Ohhh, fine. Just fine.

(If anyone’s intrigued by this combination of football and girls in chaps, and would like more information, here you go.)

Play me off for 6-8 weeks, Keyboard Cat.

No permanent or lasting damage, as the piece of angry, disunited bones in my back aren’t load bearing. They do hurt like I swallowed a plugged-in soldering gun, which is why I’m waking up in a few hours to dust off some more delicious, nutritious Percocet.

Thanks to all the well-wishers on Twitter and Facebook. (Our phone doesn’t work, as the iPhone battery died last night, too.) It’s pill and sleep time, and we’ll see what “we” feel like tomorrow.

It’s a long offeseason. In an attempt to vary up the somewhat fatigued Friday rotation of non-sequitur posts called the Corrections, we will vary it with various lab experiments, including The Digital Viking: The EDSBS Guide To Spicy Living. The four categories are Drink (obvious), Comestibles (Food/Snack), Combustible (Shit what blows up), and Canon (essential films, books, and movies to understand reality as you know it.) Enjoy?

Drink.

Holly: Aviation Gin. They say: “With its full and weighty mouth feel, regionally inspired flavors of earth and spice, and a uniquely cool finish, Aviation is a rare expression of gin that shines both on its own and in one of a large number of resurrected and modern culinary cocktails colliding with ice and tin on the insides of Boston Shakers at discerning cocktail bars around the world.” I say: Aviation tastes like it’s crushed from juniper berries plucked from the titty of a naked angel of God. (I don’t know why the angel is sprouting things in this particular scenario, but this is the kind of hyperbolic bliss Aviation drives me into. Also, it renders the drinker completely comfortable with ending sentences with prepositions.)

Orson: The Harrier. God, we feel so ready to put on a pith helmet and oppress people when we drink this, and we mean that in the kindest, most polite and thorough way possible: the British way. None of this French piffling about where we intermarry/rape your natives, build a few half-assed cathedrals, teach the locals how to make bread and coffee, and then skate right before the inevitable country-destroying civil war/genocide. No, we’re going to bring some damn Britishness to this place if we have to die of malaria while playing a cricket match at noon on the equator, sir. There’s a certain way of doing things, and it’s that much easier to do when you’re subtly cranked on only the finest of gin cocktails, the Harrier.

* 2 oz gin
* 1/2 oz tincture of lavender (see here.)
* 3 oz fresh grapefruit juice
* 1 fresh lavender sprig

It’s essentially a Greyhound with Vodka, but it’s the lavender that makes this drink (gay–ed.) so completely effete, elegant, and British colonial. Also, like the Harrier, you take off in a hurry when drinking these, and sometimes crash spectacularly losing all personnel on board.

Comestibles.

Orson: Rotier’s, Nashvegas. No clue what makes the burgers at Rotier’s so crackulently addictive. We suspect it’s the middle finger to the health department on that whole “grill-cleaning” thing, and that if an errant spark were to strike the decades of built up burger residue crust giving their hamburgers such punch, the ensuing God-Fart of an explosion would make the Enschede Fireworks Accident look like the mere cheek whispering of flatulent cherubim. We mean this: Nashville would be blasted into a clean sheet of molten glass by the force, so better to keep the power making hamburgers so good you won’t slap your mother, but rather kick her through the nearest plate glass window in celebration. (She wouldn’t mind, provided you were kicking her into Rotier’s, and planned on picking up the bill.)

Holly: Meandering back to God’s country, I entreat your tired, poor, wee huddled masses yearning to breathe free to drag your carcasses down to Tuscaloosa on a fall Saturday. Find the Houndstooth, a reincarnated Crimson Tide bar, then look for the stand outside. This is run by the fine upstanding citizens of Big Bad Wolves BBQ.  They will make you something called “barbecue nachos”, a confection comprised, straightforwardly, of nachos with barbecue on them.  Proof of a benevolent sovereign hand of the universe, in snack form.

Combustibles.

Holly:

For today’s Digital Viking, having a good time doesn’t mean breaking the bank. Property damage is a must, however.

Orson: Not really combustible, but certainly goes boom:

This will come in handy in describing Auburn’s upcoming season, or in anything discussing Steve Kragthorpe.

Transit.

Orson: Joe Biden’s Hairpie Magnet of a Trans-Am, baby. Seriously, if we could own a Trans-Am without convincing ourselves that cash wouldn’t look better in our Great Hunger/Zombie Survival fund, it would be sitting on the street in front of Swindle Manor for all the crackheads of the world to break into at will…and discover our pet Gaboon Viper “Pokey” waiting in the climate controlled glove compartment.

Holly: Gentlemen, the PoleRider:

That’s a bicycle rickshaw with a pole-dancing stage welded onto the back. Your argument is invalid.

Canon.

Holly: The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and Its Proliferation. Written by a former Secretary of the Air Force and a nuclear physicist. Lots of men in ties smoking cigarettes performing daring feats of espionage while looking impossibly dashing (or like nebbishes, you never can tell).  400 pages of bomb tracing, technology hustling, and sexy Commie paranoia. 

Orson The Ginger Man by JP Donleavy. At one point in his book, the protagonist, Sebastian Dangerfield, is at a party going seriously out of bounds with a too-young woman not named “wife.” A single light bulb lights a room full of people alternately starting to have awkward public sex or retching in corners. His date asks him what they’re going to do, and Dangerfield does the only logical thing: he takes the single light bulb keeping the room lit and smashes it against the wall.

What more does one need to validate the purchase of a book than this scene and the words “Banned in Ireland”? Dangerfield is the Simpsons to Tucker Max’s Family guy, the original Bastard’s Bible for Living Poorly and Unspeakably. The Good Dr. Thompson was obsessed with the book, and for obvious reason: its protagonist, Sebastian Dangerfield, is an ass-chasing, booze-guzzling, bottle-throwing glorious wreck of a failing law student in post-war Dublin who fails nearly every human being who crosses his path by carelessly fucking them, cheating on them, damaging their property, or by throwing bottles at their head and escaping on a stolen bicycle.

Completely amoral, violent, brutish, and utterly unadmirable behavior so deliciously illustrated for hundreds of pages the Pope would probably even soil a white caftan laughing up a bit of his lunch onto it. Delectable, double-barreled blasphemy, and a book that–in spirit–you should probably steal from a large corporate bookstore.

Orson: Enemies of the State—EDSBS needs them for 2009. We will split the votes for Lane Kiffin and Urban between the two of us and run for common foes, okay?

Holly: I was just thinking about this the other day—with Nate Longshore and JPW gone, I need new punching bags. I assume we are taking Crompton and Bill Stewart in some sort of special category reserved for me. Like a playpen.

Orson: Of course. It’ll work like Federal versus State here. You’re a state.

Holly Anderson: I’m a commonwealth, beetch. First nominee: Bob Davie for crimes against the English language.
Exhibit A: “Will Muskamp.”

Orson: Actually, I’ve come to like the word “FOOTBAW”

Holly: Let that be his legacy. After he’s dead. Because we killt him. Number two: Petrino. Arkanas must not be allowed to develop legitimate football weapons, because it would upset the balance of power and disturb far more entertaining teams such as LSU.

Orson: Agreed. The SEC West is where the talented yahoos of coaching go to get their wildman on. There’s already an obsessive taskmaster there. Enemy of the State: the Rose Bowl, or Jim Delany. He’s really like the talking end of the Slither monster that is the Rose Bowl.

Holly: Yeah, that’s better. Also, he thinks wr dumm.

Orson: Fuk him.

Holly: Steed Lobotzke, for rejecting our overtures of friendship. WE JUST WANTED TO KNOW A GUY NAMED STEED
BUT THEN WE LOVED YOU FOR YOU

Orson: Further enemy of the state-age: quien es el sponsor most detestable?

Holly: Toyota—unless Saved By Zero is over.

Orson: Think that’s over. Or should we say: we HOPE that’s over. Toyota should get it anyway, as we blame them for the death of the beloved American car industry, which took away our rolling cancer deathtraps and replaced them with depressingly reliable and stylish “functional” cars.

Holly: Also, the song.

Orson: Yes. Not an earworm so much as an earsnake that raped you and didn’t even call afterwards. Also, we should pre-emptively declare war on Firefly Vodka.

Holly: It loves us and wants us to be happy.

Orson: It’s the Beast with a Million Backs from Futurama. You will love the sugary tentacle.

Holly: But what a way to go!

Orson: I know it’s going to take over, but not without a fight, Firefly. Not without a fight.

Holly: This is where I cuddle up to my bottle and reassure it that I will only fight if it wants me to.

Orson: You won’t even see it creep in: only its aftereffects will make it clear what’s happened here. The high-school girl passed out with her pants off in the corner; the unregistered handgun on the desk, smelling faintly of freshly discharged shells; the food in the sink, clearly leftover from a drunken meals devoured over the drain; the tiger. It will all make sense when you feel the pinch of the halo headache and see the empty, innocent looking bottle of Firefly on the floor, as damning a piece of evidence as a dead body on the floor with a polaroid of you killing said person stapled to its shirt.

Holly: [guzzles Firefly, continues] Can we have one enemy for absolutely no reason? Someone harmless, like Dabo Swinney. Why, you ask? Because FUCK CLEMSON (year 2!), that’s why.

Orson: My enemy for no reason will be the 12 o’clock kick against an SEC West team. Nothing good ever happens to Florida in those games. Ever.

Holly: Also, the west coast ABC affiliate that at least once a year will show That’s So Raven instead of the morning game.

Orson: Oh, burn that motherfucker to the ground. That’s savagery.

Holly: I demand reparations for that shit.

Orson: Granted. We also need a perfectly innocent player to blame for everything. Unfairly, of course. Call it the Chris Leak slot.

Holly Anderson: Who’s Willy Korn’s competition? We hate him, by virtue of NOT BEING WILLY KORN (willy korn)

Spencer Hall: Wes Byrum, Auburn Kicker. That chomp’s gonna get you mustard gassed at the Supper Club.

Orson: Actually, just Auburn, period. Take a year on the rack, Dread Pirate Roberts. If we can’t beat you, we’ll point and laugh (and lose by a field goal to you in two years GODDAMMIT WHYYYYYYY.)

Orson: We also declare the song “Click Click Boom” to be an enemy of the state. You can set a Youtube highlights video to something else. It won’t break the internet. For example, you could follow these gentlemen’s lead and pick this song, which is far better than “Click Click Boom” ever was. (Audio NSFW.)

Orson: We haven’t picked a team that we want all the bad things in life to happen to, but it should be obvious. First, by definition, Florida State; second, because we can’t beat them, Auburn.

Holly: With Chizik at the helm it’ll go bad hilariously. We should support the going.

Orson: While you’re heading toward the tree at 105 miles an hour with Chizik hammering the throttle down, let us press the button for the nitrous for you.

Holly: We will be that for you, Auburn. Because we care.

Orson: Also, new snack food to hate: Late Night Doritos, because I suspect YOU’RE JUST REGULAR DORITOS WITH PAPRIKA AND A NEW BAG.

[crackle]OF THE YEAR!![/crackle]

DAMMIT!!! I’m trying to spit game! Where the hell’z that comin’ from?

They’ll never see that “Throw” and “Sco’” rhyme comin’. It’ll go BAM!!! like Jason White’s knee. Either of them, mayun.

Orson: Thanks for joining me, Coach Richt. Not that I’m happy about it.

Mark Richt: No problem. I’m happy either way. Excuse me, I have to put away these photos of my trip visiting troops in Afghanistan this offseason. Such inspiring bravery and commitment, you know?

Orson: No problem. First, Coach Richt: what’s it like to suck so much?

Mark Richt: That’s funny, Orson. I’m actually 79-20 as a head coach, have two SEC titles, and was a successful coordinator at Florida State. I don’t know if suck is the right word.

Orson: Ha! There you go again with…um…numbers. But enough about your “record.” What about your support of domestic terrorism in the form of offering a scholarship to a player named MOHAMMED, huh?

Mark Richt: If you mean Mo Massaquoi, he’s a fine young man, and not a survivor of the horrors of the Liberian civil war. He is, however, the child of Liberian parents. I’m tolerant of all faiths, as is our program.

Orson: Whatever, Coachsama. What about your profoundly annoying religious faith you tout in recruiting and shove down people’s throats at any and all opportunities, huh?

Mark Richt: I think you’re talking about Tommy Bowden.

Orson: No I am! Yes I’m not! Anyway, it’s not like you’re not all like, “So I walk it like I talk it.”

Mark Richt: We did adopt two Ukrainian orphans, and consider ourselves blessed to have them.

Orson: Whatever. Like you’re adopting the difficult ones. I bet these were the ones with third kidneys to sell on the black market WOOO BURRN GO GATORS!

Mark Richt: Actually, one of them has Proteus Syndrome and an indomitable spirit. I’ll provide a helpful film if you like:

Orson: More “details and facts.” You use the film because you graduate none of your players, and thus have to use slideshows and simple pictographs to communicate with them.

Richt: That was a problem, but I would point out that we’re working on that, and I acknowledge that it’s a problem. Our 958 APR score is the highest among SEC schools, however. I would like to just point that out.

Orson: Whatever! I SCORE ON A DEEP PASS TO THE BACK OF THE NO-SPINDZONE! GIVE THE MAN SIX!!! Go cry in the arms of your trophy wife, sucka!

Richt: I’m married to the same woman I’ve always been with, a well-liked cancer survivor who works on the sidelines giving the players Gatorade, and is kind of hot even to a jaded, soulless blogger like you.

Orson: LALALALALALALALA I CAN’T HEAR YOUUUUUUUU!!!!! [/chugs entire bottle of sweet-tea flavored vodka, runs out of interview.]

Richt: I forgive you.

Really, he’s like a PR ninja. You throw knives at him and he disappears in a cloud of smoke.

Really? Yes? This is happening? He saddles up: shoulder pads, kneebrace, helmet. He reviews his playbook, the script for the first fifteen plays, and takes a quiet knee to collect his thoughts and ask God for protection and the wisdom to make the right decisions on the field. He rises, and the click-clack of his cleats against the concrete floor are his metronome: the symphony is about to begin.

He takes the stand, a conductor in full possession of his powers. Assmann, ready to go.

Capital quarterback Marty Assmann and Ohio State backup quarterback Todd Boeckman are total strangers, but they should do lunch sometime. Chances are the conversation wouldn’t have to start with the weather.

The conversation would probably begin: “Holy shit! You’re name is ASSMANN? YES!!! (fistpump/awkwardmoment)” Because his name really is Assmann, and he plays quarterback for Capital University, a D-III Evangelical Lutheran school in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. Assmann is the second-leading passer in the Ohio Athletic Conference, and is totally and completely actually named Assmann.

Capital University, if you make the jersey, we will buy it…so long as it’s made with the Original Assmann Quality we’ve come to expect from all things Assmann. You don’t want to ruin a fine name like that. Like Assmann. Assmann. (Giggle.)

This video represents the greatest amount of fun anyone has ever had with a Bob Davie football-related event, though you wouldn’t know it from the guy’s relatively impassive face. Footbaw! (HT: Dave.)

Backstabbers…BACKSTAAABAAAARS!!!

How does Alvin Wyatt afford such fine threads on a Bethune-Cookman salary? Without raiding George Benson’s closet? And on top of the Caddy bill? Easy. He lives in the dorm with his players.

That’s Howard Schnellenberger. He freed the Philippines and busted Chinese heads in Korea while you were just bad theory, son. He built a steam engine that ran on his own sweat, strapped it to some oil barrels, and made dolphins waterski behind him. He’s seen more life in the past year than you’ll see in eighty. We should also mention that he’s 247 years old and just push jerked 350 pounds while having a casual phone conversation with his close personal friend Otto von Bismarck this morning? Yeah, Bismarck’s dead and “that’s impossible!” but it’s limited thinking like that that keeps you a slave to your own mediocrity, sir.

The Dapper Don’s FAU Owls are picked first in the Sun Belt for 2008. Second place will be occupied by no team, and will instead be claimed by a rotating pair of suspenders taken from Schnelly’s closet. Third place will be left blank out of respect…and fear.

You know the “owls” refers to “burrowing owls,” right? No? Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick! Everyone knows a burrowing owl lives in a hole in the ground…

Later, O’Brien owned up to his ABBA addiction: “‘Dancing Queen’ is just hard to sit down to.”

Before ye cast any stones, consider two key facts. First, Tom O’Brien is a Marine, and therefore probably by category tougher than 98 percent of you currently not in ninja school or reading this on a laptop from the back of your donkey somewhere in the Hindu Kush as you travel in your duties as a Green Beret or SEAL. Even in aluminum foil loingerie (male version), he’s tougher than you are.

See that girl, watch that scene, diggin’ the Dancin’ Queen. Pic by Eagle Talon over at BC’s Scout board.

Second, “Dancing Queen” is a damn catchy song…no matter who’s covering it…

U2:

Salma and Sabina Agha in Hindi:

Diablo (wooo AH AH AH AH):

The original. And please, appreciate the men’s shirts. The video gets richer by the second if you do

Never though have we pulled off the bifecta quite like Xavier Hicks, Jr. did this week. Hicks, whom you may remember most recently as the teammate who kindly assisted another Washington State Cougar with his contact lenses by pouring rubbing alcohol into them, was pulled over for driving on a suspended license on the way home from serving a 45 day sentence in jail.

Who did this? Me, that’s who!

A misdemeanor ticket was issued, and Hicks did not have to return to jail, where he had just served a combined term for the rubbing alcohol incident and a separate fun credit card incident. He does, however, pick up two points for Washington State in the Fulmer Cup, with the additional point coming for the undeniably stylish feat of getting pulled over on the way home from jail, a combo comparable to being caught paying for a prostitute with your wife’s credit card.

I got your “Coach Gomer” hanging between my legs you 4 eyed, non playing, never played football pussy.

Ladies and gentleman, Shawn, who sends us this email from bridgepark@verizon.net! He got into kolledge, and gud fur himm and hiz coach gommer. It’s true: we’ve never played football. In fact, we’ve never even heard of the game, preferring instead to spend our days trimming orchids and reading Austen reclined in a divan. Is that something rough boys play? Outside, in the hot air?

Our new author photo.

A much more reasoned response to our recent “thoughts” on West Virginia may be found over at WBGV.

Geniuses are like thunderstorms. They go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air.