Archive for September, 2008

Today at the Shockey Brigade

Sep200823

Written by Derek

Comments: 0

So I recovered from the emotional blow I took late yesterday (see end of previous post) by playing 3 hours of Guitar Hero this morning. It’s 3pm and I still feel like a rock star. Though I gotta say, I’m still pretty new at this whole Guitar Hero thing, but even on medium I don’t think I’ll ever be able to finish Muse’s Knights of Cydonia.

Anyway, a few things I’m following on duty on the late shift here today:

- Jeremy Shockey is out 3-6 weeks with a sport hernia. Ouch, buddy. Obviously the medical staff in New Orleans is second rate to that of the Giants. Didn’t think of that when you decided to leave, did ya??

- With six games left, if the Yankees win all their games and the Red Sox lose all of theirs, the teams would meet in a playoff for the Wild Card spot. I was shocked to hear this, as I truly believed the baseball season was over (see previous post). Having said that, any Yankees-related optimism on my part went out the window in early August. Still, wouldn’t it be kind of cool if the Yankees went into Boston on Friday down 3 games?

- Meanwhile, New York’s other team is again in the midst of doing everything they can to honor those fans who bought tickets to Sunday’s game against Florida assuming it’d be the last at Shea Stadium. Evidence = Cubs P Jason Marquis, 5 RBI’s. Ironic headline of the day: on http://www.mets.com/, “Mets know that the Cubs aren’t coasting”. I bet they do…

- Interestingly, the Yankees Pythagorean Over/Under is +2.2, the Sox is -2.4, the Mets is about even, the Cubs is -1 and the Rockies is +1.5. Just thought I’d share that.

- Fantasy baseball update: Tied in my playoff battle for the coveted 9th place position in one league, finished 6th in my other league. Conclusion: my teams kinda sucked this year. Secondary conclusion: spending money on fantasy baseball analysis websites is silly and meaningless. Except Yahoo StatTracker… that thing is awesome.

- Fantasy football update: I’m not in any leagues. I consider myself far worse at fantasy football than baseball, so I’m not that bummed. I did try to join one league but was kicked out before the season started. It might have had something to do with me picking all Giants players in that league last year.

- How could I forget to mention the end of the Starbury era in New York?? Well, I’m mentioning it. Not much else to say.

- Ahmadinejad is speaking at the UNGA right now. This would probably be a big deal in the US in an election year, but since Sarah Palin’s not there no one seems to care. I care, though, because I just discovered that Iran is one spot ahead of my team, Israel, in the current FIFA world rankings. You also probably didn’t know that Iran has the third largest soccer stadium in the world. Thrilling stuff, huh.

I’ll be back throughout the evening to add more. If you want to discuss anything bring it up in the comments.

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Are you ready for some live blogging!?!?

Sep200822

Written by Derek

Comments: 1

6:35 pm: That’s right folks, it’s a Monday night party here at the Shockey Brigade. I’m about to go Larry King on you and post whatever pops in my head for the next few hours, at least in the run-up to Monday Night Football. Why? Because I can.

So sit back, relax, grab a cold one (a diet coke in my case… woo!), and let’s get this party started.

6:37 pm: By the way, the diet coke is cause I’m at work. Not cause I’m a recovering alcoholic. Just thought I’d clarify.

6:41 pm: Ah, a Red Sox game on the tv. Excellent. My first reminder since last night that there’s a baseball season going on. I coulda sworn the season ended last night… Didn’t I see Jeter and his teammates doing a victory lap at Yankee Stadium? Weren’t they scooping up the dirt of victory from the pitching mound? Yeah, I think the season ended last night. With a Yankees victory. As every season should.

6:57 pm: Today is Car Free DC day, and I’ve never seen worse traffic all day long here in downtown DC. Just sayin’.

7:03 pm: Nice little soccer-related story from this weekend. I was at a friend’s 50th birthday party and somehow a group of us started talking about Barcelona and Arsenal and other European soccer teams. I made the seemingly innocuous comment to the lone Brit in the conversation that “Cesc Fabregas should never have left Barcelona”, and went on with a side conversation I was having. About two minutes later, I realized the British guy was yelling something along the lines of “You f’ing Yanks have no idea what you’re talking about! Barcelona buys players all the time and steals them from teams that deserve them and Manchester City and blah blah yadda yadda crumpets and tea.” I thought he was kidding, till he stormed off and the people around me told me they thought I was about to get clocked in the face by a British hooligan.

To translate the conversation into American terms, it’s like me telling a Saints fan that “Jeremy Shockey should’ve never left the Giants”, and having that Saints fan going into a slobbering rage over the audacity of me to say that. Weird. Really weird.

A funny side note is that the guy had actually just invited me to his tailgate at the Giants game the next morning. Needless to say, I did not attend. But I do have his number in case anyone wants to have a little fun. Contact me via email, if you’d like, and allow me to suggest this website as a good source of incredibly offensive material.

7:30 pm: Back to American sports. Anyone catch any football this weekend? I, of course, was watching/loving Eli and the Giants. Yeah it was a close game, but to add a nice cliche to this post (it needed one, didn’t it?), a W’s a W baby!!!

I saw no other games. If something interesting happened, like Jose being denied a new car, I’d like to hear about it.

8:12 pm: Well, I just got an email from my younger cousin telling me that my father tells him my jokes are clever but stupid. Now, I know none of our faithful readers feel that way. But this, from my dad… via my younger cousin!!! If that’s not enough to make you quit your blogging career, I don’t know what is.

I’m off to go cry about it. See ya.

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Hubris

Sep200818

Written by David

Comments: 2

For the record if the Patriots go 18-0 and then loose to the Giants in the Super Bowl for the second straight year, I will buy Jose a car of his choice.

I get nothing in return if it doesn’t happen.

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AFC Chaos

Sep200817

Written by David

Comments: 1

The Patriots are not the only team in the AFC that have suffered catastrophic injury problems in the first couple of the weeks of the season. Shawn Merriman, Jeff Saturday, Vince Young, Bob Sanders, the Jacksonville Offensive Line and potentially Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson and Antonio Gates are all going to miss significant time from last year’s playoff teams. The results of these injuries mean two things: then NFC might be the better conference this year and Pittsburgh is on paper the best team in the AFC.

The result of this is that the Conference will be much more wide open than it has been for the past couple of years. No longer will New England and Indianapolis dominate everyone else while teams like Denver and Buffalo have the opportunity to make a run (lets be honest the Jets still aren’t going anywhere.)

Based on the injuries and some of the early lackluster performances (see: Indianapolis v. Minnesota, Indianapolis v. Chicago, Pittsburgh v. Cleveland, San Diego v. Carolina and Jacksonville v. Buffalo) the outcome of the AFC is an open book. Who knows, even Matt Cassel may have a Super Bowl run in him.

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