Here & There

Here & There posts will be quick hits, meant for when I have something to say, but do not want to spend four hours getting it out. By design, these posts will cover anything from opinions on movies, tv, music, and sports to me sharing that I ate a good hard-boiled egg. If it takes longer than a half hour to write one of these posts

Anyways, I am writing this post while I bask in the warm glow that was the Patriots wild card win over Jacksonville. On the whole I though they lacked focus, but for the last half of the 3rd quarter the team put together as good a stretch of football as you could ask for. However, if they get out to that slow a start against Indianapolis (whether it be next week or in the AFC Championship), then they will get buried. Give the team credit though, they never paniced when the Jags hung around. They shook off the rust and Brady, Watson, and Samuel made the big plays when it was necessary. I think I am just going to copy and paste that last sentence and hold on to it for a week or two, because the picture of a dejected Peyton Manning will need a caption to go underneath it.

A few other random thoughts...

-How about special praise for Andre Davis. For a guy who was cut in the pre-season, he certainly found his way back to have a huge impact in playoff game. He was everywhere on special teams, both on kick-off and return duties. He also had the fumble recovery inside the Jags five yard line to keep alive the Pats second TD drive. Hats off to him for making the most of a lesser role while Quincy Morgan and Dennis Northcutt get ready to work the midnight-8am shift at a Mobil station outside of Cleveland.

-Funny how two months can make such a difference. When the Colts steamrolled the Pats in early November, there was talk of how Peyton had officially surpassed Brady as the better QB, while Manning & his Gal Pals had finally gotten Belichick out of their heads. Brady and Belichick were left out in the cold, forced to satisfy themselves. Fast forward two months and suddenly Al Michaels, John Madden, Sean Salisbury (from here on out known as Blondie McDouche), Chris Berman, and everyone else are warning the Colts to look out for the Pats, and jerking off Brady and Belichick in the process. Brady and Belichick went from the lamest circle jerk ever to the worst case of media induced Blue Balls this side of Jesus Favre.

-I know I alluded to it above, but sports journalism/broadcasting could not be more atrocious or fickle right now. Almost every scribe and talking head, specifically Woody Paige, Skip Bayless, Randy Cross, Paul Maguire, Mike Patrick, Jay Mariotti, Tim Cowlishaw, Bill Plashcke, Dan Lebatard, and PTI, could not be more out of touch with sports. These are professionals who get paid damn good money, yet their arguments are usually completely insane and backed up with statistics that everyone in the country also just read off of ESPN.com. Here is an actual quote from Paul Maguire from the Redskins-Bucs wild card game:

"Chris Simms just threw that ball as well as anyone in the history of the game." Yeah, that Chris Simms. The one who threw for 198 yards and 2 INT's in the game. Oh, and he was commenting on an incomplete pass. But other than the fact that it was incomplete and Simms failed to convert a 4th down on the very next play, the play vaults Simms to the top of the all-time greats list. I almost forgot:: Simms failed to lead his team to victory in a game when his defense held the Redskins to 122 total yards of offense. MEMO to Canton: Start making the Chris Simms bust today. Just make sure you include the Paul Maguire splouge right above his upper lip.

It is as if someone has taken their souls and replaced them with expensive suits and hair gel. I honestly cannot remember anything that ever has made me as pissed as sports journalists/broadcasters. To paraphrase Scrubs, Sports journalism honest-to-God makes me so angry, I'm afraid I'm going to hurt myself.

-Yeah, Vince Young played ridiculous on Wednesday night, but why are people so quick to make him a star in the NFL. Have we learned nothing from Michael Vick and Aaron Brooks? Running QB's produce great highlights and the occasional big play, but more often than not their teams struggle in the postseason while pocket passers like Brady and Manning continuously battle for Super Bowl berths and MVP's on a year in-year out basis. So before we annoint Young as the next big thing, let's give him time to rise to Vick's overhyped level of mediocrity, while we wait for Vick to one day rise to Randall Cunningham's level.

-I just realized tonight the dangerous circle SNL is caught up in: I tuned in for a repeat of the Eva Longoria/Korn episode, and the opening was so unfunny I changed it after 90 seconds. SNL has to be really painful for me to change it, and yet tonight is not the first time this season it has happened. So here is the problem: How will people know if SNL is getting better if they are always in a rush to change it? The good news is that I do not think we are in immediate danger of the show improving, so we should not have to face the problem. Anyways, I promise to address this in more detail in my SNL post, which I can almost guarantee will be done this week.


Now if you excuse me, I have to go watch the end of My Blue Heaven, a movie that is as good as any in the history of cinema.

(Suck on that Paul Maguire)

Chronic Procrastinator

Ok, as you can no doubt tell, I have yet to post anything since my return on Friday. While I could refer you back to my inaugural post in July and not explain myself, I have too much respect for my loyal reader(s). It is no secret that diligence is not a virtue I possess, and it is why I reserved the right from the beginning to go days, weeks, or five months between postings. However, if I expect people to take this seriously and read my entries on a regular basis I know my frequency must be slightly better than once every five months. I must take responsibility for myself not only as an aspiring writer, but as a person. No more hiding behind my past procrastination problems. No more blatantly planned alliteration. From now on, the buck stops here.

But the reason for no posts really is not my fault. You see, I have been planning this great, massive post entitiled "How I Would Fix Saturday Night Live If I Were Put In Charge." I know it is not the snazziest title, but I thought it sounded better than "The Only Way To Make This Decaying Piece of Shit Worse Is to Replace The Actors with Decaying Pieces of Shit...And Some Ass Shots of Tina Fey." Also, "The Land Before Time II" was taken as well. A piece of this magnitude, however, requires thought, planning, and more than 15 minutes of dedication a day. Now, I know you are all thinking my past procrastination problems are again a problem as they continue to pop-up and play havoc with my postings and I am passing the blame on to other people. (spontaneous alliteration, I promise).

But it is not like that. I swear, I changed, baby. You see, I got the idea so late on Friday night, I knew it would be impossible to finish before I would have to go to bed. Saturday and Sunday were New Year's Eve & New Year's D ay, which meant planning, consumption, and recovery. Monday and Tuesday meant bowl games, snow keeping everyone indoors and on the computer, and frequent naps interrupted by periods of not showering. Plus, as you may know, I watched 46 episodes of Scrubs in 10 days, 15 of which I watched for a second time. All this activity and refusal to shower left precious little time to sit at the computer, put time and effort in on my writing, and pretend to stay off Facebook for more than 11 seconds...

BUT to blame all this as the reason for my unsuccessful attempts at writing my post, "The Land Before Ti- er,
I mean (abbreviated and say it with me), "TOWTMTDPOSWITRTAWDPOS...ASAOTF", would be silly. It would be wrong. It would be the old me. So after nighttime, the calendar, alcohol, alcohol, sleep, alcohol, college football, not showering, snow, my parents, Scrubs, a nice, hot, long not taking a shower, Facebook, images of Sarah Chalke in my head, and amateur porn pages, I take full responsibility for my failure to post "TOWTMTDPOSWITRTAWDPOS...ASAOTF" in a timely and professional manner. Like I said, the buck stops here. So barring any more interference from Sarah Chalke, I promise to have my SNL Improvement done by the end week faster than you can say "TOWTMTDPOSWITRTAWDPOS...ASAOTF".

Not only will I have the piece done, but I will be explaining what I hope will become a regular feature that was inspired by my good friend and fellow lazy aspiring writer, Jason Abbruzzese. You can trust Jason. He showers regularly and in the early 1970's he spent 72 excrutiating hours on Martha's Vineyard with James Taylor, smoking Hash and shaving Taylor's head until he saw both Fire...and Rain. So you know when this guy has an idea, it is the goods.

Now, if you excuse me, I have episodes of Scrubs to re-watch and a nice hot bath to sit next to.