Starting from the Start Because It's as Good a Place as Any

Maybe the Mavs heard me. I said in a blog entry here that I wanted to start this Mavs season off with fresh eyes. Those fresh eyes are the eyes of a fan who has been let down by her team so many times that she has absolutely no reason to believe that the team will even make the playoffs. You can call it cynical or pessimistic but it's not. I have no way to anticipate how Rick Carlisle will coach this team. I have no way of knowing if Dirk Nowitzki's tiny, precious, crepe paper ankles will snap in half should someone accidentally point a box fan in his general direction. I am praying that Dallas Mavericks fans will not turn Josh Howard's ill-advised flag comments into some sort of Dixie Chicks/Toby Keith "love it or leave it" all season. Because we all know that Josh Howard doesn't need ANY distractions during the second half of the game.

It seems like maybe the Mavs organization itself is taking a page out of my Wait and See book. If this headline doesn't give you a Starting From Square One vibe, I don't know what will:

(from the Dallas Morning News today, admittedly following Press Day)

Dallas Mavericks' Josh Howard takes first step

Now please for the love of Basketball Jesus, just don't let him step anywhere near Dirk. Seriously, the ankle!

I Tried This When I Was in School Too

You have to be kidding me. McCain has suspended all campaigning and asked that Friday's debate be cancelled or postposted. His official reasoning is that the economic crisis is so bad (and apparently to him, so sudden also) is that he feels it is appropriate to "put aside partisanship and campaigning" to avert this potential financial distaster. Only a few problems with this...


1. The ridiculous notion that Old Man McCain is going to go in there like gangbusters (or better yet, Ghostbusters) and roll up his sleeves and get this shit fixed. Obama and McCain were to issue a join statement backing the 700 billion government bailout when suddenly the McCain campaign announced this decision to heroicly save the day. It's putting on a show for people (his base?) who are foolish enough to believe that his suspending his campaign and not participating in the debates would have any effect on the situation.


2. So once people figure out that McCain isn't going to Washington to whip out his personal checkbook and write a check out to CASH in the amount of 700 billion dollars, they are naturally going to wonder why he would suddenly do this. Then they will instantly remember the times when they were in school and realized they had not finished an important paper or had not studied for an important test. And how they panicked and thought of every excuse to get out of it from calling in a bomb threat to the school to telling the school that they felt like the two months that had passed since the death of the family's beloved goldfish had not been proper bereavement time. Of course, none of them had the balls to ask that the test be pushed back. I mean if McCain was doing this the right way, he would have pulled a Redd Foxx and grasped his chest and claimed he was coming to join his fallen 'Nam buddies the day of the debate.

3. Something smells so fishy about this to me that I think it might be something a lot more serious than a last minute attempt to save the embarassment of being steamrolled by Obama if he felt he was ill-prepared to debate. I think more interesting is the timing of this move based on (I can't believe I am about to type the name of this publication in relation to a presidential race) National Enquirer story that hit today about Sarah Palin having an affair with her husband's former business partner. Not too shocking unless you are a Republican and you really wanted to believe that Sarah Palin was the upright Christian girl it was okay to touch yourself to. But more worryingly, she used her power as governor to file an emergency order that his divorce records (in which his family members tesified under oath about the affair) be sealed. Now, do I think that's worth all this hubub? Nope. But it sets an interesting precendent of Palin abusing her position of power to her own personal gain.

Now remember how the State of Alaska is investigating her handling of "Troopergate" and the McCain campaign desperately tried to legally have the release of the report pushed back until after the election? But they lost that battle big time and the release actually was moved up to......October 3rd. Meaning at this point, the McCain campaign could very well have an idea of what is contained in that report. If the report finds that Palin once again abused her powers while Governor.....


The University of Mississippi (the site of Friday's debate) says it is going forward in preparation for the debate. Wow, progress huh?

Someone get McCain some Red Bull and every newspaper from every city in the country, STAT!

Turophobia - Year Two

Thanks NBC. First completely useless football stat thrown at us before Green Bay even makes a single play.

But that’s okay because they only got one in before they fumbled and we recovered and ran it back to Green Bay’s 14 yard line. I take it back about the useless stats. Keep ‘em comin’.

Danny thought they should go for it on 4th and 3, two minutes into the game. Danny should not be trusted to make any important decisions about anything and hopefully is only allowed to use safety scissors at work.

Everyone is noticing how nonplussed we were about that field goal. Wake me when we get to 40 points.

John Madden’s voice takes on a much more breathy tone when there’s brats on a grill being shown coming back from commercials.

TALKING DOGS MOVIE!!!!!! SIGN ME THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!

Is it a sack when the quarterback in question really just decided to cop a squat?
They really should reconsider having defensive linemen introduce themselves and let everyone know what school they attended. It ends up being a great disservice to both their alma mater and higher learning in general.

I take back all the manorexia comments about you Jason Witten. You are a big Arby’s slab of tight end man.

Intercepted in the end zone? The only person who can bring him down is TO? These are not my Cowboys. This is not my beautiful team.

It’s official: field goals are the refuge of the weak.

I have no idea what just happened. Tony Romo almost sacked. Throws the ball as he goes down. Caught but fumbled but caught again. Then ball bursts into flames and ascends into the heavens and disintegrates into stardust only to rain back down onto the field as one million Dave and Busters tokens.

Tony Romo just got sacked for the 97th time. True story.

“What can I say? Fast cars are hot.” I guess the writer’s strike had no adverse effects on the new Knight Rider series then.

Another new NFL fact: The Dallas Cowboys now hold the record for playing the two most unsackable quarterbacks in professional football in consecutive weeks. I can only imagine what next week holds. Perhaps a quarterback who can actually levitate? One that turns invisible just after the snap?

The Cialis “bathtubs on the beach” commercials are a comedy fountain. You can run with that in a direction of your choosing.

TOUCHDOWN! Everyone high fives. Then we rewind it approximately five times to watch Wade Philips post-touchdown Pillsbury Doughboy reaction. Or as someone points out, “If he had a speech bubble over his head right now, it would just say ‘HAMBURGERS’”

Danny’s controversial opinion on Subway’s Jared: “That guy’s been stealing money for 15 years.”

Halftime

I have nothing to say about this third quarter so far other than “shitballs”

It’s nice that we held them to a field goal. It’s not as nice that everyone in the room has the Sunday Night Football theme song embedded deep within their brains.

TOUCHDOWN! Marion Barber and Witten with a cheddar bacon cheeseburger block. The hamburger theme has really taken hold. For the first time in the game, a few cheers have gone up for the extra point? Hmmmm, I don’t know if I can get behind that.

We rewind it to see what Dave kindly point out as Scandrick’s “butthole square on the turf” which is actually a jarring shot of Scandrick’s semi-bare ass. It’s then pointed out that the game has been rewound enthusiastically for Wade Phillips’ “HAMBURGER” moment and the Scandrick bare ass moment. Sadly, when one member of our watching party was out of the room for the freakish Tony Romo fumble/catch/fumble/catch/first down play, the game was less enthusiastically rewound. What does that say? Skin and hamburgers sell.

Jay Ratliff gets a sack and then turns into some sort of weird amalgam of the Hulk and Frogger.

Wow. A Cowboys three and out that ended with 3rd and 25 and Tony Romo barely escaping a sack and throwing the ball to the back of Marion Barber’s elbows. But it gets better. False start on the punt. Apparently, that’s possible. Then a long punt and a fight. I have no idea what’s going on. Where did I park my truck? Who’s got my wallet?

Weirdest news brief ever. “You know who’s never won an Emmy until tonight? DON RICKLES. Don Rickles just won an Emmy!”

I was kind of hoping that the fact that they just mentioned that there was a “gaping hole” on the field would be allowed to pass peacefully into to the night without any sort of comments. I do not get my wish.

Apparently TO didn’t want to catch that pass that was thrown to him so he batted it down.

TOUCHDOWN! Miles Austin caught a pass that no human should have ever caught. Seriously, where’s my truck?

I have no idea what Al Michaels means by this but he just went from praising Jason Witten’s abilities as both a receiver and a blocker to saying that he would play with Jason Witten anytime, anywhere. It became highly homoerotic and I don’t know if he was referring to fantasy football or some sort of lucid dreaming flag football game that he will be enjoying later tonight.

Al Michaels and John Madden are officially hammered and have started quoting Josh Howard. During a brief segment about how they make chocolate in Wisconsin, the only commentary they could come up with was a giggle, knee slap and “That’s crazy!”

Misc. quote during the commercials: “Dude, I totally saw Tom Petty last month and he didn’t play ‘The Waiting’ and I was so pissed.” The response to which was, “You should totally Myspace him and leave him a nasty comment about it.”

Wackiest desperation play of the game: Green Bay forward pass that, unfortunately for them, came with a minute and a half left in the game and on a first down. Apparently, the entire Green Bay Packers also don’t know where they trucks collectively are.

The most well-deserved rewind of the entire game: the completely unsolicited Wade Phillips “Come On!” that occurs with 50 seconds left in the game, with the Cowboys well in the lead and there really not being any need to yell out anything but directions to the airport. If I ever become a Make a Wish kid retroactively, I want my Make a Wish to be to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with Wade Phillips. The End.