It’s Here! Today! We’re going CoverItLive-style, and you know what that means: no embedding! Following links! Extreme laziness!
Who will take home the Kraken of professional sports trophies? San Jose or Philadelphia? I know I predicted San Jose, but I really want to see Bon Jovi hoist this thing with his spindly arms.
Keep in the care of this guy? No. Hell no.
To follow the liveblogging extravaganza follow the mighty link: TO THE LIVE BLOG!
This Guy? Maybe.
This Guy? Could Be...
I stole ESPN's Banner. I am a winner.
So, guess what? Between general apathy and real-life nonsense, we totally blew off the playoffs (which apparently were hosted in Crazy Town, final results notwithstanding), and aren’t going to New Orleans again. For which my liver thanks the Flying Spaghetti Monster. BUT ANALYSIS WILL ENSUE!
ALL HAIL.
Multiple members of Bon Jovi! Jaws! More Cowbell! The Grieb Laser Industry! Darren Arbet! The Guy Who Owns Fry’s! D’Orazio! SOME OTHER PEOPLE OHMYGODIT’STHEARENABOWL!
Dear Point-Counterpoint, I never thought this could happen to me… (Jump?)
Note: What follows is possibly the worst thing I’ve written since Young Authors in 5th Grade. (I wrote a parody of Danger Mouse. Does anyone else remember that cartoon?)
Mind you, there are nine and a half minutes left in the opening quarter of the earlier of today’s two conference championship games, and this is when I’m spurred to put something down on the Internet. When I have a matinée to get to by 1:00. Suffice it to say, we’re not going to New Orleans this year. Though there’s going to be a live-blog, with God as my witness. You know who else isn’t going to New Orleans? The Rush. Also the Desperados. Because they got blown up by 6-seeds. The AFL – It’s Total Nonsense!
Oh, dear me, Raymond Philyaw just got Cleveland within 1 by continuing to play out of his mind. He threw his first interception of the playoffs earlier in the quarter, and just allowed himself to get a faceful of defensive lineman after lofting a perfect ball to the corner of the end zone for Amey (is a girl’s name). Which seems like as good a start as any for Quick Notes On the Playoffs. Raymond Philyaw is the single biggest reason that Cleveland could shock the world.
They probably won’t, because Philadelphia is in really good shape, health-wise, and skill-wise. Though they almost lost to New York, so I clearly know nothing.
GRAND RAPIDS? REALLY? Grand friggin’ Rapids? Is this because I made fun of them in my season preview? Because I’ll admit that we didn’t know which team would show up from week to week, and were equally confused by their 91-point games as by their 31-point games.
Oh, look! Instantaneous zoetrope examination for correct officiating on the field of play! The current Chris Jackson touchdown catch is under review (and was ruled an incompletion – BOO), but the decision to add instant replay mid-season has already paid monstrous dividends, getting the call right at the end of last week’s New York/Philly tilt. Hear that baseball? You have the technology, you can rebuild him. (“Him” being “your umpiring crew’s credibility.”)
Hey, look: San Jose is quietly marching to the Virgin Mitsubishi Daiquiri Arena Bowl Presented by Ambien or something. The least-flashy team might actually defend their championship? I kind of like that. I also hope they beat the tar out of the Rampage. Sorry, Rampage fans. But my God, your inconsistency makes last year’s Columbus run look positively steady-hand-on-the-tiller’ed.
It’s the Celebrity-Owned Conference Championship vs. the “Who Owns This Team?” Conference Championship. Where’s Bon Jovi and Jaworski, anyway?
Other stuff we missed: EVERYTHING. Hey, my dentist-in-training co-editor, do you have any idea why we suddenly got remarkably bored with crafting clever bon mots in the interest of silly indoor playoff foot-balls?
Happy Conference Championships, everybody! (Picks: Philadelphia, San Jose.)
P.S. Shaun King just made fun of himself getting killed as a Las Vegas Gladiator. Classy! Self-deprecating! Also, Raymond Sillyname apparently was a house guest of Bernie Kosar in the offseason. Quickly! Who’s a good scriptwriter? I have a pitch!
Ten seconds from steam shooting from his ear canals.
[phone rings]
[phone rings]
[phone rings]
CLICK BEEEEP
Hello, you’ve reached the office of Jerry Jones, Football Mastermind of the Dallas Cowboys and Desperados. I’m sorry I can’t take your call right now, but if you leave a message after the tone I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. If you’re one of my players looking for bail money, please dial 0 for the operator.
BEEP
Hey, Jerry, it’s Jon again. Just wanted to check in on you, see how you’re doing. I know how seriously you take these things, and I don’t want you to get too down in the dumps. Think about your blood pressure.
So, yeah… I’m on tour in Europe right now, but I’ll be playing Madison Square Garden next month. You want some tickets? The All American Rejects are playing too, maybe that’ll make you feel better?
Come on, Jerry, pick up the phone.
It’s no fun kicking your ass twice a year in this rivalry if you’re going to be a little bitch about it. Get over it, man. Call me.
CLICK BEEP
[Jerry stares vacantly at phone as dried Cherry Garcia flakes off two-day stubble]
Fanhouse has the recap of the 60 Minutes bio on Bon Jovi, where the subject of the Soul comes up. Apparently, he does it because he likes owning a sports team. That seems fair. [Fanhouse]
Hello! I apparently don’t understand computers, because it took a million days to get the highlights from the Live Wired broadcast on YouTube, etc. SO. Without further ado, batch one of the experiment in listening to football players without commentary.
First, a side benefit of this experiment is that we get unfiltered crowd responses, delightfully apparent during this return of a Chris Greisen interception (ultimately overturned due to Philadelphia jumping offsides).
Also, I can watch a guy get blocked out of his shoes all day. More news you can use: Chris Greisen is careful with his language.
“Dang it!” is ordinary. “Dang IIIIIITTTT!” is epic. Finally (for now – this process is sloooowww), if we could find a balance between clips like this and constant commentary at all times, I’d really like this concept.
Who’s gassed and what play we should call instead? Intriguing!
Read the rest of this entry »
So, as we’re all well aware, there’s a crazy gimmick for tonight’s MN(A)F game: your announcing crew is… everybody! We’re going to try to document this disaster. My theory: train wreck that a plane crashes on to, the wreckage of which is loaded onto a tanker which runs aground in the Aleutian Islands, and everyone who isn’t eaten by polar bears is picked up by a zeppelin that explodes.
Other analysis: Philadelphia by 17. Georgia has been awkwardly stumbling from game to game on defense, and hasn’t really found a rhythm on offense. Philadelphia is (a) operating like a surgeon and (b) irritated about letting their guard down last week. Let’s see what happens.
We’re also going to try this liveblogging software thing, and if it works, great, if it doesn’t… Sorry, four people.
If you’re interested, do this thing:
Okay, you should be seeing frames, and you’re probably not. Work, dammit! And if it doesn’t end up working, go here: LIVEBLOG!
That was fun. My thoughts, from the end of the liveblog were thusly:
I think we were best served when Ray was commenting by himself. Also, if we could get a more judicious use of the microphones, instead of “Hey, it’s the guys on the field all the time: isn’t that weeeeeeirrrrd?” that’d be great. Stick Ray on the sidelines, because that was cool, but let him talk more.
The game was a solid B+ (Philadelphia played pretty sloppily), and the experiment a B or B-.
Dear God, grant us the strength to hold this pose for the NY Times photographer.
For anyone interested, the New York Times (“All the News That’s Fit To Print Online Which Technically Isn’t Printing But We Use the Word in the Sense of ‘Publishing’ but Hell if We Change Our Motto”) website is running a front page, above the ‘fold’ (“All the News ah Eff It You Get the Joke”) story about Danny Wimprine and the surging New Orleans VooDoo. Central thesis: Danny Wimprine is a really nice guy (like other AFL QBs we know and love), New York doesn’t have an arena football team so far as they know, New Orleans is still rebuilding (who knew?).
Also, last night’s Game of Unbeatens wasn’t nearly as close as we thought it might be, Philly laid down the smack, beating Dallas 57-28.
Dallas Desperadoes owner Jerry Jones was reached for comment:
Joooooooooooooon [Bon Jovi]!
This ArenaBowl is brought to you by the letters M, V, and the number 7
23 07 2008This'll learn us some maths!
Okay. The ArenaBowl is nearly upon us. As compared to last season’s painfully in-depth playoff coverage, due to a multitude of boring excuses we’ve done little to guide you through this year’s harrowing journey of [checking ESPN] Philadelphia and San Jose to New Orleans for ArenaBowl XXII.
How are we going to make it up to you?
With some sweet DVD giveaways, THAT’S HOW.
For whatever reason [most likely: we run a sports blog; least likely: our leather-bound books and odors of rich mahogany], we were recently contacted by some fine folks who offered us FIVE COPIES of the hotly anticipated Sesame Street sporting spectacular DVD “COUNT ON SPORTS”.
Want a copy? Leave a comment with your prediction of who will be the victor of Arena Bowl XXII for your chance to bring home the bacon, in Sesame Street DVD form.
Check back this weekend for an ARENA BOWL XXII LIVE BLOG, and coming soon, a LITERARY REVIEW OF SAID SESAME STREET DVD.
Don’t even act like we don’t love you. Now put a wager in the comments. We’ll draw winners at random if there’s more than five folks calling the game. Voting stops at kickoff.
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Categories : ArenaBowl XXII, Commenters... IN DIRECT COMPETITION, JM, Philadelphia Soul, San Jose SaberCats, Seriously: SESAME STREET!, We're Easily Distracted, arena football