Random Thoughts
1. Mark it down. Bears vs. Pats -3 in Miami for the Lombardi Trophy. It’s a done deal. The Pats proved what I’ve been saying for the past five years: they are the best team in football. They didn’t just beat the Bengals yesterday, they taught them a life lesson. It was like watching a big brother beat up on his little brother just to show him who is boss. And the scary thing is that the Pats are like seven weeks ahead of schedule in terms of getting into peak form. But yesterday will certainly shut up the idiot critics who keep saying the arrogance of the Pats front office finally caught up with them. (For the record, Mike Lynch from Swampscott and Channel 5 was the only guy I saw pick the Patriots yesterday. His rationale seemed to makes sense to me, which was the Pats haven’t lost two games in a row in like 83 years.) But seriously, yesterday just reinforces everything that I’ve come to believe in with this team. We are like a great college program. We don’t rebuild, we just reload. Sure, it may take a week or two to get all the new parts working together, but eventually, just like the passage of time, there is nothing anybody can do to stop us. Not only is our running game scary good, but it’s very clear that Doug Gabriel is going to be a monster. And Reche Caldwell will be just fine. I’m still surprised that we didn’t go 16-0 like I predicted, but I guess 15-1 will have to do. Yes, I’m convinced that this will be the best Patriots team in the history of the franchise. I think we’re that good.
As a side note, the Pats opponent in the Superbowl this year will be the best team we’ve ever faced in the big game. The Bears are 100% legit. They are the best team the NFC has had in the past decade or so. I still think we’ll win, but it ain’t going to be easy. And yes, I am making all my reservations this week.
2. NJ.com - Bob Whitfield, veteran left tackle for the New York Giants was asked by NJ.com: “ whose backfield would he like to see in motion”? Here is his answer:
"What's her name? Oh, Suzy Kolber. I know why Joe Namath made a pass at Suzy. Yeah. I mean, she's a very, very excellent reporter. Knows her stuff. Knows her sports. Really does. And she's kind of thick in the britches. She's got a nice saddle. She's got a very nice saddle. You don't have to be drunk to make a pass at that saddle."
What is the deal with Suzy Kolber? Is she just one of these chicks that blow you away in person? I mean, she wouldn’t even be in my top one million in terms of “backfields I’d like to see in motion.” And more importantly, why can’t the Stool get interviews like this? How does NJ.com get away with asking these types of questions to pro athletes and get actual answers?
3. CNNSI.com - James' father, Joe "Animal" Laurinaitis, was one half of the WWF tag team Road Warriors, aka Legion of Doom. The 6-foot-2, 325-pounder could do a flip off the top rope and had a collection of action figures made in his image. But to James, he is simply Dad. "Everyone asks, 'Is it any different for you to have your dad as an action figure?' That's just all I know," the 6-3, 244-pound Ohio State sophomore said after last Saturday's 28-6 win over Penn State. "I think it's weird to not have a dad as an action figure." These days, Joe is in semi-retirement and can be seen at Buckeyes games wearing his son's No. 33 jersey. He makes it a point to put the limelight squarely on James."
I guess you learn something new everyday. And in this case, I learned two new things. First of all, I didn’t realize that James Laurinaitis’s father was one half of Legion of Doom. That’s crazy. How do the announcers not talk about that after every play that he makes? And second of all I didn’t know that the Legion of Doom still wrestled. Or are all wrestlers semi-retired? Regardless, thanks to Craig for sending this along. Now I feel like I can sleep easy tonight.
P.S. - Speaking of Ohio State, I saw somebody wearing a Buckeye shirt the other day with “Utah” on the back. Vios Con Dios, Brah…
4. OSCODA, Mich. -- The Oscoda Area High School football team hasn't won a game, or even scored a point, in four games this season. Because of that, the school district has decided to cancel the remaining games. Despite pleas from players and parents, the board recently upheld the school's earlier decision to end the season, saying players risked injury in trying to take on much stronger opponents. "When you go to a game on Friday night and see a team physically dominated, those are the indisputable facts," coach Kyle Tobin said. "Seniors, I feel for you. There's nothing I can say other than I'm sorry," board member Neal Sweet said. "But you're not quitters. You went out there and did your best." Tobin said the team was not physically competitive, had too few players and faced a tough schedule in the North East Michigan Conference, The Bay City Times reported. Senior quarterback Mike Gondek pleaded with the school board to reconsider the school's Sept. 19 decision to cancel the remaining games. "All I ever wanted to do was play football," Gondek said. "My teammates never felt so unsafe that we didn't want to be out there."
What is this, Nazi Germany, here? It doesn’t matter what the players and parents think? And what a great lesson to teach today’s youth. If you aren’t as talented as your opponent you should just give up. I’m telling you that this country is headed towards the dumper. What’s the worst thing that would happen if this team kept playing? They’d go 0-10 and a couple kids may break a couple bones? Big deal. They wanted to play football. Pretty soon every kid in America is going to be forced to walk around in a big inflatable bubble so nobody gets hurt.
5. A couple of months ago we talked about an interview with Screech Powers in which Screech was claiming to have like a 10 foot schlong or something crazy like that. Well apparently now the entire world is going to get to see it. Yup, Screech has got a sex tape that is about to hit the market appropriately titled “Saved By the Smell.” And all the rage is that apparently it is a “kinky threesome” in which he gives one of the chicks a “dirty Sanchez”. I can’t even believe I just wrote that sentence. I never thought I’d live to see the day where Samuel “Screech” Powers gives some chick a dirty Sanchez. And to be honest I thought a dirty Sanchez was just an urban legend anyway. What chick would actually allow herself to be the “victim” of this sexual maneuver? And what dude would want to use this anyway? Diamond's manager, Roger Paul, said Dustin has been trying to escape the Screech typecast. So this may help me get more bookings." Yeah, nothing like jumpstarting a career by fishing for shit in some chick’s ass and then smearing it over her face like a mustache. That has box office bonanza written all over it. Somewhere, Mr. Belding is crying.
6. Inside Track - D on’t breathe a word of this. Because nobody’s supposed to know. But word outta Fenway is that the longtime Red Soxradio tag team of Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano will likely be history after this season. We hear the Sox and WEEIsuits are planning to sit down after the Sox sign off for good Sunday and discuss the broadcast booth biz. Betting odds are that Trupiano will be replaced next season by former Sox PR manGlenn Geffner. “The announcement will be made shortly after the season ends,” said our spy. “Look for Trupiano to land with a National League team - maybe the St. Louis Cardinals.”
What the hell? Is this true? It’s from the Inside Track so it has to be true! This sucks. Why would the Sox get rid of Jerry Trupiano? Is Trupiano getting fired or does he want to leave? This makes it sound like he’s getting shoved out the door. Maybe Larry Lucchino should just put himself in the booth so he can tell everybody how great everything is and how he’s the best. This is almost as bad as when the Sox stabbed Nomar in the back and then shoved him out into the cold. And how’d that work out for us? Nomar went deep again last night and is hitting walk off HRs like they’re going out of style.
7. I think have a new guy on my Top Ten most hateable people list. It is this year’s WSOP winner, Jaime Gold. And for good measure, I'm going to throw in his huge, tattooed buddy as well. Jaime Gold may be the most obnoxious dude I’ve ever seen in my life. I think I would have paid $1,000 of my own money just to have this guy not win the bracelet. He thinks he is the smartest man in the history of planet Earth. He refused to acknowledge the fact that he had one of the best lucky streaks working for him in the history of poker. All he did was kept talking about how he was going to "trap" everybody with his full houses and flushes and pocket aces. I give credit to the other players for not punching him in the face. I mean, is there anything worse than somebody who is constantly talking junk when they always, and I mean always, have the best cards to begin with? I mean, how hard is it to call somebody with pocket Kings? I got a kick out of the fact that Jaime Gold hired bodyguards to protect him during the tournament. At first when I heard that I thought to myself what a jackass he was, but then after really watching him play, I can understand why he did it. I want to kill him and I didn’t even play in the tournament. I think I’d lose my mind if he knocked me out after giving me one of his sermons while holding his ninth straight royal straight flush that he caught on the flop.
8. I feel like it’s time for Barstool Sports to answer to a higher calling. Instead of just constantly being hilarious, I think it’s time to give people actual advice. Therefore, I’ve decided to write a blog about what I think is the best Italian restaurant in Boston. Drum roll please… And the first ever “Stoolie Award” for Best Italian restaurant goes to Giacomos in the South End. I freaking love this place. If you haven’t eaten there then you are doing yourself a disservice. Everything on the menu is awesome. But the best thing is the goat cheese gnocchi. It’ll blow your freaking mind. Also, another good thing about this place is that they take reservations so you don’t have to wait for like nine hours to get in. I defy somebody to come up with a better Italian restaurant in this city than Giacomos. I say it’s impossible to beat.
9. TMZ.com - For the second time this month, "Laguna Beach" star Jason Wahler has been arrested. As Perez Hilton first reported, the LAPD arrested Wahler on Friday at 5:30PM for misdemeanor battery and set his bail at $20,000. According to LAPD documents, he was released Saturday afternoon.According to police, Jason and a female companion, Kristen Deluca, were involved in an altercation with a Department of Transportation officer and a tow truck driver. There was a physical altercation and police were called to the scene. After police arrived on the scene, Wahler and Deluca were both arrested for battery. The reality show star was busted three weeks ago in New York and charged with one count each of disorderly conduct, possession of a controlled substance, resisting arrest and bribery. According to the court documents, Wahler was obstructing traffic by standing in the street and creating a public disturbance. Officers then attempted to handcuff the 19-year-old, but he resisted. When they performed a search on him, they allegedly found cocaine in his pants pocket. Wahler then allegedly tried to bribe officers into letting him go.
Listen, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times. Laguna Beach just doesn’t work without Jason. I’m barely even watching this season because it sucks so bad. Not to mention the fact that Cami makes me have a reversal of fortune every time I see her. Anyway, Jason puts asses in the seats. He’s the only guy capable of f-cking a chick in front of his girlfriend and honestly not realizing that he did anything wrong. I mean, he just doesn’t get life and that makes for great TV. Also, I’m curious as to what Jason does all day long. I mean, by all accounts he doesn’t have a job or go to school. He just does whatever he wants whenever he wants. Anyway, my favorite part of this story is how tried to bribe the cops the first time he got arrested. What 19-year-old kid tries to bribe a cop? I love it. Also, I give him credit if he really tried to beat up a tow-truck driver. I feel like these are the last people on earth I’d want to tangle with.
10. Boston.com - MBTA officials will be out and about today looking for something rare and elusive in Boston, especially on the T, passengers being nice. If they should find any, Transportation Secretary John Cogliano has supplied T employees with $2 gift cards to Dunkin' Donuts to say thanks. Twenty-five T employees will be handing out 500 of the caffeinated kudos on buses, subways, and commuter rail, part of a new Courtesy Counts campaign aimed at improving the conduct of T employees and riders.``By and large, riders of the T are courteous," Cogliano, a rider himself, said yesterday. ``And MBTA employees are courteous, by and large. But this campaign at the T is meant to heighten everyone's awareness that they need to be more courteous."
Okay, let’s clear up one thing right away. MBTA employees are not courteous. In fact, they are some of the most miserable people you’ll run into in Boston. And let’s not try and confuse the workers and the riders. Riders are paying to be on the T and workers are getting paid to be there. By rule they should act nicer. And really I have no problem with riders on the T being miserable. In fact, I think you’re crazy if you’re not miserable. Who enjoys being cramped in a little freaking subway cars getting yelled at by the T conductor to push to the middle as teenage punks bang into you with their backpacks as you try to get to work? Who wouldn’t be miserable in that situation? It’s going to take a lot more than a two-dollar Dunkin Donuts gift card to make me a friendly T guy.
11. Bill Belichick on the team’s preseason trip to China in 2007
“Right now, I really couldn’t care less about China, or any place else. Cincinnati is the only destination I’m really concerned with right now. I don’t really care about anything else right now. That stuff is so far in the future that I don’t know if China will be there a year from now."
Amen, Bill. Amen.
12. Let me be the first to say that I hate the new college football clock rules. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I liked how the games used to last like 39 hours. I liked how you were never and I mean NEVER out of a college game. But I can understand the need to try and speed things up. However, the one thing that I can’t accept is the rule that the clock doesn’t stop on a change of possession. This is the dumbest thing ever. If you force somebody to punt or are receiving a kickoff, the clock has to stop. It just has to. For the past decade I’ve always wondered why John Madden made a point to say that change of possession is like an extra timeout for a team. It just seemed like a ridiculous thing to say. But I guess now it makes sense, which to me is one of the saddest things I’ve had to write on Barstool Sports.
13. I know this story was on Boston.com this week but I just read it. Apparently, this Indian Casino in Michigan was built where according to the U.S. government, gambling is not allowed. Twenty-nine thousand square feet, 800 slot machines, 26 tables. Sorry, dudes. Obviously some miscommunication.
Here's the quote that struck me though, from the chairman of the building committee: "It wasn't until after we had the pilings and foundation in place that we realized that something wasn't right. We did another survey and found that all but 30 feet of the casino was on ineligible land..."
WHOA, WHOA, WHOA. Stop right there. You still have 30 feet! That's plenty of room for 20-30 degenerates, four craps tables and a few nickel slots. See, they need people from the Stool present at these meetings. We take negatives and turn them into positives. Thirty feet is a lot of feet.
14. Last week I got a phone call from an ad agency offering to trade me DVD’s of Behind Enemy Lines II in exchange for free ads in Barstool Sports. I almost spit out my coffee when the lady offered me this trade. First of all, what makes her think that the Stool is so desperate that we’re trading DVD’s for advertising space? But more importantly, what idiot decided to make a sequel of Behind Enemy Lines? Imagine being the poor fool responsible for marketing this thing. The idea that somebody actually made Behind Enemy Lines II seemed so preposterous to me that when I hung up the phone I almost thought that it was a prank phone call. But then today I got the following email:
Dear Colleague,
Please find attached a promotion request for BEHIND ENEMY LINES II: AXIS OF EVIL, coming to DVD October 17, 2006. As the explosive sequel to the 2001 box office hit, this film carries on that adrenaline-fueled legacy following a team of Navy SEALs stranded deep inside North Korea¹s enemy territory while battling to save millions from nuclear catastrophe.
If you are interested in participating in this hard-hitting promotion for this gripping sequel, please fill out the attached form by September 28, 2006 and fax it back and/or call me with any questions.
The pages that follow have excellent information as to how your organization can utilize complimentary copies of the DVD to maximize your promotion and truly appeal to your audience.
Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you!
Umm, no thanks. I think I’m all set with my straight to DVD copies of Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil. I wonder if there is anybody in the publishing world who accepted this trade? I mean this trade makes Bagwell for Larry Anderson look fair.
15. Okay, so I had a wedding last weekend. And I’m one of those guys that absolutely destroy the hors d'oeuvres at weddings. I mean I hunt down the servers as they come out of the kitchen and grab like five of everything before they have a second to breathe. I just can’t control myself when it comes to hors d'oeveres. So anyway, last weekend after assaulting the guy with the little flaky spinach things for like the third time (Ecoli ain’t going to scare me away from wedding appetizers) I told him that I was going “to haunt his dreams” the rest of the night. This of course is my favorite line from 40-Year-Old Virgin. Now, I thought it was hilarious. But when I told the First Lady what I said, she was horrified. So a couple days have passed and I was thinking a lot about it yesterday during my paper route to the point that I called the First Lady at work and asked if she understood that my “haunt his dreams” line was from 40-Year-Old Virgin. She said yes, but still didn’t think it was funny at all. I’m totally confused. I usually have a pretty good sense of funny and thought that line was a winner. Could I be wrong? Was this not funny?
As a side note, I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to spell “hors d’oeuvres” to keep all you spelling freaks at bay. Hopefully, I nailed it.
16. “Jessica and Ashlee Simpson will reap the dismal crops they are sowing. Their breasts will sag and their faces will wither and they will be left with nothing but a hollow shell.”
- Preacher Reverend Bob Harrington, formerly known as the "Chaplain of Bourbon Street," voicing his displeasure with the Simpson sisters' slatternly ways.
Okay, here’s my question. Doesn’t that happen to all chicks? This doesn’t have anything to do with God being pissed at them for the “These Boots are Made for Walking” video. And more importantly, do you think Ashlee Simpson had the greatest nose job in the history of nose jobs? I mean, she went from the ugly duckling to being able to go toe-to-toe for 12 rounds with big sis.
Reader Email
I think everyone has their "show(s)" that they need to watch every week. My two staples are 24 and The Office, which was hysterically funny last night. The Office has a new time slot of 8:30pm, which leaves my 9 o'clock hour completely vacant. So I flipped through and saw that Grey's Anatomy was on.
I can honestly say that I never watched that show for fear that my penis would retract, my balls would suck back into my body, and I'd develop a vagina. I weighed my options. Do I watch ESPN News for an hour with the guy who over-pronounces every Latin players name or do I risk growing a moose knuckle? I watched it and I liked it, a lot. So now, I've got good news and bad news. The good news, I don't have a vag and I think I have a new "show" to add to the list...The bad news, I'm worried liking this show will force me to turn in my testicles. Question of the day: Is it okay to watch, enjoy, and look forward to Grey's Anatomy? If so, what are you guys doing next Thursday? Maybe Prez will sponsor a Grey's night and we all wear our PJ's, eat ice cream, and talk about our crushes!
- Ron Mexico
I think it’s acceptable to watch Grey’s Anatomy. Personally, I can’t watch it because it’s on at the same time as ESPN Thursday Night football and I need to watch my bet. So the First Lady kicks me to my computer where I watch the game on Gamecast and she watches Grey’s. It works for us.