Category: Sports

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Hold the Phone!

Now here is a twist for the ages. According to the Idaho Statesman website, CableOne is in negotiations with ‘billy-bob’s homebrew cable football network’ in order to actually carry the Boise State at Wyoming game on Saturday. I’m sorry, but this has got to be the first time in recorded history that a cable company has actually done ANYTHING worth rooting for. I mean, suppose they pull this off, how could I ever bad mouth them again? Honestly, I don’t think I could. They might have earned a customer for life. And, of course, by “life” I mean, “until they piss me off far enough in the future that I forgot the gave me the BSU game.” Obviously.

Here is the article

Of course, this is by no means a done deal. More than likely, this will just get my hopes up just enough so that they can really crush me come Saturday. Of course, when that happens, the natrual order will be restored, and we can resume or regularly scheduled cable company bitching already in progress.

I guess I had better whip my place into shape just in case. I’m the only one in the family (at least as far as I know) that has the full on CableOne package that would be required to view this, provided they come through. I suppose I could expect to see everyone over for a few good hours of football on Saturday. The place is small, but there is lots of floor. You’re more than welcome to come by.

If the game is indeed on CableOne, my place will be the place to be. I’ll figure out refreshments when the time comes.

Keep your fingers crossed.

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Urge to kill… rising

So, right now is probaby not exactly the time for me to be complaining about not getting MORE football on TV, but dammit, I’m going to do it anyway.

Here is the background. Boise State is playing this weekend at the University of Wyoming. Being a member of the Mountain West Conference, they have the brodcast rights. Well, in their infinite brilliance, that conference has signed their TV rights over to ‘cooter’s fancy backyard college football television channel’ that is available in about 7 homes nationwide.

So, needless to say, nary a customer in the entire state of Idaho, apart from a few cow towns that are so pathetic that regular cable & satellite companies ignore them, are going to receive the game.

First off, let me say, that nobody in their right mind is taking a road trip to Laramie Wyoming. Not exactly the excitement capital of the world.

Now, I’m no marketing genius. I realize that ESPN is the 800 lb. gorilla who can dictate terms to the conferences and perahps you don’t want to play by their rules. But you’re really going to hitch your wagon to the TV equivalent of 3 legged horse with spina bifida? Is that really how you want your league portrayed? When millions upon millions are tuning into ESPN GameDay every Saturday, you really want your product shown on some channel which when not playing your games is showing the local farm report? You’re the Mountain West for christ sake. We’re not talking SEC here. The Big 10 can start their own cable channel. Mountain West, you are a road apple in college football, just like the WAC, MAC, and C-USA (although, at least we’re not the Sun Belt).

Even worse, the local NBC affiliate who has the Boise State broadcast rights has offered to rebroadcast the game locally. Free of charge. WITH their commercials intact. Asked 3 separate times, in fact. Their answer has always been ‘No’. Ok, now I can even see their logic with this move, to a point. They are thinking, that if we refuse, then enough people will call their cable/satellite providers and demand our product! It’s perfect! Well, not really. Boise is not exactly New York City. The actual number of people calling to request this new channel of their provider will mean exactly squat to these companies. Especially when compared to the amount of effort it takes for them to add a new channel.

Face it. You people suck. Your channel sucks. Your TV deal sucks. Your league sucks. Your suck sucks. You rotten pig-headed bastards are keeping me from seeing an away football game for the first time in 10 years. Last time I checked, this was 2006. How the game can’t be on here is beyond me. I totally feel a Clark Griswold level of blow up coming (“hallelujah, where’s the tylenol“). Nearing ‘homicidal rampage’ areas of disturbance.

I’m so pissed, I can’t even think straight. We can go from one week being in High Definition on ESPN with over 1,000,000 people watching to some channel where 6 guys on a tractor could watch, but won’t because, like everyone else, they will be watching ESPN.

AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!

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Overdose

I didn’t think it was possible, but I pulled it off. I think I have actually overdosed on football. Many times I have tried, yet could never reach that saturation point where you just couldn’t take in any more information but this weekend was the clincher. Here’s how it happened.

It all began Thursday evening. As I left work at 3:30 to head down to the Boise State v. Oregon State game on the blue. Granted, I wasn’t technically watching football the entire time, but it is part of the process, so I’m including it. So, from my arrival on campus about 4pm (for a 5:30 kick off) until the game ended at 9:30, it was 5.5 hours of some of the most fun I’ve had in a while. Boise State looked terrific. Ian Johnson was unbelievable. So great was the game, I made the mistake of starting to watch my recording of the game once I got home. I had planned on watching just the first quarter before going to bed, but that didn’t last. So, 3 and a half hours later, I watched the entire game again. That puts me at 9 hours of football, and it wasn’t even Friday yet.

Friday was strangely football free. I had other plans so I didn’t see any of Pittsburgh v. Cincinnatti. If Thrusday was the appetizer, then Friday was the palate-cleansing sorbet before the hearty meal of Saturday and Sunday. A football free day in the middle here might just have saved my sanity.

I awoke early Saturday morning and flipped on ESPN College GameDay before I even put my feet onto the floor. The first games started at 10am local. After an hour of GameDay I was set. I parked on the couch and flipped around between Rutgers killing Illinois, and Va Tech v. NC in high def. As an aside, I can’t wait until that point in the future where EVERY sporting event is in Hi Def. There is nothing worse than wanting to watch a game that is being broadcast in hi def, but you don’t receieve the channel (CableOne & ESPN2HD, I’m looking at you). I simply want every single sporting event, specifically football, in hi def. I will take nothing less. Is that too much to ask?

Anyway, the early games were simply a warmup for the real games to follow. Notre Dame v. Penn State was a huge matchp that I had been looking forward to. Plus, at the same time we had the battle of the Palouse in Idaho v. Wazzu. After last weekend, I thought Idaho might keep this one interesting. Well, they didn’t. In fact, they looked WAY worse than they did last week. Perhaps their heads got a little big after almost beating MSU. Plus, Notre Dame blew out Penn State. I rode through those 2 games going with the ‘picture in picture’ feature on the tube to watch both at the same time. Neither game was close, but I enjoyed each one immensely since I love ND and… uh… Idaho… um… not so much.

Another thing I love doing is watching the ‘crawl’ at the bottom of the screen of scores from around the country. There are always some surprising nuggets in there. Such as San Jose State beating Stanford (I always root for WAC teams vs. other conferences) or even funnier is Colorado losing to Colorado State. Oooo… Coach Hawk. You have some SERIOUS work to do there. Oh for two. Colorado has scored a total of 20 points this season. Worse than that, they have a TOTAL of 363 total yards in 2 games. Mind you, this was at home against a 1-AA team and at a neutral site against a middle of the road Mountain West arch rival. When he was here, we would regularaly roll up 20 points in less than a quarter. It might take an entire half to get to 363 yards. For the record, Ian Johnson alone had 261 total yards and 30 points vs. Oregon State. Any second thoughts there, Hawk?

Following the Notre Dame and Idaho thrashings, it was another flip fest until the big game came around, Ohio State at Texas. Although, a quick dinner trip to Red Robin was thrown in there, there were still multiple TVs showing OSU/TX and LSU/Arizona, so other than the 10 minute drive, I was still mainlining football.

The day didn’t end until Fresno ran out of chances vs. Oregon at about 11:30pm local. If you’re counting, that is 13.5 straight hours of football. Running total of 22.5 hours of football with Opening Sunday of NFL still to come.

The Sunday plan was for George and I to hit somewhere to watch multiple games. We chose Busters, a local sports bar. We arrived just after the first games kickoffs at 11am. We proceded to eat finger steaks and watch 8 games at once. Our heads were on a swivel, always catching events on all the separate games. It’s a skill. Finger steaks, 2 pitchers of beer, countless cokes, a plate of ulitmate nachos, twelve games and 6 hours later, we retired back to my apartment. What did we do? You guessed it, turned on Sunday Night Football and spent the next 3.5 hours watching Giants v. Colts. For the day, thats another 9.5 hours and a grand total of 32 total hours of football. I think I’ve developed a football shaped brain tumor.

However, I’M NOT FINISHED! What is the perfect dessert to such a weekend football meal? That’s right… TWO Monday Night Football games. Might as well finish it off with another 7 or so hours of football. If anyone out there knows of a good doctor to surgically remove the couch from my ass, send them my way. For those of you needing help with the math, that would be damn near 40 hours of football in 5 days, or a full 1 of every 3 hours was spent watching football. even worse, if you remove time spent sleeping, I spent 45% of my last 5 days watching football. And, 3 of those are work days, so if you were to remove those 24 hours from the mix, I actually spent THREE FULL DAYS doing nothing but watching games. I think I might need to seek professional help. I can totally feel my brain turning to a tapioca like consistency and dripping from my ears.
Not to mention, I won my fantasy game as well (unless Lamont Jordan goes off for 30+ points tonight… ain’t gonna happen).

Some of you might be wondering (like one in my office asked), yes, I am single, with no kids, living in an apartment. aka. zero prior commitments of any type. I suppose there are some advantages. I wonder how many of you guys out there would give their right arms to live that weekend. However, I might be willing to concede that that might have been a little too much, even for me. I think the only way I could have ingested more football was if I could have some how jacked a satellite signal directly into my cerebral cortex.

If it came in High Def, I might just concider it.

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The city’s excited

I have to determine that the city is quite excited this morning. Last nights game vs. Oregon State was unbelievable… specifically Ian Johnson (22 carries 240 yards and 5 TDs) was the most unbelievable. My gage for the mood of the city is admittedly rudimentary. I had to take my car into the mechanic this morning. I have interacted with exactly 3 strangers this morning, all before 9:30 am. The mechanic, he didn’t mention anything about the game. But I dropped my car off and went to get a newspaper at the Cheveron station and wait for the taxi. I bought a newspaper, and the lady behind the counter was very excited. We discussed Johnson’s performance and how good the game was. Then, the cab driver was listening to sports radio and we were talking about the game the whole 15 minute trip back to my apartment.

I’m no math major, but I would think that if 66% of the people you see today are talking about the game, then thats a pretty good percentage.

I got home from the game last night, and I made the mistake of firing up my DVR to watch the game. I thought, “I’ll just until Ian’s first touchdown…” Well, that didn’t last. I ended up watching the whole thing. The High Def was beautiful. The announcers were great. Sometimes when we get national guys when we’re playing a bigger opponent, they spend the whole time talking about the opponent and shafting us. But, Fowler and Herbstreit were terrific. And, seeing Johnson’s runs again were just amazing. He (and the O-line) made that Pac-10 defense look silly.

I think running the table could be a real option. I’m very excited.

Car update again…

Just got the call from the mechanic. Apparently the radiator is shot and needs to be replaced. $310 parts and labor. *sigh* What can ya do? At least I have the peace of mind knowing that this guy is not screwing me. If it were anyone else, I might get a second opinion, but I know this guy is legit. Speaking of which, if any of you out there live in the Treasure Valley and own a Honda/Acura, you will find no better mechanic than Dietz Automotive at 24th and Fairview.

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Car Update

Finally got a hold of the last honest mechanic in the valley. He can’t get me in until Friday morning. *sigh* What can ya do? Yes, for the record I’m still driving the damn thing. Roll the dice. Go for the gusto. No guts no glory. Damn the torpedeoes. Etc. Etc.

I’ll just carry extra coolant and a oven mitt. What’s life without a little gambling, right?

Hopefully, it will just be a leaky hose or something. But, I really can’t complain. The car is 10 years old (only 91k miles though) and has pretty much been bullet proof for the 7 years I’ve owned it. *knock on wood*

Site update… I’ve had renewed problems with the database. I’ve lost posts and comments when they for some reason re-restored my site from backup about 48 hours after they did it before. Anyway, I think it has re-solidified. No guarantees, but we’ll see what happens.

More football tomorrow. According to USAToday, BSU is favored by 8. I don’t know if I’d agree with that. Seems a little high. But then again, I would be supremely pleased with another 40 point blow out.

My team here at work is having a potluck tomorrow. Actually, the whole call center is (even though we aren’t even in the same building as the call center anymore, we’re doing it too). They’re calling it a ‘Tailgate Potluck’ for the BSU/OSU game. They’re encouraging everyone to wear their blue and orange, giving out prizes and crap like that. I can say with all sincerity that I have no doubt that I am the biggest bronco fan on our team. Just because I don’t paint my face or wear an orange fright wig doesn’t mean I’m not passionate about it. On the other hand, part of me just hates potlucks. I don’t know why.

Site update… I realize I haven’t written a “feature” piece in a while. Mostly been riding on the everyday minutiae of my rather boring life. That will change. I have a couple of ideas I want to get done.

So keep checking back. There will be more to read, I promise.

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Game one in the books

Well, game one of the back-to-being-single era is done. Boise State won big, which was good. But I would be completely lying if I said I wasn’t a little sad. I’ve told everyone a thousand times (and written it here) just how much I loved tailgating. Frankly, I really do miss it. While the game is going, it is easy to be distracted and enjoy it. But as I was walking to the stadium (and walking back to my car after), I was bummed out. I knew football season would be hard, so I was expecting it, but that doesn’t make it fun.

I had a thought, I guess I kinda equate tailgating to my form of camping. I enjoyed everything about it. From cooking the day before, to loading up the car. Setting up when you get there and tearing down when you leave. I looked at none of it as a hassle. I like to think I brought something to the table with those events, but now I can’t be sure. Who knows. Maybe I was just a pain all the way around.

I do kinda wish my seats were somewhere else. I’m directly across the stadium from where I used, and they still all sit. As much as I didn’t want too, I did take a peek at them occasionally. Even if it was from 80 yards away through binoculars. I would also be lying if I said I didn’t miss all of them. Even her. Especially her, I guess I should say. Those were just some really good times. And to have it all gone in the blink of an eye is still tough to deal with. I frankly think that home football games will be harder than the actual impending holidays. Just hard to describe.

And yes, as I entered the stadium, I did glance over at the tailgate spot. Granted, I was a ways away, but it looked like business as usual. Not sure what I expected it to look like, but still… Of course, my mind was working on ways to fix my situation and unfortunately, there aren’t many options. Unless I meet some people who are already doing it up, I won’t be able to put something together myself. Even if I could get a parking pass in the stadium, it would be a paltry knockoff. I guess I’ll just have to live with the disappointment for a while.

It was nice to sit with family. I do enjoy them. But its just not the same as sitting with your wife. I guess thats the bottom line. Perhaps the football deal is just a symptom of the actual problem. Walking back to the car alone just sort of drove that home.
Oh well… onward and upward I suppose…

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Game day is HERE

I’m giddy. I woke up this morning a full hour before my alarm went off. It feels like Christmas. The countdown clock is winding down. 0 weeks, 0 days, 10 hours, 12 minutes, 34 seconds until kick off.

Click here to feel the love

Fight Broncos, celebrate the orange and blue
Boise will stand up and cheer for BSU!
Fight for distinction and our Alma Mater
Bravely defending BSU!
Fight on courageously for Boise State
Success and honor make her great!
Boise’s proud tradition
Heads-up competition
Glory to BSU!

Go Orange, Go Big Blue, Fight! Fight! BSU!

I’ve often wondered if when you get to heaven you will get statistics on your life. How many miles you walked, what meal you had the most often, etc. etc. In that vein, I’ve wondered what song I’ve heard the most times in my life. More than likely for most people it would be something boring and mundane like ‘Happy Birthday’, or if they’re big sports fans, maybe the Star Spangled Banner. I can guarantee what my song will be. It’s the BSU Fight Song. Doing some rough math, I haven’t missed a home football game in 14 years, so say 6 per year is 84 games. I usually am able to catch at least one road game so we’ll call that an even 100. Before that, I went to a bunch of games as a kid, say another 50. 150 Boise State football games, the song had to have been played by the band at least 20 times a game, which is probably a conservative number. That’s 3000 times. Not to mention the hundreds of BSU Basketball games, the parades, the on campus events, hell, even the NCAA College Football video game plays the song (my team is obviously Boise State) on an endless loop. Given all that, I have to figure I’ve easily topped 10,000 times I’ve heard that tune. Probably more. And I’m only 32. In fact, I’ve listened to it another dozen times since I’ve been writing this. If I’m lucky, by the time I finally kick off, I may have heard the song 50,000? 70,000? Who knows. Just put me in an orange and blue coffin and call it a day.

All this week, I have been wearing a different orange shirt to get ramped up. How many people in my office noticed? Zero. But dammit, I didn’t do this for others. I did it for me, and my team. Boise State football is my only true love in life. Other fans may have multiple teams that they love. One in each sport. But growing up in Idaho, isolated from all other pro and college sports, there was one game in town. I have ‘sports monogamy’ to the nth degree. I love sports, but simply do not have a favorite team in each one to root for. I might need a ruling on if that makes me less of a sports fan or not. I just say I’m a product of my environment. For me, the world stops when Boise State is playing.

This year is different. I’m moving on in life and that includes my gameday experience. See, the ex-laws always did a big tailgate, that grew exponentially when I was there. The first year was low key, but by the time last year rolled around, it was a serious deal. For me, those 6 days a year WERE better than Christmas. We would spend all day in the parking lot tailgating. We would get there at 9am for a 6pm kickoff. I love the atmosphere. The friends. The food. The beer. Capped off by the game (plus the fact that we are 45-2 at home since 1999) then more beer and food postgame… just an unbelieveable experience.

But, now I’m on my own to figure out how to get the most of the gameday. I’m disappointed the be on the outs now, but goddamnit, I’m not going to let it ruin Boise State Football for me. So, maybe now I’ll get to see a few more national games on TV. Maybe I’ll find some other friends to tailgate with. Who knows. But I do know one thing. I love Boise State football more than anything else. Bottom line.

And for me, that makes today VERY special.

Go Broncos.

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Solo part Deux

I wrote about how I’m getting into doing things solo.Well, I’ve expanded on that lately. The past two days, I’ve gone to see 2 separate movies that I’ve wanted to see. Now, they were both mediocre, but that is beside the point.The point is I was out and about, mono-style.

Sunday, I woke up and was bored. I killed some time… watched some football (but its still preseason and sucks. Side note, watching 2 games now I can say, good lord the Raiders suck. Holy Cow. That is a 3 win team if I’ve ever seen one. They couldn’t even move the ball against 2nd string defenses. Brooks has completed 2 passes in the preseason. Good luck Raider fan… gonna be a loooong year.). I decide I would just take in a flick. So, I looked at the listings and decided I would catch Pirates of the Caribbean on the digital screen here in town. So, 2:00 rolls around and I motor out the house. A large drink and a small popcorn later, I’m taking in this so-so movie. Plot was kinda confusing. They might have been trying too hard. However, it was probably worth the matinée price of admission.

Then, Monday while at work, I decided I had a good time on Sunday, that I might as well do it again. So, I lined up to head directly from work to catch Miami Vice. It kinda sounds strange, but it was kinda liberating to be able to leave work and go to a movie. No checking in with anyone. No asking if anyone else wants to do it. Nothing. Just go. Mini review of the movie is this: it is ‘Miami Vice’ in name only. Little to nothing to do with the TV show other than the character names. The way they played it, neither Crockett (Farrell) or Tubbs (Foxx) had one ounce of personality. Especially Farrell. He could not have played that roll any more boringly. Tried way to hard to be ‘cool’, but mainly came off as bored. I remember Crockett being the wisecracking, womanizing cop who lived on a boat with his pet gator Elvis. None of that came through here. Not to mention, the movie has ZERO of the flash and style of Miami, which again was a major part of the show. You’re telling me you couldn’t work in one scene where Crockett is driving the Ferrari on deserted Miami freeways while some great music is playing? Really? Oh yeah, the music. Again, boring. I think the old theme perfectly set the tone for the show. The movie is a tuneless mess.

Alright, I’d better stop writing about it. The more I write, the less and less I like the movie. I’m glad I saw it, but don’t know if I’d recommend it.

Anyway, the point of this post is I’m still getting my ‘single’ on. Would I rather have someone on tap to do these things with? Absolutely. Am I gonna sit around and piss and moan about it? No. I’m through with that shit. If I stay single, well, then I stay single. Ain’t the end of the world. I believe I was single with nary a date from 1995 to 2000. (Full time work and full time school will do that to ya) Didn’t kill me. I just gotta learn how to do that all over again.

Onward and upward.

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Moral Dilemma

Yes, this is another sports related post. But, before you go scurrying off to your US Weekly, hang here for a sec. I guarantee that even if you aren’t a sports fan, know a baseball from a hockey puck, or even give a damn, you will have an opinion on this story.

In Sports Illustrated, Rick Riley wrote about an event that happened in Utah. You can go read his account, but I’ll give you the thumbnail version.

Basically, here is the deal. 9-10 year olds little league game. Actually, this is the championship game. The league is a non-competitive league (everyone bats, no stealing, etc.) Why they’re having a “championship” game in a non-competitive league is something that doesn’t make sense to me, but I digress.

Yankees lead the Red Sox by a run in the bottom of the last inning. Red Sox are down to their last out, with the tying run on 3rd. Their best hitter is coming to the plate. Yankees coach has a decision to make. Pitch to the best hitter (who already has a home run) and possibly lose the game, or intentionally walk him? Behind him in the lineup is a kid who is a cancer survivor with a shunt in is brain and the worst hitter on the team.

Well, the coach does walk the power hitter in order to pitch to the weak link. Predictably, he strikes out and the game is over, Yankees win.

Now, I can see many different angles in this story. First that comes to mind is that that is a bush league thing to do to that kid. You know he’s weak, and you are deliberately targeting him to fail. He’s already been through hell with the cancer and you’re using that to your advantage. Do you really want to win like that?

On the other hand, I’ve long held the opinion that people coddle kids WAY to much. Way too much not keeping score and giving every kid in the league a trophy just for playing all to make sure that some kids don’t feel like ‘losers’. Kids have to learn, sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. When you grow up, life is not going to try to protect your feelings. It will kick your head in (trust me, I know). If you have never lost anything in your life, how do you know how to deal with it? Parents think a loss is going to destroy their kid’s self esteem. It’s cliche at this point, but everyone always learns more about them self in a loss than they ever do in a win. Life is all about how you deal with adversity. Kids sports is a small way to add some ‘positive losses’ to a kid’s life.

However, does a move like this send too much of that message? Does it teach his players that its ok to ‘win at all costs’? If it does, is that a positive or a negative? Does this teach his team strategy? Constructive thinking? Compassion is important, but the kid was playing in the game just like everone else. He knew the rules. Would he want the rules changed for him or shown special treatment because he’s not as strong or as good as everyone else? What message does that send him?

It is an interesting dilemma. As you can imagine the adults are all taking sides and screaming at each other. Adults have a knack for taking a situation and blowing it all out of proportion. Who knows how long they will argue about this. Weeks? Months? I’m quite sure of one thing. Every kid involved in that game was already feeling better and moving on once the pizza party was over.

If I was the coach, I would have taken my chances and pitched to the power hitter. Kids sports is not simply about winning or losing. As long as you go out there, spend some time with your buddies, have some fun, learn a thing or two… then its worthwhile. There is always the silver lining of a loss… you’re going to learn something about yourself.

I love what the kid told his dad the next morning. It wraps up what this is all about and what I’m telling you. “I’m going to work on my batting. Then maybe someday I’ll be the one they walk.”