Nit Picks II

Everyone seems to have their little football preview pointless pot-pouris that runs before each week, and since I have a blogger account and a job where I have to sit at a desk and do next to nothing, I figured I would get in on the action.  For no reason whatsoever, here are 10 mini-rants about football, followed by 10 bets for the upcoming weekend.  I will offer little or no evidence, do my best not to look anything up, and definitely won’t respond if you attempt to refute anything I say.  Because my word is gospel.  And I’m a busy guy.  Wait, no, I work less than 20 hours a week, and don’t even have class 4 days a week.  I’m not busy.  What is that other thing…the one that I am…lazy.  That’s it.  I’m lazy.  Deal with it. 

(As for the bets, if you haven’t heard, and don’t like it, gambling is legal now.  It can be done, in a way that isn’t punishable, criminally or otherwise, through sites that are registered with the national government.  Sure, it is the national government of Costa Rica, but let’s not get hung up on semantics.  Because gambling is awesome.  I’m watching a football game.  I shouldn’t care.  But I have money on it.  Now I care.  Gambling is like a ‘make-me-give-a-s*** pill.  Which is awesome.  Unless I lose, then gambling sucks.)

1. Wade Phillips and crew came up with the big win that they needed against Houston.  Thank god.  I wasn’t ready to quit on the Cowboys season yet.  I had to quit on the Red Sox in mid July (even with the late season run, it was apparent that they didn’t have it a while ago).  I can’t be an agnostic for most of the MLB and NFL season.  Having said that, I still want his ass canned.  Now.  Seriously.  When Lance Armstrong is advocating that someone give Jerry Jones another coach’s number (Bill Cowher, he really did this…gotta love twitter), you know you suck.  If you need more evidence for this (or anything else related to the Jets, Bengals, Cowboys or Cheifs, really), go back and watch Hard Knocks.  Phillips seems like a good guy, and one who knows about football, but the dude couldn’t inspire Lawrence Taylor to do a line off of an underaged girl (what, that isn’t the first thing that comes to your mind when you need an uninspiring football analogy?).  It shows on the field too.  Even against the Texans, the Cowboys have looked flat for most of the year.  The season lives on, but I’m still mad.

2. Would anyone in their right mind say that if you took the best teams in the Big East and the ACC, put them into one conference, then put that conference next to the best teams from the WAC, MWC, and C-USA, the big conferences would be better?  Yes.  Some people would.  But they would be big conference fanboys like Mark May and Lee Corso. Just for fun, let’s do it with 10 team conferences

BigCC

Virginia Tech – Lost to a WAC team and a 1-AA

NC State – The only remaining undefeated, but no one is sure that hey are any good

Syracuse- Don’t have a quarterback that was better than a dude who played 4 years of D-1 basketball last year

West Virginia- One trick pony (Noel Devine)

South Florida- Somehow a major conference school

Rutgers- I literally cannot think of one thing to say, positive or negative, about this team

Florida State- Their coach’s name is Jimbo.

Miami- Miami Northwestern three years later, unfortunately they are now playing much more selective teams

Maryland- They must protect this house

Boston College- (I guess…)

C-WMC

Houston- One loss to UCLA, who destroyed Texas

Southern Miss- Only loss was to the SEC, quality V over Kansas

Boise State- Self Explanatory

Nevada- Took it to Cal.  Hard.

Fresno State- Actually, kind of uninspiring, but no worse than Maryland or BC or USF

San Diego State- Ditto

Utah – A quiet 4-0.

TCU- Also self explanatory

ECU- Had the most dramatic win of the year, but not necessarily that inspiring

Air Force- One loss, and it was by 3 to Oklahoma, in a game they should have won.  Third in the nation on the ground.  An underrated team.

Two disclaimers:  1. I’m not saying that the C-WMC conference is so spectacular, and 2. I’m not saying that they are clearly head and shoulders better.  But it is close.  The point is simple.  North of Georgia, eastern college football is BRUTAL this year.  Already, only NC State is undefeated in the ACC, and they are going to be a dog this weekend to a team that lost to a 1-AA and a WAC team (Boise State, but still).  No one is saying that the WAC can be considered to be even close to the same playing field as the Big-12 or the SEC, but the mid-majors, for this year, anyways, may well be just as good as the weaker big ones.  And this is in a year when a perennial mid major contender, BYU, is brutal.

(Also, count undefeated on the last 2 lists- it is 4-0, for what it’s worth)

Ten football rants every week is, frankly, too many, and frankly, a pain in the ass to come up with, so I am going to start mixing in some other stuff here that isn’t football related in order to get to that magical ten spot.  If you are wondering why, read the intro again. 

3. Reason America Kicks Ass of the Week

The Blue Effing Angels.

When you sign up to be a fighter pilot, there is obviously a minimum level of aptitude that you need to engage in combat.  The Air Force trains a bunch of people to become really good at kicking ass with million dollar jets, then sends them to places like Iraq and Libya and Finland (the less publicized operation night moose) to take out high security fortresses filled with bond-villain like bad guys planning nuclear strikes, and then to have 4 on 4 dogfights (insert Vick joke here) over the Indian ocean on the way home.  This is warfare as I understand it anyways. 

Obviously, it takes a high level of skill and training to get to the point where you can take place in such a mission, and not just anyone can get behind the wings of an F-15 fighter jet.  You have to be really effin’ good at blowing stuff up and then flying away in order to fight in combat, and America has a lot of guys like that.  And that kicks ass, but that isn’t the reason that America kicks ass. 

If you are a standard, run of the mill country (let’s say Argentina), and you had someone who was super good at flying combat planes, and they wanted to serve their country, you would be like ‘sick, sign em up’ (if you were kind of a bro, but also in charge of the Argentinean military…just go with it).  Not America.  We put our good and very good pilots in positions to take out bad guys, preserve freedom, make the world a better place and just generally eradicate people we don’t like.  Our great fighters, though?  Do we put them into battle?  Make their planes super stealth and use them for our missions?

Of course not.  We paint their planes bright freaking blue and have them fly over places like Wichita, Kansas and Twin Falls, Idaho doing tricks and not really fighting anyone.  That’s right, al Qaeda.  Those dudes taking you out and generally running your show?  That’s our B team.  We are the Miami Heat,  except that we are scheduled for a road game against the Hornets, and we kept LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh in Miami to put on an And-1 mixtape.  And we sent Mario Chalmers, Udonis Haslem and Eddie House to New Orleans And we won by 20. (Ironically, we also sent America’s version of Mario Chalmers, Udonis Haslem and Eddie House to New Orleans after Katrina, but that is neither here nor there). 

You want to know how freaking badass America is.  That badass.  We are exactly that badass.

4. Music Rant of the Week

I need to bring something to the attention of as many people as possible, and a column full of rants is, frankly, the perfect place to do so.  The song Dynamite by Taio Cruz SUCKS.  I’m not saying that it is played out, that I don’t care for it, that it is a little bit annoying or that it is overproduced or any of the other things that you typically mean when you say a song sucks.  I mean it is freaking horrible.  It is completely devoid of any merit.  If a three year old could operate a synthesizer and had developed language skills, they could have made that song.  But only if the three year old had no musical talent whatsoever.

Every time that god-awful song comes on, I feel compelled to point out that it sucks.  I mean every time, and usually to people who have heard me point out that it sucks multiple times.  That doesn’t sound that bad, except that I hang out mostly with drunken college kids, and drunken college kids are basically functioning retards, which means that they have terrible taste in music, and as a result, I hear that song a lot, like 9 or 10 times a week, because like I said, college kids (at least ones at Santa Clara) have putrid taste in music, and that song is on twice at every single GD party.  As a result, I point out that Dynamite sucks a lot, but that’s ok.  It has become something of a mission to let as many people as possible know how bad it is. 

While we’re here, pop in general has been terrible for the past year or so.  There have been a few songs that have been legitimately good (like Slave by Silver Medallion or Got Your Back by T.I.), a few more that have been okay (Club Can’t Handle Me by FloRida or Airplanes by B.o.B), but they were buried by an avalanche of vapid bullcrap, and as a result, of the songs above, only Airplanes got significant time towards the top of the charts.  Instead, we had savants like Katy Perry, Taio Cruz, Will.I.Am (YOU DON’T HAVE ONE REDEEMABLE SONG, LET ALONE A GOOD ONE, AND YOU HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR LIKE 5 YEARS!  GO AWAY.  SERIOUSLY.  NOW!  GO!), or Far East Experiment (the musical terrorists responsible for the song G6, which like Dynamite, manages not to be about anything, not to have a melody, or even a catchy beat, and to be sung by someone with little or no talent, all at the same time). 

Maybe you think these songs are catchy.  Fine.  You are forfeiting your right to ever say that you have discerning taste ever again, but personal preference is personal preference.  Whatever.  Lyrically, though, these songs are indefensible.  I’ll prove it. 

Show love
even though them chicks be hating on us
still I’m gonna keep her by my side
In whatever situation we gon ride
make all my fantasies come alive
that’s no lie now
I’ll be alright as long as your gon be beside me
10 million dollar mansions won’t suffice
if you aint gon be in there with me at night
the pieces to my puzzle’s in my life
with all of my good days and all of my bad
you stood by your man and you know you got my back
worth every car every bag with me they wanna be that
I know what I got at home
I aint never gon leave that
them b-tches best believe that

That is Got Your Back by T.I.  I’m not saying that we should make him the national poet or anything, but it isn’t bad.  It is intelligible, it has an actual cadence, a narrative of sorts, and even if the song is materialistic, it is sweet.  If you were to recite it to someone, it would probably come off as sweet.  It holds up as a verse, in the traditional sense, not just as a mindless track over a beat.  Now consider the following:

Poppin bottles in the ice, like a blizzard
When we drink we do it right gettin slizzard
Sippin sizzurp in my ride, like Three 6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6
Like a G6, Like a G6
Now I’m feelin so fly like a G6

That means…nothing.  It is gibberish.  If you said that to someone, well, actually, chances are they would recognize the song, because it is so damn overplayed, but if they didn’t, they would look at you like you had three heads.  And they would be right to.  They are worthless.  Let’s try that one more time.

Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now (wish right now, wish right now)
Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now (wish right now, wish right now)
I could use a dream or a genie or a wish
To go back to a place much simpler than this
Cause after all the partyin' and smashin' and crashin'
And all the glitz and the glam and the fashion
And all the pandemonium and all the madness
There comes a time where you fade to the blackness
And when you're staring at that phone in your lap
And you hoping but them people never call you back
But that's just how the story unfolds
You get another hand soon after you fold
And when your plans unravel
And they sayin' what would you wish for
If you had one chance

That one is pretty recognizable, as Airplanes by B.o.B.  Once again, I’m not trying to crown him, because Dylan it isn’t, but it is a comparable, contemporary song to the crap that I wish to destroy.  Again, it means something, has a narrative that you can follow, and is even a little bit interesting/inspiring (admittedly a stretch, but not absurd).  Can you say that for this? 

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying ay-oh, gotta let go.
I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying ay-oh, baby let's go.
Cause we gon rock this club
We gon' go all night
We gon' light it up
Like it's dynamite.
Cause I told you once
Now I told you twice
We gon light it up
Like it's dynamite

That is a juvenile rhyme scheme, with a hook that literally doesn’t make any sense.  I am getting angry just reading them.  It isn’t even the worst offender.  That is this:

Baby let me love you downnn
There’s so many ways to love ya
Baby I can break you downnn
There’s so many ways to love ya
Got me like, ooh myy gosh I’m soo in love
I found you finallyy, you make me want to say
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
Ohh myy gosh

THAT IS 45 SECONDS OF “MUSIC.”  MY HEAD IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE.

Anyways, I really hope that Taio Cruz, Usher, Will.I.Am, and all the other people responsible for these monstrosities are riding in a G6 with Dynamite strapped to the wings, and if that happens, I will write a simple, unintelligible song that will go to the top of the charts called ‘Die a Slow Painful Death After Crashing into a Mountain and No One Will be Sad Because You Were Making the World Dumber,’ just so that I can make this whole sentence with song titles.

5. Last week, I successfully called Garrett Gilbert (who I keep referring to as mellow alt-country singer Brantley Gilbert in my head) not being as good as Colt McCoy.  I’m awesome.  This week, I’m looking at you, John Brantley (who I keep referring to in my head as….oh, this all makes sense now).  Tebow, you are not.  Not that anyone thought you were.  Don’t bother picking up a bible and getting a military haircut, either.  It won’t help you avoid getting your s*** absolutely ROCKED against Bama this week.

6. The Oregon-Stanford game is going to be an absolute beauty.  I really don’t know what to make of either team right now.  Stanford has proven that it would have been stupid to give Toby Gerhardt the Heisman, but that is about it.  Oregon, on the other hand, is doing this with a quarterback whose name I would have to look up, and a year after they were supposed to have been a national contender. 

7. Would someone please, for the love of God, beat USC?  Look, I’m a little bitter, I admit that.  But this has nothing to do with my bitterness.  It has nothing to do even with the fact that I have rooted against USC for most of the night.  The fact is, that I just can’t take the story line that you can see coming from a mile away.  USC is undefeated.  The title race is bungled.  IS IT RIGHT TO KEEP THEM OUT?  DISCUSS!  God kill me now.  I really just want that program to go away for a few years.  Pete Carroll seemed a little too happy with himself.  Lane Kiffin is clearly a huge douche.  That was the great thing about the sanctions.  They could just leave us alone for a bit, and then by the time they were back in the picture, we would have forgotten how insufferable they were.  But no.  Here they are at 4-0, and (somehow) a number 18 ranking,  Sure the Pac-10 is as strong as it has been in years, and they haven’t really proved much with the teams they have beaten, but this needs to end now.  I’m not doing it.  I’m just not.

8.  Overall, I have a pretty good relationship with food.  I know a fair amount about it, and its nutritional value, and what that means.  I’m not making any appearances on Top Chef, but I’m a decent cook, certainly better than your typical frat guy.  My real strong suit though is eating it.  God, I crush eating it.  I am sick at eating.  Like the Alex Ovechkin of eating.  I’ll throw down 4000 calories a day and not think twice.  After I finish a meal, my number one feeling is usually describable as ‘still hungry.’  I gain weight every time I go shopping, because there is food around.  If I ever quit working out, I’ll hit 300 pounds in like 3 months.  There is one area that food and I don’t get along, though. 

I am the world’s worst grocery shopper.  I mean I am freaking terrible.  I take forever.  I will check every aisle, pass all the stuff I need so that I end up finishing and then just having to go back through the same aisles to get all the stuff I missed.  I go to the same Safeway every time, and yet I can never remember where anything is.  I stare at a shelf for 5 minutes before deciding that it is too expensive and not getting anything.  That’s because everything seems too expensive.  I will have spent $8 on a couple of powerbars and a drink that I crushed before I got home from 7 Eleven the same day, BUT I WILL BE GODDAMNED IF I AM PAYING $3.50 FOR A LOAF OF BREAD that would have lasted me the better part of a week.  Then when I check out, I am always completely off.  I will think I stocked up, and it will be under $60, forcing me to come back less than a week later.  I will try to keep it light and drop $100.  I am an economics major.  The whole thing is a debacle, embarrassing even.  By the time I get back to my car, I feel like I should just take up the Jared diet and eat at Subway every day. 

Watching the 49ers offense is like watching me go grocery shopping.  This team looks freaking lost out there.  I don’t know if it we need to blame Alex Smith, Mike Singletary, the recently departed “coordinator” (that title is generous), if they have line problems, or if it is a combination of all of the above.  Either way, the result is a bumbling mess that seems to have no idea how they want to move the ball.  The stats don’t completely bear this out, with 10 teams having less total yardage, but when they do get yards, it is more of a result of some of their athletes making a play than any sort of scheming.  A 3 against Seattle and a 10 against KC are way more telling than any yardage stats. 

Normally, that would be well and good.  The 49ers are well within their right to have an utter gongshow of an offense.  I’m not even a 49ers fan, so I shouldn’t even care.  The problem is, I live in the bay area, so I have to watch this garbage.  Sunday Ticket is out of the question ($70 a month…are you kidding me?), so local coverage it is.  With due respect to the university of Toledo, the Raiders are led by a guy who couldn’t distinguish himself against JaMarcus Russell.  That means that 2 of the 6 teams playing on Sunday afternoon are nearly impossible to watch.  Please, for me, Niners, figure this out. 

9. Obviously, this is coming in late, but that is going to allow me to make a comment about something that is currently happening with college football.  My DirecTV is currently being fixed, so I’m watching on my laptop.  This sounds bad, except that thanks to the magic that is ESPN3, I am watching 4 games at once.  Words cannot describe the majesty that is my screen right now.  There are 6 ranked teams playing on my 16 inch monitor.  Unbelievable.  What an age in which we live. 

Now it is hooked up to our retardedly large, 72 inch television.  I am watching four games next to each other, each of which aree on completely reasonably sized screens.  My head is spinning.

10.  Here are my thoughts on the week three NFL games:  I have none.  Now, you are probably wondering why I don’t have a single thing to say about the third weekend of the season.  I have already made it perfectly clear that my life is not exactly a flurry of activity that would preclude me from having watched the games, and yet I didn’t see a single game this past Sunday.  That is because on Saturday night, someone broke into my yard, busted up a couple of tables and a few fence posts, and tore the cable out of our DirecTV dish.  Mere hours before the Cowboys and Texans kicked off.  So I don’t really know what to say about the past week of football.  Instead, I am going to use my constitutionally guaranteed first amendment rights to berate the living s*** out of the people who did this.  (Brace yourself, this is about to make the Dynamite rant look like reasoned analysis)

You are the most worthless people in the world.  You suck.  Seriously.  I wish that you had climbed up there and fallen and broken your damn necks.  You messed up my day of football (and the rest of the week for tv) for…what..exactly?  You didn’t even take anything.  At least if you had stolen something, it would have been a justification.  You would have had something for your trouble.  You would still be a scumbag who deserves to burn in hell, but there would be a point to what you did.  You heard me right.  I would respect you more if you had robbed me.  I would hate you just as much, and I would probably be even more pissed, but I would respect you more.  You went to someone’s house and destroyed something for no reason whatsoever.  DIE.

Picks

Patriots (-1) over Dolphins

Chad Henne and Tom Brady are getting together, and we are essentially given a pick ‘em?  Yes please. 

Virginia Tech (-3.5) over NC State

Tech seems like they are at least starting to get it back after their disastrous start, and they have to be the favorite in the ACC if they do.  This will lead to the world exploding, when a BCS bowl team will have had a loss to a 1-AA school, but it is what it is.

Jets/Bills Under 37

WHERE?  WHERE I ASK YOU?  37 POINTS?  WHERE ARE 37 POINTS COMING FROM?  That is INSANE.  Is there any way that this game isn’t like 17-10?  21-14 would be an offensive explosion.  It would still be the under.  Please bet this.  While we’re here…

Jets (-6.5) over Bills

Now, I am fully aware that in a game with offenses like this one, six points is huge.  Still, the Jets are surging, with no reason (other than possibly Mark Sanchez) to think that they aren’t for real.  Buffalo, on the other hand, might be the worst team in the league.  Seriously, name seven Bills.  Ready, set, go (Lee Evans, Trent Edwards, Marshawn Lynch, Fred Jackson…and you’re done).

Stanford (+230) over Oregon

This is a pick ‘em.  Better than 2/1 odds is a steal. 

Alabama (-8.5) over Florida

Florida seems depleted to me.  This is their first real test, and Bama looks to be rolling, having pulled it out against Arkansas (a better team than the Gators).  Lay the points.

Houston Texans (-3) over Oakland Raiders

This Raiders team has a decent running game and defense, but if the Texans have any legitimacy, they will take care of business after they dropped one to Dallas.