Readers can send you emails that force you to rethink things. Sometimes those things are things like whether you should purchase a spare firearm from Dee Webb, and sometimes those things are far more benign, like reconsidering something you wrote that was so obviously half-assed you're ashamed of even typing it.
The reader in this case, Mark, threw a brick of logic through the window of the crazy house we've been building called the Fulmer Cup.
You know, you may want to rethink the Fulmer Cup point system. A cup named after Fulmer should really be about quantity, not quality. Do 10 miscellaneous underage-drinking, speeding, DUI and campus fights outweigh one murder? Absolutely. Else we'd really think Navy was a thug program and FSU just middle of the road.
Methinks you ought to scale down the multiples a bit. 5 for Murder One is more balanced. Give the 7th Floor Crew a chance to catch up!
Mark makes one mistake here: he assumes that anything on this blog has anything to do with logic. Forgiving that, he's totally right: giving Navy an insurmountable eight while UGA rolls through their annual cycle of suspended license charges and drinking-related follies makes very little sense, even with Red Queen Orson presiding over this particular court. (Not that sailors can't or necessarily won't make up ground, as well. You know them, those filthy beggars, going from port to port...)
Who's in charge of this thing? Oh, yeah. Off with his head.
We know revise the scoring system down to a max 5 point system, with Loren Wade-style "shooting someone in the face while screaming RIVERSIDE MOTHERFUCKER!" first degree murder earning you a stout five points. Other crimes, misdemeanors, and various stank point modifiers are located in the list below:
Rape: 4 points. Downgraded to one if either participant is wearing a clown mask.
Bestiality: 4 points. It's a form of rape, really, no matter how much the goat has had to drink. High point value justified further by the fact that it involves having sex with an animal, which you would say was unthinkable if we hadn't had in the past year alone two stories involving college athletes and at least the association with barnyard bonhomie of a most intimate degree, including the EDSBS Official GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, the arrest of Oregon State player Ben Siegert for stealing a sheep used in a study on homosexuality in sheep.
Grand Larceny: 4 points. We use this as a catchall for players being involved in crime so outrageous and well-planned it can only be described as "nefarious," "professional," or "legislation." Applies to large drug rings, chop shop operations, and the Haitian human trafficking ring that's been run out of the Miami locker room since '93. (We kid! They didn't get that thing humming 'til '95 at the earliest.)
Hitting Girls, a.k.a. the Ernie Sims School of Easy Lovin' Level: 3 points. We'll downgrade this to 2 if the girl can hold her weight and requires daily medication to prevent her from gouging her own eyes out--since those were the ones we always ended up dating, and we understand--or upgrade to 4 if the damage includes intensive care. But Dad always said never hit girls, so we take this one seriously. Dad also said always double down with split aces, too, but we'll be damned if we didn't end up selling bone marrow in Macau the last time we followed that bit of advice.
Car theft/Assault/Driving through houses drunk/Drug possession of the Tyrone Biggums variety: 3 points. "Drug possession" never sounds all that bad until you add in "crack cocaine," which is society's signifier that your life has gone from that of high functioning simian in a complex society to that of a rat with electrodes in your brain's pleasure centers hitting a pedal in a glass box in a lab. Weed? Par for the course, especially if you're NFL-bound. Crack? Break out the Sportscentury "Weepy Sonata" music, because the story of your descent from boundless potential has just begun, and they haven't even begun to show the grainy shots of 130-lb you huddled in a shelter on Skid Row.
Fightin' in 'da Club/Weed Possession/Standard DUI: 2 points. Any scenario involving group fighting of a thugged-out, "we run this place" variety, and marijuana possession of the nickel bag level. Possession of 100 pounds of marijuana is a totally different thing, and takes you right back up to the 4 point "nefarious" level.
Drankin'/Suspended License/Assorted petty misdemeanors: 1 point.