perfidy

But if so, here's your explanation for why Dallas' next game will be in the late summer, 2007:

Hail Florida. The better team tonight seems clearly poised to win, big.

Damn shame, that, but it is what it is, and my prior words on the matter can be considered to have been eaten.

[wik] Velociman's comments cut to the quick:

There are two types of collegiate football played in America, Neck.

1) Southeastern Conference Football, and

2) that weasily dandified transvestite version they play everywhere else. Most notably, apparently, there in your beloved Rust Belt.

The game's now over, and the result is no longer quite as shocking. Ohio State, after a decent start, got pounded like the new guy at the prison. Beat like a rented mule.

While (V-Man's purple prose notwithstanding) it says not a damned thing about the superiority of the SEC compared to anyone, Florida was without a doubt the baddest team on the field tonight.

[alsø wik] Buckethead update: I was going to write a post about this, but Patton's quote from Velociman preempts me. I was talking to my mom after the game, and I told her that as disappointed as I was with the loss the thing that bothered me most was that now the SEC bigots will never shut up. "I know," said she. My personal theory is that someone kidnapped the Buckeyes, and replaced them with the Cleveland Browns.

Hardly.

"Not much can stop football in this town, where the pride runs deep."

At the link above, should you care to, you can read a story that might make you think high-school football's sometimes taken just a bit more seriously than perhaps it oughta be.

Based on all I've heard about just how gosh-darned good the SEC is, I shouldn't have been shocked to see an article at The Brushback entitled "Buckeyes Forfeit Championship To Avoid Facing Mighty SEC"

“We’ve never seen a team like Florida before,” said Tressel. “We have not had a taste of SEC football at all. The best team we’ve played this year is Michigan, and those guys are from the Big 10, which is like the SEC Jr. Florida, on other hand, has played Alabama, Tennessee, LSU, and Georgia. Read that list again. You think we could have handled all those teams? Not likely. And I don’t even want to think what an SEC defense would do to our poor little Troy Smith. Bye bye Heisman, hello full body cast. No thanks. We’ll skip the game and live to suck another day.”

Luckily, I think that all possible weird-ass angles on the BCS, the SEC, OSU, and other pertinent TLAs have now been covered. Therefore, it's time to (at least temporarily) abjure further jock-related posts. We now return you to "Giant Robot posts, dick jokes and [other] goofiness"

"Michigan Got Screwed"

One must be careful what one wishes for.

First, USC loses to UCLA, which seemed impossible, though a friend of mine from Los Angeles tried to get me to bet him on the matter. I'm glad that I declined, in retrospect.

I never saw that coming, but such is the power of traditional rivalries.

Then Florida, which I didn't expect to win the SEC, against Arkansas or anyone else, did so. During the game, Gary Danielson tried to lay out the detailed rationale for Florida being ranked higher than Michigan in the BCS. I saw it, gave it a good deal of thought, and decided it was all bullshit. Why? Because Florida played the game sloppily and incompetently, and really should have lost it. That, plus I've gotten tired of listening to SEC apologists talking about just how gosh-darned tough that conference is. Style points, my ass.

My opinion (on Danielson's opinion, that is) hasn't changed - as much as I'd yawn at a rematch of Ohio State and Michigan in the BCS Championship game, I haven't seen anything in the past two weeks that convinces me Michigan's any worse than the second best team in all of college football. They'd kill Florida in a head-to-head matchup, I'm certain. As a result, it's no logical stretch to think the national title game is going to be a laugher, with OSU sure to be favored by at least two touchdowns.

I'm ambivalent about that, not because I like close games - I don't particularly care how close the final score ends up being. But if a hue and cry begins, on January 9, 2007, for a national playoff system to determine the best football team in NCAA Division I, I'll understand completely. And, for what it's worth, I hope Michigan makes mince-meat of USC, ending up the season rated just where they should be: a solid #2.

And, no, that's not a poo joke.

[wik] Although, honestly, it could be.

What is this?? Three football-related posts in a row? Johno must dig sports or something.

Today during the noon hour, my local CBS affiliate went on the air with the CBS football pregame extravaganza show. I was thrilled - nay, elated - to find that the first matchup of the day was Kansas City at Cleveland.

Cleveland! My beloved Browns on national television!

I never get to see a Browns game. I'm a cheap man and refuse to shell out for NFL cable packages. I'm also a lazy man, and no matter how much I'd like to, I really don't want to trek twenty-five miles into Jamaica Plain, Boston, to the "local" Sunday Browns club at some jackass bar. So when the meatheads on CBS started talking about the Browns-Chiefs [edited for clarity] matchup, I immediately cleared my calendar for the next three hours and sat down to watch what for me is at best a biennial event.

Come game time, the NFL pregame show went off the air, and was replaced by two solid hours of children's programming followed up by an hour of infomercials as the Browns beat the Chiefs 31-28 in an overtime nailbiter.

FUCK! Oh, come now. Is it really true, really true, that more people in the Boston area are going to turn the television over to their children at 1:00 on a Sunday, while the Patriots play a game over on FOX, than would appreciate seeing either the Chiefs or the Browns play?

Fucking really?

The Columbia Broadcasting System and the employees of its local Boston affiliate WBZ are hereby cordially invited to suck my ass.

Dickheads.

Speaking of Kissing Suzy Kolber, the guy's got some fantastic fake inner monologues of football stars up there.

Is that Berrian? I think he's triple-covered. You know what? Fuck it. I'm throwing it downfield.

Yeah, I see Jones open on the flank. But fuck that. Dumpoff passes are for faggots. I'm fucking Sexy Rexy Grossman. I can get that ball in there. And, even if I can't, I bet I'll be able to pull it off the next go round. I like throwing the ball long. It makes my dick hard.

What's that? I should throw a quick slant? Fuck that. That's gay. Button hook? Gay. Flare out? Gay. Screen pass? Kevin Spacey gay. This is fucking football. You can't just expect wins to come to you. You can't massage that shit. You gotta grab that game by the throat and rape the ever-loving shit out of it. You think a 5-yard out is gonna win you a game? You're a pussy. This ain't John Shoop running this offense. Sexy Rexy's got the arm. The dragon. You gotta unleash the dragon.

Okay, I'm throwing it. Nice. Look how far it went. I look good. I bet I made that Pats cheerleader wet her panties with that throw. She fucking wants me. I bet she likes it over a stair railing. I can hit that with 100% accuracy, my dear. Mmmmmm. I am delicious.

Oh shit. Looks like Samuel caught it. Again. Oh well. It still felt fucking great to throw that shit. Tell me that wasn't one of the prettiest passes you ever saw. You know what? Not only am I gonna throw it long the next time we hit the field. I'm gonna throw it even longer. Harder. You see that kid in wheelchair sitting in the end zone bleachers? I'm gonna nail him right between the fucking eyes with a Sexy Rexy fastball. Why? Because I can.

This is Rex Grossman we're talking about here. We're talking 210 lbs. of twisted steel and sex appeal. I'm not just a gunslinger. I'm a cumslinger. Throwing that ball long tells all the Rexettes that I am fucking out there. On the edge. Where I gotta be. The ladies love the danger. The unpredictability. Oh, maybe I'll tease them with a pretty touch pass every now and again. But then I'm gonna go right back to pumping that ball out for all it's worth. It tells them I throw like I fuck. That's how we do things in the sexy business.

Tell me you're not turned on right now. I am.

Thanks to the oddly named weblog kissing suzy kolber, I find the linked video, probably the insanest, crazymost sports highlight clip I will ever see if I live to be eleventy-hundred. Watch the video all the way through, and then try not to think about the number of lives that peaked that night, before any of them turned 19.

Thanks also to unfogged for the pointer.

[wik] Here is the direct YouTube link.

And, in typical Onion fashion, of course it is. I guess. But when I read the article available at the link below, it occurred to me that it could as just as easily have appeared in the "straight" press, and if it were, it might pass as a normal news story. You know, one of those that you read and nod your head in agreement? Odd, that.

[wik] I just noticed the "tweak" they'd obviously added as a "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" to keep us from taking it seriously (other than the fact it was posted in the Onion) - the game wasn't played on a Sunday. Sneaky Onion bastards!

[alsø wik] As previously discussed, I hope USC wins out convincingly, or better yet, loses twice while Florida beats Florida State by 150 points or more, because I really don't care to see a rematch between UM & OSU in Tempe. Since OSU's going to win anyway, how about Boise St, the only other ranked, undefeated team? Yes, you're right - that's going too far. 

A classic, best game of the year, if you ask me. My Ohio State Buckeyes pulled out a three-point victory, winning 42-39.

Yawn. Everybody who gives a crap already knows that. No news there.

Here's the follow-up, guaranteed to keep the rubes all atwitter at least until the next Pick-4 Ohio Lottery drawing:

Go figure. Donald Sensing would likely be displeased.

[wik] Oh, and back to the game - How good a game was it? Michigan's still rated #2 in the AP poll, and is just barely #3 in the BCS. Just as they should be.

[alsø wik] Dang. I completely misread the grotesquely detailed, yet ultimately quite understandable ESPN rankings. Michigan IS still #2 in the BCS, as well as the AP, but the droids at Harris & USAToday have them #3. The only way to avoid a replay of OSU-Michigan, it seems, is for USC to win out against Notre Dame & UCLA. If they do, great, and if they don't, well OSU will have to beat Michigan again. Which they will.

Could be, based on an article in today's Philadelphia Daily News, entitled "STUDLY DO-WRONGS" (subtitled "Some horses are standing dud").

The question du jour seems to revolve around the mating proclivities of the winner of the 2002 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.

Now, since I sincerely, deeply, aggressively, and completely don't care about others' sexual proclivities, not even if the "other" in question is a supposedly well-known evangelist I've never heard of, it was initially looking difficult for me to give this story more than a passing glance.

The author enlightens about the mating habits of certain equine special interest groups, like so:

Curiously, War Emblem has been less than a star in the breeding shed. In fact, he has been a colossal dud. Shipped off to stand stud at Shadai Stallion Station in Japan, he has impregnated only a handful of the hundreds of mares who have been led to him. The problem has less to do with fertility than with libido, which is to say War Emblem has been decidedly disinterested in the fair sex. Given that homosexuality is not uncommon in the animal kingdom, some have wondered if War Emblem had an eye for the boys. That very question was asked by Outsports.com: "Is War Emblem Gay?"

Well, I don't know about you, but in the highly unlikely event I have some future question about the world of gay sports, outsports.com would now be my "go to" source. As an added plus, it's clear that they're not limited to serving the needs of the two-legged, as they clearly cover matters related to quadripeds, too. So I've learned something. In addition, I've learned that even in horses, it's apparently common to deem one sex "fairer" than the other. Noted.

Any good article has a hook, of course, and I found mine in this bit:

The bottom line is that horses are not unlike human beings when it comes to sexual behavior, which is to say that it is varied, capricious and given to an array of unforeseen obstacles. In light of the big money involved, it can be an utterly exasperating undertaking, especially if you happen to discover that instead of the second coming of Northern Dancer, the horse you have standing at stud shows up one day wearing an ascot and humming show tunes.

After seeing that line, I read the rest of the article, and even though it reached its zenith at the show tunes jab, I found it an interesting use of those couple of minutes of my life that I'll never see again. Irreverance, it seems, remains the preferred hook to get and keep my attention.

[wik] Speaking of both irreverence and gay evangelicals I've never heard of, this bit from Ace of Spades, entitled "Biggest Story Of The Century: Some Guy You Never Heard Of Is A Homo"

In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Phil Sheridan had this to say about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, after he threw three interceptions in yesterday's loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

"You know it's a bad day when you vomit on national television, and it isn't your worst toss of the afternoon."

Maybe not second best, but probably in the top ten, just for fluid continuation of a theme, from the same article:

Eagles fans would hurl if they knew their team had been wounded, maybe mortally, by a 5-foot-9 guy who looks more like an extra from Lord of the Rings than a professional football player.

Razorbacks Spoil Auburn's Dreams of Perfect Season

Then-unranked Arkansas smoked then-#2 Auburn this past weekend.

As happens so often in life, the Onion provides a clue as to the reason.

If I wasn't a Big Ten follower and actually cared what happened in the SEC, this would have been comforting.

So, there I was - sitting in my home office, taking care of a few things that need to be taken care of, and listening to the radio broadcast of the Sunday night NFL game between Dallas & Washington.

Having given the 7 point spread and chosen Dallas in the pool I've joined, and with Dallas in control, but not running away with it, I've been paying a bit more attention to the action than I otherwise would.

Including, apparently, the commercials. I just heard one for a company/product called "See More Bucks". I'm guessing it was a locally broadcast commercial, though with AM radio shows, it's hard to predict what sort of marketing you'll be exposed to. Anyhow, hearing the word "Bucks" must have piqued my interest, thinking they were talking about the Ohio State Buckeyes. And as I listened, I found it had nothing to do with OSU football.

Seems they were offering a product that, if sprinkled on the foliage near one's "deer blind" (whatever - I'm not a deer hunter, so if I fuck up the special verbiage of the brotherhood, please forgive me), causes the bucks to just hang out and gnosh until you get a chance to put a slug between their eyes.

Again, I'm forced to say "whatever...". Perhaps that's normal in deer hunting, but it brought a memory of a friend from my youth, Jimmy, who fished in Southern Ohio and regularly took his houseboat out on one of the large man-made lakes of the area. His first action was to ensure the beer was cold. Next, he took a bushel basket of ears of corn and scattered it in the water around the boat. Several beers later, he'd drop a line in the water, and pull out fish as fast as he could cast.

I wonder how that's different than using "foliage perfume" from a company called See More Bucks. Oh, and Jimmy used to call it "chumming".

Doesn't seem very sporting, but I'm not that type of sportsman, so I could be wrong.

[wik] Oh, and when Jimmy got into the second six pack, he might occasionally stop casting, and just grab his net before dropping a few lit M-80s into the water. Even I know that's not sporting.

For the first time since getting over the initial withdrawal period, I am regretting my decision to get rid of cable. Sure, I am no longer wasting time watching the fifteenth documentary on the Battle of the Bulge, or Tsunamis. I'm not watching movies on HBO. I'm getting more reading done, playing games with the family. It's all good. Except. This Saturday we will witness, in the words of sportswriter Stewart Mandel, "the biggest, most colossal event in the history of organized sports." Well, those with television will witness it. What event is this, you ask? Nothing more than the OSU - Texas football game. My buckeyes are ranked number one. The slope browed neanderthals from Austin are ranked second. It's the second week of the season. And, short of finding a sports bar suitable for three year olds, I will miss it.

I've thought about asking Mom to record it - she'll be driving out the next day. But somehow I doubt that I will manage to make the next 24 hours without someone telling me the results. I will have to make the effort, for Cleveland has, as usual, given me its annual disappointment. My only hope for sports happiness is college football.

[wik] Hat tip to, of all people, my wife for the link.

Red Sox ace pitcher Kurt Schilling founded a wargames company to keep Advanced Squad Leader in print.

Most folks, even those utterly disinterested in soccer, have seen the incessant replays of the head-butt that Zinedine Zidane laid on Marco Materazzi during the second overtime period of last week's World Cup final.

It's a story that won't die.

Aside from endless regurgitations (like this one) about the right and wrong of the matter, it's become an apparent staple that every smart-ass wants to get into an article, even those ostensibly unrelated to soccer, let alone sport. An example, from a July 12 Wall Street Journal about Nissan, Renault, and the potential for a partnership of some sort with General Motors, with a focus on whether it's too much to put on the plate of Carlos Ghosn, the much admired savior of Nissan:

Can he do that and run two other companies? This time at Renault, he has yet to work his magic. True, he has been there only for a year or so. But that is precisely why Renault shareholders want his attention focused on the French firm. They feel like their superstar has delivered a head butt to the chest.

That's not the sort of tiresome cuteness I normally associate with the WSJ. ...

But the excessive blather about the butt-head's head-butt itself has gotten tiresome. Zidane acquitted himself admirably, on most points, during his multiple televised descriptions of what happened, each of which was combined with an apology to the French people for his lapse.

The point that he's failed on (from another WSJ story of July 13) is encapsulated in this excerpt:

"These were words that touched the deepest part of me," said the 34-year-old Frenchman, seeking to explain why he had head-butted the Italian and got himself thrown out of the game, the last of his long and brilliant career. "I would rather have taken a punch in the jaw than have heard that."

France ended up finishing the overtime with only 10 players, and then lost in the subsequent penalty shootout. Mr. Zidane is France's star penalty kicker and had scored from the penalty spot early in the match.

"I reacted badly, and I would like to apologize for it," added Mr. Zidane, who has occasionally erupted in the past. But he said he didn't regret the head butt. "The guilty one is the one who provokes," he said.

I mean no offense to Mr. Zidane, who seems to have truly deserved the Golden Ball as the best player in the World Cup. He's had an amazing career and served his country well. But jeez, what a thin-skinned pantywaist. He really needs to butch-up, I think.

If the "guilty one" truly was he who provoked, then Materazzi would have been thrown out, instead of Zidane. While the officiating at this World Cup was uniformly awful, the red card Zidane got was the only red card I saw in the entire tournament which was justified. And once it was clear that Zidane hadn't stopped Materazzi's heart from functioning, I hope Marco laughed his soccer-goon ass off. Because he played fair (within limits - grabbing clothes is bush-league, but so is all the melodramatic faked-injury acting that goes on in European soccer) and he did his job.

The reason Materazzi didn't punch him in the jaw is that, well, then Materazzi would have been the one trotting his ass off the pitch, not Zidane. Punching someone in the jaw is against the rules. Ghetto-talking that same someone is completely legitimate.

Zidane remains loved in France, which is as it should be. He should shut up about who's guilty, and so should all the lip readers and journalists who're trying to find some way to lionize Zidane and demonize Materazzi. Materazzi won that particular engagement, simply by drawing a red card for Zidane. But the worst offender would be this unnamed twit (from the same story):

A French lawyer announced yesterday that he will go to court to try to get the World Cup final invalidated on the grounds that Mr. Zidane's expulsion was illegal. He wants the match with Italy replayed.

Dream on, Pierre.

On a side note, the WSJ article points out that one of YouTube's most-viewed videos (500,000+ views) is that of Zidane laying the wood to Materazzi. Have a look, if you like, at another version (en Italiano) that seems to remove all doubt as to who the dumb-ass is, in this case, if not necessarily who the bad guy was.

But personally, I'd say that of the Zidane head-butt genre, this might be my favorite:

I pose a purely rhetorical question, apropos Minister Geeklethal's earlier comment which includes a reference to "the all-consuming white and black ball".

Ignore for a moment the fact that, at least in the final, the ball wasn't white & black:

I'm a guy, so I don't know if that not-black, not-white color is taupe, mauve, or some other made-up name.

But, on to my rhetorical question: When did FIFA decide to allow brand advertising on the ball? Have a closer look, at this picture:

Is it just me, or does it look like a sneaky product placement by Kotex? At least Nike, when doing product placements related to soccer balls, makes them both transparent and interesting, with goofy, snaggle-toothed football wunderkinds like Ronaldinho.

Among the myriad World Cup tales of soaring victory and crushing defeat; of passions, hatreds, life, love, death; of suffering and pride locked in the orbit of the all-consuming white and black ball, comes another story. A story of practicality, fulfilling urgent needs, and micro-economics.

Leave it to the Germans, arguably the most industrious people in the civilized world, Europe's own tireless ants, to put tailfins and new, uh,
rubber, on the oldest profession.

I give you the drive-through whorehouse.

I love cable television. I love that we live in the future.

I am about to watch a world cup soccer match between Mexico and Iran. There are a dismayingly large number of people in America today willing to believe that the populace of one of these nations is conspiring to overrun us and tekurjobs, and the other is full of people all working in concert to make New York into a glowing crater.

Both those assertions are, of course, bullshit. Bigotry and economic illiteracy aside, the United States does need to get a handle on all the people who want to come to this country, but not by sealing the borders tight. And surely there are many nuclear engineers in Iran working on things that mean bad news for us. But the main body of the populace of each of these countries are just people like people everywhere.

Right now, as I watch the Mexican announcers on Univision flip out as Mexico prepares for its opening match against Iran, all I can see is a bunch of people really happy to be from where they're from, and ready to pin their national pride on a silly game. Some of you may know that I spent some time in Guanajuato as a teenager, and really dig Mexico as a nation, as a people, and as a state of mind.

I love that I can watch Mexican world cup action in Spanish, get the flavor of their fanaticism, soak in the love of the game, and launch myself off the couch screaming "GOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL! GOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAL!" in support of my peeps to the South. And given that the USA is hard pressed to make it out of the first round in a group that's absolutely stacked with talent including a juggernaut of a Czech team and the Italians and Ghana besides, I might as well go ahead and throw my Cup support behind nuestros vecinos del sud.

¡Luchemos! ¡Luchemos! ¡Vencermos! And similar sentiments!

[wik] Advertisements for Nexium (the purple pill) are just as silly in Spanish.

[alsø wik] Latin American soap operas are priceless entertainment.

[alsø alsø wik] Mariachi music is oddly compelling. Much like polka, which I find to be a balm to the hung-over mind, mariachi is somehow comforting yet energizing. I clearly have brain damage.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Aside to Buckethead: you should know that I've started playing pickup soccer at lunchtime, hence my sudden interest in the game. I have realized that it's as poetic as baseball and as exciting as football. The only drawback, the one thing that seems wrong to this American mind is this: no professional sporting event should ever end in a tie.

[see the løveli lakes...] Strikeouts, as Crash Davis said, might be fascist, but ties are socialist.

[the wøndërful telephøne system...] Unlike my esteemed coblogger Patton, I love our freedom. And I hate ties.

[and mäni interesting furry animals...] Patton likes ties, value-added taxes, international condom-size harmonization standards, national shoe production quotas, and Volvos.

[including the majestik møøse...] Iran's national anthem is quite lovely. I have no idea what the words are.

[a Møøse once bit my sister...] Evidently, the lyrics in English run

Upwards on the horizon rises the Eastern Sun,
The sight of the true Religion.
Bahman - the brilliance of our Faith.
Your message, O Imam, of independence and freedom
is imprinted on our souls.
O Martyrs! The time of your cries of pain rings in our ears.
Enduring, continuing, eternal,
The Islamic Republic of Iran.

So there you go.

[No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"] Wait'll you get a load of the lyrics to the Mexican anthem! Iran is all about submission to Allah and martyrs: Mexico's is about fucking rivers of the blood of their enemies.

CHORUS:
Mexicans, when the war cry is heard,
Have sword and bridle ready.
Let the earth's foundations tremble
At the loud cannon's roar.

May the divine archangel crown your brow,
Oh fatherland, with an olive branch of peace,
For your eternal destiny has been written
In heaven by the finger of God.
But should a foreign enemy
Dare to profane your soil with his tread,
Know, beloved fatherland, that heaven gave you
A soldier in each of your sons.

CHORUS

War, war without truce against who would attempt
to blemish the honor of the fatherland!
War, war! The patriotic banners
saturate in waves of blood.
War, war! On the mount, in the vale
The terrifying cannon thunder
and the echoes nobly resound
to the cries of union! liberty!

CHORUS

Fatherland, before your children become unarmed
Beneath the yoke their necks in sway,
May your countryside be watered with blood,
On blood their feet trample.
And may your temples, palaces and towers
crumble in horrid crash,
and their ruins exist saying:
The fatherland was made of one thousand heroes here.

CHORUS

Fatherland, oh fatherland, your sons vow
To give their last breath on your altars,
If the trumpet with its warlike sound
Calls them to valiant battle.
For you, the garlands of olive,
For them, a glorious memory.
For you, the victory laurels,
For them, an honoured tomb.

CHORUS

So, I guess the lesson is, never date Mexico's sister.