All My Snarky Friends Are Coming Over Tonight

Let’s get the actual game stuff out of the way in the form of questions:

- Did Tony Romo do better? No interceptions. Helluva job! (Sort of)

- Why didn’t Roy Williams hang onto that throw on 2nd and goal that seemed like a helluva catchable touchdown pass?

- Why did Tony Romo then decide to throw it to Martellus Bennett on 3rd and goal? Helluva bad decision.

- Why is Terrance Newman scared of touching people to tackle them? And should his interception for a touchdown make up for that? (No)

- Why is Jay Ratliff so awesome?

- Who did the Damageplan-esque guttural scream-grunt right before the snap when the Cowboys had the ball in the 3rd quarter?

- Is there anything funnier than hearing the intro to “Crazy Train” reverberating around the new stadium when the Cowboys are on their own 15 yard line on 3rd and 19?

- Why does Tony Romo think he can run the ball for 20+ yards to get a first down?

- Should we have beaten the Carolina F’ing Panthers by a larger margin? (Almost certainly yes)

- Why is Tashard Choice so awesome?

- Why is Jason Garret retarded?

- Does Wade Phillips know that the game happened last night? He looked confused, sad and lost. I expect to see one of those Old People Amber Alerts issued for him on the drive home this afternoon. And I pray the vehicle he was last seen driving was this:




Now on to the less important but far more amusing parts of last night’s game…

Probably not a good time to be named John Phillips. You might have made a decent play last night but it didn’t stop me from making a comment about sleeping with your daughter.



Cheyenne: “Our color guard is....different.”




Chad on the Brinks Home Security System commercial: “Oh no! Hit the panic button! Dave Attell is breaking into our house!”



The Hank Williams Jr. intro was insane. If I remember it correctly, it climaxed with two golden football playing men becoming electrocuted in a Hill Valley 1985/save the clock tower moment where they collide violently after a current surges through them which then causes their helmets (and perhaps their heads) to become detached from their bodies and rocket out of the atmosphere and into space (almost taking out a satellite which would have then made us all unable to see the game) before hurtling back down to earth and into the roof of the new stadium and finally colliding in Mutual Assured Helmet Destruction.

Also, this guy is a hot mess:



Chad - "Oh this movie Zombieland looks awesome. I wanna go see it."
Me - "Me too!"
Philip - "Meh, I don't know. I'm not sold yet."
Me - "They just showed Woody Harrelson riding a roller coaster with a shotgun."
Philip - "Yeahhhhh, I'm just not convinced yet."




Towards the end of the game, they showed the Carolina Panthers owner. He seemed to be draped in some sort of FDR-in-Warm-Springs polio leg blanket. Danny thinks he looks like Ted Kennedy wearing a Snuggie.



Chad on the commercial for the 3 disc Vietnam War DVD set being sold after the game was over: "Do you want to feel like you're really 'in the shit'? FINALLY a war documentary for me!!!!"




MNF doesn’t mean Monday Night Football to me. It looks like the antonym for MILF. Mother (I’d Rather) Not…



Dear Jon Gruden, Please Stop Sitting on Stools in a Way to Maximize Camera Time for Your Junk. Below is the “frame 224 of the Zapruder film” of Monday Night Football. This is the only known still photograph of Jon Gruden sitting on a chair of any kind and covering his junk.

He May Not Be a Helluva Quarterback but…

I have a deep, dark, dirty, festering secret. Like the lure of heroin to those in chronic pain, my willpower is failing me. I can’t help it. It’s like a tractor beam and I have been sucked in. I’m struggling, however pointlessly, against it. But then I saw this video and, well, I felt my muscles go limp. Whether I just gave in because I was tired of fighting it or I actually willingly decided to let myself be pulled away, I’ll never know.

I may have typed one or two (or half dozen) negative things about Tony Romo in the past few years. A week ago, after his interceptions lead directly to the Cowboys losing to the New York Giants, I wished a cavalcade of painful, puss-filled diseases to strike him simultaneously. I really couldn’t even think or type or speak about the Cowboys for a few days after last Sunday night’s game. What’s funny is that I made a shorthand list of things I wanted to write about once the searing pain of the loss became just a dull throb. Then I crossed them off for each time I heard one of the points being made for the 10th time by a local writer, sports talk guy or blog commenter. The list:

1. Flozell Adams – roundhouse kicked Justin Tuck?
2. Tony Romo – fuck him
3. Defense – fuck them
4. Terrance Newman – you suck at football
5. Wade – nevermind about them demoting him to D. Coordinator. He’s now gunning for Assistant Manager of Section 302 concessions
6. DeMarcus Ware – where? (minus 1 for pun)
7. Jay Ratliff – GOOD JOB
8. Two chances at catching a touchdown – Terrance Newman, you suck at everything
9. If Flozell Adams can roundhouse kick someone, I expect crane kicks from Ware unless he remember how to sack someone


But there’s no reason to dwell on the mess that was the game against the Giants. Unless the Cowboys lose tonight against the Panthers, then I am going to burn down the new stadium myself. What I was desperately searching for all week and through this weekend was a reason to believe again. Well, it was more like I needed a reason not to hate my own team and specifically my quarterback. I searched and searched. And then I found that video. And dammit, I like the dude. I’m not really convinced he will ever win a playoff game. But there’s just something about him that makes me unable to outright hate him. And trust me, every fiber in my being is screaming to hate him.

I’ve watched the video over and over again (partly just to figure out if McGee really is as dumb as he seems or if it is just that he’s a rookie) and I laugh more each time. Comparing the silly pirate cannons in Tampa Bay to the gunfire you grew up dodging on the mean streets of Burlington, Wisconsin? Dammit, I can’t hate you. Trying to get a laugh, a smile or a pulse out of Jason Garrett? Awesome. Alternately, Jason Garrett apparently missed his calling as a palace guard. But what really sold me on this video is Tony Romo’s liberal and almost Tourrette’s-like use of the phrase “helluva job!” to encourage his teammates.

Maybe this is just a frenzied forage around the cold, barren soils of Cowboys football in a desperate attempt to find something redeeming about the leader of the team. Maybe I just need to find something to get my hopes up for tonight’s game. Maybe I’m doing that thing where once a certain number of people agree on something and jump on the pile (Ed Hardy sucks, Saturday Night Live isn’t funny, Apple sucks, “I want to throw this can away, where’s your recycling?”) and so I have to try to be ahead of the curve by believing the opposite to be true. So in conclusion, look for me and my football gang to be watching the game tonight with a renewed sense of Cowboys pride. Alternately, look for me in the crowd. I’ll be the one wearing a t-shirt with a bedazzled tiger on it, doing my impressions of the Church Lady during commercials and texting “Tony Romo rulez” on my iPhone to everyone I know while actively NOT recycling. Down is up, black is white, cold is hot and, most shocking of all, I don’t hate Tony Romo like I thought I did.

The Burger King Must Be Stopped!

D Magazine’s FrontBurner blog is allowing comments again and just in time. You see, we all almost died. Bet you didn’t even know until you heard about it on the news yesterday evening, huh? As a disclaimer: no, I don’t think terrorists or mass killings or even one killing or maiming or slight inconveniencing for your cause is noble or anything other than really really stupid and cowardly. I also am not a “truther”, as I was accused of being on FrontBurner. In fact, I went to a screening of Alex Jones’s documentary about what he thinks was the US government’s involvement in 9/11. I left thinking, “Well, that was weak.”

So in case you don’t live in Dallas or your converter box coupon hasn’t come in the mail yet, the big news story yesterday was that the FBI arrested a 19 year old Jordanian who was here illegally for trying to blow up a big office building downtown. They also arrested a man in Illinois named Michael Finton, who choose quite possibly the most unoriginal Islamic name to go by….Talib Islam. Kind of like changing your name to Joe Name or something. Not too creative. Then again, when you take a look-see around his Myspace page, you will find not a hardened jihadist but a guy who has a picture of himself wearing the paper Burger King crown and exclaiming that he IS the REAL king! I’m assuming he 86’ed the bacon on his Whopper Deluxe.

Why am I acting so flippant about this? Because the whole thing stinks of TERRORISM PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!! Like, “Hey, you guys started to live your lives with only a modicum of fear of strangers so let’s rattle your cage a little bit and remind you that EVERYONE IS OUT TO BLOW YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN UP!” I wrote a thing about how the two big stories that sell tabloid daily papers in the UK is either a story about a suspected terrorist sleeper cell or about how fat Britons are getting because of American fast food chains. Anything to do with terrorism is always put people back on edge. Do I think that people should be apathetic if they see some dude lighting a stick of dynamite on the DART green line? No. But this seems to smell pungently of sensationalism.

I have said this before and I will say it again. I’m a freedom-loving American who adores her ability to blog about something like this without impunity or the threat of incarceration. That being said, I don’t think the average fear-rattled American realizes how tight our security has been and how lucky we have been to have avoided terrorist attacks like we have. I remember the first time I ever went to Britain. This was after the IRA had almost completely shuttered their radical front. There was no active war in which they were involved. And yet, when I stepped off the plane at Gatwick, I saw that some of the security officers at the airport were armed. With machine guns. And were wearing fatigues. It was shocking to me because I had never seen that before. Then my teenage brain put it together that Britain realized that certain people (the IRA, any number of countries that they had colonized in the centuries before, Islamic radicals who hated their relationship with Israel) did not like them and were actively trying to attack them.

America has a long exhaustive list of enemies. Gone are the days when America was hailed as the liberators of death camps and the innocent victims of Pearl Harbor. America has made enemies. Just like how our country grew on a foundation of capitalism, we have made enemies similar to how a booming corporation makes enemies by undercutting the competition or running them out of business. It’s the price you pay for being a superpower of the Western world.

But these arrests were not the infiltration and ambush of a powerful group of sleeper cells. These arrests were the result of the FBI finding disgruntled people who wished to commit violent and deadly acts. It should come as no surprise to anyone that these people were found on the internet (slogan: “Come for the porn, stay for the extremism and false sense of camaraderie!”). Just as the FBI could have found a message board for disenfranchised youth who idolized the Columbine killers or extreme environmentalists who worshipped the Unabomber and wanted to carry out similar attacks to the ones orchestrated by their heroes, they found two young men who were Islamic and looked up to the 9/11 bombers. And just like how the FBI could have gathered enough evidence to arrest the kid who wants to blow up his high school by posing as sympathizers and like-minded extremists, they sent in a team of agents posing as Islamic radicals who could help these young men carry out their dream attacks.

Do I think for a hot second that either of these idiotic kids would have gotten any further than the computer in their mom’s basement with these “plans” without any outside assistance? Not really. But I’m willing to bet that these kids were lonely, socially outcast morons wanting to prove just how vigilant and committed they were to their particular pet cause. These kids were out to prove something, though I don’t believe that their hatred of the US was the biggest point they were trying to make. Their approach was amateurish and filled with poorly-veiled braggadocio.

But I don’t think the FBI was wrong in their approach at all. I actually support the FBI in this but hate the way it’s being reported and the reactions that it is garnering. What I took out of the whole thing was that, while Al-Qaeda would like you to believe that they have thousands upon thousands of well-trained and incredibly adept terrorists-in-waiting hiding out all over America, this shows me that is not the case. These kids are the online equivalent of the boy in school who tells everyone about how he “totally killed a cat in the woods the other day” to make people think he’s far out and freaky and dangerous. These were not men who were training in flight simulators and studying chemistry to develop explosives that can evade airport security detection. If anything, these were the William H. Macy and the two hitmen from Fargo.

What I think we should take from this whole incident are the following facts:

a) the internet is rife with dumb kids filled with angst over girls or fantasies of unrestrained hooker murder like they play in Grand Theft Auto daily
b) they will respond to encouragement of these activities with gusto
c) the FBI has sent a message to actual terrorist cells that they cannot know for sure that the “jihadNow69” that they have been chatting to about their “death to America” platform is who he says he is. Could be an FBI agent. That’s a very good thing.

So before I am rounded up, McCarthy-style, and put before the UnAmerican Activities Committee: Part II (“This time it’s personal!”), stop for a second and ask yourself how close you think these kids would have ever come to blowing up a park bench much less a huge office building without any outside help? Or do you, like me, think that this was a case of cocky kids with big mouths digging themselves into an awfully big hole? I just don’t see the Burger King of Springfield carrying out anything grander than a large Meat Lover’s pizza with two orders of breadsticks for a big night of playing Halo in his bedroom at his mom’s house.

Letters from the DL

I had every intention of blogging about the Cowboys impecunious performance on Sunday night. But as you can tell by my use of a word that I didn’t know a week ago, I’ve been sidelined for the past three days. With an affliction so debilitating, so demoralizing and so life-changing that I pondered my own mortality over the past anguish-filled 72 hours. That’s right, I have pink eye. This has been crippling for me in many respects. The first being that this is my first real foray into the world of pink eye. As a child, I adeptly sidestepped the Curse of the Eye of Pink many times and attributed other children’s acquisition of it to be a direct result of their love of putting their own or other people’s fecal matter into their eyes. I wasn’t into that type of thing and therefore, I never had to experience the shame of pink eye.

Nothing has changed about my refusal to let human or mammalian waste of any kind anywhere near my face, let alone my eyeballs. I haven’t had some sort of late 20’s meltdown wherein I question what I want to do in life and search for the answers in the bottom of pile of poo. I cannot reiterate again how absolutely sure I am that there have been no particles of solid waste anywhere near my eyes in the past 28 years. So let me serve as a warning to you. Contrary to popular belief, one does not have to smear dung all over one’s face to get pink eye. In fact, the only crime I am guilty of is having allergies. Basically, I have been rubbing my eyes because of allergies for the past week or so. I wear contacts in which pollen and other allergens can embed themselves. The rubbing caused tiny, microscopic tears and cuts in my eyes. Into those, any bacteria can take the express train to Infection Town. Which they did. So that explains about 90% of the reasoning for me wearing this eye patch.

Lesson number two that I want to share with you through my one good eye is: make sure that you buy glasses every decade or so. Not because of changes in prescription, because my prescription has not changed since the first time I got glasses and contacts when I was 15 years old. But therein lies the problem. Let’s review the tape on what I was like when I was 15. I listened to The Smiths, I sulked a lot and I was an avid reader. My favorite author at the time was Truman Capote. No harm there. Or was there? Yes, there was. When I was told that I needed to get my very first pair of glasses, I walked into Eyemasters and declared that I wanted the most Truman Capote frames they carried. The lady that worked there tried, in vain, to discourage me from this pursuit. But it was of no use. I got exactly what I wanted. I got Truman Capote glasses. Let’s put it this way: it wasn’t like it was going to put a real dent on my dating life since such a thing did not exist for me in high school really.

I could chalk this all up to the life lessons that one picks up in those oh-so-awkward teenage years. Only when it was discovered that I had pink eye, I was told that I could not wear my contacts again until the problem cleared up. I also could not get a new pair of glasses because my prescription was expired and I would need to take a new eye exam once the Peepers Plague of ’09 had been cured. So the only options I had were to a) cocoon myself into a blurry world of calling in sick to work with “blindness” or to b) dig out the only pair of glasses that I have ever owned (AKA “the Capotes”). I found them. Oh dear, did I find them. These were never okay to wear. I don’t care if I loved the works of Truman Capote or if the ghost of Truman Capote saved my childhood dog from being hit by a car or whatever, these are unforgiveable.

And I know because I have been wearing them for three days and must continue to wear them until my follow-up appointment on Monday. I might also mention that they sit slightly crooked on my face from 13 years of being at the bottom of various boxes in various states and countries. I have learned that I would rather risk walking face first into walls or into open elevator shafts than to have to wear these glasses for anything other than driving and being able to do my job at work. In fact, I’ve been almost pressing my face to my computer screen just to avoid having to wear these things on my face.

This is not a slight against eyeglasses or the wearers thereof. I assume most people do not pick their eyeglasses out based on the preference of tortured, alcoholic author but by how the frames suit their face. That would have been an invaluable lesson that I could have learned at 15 but instead, I stubbornly insisted that I knew what I was doing. On Tuesday, my first day of wearing the Capotes, I even thought that I might be able to pull it off in a hipster, “ugly is the new pretty” sort of way. I did not. These things are hideous. So unless you are planning some sort of get together which requires no eyesight whatsoever (like maybe being a Defensive Coordinator to Wade Philips?), I’ll be staying in and laying low this weekend.

Kiss My Blackout Ass

A lot of people are getting crazypants about the fact that, if the Cowboys do not (or did not) sell a couple hundred more seats for Sunday night’s game, there could be the first Cowboys blackout since 1990. They are, in fact, retarded to do so. First off, I’m pretty sure any given office or combination of offices in the metroplex would have a whip round to ensure that those seats get bought if for no other reason than facing the terrifying possiblity of having to talk to their families on Sunday night instead of watching the game. Also, could it not be a brilliant streak of marketing from Team Jones to make sure that every seat is filled and he gets his attendance record for the home opener at the new stadium? Granted, this is the same guy who bought a metaphorical bridge and/or swampland in Florida (I’m feeling incredibly pro-choice today) in the form of a video board that no other team would buy for fear that it could actually be hit with a punted football. But in an economic climate as not-awesome as the one we are in now, how better to sell the last few stupid expensive seats by telling the Cowboy fan that they might have to miss the game or, even worse, listen to 105.3 The Fan?

The part that amuses me about the whole thing is that this marketing scheme would be a secondary one for me. You want to really make sure those seats sell out every game? Why not capitalize on the time-honored tradition of rich people big timing the poor little people? You see, most people (well, Deadspin) assume that those seats aren’t selling because people are going to buy the $29 Party Passes then do the old Confuse-The-Usher sneak into the empty seats. In fact, it’s not the first time that Deadspin has become kind of like the guy who prints his own newspaper about a CIA gunman in the bushes on the Grassy Knoll and sells them in Dealy Plaza with this conspiracy theory of theirs. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s true.

Well there’s your answer of how to get people with some coin to plunk down for $200 seats. You can finally feel the warm flush of imperialism as you rightly claim your Section 201, Row F, Seats 3 and 4 thrones from the impoverished, malnourished and unwashed shivering, bundled masses. With the help of an usher, of course. Seriously, in a city where people lease German luxury automobiles that cost more than twice what they make in a year, how better to flaunt your supposed wealth than evicting poor people? Even if it’s only from a stadium seat and it’s only for one day, imagine the power you could feel from watching a father and daughter from Garland go pale as they are asked to show their tickets. Hell, you could really impress a date by buying an extra seat for her purse just to show her that you are a better human than the pitiable creatures who would have otherwise enjoyed the game from that spot.

Let’s even take it a step further. Like how some people enjoy period-costumed murder mystery steamboat trips or how others enjoy paying people to make them wear rubber underwear and be belittled and spanked, let’s go all out with this. Have the Party Pass (or Plebeians Pass, as it will know be known) people dress up as Ellis Island immigrants replete with tattered suitcases and water-damaged birth documents. Or maybe the week that they play the Redskins, have the plebs dress as Native Americans and rename the aisles leading back to the plazas the “Trail of Beers” or something. Income-based water fountains? Or make anyone who has scraped together enough money to purchase something from the Fan Shop carry their purchase out not in a shopping bag but in a hobo bundle tied to the end of a broken broomstick? The possibilities really are endless.

I know this sounds insensitive and snarky but if there is one thing that I have learned in my years of living in Dallas (other than the fact that everyone with money will tell you that they are either in “real estate” or “marketing” despite how shadowy both of those terms are) is that people really like to feel richer/thinner/hotter/more powerful than everyone else in their vicinity, since that is what determines your Win/Loss record in life. So why not, pulling out my own vague knowledge from a few years in marketing here, monetize this and capitalize on the growth trend? Why not win-win on the visibility front with a little bit of brandstorming in the form of opportunistic Dollarization of the downtrending human spirit?*

* I hope your soul died a little like mine did after reading that list. Also, as a side note, I am clearly too immature to ever really dive head-first into marketing and I base this solely on my initial response to the phrases “Employee Surfboarding”, “Long-tail”, “Waste Identification” and “Re-skilling” which I mis-read as “Re-skulling.”

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Grudgingly Kinda Respect the Romo

I fully intended on writing, at length, about the first regular season Cowboys game. I was going to write about how, on a refreshments run at halftime, my friend and I acted as if the Cowboys were down by 40. They were, in fact, up 13-7 over the Bucs. You really wouldn’t have been able to tell though from our maudlin predictions of doom and gloom. The phrase, “we look horrible out there” was uttered more than a half dozen times. And remember, we Cowboys fans haven’t seen so much as a little bit of Conference championship action, much less anything ending in the word “Bowl”, in well over a decade. So it’s not like we were being spoilt Victorian children about it. No matter how many reminders I was given that Tony Romo was maybe a little rusty and that this is Martellus Bennett’s first go at the whole two tight ends deal, I was never comfortable. Until the margin of our lead was in the 20’s, I was convinced that the Cowboys were going to lose and the whole season was a pointless waste of football time.

Then they pointed out that Sunday’s game set a new personal record for Tony Romo. Throwing for 353 yards. Really? When they said that, everyone in the room chimed in with an astonished “Wha? When?” Tony Romo’s shakiness was the root of all my distrust. How could he have just set a new career record in a game that never fully convinced me that we weren’t destined to be the Detroit Lions of ’09-10? I still don’t get it. I mean, I can mentally wrap my neurons around the concept that Tony Romo threw for more than 350 yards and 3 touchdowns. I get that part. I guess my question is…when? When did he cut the risky gunslinger crap and gain enough stability to accomplish this? Was there some secret Freemason’s-only broadcast of the previously unknown 5th quarter that I was not privy to?

I don’t want to focus all my “WTF” just on Tony Romo. In fact, let’s do this by process of elimination. If your name doesn’t start with “Jason” and end in “Witten”, you made me nervous on Sunday. Again, I will chalk it up to rustiness. The one area that, going into the Bucs game, I didn’t seem to be sweating as much as others was the state of our receivers. I think Roy Williams, despite Aikman/Emmitt/Irvin all taking turns in an elaborate game of “Yo Mama” at his expense, is really good. Maybe some have built their expectations of Roy Williams up to Hadrian’s Wall levels that he can never match. But between him, Austin and Cray-Cray (™Chad), I think we have plenty of able hands into which Tony Romo can lob the pigskin. As a little aside, that might be the grossest sentence I have ever typed.

But it’s cool to be a hater, as the kids would say. It’s cool to be a Cowboys fan who almost roots against the Cowboys. It’s fun to go into the season with a doom and gloom outlook on the rest of the season. In fact, all my Cowboys friends seem to be basking in the glory of suck-dom. They’re convinced that Romo is going to injure himself and leave us with a season full of Kitna fumbles and that the possibility of the simultaneous spontaneous combustion of three running backs is not so improbable. My friend Josh chastised us for celebrating the Cowboys victory by cracking open an $80 bottle of champagne because the victory on Sunday was against, after all, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My friend Danny refers to this Sunday’s game as an opportunity to “watch the Cowboys get killed by the Giants.” Everyone wants to see Wade Philips fail once again, if only to ensure that this is his last season as head coach. I’m sort of surprised that no one had charged onto the field of JerryDome in a Jeff Gillooly fashion and crowbar-ed Marion Barber’s shins yet.

Then came the ray of sunshine that was my friend Manny. No Cowboys apologist, he simply forwarded this link to some of us today. And that was all I needed. I started to remember what I heard one sports talk show guy say yesterday about Romo and his missing sense of humor this season. You see, the one thing I could always give Tony Romo credit for was his sense of humor and his ability to poke fun at the whole thing. The whole circus that surrounds the Cowboys or pro-athletes in general. So when I heard interviews with him this preseason, I was disappointed by his “by the book” standard issue athlete answers he was giving. Could he really have lost the one thing that endeared me to him? No. As Sports Talk Guy pointed out, it’s his way of subtlety showing everyone that the whole ill-advised, “If never winning a championship is the worst thing that happens to me, I’ve lived a pretty good life” statement was a mistake. He does, at least if you’re going by his drier-than-Betty White’s-lady-area quotes, care. He’s not just laughing off the potential that he could go down in the books as a quarterback fail and take the Cowboys with him.

So just let me bask in this Week One victory. Sure, Danny could be right and the Cowboys could become prison shower rape dolls for the Giants come Sunday night. Maybe an easy victory over an abysmal team which fired their offensive coordinator only a few weeks before the game against the Cowboys is not anything on which one should hang their hat. But let me have it. Let me savor it. I still don’t have the supremely blissful optimism that I had last season. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I have gotten over my spoilt child ways and come back down to earth. Maybe I just like the fact that a win is, in fact, a win.

There isn't much that I can say about Obama's speech tonight that hasn't been said already or wasn't said better by my mom's text after the speech tonight. It just said, "I love our President!" No, not some Commie Pinko Blind Allegiance to the Great Leader thing. It's just so nice to have a president who sticks up for the things you believe in. No need for further praise.

Because everyone, Democrat and Republican, seemed to actually listen and respect both the President's authority to speak to the country and their right to disagree with some or all of what he said. Well, everyone except South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson. Check out him screaming, "YOU LIE!" Classy, dude. Classy.

My three favorite things about the immediate reaction to Wilson's outburst: 1. Obama calmly but firmly telling him that he is incorrect 2. Nancy Pelosi's look which is the same look that kids at the front of the bus make when the dumbass kid on the back of the bus who keeps playing with the emergency door accidentally opens it and falls out of the bus at low speeds and 3. Joe Biden's Disappointed Dad look. The head shake, the hang of the head. You might as well go to bed without dinner, Joe Wilson. If you remember childhood at all, just remember this: Dad's not mad, he's just....disappointed in you.

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

Alright, as you might remember (you probably don’t) last Cowboys season, I did a little game-by-game breakdown of each Cowboys game up to the BYE. I even implored to the Cowboys, “Come on, let's make this season Pyromania and not Euphoria” Clearly they did not take my advice as the season turned out to be not like a good Def Leppard album or even a mediocre or bad Def Leppard album but more like the car crash that severed Rick Allen’s arm.

And like every other Cowboys fan not named _____ Jones, I am thoroughly disheartened by the piss-poor draft. If it weren’t for the glimmer of hope I got from the first half of the Tennessee game, I would probably be opening up a few veins in a warm tub and listening to Closer by Joy Division. As it stands, I will say that my optimism for the upcoming Cowboys season (henceforth know only as The Season We Let Mike Shanahan Take a Year Off and Let Wade Phillips Play Coach For One More Season) is like my love for the songs of The Smiths. I love the Smiths. I love them no matter what, just like how I love the Cowboys. No matter how many fumbles, first round play-off exits or Johnny Marr and the Healers albums come between me and them, the love still burns like a pair of sneakers in Andre Rison’s bathtub. And so with that, I meld the two together seamlessly (well, kind of) to bring you my Cowboys-Up-to-the-BYE week preview…

Sunday, September 13th - @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers (noon)

“A Rush and Push and the Land is Ours”

There is no theoretical reasons why the Cowboys would lose this game short of the entire offensive line catching Montezuma’s Revenge simultaneously. We started last season out with the Browns. Remember that? I do. There was a Browns fan in the stands dressed as a three-headed dog. I also remember the return of the Fox Football robot, the commercial where the Burger King reverse pickpockets people on the street and the introduction of the Volcano Taco. Which should indicate three things: 1. The game was kind of dull 2. Advertising works 3. But I have not, in the past year, eaten a Volcano Taco or anything from Burger King so maybe it doesn’t after all.

I usually drag myself weakly out of bed in time to catch the last 30 minutes of the pregame show for noon games on Sundays. I say silent prayers every weekend that someone will hit Terry Bradshaw in the mouth hard and right now, all my money is on otherwise mild-mannered Michael Strahan snapping and taking one for the team. But not this game. This will be like Christmas morning. I won’t be able to sleep and the minute I grasp the first strand of consciousness, all I will be able to think about is about how cocky Jay Glazer will be when he announces the last minute gossip and injuries. “Yeah so Michael Vick and I were Skyping this morning and he says to look for the wildcat out there today.”

Sunday, September 20th – New York Giants (7:15pm)

“Barbarism Begins at Home”

Wow, I cannot wait for this game. As far as I am concerned, the Tampa Bay game is like a bonus preseason game. Funny quote: either Brad Sham or Babe Laufenberg made the proclamation during the Titans preseason game that Tony Romo, upon a long completion to Jason Witten, was “better than anyone realizes, even Romo himself. Ahead of him you really only have Manning and Brady if we’re being honest.” The next play was a obscenity-inducing interception thrown by Romo. The issuer of the previous hot sports opinion amended his original statement with, “I take back everything I just said. Nevermind.” Now THAT’S the kind of play calling I love. Baseless and hyperbolic opinions which are proven completely inaccurate 30 seconds later. Buck, Aikman, Johnson, Costas et al, the ball is in your court.

Monday, September 28th – Carolina Panthers (7:30 pm)

“William, It Was Really Nothing”

Last season for Monday Night Football, we got the Eagles. Oh my, that was a game. I even remember bonding with hurricane evacuees over the punk-ness of Donovan McNabb. This season? The Panthers. Umm, yay? God, I am really trying to think of what exciting things could happen in this game. A punt hits the scoreboard? Another FAIL like this? I know that the Panthers, unlike us, actually made the playoffs last season. But now that Kerry Collins is sober in Tennessee and Rae Carruth is making license plates, they just don’t have that pizzazz they used to have. See what Jerry Jones has done to me with his love of felons?

Sunday, October 4th – @ Denver Broncos (3:15pm)

“This Night (or early afternoon, really) Has Opened My Eyes”

This game is a huge bundle of awesome for many reasons, few of which are actually related to the Cowboys. First off, I want to see what a difference Shanahan being gone makes now that some time has passed. I also am, of course, terribly interested in seeing how the Jay Cutler for Kyle Orton trade is going to work out. I am a totally shameless and unapologetic Kyle Orton sympathizer. But most important for me, I can’t wait to see how Knowshon Moreno is going to work out for the Broncos. I distinctly remember his otherworldly ability to leap and (unless I have made up this highlight reel in my mind) flip over defenders when playing for Georgia last season. Then again, I also stopped watching Georgia games after the blackout game against Alabama that turned into a footbortion. I would also really like to be able to wear a light jacket or sweater by the time this game rolls around? Alright, Allah/God/Pete Delkus?

Sunday, October 11th - @ Kansas City (noon)

“Asleep”

Sundays are my one day I allow myself to well and truly sleep in. I feel like I must accomplish things on Saturday mornings and when football is not around, Sundays exist merely as a stopgap between weekend and being at my desk at work. Football gives me a reason to get out of bed. But what about when it’s football against the Kansas City Chiefs? I will probably watch at least half of this game in bed. Wow, this season sure does start off kind of slow, huh?

Oh wait, after the break we have a four week span that will see us play the Eagles, the Redskins, the Packers and the Giants again. Yeah, I’m saving up all my other Smiths songs for that streak. So expect to see a lot of “Girl Afraid”s and “You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby”s and “Miserable Lie”s. By December, I expect to be able to fully utilize “I Started Something That I Couldn’t Finish” and “Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This Before.”

On a side note:

Dear Mike Shanahan,

I love you, Mike Shanahan. Please come be our coach and make Tony Romo care about winning football games. You can keep Wade as our defensive coordinator because he’s the only head coach in the NFL that would take that kind of demotion. Or you can bring someone else in. Just please come and crack the whip. I’m not usually the type to sink to this kind of thing but I will let you touch my boobs if you come coach the Cowboys. Over the shirt, five seconds, no pictures.

Love,
Amanda Cobra