What is this, Miami Beach?!
Greetings to one and all and happy Tuesday to you. Topics to be discussed today: the greatest weekend of sports in recent memory, Bowl Season come early, my magic hair, my new celebrity friends, and some of the most annoying 30 seconds of my Facebook career. On we go!
We may have witnessed the greatest weekend of sports in the Modern Age last week. It may quite possibly have been. Where to begin? Oh yes. The Jazz beat the hated Lakers on Friday night. That's always a great feeling, especially considering how much the Lakers were leading by in the first quarter. However, being the seasoned Jazz fan that I am this year, I know that even a 19-point deficit to the Lake Show is not insurmountable for the Cardiac Kids. After a monster dunk over Lamar Odom by Ronnie Price and a little Earl Watson action, the Jazz pulled ahead and never looked back, despite an unconscious 90-second span where Kobe was sinking threes like nobody's business. In the end, however, we sent Mr. Bryant packing with that annoying smirk on his face and there was much rejoicing in the land of Christensen.
Feels good, don't it, Big Al?
I had to leave after the game to go drop off a friend, so, after quickly seeing that the overrated, overhyped Boise State Broncos were beating the Nevada Wolfpack by a touchdown or two, I departed. I dropped off my passenger, and headed home. I received a text from my brother, Austin, saying, "Here come the Wolfpack". I got home to see Nevada tie up the game with a late touchdown, leaving nine seconds on the clock. Surely the game would be headed to overtime. Boise State's quarterback heaves up a prayer and it's caught in the redzone with one second (technically two) left on the clock. Easy field goal and Boise State wins again. Not so fast my friends! The kick was up and wide right! I knew it missed, but I guess there was some confusion as to whether or not the kick was good. I knew it didn't go in. We were headed to overtime. In overtime, Boise started with the ball and had to settle for a field goal. I imagine the pressure on that kicker after missing his last kick was enormous... and he missed the second kick, too! A few plays later, Nevada set up for a field goal and kicked that sucker in, putting a stop to the nonsense that is Boise State fandom. I am still at a loss as to why everyone loves the Broncos so much and why everyone was so devastated that they lost. This is one of the greatest things that could possibly happen to college football. Boise State plays sissy teams and the only reason why anyone even cares about a team from Idaho is because they have blue turf (publicity stunt, no doubt) and because they somehow get most of their games shown on national TV (maybe because they play half of their games on Mondays, Tuesdays or Fridays). Why does anyone care about this team? If Air Force, heck, even if Wyoming played in the WAC, I bet they'd have pretty good records, too. Overrated. Overrated. Thank you, Nevada, for ending this garbage. Down with Boise State and their hopes of a national championship. And oh yeah, all this came after Auburn's miraculous comeback against Alabama which almost entirely prevented Boise State or TCU from making it to the championship game anyway. Fantastic.
Sorry, kiddos.
I know what has enhanced my bowling game. I haven't shaved my newly-developed goatee since the day I bowled a 172. In fact, I haven't bowled below 150 since then. It's the goatee. The goatee is magic. I've received some positive and negative feedback about sporting the facial hair and it's obviously not going to last forever, but maybe that's my good luck in bowling! I only have one day left to shoulder the load for my team, which is currently in fourth place, due mostly to the fact that I'm the only one that has shown up to every day of class. Maybe I'll keep the goatee until Thursday and then shave it off. I'll put up a poll on the blog site and you can determine my goatee's fate by the power of democracy. And speaking of facial hair, in honor of my one-year anniversary, I'll be going in for another nose wax on Saturday morning.
Now for a not-so-proud moment in my life - Losing my ninth straight Madden Bowl. It wasn't pretty. Austin scored on his first possession and as soon as I had to punt on mine, I knew the game was over. There were a couple times when I brought the Baltimore Ravens within 12 points of Austin's Philadelphia Eagles, but he maintained the lead throughout the game and ended up beating me 42-23, thanks to 300+ yards receiving by his running back. The tough part about playing against Michael Vick was that when I did put enough pressure on him to hurry him, he'd just scramble and outrun my defensive linemen. It was actually pretty sickening to watch.
A few hours later, however, I emerged yet again victorious against Cody in the BasketBowl II, beating the Miami Heat with the Atlanta Hawks, 64-46. One day he'll beat me, though. I know he will... as soon as he stops shooting threes with Chris Bosh. One of them actually went in, though, and I'll give him credit for that.
Since the main contingent of my Loyal Subscribers is pro-BYU, imagine the final sporting event of the weekend is not a fond memory for you, but I don't care. I'm going to talk about it anyway. The Utes knocked off the Cougars on Saturday afternoon with a dramatic field goal block on the final play of the game - mere moments after I tweeted, "I wonder if any of the BYU players watched the Boise State game..." I am impressed by the majority of BYU fans, who have handled the loss with (dare I say it?) class. BYU ended a much better team than the way they started out. Heck, Jake Heaps even impressed me - one of his biggest doubters. They played decently through three quarters (not "domination," as many BYU fans have claimed), but in the end, the Utes were too much. Don't believe me? Scoreboard. The "domination" myth is easily debunked by looking at the final box score, which shows that BYU and the U ended virtually even in every category, including pass yards, turnovers, and total offense. I'm sure many BYU fans will argue for years about the controversial instant replay challenge in the fourth quarter. I'm not necessarily an expert on the topic since I buried my head in my hands after I saw the errant pass. I looked up, to my surprise, to see the BYU players running the other direction with the ball. I turned to Chelsea Aylett and asked her what happened, and by the time I looked back, our players were celebrating. The replay was not shown in the stadium, so the first time I saw the play was later that night at home. I've seen the popular BYU-produced image of the knee on the ground surrounded by a white circle. Ok. Obviously, his knee is down. You can see the tip of the ball, but who has possession of it? Where is that circle? Or doesanyone have possession of it? Inconclusive, disputable, and the right call. I can feel the anger boiling in your minds. All I have to say to you is this. Four words: Alumni. In. The. Pressbox. Go rewatch the San Diego State game and then come back and talk to me about this play. And don't blame the outcome of the game on that one call, either. There were plenty of missed calls on both sides (see the blown facemask involving Eddie Wide, for one) and, coming from somebody who has been completely screwed over (pardon the language) time and time again in the past (see 1997 and 1998 NBA Finals), believe me - that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Kick the field goal. Stay away from shanked punts. Stop your opponent on offense in the fourth quarter. Don't let the game winner get blocked. There are plenty of other things that went wrong for the Cougars other than one questionable replay call. Did the Utes get lucky? You bet we did. A couple things went our way on Saturday night, but sometimes that's all it takes. At the end of the day, it was a sloppy, sloppy game on both sides of the ball for both teams and the Utes came out on top in what will prove to be yet another classic ending in one of the greatest sports rivalries in the United States of America. Best weekend of sports in the Modern Age. I'm telling you!
And.... your point is...?
If you ever thought about jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, now is the time to do so. Everybody's doing it. Everyone who is anyone is following me on Twitter. This is the truth, as evidenced by the shocking additions of two celebrities to my followers this week. I got an email the other day titled "David Hasselhoff is now following you on Twitter." I initially thought it would be a fake account or a spambot, but I headed over to Twitter and checked it out. Sure enough, there was the little blue check signifying that this was the real deal. The Hoff is following me on Twitter!! Why?! I have no freakin' idea. I'm not sure why, out of his 60,000 followers, he chose me as one of the 5,000 people he wants to follow. No idea. But it's awesome. I loved the guy on "America's Got Talent" and now I love him even more. This could potentially make him part of Newsletter lore a la Craig T. Nelson. I never thought I'd see the day that I would make the Hoff famous. This is big, big news, people. The other surprise celebrity is none other than Bryon Russell, the long-socked sharpshooter formerly of Utah Jazz fame, who decided to follow the A-Town Mania for one reason or another early Sunday morning. Again, I have no idea why on Earth he'd want to follow me, but he is... and that's... the truth. You, too, can become a part of the biggest sensation on the planet and get a taste of the Mania by setting up an account on www.twitter.com and following me at @atownmania. It's fine if you don't, but you'll be missing out. There was almost a drug deal on TRAX yesterday and my followers were the first ones to find out.
Please don't hassel him.
I would normally have The Boo Box go here, but I quickly filled my quota of Boos at the BYU/Utah game, so I'll spare you this time. If I did have something toBoo this week, though, it would probably have to be the dang snow! It's freezing and I hate it and it makes it super crappy to drive in in my little Saturn car. Oh, what the heck? Everybody together now - BOOOOOO!!
This week's Game Ball goes to Jamaal Charles of Ed Rothlisberger's team, "It's All Good." Charles had 173 rushing yards for a TD and 35.60 fantasy points, which is not half bad. I'd personally like to thank Chris Johnson of the A-Town Assassins who rushed for a career low, 5 yards, on Sunday. Thanks for nothing.
Congratulations.
Finally, I've got to get this out of the way. The Shoutout of the Week goes to Richard Brunson, who was undoubtedly begging me to mention him after last week's Shoutout to Kristin Manning. I had thanked Kristin for "liking" so many of my status updates and wall posts on Facebook and within an hour of my last publication, the Brunsonator had gone out and "liked" probably a million things. It was hard for me to keep up with all the notifications, in fact. I think I got 19 new notifications telling me that Richard had "liked" something of mine in less than 30 seconds. If that's not praiseworthy, I don't know what is. But seriously... Stop. (*Laughs out loud*)
That's about it for this week. I hope all the tryptophan has worn off from Thanksgiving.
Until next Time,
Move It. Sell It. And Leave the Door Open.
Aaron
No comments:
Post a Comment