We like the way the Mike the Tiger looks hesitant and worried in this context.

“Hey, now. Just take it easy. You weren’t actually thinking about eating me, were you? Like you can’t even name a single thing besides sugar and flour that this is made of, right? There’s no telling what kind of Korean factory runoff is actually in this yellow dye. You could whip it out to piss tomorrow, throw a cigarette in the shitter afterwards and–BOOM! There goes your house, you, and your dog, and you’ll think, just seconds before you’re disincorporated, “Hey, I wonder if whatever’s in a Pop-tart turns human urine into a potent, flammable explosive?” The answer would be yes, but it’s too late, and now your gluttony and love of packaged food has cost you everything, you complete and utter asshole.

Photo HT: J-Money.

If only this came with an actual little plastic head you could attach to the cap, then we could sell literally tens of these in Syracuse Orange with little Greg Robinson heads. TENS, we say. (HT: Big Jon.

Nowhere is there a more spectacular chance to exercise this fundamental American right than in the field of college football fandom, where you can take your hard-earned inheritances and trust funds and pour them directly into RVs, walls coated in blazing flatscreen televisions, and barbecues large enough to cook other barbecues in while simultaneously prepping a whole brisket on the side. Ante up, skinflint bitches, and break out the plastic. It’s time to put a little red into your team colors in the form of debt-funded tailgate fodder for the fall.

Necessary things include, but are not limited to:

The Hitch ‘n View. Are you tired of hammering nails into your largest friend’s back in order to hang your flatscreen at your tailgate? Ashamed of the cost of all those vandalism citations from drilling holes in campus bulidings and trees for a good tv mount? Want a football-related excuse to follow someone at the NASCAR-approved distance of 3 inches from their rear bumper?

Enter your solution, the miraculous Hitch ‘n View.

RUMSFEEEEEEELD!!!

You could watch the game from a lawn chair with a cold one in hand, sure. Or you could stop being a pussy and watch College Gameday at eighty miles an hour from the driver’s seat of your car, pounding hot coffee, Mao-ing down on Ripped Fuel, and shaking with glee just a single brake pump away from certain disaster. That’s how a Viking would do it with bits of brain in his beard the whole time.

Your own chicken leg flash drive. Two variations on this one. First, you could keep your data secure in the chicken foot variant, a must for all South Carolina fans who want to bring the Cock ‘n Fire sputter to computers they infect with viruses stored in their files, or just want to make it look like they’ve crammed their an entire cock into their usb drive.

You may also take this chicken themed flash drive, which in piles left on tables at the Tennessee football complex could be loads of fun! (Fun=choking hazard.)

Your own blimp. For the extremely exact figure of somewhere between two thousand and ten thousand dollars a month, you can rent your own blimp, depending on the amount of flight time you use, the amount of advertising you put on the beast, and how many kegs of beer you want haul up there with you. (”It’s ballast and booze! Yes!”)

We’ll be charging the Hornet L2V to the Swindle Industries card, a swanky little sportster made for you, one fine lady, and the bags of fake money you plan to shower the crowd with during the third quarter. For just a few thousand more, have an LED installation put on the side to flash useful messages like “NICE CALL, SHIT FOR BRAINS” and “GRAVITY IS STUNTING YOUR PERSONAL GROWTH” to the masses.

Oh, and don’t bother to make a flight plan. DHS hates it when you make those.

A Fathead for your windshield. Vision is for the faithless. Pop that Fathead right over the windscreen, hit the gas, and let victory do the rest. Champions find a way, and you will, too, even if you have to take that way through buildings, shrubbery, and public parks filled with screaming pedestrians. There are no shortcuts for excellence here.

The Vantare Platinum Plus. We have some issues with the name. Must luxury brands continually pile adjectives and lustrous nouns into meaningless piles of wording? “Emperor’s Club,” “Platinum Plus,” “The Virgin Atlanta Largesse Silverwhore Ultraluxe Suite, Home of the World’s Only Sanctioned In-Air Prostate Massage”…the price tag and Italian marble counters on wheels speak for themselves, don’t they?

The Vantare doesn’t even have a bedroom: it has a state room, which is like a bedroom, but for dignitaries, admirals, and emperors. If you have 2.5 million dollars to spend on an RV, chances are you can purchase a title to being either of these from a third world nation for far less than the price of the RV.

In the midst of all the multinational descriptions of the RV’s plush furnishings, though, sits a sentence that confuses us slightly:

The galley and dining area comes fully stocked with utensils with an international feel.

When we think “international utensils,” we think of a drawer full of AK-47s, Hello Kitty plush dolls, and filthy packages of UNHCR high-energy biscuits. Which, for 2.5 mil, should come standard with the RV anyway.

The bathroom of the Vantare looks like this:

Rest assured when you let a trashed 19 year old hurl up a twelve pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and a meatball sub all over the bathroom at a tailgate, you’ll have them doing it on only the finest mobile bathroom fixtures imaginable.

Purple drank is a bit of an obsession around here. We’re unsure why: drank has a charisma all its own, a make-do charm based in the need to not just get drunk, but to get excessively drunk on the cheap. Nay: to get excellently drunk, since it is the drink of champions like Mike Jones and 3-6 Mafia, who proudly advertises that they “drink that Tuss.”

For those unfamiliar with the concept of purple drank, a.k.a. “lean,” “sizzurp,” or “you’re drinking adulterated cough syrup because you find the concept of slumming it quaintly entertaining,” Wikipedia contains all a human being could possibly want to know about that purp, though we excerpt two pieces in particular. No connection between the two. We swear.

DJ Screw first popularized the concoction[citation needed], which is widely attributed as a source of inspiration for the “chopped and screwed” style of hip hop music[8]…

…and two…

DJ Screw, who popularized the codeine-based drink, died of a suspected codeine-alcohol overdose on November 15, 2000, several months after the video to Three 6 Mafia’s single debuted.[7]

Nice way to advertise your chosen brew, sailor. If DJ Screw were a lawn darts enthusiast, he’d have done the commercials with one driven to the hilt in his skull. BTW: we at EDSBS endorse lawn darts wholeheartedly. A kids’ game with adult risks! Just like going to Cancun when you’re 14!

Risks aside, purple drank remains popular enough to spawn a street-legal, non-narcotic version: Drank, the drink proudly touting the motto “Slow Your Roll” on the can just below the logo and header reading “The Anti-Energy Drink.” The product warning reads:

WARNING: THIS PRODUCT MAY BE EXTREMELY RELAXING AND CALMING AND MAY CAUSE ONE TO LEAN.

Being the young, hyper urban teenager we aren’t, we considered this warning carefully and sent off for some. Two days later, we got a package of five cans in the mail.

Zzzzz….

Package design: Purple’s a great color, as it’s the imperial color of Rome, some aroused genitals, and Grimace. It also happens to be the color of Dimetapp and several other brands of cough syrup, thus giving the whole package a nice semantic link to its narcotic street ancestor, and not necessarily to the toga-wearing Grimace with a three-foot long purple erection we imagined on the reveal.

Aroma: Precisely the scent of a carbonated grape Otter Pop with a hint of Dimetapp. None of the anise-y hints of Nyquil, though there is a hint of Robitussin’s scotch bite in there. Just judging from the smell, this could be like chugging a liquid lollipop, a.k.a. the stuff you and your high-school girlfriend played around with that resulted in some extremely sticky sheets, an awkward ant infestation in your bedroom, and one raging yeast infection that left you in Manual Satisfaction Hell for at least a week.

Taste: Drank, you silky bitch: here we were, thinking you would bomb the palate with the lurid whore’s fakery of chemical grape buoyed by a sea of high-fructose corn syrup, and you go and slip some Pendergrass smooth on us. It’s nowhere near as sweet as we thought it would be, and the taste is remarkably consistent with the smell: grape-y but not overwhelming, leading with carbonation, and not repellent, even to sissified tastebuds like ours that commit the blasphemy of ordering unsweet tea in soul food restaurants. (OMG too many calories! Hard to do handstand pushups when you’re heaving up 300 pounds! Yielding like a pussy to a slight familial tendency towards obesity and diabetes!)

Effect: Oh, consider our roll slowed. Valerian, rose hips, and melatonin, while not codeine, certainly will stun your inner water buffalo quick enough. Being the smart person we are, we noted that one serving of drank equalled one half of a can, which incidentally at 110 calories a serving isn’t slimming, but it’s not the potential disaster it could be if you had two or three cans of it.

Which you’re not, because Drank will, for lack of better phrasing, knock you on your ass with a spike-covered fifty pound sledgehammer of mellow.

We know this because, being the book-smart but not operantly intelligent person we are, we drank a whole can the first time we had Drank. Normally, we have to drive on long car rides or we’re simply unmanageable: twitching in our seat, doing deep breathing to attempt to relax, picking fights with truck drivers, flinging bottles out of the window…an interstate problem child with ADD and time to burn. At best, we run laps through the radio yelling “NOTHING’S ON NOTHING’S ON NOTHING’S ON OH GOD ANOTHER STATION PLAYING “BARRACUDA” REALLY?”

After a headache set ten minutes after finishing the can, we slid into a pain-free stupor that TCOAN, if asked for a review, would probably describe as “one of the most pleasant driving experiences of my life.” We had this conversation at least six times:

TCOAN: How do you feel?
OS: My roll has been slooooooooowed.
TCOAN: How do you feel?
OS: My roll has been slooooooooowed.
TCOAN: How do you feel?
OS: My roll has been slooooooooowed.
TCOAN: How do you feel?
OS: My roll has been slooooooooowed.
TCOAN: How do you feel?
OS: My roll has been slooooooooowed.

In fact, the mellow sledgehammer strike had effects all night and, we swear, through the next day. If years of stimulant abuse have made our system a leathery hide all uppers bounce off of, it has conversely weakened any tolerance for sedatives. Our in-laws described us as “nice,” “polite,” “relaxed,” and “tactful,” which they had to flinch while saying because frankly it felt wrong for all of us. You could have dropped pens on us while we lay on the floor, and we would have made as much fuss as an obese cat.

They’re ordering us a case a month for life and two for the holidays. They’re wonderful people.

Summary grade: We really don’t know: as a social drink, Drank has zero applications. None. All we wanted to do was watch Discovery HD and go to bed at 9 p.m., which means if you like to party Boca Vista-style after the early bird special, Drank is the beverage for you. The one practical application could be to relax if you’re the sort who has difficulty unwinding, and if that’s you then Drank has a bullet named “chillthefuckout” on it for you, since you’ll be snoozing like an Amtrak driver after a half can. A full can turns you into Andy Griffith, seersucker suit and all.

It does, however, deliver on all its promises: we were the epitome of anti-energy after consuming, and if what you’re looking for is a bit less energy after sitting at a desk all day and enduring a hard, seated drive to work, then…sure, it’s for you. Drank worked a lot better as a comedown beverage not called “McGillicuddy’s Scotch for the Aged and Pension-restricted” during pre-bed GTA4 sessions, so perhaps that’s its proper place in a day’s rotation of legal substance consumption.

For overall mission execution divided by actual appeal to this urban teenager, we give Drank a solid B for somnamBulent. We just drank the last can, so expect a new blog post sometime around the middle of next week.

That said…this particular section is news to me.  Here are FOX and NBC’s big 2008 bowls, in their entirety, plus a bonus play-by-play cutdown of the ‘07 Fiesta Bowl…no fees, no registration.  The commercial interruptions are infrequent, the A/V quality astonishingly high for a free site.

Anybody having a long day?  Need a little ESS EE CEE SPEED in your cubicle?  How about the entire 2008 BCS Championship game?  You’re welcome:

Long road to August, boyos.  Kick back a spell and enjoy the next best thing.

The Board of Regents Wednesday re-visited a decades-old policy banning the use of college logos on burial items like coffins or urns, allowing fans to bring their love for their alma maters into the hereafter. A Macon-based business, Collegiate Memorials, asked the Regents to loosen the rules and after a closer look at other states’ policies, members of the board relented.

The ban was part of a policy written in 1982, that prohibited logos on burial items, sex toys and alcoholic beverages, among others.

The real shame is that other university systems probably have the same rules keeping college football fans from enjoying the sex toys of their choice. With such rich names and tradition around, the territory is just ripe for a savvy marketeer. For example:

–The Jackie Sherrill Anal Dilator: If the NCAA is coming, why not make it easy on yourself with this fine stainless steel aid.

–The Oregon State Eager Beaver: the pocket pleaser that’s never a teaser straight from Reser!

–The Rocky Topper: the multipurpose tool for both sexes. Half-bear and half-cat, it’s all for the animal in you!

–The Yellow Jackette: The ideal high-tech, yellow and black striped pleasure baton for the high-tech lady in your life. Early adopters and next-gen types love it!

–The Mike Seven: Hold that tiger…with both hands! A surefire champion for size queens everywhere, this monster’s big enough for even the most intimidating Death Valley.

–The SebAsstian: This Ibis-shaped wife wand will keep “U” in shape no matter how you decide to use it.

–The Golden Gopher: its powerful burrowing action ensures you’ll never go digging for a another toy again!

–The Washington “Husky”: For those who favor girth, you can’t go wrong with the Husky.

–The Eastern Carolina Pirate: Four D-cell batteries, 23 separate LEDs, 8 moving parts, a durable Tensagrip handle, and genuine Buccaneer design ensure that no matter how far you plunge into the Outer Banks, you’ll keep hauling in the booty like a real pirate!

Yarr.

Pat White. Thursday night. Louisville’s defense. This could get ugly.

THURSDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
LOUISVILLE at WEST VIRGINIA (7:30 ET • ESPN)
The classic “Time Machine” game: West Virginia is still a frontrunner, and even Louisville is still technically alive in the Big East at 2-2 in the conference, but this barely consequential showdown bears no resemblance to the clash of unbeaten, BCS-bound titans it was last year, or that ESPN no doubt expected again. In lieu of far-reaching national ramifications, prepare thyself, viewer, for pointless hype of Pat White and Steve Slaton directed at certain individual awards, and at least two replays of a certain play that propelled a certain color announcer to said award more than two fucking decades ago, and some pro scout drooling over Brian Brohm moments before he’s intercepted for severely underthrowing an open man.
Watch for: End zone angles of West Virginia’s unearthly blocking, opening mile-wide lanes against overpursuing defenses since 2005. Also: Noel Devine, who will do something completely jaw-dropping in place of Slaton in the second half, because that what Noel Devine does.

Provincialism: Tennessee State at Samford (6:00 ET, ESPNU), TCU at BYU (9:00 ET, Versus)

TGIF, UNLESS YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN WATCH…

RUTGERS at ARMY (8:00 ET • ESPN2)
Our brave future fighting men have played one much stronger team tough at home each of the last two years  –Iowa State in 2005, Texas A&M last year – but still carries something like a twenty-eight year losing streak against winning teams. I didn’t look that up, but you’ll hear the real number at the first sign of Rutgers distress Friday, and then a few times again until RU lays down the hammer. But make no mistake: sooner or later, the hammer will be laid. Army is sloooooow. Watch for: The play Army safety Caleb Campbell hits Ray Rice so hard his helmet pops off, and Rice is revealed to actually be a fifty-story-tall monster made of flames the Black Knights must work together to slay before they can graduate to victory, aka an extended tour in Afghanistan.

(Yes, I know that was a Marines commercial, but they’re all shooting at the same targets. Anyway, the Army monster as personified by Ray Rice is way bigger).

Provincialism: Fordham at Columbia (7:00 ET, YES), Bowling Green at Eastern Michigan (7:30 ET, ESPNU)

SATURDAY – EARLY AFTERNOON: THERE IS A RACCOON. FLUSH HIM FROM THE WALL IN TIME FOR…

Main Course: Michigan at Wisconsin (Noon ET • ESPN)
P.J. Hill may not play, meaning the Wolverines may have to actually hit a moving target, a tall task to date for this particular version of the Michigan D. Then again, the Badgers ran for all of twelve yards without Hill at Ohio State last week and have allowed an average of 221 yards rushing to the last four non-MAC offenses they’ve faced, three of them in losses. So Mike Hart’s ankle does not necessarily need to be 100 percent. Watch for: Okay, like, this may not be a big deal for Midwesterners and other Northern types, and there’s all like global warming and whatever, right? But for those of us who grew up sweating in the desolate Southland well into the Fall months, even a glimpse of snow on the tube is an exotic, vicarious thrill. Football in a blizzard? We don’t want to be there, we just want to see it. The game’s already an instant classic. OMG hi-def snowstorm! The god who denies us this seasonal pleasure is a cruel numen indeed.

On the Other Channel…
WAKE FOREST at CLEMSON (Noon ET • ESPN2)
Impromptu Geico trivia: which one of these teams still has a chance to catch Boston College in the Atlantic division? Answer: both of them – the Deacons and Tigers are 4-2 apiece, though Wake is eliminated by tie-breaking procedures if B.C. beats Maryland Saturday. If it wins, Clemson can set up a winner-take-all showdown with the Eagles in Death Valley next week. Watch for: Half of Clemson’s team is knocked out of the game after appropriately-named defensive lineman Jock McKissic loses his balance on the way down the hill during the Tigers’ opening ceremony, triggering a chain reaction that claims the entire starting secondary and most members of the receiving corps. C.J. Spiller is spared, however, by alertly leaping over the entire mass of humanity, performing a double salto with a full twist on the first flip and landing on his feet. Spiller then runs for 274 yards and two touchdowns as part of a five-man offense, only to watch Wake steal the win in the closing seconds (if you don’t think Wake would let a five-man offense hang around for 59 minutes, you don’t know Wake. Last second is just how some of us roll).

Bacher: Works things out, but…does he know how to change?

INDIANA at NORTHWESTERN (Noon ET • ESPN Classic)
What, exactly, is classic about this third tier pillowfight, other than its mediocrity? Both teams are collectively 0-5 against opponents with a winning record; Indiana is already technically bowl-eligible at 6-4, and Northwestern is a win away at 5-5. If the Wildcats win and both teams end up 6-6 (they’ll be underdogs next week against Purdue and Illinois, respectively), both could fall short of the conference’s seventh-place spot in the Motor City Bowl. Hopefully good enough for the Motor City Bowl! Classic! Watch for: Northwestern quarterback C.J. Bacher, whose look is best described as “vaguely Asian,” whose greatest achievement is yet to be seen and who is not afraid to admit that his favorite song on his iPod is Boyz II Men’s “Water Runs Dry.”

TEXAS A&M at MISSOURI (12:30 ET • FSN)
The Tigers offer an interesting juxtaposition for A&M: you have the Aggie offense on one hand, and what the Aggie offense is trying to be on the other. Every positive attribute you hear ascribed to Stepehen McGee during the first few minutes of the broadcast, apply it to Chase Daniel, as well, only for real. You won’t have to do that for very long. Watch for: Dennis Franchione slowly removing his headset, handing off his clipboard, putting his hands in his pocket and walking off the field in the middle of the third quarter following a moment of epiphany. What’s the point, you know?

Provincialism: A rare treat for SEC fans and unfortunate transplants to said territory, who get – count ‘em – not one but TWO! exciting Lincoln Financial options at 12:30: Alabama at Mississippi State and Arkansas at Tennessee. Double the graininess! Double the Yellawood ads! Double the Daves! (You know they’re going to find three more guys named ‘Dave’ for the extra duty right?) Everyone else can pick those games up live via the generous feed on Yahoo! Sports.

Elsewhere: Penn State at Temple (Noon ET, ESPNU), Michigan State at Purude (Noon ET, Big Ten Network), Minnesota at Iowa (Noon ET, Big Ten Network), North Carolina at North Carolina State (Noon ET, Lincoln Financial), South Florida at Syracuse (Noon ET, Metro Atlantic Sports Network/ERTV), Amherst at Williams (Noon ET, Northeast Sports Network), New Hampshire at Massachusetts (Noon ET, SNY…for two other states’ flagship schools?), Villanova at Towson State (Noon ET, CSNA), Kansas State at Nebraska (12:30, Versus), Lafayette at Holy Cross (1:00 ET, CSTV), Yale at Princeton (1:00 ET, YES)

LATE AFTERNOON: KEEP AN EYE ON THE COWS, MA

Main Course: AUBURN at GEORGIA (3:30 ET • CBS)
You may not realize it, but this is the oldest rivalry in the South, forging valiantly into a second century of tradition that would equally horrify both sides of the game’s segregationist founders. It’s one thing to let muscular negroes run the same ball as the white players, but foot-ball without the ceremonial mid-drive heifer rape? The Colonel won’t stand for it! Watch For: Knowshon Moreno, conquistador of homely co-eds campus-wide and the rest of the SEC’s worst nightmare for the next three-plus years.

On the Other Channel…
Your Mouse-Eared ESPN on ABC Overlords Bestow Upon an Unworthy and Grateful Public…
ILLINOIS at OHIO STATE / FLORIDA STATE at VIRGINIA TECH / TEXAS TECH at TEXAS / ARIZONA STATE at UCLA (3:30 ET • ABC/ESPN)

Look at this map and tell me: how did they decide on those precise boundaries in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming for who would get Ohio State-Illinois and who would get UCLA-Arizona State? “Remember, boys, Southeast Idaho, they love ‘em some Big Ten. They can’t get enough. But Montana? They better get the game in L.A. or there’ll be hell to pay, believe you me. And whatever you, do, don’t even think about trying to put on Ohio State in that one little diamond-shaped sliver in Western Wyoming. We all remember the Laramie Riots of ‘92. Yep, live and learn, boys. Live and learn.”
Watch For: The comical contrast of Jim Tressel’s icy resolve and Coach [Redacted]’s goofy pep, ending in a long closeup of one of them fighting back tears as the clock winds down on an afternoon of unambiguous punishment in the fourth quarter. I won’t tell you which one.

AIR FORCE at NOTRE DAME (2:30 ET • NBC)
The Irish are a slight (+2.5) underdog at home, to a physically overmatched service academy that runs the triple option, which makes complete sense to anyone who saw last week’s game. And Jimmy Clausen is back in the saddle for the game that could officially make these Irish the losingest team in school history? What kind of lottery did the rest of the country win? Watch For: Schadenfreude doesn’t die. It multiplies.

Provincialism: Colorado State at New Mexico (1:00 MT, Mtn.), Boise State at Utah State (1:00 MT, KJZZ/KTVB), Connecticut at Cincinnati (3:30 ET, ESPNU), Wyoming at Utah (1:30 MT, CSTV), Furman at Georgia Southern (3:30 ET, SportsSouth), Kent State at Northern Illinois (3:00 CT, Cox Sports-Chicago), New Mexico State at San Jose State (1:00 PT, Comcast/Aggie Vision), East Carolina at Marshall (4:30 ET, MASN, WITN)

HERE COMES THE NIGHT

Main course: Your Mouse-Eared ESPN on ABC Overlords Bestow Upon an Unworthy and Grateful Public…
BOSTON COLLEGE at MARYLAND / KANSAS at OKLAHOMA STATE / USC at CALIFORNIA (8:00 ET • ABC/ESPN)
Oh, read it and weep, folks:

It’s the Kansas-Oklahoma State game you’ve always dreamed of, consumer. No, no – thank us later. Watch For: Visually seeing the final molecules of air go out of Cal’s dream season. Jeff Tedford will try sustaining its last vestiges by holding his breath and puffing out his cheeks, until Pete Carroll claps his hands on either side of Tedford’s face to force out the rest.

On the Other Channel…
FLORIDA at SOUTH CAROLINA (7:45 ET • ESPN)
The Gamecocks have strategically timed their annual offensive revival to coincide with a defensive collapse of potentially staggering proportions, just in time for Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Gators brittle young secondary and your staggering windfall on the ‘over.’ Watch For: The tragic destruction of the “Cockaboose Railroad” when the lead cockaboose strikes an absentminded Tebow crossing the tracks prior to the game.

Can nothing stop Tebow’s trail of rail destruction?!

VIRGINIA at MIAMI (7:15 ET • ESPN2)
What’s worse: that the Cavs are in first place in the ACC Coastal with the nation’s 104th-ranked offense, or that Miami still has a chance to catch them with a win? Welcome to the new ACC, baby. Watch For: There is no acceptable reason to watch any game in the ACC, especially one featuring one offense quarterbacked by Kirby “1 of 14” Freeman and another coached by Al Groh. Holly helpfully suggested the following themes:

Sundresses versus hot pants.
Juleps versus 40s.
Maypoles vs. Luther Campbell.
Popped collars versus popped caps.

I don’t think they wear sundresses in Virginia, but whatever a ‘Maypole’ is, with apologies to Luther, I’m there.

FRESNO STATE at HAWAII (11:00 ET • ESPN2)
It’s a midnight tradition: Random West Coast game! Random West Coast game! Watch For: If you can’t drunkenly watch Colt Brennan hang 450 yards on a team you will not be able to identify in the morning before passing out, you are not American.

Provincialism: Stanford at Washington State (3:30 PT, Fox Spors Northwest/Bay Area/Pacific), Baylor at Oklahoma (5:30 CT, FSN), Central Florida at UAB (6:30 CT, CSTV), Washington at Oregon State (7:15 PT, FSN), San Diego State at UNLV (9:00 MT, CSTV)

Another fine EDSBS t-shirt.
FUCK DAT SPIDER! Buy this shirt.

America, Fuck Yeah: the NHJ Portable Television.

How awesome is the EDSBS bride, The Conscience of a Nation? So awesome that SHE suggested we purchase this immediately. Too bad for her: in case you wonder how we’re going to die, it’s most likely while pounding the face of this watch in following a Florida turnover viewed while driving to the store for ice for our ninth vodka and tonic of the day. Hand hits watch on wrist, turns car into oncoming traffic, and we’re done. That’s totally how it’s going to happen, and it will be all your fault, Tim Tebow!

Mangino might actually look small on this screen, though, so there’s good news for someone in this.

Enjoy your weekend.

1. The Big Ten is building its own television network. You know, much like the one Notre Dame has called NBC.

AIIIIIGGGGHHH!!! We hope the Big Ten gets someone more lifelike than synthflesh-covered cyborg Tom Hammond to call their games.

2. The Big Ten Network would broadcast games “carved out” of existing network agreements. So rather than the pork tenderloin of Michigan/Ohio State, you’d likely be looking at the head cheese and chitterlings of Purdue/Northwestern if you tuned in during the fall.

3. The Big Ten Network, headed by Bud Selig Charm School Graduate Jim Delany, is charging viewers more than any network besides ESPN for its services.

4. This has gotten the fledgling network into a tiff with cable giant Comcast, and their tussle has been prodigious enough to attract the attention of the three most important media outlets in the nation: MGoBlog, The New York Times, and Sunday Morning Quarterback, all of whom have spent considerable bandwidth and column space discussing it in intelligent fashion.

We here at EDSBS are of the opinion that Jim Delany is a complete and total dickface, even above and beyond the dickfacedness required in being a conference head. (See “SEC is fast because they cut class” incident, 2007.) However, the pricing argument presents a canard for those who would want to demonize the easy, miles-wide target the Big Ten commish offers.

The price remains astronomically high for a network, but we’re not talking Fuse here–we’re talking about a sports network, and a boutique-y one at that with a following that tends to pay whatever it has to for access to even the most rancid of content. Sports networks, as the NYT points out with a nifty sidebar, are among the most expensive per viewer. It makes sense that a startup network with a small but rabid following just going into year one would charge upwards of two dollars for the service, since there’s a lot of startup, a smallish pool of viewers, and boundless potential for demand. The price, over time, will flatten as subscribers line up.

This bit of logic won’t stop people (especially bloggers) from holding their noses and picking a side in the meteor game that is a corporate pissfight between Comcast and the Big Ten Network. Good luck with that–either one would sell your grandmother for kibble, take the dog that had eaten your grandmother, and then cook it and serve it to you as cut-rate bratwurst. It’s a pissing contest between two parties both extremely-well prepared for the fight.

And yet you merely delay the inevitable! As much of a reputation as the South has for breeding outspoken, Foghorn Leghorn orators, the SEC has actually handled most of its business
like mumming church elders lately, especially in comparison to Delany’s occasionally acrid public statements and sharp PR elbowing.

No matter, though–the Big Ten network will likely still grow into a cash pinata, with other regionals following, including (inevitably) the SEC, Pac-10, and Big 12. If you doubt it, ask the commissioner of the Big 12, who left his job last week to take a new job working at…the Big Ten Network. (God bless dramatic ellipses.)

And if you’re reading this blog, chances are your father likes or really, really likes college football. Why not give him an appropriate gift combining your mutual appreciation of sport and your varying levels of affection for him?

Our handy guide follows, custom fit for the kind of dad you may happen to have.

The Saint.

The man: Glib without being snide, an early riser, still reasonably fit and in possession of a deed to a house worth over five hundred thousand dollars in value, wise, compassionate, successful without being a total asshole, faithful to dear old mum and still prompt with the anniversary flowers, a patient and indulgent grandfather…chances are, you don’t have this dad, but if he did exist you’d hate him for being damn perfect if he weren’t Dad.

As it stands, you’re likely wrenched with guilt at being less than perfect in his shadow and compensate for it with blasts of hedonism mixed in with spurts of overachieving and frantic career switches. (Hey, guys! I’m taking the LSAT!)

The gift: In return, take revenge by giving him the tickets to any of the following games: Texas/OU in the Red River Rivalry (10/06), USC/Notre Dame (10/20), or any this year’s grand cru Iron Bowl (11/24), featuring new, industrial grade bitter with Saban v. Tuberville returning to the SEC West.

Look who’s perfect now, Dad! [/drunken post-game rant when he buys dinner.]

The Man: Mr. Harmless. Perhaps you remember Dad as less of a factor in your upbringing, and more of a quantum randomness that spend most of the time attempting to program the VCR correctly, setting different parts of the house on fire, and stocking every nook and cranny of the domicile with stuff he bought off Skymall and Hammaker-Schlemmer. (This sucked organizationally, but it did instill you with a Germanic discipline for organizing and also gave you that awesome electric fly swatter you zapped your friends with in middle school. That thing could straight hurt you if you hit it just right.)

Mr. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice: a classic Mr. Harmless.

When he did speak, it was a mumble, and usually covering a deep desire to just tinker with the gadgets his salary afforded him in between listless stints at a job, watch the occasional History Channel documentary, and spend time with his real favorite member of the family: the dog. If his emotional availability was in question, you never really begrudged him that because either you a.) really just wanted to play with the Marble Maze game all day long, too, or b.) you considered yourself lucky that you escaped the clutches of your friend’s dad, Mr. Extremely Emotionally Invested. (Goddammit, Timmy, you’re KILLING THIS FUCKING TEE BALL TEAM!!!)

Ideal gift: The Cruzin’ Cooler, of course. Look! You can even take Mr. Real Child, the dog. Has a range of up to ten miles, which is just far enough to not hear a spouse or child asking you for some shit they don’t really need.

Escape at last!

The man: Mr. Emotionally Invested. Really, really cared a lot, and all for the wrong reasons. Like a United Nations Mission wandering clumsily into the developing country of your soul, it came with all the best intentions and left the place a swarming, corrupt mess of a state, reflecting each member nation’s own failings in one quarter or another. Mr. Emotionally Invested’s archetype is the Papa Marinovich/Earl Woods type: coaching every sport, worrying constantly about the child’s height/lack of, weight/lack of, or speed/lack of.

The Great Santini is disappointed in you no matter what you do, son.

If you see a guy sitting on the bench at baby swim lessons with a copy of Mark Spitz’s biography in hand…that’s him, already busy funneling his own failed ambitions into the little automaton of a child he desperately wants to create. Oh, Jesus you’re a fucked-up puppy if you landed Mr. Emotionally Invested. Like, Mike Vick’s losing pit bull-fucked-uppedness. You either broke your chain young by becoming gay on purpose, taking up tap, pretending to be retarded for the first eight years of your life dodging any and all emotional commitment for your entire life, and wandering the streets as a soulless, half-alive shell of a person mumming along with other “HUUUU-manns.” (Either that, or you worship him and are just waiting to inflict the same concentration camp of love on your child. Don’t worry about not doing this–it’s out of your control from the start. )

The gift: Since you’ll disappoint him no matter what you do, nothing.

The man: Blackjack Bob. Did you get your intermittent Christmas gifts in the form of casino chips? Have you ever uttered the phrase “my bastard daddy” with sincerity?” Do you remember Mom crying alone a lot when you were a kid? A lot a lot? Did your father hang out with guys named Red and Shorty who were missing fingers and smelled like bad air filters? Did you nod with recognition as Reese Bobby strutted into Ricky Bobby’s classroom in Talladega Nights?

It’s okay…I’m a volunteer fireman.

Do you have happy memories of winning penny bets on the first raindrop down the windowpane? If so, you were saddled with Blackjack Bob, a man who not only infected your mother with the virus of pregnancy carelessly, but did pretty much everything else carelessly, as well, consuming the rent money, insurance money, pretty much any money he could grab on games of chance, women not named your mom, and booze.

Chances are (and with Bob, it’s all about chance) that you are in response very disciplined, successful, and yet still prone on making wild bets on the spur of the moment. You may, in fact, be named Nick Leeson, or work in the financial industry.

The gift: All that said, Blackjack Bob is still pretty likeable, so meet him at the SportsBook at Caesar’s for a long weekend of satisfying but controlled wagering on a fall Saturday. But be sure hand your ATM/Credit card to your spouse, tape an emergency stash of cash to your leg, and take only cash. Refusing to comply with these instructions could have you riding back into the United States in the floorboards of a smuggler’s bus back into the U.S. just 48 hours, waking up to the smell of exhaust and your new best friend and neighbor, Salvador Perez of el Distrito Federal. No, will not have a passport.

Suck it, SEC beatwriters!

Murphy, author of Blue Magic, a book about Boise’s mythic 2006 season, (BUY, SLAVES! CONSUME!) answers our questions in the 3 minutish clip below. Easily digestable in between your boss’s monitoring sweeps of the office:

MP3 File

Murphy also stuck around with us after the show and was the first to participate in our five minute Snap Previews, which we’re attempting to do for every single stinkin’ team in the country before the season starts. The conversation was lost to history as our recorder failed somehow, but the gist of what he said about Boise 2007 follows.

Chris Peterson is not coasting on Dan Hawkins’ fumes. If anything, the yeah-rah-Zen-WOOO! motivational techniques of Hawkins may have been wearing thin in Boise, with a general perception being that Chris Peterson was the architect of Boise’s points-cranking offenses while Hawkins clapped hands, recruited, and pushed for better facilities. Peterson’s low-key, pro, and runs a shifty offense that runs the ball with two and three tight ends constantly. That never goes out of style.

Ian Johnson is back, and this = good, even if he can’t knit caps legally for money in the NCAA’s eyes. Team chemistry (hmm murky, unprovable psychology here) may depend on Johnson’s willingness to share the ball with Jeremy Avery, Vinny Peretta, your neighbor Ed, tight ends, wide receivers, and anyone of the ten people a game Boise seems to get the ball to in rushing situations.

Replacing Zabransky is important but doable, especially with Boise’s system-first attitude and team mojo working. The front runners are Bush Hamdan, who with that name should be the official quarterback of the War Against Terror, and Taylor Tharp. Either should be fine in a system that usually runs more than it passes and offers plenty of quarterback-friendly boots, rollouts, and…

…One Ginormous Left Tackle to protect your blind side in Ryan Clady, whose stat line should read “6′6″, 319, GODDAMN.” Clady’s already looking attractive to credit card companies, sketchy, jobless relatives, and women of loose morals in the Boise area thanks to the NFL money he’ll command after 2007. It’s not a size thing, either–he’s got the nimble hippo-thing going, too, the one that makes scouts purr and hit their blackberries double-time.

Hawaii, Fresno State. That’s the season in two games for Boise. Hawaii’s on the road, and not easy. You may have last seen them beating the hair off the Sun Devils in the Sheraton Bowl.

Since the over/under could be near eighty in this game, we’re totally watching, especially to watch the Peterson brain trust match up against the run ‘n shoot and Colt Brennan, who will try to top his TD count from 2006 by throwing 293 TDs in 2007.

One odd thing you may not know about Boise State: competition is the rule in practice, often determined by freak competitions like firemen’s carries between the offense and defense or linemen fielding punts. If anyone has this footage, please send it here ASAP.

(Thanks to Brian for joining us. 116 to go.)