I'm replacing sports with another variety of self-torture. More clean-up, but at least I'll save a few bucks on jerseys.
It's Tuesday....mid-morning...and I am too hungover to put thought into anything. My apologies to the good readers of WWMRD if none of this makes any sense.
I did end up watching some of the Bills game this past weekend. I didn't plan on it, but as soon as I saw that Trent Edwards was in the game, I felt obligated. I shouldn't have bothered. Shortly after I turned the TV on, Paul Posluszny broke his forearm. As Steve Holt noted, with this season shaping up to be the worst since 2001, there was still some entertainment in watching Poz and Marshawn Lynch develop into Pro-Bowlers. With Poz out, games are 50% less fun to watch. If, god-forbid, Marshawn were to get hurt, I might stop watching football entirely. I might as well just get one of those spiked leg belt things like the albino guy in The Da Vinci Code had...it is effectively what I do to myself every week anyways.
MuchMoreMusic is on the TV, and I can't find the remote. I have no idea if this video is new or not, but Satana has a new song featuring Chad Kroeger of Nickelback fame. This might be the worst song I have ever heard. The video doesn't help either. They're rocking out on top of a hotel in what appears to be Los Angeles. What the eff? Hasn't this video been made 200 times? The highlight of the video may be the fact that Chad's had his hair straightened and cut into a bob. I guess he's got the same stylist as Posh Spice.
If elected, Howard Hampton plans to ban the lastest video by Michaëlle Jean and her band.
I'm calling for a ban on all videos which feature a band playing on a roof. If the NDP can promise this, they've got my vote. Even with the Green Party promising 6 statutory holidays, and the PCs proposing beer and wine in corner stores, I think this is a more valuable cause....
"Just how many donkeys will I need to overthrow the Sandinistas?"
After a summer which saw the U20 World Cup and Toronto FC take over the city, along with Beckham-mania everywhere else, I remain unconvinced that soccer will ever be big in this country. It’s a bit of a shame, but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.
Why won’t it take off? The reason it’s never going to take off is the rolling, faking, embellishment, crying, lying and cheating put forth on the pitch by what seems to be the vast majority of the players and teams in the game. In Canada, (where hockey rules) and the United States, (where football seems to be the sport of choice), fans have no patience for the antics of soccer players. You would never see Dion Phaneuf or Paul Posluszny pretending to get hit, and then fall to the ground in an attempt to bait the ref into making a call. There is a 0.0% chance of this happening.
There is no doubt that the casual sports fan in North America thinks the average soccer player is a total wuss….and fair enough, the reputation has been earned. People don’t want to root for weaklings! (Unless you bet on the longshot in a Strongman competition….that might be the only time you want to root for the weak dude. Or maybe when Brian Moorman is punting…he doesn’t seem that tough. Best punter ever though…)
Canadian and American soccer fans - do not give up hope! For the most part, our national teams are made up of players who don’t play this way. That’s probably because most of our national team members did not grow up in Portugal, Italy, Chile or Honduras. To go along with stand up players like Jim Brennan and Brian McBride, we’ve got a leader who will lead us through the BS which is any game against a CONCACAF opponent, and sketchy Central American refs. That leader is Craig Forrest.
I just finished watching the Canada – Costa Rica “friendly” being played here in Toronto this evening. Craig Forrest reprised his role as HATER of all the diving and faking and general cheating in soccer…and I commend him for it. Most announcers will try to remain reserved and impartial – citing the diving as “part of the game” whether they agree with it or not. Craig Forrest is the only commentator I have ever heard who is clearly against this behavior….and he is vocal about it. The disgusted tone in his voice whenever a Central or South American hits the deck, as if being hit by a drunken Billy Joel, is priceless. I’m pretty sure at one point he wanted to leave the booth to pick a fight with Costa Rican head coach, Hernán Medford, (who sort of looks like Barry Bonds, and was wearing a leather jacket from Danier’s “Burt Reynolds Collection” this evening). Craig Forrest might just be a loose cannon….ergo, I recommend his broadcast work to everyone. It’s only a matter of time before he curses on air and gets fired….let’s enjoy him while we have him.
Post Script - In a perfect world, all sporting events would be broadcast by a tandem of Gus Johnson on play-by-play, and Craig Forrest doing colour. (The greatness of Gus Johnson is a story for another day.) For now, just read this post from Awful Announcing. Enjoy the first 42 seconds of the video, and then turn it off immediately.
Here are three reasons which may explain why I’m in such a negative mood today.
1. It’s Monday and it’s kind of chilly outside. Looking at the forecast for the coming days, it doesn’t really get all that warm again. Saturday, the 8th of September will go down in history as the last warm day of the year in Toronto. Someone update Wikipedia, as I think I have been banned for defacing Tedy Bruschi’s page.
2. The front page of the Toronto Star sports section had a huge picture of Randy Moss, star of our Lord and Saviour New England Patriots. Columnist Garth Woolsey then follows it up with some of the most controversial reporting in sports – another piece fawning over the greatness of the Patriots and the Colts. Oooh…that is cutting edge. F*cking hell, please write a column that hasn’t already been written by every lazy hack in sports today. If you take the first letter from every second word in the article, Garth delivers a cryptic message. It reads, “Tom – Let’s make a baby! You can name it whatever you want!”
Last time I checked, the Bills were the local team. Is there a paper around that covers them as such? If so, please let me know so I can cancel my subscription to the Star. Maybe one of the Southern Ontario papers would be a better bet. I need something more than just the three sentence AP blurb on page S6.
That said, I’m probably wrong on this. The Star is for readers in Toronto, and Toronto is full of bandwagon sports fans. It’s why you see loads of New England and Indy gear in this city. I saw a guy in a Brandon Merriweather (Pats 2007 1st Round Pick) jersey at the Argos game on Saturday…it didn’t really surprise me. I would have been SHOCKED to see anyone in a Marshawn Lynch or Paul Posluszny jersey. Research shows I am the only person in the 416 with a Donte Whitner jersey. F*ck me, I’m moving to Grimsby.
3. The MTV Video Music Awards were on CTV last night. What the hell? A two-hour extravaganza to showcase everything that is wrong with this shallow word….and it’s all on basic cable! It was broadcast from Las Vegas and featured a bunch of douchebags rocking out to terrible music. (I know I use the term ‘douchebag’ a lot, but the people in attendance at the MTV Awards are the absolute epitome of the word.) It’s good that today’s youth gets some exposure to Las Vegas at a young age, just so they have something to look forward to once they turn 21. No doubt, somewhere some kid is saving up their allowance so one day, they can “live the dream” and party with Paris at the Palms. The dumbing down/whoring up of today’s youth continues.
Further, did anyone read the AP’s coverage of the event? Here’s what they had to say about Britney Spears:
“Out-of-synch lip-synching. Lethargic movements that seemed choreographed by a dance instructor for a nursing home. The paunch in place of Spears' once-taut belly. At times she just stopped singing, as if even she knew nothing could save her performance.”
Fair enough, I have no problem ripping on this girl for doing a terrible job at lip-synching or half-assing the dance moves….but the comment about the “paunch” just seems a offside. Hey, Nekessa Mumby Moody, did you know that Britney has popped out a couple of kids? What does her body shape have to do with this? Are you implying that someone without a perfect body should be criticized and not allowed to perform their vocation? I should put WWMRD on mothballs right now, because my paunch is downright scandalous! I certainly hope you weren’t covering Wilson Phillips back in the 90s. What would you have had to say about poor Carnie?!
Interestingly enough, here’s a small photo of Nekessa Mumby Moody. Make judgements as you see fit.
To close, you’re probably asking what will cheer me up? Well, just watch this video of Marshawn Lynch. This, combined with the miracle 4th down conversion (and ensuing helmet-less celebration) makes me a big fan!
Well, I better run. I just got an email from a "Tong Li" who claims to be my friend. Apparently, he has a lucrative business proposal for me....
So, Ali Hassan al-Majeed aka 'Chemical Ali' is finally going to hang for his crimes. He's going down along with his sidekicks, Sultan Hashem Ahmed and Hussein Rashid Mohammed. Not really sure what the other guys did, but it is a shame they don't have great nicknames like Chemical Ali, (or Chem-Al to his friends and the sportscasters at ESPN.)
Hanging? It's not exactly the serene cakewalk of a lethal injection, but still pretty light in terms of execution styles. Sure...your head might pop off, but who cares! If I were hung (hanged?) I'd want my head to pop off so there'd be much more mess and gore for those jerk executioners to clean up! It takes more than windex to get spinal fluid out of a cement floor!
"Now use your left hand to rub your stomach in a circular motion. It's tough, eh?"
Clearly, to hang them would be a cop out. These guys killed 100,000 people by much more gruesome methods. Here are my suggestions for some more fitting execution methods:
1. Gored on a meat hook, then pushed into some sort of machinery or a blast furnace. A lá the bad guy in Stallone's 1986 masterpiece, "Cobra".
2. Put him in a Tom Brady jersey and leave him alone with Paul Posluszny. Alternatively, start a rumour that he said some sh*t about Matt Stairs.
3. Take him up in one of those research planes that follow storms and push him out into the middle of Hurricane Felix. It would finally end the "if you fell out of a plane into a hurricane, what would kill you? The storm, the fall, or the shock of being pushed out of a plane into a storm?" debate.
4. Perhaps the ultimate method of torture would be to force him to direct a used car commercial somewhere in middle America. There is no doubt he would eventually kill himself after a few hours of taking orders from some small town used car dealer. You would too if you had your artisic vision interferred with by demands like:
"Hey Ali, get a shot of Amanda and her cousins holding the Stars and Stripes over by the 89s...that'll be real cute."
"Yes, I am going to wear this eagle costume. USA! USA!"
"Forget your music....my band is providing the soundtrack. We're heavily influenced by Frank D’Angelo and the Steelback 24."
"We need more yelling!"
Well, that's all I got...we can all agree that Chemical Ali is a douchebag. Nix that, Chemical Ali is a huge douchebag. So are Sultan Hashem Ahmed and Hussein Rashid Mohammed.
Feel free to leave your favourite forms of execution in the comments section below. Chien-Ming Wang is pitching today, so I will hopefully be back later with a hilarious headline!!!
I'm replacing sports with another variety of self-torture. More clean-up, but at least I'll save a few bucks on jerseys.
Chemical Ali
