Monday Morning Brain Fart - 9/21

I played a little TV catch-up tonight that first involved an episode of Man vs. Wild that I recorded about 8 months ago and forgot was on my DVR. It was the episode that Will Ferrell guest-starred in to promote Land of the Lost, which apparently didn't work because about 7 people went to see it. But the episode itself I thought was really funny. I watch it every once in a while, and while I'm sure some of it is fake, and there has to be medical staff somewhere behind the camera just in case Bear Grylls gets gored by a wild boar or something, it is pretty interesting. In this episode Bear and Will had to cross a mountain pass in the arctic circle in 48 hours to get to their helicopter checkpoint. The best part was when they were trying to cook a deer head and Will Ferrell had to eat the eye balls, which was rather gross. I think I'll watch more of that show.

My TV night continued with a viewing of the Hung season finale, and just as I predicted, Thomas Jane's character was sent to a hotel room to "service" his ex-wife. Alas, It never went down as he saw her heading up to the room first and called her to make sure it was her, but the scene during the phone call I thought was the show's best moment of the entire season. Jane showed some real acting skills I thought, and he gave us an insight into his character that we hadn't seen before. I thought the rest of the episode was good, and once again, the show did enough for me where I will be coming back for more, only now I'll have to wait until next season. At least Curb Your Enthusiasm is coming back! I just read what I wrote and I sound like a shitty, pretentious television reviewer for the New York Times or something. I'm going to go give myself a swirlie, excuse me.

I watched a lot of college football today: The Tennessee - Florida game was a lot closer than I thought it was going to be. I just figured Florida, led by God's Quarterback Tim Tebow, would run up the score on them because of all the shit Tennessee had talked in the build up to the game. But it turns out that Tim Tebow is actually human and made some mistakes. Go figure! The USC - Washington game was a lot of fun to watch, especially since Washington, who went 0-12 last year, upset USC on a last second field goal. Who doesn't love a good underdog? The stadium was rocking so much that ESPN's main camera was shaking and they had to use others for the broadcast. Cool.

I'm sure you've all seen those Progressive commercials where the customers are in the ridiculously white insurance store picking out their policies while that annoying woman helps them out while telling awful jokes. I can't tell you how much I hate those commercials, and it's all because of that woman. She sucks. Her jokes suck. She reminds me of the wife from American Beauty, only way more annoying and way shittier at life. TAKE HER OFF THE AIR. I'd say that I would never get Progressive because of these ads, but I can't, because I already do. Damn.

Living the Dream Football Club's fall season in the Hoboken Adult Soccer League began tonight with a thrilling 0-0 draw at Sinatra Park. We mostly dominated the proceedings and should have won, but the goal we scored was incorrectly called back because our goalscorer was ruled offside. Even the other team said it was a crap call. The defense was great though as I was rarely troubled in goal. It was a solid opening effort, though it would have been nice to have taken all 3 points. Granted, we should get all 3 points based just on how good we look. Never have I seen a group of men and women look so good, adorned in the baby blue of LTD FC.

I know I'm biased, but Eli Manning is absolutely charming in his Toyota commercials. Not all of you may have seen them since they are local New York ads, and if you haven't, I suggest you check them out on youtube. I really think he's developing some decent acting chops, and these commercials are the perfect example. He's funny in them, and of course he's very cute, as always. And now Mark Sanchez has been added to them, and I have to say he's good too. He's not too stiff for his first New York ads. I like what I see, and I expect big things from him in the future as far as commercials go. As a quarterback? Whatever!

The Jets - Patriots game today was pretty compelling if you like defensive football. There were some ticky-tack penalties called on the Jets defense that they were able to overcome. It's like the referees in this league don't want the players to actually play football. It's being turned into a fairy game, and I don't like it. Patriots wide receiver "The Good Rabbi" Julian Edelman is an exact clone of Wes Welker since he is short, white and a good slot receiver. Bill Belichick will probably trade Welker to the Chiefs tomorrow for a first round pick. It's also annoying how Dan Dierdorf is uncontrollably licking Tom Brady's balls. He can't help himself, even though Brady was garbage today thanks to the Jet defense. Brady's also a douche for not shaking hands after the game and just walking off the field with that sore loser look on his face that we all remember from Super Bowl XLII. Big win for the Jets. Mark Sanchez is getting laaaaiiiiidddd tonight.

I feel like that's all they do now with dramas is make a spinoff of the exact same show and place it in a different city. There is the original NCIS, which takes place God knows where since I don't watch it. But now there's NCIS: Los Angeles, which is hilarious because it stars LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell. I guess those movie careers aren't going so good eh boys? Lame. What's next, Numb3rs: Des Moines? CSI: Detroit would be fun, but that would have to be a 7 day a week show and would cost too much to make. Just too many murders and foreclosures to handle there (thank you Scotty).

Carrot Top looks like a roided-out freak in those Burger King commercials he's in with Tony Stewart and Erik Estrada. I never thought he was terribly funny as a comedian to begin with, but now he just looks like a spray-tanned body builder, only a spray-tanned bodybuilder who's washed up and only recognizable because of his ridiculous red afro. Ouch.

First off, before I get to my Giants review, I have to say that this Cowboys Stadium orgasm NBC is having is sickening. Ok, we get it: It's big, new, and has that stupid board hanging above the field that may or may not get hit by a punt. Enough is enough already. They also made a big deal about how they were setting an NFL attendance record with 105,000 or so people in the place. Jerry Jones was accepting a big ovation, with all those idiot Dallas fans genuflecting like Jones is their God. Don't let that fool you though, the record is bullshit. 20,000 or so of those fans were standing outside the stadium in some party zone watching the game on a screen. That doesn't count as attendance at the game as far as I'm concerned. Though i guess that means now that the Yankees can set an attendance record by counting all the people at the bars on River Ave. during a game, or the Eagles can try and set a record by counting all of the people mugged in the streets surrounding Lincoln Financial Field during a game. Also, did you see the strippers they had dancing in the cages in that party zone? Unreal.

Now as far as the actual game goes, it was a HUGE win for the Giants. It was a game that they really had no business winning because the defense was so bad at times, but everyone says that the good teams find ways to win these games, so I guess we're pretty good! The game began with Steve Smith making a few big plays to get us into the red zone, but once again, the red zone offense was crap and we had to settle for a field goal. This was a recurring theme for the game as the Giants offense was just terrible in the red zone. The play calling was awful, and the execution was worse. But despite all of that we were winning for a lot of the game thanks to Tony Romo throwing the ball to us 3 times and Steve Smith and Mario Manningham stepping up and making huge plays all game long. Manningham is a stud and a playmaker, and we need to get him the ball even more. The first guy to hit him never brings him down because he's so slippery.

It was also fairly obvious that the refs were told by the NFL that the Cowboys had to win this game, because it was unbelievable that the interception that Kenny Phillips made off of Jason Witten's shoe was called incomplete. He returned it for a touchdown, but it didn't matter because the play was whistled dead, so when the review overturned the call and gave us the interception, we had to take the ball at the 29 instead of have the TD. Then later in the game Ahmad Bradshaw was horse-collared AND had his facemask grabbed on the same play, and nothing was called! I was speechless.

So after all of the shoddy refereeing, the terrible run defense, the complete absence of our own running game, and the injury to Justin Tuck that Flozell Adams caused by tripping him (asshole), the ball was in Eli's hands at the end of the 4th quarter for him to drive us down the field and win the game, which is all you can really ever ask for. For all his faults, Eli is absolutely money in big games, and even better in the 2-minute drill, and there's no way you can argue that. He predictably drove us down into field-goal range, after which "The Walking Heart Attack" Lawrence Tynes actually hit the 37-yarder to win it. Unreal. It's never easy with this team.

Ugh. Another week of work.