1. Suspenders, for the 746th week in a row.

2. Whole Plums. Codgers swear by prunes, but the pits are key. The digestive aid you can hear working.

3. Ted’s Drive-thru Smoked Fish, Liquor, and Mens Finery, A1A, West Palm Beach. All your needs in one place.

4. Accountants who don’t turn out to be housecats. I’ll get you, Colby Nolan.

5. Clydesdales. Mass transit Kentucky-style.

6. Squirrels. You’d think they’d make great corners, but we tried that in ‘85. Got us to a bowl game, but I wouldn’t dare try it twice.

7. Paraffin. Hair product, boat sealant, delicious snack.

8. Apollo 11. But not 13. John Swigert was a pantywaist.

9. David Allan Coe. That man can spell relief.

11. Post-hole diggers. Bury small amounts of gold doubloons in your backyard for a 401-karat retirement plan. Can also double as marital aid.

12. The English School of Feminine Landscaping. The palm trees let a man know he’s found the oasis, ladies.

13. Lobsters. Great listeners.

14. Thunder Road. Only instructional driving movie a man needs.

15. Mrs. Butterworth. Nothing like that silhouette to stir a man’s loins in the morning. Someday she’ll talk to me, that flirt.

16. Chum. Breakfast of champions, aftershave of ladyslayers, and surefire friend-finder for a morning swim.

17. Turfman’s All-in-One Flare Gun and Dentifrice Dispenser. Mind which end you use unless you want the wake-up call of a lifetime. Another essential product from the Turfman Company, makers of Turfman’s Scotch: “If you can’t join the Whig Party, you can always drink Turfman’s.”

18. Coriander. Grind a little onto your yarbles. Fresh as a daisy and smells like autumn. Ladies like it cozy down Mexico way.

19. Lima. Good town for a burro-throwin’, lady-towin’ man like myself. Their burros just love a good tossin’.

20. Grover Cleveland. Great president. Better hangman. The best muppet.

21. USC. God, John Robinson’s got some work to do there, I tell you.

22. Orange Julius. Demand they leave the shell on the eggs. Makes a mustache firm enough to scrub the scum off a tugboat’s hull. Which is what I’m doing right now.

23. Mack Brown. The man can rhumba like he’s skinned and eaten Carmen Miranda. And we’ve all been there.

24. Bolo ties, aka. “The West Texas Emergency Sex Brake.” Pull it for relief, ladies of the Llano Estocado.

25. Bathroom attendants. I don’t pay ‘em to applaud, but they do anyway.

The header on this video is “One of the worst offensive series ever in college football,” and if you limit the definition of “worst” to “a series where, while not turning the ball over for a change of possession or a score, the offense displays repeated, consistent, and diverse ways of stepping face first in front of the red boxing glove on an expanding arm time and time again,” then yes; we’re talking about what might legitimately be not one, but the worst series of offensive football every played.

Ladies and gentlemen: Nicholls State versus Northwestern State. Northwestern has the ball on the Nicholls State 47, and is down 33-14. Watch from between your fingers if you have to.

1st and 10: incomplete pass. The best drive for Northwestern State all drive, as it is merely an incompletion.

2nd and 10: Illegal procedure, NW State. Also, an oncoming pass rusher flies sideways into the qb’s knee after the play.

2nd and 15: False start, NW State. General look of confusion as players fuddle around as if someone has abandoned them coachless on the sideline.

2nd and 20: Ball on the 43. A near interception, which would have been a merciful stroke of fate. Instead a holding penalty is called, and the penalty sets them back even further to the 33 yard line.

2nd and 30: Sometimes you shoot yourself in the foot, and sometimes you shoot yourself in the foot and remember that your foot is made not of human flesh, but of high-grade explosives. The quarterback kicks the ball, which is an illegal kicking penalty taken at half the distance to the goal from the end of the run backwards to find the ball. Hold yourself fo the resulting count:

3rd and 61: The second best play all drive, as the qb is pressured, does not step out of bounds and into a waiting tree shredder, and throws the ball out of bounds outside of the tackle box.

4th and 61: Punt. Well, presumably punt. We really don’t know what happens here. Perhaps they actually do get the punt off; perhaps the punter takes the ball, attempts a fake, and is struck by an 18 wheeler speeding out of control off a local highway and over the hapless special teamer. Maybe it’s blocked. Whatever happens, the universe decided to truncate the video here, and with good reason, too. You don’t see the Joker kill anyone in the Dark Knight’s scary videos, either, but they’re still enough to give you screaming nightmares for weeks.

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.

If you doubt he actually said it:

So, attention bears, twinks, circuit boys, fluffers, power bottoms, greasers, dry-runners, barebackers, dogs-in-the-bath freaks, poofters, and those struggling with Dry Clam Syndrome around the nation: Bill Stewart says West Virginia can not only help you out, but keep you warm in the process. Albeit, you may have black lung when you finish whatever it is you plan to do with that oil, but sickness of the lungs and pneumatic system makes one lusty in a Doc Holliday kind of way.

It all sounds ordinary enough, until you realize that Natasha Lipschtick & the Psychic Yentas will be at hand to read palms, lip prints, handwriting, Tarot cards, shells, sand, auras, tea leaves, crystal balls, and even wallets (they’ll be especially interested in those).Geddy the (Breakdancing) Gecko, a nationally acclaimed mascot-for-hire since 1995, will add flair to the festivities, which include: a DJ, a “Summer Basics” fashion show, a 2-for-1 Happy Hour, food, gaming, prize drawings, and a UFO fly-by. That last part’s made up, but it shouldn’t be ruled out — when the Psychic Yentas are in town, the impossible becomes possible. The shindig runs from 6 — 8 p.m. Tickets cost $25; $20 if you RSVP.

Tickets still available! Clearly there’s a disconnect here. (Though perhaps the intent is to suck confused retirees in and then get them to write checks for robot insurance in the form of football players protecting their community.) All the FAU athletic department need to do is print up a simple flyer sans expensive psychics and fashion show. It should look something like this:

plus

equals

See? Saved you thousands of dollars in entertainment expenses there. You want dinosaurs flying jets, just put barrel-aged sexy and his suspenders at a bar and let the masses mingle. He’ll have them signing over second mortgages for the Owls in no time.

A Smooth House. The whole idea of smooth is to pretend you’re living on a houseboat in California, or in a ski house in Vail. (Not Aspen–that’s so 80s, man.) If you don’t have a houseboat in California, that’s fine: purchase a houseboat somewhere else. The houseboat should come equipped with a hot, lanky woman who wakes up in a bikini on it four or five days a week. She should be a marine biologist, or failing that,

If you can’t find a houseboat equipped with a hot, lanky woman in a hip-hugger two-piece, or just can’t find a houseboat, you must consider purchasing a home in the woods. The home should be made of pine cut into boards set at 45 degree angles, and it should feature wraparound decks, huge bay windows in geometric shapes, and an irregular offset roof with a window across the top. It should be decorated in mostly browns, feature lots of rugs and wicker furniture, and have a hot tub you can go into naked with some pink champagne and a brunette majoring in ecology or some shit like that.

Oh, and a fireplace with a rug in front of it, because that’s where you get your smooth lovin’ on. It’s as key as blow, backgammon, and Dallas on Friday nights.

Fondue. No class smoothness can happen without fondue. It’s important if you’re classing up to the Smooth Life to have a primo fondue set. It’s beyond question that the highest calling of a the sophisticated smooth gentleman of 1980 is satsify woman in the smoothest but still indomitable way. And what shows your controlled but steady heat of your Sterno-hot soul like fondue, which combines something classy and foreign with something completely American: covering tasty shit in low grade melted cheese.

Hot, but smooooooooth.

Plus there’s all these forks and shit that go with it. It’s sort of like purchasing a knife set–manly!–that you can use to impress ladies with while eating cheese. If you called that a hat trick, brother, then smooth is in the very marrow of your bones.

Raquetball. Gyms are for gay guys, and though you’re technically cool with that, you wear the bait-and-tackle-revealing jean cutoffs for the ladies and for the ladies only. And who wants to get all muscle-y and ripped? Again, you’re about being a lean, smooth-sailin’ vessel, and all the Hawaiian shirts, ski vests, Swedish ski sweaters and Izod shirts you just purchased didn’t come cheap, hombre. (Thus explaining the Velveeta used instead of the more expensive Emmenthaler, baby.)

So get some male-bonding time, exercise, and another excuse to buy some more shit with all that sweet money you’re making with your Texas Instruments and Teledyne stock in one easy step: racquetball. You have to wear special goggles, use a racket, buy special shoes, wear short shorts to show off the legs, buy some new striped tube socks, and use a special ball that smells just like the aroma of a used condom heated by hot fireside action after some fondue and Champale. (Not that you use a condom, smooth guy. It’s all organic with me. The rest is her problem, man.)

The added bonus are the nasty scars and bruises you might get when your partner broadsides you with the edge of his racquet. See? I wasn’t meaning to be macho, because it’s ‘80 and we’re all past that now. But yeah, I kept playing. No, go ahead and touch it. It doesn’t hurt…too..much…

Adrenaline junkie? Go hang-gliding. It’s like sailing, but in the air.

Smooth Tunes. Now, we’re not going to hedge you in. Yacht Rock’s just one way to keep smooth. If you break jazzy and sinister intellectual, then you’re a Steely Dan man. Doing drugs makes you a Steely Dan dude, too, especially because they’re loaded with lots of references to blow and smoking opium. Don’t listen to the lyrics, because then you might start to think, and that’s most definitely UNsmooth.

If you’re a little country, then you’ve got to hybridize with some Buffett, because that guy is all about smooth, but in a beachy kind of way. Weed and booze is pretty much what you’ll get here, so you might have to get a nice couch to do it right, because you’re not really going to be moving for a few years. Go ahead and listen to the lyrics, too: they’re great for your soul, because they’ll tell you that no matter what you’re doing at this moment, well, that’s just what you should be doing, and it’s all good as long as you grab a drink and just look at the waves, man.

And if you’re a bit more urban, well, right on, brother! Earth, Wind, and Fire is your ticket.

Be careful with getting into soul and r ‘n b, though: you might have to start dancing energetically, and that’s bordering on UNsmooth.

Backgammon. You don’t know how to play it. That’s cool. It comes in its own suitcase and has dice and a shaker, and there’s lots of smooth little pieces, so it must be good. By the time you start to play it with the lady, it’ll be too late to figure out the game anyway, so hammered will you be on White Zin and the fine Thai Stick you’ll be smoking. Suggest you settle your dispute over the “rules” with a kiss, and you’re suddenly playing the game you came to play all along and taking off those corduroys, Captain.

Speaking of…

A Captain’s Hat. Ironic? Sure. Serious? Damn right, because this crazy ocean of a life may throw every wave imaginable at you, sailor. You have to be ready, both mentally and spiritually, ready to tack and go where the wind takes you. No fashion decision makes this statement more clearly than the Captain’s Hat, showing that while you have some outlaw spirit, you’re no pirate: a leader of men, a lover of ladies, and yet married to the sea. (Plus: covers receding hairline.)

An Audi. It’s not BMW pretentious, but it’s still German. Other acceptable displays of your commitment to the automotive smooth: A Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, MG, or Fiat, the smaller and more convertible, the better, since you don’t want all that flyover state bulk weighing you down, and the wind’s got to tousle your hair or what’s the point of breathing, man.

Cocaine. You think energetic is unsmooth, man? Hell no: you level out the booze with blow, just to keep it smooth but tight, baby. Makes fixing the fondue twice as fun both because of the sudden energy you’ll possess in getting the kitchen CLEANER THAN YOU EVER IMAGINED IT COULD BE, but also because once the fondue is done and you’ve gotten the hot tub cranking, you’ll be a mad tiger by the fireside…but only if you call the tiger out, baby. Otherwise, I’m just another lamb seeking refuge from the wolves, lady.

Also: cocaine and a cocaine habit makes losing the “contemporary” house or houseboat really, really easy later down the road. Easier, in fact, than you could have possibly imagined!

Dallas. Oh, you know it’s trashy, but J.R. is such an unbelievable badass you can’t look away. He impregnates his brother’s sister, and then has her sent away? And then turned into a spinoff? J.R. spellbinds you by ruining Cliff Barnes’ life weekly, banging every foot-tall hairdo that walks into the room before spanking them in gratitude and sending them on their way, and in one season by overthrowing a third-world government. Toss in the endless string of tailored suits, the ice-blue eyes of a stone-cold amoral killer, and the evil but irresistable grin, and you’ve got the perfect way to chill out with a cold glass of champagne on your massive an inevitably brown couch on Friday night.

“Are you telling me you had nothing to do with that counter-revolution?” God, we wish that would be asked of us just once in our lifetime.

The Offseason Survival Guide