens all the time over there. Pandas are like squirrels in China, I hear.

Here's a little taste:

“No one ever said they would bite people,” Zhang said. “I just wanted to touch it. I was so dizzy from the beer. I don’t remember much.”

Thank God they didn't sell jugs of beer when I was in college. Things could have gotten ugly... er... Things could have gotten uglier...

(Image from: steverolston.com)

That Theory of Relativity sure is a hard nut to crack

I can still remember a discussion in grammar school about learning and the general quest for knowledge when one of my teachers told us there was a time in world history where a person could conceivably know everything there was to know.

The point of the story was that as dilligent little students we could study, experiment and learn every hour of the day, never stopping to eat or sleep and never would we be able to equal that. There was just too much to see, do and learn that as long as we kept working and studying, there'd always be something more just over the horizon.

The initial point made is something that has always stuck with me and it'll come to mind from time to time, moreso when I'm watching PBS or reading something to better myself appear to better myself to an outside observer.

Tonight I was bitch-slapped by Albert Einstein and a two-hour episode of Nova. While I might not be able to know everything anymore, I have serious doubts that I'll ever be able to wrap my head around relativity.

Like, ever.

There are some things that are just beyond my capability to grasp them and I'll probably just need to come to terms with that. Einstein's theory of relativity might be one of those things.

The high points to make you the hit of any nerd-centric dinner party are as follows:

* Einstein contended that the speed of light was the universal speed limit and that any energy expended to go any faster will result in an increase in mass.

* He was 26 in 1905 when he wrote five papers, including his theory of relativity, the quantum theory of light and essentially that Newton was off in his theories.

* When these theories began making their way around the world, the physics community didn't now how to react. He essentially rewrote the rules on how the universe worked. He completely shattered everything we thought we knew about energy and matter and did so quickly.

I guess while I can get a good grasp on history and other facets of the world at large, physics might require more than a few hours on PBS here and there. I learned that leasson the hard way when two hours wasn't enough to become a minor expert on string theory.

Something tells me this would all be easier if I'd paid more attention in physics class instead of fucking around and trying to make Frankie laugh.

(Photo from PBS.org)

The long road back

Best of luck Koren Robinson. You'll need it.

And not just for the cheap shot reasoning that Green Bay is a drinking town with a football problem, but because he's in a bad spot. A really bad spot.

I can't imagine having to go through trying to sort out the ashes of your life while trying to make a living in the NFL and having countless others judging and second-guessing you if you're foolish enough to read a newspaper or surf the Web.

For as prevalent as addiction is in our society, many choose to ignore it, hope it's a stage they're going through and hope it gets better. Rationalizing your own behavior and continuing to repeat mistakes is a tough cycle to get caught in.

I know because despite being sober since August 23, 2001, it's something I have to fight with on a near daily basis. For that reason alone, I'm really hoping that Robinson can come back this year in Green Bay and try to turn his life around.

Not that he's doing that badly, mind you - just that his mistakes are played out on talk radio and ESPN crawlers at the bottom of the screen when they happen. Sure, it's a big deal to be speeding, evading police and continually making apologies, but I'd bet everything I have that he wasn't the only impaired driver on the road that night.

And not just any road - that same road. To the point that at least one drunk driver passed the squad cars that had Robinson pulled over. There is no way you can change my mind on this.

The trick is that while hundreds of drunk drivers will be pulled over this weekend, we won't know any of their names. They'll quietly be sentenced, seek help at the court's urging and more than likely relapse again. You know the saying about how you can't force someone to get help in those situations unless they want it?

That thought process is completely correct.

It's easy to chalk up constant binge drinking to a bad week at work, or a rough stretch in your life. Name an excuse and I've probably used it at one point or another to justify my drinking and my subsequent behavior. It's when things start to spiral that your world gets out of control.

Here's the rub; no matter how depressing or out of whack your life is while you're drinking, the tough part is once you start to dry out. You're supposed to avoid old friends you drank with, you're grumpy and short with people and your old habits die hard.

And that's not the worst part.

Imagine feeling ashamed almost constantly for every waking hour, coupled with the overriding feeling that you're left to clean up a mess from a party you weren't even at. It's rough and when you're not prepared for it you need to be very tough or very lucky.

As I tried to set right old friendships I'd ruined, I was fortunate to have smart, forgiving people who were able to look at the situation and chalk it up to the alcohol. I was fortunate that most people took my apologies and accepted them for what they were and moved along from there.

"People don't get mad," one friend told me. "Dogs get mad." She told me she'd been hurt, frustrated and disappointed in me, but not mad. When you're trying to put the pieces back, this passes as a good day.

One of the worst feelings I've had in my life was feeling like a criminal as I tried to get in contact with a girl I'd dated briefly in college. Her friends refused to give me her e-mail address and insisted on talking to her first before I could. They promised to hand her my contact info and leave it up to her.

When you've done so much wrong in your life that you aren't allowed to make an apology, you realize exactly how bad things have become. You have to earn your way back from that, which is something I'm not sure Robinson has figured out yet.

It's easy (even for me) to stand back and judge him, asking ourselves why a man with natural talent and millions upon millions of dollars in the balance can't "just stop drinking," focus on football and let that be that.

It's the rational move, but it's not the whole story. Fuck touchdowns and paychecks, what he needs to worry about are old friends and hurt family members, because I'd guess this is impacting them, too.

So while professional success plays a key role in an athlete's life, it probably shouldn't be a priority right now for Robinson. I can only imagine how nice it is for him to go and practice for a few hours each day to give him time off from legal and publicity problems that are dogging him after his arrest this summer.

He's only 26 now, with plenty of time to live up to his potential as an athlete. I'm honestly hoping he finds a way to live up to his potential as a human being along the way.

(Photo from CNN/SI)

I'm just saying, is all...

I'm not a punk. I've never claimed to be punk. I'm far too old to get a mohawk and start flipping people off in the supermarket at this point, so chances are, I'll never be a punk.

However, I can respect the movement and understand how punks get pissed off at the state of music today.

Exhibit A: Good Charlotte.

Don't get me wrong, they have some catchy tunes and had a pretty good run for a while, but when kids in Nebraska see the Madden boys and say, "Fuck yeah! Punk rock!" I have nothing but sympathy for those who seethe with rage at the state of affairs.

So, when I see photos pop up like these on What Would Tyler Durden Do? I just chuckle.

No matter how hard core you want people to think you are, no matter how much crap you accessorize your outfit with and no matter how many know-nothing teenagers worship at your feet, there's a good chance your parents will come to visit and ruin all of it.

Seriously, they look like the couple down the street from me. I thought those guys were orphans or something. I remember Rolling Stone doing a sidebar on how they'd worked as busbiys to keep he family afloat and such. Maybe it's a typo and they are her parents, but regardless, this is not the second coming of the Sex Pistols.

Safe to say, rock n' roll hardcore doesn't do brunch.

Yes, I see your tats and piercings... No, they're not helping...

(Photo from Prensa.com)

Football Pregame Roundup

A few, quick things before kickoff today:

Koren Robinson in Green Bay?

For all of the back and forth this week and a bit of last about Robinson, a player with a history of problems with the bottle, and Green Bay, a city that is infinitely more bearable when you have a bottle or two, I think for once the concern is warranted.

Regardless of his performance on the field, the fact remains that he's essentially drank his way out of two cities so far, so this doesn't bode well.

Will this be the wakeup he needs? I'd like to pull for this guy, but it doesn't look good at all.

Let me leave you with this: When Brett Favre had his issues years ago with painkillers he was on record as asaying he'd wished he'd kept his mouth shut so he could keep drinking his beer. Mr. Robinson, meet your new team's leader.

I have a lot to say on this move, but think I'll wait until later in the season to open that can of bees.

Muchas Smoochas

I think Terry Bradshaw and Joe Buck should get a room. What the hell is talking about with the story about his hound dog? And why is he grabbing Buck's jaw like he's going to plant one on him?

I'm sure Fox sees this as money well spent.

Post-Concussion Syndrome

I'm not sure how I feel about these poor old QB's like Troy Aikman and Dan Marino being paraded out in front of the cameras, obviously unaware of whether they're in their living rooms or on a playing field.

Psychosomatic scent triggers and general confusion are not entertainment, people.

It's kind of sad, really.

Stingrays 1, People 1

This opening paragraph in the Times Online should tell you pretty much all you'd need to know.

At least ten stingrays have been found dead and mutilated on Australia’s eastern coast in the last week in what conservationists believe could be revenge attacks for the death of Steve Irwin, the popular naturalist and television personality.

My word, that is a stupid, stupid idea.

I honestly cannot fathom how a rational human being random ass biped, possibly with opposable thumbs, thinks that killing an animal - and an animal without a cell phone or Internet access at that (stingrays have notoriously bad credit and aren't pre-approved for either of these) - would have any impact whatsoever.

Really, what the hell is going on here? Aren't there better ways to expend energy than vigilante stingray slaughter?

Here are three better things to do: Anything, nothing or hunting dolphins. Dolphins have communication skills, at least. Take down one of those bastards and word spreads fast.

Stingrays? Not so much...

(Photo from Mote.org)

Honor code? We don't need no stinking honor code

Ah, Monday Night Football and a double-header at that! (Heh, double-header in a game involving Fred Smoot... Good times.)

First and foremost - what the fuck was that opening about? Really, who green-lit that monstrosity? First there's a city, then people run and turn into football players and whatnot? Honestly, I'm confused and a little ashamed to be a football fan right now.

I swore off the talk radio today, opting instead to listen to the iPod and new songs downloaded this weekend. Besides, it's been the same song and dance all month regarding the Vikes. That, and you really have a hard time gauging a team until Week 3 at the earliest - it gets to be a little grating after a while.

Pretty much all I need to know about this year's team is that Brad Johnson is the face of it on ESPN right now.

Yeah, Viking fever, catch it!

Aside from that, they cut their top wideout because of personal problems and they might have to scrape their punter off the field after he was just laid out after a bad snap on their first score of the 2006 season.

(Who the hell are these "Redskins" fans? I lived there a whole year and didn't meet a single fan of the home team. Most were transplants from somewhere else and the locals backed the Ravens. So how are they filling a stadium? The NFL needs to look into this... Coach Janky Spanky can't have this many fans, right?)

As a bonus, I'll tell my favorite Viking story that has nothing to do with pro football.

My high school's mascot was a viking and as such we had a big, goofy costume for pep rallies and such. My chemistry teacher was the advisor responsible for those sorts of things and she took them fairly seriously.

Well, Victor the Viking gets out with a microphone and is whipping the students up in our championship season in 1995 and is doing the "spell the name / cheer the name" bit and is really into it.

As I remember, it wasn't even the cartoon head, it was a guy with a beard in the costume rushing about (Frank the Tank may remember this more clearly) and hollering.

He says, "Gimme a 'V' everyone!"

We say, "Veeeee!"

"Gimme an 'I!'"

"Iiiiiii"

And so on. Only, when it was all done, he'd spelled Vikins. V-I-K-I-N-S.

Pretty funny overall. What I remembered the next day is the capper for the story for me, though.

We ask our teacher what she thought and she said something to the effect of, "The freshmen didn't really get it, the sound system had a lot of feedback and Victor the Viking should at least know how to spell 'Vikings.' It's written all over the floor."

(Photo from WashingtonPost.com)

So diculous it's re-diculous

Consider this your encore for Sunday afternoon.

I forgot to mention the insanity of the pregame and halftime shows on TV today.

I knwe it'd be a good day when Tom Jackson called Michael Irvin a retard on national television on the ESPN pregame show today.

Is it just me or do you have a harder time taking Irvin seriously after the latest round of drug problems? As much as I think Jackson was right, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that we haven't heard the last of this.

The over/under is two days on him having to publicly apologize to all retards, Irvin included.

***
Same show, a little later and they had Dr. Phil breaking down Bill Parcels and Terrell Owens new relationship in Dallas.

Jesus.

I've said it before and will say it again - Oprah needs to be stopped. That much power in one place is no good for anyone.

***
Halftime of Bears/Packers and they run a small reel of the 10th anniversary of the Packers' last Super Bowl win (has it really been 10 years?) with Reggie White as the centerpiece. They went through and digitally added the "ancient footage" look with specks and pops and the lines that run along the image like it happened in 1940.

What the fuck was that about?

Did Fox get a new toy in the editing room or something? Awful just awful.

***
In the same vein as finding your stride after a rocky start, the Miller Lite "Man Laws" commercials have a new high water mark.

"No wasting beer in the name of humor" is a law about tapping the top of your buddy's beer bottle to make it foam over.

Let's hope this one takes - that's really fucking annoying, and we're looking at you, Jigga. (The buddy of mine, not the CEO of Roc-a-fella Records - I don't need any uneccesary rap beefs.)

(Image from TheSmokingGun.com)