Tim Tebow is my quarterback; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still sidelines,
He restoreth my injuries,
He leadeth me in the paths of victory for Tim's name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of defeat,
I will fear no D-line, for thou art with me;
Thy legs and thy legs, they comfort me.
Thou preparest soft coverage before me in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou annointest my head with helmet; my contract runneth over.

Surely low-scoring games and fourth quarter comebacks shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the House of Tebow forever.
-- Tsalm 15+8

Wow, so many things to say about this fucked up Penn State thing, but as always, The Onion says all that needs to be said.

OK, well I can probably find a couple more things to say. I feel like I should say something upfront here, as I know it's awkward at best for me of all people to be commenting considering my typical laissez faire attitude towards jokes about this kind of thing. The difference there is that even if you find such posts tasteless or offensive in the end they are all just bullshit -- but multiply that stuff by the complex conjugate and shit just got real.

Anyway, yeah, the whole focus on football and how every single article about the scandal comes back to that really is pretty fucked up. I know that realistically you can't expect different from the media but still.

I find myself doing it too. Like I start to think, well, part of you wants to give someone like Paterno the benefit of the doubt even though this looks horrible, and wait, what? Man, fuck Joe Paterno. Dude lost his job and his reputation is forever tarnished. Big fucking deal. Doubtful he's gonna have any real legal woes and the worst he will have to deal with is some inconvenience. And he's gonna be dead after not too long anyway. All of which is preferable to some of the alternatives in this case.

Oh, and for all you Penn Staters who are all worried about your school's reputation and whatnot, or are for some reason overly concerned about who coaches your team of future burger flippers: fuck you. Fuck you kids who are simply mad that Paterno got canned while not knowing shit about shit. At most some of you are paying token lip service to how we should be focusing on the victims and their messed up lives but really all you give a shit about is yourselves. The worst you'll have to deal with is maybe the football team won't be quite as good anymore (trust me you can learn to live with that) and in the future when you tell people you went to Penn they'll be like, "Oh yeah? Huh." That's all. Did I mention, fuck you.

So I have not had cable TV for nearly seven years (or satellite or whatever). Some people ask me, "How do you survive?" And then I reply, have you actually watched TV? Sure there are a coupla shows that can float but for the most part the genre sucks.

Well OK, I have not been 100% cable-free as I do have the most bare-bones cable package possible which costs like ten bucks a month. I get the over-the air channels, a home shopping channel or two, three Spanish channels (love those Spanish soap operas that have literally some of the hottest women you will ever see), at least one Jesus channel, WGN-Chicago (of course), and MTV2. Why MTV2? Because it sucks so bad they can only give it away.

Last night I was flipping through my handful of channels and came across the artist formerly known as M2 which was broadcasting a game of the Lingerie Football League. At first I was like, really? Why are people -- the announcers, the coaches, etc. -- taking this seriously? As I watched a bit more though I realized I was hasty in my dickishness. The girls playing were laying down some real hits. Yeah not bringing the wood like NFLers but these girls don't weigh 300lbs.

So as I watched I was getting into it -- and not for the reasons you would think for a single guy alone late at night. The players aren't exactly getting paid a ton of money to play and for most/many this is not their full-time job; they are clearly playing because they love playing football. Eventually I actually started to get irritated that they had to wear those silly get-ups. Partly because, well, the whole shoulder pads thing just doesn't do it for me, even with some cleavage showing and ridiculously toned abs and tight asses and well you get the drift. Forget the outfits and just let the girls play and it can still be cool to watch.

For a rare occasion I'm not trying to be sarcastic here. I have made serious calls before for more female participation in mainstream sports (just try to ignore the first part of that article; I'm serious after the first couple paragraphs, and OK, serious the first two but that shouldn't detract from my what I'm saying). Watching the LFL I was pretty impressed that despite the gimmick that the league is based on the play was legit. Sorry WNBA and soccer, but this is the first women's sport that seems to actually be worth watching (mostly because I don't care much for basketball anyway and fuck European kickball).

Granted, it's not the pace and intensity of NFL or even college ball. But it doesn't have to be. And you know what? We're never going to see a bullshit lockout or strike in the LFL. It's inevitable for anything that becomes sufficiently popular to get pulled down by greed, and the lack of that was another refreshing thing about watching some LFL action. Real play, and hey, it didn't hurt that oftentimes after plays some of the girls would get into a fight. I'm undercutting my argument somewhat here, but I am still a guy goddammit.

I had to text ETP about this discovery and he went and watched some clips and had two comments:

1. The players really do seem to be into it for the love of the game
2. The gameplay is good but it does look kinda weird when the QBs are throwing

To that last comment I said well yeah, they throw like girls... Which is still better than Pro Football's Tim Tebow.

Final Fantasy Football

Son of a fuck. You know how I feel about the Pats, so it must be something pretty serious if I'm pissed about an epic fail for them.

Well, how about my fantasy football season being blown up, for starters? Wait -- you probably figured that from the title of this post. No, the post has nothing to do with the videogame, unless Square-Enix has something up their sleeves that I'm unwittingly prognosticating. I just got that phrase in my head one day and it stuck.

But yeah, I'm fucked now. My draft strategy? Draft Tom Brady. After having Steven Jackson (one of the highest rated players at draft time) last season and Ronnie Brown (was leading the league in rushing several weeks in) after Jackson got injured, I was like, fuck the stud running back theory for fantasy football. I'm gonna go with a solid quarterback for my first pick and watch as everyone else sees their star running backs either disappoint or go down in injury later on in the year. I was kinda nervous about that foot of Brady's for awhile. Aside from it potentially being a lingering issue from the end of last season, as a foot fetishist I'm not pleased at having to be overly concerned about another dude's foot. I figured it would be fine; the guy's a veteran and he's a fucking horse. He's not gonna be setting records like last year, but he'll be fine.

So what happens? Before I even fucking got out of bed today, my season was pretty much hosed. The guy's started 128 straight games, but he had to pick today to (probably) shred his ACL and miss the rest of the season. Well, I was right about one thing -- the foot wasn't a big deal after all.

But, what did I expect to happen? Well, this, actually. Even during the draft I was already pessimistic. I even got called out for being such a whiny douche, by a potential dreamgirl nonetheless. So afterward, I had a bit of an epiphany. I was like, yeah, I do complain way too fucking much. Is it any wonder no one likes me? Stop that. Of course, I've had this epiphany before in my life, and then...

And then it turns out I was fucking right. I love how people have the gall to ask why I'm so pessimistic realistic about shit. I mean c'mon. This is all just learned behavior; it's not my fault, it's Pavlov's fault. There is no danger of me becoming a "happy person" anytime soon (happy people don't say "fuck" just so you know... long story).

I know what some of you are saying. "Well, that's what you get." Karma or some shit. Whatever. Either that is A) dumb or B) if I can actually influence peoples' lives just with my shitty attitude then I am clearly in the wrong line of work.

So, fantasy football gets me waxing existential. How sad is that?

Anyway, it's not all that bad. I'm having fun with it; I already changed my team logo picture to be a shot of Brady on the turf clutching his knee. And it is fucking fantasy football after all, which for many years I referred to aficionados of as quote losers. So yes, it's highly hypocritical flexible of me to be playing fantasy football, for the second straight year no less, but who cares. It's entertaining when you're in it with friends and co-workers; it's one more thing to BS about and talk shit about. And as long as I'm not one of those guys who spends all of Saturday setting my lineup (definite losers) then it's not all bad. But what am I gonna do if I can't impress Dreamgirl (hereafter referred to as Unlimited Candy Shopping Spree for reasons known only to me) with my fantasy football skills? Good thing I have so many others to fall back on.

"Once again Negative Z is kicking the hell out of Positive Z as the arguments rage."
- Line from Dr. Z, SI columnist and one of the most entertaining out there, in one of his NFL Power Rankings columns from last season

So I got a bit nostalgic tonight and went out hunting pictures of Mile High Stadium. The real Mile High; the only Mile High. I ended up coming across this thread, which has a ton of pictures chronicling the stadium's demise once Invesco Field was up and running. Interesting, yet very depressing too.

I've only been to Invesco once, and it's definitely not the same. Yeah, yeah, get off my lawn, nothing's ever gonna be good again, blah blah blah. Of course, it didn't help matters that my only trip to Invesco was for a preseason game against the Colts, but even still, you could tell the vibe there just wasn't the same.

I remember after Invesco first opened I insisted on calling it Mile High for awhile, but it wasn't long before I was catching myself between the "Mile" and the "High" before correcting myself to say "Invesco." I didn't want Mile High to be gone, but I finally accepted that it was.

My grandpa had Broncos season tickets for a couple years when I was in middle school. This was back during the two Wade Phillips years and we went 8-8 both years (winning all home games).

Okay, apparently my memory is apparently all fucked up 'cause Phillips was coach in '93 and '94 and I was in high school then. To combat this problem I just went and did something I rarely do: research. I went into my archives (the basement) and managed to dig up a ticket stub from 1991 and a bunch of game programs, so that was the first year. 1992 had to be the second year because I know that I was at this game, described here as such:

October 4, 1992
-- Elway throws 2 TD passes in the last 1:55, the last a 12-yarder to Vance Johnson, to come back from a 19-6 deficit and beat the Chiefs 20-19.

I still remember when Elway lofted that final TD pass -- as it went up the whole stadium simultaneously rose to its feet and then went completely nuts after they scored. Along with seeing the Rockies clinch the pennant last year it was the awesomest sports events I ever got to witness live.

Even if my years and coaches and records are kinda fuzzy there is definitely some other shit that I remember. I remember exactly where our seats were those two seasons:


According to the ticket stub I found that was section 333, row 5. It was right along the division between the east stands (the entire section which could be moved back to expand the stadium to accommodate a baseball field) and the rest of the horseshoe.

I remember a game where this obnoxious fat lady kept pounding on the wall along the division. By the end of the game I was so stoked with how well the game was going I had gone full retard and was doing the same.

I remember after one game as we were all filing out of the stadium a guy was holding up one of the best, and simplest, signs I ever saw someone holding at a game: "FUCK KC."

I can even remember my first game, which was ironically (by which of course I mean coincidentally) a preseason game against Indy. It was raining like crazy in Denver that day. It was cold, it was wet, and it was a mere preseason game, but it was my first pro football game, and it was awesome. It was always awesome on those Sundays. Going to those games with my grandpa were some of the best times I ever had.

Several years ago I saw a book on the shelf entitled Brett Favre: Huck Finn Grows Up. For some reason though, perhaps because Brett Favre is a dooshebag, at first glance I read the title as Brett Favre: Fuck Him.

At the time though I had more of a hatred for Favre just because of this kid we knew back in middle and high school who was a huge Packers fan and also a dooshebag. I'm more OK with Favre these days, especially after he nearly saved my fantasy season this past year. Hey wait... Nearly. Nevermind what I just said. Brett Favre. Fucking d-bag.

Also, will someone please tell Brett Favre that there's no crying in football:

18-1

So yeah that's pretty funny. I wasn't all that worked up over the game to begin with -- I've never understood why the Super Bowl is such a big deal if you don't normally root for either of the teams playing. I mean it's like a religious holiday for lots of guys, only more important. I guess it's an excuse to party and get drunk, but seriously, why do we ever need excuses for that?

Anyway this was one of those games where I could come up with reasons to root against both teams. Like most of the rest of the country I'm sick of Boston, and New York is, well, New York. In the end I was pulling for the Giants because as it turns out I'm more sick of Boston in general and the Patriots in specific than I am of New York overall. The OCD in me would have gotten some satisfaction had the Patriots pulled it out just because of the perfect record, plus I think we're all pretty tired of hearing about the '72 Dolphins. So either way it would have gone I would have been like, meh.

I suppose it was pretty cool to see Quentin Tarentino win the Super Bowl and get MVP honors so early in his career, especially after it took his older brother so long to finally "win the big one." Speaking of whom, does that guy not have any friends or something? Like why was he sitting alone in a corner nearly every time the cameras went to him in the booth? Cut that meat!

The other reason people get all worked up for the Super Bowl -- the commercials -- weren't too stellar either. Although I'm sure if there were any really good ones I missed them anyway. The one with Carville and Frist was kinda funny, and I think the best one I saw was the one with Dwayne Wade and Charles Barkley. Gotta love Chuckles.

Look, I'm pretty stoked to see the Bears going to the Superbowl, but this is just ridiculous. I'm guessing it's not like there was any big risk inducing childbirth a couple days early, but this still isn't right.

If football -- yes, even Chicago football -- takes precedence over childbirthing, you people probably shouldn't be parents. Yes, I'm sure those tickets were not cheap, and being at that game was something very rare and special, but c'mon, people. Even I think you've got your priorities all fucked up.