Don’t know how to fly, but that’s okay…

Read it, don’t read it, I don’t care…just needed to get some things off my chest.

In no particular order of chronology or importance…

Clock?  Well, I am either done writing when I get the things out I want to say or when we make our approach to DCA.

I feel the need…the need for speed.

1)       Geez.  You win ONE game surprisingly, and like George Costanza’s sudden involuntary arm movement, you are back on the horse.  Rex Ryan, a couple days into his team having a week of media coverage after they actually LOOKED like an NFL team, has said he thinks his Jets will take down the Pats.  The Hoodie AND the masses don’t care what comes out of your mouth, so just back off the mic,  have your hotseat QB keep handing off to Shonn Green for both my fantasy teams’ sake, and let your team’s play do the talking for once.

2)      Whatever ends up happening to this Jonathan Vilma thing, it sure will be worth watching him getting out there without any game time under his belt, and a whole lot of court time. Stay safe out there, bro, and don’t try to do TOO much.

3)      OK, US soccer team.  Today is the game against Guatemala to get you out of Group A without relying on anyone else.  You could be devil’s advocate and say I don’t have near the money (I don’t), but it WOULD be nice to know you are IN the World Cup draw BEFORE I then can shift my attention to somehow acquiring the money to book the Rio trip at some point.  Let’s go, guys.

4)      I actually thought it would drag on a LOT longer than it did, but the Reds re-signed Dusty Baker to a 2 year contract.  I like this a lot.  He is a class guy, and has gotten them (and other teams he has managed) to the brink of being in the Series.  There are a whole lot of other teams and managers not getting close.  Reward the guy, and maybe some balls will bounce the right way one of these years.

5)      I would like to back off my comments from a day ago.  I basically said that Geno Smith might have taken himself out of the Heisman race this past weekend.  I would like to clarify.  He is still the frontrunner.  He still has a great shot at doing it.  His stats are ridiculous.  BUT, if there is a team that rises to the top as we go through the remaining weeks, and there is a guy on that team that is worthy, then they will look at the top team guy hard before relegating themselves to a guy who just has the pretty numbers, but not the team resume.  And this is all being said with them having a couple tough games left.  He loses again, and THEN he will have to average 8 TD’s a game.  For now, he is still right there at the top, because mainly of lack of options at this point.

6)      Airplane rants are fun, because I can’t see the screen right now as I type as I have to tilt it down back towards me.  I WOULD be able to spread out a little as the seat next to me is open, but some idiot woman brought a bag on board that only can fit under the middle seat, taking away my ability to fully stretch my legs.  Dammit.

7)      I did NOT know this.  The Barclay’s Center, which is the home to the newly named and located Brooklyn Nets, cost $1 billion. That Russian guy does NOT mess around.  It is only preseason of course, but kind of fun to see they have bball in that part of the city for the first time since 1957 I believe.  Good stuff.

8)      Before we took off this morning, they said there was a small delay.  Some guy forgot to put 2000 lbs of fuel in our wing.  I get not checking the bolts under the wing or maybe the tire tread on the landing gear, but fuel seems like a pretty obvious thing to just forget.  AND once again, the Seinfeld from back in the day came into play again today.  The “normal” flight time is 3:13.  Our friendly pilot said he was going to do it in 2:55.  Fancy.  But.  As Jerry Seinfeld once said, if the planes are ALLOWED to go faster for one trip, they are probably good to go faster for ALL the trips.  So, why don’t we just go FASTER in EVERY plane?  Don’t bring up coordinating flights, allowances for delays, and wind and turbulence and stuff.  I like my Seinfeld references and refuse to acknowledge the flaws in the theory.

9)      NASCAR and Fox have agreed to a new 8 year, $2.4 billion contract.  Sweet.  Something I try to avoid watching on the station I try not to watch.  Fox, aside from you having Family Guy and the fact that you like to play Widespread Panic going to commercial breaks during the MLB postseason, I don’t find much value in your whole presentation in general.

10)   Kind of lost in this whole Ray Lewis/ season ending injury things is the quiet fact that the Ravens ALSO lost their star cornerback.  One is more famous by a longshot than the other, but BOTH are important pieces to the puzzle.  I know we have been saying this for about 3 years, but here we go again.  Sure, Terrell Suggs is coming back at some point, but Joe Flacco, it is finally time to show that offensive potential you have been wasting off paper.  Oh, and throw to Anquan Boldin.  He is on both my fantasy teams also as bench clutter.

11)   This Giants/ Cards series is going to be a humdinger (I heard someone use that word at work the other day, and I wanted to throw it out there also).  The Cards have Carpenter rounding into form, the Giants have Lincecum coming into form, and both teams have on field experience of winning it all.  I think it has seven games written ALL over it.

12)   I think the Matt Holliday slide on Marcus Scutaro was a little over the line, but I disagree with analysts such as Curt Schilling saying he should have been thrown at later in the game.  Curt, there are times to get your teammate’s back, and there are times where you don’t want to be gone for a game in a big, tight series because you got in trouble/ banned.

13)   Bad year for Scott Fujita.  First, Bountygate.  Then, suspensions because of it.  Now, he might have a life threatening neck injury.  I love your style and play, bro.  Get better if you can, but otherwise thanks for the solid career.

14)   Hey, AJ Price.  Deron Williams might not have a ring yet, but slow your roll.  It is preseason basketball, most people would have to Google who you are, and there is not a need for those kind of hard fouls before the regular season starts up.  Go hack up your buddies who are also trying to be big enough so people don’t have to Google them, but leave Deron alone.  He is top 3 in the league.

15)   Because of Jeter’s injury, Ichiro will bat first in the Yankees lineup.  I personally think he should have been batting leadoff since they brought the guy over.

16)   Speaking of the Yankees, how is that 0-26 slump going for you, Robinson Cano?  The only reason people are riding you harder is because the rest of your overpaid free agent signing buddies aren’t doing anything either.  You are just blending in right now.  And you boys get the best pitcher in the league tonight, Justin Verlander.  Have a great time with that.  That being said, IF the Yankees happen to pull this one off, which I don’t see happening, suddenly they have THEIR stud, CC Sabbathia, coming up next.  I still like the Tigers to take this in 5 at this point, maybe six games tops.

17)   The NHL “talked” yesterday to “schedule a meeting” for today.  In between meetings, they must be watching the flick What About Bob over and over.  Baby steps to the elevator.  You all are slackers.

18)   Better you than me.  I hear that crazy skydiver who jumped from like the next adjoining atmosphere was going 800 MPH plus as he came down to earth.  I like rushes, and I do what I like to do FOR those rushes, but I leaving what you did alone.  Plus, I don’t really see my financial situation allowing me to rent a spaceship and gear to get me up there.  Sounds like you need a little backing to orchestrate that.

19)   In this whole Lance Armstrong thing about whether to just take away the titles and leave the years blank or whether to replace him with the next finishers, check THIS out.  In the 7 years Lance won, there were 21 top 3 finishers.  I know, I am not exactly splitting the atom in this one.  Anyway, of those 21 top 3 finishers over that time span, there is only ONE rider that has NOT been tied to PED’s in some way.  Basically, Lance was just the BEST cheater evidently.  Sad, sad, sad.

20)   Bobby Knight is selling his 3 titles rings and one Olympic Medal to get his grandchildren through college.  Dude, tell your son/ daughter to get a part time job or something.  Sell away on the ’81 and ’87 ones.  This is what you should do.  Take a coin, flip it, and decide that way whether you keep the Olympic Medal or the undefeated ’76 one.  Those two items are sick, especially since you are the last guy to pull it off with college players.  I would keep the ’76 undefeated season one personally.

21)   If you don’t follow NBA basketball, you probably don’t know who Smush Parker is.  If you follow NBA basketball, you know who Smush is, but then basically go back to the former group of people’s same thought WITHOUT the knowledge or familiarity.  They former group would say “There is some guy named Smush and Kobe Bryant arguing through the media?”  Exactly.  Smush is talking about his lack of leadership skills, etc.  Hey, Smush, go hang with AJ Price for a while and work on Google stuff.  Sure, you are on the next level that they hope to achieve, but you would make a great big brother.

22)   To this day, I can eat breakfast at ANY time.  I could literally have egg sandwiches at every meal.  I even have Cheerios at the END of the day.  If you are a Denver person, and haven’t been to Moe’s Broadway Bagels at some point, go check it out.  Sure, it is not a fancy breakfast place like others we hear about, but if you want a breakfast sandwich, they are tough to beat.  I recommend either the Manhattan or Shorty Deluxe.  If you like bacon and horseradish things, then add that flavored cream cheese to either.  Don’t be mad if there is a long line when you go.  It moves fast.

23)   And Denver against San Diego at San Diego.  Wow.  Crazy stuff in that second half.  I am not going to get into this as much as I would like.  During the game, I had something much more important occurring, so I won’t talk about stuff that I read briefly this morning or caught in “passing” (no pun intended) in the background last night.  Anyway, Bronco fans and people across the land finally got to see the machine the Broncos CAN be with Peyton aligned with his receivers.  Also, Peyton can now do his thing, and the defense is ALWAYS going to lay it all on the line knowing what kind of magic he can pull off that we THOUGHT might have been only pre-surgery.  I know I personally was beyond impressed.  Sure, they had some lucky breaks, good bounces of the ball, and a Phil Rivers who looked like he was a deer in headlights.  BUT, it happened, and what a way to go into the bye week.  If you are the Chargers, what a HORRIBLE way to go into the bye week.  They must feel a little lost at this point, and of course, Norv Turner takes his normal seat for this part of the season, with that seat being the hot seat.  Two quick other notes.  That was the largest deficit that Manning has EVER had at halftime.  That was a stat BEFORE he actually pulled it off.  Crazy.  Odd side note also.  Quentin Jammer, an NFL CB for over 160 games or so.  Last night, he scored his FIRST touchdown.  With linemen and linebackers, I get those long TD droughts.  For a CB at ANY level, I find that stat pretty amazing.

24)   I love my job and I like traveling, but SO glad I got a nonstop flight to and from this trip.  Traveling to a location-like it.  Having a random airport stop in the middle of the flight to a location-hate it.

25)   That is it.  Not on our approach quite yet, but done for this segment.  It is not like I don’t have another 3 hour plane ride tomorrow evening.  I hope you enjoyed.  Will I blog tomorrow?  That is a CLOWN question, bro.  Peace.

25a)  If you couldn’t find the theme title reference, it is from the song Airplane, by Widespread Panic.  It is a fantastic, simple song.  And, well, I wrote the entire rant on an airplane, so you see where I was going with that.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjMJdLvuvyA