Okay, so maybe paying a quarter for a beer on Thursdays at Molly's, the "no-wiper," and flipping the bird to hicks with confederate flag bumper stickers on the highway are some of the most enjoyable things in life, but nothing compares to what happens this weekend.
It's NFL Kickoff weekend! Ah, there truly is nothing like the first Sunday at Ralph Wilson Stadium, or any stadium for that matter. But Ralph Wilson is just so classic. When you roll up and see the grills firing, the Labatt being guzzled, and the dudes that came in their orange hunting jumpers, you can't help but get a little misty-eyed. It's football at it's finest.
And you haven't even stepped inside yet. Once you get in, start some drunken chants in the urine-soaked bathroom, harass the 10-year old wearing the Marino jersey, and fall across three aisles during the starting lineups, things really start to get rolling.
Then the game begins, and life is good again.
I hate how some people can get by in life just by their name value. Case in point, Emmitt Smith of the Arizona Cardinals and Mariah Carey of songstress fame. First of all, my boy Emmitt makes the outrageous claims that he is going to rush for about 1,300 yards this season. Yeah, okay buddy. A) You're on the Cardinals. B) You're on the Cardinals. C) You wouldn't even be able to do it if you were on a playoff caliber team. Emmitt is going to be lucky to pick up 500 on the season. Someone needs to blow up the Cardinals franchise.
Now for Mariah. God is she awful. She has been getting by on her name for some years now, when all she really does is make those damned Mariah noises. Jesus, if I wanted to hear that high pitched noise I'd have bought a friggin' dog whistle by now. She should just realize that she is insane, and hang it up for good.
When I heard over the summer that Puff Daddy was interested in buying the Knicks, I sort of felt like Kenny (actor Harland Williams) does in the movie "Half Baked." When his three buddies tell him that they are going to raise money to get him out of jail by selling the reefer, he does this urgent "sure, fine, go, sell it," thing that definitely reminds me of the position that I am in right now. Normally at any point during the 90's I would have quickly dismissed the notion of Puff Daddy ever trying to pull off something like becoming the owner of the Knicks, just like Kenny would have not condoned the selling of the marijawanna if his tush were not in trouble.
But now we're in 2003. Anything would be better than what we have right now. New York general manager Scott Layden seems to be trying to build some sort of good-Samaritan, Christian soldier kind of team. Trading Latrell Sprewell, the heart and soul of the Knicks, for Keith Van Horn, a player whose effort in games has been questioned? What in the name of God was he thinking? This is New York dammit; maybe this stuff would have flied back in Utah, but not here. No way. Get rid of these well-behaved, soft-spoken, passive losers like Allan Houston, Van Horn and Charlie Ward. Give me the pimp-daddy Walt Fraziers, the chair-kicking John Starks' and the Larry Johnsons with their eight illegitimate children.
Now that's New York. Badass all the way. So Puffy, please buy the Knicks. Please.
I was trying to imagine Miami Dolphins' head coach Dave Wannstedt without his goofy mustache the other day, and I just couldn't. It's almost as impossible as trying to imagine the Dolphins not choking in December. (Edit note: God that was that too easy. Originally I had "AC Slater without his curly mullet" in the place of "the Dolphins not choking in December," but decided that Albert Clifford Slater's mullet should wait for another day. I could write about three pages on that thing so why waste it on a Dolphin joke?)
It's pretty hard to get emotionally involved with the New York Yankees this season when you know, I mean YOU KNOW that their bullpen is going to cost them in the postseason. Somewhere down the line either Antonio "where did I come from" Osuna, Jeff "the ingrate" Weaver, or Jose "83.17 ERA" Contreras is going to cost the Yankees the championship. It's just so painfully obvious.
So, the Oakland Raiders' Bill Romanowski decided that he was going to rearrange one of his teammates' faces last week, just like Sid Justice said he would do to Brutus Beefcake on the old WWF "Barber Shop," and he did just that. He broke teammate (emphasis on teammate) Marcus Jones' orbital bone last week, tallying another roid raging freak-out onto his already lengthy list. Am I the only one that thinks this guy should be publicly executed? Or maybe there should be another Freddy vs. Jason movie except this time it's real and Romanowski plays the guy who gets a flaming spear chucked right through his chest. Boy, would I love to see that. This guy gets a slap on the wrist, when he should be banished from Earth and forced to live on Neptune. Where's the justice?
Speaking of Freddy vs. Jason, I just have to mention that seeing that movie in the theatres was one of the most ground-breaking experiences of my life since the brainiac Gremlin sang "New York, New York" in Gremlins 2. People were high-fiving each other, talking smack, calling Freddy a racist ... it was like watching a Pay-Per-View with 200 people.
Is it me, or did Dave from Paradise Hotel fall in the same vat of lucky crap that the Anaheim Angels did last year?
