I call him Ted Ginn Junior Junior.

I've come to the conclusion that fantasy football teams are a little like pets. Nobody really wants to hear anything about yours, they just want an excuse to talk about their own.

Factor in the apparent importance of picking just the right wacky name and the requirement of only basic maintenance... 😺

Updating

"Uhhh yes I'd like to exchange this LeBron Heat jersey for a Dolphins jersey.

Which one? Oh... Is Jason Taylor still on the team? Wait no I heard he might go to the Jets or something."

The ability to eat your meat AND have your pudding.

I've been hearing a lot of discussion about how Jameis Winston is killing his NFL career options because of college chicanery.

I dunno, it's worth pointing out that the two longest careers for Noles from the previous championship were Lavernaeus Coles (who got kicked off the team) and Sebastian Janikowski (who was supposedly nearly kicked out of the country).

I'm sure a lot of teams are really thrilled they passed on Dan Marino because he mighta partaken in the ol' devil weed in college. Randy Moss and Warren Sapp probably are just fine with how their careers turned out, thanks.

Man code confession....

I regularly forget which one is the Big Ten and which one is the Big 12.

I'm sure this is partially my brain rebelling against the fact that there are now fourteen teams in the Big Ten and ten teams in the Big 12.

At least I know which teams are generally grouped together... I just seem to have a block against which stupid moniker they're clinging to.

Have you thought about not sucking?

I listen to a lot of sports radio. I guess it's a "guilty pleasure" of sorts. It's really pretty ticky-tacky content sometimes. But you do get good updates and some of the hosts are pretty entertaining and/or humorous.

Since I'm generally listening to the Miami stations, I hear a lot of Canes callers. It occurs to me these fans pretty much fall into one of two camps (no, NOT alumni and the other 95% of the fan base)...

Caller I: "It's really disconcerting when I see the UM offense relegated chiefly to screen passes and dump-offs to the safety valve receiver for short gains. Starting a true freshman is a gamble. Even when trailing against a team like Louisville, the vertical threat seems to be almost completely eliminated, which of course means the box gets loaded up to shut down the run as well. Is this concern being sufficiently addressed?"

Caller II: "We're BAD. We used to be GOOD. We lose now. We should not lose. Other teams should lose to us. We had SWAGGER! I want swagger. This coach should go away and instead there should be a coach that is GOOD."

Interestingly, I suspect it's more of the FIRST category that actually goes to the games when UM plays FAMU this weekend... and more of the second that has a UM logo tattoo (and, okay yes... went to FIU.)

Maybe it's an elaborate marketing ploy by Poli-Grip?

So Tim Tebow's gonna be a guest commentator for ESPN. Seems a good choice, he speaks well and can offer some insights, seems generally likable.

 Hey, here's an idea... How bout they swap him in instead of mealymouth Lou Holtz. Or Mack Brown, I hear-tell he has some time on his hands. Hell, let Gallagher on there with his sledgehammer... His insights will sounds just as silly, and the studio won't get any wetter than it does from his schhhhlober flying around.

Is it worth 60 Minutes?

So, an NBA player I've never heard of (which, to be fair is probably 85% of the league) came out and is the first active player in a major men's sport to do so. Being the first to do something like that is a huge decision, and of course one that ain't easy...

Enough has been / is being said about that... I'm interested in a ripple.



One athlete, newly signed Dolphins WR Mike Wallace, said on Twitter "I'm not bashing anybody don't have anything against anyone I just don't understand it." "All these beautiful women in the world and guys wanna mess with other guys SMH..."



One little bit of clarification... I'd seen "SMH" to mean so much hate, but I heard this AM that this is more likely shaking my head.

The news media, in a story like this, desperately wants a bad guy. There's only so much life, and very little conflict (woohoo conflict!) in a news story if it's met only with active and former players and celebs universally coming out and all saying something to the extent of "Good for him. We support you."

Secretly, or perhaps not so secretly, the media really wants someone to say "Well if I see him I'm gonna punch him hard in his face with my hand because queer. Grrrr!" What reporters love more than men or women is being able to say "We're not gonna call this guy a knuckle-dragger... but... here's what he said, and here's someone else who said this guy's a real knuckle-dragger."


The awkwardness here is that this isn't what Mike Wallace said. Wallace basically said "I don't get it and can't relate. I like women. I don't see it."

You can't subtextually suggest people grab their torches and head for someone's house for saying "That's his thing. Mine's chicks." To be proportional, the suggestion has to be... umm... let's all go and turn this guy's thermostat up from 70 to 73.


I'm sure Bill Romanowski's phone is probably ringing off the hook. There are a lot of cub reporters out there who are desperately seeking someone who will say "Grab a rope let's string this guy up. Yeehaw"

So far the closest I've heard was Chris Broussard on ESPN saying he's been led to believe it's a sin, and that he also holds in his heart that premarital sex goes against his personal beliefs. Some more on that here... http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/espn-chris-broussard-clarifies-views-jason-collins-don-221941033.html

May that be the worst that comes out of this.

Side note, and a bit of stupid humor (b/c what would this vanity blog be without...)

Do you suppose this makes it harder to be the color commentator for the next game this guy plays? There's a lot of unintentional double entendre in sports speak, esp. if you're a giggly third grader. Collins comes out with the ball, penetrates hard into the lane, etc. etc.

'Merica!

College baseball season starts today. What's that, you say you don't care about college baseball?

Ya know who else didn't care about college baseball? That's right, Hitler.

So tune in for FSU vs. Rhode Island at 4 pm. Or be just like Hitler.

Among the things we learned from yesterday's NCAA champeenship....

We can include in the list of revelations from yesterday's BCS thingy, we will always remember that...

...ummm...

We finally decided that LSU defensive end Barkevious Mingo belongs in the upper echelon of players named Barkevious ever to put on a collegiate uniform.

Tecmo Orange Bowl

Seriously? I woke up to see that West Virginia scored 70 pts in the Orange Bowl last night? Ummm, damn.

I know ticket sales were slow, but did I miss the news that they were switching the OB to an arena football game?

Certainly doesn't make me feel much better about the 'Noles losing to Clemson. They seemed a fairly solid team earlier in the year, don't know what happened. Gotta feel bad for Clemsons and Clemdaughters who dropped a couple of thou to come down, get hotels and go to the game.

I mean, I'm happy they came... after all, their Ford pickup trucks with the shotgun rack and the sticker of Calvin peeing on a Chevy logo being in town for a week is what keeps me from having a state income tax. But still, that long trip home after an L sucketh.

rubbing elbows

Had a good time last night at the Dolphins game. Except for the whole not being at the Dolphins game part... tho even that worked out.

Went to the pre-game tailgate for the Marco Rubio for US Senate campaign.



Rubio's a good man, and a solid candidate. All indications are he's a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who speaks plainly yet with conviction... if only that weren't something so rare it actually stands out! And, if I can confess a bit of dorkyness, I definitely like the notion that Marco recognizes me by now and calls me by name :) Heck, it's one of the things that keeps me out of polyticks, some days I wonder if I can remember TLMS's name without cue cards.



Never did get a ticket, and left as the game was just starting. Surprisingly, I made it from the stadium back to Kendall in 30 minutes (err I sure was obeying all our state's fine traffic laws). Got back in time to sit down and watch the 2nd half of the 1st qtr.

Dorkiness part 2, ran in the apt, turned on ABC and ran into the, umm, library... forgot that MNF hasn't been on ABC for a couple of years. So it was Dancing with the Stars instead :p

da da da, da da *yawn*

Was thinking about this the other day as I (half-)watched ESPN SportsCenter.

Ten, twelve years ago it seemed watching SportsCenter was THE thing to do, it was practically the capital of "guydom", or at least sports fan central. It seems to have fallen so far that "I saw something interesting on SportsCenter last night" would once have gotten "Oh yeah that was awesome!" to "Really? SportsCenter? You still watch that?"

So, where do you figure the fall from grace came from? Too much corporate tie-in, "Now it's time for the Aantares.com Five Questions Hot Seat Indicator Bell"?

The departure of the likes of Craig Kilborn and Kieth Olbermann and the failure to find similarly fun replacements?

Omnipresence of the Internet?

Stuart Scott?

Convening the court of Man Law

Two cases to be considered... one involving me and one I witnessed. Looking for Man Law rulings...

For the first one.... I don't know these people's names, I'm just gonna pick random names so I don't have to keep saying "first guy" and "second guy", etc.

[i]Good Faith Effort?[/i]

Scene is a football game... Josephus and Mortimer are squeezing by to get out past the end of the row. Pancho isn't in his seat but he left a nearly full beer there, Mortimer accidentally knocks it over. He promises Pancho's friends he'll replace it.

While J&M are gone, it turns out Pancho and his friends are "mistakenly" in the wrong seats, and the real owners come back. Josephus and Mortimer come back WITH an extra compensation beer for Pancho, who of course now is nowhere to be found. After holding it for a couple of minutes they decide to give the extra beer away to their buddy Alouicious.

Pancho comes back about 20-30 minutes later and demands his beer. They say they brought one for him but he was nowhere to be found. He wants $12 compensation, though J&M insist a beer is only $8. He eventually gets frustrated and leaves.


So.... Josephus and Mortimer did their Man Law job? When they spilled the beer they made a "good faith effort" to replace it and kept it for a reasonable time? Or when you knock over a beer are you 100% OBLIGED to replace it?



Case 2: Mitigating circumstances...

Okay so I did something I've never done before. I left a football game early. A bowl game at that! Butbutbutbutbut...

consider:
1. They were free tickets, a gift.
2. Wasn't sitting with a group, just with TLMS.
3. I didn't have any particular rooting interest for either team.
4. It was fairly cold and windy (well, cold and windy by Miami standards). And TLMS gets cold way before I do, and I thought it was cold, so that tells ya something.
5. We stayed till it was, barring some really record-breaking miracles, no longer in doubt.
6. The seats were at an odd angle. We were in the corner of one end zone and only a few rows up from the field. Which is great, unless you're trying to figure out what's going on on the far side of the field.
7. It was after midnight, and TLMS lives maybe 30-35 miles from the stadium, and then I have to come back halfway again from there to my own place. And I had to work the next day.

more impressionism

Hope you're ready for it, because this one's a two-fer...

My impression of television...

WHEN THE SEMINOLES WIN:
And in sports today, this map shows all-the-cities-where-a-team-won. Now, on to 20 minutes of weather!

WHEN THE SEMINOLES LOSE:
[CNN] And that's why the candidate's poll numbers are going down. Of course, not as bad as the Seminoles went down. Man, did you see that? Let's go to the tape..." [Weather Channel] It's going to be cold in Wichita. Not as cold as it must seem on the plane back for the Seminoles though...[NBC] tonight's primetime lineup is being preempted so we can show highlights of the Seminoles losing...

random thought draught

It occurs to me the reason why I don't have more blog posts is that if I think of something moderately amusing, I am more likely to turn it into a facebook status update or something like that. Hey, at least there I know someone's reading it, unlike here. Hello? Anybody out there?

Bowden event went really well today. That is to say, people seemed largely very pleased and the event looked really top-shelf. Events like this are really kind of an odd experience, especially if you're doing media corralling like I do. It ends up being rush rush, wait, wait some more, wait, RUSH, RUSH stuff your face RUSH.. then try to get over the adrenaline high when it all pretty much stops around you. I do have to say I'm a bit disappointed in Coach Fisher's speaking skills. I'm hopeful that as he does more of these sorts of events he'll fine-tune his speaking ability and storytelling. Though you'd think someone who's "powerful suth'n" would know how to spin a yarn...

Lots of really nice time with TLMS these days. Haven't screwed it up yet!

RIP Orange Bowl, 1937-2008

Should have done it last week because more was still up, but anyway thought you might like to see these... Here are some shots I just took of what's left of the Miami Orange Bowl. Interesting that about the only thing left standing is the famous "lite brite" scoreboard that used to be the recognizable open east end zone looking out to downtown.

Super Bowls, national championships, Dolphins perfect season, some monster Canes teams... just a few leftover sections that are set to be demolished, and soon it'll be another big empty field.










And supposedly someday the future home of the Marlins. Don't hold your breath though. Not that I'd ever recommending holding your breath for 5 years or whatever it is.

Have you tried NOT screwing up your life?

Probably not the first person to say this, but...

Preston Parker, dammit, what the hell is wrong with you, kid?

A story that has become way way WAAAAAAAY too common... Seminole wide receiver with a promising future, maybe the most talented offensive player last year... was busted in Palm Beach Gardens with a .45 and a bit of the green devil-weed.

Set aside for a moment what might be the more immediate mystery --- what the hell you need a truck-stopper of a sidearm in Palm Beach freaking Gardens, an area where shooting a birdie still really is a golf term.

I had really hoped, perhaps naively, that FSU players would finally reach the point where they get the very complicated notion that if you try NOT crapping out your life for a few cheap thrills for just three or four years, you stand a good chance of getting VERY LARGE PILES OF MONEY.

Now, I've never tried weed. I've only been in the situation where it was around a few times and never really felt compelled to spark up. However, from what I've heard and seen, I have to imagine that when presented the option of some smokeysmokey NOW or a $10 million signing bonus in two years, I think that'd be one of my easier decisions to come across.

I had hoped that the addition of Terrell Buckley to the FSU staff would help get the "knock that crap off, it's for your own good" message through to some of these kids. I can understand how if you're a 19 year old black elite athlete, it might be easy to dismiss nuggets of wisdom that come in a daggum-coated candy wrapper from the 118 yr old mouth of Bobby Bowden. But I was kinda thinking Buckley could have a special closed-door session that consisted of him saying "Alright, today's lesson is: Knock that Crap Off. See this Super Bowl ring? Good. Knock that crap off! Any questions?"

Some sort of record

I guess this means I've been blogging for three years. Wheee! That puts me ahead of, oh, about 10 million blogs or so, including lots of big corporations. You just know that somewhere out there, a bubble wrap manufacturer thought the world wanted to hear the musings and philosophies of the assistant VP of operations on the dinner menu at BubbCON 2007.

Was tough watching the FSU game last night... by all logical standards, Nole fans should be happy to have finished like we did... figure 30+ players didn't make the trip (mostly because of that whole pesky "not cheating" thing). The game started with an ugly flubbed punt (that actually involved all the frontline players anyway), and an opponent FSU probably wouldn't have been given a chance against even if they HAD been full strength... to take it down to the last play of the game IS respectable. And that's with being on the goal line once and coming away without any points...

Still... hard to argue with the immortal and oft-replayed words of Herm Edwards, then Jets coach when asked whether he would throw an end of the year game to get a better draft pick. "You play to WIN THE GAME!"

As such, losing does in fact still suck. And "moral victories" aren't any better English than "it is what it is."

in other news

So, I heard that Michigan finally got their new football head coach, and it's someone they think will really help with experience luring high school athletes. Yeah, apparently they're giving the job to Jamie-Lynn Spears.


Or maybe I shouldn't try reading the news from USA Today over a guy's shoulder in the airport.

Our Lady Of the Blessed Weinke

Had a great weekend last week, always nice when something you've been looking forward to for about 4 months actually ends up going very nicely.

Somehow and for some reason, TLMS agreed to travel with me to Tallahassee. The occasion was really twofold --- go to a home FSU game and visit with my best friend in recognition of 10 years (!) since we first met and became fast friends. That and a chance to run around all my old haunts, threefold (our chief weapon is fear, fear and surprise...)

10 years ago... hmm... I was a lot thinner, a bit more starry-eyed, and convinced I was headed for a career in politics. But I'm not going to head down that introspective path this time around, gonna stick with this week's trip.

Was more than a little bit nervous about spending the second straight weekend that would consist of three full days with the main squeeze. But I knew this would be a blast.

Was a bit funny, variations on a theme...
Friday:
"Oh look, a Bible Education Center, see I bet you'd like working there."
"We're not moving here."

Saturday: "See these houses out here? They cost about the same as your condo."
"Yeah, ummm, see we're NOT moving."

Sunday: "What should we do this afternoon?"
"I dunno, go see a real estate agent?"
"We're NOT moving here."

I do have to give TLMS credit for (at least) one irrefutable point though --- one that I have to hold up like a marble and admire from all sides... which basically was along the lines of "Who would want to move to a college town when they're not even a fan of that school?"

Still, we had fun. Carrie's littlun was amazingly well-behaved when you consider that "gameday" basically meant being oat and aboat on her best behavior for about 6 hours and well past her bedtime. There was another little Nolita there so that helped.

What might have been the most memorable experience from the weekend though, and the one referenced in the title of the post (sorry it took so long for me to get to this point) was that we went to a unique sort of church service on Sunday. It was actually my idea to go to one while we were in town, I thought it'd be a nice touch and we had time... plus I guess subconsciously I thought it would make the idea of spending a weekend up there more palatable!

This is a new church community, I think they said about 5 years old, that is still raising funds to build a church in "downtown" (hah!) Tallahassee. Meanwhile, they're meeting in the Tallahassee Little Theatre, which is about exactly what you'd figure a community theater would look like. It wasn't surreal enough to see a church service not in a church though --- I mean say what you want about today's churches but I'm used to seeing things on a stage as being admittedly fiction!!

No, add to that the stage was still decorated for whatever little show they happened to be doing now. Very weird to get The Word from a typical 1940s house community stage set. I half-expected to see a marquee out front with "10 AM Seek and Ye Shall Find... 1 PM Waiting for Godot"

Also memorable was something I'll likely never find in another town. Wisdom imparted with metaphors and stories in the sermon using as illustration what else? The Seminoles, of course. I've always said I need sermons to relate things to points of reference I can understand and identify with --- well, any service where I hear an appreciation in times of adversity being compared to the 1993 FSU - Gator game and get a virtual play-by-play of Charlie Ward to Warrick Dunn as a way to clear up the Gospel, well...

You know the old teaching movie cliche where the HS teacher gets the kids to behave in class by relating classic literature to their own problems? (Weee Hamlet's mom is a whore and a bunch of people die!) Well, comparing the saturday afternoon tradition with Sunday morning tradition does not suck.