Some Stuff on a Friggin' Cold Saturday

Email: GooseTownMail@yahoo.com

--I shall now officially link another site to the GooseTown Federation (TM), Golden Road. This is a fledgling yet important little Blog dedicated to the wonderfully complicated world of my good friend and former roommate, Craig Metz (who also goes by C-Money or, as I like to call him, Crizzle Mizzle). This site is especially important in that Craig aims to tackle critical issues facing the world and our society, whereas I am rooted in my babbling about minutiae. He is one of the smartest people I know and, were I forced at gunpoint to pick a slogan for his site, it would certainly be "Golden Road: Sometimes it's too much, sometimes you just want more."

Please leave comments and be sure to ask Craig about his Half-Price Law School Education Directive.

So, to recap, here are my Linked Associates:

1) CannedJam
2) DanWho
3) Golden Road

--Many who know me have heard me tackle this issue before in other forums, but I feel the need to bring it to the forefront here: The Erector Set Spoiler.

Remember Erector Sets? For the younger generation, no, this is not a contraption that Rafael Palmeiro uses to mount his wife...it's a mechanical toy set, not so much unlike Legos, that allows to to build various objects out of metal and screws. I never had an Erector Set, but it was a much coveted item. I wanted badly to build the dinosaur they showed on the commercial, or possibly the car. I remember a good friend of mine getting one and we built the tallest building I had ever seen at the time, a monstrosity which stodd nearly four feet tall when we were finished. The important thing about whatever you built was that no, it wasn't "pretty", but you made it yourself and it had some kind of fucntion. I was always a relatively smart kid, but standing there, looking at our magnanimous creation, not once did it ever enter my mind, "You know, someday, some assh*le somewhere is going to make a lot of money by putting this sh*t on the backs of redneck cars."

C'mon, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The "pimped-out" 1993 Nissan Stanza, Maroon with paint chips, lowered for mad good handling, phat 22's, tinted windows, coffee can exhaust system, banging bass....and an Erector Set Spoiler bolted to the top of the trunk. It's the equivalent of wearing an Armani suit to McDonald's with tin foil wrapped around your shoes for effect. It makes not an ounce of sense mechanically and even less aesthetically. True, a good amount of street racing proliferates my area (as I'm sure it does all areas where there is a heavy redneck population), but do you really think it's going to help you outrun a 1991 Mitsubishi Lancer for 200 feet outside the local Dunkin' Donuts? More importantly, how can you look at this ugly metal contraption and think, "Yes. I need to affix this to the back of my car not only because it will help provide wind shear for a faster race time, but it just looks so absolutely stunning that many, many girls will want to sleep with me. Yes, I must do this now."

I have absolutely no answer for this. I see at least twelve per day drive by my office window. It's almost like each one is taunting me. I truly believe that whoever figures out this fetish should be the one entrusted to end World Hunger and find the Holy Grail.

Along the same lines, I was at a party last night with my brother. He is twenty and all the kids his age in this area have only one interest: cars. They define each other by what car they have. Instead of describing another kid like, "He's tall and has brown hair and always wears blue," it's always, "he drives a red Z4." That's all they care about. One kid was trying to describe a girl to me, whom he said was perfect, and one of his big points for her was that, "She can drive a five speed like a guy." Holy f*cking sh*t, why didn't you say so?!? Get her over here now! I've always wanted a woman who exhibited innately masculine qualities such as being a gearhead and racing accountants on the highway. Maybe we can stay up late at night to talk about beef or why Toyota is better than Chevy or how Kevin Harvick is a p*ssy but Jeff Gordon rules. Please, write down her phone number before I lose my edge. Later in the night, the only girl who was there was shocked, dismayed, and horrified by my admission that I cannot drive stick. I never learned, I don't care to, and it's so far from being an issue to me that the light from Issue will not reach Earth for 4.2 million years. Now I don't have too much masculinity to begin with, but whatever I did have was gone from her radar in that instance.

Therefore, seeing as how this is apparently a vital skill to women, I will no longer be attracted to any female that cannot use a blender.

--I am steamrolling my Fantasy Football competition. I mean it's really getting ugly. True, I lost last weekend, but I was without my star player (Priest Holmes) and had previously been in a seven game winning streak, so something had to give. I certainly thought I had one of the best teams on draft day and now I'm sure. My buddies, at the time, scoffed at my draft. Holmes is injured. Jamal Lewis is injured. Who is Chad Johnson? Why would you trade for Brett Favre?

Peons.

The best part of our league is that we have two friends, Loftus and Roland, who couldn't figure out how to draft. Roland got impossibly drunk by the third round, at one time announcing that someone had picked "Greg Maddux", and Loftus is one of those kids whose Fantasy Drafting Style is obscured by his Real World team loyalties and player affinity.

Roland got LaDanian Tomlinson and Brett Favre in the first three rounds, but the rest of his draft then becomes a mishmash of washups and journeymen. Loftus, who was far less drunk, allowed his first eight rounds to go as such:

1) Donovan McNabb; 2) Peyton Manning; 3) Jeremy Shockey; 4) Koren Robinson; 5) Brian Urlacher; 6) Ray Lewis; 7) Keith Brooking; 8) Amos Zereoue

Now looking back, picks One and Two were not so bad. No one could have known how horrendous McNabb would be, and Manning has been better than promised. But Round Three began Loftus's doom. In a league where Running Backs score a good deal points more than all other positions 75-80% of the time, you cannot afford to wait until Round Eight to draft one. Also inexplicable is the Mid-Round drafting of three consecutive defensive players. Though they are the top defensive players in the league, they almost always score fewer points than top offensive players on a week-to-week basis. The real key to the draft is the Round Three picking of Jeremy "Where the hell is that End Zone Thingy?" Shockey. Again: always good to have a friend who is Fantasy Blinded by team loyalties. A massive Giants fan, Loftus went out of his way at least a round early to nab Shockey, who is having a decent Fantasy Year but not producing at near the rate of a Tony Gonzlalez, whom I was able to grab two rounds later. The Day before Week Five Sunday, Loftus argued with me. Asking which Tight End I would rather have on my team for the duration of the season, I chose T-Gon over Shockey. Loftus wholeheartedly supported Jeremy, at one point telling me I was insane. Stats since Week Four:

Shockey: 35 rec., 380 yds, 1 TD, 1 Fum. lost, Overall Rank: 73
Gonzalez: 16 rec., 320 yds, 3 TD, 0 Fum., Overall Rank: 47

As TDs count for twelve times the amount as receptions, Gonzo is blowing Shockey away. Also note that Tony has played one less game in that timespan due to a Bye Week. Loftus and I talked about this a week or two ago. Asked if he felt the same, he said, "I stand by Shockey." Of course you do.

That's why you're 2-7. Maybe Duce Staley can pick it up for you this weekend. And you can probably still grab Dane Looker off the waiver wire!

--I will devote an entire Babble to The Matrix: Revolutions in a day or two. Suffice to say, I disagree with most of the critics and thought it was brilliant. Also took in Elf last night and laughed harder than I can remember. I highly recommend both.