October 2008 Archives

Penalty Shot for me. I'll take my mulligan here.

YES,
Rather than submit a half assed write up.
Rather than go home and finish the website.
or do laundry,
or clean my house,
or pay my bills,
or anything else that really matters...

after back to back double shifts I've decided to go out and get really loaded tonight!!!!!

If anyone's interested give me a holla.  Not sure where I'm going but it will be fun.

First an apology to all you baglovers out there. I have neglected the site's design for too long and will take whatever penalty. Good news is that the layout is complete. Awesomely themed GB2K8 "The Bar". With the help of some friends the site should be up by week's end.

Now let the shit-talking commence!

Secondly, another apology for the less-than super write ups that has flown across your LCDs this season. I had high hopes going into the new year with some fresh blood but to say it's been disappointing is an understatement. I won't go into great length bad mouthing the newbies but I have to say that despite that fact that this is an open forum, you should both stay on point (Ryan) and write something of substance (Jason). I had hopes after seeing Ryan's first entry but after falling asleep half way through the novella I realized it may be a bit much for our reader's attention span. Lenny's only write up, which was an awesome recap of our sporting jaunt across America, didn't really speak to any baggage. With all of us separated by one game each it's time to take this seriously and get down to some bag business. You don't want to start the payoff with enough penalty shots to kill a small farm animal. Git 'er done! On time. We're all busy! 

The hardest part of the off season was saying goodbye to Shawn and Boe Boe. Boe is busying himself with taking over the country (and consequently the world I imagine) down south so I completely get it. Fitzy's moving on to fatherhood so he's going to need all the spare time he can muster to put out baby fires all over the dirty jerz.

Awesome pic. Couldn't help but chuckle as I photoshop'd the finishing touches! Those not privy to the TFB please take a moment and check this out. Hopefully Shawn will take a page out of my book and hide the lighter fluid! Seriously many congrats to Shawn and Julie as well as Berto and Karen and the recently made beer spawn of Paula and Dan. That leaves the rest of us pondering the question, to kid or not to kid. I for one would like to see it happen someday. I was discussing this question over many beers last Sunday with a person who shall remain nameless. He was explaining how it would cut into his personal time too much or that the responsibility was too great yada yada. Fast forward a few (beers, hours, both) and I discovered the real reason behind his hesitation:  A muffled drunken indecipherable baby speak. I realized that like the rest of us childless souls he's hesitant to release the baby inside himself. Wow that's deep. Why don't you put yourself in a cab buddy.

 Sure we'll be ripping into the daddies for their lame talk of sleepless nights and trips to the store for more diapers but ultimately they'll have the last laugh over us late boomers. At least they're doing it while they're still (somewhat) young. Fast forward a few and they'll be the ones ripping into me because all their munchkins are potty trained and in pre-school while I'm still trying to get over my fecalphobia. Hey I've been through this already. I left South Florida in 2001 partly because all my friends settled down in West Broward and started pumping out rug rats and consequently left the fun zone. Oh I see them now and then and it's usually a blow out but long gone are the fungi days (pronounced fun-guy). Now they're resigned to using secret man code like, "...sorry honey I have a meeting tonight in Board Room C. It'll probably go late". That's not to say this will happen here but throw a few down Tony's throat and you'll get the real daddy scoop. It's not the end of drunken fun, rather that the moments will be more poignant. We'll certainly miss awesome Shawn shenanigans like this one but change is always good and a necessity for some. The alternative is us all getting on the bandwagon and getting en preggo'd. I mean can you seriously imagine what Lennyspawn would be like??

I may not be a word-smith but I can fuck up some photoshop.

Baggage

Standings:

Ryan 7-5
Atlanta Falcons 4-2
Philadelphia Eagles 3-3

Jason 6-7
Miami Dolphins 2-4
Chicago Bears 4-3

Randie 5-7
Baltimore Ravens 3-3
Houston Texans 2-4

Lenny 4-8
Oakland Raiders 2-4
St. Louis Rams 2-4

Week 8 - Oakland at Baltimore, Buffalo at Miami, St Louis at NE, Atlanta at Philly, Cincinnati at Houston and the Bears have a by bye buy.

As you can see there it's still pretty tight in the standings. I didn't think three of those teams would have two wins all season! I 'spect to go 2-0 this weekend and grace your desktops once again.


I can't make heads or tails of this NFL season so far. Good teams bad, horrible teams winning games. The Vince-less Thumtacks are the only undefeated team. Vick's looking for an early release. No pinkie in the stinkie for Romo. Dogs and cats living together! There's been more canning than at a Tuna Plant in Alaska. In fact not sine the French revolution has there been more beheadings. We should have done a head coach murder pool... who gets the axe first.



P.O.  Bagboy

Dignity shall return to our beloved site this week as yours truly won his first write up of the season. Look for it Wednesday morning!

Ahhhhh. Finally. The bag is restored into its rightful hands. And not a moment too soon. With all that's been happening, I admit to having wondered why God was treating me like a maximum security prison bitch. Why give man free will, and then willfully surround him with misery?

 

What is this misery I speak of, anyway? First (as always), there were the Cubs. Even in Chicago, with its perfectly hedged sports portfolio of Bulls and Bears, the Cubs found a way to crater, S&P-style. Then the real S&P did its job, and turned my plan to retire within the next 75 years to angel dust. And then just as the world was coming to terms with the loss of Paul Newman, whose ironic, salad-dressing-powered racecar changed auto sports forever, the Gators stole the world stage with another loss to a team from Mississippi. Amazing what gets forgotten in the wake of a national tragedy.

 

But things are looking up now, aren't they? Come on, aren't you a little bit comforted to know I'm back in my rightful position on top of the standings, and that you are one week closer to puking a stomach-full of shots into a trash bag? For you, the discomfort of losing is simply an unpleasant side-effect of the world spinning back onto its axis. It reminds me of when you learned that, offstage, Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street weren't cuddly little homo-puppets, but actually crazy-ass gangstas. There was the twinge of disappointment in knowing that Bert and Ernie weren't pusing those twin beds together at night, but you loved imagining Enrie hanging out the passenger side with his Tec-9 on Sesame Street after sundown, clipping any puppet who stepped.

 

Speaking of things that aren't gay, can we talk about my boy Matt Ryan for a quick sec? 22 of 30 for 301 yards against JASON and the Bears. He's passed for 1,200 yards already on the season and gets better each week. If his receivers didn't freebase before games, he might have twice that production. I don't know if Matt Ryan castrates circumcises Philippino children in the off-season, but in every other respect he is Tebow-esque.

 

And how about my other quarterback, Donovan McNabb? 23 of 36 last week for 280 yards and a couple TDs. And that's with the Bradley effect. Consider too, how predictable the Eagles' offense is - if Philadelphia ran that crazy Wildcat formation, McNabb could castrate Philippino children during the game while producing like 8,000 yards of total offense. Hell, McNabb could castrate African lions, freebase coke, send dirty text messages to Alycia Lane, mail a crate of Little Debbies to Phil Fulmer, and make a speech to his kid's Career Day at school, all while gaining 16,000 yards in the Wildcat offense.

 

Some men, you just can't reach.

As accurately predicted here last week my teams went 2-0 to help me take over first place overall in the bag standings.  The Bears crushed the Lions and lame duck QB Jon Kitna who went down with injury leaving them with UCONN alum Dan Orlovsky (?) at the helm.  At least they might soon be getting $8.5 million from Charles Rodgers.  Well, if he actually still has it.....

 

 

So it generally bothers me when people misuse the word "literally."  Adam Jones is in the news again this week for apparently getting into a fight with one of his own bodyguards at a hotel and causing a ruckus.  Jerry Jones commented by saying that "he has no room to wiggle.  He is literally on a high wire without a net."  Really?  So Pacman joined the circus?  Where is this wire, Jerry?  Is this your new creative way to keep him out of trouble?

 

 

The Bengals lost again last week in a tough, close battle in Dallas but the most interesting action was on the sidelines where Ocho Cinco planted a wet one on coach Marvin Lewis. 

 

"He whispered something in my ear that I really liked," Ocho Cinco said, "so I kissed him."

 

What?  Did he say "we don't have to win for you to still get paid every week?"

 

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My teams are in bag game match-ups this week:

 

Chicago (Jason) is at Atlanta (Ryan):

The Bears are hitting their stride now.  Atlanta handles teams with mediocre defenses but had trouble with the tougher Panthers and Bucs.  The Bears should cruise again in this one....

 

Miami (Jason) is at Houston (Randie):

Houston's narrow loss to the Colts is more of a testament to how far the suddenly-predicable Colts have fallen that it is an indication that the Texans are playing better.  The Dolphins are starting to believe they can play with the big boys in this league.  The veteran leadership of Pennington trumps that of Rosenfels (nice hurdle last week, Renaldo Nehemiah!) or Schaub.

 

Randie's Ravens travel to Indianapolis where they expect their defense to keep them just close enough for the team to fade in the fourth quarter again.  Coach John Harbaugh this week named rookie Joe Flacco (currently #29 in the league with 61.9 QB rating) the starter for the rest of the season.  Uh, good luck with that!

 

Ryan's Eagles travel to San Francisco (I hear the appetizer sampler at J.T. O'Sullivan's is excellent, by the way).  Donovan McNabb is already starting to talk about how embarrassed he is about Philly's poor play.  He believes that the Eagles are better than the teams they have lost to.  Didn't we hear this same thing last season? Nothing has changed with this team.

 

Lenny is poised for another 0-2 week on his way to eventual bagdome when his Raiders launch a new regime in New Orleans and his Rams head to Washington.  Oakland saw it's only chance to win go out the window when the Saints put the pathetic Martin Gramatica on injured reserve this week.  Al Davis may now have made Lane Kiffin, uh, more powerful than he can possible imagine by firing him.  Apparently he is still coaching JaMarcus Russell from afar.  And the saga continues....

 

Thanks to a classic goal-line stand spearheaded by former Gator Alex Brown, the Chicago Bears defeated the Philadelphia Eagles to clinch my first bag write-up of the season (or ever).  I promise these will get better and more creative as time goes on.  I'm still trying to get my feet wet.  I don't think I've ever blogged anything in my life.

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This week marked an epic moment in bag history.  Although I don't think records have been kept, this must be the earliest that a bag team has fired their coach.  For a bag owner to have both his team's coaches fired a quarter of the way through the season must be unprecedented.  Maybe it will do Lenny some good.  The Rams and Raiders can't look much worse (okay, maybe the Raiders can) so the sooner they shake things up the better.  Although Haslett's first move of replacing deck-chair Trent Green with deck-chair Marc Bulger a week after the were switched out probably isn't going to help much. 

So I believe the standings after Week 4 are:

Ryan 4-4

Jason 3-4

Randie 2-3

Lenny 1-7

 

At least Lenny won't lose ground this week since both his teams have byes.  None of the bag teams are playing each other, so this might be his best chance to get another write-up this season since all of our teams could lose!  Too bad the Rams and Raiders don't play each other this year...

I fully expect to be writing here again next week.  Chicago is at Detroit.  The Lions aren't going to be any better just because Matt Millen isn't there.  They just named Bengal reject (that's the 0-4 Cincinnati Bengals) Rudi Johnson as their starting running back.  They'll be lucky to get 50 running yards.  And the Detroit press is saying Kitna is done.

The Dolphins are at home against the Chargers.  While San Diego is indeed favored (-6.5), Miami was buoyed by the unexpected good news that Ricky Williams managed to make it through the bye week without smoking weed.  I fully expect this lift to carry them to victory on Sunday.  If the team can transfer that kind of off-the-field resolve to the playing field they can defeat anyone.  "I'm free, what can I do?" might just become the rallying mantra for their season!!!