Handler One: Ralphie, that’s a good girl.

Handler Two: Man, she’s flipping me out right now.

Ralphie: Trample. Kill. Ram. Trample. Gore. Crush crush trample. Fear. Two legs everywhere. Trample them all. Desperate hunger for grass. Kill.

Handler Three: We’ve got to go in two.

Handler One: Look at her eyes. It’s just one pit of black surrounded by white fear. God, that’s unnerving.

Ralphie V: Hunger. All that grass. Must crush, then eat. Sun. Buffalo in heaven. Demand blood. Ram. Stomp. Run. Kick. Destroy two legs.

Hander Two: Where’s Trey? He’s supposed to be here. We can’t do this with just three handlers.

Handler Three: We ready to go?

Trey, Handler Four: Hey, guys, when are we—AAAIIIIGGGHHHHH

Handler one, hanging on for dear life: OH GOD HER EYES HAAAAIIIIIILLLLLP!

Ralphie: OPEN SPACE RUN KILL.

Handler Four: My insides feels leaky and warm…I can’t feel…my…hands…

Handler One: I CAN’T HOLD ON JESUS CHRIST WHY THE HELL DO WE HAVE A BUFFALO THEY DON’T LIKE LEASHES!!!!

Dan Hawkins: Well done, boys! That’s a division one football mascot!

Ralphie: Sun. Grass. Trampled. Yes. Suddenly tired. Hungry. Stop.

Handler One: MY SHOULDER! OH GOD MY SHOULDER!

Hawkins: Can we get her to skydive onto the field? And then trample someone? That would be EPIC.

(HT: Rashaan Salaam)

The debate over replacing the retiring Reveille VII (that prounounced “vaiiiii”) at Texas A&M has gotten quite spirited for a place priding itself on military traditions like order and swift decision-making. To wit:

“I think Reveille VIII should be an American collie because it’s tradition, and isn’t that what A&M’s all about?” freshman general studies major Emily Hudson said.

“Reveille should be a mutt. [Collies] are really spastic and hard to train. And mutts, since they have a mixture of all different genes, they tend to be a lot smarter,” junior marketing major Kelley Baxter said.

Yeah, that’s right. Listen to the person who’s actually declared a major, Texas A&M, and back up because we ’bout to drop some policy:

EDSBS Policy: Texas A&M, you should get a mutt. First, it sets an exemplary standard for your community and for the rest of the world as a whole if you adopt a stray dog–just like the first Reveille–and take it back to campus to become the new, freshly dewormed mascot of your school. It would be timely, too, since stray dogs are the third-greatest threat to Americans in their homes, topped only by our natural enemy the sun and, of course, Kimbo Slice.

All they want is love, your garbage, and a soft place to lay down. Oh, and occasionally a child stolen from the neighbors’ yard to play with, but isn’t that what the road trip to Austin every other year is for? Exactly. Our bluetooth devices are communicating smoothly and processing nicely here.

Slow down your heart rate, man. He’s getting angry!

Second, do not just get any mutt that comes along. No, Aggies, you must select a hoodtastic mix of some of nature’s gnarliest dog breeds all force-humped into a single physical vessel through a genetic lineage so convoluted Mormon polygamists would weep at its complexities. Chow, pit bull, Rottweilers, Cane Corsos, Doberman Pinschers, Anatolian Shephereds, German Pit Chows, Dogo de Argentinas, Brazilian Mastiffs, the rare but powerful Scythian Rape Terrier…all of them need to be present in one form or another here. The final product should look something like Cerebrus, the three headed dog guarding the gates of hell, but only after the bad ass middle head decided it was tired of all the other heads’ yapping and ate them in a 35 second display of horrifying, impressive ferocity.

Take care to raise it with humans and socialize it early and often. And never, ever, leave it with fewer than three people at once, and try to keep it away from flashing lights and loud yells. For football games, sedate with 200 mg Seconal, or whatever amount will get it to a manageable level of fury. It all sounds like trouble, but if you want the Hound of the Baskervilles as envisioned by a Russian bioweapons lab, then you pay the price, amigos.

Oh, and if the Brazos Animal Shelter doesn’t have one of those lying around, you might consider contacting a Russian bioweapons lab. Those people do great work. For an example, just look at Terrence Cody. He cost Saban a pretty pony (no typo–Saban has to feed him one each day), but 900 pound defensive tackles don’t grow all by themselves.

This Guinness commercial has been haunting our dreams. Who are these little men? Why do they die every time we drink a Guinness? What goes on in their souls? And why are they wearing helmets? We get inside on of their brains in this piece below. No, we’re not on cold medicine.)

I look so tough: the chin jutted forward, the helmet down. I don’t even know why we wear helmets: there’s the boom, the whoosh out of the cannons, and then the meaningless impact, chaos, and disintegration that is my life.

That may look like bravado. But it’s only looks. You see bravery. I see a hollow man rocketing toward the only destiny he’s ever known or ever will know: falling, gravity, and ultimately my demise in a mist of droplets of what used to be my soul. (more…)

Scene: Vietnamese boathouse. Jim Tressel is being led into a room filled with men with guns. Reference: The Deer Hunter, for those not raised on watching scary Vietnam movies on Betamax.

From Mr2Cents, as usual.

Welcome. We’re the rest of college football. Jim Tressel, we play this game now. You sit here. South Florida, sit over there. Three. No less, no more. Spin the barrels. Welcome to hell. You’re number one? Nice. Spin the barrels anyway.

The preseason top ten? They were at this table, too. MAO! (Slap!) 16 losses between all of them. The consensus number one, USC? Lost to unranked Stanford. Spin the gun. Now! MAO! (Slap!) Favored by forty one points and they lost, sucker. You thought you stood a chance? LSU sat at this table, too, ’till they lost to Kentucky in three overtimes, stung by the first team that could pass effectively against six man blitzes. MAO! (Slap!)

Spin the barrels. MAO! Congrats. Number one gets to sit at the table. Quite a prize, no?

Louisville played the part of the Yugo: they started smoking early and often, losing to unranked teams until they spun wrong and ended up in the river. West Virginia couldn’t handle South Florida. (more…)

Holly from Ladies…comes over to begin the 96-Hour Hate right: by engaging in redneck death threats with us. (She had the misfortune of attending the University of Tennessee and rooting for its despicable, shitty football team.) Enjoy. Play the David Cross for appropriate soundtrackage.

MP3 File

OS: Torture, motherfucker. Go

Holly: I will fasten you to the front of a train leaving Chicago at 55 mph at noon heading towards another train leaving Boston at 75 mph at 3 PM.

Try and resist its call, Vol fan.

OS: I will hand you a packet of silica gel that does not say “DO NOT EAT.” You will then eat it because these are irresistable to people.

Holly: I will send you quail hunting with Anthony Morelli. And employ you as Michael Henig’s Lovely Assistant during his twilight career as a traveling magician.

OS: I will give you a tapeworm and transfer your job to a town without buffet-style family eateries.

Holly: AAAAAHHH I WAS JUST TYPING THIS: “All I have so far is “I will chain you to the door of a crowded Golden Corral, stick my head in the door, and yell “SOMEBODY’S KEYIN’ A TRUCK!” (more…)

We began this entry looking for embarrassing clips of Vols fans. Our search took us somewhere else entirely: to a video of a Tennessee fan scoring a Tank Abbott-worthy roundhouse on a red-panted UGA fan in the middle of the street.

The Tennessee guy appears to be the second coming of Buford Pusser. We were going to be all sportsmanlike and gentlemanly and congratulate the unfortunate recipient of the blow on getting up in a non-wobbly fashion. However, as appeared to start the fight on the night his team gave up fifty and failed to execute the individual revenge in front of gathered hundreds, we revoke the offer.

Next time, we recommend brown pants, brawlin’ Bulldog fan.

On hearing the news that Joe Pa hobbled down to Louisiana to talk to LSU coaches about using a big-armed, possibly thick-skulled quarterback effectively….

Scene: LSU football offices. Located behind LSU’s Sausage Research Center and Chicken Rape Facility, just past the Earl K. Long Institute for the Study of Blooping and Beeping Highway Rest Stop Gaming Devices. Joe Paterno, Penn State Football Coach, walks with cane up to Les Miles door, mopping his brow.

JoePa: Hiya, Les. Joe Paterno here AIIIGHHHH FUCKING JESUS WHAT IS THAT?

Les Miles: Hi, Joe. Never mind him. That’s just an alligator on a leash.

JoePa: That’s not even your mascot.

Les Miles: A tiger on the loose? Please, we’re not crazy down here. (more…)

Given ample time, we think the laws of physics and parallel universes imply that you could find a video of yourself being concussed by a bloodthirsty safety.

In fact, according to a Scientific American article we skimmed on the toilet one day, there has to be a parallel universe where you’re being killed on a Youtube clip. In fact, there’s one where you’re this Texas Tech wide receiver getting his sternum shattered by a TCU d-back. And that parallel universe utterly sucks for you.

Warning: This is not a love song.Caustic language ahead. But you knew that already.

Mark Schlabach turns in a piece on [NAME REDACTED], the coach who spent three years in the offices of the Florida athletic department and now does the same at the University of Illinois. During that time, [NAME REDACTED] spent his time performing what he defined as the seven core competencies of a head coach:

Headbutting Coke machines. You can’t just get angry–you have to emote to show your passion to 18 year olds and other young adults watching you. (The one thing 18 year olds are short on is passion. We know, we know, but this is written in the high ironic from [NAME REDACTED]’s point of view. Roll with it.)

Therefore, you demonstrate your commitment and passion by headbutting machinery. Mind the ones with glass fronts, though the bleeding may add to the image. Watching film does not show passion, by the way. Avoid.

Talking on the phone in the shower. [NAME REDACTED] actually did have a phone in the shower so he could call recruits while washing all that blood off from headbutting innocent Coke machines. It also allowed him to hold conversations without bursting into flame from all the passion and excitement he emits. (Florida fans, in unison: pity, really.)

Writing stuff down on a notepad. What was he writing down? This, actually:

Saying the same five things over and over again. [NAME REDACTED] forever claimed how “excited” he was, and how the mental lapses and inability of his team to close games was “correctable.” In year one, this was pablum. In year two, it crept into delusion. In year three, it crossed the line into what philosopher Harry Frankfurt would correctly identify as bullshit. The difference between that and standard clipboard-holding lies?

Both in lying and in telling the truth people are guided by their beliefs concerning the way things are. These guide them as they endeavor either to describe the world correctly or to describe it deceitfully. For this reason, telling lies does not tend to unfit a person for telling the truth in the same way that bullshitting tends to. …The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

Paying no attention became a theme for [NAME REDACTED], whether it involved the truth, the ineffectiveness of the soft zone late in the game, or the rogue waves of incompetence paralyzing Florida late in the game. And yet…it was all correctable. Which was technically correct, but only in the most lawyerly way possible, since the correction required involved his removal, a prescription eventually administered by those who held the purse strings.

Anyway, Mark Schlabach’s got this piece on [NAME REDACTED] that backs up Orson’s Sad But Reliable Rules for Humanity yet again.
(more…)

We’d stop doing this, but we just can’t. The hangover’s just too sweet to relinquish.

Your tears…they bring us joy. We drink them from your Heisman-winning skull.

The Subcommandante will be along in a bit. First, foozball news.

Never outsource your dastardly plots. Never! There FSU was, all tied to the railroad tracks, down 27-23 and getting run over by UCLA, a team that couldn’t run its way through soggy drywall all year. If it was us in charge of this dastardly plot, we would have twiddled our inky black mustache, secured the Seminoles to the track tightly with only the newest, bleached-white rope, and then backed away and let the 4:23 inbound from Portland do the work.

Alas: not all help is created equal. UCLA just sat there, locked at 27-23 for five minutes or so, and when the inevitable rush came flying back for FSU, they collapsed. Yes, they did get off the rails with the assistance of a positively negligent no-call on a pass-interference play where Greg Carr tossed a db to the ground and caught the patented Jeff Bowden Jump Ball for a touchdown. (Jeff Bowden’s reaction shot nearly made us throw up our cough medicine.)

But UCLA let Polly Trueheart off the tracks, and even loosened a few coils of the rope just to make things fair. Nestor and the rest of Bruins Nation weren’t even surprised, right? 4th and nothing on FSU’s goal line, and Dorrell opts for the field goal despite running at will on FSU’s defense to that point. That’s how you end up losing 44-27 to a team Wake Forest blanked at home.

Never, ever send someone else to do your dirty work. Nevah!

Always, always tie the maiden to the tracks yourself. You never know how other people will do it.

Part Two of the Golden Unicycle Diaries, a highly digressive discussion between Orson and Peter Bean of Burnt Orange Nation.

“This might end before it starts.”

Enjoy.

OS: Sheraton Hawaii Bowl. Arizona State and Hawaii.

PB: Now that has a nice ring to it.

OS: I love hotel sponsored bowls. Make me think of overbleached towels and ten dollar porn movies.

PB: Do we get our first shot of Dennis Erickson, mai tai in hand, two hot hawaiian babes on each arm?

OS: Switch the number of drinks and women.

PB: This may end before it begins. Right there in Hawaii.

PB: Berman and Erickson playing golf, getting wasted, a sexual assault. WOOP!

OS: Dennis Erickson drives equipment cart into volcano.

OS: Dennis Erickson goes on whale watch, attempts to beat up blue whale, devoured with camelback full of hobo wine still strapped to his back.

OS: OMG I am so glad he’s coaching again.

PB: Your job as writer just got so much better.

(more…)

We’re getting geeked up for a slugfest with the Nutter Catastrophe attack and Humanity Advanced by cruising Youtube and hoping the officemates don’t laugh too hard at our ferocious air bass lines.

Our inner Marxist wins the morning hour. BTW, if anyone makes a Urban Meyer Che Guevara shirt, we’l buy one the second it goes for sale. ¡Viva la revolucion!

Georgia/Georgia Tech had a lot of interesting moments, but like spectators on the highway, the attention tends to focus on the obvious disasters. Like Reggie Ball playing the University of Georgia at quarterback, a role of such abject misery and incompetence as to paralyze any conventional comparisons we’d care to make. For the past four years, him under center against UGA has been like looking at the fresh wreckage of a car crash for four hours straight and waiting for the gas tank to go off in a ball of flame and sizzled flesh.

Reggie Ball: set to go off at any instant.

For four years running, it went off with unreal frequency and regularity. Which means we’ve got to dig into the Douglas Adams archives to find just the right blend of unreal bad luck, shoddy execution, and futile self-mutilating rage to capture the career of Reggie Ball properly. (Warning: two minutes of internet research required. Gird that attention span, ADDers!)

First, the numbers: For his career against UGA, Ball went 45-104 with one touchdown and five interceptions. He was sacked at least six times, and tackled for losses on hopeless scrambles on innumerable occasions. He also lost four fumbles, including Tony Taylor’s squirrel/nut run giving UGA their first score in 2006 and signalling the beginning of the final catastrophe.

Worse than the number was the timing of Ball’s mistakes:

–2003: knocked out with concussion caused by running into own teammate.

–2004: throws ball away on 4th down on potential game-winning drive.

–2005: throws game-ending interception five yards shy of tying td.

–2006: loses crucial fumble for score AND throws game ending pick into triple coverage on final drive with over a minute left on clock.

Ball was a master–in fact, he got worse with each game he played against Georgia. The more the pressure mounted, the more success Ball enjoyed as a starter, the worse he played against the Bulldogs. He came back stronger each time, and yet could not stop improving on his masterwork of disaster. In fact, his senior year capped his artistry: not only did he lose a game-killing fumble, he also tossed his signature game-losing pick, a Matisse of malicious fortune and bad execution made worse with a 6 for 22 performance killing any potential of consistent passing offense.

The simile: Reggie Ball : Georgia as Agrajag : Arthur Dent. The story:

Agrajag is a piteous creature that is continually reincarnated and subsequently killed unknowingly by Arthur Dent each time. Agrajag first appears in the series as a falling bowl of petunias (although, if the books are read in sequence, the reader doesn’t know it at the time). In another incarnation, he was a prehistoric rabbit who was killed by Arthur for breakfast and whose skin was fashioned into a pouch, which is then used to swat a fly who happened to be Agrajag. In yet another, he dies of a heart attack after seeing Arthur and Ford materialize, seated on a Chesterfield sofa, in the midst of a cricket match at Lord’s Cricket Ground.

If there’s any harmony in this universe, Reggie Ball will end up in his next life as a pot of petunias, which will be dropped from a windowsill by an offspring of Paul Oliver.

Reggie, seen here in his next life plotting his soon-to-be-thwarted revenge.