New Year’s Resolution: Make MY Blog as popular as Jesus’ blog
Jesus and Buddha decide to go on vacation together. They argue about where they should go. Buddha wants a place with a rice supply. Jesus wants a place with a good internet connection. They consider going to Spain, but Buddha doesn’t think paella is really a rice dish. Jesus suggests India, but Buddha is scared to go back to India…plus the Ganges River is too polluted, and Jesus doesn’t really want to go there either. They settle on Japan. They share a small apartment in Tokyo. Buddha screenprints t-shirts. Jesus blogs about television dramas. They fear their landlady MORE than they fear God. It’s an absolutely charming and funny scenario. The show is Saint Young Men, based on the manga that started running in Kodansha’s Morning 2, and is still ongoing. The manga was adapted into two 26 minute OAV episode and a full-length movie.
There, I’ve finally acted one of my resolutions for 2013 and blogged about anime on this blog. And just in the nick of time. Countdown clock’s a-ticking and the ball’s about to drop and all that dross.
Then again, based on the above, maybe I should just stick to football and motorsports and the usual dull tedious shite.
But please DO go and watch Saint Young Men.
And now, for a few tawdry remnants and uninspired marginalia.
But before we get to that….something seems to happen around this time of year. It usually waits until January or February to step onto the stage and hit it’s mark. Usually it waits ’til around Speedweeks or the start of the Daytona 500. But this year it’s arrived a month early, in spectacular blazing fashion.
I’m talking about, ofcourse:
MORE JEREMY MAYFIELD MADNESS!!!!
Mayfield’s $1.8 million mansion is burned to the ground
Just like his so-called career, Jeremy Mayfield’s former mansion was burned to the ground by the Catawba County NC Fire Department as part of a fire training exercise. And it should be known, if you don’t already know, that Jeremy Mayfield didn’t just give his former to the Fire Department for training purposes out of the goodness of this heart. It was purchased off a foreclosure auction and the owner wants to farm the land where it now stands.
So burn baby burn!!
But it’s Mayfield’s tweets that shows he clearly doesn’t realize where his meth-addles life is at and where it’s headed
jeremymayfield
@jermayfield 11 DecHate 2 see our previous residence burned down however, I’ve always loved a good bonfire. Out of the ashes a Phoenix will rise
@WSOC_TV
No it won’t.
jeremymayfield
@jermayfield 19 DecIf I would’ve known about a “Burn a house down tax break” I would’ve burned them all down,
#updateyourtaxbreak
Perhaps I should make a New Year’s Resolution to compile all the Jeremy Mayfield Madness that I’ve written about so far into one post. Look for that next year, sometime, maybe.
And now, before I get to the tawdry remnants and uninspired marginalia, I’ve got another very important matter to attend to:
I’d kick Mayfield’s ass….but what good would it DO?
I know what do here, even without Mr. Hornaday’s firm reminder. The Top 9 Anime of 2013 List. I’ve got it pretty well laid out, so we’ll get to it.
But I wonder how much longer Ron Hornaday will be driving full-time in Truck Series. At the end of last season, he was dropped from his fulltime #9 Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff Chevrolet ride before Homestead, At Homestead, he raced a one-off for Turner Scott Motorsports. The team chart for 2014 on Jayski is full of uncertainty…a lot of them, and not just for Hornaday, but for other drivers as well. Hopefully everything will settle down after the holidays. But it’s sad to see a great driver like Hornaday caught up in this swirl of uncertainty.
Ever since Mrs. Harvick shut down her husband’s truck team because she was going to have a baby, it’s been rougher riding for Hornaday. He’s had to drop down a notch in terms of team and equipment quality.
And now, before I get an unpleasant knock upon my door:
THE RON HORNADAY TOP 9 ANIME SHOWS OF 2013
- Shingeki No Kyojin
- Valvrave The Liberator
- Kill La Kill
- Silver Spoon
- Non Non Biyori
- Tamako Market
- Aku No Hana
- Coppelion
- Free!
- Galelei Donna
Now I’m at least one astute soul will notice that there are TEN shows on the top 9 list. Well, that’s because two of them are tied for the position that they’re rated in. And since the numbered list function here in WordPress doesn’t accommodate that possibility, this will have to do. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which two are tied.
Meanwhile, you’d better get your slug-arse rear ends to the computer and watch every damned one of them right now before Ron Hornaday comes knocking on your door.
That out of the way, we can get on to the tawdry remnants and uninspired marginalia.
But first, THIS!
Green Bay 33 Chicago 28
A few weeks ago, nobody in their right mind, myself included, would have ever imagined that the Green Bay Packers would actually be going to the playoffs. Aaron Rodgers was out with a broken collarbone, and the Packers were scrambling all over trying to line up a serviceable backup quarterback, finally bringing back prodigal son Matt Flynn to take the helm.
The Packers were not letting on when, or even if, Rodgers would be back…and it was almost a PR fiasco in the making, albeit one trumped up by local Packer pundits with nothing better to do with their time. With season drawing to a close, and the defense tripping all over themselves and leaking goals (ahem…touchdowns) and chasing shadows, it seemed unlikely that the Packers would even finish the season with a record over .500. But Flynn engineered a remarkable comeback win over the Cowboys, and the rest of the NFC North kept puking all over their shoes. So, it all came down to the final game of the season with the Bears at Soldier Field.
And after weeks of consternation and speculation about whether or not Rodgers would start, the word came out that Rodgers would indeed start. And not only that, Randall Cobb would back after a long stint on the IR.
Now in the early going, Rodgers looked like he had some rust to shake off. He was all geezed up to be playing again and was overthrowing the ball. And he tossed a real clanger of an interception to Chris Conte who picked it off in the endzone. Rodgers other interception was a tipped ball. But neither one would have happened had Rodgers been playing all along. Chalk it up to rustiness and excitement. But when it all was said and done, it was clearly Rodgers that made all the difference. Hats off to Flynn who did a yeoman’s job in his stead, but it was Rodgers’ sharpness and precision in making decisions and tossing the rock that allowed plays to be made. Rodgers and only Rodgers could have gotten that done. With 6:23 to go on the clock and the Packers down by a point, Rodgers led the Packers 86 yards down the field and capped off the drive with a 48 yard touchdown pass to Randall Cobb 4th and 8 with 0:38 left on the clock.
So there. The Packers go from hopeless to unbelievable in a matter of 60 minutes plus stoppage time ((of which, btw, there is a LOT of in NFL, and not the sort of stoppage you find in good ol’ association football either)). They win the NFC North and have the 4th seed for the Playoffs. They’ll be facing the 5th seed, their new old nemesis the San Francisco 49ers at Lambeau Field next Sunday.
Curiously, but not all that unexpected if you stop and consider where the Packers were a few weeks ago, there are 40,000 tickets available for Sunday’s game with the Niners. A lot of season tickets holders didn’t expect the Pack to make the playoffs at that point, so they didn’t place their orders. Although I’m sure that this guy already had his playoff ticket in hand. But not to worry, Lambeau will packed on Sunday. And while I’m not going to put all my mother-in-law’s money on it hell YES I think the Packers are going to win!
But…..despite Rodgers being back, Rodgers doesn’t play defense. The defense needs step their game up. Defense wins playoff games and Super Bowls, not Future Hall of Fame Quarterbacks ((but helps)).
So to the defense I say, “Wake Up, Girls!”
Now…where were we. Ah.
Tawdry remnants and uninspired marginalia.
Let’s get on with…….*Fuuuuhhhh* *sigh*
Sorry. I must tackle THIS seething issue first.
Chelsea 2 Liverpool 1
All throughout the NBC broadcast of this thrilling match, play-by-play man Arlo White & colour commentator Graham La Saux kept referring to tackles and challenges as being cynical. This is, of course, such a common part of British football punditry that it’s almost taken for granted. You hear this all the time no matter who’s doing the broadcast. But as I got to thinking about this, which is always a dangerous thing for me t do, I began to wonder if perhaps they’re using the wrong adjective to describe some the hard challenges and tackles out there on the pitch.
Cynical as defined, for example, by The American Heritage Dictionary:
1. Scornful of the motives or virtue of others; bitterly mocking; sneering.
Now I don’t know about you, and I’ve watched a lot of football, but I’ve rarely seen or considered any of these “cynical” tackles to be scornful of any motive or virtue, such as there might be. He simply wants to take the ball away and if he has to put the lad on the floor to do it, so be it. It’s just a tough hard challenge.
Nor would I say that in an overwhelming majority of cases that not many of these “cynical” tackles were bitterly mocking, or sneering.
There is a lot smack-talk going on out there on the pitch, some mocking, some sneering, nothing that any reasonable person would construe as cynical. I’m sure that not even a cynic would find any cynicism here either.
So why the use of the term cynical? Since I’m damn lazy ((and cynical)) to ring up Arlo White, or someone else in England who’s involved in football punditry and ask them myself, I’ll just:
- Make something up that sounds plausible
- Say, “I don’t know, you tell me.”
- Or both.
Perhaps the word cynical is used because it sounds crisp and aggressive, and conveys a sense that some thought has actually been put into the punditry in a way that words like wanker, muppet, and numpty never can and never will. I don’t know, you tell me.
But since I posed this issue of verbiage, I might have a solution to this verbal conundrum. I was reading the match report from Sunday’s Everton/Southampton tilt which Everton won 2-1 on a goal by Romalu Lukaku at the 74th minute. In his post-match interview he said that if Everton is qualify for Champions League and finish in the top 4, they need to develop a ruthless streak.
I wish I’d thought of it myself, and maybe I already had, but the Lukaku interview brought it to the forefront. Ruthless is a much more accurate word than cynical. Again from the aforementioned dictionary, ruthless is defined as:
1. Having no compassion or pity; merciless
A ruthless tackle. A ruthless challenge. Now that’s more like it, and so?
If nothing else, work a little variety into the mix. If you look up cynical is your handy Synonym Finder, you will find a lot of synonym that could be applied to some of the challenges and tackles on the pitch. Words like slashing, scathing, vicious, brutal, nipping, biting (Luis Suarez comes to mind there for some strange reason), harsh, and even scurrilous are all synonyms for cynical. And all of these are more descriptive of the offense on the pitch than cynical could ever be on it’s own. The only real disconnect here is that cynical and it’s synonyms are overwhelming used to describe manners (and the lack thereof) of speech, thought, and writing, along with the formative attitudes that bring those behaviors to life. In the context of synonyms for cynical, they really aren’t meant to describe actions like tackles and challenges and so on.
But then again, actions speak louder than words. So where does that leave us? I don’t know. You tell me.
Ah yes, the Chelsea match. It was brilliantly played. Chelsea started slow, but really got after Liverpool in the wake of Martin Šktel’s opening goal on 5 minutes. Willian was sharp, aggressive, and brilliant on both offense and defense. Cahill spent the entire match in Luis Suarez’s jockstrap and shut him down cold. If Chelsea played this way every time out, I could spend less time pissing and moaning about them and more time pissing and moaning about NASCAR.
And wouldn’t THAT be nice.
New Year’s Resolution #2: Get a job like THIS guy has
Just kidding on that one I guess. After all, he has to wear a suit and tie.
By now, I suppose you’re wondering about the tawdry remnants and uninspired marginalia.
Well…it’s been right in front of you all along.
If you thought the 2013 in title referred to the year 2013 which will slip away with the usual and customary alacrity sometime later this evening, then you thought wrong.
The 2013 referred to the number of words I was planning to use in writing this post. Each one a tawdry remant or a piece of uninspired marginalia, or both as the case may be.
And since we’ve run a wee bit past that mark, consider this a bonus trek into the future rather than a promise broken, or a dismal backwards glance.
So, as always, though I don’t always do so, thank you for today.
I will see y’all next year. And that is one cynical tackle you can count on.
