Two Trips to the Gay Bar....
Rambling after week 4...
So the first thing I suppose is to explain the column's title. Well, going to a bar that sells tee-shirts and such with slogans like, "I went straight to the Gay Bar" or "I blew my wad at the Gay Bar", might sound a bit goofy, but it has been a regular pasttime of Michigan Tech students over the years. So this past Saturday my roommates and I got a case of cold beverages and hit the road for a scenic hour trip to the tiny, but real, town of Gay, Michigan. And as the great Mr. Paul Harvey might say, now you know the rest....of the story. Obviously the small town has a bar, thus the name. So on Sunday, my research group here at Tech was entertaining a bunch of transportation department guys from different western states (note for Suomala: Wyoming included) and we drove all over the area for about 9 hours, and one of my professors made sure the 15 of us had time to stop and have a beer in Gay. So thus, the past weekend included a pair of stops at the Gay Bar. And to answer the obvious question, no, it is not a gay Gay Bar.
Let's move on to football.....or at least to a semblance of talking about football. I decided this week to look up some internet "facts" (think Bennett Brower aka: Chris Farley when seeing those quotes) and throw them in here. They are all quite interesting, but I have no idea how accurate they are if at all.
Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
So this week was a pretty low scoring week in the BIG, but the question is, how low was it? Let's look at some of the numbers before I reveal how this week compared to those of the past.
First, Mike's Sadida boys scored 49. Really low right? Well, its only tied for the 9th worst score ever in the league. I was quite surprised to see that.
Three teams (Sadida, Nookie and JC) scored less than 70 points. In the first three weeks of this season combined, only one team had failed to reach the 70 point plateau. In 2003, there were five weeks in which at least 3 teams didn't reach 70.
Five teams broke the 100 point mark this past week. Six weeks in 2003 saw less teams reach 100+ than five.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
So how did week 4 of 2004 compare overall to past weeks? Well, the 1090 (90.83 per team) points scored in the BIGFFBL this past week was the 8th lowest total since 2000. So it was low, but not that low. In fact, the league low is 924 (77.00 per team) points from week 7 of 2001. We'll just attribute the low scoring of this week to the poor selection of games to be televised by the networks....or maybe it was cause the high scoring offense of the Vikings took a week off. Then again, being realistic, I can pretty much guarantee that all the injuries have just a little bit to do with the low scoring. Take for example Nookie, who got a combined 0 (zero) (nil) (none) (no) points from his WR's....not just his starting WR's, ALL his WR's. Not much higher up on the scale was JC who got a total of 6 out of his WR's and TE's COMBINED....again, not just the starters but ALL the Air JC receiving core.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
Yea, elephants and northern Minnesotans not named Rob Smith.
So, the BIG is now lined up for the first Divisional week of games. After four weeks, the division leaders are starting to separate themselves from the pack (in some cases).
In the boring Bison Division - The Flying Hellfish win and move to 2-2 and with Air JC's loss, tie for the division lead. These teams are moving in different directions. Suomala is getting solid production out of Edgerrin and Dunn and is looking forward to getting McNair back on the field.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
JC's team came off a 149 point week to put up 67 in week 4. For a first time, no one on the roster got hurt, but Jamal's legal problems may come up to haunt the JC squad in upcoming weeks.
A snail can sleep for three years.
On their heels in third place in the Fantasy Superior. As long as Priest is out on the field, Jugsie's team has a shot, but will need help from Killer B's Bulger and Barlow to make a run at the Bison title.
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
Finally, as you all know, Mike has essentially given up....and probably rightfully so. Keeper Michael Bennett will be out another couple of weeks and Mike has decided to have a fire sale on his team. First to go is Matt Hasselbeck to a team to be mentioned later in this column.....for a 2nd rounder in return. Not a bad move, but remember that Mike traded away his 2nd rounder earlier this year to obtain Hasselbeck, so really this is an "I'll give you four 5's for a 20" kind of deal if looking at the big picture.
It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
Now we move to the Husky-boys Division. Jonny's Team Tang won a big matchup against JC in week 3.....even with Daunte on the bench. Stephen Davis's return to the Carolina lineup will put a damper on Jonny's team unless Bettis falls apart and Staley can start tacking on some TD's to his 100+ yard weeks.
The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night.
Scary. Anyway, on to Wonger, who is tied with Jonny at 3-1. Wonger is the guy that pulled the trigger on the Hasselbeck deal with Mikey. If you care, it went down like this...a postman you know and trust will approach you on the street....whoops, something else is going down like that, Wonger gave up a 2nd and Garcia (I'm assuming Jeff and not a pint of the Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor) for Hasselbeck and a 4th. I'd say Mike wins on that trade, but it remains to be seen. (that's right Dangerfield...no respect)
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
Then we have Rico's GOO which is sinking to the bottom.... Rich is at 1-3 after being the team to lose with 100 this week. Peyton Manning and Ahman Green need some help for Rico to make a run. Sadly, his next four picks after those guys were Henry, Coles, Chambers and Julius Jones. Not getting much there....will need something from someone or Rico in done.
China has more English speakers than the United States.
Finally, and yes, finally, is Ben's "Team" Nookie. This really isn't a team, its more of a NFL injured list. If it were not for Tiki this week Nookie would have challenged mike for the "ugly ass score of the week", but Tiki's 29 got Ben's boys up in the 60's anyway. I predict Nookie along with Rico and Mike to become the 3 Musketeers (or stooges) in search of the holy grail....the golden toilet.
Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
On to the perennial power house of the BIG, the Bulldog Division. This year, Juice is having a fast start (surprise, surprise). He's out front by himself at 4-0 and would be even better off (point wise) by having kept Tiki instead of Portis (at least for now). Juice is the only team to have 100+ in all 4 weeks this year and that streak probably will continue as he faces the LB's in week 5.
Almonds are members of the peach family.
A slight surprise this year is the success of Jason's Little Red Horse. As Jason approaches becoming the first BIG owner to father two children (at least that we know of...hmm?), he continues on his quest of attaining his first 8+ win season (or 8+ loss season for that matter). He's well on his way with a 3-1 start, but the tough Bulldog Divisional games could quickly bring his team back to 0.500 if he's not careful.
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
Tied up with Jason is Smitty's Fat British Pigeons. I'm sure I've said it before and I'll say it again, but I love Smitty's new team name....and his logo is even better - so if for some reason you haven't visited Smith's team page, hit that up and crack a smile. Anyway, Smitty's RB depth is coming in quite handy these days with the Davis brothers spending Sunday afternoons together in a hot tub. Marshall and Brown have been good enough to fill the voids and have helped Smitty get to 3-1 to stay within sight of Juice's squad.
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
Last, but not least in this case, the Little Bastards avoided disaster and won a game to move to 1-3. I still say do not count out this squad quite yet. With McNabb and Westbrook putting up huge numbers each week, the youngest Carlson will have a chance each week (except for this one since Philly is taking the week off to tour the Chunky soup factory).
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.
And on to....'9 Things I think I think.. (**Note, I left these as they were last week and added comments in the brackets () after each 'thinking'.
1. The Vikings are good, but not good enough right now. Philly would beat us at home and on the road in any given week the way each team is playing. (No change in this from last week, although the Eagles should have scored more than 19 against the injury riddled Bears secondary)
2. Injuries suck, but they seem to be distributing themselves evenly among half the teams in our league. Sucks to be us. (Amen....still)
3. You'd assume Houghton is a safe place....well today a man was stabbed at Wal-Mart....scary. (And no stabbings of 92 year old men this week in Houghton....but as in a great quote from 'City Slickers', "The week ain't over yet")
4. On a related point, 24-7 doesn't always mean 24-7 when someone is stabbed in your place of business on a Tuesday afternoon. (a thought, can you sue for misleading advertising then?)
5. Frost advisory tonight for the western U.P. means that I can start the snow total count.....and yes, we are still at 0 for the season. (and still at 0 inches this week....thank god for that I say)
6. Wong has been quiet since returning to school....maybe too quiet... (if I didn't get his blogs, I'd start to wonder)
7. Denny Green is WAY overrated.....and don't give me that crap that Shipp or Boldin would make that big a difference. (Ok, my bad....I should have said, New Orleans is WAY WAY WAY overrated....)
8. Week 3 of the 2004 season was the best Air JC will ever see in fantasy football. (Funny cause Week 4 was one of the worst)
9. Who would have thought that on September 28th, Rico would still be engaged....there goes my day in the pool (And I think Suomala had October 5th....so he's out too)
And the final word....
Hell of a play just made by Torii in the classic gun him at the plate for the 3rd out double play to get Johan out of a jamb. Also, honorable mention goes to Stewart for his catch on the previous at bat. The Twinkies can play some D, and they will need to, but also will need to get some runners to beat the Yanks. We'll see how it goes, but as of now it's 0-0, top of 3.
Have a good week boys....
Need I say more?
BIGFFBL senior writer Jeremy Carlson sounds off whenever he feels like it on www.bigffbl.com