Oh man did you see that Packer game last night!? Minus the first Colts possession, the Pack looked undefeatable last night. When you get Peyton Manning pouting in the 1st half, you know you’ve done something right.
And our third string looks AWESOME which is good news in case during the Super Bowl this year (which we inevitably will get to) there’s a scenario where both teams’ 1st and 2nd strings are decimated by injury for some reason. We should still be good shape to bring home the Lombardi trophy. I just hope Kregg Lumpkin is at 100%.
Another thing that was done right was me drafting my Fantasy Football line up this week. This was the first time I ever got to pick first in the draft, which was really exciting for me. Well, technically I got to pick second but I believe Chris Johnson and Adrian Peterson are interchangeable, and both equivalent to a first round pick.
Despite my brimming confidence this year, I can’t help but notice the sharp decline in football acumen I’ve lost ever since I got employed and stopped watching ESPN for three hours every day. What do you mean Vincent Jackson is suspended for three games and holding out on his contract with San Diego!?!? Why didn’t you tell me that, ESPN player ranking thing!?!? Why did you keep it a secret!?!?
That’s okay though actually, I like to go after players with high risks and high rewards. Questionable injuries, advanced ages, unproven rookies…a fantasy football wimp craves not these things.
But I do. This is where you can find real value in a draft. Or fall flat on your face and limp into last place. I’m riding the VJ, Donald Driver, and Michael Crabtree train to either winnerville or losertown and Sidney Rice is the conductor. Choo! Choo!
FYI I would have taken Brett Favre to complete the boom or bust method but Tom Brady came my way and dammit all if I don’t think that new unbridled mane of his is going to be good for 70+ touchdowns this year. It’s almost enough to compete with Aaron Rodger’s 80+ touchdown dirty beard.
The draft was not only successful because of my line up but the hosting and commissioning of my league has never been better. Minus the two guys that missed the draft because I had the wrong email in their account. But other than that, I’m in top form.
You should have read all the hilarious comments I wrote on the message board during the draft. I haven’t laughed so hard at my own jokes in a long time. Like hours, maybe DAYS even.
I went with some tried and true ff material like mock-seriously asking if a recently retired player was still available (this year I went with Martin “Automatica” Grammatica) to referencing some obscure quotes from The State and Wayne’s World 2. My Pete Rose joke is fast becoming a time honored tradition.
I only wish the ESPN draft center would keep more stats that people care about. Like how long into the draft before the first “your mom” joke. (43 minutes…nobody seems to like Tight Ends. Your mom likes Tight Ends). Or how many times someone instantly responds to someone’s pick with simply "FAIL" even though you were cursing to yourself that you didn’t get him first. These would all be good things to know in order to improve on the next years draft.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Summer Movie Round Up 2010
Let’s see here…Inception was cool. That’s about it.
This post should be called the Summer of Weak Sauce 2010.
To be fair, the summer blockbuster schedule started off pretty good with Iron Man 2. It wasn’t great; it pretty much coasted on the charisma of Robert Downey Jr., but it was good, a perfect appetizer in May to get things going for the summer.
But the meat and potatoes of the summer mindless fun usually begins around mid June and culminates into some major badassery in July, a good comedy in late July for dessert, followed by the table scraps served up in late August. See the Expendables for an example on table scraps.
Again, back to Inception, that was a great flick, a helluva flick; totally original, thought provoking, a brain melting good time all around.
But it was NOT a summer movie. Inception is a course best served in late November/early December, where you immediately want to go to Barnes and Noble and have a hot cup of coffee and talk about it with your friends and read weird theories and Oscar buzz about it in the periodicals section.
A good summer movie is one where you want to give chest bumps to the other patrons as they are walking out of the theatre and then go have a beer and bask in the spectacle. There was none of that thus far. I think Scott Pilgrim Against the World has potential and thankfully Machete is just around the corner to salvage the summer but God help me if those films fail to satisfy my appetite.
Totally going off topic here, but I read an article today about how Return of the Jedi was originally supposed to have a bittersweet ending with Han Solo dying, the rebels left in tatters, and Luke riding off alone into the sunset but this ending was scrapped by George Lucas for the sole purpose of selling more toys. Now people hate him more than ever, even more so than after the releases of Episodes 1, 2, and 3.
George Lucas is like the Weezer of motion pictures. He gave the world this beautiful, beautiful gift and then proceeded to destroy every last remainder of goodwill through a cascading series of poor decisions to the point where his original accomplishment is all but forgotten. Come to think it, he’s kind of like Brett Favre.
Wait no, Favre is like the Weezer of football, and playing for the Vikings is like the album Make Believe.
You know what, I could do this all day. But for me, I still love the original Star Wars trilogy (and can even tolerate the Ewoks i.e. Maladroit), Brett Favre, and Weezer and NOTHING these dumbasses do going forward will sully their original accomplishments in my eyes.
All I really want is to see is one traditional kickass summer flick before football season starts and I stop caring. That’s my whole point, sorry it took like 12 paragraphs to get there.
Also, I would like to filmmakers to stop using CGI and go back to animatronics and puppets and also, I wish they would stop making those God awful spoof movies. Vampires don’t Suck. Producers who greenlight that tripe Suck.
They just don't make 'em like they used to. Gummy Bears! Gummy Bears! Sprinkles! Sprinkles!
This post should be called the Summer of Weak Sauce 2010.
To be fair, the summer blockbuster schedule started off pretty good with Iron Man 2. It wasn’t great; it pretty much coasted on the charisma of Robert Downey Jr., but it was good, a perfect appetizer in May to get things going for the summer.
But the meat and potatoes of the summer mindless fun usually begins around mid June and culminates into some major badassery in July, a good comedy in late July for dessert, followed by the table scraps served up in late August. See the Expendables for an example on table scraps.
Again, back to Inception, that was a great flick, a helluva flick; totally original, thought provoking, a brain melting good time all around.
But it was NOT a summer movie. Inception is a course best served in late November/early December, where you immediately want to go to Barnes and Noble and have a hot cup of coffee and talk about it with your friends and read weird theories and Oscar buzz about it in the periodicals section.
A good summer movie is one where you want to give chest bumps to the other patrons as they are walking out of the theatre and then go have a beer and bask in the spectacle. There was none of that thus far. I think Scott Pilgrim Against the World has potential and thankfully Machete is just around the corner to salvage the summer but God help me if those films fail to satisfy my appetite.
Totally going off topic here, but I read an article today about how Return of the Jedi was originally supposed to have a bittersweet ending with Han Solo dying, the rebels left in tatters, and Luke riding off alone into the sunset but this ending was scrapped by George Lucas for the sole purpose of selling more toys. Now people hate him more than ever, even more so than after the releases of Episodes 1, 2, and 3.
George Lucas is like the Weezer of motion pictures. He gave the world this beautiful, beautiful gift and then proceeded to destroy every last remainder of goodwill through a cascading series of poor decisions to the point where his original accomplishment is all but forgotten. Come to think it, he’s kind of like Brett Favre.
Wait no, Favre is like the Weezer of football, and playing for the Vikings is like the album Make Believe.
You know what, I could do this all day. But for me, I still love the original Star Wars trilogy (and can even tolerate the Ewoks i.e. Maladroit), Brett Favre, and Weezer and NOTHING these dumbasses do going forward will sully their original accomplishments in my eyes.
All I really want is to see is one traditional kickass summer flick before football season starts and I stop caring. That’s my whole point, sorry it took like 12 paragraphs to get there.
Also, I would like to filmmakers to stop using CGI and go back to animatronics and puppets and also, I wish they would stop making those God awful spoof movies. Vampires don’t Suck. Producers who greenlight that tripe Suck.
They just don't make 'em like they used to. Gummy Bears! Gummy Bears! Sprinkles! Sprinkles!
Sunday, August 01, 2010
The Keys to Kball
As many of you have gathered from my recent Facebook updates, I will be commanding an elite squadron of athletes for the forthcoming 2010 Green Bay Park and Rec Kickball League.
If you didn’t get the memo, I was toying with the idea of calling our team The Situation in honor of everyone’s favorite Guido but it just didn’t feel right and coming up with a team name is important, arguably the most crucial aspect of having a productive kickball season.
I’m not kidding. You show me a championship kickball team and I’ll show you a cohesive group of kids rallying behind a clever euphemism of the word “balls”.
And they will have matching t-shirts. That’s the other key ingredient. Matching t-shirts.
But we got both aspects covered. Greg proposed What? What? In the Butt and I immediately fell in love with the name. It’s got a catchy beat and it’s culturally relevant. Well I thought it was. Apparently the song is like three years old but it’s new to me so back off!
Shenanigans is sponsoring our team and supplying t-shirts. Mega.
The third component of creating a championship kickball team is coaching. That’s where its Benny’s time to shine.
After studying a variety of different managing strategies, I’ve decided to adopt a blend between famed Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane and legendary player, recently sacked, Argentina national team manager Diego Maradona.
On the one hand, Billy Beane’s use of sabermetrics greatly appeals to my love of spreadsheets and statistics, exploiting patterns in cold hard data against conventional wisdom to minimize outs and maximize runs scored.
More importantly, I really like the idea of having this conversation.
“Sorry, Greg, I have to put in a pitch hitter for you. Your On-Base Plus Slugging percentage tends to rapidly deteriorate after your third Busch Light.”
But more likely, I will adopt the Diego Maradona style of coaching where I will simply let my best players run wild all over the field and deflect any criticism if we happen to lose with wild and erratic off-field behavior like partying so hard as to make Keith Richards blush or repeatedly refusing to take phone calls from the president of the country.
This is by far the simplest (and most fun) coaching style but a lack of on-field discipline can lead to things like this. I’ll take my chances.
The fourth key component is getting everybody to understand the concept of tagging up. See this post for details. It’s still as timely as ever.
All this typing is getting me really excited. I live for kickball. I once hit 5 home runs in one game once. True story. Ask my old roommate, Pat. He was there. I know no one else is going to believe me.
If you didn’t get the memo, I was toying with the idea of calling our team The Situation in honor of everyone’s favorite Guido but it just didn’t feel right and coming up with a team name is important, arguably the most crucial aspect of having a productive kickball season.
I’m not kidding. You show me a championship kickball team and I’ll show you a cohesive group of kids rallying behind a clever euphemism of the word “balls”.
And they will have matching t-shirts. That’s the other key ingredient. Matching t-shirts.
But we got both aspects covered. Greg proposed What? What? In the Butt and I immediately fell in love with the name. It’s got a catchy beat and it’s culturally relevant. Well I thought it was. Apparently the song is like three years old but it’s new to me so back off!
Shenanigans is sponsoring our team and supplying t-shirts. Mega.
The third component of creating a championship kickball team is coaching. That’s where its Benny’s time to shine.
After studying a variety of different managing strategies, I’ve decided to adopt a blend between famed Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane and legendary player, recently sacked, Argentina national team manager Diego Maradona.
On the one hand, Billy Beane’s use of sabermetrics greatly appeals to my love of spreadsheets and statistics, exploiting patterns in cold hard data against conventional wisdom to minimize outs and maximize runs scored.
More importantly, I really like the idea of having this conversation.
“Sorry, Greg, I have to put in a pitch hitter for you. Your On-Base Plus Slugging percentage tends to rapidly deteriorate after your third Busch Light.”
But more likely, I will adopt the Diego Maradona style of coaching where I will simply let my best players run wild all over the field and deflect any criticism if we happen to lose with wild and erratic off-field behavior like partying so hard as to make Keith Richards blush or repeatedly refusing to take phone calls from the president of the country.
This is by far the simplest (and most fun) coaching style but a lack of on-field discipline can lead to things like this. I’ll take my chances.
The fourth key component is getting everybody to understand the concept of tagging up. See this post for details. It’s still as timely as ever.
All this typing is getting me really excited. I live for kickball. I once hit 5 home runs in one game once. True story. Ask my old roommate, Pat. He was there. I know no one else is going to believe me.
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