Vince Young And Me: A Timeline

January 2006: Vince puts on a show at the Rose Bowl- probably the most entertaining college football game I've ever watched. But I'm not entirely convinced; Bergman and I get into a spirited debate (story for another time- it's probably my favorite blackout story ever) over who will have the better pro career through five years: Bergman takes VY, and I take Matt Leinart. Turns out they both completely sucked, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

April 2006: VY is drafted by my favorite team, the Tennesee Titans. The bet is called off, since I can't be betting against the future success of my team's QB. I begin the process of talking myself into Vince as an NFL quarterback.

November 2006: VY gets his first chance and immediately produces. Exciting runs, breathtaking comebacks....I couldn't be more on the bandwagon. Heading into the offseason, optimism abounds.

September 2007: More of the same. VY starts out the season fantastic, and is quickly becoming my favorite player.

November-December 2007: The first signs that maybe VY isn't such a great QB appear. Erratic throws, questionable decisions, pouting on the sidelines....when Tennessee is unceremoniously bounced in the 1st round of the playoffs, I start to doubt the future a little bit.

September 2008: The wheels officially come off the bandwagon. VY gets booed, injured, benched, and is on suicide watch, all in a span of about 30 hours- although the exact details of that "suicide watch" continue to be elusive. After everything that has happened since, I kinda believe it now. There's no time to be too upset, though: Kerry Collins comes in and leads Tennessee to the #1 seed in the AFC....although Tennessee fails to win a playoff game for the second year in a row.

October 2009: After Tennessee starts 0-6, the owner orders VY to be put back in the starting lineup. He responds by going 8-2 the rest the year, and with Chris Johnson establishing himself as one of the best running backs in the league, I find myself climbing back on the Vince Young bandwagon. I keep my toesies dangling off the edge this time, though.

Summer of 2010: Magazine articles, news pieces, Vince Young finally has his head screwed on straight, this is the year he puts it all together, blah blah blah.

November 2010: VY gets booed, injured, benched, throws his pads into the stands, and storms out of the locker room, all in a span of about three hours. Also, while stomping out of the locker room, he screams at Coach Fisher: "I'm not walking out on the team! I'm walking out on YOU!" Are you fucking kidding me, Vince? Is this an episode of Friday Night Lights? Go the fuck home, you puss.


So that's where we are now. Not only am I off the Vince Young bandwagon forever, he now joins the exclusive club of all-time athletes from my favorite teams that I actively hate. Not just get annoyed with from time to time (Sherron Collins, JD Drew, Ernest Givins) but HATE. The only KU player I've ever hated was Eric Chenowith, whose basketball career was Benjamin Button-esque. Tyshawn Taylor was REAL close to joining him last year, but now he's kinda turned it around. For the Red Sox, Mark Bellhorn and Julio Lugo take the honors. And VY becomes the first Titan I've ever hated with a passion.

So in summation: eff you, Vince Young. You are dead to me.

Four Loko- Not So Loco

Had my first Four Loko on Saturday during tailgating. I was supremely disappointed. As expected, it tasted like poison, but despite having five beers before it, and somewhere in the double digits after it, I wasn't that fucked up. From the stories I had been hearing, I prepared myself for some serious shenanigans, but I really didn't notice that much of a difference in my buzz. I didn't do or say anything particularly ridiculous either. (For comparison, the last time I tailgated, I a) told my roommate's dad that if I ever slept with his daughter, I would give him a high-five- but I hadn't yet, so I was just going to shake his hand; and b) told another friend's mom that gambling on the Chiefs is like banging a fat girl: it seems like an OK idea at the time, but you don't tell any of your friends, and afterward you swear it will never happen again. I guess my parent filter was broken that day.

So as of Monday, Four Loko has been officially banned in the state of Kansas, but I can't say I see what the big deal is. College kids these days are just pussies if they are passing out and dying from that stuff.

I used this picture of this random guy that came up when I googled Four Loko only because he looks exactly like one of my cousins from Baltimore. In fact, if somebody told me it was him, I'd probably believe them. When we were growing up, we got along great and always looked forward to visiting each other. We traded baseball cards, played video games, played hot box and had infield practice, etc. etc. Now, um, we don't have very much in common. He routinely takes apart and rebuilds cars...I just learned how to operate my emergency brake last week. Also, there's nothing wrong with ZZ Top, per se...I could just never grow one of those beards with any success. We'll always have our childhood friendship, though.

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Hey, did you hear The Miz is the champion of the WWE? I don't watch wrestling or The Real World anymore, but I still think this is awesome. The Real World: New York season that The Miz was on was one of the last that I watched, and really for only two reasons: The Miz being awesome, and Coral's gigantic boobs (three reasons?) So kudos to you, Miz, you finally made it.

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For the first time since I moved down to Lawrence, my parents will be coming down for Thanksgiving, instead of me driving up. And of course the weather is gonna be dicey, so now the potential exists for them to not make it down in time. The only plus side to that is I would have my first ever Thanksgiving dinner with friends instead of family, or as Brother and I call it, a Beverly Hills 90210 holiday. We always loved how as soon as Jim and Cindy Walsh moved to Hong Kong, the gang didn't miss a beat, and everyone would just come over to Casa Walsh and have dinner together. Jim and Cindy never came back to visit once for the holidays. Merry Christmas, kids! See you next time we run short on storylines!

Have a good Thanksgiving weekend. This year, I'm most thankful for the KU baskeball ticket scandal finally being blown open, which resulted in an abundance of season ticket packages that previously were being stolen by the ticket department now being available this year, which resulted in me becoming a half-season ticket holder. It's the little things, you know?

This Almost Got Me

One question IQ test:

There is a mute who wants to buy a toothbrush. By imitating the action of brushing one’s teeth, he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done.

Now, if there is a blind man who wishes to buy a pair of sunglasses, how should he express himself?

It took me longer than necessary to figure that out.

Two other random thoughts- it's Friday and I don't have anything else:

- You know what drives me nuts about TV shows and movies, that I just realized last night? All the characters that wear their watch on their right wrist. There's NO way that many people are lefties. That's a rookie move, if they are actually wearing their watch on their dominant hand. I can't get on board with that.

- Social Network kicked ass. The only time I can remember off the top of my head that the movie was wayyyy better than the book. I'm sure there are others, I just can't think right now (like I said, it's Friday.) Maybe Jurassic Park? Hurray For Hineywood?

- Now tangenting: Hurray For Hineywood was my first ever porno. Like so many other firsts in my young adulthood, in happened in Dunph's basement (WOW that sounds awful, but I'mma roll with it.) First alcholic drink- a teeny tiny bit of Everclear mixed with like 24 ounces of lemonade, and it was still disgusting; first chew; first time getting a Super Nintendo controller whipped at my face. My first cigarette was experienced elsewhere, however.

I think everyone should remember the title of their first porn. We were discussing this last weekend, and I was surprised at how many people didn't remember their first. It's an important moment in a young man's life (or young woman's life- HOT.) How many of you remember your first?

Slam Bam Jam

College basketball is finally back!

- After last year's first round debacle, add Northern Iowa to the list of teams that my friends like, and I would love to support, but now am obligated to hate. (Duke does NOT fall into this category. I've hated them almost since the day I started following college basketball, and if you are a Duke fan you have no soul.) I have a lot of North Carolina friends. I kinda enjoyed UNC as a kid; they always had cool players- Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse, Vince Carter before he became a money-stealing pussy, Shammond Williams, etc. etc. Then Ol' Roy left KU for Carolina. Sorry Fundy and others, but I have to hate them now. Ditto Kentucky, I usually enjoyed their teams back in the day, then they hired the Antichrist Calipari, now I have to hate them on principle. I never hated Syracuse until they beat KU in the title game (although Jim Boeheim is becoming quite the little bitch the older he gets; I have a feeling I'd hate them now anyways.) And now Northern Iowa. I always supported Jonye's team in the past, even cheering for the little guys sometimes, since they were a mid-major. Now, fuck that.

- Here's the silver lining I'm taking from the UNI loss last year: Now I can be absolutely diehard about a championship again. After winning in 2008, then being the best team in the country and #1 overall seed going into the tourney just two years later, I felt just a tad bit guilty (most of that guilt went away during Selection Sunday, when KU got fucked in their bracket while Duke got to walk to the Final Four.) Two championships in three years would've left me feeling spoiled. But adding another early-round exit as a high seed got me thinking. Besides the championship year, here's what I've lived through as a Jayhawk fan:

- 1991: lost championship game to hated Duke
- 1992: lost in second round as a #1 seed
- 1997: lost in Sweet 16 as #1 overall seed
- 1998: lost in second round as a #1 seed
- 2002: lost in Final Four (which led to a rule change that started seeding the #1 seeds so the two best teams couldn't play before the championship, shocker that KU got fucked by that lack of a rule)
- 2003: lost in championship game by 3 points
- 2005: lost in 1st round as a #3 seed
- 2006: lost in 1st round as a #4 seed
- 2007: lost in Elite 8 (when they had to play UCLA in San Jose, even though KU was the #1 seed, are you kidding me?)
- 2010: lost in second round as #1 overall seed

So the edge is back. My game face is on.


Non-KU thoughts:

- There is a HUGE gap between Duke & Michigan St. and everyone else. Not quite North Carolina in 2008-2009 situation, but damn close. Those two teams are stacked. Like Jennifer Love-Hewitt in 1999 stacked. Kansas St. is a solid top-10 or 15 team, but look horrid ranked #3. Ditto KU at #7. They've got a loooong way to go before I believe they'll make the Elite 8. If you make me pick a team to go all the way, as of today, that isn't Duke or Michigan St., I'm going with Ohio St. They lost Evan Turner and might be even better this year. Fo' serious.

- Normally I'd be doing a dance and laughing about how Calipari's latest recruit, Enes Kanter, was deemed ineligible for the entire year (at least we knew in advance that this one had accepted money) but with Josh Selby not cleared to play yet for KU, I figure it would be bad karma.

- Get Pittsburgh and Villanova out of the top 10. Those two teams are horribly overrated, and I will spend the winter and spring making money gambling against them. I still need to find my team that I think is much better than Vegas does, so I can load up early and often on them before the lines catch up. Two years ago it was Oklahoma, last year it was West Virginia. That spot is still open as of now. Minnesota? Arizona?

- Either this is a really down year in college ball, or Harrison Barnes is gonna be really good and I can't see it yet. How he makes the preseason All-American first team, when not even John Wall, Kevin Durant, Greg Oden, or any freshman EVER was good enough, is beyond me. Maybe I'm just bitter because he grew up only three hours from Lawrence, and Coach Self couldn't get him to go to KU. (Also, don't tell anybody, but Marcus Morris might be really, really good this year. Maybe even good enough to take Barnes' spot on the first team after the season. Shhhhhh.)

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In non-college bball-related news, I am officially an idiot. Instead of just letting Lane and Jud's joke run its course, I had to blog about it, which opened the door for a bunch of other friends to start in on the "sorry about your illness" shenanigans. My facebook wall is in shambles. To quote Ricky Gervais in Night at the Museum, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice....take it or leave it."

Freeeeee Selby!

Pourin' Like An Avalanche Comin' Down A Mountain

>> The latest song to infiltrate and subsequently dominate my brain: a bluegrass version of 'Jump' by Van Halen. When I first heard it in a bar a few weeks ago, I was instantly smitten, and went straight home to download it that night. Then, after I listened to it up close a few times, I was vascillating between "This is the best song I've heard all year" and "This is the most gawd-awful piece of shit song EVER." Now I am solidly on board. This song is awesome. Although I think it could possibly be better as an instrumental, if David Lee Roth wasn't doing his David Lee Roth thing and David Lee Rothing it all up. Either way, one of my favorite songs of 2010.


>> It's been well documented that my friends are dicks. No real surprises there. Currently, Jud and Lane are spearheading a crusade to fill up my Facebook wall with messages implying that something is seriously wrong with my health- because they think it's funny when people take those seriously and comment with things like ''OMG! Are you OK? What happened?'' And even though virtually nobody is joining in on the joke, they haven't given up yet. Just the latest example in a long line of dickish moves.

So when I received a package in the mail from Morley the other day, I was instantly skeptical. I was still a bit wary from the last time I received a package from a friend, and my roommate and I spent a solid ten minutes analyzing the box, trying to determine if it was an Ice or some other kind of prank. When I opened it and saw it was a framed picture of us at the Chiefs game from when he and Fundy visited in September, I was just like "Oh. That's unexpected."

Moral of the story: if I'm surprised when a friend gives me an actual present in the mail, it might be time for new friends.


Later Skaters. Have a good weekend. Free Selby!

Uncy Aaron: Best Basketball Coach Ever

High school basketball had its ups and downs for me. While I love the sport of basketball, and still play a couple times a week, practicing and having to answer to a coach was just never for me (a microcosm of my entire life, if there ever was one.) As a result, I quit after Sophomore year. One of the biggest memories of my short-lived high school basketball career was our coach, affectionately called Uncy Aaron because, as an older brother of one of our friends, we had known him since we were just little tykes. His rants/biting comments were the stuff of legend. Here are some of my favorites:

- One member of the team who shall remain nameless (it was much easier four years ago, when only like 20 people read this blog and I could throw around real names like it was no big deal- although I doubt this guy would be that pissed, he had to know he wasn't exactly Reggie Miller out there) was an absolutely horrible shooter, yet still put up his fair share of jump shots. When it invariably missed, he had a habit of staring at his hands in disbelief as he went back down the court on defense. Needless to say, he was a favorite target of Uncy Aaron. When he was getting pulled from the game after another airball, and was on his way to the bench and had to walk past the coaches, I practically held my breath and did everything short of pull out a tape recorder in anticipation of these gems:

"Hey! When you woke up this morning, did someone tell you that you were a good shooter? No? Then QUIT SHOOTING!"

"Oh, I get it, it's your hands' fault you missed that one?!?! Hey don't worry, just grab a new pair and I'm sure you'll get rim on the next one...."

"You wanna stare at your hands some more?!? Go to the end of the bench and bury your face in them, I'm sure you'll get a great look!"

12 years later, I still use the "When you woke up this morning, did someone tell you _____?" line, it's one of my all-time favorites. I just used it the other day, which was the impetus for writing this post.


- Freshman and Sophomore year, most of my friends and I fell in love with wrestling again, during its big comeback, with nWo and Sting and all that crap. Admittedly, we were pretty ridiculous. We always had around 15 minutes or so before practice to shoot around and screw off, so we would have three-point shooting contests and stuff like that. Except that the winner became the "Heavyweight Champion", and in order to "challenge" him to a "title match", you had to win your "challenger matches" or win the "Battle Royal" or some other wrestling shenanigan. Suffice it to say that Uncy Aaron wasn't a part of the wrestling craze this time around, and let us know that fact every chance he got. Usually by walking into the gym and beginning practice by yelling "All right, quit with your tag-team matches or whatever you idiots are doing! God you guys are dumb. Shouldn't you be out trying to get laid instead of watching wrestling?"

One time during the first half of a game, Carson was driving the lane, so Lane cleared out of his spot on the low block, letting his man step in and block Carson's layup. At halftime, Uncy Aaron wasn't pleased:

Uncy Aaron: What WAS that, Lane? Why would you just move out of the way instead of setting a screen or something?

Lane: Well, I was just trying to get out-

Uncy Aaron, getting progressively louder and more annoyed: Trying to get out of his way WHY, Lane? So he didn't catch a turnbuckle? Is this wrestling, Lane?!? Is this the nWo, Laaane?!?! ARE YOU HOLLYWOOD HOGAN, LAAAAAANE??!?!?!

Lane: .........(speechless for probably the only time in his entire life)

That outburst, particularly the line "catch a turnbuckle", was probably the funniest thing I heard during the entire calendar year of 1998. It made absolutely NO sense at the time, and even less the more you replay it in your head. You just know Uncy Aaron had been gearing up for an anti-wrestling rant, and that play was the excuse to do it. And that was pretty much the end of our wrestling-themed, pre-practice, three-point shootouts.


- This one is part Uncy Aaron, part Brooksy. We're playing crosstown rival Central, the "poor" school in town, as opposed to us being the "rich" school in town. While it's true that more people have money at Red River than Central, there are still plenty of families at Central that make more money than I'll ever dream of. We're not talking about the Greasers and the Socs here, Ponyboy.

So Uncy Aaron is giving us this impassioned pregame speech to fire us up, stuff like "they're from the wrong side of the tracks" and "they've had to work for everything to get where they are" and "their whole season hinges on beating you guys, because they resent everything that you guys and your families are about".....just hilarious stuff. Like we're from Beverly Hills, and we're on our way to play a road game in Compton or something. So most of us are just trying to keep from laughing, when he asks the question "Seriously, have you guys ever had to work for a single thing in your entire lives?!?!"

Brooksy, god bless him, raises his hand and answers the (obviously rhetorical) question in his most solemn tone: "Well, Coach, my family used to live in a trailer when I was a little kid."

It was at that point that the entire team busted into hysterics and Aaron dismissed us from the locker room. But apparently something worked; we beat Central by 30 that night. Probably because their families couldn't afford to buy them nice enough basketball shoes or something.

Reminder

We are now squarely in the time of year wherein I am reminded how much of a pussy I am. A huge percentage of my friends are taking work off today to go shoot animals. My friends that, while driving and happen to notice a flock of geese flying, aim an imaginary gun out the window and open fire on them. My friends that talk about flushing birds, tree stands, thirty-point bucks (don't get me started on that annoying song) etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, here is the complete list of guns that I have fired in my lifetime:

1. The gun from Duck Hunt- and I usually had to cheat and put the gun directly on the screen in order to hit any of those effing ducks. Yes, I was that guy. And fuck that dog that laughs at you, while we're at it. If I'm gonna hunt anything in my life, it's gonna be him.

2. A lasertag gun- and I was always pretty awful at that, but it worked in my advantage because getting shot by a lady was an excellent flirting tool, and those lasertag trips were all about hitting on the cute girls in our Wednesday night church group anyway. Also, the lasertag setup at the Air Force Base was sneaky good- it was sorta like the Complex multiplayer level of Goldeneye for N64. Damn, anyone wanna play lasertag right now?

3. The gun from Big Buck Hunter. I had always boycotted this barcade game (See what I did there? Combined bar and arcade to make barcade?) since in North Dakota, the popularity of this game is the main culprit for the removal of multiple Golden Tee machines in local bars. I finally broke the boycott and played....and got repeatedly trounced by a friend of mine, who also happens to be a girl. There's a common theme here somewhere.

4. A BB gun that looked EXACTLY like a real glock, that was given to me by some ruffians in elementary school (I hung out with EVERYONE in elementary school at one point or another. Grab a yearbook for Ben Franklin from 1989-1994, point to a random kid, and I've probably been to their house. Cool kids, nerds, hoodlums, everybody. I was a friend slut.) I hung out with these kids for a few days, we committed some petty elementary school-level crimes, and we never talked again. That is, until one day a few years later, when these two showed up at my front door looking shifty-eyed and asking if I had still had the gun. I returned it to them, then was unsurprised when I read a newspaper article the next morning that reported two youths had robbed a gas station (that just happened to be less than a block from where these guys lived.) They got away with it, as far as I know.

And that, my friends, is the list.

I'm sure that this weekend my dad, besides hunting and bonding with my brother, is also commemorating "If I Had Known How He Was Gonna Turn Out, I Might As Well Have Had a Daughter" weekend. I would send him a card, but Hallmark doesn't seem to have much for this occasion.

If my plan was to drag myself outside at the crack of dawn in the freezing cold to sit around for hours on end just for the opportunity to shoot at a living thing, I would just go ahead and end it right there. I'll stay inside, thanks. I've got beer in the fridge, and I'm balls deep in the Forest of Illusion for Super Mario World right now. But get out there and kill some deer for me, you know how much I love to eat venison.

Never Again

I just need to put this writing, because I need something to keep me from relapsing (again.) So consider this a contract with myself. I will never, ever ever ever ever ever EVER, gamble on a team quarterbacked by Donovan McNabb again. He represents the hot-yet-batshit crazy girl that I can't stop hooking up with even though I know it will end badly, so now I'm finally deleting her phone number and changing my email address. Never again, Donovan. NEVER again.