Picks, Dicks and Nicks

If there is anything that closeted Republicans like more than cock it's black cock. I'm not sure why it works this way, but anything Republicans hate also turns them on like nobody's business. Thus, when Geoff hears Verne Lundquist repeatedly using the words "Urban" and "Cock" this afternoon, he's probably going to have to excuse himself, lest the vision of Steve McNair's cinnabon be too much for him to handle.

Geoff's a pro though, I'm sure he'll just head on down to Reagan National for a little men's room two-step. Hey...everybody's got their own way of dealing with their personal issues. TJ double fists bacon cheeseburgers, Whitney brags about his drinking escapades, Rob makes delicious cookies with some of his friends from inside a tree and...Geoff lets young black men have their way with him. To each their own.

Iowa (+13) @ Ohio State: I don't like the thought of Ohio State in the Rose Bowl any more than the next guy, but I'd rather see that than have to watch Iowa get rolled by 4 TDs in Pasadena late on New Year's Day. Anyone remember what the Rose Bowl was like a couple years ago when Illinois played USC? Yeah, well, that game's a barn burner in comparison to what would happen to Iowa against Oregon or USC. Iowa's not good. Not even close. They've almost lost to the likes Northern Iowa and Indiana...and last week they lost to Northwestern. Now, I don't think Ohio State is very good either but they have better athletes and a deeper team than Iowa, and its not even close. Ohio State wins comfortably, Terelle Pryor throws for less than 150 yards and completes under 50% of his passes.

Florida State (+6) @ Wake Forest: Wake Forest absolutely has Bobby Bowden's number. Which is a good thing because Bobby lost his number and can't find his keys. It'd be extremely helpful if somebody at Wake could call Bobby's wife and have her come and pick him up. He's overdue for his early afternoon pre-nap nap. This week the national media has made a big deal of Bowden not knowing the score of last week's FSU-Clemson game late in the 4th quarter or whether or not the Noles actually even took the lead back from Clemson in the 4th quarter. The people who find this remarkable have clearly never seen Bowden's Sunday morning postgame show. Bowden's been stumbling through that thing since I was 10. He never knows anyone's name, save for maybe his QB. He can't describe the plays accurately and generally stumbles around until Gene Deckeroff just decides to start narrating plays and identifying players with Bowden occasionally chiming in to tell you that a certain player's Mom makes a great sweet potato pie or that he just crapped in his depends. People...Bowden's been a complete and total trainwreck for years. He doesn't know the gameplan, he doesn't know his players and he doesn't know where he's at half the time. I'll tell you what he does know though...FSU's not beating Wake.


Alabama (-14) @ Mississippi State: Did you hear the latest SEC rumor? Nick Saban paid those freshman at Tennessee to commit armed robbery this past week. Yeah, that's the word flying around SEC message boards. You know what's not a rumor...When Saban rapes the little Thai boys he keeps in his basement, he does it while wearing nothing but his straw Alabama hat...but he makes the boys wear houndstooth hats. Nick Saban is sick fucking puppy, folks. Mississippi State's going to keep this close deep into the 4th quarter but much like those little Thai boys they'll still end up under Nick Saban covered in their own blood and Nick's feces. Bulldogs cover, Bama wins.



Florida (-15) @ South Carolina: To borrow a phrase from Orson Swindle, this is a matchup between "the nation's grumpiest 9-0 fanbase versus the coach who first allowed them to be the nation's grumpiest 9-0 fanbase". He's right, Florida fans are insufferable right now. Go to any Gator message board and all you'll read are posts asking (or in many cases telling) what's wrong with the offense, and often, the team in general. Now, I'm not in love with this team like I was last year's but at some point it gets to be a bit much when every single win is followed by a couple pages of angry posts asking for the OC to be fired or changes to the OLine or begging Tebow to go out and get laid, if only to "relieve the pressure".

As for this game, it worries me. I worries me deeply, in places I don't like to talk about at cocktail parties. You see, its easy to think about the last two times these teams have played each other and surmise that this is going to be a blowout. However, that would be shortsighted and naive.

The first two times these coaches took each other on, the games ended up changing the course of the each Gator season and, in both cases, the direction of the football program as a whole. We all remember the blocked FG from 2006 (most stressful game EVER) that propelled Florida to an SEC title and, eventually, the National Championship.



However, many people don't know the full story about the first time Meyer and Spurrier faced each other in Columbia. Florida lost to South Carolina that day, and it was ugly. Anemic offense, soft defense and sloppy play on special teams all contributed to an embarrassing loss in Columbia that day. However, what transpired afterward forever changed the face of the Florida program under Urban Meyer. There was what Meyer calls a "come to Jesus" meeting on the plane as it sat on the tarmac in Gainesville late that Saturday afternoon. The meeting lasted a couple hours and at the end of it some players were demoted from starting positions, other players were kicked off the team outright and there were, if the rumors are to be believed, a few punches thrown between various players from opposing factions within the team. As regrettable as some of that may have been, from that point on, Florida's football program has steadily on the rise. A loss today in Columbia certainly wouldn't erase all that progress, but it would severely damage the goals and hopes of a senior led football team that's just finally starting to get everyone healthy. If Florida's going to announce that they're "back" to the rest of the nation, today would be a good time to do it. I'd like to see that, but I'm not betting on it. Not with South Carolina's pass rush (and not with Carlos Dunlap and Jermaine Cunningham both recovering from ankle injuries...seriously though, everyone else is pretty healthy...I swear). Carolina covers.

Official Mid-November G:TB College Football (D)opus

If it's mid-November, it's time to wallow in NCAA Football's annual fizzle to the finish. If college football is the second biggest sports league going (with the NFL being first), it's amazing how it can get away ending so badly every year. Computers, whiny coaches, whiny reporters, whiny schools, ignorant pollsters, blah-fucking-blah. If you're like me, you end up rooting for outcomes that create a debate-free conclusion to the season because you're so fed up with the nonsense. Ever since Penn State got jobbed in 1994, I've loathed the ambiguity of each season's climax. Of course, if you're really like me, you also like foreign objects in your rectum. But that's a story for another time.

So the New Jersey branch of G:TB thought we would look at the remaining schedules of the undefeated teams and opine on a likely national champion. Much to our chagrin, we didn't land on Rutgers.

So what do we have here? We have a lot of teams in the hunt with odd non-conference games late in the season. Florida vs. FIU? Alabama vs. Chattanooga? Cincy vs. Illinois? Those first two match-ups suck. I want trap games, heated rivalries and potential pitfalls. Not pastings of chumps. I like the Illinois game as a spoiler. But then again, I also like eating Campbell's Tomato with Rice soup out of the can with a spoon, like tomato jello. It's good and it's cheap and it only involves one thing to wash. Besides these crappy games, we have a few potential spoilers. The match-ups favor a Texas-Florida finale, but it ain't that simple. Let's see how the teams line up.

#1 - Florida:
11/14: @ South Carolina
11/21: FIU (is this a real school?)'
11/28: Florida State
12/5: Alabama (SEC Championship)

Undefeated Season Chances: Gators will destroy a demoralized group of cocks and whoop it up on FIU and FSU, bringing them undefeated into the SEC Championship. Many people think it's a toss-up between the Gators and the Crimson Tide. But the non-Floridian contingent among the executive staff here thinks that Tide will roll pretty handily over the Gators in Atlanta, if only because we like Bama's uniforms more. We would give the Gators better odds, but Gator Nation still needs to prove that Tebow can walk on water, as has been rumored in Gainesville.


#2 - Texas:
11/14: @ Baylor
11/21: Kansas
11/26: @ Texas A&M
12/5: Big 12 Championship?

Undefeated Season Chances: Strong, to very strong, just like this guy's portfolio. We would've liked Kansas more as an upset option if it hadn't shat the bed so ferociously the last six weeks. Four straight losses is atrocious. Rock. Chalk. Suck balls. So Texas will sail past a shit sandwich Huskers or Wildcats squad into the national championship, allowing us more shots of Colt's lady-friend, like the one above. And the one below. But we'll also get more shots of Mack Brown and those ass-brown uniforms. Any shots of Mack Brown is too much.


Alabama:
11/14: @ Mississippi State
11/21: Chattanooga
11/27: @ Auburn
12/5: Florida (SEC Championship)
Undefeated Season Chances: See above.

Undefeated Season Chances: We don't like the Tide to make it through this gauntlet, easy as it may appear. We have pulled out our Sharpies and circled the Black Friday game against Auburn. The Tigers had a 3-game whiff in mid-October, but are back on track after a nail-biter against Furman. We think the Tigers will knock off Georgia this weekend and scheme up a plan to put Alabama on their ass the day after Thanksgiving. You heard it here first.


TCU:
11/14: Utah
11/21: @ Wyoming
11/28: New Mexico

Undefeated Season Chances: We think TCU will get caught by the 25 year-old Utahns this weekend. The ghost of Moroni will haunt the Christian heathens from Texas. And who can root for a Horned Frog, anyway?

Cincinnati:
11/13: West Virginia
11/27: Illinois
12/5: @ Pitt

Undefeated Season Chances: We don't see the Bearcats getting through this interesting stretch, even if Dave Wannstedt's face figures prominently in one of them. The Tony Pike vs. Zach Collaros debate will become more of a distraction than the new-to-the-big-time-Bearcats can take. Too bad Bob Huggins isn't around to do something gross and unethical to attract attention. Again. Cincy goes down at Pitt in December, and they may go down to our favorite water-skiing coach in November.



Boise State:
11/14: Idaho
11/20: @ Utah State
11/27: Nevada
12/5: New Mexico State

Undefeated Season Chances: Strong, even though they no longer have Ian Johnson in the lineup. How old is this guy? I feel like he played there all decade? Unfortunately, we don't see an undefeated Boise squad cracking into the top two slots. They seem destined to be this year's undefeated "small" conference team to play in a BCS bowl. But let's be honest here. One win over a decent Oregon squad can only carry them so far. The rest of their victories are against a motley crew of chump squads (Tulsa, Miami of Ohio, Bowling Green, Cal-Davis, etc.). Inconvenience for you, I'm sorry. Don't overlook the Nevada game on 11/27. Both teams are undefeated in conference play, and the game could be for all the WAC marbles.

Conclusion:
So, if you've done the math here, you'll see an undefeated Texas team facing off against a one-loss Alabama team for the title, and you'll watch it on a terrible Fox broadcast because they think you can buy the rights and hire Barry Switzer and everything will be great. No it won't. The coverage will suck. Like it always does. Florida will be pissed because they have a higher quality loss than Alabama, but nobody will care because Urban Meyer is a smarmy jackass hiding behind a thin veil of benevolence.

Happy watching, gents. Here's one more shot of Ms. Glandorf for you folks. You've seen it before, but there's nothing wrong with seeing it again.

CAA Action -- It's . . . not bad

Well, good friends, it's that time of year again. It's time for the cagers to reach for that initial tip, whatever that means. It's November -- turkey time in America, and for a generation or two there have been few bigger turkeys than the College of William & Mary's men's basketball program. The last few years, however, have been a period of aberration, the occasional blip on the radar when the Tribe men's hoops program emerges from the muck and reaches plateaus of competence, even aptitude. Okay, it was one very good year in 2008, and then last year they were back to 10-20 and suck a-plenty.

Tonight kicks off the 2009-10 season for the green and gold, and what better way to do it than with a patty-cake opponent like . . . UConn? Really? Well, it's Friday the 13th, so maybe anything can happen. (It can't.)

But this nearly-annual Tribe futility has only been happening since the early 80's. In 1983, the first year of the Colonial Athletic Association (though it was still called the ECAC South for two years), the William & Mary Indians swept the regular season and . . . lost in the championship tourney final. Unfortunately, William & Mary men's hoops would find itself in the same company as Kajagoogoo, SMU, Richard Chamberlain, Vanessa Williams, Ralph Sampson, UVA men's basketball, "Remington Steele," Sally Ride, the USFL, "Manimal," the DeLorean, and Dexy's Midnight Runners: the successes of 1983 would be fleeting and followed by a quick, long slide downhill into the abyss.

Long before then, however, the College of William & Mary in Virginia was something of a basketball factory. Okay, well, the College could at least compete -- to wit, the all-time NCAA single-game rebound champion is Bill Chambers, William & Mary Indian. Chambers had 53 rebounds on Valentine's Day, 1953. (It's rumored he nailed his ex-girlfriend's sister that night for #54.) This feat has always been a conversation piece for W&M students and alums; if you're at all familiar with Tribe athletics, you know Bill Chambers' claim to fame.

But it raised a question for me: why do we all know his name, but very, very few of us know Jeff Cohen's? Cohen's career mark of 2000 pts/1500 rebs is far more impressive than a one-night performance . . . Is it because Chambers later coached at his alma mater (presumably inflating his own legend by making sure the undergrads knew of the feat)? Is it because he did it against UVA? I don't know. I think it comes down to two things: (1) William & Mary athletes are so very rarely #1 in anything ("Thriller" does NOT count), and (2) no matter how stat-geeky the College's grads are, they still can be wooed by one night of (probably contrived) glory.

Here's the thing, though: Jeff Cohen deserves his due. I just looked this up, and here are every one of the players with 2,000 points and 1,500 boards in their NCAA careers:

Tim Duncan, Wake Forest
Malik Rose, Drexel
Derrick Coleman, Syracuse
Ralph Sampson, UVA
Elvin Hayes, Houston
Jeff Cohen, your College of William & Mary Indians
Elgin Baylor, Seattle
Joe Holup, GWU
Dickie Hemric, Wake Forest
Tom Gola, LaSalle

Pretty amazing company. (Joe Holup's name evokes chills, yes.) I know the pre-1973 game was different -- someone smarter than I can explain how -- but they didn't asterisk Roger Maris for having 8 more games. And like I alluded to, Top 10 in anything for the Tribesters is huge. Jeff Cohen should be a household name. (A W&M fraternity household, that is.)

* * * * *

Did You Know???
Chuck Swenson, who coached the Tribe from 1987-1994, holds the record for lowest career winning percentage for W&M coaches (.316) since Samuel Hubbard went 4-9 in the peach basket era (1916-1917). His in-conference work was even worse; his 27-71 (.275) mark is unfathomable in modern college sports, perhaps the DiMaggio 56-untouchable record of Tribe basketball. Swenson, like G:TB founder Rob, stands about 5'3". I'm just saying.

Surprisingly, however, Tony Shaver, whom we all seem to continually appreciate at the helm, is in the conversation. His Tribe teams are 65-113 (.367) overall, 33-76 (.302) in-conference. He's one cellar-dwelling year before it's neck-and-neck for the all-time dishonor. Let's hope against hope that it doesn't happen.

* * * * *

Did You Know??? Part 2
Hubie Brown was an assistant coach at William & Mary in 1968. Yep, Hubie Brown.

Greek Week at G:TB

I hate the Titans more than any NFL team. I hate their flaming logo. I hate Jeff Fisher’s hick mustache/mullet combo and the inordinate amount of respect he gets despite having a 0.544 career record. I hate watching the ugly brand of football they’ve played for the past dozen years. I hated Jevon Kearse in his first stint with the Titans. I hated all the undue media fellation bestowed unto Steve McNair with his 6.9 ypa and Eddie George with his 3.6 ypc. I hate Derrick Mason, the worst 10,000 yard receiver of all time.

But my hatred for the Titans was truly born on January 8, 1999, the day when that which the mainstream media and other peckerless douchewads refer to as the “Music City Miracle” occurred. I freely admit that this hatred is stupid. Completely irrational. It’s just a game. The Bills couldn’t have won it all. The Titans are a bland franchise without a storied history, completely unworthy of my disdain. But I can’t shake it. I hated Bud Adams’ postgame comment that he had never seen anything like the “Home Run Throwback” play before. (Which is total horseshit. Unit M’s A-side intramural team ran that play in 1996. The Redskins ran it with Desmond Howard and Darrell Green, too.) I hate watching replays of that spot pass. It’s like the Zapruder film, you can’t really tell what happened. It always, and rightfully, appears on “Top 10” lists. And I know I’ll have to watch it multiple times before this weekend’s Bills/Titans tilt.

The team that plays in Tennessee doesn’t deserve to be called the Titans. To make my case I need to enlist the aid of Thomas Bulfinch, a Harvard-educated accountant who lived in Boston in the nineteenth century. In his free time, he summarized classic stories “in simple, condensed form for young or busy readers.” Kind of like what we do here at G:TB. Bulfinch’s most famous work, “Bulfinch’s Mythology,” was given to me by my grandmother when I was about 8 years old. Today I turn to this tome to take Tennessee’s Titans to task.

The Titans were a race of gods who begat, and were eventually overthrown by, Zeus and the rest of the Olympian gods. Jupiter ate all of his children, except for Zeus, who later tricked Jupiter into vomiting them up. Ripshit from exposure to digestive juices, Jupiter’s children got medieval on his ass and imprisoned Jupiter and the rest of the Titans in Tartarus. Homer said Tartarus was as far beneath Hades as Hades is beneath the earth. And from what Bulfinch has to say, being in Tartarus sucks. Thus being a Titan sucks.

The Houston Oilers were an original AFL franchise that was eventually overthrown and subsumed by the NFL. Then they were relocated to Tennessee, which sounds a lot like being banished to Tartarus to me, and renamed the Titans. But is this franchise sufficiently miserable to warrant the Titans moniker? I think not. The Titans have not experienced nearly enough suffering to qualify for Titan status. They should be stripped of the name and henceforth called something more fitting, like the Yokels, Bumpkins, Hillbillies or Inbreds.

But who has the right to bear the Titan burden?

There were a bunch of Titans, according to Bulfinch. The most famous one is probably Prometheus. He and his brother Epimetheus (but not his buddy Epididymis) were tasked with making man and animals, and providing them with various faculties like claws, strength, wings, and so on. Epi screwed up and gave all the faculties out to the animals without saving any for man. So Prometheus gave man fire. Apparently he wasn’t supposed to, and, as you probably know, he was punished by being chained to a rock where a bird would peck out his liver every day, and it would grow back every night only to have the whole bird pecking thing happen again. What you probably don’t know is that Prometheus knew some secret that would have gotten him off the rock, but he refused to drop a dime on his boy Jove (the stop snitchin’ movement started early) and he remains on the rock to this day. According to Bulfinch, “He has therefore become the symbol of magnanimous endurance of unmerited suffering, and strength of will resisting oppression.”

Sounds like the Bills to me.

Prometheus gave us more than fire. Pandora, the world’s first woman, was created to tell you about new music you like . . . er, rather to punish Prometheus and mankind for the fire incident. So without Prometheus we would be sitting around in the dark and not getting laid. Kind of like the Wheelhouse staff.

Pandora had a box (yeah she did!) that she wasn’t supposed to open. But she was a woman, and G:TB readers know that women never listen, so it’s no surprise that she opened it and all sorts of miserable shit poured out. Kind of like when Ralph Wilson opens his mouth at a press conference to announce a new coach. All that remained in Pandora’s box, much like a Bills fan’s heart, was hope.

But the Bills don’t deserve to be called Titans.

The Tennessee Titans are not the first Titans. There were the aforementioned Tartarus Titans, of course, but also the New York Titans, who later became the New York Je(s)ts. TR has previously summarized Jets misery in this space. The Titan name is more fitting for them than for Tennessee. Like the Titans of Greek lore, they briefly ruled the league (1969, clicks), and were then banished to the football version of Tartarus, losing games and sucking balls for eternity. Not only are they banished to a stretch of swamp off the Turnpike, said stretch is named for their cross-town rivals. And their fans are “the symbol of magnanimous endurance of unmerited suffering, and strength of will resisting oppression.” Tommy Bulfinch would approve.

The Bills are no Titans. Unlike the Jets, the Bills never ruled. They never had an ignominious fall from deity. They were never stripped of godhood. They were always merely mortal.

The Bills could be Tantalus – fulfillment is within sight, but perpetually out of reach. Rooting for the Bills is a lot like rooting for Sisyphus. You know they’re destined lose in the end and hoping for success is pure futility. Ixion was fucking bumming too. He was chained to a spinning, flaming wheel and had to constantly yell “You should show gratitude to your benefactor!” But these comparisons aren’t quite right.

The Bills are like Tityus. He was a giant, but not a Titan. He also tried to assault some goddess so he was given the same punishment as Prometheus. The thing with the birds eating his perpetually regenerating liver – that’s the analogy I’m making to the Bills, not the business with the assault. O.J. is a killer, not a rapist.

When the Bills move to Toronto in a few years, they have to drop the Bills mascot. It makes no sense outside of Buffalo. Hopefully they’ll read G:TB and rechristen the team the Tityuses, or even better, the Tityii. We shall see.

This is supposed to be a preview of a football game, not a classics lesson. So here’s some incisive analysis.

The Inbreds welcome the Tityii to Doublewide Stadium with open arms and a gap-toothed smile. They have the league’s #2 rushing offense. Inbred RB Chris Johnson leads the league with 959 rushing yards, averaging an insane 6.7 yards per carry. He’s apparently the fastest guy in the league. The Tityii run defense is as impotent as Raffie Palmeiro, giving up more total yards on the ground than any other team in the league. Opponents average 173.6 yards per game on the season, 209.8 yards per game in their past 6 outings. Their Barry Sandersesque 5.1 ypc against is the 14th worst ypc against in NFL history. Let me say that again. The 14th worst yards per carry against IN THE HISTORY OF THE EN EFF FUCKING ELL. They give it up like Ashley Dupre.

John Fox should have been fired on the spot the second he allowed Jake Delhomme to throw a single pass against the Tityii. Jeff Fisher may be an Inbred coach, but he won’t screw this up. The only way he can lose is if he puts Chris Johnson on the bench. Because every time Johnson touches the ball he’ll score. I guarantee Johnson has a historic performance on Sunday, barring injury. Three hundred yards is not out of the question. I’m not kidding. The Tityii gave up 210 yards to 31-year-old Thomas Jones. You don’t think Chris Johnson can top that? Hell (Tartarus?), Johnson could get 200 yards with Vince Young chipping in another 100 yards rushing … by the end of the 3rd quarter.

The Inbreds have the worst pass defense in the league, statistically, but I don’t buy it. They played the Steelers, Texans, Colts, and Pats. That skews their numbers a bit. Ryan Fitzpatrick will never be mistaken for Roethlisberger, Schaub, Peyton, or Brady. The Tityii couldn’t score at will through the air against Mount Saint Mary’s girls quadriplegic team. And the Inbreds are fair to middling against the run. This will be ugly.

Final score: Inbreds 38, Tityii 10

In Like Flynn

For those of you Tri-State area residents who enjoy drinking in bars, who like gadgets and iPhone apps, and who aren't too proud to go somewhere just for a free drink, this is exceptionally cool.

For those of you who knew our late, great, hard-partying, beer-swilling, bar-dwelling, "technology is best used to enhance drinking"-espousing, fine friend Flynn . . . well, this is almost eerie. When I'm gone, look for similar signs that I'm somewhere beyond the grave still doing what I do and messing with you guys all the way.

Salute

We interrupt your regularly scheduled inane dipshittery for a few moments of real-life, honest to God (Buddha, Mohammed, Bodhisattva…your choice) sober reflection and gratitude.

I’m the son of a U.S. Army officer. I grew up on a series of military bases and towns around the world, places that hummed with the low, steady buzz of discipline and order. I remember watching soldiers on parade during the various ceremonies and drills that characterize active military installations, their instinctive, unspoken camaraderie something I found elusive and comforting at the same time. Not to go full Jessup, but in that atmosphere it's impossible to fail to realize that there really are brave young men manning a post, standing on that wall for you.

I’d find my own faint facsimile of this esprit de corps later as a member of any number of sports teams, but I realized fairly early that my lack of discipline and impolitic disposition disqualified me from military service. Not early enough to stop me from making an ill-fated decision to enter William & Mary’s ROTC program, but pretty damn shortly thereafter. I don’t think I even lasted a semester. I probably still owe the Army money for uniforms.

In a great many ways, I actively resisted the hardness, the discipline, the structure of a military life. And in a great many more ways, I was shaped by it. I probably still don't understand how much.

But I've always been struck by the courage, selflessness, and professionalism of the U.S. Armed Forces. All the moreso today, as the stresses of multi-theater combat test the physical and mental resources of all from the lowliest enlisted men and women to the most celebrated Generals, even at home, as we found out this week. This is one topic about which the goofy bloggers here at G:TB won't crack wise. Unless we're talking about West Point's football uniforms.

To the uniformed men and women in harm's way and elsewhere, thank you and Godspeed on this Veterans Day. Your sacrifice is well and truly noted and appreciated beyond our capability to express it. We'll set politics aside today and close by quoting the President's words, spoken yesterday in honor of those killed and injured at Fort Hood.

I think all of us - every single American - must acknowledge that this generation has more than proved itself the equal of those who have come before.

We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.

This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in a time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations - all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.

An old bit with a (slightly) new twist

If anyone has been on google in the last week, I think you know where this post is headed. Today marks the debut of Sesame Street's 40th anniversary season (TR's girl Michelle O is the guest), and as any loyal reader knows, we here at G:TB love the Sesame Street gang. However, it needs to be noted that the epic Bert and Ernie clip has been placed in the sacred Gheorghe Vault at HQ (along with O.J.'s Heisman and the script of the final episode of Lost**), so we had to take a (slightly) different approach today. Here then is our afternoon filler clip honoring Sesame Street...a huge diversion from what we normally do here:



**OK, I have never seen a second of Lost, despite everyone and their mother telling me I had to watch it, it's the greatest show ever, blah blah blah. Whatever. Here's my question for all you Lost diehards out there (of which Dennis and Michael are two of the biggest)...how pissed are you going to be if the rumor I hear most about the series finale is actually true (a rumor even espoused by TGS' own Jenna Maroney) - the island is simply some guy named Hurley's dream? I mean, seriously, you committed years to watching some sort of super spectacular serial and they pull the "it was all just a dream" bullshit. Personally, I would be livid. That dream crap didn't fly with the "Who Killed J.R." bit. Magnum P.I. had the audacity to claim an entire season was just a dream. But this, this would be the biggest c-f of them all, in my humble non-Lost-watching opinion. Good luck with that bullshit.
/end rant

Roger, Roger

News today that the great Roger Murdock is fighting leukemia. In his own private way, he's kept it quiet for over a year, revealing it now in hopes of helping others. God Bless, Kareem - may you live a long and healthy life. Certainly long enough to do this again:

Lowbrow humor

I try to bring a little culture to the G:TB table, but once in a while I have to go lowbrow. This is laugh-out-loud funny. Fast-forward to 4:15 if you don't have time to watch the whole thing.

Mark had a rough weekend

But he learned a valuable lesson from this experience - wait until you stop projectile vomiting to call 9-1-1 about your stolen maryjane:

SALEM, Ore. - Oregon police have charged a man with drunk driving after he called 911 to report his marijuana as stolen but the dispatcher couldn't understand him because he was vomiting while on the road.

Marion County sheriff's deputies say 21-year-old Calvin Hoover, of Salem, told dispatchers early Tuesday that someone had broken into his truck and stolen cash, a jacket and a small amount of marijuana while he was at a tavern in Salem.

He then called 911 again to complain that deputies had not arrived, but the dispatcher had trouble understanding Hoover because he was driving and stopping several times to vomit.

He was arrested on charges of driving under the influence of intoxicants.

Once again, I'm carrying this team...

After a 3 week run of complete success, I came crashing back down to earth in the form of a 0-3 record on last week's picks. That would be terrible news and reason for me to be angry, if my 0-3 day hadn't coincided with Florida beating the tar out of Georgia. I've checked it out, its actually impossible for me to be in a bad mood when Florida beats Georgia. I hate the entitled Bulldog fanbase so much that anytime I get to tell them to "go back to their shanties" or to "go home and cry to your wife, er sister" it's guaranteed to be a good day. When I can do that after yet another lame motivational tactic from Mark Richt, well, all the better. (Quick tanget here: Mark Richt isn't loathed nearly enough by Gator fans. He played QB at Miami, was largely responsible for much of FSU's success in the 90s and has been the most successful UGA coach since Vince Dooley, who can eat an entire bag of dicks by the way. I mean, this guy is like the perfect storm of useless, shitbird rival coaches and for whatever reason {I think the reason is Florida owns his sorry bible toting ass} he seems to get a free hate pass from a large segment of the Gator Nation. Well, not me fucko. You suck, you're bland, boring and unoriginal and I hope Willie Martinez impregnates one of your adopted third world daughter with his incompetent seed.)

Well then, that felt good. Onto the picks:

Duke (+7.5) @ North Carolina: When these two get together...the stands are half empty and the fans are talking basketball. Listen, nobody cares about this game outside of the research triangle and nobody ever will. These schools don't have the facilities, tradition or (frankly) the desire to compete at a high level in football and I don't think anyone cares. Just like nobody cares that Geoff is gay and adopted a couple Romanian babies to further fool his Republican colleagues into thinking he "liked girls" and didn't enjoy things like "sucking cock behind clubs on M street on weekends". Don't worry Geoff, your secret's safe with Gheorghe. Carolina wins, but they don't cover.

Oklahoma (-6.5) @ Nebraska: I keep hearing that Bo Pelini has brought the Black shirts back, and I keep thinking, "Who gives a fuck?". Seriously, is there a dumber tradition in college football than the Black shirts? We're tough, we mean business. You know how you can tell? We refuse to wear colorful shirts! We go against our school's natural color scheme!! Yeah, well, you know who else wears a lot of black? Goth kids. Those kids suck and I don't believe I've ever met one who looked even remotely tough. You know what other team wears black despite it not being a part of their school's color scheme? Duke Basketball. Oooooh! Kyle Singler's wearing black. It completely distracts me from the fact that he looks like an alien and, despite being blown by every ACC announcer, has yet to come through in a single big game during his college career. Hey Huskers...why don't you start slapping the field before each defensive series while you're at it? That way we'll really know you mean business. Oklahoma's not as good as last year for a number of reasons (QB, WR, Oline) but they're still much better than Nebraska. Sooners.

Vanderbilt (+35) @ Florida: I'd like to take Florida here, but I can't give 35 points based on one good offensive showing against an undisciplined and porous Georgia defense. If Florida had dropped 41 on, say South Carolina I'd be much more impressed and even pretty likely to say that the Gator offense was back on track. However, since that's not the case. I'm going to take the points and an underrated Vandy squad. Quick note: Keep an eye out (Get it, "eye out"...Brandon Spikes writes all my jokes.) for a couple of freshman who should see extensive playing time today. Xavier Nixon, who I mentioned last week, and Jon Bostic, a true freshman MLB from Miami who's already built like a senior and is said to be the heir apparent to Brandon Spikes at MLB. Gators win, Vandy covers.

Okay, that's it. I'm off to play basketball. I'll throw some pictures in with this post when I get back.

Let's See Skymall Top This

I'm spending the latter part of the week learning how to capture Federal business (apparently, it involves channeling Sorrell Booke, prostrating oneself before the altar of large systems integrators, and copious amounts of common sense), so I missed yesterday's great rock-and-roll conflagration.

I didn't miss this, though, which rocketed to the top of my Christmas list and comprises my meager contribution to the discussion. Two words: Weezer Snuggie. Like you aren't buying two this morning.