Heroes

So, I have a new star crush. Who is it? Well, it's actually no longer Erin eSurance, though I will always treasure the great times we had. I've moved on emotionally. On to a much more refined fellow. He's a little quirky. He says some incredible things. And he seems to have a great time doing it. For that I admire him. Who is he? I'll give you three guesses. And the first two don't count.

Give up?

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.

This dude is pretty much awesome. I think that every morning he wakes up and says, "Dammit. I'll believe whatever I want to believe, but I'll try to explain it all very rationally. And I'll come out looking a lot smarter than all of the folks who wanted to ask loaded questions." All I know is that I'm guessing that I'll never be asked to speak at Columbia. Especially if any from Columbia ever reads this blog entry.

I don't need to be complimented by the President of Columbia to know that I'm awesome. But it was still pretty awesome.

Brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated? Thank you. Either way, that makes me awesome. Basically, I'm just that darned compelling that all you intellectual elites simply have to listen to me, whether you like me or not. Sort of like Howard Stern. If only I could hire his agent to work out a better package for my next contract. $100 million a year for 5 years? Really? Man. He makes A-Rod look like a bargain. I should probably also start looking around for movie deals. Private Parts was pretty good, but I think that my life story could make half a billion, globally.

Executing criminals? Well, in the under-18 age group, we're #1 in the world. George W's from Texas. He knows what I'm talking about. Besides, I just don't really like kids. You know what I mean. Kids these days. Most of them are punks. I don't know how it's gotten this way. When I was a kid, we had respect for our elders. Now kids just run around listening to their rap music and watching TRL, oblivious to the world.

The Baha'i faith? Come on. Get real. Have you seen these guys? They're worse than the Mormons. They're not even a real religion. They don't believe in anything. It's just a bunch of people going around saying, "I'm OK, you're OK." It's like watching a bunch of hippies, only instead of being atheist, they believe that everything's holy. Lame. You can't really fault me on this one. Who wants to keep getting these damned invitations to their potlucks? Maybe if they had better food, you could get some people to show up. Now those Southern Baptists. Those ladies cook a mean potluck dinner.

Gays? Nope. Sorry. I don't know what's in the water here in the U.S., but we don't have any gays over in Iran. Allah wouldn't allow that to happen. Don't get me wrong. I love me some Queer Eye, but I watch it more for the grooming tips, not because I'm supporting gay people.

Women? I'm reminded of Method Man and Redman in the classic movie, "How High." When Redman saw that he had failed a Women's Studies course, he lamented, "How didI fail Women's Studies? I love bitches." Yes, in Iran, we love bitches, too. In fact, in the words of American hero Isiah Thomas, "Bitch, I don't give a fuck about these white people." Amen, my brother.

Holocaust? Sure, it happened. But we should check the numbers. Six million Jews dead sounds awfully high. I've seen some studies that suggest that 37 is actually a more accurate number. So, until we see some other research, I'll go with 37 Jews dead at the hands of Hitler. But it was still a tragic event.

Israel? Don't get me wrong. I love the Jews. We've got all sorts of Jews here in Iran. I also like the Palestinians. We've uprooted 5 million of those guys for this Israel. Which is a lot more than the 37 Jews that died in concentration camps. Shouldn't we just give the Jews some land in eastern Germany?

In conclusion, thank you for hosting me at your great university. Now if you excuse me, I'll be visiting Ground Zero to offer my sympathies.

Yep. My hero.

-Chairman

Spoilers

I'm just happy that the Reds rolled over the Cards, basically ending their playoff hopes. That was sweet. Now, we get 3 more with the Brewers, and 6 more with the Cubs. If we could only end all of their playoff hopes, then that would be awesome. Unfortunately, someone has to win the NL Central. The Reds would have to go 14-2, and get a lot of help. So that's not going to happen. And frankly, I don't know if it matters. Of course, it wouldn't shock me if whoever comes out of the NL Central goes on to win a couple rounds, but let's face it. No one cares. These teams all suck. A strange stat. Since July 1st, the Reds are 8 games over .500. If we had been simply bad, rather than absolutely dreadful, at the start of the season, we'd be in the race. Go figure.

Going back to football, I've been thinking about the stealing of signs. And my basic instinct is, "so what?" Teams intercept other teams' calls all the time, and have been trying to do so forever. I still remember former Pro Bowl strong safety David Fulcher (a Bengals stalwart) talking about how he had read the lips from the 49er's sideline on the last play of the 49er's last drive during Super Bowl back in 1989. Basically, he read the lips of the coach calling in the play, and knew that it was going to be that slant to John Taylor. So, he slid over a few steps to the outside, jumped the route, and picked off the ball, taking it back to the 40, before he slid as time expired and the Bengals won their first, and to date, only Super Bowl.

Wait. No, he didn't. He still had responsibility to cover his spot, to he didn't slide over, to start, and was a step slow, as Taylor caught the touchdown, Joe Montana cemented his status as the best ever, and the 49er's completed their dominance of the 1980's, and the Bengals were sent into a downward spiral that was the 1990's.

Having knowledge assists in placing players in the right spot, but you still have to make the plays. If someone is on to your calls or your plays, change them up. How much game film is available now? How much time do the cameras spend on the sidelines now? The information is all out there. It's one thing to have spies infiltrate closed door meetings. But once you're out there on the field, and the whole world can see? That's not "spying." That's just observation of what's out there for the world to see, basically the same as figuring out the footwork that, say, Marvin Harrison uses on those goal-to-go slants that he and Peyton do so well.

I think that this is just an issue that people are worrying too much about. Shouldn't we be talking about dog fighting, or something?

-Chairman

Junkies Getting a Fix

So I have a bit of a crush right now. And no, it's not with the hot cartoon chick on the eSurance commercials. Well. Okay, maybe it is. But she's hot, she's wonderful, and I love her, and I don't care what anyone says. Quote, Buy, Print, dammit. We're going to have beautiful, black and pink haired, 2.5-dimensional children. Quote, Buy, Print.

In all seriousness, thank God football is back. I feel like an alcoholic with a cold beer right now. Like A1, yeah, it's that good. I think that I've spent more time watching football over the last 2 weeks than I have out of the apartment. I'm awesome. And I also promised a football preview after my fantasy draft. Of course, I lost my first game in my important league, so I don't know if my thoughts are worth anything (though I did get high score, and won a few bucks in my cash league). However, I will say that in my baseball preview, I actually did pretty well. It's sick. Who in the world would call Arizona as the NL West champs? And the Indians as the AL central champs was another surprisingly good call. Of course, there were a couple misses (I think that I was too lazy to edit out the A's after I copied and pasted from the previous year). But I think that C-Lauff is still upset about the whole Erik Bedard thing from last year and this year.

So, without further ado, my NFL picks:

AFC Division Champs and Wild Cards: New England, Indy, Denver, Cincy, Baltimore, San Deigo.
AFC Champion: New England over Indy
NFC Division Champs and Wild Cards: Chicago, Carolina, Philly, Seattle, New Orleans, Dallas.
NFC Champion: Carolina over Seattle
Super Bowl Winner: New England

NFL MVP: Tom Brady
NFL Offensive POY: Peyton Manning
NFL Defensive POY: Ray Lewis
Top 3 RB's: LT, LJ, Shaun Alexander
Apologies to: Run/catch threats Brian Westbrook and Steven Jackson
Under the radar RB's: Edgerrin James, Adrian Peterson,
Overrated: The rest of the U's backs (Gore, McGahee, Portis)

Top 3 WR's: TO, Steve Smith, Randy Moss
Apologies to: Bengals, Colts, and Rams corps
Under the radar WR's: Arnaz Battle, Santonio Holmes, Javon Walker
Overrated: Seahawks and Saints corps

Top 3 QB's: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Carson Palmer
Apologies to: Big Ben, Vince Young
Under the radar QB's: Eli's time to shine, Cutler and Campbell making believers.
Overrated: Drew Brees and Matt Hasselback

AFC items of note:
There are a number of freaks at TE; the Tony Scheffler and Daniel Graham combo will outperform most of them.
The Broncos match up well will the Chargers, and will be able t0 use 8 in the box to stop LT.
The Broncos can run on any team that's devoting 2 defenders to Javon Walker.
The play of Jonathan Ogden and Levi Jones will probably decide the AFC North.
The Jags may not regret dropping Leftwich, but they're not making the playoffs with Dave Garrard.
The Steelers will be tough, but are in the wrong division.
The Jets are looking at a long season.
A team that has a strange attraction for me is the Titans.

NFC items of note:
The Panthers defense will step up, and they'll get just enough big plays on offense to make a run.
I want to pick against the Bears, but the rest of the NFC North is so bad that I can't justify it.
I want to pick against the Saints, but the rest of of the NFC is so bad, that I can't justify it.
The popular sleeper picks (49ers, Cardinals, Rams, etc.) are generally lame.
Joey Harrington is still Joey Harrington.
Alex Smith and Matt Leinart will become legit NFL QB's.
The Eagles drafted a QB because they're a good organization.

Of course, I'm an idiot, so definitely ignore anything that I have written down here.

-Chairman