"You stay classy… Interwebs."
So tonight was the draft for Scott’s fantasy football league. I made the following side-bets with Scott and Jeff, which are noted here for posterity…………
1.) If Clinton Portis rushes for more than 900 yards this regular season, I owe Jeff and Scott 10 bucks each.
2.) If Clinton Portis finishes outside the Top 8 in fantasy points for Running Backs in our fantasy football league, Scott owes JT and I 10 bucks each.
This was the deal. You are all witnesses.
My nights and weekends have basically been on lockdown since the Olympics started. AG and I have been soaking up almost every second of the primetime coverage that NBC has put out there. Besides having “AT&T Wireless is The Dank” drilled into my head by Michael Phelps and now knowing more than I ever wanted to about NBC’s fall lineup, I have also had the chance to form some opinions about the announcers covering the various events.
Gymnastics
Wow. Where do I start with the power announcing troika of Al Trautwig, Tim Daggett and Elfi Schlegel? I really couldn’t stand them during the last Olympics. They were the poster children for bad Olympics commentary: Clueless network play-by-play guy coupled with over-opinionated, has-been former athlete as “color” commentator. Al never knew what was going on and Tim and Elfi slammed everyone. I went into this Olympics expecting the same thing.
As I was reflecting over the last week and gathering my thoughts for this post, I realized that while I still find them all somewhat annoying, they actually did a really good job of calling this competition. Al kinda represents the rest of us out there watching the competition who have no idea what is going on and ask stupid questions everytime somebody seems to screw up or finish an apparatus. “Was that bad?!”, “Is it over for him?!” Al was pretty much like this last time, so that part hasn’t changed. I think what’s different this time around is that Tim and Elfi have toned it down a lot. They did a really good job of pointing out little mistakes in the routines here and there that were going to cause deductions, but not in a zealous way like in 2000. Despite Daggett stupidly declaring Paul Hamm out of the medal picture in the Men’s All-Around after he fell on his vault, he really did a good job of being pretty fair this year I thought.
So Al’s stupidity has actually turned into a boon for the rest of us who are just as clueless when it comes to how this things is scored. I was going to register one other complaint about Al’s tendency to try to make the moment bigger than it is by making this grand proclamation that always seems to fall flat, but then I realized the fact that he’s so bad at it makes for some good unintentional comedy so I’ll let it be. I liked how Al explained one team had started off the night great, but then fallen into a “funnel of despair”. What?!! Or when they came back from commercial towards the end of the Women’s All-Around and Al had this gem that went something like, “Here in ancient times the Greeks worshipped all kinds of gods. Well, the God of Drama is watching over this Women’s All-Around tonight.” Good times.
Swimming
I don’t have a ton to say on this, but I’d be remiss not to send a shout-out to my man (and probable kin) Rowdy Gaines. First of all, props to Rowdy for keeping his traditional adjective first name that all Gaines’ are given at birth. (I was “Naughty”, by the way. Jamie is actually the Shawnee Indian word for “naughty one“. It’s true.) You can’t say that Rowdy doesn’t know his stuff. He correctly predicted the lead our guys would need to have in the 4 x 100 relay to beat the Thorpedo (possibly one of the stupidest nicknames ever, btw). My only complaint about Rowdy is that when the race gets close or something exciting happens, all of the sudden it’s like you’re at a Backstreet Boys concert with a 13 year-old girl. His voice gets all high-pitched and he strings his words together like he can’t help himself. “OHMYGAWDITHINKHE’SGOING TOOVERTAKEHIMANDREACHFORTHEWIN……YES!!!!!!” Settle down, Rowdy……but you’re still the man.
Track and Field
I have little to say about this except for the pudgy dude they’ve been trotting out there with the grey curly porn-star haircut. I have no idea what his name is, but they have got to tone down my man’s makeup. I feel like Harvey Firestein in Hairspray is breaking down the Men’s 100m for me. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Women’s Beach Volleyball
I’d probably have something to say about this if I wasn’t so fixated on Misty May’s booty the whole time. Do they even have commentators for this one?
Sorry for the long delay in posting. In short, I’ve been otherwise occupied. I did finally get that sleepy that I was bitching about. I’ve basically been occupied with 3 things over the past week: my new bad-ass gaming PC, the Olympics, and taking care of random stuff that I’ve been meaning to get to for awhile. I’m going to get to all of those things in the near future, but I wouldn’t expect much this week out of me either. I’m leaving for “The Motherland” later this week for a roadie with my trusty sidekick Admiral von Jiggastein. We’re trekking up to the O-to-tha-H for a bachelor party for my boy Jeff. I leave on Thursday.
Tonight I’m finishing up some Zig work, tomorrow I have to pack, and Wednesday night is the first night of fall bowling season (werd). I’ll try to fit in some blizzogging when I can, but right now it’s a bit tough. I still have that story (and more dope pics) about my shelf-building adventure, notes and pics on my new bad-ass PC (it’s still HUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGEEEEEE), buying video games from Thailand, and a cool story about how I’m going to be rich soon. I promise that I’ll get to all these things.
More later…..
Sorry to disappoint all of you that don’t quite know what to do with yourselves until you read my long-promised post about building my shelves. For some reason I have entered a really bad sleeping pattern this week. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in about 5 days. When I come home at night I’m like a zombie and can’t really concentrate on anything, so that’s why there’s been no post. To let you know how bad it is, my bad ass new computer from Dell has been here since Tuesday and all I’ve done is take it out of the box. It’s still just sitting here on the floor in my office. Bad times.
Hopefully I’ll be able to regroup over the weekend and get this post together. I want to write about the new PC too. (Hint: it’s HUUUUUGGGGGEEEEE!!!!) I’m going to try to take Monday off from work I think too. I think part of my sleep problems stem from me being a little burnt out. Well, that or the crack. 
Anyway, since statistically the blizzog gets John McEnroe like ratings on Friday, you’ll probably not see this until Monday anyway. Have a good weekend or I hope you had a good weekend. Pick one and keep it. Peace and chicken grease.
Alright, I forgot that the finals of “Last Comic Standing” came on tonight so there’s no time to tell you my epic shelf adventure. I’ve had like 5 hours of sleep so I need to go to bed. I promise I’ll get to it tomorrow.
In the meantime, here’s a little something to whet your appetite.
I know. Sexy, right?
It appears that negotiations between the San Diego Chargers and first-round choice Philip Rivers have broken off after Rivers’ agent, Jimmy Sexton, failed to meet a Sunday night deadline to accept what the Chargers’ say is their final offer. [Full story at ESPN.com] Hopefully now people are starting to realize that Eli Manning did the right thing by refusing to play for them. The Chargers are quickly replacing the Bengals as the NFL’s biggest joke of a franchise.
I’m obviously not privy to the negotiations, but I’d be pretty hesitant to hang this one on Rivers or his agent. The insider folks on ESPN like John Clayton seem to think this is a case of the Chargers trying to nickel and dime their top draft pick like always. Not surprising.
Rivers is a talent and it will be fun to see how he does in the NFL. I just hope that we get to see him this year.
Just a brief observation tonight before I go to bed. I spent the whole weekend and about 7 hours tonight completing my utility shelves in my garage, and I’m beat. More on that later.
After I finished up this evening I happened to catch the end of tonight’s NFL Hall of Fame Game between the Broncos and Joe Gibbs’ Redskins. The Redskins won and after the game ABC interviewed Gibbs. It appears that you can take Joe Gibbs out of NASCAR but you can’t take NASCAR out of Joe Gibbs. After giving a brief critique of his team’s performance, Gibbs proceeded to thank anybody and everybody ever associated with the Hall of Fame Game. He thanked the people of Canton, the Hall of Fame Game committee, the people at the stadium. He talked about how much he enjoyed coming to Canton and all the wonderful support they show for football.
It was very nice of him to say all those things, but it reminded me of how these drivers thank their 8 jillion sponsors after a race. You could tell that Michelle Tafoya or whoever was interviewing him was just waiting for him to finish rambling so she could cut back to the booth. Good times.
Oh well, off to sleep. I’ll tell you about my shelf saga tomorrow.
ON’s post on Miami’s ticket policy got me thinking about my own UNC ticket experience this week.
My man EZ-E is coming up to stay with us in October for the UNC/Miami game, so I cruised on over to the Carolina athletic site this week to buy three tickets for us. Apparently I have been in a bubble for the past few years, because the last time I bought single-game tickets for a UNC football game they were $25.
I just paid $40 apiece for 3 single-game UNC-Miami tickets. To boot, Miami is our FREAKING HOMECOMING game!!!
Aren’t you supposed to schedule a cupcake for your homecoming game? I will grant that you’re more likely to find a cupcake at an Atkins party than on the UNC football schedule, but still. Miami???!!!
Homecoming is supposed to be a great time, right? UNC scheduling Miami as the homecoming game is like paying someone to kick your ass at your own birthday party. Oh well, at least it will be Halloween. Maybe we’ll come dressed as an actual football team this year.
Before I change it, is anyone hip to my “Math Enthusiast / Bad Ass MC” reference?
Props to Comedy Central for doing the right thing and locking up Dave Chapelle for two more years with a deal worth an estimated $50 million!!!! It’s not always hitting on all cylinders, but “Chapelle’s Show” is often the funniest thing on TV these days. In a time when it seems the broadcast networks have given up on the sitcom, it’s refreshing to see something like “Chapelle’s Show” that isn’t afraid to push the envelope. Congrats, bitch.
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