Great Moments in Fantasy Football History

I am what you might call the Vince Lombardi of Fantasy Football.

I never realized it before but it turns out I am a true brain genius when it comes to Fantasy Football strategy. As of last weekend, I am now 135 dollars richer for kicking the crap out of my fellow office drones in a brilliantly executed line up of the best and the brightest in the NFL.

Well, actually it really came down to Donald Driver sucking some major ass in the Monday night game against Baltimore. This girl I had to play for a shot at the championship got incredibly lucky by having Tiki Barber play one of the greatest games of his career the night before. Because of that, I only had a 10 point lead and Donald Driver was Brett Favre’s go-to guy with the entire team having crippling injuries and all.

As much as it pains me to say this, Brett Favre really did me a solid by getting stomped by the Ravens. I thought I was in the clear until Aaron Rodgers, with 2 fumbles and an interception in a glorious debut, made one last attempt to restore some sort of dignity to the Green & Gold. He had 4 chances in the red zone to connect with Donald Driver and shatter my dreams at Fantasy Football glory. I promise you that no one was more on the edge of their seat with the Pack down 30 points late in the fourth quarter than me.

Needless to say, Rodgers followed through with his mediocrity and Driver only put up 6 points which paved the way for Larry, Rudi, and Chad or as I have affectionately labeled them, the Johnson Trinity, to triumph in the super bowl.

And the Vikings didn’t make the playoffs. Could this be the best football season ever!? Oh wait. 3-12. Inevitably 3-13. Shit.

... and THAT was the most drunk I ever got on Christmas.

Every story should somehow end up on that note.

Before I get into the tomfoolery that transpired over Christmas break, I would just like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Merry New Year. I’d especially like to thank my friend Cody Langeness for being a good sport about last week’s interview. I don’t think he had any idea of what he was getting himself into and the portrait I painted of him kind of made him out to be a huge asshole when in real life, he’s just kind of an asshole. Thanks again, Cody.

Back to Christmas Day, it was a particularly exciting Christmas because I happened to come across a box seat ticket on the 50-yard line for my beloved Packers. I thought the Pack had a reasonable shot at trouncing the Bears until I received a bad omen when I couldn’t fit into my favorite Packer shirt from high school before going to the game. For that reason, I take sole responsibility for last Sunday’s loss.

No, check that, I blame McDonald’s damn dollar menu for last Sunday’s loss. It’s tough to be bitter at those magnificent bastards though. Their introduction of the double cheeseburger (or DCB’s as we affectionately referred to them) to the dollar menu was the greatest innovation to the college food budget since ramen noodles and the 7 Palmero Pizzas for 10 bucks deal at Woodmans.

So anyway, my spirits quickly lifted when I got to the box and found a wide assortment of top shelf booze at my disposal. Free Tanqueray and Grey Goose on Christmas!? I must have been a good boy this year.

I had to restrain myself for most of the game since my boss and his wife were also in attendance, but he left at the start of the fourth quarter which was gametime for me. There was still a lot of drinking to be done and the Bears were making it especially difficult by trying to run out the clock. I started drinking ravenously. It’s impossible for me to enjoy free shit in moderation.

The rest of the night is somewhat of a blur but I do know that I passed out roughly around 9:30 and that my brother was the one who saved me as I was wandering aimlessly down Holmgren Way. Thanks, Joey.

I’m always trying to explore new ways to exploit my blog and in writing this, I found a new one: a public forum for day after drunken apologies. No more “Sorry about last nite, 2 much 2 drink :(” text messages for me. Apologetic blog posts are the way of the future.

Sorry, patrons of Stadium View Bar. I am painfully aware of my lack of dancing skills and had no intention of thrusting them upon you last night. You have complete authority to knock my ass out if I attempt another stunt like that again.

Better yet, you could put a temporary hold on Pour Some Sugar on Me the next I come in. That would really help me out a lot.

Ego Gone Wild: A Candid Interview with C_

Student. Intern. Drunk.

C_ is all of these and more. This former T.Wall Properties Intern and Real Estate Club President will be finishing up his Real Estate and Finance Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison this Spring. An impressive career to say the least. I was able to track down this rising superstar to see what makes his larger than life personality tick. Below are the contents of our interaction:

C_, you’ve just completed a coveted internship with Principal Financial, one of Fortune Magazine’s most admired and respected companies to work for in the country. I think the question everyone is dying to know, what is the tail like down there in Des Moines?

It’s okay, I guess. It gets a lot better when you live there long enough. You have to learn to adapt.

Spoken like a true asshole. It is a well known fact that you are an outspoken advocate for the rights of Pan-Sexual Americans and other like-minded sentients. You’re not fooling anybody, which side do you really sway?

Bite Me

A little hostile tonight, are we? If you died today and went to heaven, what would God say to you?

You wanna beer?

Good answer. You’ll need a drink after hearing this. A recent poll from the Fall 2005 School of Business graduating class revealed that no one likes you. In fact, you only had 5 votes for people that liked you and I’m pretty sure they didn’t understand the poll because they were foreign. One student was quoted as saying,”C_ is a f*%@ing douchbag. That caffeine slut’s term as Real Estate Club president will forever be a stain on this once hallowed institution.” Strangely enough, that was a response from a Chinese kid that voted in favor of you. Your response?

I don’t think that poll is accurate at all.

Well, it is. Statisitics never lie. Don’t dodge the question.

What kind of interview is this?

Fine. We’ll move forward. What would you rather take, a punch in the face from Ivan Drago or a roundhouse kick to the face from Chuck Norris? Because both are going to suck really bad.

Probably Ivan Drago because he doesn’t really exist.

Tell that to Apollo Creed.

What was the other option again?

Nevermind, I’ll ask the next question. Some members from the online and facebook community have said that you might be the next Donald Trump. What do you think of that?

I’d say they are right. Damn Straight.

I was kidding, no one actually said that about you, you arrogant bastard.

Fuck Off

What’s that smell?

Your mom goes to college.

Well, I think this interview went really great. We got a glimpse of the man behind the myth that is C_. Thank you for your time and good night.

Random Things that are the Greatest - Part I

The following are the greatest because saying that they are my favorite has a lot less impact.

In no particular order:

1. Greatest rock band of all time with an acronym as a name: ELO
2. Greatest rock band of all time in general: ELO
3. Greatest video gamer: Eric Dingledein
4. Greatest gamer at Dr. Mario and Streets of Rage for Sega Genesis: Ben Wollin
(Also, I’m the only person I’ve ever met that can beat Mike Tyson’s Punchout and Rad Racer but I can’t verify if I’m the Greatest at them)
5. Greatest beer ever invented: Miller High Life
6. Greatest Flip Cup Team ever assembled: Me, Busse, Rave, and two guys I don’t know from Minnesota – June 7, 2005 – The night was young, the beer was flowing, magic was in the air. Chugging beer never looked so cool as the five of us decimated a pack of undergrads in three straight survivor tournaments. We had a team average of 1.28 flips per person. It was a fuzzy night to remember.
7. Greatest Quarterback ever: Gee, I wonder…
8. Greatest homemade mayonnaise ever made: Aaron “Dude” VanLieshout’s homemade mayonnaise
9. Greatest Sport: Man Style Air Hockey – An extreme version of Man Style Ping Pong where after every point scored, you get to hurl the air hockey puck at the opponents bare chest. The welts can last up to several weeks. Highly recommended near bar time at The Pub.
10. Greatest War: World War II
11. Greatest new show on television: Nip/Tuck
12. Greatest new show on television without featuring Dr. Troy: Lost
13. Greatest new show on television without featuring Dr. Troy and haunted lottery numbers that is about to be cancelled because people don’t like to laugh: Arrested Development
14. Greatest nerd from Revenge of the Nerds: Booger
15. Greatest zombie movie: Dawn of the Dead
16. Greatest Blog Ever: You’re reading it.

Cell Phone Plans that Kill Relationships

I have had two potential relationships fail due solely to faulty cell phone plans. Before you sign your life away for two years in order to get that spiffy new flip phone, heed my words of caution:

Faulty Plan Number 1: No Nationwide Calling

Last Spring, I went to Paris for a Real Estate Class and met up with this really cute girl from Pennsylvania. We met at this Canadian bar or something and just really hit off. My friends and her friends ended up at this cozy little After Bar where we drank wine all night and the two of us ended up roaming the streets of Paris til the wee hours of the morning. It was like something from a Robert Doisneau picture, I swear to God.

Talk about having an IN, right? Here’s how US Cellular messed it up. Shortly after I got back, I wanted to call her but I only had a Midwest plan and a bullshit one at that. I anticipated talking to her for a long time to catch up (not remembering much about her, tequila and wine don’t mix so well) so I borrowed my buddy’s phone with a nationwide plan to call her. However, she entered MY phone number in France, so, like myself, she probably did not answer a strange number with a fucked up area code.

Self destruction occurred when I tried to explain to her my shitty cell phone plan on her voicemail followed by a suggestion to call me back on my friend’s phone. That didn’t go QUITE the way I planned. Apparently, I learned absolutely NOTHING smooth to say from my stay in the most romantic city in the world. I guess nothing says affection more than wanting to spend 65 cents a minute to talk to a person.

Faulty Plan Number 2: Free Incoming Minutes

So that last girl was a long shot anyway, but this next girl was a little more closer to home. I met her in Milwaukee and she was pretty cute too.

The problem here was that I had free incoming minutes, a sparse amount of anytime minutes, and ZERO night and weekend minutes. When she called me it was fine but when I called her, every conversation started like this:

Ben: Hey, how was your day?
Girl: It was terrible, my dog died, my house burned down, I lost my job, my cat died from a totally unrelated incident to my dog dying, my…
Ben: Oh that sucks, but you know what else sucks? I’m using my limited anytime minutes when you have unlimited night and weekend minutes. Call me back, okay?
Girl: ummm sure. Omigod! My Hamster! It was just alive a minute ago…
Ben: Thanks, babe. Talk to you in a sec.

That got old really quickly. That or she was just too blown away by my amazing sensitivity to her feelings. In either case, whatever relationship we had disappeared like the signal bars on my Kyocera driving through a long tunnel.

Maybe the cause of all this is something more. Like the fact that chicks just hate it when you try to save money around them in general. Or that I’m just used to talking to my buddies on the phone, where we talk in clipped sentences and no conversation lasts more than 15 seconds. All I know it that it wasn’t anything I did at all and scapegoating my cell phone service provider for all my women woes is a hell of a lot easier than a timeout for personal introspection.

If that’s the case, I will be Cingular for a loooooooong time.

Greg Altmann is my Best Friend

Greg Altmann is my best friend but NOT because of the following reasons:

1. One time in high school he threw me into a big pile of lunch trays for no reason.

2. On my 18th birthday, my parents threw me a huge party at a park and invited all my friends. We were playing football and my dad inadvertently threw the ball like a girl and everyone at the party laughed. I wasn’t even that embarrassed. Everybody has seemed to have forgotten about the incident except Greg, who reminds me and makes fun of me every time I see him.

3. He was an accomplice to the time that Mike Servais robbed me of my coat and shoes and made me walk home from the airport in the middle of Winter. It was freezing outside. Greg was the getaway driver and he laughed at me a lot while it was happening.

4. He sucks at Ping Pong.

5. One time I saw Greg talking on his cell phone and he dropped it into a pint of beer.

Other than that, like I said, he’s a pretty good guy.

Here is a brief synopsis on how I feel about my roommates:

Joe Daniels: Big dork and kind of stinky
Aaron Van Lieshout: Jerkstore
Abbey Selle: Girl
Dave Dimmer: Sucks at Mario Kart
Andy Copely: He’s okay

Here’s a picture of the worst roommate of them all:















Yeah, his name is Hercules and he likes to bite at my feet and ankles all the time. One time, he came barging into my room and began to chew on my good dress shoes. I politely asked him to stop. Then he looked right into my eyes and took a huge dump in the middle of my carpeting. The poop was gross and disgusting. Then Hercules started biting my ankles and feet again. I was super pissed.

Chicks and Dudes

Some of my female friends have recently got on my case about my abundant use of the word “chick” in my blog. They feel that the term is degrading or whatever. I think that’s crap and I’ll tell you why.

For all my ramblings and rules and proclamations of relationship know-how, I’m actually operating under one very simple assumption. In my world, you are either a chick or a dude. I realize there are a lot of nutjobs in between but that’s for Dan Savage to work out, not me. In any case, a “dude” is someone who is very logical in nature and a “chick” is very emotionally adept. The clashing of these radical ways of thinking is what makes life interesting.

You really can’t get on my case either because this principle is based on scientific fact. Sure I’ve met a few women with a thought process like a cold calculating computer just as I have met a few men who are intimately in touch with their feminine side. However, in order to simplify things and drive my point into the ground, EVERYBODY is on one polar opposite of the logic/emotion spectrum or the other. It’s also far more entertaining.

If you have any other doubts about my vast reservoir of human knowledge, I also have first hand experience living among the female species on two non-consecutive occasions. I liken the experience to what Jane Goodall did studying gorillas in their natural habitat, except the exact opposite where it is the primates that are trying to figure out Jane. I learned all sorts of crazy shit from having female roommates. For instance, did you know that women hate it when you leave empty beer cans all over the house. I know, it’s weird!

I am going to continue to assert that I know damn near everything about chicks and dudes because it’s fun and it annoys my roommates and my roommate’s girlfriends.

In the meantime, ponder this, because this is ONE question I don’t have an answer for: How is it that I live with 5 other dudes including myself and the day my 6th roommate Abbey moved in, the entire house instantly smelled 50 times better? She didn’t even have half her stuff moved in and that distinctive boy smell (a hybrid odor of feet, laundry, and leftover farts) that plagues college housing across the country was completely gone.
Crazy.

I am a Blaze Orange Cowboy

It’s that time of year again. Deer Fighting Season. Every Saturday before Thanksgiving, the conspiring white-tail deer of Wisconsin band together to wreck havoc on the innocent constituents of Wisconsin. It’s up to us, the hunters, to keep them in check. Deer may seem like peaceful creatures but deep down they’re a bunch of war-mongers; ready to attack when we least expect it. They’re kind of like Canadians. I don’t trust either of them.

A lot of people think that deer hunting is a barbaric sport. These people don’t realize that if deer had access to firearms and had opposable thumbs, they would kill you and your entire family. You just can’t show mercy to these violent creatures.

Being the compassionate man that I am though, I like to give the deer a sporting chance. That is why I have stopped using conventional weaponry like rifles, bows, and bo staffs to take down the enemy. Instead, I like to come up with new and creative ways to hunt the elusive white tail.

This year, I used a Fighting Crane style Jujitsu to take down and humiliate an 8 point buck. The year before, I used a Grecko Roman maneuver to wrestle and grapple a 185 lb doe into submission. In 1998, I actually negotiated the surrender of a herd of deer, using subtle psychological mind games and eventually convincing them they’d be happier as a delicious venison tenderloin sandwich as opposed to roaming free in the wilderness. That last victory is my personal favorite.

I have a hair on my chest for every deer I’ve ever conquered. My friends have started calling me Austin Powers for the glaring similarities. I actually have to hunt shirtless now because my man fur gets too hot for me, even in the sub-arctic temperatures of the great Northwoods. Just call me Benny of the Jungle, swinging from tree to tree, tackling deer and other wild game where I see fit.

In reality, my freezing ass was parked in the woods all weekend and I didn’t see a goddamn thing. Which is fine. People just don’t understand that hunting is much more than just shooting a deer. It’s also more than playing poker, drinking lots of beer, and bonding with family, which is another common and valid argument in favor of the sport. It’s the little things that make deer hunting great, like the funny way the mind begins to wander after being in absolute solitude for hours on end, the wild turkey and homemade bread that my uncle cooks every year, or just inventing colorful new ways to describe a bowel movement. Deer camp is “roughing it” at its finest and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Even though I didn’t bag my trophy buck this year, I’m STILL pretty much the most manly guy that I know of.

On a completely unrelated topic, I saw the midnight screening of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last Friday and let me the first to tell you, its awesomeness will go unrivaled for any movie coming out this year. I’d tell you more but I’ve got some serious chest scratching to attend to…

Ladies: Never Date a Guy who has a Blog

Sorry, everyone.

I did not mean to get on that Brett Favre tangent for so long. The first Brett Favre post was just an expression of my unwavering loyalty to #4 and I was planning on just sitting on the second post until the Pack would win again which they did last week. Who would have thunk they would beat the Falcons in such a decisive victory?

But now that it’s out my system, let’s talk about the date I recently embarked on. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, how did I manage to trick this girl into giving me three hours of her time on a Friday night. A valid question indeed and it’s one that I don’t have an answer to.

Clearly, she hasn’t read my standards which I will recap:

1. The Hallmark Rule
2. The Volleyball Rule
3. The Parthenon Test

I never made the Parthenon Test an official rule before but I’m going to make it a rule now. At some point when I’m about to settle down with a chick, she has to watch me and my friends eat Gyros at bar time after a typical Saturday night on State Street. It will be and always has been, a seriously offensive sight to anyone bearing witness to this spectacle. If she isn’t pissed off about the inevitable cucumber sauce stains from the feeding frenzy and still has the gumption to talk to me or even make eye contact with me the next day, I’m reeling her in.

Back to my date, to make matters worse for the poor soul, she has to deal with what I’m labeling the November Rule which I think is pretty much universal for all guys but I’m just going to clarify. The November Rule is simply the fact that no guy wants to just start seeing a girl right before the holidays because:

1. There is no Christmas present in the world that sends the appropriate message for someone you’ve been kind of seeing for a month.
2. Explanations of your sort-of-girlfriend status to relatives really blows
3. Valentines Day is lurking just around the corner and every guy hates Valentines Day

Yup, right about this time of year, most guys usually call it quits and start making plans for love around Spring time again. Sorry, ladies, that’s just the way the primitive male brain works. I find it humorous that the same minds that can invent interstellar space travel, artificial hearts, and high definition television can stress out on such trivial matters like gift exchanges. Logic is funny.

In any case, this girl is really cute and pretty sharp so I’m going to nix the November Rule and maybe even cut her some slack on my previously mentioned guidelines. Gee, I’m swell!

I'm not going to lie to you though- this girl is REALLY lucky to be dating me. I think I finally understand what my mother has been trying to tell me all these years; I am a really handsome and charming guy. If you can't trust an unbiased opinion like my mother, then who can you trust?

Thanks, Mom. I'll never doubt you again.

The time I taught Brett Favre how to throw a football.

Imagine one of those picturesque Saturday autumn afternoons, Martha Stewart style; the air is crisp, the leaves are changing color, mom was cooking homemade apple pie in the kitchen, and me and my best chums were playing a game of schoolyard football in the empty lot across the street. I was in the fifth grade at the time so I was about 11 years old.

Out of nowhere, this man emerges on the field. Right away, I was on my guard.

“Hey, you’re Ben Wollin right,” the man said.

“Who wants to know?” I replied smugly.

“I’ve been watching you play here and I just have to ask. Where did you learn how to throw such a tight spiral like that? You’ve got an arm that I’ve only read about in books.”

At this point, I started chuckling to myself. “Listen, guy, you’ve got a lot of guts coming here and interrupting my game here with my friends. I like that. It shows you got courage. If you stick around I’ll show you the secret to the perfect pass.”

After the game, the stranger stuck around so I went over the finer points of where to grip ball, how to pump fake, and pretty much all the basic arm mechanics for throwing the ultimate spiral. I could tell he was impressed. The sun was starting to set but the stranger insisted that we get it right.

“Alright one more, and then I have to go home for dinner,” I said.

The last throw of the evening was a stinger. I caught the ball and then shook out my hands because it burned a little.

“There it is,” I said. “That’s the pepper I’m talking about.”

The stranger smiled sheepishly at me. “Thanks, kid. Thanks a lot.” He then took off into the night in the same mysterious fashion that he appeared. I never thought I would hear from him again.

The very next day, my old man took me to watch Don Majikowski and the Packers play the Cincinatti Bengals in a now legendary game at Lambeau Field. The “Magic” was injured in the first quarter and all hope was lost. Then to my amazement, the strange man I just saw the previous day came trotting onto the field. The man was, you guessed it, Brett Favre.

The rook was a bit shaky at first, you could tell the crowd did not have much faith in the new quarterback. The situation looked bleak for the Packers as they entered in the 4th quarter down 14 points. Brett Favre started scanning the crowds, looking for somebody, anybody, to get him out of the quagmire.

Then Brett Favre saw me and a big smirk, the same smirk you see every time he throws a touchdown, came across his face. I gave him that look, that nod of approval that just says, yeah, you know what to do. Brett Favre gave me the thumbs up, then put his helmet in and ran out to the huddle, a few inches taller, a little more spring in his step.

The rest, as they say, is history. Brett Favre engineered a stunning defeat against the Bengals which eventually paved the way for him to become the greatest athlete in the history of sports. I wish I could take more credit for his numerous titles and records but I had absolutely nothing to do with his innate talent to read the field, his almost mutant-like super stamina, or his preternatural ability to look awesome and grizzled all the time. The man is a champion and no one can take that away from him.

What can I say, I’m a modest guy, I want to give credit where credit is due. You know that actually reminds me of the story of the time Steve Jobs stole my idea for the ipod…