-This edition of the Gamebook will cover all seven minutes of last night’s game that I took in, along with some notes from my lovely week at the beach. Ah, the beach, where people go to sit in uncomfortable chairs and read. There’s nothing like it.
-Hello, skimboarders of the world. My name is Drew, and I’d like to let you in on a little secret: skimboarding is, bar none, the gayest of all water sports. When I was a child, my parents dropped me off at the ocean, jammed some Bull Frog (SPF 8,000) into my eyes, and threw me into the surf, leaving me to fight the vicious undertow for 8 hours while they enjoyed mixed drinks, shrimp cocktail and sesame sticks on the veranda. And I braved the ocean like a fucking man. That’s not what you’re doing, skimboarders. Put all the skulls and shit on your board that you want. You aren’t surfing. You’re pretend surfing, and you know it. You’re about as in tune with the ocean as Woody Allen. You can get the same sensation putting on brand new Wigwam socks and skidding across your parents’ hardwood floor. And you don’t have to put on suntan lotion to do it. Yeah, I know most of you are seven. But you’re seven going on douchebag. So find a real water sport, or get the fuck outta the ocean.
-Speaking of shrimp cocktail, I would like to demand a shrimp cocktail that is, in fact, a real cocktail. It should have 12 shrimp, three parts Stoli, a jigger of dry vermouth, a splash of tomato juice and Frank’s hot sauce, and a roasted Portobello mushroom dangling out of it. I’m tired of these alcohol-free shrimp cocktails. It’s deliberate false advertising, and, as an alcoholic, I resent it.
-I spent the majority of my vacation trying to mentally understand why I drafted Jeremy Shockey over Alge Crumpler in our Yahoo League draft. There’s no excuse for it. Crumpler is healthier, puts up better numbers, and gets an upgrade at QB this year from the least accurate passer in history to the 2nd least accurate passer in history. Shockey has been overrated for years, yet I drafted him anyway. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about why I did it, and the only reason I can think of is that I am a fucking racist. I’m so racist, I should do a cameo on the Opie & Anthony show. Shame on me. There’s only one thing I can do to make up for it, and that is read a Toni Morrison book. I picked “Sula”. I hear it’s very short, and that you only need to read five critical pieces on it to know what actually happens in it.
-I had one celebrity spotting on my vacation, and it was none other than John Stossel. Yes, the John Stossel, the man who’s made an entire career out of being mistaken for Geraldo Rivera. He was at a gym, arguing with a clerk. I’m assuming he was arguing about whether or not Americans really NEED to work out. He, like “Sula”, is also very short. I can fit him in my shirt pocket.
-Since I am old, I no longer go out to bars while on vacation. Instead, I stayed in and played Cranium with my wife, my sister, and her husband. Cranium: the board game for people who can’t decide which board game they’d like to play. During our game, my sister drew one of the Cameo (nee charades) cards. The word she was asked to act out was “reproduce”. Fuck you, Cranium.
A couple thoughts from last night’s game:
-Matt Hasselbeck should not be wearing see-through baseball hats.
-All QB’s now get a green button on their helmets that they can use to activate their communications systems. Byron Leftwich plans to use the button repeatedly during the course of the season to order his traditional 3rd quarter Triple Monster Thickburger from Hardee’s.
-Ed Hochuli, Mike Carey has seen your luscious bis and tris and has decided he ain’t taking that shit lying down. Last night, Carey showed off two lean, powerful Howitzers encased in sleeves tighter than a weisswurst casing. Carey has fired his shot across the bow, Hochuli. You better step it up if you want to be one of the token “regular” people chosen for People’s 50 Most Beautiful.
-I saw lots of ads for the show “Chuck” last night. Given the hotness of the blond chick in the promos, I really don’t know why they’re spending so much time focused on Chuck. Chuck can go take a walk off a bridge for all I care.
-I went back and forth between the game last night and “Deep Blue” on Discovery Channel, narrated by the silky smooth Pierce Brosnan. I saw a killer whale fuck up a baby gray whale (Bonus points for the infanticide!), and a school of sharks ravage some fish on the ocean floor (double nice!). I don’t know why they covered the emperor penguins, though. That one movie told us everything we need to know about them. I get it. They get really fucking cold and walk a long way for their young. Amazing. But enough already. The tale’s been told. Let’s keep our focus on the killing, shall we?
-I did not see any of the studio show last night. But I’m excited to see Tiki Barber in action. I’ve heard he very telegenic, and by that I mean he says nothing interesting and has meticulously groomed eyebrows that border on being creepy. I also fully expect Brandon Jacobs to steal all his good lines. Fucking Jacobs.
-I did, in fact, catch some football during my vacation, in between washing sand off my child and forgetting to apply sunscreen to my feet. It was three minutes of the third quarter of the Cowboys-Colts preseason “game” on Thursday night. And even though it wasn’t a real game, and even though the players involved were one step below Division VII-AAAAA level, those three minutes were all I needed to realize how much I would like summer to be over. Don’t get me wrong. I love summer. Especially in DC: the smell of hot garbage wafting through the air, homeless people in open-toed shoes, fat women in Tevas… it's magic! But a taste of preseason football is all I need to say goodbye to sunshine and beaches and all that shit I’m supposed to like but don’t really care for all that much.
As I’ve grown older, the NFL offseason feels longer and longer with each successive year. The NFL has, at seven agonizing months, the longest offseason of the three major sports by far. Baseball only goes away for five months. The NBA, a mere four. Neither stays away long enough for me to celebrate its reemergence, and both are horribly overcovered in the blogosphere. Oooh, Gilbert Arenas has a personality! Isn’t that amazing?!
Sorry Gil, but we are but a month away from a new NFL season. So I could give two shits about you, or Kevin Garnett, or Barry Bonds, or remedial skimboarders, or anything else that is distinctly NOT football. Fuck you summer, and fuck you, all you other little placeholder sports. I have a huge footballrection. It lasts five months, and I ain’t consulting a doctor about it.
Oh, and I think this Madden has gang tackles or something. And a roster update, which is all most of us ask of it. Excelsior!
