With A&M's imminent move to the SEC (yes, it's still happening, and probably quite soon), many people have been trying to convince Aggies that it's a horrible idea based on the supposed fact that A&M will get routinely wailed on when playing against the big, bad SEC schools. According to these people, some of which are even Aggies, your basic SEC football team is roughly equivalent to an NFL wild-card team, and at best, A&M will have to hope for 6 wins a year. So, is there any truth to that? Is A&M destined to be middle-of-the-pack at best?
In a word, no. I'll keep this fairly brief, but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that A&M won't be able to compete at the highest level. "But Tuna," you may say, "look at how bad A&M was for the last ten years! Look at how Texas dominated you, and how all the SEC schools have abused you!" And I can't deny those facts. The problem is, people that think that our 2005 results have any bearing on our 2012 results are not using logic. Yes, A&M had a bad decade. Kind of like how OU and Texas also endured before going on their respective runs. Does one down period define a program? No.
You see, being able to look back on things, there are very clear reasons why A&M had a bad decade. It boils down to two things: a bad athletic director and a bad coaching hire. The athletic director during the successful Slocum era was Wally Groff, and his major problem was that in the '90s, he thought we would just continue our success indefinitely because of our past success, and he neglected the very important aspect of facilities. Long story short, our facilities fell so far behind the likes of Texas, OU and others that RC could no longer recruit. That led to his teams getting gradually worse until he was eventually fired.
They hired Dennis Franchione. Seemed like a great hire at the time. We were all excited. I remember going up to meet Coach Fran at a basketball game the spring he was hired, wishing him well and telling him we were excited to have him. Well, turns out that for whatever reason, he was an awful fit here and darn near decimated the A&M football program. People are just now starting to realize how much he set A&M back.
Those two things caused major problems for A&M football. In the meantime, the same year Fran came, new athletic director Bill Byrne came from Nebraska. He helped with getting our facilities back on par with other schools (step 1), and, after firing Fran, hired what is turning out to be a good coach in Mike Sherman (step 2), and lo and behold, A&M is recruiting lights out and winning games again.
So as this relates to the SEC, it's simple. People who say we can't compete seem to always bring up the last ten years, as if the last ten years are what defines A&M football. People seem to think that we are the Longhorns pathetic little friend who just can't compete with them (never mind the fact that even with this last decade, A&M is still up 19-18 on Texas since scholarship limits were imposed in 1973, including 18-17 in the last 35, 13-12 in the last 25, and 3-2 in the last 5) and that we are sending the Fran program to the SEC.
The fact is, the program we're sending to the SEC is the program that finished in the top 25 last year and is currently ranked in the top 10 this year. The program that has a very, very good chance of putting its starting quarterback, running back, and wide receiver in the first round of the NFL draft next spring (I'm curious how many times that's been done before). The program that just produced the #2 pick in the NFL draft this past year. The program that has had two straight very good recruiting classes to fill in behind those guys and that has already starting building an early top 10 recruiting class for both 2012 and 2013.
Will it be difficult? Yes. I am not arguing the fact that the SEC is the best conference in America, and that there will be more tough games and fewer easy wins. But is there any reason A&M can't do exactly what LSU does? No. People WAY overstate just how good the SEC is. Yes, they're the best, but it's not like they're unbeatable.
And here's another reason A&M should be competitive. I'm not the first to say this, but being the only SEC school in Texas will pay huge dividends for A&M's recruiting. Texas will always get good players and always have something to sell, whether it's a network or eventual independence or whatever, but moving to the SEC will give A&M something unique to sell to Texas kids as opposed to just trying to be nice guys or something. We can tell the kids that yes, you can play in the premiere conference in America while still staying in Texas. A&M is in one of the three (or four or five depending on if you include Ohio and Pennsylvania) recruiting hotbeds in America. We already are recruiting lights out. You add the SEC to our sales pitch, and there's no reason we won't have top 10 recruiting classes every year.
So in summary, and this is something I've sort of said already but is really my main answer to the "can we compete" question, people need to realize that A&M is a top 10 program right now. At least according to the polls. Only 2 SEC schools are ranked ahead of A&M. Why on earth would a top 10 team not be able to compete? And last I checked, if/when we go, we're going to go ahead and send our current team of future NFL players.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
SEC update
Wow, what a crazy week! And we're just getting started.
Basically, everything is still happening as far as "A&M to the SEC" is concerned, but with a few new twists. I had originally written that I thought maybe the 8/22 BOR meeting would be a critical date. Well, after writing that, things sped up in a hurry. A&M basically decided to make their move, and they announced a special BOR meeting for today, 8/15. That will happen later this afternoon.
But to quickly go over what happened over the weekend, it appeared that today's BOR meeting was going to be for the purpose of announcing a done deal. The SEC presidents had a meeting scheduled for yesterday, and many people assumed that it was a meeting to officially approve A&M as a new member.
Well, in the meantime, ESPN, who happens to be partners on a $300 million deal with the University of Texas, spent all of last week both denying the story and flat out spreading false information about the story in an effort to squash the deal. UT, ever the spoiled brat, hired a p.r. firm to launch a smear campaign against A&M and, began exerting political threats and pressure towards A&M, and, with ESPN's help, planted some false stories designed to put doubts into the heads of the few remaining people who could supposedly stop the deal. One of those stories was regarding the issue of the 14th team (the other team the SEC would supposedly add to keep an even number). In reality, this is not and was not ever an issue for the SEC, as they are prepared to spend a year with only 13 teams, but throwing this diversionary story out there proved to be effective for a short time, as it dragged other schools into the story and created the perception that not only was the A&M invitation conditional on other factors (false), that this move was the beginning of an immediate and massive shift for the worse in conference realignment (false).
Another interesting thing to watch on Saturday was the all-out hatchet job done on A&M by almost every single on-air personality that ESPN has. If they were on t.v., radio, or Twitter, the message was the same: A&M was greedy, jealous, delusional, and oh by the way, would be a perennial loser in the SEC. It was truly stunning to watch such a coordinated effort. I personally listened to ESPN Radio for a good portion of the morning, watched some t.v. coverage that night, and read every single Twitter post about the issue along with catching up on what I missed by reading Texags.com as they had running tallies of the carnage. ESPN has clearly said goodbye to any and all journalistic credibility they had. Sure, they have their place in the sports world and I will continue to watch them (don't have much of a choice), but people need to know that what they do is not impartial. They are doing editorials, not news. They are "covering" a story that they are literally part of. Massive conflict of interest there.
So anyway, getting back to what happened and what's going to happen, it had appeared that things were all set, and many people expected the SEC to be meeting with the purpose of approving A&M. Then, somewhat out of the blue, the SEC released a statement saying that they are happy with 12 teams, they did not discuss any particular schools, but that if future conditions change, they might still expand. Well once again, the media (especially ESPN) showed no restraint in gleefully reporting that the SEC had "snubbed" A&M, that it was a done deal, that those dumb Aggies didn't even have an invitation! They mocked Texas A&M for the whole afternoon, even writing articles that likened A&M to the high school kid with a crush on a girl who doesn't like him (http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=6862753) and other sassy articles. Their headline right now even still says "SEC satisfied with alignment; no A&M invite ". Well, the only problem with that headline is that it is totally misleading.
What happened at the SEC meeting, and what a few responsible journalists thankfully reported, was that they met and had a conference call with some attorneys to make sure they aren't breaking any laws (the term "tortuous interference" has been thrown around a million times in the last week) and to protect themselves from a lawsuit. They then released the very carefully worded statement to let people know, on the record, that they are not approaching A&M. Does that mean they don't want A&M? Not remotely. It just means that technically, A&M needs to approach the SEC. And that's where today's BOR meeting for A&M comes in. If they were really saying that they weren't expanding and/or that Texas A&M was not going to be a part of their conference, trust me, they would have worded that statement a LOT differently. Essentially, the SEC was saying that you can't get re-married until you divorce. And that's fine, and A&m knew that going in.
After the supposedly stunning announcement from the SEC, A&M President Loftin released a statement not long after (hmm... almost like he knew exactly what was going to happen...) indicating that the BOR meeting is still on, and that the point of the meeting is still to give him the authority to leave the Big 12, which A&M will be doing. And again, if the deal were really dead, trust me, Loftin would have worded his statement a LOT differently.
Long story short, once A&M leaves, the SEC will (surprise!) welcome A&M with open arms. And a LOT of "journalists" will have a lot of egg on their faces. People in the know don't seem to know exactly when the deal will be official, but it could be as early as Wednesday or it could take a couple more weeks still.
Another thing to keep in mind with all of this, and it's another reason for my confidence that the deal will be done shortly, is that Mike Slive (SEC commissioner), Loftin, and all the people associated with them including their fellow advisors, decision makers and attorneys, these guys are not stupid. Considering the fact that this move almost happened last year, there is a zero percent chance that both sides have not considered all of these issues ahead of time. ZERO. Both sides knew exactly what legal risks were involved. Both sides knew exactly what kind of pettiness to expect from the University of Texas. Both sides knew of the risks with how things could be portrayed in the media, and knowing all that, have been very specific with what they've done, when they've done it, how they've done it, and what they've said about it and who they've said it to. The timing of everything has been orchestrated, and they are not surprised by anything that's happened.
There are a ton of other sides to this story that hopefully I'll get a chance to talk about, including more on the incredibly bad reporting on this story and the issue of whether or not A&M can compete in the big, bad SEC. And I really could go on for thousands of words about the stuff I just wrote briefly about, but it's hard to decide which parts to drone on about and how much detail to go into.
Most of my info has come from Billy Liucci of Texags.com (he's been far and away the most accurate and timely of all the reporters covering the story), a cross section of all the major national and state reporters who cover college football, the message boards at texags.com and my own little brain.
Basically, everything is still happening as far as "A&M to the SEC" is concerned, but with a few new twists. I had originally written that I thought maybe the 8/22 BOR meeting would be a critical date. Well, after writing that, things sped up in a hurry. A&M basically decided to make their move, and they announced a special BOR meeting for today, 8/15. That will happen later this afternoon.
But to quickly go over what happened over the weekend, it appeared that today's BOR meeting was going to be for the purpose of announcing a done deal. The SEC presidents had a meeting scheduled for yesterday, and many people assumed that it was a meeting to officially approve A&M as a new member.
Well, in the meantime, ESPN, who happens to be partners on a $300 million deal with the University of Texas, spent all of last week both denying the story and flat out spreading false information about the story in an effort to squash the deal. UT, ever the spoiled brat, hired a p.r. firm to launch a smear campaign against A&M and, began exerting political threats and pressure towards A&M, and, with ESPN's help, planted some false stories designed to put doubts into the heads of the few remaining people who could supposedly stop the deal. One of those stories was regarding the issue of the 14th team (the other team the SEC would supposedly add to keep an even number). In reality, this is not and was not ever an issue for the SEC, as they are prepared to spend a year with only 13 teams, but throwing this diversionary story out there proved to be effective for a short time, as it dragged other schools into the story and created the perception that not only was the A&M invitation conditional on other factors (false), that this move was the beginning of an immediate and massive shift for the worse in conference realignment (false).
Another interesting thing to watch on Saturday was the all-out hatchet job done on A&M by almost every single on-air personality that ESPN has. If they were on t.v., radio, or Twitter, the message was the same: A&M was greedy, jealous, delusional, and oh by the way, would be a perennial loser in the SEC. It was truly stunning to watch such a coordinated effort. I personally listened to ESPN Radio for a good portion of the morning, watched some t.v. coverage that night, and read every single Twitter post about the issue along with catching up on what I missed by reading Texags.com as they had running tallies of the carnage. ESPN has clearly said goodbye to any and all journalistic credibility they had. Sure, they have their place in the sports world and I will continue to watch them (don't have much of a choice), but people need to know that what they do is not impartial. They are doing editorials, not news. They are "covering" a story that they are literally part of. Massive conflict of interest there.
So anyway, getting back to what happened and what's going to happen, it had appeared that things were all set, and many people expected the SEC to be meeting with the purpose of approving A&M. Then, somewhat out of the blue, the SEC released a statement saying that they are happy with 12 teams, they did not discuss any particular schools, but that if future conditions change, they might still expand. Well once again, the media (especially ESPN) showed no restraint in gleefully reporting that the SEC had "snubbed" A&M, that it was a done deal, that those dumb Aggies didn't even have an invitation! They mocked Texas A&M for the whole afternoon, even writing articles that likened A&M to the high school kid with a crush on a girl who doesn't like him (http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=6862753) and other sassy articles. Their headline right now even still says "SEC satisfied with alignment; no A&M invite ". Well, the only problem with that headline is that it is totally misleading.
What happened at the SEC meeting, and what a few responsible journalists thankfully reported, was that they met and had a conference call with some attorneys to make sure they aren't breaking any laws (the term "tortuous interference" has been thrown around a million times in the last week) and to protect themselves from a lawsuit. They then released the very carefully worded statement to let people know, on the record, that they are not approaching A&M. Does that mean they don't want A&M? Not remotely. It just means that technically, A&M needs to approach the SEC. And that's where today's BOR meeting for A&M comes in. If they were really saying that they weren't expanding and/or that Texas A&M was not going to be a part of their conference, trust me, they would have worded that statement a LOT differently. Essentially, the SEC was saying that you can't get re-married until you divorce. And that's fine, and A&m knew that going in.
After the supposedly stunning announcement from the SEC, A&M President Loftin released a statement not long after (hmm... almost like he knew exactly what was going to happen...) indicating that the BOR meeting is still on, and that the point of the meeting is still to give him the authority to leave the Big 12, which A&M will be doing. And again, if the deal were really dead, trust me, Loftin would have worded his statement a LOT differently.
Long story short, once A&M leaves, the SEC will (surprise!) welcome A&M with open arms. And a LOT of "journalists" will have a lot of egg on their faces. People in the know don't seem to know exactly when the deal will be official, but it could be as early as Wednesday or it could take a couple more weeks still.
Another thing to keep in mind with all of this, and it's another reason for my confidence that the deal will be done shortly, is that Mike Slive (SEC commissioner), Loftin, and all the people associated with them including their fellow advisors, decision makers and attorneys, these guys are not stupid. Considering the fact that this move almost happened last year, there is a zero percent chance that both sides have not considered all of these issues ahead of time. ZERO. Both sides knew exactly what legal risks were involved. Both sides knew exactly what kind of pettiness to expect from the University of Texas. Both sides knew of the risks with how things could be portrayed in the media, and knowing all that, have been very specific with what they've done, when they've done it, how they've done it, and what they've said about it and who they've said it to. The timing of everything has been orchestrated, and they are not surprised by anything that's happened.
There are a ton of other sides to this story that hopefully I'll get a chance to talk about, including more on the incredibly bad reporting on this story and the issue of whether or not A&M can compete in the big, bad SEC. And I really could go on for thousands of words about the stuff I just wrote briefly about, but it's hard to decide which parts to drone on about and how much detail to go into.
Most of my info has come from Billy Liucci of Texags.com (he's been far and away the most accurate and timely of all the reporters covering the story), a cross section of all the major national and state reporters who cover college football, the message boards at texags.com and my own little brain.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
A&M to the SEC?
Yesterday was another one of those days where the internet (or "blogosphere," as dorks call it) went crazy with rumors that A&M was heading to the SEC and that it was a done deal. With Twitter being the new source of news these days, it's interesting to watch how quickly the fire spread, and then in the afternoon, people with different agendas worked to put the fires out. The question remains though, was yesterday significant? I think so.
First, a quick summary (Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.) of why A&M wants to leave. A&M almost left last year when the University of Texas basically destroyed the Big 12. A&M had an offer on the table to join the SEC at that point (despite what some misinformed national media members think), and almost went, but decided to stick with the Big 12 based on the new promises and contracts that were negotiated. A&M saved the Big 12. The media would have you believe it was Texas that did that, but that's laughable. Texas is the reason the Big 12 almost broke up last year and will certainly be breaking up in the next couple years (or sooner). And I'm not just saying that as an Aggie. The facts are all there. I don't have the time or energy to get into all of them here, but the fact remains, A&M saved the conference last yer, contingent on certain concessions from the conference and the school in Austin.
Well, months later, it was clear that Texas had no intention of honoring the promises they made. Most of these promises are related to the Longhorn Network, Texas' joint venture with ESPN. One of the issues involved the Longhorns' desire to broadcast high school football games on their network. A&M and a couple other schools immediately spoke up, pointing out that that is an unfair recruiting advantage. Texas made no secret about how they were using the network. Without coming right out and saying it, they were telling recruits that if they committed to play at UT, they (UT) would, in exchange, put their high school game on television. It's no coincidence that two of the first games announced by the Longhorns were to feature the respective high schools of Jonathan Gray and Malcom Brown.
Additionally, Texas went full speed ahead with their goals of broadcasting multiple football games on the LHN, despite the previous promises to only do one and despite the legal issues involved. The legal issues came out in much more detail when, earlier this week, the actual contract that Texas and ESPN signed was released and detailed on themidnightyell.blogspot.com.There wasn't anything too shocking in there, but what it did do was show that UT had been doing some public lying regarding their intentions, seeing as how they signed a contract that specifically detailed their intentions, and the intentions are quite broad and aggressive, much moreso than they had led everyone to believe.
The other issue with the LHN is that the contract they signed with ESPN directly undercuts the television contract that the Big 12 has, and by doing so, Texas has made it quite clear that they care about their interests first and foremost and really don't care at all about the Big 12. Long story short, the Big 12 absolutely will not last more than a few more years, even if A&M decided to stay and take whatever the Longhorns dish.
Thankfully, A&M appears to have finally decided that enough is enough. A&M does indeed still have a standing offer to join the SEC. Many media members seem to scoff at the notion, but they are wrong. Why am I so sure? The simple answer: Billy Liucci. Liucci is the man behind Texags.com, and is the insider of all insiders when it comes to Texas A&M. He has been the first to report basically every big new story out of College Station, whether it was coaching changes or facilities news or conference realignment. And here's why I think yesterday's rumor-fest was significant.
Liucci is usually very careful about what he says. His reputation is on the line when he is going up against the likes of Stewart Mandel and Ivan Maisel. If he's not sure of something, he won't stick his neck out there. Yet for the last couple weeks, Liucci has been dropping not-so-subtle hints about the future of A&M in the SEC. Then yesterday, he basically went all in, going on Twitter and Texags and multiple radio stations saying that, in essence, A&M is headed to the SEC, and that it could happen as soon as this month.
So the Texas A&M Board of Regents have a meeting scheduled on August 22nd. Will a decision be made then? I don't know, but I know that yesterday, Liucci said that he does not expect an announcement in the next 7-10 days, but he does think we'll hear something in the next month. Well that fits nicely with the timeline of August 22nd, now doesn't it?
Other unnamed sources that were quoted on Twitter all day yesterday said similar things. Rumors abounded that the deal is all but done and we are just waiting on a formal announcement, but won't hear it for a couple weeks.
So for now, there is so much smoke that I believe there is a major fire. Billy Liucci has gone public, even enduring some public mockery in the process, but even so, he reiterated just today that he is assuredly as plugged in as anyone else out there. I believe that we will hear some actual, concrete news sometime in the near future, and that at that point, we can look back to yesterday as the day that it first went down.
First, a quick summary (Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.) of why A&M wants to leave. A&M almost left last year when the University of Texas basically destroyed the Big 12. A&M had an offer on the table to join the SEC at that point (despite what some misinformed national media members think), and almost went, but decided to stick with the Big 12 based on the new promises and contracts that were negotiated. A&M saved the Big 12. The media would have you believe it was Texas that did that, but that's laughable. Texas is the reason the Big 12 almost broke up last year and will certainly be breaking up in the next couple years (or sooner). And I'm not just saying that as an Aggie. The facts are all there. I don't have the time or energy to get into all of them here, but the fact remains, A&M saved the conference last yer, contingent on certain concessions from the conference and the school in Austin.
Well, months later, it was clear that Texas had no intention of honoring the promises they made. Most of these promises are related to the Longhorn Network, Texas' joint venture with ESPN. One of the issues involved the Longhorns' desire to broadcast high school football games on their network. A&M and a couple other schools immediately spoke up, pointing out that that is an unfair recruiting advantage. Texas made no secret about how they were using the network. Without coming right out and saying it, they were telling recruits that if they committed to play at UT, they (UT) would, in exchange, put their high school game on television. It's no coincidence that two of the first games announced by the Longhorns were to feature the respective high schools of Jonathan Gray and Malcom Brown.
Additionally, Texas went full speed ahead with their goals of broadcasting multiple football games on the LHN, despite the previous promises to only do one and despite the legal issues involved. The legal issues came out in much more detail when, earlier this week, the actual contract that Texas and ESPN signed was released and detailed on themidnightyell.blogspot.com.There wasn't anything too shocking in there, but what it did do was show that UT had been doing some public lying regarding their intentions, seeing as how they signed a contract that specifically detailed their intentions, and the intentions are quite broad and aggressive, much moreso than they had led everyone to believe.
The other issue with the LHN is that the contract they signed with ESPN directly undercuts the television contract that the Big 12 has, and by doing so, Texas has made it quite clear that they care about their interests first and foremost and really don't care at all about the Big 12. Long story short, the Big 12 absolutely will not last more than a few more years, even if A&M decided to stay and take whatever the Longhorns dish.
Thankfully, A&M appears to have finally decided that enough is enough. A&M does indeed still have a standing offer to join the SEC. Many media members seem to scoff at the notion, but they are wrong. Why am I so sure? The simple answer: Billy Liucci. Liucci is the man behind Texags.com, and is the insider of all insiders when it comes to Texas A&M. He has been the first to report basically every big new story out of College Station, whether it was coaching changes or facilities news or conference realignment. And here's why I think yesterday's rumor-fest was significant.
Liucci is usually very careful about what he says. His reputation is on the line when he is going up against the likes of Stewart Mandel and Ivan Maisel. If he's not sure of something, he won't stick his neck out there. Yet for the last couple weeks, Liucci has been dropping not-so-subtle hints about the future of A&M in the SEC. Then yesterday, he basically went all in, going on Twitter and Texags and multiple radio stations saying that, in essence, A&M is headed to the SEC, and that it could happen as soon as this month.
So the Texas A&M Board of Regents have a meeting scheduled on August 22nd. Will a decision be made then? I don't know, but I know that yesterday, Liucci said that he does not expect an announcement in the next 7-10 days, but he does think we'll hear something in the next month. Well that fits nicely with the timeline of August 22nd, now doesn't it?
Other unnamed sources that were quoted on Twitter all day yesterday said similar things. Rumors abounded that the deal is all but done and we are just waiting on a formal announcement, but won't hear it for a couple weeks.
So for now, there is so much smoke that I believe there is a major fire. Billy Liucci has gone public, even enduring some public mockery in the process, but even so, he reiterated just today that he is assuredly as plugged in as anyone else out there. I believe that we will hear some actual, concrete news sometime in the near future, and that at that point, we can look back to yesterday as the day that it first went down.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Preseason Top 25 thoughts
Today is a big day for college football fans. The first official top 25 poll has been released! I plan on writing a lot about college football (mostly A&M and Big 12 related) this coming year and here's a good excuse to start that party.
Here's the list:
Aug. 4, 2011 - preseason poll
Rank Team (first-place votes) 2010 record Points Final 2010 ranking
1. Oklahoma (42) 12-2 1,454 6
2. Alabama (13) 10-3 1,414 11
3. Oregon (2) 12-1 1,309 3
4. LSU (2) 11-2 1,296 8t
5. Florida State 10-4 1,116 16
6. Stanford 12-1 1,101 4
7. Boise State 12-1 1,065 7
8. Oklahoma State 11-2 933 10
9. Texas A&M 9-4 885 21
10. Wisconsin 11-2 829 8t
11. Nebraska 10-4 814 19
12. South Carolina 9-5 779 22
13. Virginia Tech 11-3 767 15
14. Arkansas 10-3 750 12
15. TCU 13-0 687 2
16. Ohio State 12-1 631 5
17. Michigan State 11-2 536 14
18. Notre Dame 8-5 440 NR
19. Auburn 14-0 329 1
20. Mississippi State 9-4 301 17
21. Missouri 10-3 266 18
22. Georgia 6-7 260 NR
23. Florida 8-5 240 NR
24. Texas 5-7 162 NR
25. Penn State 7-6 161 NR
Others receiving votes
Arizona State (6-6) 158; West Virginia (9-4) 149; Utah (10-3) 50; Miami (Fla.) (7-6) 49; Iowa (8-5) 41; Northwestern (7-6) 30; Arizona (7-6) 28; Central Florida (11-3) 22; Michigan (7-6) 19; Air Force (9-4) 15; North Carolina (8-5) 14; Houston (5-7) 13; South Florida (8-5) 9; Hawaii (10-4) 8; Clemson (6-7) 7; Tennessee (6-7) 7; Southern Miss (8-5) 6; Brigham Young (7-6) 5; North Carolina State (9-4) 4; Northern Illinois (11-3) 4; Oregon State (5-7) 4; Pittsburgh (8-5) 3; Washington (7-6) 3; Georgia Tech (6-7) 1; Nevada (13-1) 1.
So, let's start with teams ranked too high. My first instinct is Alabama. I don't think they can make it through the year with 0 or 1 loss, which is what they would need to be #2. Of course one question that is perpetually unsolved is the question of whether or not a preseason poll is supposed to guess the outcome of the year or is it supposed to rank where you think the teams are relative to each other right now. For my purposes today, I'm commenting on whether or not the teams will finish where they start.
Of course I'm excited to see Texas A&M at #9. This is the first time in ages the Ags have been a top 10 team. The only problem is that as much as I love my team and see real potential, I don't think we'll be that high come January. I'll touch on it a lot more in a later post, but I see A&M as a 9-3 regular season team, probably finishing the year ranked somewhere in the high teens. Of course 10-12 regular season wins are legitimately possible with everything we have coming back, but I don't believe it will happen.
I think South Carolina is a bit high at #12. I respect coach Spurrier a lot and think he's a great coach, but I think SC has reached a ceiling, and in the brutal SEC, which has 8 of its 12 teams ranked, I don't see South Carolina coming out of it with enough wins to justify a ranking that high. The fact of the matter is, when you do have that many teams from the same conference that are all ranked, some of them are going to get knocked out and underperform, just because of the schedule and the parity.
I'm not sold on Ohio State at #16 or Notre Dame at #18. Ohio State obviously has a ton of adjustments to go through after losing their coach and several of their players including the stud QB. Notre Dame is ranked in the top 20 every season, no matter what, so I'm not surprised to see them there, but I'm at a point with them where I'll believe they're a quality team once they show it for a whole year. I do like their coach though and think in the next few years their ranking will be well-deserved.
And finally, let's just all admit that it's laughable to see the Texas Longhorns at #24. Let's be honest, this is just a name pick, just like Notre Dame is every year. If you took the logos off of every helmet and presented a fact sheet about every team to an impartial group, no one, and I mean NO ONE, would rank the team that showed up with Texas' resume. They went 5-7 last year, and this year's schedule only features two teams- that's right, TWO- that Texas beat last year. They have no proven QB, are relying on a true freshman running back, they only return two proven wide receivers, their offensive line was bad, they lost 3 of their 4 starters in the secondary, and they have a whole new coaching staff. Granted, they always recruit well and they could easily sneak their way into a good season if things go well, but no sane person should ever include the team I just described in the top 25. Not when they are leaving out Miami, Utah, W. Virginia, Air Force, S. Florida, Nevada, Pitt, NC State, Iowa and a handful of others with far better resumes than Texas. I'll have much more on Texas at a later date.
There are a few teams I would move up. Wisconsin is one I really like. They're always good, they play solid defense and can run the ball, and they play in a weak conference. But now they get a proven QB for this season in transfer Russell Wilson, who was one of the best QB's in NC State history the last three years and now will play for Wisconsin after graduating from NC State and having one year of eligibility left. Huge pickup for the Badgers and I think they're a top 5 team.
Virginia Tech is another I'd move up. They play a notoriously weak conference and are head and shoulders above anyone in the conference on a yearly basis. Beamer has the formula down and doesn't vary from it. They return enough from what was a VERY good team last year. Don't be shocked to see them in yet another BCS game.
Finally, I'll pick Florida as another underrated team. Yes, they too have to face the brutality of the SEC schedule, but I think Florida still has more athletes than any other team, and I think that Will Muschamp is actually a great defensive coach who will be able to slow down everyone they face. Meanwhile, the offense is going to be very interesting now that they have Charlie Weiss installing his NFL style passing game. Weiss's Notre Dame teams did very well offensively in his first couple years before falling off. I don't know if it was a talent issue or if teams figured him out, but I think that once again, he will come right in and have a successful offense. They have a winning culture at Florida, and I think that goes a long way, and it's why I'm more sold on them than I am on some other SEC teams like South Carolina and Mississippi State.
Here's the list:
Aug. 4, 2011 - preseason poll
Rank Team (first-place votes) 2010 record Points Final 2010 ranking
1. Oklahoma (42) 12-2 1,454 6
2. Alabama (13) 10-3 1,414 11
3. Oregon (2) 12-1 1,309 3
4. LSU (2) 11-2 1,296 8t
5. Florida State 10-4 1,116 16
6. Stanford 12-1 1,101 4
7. Boise State 12-1 1,065 7
8. Oklahoma State 11-2 933 10
9. Texas A&M 9-4 885 21
10. Wisconsin 11-2 829 8t
11. Nebraska 10-4 814 19
12. South Carolina 9-5 779 22
13. Virginia Tech 11-3 767 15
14. Arkansas 10-3 750 12
15. TCU 13-0 687 2
16. Ohio State 12-1 631 5
17. Michigan State 11-2 536 14
18. Notre Dame 8-5 440 NR
19. Auburn 14-0 329 1
20. Mississippi State 9-4 301 17
21. Missouri 10-3 266 18
22. Georgia 6-7 260 NR
23. Florida 8-5 240 NR
24. Texas 5-7 162 NR
25. Penn State 7-6 161 NR
Others receiving votes
Arizona State (6-6) 158; West Virginia (9-4) 149; Utah (10-3) 50; Miami (Fla.) (7-6) 49; Iowa (8-5) 41; Northwestern (7-6) 30; Arizona (7-6) 28; Central Florida (11-3) 22; Michigan (7-6) 19; Air Force (9-4) 15; North Carolina (8-5) 14; Houston (5-7) 13; South Florida (8-5) 9; Hawaii (10-4) 8; Clemson (6-7) 7; Tennessee (6-7) 7; Southern Miss (8-5) 6; Brigham Young (7-6) 5; North Carolina State (9-4) 4; Northern Illinois (11-3) 4; Oregon State (5-7) 4; Pittsburgh (8-5) 3; Washington (7-6) 3; Georgia Tech (6-7) 1; Nevada (13-1) 1.
So, let's start with teams ranked too high. My first instinct is Alabama. I don't think they can make it through the year with 0 or 1 loss, which is what they would need to be #2. Of course one question that is perpetually unsolved is the question of whether or not a preseason poll is supposed to guess the outcome of the year or is it supposed to rank where you think the teams are relative to each other right now. For my purposes today, I'm commenting on whether or not the teams will finish where they start.
Of course I'm excited to see Texas A&M at #9. This is the first time in ages the Ags have been a top 10 team. The only problem is that as much as I love my team and see real potential, I don't think we'll be that high come January. I'll touch on it a lot more in a later post, but I see A&M as a 9-3 regular season team, probably finishing the year ranked somewhere in the high teens. Of course 10-12 regular season wins are legitimately possible with everything we have coming back, but I don't believe it will happen.
I think South Carolina is a bit high at #12. I respect coach Spurrier a lot and think he's a great coach, but I think SC has reached a ceiling, and in the brutal SEC, which has 8 of its 12 teams ranked, I don't see South Carolina coming out of it with enough wins to justify a ranking that high. The fact of the matter is, when you do have that many teams from the same conference that are all ranked, some of them are going to get knocked out and underperform, just because of the schedule and the parity.
I'm not sold on Ohio State at #16 or Notre Dame at #18. Ohio State obviously has a ton of adjustments to go through after losing their coach and several of their players including the stud QB. Notre Dame is ranked in the top 20 every season, no matter what, so I'm not surprised to see them there, but I'm at a point with them where I'll believe they're a quality team once they show it for a whole year. I do like their coach though and think in the next few years their ranking will be well-deserved.
And finally, let's just all admit that it's laughable to see the Texas Longhorns at #24. Let's be honest, this is just a name pick, just like Notre Dame is every year. If you took the logos off of every helmet and presented a fact sheet about every team to an impartial group, no one, and I mean NO ONE, would rank the team that showed up with Texas' resume. They went 5-7 last year, and this year's schedule only features two teams- that's right, TWO- that Texas beat last year. They have no proven QB, are relying on a true freshman running back, they only return two proven wide receivers, their offensive line was bad, they lost 3 of their 4 starters in the secondary, and they have a whole new coaching staff. Granted, they always recruit well and they could easily sneak their way into a good season if things go well, but no sane person should ever include the team I just described in the top 25. Not when they are leaving out Miami, Utah, W. Virginia, Air Force, S. Florida, Nevada, Pitt, NC State, Iowa and a handful of others with far better resumes than Texas. I'll have much more on Texas at a later date.
There are a few teams I would move up. Wisconsin is one I really like. They're always good, they play solid defense and can run the ball, and they play in a weak conference. But now they get a proven QB for this season in transfer Russell Wilson, who was one of the best QB's in NC State history the last three years and now will play for Wisconsin after graduating from NC State and having one year of eligibility left. Huge pickup for the Badgers and I think they're a top 5 team.
Virginia Tech is another I'd move up. They play a notoriously weak conference and are head and shoulders above anyone in the conference on a yearly basis. Beamer has the formula down and doesn't vary from it. They return enough from what was a VERY good team last year. Don't be shocked to see them in yet another BCS game.
Finally, I'll pick Florida as another underrated team. Yes, they too have to face the brutality of the SEC schedule, but I think Florida still has more athletes than any other team, and I think that Will Muschamp is actually a great defensive coach who will be able to slow down everyone they face. Meanwhile, the offense is going to be very interesting now that they have Charlie Weiss installing his NFL style passing game. Weiss's Notre Dame teams did very well offensively in his first couple years before falling off. I don't know if it was a talent issue or if teams figured him out, but I think that once again, he will come right in and have a successful offense. They have a winning culture at Florida, and I think that goes a long way, and it's why I'm more sold on them than I am on some other SEC teams like South Carolina and Mississippi State.
Top 5: Comedies
A few years back, I watched the movie High Fidelity and really liked it. One of the things they were always doing in that movie was making top five (or three) lists of various things. At the time, it inspired me to just start making my own. No good reason why, but it was enjoyable to think about. I've lost that list, but I figured I will periodically do a top five here on the blog. Today, I start with movie comedies. Very, very tough for me to pick just five because really there are probably about 20 that have received the Mattywatty gold star rating. I have no particular system for how I rate these, but will say that to make my list, they must be movies that I endlessly quote. But if I just had to pick five, as of today, here is the list (in no particular order):
-Dumb & Dumber. Easy choice here. Ever since it came out, it's been my personal choice for funniest movie of all time. Never gets old, never ceases to make me laugh. The hardest I ever laughed in a movie theater was during this film (the daydream sequence with Lloyd and the toilet scene with Harry, if you must know specifics). There are rumors that Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are on board to do a true sequel. I desperately want that to happen, much like Lloyd Christmas desperately wants to make love to a schoolboy. Most common quotes that I use from this movie include... well honestly the entire movie. At some point in a given week, I probably directly or indirectly quote 25 different parts of the movie, and that's no exaggeration.
-Waiting for Guffman. This one is not very well known, but I think it is easily the funniest of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries, all of which are genius movies. Spinal Tap and Best in Show get all the love from most movie fans, but I really think Guffman and A Mighty Wind are the best. Anyway, the hardest I have ever laughed at home while watching a movie was at the end of their song "This Bulging River," which actually is a deleted scene. After getting to know the main characters, especially Corky, and then watching that awful/amazing performance, his final note was so funny that it had me in tears.
See, for me, the genius in this movie is the character of Corky. For my money, he is the single funniest character I've ever seen. The other characters are good, but Corky is just perfect. This is another one that I quote dozens of times per week in some form or fashion.
This is also a great movie to listen to the commentaries for, because the whole movie- like all the Guest mockumentaries- is done without a script. They have an outline for the scenes, and then it's all improv. But this movie required them to learn a bad musical, which technically was scripted, but perform it badly, as good as they could, all while improvising everything else around the music. If that makes sense.... Anyway, the commentaries have some interesting stories about that process.
-The Princess Bride has to be listed. A true classic, this movie is on the list for millions of men, I would assume. The dialogue is what makes this movie so darn funny, since it is always done so straight faced. It feels like the whole movie was written with a wink, a wry smile. There are some throw-away lines that are part of big, funny scenes that have crept into my day to day vocabulary and get used constantly ("very well, I accept"), and of course there are big chunks of dialogue that get quoted all the time as well.
I've seen this movie so many times, Westley's voice is so ingrained in my head, that just a couple months ago, we were at a movie, and there was a character on screen I did not recognize at all. He's much heavier and has a beard. And then he spoke. And instantly, just for a moment, I was back in the land of the princess bride, watching the man in black who has been mostly dead all day.
Now is where it gets difficult, trying to pick just two more. Will Ferrell is my favorite comedic actor, so I'd like to include one of his, but which one? Monty Python is far and away one of the most quoted movies in my life and could easily be listed, but then what about Mike Myers? The Austin Powers trilogy and So I Married an Axe Murderer would feel left out. What about Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller? What about Bill Murray? Leslie Nielsen? My goodness, what about John Candy?And I haven't even mentioned Chevy Chase and Steve Martin, who both were in The Three Amigos of course and who also have one or two other movies that belong. There are some other greats that I truly love (Dirty Work, Van Wilder, Spaceballs, Top Secret, Office Space, American Pie...). So, I am forced to make a snap decision. Ask me my list tomorrow and these could be different, but my final two comedies are...
-Anchorman. I decided I do need to include Will Ferrell, but couldn't decide between Anchorman and Old School. Frank the Tank is one of Ferrell's best characters ever, no doubt. The entire Old School movie is still, for me, the funniest of the new era of R-rated comedies (not that I've seen all of them). But I pick Anchorman because it features more of Ferrell, more of his improv
Ferrell has the ability to make literally any line of dialogue funny. He's one of those guys that can make me laugh by doing nothing or by doing huge, ridiculous things. His body of work on SNL is incredible. I enjoy hearing what other actors say about each other, and Will Ferrell is considered the best of the best by people in the improv comedy world. Tina Fey talks about it some in her book Bossypants.
Oddly enough, Anchorman wasn't the funniest thing ever when I first saw it. In fact, I didn't even see it when it first came out, but then after hearing a co-worker constantly quoting it at work, I decided to rent it. First viewing, I liked it, but wouldn't have put it on this list. But then you watch it that second time, and you think to yourself, wow, this is genius. Ferrell has the ability to make absolute immaturity into something amazing.
-After much internal debate that led to cramping and some vomiting, I'm going to go with Swingers for my final choice. It's basically the first true Vince Vaughn movie, in the sense that it's the first one where he popularized his fast-talking, cool persona. Swingers is just such a guy movie. I don't think most women can relate to it the way we men can. Every guy is either a Mikey or a Trent. Or both, which is why it's so easy to love this movie if you're a guy. Throw in the fact that this movie singlehandedly made "Vegas, baby!" a ubiquitous catchphrase, and you have a classic. This movie has some of the best painful, awkward comedy you'll ever see, and it would border on depressing if not for the friendship of the guys and introduction of Heather Graham's character.
Honorable mention: Gone With The Wind, Part Deux; Schindler's List: The College Years.
-Dumb & Dumber. Easy choice here. Ever since it came out, it's been my personal choice for funniest movie of all time. Never gets old, never ceases to make me laugh. The hardest I ever laughed in a movie theater was during this film (the daydream sequence with Lloyd and the toilet scene with Harry, if you must know specifics). There are rumors that Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are on board to do a true sequel. I desperately want that to happen, much like Lloyd Christmas desperately wants to make love to a schoolboy. Most common quotes that I use from this movie include... well honestly the entire movie. At some point in a given week, I probably directly or indirectly quote 25 different parts of the movie, and that's no exaggeration.
-Waiting for Guffman. This one is not very well known, but I think it is easily the funniest of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries, all of which are genius movies. Spinal Tap and Best in Show get all the love from most movie fans, but I really think Guffman and A Mighty Wind are the best. Anyway, the hardest I have ever laughed at home while watching a movie was at the end of their song "This Bulging River," which actually is a deleted scene. After getting to know the main characters, especially Corky, and then watching that awful/amazing performance, his final note was so funny that it had me in tears.
See, for me, the genius in this movie is the character of Corky. For my money, he is the single funniest character I've ever seen. The other characters are good, but Corky is just perfect. This is another one that I quote dozens of times per week in some form or fashion.
This is also a great movie to listen to the commentaries for, because the whole movie- like all the Guest mockumentaries- is done without a script. They have an outline for the scenes, and then it's all improv. But this movie required them to learn a bad musical, which technically was scripted, but perform it badly, as good as they could, all while improvising everything else around the music. If that makes sense.... Anyway, the commentaries have some interesting stories about that process.
-The Princess Bride has to be listed. A true classic, this movie is on the list for millions of men, I would assume. The dialogue is what makes this movie so darn funny, since it is always done so straight faced. It feels like the whole movie was written with a wink, a wry smile. There are some throw-away lines that are part of big, funny scenes that have crept into my day to day vocabulary and get used constantly ("very well, I accept"), and of course there are big chunks of dialogue that get quoted all the time as well.
I've seen this movie so many times, Westley's voice is so ingrained in my head, that just a couple months ago, we were at a movie, and there was a character on screen I did not recognize at all. He's much heavier and has a beard. And then he spoke. And instantly, just for a moment, I was back in the land of the princess bride, watching the man in black who has been mostly dead all day.
Now is where it gets difficult, trying to pick just two more. Will Ferrell is my favorite comedic actor, so I'd like to include one of his, but which one? Monty Python is far and away one of the most quoted movies in my life and could easily be listed, but then what about Mike Myers? The Austin Powers trilogy and So I Married an Axe Murderer would feel left out. What about Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller? What about Bill Murray? Leslie Nielsen? My goodness, what about John Candy?And I haven't even mentioned Chevy Chase and Steve Martin, who both were in The Three Amigos of course and who also have one or two other movies that belong. There are some other greats that I truly love (Dirty Work, Van Wilder, Spaceballs, Top Secret, Office Space, American Pie...). So, I am forced to make a snap decision. Ask me my list tomorrow and these could be different, but my final two comedies are...
-Anchorman. I decided I do need to include Will Ferrell, but couldn't decide between Anchorman and Old School. Frank the Tank is one of Ferrell's best characters ever, no doubt. The entire Old School movie is still, for me, the funniest of the new era of R-rated comedies (not that I've seen all of them). But I pick Anchorman because it features more of Ferrell, more of his improv
Ferrell has the ability to make literally any line of dialogue funny. He's one of those guys that can make me laugh by doing nothing or by doing huge, ridiculous things. His body of work on SNL is incredible. I enjoy hearing what other actors say about each other, and Will Ferrell is considered the best of the best by people in the improv comedy world. Tina Fey talks about it some in her book Bossypants.
Oddly enough, Anchorman wasn't the funniest thing ever when I first saw it. In fact, I didn't even see it when it first came out, but then after hearing a co-worker constantly quoting it at work, I decided to rent it. First viewing, I liked it, but wouldn't have put it on this list. But then you watch it that second time, and you think to yourself, wow, this is genius. Ferrell has the ability to make absolute immaturity into something amazing.
-After much internal debate that led to cramping and some vomiting, I'm going to go with Swingers for my final choice. It's basically the first true Vince Vaughn movie, in the sense that it's the first one where he popularized his fast-talking, cool persona. Swingers is just such a guy movie. I don't think most women can relate to it the way we men can. Every guy is either a Mikey or a Trent. Or both, which is why it's so easy to love this movie if you're a guy. Throw in the fact that this movie singlehandedly made "Vegas, baby!" a ubiquitous catchphrase, and you have a classic. This movie has some of the best painful, awkward comedy you'll ever see, and it would border on depressing if not for the friendship of the guys and introduction of Heather Graham's character.
Honorable mention: Gone With The Wind, Part Deux; Schindler's List: The College Years.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
NCAA 2012 quick review
So my favorite video game came out a week or two ago, and even though it drives me crazy at times, I still keep coming back to it. I, the abused girlfriend, thinking that the game, my abusive boyfriend, will someday change its ways, it nevertheless keeps beating me senseless.
Anyway, my quick rundown of the good and the bad:
Good:
-Running the ball seems better this time. They are supposedly using some new graphics thing that doesn't initiate a tackle until two players actually touch each other, as opposed to have a certain tackle graphic automatically happen once the players are close, and it has made a difference. The running and tackling physics do seem better. There are still issues though, like doing a spin move that causes you to go backwards five yards and or point your momentum the wrong direction, but still, it's better.
-It's now possible to actually hit a deep receiver in stride sometimes, which is great. Every once in a while you'll actually throw a deep ball to a receiver who has a step on his man and glory, glory, hallelujah he will catch it without slowing down. Also some of the catching animations are pretty cool. Jeff Fuller for Texas A&M sometimes looks insanely realistic as he fights for and catches a pass over the middle.
-Customizable playbooks and conferences are included. I like the playbook feature. I've always enjoyed trying to find the perfect combination of plays and formations, and now you can control that 100%. And if you're a college fan who always has ideas about how each conference should look, you can now mix them up as much as you want.
The bad:
-This has been an issue for years, but the magical jumping linebackers and psychic safeties are still a major problem. Almost so much so that it makes me not want to play the dumb game. You can throw to a wide open receiver 30 yards down the field, and a linebacker halfway between you will jump 5 feet in the air and deflect it. And this happens numerous times per game. If the linebacker doesn't get you, you're still not safe because even if you've made the right read and found the open receiver, the nearest safety on defense may decide to magically speed burst his way over, around, or even right through you to deflect or intercept the pass. Again, a major problem and almost annoying enough to just throw the game in the trash, and I'm a patient guy.
-Another problem in the passing game is the fact that your QB takes so long to wind up when he is throwing that he ends up getting sacked way too much. He gets sacked in completely unrealistic situations, situations where you "threw" the ball when the defender was still five yards away from you... except that your quarterback hasn't thrown the ball and instead is doing an exaggerated Nolan Ryan pitcher's windup which gets him sacked.
-Fatigue is still really, really stupid. They'll have your quarterback get so fatigued that he has to leave the game if you happen to scramble a few times on one drive. Riiiight, because these guys are so unathletic, they can't play football for 5 minutes without needing a break. The fatigue aspect of this game needs to be completely re-done so that it basically never shows up until the fourth quarter. Cumulative fatigue, in other words. No college athlete would be tired in the first quarter.
There are other good and bad aspects, but those are the big ones for me. Otherwise, the game is basically identical to what it's been in the past several years, just with new player ratings and the addition of some new traditions for basically every team in America besides Texas A&M. And trust me, I could go on for a long time about that one, but I better not get started...
Anyway, my quick rundown of the good and the bad:
Good:
-Running the ball seems better this time. They are supposedly using some new graphics thing that doesn't initiate a tackle until two players actually touch each other, as opposed to have a certain tackle graphic automatically happen once the players are close, and it has made a difference. The running and tackling physics do seem better. There are still issues though, like doing a spin move that causes you to go backwards five yards and or point your momentum the wrong direction, but still, it's better.
-It's now possible to actually hit a deep receiver in stride sometimes, which is great. Every once in a while you'll actually throw a deep ball to a receiver who has a step on his man and glory, glory, hallelujah he will catch it without slowing down. Also some of the catching animations are pretty cool. Jeff Fuller for Texas A&M sometimes looks insanely realistic as he fights for and catches a pass over the middle.
-Customizable playbooks and conferences are included. I like the playbook feature. I've always enjoyed trying to find the perfect combination of plays and formations, and now you can control that 100%. And if you're a college fan who always has ideas about how each conference should look, you can now mix them up as much as you want.
The bad:
-This has been an issue for years, but the magical jumping linebackers and psychic safeties are still a major problem. Almost so much so that it makes me not want to play the dumb game. You can throw to a wide open receiver 30 yards down the field, and a linebacker halfway between you will jump 5 feet in the air and deflect it. And this happens numerous times per game. If the linebacker doesn't get you, you're still not safe because even if you've made the right read and found the open receiver, the nearest safety on defense may decide to magically speed burst his way over, around, or even right through you to deflect or intercept the pass. Again, a major problem and almost annoying enough to just throw the game in the trash, and I'm a patient guy.
-Another problem in the passing game is the fact that your QB takes so long to wind up when he is throwing that he ends up getting sacked way too much. He gets sacked in completely unrealistic situations, situations where you "threw" the ball when the defender was still five yards away from you... except that your quarterback hasn't thrown the ball and instead is doing an exaggerated Nolan Ryan pitcher's windup which gets him sacked.
-Fatigue is still really, really stupid. They'll have your quarterback get so fatigued that he has to leave the game if you happen to scramble a few times on one drive. Riiiight, because these guys are so unathletic, they can't play football for 5 minutes without needing a break. The fatigue aspect of this game needs to be completely re-done so that it basically never shows up until the fourth quarter. Cumulative fatigue, in other words. No college athlete would be tired in the first quarter.
There are other good and bad aspects, but those are the big ones for me. Otherwise, the game is basically identical to what it's been in the past several years, just with new player ratings and the addition of some new traditions for basically every team in America besides Texas A&M. And trust me, I could go on for a long time about that one, but I better not get started...
Monday, July 18, 2011
Golf talk: British Open
Ahh, the British Open. My 3rd favorite golf tournament. It's always fun to watch these guys play a different style of golf, especially when you throw in the crazy weather over there. I didn't get to see much of the first 3 rounds, but did watch the majority of the Sunday action. And on the front nine, there was a LOT of action.
Mickelson made quite a run, getting to 6 under par at one point. That was the point that I and many other golf fans said to ourselves, "well, now he'll probably make nothing but bogeys and miss a bunch of makeable putts the rest of the way." Which, of course, is exactly what he did.
Dustin Johnson had a chance, but after shanking a basic iron shot out of bounds when he was merely trying to lay up, his chances dwindled.
So that left Clarke. The other players all sort of faded away and after it looked on the front nine like we would have a heck of a battle, the last four holes featured a comfortable, drama-free stroll for the winner, allowing the announcers to get us all up to speed on why exactly we should like Darren Clarke.
And for the record, he is indeed likeable. Seems like a great guy, and I have to say, his winner's speech was really, really good. Something about it struck me as very humble. His wife died a few years ago and he's now engaged, and rather than have a big "look at all I've gone through" moment, he was able to mention it without seeming like he needed the attention. Here's the speech.
Mickelson made quite a run, getting to 6 under par at one point. That was the point that I and many other golf fans said to ourselves, "well, now he'll probably make nothing but bogeys and miss a bunch of makeable putts the rest of the way." Which, of course, is exactly what he did.
Dustin Johnson had a chance, but after shanking a basic iron shot out of bounds when he was merely trying to lay up, his chances dwindled.
So that left Clarke. The other players all sort of faded away and after it looked on the front nine like we would have a heck of a battle, the last four holes featured a comfortable, drama-free stroll for the winner, allowing the announcers to get us all up to speed on why exactly we should like Darren Clarke.
And for the record, he is indeed likeable. Seems like a great guy, and I have to say, his winner's speech was really, really good. Something about it struck me as very humble. His wife died a few years ago and he's now engaged, and rather than have a big "look at all I've gone through" moment, he was able to mention it without seeming like he needed the attention. Here's the speech.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
A couple pictures from Port Aransas
Spent a weekend with the family down at Port Aransas. I love that place. I think the big draw for me is simply the nostalgia of it, since that's the beach town we've always gone to as a family. Lots of fishing trips and vacations, both to Port A and to the old beach house an hour away that my grandparents built a long time ago (since sold).
So this trip included golf at Newport Dunes, which has become a new tradition for me. That course is incredible, by the way. One publication named it the #2 best public course in Texas. It's right on the beach, basically, and is a links style course designed by Arnold Palmer, or as they refer to him around the pro shop, The King.
The trip also included the requisite seafood eating, some body surfing in the gulf, a trip to the aquarium in Corpus, and intermittent opportunities for me to keep playing with my new hobby, photography.
So this trip included golf at Newport Dunes, which has become a new tradition for me. That course is incredible, by the way. One publication named it the #2 best public course in Texas. It's right on the beach, basically, and is a links style course designed by Arnold Palmer, or as they refer to him around the pro shop, The King.
The trip also included the requisite seafood eating, some body surfing in the gulf, a trip to the aquarium in Corpus, and intermittent opportunities for me to keep playing with my new hobby, photography.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
A couple pictures from the Belton Rodeo
Thanks to some good fortune and good friends, we had front row seats at the rodeo this past weekend. I brought my DSLR and was able to take some decent pictures. It was really dark in the arena and I think a much more fancy (expensive) lens would have helped immensely, but even so, it was cool to get a few good action shots.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Literally!
Another example of the word "literal" being misused. Read it on a message board.
"The Left can see Man-made Global Warming where there is none, but can't see a deficit or a gargantuan national debt that literally has a hand on their throat."
Ha! I knew this deficit thing was bad, but I had no idea it had grown hands and whatnot.
"The Left can see Man-made Global Warming where there is none, but can't see a deficit or a gargantuan national debt that literally has a hand on their throat."
Ha! I knew this deficit thing was bad, but I had no idea it had grown hands and whatnot.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Insanity!
I have reached the point where I can not bear the sight of my own disgustingness. Actually I reached it a couple weeks ago. So, after tipping the scales at an all-time high of about 207 pounds, I decided to attempt what has become an annual summer workout regimen. I did P90X each of the last two summers after ballooning up to about 200 each year, and each time it worked well, helping me shed 20+ pounds.
This time around, I'm trying Insanity. It's much more cardio-based than anything on P90X, and that's what this tubbo needs. Anyway, I'll be posting progress updates every once in a while.
So far, I've done one week, and I've lost 2.5 pounds. And I've wept a lot between asthma attacks. And my knee kinda hurts. But it's all good. The goal is to complete Insanity and then from there move on to a P90X/Insanity mixture and try to not to gain all the weight back.
Man, getting old sucks. What happened to the metabolism of my youth?
This time around, I'm trying Insanity. It's much more cardio-based than anything on P90X, and that's what this tubbo needs. Anyway, I'll be posting progress updates every once in a while.
So far, I've done one week, and I've lost 2.5 pounds. And I've wept a lot between asthma attacks. And my knee kinda hurts. But it's all good. The goal is to complete Insanity and then from there move on to a P90X/Insanity mixture and try to not to gain all the weight back.
Man, getting old sucks. What happened to the metabolism of my youth?
Friday, June 24, 2011
NBA Draft and the Snakefarm
Scattershooting a few random topics here...
NBA draft thoughts. Ok I don't really have that many, but I was happy for Kyrie Irving. I like him, basically for no other reason than because even though he chose to play for Duke, he almost played for A&M. He was the top recruit in the country, and on decision day he actually put an A&M hat and a Duke hat on the table before choosing the Duke hat. I don't know how much it helped A&M's perception in the eyes of other recruits, but it certainly didn't hurt. And in the last month now, Texas A&M has hosted on its campus arguably the best group of basketball recruits in school history. It doesn't mean all (or any) of them will sign with A&M, but it certainly means that A&M's profile in the college basketball world is increasing. And I like to think Kyrie Irving played a role, however small, in that. And because of that, I root for him. Here's hoping he has a solid career.
In musical news, has anyone ever heard the song "Snake Farm" by Ray Wylie Hubbard? Well I hadn't until last night. I heard some other awful band do a cover of it, and I like to think I'm open-minded when it comes to music, but man, that is the worst song I've ever heard. Who knows, maybe that's what they were going for when they wrote it, one of those songs that's so bad that it actually is awesome (like Rock Star by Nickleback, or The Star Spangled Banner), and I'm sure some people feel that way about it, but I just can't get there. It's just bad. Here's the actual chorus: "Snake farm, it just sounds nasty, snake farm, it pretty much is, snake farm, it's a reptile house!" That's it. No, really, that's it.
Jason and I were listening and immediately appalled at the badness of this song. The good news is it led to several minutes of awful jokes about what their other songs are like:
"Catfish farm, it just sounds watery, catfish farm, it pretty much is, catfish farm, it's a pond full of fish!"
"Butterfly pavilion, it just sounds peaceful, butterfly pavilion, it pretty much is, butterfly pavilion, it's a big mesh tent!"
"Salamander ranch, they're like snakes with tiny legs, salamander ranch, it's pretty darn icky, salamander ranch, it's near the snake farm!"
"Scrapbooking store, it just sounds precious, scrapbooking store, it pretty much is, scrapbooking store, they sell paper and glue!"
If you're not laughing at least a little, well, we can't be friends (I take my bad jokes that seriously), and it might be because you don't have the chorus and the rhythm in your head. It's definitely funnier if you sing our jokes to the music with a gravely voice and funny scowl on your face. Most jokes are like that though.
NBA draft thoughts. Ok I don't really have that many, but I was happy for Kyrie Irving. I like him, basically for no other reason than because even though he chose to play for Duke, he almost played for A&M. He was the top recruit in the country, and on decision day he actually put an A&M hat and a Duke hat on the table before choosing the Duke hat. I don't know how much it helped A&M's perception in the eyes of other recruits, but it certainly didn't hurt. And in the last month now, Texas A&M has hosted on its campus arguably the best group of basketball recruits in school history. It doesn't mean all (or any) of them will sign with A&M, but it certainly means that A&M's profile in the college basketball world is increasing. And I like to think Kyrie Irving played a role, however small, in that. And because of that, I root for him. Here's hoping he has a solid career.
In musical news, has anyone ever heard the song "Snake Farm" by Ray Wylie Hubbard? Well I hadn't until last night. I heard some other awful band do a cover of it, and I like to think I'm open-minded when it comes to music, but man, that is the worst song I've ever heard. Who knows, maybe that's what they were going for when they wrote it, one of those songs that's so bad that it actually is awesome (like Rock Star by Nickleback, or The Star Spangled Banner), and I'm sure some people feel that way about it, but I just can't get there. It's just bad. Here's the actual chorus: "Snake farm, it just sounds nasty, snake farm, it pretty much is, snake farm, it's a reptile house!" That's it. No, really, that's it.
Jason and I were listening and immediately appalled at the badness of this song. The good news is it led to several minutes of awful jokes about what their other songs are like:
"Catfish farm, it just sounds watery, catfish farm, it pretty much is, catfish farm, it's a pond full of fish!"
"Butterfly pavilion, it just sounds peaceful, butterfly pavilion, it pretty much is, butterfly pavilion, it's a big mesh tent!"
"Salamander ranch, they're like snakes with tiny legs, salamander ranch, it's pretty darn icky, salamander ranch, it's near the snake farm!"
"Scrapbooking store, it just sounds precious, scrapbooking store, it pretty much is, scrapbooking store, they sell paper and glue!"
If you're not laughing at least a little, well, we can't be friends (I take my bad jokes that seriously), and it might be because you don't have the chorus and the rhythm in your head. It's definitely funnier if you sing our jokes to the music with a gravely voice and funny scowl on your face. Most jokes are like that though.
A God of love or a God of hate?
You've probably heard of the group of crazy lunatics otherwise known as Westboro Baptist Church (and channeling Linda Richman here, let me point out that Westboro Baptist Church is neither Baptist nor a church. Discuss.) They are the people that go around telling the world that God hates fags, soldiers, and well, basically everyone but themselves. They picket all over the place, whether at funerals, churches, businesses, etc. Recently they picketed in front of the Mars Hill Church at its Auburn campus. Mars Hill is pastored by a man named Mark Driscoll.
Anyway, in advance of the protest, Driscoll wrote an article on his church's website that can be found here. He did a better job than I'd ever claim to do of demonstrating that the Westboro people are false teachers and are deceived and wrong.
I just wanted to add a couple things. If nothing else, who knows, maybe someone will stumble upon this and they are wondering if it's true that God really hates everyone except His elect, and that the Bible preaches hate (which is what Westboro's website explicitly states).
If you are a nonbeliever or an atheist, I can at least understand where you might have gotten the false idea that God is hateful. Let me assure you, that is not the case. The God of the Bible is one of love, greater love than we can imagine. In fact, God literally IS love. 1 John 4:8 specifically says that. In a less direct way, the first few verses of Genesis allude to it as well. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, talks about this in a sermon entitled "Before the Beginning," and describes how before we were even created, there was love. Anyway, you could write books and books and books on the topic of God and His love. In fact, many people describe the Bible as a whole as one big love story.
Another thing to mention is that in the article by Driscoll that I linked above, I saw a few people on a message board interpret his comments about Westboro's "crazy Calvinism" as a rejection of all Calvinist doctrine in general. That also is not the case. What Driscoll was declaring to be wrong was the extremist version of Calvinism displayed by the Westboro people, the belief that God actively hates everyone except His elect. That's not to say Driscoll is a Cavlinist- I honestly don't know- but his point in the article wasn't to debate Calvinism in general. It was to point out that this extreme version of it is not Biblical.
Finally, I don't understand their strange fascination with gays. Clearly their number one agenda is to tell the world that God supposedly hates fags. Their website is actually godhatesfags.com, in case they feared that people wouldn't know exactly what they stood for from simply perusing their website. Their logic is succinctly stated on their website as follows: "In Romans 1, the word "reprobate"is used to describe fags. Fags are reprobate. God hates reprobates. Therefore, God hates fags." So, in their mind, there you have it. Thankfully these Westboro people are a small minority. The truth of the matter is this. Forgiveness and eternity in Paradise are available to all. That doesn't mean all will be saved, but it does mean that there isn't one certain group of sinners that just "can't" be saved. Heaven will have murderers, liars, and adulterers (and that's just David). It will have people who struggle with vanity, selfishness, hatred, self-indulgence, homosexuality, jealousy, and every other sin. Why? Because we have ALL sinned. But for those of us that accept the free gift, all sin is forgiven.
Anyway, in advance of the protest, Driscoll wrote an article on his church's website that can be found here. He did a better job than I'd ever claim to do of demonstrating that the Westboro people are false teachers and are deceived and wrong.
I just wanted to add a couple things. If nothing else, who knows, maybe someone will stumble upon this and they are wondering if it's true that God really hates everyone except His elect, and that the Bible preaches hate (which is what Westboro's website explicitly states).
If you are a nonbeliever or an atheist, I can at least understand where you might have gotten the false idea that God is hateful. Let me assure you, that is not the case. The God of the Bible is one of love, greater love than we can imagine. In fact, God literally IS love. 1 John 4:8 specifically says that. In a less direct way, the first few verses of Genesis allude to it as well. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, talks about this in a sermon entitled "Before the Beginning," and describes how before we were even created, there was love. Anyway, you could write books and books and books on the topic of God and His love. In fact, many people describe the Bible as a whole as one big love story.
Another thing to mention is that in the article by Driscoll that I linked above, I saw a few people on a message board interpret his comments about Westboro's "crazy Calvinism" as a rejection of all Calvinist doctrine in general. That also is not the case. What Driscoll was declaring to be wrong was the extremist version of Calvinism displayed by the Westboro people, the belief that God actively hates everyone except His elect. That's not to say Driscoll is a Cavlinist- I honestly don't know- but his point in the article wasn't to debate Calvinism in general. It was to point out that this extreme version of it is not Biblical.
Finally, I don't understand their strange fascination with gays. Clearly their number one agenda is to tell the world that God supposedly hates fags. Their website is actually godhatesfags.com, in case they feared that people wouldn't know exactly what they stood for from simply perusing their website. Their logic is succinctly stated on their website as follows: "In Romans 1, the word "reprobate"is used to describe fags. Fags are reprobate. God hates reprobates. Therefore, God hates fags." So, in their mind, there you have it. Thankfully these Westboro people are a small minority. The truth of the matter is this. Forgiveness and eternity in Paradise are available to all. That doesn't mean all will be saved, but it does mean that there isn't one certain group of sinners that just "can't" be saved. Heaven will have murderers, liars, and adulterers (and that's just David). It will have people who struggle with vanity, selfishness, hatred, self-indulgence, homosexuality, jealousy, and every other sin. Why? Because we have ALL sinned. But for those of us that accept the free gift, all sin is forgiven.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Literally!
One reason I finally buckled down and started a blog again was so that I'd have a quick, easy place to catalog a few things that I always intend to write down but never do.
I enjoy the English language and all the ways to butcher it, both intentionally and not-tentially (there should be a word for that), and one of my favorites is when people use the word "literally" wrong. And it happens a LOT. So, I plan on noting them in the blog from now on, starting with this one that I heard Saturday.
During the U.S. Open golf tournament, a player hit his ball into a bunker and faced a difficult shot. The announcer said something like this:
"Difficult shot coming up here, but So-and-so is a magician around the greens. And he's going to literally have to pull a rabbit out of a hat on this shot."
I never did see the rabbit.
I enjoy the English language and all the ways to butcher it, both intentionally and not-tentially (there should be a word for that), and one of my favorites is when people use the word "literally" wrong. And it happens a LOT. So, I plan on noting them in the blog from now on, starting with this one that I heard Saturday.
During the U.S. Open golf tournament, a player hit his ball into a bunker and faced a difficult shot. The announcer said something like this:
"Difficult shot coming up here, but So-and-so is a magician around the greens. And he's going to literally have to pull a rabbit out of a hat on this shot."
I never did see the rabbit.
From March, 2011: A review I wrote about Jerry Seinfeld in concert
Here's my review of the night. Performance was at Bass Concert Hall in Austin.
First let me explain why I love stand up comedy. In my opinion, it is the most pure form of entertainment. Think about what it is for a minute. It's a person standing in front of a bunch of other people, and with nothing but his own self, he is expected to not merely keep the crowd busy, but make the crowd have fun. And he's not doing it musically or with any other gimmicks (well, some comics do, but I think those are not pure stand up comedians). Just his voice and his body. That is the essence of entertainment. It's why, for me, stand up comedy is the ultimate challenge. Supposedly public speaking is, on average, the number one fear of humans. Stand up comedy combines that with the added element of an audience that literally has an implicit challenge being extended: make me laugh, now!. So now the comic is doing public speaking and is expected to be funny to a entire crowd of people for whom humor is a subjective thing to begin with. And there's no way to just instantly be good at it. So as a comedian struggles through the process of going from bad to good, he endures and then overcomes what must be the most awkward feeling a human can have: a group of people staring blankly at you after you just said something you thought was funny but isn't. Plus they paid money to be there. I've listened to a lot of comedians talk about their early experiences and it always sounds so brutal, yet they fight through it. It's just an amazing thing to me. Anyway, on to the review.
The opener was Mario Joyner. I didn't know his name previously but I did recognize him. He's been in a lot of Chris Rock's productions and has been around on t.v. a little bit both as an actor and a stand up comedian. He did a couple Seinfeld episodes in the '90s and also had a part in Bee Movie, so I guess that's where the Seinfeld connection grew from.
He was very funny. He jumped right in and had no problem entertaining a crowd that didn't come to see him. I did find it interesting that like Seinfeld, he was very professionally dressed, wearing a suit. It seems that Seinfeld is old-school like that, the mindset being that we are professionals, so let's dress like professionals.
Back to Joyner though. He, like Seinfeld, uses a lot of observational humor. He joked about flying, cell phones, relationships, hotel stays, midlife crises, GPS units, etc. Standard comedian fare. However, I was impressed that he actually made all of these things funny. Some topics have been beaten to death in comedy, but his jokes were still fresh.
It was also clear that he was following Seinfeld's wishes in regards to his material. Seinfeld is a comedian who works relatively clean, and Joyner followed suit, leaving out a couple words that he uses on his CD. And of course there's no shame in toeing the company line for something like that (Joyner even made one joke about the fact that Seinfeld runs a very tight ship), considering how much money he must be making for his 15 minute set . That being said, he still had a bit of an edge to him, which I appreciated. I like clean comedy, but I also still like comedians to joke about non-PC topics. Like Seinfeld himself says, the whole job of a comedian is to make fun of stuff, so even while being "clean," there's still going to be the possibility that a listener can get offended, but that's often where the best jokes come from.
Anyway, Joyner pretty much killed it. Everyone seemed to love him. I'm not sure how long he performed, probably 15-20 minutes. When he finished, they didn't do the typical "opener gives a nice introduction to the headliner" type thing. He just waved, walked off, and a couple seconds later, Jerry Seinfeld came sprinting onto the stage with no introduction. It caught me off guard. But fair enough, it's true that he needs no introduction.
So after the huge applause died down, he opened with a couple minutes of local humor (making fun of the burnt orange (or as Seinfeld called it, "light medium brown" ) that dominates the University of Texas campus and the fact that it's called "University of Texas AT Austin," not just UT-Austin) before moving into his standard material. I always enjoy those few minutes of local humor. It's like a special little treat that is only given to that specific audience.
Most people know Seinfeld was a comedian before he was a t.v. star. The whole reason he got his sitcom was because he had already found his "voice" as a comedian. I always find it interesting to see comedians evolve and settle into their particular "voice". Look at Jim Gaffigan for instance. He's been funny for years, but the first time I saw him on t.v. several years ago, he didn't use that little "this is what the audience must be thinking" voice that is now a huge source of his material and probably the thing he's most known for. Watch Dane Cook's first Comedy Central Presents special and compare it to what he does now. He's still the same energetic, likable guy, but he settled into his storytelling style and now sells out huge arenas. Listen to old Brian Regan recordings. He has a much different sound and style than he does now, and like the others I listed, now that he found his correct comic voice, he sells out theaters rather than clubs. It's hard for a comedian to find the right style of joke telling for them. Go to a small comedy club in New York where the comics are just trying to make a name. It's painful at times, because you can see them trying to project some image, some style, yet it just doesn't work. For whatever reason, there's just something undefinable within the art of stand up comedy that has to be there, regardless of the quality of the writing, or else they'll never make it big. Part of it is speaking style, some of it is just their cadence, some of it is even something like what they wear, and what kind of facial expressions they use. It all needs to work together, along with solid material, for a comedian to really be successful.
So Seinfeld had already made his way as a comedian and had one of the most recognizable and identifiable styles of any comedian out there. Everyone knows that Seinfeld is the "what's the deal with ____?" guy. What's my point? My point is that even now, with Seinfeld having already reached the peak of comedian-dom, his comic voice is still evolving. He still used observational humor, but he doesn't quite do it the same way. One thing that stood out to me was that he is a little more energetic and loud than I've seen him over the years. Not obnoxious loud (not even close), but just not as subdued as he used to be. He also now seems to take advantage of his own voice (actual speaking voice, not the big concept of "voice" I've also been mentioning) more. In other words, there were a lot of times where he had the crowd laughing and it wasn't from a written joke necessarily, but rather from just adding a few synonyms to the last word of the last joke he told, and just delivering them in his own funny way, which is funny in itself. And that's a big part of what I was referring to with the "voice" of the comedian. If a comedian knows exactly how his own cadence and speaking style contribute to the humor of his writing, they can get more laughs out of the same material. Dane Cook gets criticized for this all the time (unfairly, in my opinion). People complain that he's not even telling jokes, he's just talking. Well, the audience is laughing, right? They're laughing because he knows when and how his speaking style is funny. So Seinfeld has mastered that too, and like I said, it's a thing that's still evolving for him as he gets older and writes new material. He has more of an "old man complaining" vibe now, somewhat replacing the "bemused man observing" that he used to be.
And his complaints are still as funny and perceptive as anyone working today. He's frustrated with Blackberry users and how they'd rather look at their phone than listen to you ("Do we even know what rudeness is in this culture anymore?" ). He doesn't understand our culture's new emphasis on hydration ("When I was a kid I'd take one swig from the school water fountain and run for 28 straight hours. What happened?" ) No one ever told him that when he got married, he would spend every single day discussing his "tone" ("Do you know that my own regular speaking voice, the voice that I am using to talk to you right now, is not welcome in my own home?" )
He had several jokes about marriage ("Being married is like being on a game show, and it's always the lightning round" ), 5 Hour Energy ("If you're so tired that you need five hours worth of energy, you know what you need? You need to go to bed!" ), and Pop Tarts ("When they invented Pop Tarts, the back of my head blew right off!" ). (p.s. Brian Regan still has the best ever bit about Pop Tarts. See it here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8kThoZpF_U)
He had jokes on fatherhood and how useless his role seems sometimes ("Even still, sometimes I see the kids looking at me and it's like they're about to ask me "I'm sorry sir, is someone helping you? Mom, the horsie ride guy is here, do we need anything?" ), Ebay ("Why spend time talking to my family when I can spend all night on the computer bidding on someone else's garbage?" ), and OnStar ("If my keys get locked in the car, forget a two cent coat hanger. I need to contact a hundred million dollar NASA satellite to take care of this problem!" ).
He did long bits about the complexity and hassles of getting ready to go out, public restrooms, coffee, why humans are obsessed with sitting, cremation and burial, and the fact that all material things eventually end up as garbage (deep philosophical truths in that one, if you care to go there).
Long story short, he was incredible. As I watched him I felt like I was watching a consummate professional who is one of the best in the world at his trade. He performed for over an hour, and it was the fastest hour of comedy I've ever seen. I think he's funnier now than he used to be, again not because he writes better material, but because I think he has a better understanding of how his personal touch can make combine with his written material to combine for something even funnier. His comedic voice wouldn't work very well on Steve Martin's stand up material and vice versa, but his mastery of matching his own style of comedy to his (genius) writing mean he's still the best in the business. And you know what? He never once used the phrase "What's the deal with...." I'm not saying that's good or bad, just saying I was listening for it and it never came. Truth of the matter is that he doesn't actually say that, as far as I know. A lot of that stuff (including the idea of him with his agitated voice asking "who are these people?!?" ) came from a Saturday Night Live skit that was making fun of him several years ago. Here's the transcript of that skit: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/91/91rstandup.phtml
So, the only downside of the show was that he did not do an encore. I know that sometimes on his tour he'll come back out for his encore and do a Q&A with the audience, and I was really looking forward to seeing something like that, but no luck this time.
Here are some clips from other places that include a couple of the jokes he did.
Iphones and Blackberries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYDA7__znfY
Kids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqWLw0mOiV0
First let me explain why I love stand up comedy. In my opinion, it is the most pure form of entertainment. Think about what it is for a minute. It's a person standing in front of a bunch of other people, and with nothing but his own self, he is expected to not merely keep the crowd busy, but make the crowd have fun. And he's not doing it musically or with any other gimmicks (well, some comics do, but I think those are not pure stand up comedians). Just his voice and his body. That is the essence of entertainment. It's why, for me, stand up comedy is the ultimate challenge. Supposedly public speaking is, on average, the number one fear of humans. Stand up comedy combines that with the added element of an audience that literally has an implicit challenge being extended: make me laugh, now!. So now the comic is doing public speaking and is expected to be funny to a entire crowd of people for whom humor is a subjective thing to begin with. And there's no way to just instantly be good at it. So as a comedian struggles through the process of going from bad to good, he endures and then overcomes what must be the most awkward feeling a human can have: a group of people staring blankly at you after you just said something you thought was funny but isn't. Plus they paid money to be there. I've listened to a lot of comedians talk about their early experiences and it always sounds so brutal, yet they fight through it. It's just an amazing thing to me. Anyway, on to the review.
The opener was Mario Joyner. I didn't know his name previously but I did recognize him. He's been in a lot of Chris Rock's productions and has been around on t.v. a little bit both as an actor and a stand up comedian. He did a couple Seinfeld episodes in the '90s and also had a part in Bee Movie, so I guess that's where the Seinfeld connection grew from.
He was very funny. He jumped right in and had no problem entertaining a crowd that didn't come to see him. I did find it interesting that like Seinfeld, he was very professionally dressed, wearing a suit. It seems that Seinfeld is old-school like that, the mindset being that we are professionals, so let's dress like professionals.
Back to Joyner though. He, like Seinfeld, uses a lot of observational humor. He joked about flying, cell phones, relationships, hotel stays, midlife crises, GPS units, etc. Standard comedian fare. However, I was impressed that he actually made all of these things funny. Some topics have been beaten to death in comedy, but his jokes were still fresh.
It was also clear that he was following Seinfeld's wishes in regards to his material. Seinfeld is a comedian who works relatively clean, and Joyner followed suit, leaving out a couple words that he uses on his CD. And of course there's no shame in toeing the company line for something like that (Joyner even made one joke about the fact that Seinfeld runs a very tight ship), considering how much money he must be making for his 15 minute set . That being said, he still had a bit of an edge to him, which I appreciated. I like clean comedy, but I also still like comedians to joke about non-PC topics. Like Seinfeld himself says, the whole job of a comedian is to make fun of stuff, so even while being "clean," there's still going to be the possibility that a listener can get offended, but that's often where the best jokes come from.
Anyway, Joyner pretty much killed it. Everyone seemed to love him. I'm not sure how long he performed, probably 15-20 minutes. When he finished, they didn't do the typical "opener gives a nice introduction to the headliner" type thing. He just waved, walked off, and a couple seconds later, Jerry Seinfeld came sprinting onto the stage with no introduction. It caught me off guard. But fair enough, it's true that he needs no introduction.
So after the huge applause died down, he opened with a couple minutes of local humor (making fun of the burnt orange (or as Seinfeld called it, "light medium brown" ) that dominates the University of Texas campus and the fact that it's called "University of Texas AT Austin," not just UT-Austin) before moving into his standard material. I always enjoy those few minutes of local humor. It's like a special little treat that is only given to that specific audience.
Most people know Seinfeld was a comedian before he was a t.v. star. The whole reason he got his sitcom was because he had already found his "voice" as a comedian. I always find it interesting to see comedians evolve and settle into their particular "voice". Look at Jim Gaffigan for instance. He's been funny for years, but the first time I saw him on t.v. several years ago, he didn't use that little "this is what the audience must be thinking" voice that is now a huge source of his material and probably the thing he's most known for. Watch Dane Cook's first Comedy Central Presents special and compare it to what he does now. He's still the same energetic, likable guy, but he settled into his storytelling style and now sells out huge arenas. Listen to old Brian Regan recordings. He has a much different sound and style than he does now, and like the others I listed, now that he found his correct comic voice, he sells out theaters rather than clubs. It's hard for a comedian to find the right style of joke telling for them. Go to a small comedy club in New York where the comics are just trying to make a name. It's painful at times, because you can see them trying to project some image, some style, yet it just doesn't work. For whatever reason, there's just something undefinable within the art of stand up comedy that has to be there, regardless of the quality of the writing, or else they'll never make it big. Part of it is speaking style, some of it is just their cadence, some of it is even something like what they wear, and what kind of facial expressions they use. It all needs to work together, along with solid material, for a comedian to really be successful.
So Seinfeld had already made his way as a comedian and had one of the most recognizable and identifiable styles of any comedian out there. Everyone knows that Seinfeld is the "what's the deal with ____?" guy. What's my point? My point is that even now, with Seinfeld having already reached the peak of comedian-dom, his comic voice is still evolving. He still used observational humor, but he doesn't quite do it the same way. One thing that stood out to me was that he is a little more energetic and loud than I've seen him over the years. Not obnoxious loud (not even close), but just not as subdued as he used to be. He also now seems to take advantage of his own voice (actual speaking voice, not the big concept of "voice" I've also been mentioning) more. In other words, there were a lot of times where he had the crowd laughing and it wasn't from a written joke necessarily, but rather from just adding a few synonyms to the last word of the last joke he told, and just delivering them in his own funny way, which is funny in itself. And that's a big part of what I was referring to with the "voice" of the comedian. If a comedian knows exactly how his own cadence and speaking style contribute to the humor of his writing, they can get more laughs out of the same material. Dane Cook gets criticized for this all the time (unfairly, in my opinion). People complain that he's not even telling jokes, he's just talking. Well, the audience is laughing, right? They're laughing because he knows when and how his speaking style is funny. So Seinfeld has mastered that too, and like I said, it's a thing that's still evolving for him as he gets older and writes new material. He has more of an "old man complaining" vibe now, somewhat replacing the "bemused man observing" that he used to be.
And his complaints are still as funny and perceptive as anyone working today. He's frustrated with Blackberry users and how they'd rather look at their phone than listen to you ("Do we even know what rudeness is in this culture anymore?" ). He doesn't understand our culture's new emphasis on hydration ("When I was a kid I'd take one swig from the school water fountain and run for 28 straight hours. What happened?" ) No one ever told him that when he got married, he would spend every single day discussing his "tone" ("Do you know that my own regular speaking voice, the voice that I am using to talk to you right now, is not welcome in my own home?" )
He had several jokes about marriage ("Being married is like being on a game show, and it's always the lightning round" ), 5 Hour Energy ("If you're so tired that you need five hours worth of energy, you know what you need? You need to go to bed!" ), and Pop Tarts ("When they invented Pop Tarts, the back of my head blew right off!" ). (p.s. Brian Regan still has the best ever bit about Pop Tarts. See it here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8kThoZpF_U)
He had jokes on fatherhood and how useless his role seems sometimes ("Even still, sometimes I see the kids looking at me and it's like they're about to ask me "I'm sorry sir, is someone helping you? Mom, the horsie ride guy is here, do we need anything?" ), Ebay ("Why spend time talking to my family when I can spend all night on the computer bidding on someone else's garbage?" ), and OnStar ("If my keys get locked in the car, forget a two cent coat hanger. I need to contact a hundred million dollar NASA satellite to take care of this problem!" ).
He did long bits about the complexity and hassles of getting ready to go out, public restrooms, coffee, why humans are obsessed with sitting, cremation and burial, and the fact that all material things eventually end up as garbage (deep philosophical truths in that one, if you care to go there).
Long story short, he was incredible. As I watched him I felt like I was watching a consummate professional who is one of the best in the world at his trade. He performed for over an hour, and it was the fastest hour of comedy I've ever seen. I think he's funnier now than he used to be, again not because he writes better material, but because I think he has a better understanding of how his personal touch can make combine with his written material to combine for something even funnier. His comedic voice wouldn't work very well on Steve Martin's stand up material and vice versa, but his mastery of matching his own style of comedy to his (genius) writing mean he's still the best in the business. And you know what? He never once used the phrase "What's the deal with...." I'm not saying that's good or bad, just saying I was listening for it and it never came. Truth of the matter is that he doesn't actually say that, as far as I know. A lot of that stuff (including the idea of him with his agitated voice asking "who are these people?!?" ) came from a Saturday Night Live skit that was making fun of him several years ago. Here's the transcript of that skit: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/91/91rstandup.phtml
So, the only downside of the show was that he did not do an encore. I know that sometimes on his tour he'll come back out for his encore and do a Q&A with the audience, and I was really looking forward to seeing something like that, but no luck this time.
Here are some clips from other places that include a couple of the jokes he did.
Iphones and Blackberries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYDA7__znfY
Kids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqWLw0mOiV0
Um... hi?
Howdy, internet. I'm back. Deal with it!
Ok, I had done some blogging a few years ago, mostly for the reasons listed on the side of this blog, but at some point stopped keeping up with it, possibly because most of the time, it was read by literally one person. And that one person was literally me. Not that that should matter if I look at this as more of a journal to look back on when I'm older, but you know how it goes. If your blog isn't making you wealthy and famous beyond your wildest dreams and getting you preferred seating at Chili's, is it even worth it?
Anyway, welcome to my new blog. I'd like to think I will keep up with this.
So, let's talk golf. Yesterday concluded a historic (or "an" historic, if you're snooty) week of golf for Rory McIlroy, a week in which he set or tied 12 U.S. Open records and officially became the guy who the media will swear is the next Tiger Woods, at least until that 18-year-old Italian kid (Matteo Manassero) wins a PGA event next year.
Personally, I don't think this quite compares to Tiger's 15 shot victory in 2000, for a few reasons. One, this U.S. Open course played very easy compared to most. A lot of rain during the week and a lot of heat the week prior left the rough manageable and the greens soft. 20-odd players finished under par this week, which is as many as the last ten years of U.S. Opens combined. The course was very tame, which means that really what Rory accomplished was that he played the best, most consistent golf (by far), whereas when Tiger won, he was way under par (12, to be exact) on a week when second best was three over. So not only is Tiger's 15 shot margin obviously superior to McIlroy's eight, the fact that Tiger not only subdued but dominated a course that no one else broke par on is far more impressive than winning by several strokes on an uncharacteristically easy course. People went low every day this year at Congressional. At Pebble in 2000, Tiger shot the lowest round on the course all four days. That is an insane stat that may never be equaled.
All that said, yes, Rory is undoubtedly the closest thing we have to the "next" Tiger. However, much like there really is no "next" Michael Jordan, there is no "next" Tiger. MJ and Tiger both transformed the games they play(ed) and in my humble opinion, even if more talented players emerge, no one will ever be able to impact the games the way those did. The media needs to stop trying to give these "next" titles. How many "next" Michael Jordans have we had? And none of them have even come close to what he did! The closest thing we've had, and I can't believe people argue this, is Kobe Bryant. He has had an amazing, unbelievable career, yet try this on for size:
Michael Jordan's career scoring average (playoffs): 33.4
Kobe Bryant's career scoring average (playoffs): 25.0
And there are plenty of other stats that are just as telling. Point being, he's not MJ. And Rory isn't Tiger. He certainly has a chance to be the face of the new generation of golfers though. I think he is bar none the most talented golfer, tee to green, in the game right now. His short game probably isn't like Tiger's and Phil's, but in all honesty, he didn't even need a short game this week. It's easy to look at the stats (he led the field in putting) and say that he won because his putter was hot. But that wasn't the case. He led the field in putting because he had far and away the best ball-striking week of anyone out there. For the most part, it was fairway, green, putt. And his approaches were often very close, which is what helped his putting. Not to say he didn't hole out a few impressive par-saving putts, but my point is that he won this tournament with ball striking. And he certainly slammed the door shut on any lingering memories of his Masters collapse. I think he's ready to start dominating and after seeing what he's done now at 3 different majors (let's not forget his 63 in the British Open last year, the lowest round ever shot in a major), I'd be pretty shocked if he doesn't end up winning 5-10 majors, and you'd have to say he has a shot at even more.
It was fun to watch. Thanks to Al Gore's glorious internet, I was able to watch every shot while I worked on Thursday and Friday and then watch almost every shot on the weekend. It really was something else. A truly historic performance.
Ok, I had done some blogging a few years ago, mostly for the reasons listed on the side of this blog, but at some point stopped keeping up with it, possibly because most of the time, it was read by literally one person. And that one person was literally me. Not that that should matter if I look at this as more of a journal to look back on when I'm older, but you know how it goes. If your blog isn't making you wealthy and famous beyond your wildest dreams and getting you preferred seating at Chili's, is it even worth it?
Anyway, welcome to my new blog. I'd like to think I will keep up with this.
So, let's talk golf. Yesterday concluded a historic (or "an" historic, if you're snooty) week of golf for Rory McIlroy, a week in which he set or tied 12 U.S. Open records and officially became the guy who the media will swear is the next Tiger Woods, at least until that 18-year-old Italian kid (Matteo Manassero) wins a PGA event next year.
Personally, I don't think this quite compares to Tiger's 15 shot victory in 2000, for a few reasons. One, this U.S. Open course played very easy compared to most. A lot of rain during the week and a lot of heat the week prior left the rough manageable and the greens soft. 20-odd players finished under par this week, which is as many as the last ten years of U.S. Opens combined. The course was very tame, which means that really what Rory accomplished was that he played the best, most consistent golf (by far), whereas when Tiger won, he was way under par (12, to be exact) on a week when second best was three over. So not only is Tiger's 15 shot margin obviously superior to McIlroy's eight, the fact that Tiger not only subdued but dominated a course that no one else broke par on is far more impressive than winning by several strokes on an uncharacteristically easy course. People went low every day this year at Congressional. At Pebble in 2000, Tiger shot the lowest round on the course all four days. That is an insane stat that may never be equaled.
All that said, yes, Rory is undoubtedly the closest thing we have to the "next" Tiger. However, much like there really is no "next" Michael Jordan, there is no "next" Tiger. MJ and Tiger both transformed the games they play(ed) and in my humble opinion, even if more talented players emerge, no one will ever be able to impact the games the way those did. The media needs to stop trying to give these "next" titles. How many "next" Michael Jordans have we had? And none of them have even come close to what he did! The closest thing we've had, and I can't believe people argue this, is Kobe Bryant. He has had an amazing, unbelievable career, yet try this on for size:
Michael Jordan's career scoring average (playoffs): 33.4
Kobe Bryant's career scoring average (playoffs): 25.0
And there are plenty of other stats that are just as telling. Point being, he's not MJ. And Rory isn't Tiger. He certainly has a chance to be the face of the new generation of golfers though. I think he is bar none the most talented golfer, tee to green, in the game right now. His short game probably isn't like Tiger's and Phil's, but in all honesty, he didn't even need a short game this week. It's easy to look at the stats (he led the field in putting) and say that he won because his putter was hot. But that wasn't the case. He led the field in putting because he had far and away the best ball-striking week of anyone out there. For the most part, it was fairway, green, putt. And his approaches were often very close, which is what helped his putting. Not to say he didn't hole out a few impressive par-saving putts, but my point is that he won this tournament with ball striking. And he certainly slammed the door shut on any lingering memories of his Masters collapse. I think he's ready to start dominating and after seeing what he's done now at 3 different majors (let's not forget his 63 in the British Open last year, the lowest round ever shot in a major), I'd be pretty shocked if he doesn't end up winning 5-10 majors, and you'd have to say he has a shot at even more.
It was fun to watch. Thanks to Al Gore's glorious internet, I was able to watch every shot while I worked on Thursday and Friday and then watch almost every shot on the weekend. It really was something else. A truly historic performance.
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