The Dallas Cowboys singed 'Tank' Johnson - formerly of the Chicago Bears and numerous detention centers in the states - to a one-year, 1/4 million dollar contract. I'm an avid Cowboys' fan and defended the team and owner Jerry Jones when they signed T.O., granted he wasn't a legal gamble, just an overpaid toddler worth every bit of his temper-tantrum perdium, and actually wrote a column just after the signed-deal saying T.O. and the Cowboys were great fit for no other reason than the Dallas knack for taking in lost causes and either driving them to greatness or loading a semi-automatic in a book depository.
The Dallas defense is as exploited as Brittany Spears through the first two weeks of the season, but a jailhouse blitz isn't practiced in Dallas.
DUI, probation violations and suspect appearances just outside the body chalk of homicide crime scene - though American-esque in the way we all are desensitized by the 'if it bleeds, it leads' the local 6 p.m. newscast - wouldn't be items you'd find on the most respected job applicants, unless of course you're a former parole officer citing 'clients' you've worked back into the system while applying for a job as a security guard at the downtown mall.
If Tank cleans himself up, he could be the missing link in this already loaded Cowboys Super Bowl dream, if not, his signature might very well explode in the faces of Jerry Jones, Wade Phillips and every Dallas Cowboy fan renewed in the All-American persona this team has exemplified since Tony Romo became the face of not only the Cowboys and the SI/ESPN NFL, but also the face of "America's Team." Like the government's decision to gloss over what really happened to Pat Tillman in Afghanistan.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Cheaters do win, even when they get caught
Sometimes cheaters win, sometimes they get caught and still win - they simply must make an investment in the company they work under, just ask New England Patriots coach Bill Belichek (sp).
Bill comes to media day and apologizes for whatever it is the NFL is going to charge/punish him for, but not really. He only apologizes for any disruption and negativity that may or may not come out because an employee of his was caught videotaping NY Jets' coaches defensive hand gestures to players on the field.
Pats fans are saying everyone does it, they just don't get caught. In fact, because the Pats were obviously not trying to be sneaky about it, sending someone on the field with a video camera, that they are more moral than other teams.
I'm not even going to comment. Bill should've been suspended. Period. He wasn't and I'm not going to cry myself to sleep over it. But at some point, professional athletics is going to have to start acting professional.
Watched a doozy of a HS football game tonight. Had all the drama a fan wants to see on the field and none of the bullshit we don't want to see out of our HS kids. The better team won, but the losers definately aren't. But, it's only a matter of time before the money gets to these kids as well and to whom are we going to point to as an example of how to handle yourself when 'professional' temptation presents itself.
We might as well all start dog-fighting rings - it's cruel and unusual, but at least it's competitors are still fighting for something.
Bill comes to media day and apologizes for whatever it is the NFL is going to charge/punish him for, but not really. He only apologizes for any disruption and negativity that may or may not come out because an employee of his was caught videotaping NY Jets' coaches defensive hand gestures to players on the field.
Pats fans are saying everyone does it, they just don't get caught. In fact, because the Pats were obviously not trying to be sneaky about it, sending someone on the field with a video camera, that they are more moral than other teams.
I'm not even going to comment. Bill should've been suspended. Period. He wasn't and I'm not going to cry myself to sleep over it. But at some point, professional athletics is going to have to start acting professional.
Watched a doozy of a HS football game tonight. Had all the drama a fan wants to see on the field and none of the bullshit we don't want to see out of our HS kids. The better team won, but the losers definately aren't. But, it's only a matter of time before the money gets to these kids as well and to whom are we going to point to as an example of how to handle yourself when 'professional' temptation presents itself.
We might as well all start dog-fighting rings - it's cruel and unusual, but at least it's competitors are still fighting for something.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Gambling on eBay
eBay, iTunes, hell, iHOP - they're all pretty much a gamble once you take the leap out of your lawn chair and decide to either sink or swim in the deep end of the pool. Each is as addicting and life-altering as one can imagine in an obese, yet technologically savvy society.
I just bought some 11.5 clay poker chips to go along with the rest of my poker paraphernalia - like a drug habit long-forgotten or licked, yet never quite erased from my personal ideals of my own identity, aka: a part of my life that isn't, yet i still dream one day it might once again.
Anyway, so yeah, i just bought a 500-piece set that might or might not have all 500 pieces, might have the four colors that I'm looking for and might even get shipped to the right address. It's a gamble, but it's one that kept me checking my e-mail for entertainment purposes.
E-mail has been everything but personal in the last few years, at least since I started college and e-mail was always the easiest way to get ahold of a professor. (Why is it that these professors were playdates with Jesus, yet latched on to the whole e-mail system as opposed to scheduling office hours and appointments?)
I just got married and we're not even scraping by, but we're making it look good. We've spent too much money on movie rentals and beer and cigarettes and beer and cigarettes for fighting purposes, yet, for the most part, we're making our bills, making them later and later, yes, but still making them.
I remember when I would stay up late nights downloading MP3s off of Kazaa or someother hack music site and never thinking the feds would come after me for an illegal Amy Grant or Scorpians re-mix, and then there was the great college scare where, rumor had it, the CIA or FBI or one of those black suit and tie federal mob fronts were specifically staring at computers on or around college campuses. I quickly burned my shit onto a CD and formatted my computer and never looked back to the hacks. Then there was my iTunes before my iPod.
The iPod was more of a 'I already have iTunes and I doubt Apple would create a product that would work with another player, so i spent the money - again money I didn't really have - on a 20-gig, video iPod though my laptop doesn't have near enough room to host a pop-up much less download a full-length movie, but I'd always envisioned myself cozy on a winter's day, sitting in my PJs with a cup of hot coffee and a smoking cigarette looking out over a computer screeen full of computer fiction and listening to the most random music that it should come with a 'people with heart conditions should not ride this ride' sticker attached somewhere to the screen. One must never lose sight of the dream.
Instead, these i- and e-whatevers are so addicting or lead to you to products and services that are so addicting that you forget that you're even capable of dreaming unless you're mouth waters when walk in the door of an iHop and already you're imagining the stuffed french toast combo with an extra scambled egg and ham instead of sausage.
God i could go for a cup of coffee and a slice of that stuffed french toast and that extra scrambled egg and ham substituted for sausage. DAMMIT! See, already I've forgotten that I aspire to be a teacher and a writer and a professional and a father. All I really want is that cigarette and french toast and for my poker chips to arrive so I can sit at home alone, while my wife is out on the town with her married girlfriends drinking it up. I want to be sitting alone, sitting with a beer in one of the cup inserts on my new poker table-top. I want to shuffle the cards and deal to no one in particular and play with my chips and focus on the chips and my stacks rather the cards, so as not to give anything away, not that it matters what I have hidden in the flop, I'm not playing the cards, I'm playing the man holding the other cards and the cards on the table and his emotions and already, I'm raking in the chips, letting the heavy clay slow the pull back towards my chest like mud slowing a drifting stick in a flashflooded front yard.
Freud would say something like I'm gambling for my subconscience while my ego and super-ego play a bidding war for the attention of either myself or of my social responsibilities to my wife and job and career and (future) kids and future. The battle between my independence and my committment. My lack of confidence in my own vulnerability and my unwillingness to relent on the very ideal of marriage that I've sat at home drinking to by myself since the days I started growing pubic hair, or was it before, when girls started growing breasts? Anyway, I knew then that I wanted a pair for myself. But a pair of what, Freud would say, "breasts or balls?"
I see your bet and raise you another eBay bid. Excuse me, I'm sick of listening to Fresh Prince, how's everyone with Scorpians and stuffed french toast with an extra scrambled egg and ham substituted for sausage?
I just bought some 11.5 clay poker chips to go along with the rest of my poker paraphernalia - like a drug habit long-forgotten or licked, yet never quite erased from my personal ideals of my own identity, aka: a part of my life that isn't, yet i still dream one day it might once again.
Anyway, so yeah, i just bought a 500-piece set that might or might not have all 500 pieces, might have the four colors that I'm looking for and might even get shipped to the right address. It's a gamble, but it's one that kept me checking my e-mail for entertainment purposes.
E-mail has been everything but personal in the last few years, at least since I started college and e-mail was always the easiest way to get ahold of a professor. (Why is it that these professors were playdates with Jesus, yet latched on to the whole e-mail system as opposed to scheduling office hours and appointments?)
I just got married and we're not even scraping by, but we're making it look good. We've spent too much money on movie rentals and beer and cigarettes and beer and cigarettes for fighting purposes, yet, for the most part, we're making our bills, making them later and later, yes, but still making them.
I remember when I would stay up late nights downloading MP3s off of Kazaa or someother hack music site and never thinking the feds would come after me for an illegal Amy Grant or Scorpians re-mix, and then there was the great college scare where, rumor had it, the CIA or FBI or one of those black suit and tie federal mob fronts were specifically staring at computers on or around college campuses. I quickly burned my shit onto a CD and formatted my computer and never looked back to the hacks. Then there was my iTunes before my iPod.
The iPod was more of a 'I already have iTunes and I doubt Apple would create a product that would work with another player, so i spent the money - again money I didn't really have - on a 20-gig, video iPod though my laptop doesn't have near enough room to host a pop-up much less download a full-length movie, but I'd always envisioned myself cozy on a winter's day, sitting in my PJs with a cup of hot coffee and a smoking cigarette looking out over a computer screeen full of computer fiction and listening to the most random music that it should come with a 'people with heart conditions should not ride this ride' sticker attached somewhere to the screen. One must never lose sight of the dream.
Instead, these i- and e-whatevers are so addicting or lead to you to products and services that are so addicting that you forget that you're even capable of dreaming unless you're mouth waters when walk in the door of an iHop and already you're imagining the stuffed french toast combo with an extra scambled egg and ham instead of sausage.
God i could go for a cup of coffee and a slice of that stuffed french toast and that extra scrambled egg and ham substituted for sausage. DAMMIT! See, already I've forgotten that I aspire to be a teacher and a writer and a professional and a father. All I really want is that cigarette and french toast and for my poker chips to arrive so I can sit at home alone, while my wife is out on the town with her married girlfriends drinking it up. I want to be sitting alone, sitting with a beer in one of the cup inserts on my new poker table-top. I want to shuffle the cards and deal to no one in particular and play with my chips and focus on the chips and my stacks rather the cards, so as not to give anything away, not that it matters what I have hidden in the flop, I'm not playing the cards, I'm playing the man holding the other cards and the cards on the table and his emotions and already, I'm raking in the chips, letting the heavy clay slow the pull back towards my chest like mud slowing a drifting stick in a flashflooded front yard.
Freud would say something like I'm gambling for my subconscience while my ego and super-ego play a bidding war for the attention of either myself or of my social responsibilities to my wife and job and career and (future) kids and future. The battle between my independence and my committment. My lack of confidence in my own vulnerability and my unwillingness to relent on the very ideal of marriage that I've sat at home drinking to by myself since the days I started growing pubic hair, or was it before, when girls started growing breasts? Anyway, I knew then that I wanted a pair for myself. But a pair of what, Freud would say, "breasts or balls?"
I see your bet and raise you another eBay bid. Excuse me, I'm sick of listening to Fresh Prince, how's everyone with Scorpians and stuffed french toast with an extra scrambled egg and ham substituted for sausage?
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Friday Night Lights
Another Friday night waits just hours away. High school football, hometown rivalries and marching bands - and, of course, winners and losers. The distinction is going to come for these young men at some point, why not give a man a whistle, a bullhorn and a coaching staff and let him guide the miseries and victories into admirable men?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Back at it
I've been restless, bored and lost and sought only the comfort one gets from publishing a web diary of my ego trip. I don't even know how long the hiatus has been, but its no doubt been prolonged by procrastination, fear and ADD.
But, I've re-claimed a small island on the web and back at it and starting with a Pop! Actually, no that was Eli Manning's shoulder. Ok, how about a Poof! No, there goes Manning's credibility and Tom Coughlin's job. Whatever this ressurection is not, it is about Manning.
ESPN is reporting Manning's shoulder injury in Sunday's Giants loss to the Cowboys is a slightly seperated shoulder. Everyone else is saying - or rather repeating - exactly what Manning and Coughlin are saying - it's a bruised shoulder or a bruised AC joint after MRI's failed to confirm tears.
Considering he sustained the injury, whatever it is, on his throwing arm, it's not a bad idea that he rest up and heal for as long as he can. If it is just a deep bruise, then why did the baby not come back and at least try to lead the Giants to a win over a NFC East foe in the first game of the season.
He came back after the injury for a single drive and threw his fourth touchdown pass - his third to Plaxico Burress - and pulled the Giants to within three. Tony Romo, Patrick Crayton and the Cowboys answered quickly on a third-down play with a 51-yard touchdown to go back up 10 and all the while you see Manning on the sideline with a doctor's hand up his shoulder pads like a prostate exam and we never see Manning again.
With plenty of time, why didn't Manning come back in and at least give it a shot? He didn't want to tarnish what he was capable of doing prior to taking himself out - namely throwing a career game with 28-of-41 completions for 312 yards, four touchdowns and an interception.
"I knew there was something wrong," Manning told reporters after the game. "I knew it had gotten a little tighter and I felt more pain, I guess, after sitting a little more time on the sideline. I didn't want to make anything worse. If we had stopped them on the third down and gotten the ball back, my competitive nature, I would have gone back in there and tried to win that game."
Down by 10 with just under three minutes to play, why not try to pull out the moral victory and give it the 'ol college try? Instead, he let the overweight Jared Lorenzen take the fall. Eli had gotten his team to within 3, but that's as far he would take them. If the injury isn't as serious as Manning and Coughlin say, then isn't winning a division game and the first game of the season worth extra discomfort if it means possibly pulling one out?
No pain, no gain.
No win for the Giants and Eli is no Peyton and Archie.
But, I've re-claimed a small island on the web and back at it and starting with a Pop! Actually, no that was Eli Manning's shoulder. Ok, how about a Poof! No, there goes Manning's credibility and Tom Coughlin's job. Whatever this ressurection is not, it is about Manning.
ESPN is reporting Manning's shoulder injury in Sunday's Giants loss to the Cowboys is a slightly seperated shoulder. Everyone else is saying - or rather repeating - exactly what Manning and Coughlin are saying - it's a bruised shoulder or a bruised AC joint after MRI's failed to confirm tears.
Considering he sustained the injury, whatever it is, on his throwing arm, it's not a bad idea that he rest up and heal for as long as he can. If it is just a deep bruise, then why did the baby not come back and at least try to lead the Giants to a win over a NFC East foe in the first game of the season.
He came back after the injury for a single drive and threw his fourth touchdown pass - his third to Plaxico Burress - and pulled the Giants to within three. Tony Romo, Patrick Crayton and the Cowboys answered quickly on a third-down play with a 51-yard touchdown to go back up 10 and all the while you see Manning on the sideline with a doctor's hand up his shoulder pads like a prostate exam and we never see Manning again.
With plenty of time, why didn't Manning come back in and at least give it a shot? He didn't want to tarnish what he was capable of doing prior to taking himself out - namely throwing a career game with 28-of-41 completions for 312 yards, four touchdowns and an interception.
"I knew there was something wrong," Manning told reporters after the game. "I knew it had gotten a little tighter and I felt more pain, I guess, after sitting a little more time on the sideline. I didn't want to make anything worse. If we had stopped them on the third down and gotten the ball back, my competitive nature, I would have gone back in there and tried to win that game."
Down by 10 with just under three minutes to play, why not try to pull out the moral victory and give it the 'ol college try? Instead, he let the overweight Jared Lorenzen take the fall. Eli had gotten his team to within 3, but that's as far he would take them. If the injury isn't as serious as Manning and Coughlin say, then isn't winning a division game and the first game of the season worth extra discomfort if it means possibly pulling one out?
No pain, no gain.
No win for the Giants and Eli is no Peyton and Archie.
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