Blog Archives
Five Things for Friday, January 15th
1. Like everyone else in the sports blogging world (not that this is a sports blog, but whatever), I’ll take a moment to pimp GQ’s absorbing report about the Marvin Harrison case. It’s a strange but ultimately not unique story, I’m thinking, among the inner city life that most people only encounter on HBO. The report has seemingly gotten the new Philadelphia prosecutor to turn the case over to the FBI for another look. All in all, I can’t say that the case was handled badly the first time, honestly. None of the people involved want to tell the truth about it, since it just isn’t done. It gets settled their way, one way or another, without the police involved. If it wasn’t for the fact that Harrison has a lot of money and is therefore a target for civil suits, this would have gone away long ago.
Five Things for January 7th
1. Happy birthday to my awesomely amazing wife! I love you so much!
2. As I type this, The Dream Machine is being assembled in the basement. What is The Dream Machine? Only the biggest home gym we could find. After today, it’s time to buckle down and work out again after a long holiday hiatus. I miss how much better I feel when I’m eating right and exercising, but I am going to miss hot chocolate with big dollops of marshmallow fluff in it. Ah well. Everything in moderation.
Five Things for Tuesday, December 22nd
1. I thought the Redskins would lose 30-3 against the Giants, so I wasn’t shocked by the 45-12 ass-kicking they took. The team is a pathetic mixture of overpriced free agents (DeAngelo Hall, Clinton Portis) and complete cast-off scrubs (Levi Jones, Stephon Heyer, Mike Williams, DeAngelo Hall) with a few actual skilled players left to go through the motions (London Fletcher, Jason Campbell, Andre Carter). It’s a bad season, the worst I can ever remember. One can only hope that this is rock bottom, and that next year we can at least earn our self-respect back.
Five Things for Monday, December 21st
1. We had a huge snowstorm over the weekend. We got probably a foot and a half of snow on Saturday, which was beautiful to watch inside a nice warm house. My wife and I had fun taking pictures of the girls playing in it, we shoveled the driveway and deck a couple of times with a broken snowshovel and a spade not designed for the job (but it did remarkably well at scraping ice and dealing with the plow-packed stuff at the end of the driveway). I even ran and jumped a few times into our assembled Wall of Snow after we finished the driveway, laughing like a loon and making my wife laugh too. I threw snowballs at trees and dogs, practiced my punting form on big snow chunks, and generally had a blast. I really like this winter thing.
Vinnie Cerrato Resigns
Holy shit. I haven’t been that excited by a sports headline since “Redskins Rehire Joe Gibbs.” Seriously. Wow. Dancing in the streets to commence.
Is it a sop to the fans? Sure. Is he being set up as the fall guy for Synder’s meddling? Absolutely. Do Redskins fans give a hit about that? Fuck no. Cerrato became the most reviled symbol of the lickspittle yes-man front office the ‘Skins have had in place since Gibbs left. So what does it mean going forward?
Five Things for Friday, 10/23
1. Have you ever really liked a song and enjoyed everything about it except one little thing that just starts to stand out to you every time you hear it? Then the more you hear it, the more time you spend dreading the part you don’t like? Eventually, you end up not liking the song nearly as much as you did and every time you hear it gets a little more disappointing? If no, then fuck off and read something else.
For my wife, one of those songs, I think, would be “China Girl” by David Bowie (and just now, the part she hates ran through her head and for a second she hates me just a little bit for bringing it up). For me, that song is “Paradise City” by Guns n Roses. The beginning of that song is like the perfectly distilled essence of what is good about rock music. The extended musical intro, the wailing refrain, simple and pure: “Take me down to Paradise City/ where the grass is green/ and the girls are pretty/Oh won’t you please take me home.” If for one song, I was blessed with the ability to play guitar, sing, and dominate a stage with my presence, it would absolutely be “Paradise City.” Except for one niggling thing.
What I Would Do If I Owned the Redskins
It’s been a season of utter dismay for the Redskins and their fans. Like many of us, I had some reasonably high hopes for this team going into the season. I thought we’d be able to compete in the division and for a playoff spot, especially since the Giants looked to regress without ‘Skins-killer Plaxico Burress, the Cowboys replacing T.O. with Roy Williams, which definitely appeared from last season to be a bad mistake, and the Eagles one year older and more brittle. I fully expected the ‘Skins to lose to the Giants in week 1 – Meadowlands is a damn tough place to play, especially early in the season, when defenses are naturally ahead of the offenses. Plus, Campbell and the young wide receivers had another year in the system. They looked good in the first half of the 3rd preseason game against the Patriots, in the one preseason game that “counts the most.” I fully expected to see a 5-1 team preparing to host the Eagles in a critical Monday Night game. Instead, well, the season happened.
Winter in Derenemyn 