I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days. But there has been so little joy in the sports world for me, and this is the 300th post in the history of Sedition in Red Sox Nation. Maybe I'm just getting too sentimental in my old age, but I wanted this to be a special one.

So while we have the Celtics and Lakers squaring off to see which team's bogus trades will trump the other's, I haven't been doing much smiling. As is my regrettable habit, I went on a nice mini-bender following the Celtics victory in Game 6 in Detroit. Recently, though, I have managed to confine my dangerously bitter and incoherent drunken rants to my personal life and kept them away from this space.

If it's any consolation, I may have put an old friend from high school whom I hadn't seen in five years and his wife into probate court. After last call at a local night spot, the guy offered (or, more likely, I managed to invite myself) to provide a couple of Bud Lights as a night cap. His wife, whom I had never met before (and technically, I suppose, I still haven't met her in the formal sense) had come home from some sort of party where she was designated driver, and was somewhat less than thrilled to come home and find a large drunken moron cadging Bud Lights at 3 AM. I guess it goes to show you that no good deed goes unpunished.

I felt bad about it, and the massive hangover that crippled me on Sunday. After all, this guy, despite being a BC grad, had the first good answer I've ever received when I explained my new rationale for drinking screwdrivers and forsaking White Russians and rum and cokes (just too many calories in white russians). The rum and cokes went because I am not ordering a mixed drink with diet coke, I might as well just grab a sign that says WUSS and rock that, no offense to those who do go that route is intended.

To make a long story short, I told the guys I was with at the bar that I switched to screwdrivers instead of beer because I was trying to cut down on my carbs. This is probably the fifth time I've mentioned that. Generally, people have just let it slide. But this cat, whom I inadvertently sent to divorce court, came up with a gem of a response, elegant in its simplicity. His answer: "So you're drinking effin' orange juice???" No one else had made that connection about the volume of carbs from sugar in the orange juice. Too bad I ruined his life...

There were a couple of things I should have complained about as they happened on this mini-bender, but just didn't get around to them. First, there was the goddamn spelling bee. In case you're keeping score at home, the finals of the National Spelling Bee was on ABC and the sixth (and final) game of the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals was on cable.

A bunch of prepubescent mutants with a super pointless gift and nascent psychoses played prime time network TV and world-class athletes in the prime of their careers playing in one of the four major North American professional sports was banished to cable. So what if the kid can spell the hell out of guerdon. Can he dunk? Can he handle the rock? Can he flash gang signs like the Truth or disappoint anyone who made the joke "I think Spike Lee's planning a sequel called He Had Game" like Ray Allen?

No. The kid can't do a damn thing but spell, and just because that is a rare gift, doesn't mean it's TV worthy. I'm so sick of this damn country and its juvenile obsession with novelty. Another three years from now and we'll be remembering the day middle school spelling outgrew its brand and falls back to ESPN2's midday coverage like the X games. Hopefully none of these homeschooled creepshows end up too depressed not to commit mass murder ten years from now on that account.

Another thing I must complain about is the ongoing effort on the part of Elvis Presley Enterprises to tarnish the King's legacy at every twist and turn. The particular aspect of their profiteering that is pissing me off at the moment is the latest addition to the wave of worse remixes of bad songs they allow to come into existence.

A Little Less Conversation sucked ass when it was released. It didn't get any better, even though it was a hit. Just because nitwits bought it didn't lend it artistic merit. Ruberneckin' wasn't completely awful in the original, but it's remix was entirely beat. And now, the mental giants at EPE have allowed Baby Let's Play House to be remixed, by an Italian DJ to boot. If I might borrow a line from a song Elvis covered (Welcome to My World), "miracles, I guess, still happen now and then." But I'm not getting my hopes up, in fact, said hopes are probably as low as they can go.

I have more complaints about more things that transpired in my recent silence, but they must wait for tomorrow. I am tired, and I have two items that actually made me smile recently to share with you. First, the fabled Metropolitan Opera House in New York City is infested with mice. Good. Serves people right for going to see the damn operas in the first place. People only go to operas to appear pretentious and pedantic and impress the hell out of their snooty neighbors.

But the main thing that has me smiling right now is that the Cowboys brass got its act together and signed Terrell Owens to a four year deal worth $34 million (with $13million guaranteed). I am glad to see that he'll be taken care of (for the moment) and once again hopeful that he can keep putting his past issues behind him. Considering the Patriots will take at least one step back, and the Giants won't have another magical run in them (consider how closely their playoff run mirrored the 1980 Oakland Raiders wildcard championship team, right down to preceding a year of labor disputes, and those Raiders took two seasons and a venue change to get back to the Super Bowl), that makes Dallas a very strong contender in the upcoming season.

Sadly, one can only wonder what TO would be worth if he had the NFL chops of say Matt Ryan. Imagine that a proven workout warrior who ought to be able to withstand the ravages of age better than any other human on the planet and who ranks in the top ten of all time in the three most important statistical categories (9th in career catches, 10th in yards and 3rd in TDs) for his position is only worth $13 million in guaranteed money while a rookie who played against glorified 1-AA teams and a diminished ND squad in his "breakout" year is guaranteed to make $34.75 million (more than Owens' entire deal).

I enjoyed this blogger's take on Ryan, comparing him favorably against Tim Tebow of Florida. First, Tebow is massively overrated. But Ryan's massively overrated in his own right. When Notre Dame threw caution to the wind and sent the speedy freshman OLBs every time Ryan dropped back, all of a sudden, his mystical ability to see the whole field and find every open receiver took a big step back. Now imagine that's an NFL pass rusher with Mario Williams' size and speed coming in. Ryan isn't ready for it now, nor will he be. He has bust written all over him in capital letters.

As an anonymous comment complained the other day, the Red Sox season is now two days old and I haven't mentioned the Red Sox in Sedition in Red Sox Nation yet. I don't really know what to say about the Sox vs. As games played in Japan, except that it was a total and complete fraud.

There is no reason why two teams should be 1-1 right now when no other team has played a game. There is no reason why teams should start the regular season and then come back to play more exhibition games. It's a shamelessly exploitative money grab, and it's beat.

If flying halfway around the world to play games in Japan were in any way, shape or form legitimate, MLB wouldn't have twisted the schedules the way they did. They might have tried something like this at the All Star break, since the All Star game has been a total fraud for years now, even though it decides home field for the World Series. But it's just another way for MLB to turn a profit off one of its two marquee teams (sorry, Dodgers and Cubs but you aren't in the same league with the Yankees and Red Sox, the pun is purely accidental and somewhat regrettable).

That said, it isn't the biggest fraud in sports at the moment. Far bigger is an ESPN panel ranking the top ten wide receivers of all time placing Randy Moss at number two. So what if he set a ton of records this season. He had plenty of time to rest up for that performance when he mailed in every single snap of his years in Oakland. That alone ought to disqualify him from the top ten.

Admittedly, I have a certain bias here, and it's a very big bias, but there is no way Moss should be ranked ahead of Terrell Owens. Moss has made a living of shining brightly in regular season nationally televised games. He has not, however, made a point of playing big in playoff games. TO, to his credit, has done exactly that.

Consider the fact that legend tells us Jason Sehorn shut Moss down in an NFC championship game because Moss was out of sorts after stadium security wouldn't allow his kids on the sideline. TO shook off an abysmal afternoon where he'd dropped four passes to make the best catch any one not named Lynn Swann ever made in a playoff game (sorry, David Tyree, even though that catch put a big smile on my face) when he caught the winning TD in triple coverage in the end zone against the Packers back in 1999.

And have we reached a decision on whether or not Moss could have caught that third down pass against the Giants this season had he but jumped? I think so, but I am biased against the player and the team. Bill Simmons thinks so, but he's kind of a whimp and has never slid into second base in his life (plus, rumor has it he bailed early on at least one world series game in 2004). Set that against the fact that TO signed a liability waiver, returned from a broken leg in six weeks, played with a pin in his shin, caught nine passes for over 100 yards against the Patriots back in Harrison's HGH days.

Check out this YouTube comparison and make your own decision.



I just wish the Moss section had included the moment from 2003 when the Vikings entered the final game in Soldier Field controlling their own destiny for the final NFC playoff berth. In the final moments, with the Vikings needing a TD to win and advance against the lowly Bears, Moss ran a fade pattern against then unknown Bears CB Charles Tillman. Tillman took the ball right from Moss' hands and the Vikings lost. Show me a 49ers, Eagles or Cowboys game that ended with TO in that situation.

So what if TO was less than pleasant to Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb. So what if we'll never know if he had a drug interaction problem or tried to kill himself in that media circus from 2007. So what if he has problems interacting with people in a normal, adult fashion from time to time. Throughout his career, TO has played with a level of toughness that has outweighed his personal inconsistencies and should command more respect than the media and too many fans have been willing to give.

That said, I found this piece on Bob Hayes' omission from the top ten wide receivers of all time interesting. I would suggest to the writer that there is ample evidence that zone defenses existed in the NFL prior to Hayes' debut (the Giants umbrella defense of the 1950s comes to mind, for one), but Hayes definitely changed the game with his speed. I think he deserved to be on the list ahead of Paul Warfield and Steve Largent.

I also think Art Monk should have made the list ahead of Largent, considering both were possession receivers and Monk beats Largent's career numbers and in single season performance as well. Plus, Largent and Monk pretty much came from the same era. I think the fact that Charley Taylor played in the 60s and 70s got him on the list, and then only on numbers. He was a rich man's Bobby Mitchell.

I don't really have anything to say against Don Hutson at number 3, how can one possibly evaluate a guy from the era before Unitas, when the only QBs I can name are guys like Baugh, Luckman, Van Brocklin, Waterfield, Graham and Connerly and none of them played with Hutson as far as I remember.

I don't think Raymond Berry should have made the top ten, but that's personal animosity from the time when he was coaching the Patriots. But he probably should have been in there ahead of Marvin Harrison. Unless you're putting together a list of people who have decided to maintain facial hair styles from adult entertainment features of two decades ago, there's no top ten list that should have Marvin Harrison on it. The only difference between him and Bill Brooks is the fact that Brooks played with bad QBs and Harrison plays with Manning.

As for Cris Carter, he's another lucky product of a pass-happy era. If a guy like Webster Slaughter had been 6 years younger, he'd have been able to produce numbers like Carter did. Perhaps Carter made the list because of the mortification Chris Berman must have felt when he learned that the Buddy Ryan "All he does is catch touchdowns" quote Boomer beat to death was really code for "I'm releasing him because I can't deal with his coked out narcissism any more."

I guess if I were making a top ten list of NFL wideouts, I'd grudgingly start with Jerry Rice because I always hated him. I'd put TO number two because he's my favorite athlete playing right now and he's a mean, nasty, cantankerous person, which is always a good thing when you hit and take hits for a living. I'd leave Hutson at number three, because I can't disprove his belonging there.

I wouldn't keep Irvin at number 4. He's another guy I always hated, and I thought he was a bit overrated because he was so charismatic and his teams were so talented. I guess I'd put Ray Berry there because of the numbers he put up, the contributions he made to those great Colts teams and because he played in a run-dominated era. And even though the Colts were an exception under Weeb Ewbank, they still had John Mackey who might be the best TE ever and Lenny Moore who was one of the best pass catching backs of all time.

I'd put Art Monk at number 5 because he was very quietly the best possession receiver of all time, light years ahead of guys like Largent. He was, after all, a huge part of the Joe Gibbs teams that won three titles with three different QBs. He caught over 900 passes on teams that are best known for the Hogs and power running games.

And before you get mad at me for ranking him ahead of Moss, think about this. If I told you that Charles Mann and Dave Butz played WR on those Redskins' team with him, could you disprove that off the top of your head? They were d-linemen on the Redskins. Guys like Downtown Charlie Brown, Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders played opposite Monk, not exactly John Taylor to his Jerry Rice. Monk definitely deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and should have made it a long time ago.

I'd put Moss at number six because he's incredibly talented but all but invisible in playoff games. I'd put Hayes at number seven because the ESPN piece convinced me and Landry was a guy whose offenses spread the ball around. I'd put Lynn Swann at number eight, even though his stats weren't there. No one was better in big games and no one had that artistic quality to his catches. I'd throw Charlie Taylor in at number nine for sheer weight of production in a running era. And put Irvin ten.

I should have published this last night, but I just didn't feel like it. But I enjoyed watching this year's Pro Bowl more than I have in the past for some reason. I don't think it is a lingering positive feeling following the Patriots' epic collapse against the Giants. I think because there were more first time guys than usual, the game was played with more intensity than it has been lately.

Or maybe it was because Tom Brady and Randy Moss weren't there. My position on the two of them has been apparent from the earliest days of this blog's existence, so you are free to take it with a grain of salt. But I just can't help believing that even if he had to undergo some Lee Majors Six Million Dollar Man surgery on his high ankle sprain, Tom Brady would have been there to bask in the glow of 19-0. Or perhaps the shock of losing to the Giants overtaxed his fragile intellect so much he had to take a rest. Or maybe the thought of Matt Light facing off against Osi Umenyora one more time was more than he could bear.

As for Randy Moss, I remember mentioning once or twice that he had a history of coming up small in huge moments. For once, I have to include a reference to a Bill Simmons column that doesn't rip the author here. In last week's mailbag column, Simmons said this about Moss:
I don't know how it played on television, but in person, it was a breathtaking moment -- Brady buying himself time with a planned rollout, Moss sprinting down the sidelines flanked by two d-backs, and then Brady launching the ball 70 yards down field as every Giants fan in the building stopped breathing. The pass was right on target and Moss would have caught the football had he jumped for it ... which he didn't. I will always believe that. And by the way, it's taking all the will power in my sick body to refrain from a "If it were Week 6 and we were winning by 28, Moss would have caught the football" joke.

Yeah, Moss caught five balls for sixty two yards and a touchdown, which is nice. But at the end of the day he had a chance to make the play that saved the perfect season and for all his talent, all his athletic ability and all his demons that had come oh so close to being forgotten, Randy couldn't be bothered to go all out for that one moment. Damn shame that. So what if Assante Samuel could have iced the game by not dropping a sure INT. Aren't teammates supposed to bail one another out? We wouldn't have had Havlicheck steals it if we didn't have Russell making one of the worst inbounds passes of all time a second before.

The Patriots and the fans can point to the ankle injuries, but they can't answer that nagging doubt in my mind. Those two would have been in Hawaii had the Patriots won. Flagging the Pro Bowl is just one more of many instances in which these Patriots prove themselves to be classless and consummate sunshine soldiers.

As for my man, TO. I thought it was awesome when he came out and called himself the front runner for Pro Bowl MVP. In another instance of things I can't help but believe, I think that if any other receiver had caught two TD passes and I can't remember how many first downs to bring the NFC back from the brink of defeat, they might have managed to edge out Adrian Peterson. But that's just me. So I have no problem with any of TO's actions yesterday.

It was nice that Adrian Peterson rushed for the second most yards in the history of the Pro Bowl. Maybe if he'd been that intense down the stretch, Minnesota might have beaten out the Redskins for the final playoff spot in the NFC. Perhaps the Vikings should have been offering new Cadillacs for playoff incentive.

As for other peripheral matters... I'm just not sure Andre Tippett ought to be in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, he had 100 career sacks. So did Mark Gastineau. Yeah, those Patriot teams blew, but Gastineau's Jets weren't much better. What it comes down to, I think, is that the Patriots had (prior to this dynasty) next to nothing in the way of history and tradition, so Tippett got in to the Hall.

I received an interesting comment on last night's post:

Alan has left a new comment on your post "The other day, I got a snide little email from a f...":

If Derek Lee had teared up after the Cubs got swept this year, I would have never heard the end of it. Never. But of course, when it happens to TO, it's barely worth a mention.

First, and foremost, there is no fair barometer to compare a team that lost an NFL playoff game by four points to a baseball team which was bounced from the playoffs as quickly, brutally and unceremoniously as this year's Cubs were. Don't get me wrong, I don't tend to like picking on Cubs fans (unless they happen to be close friends of mine because I am a horrible person). But the Cubs were outscored 16-6 in their three game travesty against the Diamondbacks.

As for Derrek Lee, yeah he managed to hit .333 for the series against the Diamondbacks, so he has that going for him, which is nice. Too bad for the Cubs fans, all of his four hits were singles and not one of them drove in a run. And on top of that, he struck out four times. Better still, if you look at his postseason stats for his career, Derrek Lee has one more career postseason homer and four more RBI against the Cubs than for the Cubs.

TO didn't have his best statistical game by a long shot, but at least he managed to get his team on the board in Dallas' loss to the Giants. Not only that, but a wide receiver in football is much more bound to his quarterback's performance, offensive line play and his coaching staff's follies than is a first baseman in baseball. Lee got 12 official at bats against the Diamondbacks, but the Cowboys didn't exploit the mismatches available in the Giant secondary the way they should have in the second half.

Two of the missed connections between Owens and Romo in that second half, the long pass down the left sideline where a Giant d-back (I believe it was Corey Webster, but I might be wrong) tipped it away at the last moment and the pass inside the ten where the ball was behind Owens likely would have been TDs. The Cowboys should have gone back to those plays, or at the very least wasted a lot less time in their two minute drill. Can you really say that any of the GDPs Derrek Lee threw at us in the playoffs would have been run scoring plays?

To make a long story short, with the way he played and his team played, Derrek Lee forfeited the right to have any kind of emotional response to the Diamondbacks sweep this fall. TO produced one of his team's two TDs, so he earned the right to be a little frustrated with the Cowboy's failure. And be grateful I chose to overlook the fact that you misspelled your hero's name when you brought that foolishness up in here. I am the only one allowed to misspell words here.

In the giving the devil his due category, Bill Simmons came up with a fairly interesting and surprisingly well thought out comparison of the 1986 Celtics and this present Patriots squad. As far as comparing apples and oranges can be done, it was reasonably successful.

I do think that he is looking a little to hard at the present at the expense of the past, but then I've never been a Patriots fan while I was a Celtics fan before Danny Ainge came back to town. I think the Cs win going away in this comparison, since they neither sold their soul nor (perhaps, given that Moss is both a character problem waiting to happen and in a contract year) mortgaged the future for their epic run at history.

And I think Simmons also fails because he is even slightly afraid of jinxing these Patriots. Maybe Green Bay can catch lightning in a bottle, but I fear that this season is already over.

The other day, I got a snide little email from a friend of mine who just happens to be a big Patriots fan. At the best of times, it can be particularly difficult to be friendly with Patriots fans but being from New England, and all, it's also very difficult to find normal friends who watch sports and aren't fans of the local teams to befriend. This year, however, it has been particularly difficult.

My friend wondered how I felt when I saw TO crying at the end of the Dallas debacle this weekend. I told my friend the truth, I said I generally have no problem with a person expressing their genuine, honest emotional response to a given situation provided, of course, that I happen to like the person in question.

I didn't mind TO crying at the end of the game. It had to be incredibly frustrating to see Dallas waste an entire season by playing a second half without any semblance of urgency. Even in the two minute offense, it seemed like they either counted the game-winning TD they never actually scored as already on the board or they just assumed the Giants would realize that Dallas was much better and would simply forfeit.

I thought Dallas didn't make a concerted effort to get TO the ball in the second half. I thought Dallas seemed to assume that the Giants wouldn't make any adjustments in their pass rush and coverages. I thought Dallas assumed they could simply run the same plays that worked in the first half because the Giants couldn't or wouldn't change their game plan. And with Tom Coughlin on the other side, it might have looked like a safe bet. But I got the sense that Dallas didn't approach the second half of the biggest game of the year with a unified vision to win the game. And I don't know whose fault that was, but I doubt that it was TO's.

It could be worse, right? After all, it's not as though TO became embroiled in a strange personal scandal in the week leading up to the biggest game of the year. I don't know what the truth is, in this situation, if there is any truth on any side of this strange story. I am inclined to think that there have to be a few simpler ways of extorting $100,000 from a guy than this restraining order con.

I am upset by this whole stupid little mess. Why did it come out now? What is the point of wasting what might be a perfectly good distraction on a week where the Chargers couldn't beat the Patriots if they got to put 15 of their best "men" on the field against the regulation 11 from the other side? It just sets up so well, to have the team with the revenge angle from the grace and dignity the Patriots displayed beating San Diego on the road last postseason coming to Foxboro to play the team with the unblemished record in all but the moral dimension of the game.

Of course, just about every thing that looks so well scripted is bound to unravel spectacularly in reality. Especially if Philip Rivers can play this week. I'd feel more comfortable with Billy Volek under center. You know Rivers is due for an dismal performance of epic proportions, especially with Eli Manning still playing and the inevitable comparisons between the two of them. Plus, LaDanian Tomlinson is a great player when the breaks aren't beating the Bolts, but who whines better when the breaks go the other way?

And finally, the Chargers deserve to lose. For all they cried about how classless the Patriots were last season, and with some measure of good reason, you'd think they might have emerged from the upset in Indianapolis with some measure of dignity. Alas, that wasn't the case. Not since Emmett Smith walked the Earth in the first half of the 1990s have I seen such a shameless display of helmet removal as I saw when the Chargers defense stopped Indy on fourth and goal in the late fourth quarter.

And it's a damn shame. 17-1 might not sound quite as good as 16-1 would have, but I could have found the strength to live with it.

So, our long national nightmare drags on. The Patriots are still undefeated. The Giants did manage to play surprisingly well. I have never had much faith in either Tom Coughlin or Eli Manning, so I went into the bar to watch last night's game without a lot of hope. And the Giants played just well enough to get me excited, only to pull the rug out from under me when they eventually collapsed.

There are some encouraging signs. Tom Brady set the single season passing TD record. Randy Moss set the single season receiving TD record. The Patriots set the single season scoring record. And they became the first team to go through a sixteen game regular season without losing. And in all of that I can still find some positive aspects.

First, the last two QBs who set the single season passing TD record did so in seasons which did not culminate in championships. Then there's the fact that Jerry Rice set the single season record for TD receptions in a season in which the 49ers didn't win the Super Bowl. And the last two teams that set the single season scoring record (the 1983 Redskins and the 1998 Vikings) failed to win the Super Bowl. Not only that but the suffered embarrassing losses (the Raiders blew the Redskins out in the Super Bowl and mighty Minnesota lost to a terrible Atlanta team at home in OT in the NFC Championship Game).

It is true that this season for the Patriots has been utterly without precedent, from the head coach being mired in the most inexplicable scandal since Watergate (why, by the way, did Nixon even bother breaking into the DNC offices? He went on to win 49 states, were his preliminary polling numbers that out of whack?) to the 16-0 finish. But only one team has finished a regular season undefeated and gone on to win it all since the days of the Decatur Staleys and a ten team league. That was the 1972 Dolphins. There were two Bears teams in the late 30s and early 40s era that went undefeated but lost the NFL Championship Game.

I guess it depends on perspective. One can see history and karma being full square behind this Patriots team, or one can see history and karma setting a massive ambush for this mob of cocky nitwits. And based on the crowd at the bar last night, I get the sense that very few people deserve a comeuppance more than Pats fans. I actually overheard a guy at the bar refer to Mangini as "Mangina." And he seemed to be one of the more enlightened and articulate Pats fans in the place.

Far more vexing at the moment was the crime against aesthetic sensibilities perpetrated by the Dallas Cowboys this afternoon in the nation's capital. What the hell happened there? Did Jerry Jones forget the shipment of Diet Pepsi Max? Did he finally grab the headset from Jason Garrett and take the helm? I know the weather was frightful, but with the way they played you'd think that none of the Cowboys had ever seen rain before in their lives.

Having said that, I am not too nervous about their chances to advance to the Super Bowl. After all, most of the same people who are hyping the dangers of facing the Redskins in the playoffs were sitting there around Thanksgiving time telling us exactly how dangerous the Minnesota Vikings would be in the playoffs. Funny how that ended up working out these last few weeks.

I suppose it is unfair to dismiss the Vikings at this point. After all, they do still have the potential to surprise a few teams this postseason. I imagine they just might be able to rush onto the field in Seattle or Pittsburgh as though it were Wrestlemania. Or they could really impress the other guests at whatever resorts they will visit while the teams that actually made the playoffs are busing playing this January.

I would like to see the Redskins win next week. Even before I earned the ire of a few losers who root for the Seahawks, I didn't much care for the team. I just didn't like the way the team and the fans reacted to the bad calls in the Super Bowl two seasons ago. It's not as though they would have been so interested in the pure technical art of officiating a professional football game had the calls gone in their favor. Plus Matt Hasselbeck is a bald whiner and a proud product of Boston College.

I just don't see it happening. Todd Collins has been a great story so far and they have the sympathetic angle covered because of the tragic death of Sean Taylor. But that sort of thing only takes a team so far in the playoffs. I remember back in 1991 when Mike Utley was paralyzed playing for the Lions and his thumb up gesture as he was carted from the field galvanized the team for its stretch run. They made it all the way to the NFC title game, but it all came to a crashing halt against the Redskins under the first Gibbs administration.

Incidentally, that was also the year that the Falcons latched on to the MC Hammer song To Legit to Quit. Of course, like so many of my digressions, this has no real point. But they rode the momentum of that dreadful song and the pointless human interest story it generated for nearly two months. Fortunately, they rode the momentum right into the divisional round in old RFK Stadium and the Redskins crushed them 56-17. I really don't know why I bring that up, except that it is on my mind right now, and (at least to me) moderately amusing.

What really concerns me about the Redskins going forward is their defensive backfield. This is a trifle indelicate, considering I've already mentioned that their Pro Bowl caliber safety was murdered in the not too distant past. But I just don't see them being able to contain the Seahawks vastly overrated group of wide receivers. Stopping the Cowboys today, with TO on the sidelines and an understrength Terry Glenn trying to get some game action prior to the playoffs in a driving rain storm is one thing. Holding down Bobby Engram and Nate Burleson in front of the even more massively overrated 12th Man is a whole different story.

I will, I think, be posting more about the playoff matchups as we get closer to game time next weekend. I also have to collect my thoughts tomorrow to see if I can find a way to talk myself into a plausible scenario which ends in Illinois beating USC in their first bowl game since 2001. It's definitely doable, but I have to consider the ramifications of the SIRSN jinx, which has claimed more victims in the last 18 months than the SI jinx has in its lifetime, I think.

I had intended to post about the inconveniences of holiday travel and a bit on the Celtics-Pistons game this evening. And then I checked email and looked at some of today's headlines. From that brief venture, I have come away with the conviction that Curt Schilling does indeed intend to seek elective office after he retires from professional sports. And thankfully, according to what ought to be the first law of democracy in practice, whatever benighted muckers elect him to represent them will get exactly what they deserve.

Schilling was recently quoted calling on Roger Clemens to give back the Cy Youngs he won since 1997 if Roger cannot clear his name in the wake of the Mitchell Commission report. I don't know if they taught Curt this one little point in any of the courses he's taken on the way to becoming the self-proclaimed voice of truth, justice and the American way, but a person is held to be innocent until proven guilty under due process of the law.

This isn't an American concept. This concept predates the founding of the United States by over 570 years. It predates the first permanent European settlement in North America by some 370 years. It comes from the Magna Carta, which (to put it in terms the average Red Sox fan can understand) is basically the OG of documents establishing the legal tradition for the English speaking world.

I will admit that I have been otherwise occupied over the last several days. Apparently, I must I have missed the proclamation which handed over ultimate authority over matters of common and constitutional law to a cat who looks like Humpty Dumpty and is one trip to the DL away from being a has-been.

So far, the chain of evidence against Clemens seems to include a former trainer who is, himself, under federal indictment and the admission of Andy Pettitte that he used HGH on two occasions. Now, I'm not a legal scholar, but it seems to me that extrapolating any illicit use of banned performance enhancing substances on Clemens' part must then rely on hearsay and conjecture. If I'm not mistaken, it can be devilishly tricky to build a case in a court of law on hearsay and conjecture, what with the fact that that sort of evidence is (at least de jure) in admissible in a court of law in this country.

Provided, of course, that the rule of law still rules in this country, there is no way a responsible court can punish Clemens. If no responsible court can punish Clemens, then there is no reason on the face of God's green earth to take the Cy Youngs back from Clemens outside of the fact that Curt Schilling has opened his mouth and spoken with the voice of God.

If Curt Schilling had an IQ sufficient to chart on any sort of reasonable test, perhaps he'd have realized by now that he does more damage to his image each time he flaps his gums on this sort of thing. Something tells me that John McCain might not be to thrilled that one of his foremost celebrity supporters just can't stop being a total douche for the benefit of the media. Perhaps Schilling should do us all a favor and abandon public life in favor of playing more Everquest.

Hell, he's already half a LARPer at this point. He might as well go all out and dress like an Orc and run around with the world's biggest tools and argue over who hit whom with what in some sort of hideous live action version of Dungeons and Dragons. The only reason I'm not demanding that he do so instantly is that it would make the CHB a very happy man, and that's not good for America.

I also find myself once again defending Terrell Owens. I think it's a good thing that TO suggested that Jessica Simpson give Texas Stadium a wide berth for the time being. Now I might be a very cynical person and a terrible human being, but I have the nasty suspicion that Jessica Simpson just might be in this budding relationship with Tony Romo to see and be seen more than out of any altruistic romantic motivations. But that's just me.

Consider this: what has Jessica Simpson done lately? Ostensibly, she is a singer and an actress. The only problem - she hasn't been in a film or released an album in a while. Of course, I could very well be wrong there. I didn't see Dukes of Hazzard or Employee of the Month, so I haven't been following her film career. I also pay very little attention to the ways and means of contemporary pop music, so she could have released 50 albums in the last year, for all I know.

What I do know is this: sooner or later, some kind observer usually finds his or her way clear to tell me when some momentous development in the entertainment industry breaks. Lately (as in since about 2004) none of these bulletins that have reached me under my rock have involved Jessica Simpson. Preening in a pink #9 jersey in a luxury box in Texas Stadium seems to be the only way she can get herself in the media, short of downing bottle after bottle of pills or turning herself into a train wreck.

As for the other side of this sordid little problem, there are those who can say that Tony Romo ought to be above this sort of distraction. It shouldn't matter how many of his celebrity girlfriends are in the stands at any given moment. But I say this, Tony Romo has really only been a celebrity for about 13 months now. It's still something he's trying to learn to live with.

Sure, Tom Brady didn't have the same type of problem with the confluence of his personal and professional life. But, at the same time, he wasn't as big as star as fast as Tony Romo has been. Dallas is still America's Team, and the Patriots didn't really get that kind of media exposure until they were well on their way to a second Super Bowl title. Plus Brady played at Michigan, as opposed to Eastern Illinois University.

Furthermore, Romo might not be a regular Alfred Einstein, but he is somewhat brighter than Brady. Where Tom Brady has barely enough grey matter to master the playbook and game plans of the Patriots, Romo is just bright enough to let the media distract him. And it's not exactly as though TO forbade her to enter the grounds of Texas Stadium. He just pointed out that she could be a distraction and wished that she wouldn't come to the games.

If any other player on any other team in the league had said this, it would have been a mildly amusing flap that would have died down within about 12 minutes. However, TO dared to be relatively quiet and blend in with his teammates as much as he possibly can this season. And for that, the media had to punish him. After all, TO's job isn't to excel on the football field, nor is it even to catch passes for the Cowboys. Rather, TO's solemn duty is to provide countless path of least resistance stories to the legion of media drones who don't want to break a sweat when they cover the NFL. And if that means mountains must be made of molehills, then mountains shall be made.

Consider this piece, suggesting that TO is responsible for the Cowboys' problems. First of all, how many teams would trade problems with the Cowboys any day? They are 12-2. They may have identical records with the Green Bay Packers, but they beat the Packers soundly, not three weeks ago. They have the inside track for home field throughout the NFC playoffs until someone takes it away from them. And yet they must be on the verge of collapse, at least until the media needs yet another new angle this season.

I know I promised my take on the Joe Torre situation with the Yankees, but a few things have come up to interfere with my blogging. Not the least of which is that I recently checked Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut out of the local library. I realize I just 86ed my street cred, since no one who is any one between the ages of 18 and 65 checks books out of the library. And if they do, it's certainly not to read them for edification. That said, if you get a chance and you are in the habit of reading, I highly recommend this book. It's short, it's funny and it offers some chilling insights into the way people act.

But Joe Torre will have to wait, because this afternoon, a more pressing concern is on my mind. This Sunday, two undefeated teams square off on the field beneath the half-assed open roof at Texas Stadium. They are the loathsome New England Patriots and the Dallas Cowboys. And, as you might expect, only one of these teams can emerge with a victory.

Conventional wisdom tells us that the Patriots will win the game. Rodney Harrison is back from his little slap on the wrist for taking illicit performance enhancing substances. Tom Brady is something like 29-2 on artificial playing surfaces in his illustrious career. The Patriots have steamrolled over every opponent they have encountered this season, and the pasting the Chargers put on the Broncos suddenly makes it look as though the Pats have faced a half-decent team. And on top of that, the Patriots have the second best player to wear number 81 on the field at Texas Stadium in recent memory on their side. No one can stand in the way of this juggernaut, and only a fool would believe that any team has a chance against them.

Call me a fool, but I think Dallas will win this game. Any reasonably competent high school algebra student can tell you that in accordance with the transitive property, since New England destroyed the Bills and Dallas barely escaped Buffalo with an improbable win, New England will beat Dallas handily. Alas, the transitive property works much better in a math book than it does in the real, honest to goodness, no fooling three dimensional world of pro football.

I am fond of quoting the Michael Douglas character from the Ghost and the Darkness who said that in prize fighting, everybody has a plan until they get hit. Dallas has been hit, and hit hard. They have shown that they can overcome adversity, silly mistakes and a hostile crowd in a strange environment and survive. New England has shown that they can get a lead and front-run with the best of them. No one has hit the Pats yet. And that is in large part due to the fact that the Pats have been great so far, but what will this version of the Pats do should the breaks start beating the boys?

Recently, a good friend sent me a cold analysis of the Notre Dame game vs. UCLA which pointed out that when the UCLA starting QB went down, they were forced to play a walk on with no game experience. Although the author's intent was to caution fans like me from getting to happy about ND's first win, it had the unintended effect of reminding me that New England knocked JP Losman out of their game against Buffalo and got to face the untested rookie Trent Edwards. Edwards had a few games to adjust before he faced the Cowboys. And yet Buffalo managed to score precisely zero offensive TDs against the Cowboys.

What worries me about the Cowboys is how their pass protection will hold up against the Patriots, or any team for that matter. I am not overly concerned with their ability to run the ball. The Patriots have a big defensive line and they have been able to push around lighter offensive lines to this point. However, Vince Wilfork will encounter a creature nearly as rare as the Loch Ness Monster in the form of Dallas guard Leonard Davis - a man actually bigger than Vince Wilfork and not on one of those TLC shows about an enormously fat shut-in who is moved from point to point by a piece of construction machinery. Dallas is much bigger on the offensive line than any team NE will face this season, and I'm not sure the Pats can handle it.

I think barring holding penalties or some sort of deal with the devil, Matt Light will be made to look ridiculous (at least in a professional capacity, he does his own work making himself look ridiculous off the field) by DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer. No matter what Shawne Merriman and the pharmaceutical industry tell you, Ware is the best OLB in the game right now. And the Pats o-line just isn't ready for him.

And make no mistake about it, take any combination of three Patriots you want, and you'll still be a man and a half short of covering Terrell Owens. And for all the highlight reel TDs Randy Moss has caught this season, show me one play where he threw one block 1/3 as good as any TO threw to spring Creighton for the long TD in St. Louis. That's why TO is that much better than Moss, he's not as fast, but he's tougher, smarter and braver about going over the middle. He may drop a pass here and there on account of a lack of concentration, but I'd much rather have him than Moss any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

Dallas is a better team than New England. And unless Belichick has some sort of trick up his sleeve involving compromising photos of Tony Romo or illicitly obtained video of the Dallas coaching staff's signals, I'm confident that for once, right will prevail.

In other news, the Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians face one another for the right to represent the AL in the World Series. I really tried the last day or so to generate any interest, any hope of rooting for the Indians, and I can't. My hatred for the Red Sox is in no way diminished, and I still want them to lose every game by 100 runs, but I never wanted Cleveland to be the team facing them. As Victor Frankenstein said, it wasn't supposed to be this way. It wasn't supposed to be this way at all. It was supposed to be a thing of beauty.

And I run a risk doing this, as I try to avoid political matters in this space, but I have to rip some one for this. Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize? How is that possible? Maybe he has done some nice work on global warming whoring himself out to the Day after Tomorrow's promotional campaign and appearing in an Inconvenient Truth. But has that made the world a more peaceful place in any way, shape or form?

For instance, when Teddy Roosevelt won it, he got it for brokering the treaty that stopped the Russo-Japanese War. That is making the world more peaceful for his efforts. Al Gore and his UN group have gotten emerging economic powers like China and India to reduce what percentage of their greenhouse emissions? They've increased liberal guilt in the G8, but that's not Nobel worthy. Even if it were, how is it worth a peace prize? It might be worth an eighth grade environmental science bee prize, but not the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ladies and gentlemen, as depressed as I am that the New York Yankees are no longer playing while the Boston Red Sox still linger on in these playoffs, I have a more pressing concern on my mind. In my understanding of the pass interference rules, a defender cannot cover a pass receiver by standing in his face and raising his arms. That seems to me to be the very definition of face guarding.

And yet that is exactly how Jabari Greer covered Terrell Owens in the end zone on the attempted two point conversion which would have tied the game. Of somewhat less importance, that two point conversion would have clinched the victory in my fantasy game this week. It also would have given Buffalo a chance to win their first home Monday Night Football game in 13 years.

Of course if Tony Romo had taken care of the football just once and spared me an interception or the fumble, I would have won and that two point conversion wouldn't have mattered for fantasy purposes. I would still be bent about it, as anything that adversely impacts Terrell Owens is anathema in Cincinnati Kid land. And no matter what happens, next Sunday when the Patriots go down to Dallas, Randy Moss will still be the second best #81 on the field. But I'll explain why I feel Dallas will win this game as the week progresses.

Before I leave aside the NFL for the week, I have two things to say. First, I jinxed Romo and Owens by taunting a close friend whose fantasy game had already been decided by 0.1 points in his opponent's favor. And finally, hopefully this kid Foulk nailing the 53 yard field goal even after that late timeout trick invented by Shanahan earlier this season wiped what we thought was the game winner off the bear will end the trend and the debate.

Other people will be more interested in whether, or perhaps when, Joe Torre posts his resume on Monster.com in the next few days. I felt it was time for a change last season after they got crushed by the Tigers. I just got the feeling as I watched him in the last couple of seasons that he looked tired. That he was managing this team as though it were 1998, and the last six or seven seasons hadn't happened.

The Yankees have an interesting blend of old players and prospects like Hughes, Cabrera and Chamberlain coming on strong. It just might be time for a change, not because Torre is a bad guy, not by a long shot, nor a bad manager. But he's been in one place so long, how could things not stagnate after so long.

Torre has had great success. Even though the Sox are still alive, and he's on his way out the door, it will be a very, very, very long time before any two Red Sox managers match that level of success for that long. It might even require a miracle with this ownership group in place. Hell, one could win 5 straight World Series in Boston and still get fired for wearing his shoes in the cabin of John Henry's yacht or failing to genuflect when the RemDawg walks in the door.

But what am I to do going forward? I don't really want to see these Indians win the title, but for the next few days, I'll root harder for the Indians than I feel comfortable doing. Because anything is better than a Red Sox win. As my friend the Cubs fan said while this nightmare unfolded in the Bronx: "It looks like we're Rockies fans now."

I don't want to see the Dbacks win. Maybe it's a lingering aftertaste from the 2001 World Series. Maybe it's their terrible uniforms. Maybe it's because the last thing a real fan wants to see is the half-assed media circus that would surround the meeting of JD and Stephen Drew should the Sox and Diamondbacks play a World Series. I imagine Joe Buck and Tim McCarver could beat that to death before the first pitch would be thrown.

I'm intrigued at the prospect of who replaces Joe Torre, and I'll be posting on it in some detail in the not too distant future, even if it is after Steinbrenner makes his decision. I'm just too tired tonight. I will sign off with this thought: God help us all should the Pats, Celtics and Red Sox win it all this year. With so many miserable bastards involved in pulling the strings of these ghastly marionettes, this level of success cannot be healthy for the Republic.

This was an eventful week in the NFL to say the least. I must say that I am forced to recant all the mean, hurtful things I said about Donovan McNabb in the wake of the single most impressive performance by a quarterback in the history of professional football. Throwing for 381 yards and 4 touchdowns in a regular season game in week three just shut me right the hell up, right?

I realize the Detroit Lions were 2-0 going into the game against the Eagles. But I'm not going to let that bother me too much. As I keep saying, this early in the season funky things will happen. Look at the Packers beating the Chargers even though they can't run the ball. So even though Donovan McNabb did everything but cure polio again this Sunday, it might be a little early to reverse field on his play.

I might be more impressed with McNabb if he shows a capacity to produce like this consistently against good teams and goes on to win the Super Bowl, but before that I won't be making any apologies to him. He put up big numbers against a team that has been horrible for several years now. Only this and nothing more. Let's not forget that the Lions were probably distracted by the dreadful throwback uniforms that must have been worse in person.

What is far more vexing is the continuing problem besetting the Monsters of the Midway. I am inclined to blame Ron Turner more than Rex Grossman, even though Rex simply sucks right now. The Bears look like they have no sense of continuity on offense. It looks like the offensive staff comes into each individual drive with an attitude that says "Let's hope this works," rather than the attitude that this series of plays will work and will showcase their strengths and the defense's weaknesses.

Last night was difficult for me as a fan. I had to watch a game featuring a team I have championed for more than a year now facing a player that I have defended against all reason for quite some time. To the point, in as much as I have a favorite NFL team, at the moment it's the Bears and in as much as I have a favorite player, it's TO.

And to add into the mix, there is the problem of fantasy football. I have TO, Tony Romo and Cedric Benson. And I have a problem with following conventional wisdom. I benched Romo against Chicago to play Big Ben against the 49ers, thinking that the Bears would play a bit better. It's hard to say that cost me the game, though since LJ and Santonio Holmes didn't score. But it didn't help.

I think the Bears need to take this week to reevaluate what works in their system and what isn't working right now. They have the talent to run the ball well. Benson, I think, is a great back in waiting with his size and speed. They need to use him more consistently to keep his focus and his confidence in his abilities from going north and south. That's the real issue this week, not this quarterback controversy.

I think Rex sucks, but I have no faith in Griese. In a way, I'm glad Rex sucks right now. Wasting a season isn't a very good idea, but it's better to let him play himself out of Chicago than to let him play himself into a big deal and then turn back into a pumpkin. It is far more important to get the running game together so that they can extend drives, work the clock and rest a defense that is on the verge of mutiny.

Also, improving the running game will only help an offensive line that is all but complicit in Rex Grossman's poor play. Perhaps I'm an incurable optimist, but I think that better pass protection might reduce Grossman's interceptions by 25%. It would probably cut down on his fumbles, too. But then, as a Catholic, I'm obligated to believe in miracles.

It was unfortunate to see the Yankees lose to increase the lead of the hated Red Sox to 2 games. I'm not too worried. With the way the Red Sox have gone on winning streaks after every time I've enjoyed a sweep or stumble too much, I have been prepared for them to win the division. What I like most about this team is the way they have thrived on weaker competition. That won't help them in the postseason. But I'm not going to talk much about it until the possibility of the reverse jinx looms less large.

This week has provided a few candidates for this blog's Tool of Note segment. In fact, these candidates are so numerous and so outstanding in the realm of tooldom that it seems almost unfair to try to narrow them down and choose just one. So I'm not going to bother trying to pick a single tool, instead I will honor them all.

First, we have Donovan McNabb. My heart bled for him when he was assailed by Terrell Owens. But now, my heart bleeds for him no longer. Unless you live under a rock, you know by now that he has come out and stated that the media and fans place and undue amount of pressure on quarterbacks of African American descent. But for some strange reason, the entire world didn't come to an end.

If you have followed this blog for any length of time, it should be apparent that I have my reasons for disliking Donovan McNabb. I find him to be a whiner who is always ready with a reason for falling short rather than a plan to win the game. Those who would defend him can point to his statistics which are admirable, and the number of Pro Bowls he's been to, but those things aren't the object of the exercise in the NFL.

Even making the NFC championship game four consecutive seasons is a nice accomplishment, but not necessarily a passport to Canton. The thing about getting to the conference championship game a few times in a row is that only a very few people bother to remember it ten years down the road. For instance, from 1974-1979, the then Los Angeles Rams made it to four conference finals in five years. But they only made it to one Super Bowl, and who remembers them?

Perhaps I'm being unfair to Donovan McNabb. After all, he is the most universally reviled quarterback in the NFL at the moment, right? It's not like any other quarterback regardless of his level of success is taking any heat at all, right? Give me a break. Rex Grossman gets murdered in the press and among fans, and deservedly so. He doesn't play well enough to win big games in big situations, so he gets ripped. That's life.

If we look at other African American quarterbacks and how they are treated by the media, the most obvious example that comes to mind is Michael Vick. Before this past offseason and its damaging revelation about his extracurricular activities, Michael Vick was a lightning rod for media attention. For every commentator that praised his unique athletic talents, there was another who ripped him for a low completion percentage, critical turnovers in key moments, inferior pocket passing skills and inability to handle pressure. Never once, however, did I get the sense that they were ripping him because he was black.

Then there is the case of Vince Young. It's too early in his career to get the sense of how he will be perceived in the media. I get the sense that even more will be expected of him than of McNabb and Vick because he came into the league on the heels of a huge win in a national championship game. He is still in the honeymoon phase of his career, so he won't be killed for mistakes like that ill-advised lateral at the end of the Indianapolis game last week for the moment.

I think McNabb ought to add Terrell Owens and Rush Limbaugh to his Christmas card list. They have done more for him through the controversies they created with their comments than McNabb has done for himself with his play on the field. They have made it possible for him to wrap himself in the mantle of his race, which makes it very dangerous for people to criticize him objectively. They will always be afraid of seeming racist when they do.

I don't know what to make of the controversy at quarterback for the Eagles last season. I hate both McNabb and Garcia, and I hate the Eagles. It's hard to argue with the simple fact that the Eagles were 5-5 in games McNabb started, and they finished the season 10-6. I might not be the world's greatest mathematician, but it seems like that might be a little better without McNabb than with him. Is that racially motivated, or just a simple fact?

I also don't think it's racist to wonder whether a man who is supposed to be a world-class athlete should be able to lead a drive from his own five yard line into field goal range at the end of the biggest game of his career even with no timeouts and only a minute to play. Terrell Owens played the game six weeks removed from a broken leg and with a metal pin where his shin bones used to be. But we should give Donovan McNabb a break because his tummy ached?

But Donovan McNabb isn't the only tool in this sordid little affair. I would be remiss if I left the good folks at HBO's Real Sports out of this piece. If there were ever a time when Real Sports had real relevance, I don't remember it. I do admire Bryant Gumbel (and his brother Greg) for laboring on in obscurity even when an entire generation will only remember them from the Gumbel to Gumbel joke in that episode of Family Guy a few years back.

However, it seems highly unlikely that those heady days when Gumbel hosted the Today show and the lions in their den trembled at his approach will come back any time soon. No matter how many sensationalistic pieces that accuse the mainstream sports media and fans of racist tendencies, HBO's Real Sports is never going to be the arbiter of public opinion on any issue. Perhaps Bryant Gumbel and Keith Olberman can get together and start work on a Way Back machine so they can get back to the mid 1990s when they were as kings in the media.

I would also be remiss if I didn't honor Andrew Meyer, who, in getting himself tazed, has done more to deserve tool of note status than most who have been so honored to date.



Maybe I'm out of touch with the youth of America, maybe I'm old fashioned, maybe I'm just a jerk, but I have absolutely no sympathy for this young man. I wonder what gave him the notion to go to a talk by a US Senator and try to pull a prank. It was certainly a terrible idea, but it seems like it will work out better than he could possibly have hoped.

Also deserving this dubious honor are the people who have leaped to this young man's defense. The University of Florida police officers who tazed this tool did not overreact. It is very difficult to conceive of a situation where officers of the law providing security for a once and maybe future candidate for the nation's highest office can overreact to a disturbance that may threaten said individual's safety on a public stage.

With the heightened emphasis on security following the 9-11 attacks and the justified paranoia surrounding security of high-profile elected officials, only a complete moron goes into an event like the one in Florida and acts up at all. And any one who thinks that this kid deserved better treatment should ask themselves what if he had meant Kerry harm and the police didn't act the way they acted. How would that have worked?

What presents the kick in the ass in this whole mess is that this tool is now basically freed from the compulsion of earning a living. The University of Florida will likely settle this case by writing a check to shut his mouth. He will also probably get a show or at least a gig on a show to do stunts like this full-time. And the officers who tazed him are probably going to face severe consequences.

The tool's attorney maintains that the officers tazed the kid after he had been cuffed. Ordinarily, I would find that, if true, to be exceedingly beat. In this case, because Andrew Meyer went into a heightened security environment with the intent to be a dick and because he said "Don't taze me, bro" to the officers, I think summary execution would have been within the realm of acceptable punishment.

In other matters, recently, I have taken to listening to Nights with Alice Cooper. A good friend of mine suggested it almost a year ago, now, and being the stubborn man I am, it has taken me this long to act on the recommendation. I must say, I am pleasantly surprised by his humor, his ability to articulate and his taste in music.

I must confess that I came to the show with preconceived notions because I hate heavy metal music as a rule. And the stage antics for which he is well known did not inspire me to accept Alice Cooper. I guess it was the inclusion of No More Mr. Nice Guy on the soundtrack for School for Scoundrels that started the turn of events that led me to change my mind on Alice Cooper.

This week, Alice answered an email from a high school girl who had questions about growing up when he did versus growing up today. Cooper said the world in which he grew up was better than what we live with now. Even though I am only 27, I found myself agreeing with him.

Some of the reasons he gave were very compelling. Families were closer back then, kids were afraid of their teachers, there were fewer drugs available to kids and schools were much less violent. Alice also said that it was a good thing that people weren't connected to the computer the way they are now. I found that ironic, as he was answering an email at the time. It's also ironic for me to approve of the sentiment as I blog about it.

As with anything else, Alice Cooper and his show are not perfect. I am not a huge fan of Alice's Closet Covers. From what I've gathered he takes obscure songs by obscure artists and plays even more obscure covers by even more obscure artists once a night. Perhaps they will grow on me in time.

A much more ominous sign came this week when Alice intimated that he didn't play enough John Cougar Mellencamp (Alice was polite enough to drop the Cougar, but I'm not). Now if he'd meant that he plays too much Mellencamp by that statement, I'd agree with him. However, he meant that he played too little Mellencamp, and I just don't think that's possible.

I would also be remiss if I neglected to answer the two comments on my last post. To the Kobra Kommander, I have this to say. First, I remember the hype surrounding the release of the Beatles' Anthology. Can you honestly tell me that it was worse than the recent concert tour with a headliner who has been deceased since the heady days of the Carter Administration?

But I spoke too soon in praise of the Beatles. I only assume that my friend the Beatles fan was too busy devoting his attention to the Cubs chase for the NL Central title to inform me that Paul McCartney became first artist on the new Starbucks record label. If it hadn't been for John Cougar Mellencamp, that would have made McCartney the sellout of the year.

And as for my silence on the late season woes of the Boston Red Sox, I seem to recall saying after the last Yankees series that I wasn't going to talk too much about the Sox since the last few times I celebrated their poor play seemed to trigger a depressing run of wins for the Olde Towne Team.

And to the anonymous commentator, how am I going to take your opinion on Elizabeth Vargas seriously? First you undermine your own statement since you didn't watch the show. Much like Donnie from the Big Lebowski, you're like a child who has wandered into a movie in the middle and wants to know what's going on even though you have no frame of reference.

As for my relentless negativity, would you rather I took all the negativity I put forth in this blog and unburdened it on people in my day to day life. I feel somewhat reluctant to tell you exactly what you can do with the prayers you offered me. But perhaps you might want to say them for the people who would encounter me if I didn't let my negativity loose in this form.

It seems my panic about my fantasy team was all just a big waste of time. Thanks to a great second half from Tony Romo and TO, me team came back from the dead. It is still possible that I could lose, but it would require an earth-shattering performance from Anquan Boldin to bring my opponent back into striking distance. It almost makes me feel guilty for calling him Mr. Bean's stunt double in last night's post.

Today was a pretty good sports day, all things considered. My fantasy team is winning going away, so I don't have to eat all the trash I talked in the week leading up to the game. And things shook out as they should have in the New England sports scene. The Red Sox lost and the Patriots were caught cheating. Maybe not a perfect day, but I'll take it.

Scott Kazmir once again emasculated the mighty Red Sox lineup, employing his vast array of spit, shine and various and sundry other illegal balls to prevail in a 1-0 decision. You know he had to have cheated because the Red Sox hitters can't be thwarted so completely without some sort of chicanery being utilized against them. Unfortunately, this outcome cannot stand. Surely MLB will review the sublime performance of Curt Schilling and award him the victory to prevent him from suffering any indignity.

I must keep this brief tonight, as I am stunned into silence to see that the New England Patriots have been accused of stealing signals from their arch-rivals the New York Jets. I will not sit here and listen to any hint that a team coached by Bill Belichick could stoop to an underhanded, laughable psyche out ploy like this. Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that Belichick was the sort of guy who might be labelled a home wrecker in a nasty divorce case. Or that the team owner would be deprived of one of his world championship rings by a ruthless despot.

In other news, in a shameful ploy to exploit their new connection to Japan, the Red Sox will open the 2008 season in Japan, playing against the perennial underachievers from Oakland. The good news is that this will provide Red Sox fans with a convenient excuse when this team stumbles out of the gate next season. I should, perhaps, be a little bit more circumspect on this matter, since I have been assured that JD Drew will be a bargain next season. Maybe this trip to Japan is just a front to help him find his mojo.

For some reason, I have developed a knack for spotting tools in the crowd shots as I watch football games. Tonight's top tools include a guy in the Bengals stadium sporting a storm trooper costume from Star Wars painted orange with black stripes. If I had a picture to caption and a penchant for pathetic plays on words, I would caption said picture: "Attack of the Clowns." And then there was the guy in San Francisco who elected to rock a beanie with a propeller and a team logo beach towel or blanket as a cape. If that weren't enough, he meandered through the crowd playing a banjo. The ensemble is so pathetic it defies my ability to come up with an insult.

As I spoke about this with a friend this evening, the question came up as to whether one or the other could compete in a tool-off with the South Florida fan who wore a singlet to the Auburn game. I would give the edge to the guy in the singlet, since a man should never wear any skin tight garment in public. That is a woman's prerogative, provided that she's attractive.

I'm not sure if I should give you this link, but it's pretty damn funny. I would recommend that you exercise caution before you click it, as it is a bit loud and might be construed as offensive. I don't want to hear any complaining if you get your dumb ass fired opening this in an office or place of business. But it is a few laughs, so check the video out when you get a chance. And if you get offended, well, I tried to warn you.

MAX MERCY HALL OF FAME #5

I didn't want to do this, but I feel I owe it to intellectual honesty. Jason Whitlock has to be inducted to the Max Mercy Hall of Fame. It's difficult for me because I really like his writing in general. I was glad to link his piece ripping the Mavericks and Dirk Nowitzki for all the whining they did following their collapse against the Heat two NBA Finals ago. But no one can write a sentence like this: "No one in America writes more provocatively and intelligently about football than yours truly."

If George Orwell (who wrote more provocatively and intelligently than any other writer about everything) had written about sports, he couldn't make that statement and look himself in the mirror. If Chinua Achebe (not dead, but my favorite living black author) wrote about sports, he couldn't make that statement. If Dr. Martin Luther King had written about sports, he couldn't make that statement. If Frederick Douglas had written about sports, he couldn't make that statement. No one who writes about sports can make that statement.

Hell, no one who writes about anything can make that statement. No one with any sense of propriety or intellectual moral rectitude can say that they write anything about anything more provocatively and intelligently than every other writer in America. How big does your ego have to be to make a statement like that?

This is obviously a delicate area for me, not so much because Jason Whitlock is the first African American writer to receive this dubious honor, but because I am calling a writer's ego into question when humility is not one of my virtues and when I have devoted a shocking amount of space in a blog primarily about the Boston sports landscape to defending Terrell Owens who has quite an ego of his own.

I think the difference between TO's man crush on himself and Jason Whitlock's boasting is that TO has to step out on a field and prove his worth against 11 guys on the opposing team who want to rough him up every time he touches the football. Jason Whitlock has to type up a column, get it past an editor and hope emotionally stunted people with social problems stumble across it on the Fox Sports website. There are objective criteria against which TO's performance can be measured to see if he is earning the right to his arrogance. That isn't exactly the case for Jason Whitlock.

The sad thing is, if you took the time to comb through all 194 posts on this blog, I'm sure you'll find instances where I did basically the same thing. Particularly if I'm whining about the CHB or Mariotti being paid handsomely to write garbage whilst I labor in obscurity. Of course, my standard defense is that I abhor all forms of hypocrisy but my own. Even more depressing, I published my 100th post in early March of this year. So in those 5 months and 10 or so days, I've published 94 times. I really need to get a life.

I don't know if you happened to catch any of the Tigers Yankees game this afternoon. I was grievously offended that MLB allowed Clemens to return from suspension and overshadow Curt Schilling's quest to win for the first time since coming off the DL on August 6th. And as for that nifty little play where Clemens struck out the batter at the plate and then Posada deked the runner on third into the third out, that was but a silly little farce. Varitek and any of the Red Sox pitchers could do that at will if they weren't about such tactics which pervert the spirit of the game, or if they had the brains to think of something like that.

So it's been a few days since my last post. I must confess, I haven't bothered to watch any of the NBA Finals. I've resigned myself to the Spurs winning it all, again. But that doesn't mean I have to watch it unfold. The NBA is rapidly becoming dead to me. LeBron is the only guy on either team that can play above the rim and play the game at the same time. The only other thing remotely interesting about this series is the fact that Tony Parker is about to marry an incredibly beautiful woman. Since that is all the NBA Finals have going, I have better things to do.

I wonder now, how Red Sox fans feel about their team. Roger Clemens is back with the Yankees. All of a sudden, the Bronx Bombers aren't bombing any more, at least not in the sense that had Red Sox Nation revelling not so long ago. I take it you remember those days, when the lead was 14 and 1/2 games. Now it's down to 9 and 1/2. And there are a whole lot of games left to be played.

Today, following Randy Johnson's solid outing, I find myself wondering if there is a little trouble brewing in paradise. Timlin did not look very good in his return to the big club. The trouble is, the Sox get a chance to bounce back from a stretch where they lost 5 games out of 7 against two playoff teams from a year ago. First they had the three game set with the Diamondbacks, and now they come home to play the Rockies and the Giants. Let's face it, neither of those teams are particularly good.

The worst part of the Giants series is that I will be forced to root against both teams. There is a maddeningly little conundrum for you, rooting against two teams one of whom is almost assured to win barring some sort of cataclysm like a meteor hitting the stadium. That might not be so bad, but for the fact that if a meteor hits Fenway, I'm pretty sure that it's not going to end well for me. I'm no astrophysicist, or any kind of physicist for that matter, but I'm willing to bet that I'd be in a world of hurt in that scenario.

I just can't root for Barry Bonds, at least not until someone tells me how he became the only power hitter to age like wine without turning into vinegar. I'm also not sure how he managed to develop shin splints at his age. I thought that was a malady that affected teenagers going through puberty, but then I'm not a doctor in addition to not being any kind of physicist. I just don't like Barry Bonds, and I never will.

Every now and then, I notice something and wonder if I'm the only person in the world that reacts to it in a certain way. Today it's the trouble I see brewing in paradise. Buried in the middle of Gordon Edes' Red Sox Notebook column in the Globe, there is this comment from Julian Tavarez: "Tavarez revealed he has been pitching with a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand. "[Josh ] Beckett would be on the DL with this,"." It seems frightfully rude of him to say a thing like that.

In certain circles, one would consider that throwing a teammate under the bus. If Terrell Owens dared say a thing like that, villagers would be chasing him down with torches and pitchforks. Or failing that, every sports writer with a deadline and more paunch than brains would be after him as though he'd sold poisoned milk to school children. Maybe Tavarez is free to say what he pleases about whom he pleases when he pleases because he's the only guy in the organization that can talk to Manny Ramirez.

Part of the reason that Tavarez has not been called on the carpet for his comment about Beckett has to stem from the fact that the organization and the fans are unusually slow-witted. No one in Red Sox Nation will even grasp the meaning of the blister comments for another two or three news cycles. So if the team plays well, it will all blow over. But if they keep giving games back to the Yankees and the atmosphere around the team turns negative, this is a story that could come back to haunt them. Give them another run like they had against NY and Oakland and the CHB will be on this like noxious odor on horse manure.

I meant to do this last week, but other matters intruded. In the past, I have been critical of Bill Simmons. That was before I realized that the Sports Guy is tough. Consider the way he laid the smack down on a Cavaliers beat writer who dared blaspheme against the mighty Simmons. Maybe I'm wrong, but that segment of his blog post had to be the online journalistic equivalent of the studio boss waking up to the horse's head in his bed. You simply don't trifle with Bill Simmons.

I really don't care if the writer from Cleveland criticized Simmons fairly or unfairly. Whatever claim to sympathy the Sports Guy might have had went out the window when he threw the coy little reference to the fact that he makes considerably more money than the beat writer in question. There was a time when Simmons was writing on high school sports for the Boston Herald as long as he could fit that into his schedule between shining Michael Gee's shoes with his face and serving as Steve Buckley's human footstool.

I couldn't help but chuckle at this little gem: "Bottom line: If you're going to rip another writer, make sure you've actually read the guy first." When did Bill Simmons become Stone Cold Steve Austin? Where did he acquire the right to set the bottom line in any question? At the risk of transgressing my new rule about people with no right to set the bottom line setting the bottom line, I have a bottom line for Simmons. He's a bully. And a fraud.

He has no problem ripping Art Shell. Or Isiah Thomas. But Heaven forbid that some minnow should dare think that turnabout is fair play and that mean things can be said about Bill Simmons. If one can say or write harsh words about another person, then one ought to be able to take a little bit from another person. Alas, lessons like that must not be taught on the mean streets of suburban Connecticut.

If you are a BC fan, you might want to watch Jeopardy at least once before the end of the week. I do not offer the suggestion because of any particular contestant, but because it's the College Tournament and it's being held at USC's Galen Hall. The producers have arranged for the school's marching band to play its fight song at the beginning of each show. In the wake of a recent announcement, I think that BC fans might want to accustom themselves to hearing that song. Come 2011, they'll be hearing it all too often.

In case you haven't heard, Boston College has grown tired of playing in the Who Gives A Damn Bowl evey year. Apparently they have reached the conclusion that a non-conference schedule replete with MAC also-rans and New England's finest 1-AA schools isn't going to get them the into big money games. So now BC is planning to venture from it's cushy lair and play a real, honest-to-goodness, no-foolin' powerhouse, the Trojans of the University of Southern Cal.

BC must be desperate to make a move like this. Leaving the Big East hasn't exactly panned out the way they'd hoped. Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia have all garnered more national attention playing in the conference where Eagles no longer dare than BC has received in the new ACC. Stuck up on their island in New England, BC's football program is facing a crossroads.

The school they wish to consider their big rival, Notre Dame, doesn't feel compelled to play BC. And it has nothing to do with the fact that BC has beaten Notre Dame in the last four meetings. Notre Dame has huge rivalries with USC, Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue. The Irish have played these teams year in and year out for decades. Even the longstanding series with the Naval Academy has roots in the fact that the US Navy used Notre Dame as a satellite officer training facility, enabling the then all-male school to stay open during World War II.

BC has yet to build a rivalry with any school because they have a mediocre program in a region not known for producing great high school football players. And the best high school player the region turned out in the last 30 years, Mark Bavaro, played at Notre Dame. I am aware of the midget QB who drop-kicked conversions in the autumn of his years. But Bavaro's run while dragging the 49ers defense including the great Ronnie Lott is still more impressive than one long pass, all the Grey Cups in Canada and the cereal war with Jimmy Johnson.

And yet that is not the only football related story on my mind these days. I wonder sometimes why Crystal Pepsi is hardly ever remembered these days while New Coke is a comedy staple for every tool who thinks he's ten times funnier than he is. I realize that New Coke was a worse idea implemented on a much bigger scale, but can we get a moratorium on New Coke references? They tell me variety is the spice of life, people. So can we have at least one other soft drink included in the common store of bad jokes?

I say that to point out that one NFL team has placed the franchise tag on an important piece of its defense and been killed in the media for that decision. Meanwhile, another organization which has long been deemed the benchmark of excellence in sports has also franchised a malcontent from its defense. Both players are threatening to hold out this season, but only the first team is being pilloried.

On the remote chance that I have been too subtle to this point, the first player is Lance Briggs of the Chicago Bears (sort of). The second player isn't Justin Smith who needed to step up his game to earn a franchise tag, but since he's yet to be arrested, he was incredibly valuable to the Bengals. It's Asante Samuel, whose ten interceptions would have tied him with Champ Bailey for the league lead if three of Samuel's picks hadn't come against Rex Grossman so they can't be counted. Now Asante has been tagged as the Patriots franchise player, and he's not happy about it.

I think part of the vast surplus of attention paid to Lance Briggs is due to the Drew Rosenhaus factor. Who of us can forget the fake phone call with Willis McGahee from the 2003 draft? Or the memorable afternoon where he fielded questions while TO did callisthenics in his driveway? Or any other situation where Rosehaus used his client's situation to get himself on TV?

At this point, I'm not sure what value Drew Rosenhaus brings to the table. He gets his clients lots of money, but I am not convinced that he gets the best possible deal for his clients. I think that any competent agent could have gotten TO a truckload of guaranteed money, even after the McNabb situation in Philly. Rosenhaus and the circus atmosphere after the Eagles deactivated TO hurt his client's image more than it helped. If TO had been even slightly less talented, that could have been an eight figure mistake.

But back to Lance Briggs. The Bears have an All-Pro middle linebacker at the moment, and Hunter Hillenmeyer is as good a strong-side OLB as there is in the game, even if you may not have heard much about him. They have a great secondary, even if it did take a step back when they picked up Adam Archuletta. Their defensive line is very good at the moment, and it could be great even if Tank Johnson doesn't get his head out of his ass, provided Tommy Harris (the best defensive lineman in the league) stays healthy and Dusty Dvorcek proves them right for letting Ian Scott get away. The Bears can survive without Briggs, probably better than he will going to a team with fewer players for more guaranteed money.

The Patriots aren't so fortunate, even though they have the best offense that any one has seen for many years on paper. Ellis Hobbs just isn't that good, and he's the best player in the secondary at the moment. Brandon Merriweather needs to demonstrate that he can do more than kick a man when he's down (bullies, particularly of the gutless variety, are a better fit for the local baseball team). Rodney Harrison is one injury away from losing a limb or being featured in an NBC documentary entitled A Nation's Strong Safety.

The rest of their defense consists of a very good defensive line, a high-priced group of outside linebackers and a group of inside backers who are decrepit, on a good day. I don't mean to be unduly harsh, but can you really tell me that if this were one of those Animal Planet shows, the wolf pack wouldn't be eyeing Teddy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel? They'd last about ten minutes on the Serengeti. The Patriots need Samuel more than the Bears need Briggs.

I think the final part of the puzzle to explain why the Bears have taken more heat than the Pats for their respective potential holdouts is the media itself. The Bears play in a big market with an independent and aggressive media. The Patriots play in a big market with a complicated media environment, those who aren't wholly owned subsidiaries of the franchises are lazy and unimaginative. The small amount of effort and thought I put into this post might kill a guy like the CHB. He confined his critiques of the Patriots to the Tom Brady-knocked up ex situation and Randy Moss, bad guy material.

But remember this, New England, the Patriots will live to regret the Samuel situation more than the Branch situation if they let it get out of control. They will also live to regret the Samuel hold out more than the Bears will regret the Lance Briggs mess. When it happens, I'll be there to say I told you so. I may not be here for the beatings USC will apply to BC since that's three years away at the earliest, but we can spare an I told you so for the Eagles too.

It's funny to see the way professional sports franchises operate sometimes. The Celtics sinking ship let Sebastian Telfair go because his off court behavior gave them a convenient excuse to drop him without much fanfare. The Patriots reversed field on their operating mantra during this season's draft weekend, forsaking the traditional high character guys fans have grown accustomed to over the last decade and a half for riskier, sketchier players. The NBA equivalent of a chicken running around with its head cut off is trying to take the high road while the NFL's shining city on a hill is suddenly trying to recycle bad citizens. Funny, indeed.

Of course, we all learned recently exactly how significant the decision to cut Telfair is. Bob Ryan emerged from his lair and wrote yet another piece to kick a man while he was down. Anotine Walker, Butch Hobson and Nomar have all merited this treatment in the past, and now it's Telfair's turn. The only thing that amazes me in all of this is that it took an eminent basketball mind like Bob Ryan nearly 10 months to see the flaws in Sebastian Telfair's game.

I suppose I am being somewhat unfair to Mr Ryan and not presenting his entire argument, but this is my blog and I can say what I want. And anybody who has read any of my past material probably can anticipate where this post is heading. Cutting Telfair is just one more in a long line of spectacular personnel failures in this Celtic regime.

The Sebastian Telfair catastrophe is one more step Ainge has taken to step out from under the albatross that was the Antoine Walker trade. Ainge didn't like Walker's game, so he traded him to Dallas for Jiri Welsch and Raef LaFrentz. Jiri added very little value. And Raef's contract was such a nightmare that Ainge unloaded him for a glass menagerie of failure and helped enable Portland to pull off a draft day coup and land Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy.

In the end, I am somewhat disappointed that the Celtics have let Telfair go. He was paid too much, produced too little and served to remind the last few people that really care about the Celtics that the team was in the hands of incompetent morons. Every time he took the floor for the Celtics he was a walking dilemma. He either embodied the fact that the people running the team have no practical conception of how to assemble a basketball team or that the people running the team are deliberately assembling a bad team. Either way, it suited me.

And now the Patriots are rolling the dice with Randy Moss, who has promised to revert to the Randy of old. People can take that one of two ways. Randy Moss will either burn up the league, catching passes, scoring TDs and delivering in big situations or he'll burn down Gillette Stadium. I am more inclined to believe the latter than the former, although the fact that the CHB has thrown down a gauntlet on this deal makes me far less certain of that than I was at this time last night.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a Patriots fan. And even though reports have Moss wowing the assembled luminaries by clocking in at an impressive 4.29 in the 40, I do not find myself convinced that the Patriots are the prohibitive favorites in the AFC. I remember the old Randy from his days with the Vikings. Nobody could run like he did, catch the way he did or terrorize defensive backfields the way he did. But there was always something missing. I think it was courage.

At least, by that I mean the courage to go out and put everything on the line to win a big game. Say what you want about Terrell Owens being a miserable, selfish cancer. But let's not forget that he came back from a broken leg in a month and a half to play in the Super Bowl, signed a waiver and outplayed eventual Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch. And let's not forget that there is no moment like that in the Randy Moss highlight reel. There are no postseason moments in there at all.

That's the Randy I remember. As I talked to my man who is a Patriots season ticket holder, I couldn't help but think of the Randy moments I will never forget. And none of them involved that famous Monday Night game where he punished the Cowboys for passing on him in the draft.

No, when I think of Moss, I'll remember the day a dreadful Giants team earned the right to be destroyed by the Ravens. They shut out the Vikings 41-0. And in all of that, rumor has it Randy sulked all game and didn't perform because he was upset that the powers-that-be in Giants Stadium wouldn't let his kid on the sideline. Truly that is the heart of a champion.

Then there was the tail end of the 2003 season when the Vikings needed to beat the Bears in Chicago to clinch a playoff spot. The Vikings drove down into the red zone, in a goal to go situation, and they looked to Randy Moss on a corner route. The TD would give the Vikings the lead, which would have put them in prime position to make the playoffs. And what happened? Charles Tillman, an unheralded rookie at the time, took the ball away from Randy, who didn't put up much of a fight for the ball and the season, in the end zone. The Bears won the game, the Vikings got a jump on the offseason.

Maybe all the optimism is warranted. Maybe the Patriots can awaken in Moss the fire that never seemed to be there when it really, really, really mattered. Or maybe his production over the course of the regular season will be enough to get the team in prime position for a first round bye and home field throughout the playoffs, so it won't matter if he disappears in the playoffs. Or maybe he won't enjoy playing in balmy Foxboro in November, December and January. Not to mention trips to Buffalo or New York in the dead of winter.

If he is so fragile that he coasted through two dismal seasons in Oakland because he wasn't happy, what will Randy Moss do if he experiences any adversity in New England. Will Stallworth be able to play a full season and be productive? Will Kelley Washington play up to his potential? Will the fact that the Patriots did nothing to shore up a weak offensive line come back to bite this team when they have to play the Colts again this year?

Only time will tell the answers to those questions, and the other fascinating conundrum... can Teddy Bruschi and Mike Vrabel combine to form a serviceable linebacker since they have lost very nearly two steps at this point? And before any Patriots fan reminds me that Matt Light contained Shawne Merriman and was a Pro Bowl alternate last season, think back to how that line held up against the Bears and Colts last season. I think I have a better chance of smiling at the end of this season than Patriots fans do.

This draft was very compelling, and not just because of Brady Quinn's humiliating Green Room experience. It seemed to me like a group of teams got together to see who could make the most spectacular mistakes. Kansas City may very well have pulled it off, passing on Joe Staley to take a wide receiver when they desperately needed to replace Willie Roaf and Will Shields more than they needed a wide receiver. But I think Philly took the cake, trading down to the second round to take Kolb, who looked to have a big future in Canada.

Let's not leave Miami out of this, either. Going with Ted Ginn Jr. will come back to haunt them. They faced a similar situation as the Radiers did this season. Both teams made the wrong QB decision last season, Oakland passing on Leinart and Miami signing Culpepper over Drew Brees. This time out, Oakland owned that mistake and took Russell over Calvin Johnson. Miami didn't own that mistake. In fact, they made it again. Instead of taking Quinn, they took a college receiver who will have more impact returning kicks than catching passes and went with the Mormon Chris Weinke in Round Two.

We also have a tool of note segment or three before I wrap up tonight. First, to Chicago fans who are enjoying the fact that Pat Riley gave them an easy victory in their opening round series, here is an action shot of the broadcasters of the second team in Second City performing the song "Summertime Blues" at a benefit concert. I get the feeling that this song probably made things worse for any one who found themselves feeling any blues, regardless of the season.

There there is this ____________ on Myspace. I really don't know which insult out of my vast store of insults to apply here. This tool transcends words like spaz and dork and tool and fist magnet. Maybe it's because he's Australian. Maybe this is considered cool Down Under. Either way, you'll have to supply your own insult for him, I am just too baffled.

And finally, there is this loser having a go at the eating of meat. Apparently eating meat is not eco-friendly. Apparently it takes too much energy and produces too many carbons. Just for the sake of argument, I wonder how many carbons it takes to produce the synthetic protein supplements that vegetarians often take. Not to mention the fact that there would be a bunch of cows running around once people like me stop eating them. And chemical castration is ever so much more humane and natural than killing them outright and feeding them to people like me.

Orwell himself had very little esteem for vegetarians, whom he deemed "food cranks." In The Road to Wigan Pier, he wrote:

"This kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people And their instinct is perfectly sound, for the food crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years on to the life of his carcase; that is, a person out of touch with common humanity."

Eating meat is part of what it means to be human. My ancestors scratched and clawed and invented their way to the top of the food chain. And they didn't do it so I could eat lettuce and pop protein pills. And I wonder how much energy and how many carbons will go into caring for generations of vegetarians living to be 100 when all the meat eaters like me have kicked off from coronary thrombosis at age 60.