So we're bloggin' hard and fast from Google docs... I HEART WEB 2.0. Let's see how this works out...
Bears... Bears... 9-2... Bears... Bears... Coco... Bears... Bears... Starbucks Peppermint Moca... Bears... can't think...
You know the best part about going back to school at 25? Things that you did at 13 are suddenly funny again. For example, today in Micro I had a small piece of scrap paper, I turned around and threw it at a friend behind me. Five of us found this very funny. Soon another guy was throwing scrap paper at me. I threw it back. Then I involved a sixth person. There we were, ages 24-29 throwing paper at each other and laughing as if John Mulaney was dropping jokes on us (he makes us laugh! Hangovers are funny!). Anyway, so yeah, we were throwing paper and then I pulled out the old BicPen and started to make the ole'Spitball shooter. Good times, though since I'm 25 it is harder to actually pull the trigger on the ole'Spitball shooter. Next quarter.
We're getting to the Bears, I swear...
Simmons hits a home run with this one on the Eastern Conference . It was like reading the old, pre-LA Sports Guy. Seriously. Most enjoyable Simmons article in a long, long time. And I'm not shitting on him, he's a different writer today than he was five or three years ago. He isn't 'worse' (though he may be a bit more lazy) whatever, I'm not going into it because I still like him and read pretty much every word he's written on ESPN.com (I couldn't finished the Schilling interview, maybe the worst piece of writing this year). Anyway, point is, I like Simmons, and I'm not ashamed to say it.
Random thoughts are over flowing... it takes about 10 yards of a Vick run to realize that he's the most gifted player in the NFL. Though you forget this because he's stuck in the pocket over throwing wide outs 90% of the game. Of course this being the NFL every coach decides to keep him in the pocket. Of course this is probably the STUPIDEST IDEA (outside of invading Iraq) of the 21st century. Why doesn't ATL roll out Vick on every play? Why don't they treat him as if he was Steven Young only faster and with a better arm? Why? This pisses me off so much, I hate the NFL sometimes.
Can you imagine Tony La Russa: NFL head coach? How much worse would the NFL be? He'd use four different quarterbacks per game, including 'double switching' the slot receiver for a left handed shuffle pass specialist. Oh the joy.
Okay, the Bears... look they're 9-2. Grossman, for all his inconsistencies, is a better bet than Griese in our opinion. Now watching that Pats game on Sunday? Still better than Griese. I don't think the Bears can sit him, he still gives the Bears the best chance to win the game. But a few notes:
- The Pats get away with murder in the secondary. Seriously, they dare the refs to call a penalty on them on every single play. And since they're doing it the entire game, the refs can either decide to flag 'em on every play or only on every 3rd play. And they've been doing that since 2001 and their bullshit Super Bowl victory.
- The Pats aren't the same team that they were on either side of the ball. Dillon is washed up, the D lacks that something that it used to have, and Brady doesn't look right and to be honest, he hasn't had a good year at all, as any fantasy owner will tell you. Something isn't right about Brady right now. This is easily the most interesting subplot at the moment, but no one is talking about it. Tom Brady just doesn't look right. And outside of that one third down run where he made a move on Urlacher, he did nothing to help the Pats win that game.
- Neither team deserved to win that game. It was a sloppy, poorly played game on both sides of the ball. If these were two of the five or six best teams in the NFL, well it makes me appreciate college football that much more. That's right, college football. Ohio State and Michigan was much more exciting and a better played game than the Bears/Pats game. And it's been a pretty bad year in college football, imo. In fact, this is the first year in about four or five years where I've actually enjoyed the NFL. But it goes to show that a good college football game is usually much more enjoyable than a NFL game against two 'good' teams.
I'm 90% sure Bush closes his eyes and pretends that Iraq never happened. It's getting to the point where it seems like every day he's saying "We're staying in Iraq." All the while his supports drop one by one. I can't think about it really, it just so sad. We were against the War Before the War ever started because we didn't think it'd solve anything. But we never ever thought things would go this badly. Never.
It was weird celebrating Thanksgiving last week and thinking of all the good things in our life... and then realize, hey we can't be too happy... there's so much wrong with this world and country. There's a war that continues to get worse and worse for everyone involved and effected by it, were progress is not being made and if it is, it's happening at such a slow rate that it's hard to actually see the progress. And then the continuing gap between the rich and poor, the fact that our economy is in a extremely delicate situation right, the poor, the homeless, the injustice, New York City Cops opening fire on unarmed citizens...
I'm not sure we'll see the last few years of this decated turn into the late 1960s, but it wouldn't shock me either. Back in 2000 I wrote a throw away paper on classification (if I remember correctly, it was actually sort of funny). The gist of it was that since I was born in 1981 I was classified as a Generation Xer. Of course, I'm not a GenXer since I sort of don't 'get' "Reality Bites" or fully understand the impact of Kurt Cobain. In fact, if I was born in 1982, I would be a GenY-Gen9/11-Millennials-GenInternet-BabyBoomlete or whatever they call the people born during Reagan, BushI, and Clinton's Presidencies. And that's what I am despite whatever classification people want to put on me. But in the process of doing a little research for this paper, I stumbled across this book where it praised GenY/Millennials to high heaven. But at the very end it said something very important: 'we don't know how things are going to end up with this generation'. Their point was, in 1960, no one would have predicted that the BabyBoomers would go though and become what they were in 1970. In other words, in 1963 no one would have predicted anything close to what happened in 1968...
Now, this book and that paper was written prior to 9/11. Yes, that's changed everything in this country. Maybe we've reached the point, five years on, that we don't THINK about 9/11 every day; but admit it. Rarely do two days go by without 9/11 creeping into the mind some how (NOTE: We were DC on 9/11 so psychologically that may have a bit more impact on us than say, someone who was in Bosie, ID). The effects of 9/11 will probably live on with those who lived it until the day they pass away, like Pearl Harbor or JFK's assassination (both events that have had little personal impact on my life).
But going back to what I was saying, I think we're in for a turbulent year in the next few years. Maybe not as crazy as 1968 were we saw revolutions, riots, and violence in Paris, Chicago, Mexico City, Prague, and Vietnam just to name a few place; but there will be a moment, a tipping point, in this whole decade where the emotions of 9/11, Bush, Iraq, and this young generation finding it's voice come to head. 2006 is wrapping up, in may ways it was a very disappointing and sad year. There wasn't much 'good' coming from the year. Pop culture was filled with unfulfilled hype, politics saw the beginnings of the waves of a major change in government and power, and socially it was a very cautious year... people were careful in what they said. But people started taking more chances. John Murtha, who a year ago was seen as a radical for being the first politician to call for the troops to come home, now doesn't sound so radical. In fact, others are boarding that train in some shape or form. That choir will only grow in 2007.
And we have a Presidential election in 2008.
Things could get crazy up in here.
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