Sound Observations

Hi folks! Back and ready to rumble with the sports world and beyond. This past week was as good as any week to jump back into the fray, so here's some thoughts:

NFL

1.) What a weekend in general for sports, but what an amazing Sunday. Of course I watched my two teams win fairly close games (Titans and Packers), during the noon (CST) game, but for the afternoon game I had other options.

For the first 2.5 quarters of the Chicago/San Diego game, I found myself slowly slipping into a coma, so I changed over to the U.S. Open Finals, where I checked in on Darth Federer robotically destroying the wills of any male human tennis player who dares cross his path. It was amazing to see the consistency and the lack of emotional response from this guy. It seemed like he was methodically planning out his herb garden for next spring, not competing in a Grand Slam final for the 4 billionth time in his career. Unbelievable.

And all that robotic repression disappears when he wins the match, whereupon he throws himself to the ground and proceeds to have a brief, but violent seizure. After this, he calmly gets up and has a not-so-long-it's-gay hug with his opponent at the net.

Hang on a second... Have I just devoted the last two paragraphs to tennis? Back to the real stuff.

2.) So Keith Olberman made his debut for NBC on their painfully self-aware and shoulder-slapping inside joke for the ex-jocks, Football Night in America. Honestly, I cannot for the life of me figure out how they can fit any more people in that studio, especially with Bettis' expanding figure. I'm betting that after about 6 years into retirement, he'll be approaching 876 pounds. Anyone want to take the bet? Didn't think so.

Anyway, back to Olberman. I was very impressed. I'm not a fan of the video commentary/visual column type of television (a la Tony Kornheiser before any MNF game or Jim Rome doing pretty much anything, including talking to himself in his bathroom mirror), but KO's takes were pretty spot-on, even after fumbling an analogy about Tom Coughlin in the opening segment. I actually look forward to the program now just for him and Costas, and I'll try to drink away the images of Tiki Barber plugging his book and Jerome Bettis hungrily looking around for a nearby vending machine.

3.) Raise your hands if you had Chris Brown penciled in for 175 rushing yards against Jacksonville this week. Don't be shy. Anyone? Did anyone even think to play Brown on their fanstasy team this week? Hello?

Ugly, ugly game on both sides, but a win is a win for the scrappy little Titans. Jacksonville probably will still make the playoffs, while getting swept by the Texans again and beating Indy at least once. What a perplexing team. If you ever think about betting on the Jags, go ahead and punch yourself in the balls repeatedly until you realize it's a bad idea. Just trust me.

4.) Speaking of bets, I would've probably won some money this week, but I would've been scared of just about every game except Steelers/Browns. Hopefully we'll have some more interesting and enticing handicaps as the year progresses. The lines this week were puny at best. I know, it's the first NFL week, but at least try to get us to waste some hard-earned cash.

College Fooball

5.) Another week, more upsets that anyone could see coming. I guess it would've been a stretch to predict that Oregon would kick the living shit out of Michigan on the road, but you could definitely see the Mighty Ducks walking out of there with a win, couldn't you? The Wolverines have as much guts as Ike in Tombstone, and probably as much athletic prowess.

6.) So the South Florida Bulls, who are probably the 4th best team in the Big East, beat Auburn (number 17 in AP poll) at home, and the Big East is still overrated? Hopefully the nation will come around to see the beginnings of a perennial contending conference after we beat every other team from the "power" conferences.

(Ok, that's my only rant this year about the shittiness and unfairness of the BCS system. Believe me?)

What's going on with the SEC, anyway? Georgia losing to South Carolina? UT getting embarrassed at Cal? I guess LSU drove away some doubters this weekend, but the rest of the conference needs to step it up a bit. And I'm talking to you, Vandy.

7.) My friends that graduated or attended some little school down in this crappy town called Murfreesboro have been gloating over their 58-42 loss to my U of L Cardinals, mainly because MTSU actually hung with the Cards for most of the game, and made our defense look like it was more interested in planning what to wear for the post-game circle jerk.

Congratualations, Blue Raiders. You lost to a really good team and made them work for the win. Can we move on now?

Television

8.) I was flipping through the channels last night at about 9:00 pm during the Giants/Cowboys craptacular, and I realized, "Oh my God, I've missed half of the MTV Music Video Awards!" You see, it's an anual tradition to drink waaaaaaaay too heavily and watch MTV try to save itself from slipping into meaninglessness. Every year it gets more desperate and less humorous, and still I watch.

Well, this year it set a new low for shittastic, bamboozling, masturbatory inanity.

The performances were inaudible (which might have been a good thing), the presenters and performers were imbibing a Herculean amount of booze, which led to incomprehensible dialog and diatribes, and the show itself was erratic and misguided. All of this sounds like it might be fun to watch in a trainwreck sense, but let me tell you, it was purely unholy. Those of us that grew up with MTV can now officially move on to adulthood. It's sad, but at least we can now bitch about those little hooligans that spend more time online than doing regular kid-type things, like smoking pot and having unprotected sex. Ahh, good times.

9.) The new TV season is beginning, which my good friends Jonathan and Chris will I'm sure delve into in depth. I'm frankly overwhelmed with options, so I think I'm just going to give up and have people tell me what to watch. It's too much responsibility to invest yourself in a program, only to see it either get cancelled or dominate your evenings, to the point where you don't talk to your wife and forget to take out the trash and change your pants... things like that.

For someone who actually does change his pants, and still finds time to watch and write about everything on TV, go to Jonathan's "Strange Frequencies" site. Good stuff.

Miscellaneous

10.) Nine days and counting with no cigarettes, after 8.5 years of consistent smoking. I thought it was supposed to make you feel better when you quit. I don't feel any fucking better. I feel like I could split a fucking monkey skull in half with my bare hands and suck out the brains. I don't know why I feel like that, but the urge is there. Don't ask me questions.

Anyone got a smoke?