Your Superhero Starting Lineup

Ok, I saw a discussion of this on Deadspin today and I figured that I would have to add in my thoughts. The question was if you were going to design your ultimate football team using superheroes who would you use. To make things a little more interesting I will not allow anyone to play both ways.

Offense:
QB: Superman. Pretty basic there. Strong arm, mobile in the pocket, can take a hit and has definite leadership skills.
RB: Flash. Probably will not be my best option for runs up the middle but if I can get him to the outside I don't think anyone is going to catch him. If Flash is not available I will settle for Walter Payton.
FB: The Thing. Has good mobility for a big man and should be great for pass protection. Also should be able to bear down for those short yardage situations.
WR: Spider Man: Fast, agile, great hands and really scrappy. He's the superhero version of Wes Welker.
WR: Nightcrawler: Also seems to appear in the open when needed.
TE: Iron Man: Can block or get into the open field. Very gritty with strong field awareness. May complain due to lack of quality playing time.
Center: Beast. He may not be the biggest or the strongest available but as a doctor he should be smart enough to call out adjustments from the line. That just doesn't seem like it would be one of the Hulk's strengths.
Left Tackle: Thor. I need someone reliable to protect Superman's blind side. Easily fooled though so we may need to keep Thing back for additional blocking support.
Right Tackle: Hercules. I like my offensive lines bookended by gods. Though why gods ended up in comic books is beyond me.
Left Guard: Steel: I think Shaq played him in a movie or something. Maybe it was Cyborg
Right Guard: Cyborg. Or whoever it is in Teen Titans, I was never really a DC comics guy.

Defense: (I'm going to use a 4 - 3) for a reason that will become apparent.
Defensive Tackles: Hulk and Wolverine. That should take care of any plays up the middle though I worry that Hulk is going to be susceptible to being drawn offside due to a hard snap count.
Defensive Ends: Captain Marvel (DC Comics version) and Colossus. One should give me more of a speed rush while the other adds some additional bulk.
Middle Linebacker: Captain America. My defensive leader. I just see him being Brian Urlacher back there, calling out the defensives and always making the tackle.
Strong Side Linebacker: Batman. Hits hard, makes the tough decisions and is willing to play through pain.
Weak Side Linebacker: Robin. We'll have to hope that most plays are run to the strong side.
Cornerback: Mister Fantastic. Slightly more arrogant than Deion Sanders, slow as hell, but always seems to be able to get a hand in to break up the pass.
Cornerback: Green Lantern. Will be benched if we play a team whose uniform features the color yellow. That is still the most inane weakness I have ever seen in a superhero.
Strong Safety: Daredevil. Plays without fear.
Free Safety: Jean Grey. She seems to have an amazing ability to read the opposing quarterback's mind.

Special Teams:
Kicker: Morten Andersen
Punter: Ray Guy
Return Speciialist: Devin Hester

Agree or disagree?

Fear does not exist in my dojo

I’m proud to announce that after much thought and effort I have successfully led Cobra Kai into the Fantasy Football playoffs. We had a great regular season winning our division by two games and having the high score in the league for four of the fourteen weeks. Led by team captain Joseph Addai, the quarterback hydra and super sub Wes Welker we now move on to challenge the horribly named Loves Tigers (featuring Tom Brady and Ladanian Tomlinson) in the semi-finals.

(For those wondering about the team I drafted for my buddy, he won the wild card berth and had the high score for three weeks. Now that is some good drafting.)

However, I am looking for some added guidance in my lineup decision for this week. The big decision is at quarterback as I must choose amongst my three headed monster of Brett Favre, Matt Hasselbeck and Derek Anderson. Right now I have Anderson but if anyone, especially someone with access to Green Bay info, wants to challenge my selection please let me know. The other choice is between Lee Evans and Jerricho Cotchery for my third wide receiver. Lee is good for either 20 points or 2 points, you never know which. Any ideas from the crowd?

One other fantasy football comment, which I know bores the pants off of people. I have ended up with Josh Brown as my kicker. I’ve been playing this game for four years and every year Josh Brown ends up as my kicker. I don’t even draft the guy anymore, he just gets placed on the team. Anyone else have a guy they always seem to end up playing?

Switching gears, I saw some sad news online from a source that might not be totally official but is as strong as I could find. One of my favorite writers, Terry Pratchett, has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. To give a sense of to what degree he is one of my favorites I just counted and from where I am sitting I can see over thirty books of his that I have scattered about, a number of which I traveled to England in order to buy. His Discworld series is one part fantasy and one part social satire and can go from funny to thought provoking and back again in an instance. Take care Terry and if you haven’t read his books you definitely should. Basically, if you liked Douglas Adams you will like Terry.

(I also have to say that in keeping with his sense of humor he ended his press release to his fans by saying roughly “I know it is human nature to say ‘Is there anything I can do to help?” but right now I’m not entertaining any offers unless you have a high-end knowledge of brain chemistry.” That’s actually a good attitude to have in my mind.)

Wednesday Night Music Club: There were a few shows this year that I missed because I was out of town. None bothers me as much as missing Old Crow Medicine Show. There is something wonderful about watching people younger than me play bluegrass. They have no idea of the rules and all have a punk rock aesthetic and it just changes the nature of the music. It’s old timey for a new age. If you get a chance to see them you really should. I don’t know if seeing Duke football was a sufficient excuse.

Too many notes...

Note to Eva: Typically I am slightly cautious of going to MySpace pages that people send me. That’s due to the fact that the majority of my friend requests seem to come from scantily clad women who are really intent on my checking out their webcams. It’s rather amazing how many of those requests one can receive made even more amazing by the fact that the same profile picture is used on half of them. But I’ll have to say that Erin Ivey has a rather interesting sound (and I dig the fact that I get recommendations on unsigned Austin artists). Plus, anyone who says that they want to connect with fans of The Sundays, Josh Rouse and Kathleen Edwards deserves a listen just due to her taste in music alone.

Note to Readers of Last Night’s Post: I can’t seem to figure out if DRKJEDI would refer to Dark Jedi or Dork Jedi. I didn’t think about that until after I made the post. In retrospect, I think I’ll just go for the personalized UZDFRCE license plate. And yes, that will be all of the Star Wars talk for the week. Don’t worry, I’ll still publicize my Wookie Life Day celebration plans.

Note to No One in Particular: I just realized that I may have figured out a way to die that would be more embarrassing than being trampled to death at a Weird Al concert. I was nearly run over today by a security guard on a Segway. Yep, I really don’t want people to look back at my life and go “EC, man what a great guy. Too bad he got run over by a Segway.”

Anyway, in my continuing efforts to pat myself on the back in order to boost my self-esteem I’d like to point out that Cobra Kai, the fightingest fantasy football team in the land, just built a two game lead with two games to play in the regular season. (It was also the third week where I had the high score in the league.) Since I effectively own the tiebreaker I’m highly confident in a playoff berth for the team. Not bad for a team that lost three running backs to season ending injuries. My quarterback hydra of Favre, Hasselbeck and Anderson have proven unstoppable and my tenth round pick up of Wes Welker may be the best draft pick ever. Of course I now just jinxed myself so expect me to score negative points this week.

I’ll have to admit that that is a better finish than Notre Dame where even in my Playstation 2 version of the season I am looking at a berth in the Brut Sun Bowl. Yes, that’s how bad of a team it was, I am proud to have made it to the Brut Sun Bowl. I mean, it is by Faberge and all. Sometime next week once all the bowl games are announced I’ll do my breakdown. Until then, I might as well admit that I am rooting for Oklahoma on Saturday. This isn’t due to my hating everything that has to do with the part of the country. Ok, that’s part of it but I have a legitimate reason here.

See, if Oklahoma beats Missouri then Ohio State is assured of being in the national title game and not the Rose Bowl. Now, the Rose Bowl would really like to keep a Big Ten-Pac 10 matchup if at all possible. There is only one other Big 10 team that is eligible for a BCS bowl. That team is, of course, my Fighting Illini. Do they deserve to be in a BCS game? Of course not. But it has been over twenty years since we played in the Rose Bowl and we were screwed out of the game the last time we won the Big Ten. I want to see them play in Pasadena. Sorry Tigers fans but this is going to happen.

But who does Van Damme support?

I haven’t given an update on the status of Cobra Kai, the awesomest fantasy football team in the land recently and since we are at the midway point of the regular season I thought that now would be as good a time as any. After an auspicious 0-3 start, thanks to Lee Evans being just abysmal as a receiver and my inability to start the right quarterback, I have turned the season around with four straight wins. Barring David Garrard throwing something like 10 touchdowns in the second half I’ll be tied for first place in my division after this week.

However, I have to say that being on my team is apparently a curse. I have now lost my third running back to a season ending injury. Cadillac Williams, Michael Pittman and Ronnie Brown have all been carted off the field on my watch and I wouldn’t be surprised if Joseph Addai spontaneously combusts tonight. Right now my number two back is Kenny Watson from the Bengals and that is just sad. I’ll probably have to trade one of my three headed QB monster of Favre, Hasselbeck and Anderson in order to get someone who will at least be worth starting. Until then, I might be pinning my hopes on Wes Welker for the rest of the season.

There were also two news headlines that I saw today that I need to discuss. The first is that Kid Rock was arrested in a brawl outside of a Waffle House. It wasn’t the arrest or who was involved that was important, it is the location. What in the world can take place at a Waffle House that would cause a fight to occur? Was there a dispute over maple syrup? Did someone order Canadian bacon and was charged with being un-american? There’s a lot of things that you could do to increase your street cred but fighting in a Waffle House is not one of them. I guess it beats a Denny’s, though.

(I did actually have breakfast at Denny’s on one of my last business trips. I’m embarrassed to say that it was a really good breakfast. I’m not even talking in my usual post-modern ironic sense of the word, I mean it was actually good food on a jet lagged morning.)

The other headline was that Chuck Norris had announced who he is supporting for president. This was a front page headline on CNN today. Maybe it’s a good thing that the ice caps are melting and we’re pretty much just going to call it a day for this planet. I’m not sure if I can deal with being in a country where Chuck Norris’ political views are reported in one of the most popular news sources. Seriously, I dig the internet memes surrounding Chuck but it’s a joke. Why in the world would we want to show the world that some people view this seriously?

Not that I don’t want levity in the world but come on, how in the world is this a news story? Of all the things going on that can get coverage, from Iraq to Myanmar to the environment to whatever, this gets front page space. Maybe the Paris and Britney culture has gone too far. Everything needs a celebrity angle now, even if it means absolutely nothing. It’s at times like this that I wonder why I try to write fiction. I try to hold up a mirror to the world and I need to ransack a fun house just to find something to make it all look normal.

A novel preview...

I’ll close out the week by commenting on some comments…

On the Fantasy Football front: I’m a little torn on the idea of taking Peyton Manning in the first round. Admittedly the only time I won money in our league was when I broke every rule by picking Peyton and Marvin Harrison in the first two rounds. Of course, I also saved myself with a brilliant Thomas Jones pick up in a later round. I still think you can do it if you admit that you will be chasing for the rest of the draft. We made a decision beforehand that if Peyton was there at 9 take him and I didn’t hesitate. I still have no idea how Westbrook fell so far since I was thinking of taking him at 5 at one point. And Holt in the third round was a steal given that even I passed on him with my real team. I’m still not 100% happy with his team due to the lack of depth at RB and no great #2 receiver but based on tonight’s game I don’t think he’s arguing.

And yes I know that most people get the same expression on their face from listening to a guy talk about fantasy football that I get when they talk about their kids. I promise this won’t turn into a weekly thing.

However, there is a weekly topic that I do need to write about and that is the comment on Mystery and The Pick Up Artist. Basically, the idea is that people with first hand knowledge view Mystery as a freak whose method is essentially having no shame and talking to every girl until one gives you the time of day. I don’t doubt that at all. I am still thinking of picking up his book because a) I have a ton of credits at Amazon and b) I want to see how bad he really is. But the real question is why am I so drawn to this show?

The first reason is that the entire setup of the show is so bizarre that you can’t help but enjoy it. It’s a game show built around the concept of sending a bunch of geeks into a club and seeing if they can score. There is just too much humor there to be believed. The lessons are shown so briefly and in such arcane language that it seems like Mystery is legitimately teaching them magic tricks. It doesn’t help that these guys are taking copious notes. I’ve taken less notes in graduate school than these guys take from a guy named J-Dog. On this level I think everyone can enjoy the show.

The other reason, and definitely the more interesting one, is a lot more personal. My first novel, which I’m going to start writing on October 15 and have the first draft finished by November 30, has a plot that revolves around a guy who has kind of lost the plot of his life and has his buddies perform a complete makeover on him in order to see if he can land the girl of his dreams. Or any girl for that matter. Now there are some people reading this who will view that as sounding rather autobiographical. The fact that many scenes will take place in a bar featuring a wise bartender possibly named Donna will pretty much settle it.

See, that’s the big reason why I have to watch the show. I kind of already lived this. As this blog has made abundantly clear I’m a bit of a nerd and definitely not the most confident person in social situations. But a few years ago I sat with my buddies at the corner of the bar and we came up with a plan to not really reinvent me (I didn’t change anything of my core being) but to show me in the best light. And sure, this is why I invoke the Tao at times and it may have seemed silly but damned if it didn’t work. I wish I could get everyone back together so we could do it again because I could probably use a refresher course.

But what gets me is that what Mystery taught and what my buddies taught varies at one massive point. Mystery is showing how you pick up women. To give his best example, this is how you see someone in the grocery store and twenty minutes later she is naked in your hotel room. While at some base level every guy will go “that is cool” it does raise the question of “should I be sleeping with someone who twenty minutes ago was walking down the cereal aisle minding her own business?” It’s viewing social interaction as conquest and that really isn’t healthy. What I was taught was how to not ruin the opportunity of meeting the girl of your dreams before you even had the chance to start. It was how to hold yourself with confidence, how to change your attitude and most importantly, knowing how to walk away. There’s a reason why my novel is called “Until We Say Goodbye”. That last lesson has been the hardest to learn.

So The Pick Up Artist is a filmed train wreck. It didn’t have to be. Hopefully my novel will show how one can change from a nobody to a somebody in a little better light. At the very least, I’m confident that no one will be called El Matador in it.

Have a great weekend. Go Irish and Illini? Please?

Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy

In honor of his new disc being released last week (one that I really need to listen to more carefully) I’ve decided to post a Josh Ritter song tonight as a part of the Wednesday Night Music Club. This song is called “Kathleen” and is probably one of my favorite songs of the past few years. It definitely has my favorite opening verse in recent memory “All the other girls here are stars, you are the northern lights. They try to shine in through your curtain but you’re too close and too bright.”

Oh, and I get a weird sense of self-satisfaction that the immediate response to a post of “what I have done with my life” is a comment reminding me that Alexander the Great had conquered the world by my age while I can barely win a game of Stratego. I wish I could keep up the self-loathing but right after I published the blog last night I got a phone call and got to hear my nieces sing happy birthday. It’s really difficult to remain depressed when you get to experience something that cute. I’m still going to change my entire life this year, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that I view it as a great adventure as opposed to “oh my God, I’ve wasted everything.”

Anyway, tonight was my fantasy football draft and I thought I’d officially release the names of the 2007 edition of Cobra Kai. Picks are listed in order as I picked 5th in a 12 team league with no TE requirement

#1: RB Joseph Addai: Indianapolis
#2: RB Ronnie Brown: Miami
#3: WR Larry Fitzgerald: Arizona
#4: WR Lee Evans: Buffalo
#5: RB Carnell “Cadillac” Williams: Tampa Bay
#6: WR Jerricho Cotchery: New York Jets
#7: QB Matt Hasselbeck: Seattle
#8: Defense/Special Teams San Diego Chargers
#9: WR Mushin Muhammed: Chicago
#10: WR Wes Welker: New England
#11: QB Brett Favre: Green Bay
#12: K Robbie Gould: Chicago
#13: RB Michael Bennett: Kansas City

My initial reaction: I got the running back I wanted with Joseph Addai, who won the coin flip over Shaun Alexander. I just couldn’t risk Alexander killing me two years in a row. I was stunned that Ronnie Brown was there in the second round as I was willing to settle for Edge James in that spot. All of the quarterbacks through Mcnabb were gone before I made my third pick so that was an easy choice of Fitzgerald and then a pure steal of Lee Evans in the fourth. Cadillac gives me the best running back depth I think I’ve ever had. I’m not completely happy with the rest of my receiving corps though I took Welker because I truly believe that he is going to have a huge year as the Pats possession receiver. Hasselbeck is a safe QB choice. It was either that or trust Jon Kitna and I just couldn’t do that over an entire season. Favre will back him up nicely though the fact that I picked a guy from the Packers disgusts me. For once I actually have a good defense and a good kicker as I lucked out on both picks. I’ll at least get to cheer whenever the Bears score, though it’s sad that I’ll be cheering for field goals over touchdowns.

Also, just to make things interesting, I had to pick one of my buddies teams as well. Here are those selections, drafting ninth this time. I might have done a better job with his than with mine.

#1: QB Peyton Manning: Indianapolis
#2: RB Brian Westbrook: Philadelphia
#3: WR Torry Holt: St. Louis
#4: RB Clinton Portis: Washington
#5: WR Laverneus Coles: Washington
#6: RB Chester Taylor: Minnesota
#7: WR Joe Horn: Atlanta
#8: WR Devery Henderson: New Orleans
#9: Defense/Special Teams: Miami Dolphins
#10: RB Vernand Morecy: Green Bay
#11: WR Brandon Marshall: Denver
#12: K Neil Rackers: Arizona
#13: QB Trent Green: Miami