Fun fact.

I was filling my break at work with some research and came across a fascinating article. On Espn's page 2, Thomas Neuman wrote an article on the rankings of the 32 NFL teams since the 1970 merger of the AFL and the NFL.





The only part of their "scoring system" that I do not like is the crushing defeats. Unless it is losing a key player in a key moment, like when the Bengals lost Palmer in their lone playoff appearance in 20 years, then it should not count. Of course there are plenty of those, but I don't think "The Drive," really effected Cleveland the next year. What happened with Palmer I think continues to effect this franchise, among many other things, but we have not been the same since then really.





But the most interesting part was that the Steelers rank number 2. They are the second best franchise in the NFL since 1970. Sadly I can't say that I disagree. Six Super Bowl appearances and five wins. That should say enough, but let's consider that in that time they have had only two coaching changes in that time as well and only one draft bust.





Now the Bengals in comparison are 24th on the list. They have had 8 coaching changes and 4 draft busts. No one had more draft busts than the Bengals and only a couple had more coaching changes. And funny enough, where does all of this point? Mike Brown.





The Steelers have always been owned by the Rooney's and the Bengals have always been run by the Browns. The difference is that The Rooney's, have been able to continue to dominate as it has been past down. When ownership was passed from Paul to Mike upon Paul's passing a giant, dark cloud of idiocy has followed Mike wherever he has gone.





Please God deliver us from this moron of an owner, I don't normally involve God, but where else can I turn? I would like to see a list 20 years from now where from the year 2000 to 2030 where the Bengals were in the top 15? Maybe too much to ask, but I want to be able to wear my Bengals gear in public again sometime soon.

This link was sent to me today, from my friend Tony, and I had to add it. Enjoy!

Quick hit.

After taking time to digest the shoot out that was the Monday night game between Dallas and Phily, it makes me even more depressed to be a Bengals fan. Both of those teams played with passion and purpose. Both teams wanted to win, and you could see every time the offense took the field. Confidence, swagger, determination; all words that I would never use to describe the Bengals this year. Instead I would use depleted, sullen, and beat down.

There was a time when I counted to 10 and McNabb still had not throw the ball and there was no one around him. His line blocked, and continued to block until the whistle was blown. I think the Bengals line, when it does block, will do it for 3-4 seconds at most and then figures that Carson should have gotten rid of the ball by now and quits. Couple that with the fact that our receivers are wearing defenders like a blanket in the middle of winter and well, you have a recipe for disaster. And it is not like Dallas' defense is a joke, that is a decent defense.

By the way, we get to play both of those teams. Oh and to scare you a little more, we get to play the defending Super Bowl champions on Sunday. This is a team that doesn't look to have lost a step even though they lost their two best defenders from last year in Micheal Strahan and Osi Umenyiora. They just finished with the dismantling of St. Louis last week to the tune of, 41-13. Of course St. Louis might be one of only about three teams that are worse than the Bengals, but I can not imagine we will score 13 against that defense. I mean after two games we have ONE offensive touchdown. ONE.

So to all those drinking the kool-aid out there, and there can't be more than 7 of you left, we will not win on Sunday. We might not win all year.

I wish I could start a poll on my blog, my question would be: How long till Marvin is fired. If the team is 0-8 I think there is a good chance that he is gone, but not before that. Mike has had this guys back, even after his first losing season last year. If the team manages to squeak out 4 wins, Marvin might have saved his job. I would HOPE not, but we are dealing with Mike Brown. But less than 4 and I think he is gone, and if he goes 0-16 he is definitely out, of course that is if he makes it past 0-8 which is where I think Mike draws the line.

And let me be the first to say, Peace out Marvin.

Lack of focus....

Today's blog will have a theme. In celebration of the Bengals running their record to an impressive 0-2 we will talk about the lack of focus on this team. I mean it is disgusting to watch this team make the mistakes they do, these guys are professionals? We pay them millions of dollars to not pay attention for a couple hours?

So again the game was brought to you in HD, or high doody. Looking back I find this funny since the theme this week is the lack of focus. As I was watching the game I was squinting the entire time trying to figure out who was on the field. I am afraid that I will have to start watching my TV from 3 blocks away using a telescope just to see it clearly. Also just a note for all you cable users out there, you do have one advantage over us satellite users. Every time my power would kick out of course so would satellite and it would take it forever for it to find the the correct coordinates and come back online. Are you serious? It is not like I am trying to get coordinates for a missile strike on Canada or anything, I just want to watch TV damnit.

I am not going to delve too deep into the game itself for a couple reasons. One; it is sad and depressing and I don't want my readers to have to turn to Paxcil or Prozac to get through my blogs. Two; I cant talk to in depth about a game that I hardly saw. I mean I saw enough, but due to Hurricane Ike my power kept blinking out and after about two and a half quarters we officially lost all power at the house. I joked with my wife that it was a sign of the Apocalypse and she actually start to freak out a little bit!

Game Notes

After the first series, of which the Bengals went 3 and out, as usual this year. The boo's birds were out loud and proud. Hell the only part of that game that was truly in HD might have been the boo's, it was so loud that I you could have walked two blocks up the street and heard the boo's.

Thank god the Titans could not stay on sides, that was the only way the Bengals could move the ball down field. Five penalties for 25 yards on Tennessee, at least four of those were offsides and they tended to give the Bengals a first down each time. Of course, the Bengals had five penalties for 35 yards, hmmmmm, lack of focus maybe? They did manage to avoid at least one delay of game penalty though by burning a time out because no one for the Bengals knows how to read a play clock still. You would think that after I mentioned this last week that one of them would have read this and learned how to tell time! Again this points to lack of focus and Marvin's magical play clock plundering. Seriously this has been going on for years now. Then, as time is expiring, in the first half and Palmer is literally hobbling to the line to get a play off they do not use a timeout. Instead we all had to watch Palmer painfully get to the line and call an audible and then watch as time expired and the Bengals did not score and had a timeout that they could have used. Maybe Marvin was surprised that they had a timeout left, normally they have to use them all in the first few series to keep from the play clock expiring. Or maybe they had all the confidence that Dede Dorsey could scramble and dance his way for 40+ plus yard to the end zone. Seriously? This isn't dancing with the stars and he is no Jason Taylor! So a quick recap, They use time outs when they shouldn't have to and don't use timeouts when they need to. That point to Marvin and his .......oh yeah lack of focus.

Also to point to the lack of focus theme, did the defense not look pretty good for the first two series? But then all the sudden they gave up a huge play and then realized that again this week the offense was not going to help them and just kind of gave up. Lack of focus and the coach has lost the team.

Don't forget special teams. Every game the Bengals will, like clockwork, give up either a huge return off a punt or kick off or both. Can we have some consistent coverage please?!

I mean lets face it, Mrs Garrett ran a tighter ship at Eastland school. I want to hear Marvin on the side lines screaming "Girls, girls, girlssssss" every time they screw something up!

Pet peeve. This has also been a theme for several years 3rd and 13 we throw the ball 10 yards. 3rd and 10 we will throw it 8 yards. 3rd and 3 we will run a draw. I don't work for NASA, but if it is 3rd and 10 isn't it a good idea to get all 10 of those yards? This isn't Euchre, you can't count on your partner for one trick, or in this case count on your receiver for two extra yards. Especially this year it seems like out receivers are getting no separation at all, good thing they showed up for those voluntary camps, oh wait they didn't, hmmmmm interesting.

Random Quote

"No player from the Bengal's Defense has ever been to the pro-bowl" That was Don Cricky, who just randomly blurted that out in the middle of the game. I swear it was not referencing anything, nor did either of them elaborate on the comment. It was like he was on a first date and was just saying anything to keep conversation going. The 'ol "saying anything is better than awkward silence," routine. I know the Bengals suck and no one wants to cover them, but can we get some people in there that shows a little bit of intelligence about the team and might care just a little bit? Maybe not though, Marvin and Mike, or M&M as I will call them, don't care, why should the networks?

Game balls

Again it was a tough call this week. Very tough to say anything nice about the game I kind of got to watch. Chris Perry. The "kid" ran with purpose and give him a line that would block and he might be even better. It is very refreshing to see a running back that can cut and hit holes running. Antwan Odom. He was getting pressure on Collins when he was blocked by one person. The more I see him play and the healthier he gets the better he looks. Ben Utech. I know some of you may find this pick as a surprise since he got hurt on the first play of the game, but that is exactly why I picked him. Because of getting hurt, he did not have to participate in this massacre. But the best player of the field for the Bengals was the Titans defensive line that kept jumping off sides. My only guess is that they all had Mexican for dinner the night before, because they had seven sacks against a better team last week, they could have got to Palmer if they were sleep walking.

Judging by the Mo Meter this game had to have been pretty horrible, my phone was blowing up all day.

Another week, another loss, but they are keeping the dream of 0-16 alive. Godspeed Bengals, it will be a tough quest, but please don't let me down. Your special combination of a terrible owner, an inept coach, and uninspired players has me believing now, more than ever, that the dream could become a reality. The pieces are there.

Epic Battle.

Like Kramer and the cable guy, Jesy and I also have a rival that we battle with almost on a weekly basis. RUMPKE. We have been in our house for over three years and have had many a battle with Rumpke, some we have won some they have won, but the latest battle has gone as a victory for Rumpke.

Victories for us

1. In re-doing the basement there was obviously allot of garbage that we had to throw out. There was dry wall and brackets and busted wood, all of which is common in home renovation projects. The problem is that when were were throwing away said materials it never occurred to me that even though I could lift the garbage up my stairs and out to my curb, that the garbage men could not lift it from the curb into their truck two feet away. I had no idea Estelle Getty and Betty White were our garbage collectors! The best part was when Jesy went out and chased them down the street carrying the garbage bag that they "could not lift." I know that screams hillbilly, chasing down the garbage men and all, but seriously, they can't lift something that my wife can?! The end result was that we called Rumpke and it was picked up the next day. George and Jesy win.


2. Next on the list of victories was the carpet scandal. Again dealing with the basement, we were finishing the project with new carpet. Going from carpet that looked like the color of bloody stool, to a nice almost beige color that hides the hair from my crazy dog. In making the switch we made sure that the installers cut up the old carpet and padding into small sections and roll it tight to make sure that our finicky garbage men would actually take it. It literally sat out on the curb for three weeks before Rumpke finally took it. It was a typical stand off, much like the fabled O.K. Corral, it was just a matter of who blinked first and they did. In all seriousness though there was no reason that they should not have taken it. The only thing I can think of is the day they came it rained and I don't think they wanted to take the time to load it in the rain!


3. The goose body. After our former shed almost blew away in the high wind storm of '07, we had to tear down what was left. Part of the shed decor was two cement geese that "guarded" it, but not from high winds apparently. In any case we took an ax to them and broke them up the best we could and scattered them between two different garbage cans, again knowing the extreme wussiness of our garbage men. On garbage day we noticed that one of the cans was not touched. WTF? I go out and look and it is the can that had a little bit larger of a piece of the goose in it, the whole body. So I had to dump out the garbage and pull the body out and then put all the garbage back in to separate the two. The next week they took the garbage, but not the body. For two weeks that body stayed out there until Rumpke finally broke down and hefted that 40 pound body into their truck. Again George and Jesy win.

The Loss

You will notice that loss was singular, because while it took a while, we have won every battle.....until today. It truly is a sad day. It is was like when Aaron Boone hit that damn home run for the Yankees. We thought we could never lose, we were untouchable, but today were were dealt a crushing blow. We have two "outside" garbage cans that I normally take down and the moron twins will just empty them and then haphazardly throw them where ever they like. Sometimes I wonder if it is not some weird game they play, find your garbage can down the street. In any case this week I took down the "inside" garbage can I keep in the laundry room. It was filled to the brim and I did not want to hassle with dumping it all in a bag, it might not have all fit anyway. So I figured that I would just take it out to the curb as well, the only challenge might be to find it three blocks away. Neh, instead the took it. That's right they loaded the whole freaking can into their truck. They can't take a 40 pound goose body, but they can justify taking a whole garbage can. Personally I think it was revenge. I think they felt that they needed a "W" and made it happen.

Touche garbage men, touche.

And the war continues.

For the game....

It may be early in the season, but after last season and week ones debacle, it is time to have an affair. I will be dawning a Peyton Manning jersey on Sunday, which I normally reserve for Bengals bye weeks only. However, I want to wear 'ol Manning during the Bengals game this week just to see how it feels. Will it be awkward, will I feel guilty, will it, in some weird reverse psychology, make the Bengals try harder to get my love back? My prediction for answers are no, maybe and hell no. If this team can't rise up to protect their quarterback, they damn sure don't give a damn about me. If the owner seems fit to take back a guy that has more career arrests, Chris Henry, than touchdowns then defiantly not.

And don't worry all, my man crush on Palmer stands, but it is time to see other people. I need to feel that excitement that only a WINNING team and SUCCESSFUL franchise can bring. I need to know that the owner is not a complete moron and had the fans in mind. Bill Polian, the current President of the Colts, might be one of the best NFL presidents ever, he has success wherever he goes. I love listening to this guy during the scouting combine, he is smart, genuine and you can tell he knows what he is doing. Every team deserves a guy like that, instead we get the bastard child of the great Paul Brown. You know he is in heaven wishing he had a baby girl.

Please know that I am not giving up on the Bengals, that is very important to note. I am just going to root for another some what local team that has their shit together to see what it would be like. It is like a science experiment.

Side note.....

The world needs to know that in one case, maybe the only one ever documented, I was right and my brother was wrong. I have always been a Peyton Manning fan ever since he was at Tennessee, had HORRIBLE acne, and his forehead seemed even bigger than it is now. My brother however, always like Eli. Maybe it was because C.J., like Eli is the younger brother and so they shared a bond, who really knows. But while Eli was in college C.J. tried to tell me that Eli was going to be the better quarterback, I laughed and scoughed at this, but he stood firm. Did I just say stood firm? Gross. Anyway, I wanted to bring up this little tale because I have decided to rub in the fact that I am right and he is clearly wrong on this debate, I am going to buy him an Eli Manning jersey for Christmas this year. What I can not decide is to get him an 'Ol Miss jersey, or a Giants jersey. I am leaning towards a Giants jersey because I think he hates the Giants more, therefor funnier for me!

Please faithful readers help me make this very important decision!

Normal to crazy in 2.5 seconds!

So, as I stated in an earlier post Jesy was sooo excited about "Tropic Thunder" that she had to see it again. So tonight was the night. It was to be a normal low key Herron night, with Rick tagging along since his birthday was sometime this month, but I have been sworn to secrecy as to when exactly.

The night started off with Rick and I doing what we do, we messed with Jesy. We made her think that Rick forgot and that he had not picked me up and that I was going to be late for the movie. to her credit after the third call as she was pulling into the theatre she did notice Rick's truck. Surprising coming from the same girl that had no idea that we were throwing her a surprise party with all her friends and family's car outside of the house she parked at!

Any who, we watch the movie and as funny as it was the first time, it was a little better the second time. Kudos still to Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr. Jesy again laughed a few times at decibels that only dolphins could hear or understand, and Rick seemed to really enjoy it.

The real excitement did not start until after the movie, however. As we were doing the typical outside the theatre and dissecting the movie we got to witness an amazing event. We saw a semi truck try to take a turn it had no business making and it took out a stop sign and a huge light pole.

Of course like 3 year olds Rick and I were watching and and jumping up and down like we either had to go to the bathroom or were really excited. Meanwhile Jesy was on the horn to the 5-0. While this was going on the trucker, who might have been drunk, high, or a rookie was backing up and trying again and again. He might have tried this like four times. I give an A for effort and a F- for execution. At one point had he actually kept going he was about to take out yet another light. I can't speak for Rick, but at this point I did pee myself in anticipation! The trucker was now out of the vehicle checking the damage, noticing I am sure that he had mangled a stop sign and taken out a light pole, but that was not going to stop this persistent bastard. He decided to give it another couple tries and then decided to "sneak" out a different way. Little did he know that Jesy was on the phone with the single dumbest dispatcher ever as he drove right past us.

Being the responsible citizens we were, we waited for the police to show up and Jesy filled out her report. We had fun making fun of the dumbass dispatcher with the cop and harassing Jesy some more while she was trying to fill out the report. We of course took pictures with Jesy's cell phone and as we were walking back to the car we were all staring at each other thinking the same thing....lets go see if they got that hit and run biotch!

So of course we all pile in our cars and head up 75 to see if they got him. There is of course no rhyme or reason for it, we were just geeked up like we were 5 and had never seen cops pull some one over before. Starting at Union Centre we had travelled past 129 and had not seen anything yet and was preparing for a major let down. We decided to go to Monroe and if we did not see anything to call it a night. As we were approaching the truck stop we saw the flashing lights and there was an explosion of yelling and laughter like we thought that trucker could hear us or something! "GOTCHA BITCH!"

What a funny night!

Train Wreck.

What do a rookie head coach, a rookie quarterback, and a rookie running back all have in common? Together they can beat the crap out of the Bengals. When this game started I was thinking....well it will be good to start the year off with a win, because it might be a long year. Little did I know that the Bengals were really as bad as I thought they were after pre-season. The two things that really stick out in my mind before the season started was; Carson Palmer saying that he was not worried about the offense, and Geoff Hobson proclaiming that this team had a chance to win the division. Both laughable. I of course took notes through out the game for the purpose of this blog. It was a nightmare to go through all the random thoughts and make them coherent enough for people to read it, but here it goes.

Lets start with the pregame. I turn on my 50 inch plasma to find that the game is only on the local channel 12. Great I have 9000 channels and 1000 of them are HD and I can't get the Bengals game in HD. I literally flipped though every channel to try and find it, nothing. So after settling for the local and the game is about to start it tells me, "Game brought to you in HD." FREAKING SWEET! However, 3 minutes into the game it is clear that either they lied, or they discovered HD lower than 480i. It was horrible, so horrible in fact, that my friend Rick was quoted as calling this HD, "high doody."

Now on to the atrocity, or game itself. Since I split my note paper in two parts, one for offense and one for defense, that is how I will attack this post. Lets start with the offense, which was offensive. I am talking the stink that 7 day old Chinese food that is laying out over a 1 month old dead body of a guy that crapped himself before he died stink. I am not going to get into the box score details, that would be boring, and depressing. instead I will look at some points of interest that I saw. In the first half I saw good field position squandered at least three times. Our first drive we got the ball in field goal territory and were sacked twice and we had to punt.

Speaking of sacked twice, good thing we let Willie go, that offensive line never looked better huh? That was one of the more disgusting performances from an offensive line that I have ever seen. They look out of sync, slow, lethargic, and apathetic. I mean their quarterback was getting beat worse than a red headed step child, I guess that broken nose didn't mean anything to those guys.

Past that it was like their defense was in our huddle, I guess Bratkowski is the most predictable play caller in the NFL. Again I have to harp on the coaching. Never has a team had this much talent and done so little. Not one offensive touchdown on Sunday. I know that Baltimore's defense is good, but they are old and nicked up, we should have been able to score at least twice and especially with working on a short field in the first half.

Play clock management was horrible again. I know they got at least two delay of game penalties and had to burn two timeouts for no real reason other than not having enough time to snap the ball. I know those are not game changing events, but it points to a bigger issue. There is a lack of focus, there is a lack of urgency, and I don't understand that coming from a team that has looked that bad offensively since last year.

With an offense struggling you go for it on 4th and 1 and forth and 2? Really? I would elaborate on this more, but why? Mo's daughter was over at our house watching the game and I think that she understood that it was an idiot call. I think that my dogs were confused by those calls.

Telling signs.....

The look on Carson and T.J.'s faces. They were very different looks, but both summed up the entire game and what might be the season as well. Carson's face after the defense caused a turn over was, damn, I have to go out there and get the shit kicked out of me again? I have never seen Carson look so depressed to take the field, and the funniest part is that he is going to take all of the blame for how bad they were offensively today, I guarantee it. T.J.'s face was straight anger, I mean PISSED. Like if he was Chris Henry I would have been afraid that he would have shot someone. The look on T.J.'s face made me scared, I was worried that he was going to punch me through the TV.

Offensive quote of the night.....

"Look at them run around like they were invited!"

That was my wife talking about the Raven's defense killing the Bengals offense.

Now a look at the defense, which is only slightly less depressing. Top be honest, they first half they looked pretty good, with only a few exceptions. But as the game wore on and they were on the field for what seemed like forever, they got tired, and lazy, and apathetic.

Here is what really stuck out to me though, bad tackling again. We saw it in pre-season and we saw it again yesterday. This has been an epidemic for a few years now, and again it has to go back to coaching. These guys are being coached to tackle incorrectly.

Where was that pass rush that Zimmer talked about all pre-season? Honestly I thought that I was watching a defense run by Chuck Bresnahan....again. It was like that nightmare that you wake up from, but when you fall back asleep it is there waiting for you. I don't know how hard it is for coached to see that if you rattle a quarterback then you can dominate defensively. I mean was Mike just not paying attention when the Ravens were doing that to us? The worst part is that they had a rookie quarterback, how much easier to rattle that guy than say Peyton Manning. but in typical Bengal fashion we made Capt. Uni brow, or Joe Flacco look like an all pro. For other evidence of this see Shawn King, and Bruce Gratkowski.

Of course the two times the Bengals did decide to blitz it was with 5 guys and the corners were playing 20 yards off the receivers so it was an easy completion. Who the hell is coaching these guys?

But, the defense did score our only touchdown, which prompted Mo to say, "the defense is better offensively that the offense." A little confusing I know, but I am used to it since I have lived next door to Mo for three years. I am fluent in "Moeese."

Side note, Dexter Jackson is likes to fight guy. I saw him get in a fight at training camp with his own team. Then I saw him yesterday trying to pick a fight with any and all the Ravens that he could. I like the fire and passion, but he is going to get himself killed.

Looking ahead, Dallas has the chance to post 700 yards on the Bengals!

Defensive quote of the day.....

"The Bengals defense just got out run by a guy that runs a 6.7 40!"

That was Jesy's cousin Kat talking about Joe Flacco scrambling, and I use the term scrambling lightly since he never really scrambled, for a touchdown.

The good.....

I really struggled to find anything good to say about this game. But, if I had to give out a game ball out it would have to be Jonathan Joseph. He made tackles, returned a fumble for our only touchdown, possibly the only Bengals player all day that looked like he knew what he was doing. Also I would like to say kudos to Coors. I love those commercials and they did not disappoint with their latest one with Brian Billeck. Just saw that while watching the game and it was funny as hell. Not as good as the Dennis Green one, but I would put it second.

Prediction/hope.

I know it may be too early for this, but after watching my team lose, and lose BAD to a team with a rookie head coach, rookie running back and rookie quarterback, I am pretty confident that this team can do what I have been dreaming about for quite a while.....go 0-16. Don't be confused, I don't want that to happen, I just think it is a distinct possibility. I am torn between wanting a team to go 0-16 and that team being my Bengals. If nothing else we have a solid look at a top 5 pick in next years draft! Sad that it is just like the 90's again when after the first game we start looking forward to the draft. Ouch. Welcome back Bungals.

Movie Review; Tropc Thunder.

Went to the movies last night with the wife and to my surprise she did not mind seeing Tropic Thunder. I will admit that I only went to see this on the recommendation of my brother. I find Ben Stiller very unfunny normally, and the premise of the movie sounded too close to "The Three Amigos." However, my brother and his girlfriend raved about it, so I thought I would give it a try.

Let me start off with the previews, they had a commercial with the Gieco cavemen. Who agrees with me, those guys need to go away....forever. I mean seriously? Did they not realize how insipid and un-humerous they were when they tried to make the T.V. show about them that flat lined faster Bobby Petrino's NFL career. Next they showed something that interested me greatly, a movie that was obviously spoofing that one-sided idiot Micheal Moore, "An American Carol." Of course it is going to be over the top, and Kevin Farley isn't as funny as his brother's shadow, but any movie that make Micheal Moore look like the jackass he is I will support!

Now the movie. The story was as ridiculous as you would think, but it was not so awful that I would want to leave. Ben Stiller was the worst part of the movie, but as I said I have a bias. I will say that this was not his worst performance, however. Jack Black was alright and portrayal of a character jonesin' for a fix was pretty funny, and of course it just escalated throughout the film. I still feel that Jack Black was at his best in "High Fidelity." he needs to find a way to get back to that edgy, pompous humor that I love.

My game balls, however, go to Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise. Kudos to Robert for his HUGE comeback. "Ironman" was great and he was perfect for a white guy acting like a black guy. The stereotypes he hits on are hilarious and his refusal to come out of character even after it is clear that the movie is over is freaking hysterical. We all knew Tom Cruise was funny, just not in an intentional way! He was super funny in this, it almost made me forget that he is really a giant weirdo.

Overall a good watch and worth seeing in the theatre if you wants some good laughs. My wife will tell you that it is one of the funniest movies that she has ever seen, she wanted to go see it again tonight! The last movie I saw her laugh this hard at was "Talladega Nights." Personally I would put it maybe in my top 25 funny movies of all time.

Line of the movie, "You never go full retard."

I give it 3 1/2 prosthetics out of 5. You will get that joke after you see the movie.

Quoth the Ravens; Willie's ours.

Willie Anderson is now a Baltimore Raven. How sad. I just have a hard time seeing him in purple and black. It is funny because I am totally apathetic to Rudi Johnson signing in Detroit. hell I say good luck Detroit, you can watch a supposed "bell cow" dance to the line of scrimmage and run into the blocker, not through the hole he is creating for you.

Maybe it is because for this year, and possibly the next three, we will have to see him two times a year. It is like when you break up with a girl in high school, it sucks because you think you are better off without her, but you still have to see her everyday. When she starts dating the popular football player and you aren't seeing anyone you look like a jackass. When Willie shuts out Antwan Odom for sacks and Stacey Andrews gives up one, Mike Brown and Marvin Lewis will look like giant jackasses.

Of course he could have signed in the NFC and it would have been like the ex-girlfriend transferring schools which would have been better, but if Willie ends up in the pro-bowl and Stacey doesn't get locked up after his franchise year then again Mike and Marvin get to look like turd heads. That means we will have to start Anthony Collins at right guard and start all over again in a crucial position on the line. I know the Bengals liked what they saw out of this guy in camps, but would he be ready to start next year? Could he fill Willie's HUGE shoes there? I don't like that many question marks on the offensive line with one of the best quarterbacks in the league in his prime.

Maybe I am just upset because I didn't get the closure that I needed. Break-ups are hard, I either need closure or more time to heal, but to have to see Willie again the first game of the year and then have to see him again in week 13 is just too much. I think I might drunk dial Willie tonight, it is just part of the process. Next week I will burn the pictures!

Dear Mike and Marvin, you had better win this game and the new girlfriend (Stacey Andrews) had better look prefect or you are going to get laughed out of school. I say girlfriend, but it is more like paying a hot prostitute to go go to a dance with you to show up your ex. And just like a prostitute Stacey is going to take the money and run after this season and leave you with nothing good to talk about with your friends, except for "What is that and why does it itch?"

Work.

Bengals season does not begin until Sunday, so that gives me a few days of rest until what looks to be a season of angry blogging. So, since I do not have any Bengals material and the Reds are all but dead, lets just hope they can fight off those mighty Pirates for dead last, I thought I would give all you readers out there a glimpse into my everyday world. Maybe some insight into black hole of insanity that I fight through everyday.

Today I am going off the board to share some of my typical calls that I field on an everyday basis at my job. Keep in mind that I can get any or all of these in any given day. Some of them I will get a couple times a day. And you should also know that I work for a large company's technical help center, so I am on a phone and in front of a computer all day everyday.

Call #1
"I just got converted from our old email system (Lotus Notes) to our new email system (Outlook) and I was wondering why I cannot get mail through Lotus Notes anymore. I have replicated several times today and have not received any new mail."
Really? You have not received any new email in the Application that you were just converted off of? Shit let me call NASA and get their best and brightest working on this. I am pretty sure that we can find some Doctors that are trying to find the cure for cancer and have them look into this as well. Or maybe, just maybe, you could click on that mysterious new icon on your desktop and use the new email application that was the whole reason for the giant intrusive upgrade you just went through.

Call #2
"My computer is broke, the screen is blank."
Oh No! Better drop and cover, get in the fetal position under your desk immediately. Looks like they were right about Y2K after all, it was just 8 years late. And as likely as that may seem, just for shits and giggles lets make sure the PC and the monitor is actually turned on. I know you are all thinking there is no way that it is that simple, but let me tell you that over 50% of the time sadly, it is.

Call #3
"I can't print"
This is one of my favorites. Could you please call in with a more vague issue? Why not just call in and say, "I have a problem?" Then we can make it a giant guessing game to get to the issue. We just do yes or no questions and maybe turn a 5 minute call into a 1 hour and 5 minute call! What application can you not print out of? What error are you getting? Is the error on your PC or on the printer? Is there even a printer in your office? Do you actually know what a printer is or did you hear the cool people talking about it in the lunch room and decided to make this a conversation starter with your friendly help desk associate? In all seriousness though, I love it when you talk to them for 15 minutes diagnosing what could be wrong before they finally tell you that is says "paper jam" on the printer.

Call #4
"The Internet is broke"
The hell you say! Well someone better get Al Gore on the phone and ask him what is up with his defective invention. This is obviously one of the more ignorant calls I get, but I do indeed get calls where they say that exact thing. I mean can you actually fathom in today's world for the actual Internet to "break." It would be catastrophic. But I am sure they are correct every time I get that call. So sure, in fact, that I get under my desk and look out the one window that we have in our building to see if satellites are falling from the sky, planes are crashing into each other, traffic lights are out, to see if chaos incarnate is born. Much to my dismay every time they are wrong and it is because their proxy settings are wrong, or they need to refresh their page, or their password was expired. Damn.

Call #5
"I had an employee die this weekend and I need to know where to send their check."
Now I will admit that I have only received this call once and will probably never get it again, but I had to put this on the list since it is what really inspired this blog post. As I stated before I work in technical support, why in the hell someone, in the HR department mind you, would call me to ask where to send a recently deceased employees check is beyond comprehension. It actually hurts my head to try and think of the reasoning for calling desktop support for something like that. I of course said that she could send the check to me, but this was not a popular choice.

Of course I would be remiss if I did not fill you all in on the categories of callers I tend to get on a daily basis as well.

1. The Comedian. Everything this person says is hilarious.....to themselves only.
2. The Bitch/Asshole. Nothing you can do will please these people. You could solve their issue, but it would not be fast enough. You could save the world from a nuclear holocaust with one arm tied behind your back, blindfolded, while wearing three lead vests and dragging yourself around by your own ear but when submerging the bomb into the ocean you nicked their yacht. My wife says to kill these people with kindness, I say look them up in the phone book and kill them with a gun, it works better.
   
3. The VIP. Their issue trumps all other issues. They call in and can not print out of one application that they only use once a month is WAYYYYYY more important than the email servers that all went down, clearly.
4. The Foreigner. I am not going to get all political, but we have all had that call or had to call support and got that tech that knows about as much English as a two year old kid. It is aggravating trying to help someone that you can not communicate with.
5. The Secretary. Bless their soul, they are on orders to call in knowing nothing about the issue that they are calling in about. It is like sending Barry Bonds to a high school to talk to kids about playing baseball clean, or like actors/actresses talking about foreign policy. Most of the time when the secretary calls in after 1 and a half good minutes of interrogation they break and just transfer me to their boss anyway. You know that guy that was way too important to take 10 minutes to call me himself.
   
6. The Boss. See above.
7. The Constant Talker. There are two versions of this person. The one version is where they will keep going on and on about the issue they are having, most of the time just coming up with 5 different ways to say the same thing. They will stop at nothing to keep their voice going and mine silent, I wonder at a certain point why they even called, they could have had the same conversation with a rock. The only time you have a chance is if/when they breathe, provided you have not fell asleep by that time. The other version is the person that will talk to the other people that are in the room with them while they are trying to simultaneously tell me about the issue they are having with their PC. But with either version I get it takes every fiber of my being not to yell SHUT UP as loud as I can. I am convinced that the only solution to this problem is to put my phone on mute and drive to their location and fix their issue, come back and take a nap while they are still on mute until they realize that the issue is resolved. I am positive that in 90% of these calls I can get away with that.

There are of course types of people that I am leaving out, but these are the most prevalent, and the most funny, I am here to entertain you after all.

I hope you all enjoyed this mostly literal, but somewhat satirical look into my world at work. And if any of you know me you know I can't drink, so, this can really help explain why I am like I am!