The death of quick sizzle

A. and I moved to the North Shore last week—we're the proud owners of a shiny new condo! (Actually it's a converted house built in the thirties, but you get the idea.) We're really happy here and are looking forward to being adults. Since we are now a short walk to the beach (well, I don't suspect it's much of a beach beach where you go to get all bronzy, but it should be a nice stretch of sand to clear one's head, enjoy a fantastic view of Boston and snicker at ugly Lynn residents; and I don't like the sun anyway), I figure the late Spring and Summer months offer the best time to become acquainted with and take in the local offerings. And maybe become a townie.

Anyway, the point of this post is to really rechristen the blog. I started out figuring I'd write mostly about music, and I have here and there, but too often I've posted only a sentence or two commenting on something that, for the most part, wasn't worth the effort. Even worse, sometimes I just copied and pasted a Bill Belichick quote I fancied, with no context whatsoever. Little did I know I could have turned that idea into Twitter and been done with it. (I almost made a remark about raking in millions by creating Twitter but it sure seems like one of those enterprises that earns no revenue at all.)

Therefore, I promise to knock it off with the lazy little posts about whozits and whats-his-nose and the like, once labeled "quick sizzle." From now on I'll write only in-depth, well considered, fully baked art. Anything I'm compelled to relate in few words for the sake of it—like all those posts about how I never post anything, or my long-ignored rule that required me to post at least once a month—isn't worth relating at all. Who needs it? I've deleted most of that old shit, including a handful of peculiar and uninteresting Cambridge tales, even as I remain proud of my "Hating a movie in three words" post that read "Screw you, Prada!" Gold, Jerry.

I wish the blog to be reborn with more music writing in the coming weeks and months. On the agenda are a recap of the new (to me) music I've gotten into since my last such list (over two years ago!); the long-promised review of one of my old college mixtapes (probably from 1996 since I was making one every other week around then); and, for no real reason other than my inability to shut up about things I dislike, an unabashed assault on Nico's The Marble Index.

Last thing (and call this the final "quick sizzle" entry if you'd like, since it's the type of thing what earned the label): I was straightening up our storage area in the basement, sweeping and organizing (and discovering that attaching a dryer hose is deceptively frustrating), and my hands were getting really dirty. So the old Lava jingle popped in my head: "I don't need no Lava soap, nope. Ladies' hands don't get that dirty. I don't need no Lava soap." Ladies' hands? How did they get away with that?

Also, the real last thing: I was listening to classic-rock radio for like six hours down there and I heard a live version of "The Joker" rearranged as a reggae song. It was like chocolate and peanut butter, only if the chocolate were anal rape and the peanut butter were AIDS.

Item! Manufacturing sports opinions is not journalism

I'm listening to Thursday's Pardon the Interruption via the podcast and I simply cannot take it anymore. Analysts, writers and announcers are killing sports. Wilbon is riffing about "clutch" (defined as "he hits the shot when his team needs offense") players in recent NBA history. These are Paul Pierce (discussion of whom kicked off this whole thing), Moses Malone, Reggie Miller, Dwyane Wade and Dennis Johnson. He glossed right over Bird and—laughably!—Jordan (I guess Craig Ehlo wasn't consulted). How many championships did Miller clutchify for himself against Jordan? How many championships did Jordan single-handedly win? It's insane that people forget how good he was.

The context of this whole bag of nonsense was: would you rather have a player like Kobe/LeBron (like how I switched to first names there?) who can score at will against the world, or Pierce (I am not bashing Pierce here, he turned the corner with every Celtics fan last year, and he's inexorably fun to watch, let's just be realistic) who can selectively/intermittently come up big? I'm no basketball scientician but it seems to be the sport where it's most common for one great player to lead his team to success. So I'll take the player who's great seventy-five times out of eighty-two, thanks.

More anger: watching one of the all-time most exciting football games I can remember, Pats–Jets, Thursday night. The Sanctimonious Christopher X. Collinsworth and some other dude are calling it on the NFL Network, your home for programming I'm excited to have but never watch. Pats are down big, game seems hopeless early, but our man Cassel remembers what team he plays for and turns it into a nail-biter. The bad guys won, but what a game.

Highlight was naturally Randy Moss's exceptional game-tying catch at the end of regulation. Seconds earlier, Collinsworth was all "Moss is lazy. He is a lazy dog. Watch this replay of the last play. What a dog he is. Look at that, he's lying on the ground! Who does he think he is? He never even won a Super Bowl. I didn't either but I'm white, and I'll be damned if anyone ever calls a white athlete lazy. People would rather stick their tongues right up David Eckstein's gritty asshole than pretend a non-white man can selflessly hustle. I mean, have you seen Manny Ramirez? That guy should get a haircut. Touchdown, Randy Moss." (Verbatim.)

Lastly, the Fire Joe Morgan guys are hanging it up! So long to one of the few sources of common sense and realism in sports media commentary. Drag. If only there were commercials where coaches' postgame press conferences were edited into a bunch of hilarious out-of-context quotes in a way that told me what kind of beer to drink.

This is Wal-Mart do not panic

This goes back a ways now, but I'm sitting here at work staring at my dual cinema displays (fanciness!), getting a headache because my right earbud is fried and zapping me with non-artful distortion, and I've been meaning to write about this. And I'm bored.

Background: I own an Xbox 360. I enjoy using it to make Lego Chewbacca dismember Lego Stormtroopers and to pretend Tom Brady is still alive. And lately, A. and I have taken to setting the world ablaze with our color-coordinated riffing via Guitar Hero 3.

When I first heard of this game I thought it sounded ridiculous, and I'm sure it is, but I guess I enjoy ridiculous things (Love's "Revelation" comes to mind). But after an all-night session of Rock Band at a friend's house, we really couldn't deny how fun it was. We were hooked. So we played until 3 a.m., woke up the following morning (luckily a Saturday) and shot straight to Target to get GH3, because that's all our small PRC apartment could handle. (We're in a much bigger place in Mitt-Town now, and are currently in a heated debate over Guitar Hero 4 (her) versus Rock Band 2 (me). Frankly, I will not be denied RB2's set list.) The game came with only one guitar, and since we wanted to play together the way adorable couples should our next mission was to buy a second wireless guitar, which is indeed sold separately with some assembly (stickers) required.

Last Christmas my brother- and sister-in-law were nice enough to buy us an iPod adaptor for the car, one of those you have to wire into the back of the stereo. But it sat unopened because our car has a tape deck (old school!) and we already have one of those flimsy-yet-functional cassette adaptors that are much simpler, and we had held onto the gift long enough that the return/exchange period lapsed. It came from Wal-Mart online so who knows if we'd have followed up on that shipping nonsense anyway. It took a planned visit to my dad's in New Hampshire to start the let's-get-away-with-something wheels rolling, thinking that if they sold the same item in actual stores then they might take one back.

More background: sometime last year we saw the documentary Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. I was easily and illogically (and uncharacteristically, but I'll get to that in a second) swayed against ever shopping there again, even though I recognized the film's point of view as purely one-sided. I'm the guy who complains about unions and, while living in Northampton, thought local shops that couldn't compete with the Wal-Mart up the road should stop whining. Still, I was so repulsed with the way the chain was portrayed that I took all the bullshit and made a nice quilt, and then burrowed into it with the effortless cuteness of a purring kitten—my naiveté was darling. (On a related note, unless I let my dark soul pull the lever for Ron Paul next month I'll be voting for Obama simply because I don't squirm and turn away from the television when he speaks, whereas watching McCain in action is the most uncomfortable thing I'm capable of doing. During the debate the other night I went into Kennedy/Nixon mode and watched during Obama's turns but closed my eyes and only listened during McCain's turns. I figured it was the best way to fairly judge the discussion. This plan worked until I closed my eyes too successfully and fell asleep.)

Anyway, I figured Wal-Mart must sell video games and stuff, and they certainly must be able to afford a little red ink. Why not try to return the iPod thingy for store credit (we had the receipt, but the date would debunk my "We received this as a gift, um, last week" cock-and-bull) and see about getting ourselves a gee-tar? So after dinner we hit the nearby Jaffrey Wal-Mart for some scam-o-rama. Nice, right? Nice.

Except: not nice. The plan was a brutal failure, with the no receipt and the no return. ("But I do have a receipt, see?? Wait, let me scratch out that date and barcode and everything. Are you calling me dishonest? Well you smell funny. Eat that truth.") To make matters worse we ventured back to the electronics department after the monkey-wrench incident and saw that they did carry the individual GH3 guitar we were looking for. Drag. So we went home empty-handed, and for some reason held off buying one on Amazon or wherever for a couple of weeks. Soon enough we had plans to head to Wal-Mart country again for a dinner date at my mom's in central Mass. The Lunenburg store wasn't too out of the way so we figured we'd give the return trick another shot. This one's close to where I grew up, and I knew that whole strip-mall sat on a manufactured hill that used to be a lovely cow pasture. I always loved driving by those cows when I was a kid. I figured the awareness of this attack on nature and childhood wonder might shift some points our way when we stopped in on the way home.

And—huzzah!—it did. The nice old lady working customer service accepted it without question, even going so far as to cut open the security tape (we never opened it since we always planned to return it) and taking everything out to make sure nothing was missing. I didn't mind this overt mistrust because it meant they had to take it back, since she was the one to ruin its pristine newness. So now we had like a $60 credit, which as we learned in Jaffrey was an even swap for the guitar. Sweet! We practically ran to the electronics section, and I had that feeling in my stomach like I was shoplifting. It was exhilarating. But rats! They didn't have the prize in stock. Fucking shit. Luckily I anticipated this at my mom's and mapped out other Wal-Marts more or less on the way back to Cambridge. (Rest assured, you pinko bastards, there is no Wal-Mart in the People's Republic) Hopefully we would get lucky in West Boylston, Hudson or (the inconvenient last resort) Framingham.

Route 190 is a scenic highway I enjoy touring. It's the only direct north-south passage in the middle of the state, and I'm always amazed at how little traffic it carries on the weekend (I guess Worcester isn't quite a Saturday night hotspot, unless Vince McMahon and friends are in town). So I had no problem with a southward detour to West Boylston. Unless, of course, the West Boylston store was also sold out. And naturally it was. Getting lost on the way to Hudson was not as fun as cruising 190. I had a bad attitude going into that store and a worse one walking out, after learning that they "only sell the Wii version." This was not working out, and I was in no mood to deal with route 9 and its Framingham/Natick Shopping Madness Spectacular. But I also didn't want to go home without that friggin' guitar. So off to Framingham it was, even if we should've been home an hour and a half ago.

As it turns out, the fourth (fifth, really) time was the charm. They had like ten of those fuckers on the shelf, and you're damn right we took our time picking out the perfect one. Of course we got home too late to even play, but who cares. We'd just gotten away with something, however minor in the grand scheme of things, and that's what counts when it comes to dealing with The Man. But you knew that, right?

In case you’re wondering, my blog is the shit

I was just perusing a fairly professional-looking sports blog written by (let's see) my wife's coworker's husband, who coincidentally is also my ex-conjoined sister (I find the wife's-coworker's-husband story easier to explain). The blog's OK, not good enough to name here, very Sports Guy rip-off-ish (territory I've admittedly come close to at times). And since the Sports Guy seems to have had his recent articles composed by those people who post on IMDB message boards (save for the Manny diatribe, which I think is strong and coherent if you discount a couple of (natch) forced A Few Good Men and The Usual Suspects references, and for the fact that he never called Boras out either, which really deflates his whole argument, which really devalues the article, which is now an oozing pile of turd-flavored pixels) I don't think this is much of a compliment anymore.

Anyway, sis is a Sox fan who either gets paid to write the thing or has crazy amounts of free time. He wrote about the first win against the Angels the other night, at one point posting the Sox lineup and noting that it contained "no easy outs." Meanwhile, The Adulterer Jason Varitek is in the ninth spot where he belongs, swinging at every first pitch in the world and being reduced to sacrifice bunts—I hate bunting because making outs is the one thing batters are supposed to avoid, but I suppose it's better than the inevitable double plays. Still, the scumbag is such an easy out he's actually making outs on purpose. So this blogger's judgment on easy versus difficult outs is, at best, lame-brained. (And in case you think I'm being overly critical based on one written opinion, a few weeks ago he posted multiple times about replacements for Tom Brady, and one of them was entitled "Bring in Daunte Culpepper. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BRING IN DAUNTE CULPEPPER!!" Emphasis his. Nitwit.)

Meanwhile, Manny is the most talented consistent offensive player the Sox have had since notorious asshole Ted Williams, and he gets run out of town for another white guy. New England's baseball priorities are misplaced since getting that 1918 shit off our backs. Before October 2004 everyone would have overlooked Manny's occasional ho-humness and pointed to his outrageous offensive output. That's what every true Sox fan did—the only ones complaining about lack of hustle and grit and gamer-ness were the casual fans who couldn't spell Youkilis (or Belichick, for that matter) and the exact same media types whom the Sports Guy properly (though not often enough by name) calls out in the article—"exact same" because they will never leave us alone until they are destroyed, and even when they do leave an outlet they just jump from one sinking ship (the Herald) to another (the Globe) like notable fucktard Tony Massarotti. ("Mazz." Really! Can we stop applying sporty-sounding nicknames to sportswriters? And can they stop calling each other by their last names like they're sporty teammates? Also, that link is purposely and hilariously transposed.)

As a baseball-related aside, I noticed baseball-reference.com changed the address for Youkilis's stats page from www.baseball-reference.com/y/youkike01.shtml to …youklke01.shtml, even though it defies the site's standard first-five-letters-of-last-name-followed-by-first-two-letters-of-first-name convention. Would they have made that change if he weren't Jewish? The pure version still works, for all you anti-Semites.

I have no words

Straight couture, homey

How to top last year's NFL preview?

1. Actually write it before the season starts.
2. Elaborate beyond a single sentence per team.
3. Relate a team's eventual success or failure to its uniform design.

I know, right? Time to put that graphic design degree to work! This should be very exciting. Speaking of school, I am one hundred percent pumped for football to start because this will be the first full football season in three years where I won't need to put games on the back burner in favor of homework. No more "OK, after this drive I'm totally getting started on the typography assignment," followed by hours of whimpering. Because you know what I'm going to do after every 1:00 Pats game this year? I'm going to watch the 4:00 game, bitches. Anyway, division by division this year.

Buffalo Bills
Let's start with one of the great wasted opportunities in professional sports. It's time for this to stop: go back to the old uniforms! Whenever a team participates in a throwback game, and that team's entire fanbase goes apeshit with the "Why don't they wear those every week??" talk for a month afterward, it's time to make the switch. Nobody in the league has that shade of blue (whereas everyone has navy). You can even modify the charging buffalo logo, which I prefer to the old one that's just standing there. You're almost there, you just need to change most everything: 4.8

Miami Dolphins
The one team where the home town necessitates the color palette—welcome to Miami! And hey, I was just there! I saw some dude on South Beach wearing a shear netting sack type of thing, along with a Catwoman mask and a well placed belt with dollar bills sticking out. And this was at 3:00 in the afternoon. That outfit earns a 10.0 from me if the Dolphins change their names to the Weirdo Cock Whores, but that's not happening this season (because they've already printed the media guides, you know). So I guess we're dealing with the current design. I must say, as cutesy and that little helmeted dolphin is, Miami is the only city that can get away with it. Great colors, great tradition (no needless revamps like too many teams are doing) and the wise choice to let the color white carry most of the load. I'm as surprised as you are: 8.1

New England Patriots
As with Buffalo, what in the worldwide fuck? The new uniforms are passable, and have grown on me over the years (though there have been numerous tweaks). And we can't ignore the fact that they've won three Super Bowls while wearing them. But still… those old Pat Patriot reds are killers. George is getting upset: 6.0

New York Jets
Now here's the inverse to the style quagmires that have sucked up the Bills and the Pats. Reverting to the Namath-era look was the best thing this team has done since the actual Namath era. It didn't take a lot of work and they had the foundation in place: great shade of green and keep it clean. Don't be so mean: 8.9

(Aside: I like how I'm only through one division, and it's my home division, and the analyses are already demonstrably shorter. At this rate my review for the Seahawks will read "Turd.")

Baltimore Ravens
There's nowhere to begin but with purple. You know what I never once muttered to myself in twenty years as a football fan? "Boy, this league sure could use another purple team." I know the organization was kind of put on the spot when they weren't allowed to keep the Browns name (and hey, it's their own fault so fuck them) and Ravens is actually a clever name for the city, but purple? If this wasn't the great opportunity for a pure black and white uniform, then nothing ever will be until the Columbus Crosswords come into existence. I will say the raven/B logo is pretty good, and that shield/crest thingy is interesting in a soccer-y way that I would totally appreciate if I cared at all about soccer. Still, the whole lot is much too close to the Vikings to earn the team any props. Purple and white might have worked, but purple and black with some gold trim does not. Quoth me: 6.4

Cincinnati Bengals
I inexplicably rooted for the Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII, which is funny because I totally appreciate Joe Montana much more now than I ever did while he was still playing (also inexplicable, because the "go upstairs and masturbate" SNL sketch alone should have sold me). I'm now convinced I wanted them to win because they had awesome uniforms. Now, like everyone else, they tinkered with them until they could say "Yup, we've made them worse, well done everybody." Luckily they didn't touch the helmets, which might be the best in the league. But this is a great example of how the NFL is making the world a worse place with pants. Plain stripes down the side don't do it anymore. No, let's occupy that space with some extension of what's on the helmet, maybe that way people can learn to hate a helmet they once loved because they're associating it with horrible pants. But it's a damn good helmet: 5.0

Cleveland Browns
Nice and simple. I love the brown (natch) home jerseys especially. Here's hoping any expansion teams or redesigns keep their eyes here and in Chicago to see how a basic design can be a strength. Even the dog masks some of the superfans wear are pretty cool, in an I'm-so-preoccupied-with-the-Browns-I-don't-even-notice-my-wife-is-sleeping-around kind of way. Everyone's happy: 8.5

Pittsburgh Steelers
Absolutely classic, even if they did run out of money before they could apply the steel logo to the other side of the helmet. Don't know what's going on with the slim oblique numbers, they look a little soft against the bold black and gold. Still, almost as good as they come: 9.1

Houston Texans
Shit but these unis are the bomb. The oil rig logo is a little staid, but I love the powder blue! Oh snap, that's the old team. Seriously, it's nice to see a straightforward design come through on a new team. The logo is a bit over-logical but anything would appear that way so soon after tiger pants up there. Make the alternate red jerseys the full-time attire and you might win more than eight games for once: 5.9

Indianapolis Colts
Hard to praise this team after what happened last season but these are beautiful. It's like the blue of a thousand skies. I don't understand why shoulder/arm stripes never seem to go all the way around, but I'm not a seamstress so probably I just don't understand how difficult a pattern that is: 9.5

Jacksonville Jaguars
Teal baby! How about that late eighties/early nineties teal explosion? The helmet jag-you-wahr is alright, minus the teal nonsense: 4.0

Tennessee Titans
Here's an example of a helmet logo absolutely signifying the team name. Cute little cosmic flames, enchanting stars, a T that kind of looks like a pixie… there is no better way to represent the Tennessee Tinkerbells. What? They're called the Titans? My bad. Lucky for them the rest of the uniform (unique and effective colors, sort of a college look) isn't too bad. Can't understand why this team wasn't called the Nashville Kings though, that would have been incredible: 4.7

Denver Broncos
The helmet (except for the pointy median line, what's up with that?) is markedly better than the old Big D, but I gotta say I miss the overwhelming orange of the old jerseys. Everyone's wearing blue fucking jerseys now: 3.2

Kansas City Chiefs
OK, by this point I'm no longer surprised that I like all of the old-school teams' uniforms, so long as they haven't changed much or at all. Kudos to my lack of living in the now! And kudos to the Chiefs for embracing the color red. I wish the Pats had the same respect: 8.2

Oakland Raiders
Ooh baby. We haven't gotten to my favorite uniforms yet but these are as close as you get. The eyepatch dude might be silly, but the whole package is the antithesis of Al Davis in a white warm-up suit. Badass: 9.9

San Diego Chargers
Leave it to a loser franchise like the Chargers to tweak their design in a nod to the Air Coryell era, only it turns out to be a barely perceptible nod that might be mistaken for a Tourette syndrome tic. Shame on them. I can't wait for the Pats to electro-shock dance on them again this weekend: 7.5

Dallas Cowboys
You know, I've never been crazy about their silvery blue pants. Bleh. It's too bad, because the helmet is right up in there. I also like their navy jerseys, which they never get to wear because they choose the whites for home, and most others choose the darks. Still, I see Jerry Jones as football's equivalent to Ted Turner and I'm impressed he hasn't gone insane with color: 8.0

New York Giants
Love that they went back to the older style. Solid. The NY is an improvement over GIANTS, but it could use little more work. Still, it's simple and it grows on you like uptown AIDS: 8.8

Philadelphia Eagles
I remember awhile ago when they went from that pure forest green to the current slate-sort-of-green thing they have going on. It's not even a color, it's like someone soaked the jerseys in mud all offseason. Drab. The winged helmet used to be elegant but they used a Sharpie to over-emphasize the edges and ruined it. This whole city needs to settle down: 2.3

Washington Redskins
Yeah, yeah, "Redskins" is horribly offensive (I got into it with the Rapscallions last year), but theirs is a great design and color combination. Just acknowledge basic decency and do something about the name and logo—again, go with that cool R! Nothing major, you know, who really remembers what a team is called or what symbol they use to represent themselves? Regardless: 8.4

Chicago Bears
Best uniforms in the league. Fantastic football colors, intelligent sense of tradition. Enough said: 10.0

Detroit Lions
These are fine I suppose, but enough of the prancing circus lion. They could switch the logo to a cursive D with whiskers on it and I'd be more impressed. Colors are good though, sort of associate them with the auto industry I suppose. Whatever, it's the Lions: 4.9

Green Bay Packers
Another classic. Can't go wrong with anything here. Good example (even though it's used elsewhere) of defining a letter as your logo. I guess they kind of had to though, because how do you stylize a packer? Don't answer that: 9.0

Minnesota Vikings
I mentioned this in last year's preview: what's with the Viking horn on the pants? Just get together with your friends in Cincinnati and have an intervention—NFL pants are functional and should stop there. And while we're at it with Minnesota, the helmet design is a clever idea (clever or obvious, you decide) but I was never impressed with the execution. I think it needs to be revisited. And maybe it's high-definition television but I don't remember the purple being so fucking purple in my youth. These get worse every time I look at them, so they get my lowest rating: 2.0

Atlanta Falcons
Loved the total about-face they made a few years ago: after switching from red helmets and jerseys to black (in the Great Pre-Millennial Purging of the Red that also claimed the Pats), they wised up and performed admirably by re-instituting the red jerseys. They retained the nice black helmets but incorporated cool red highlights to the falcon. Now that's some flair. (I know I said earlier that we need a pure black-and-white team, but the Falcons just weren't doing it for me.) Nice work: 7.2

Carolina Panthers
More teal, please! One of the all-time blunders for the city of Charlotte, embracing a trendy color to the point that I expected the sidewalks to be painted teal when I visited a few years ago. I think they could just change it to another shade of blue and stop there because it's a pretty decent uniform. Even the helmet logo is alright, which is rare for expansion teams: 5.6

New Orleans Saints
This is some fantastic under-the-radar shit these guys are wearing! All-time-great helmet, stunningly good all-black pants. If only this much consideration was present elsewhere in the city… well, you know. Anyway, a great marriage of name and look: 9.2

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
I saw some old clip the other day of that ridiculous orange uniform. Orange is my favorite color but even I couldn't stomach that. I love how the new look unabashedly rips off the 49ers, with pewter (pewter!) in place of gold. That showed real mettle. They did a good job with the helmet though—pretty nifty pirate flag. But I wish the Spaniard with the dagger in his mouth was still around swarthing it up somehow. One can dream: 6.9

Arizona Cardinals
OK, the Sports Guy stole some thunder last week but these guys need a new name, pronto—there just cannot be a large cardinal population in the southwest. Regardless, this whole package needs some work. The angry red bird is kind of cool, I suppose, and I admire the unembellished white helmet. But as with Miami, Phoenix suggests a certain color palette and brick red isn't it. Don't make me sick the S1Ws after you: 2.5

St. Louis Rams
No one else in the league embraced mustard the way the Rams did in Los Angeles. And then they moved to St. Louis and eventually swapped it out for gold, thereby emphasizing the navy… just like everyone else in the league. That's why the Pats went for it in 2002. Still love those helmets though, and blue and gold is pretty sweet after all: 6.7

San Francisco 49ers
OK, we had that extended misstep with the white pants awhile ago. I have no idea what that was all about. Luckily they got their heads together and said "Up yours, Tampa Bay, we had the red/metallic thing going first and now we're taking it back." Until Frank Gore came along, it was the best decision the team made in like twelve years. Gotta give props to the logo too, I totally appreciate these typographic ones when they're done right. And it's the best they could have done outside of a bearded old coot kneeling in a dry riverbed: 7.0

Seattle Seahawks
Muddy blue? Neon piping? Turd: 2.2

To review:
Chicago Bears – 10.0
Oakland Raiders – 9.9
Indianapolis Colts – 9.5
New Orleans Saints – 9.2
Pittsburgh Steelers – 9.1
Green Bay Packers – 9.0
New York Jets – 8.9
New York Giants – 8.8
Cleveland Browns – 8.5
Washington Redskins – 8.4
Kansas City Chiefs – 8.2
Miami Dolphins – 8.1
Dallas Cowboys – 8.0
San Diego Chargers – 7.5
Atlanta Falcons – 7.2
San Francisco 49ers – 7.0
Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 6.9
St. Louis Rams – 6.7
Baltimore Ravens – 6.4
New England Patriots – 6.0
Houston Texans – 5.9
Carolina Panthers – 5.6
Cincinnati Bengals – 5.0
Detroit Lions – 4.9
Buffalo Bills – 4.8
Tennessee Titans – 4.7
Jacksonville Jaguars – 4.0
Denver Broncos – 3.2
Arizona Cardinals – 2.5
Philadelphia Eagles – 2.3
Seattle Seahawks – 2.2
Minnesota Vikings – 2.0

Count it! Kinda funny how a lot of these pundit jokers are picking a Colts/Bears rematch. Huh. Of course it's some combination of silly and fruity to judge teams by their uniforms, so I've applied a complex, re-machotizing algorithm to the ratings and reached this conclusion: Pats over Seahawks in Super Bowl XLII. Count that!

And... married!

More marathon observations

I picked up my wedding band in the South End last night and thought I'd head over to Copley Square to jump on the Green Line. Of course, since I worked yesterday I forgot about the little road race. But things were getting back to normal by then, with the streets reopening and everything. And though I haven't drunkenly watched the marathon in person in a few years now, two memories immediately surfaced:

As a kid, I remember watching the 6:00 news with their live reports from the route, and seeing all these people still running the thing (the first wave always completes it a little after 2:00). It always makes me a little sad, because these are the people who are not being cheered at Wellesley and not being watched on television… all the parties are over and everyone's either gone home or changed the channel. As if to emphasize this, the roads are now open and these poor runners have to keep to the curb, whereas earlier finishers had the luxury of not needing to be aware of passing traffic or oncoming headlights. And then there are the 11:00 live feeds, with people still going. Oh boy. Anyway, my heart always goes out to them.

And then there are the annoying astronauts. When people finish the race, all these handlers rush out to them to give them water and stuff, and to wrap them in those tinfoil-like blankets. I have no idea what they're for but there must be a scientific body-preserving effect attached. Great. But many runners are determined to wear these the entire rest of the day and night while walking around the city, in a very I-ran-the-marathon-and-you-did-not-because-I-am-hot-shit manner. Sorry, dude, I was busy drinking my ass off and not bleeding out of my nipples. Fight the real enemy!

Pizzeria Uno? Cheesecake Factory? It must be the Boston Marathon!

The wedding is less than two weeks away and Saturday I had to pick up my new suit at the tailor. I brought it in last weekend and he told me to pick it up in a week, and since I was blinded by the quick turnaround I said "Great!" Wish I had consulted a calendar though (a Massachusetts or Maine calendar, that is), in which case I would have said "Great! But I'll come the following Tuesday instead, thanks."

For today is the regional holiday know as Patriot's Day. Otherwise known at my company as an optional holiday (used them up already, rats). Otherwise known in Lexington as Fuck You, Concord, We Started the Revolution Day. What this manufactured holiday has really become, though, is Boston Marathon Day. (Also, Crazy-Early Red Sox Game Day.) It is truly shocking what happens to this city every year for a few days—it gets mobbed almost as badly as New Year's Eve, with Back Bay close to non-navigable.

So that greeted me Saturday. Not only were they setting up the bleachers in front of the library and closing off streets (thankfully I don't live around there anymore), but the mob was out. International mobs too, you can tell by how rude and oblivious they are. Say what you will about Americans, but for the most part we are a friendly and courteous collection of people. We generally take our backpacks off in the subway and walk in single-file on the sidewalk instead of side by side, thereby blocking people who might need to pick up his suit before he starts slugging everyone. Plus (again, for the most part) our sunglasses are not nearly as ridiculous as everyone else's.

Never mind. Visiting Americans and non-Americans alike were flocking to the chain restaurants. The tailor is right above a Pizzeria Uno on Boylston Street, a block from the finish line, and apparently everyone was afraid they'd lose their prime real estate if they ventured farther than that. So yeah, I had to plow through a crowd of people just dying for some deep-dish, or otherwise too lazy to see if this "Boss-tin" has any other restaurants.

And they do… they also have a Cheesecake Factory! After picking up the suit and getting the hell out of there, I went to the Prudential Center mall because I still needed to get shoes for the big day. (No luck. I've determined that my fashion tastes run about a year or two behind, because I was and still am looking for some square-toed shoes. Unfortunately the style now seems to be sissy pointy-toed things. Also, my initial suit idea was for one with four buttons, and several people came just short of laughing in my face. Ah, fat cats.) So after recognizing that Johnston & Murphy and Florsheim are stores that I will never again patronize (not that I ever did, but I had high hopes because they sound like good shoe-brand names) I decided I would rather go home and drink beer (perhaps I could have borrowed one of the dozens of fanny packs I saw that afternoon and stuffed a couple of drinks in there). Of course, the Prudential subway stop is adjacent to the Cheesecake Factory, and there was another lazy mob waiting to eat exactly what they could eat at home. Even though there have to be a hundred restaurants within five blocks of there. Side streets and quaint neighborhoods be damned, I guess.

Now, I understand the safe familiarity of a chain restaurant—wasn't that the idea behind McDonald's in the first place, and didn't that work out alright?—but if I'm visiting San Francisco or Chicago or something I really hope I'm bold enough to look for something with a little more local flavor.

Like Chili's!

This guy here, this is the guy

I'm a big fan of the Fire Joe Morgan blog. What a stiff. But his suckiness honestly doesn't bother me because I never watch a non-Red Sox baseball game and therefore I'm rarely put upon by network broadcasters, only when the Sox are in the playoffs or on national TV (I wanted to set Joe Buck and that cretin Tim McCarver on fire in 2004). So the only way Morgan affects my life is when the FJM guys skewer his abilities, and for that alone I hope he never actually is fired. Or, at least, not until after this internet fad passes.

My real Joe Morgan is Joe Theismann, a.k.a. The Loudmouth Joe Theismann. Needless to say I was pleased with last week's decision to replace him in the Monday Night Football booth, because football is something I do watch even if the Patriots aren't playing. (I don't like Ron Jaworski either, but he's not as reprehensible… yet.) MNF has never been much of a big deal to me: too many commercials, too many celebrity interviews, too much Hank Williams, Jr. And every announcer I've ever liked—Boomer Esiason, Dan Fouts, post-scandal Frank Gifford, even Dennis Miller (the broadcast is a giant variety show anyway, so why not do it right?)—has been pushed out. Unless it's a big game, I'm unlikely to tune in just to spend most of the night yelling at the moronic analysts. Who needs that?

Still, I was intrigued last year when ESPN threw Tony Kornheiser in the booth. I'm a fan of him and Michael Wilbon on Pardon the Interruption but I was skeptical. Turns out they stuck him with a dud (Mike Tirico) and a loudmouth (The Loudmouth Joe Theismann) and he essentially sucked right alongside them. Besides, who honestly tunes in to televised sports based on the announcers? I never once watched a game because some dude was calling it.

Today it's too easy to watch whatever game you want and just mute the TV to avoid the nonsense altogether. If you're lucky you can turn on the radio and listen to those guys (always superior) and sync up the broadcasts. Difficult considering broadcast delays, even with DVRs, but it can be worth the hassle.

It's remarkable how much money and effort networks invest in these bozos, and in the seeming importance of maintaining consistency from season to season—as if I'm going to accidentally throw my hat out the window when Stephen Gostkowski scores three points unless John Madden clarifies that it's called a field goal and not a hat trick. These people have no bearing at all on the game itself (except for those pointless/priceless six-second interviews at the end of the half which succeed only in making the losing coach even angrier). They screw up a lot (one of the benefits of instant replay is hearing these guys make a definitive statement like "Oh, he clearly stepped out of bounds there, Jim", seeing on the replay that the player actually managed to stay in bounds and then listening to the dead air of an unacknowledged mistake). They think we repeatedly care that such-and-such-player's dying parents are in the stands. They think we're just as absent-mindedly taking in the action as they are, when instead we're curious about the specific game-oriented things that they aren't discussing (questioning coaches' decisions, recognizing how much or little respect a defense is giving a particular offensive player, wondering if Marty Schottenheimer was told before the game that someone dunked his headset in a bucket of hepatitis C). And half the time they're openly anticipating the moment when they have to plug Survivor or throw it back to the studio for a highlight. It's all a giant clusterfuck that gets in the way of enjoying a game.

The Sports Guy complains about announcers a lot and his assessments are usually on the mark, so I apologize if I accidentally recycled some of his sentiments. Last week—or at least I read it last week—he had some choice words about Billy Packer doing the college hoops tournament. I can't say one way or the other because I haven't really watched any, and the little I have has been at a bar where I couldn't hear anything (yet I still followed the games… somehow??), but he's probably right. And it's not a coincidence that the worst offenders are usually the ones who have been doing it the longest.

So remember, as you watch the Sox (or whomever) over the new and endless baseball season and as you suffer through Don Orsillo's boot-licking fanboy routine and Jerry Remy's cigarette-hack laughter (or the local equivalent): the mute button is your friend. Just have that instant-replay button handy, too, in case they show an old clip of some Redskins quarterback's knee being destroyed while he hollers out in agony. Because he'll never be more coherent or incisive again.