The beta-male sleeps alone tonight

I generally share the same taste in music as my good friends Nathan and Seth. Generally. They both express a certain admiration for the “J.T.’s” – That’s James Taylor, for those of us born before 1990 and Justin Timberlake for all those other Johnny-come-latelies. I’m not on board with Brittany’s ex, for the record.

Before my wedding, my friends burned me a copy of The Postal Service’s Give Up. The first two tunes, “The District Sleeps Tonight” and “Such Great Heights,” are pretty nice. Catchy. Atmospheric (apparently “Such Great Heights” has been featured on a couple shows I don’t watch like Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill and is, dare I say it, kind of popular). Then the album proceeds to get well… Sorry guys… Terrible. Bloody, freaking terrible.

I’ve tried to listen to it. Honestly. It’s in my car. I’ve probably been through the album 10 times now hoping that the British Music Phenomenon occurs. Whenever I listen to anything from Great Britain (Radiohead, Oasis, Travis, Coldplay, The Smiths) I acknowledge that the first two play-throughs will not impress me. But if I stick with it, I’ll be rewarded. With very few exceptions this is always the case.

Not so with The Postal Service. This band has all the relentless whininess and wussyness of Dashboard Confessional, but none of the raw testosterone and machismo of Dashboard Confessional front man Chris Carrabba. Dreamy.

I’ve unabashedly proclaimed my love of such wuss-rockers as R.E.M., Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds , and the original J.T. But there’s something that those artists bring to the table that The Postal Service does not. Irony. A tongue-in-cheek suggestion that, if they wanted to, they can bring the funk. They can, to borrow an expression from Mr. Folds, rock this bitch. They just do this beta-male thing to get chicks (or dudes in Rufus’ case or … Jesus, I don’t know, in Michael Stipe’s case). The Postal Service is so unbelievably sincere it makes me want to vomit. They kind of remind me of this poor fella.

Beta-male music holds a special place in my heart. It was the music I listened to when I couldn’t get the girl in high school. It was the music that comforted me when I couldn’t get the girl in college. It’s the perfect music to listen to when you’re not getting the girl. You can relate to it. It speaks to you. It tells you you’re all right, and your good intentions are just being misunderstood.

Let me be frank. If I continued to listen exclusively to artists like R.E.M., Radiohead, Jeff Buckley and The Postal Service, I probably still wouldn’t be getting the girl. I’d still be lamenting my kind, passive-yet-passionate-yet-misunderstood romantic nature.

Thankfully, after college, I moved in with some guys who listened to DMX, Wyclef, Ice Cube, Ice-T, (pretty much anything with Ice in it) and… The Rat Pack. No beta males in that group. As I learned to embrace this music (secretly at first), I found my attitudes changing dramatically. What’s the major difference between this music and wuss-rock? Confidence. Wuss rock gives you absolutely no confidence. Frank Sinatra, on the other hand… fuhgetaboutit.

By-and-large, my wife enjoys my wuss-rock collection. We’re wuss-rock kind of people. But I think it’s safe to say she didn’t fall in love with Losing-My-Religion-Joe. I truly believe Losing-My-Religion-Beta-Male-Joe would have found a way to screw up everything. It was What-These-Bitches-Want-Fly-Me-To-The-Moon-Joe that found a way to close the deal.

So, fellas, before you head out for that big date, for the love of all things good, take Give Up out of your CD player or your iPod playlist. Throw in a mix of Frankie Blue Eyes, Dean-O and Wyclef, okay?

Now, go out there and crush some ass, bitches.

Cease Fire

Unfortunately, there was no episode of The War at Home last night. It was pre-empted by the Teen Choice Awards.

In retrospect, the TCA's would likely have provided a lot more entertaining blog than The War at Home, but I just didn't have it in me to watch Kevin Federline's first-ever live performance. I'm just going to assume it was... I don't know... transcendent?

I ended up watching the first half of the Seattle at Indianapolis exhibition game on NBC. I figured it would be a little more interesting than Mr. Spears considering the Steelers beat both teams in the playoffs last year and both are among the favorite teams to win the Super Bowl this season. Here were a couple funny things I noted:

Somebody at NBC has a pretty wry sense of humor. Shortly after Andrea Kremer (Mrs. Soprano) interviewed Seattle MVP Shaun Alexander, the networked segued to commercial using the intro to Alice in Chains' "No Excuses." Classic, considering Seattle has become The Excuse Capitol of the World (and ironic, considering Alice in Chains hails from said Capitol).

Six months after the fact, John Madden took an opportunity to once again claim that he didn't see the infraction on the Sean Locklear's fourth-quarter holding penalty in Super Bowl XL that may have cost Seattle a touchdown and certainly did lead to an Ike Taylor interception (effectively ending the Seahawks chances for victory).

Frankly, I was a little surprised Madden didn't take the opportunity to once again state that a certain pass 34 years ago actually bounced off of John "Frenchy" Fuqua before Franco Harris grabbed it.

The sad thing about all of this is just how much influence a dumb-ass announcer (who has publically admitted he'll never get over the Immaculate Reception) can have on nationwide perception (Please see my previous entry for some not-so-subtle views on television sports announcers).

Case in point: I was just sitting down to eat some sweet stuffed chicken and mashed potatoes at Heinz Field before the recent Steelers-Vikings exhibition game. Fate led me to a table where a guy was sitting by himself and also enjoying a pre-game meal. I said hi, and he introduced himself as Greg Bishop from The Seattle Times. We discussed football in general, how he enjoyed Pittsburgh, the fate of Seahawks-turned-Vikings Steve Hutchinson and Koren Robinson, and inevitably, what he thought of Super Bowl XL.

Interestingly enough, he had the same opinion I did. Since we were both there, actually watching the game live and without the benefit of John Madden's "expert" analysis, neither one of us gave the officiating much thought. It wasn't until later that we discovered how outraged we were supposed to be over the injustice (as perceived by John Madden and corroborated by Steve Young at halftime). I remember driving home on the Ohio Turnpike at 6:00 AM and hearing Mike and Mike in the Morning discussing how terrible the officiating was (To be fair, the smaller Mike was pointing out how many mistakes Seattle made in between each ripping of the refs).

Whether Mr. Bishop was just agreeing with me to be polite (as he's a very polite gentleman), I'll never know.

Kind of like how we'll never know if a certain pass hit Fuqua or Tatum.

Frickin' Madden.

We've come so far in the wrong direction

I grew up a sports fan.

What's more, I grew up a Pittsburgh sports fan. And scattered among the memories of some of my favorite athletes (Phil Borque, Bill Madlock, Sid Breem, Dwight Stone, Mike Tomczak, Troy Loney, Jimmy Paek and Tim Lester) are the chill-inducing calls of local announcers such as Myron Cope, Mike Lange, and Lanny Frattare.

Sadly, Cope is retired and Lange is no longer attached to television broadcasts. Even sadder, Frattare continues along his merry way (He's crap as a broadcaster, but he covers my baseball team. What's a boy to do?).

Local announcers know the team they broadcast with inside and out. They have well-established contacts within the team, or they played for the team. They don't know what they know because they sat down with the head coach for an hour three days before the game, which is the case with your typical National football announcers. Local guys know what's going on. They care about what's going on. And with the exception of Frattare, they actually pass that information along to the fans (All right. I'm being a little hard on Lanny, I know. It's just that when you're in a group with Lange and Cope, you can't help that what little criticism there is has to come your way).

By and large, the national media sucks out loud. And it's a sucking sound that rolls over our nation from sea to shining sea. Do I need to give you some names? Madden. Theisman. Collingsworth. Cross. Buck. What upsets me the most is the Steelers play only two nationally televised games at home. So I'll only get two chances to tell national broadcasters how much I hate them when I run into them at the buffet table (and by that I mean I'll smile and shake hands with them and say, "It's really nice to meet you." -- I will not, under any circumstances, tell them I admire them or compliment their work. Take that, Joe Theisman!).

So, when it comes to watching a broadcast at home, give me local radio announcers or give me nothing. Nothing? That's right. Nothing. There's no way we're ready for it, but I think our sports viewing experience would benefit from removing announcers altogether.

Let's be honest. Why are you watching the game at home? Because you're not there in person. So, in order to give people a sports-watching experience at home, we saddle them with windbags that they would never hear if they were at the stadium. And sadly, the trend has been to add announcers and (groan) sideline reporters. Thank you CBS for stopping that madness. Where there used to be a play-by-play announcer and a color man, now we have a third blithering idiot to add another voice that you really shouldn't be hearing in the first place (See: Dennis Miller, Paul MacGuire, Tony Kornheiser).

Speaking of Kornheiser -- whom I have a man-crush on thanks to his work with Michael Wilbon in Pardon the Interruption -- his addition to ESPN's Monday Night Football lineup was given such significance that his first Monday Night Football call of Oakland at Minnesota has drawn more examination and criticism than the actual play of the Raiders and Vikings. Kornheiser's Washington Post colleague, Paul Farhi, blasted him in their own paper (that's what Kornheiser get's for stealing Farhi's red Swingline Stapler).

Mark my words. If this trend continues, in five years, they'll add a fourth guy to the broadcast booth. So you'll have:

1. A play-by-play announcer (to tell you exactly what you're seeing with your own eyes).
2. A color man (to save your brain the trouble of processing what you've just seen with your own eyes along with telling the world what he would have done in that situation since, after all, he was a marginal player on a marginal team once upon a time).
3. A commedian / additional analyst (since watching a game of football is really, when you get down to it, an excercise in absurdity).
4. A man who speaks entirely in palindromes (this will further draw you out of the sporting experience by forcing you to analyze his speech to determine that yes, what he said was, in fact, a palindrome).

Here's a thought. Ban television announcers from the stadium. Take their salaries and use it on microphones for the crowd and for on the field, and for the actual stadium announcer (He's that guy who announces down and distance, who ran the ball, who made the tackle, and that there's a Honda Civic in lot 22A with its lights on). Let's see if we can't actually get a little closer to the actual experience of watching a live football game. Let's see what it's like watching a game without having someone tell you what you should think about said game.

It would be a fine thing. Trust me.

The gun pointed at the head of the Fox

I’m pulling double-duty today, so if you’re here to see the latest Pac Man entry, you’ll find it below this one.

I finally did it. I made it through a complete airing of The War at Home. Honestly, I don’t know how to feel. In a way, there’s a sense of accomplishment. But in another more profound way, there’s a sense of astonishment. How could this show possibly have been picked up for another season?

The only possible answer is that Michael Rappaport has abducted Rupert Murdoch’s kitten and is holding it hostage.

I didn’t keep any stats for this particular episode. Remember. Baby steps. I will hypothesize that there was canned laughter after three out of every four lines. (There was also laughter when the mother (Vicki) squirted some Windex at Larry when his back was turned. Hi-larious). This is just a rough estimate (for now), but it would seem that at least 75 percent of the time someone on The War at Home opens his or her mouth, it’s funny. Damn funny.

Here’s the breakdown: Dave (Rappaport) is concerned because Vicki is emasculating him and his sons by being a “ball-breaker.” (In the well-worn territory department (WWTD), this is along the lines of when Wilma and Betty got jobs on The Flinstones, and when Marge became a cop on The Simpsons, thwarting a counterfeit jeans ring operating out of Homer’s car-hole). Dave’s concern was inspirationally captured in a white-screen confessional in which he let the air out of two flesh-toned balloons held near his nether-region. Now we’re thinking outside the box.

Allow me my own white-screen moment about these freaking white-screen moments. Let’s be absolutely clear about what they are. These are placed in the show to allow the actor to directly address the audience and tell us what he or she is thinking. This is incredibly subtle. This is essentially a vehicle by which The War at Home’s writers prove that they have absolutely no confidence in their actors' ability to, oh I don’t know, convey how the character is feeling by use of, oh I don’t know… acting. It’s a pretty ham-fisted technique. And frankly, when you have actors with the talent of a Michael Rappaport or a Kyle Sullivan, I think you have to turn them loose and watch the magic happen…

Incidentally, Vicki’s “ball-breaking” led Larry (Sullivan) to run away. (WWTD – There was an episode of Alf wherein said, Alf, rode the rails to get away from the oppressive non-cat-eating Tanner household.

Anyway, watching this entire episode yielded three discoveries:

1. Whoever lighted that particular episode was going for the Gladiator effect on Rappaport’s eyes (this was in no-way flattering. It made him look like a corpse). Hmm… Corpse Dad… I think I smell a hit if you’re listening, Fox…

2. I am no longer allowed to watch The War at Home in bed when my wife is present. This was told to me in no uncertain terms. Essentially, she grabbed me by my head, looked me in the eyes and expressly forbade me to watch the show again in her presence. This technique is similar to what I do with the dog I'm trying to keep it from chasing the cat or jumping on the furniture. Having seen it first-hand, I can positively verify its effectiveness.

3. The complete lack of anything that even borders on humor within the actual program serves only to make the commercials that air during the three blessed breaks seem about as funny as the unrated version of Old School.

If you’re the Burger King, how are you supposed to feel? On one hand, you’ve got to be happy your chicken-fries commercials are making the viewer laugh. But you’ve also got to be a little pissed that they’re making the viewer laugh at least 20-times harder than the funniest portion of the comedy you’ve chosen to give your advertising dollars to.

Then again, if you’re the Burger King, you’re probably too busy warming up for the upcoming NFL season to worry about how God-awful The War at Home is….

Don’t make your Pac-mamma cry

If you’ve been playing Pac Man with any consistency, chances are pretty good that you’ve been tagged by Blinky, Pinky, Inkey or Clyde. If they tag you, you shrivel up and die, thus causing your Pac-mamma to cry. This is not desirable.

In my previous entry, I offered the three basic rules of Pac Man.

1. Ghosts are scary, and should be avoided.
2. You should eat fruit.
3. You should bide your time and visit terrible bloody vengeance upon those who seek to do you harm.

If you are successful in following those rules, your Pac-mamma will undoubtedly be proud of you. She will post your high scores on her refrigerator. She will brag about you to her friends. She will make you a fruit salad, consisting of all of your favorites – cherries, strawberries, oranges, apples, grapes, bananas, and… keys? Yes. Keys.

So, by following the above simple rules, you will please your Pac-mamma and generally make life easier on yourself. Of course, those rules are very broad. Certainly, they are the foundation of your Pac Man experience, and when you find yourself in a rut, you should focus on those basic guidelines.

But to improve, we need to narrow our focus to some more specific rules:

Clear the trouble spots on the board as soon as possible.

I can’t stress this enough. At the beginning of each level, try to get that bottom row of pellets out of the way. When I rediscovered the game, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been trapped between two ghosts at the bottom of the screen. The less time you spend on that bottom row the better.

Also, don’t forget to clear out the little alleys just above the ghosts’ pen whenever you get the chance. If you’re aggressive with power-pellets, they will be returning and barreling down those alleys as soon as they … um… re-ghostify. So be aware.

Make your move early.

Typically, I don’t like to clear the first board without at least 10,000 points. That first board is when the ghosts are most susceptible to the power pellets. You should strive to eat all four of them (good for 3,000) points with each power pellet. So ideally, you should finish the first board around 12,500 points. Any less than 8,000 means you’re being a little too timid. There will be plenty of time for that later, when eating a pellet only causes the ghosts to change direction, rather than even turning blue and blinking.

Some fruit tastes better than others.

This is along the lines of making your move early. Don’t bust your Pac-nuts trying to get to those cherries. They’re only worth 100 points. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not going to do much for you, and the area directly below the ghost pen is an area ripe for being trapped. Strawberries are worth 300 points and oranges give you 500. Both aren’t worth it, in my opinion, although, if you’re certain you have a clear path to either one, by all means take it.

As soon as you get to the apple, though, make it a point to try chomp down on it. At 700 points, that’s worth just over eating two ghosts. Getting the grapes (1,000 points), bananas (2,000) and especially the keys (5,000) are more than worth the trouble, and can make a huge difference in your final overall score. You want a high score, right? Maybe you don’t. And that’s okay. That brings me to the final rule.

Choose your own adventure.

One of the great things about “modern” video games, is that many will allow you to choose different paths in a branching storyline or even customize and upgrade your character as you advance. The same is true of Pac Man as well. As I see it, you have one of three choices: Try to clear levels – survive and advance, try to score points – wreck bloody vengeance on those who seek to do you harm, or a middle ground. It’s entirely up to you. Many Pac Man players will swear by each of these philosophies. Each has its merits, naturally. But to favor one over another is to miss the point of the game. Whatever you do, don’t rigidly adhere to a single one of those paths. It’s when you truly “let go” and allow the game to come to you that you will experience the most success.

Next time, we’ll take a look at how Pac Man applies to our daily lives.

Everything I ever needed to know...

… I learned by playing Pac Man.

Pac Man imparts three very basic principles by which absolutely every man, woman and child should live their life:

1. Ghosts are scary and should be avoided.
2. You should eat fruit.
3. You should bide your time and visit terrible bloody vengeance upon those who seek to do you harm.

Yep. So long as you understand those three simple rules, you are ready to begin your training as a “Pac Man.”

Let me begin by saying that I am in absolutely no way an authority on this game. That honor falls to Billy Mitchell. The fact that he made it through all 255 levels without losing a single life, while at the same time grabbing every piece of fruit/special item, makes my recently hard-earned score of 99,030 on level 13 seem infinitely insignificant.

But this little series is not about how to become the next Billy Mitchell. This is more about the journey than the destination. Frankly, knowing that the game maxes out at 3,333,360 points is a little disappointing. I take solace only in knowing that I’ll never get close to that.

This series will ask three questions:
1. Why should I play Pac Man?
2. How can I get the most out of my Pac Man experience?
3. What do the characters and objects in Pac Man represent?

So, why should I play Pac Man?

On the most basic level, it’s fun.

When a ghost makes a wrong turn and you find yourself dashing to freedom on the opposite side of the board and chomping pellets like Homer Simpson at The Frying Dutchman’s all-you-can eat buffet, it’s nothing short of exhilarating – like when a kick returner in football finds a lane and dashes 80 yards for a touchdown.

It’s satisfying.

Those ghosts want to touch you and make you implode so bad. They hound you. They try to trap you. They genuinely wish harm upon you. But on every level, you get four chances to turn the tables – a phenomenon that delighted Charles Montgomery Burns to no end.

It teaches valuable lessons to children and adults alike.

Beyond the simple idea that fruit is something to be desired and good for you (so long as those cherries aren’t sitting on top of a hot fudge sundae), it also teaches you that life sometimes isn’t fair.

You can be playing a level perfectly, but the tiniest slip can allow a pair of ghosts to trap you between them. If this happens, your current Pac Man is a goner, and I pray you have another. Sometimes this seems to happen by pure dumb luck. You didn’t deserve to be trapped by these ghosts, but somehow they’ve surrounded and screwed you over.

This is an outstanding lesson for children. Sometimes you think you’ve tried your absolute best and circumstances beyond your control have brought about your demise. Even if that were the case, it’s a sad fact of life that such things can happen. But as you mature as a Pac Man player and a human being in general, you will learn where these “ghost traps” are most likely to happen and, through wisdom and understanding, you can avoid them by being a better player.

So once again, I invite you to take a few minutes and give it a go. Enjoy your time in the haunted maze. Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at ways to make it a little less scary.

But I really have to go...

I like video games. I unabashedly like video games, despite the perception that they have little redeeming value.

I’m the proud owner of an Xbox 360 that currently features the most advanced games of any console, and the games promise to only become more and more “life-like.”

Ultra-realism in video games is certainly something to strive for. But having super-high-def graphics and physics and a branching storyline that could rival great works of literature are not necessarily what determines the success of the game. In fact, one of the main challenges many game developers are likely to face is deciding which bits of realism to illuminate and which ones they should omit.

Because, let’s face it, if our real lives were so exciting, there’d be no need to play a game.

Case in point: Bethesda Softworks’ The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This is, quite honestly, an incredible game, with incredible depth, graphics and storylines. And as far as running, jumping, axe-swinging and reactions to said axe-swinging goes, the game is pretty realistic. Bethesda Softworks created a living, breathing world fully peopled with folks who wake up, go to their job, stop at the market, go home and go to sleep. They all have their routines.

But there’s one part of their daily routines that is conspicuous in its absence. You can go into every home, and explore every room. But if your character drank a little too much ale, at local tavern, touch luck, cause there isn’t a single bathroom in the game. No privies. No jakes. No johns. No crappers. No outhouses. No luck…

Here’s a little bit of reality that the developers left out, and the game doesn’t suffer for it (except for the woefully backed-up people who inhabit the game’s world).

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a triumph in gaming. But for all its realism and depth, I contest that it still can’t hold a fully-rendered candle running on a light engine that casts realistic shadows to Pac Man.

Take some time with Pac Man. Please. Re-acquaint yourself with the pizza-sans-a-slice and re-acquaint yourself with Blinky, Pinky, Inkey and Clyde.

Tomorrow, I intend to offer the first entry in a three-part series designed to illuminate and deconstruct this “Pac Man.”

It would be nice if we’re all on the same page.

Sleeping through the war

Last week, I vowed that I would make it through at least two segments of The War at Home, so that I wouldn’t run out of gas when I had to watch the same episode 2-3 times when the second season starts.

Long story short – I failed.

I actually fell asleep watching Philadelphia and Oakland in the NFL “Hall of Fame Game.” Jen woke me up at about 9:40 and said, essentially, “I love how you can just fall asleep when a bunch of stuff needs to be done.”

So after I pried my butt out of bed and walked the dog (we desperately need to work on her after-dark-peeing efficiency. Any ideas?), I returned to watch the last segment of last night’s episode. The breakdown is as follows…

Mom and Dad got drunk, and thought that may be a bad example for the daughter, who I guess must have been caught drinking earlier in the episode. The daughter’s friend is visiting, and apparently she made out with the son during said drunken binge. She spurns the son's advances, causing the son to try to get back together with the ugly girl he used to date, who spurns his advances. This was no doubt a harsh lesson for what’s-his-name, whom we never hear from again.

Mom and Dad interact with the daughter’s friend’s parents, who realize that they’re drunk. Mom and Dad are un-repentant and the angry couple leaves with their alcoholic-whore daughter. Absolutely nothing is resolved. Nice.

It occurs to me that these entries will be a lot easier once I know the characters’ names.

I don’t have much in-depth analysis to offer on this one. Frankly, without seeing the entire show, I don’t think that would be too fair on my part.

I have come to a realization though. As a sportswriter, when I find it hard to get rolling on a story from an event, sometimes a look at the statistics will lead me to a decent starting point. With that in mind, I plan on keeping track of the following statistics for each episode:

Number of times Michael Rappaport is confused by something:

Pieces of sage advice offered to children by Michael Rappaport:

Number of times Michael Rappaport is worried about daughter’s sexual activity as it relates to experience/appearance:

White-screen confessionals:

Number of times canned laughter is used:

Number of times I actually laughed:

Moment that came closest to actual humor:

Just closing my eyes and shaking my head moment(s):

Well-worn territory (at least three episodes of earlier sitcoms that this episode ripped off):

Just for the record, I don’t want to be too hard on The War at Home for this. All sitcoms rip off other sitcoms. (For instance, each sitcom in the history of television features a “bowling” episode. I don’t know why this is true, but it’s a fact that we must all simply accept. Whenever the head writer takes a week off, the interns get together and write an episode where the family goes bowling.)

What bothers me is that this show has nothing really new to offer. There’s absolutely nothing that makes it unique. So when it takes a tried and true idea, it does nothing to improve upon what’s come before it.

If you’re unsure what I mean, take a listen to Alien Ant Farm’s cover of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. This was an insanely popular cover, but only because Smooth Criminal was, dare I say it, a freakin’ rad tune. Ask anyone who has perfect pitch, or even a decent ear, and they’ll tell you that the instruments in Alien Ant Farm’s cover were out of tune. It’s just a drunken homage to an incredible song that was so incredible, people subconsciously enjoyed it because it was just close enough to the original in terms of tempo and energy (but nowhere near MJ’s level of artistry).

Compare that to the Jimi Hendrix cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower (In my opinion, the greatest cover of all time). Hendrix shows the utmost respect for the source material (which I’d only rate as “good” in the context of Dylan’s myriad offerings) while at the same time completely making that song his own. It took on such epic proportions that there are a few people who believe it’s Hendrix’ song. And, in an odd sort of retribution, you’ll find Watchtower on just about every Dylan greatest-hits compilation, and I believe that’s due almost entirely to Hendrix’ treatment of it.

Back to the context of television, Malcolm in the Middle’s “bowling episode,” in which two alternate realities are shown (What would happen if Lois or Hal took the boys to the alley) is the Watchtower of Bowling episodes. The episode actually won Emmys for best writing and directing that year (2001).

The War at Home hasn’t made a bowling offering as of yet. But I promise it’s on the way. And when it arrives: You’ll be hit by… You’ll be struck by… a poor episode.

As Impressive as it is Useless

Okay. Sorry, but I’m going to brag a little bit.

I’m good at just about everything that I do. If I try something new, and I’m not good at it, I eventually get good at it (if I think it's something worth being good at). Can’t help it. That’s just the way it is.

Problem is, none of the things I do well are things that people in our society tend to… umm… value.

Maybe that’s not true. Some of the things I do really well, such as: Cooking, Parallel Parking, Ping Pong, Arithmetic and Scrabble are skills valued by society. Unfortunately, I am only “good” at said activities. I’m not on some sick savant level that necessitates a Discovery Channel Special, a YouTube clip or, at the very least, a photo or feature in some backwoods, jerkwater newspaper that desperately needs to fill 12 inches for its “About Town” or “Family Leisure” or “Community” page on Sunday.

No. The only skill I possess on such a level is telling time.

Allow me to be extremely frank about this. I have time-telling skillz, as it were. If my homies need to know what time it is, they ask yours truly. If I ever need to know what time it is, I don’t ask anyone. I ask myself. Because, yeah that’s right -- I know what time it is.

I know what you’re thinking. “Wow. You can read a clock. I mock you and deride your supposed time-telling prowess, as I also have said skill.”

Technically, you’d be correct. Yes. I can read a clock. But when a clock is unavailable, when the sun is not in the sky, when clouds obscure the northern constellations swirling around Polaris, I still know what time it is, usually to within three minutes, bitch. Guaranteed. Take it to the bank. If you’re not sure you can take it to the bank, just ask, and I’ll let you know if you’ll be able to get there before 5:00.

Here it is. I feel the passage of time. I hone this skill by looking at clocks whenever I can, and then I feel the passage of time from my last clock viewing to when someone says, “I wonder what time it is.” I can’t explain how I do it. I just do it. Like perfect pitch.

And let me tell you something, if I were living in the age of Camelot, you damn well better believe that King Arthur would have me hanging out in the throne room with a flagon of mead in one hand and a comely lass of virtue-true sitting on my lap. And if King Artie (as I’d call him) wanted me to inform him as to when his two o’clock chiropractic appointment was, I’d be on it. In fact, I’d tell him to go early, because Chiropractors quintuple-book appointments, and then it’s first come, first served, even if you’re the frickin’ lord of the realm. Chiropractors don’t care.

But in this day and age, this skill is just a novelty. Everyone has a watch or a cell phone. So now, whenever someone asks me the time, I tell them. Then they check their cell phone and say, “Wow, you’re right on the money.”

On the money, but not in the money.

What a damn waste…

My "Sports Guy" Column

There are few columnists I hate more than Bill Simmons. There's nothing quite like a nationally-syndicated sports columnist talking about his favorite movies, reality shows, and hometown teams (these are the times he actually discusses sports).

I understand the irony. I do the same thing. For free. On a blog. Bill Simmons is basically a glorified blogger who is paid handsomely to write about the time his buddy called him up during a game and asked, "Can you believe we're watching this?" and Bill responds with "I haven't seen anything this exciting since the end of Gleaming the Cube."

What's more, since people seem to completely eat this crap with a spoon, other writers are now infusing their work with personal observations about their daily routines and other boring slices of their lives. Peter King is a prime example, and he's been called out for it.

Anyway, it's not hard to write like Bill Simmons. The most infuriating thing about his success is that anybody with a sports almanac, a collection of movies from the 80's, and a few jag-off friends can do it.

The Chicago Sports Review recognized this and created this wonderful mad-lib for creating your own Bill Simmons column.

Here's the fruits of ten minutes of my life. (Also, if you're unfamiliar with his work, here's an example of an actual Bill Simmons column, so you can see how eerily similar they can be).

The Sports Guy Goes to an Auction

So I'm sitting there the other day watching ESPN2 and I see that A-Rod had a great game. There is nobody, with the possible exception of Grady Little, that I dislike more than A-Rod. In the pantheon of people that 'Make the Sports Guy Yak' these two are neck and neck.
The phone rings. It's my friend Bish, irate! Bish is always willing to discuss our mutual distaste for A-Rod. Don't get me wrong--we respect his abilities. But he's the Kelso of sports. Totally annoying, yet on TV all the time. Bish mentions that it would be nice if A-Rod caught a case of Scurvy at the beginning of September, paving the way for the Red Sox to the playoffs like Dan Kreider on The Clear.

Bish points out that the chances that A-Rod will come down with Scurvy in September are minimal, but that if we expanded the possibilities, there would be a greater chance for debilitating success. As usual, Bish is a crazy genius.

Here is what we came up with:

4. A-Rod receives a vicious Ghettoblaster from David Ortiz in front of 40,000 fans jammed into The Fleet Center.

(On a side note, has there ever been a greater moment in sports than when Hulk Hogan body-slammed Andre the Giant in Wrestlemania III? I don't even care if it was fake, that was wicked awesome. That rivals when when the Indians take the field for their divisional playoff with the Yankees in Major League for 'Most Inspirational Non-Real Sports Moment'.)

3. A-Rod is informed by his wife that their child was not fathered by him but rather by either Jose Mesa or David Littlefield.

2. A-Rod hangs scrapbook-style clippings of Brandon Walsh and Bobby in his locker and is immediately put on the DL.

1. A-Rod meets Young Miss Hogan from Hogan Knows Best, falls in love, and leaves team to begin filming 'My Fair Yankee.'

After we finish with the conversation about A-Rod we turn ourselves to the real topic of conversation, the upcoming draft of the Suzy Kolber is Sexy Memorial Baseball Association, a new fantasy league that Bish and I will be joining this year.

Ordinarily, I'm never an advocate of partnering up to own a fantasy baseball team. That's like getting picked up by Amy Mickleson and going back to her place, only to find out that Santonio Holmes is already there. If the best you get is to share, sometimes it's not worth it at all, right?
However, this league only had one slot open, so Bish and I agreed to partner up, in the hope that one of us could switch over and manage the next vacancy. After much debate, and eliminating the excellent possibilities of 'Naked Risk with Tea Cozies' and 'Craig Stadler's Shiny Slots as potential team names, we settle on 'Cobra Kai.'

The thing that’s exciting about this league is that it's an auction format league, which is totally different than a draft league. I mean, it seems as though it would be the same as a draft league, but it's not. It's like the difference between NHL 93 and NHL 94-you take out fighting and add one-timers, you've got a whole different game, even if they are both hockey. Any good sports fan knows that Barry Bonds is a gentleman, but not everyone knows how to do an auction.

Pre-Auction preparation is important. First, it is important to choose a date when the auction will take place. This is easy. Choose the date when the whipped guy does not have to wash the dishes and vacuum the stairs, and that's your date. Finding the whipped-guy-can-make-it date is crucial for auction success. (speaking of which, what is with all these girlfriends who think that 'fantasy draft' is code for 'I'm going to have my buddies over to watch Uh-Huh perform songs by Peter Gammons while I snack on a banana? Though that would be cool.)

Next, and more difficult, is the auction location selection. Many times people will choose to have their auction at a dog track. This is a bad idea. Nothing good can come of this; at the end of the day every person in the room is going to be filthy and have an extremely sore elbow after four hours.

No, the auction must be held in someone’s house-biggest furnished basement wins. The coolness of the wife/significant other can be a deciding factor if two people have similar options-say, if owner A has a Rumble Roses arcade game, but owner B has a case of Schlitz. Nothing will kill a fun evening faster than the host's wife emasculating him with an 'Is that so? .' We have selected next Tuesday night, at 8 pm, at a guy's house where his wife will be upstairs knitting booties, and therefore unable to disrupt the festivities.

I will not be sharing with you my player ratings for this coming season-after all, Scott Fischman doesn't play poker with the hand face up-but I will give you some insight into my auction strategy. The thing is, an auction has so much more of an influence on your season than a draft does. In an auction, every player in the league is at your disposal. Everyone starts out equal. It's the Communism of fantasy sports.

It's also like reading one of my columns. It requires endurance, it requires stamina, it requires concentration and planning. Without further ado, here is my 'Sports Guy Auction Strategy Guide':

Round One-stick and move

Once the auction starts, timing and strategy are much more important than they are in a traditional draft. The first hour or so of the auction has to be spent feeling out your opponents. Are they particularly loyal to the Pirates? Do they have a tendency toward laughing at their own jokes? You are looking for weaknesses that you can exploit later on. Store these like ticket stubs from movies.

Here is a good place to test people by chucking out a few names of guys you’d never want on your team-aging, oft-injured players, like Kerry Wood, or over-hyped rookies that will never pan out like Ryan Vogelsong.

Everyone is going to get some good players at this point, so make sure you don-t overpay and find yourself begging for money like Turtle asking for Vinny Chase's AMEX Black.

Round Two-Have a Sense of economics

In round two, there will be one moment that defines your draft. Things will be going along smoothly, and all of a sudden you'll get involved in a bidding war on a player. It's not unlike a big pot in a no-limit hold-em tournament-you'll have your Wes Mantooth-Ron Burgundy in Anchor Man moment, and you need to decide what to do.

Oftentimes, this will come down to a single dollar, here or there-if you bid 250 dollars for Rafael Palmiero, you know you'll get him, but you're facing a bid with the clock ticking. Are you going to be a hero, carried off the field like Bill Mazeroski? Or are you Mike Holmgren, skulking off the field into the jeering history of your team's fans, with only your family still willing to speak with you. Now is your moment. Set the tone.

Round Three-Moving Day

Hour three of the draft is moving day, like the third day of The Kemper Open. You need to shoot a 65. This is where you'll fill out a lot of the players that, while less luscious, make up the core of your team. Do not discount the importance of moving day. If you wait until the next phase to build the core of your team, you'll find yourself as lonely as Lindsay Lohan in a Baptist service.
Moving day is the time to make things happen for your team. This is where you are going to define the season that you have. If you end up moving day by taking an accurate mix of future stars, injury-risk players, and Mark Loretta, you'll be okay.

Round Four-The Game of Trivial Pursuit

By the end of the fantasy auction, the endeavor has become interminable. The only thing it can be compared to is a game of Trivial Pursuit, played among friends. Something that, at the beginning of the endeavor, seemed like such fun, but by the end of it, is just a group of people banging their heads against the wall, adamantly trying to finish what they started, the joy of competing against your friends replaced with a desire to prove that you are the Duke of All Trivia and that is that.

In this phase of the auction, you must be careful. This is the 'Now I'm just a schnook' moment of the draft. People will be exploding like a microwaved jawbreaker, screaming incomprehensible things like Fenster from The Usual Suspects and threatening to tears his shirt if they do not get their way.

Just bite your lip, set your jaw, and try and endure. It's a long season.

'If you want a toe, I can get you a toe, dude. '

You are Lisa Simpson

Here's the deal.

If a cartoon voiced by Dustin Hoffman handed me a neatly folded piece of paper with the words "You are Lisa Simpson" on it, I would feel the following emotions:

Dorky sense of joy.
Dorky sense of irony.
Dorky sense of satisfaction.

It turns out, I am Lisa Simpson, but I didn't get the news from Mr. Bergstrom. I got it here.

I took three minutes out of my busy work schedule to take a quiz to see which Simpsons character I am. Much like "CAN'T Test" in the season-three episode Separate Vocations, the answers to this quiz were obviously meant to pigeonhole the taker into certain characters. I recall one of the "CAN'T" questions being...

I strongly prefer the smell of...
A. French fries
B. Gasoline
C. Bank customers

So when I came to the following question: What would be your ideal gift?
A. Pony
B. A cool, refreshing Duff
C. World domination
D. The ideal man

I picked "World domination" and thought to myself, at least I won't be Lisa...

What a bummer.

I thought for sure that I would be one of these guys.