Welcome to the Prairie Dog‘s Pulitzer Prize winning XFL recap Aw XFL Naw: your #1 source for details on the Memphis Maniax, New York/New Jersey Hitmen and every team in between. Now with extra Jim Druckenmiller analysis!
Geez, It’s So Easy To Be Negative. No One Talks About The Sixteen Or So Calls That The Scab Refs Got Right: As someone that enjoys nonsense, I had a full scale southern belle vapour spell over the end of Monday’s Seahawks/Packers game. It’s obvious the call should have been overturned, but the ability to make a proper ruling on such a thing meant going against smaller rules that have precedence over the ability to go “hey, wait that shit’s not allowed at all”. The Packers lost thanks to: 1) a simultaneous catch that wasn’t simultaneous at all 2) Golden Tate shoving a dude at a Grade 7 bully level 3) a replay system that can only rule on some things but not others. It’s terrible, it’s unfair and holy shit did I enjoy it. I cracked up hard. It means Packer fans will be in a righteous indignation spiral for years. Imagined outburst: “We haven’t been this mad since Life With Louie was cancelled!”
Right now we are living in the post apocalyptic era of the NFL and aw shucks is it ever neat! Bust out your net shooting guns! Stick a laser cannon on your tight end’s chest! Replace your team’s wide receiving core with a bunch of Air Bud: Golden Retrievers! Finally get around to attaching a sidecar to Bryant McKinnie! Just strap a cyber pistol to your ankle and go nuts. It’s an exciting time to be alive.
The Kawaii Factor: Cam Newton was the subject of a goof and a spoof in a recent issue of the Charlotte Observer. An editorial cartoon had Newton opening his jersey to reveal that under his uniform wasn’t a Superman logo, but instead (too many gasps!) a Hello Kitty logo. YOU SEE BECAUSE GIRLS LIKE HELLO KITTY AND THEY SULK SOMETIMES OR SOMETHING! FAAAAAAART! I don’t really get what the connection is between Hello Kitty and moping. I’m guessing it’s just a weird sexist “women do emotions” type shorthand. Hello Kitty is a cash cow that has a history of getting shit done on CBS and serves as one dynamite tourism ambassador. (Plus Hello Kitty rolls with a super dangerous crew.) That’s not a bad role model for an NFL team to have. I mean, why wouldn’t you want your quarterback (who is being thrown under the bus because he’s a 2nd year pivot that’s had an uneven three weeks) to rock some Hello Kitty shit? If Cleveland had any sense they would send Brandon Weedan to a Sanrio corporate retreat post-haste.
A Reason To Believe In Things Again: Dolphins DE Jared Odrick brought back the Pee Wee Herman “Tequila” sack dance on Sunday. This is because Jared Odrick is awesome and deserves some sort of bronze statue at the front of Stephen M. Ross Would Like To Show You His Famous Friends Stadium.
Talking About Naked People: I have cable. This is because I’m a millionaire that lives in a gold apartment that is occasionally overrun by platinum centipedes. One weird thing about Toronto cable is that on one of the Movie Network channels (MX Excess), things shift to hardcore pornography at around midnight. At first this seemed awesome. Porn? On my TV? (/breaks out “mission accomplished” banner, summersaults across living room) But it’s sort of a hollow victory. I can’t really watch porn on TV. It feels weird. And not just because the HD makes the VD pop.
Nudity on TV was a sacred thing for me growing up. From the ages of 13 to 17 I would stay up all night watching Showcase or French CBC on the off chance I would see a boob. I’d watch all sorts of bold, challenging, thought-provoking movies strictly with the goal of catching five seconds of nipple. There’s nothing sadder than letting your teenage horniness turn you into a masturbatory sniper. Once I got my shot in place (a segment featuring tasteful nudity meant to express to the viewer the emotional vulnerability of Czech citizens in 1968), I had to work quick and pull the trigger. Sometimes I would watch whole movies on the gamble that there would be boobs and instead find myself furious that I watched an award winning Dutch film for nothing. CityTV’s Baby Blue Movies and Showcase’s Red Shoe Diaries would sometimes bail my ass out, but mostly it was a lot of nights where I was reluctantly getting some culture for me and my dick. It’s fucked me up. I can’t have proper pornography on my TV. It’s unsettling. I’m not an intellectual pervert, but by golly there’s some romanticism to my teenage makeshift attempt at porn that I kinda cherish.
(Also, I’m not a mainstream porn guy. I relate strongly to Groundskeeper Willie’s enthusiasm for amateur video. That’s the majority of my internet porn diet. Fuck, I’m gross.)
Week 4 Game To Watch With Your Eyeballs And/Or Listen To With Your Earpowers Patriots at Bills Bill Belichick grabbed a ref on Sunday night, which is kind of fun to see. Mostly because Belichick doesn’t have the look of a guy that should be touching anyone. He looks like a dude that runs an unlicensed self-defense school behind the Giant Tiger. “Kid! You think you’re tough? You think you can choke me out? (/smashes Snapple bottle) Come at me!”
Note: I look like a derelict Jeff Healey, so I also know how the world can judge you based on your looks. I’d like to be able to scratch my chest or arm in public without being asked to leave Shoppers Drug Mart.
Week 4 Game Not To Watch With Your Eyeballs And/Or Listen To With Your Earpowers Browns at Ravens It’s great to have Parks & Recreation back on Thursdays. Fun Fact: Prairie Dog writer John Cameron is Ron Swanson’s non-libertarian IRL equivalent. (Also he may be okay with you bringing vegetables to a barbecue.)
Guests Saying Junk: This week’s guest is comedian Darren Springer. He is an absolute delight and you should be reading his fantastic blog The Darren Springer Achievement. Do the word thing, Darren!
On the day I was born, according to my mother, my dad made sure, following my delivery, to check on the score of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers game. In news that surely ruined his day, they lost 15-11 to the B.C. Lions and were thereby eliminated from the CFL playoffs. My vicious jinxing of the Bombers’ Grey Cup hopes more or less set the tone for my relationship with football over the first 30 years of my life.
Even though I’ll watch the Super Bowl every year just like every other lonely subject yearning to be brought into the fold, I can’t say I’m a fan. Football is a game where people who respect, and often like, each other still end up hurting each other. I guess it’s kind of like life in that way. Of course, in life your family doesn’t typically encourage you to slam into whoever’s standing in your way so hard that you give them a brain injury, unless your dad happens to be R. Lee Ermey.
In any case, if you ever get slammed hard in life, like if you get dumped or fired, you always have the option of taking time to recuperate or retreating from it altogether. (Note: this is an excerpt from my new self-help book Shrinking In Fear So Life Won’t Find You!)
Ultimately, then, I think that if you take anything away from this missive, it should be that life and football are best viewed on TV or Twitter.
Thanks Darren. Whisk us away, “Shine On Me”!
Feel free to gab at Dan on Twitter or in the comments. He realized he was fat the moment he started instinctively clapping along to the Family Feud theme.