Sunday, September 19, 2004
| Week 02 - 2004/2005 |
Week 2 is off to an inauspicious start. I get to the place at 10 'til noon, a full hour and ten minutes before kickoff, and there are already douchebags occupying my table. Not cool. I could deal with it if the table was full of guys who were excited about a particular game and wanted to get there early, but that's not the case. These guys look like rejected Abercrombie models. I want to set fire to them.
And here's another of my favorites. You may remember him from last year. He's the guy who has a Saints Ricky Williams jersey, with masking tape over the "34" and "Williams" with "26" and "McALLISTER" written over it. This makes the third year he's been sporting that jersey. Does he ever wash it? Does he reapply the tape job every week? The guy he's trying to humiliate is no longer in the league. It's time to turn the page, man. We contemplate taking up a collection to buy him a new jersey.
Y'know, I wish these NFL pre-game shows would find a way to work in more Ray Lewis. I think it would be a great idea for someone to put a microphone on him so I could hear him saying, "Let's go get 'em, baby!" or "WOOOO!" I think that would be great.
The guy who controls the TVs, who usually wears a Chiefs jersey, is wearing a Rams jersey this week. I guess he's just a big Dick Vermeil fan. I'd ask him about it, but he might start crying.
By the way, my man Nate is in the house this week, and he's wearing a shirt that says, "I (HEART) SOCCER MOMS."
The early games that I can see are KC/Carolina, Pittsburgh/Bal'mer, and Denver/Jacksonville.
And the moment you've all been waiting for... Crazy. Fish. Guy. He's got a new shirt, too. It's a dark blue Dolphins t-shirt, and the pits look clean. It's hard to get used to the new look. It's like seeing MJ in the Wizards jersey.
Crazy Fish Guy comes over and asks me how the Steelers are going to do, despite the fact that I've told him more than 30 times that I'm a Chargers fan. I just tell him that I think the Ravens suck... let him believe what he wants to believe. He clearly wants to sit at our table. He's hovering around, but I can't allow it. It may happen someday, but today, I just don't have it in me. He settles in at the table next to us, and opens up a phone book. I think he's looking for the bookie section. Or for an escort service.
I'm getting extremely tired of Chris Berman. Every trick he has in the bag to seem amusing or hip has been in use constantly since the early 90s. It's just not cute anymore. He coasts on reputation like he's Vince Carter.
Crazy Fish Guy calls someone on his cell phone and says, "If there's any emergencies, I'm over at the sports bar." I don't know if it's a babysitter or a co-worker or what, but... I'm a little alarmed at the fact that there are people in the world who depend on Crazy Fish Guy. They probably have no idea of his other life as Crazy Fish Guy, and how much he means to all of us.
Early in the Pittsburgh/Baltimore game, the Steelers are taking all suspense out of the highly-anticipated Kyle Boller vs. Steelers secondary match-up by just allowing the Ravens to run at will. Boller, Jamal Lewis, and Chester Taylor all break off long runs. Danks is calling him Chester Copperpot. Why, I don't know.
Crazy Fish Guy just touched me. I ask the waitress for antibiotics.
The Ravens open the game was an easy touchdown drive. At no point did the Steelers challenge them on anything. The same offense that couldn't score against the Browns just looked like the '89 49ers against the Steelers.
Crazy Fish Guy's cell phone is blowing up. I have an almost obsessive desire to know who it is. I come up with four possibilities, in order of likelihood. 1) Bookie. 2) FBI. 3) Someone he paid to call him so it looks like he has friends. 4) Monty "Money" Mathers with this week's surefire, 100%, guaranteed, can't miss, LOCK OF THE WEEK!
Coors Light commercial. Who knows why, but I have yet to see a Coors Light commercial this year based around treating women like objects. The play it fairly straight. Nevertheless, everyone at our table still suspects Pete Coors of being a child molester, for no real reason. We come up with some prospective new ad campaigns. "Hi, I'm Pete Coors, and we're willing to wait for your business. I'm also willing to wait until your parents aren't home, to do what I want to do to you." And Sammy suggests, "Hi, I'm Pete Coors. We ship our beer in refrigerated trucks because cold beer is better. Also because could trucks are better for storing dead bodies."
The place is packed, and a random couple sits down next to Crazy Fish Guy. The woman is an extremely loud and obnoxious Panthers fan with a deep Louisiana accent. The guy gets up and leaves for a while, leaving his woman alone with the mad-phat ladykiller that is Crazy Fish Guy. I'm hoping he puts his mack down.
Deion Sanders is back to return a punt for the Ravens. It's a nice return, and Deion looked quick. He gets 20+ yards, is tackled, and promptly yanks his helmet off to get some face time on camera. As everyone else in the NFL knows, this is a penalty. No one told Deion, apparently. But hey, the guy's got to get his face time somehow. A young hard-working special teamer with a low profile like Deion needs to find a way to get some media attention. How else is he supposed to make a living?
Jake Delhomme flips a crazy little touchdown pass to a tight end named "Magnum." I heard that guy's huge.
The woman sitting next to Crazy Fish Guy, as it turns out, is one annoying hag. She's told Crazy Fish Guy about how she hates, "Pretty Boy Tom Brady," so Danks already hates her. The only Panther of who's existence she is aware is Jake Delhomme. She yells "COME ON, JAKE!" at all stages of the game. 4th and 10, Panthers punting, "COME ON, JAKE!" She also yells, "GO! GO! GO!" in her Louisiana accent, which really does kinda sound like "GEAUX!" I'm starting to hate this Heaux.
I love this commercial CBS is running for a new Dr. Phil show. He tells this lady, "There are 14 signs of a serial killer, and your son has nine of them." Good Lord, Doc... is there no other way to put that? That pretty much amounts to, "You are the worst parent ever. Your child will murder." I'm sure there's a really good clinical reason to humiliate this woman in front of the entire world, but you can't try to cushion that blow a little bit? Or maybe just, I dunno, not put it on national television? I'm not a doctor, but hey... just a thought.
There is absolutely nothing happening in the Broncos/Jags game. Nothing. Byron Leftwich doesn't look good, and Jake Plummer looks like Jake Plummer has always looked. Jacksonville's D is tough. Q Griffin can find no room.
We see a commercial for 60 Minutes with Bill Belichick, but we can't hear it. Danks asks if he's on 60 Minutes tonight, and I tell him that yes, 60 Minutes is doing a show tonight featuring necrophiliac homosexuals. Danks says, "I'd fuck the shit out of Bill Belichick if he were dead. Write that in your little book."
The Ravens have gone up 20-0 on the Steelers in the 2nd half. It's over. The Steelers might not be able to score 20 points in a half without a defense on the field.
DeShaun Foster is running all over the Chiefs, or, as I like to think of them, the Dallas Mavericks of the NFL. I'm rooting hard against the Panthers because of the obnoxious heaux, but the Chiefs just can't win this game.
Nate decides its time to guess who played the gimp in Pulp Fiction. Nate says Randy Quaid. Danks says Dan Akyroyd. I'm thinking John Ratzenberger. Eventually, we all settle on Frank Beamer.
The Ravens have opened up an insurmountable lead on the Steelers. The Jags/Broncos game looks more like soccer than football, and the Chiefs are making DeShaun Foster look like Jim Brown. I'm just killing time until the Chargers game right now.
Good news for the Steelers... Tommy Maddox messed up his elbow. In comes Ben Roethlisberger, who immediately throws a brutal interception. That should pretty much end it. Crazy Fish Guy sums things up nicely when he turns to me and says, "At least the Steelers might have a chance next week." They play the Dolphins.
4:15, and I have to move to the back. The last few disgruntled Redskin fans are moving out, and they've all got on Clinton Portis, Laveraneus Coles, or Sean Taylor jerseys. No one ever goes old school with a Redskins jersey. To a Skins fan, the off-season is the best time of the year. You get all your special new players, they can't suck yet, and in the off-season, you can't turn the ball over 7 times and lose to the Giants.
The Chargers have a sweet new logo at midfield. I don't know if anyone else in the world cares but me, but it just about makes my day. It's prettier than most women.
After an opening drive where we moved the ball pretty well before turning it over, Curtis Martin runs through the Bolts defense like he's Marion Barry and there's a pile of rocks in the endzone. That looked easy.
Drew Brees throws a pick, and here comes Curtis Martin again. The whole "Old-ass running back has a good game" thing was cute last week, but I'm getting damn tired of it. I would generally just feel more comfortable seeing him carted off on a stretcher. But maybe that's just me.
The waitress has brought us some complimentary pretzels, and we start throwing them around like children. Chris and AJ, in an act that could be described as a little bit gay, are trying to throw pretzels into each other's mouths.
EA Sports has a commercial for the new Tiger Woods game, featuring this shot on the cover. I don't know if it's Tiger Woods or an angry brown elf in a black hat.
The Jets are up 17-0. I've already given up. It seems like this is the week where we come back to reality. Last week was fun with our little road win over the Texans, but perhaps it only hid for a week the fact that we are still the Chargers, and we still suck. There is no hope.
Tim Dwight is back to take the kickoff. He's got some room and THERE HE GOES. GET THERE, TIMMY. HOUSE IT, BABY. YOU LIKE THAT, JET BITCHES? WOOOO... We're back in this game, and, by the way, I feel like we're a playoff team.
The waitress comes over to take some orders, but she has nothing to write them down on. Without asking, she takes my little notepad and uses it. Which is fine, I don't mind, but... I'm glad I had not yet written in it that I really really want to have sex with her, or drawn pictures of it. That might've been a little embarrassing.
Chris Simms is in for the Bucs, which is about the same thing as saying, "OK, we forfeit." Simms actually had a pretty impressive play where he scrambled out of bounds, and took a ferocious hit to the head, and then got up and acted like he enjoyed it. I don't think he played too bad, actually.
Rodney Harrison picks up his customary weekly personal foul penalty. This one, a blatant late hit on a Cardinal who was three yards out of bounds. I really miss Rodney.
I guess they retired Pat Tillman's number today in Arizona. The patriotic thing for the Patriots to do would be to go into Arizona and lose. Let the Cardinal fans and family of Pat Tillman have their day. But no, that's just too much to ask. Tom Brady must really hate Pat Tillman.
Just as I notice that Vinny Testaverde, for the 2nd straight week, has huge numbers, he throws interceptions on 3 of the next six passes. Ah, the conundrum of Vinny. 300 yards per game? No problem. High completion percentage? Yes. 3 brutal interceptions per game? Always.
Just as the Chargers put together a few drives and get back into the game, the center decides to snap the ball into his taint. It's a fumble, the Jets pounce on it, and FUCK. Like we don't have enough problems... now our center is trying to stuff an oblong hunk of pigskin into his ass crack.
But the Bolts hold on D. Drew gets it back and unloads a beautiful touchdown pass. We've been incredibly bad, even for the Chargers, and we're still in this game.
The Jets move down the field for an easy touchdown and extend the lead to 13. Marty sends out Doug Flutie. There is no bigger supporter of Marty Schottenheimer in the world than me, but I hate this. Drew Brees is the starting quarterback of this football team, and unless Doug Flutie has somehow found a way to reverse the aging process, this makes no sense. Why kill Drew Brees's confidence unless there's a very good reason for it? We're down 13 with 2:00 to play, we're not going to win this game. This is a dumb, dumb, thing to do.
(I'd later learn that Drew had a concussion, and wasn't really walking straight. Oops. Sorry, Marty.)
Say, don't most referees have their penalty flags stuffed into the side or back of their pants? I could've sworn I just saw Ed Hochuli stuff his into his jock area. Is this normal procedure? I know Ed's a vain guy, but I think stuffing his jock with penalty flags is taking things just a little too far.
With 3:56 to play, the Chargers need two touchdowns. Doug Flutie leads a 3:26 touchdown drive. At least we'll beat the spread.
The on-side kick fails. I am going home unhappy, but y'know... We just played a terrible game, were -4 in the turnover ratio, and we still hung with the Jets, a team that might be pretty good. The Chargers might just not suck. Seeya next week.
