This date in history ...
It was 20 years ago today that Lee Elia had his classic rant on Cubs fans. (The link provides both the text and a partial wav file).

Coaches gone wild
Larry Eustachy's days as head coach at Iowa State are probably numbered after this article surfaced about his penchant for partying, including some incriminating photos of him at a Missouri party following a game in January.

The photos were hilarious as he seems to act like any college student at a party. Although you'd think a guy of his supposed stature would be drinking something better than Natty Light. The article also has plenty of gems including Eustachy telling a Kansas State coed that she should be at the University of Kansas because the girls are "much hotter."

Couple of final draft notes
JD mentions his disdain for the Nick Bakay/Mel Kiper Jr. lovefest package, and I tend to agree. The original "draftnik" was Joel Buschbaum at Pro Football Weekly, who died last December. Many in the league miss him and his insightfulness. What was strange was what he looked like when I saw a photo of him in the latest PFW Draft Book (nearly completed before he passed away). Whereas Kiper looks like some brash, cocky agent (he could pass for Drew Rosenhaus' cousin or brother), Buschbaum looks like Stephen Hawking. Not sure what else to say there, but he got the respect of the entire league.

Also, the Vikings first-round shenanigans and the flurry of draft picks that came afterward definitely reminded me of trivia night at Twain's, where the tiebreaker on questions is how fast you turn in your answer sheet. It'd be funny if there was a "wrong answer" card brought up during that confusion. "Oh sorry, Carolina, we can't accept that pick of Rae Carruth."

The Tao of Mel
The second day of the NFL Draft is usually full of guys you've never heard of, interspersed by "Hey, I remember that guy in college. Why wasn't he taken yesterday?" and "Why hasn't (popular player X) been taken?" There's always that talk about these late-round picks making or breaking a team's draft because you can get a lot of starters on the cheap from this part in the draft, which is true. However, many college football fans wonder what all the hubub is about because they know some of these players can produce. There's a reason why some of these guys were successful in college, and it has nothing to do with cones or benchpresses. (If workouts are a huge part of the scouting process, my brother could be drafted as a late-round "project" despite the only football experience being some flag football games.)

Sometimes you've got to wonder if NFL scouts watch college games, and if they do, do they start subtracting points for 300-yard games and other stats (as if they were playing a suck league)? Granted, most people knew Ken Dorsey probably isn't NFL star material with his arm, but at least he got drafted by the 49ers in the seventh round, where he'll likely compete with Tim Rattay (another great college player who has only gotten marginal work) to hold the clipboard. What about guys like Jason Gesser and Brad Banks, who had outstanding seasons? Banks seemed to be a one-year wonder with no real outstanding skills, so that's not a big surprise. But Gesser put up big numbers for a couple of years at Washington State. Were NFL teams that afraid to take another Cougar after Ryan Leaf? I mean, there is that Bledsoe guy in Buffalo who's not too bad.

Plus, Kilff Kingsbury was taken after Brooks Bollinger by one pick in the sixth round. I suppose Kingsbury was looked at as a "system" quarterback while Bollinger's "athleticism" (BTW, he's white) got him a slight nod. If either of those guys do anything in the league (and that's a longshot), please don't be surprised. Some of us are still laughing about the "out of nowhere" story of Marc Bulger.

Oh yeah, it doesn't look to be a good draft class if you're playing for this year. Time will tell, however. And I'll have another column about later-rounds pick tomorrow.

Early NFL Draft notes
This is the first time in four years I'm not in the office working the draft, primarily because the analyst I worked with on draft day has since moved on to NFL.com. But so far, the Jets seemed to do the safe pick in getting Dewayne Robertson from Kentucky at No. 4. The team could always use another defensive lineman. And as for a receiver to replace the other Dillard's guy, well, they did get Curtis Conway almost right away, so there doesn't seem to be a pressing need for another receiver immediately. Besides, I want to see what Santana Moss can do.

The whole Vikings thing seems to be a huge mess, again. It's a lot like one of the guys in our office fantasy league draft who could never come up with a pick right away. He'd be on the phone, shuffling through papers, etc. Oh yeah, he won just one game in two years, and he won't be back this season (that layoff actually made that decision that much easier). However, the fun of all of those picks that came as a result made the draft that much more fun -- and kept things moving. It seemed like the ESPN guys were disappointed in all the fast picks. Hey, it makes things move nicely. There will be time to catch up eventually. Besides, the 15 minutes per pick seems like a bit much, unless you are the Minnesota Vikings.

I also like this year's Madden 2004 ads with Ray Lewis having his way with the rookie class. It's still hard to believe Lewis has that much drawing power to do those ads given everything. But I guess his acquittal holds more than the one with O.J.

I'll take swords for $400. ... Uh, it's actually not "Swords."
I am now 1-for-3 in taking the Jeopardy test after whiffing badly today. In fact, I think I've done progressively worse each time I take it. Years of surprisingly necessary sports knowledge (for work, mind you) plus lots of pop culture stuff from all the TRASH/trash competitions seems to have pushed the academic knowledge out of my brain. I was toast within the first few questions after not knowing the first one and not pulling a Canada one until well after the test was over. However, I did ace all the pop culture questions, everything else was a crap shoot. For what it's worth, only five or six out of the 60 in my room passed the test.

I don't really have many more stories about the tryout. It was at a hotel down the street from work; however, thanks to the layoffs and other scheduling quirks, we were at a bare bones level of staffing this afternoon, and I had to handle just about every section anyone really wants to read. I was dealing with a bunch of NFL Draft stuff at just the time I needed to leave. However, I can't blame my performance on having to worry about things at work. I just didn't know my stuff.

We're going retro '90s?
Scarily, this old Onion article may actually be right about the retro craze. I had to think about it again after hearing this 10-year-old (!?!) song on the radio twice today -- on the way to work and immediately as I started up the car on the way out of the office. Granted, they were on different stations, including the retooled Atlanta classic rock station that allows it to be classified as "classic rock," but still it was strange since it's starting to fall into the retro/classic revival bin.

Then again, for as silly and poppy the song is, it still brings up a nice memory a girl named Kaymie (who adored the song) at some high school journalism conference in Washington my senior year of high school. Hey, if the weirdo art teacher on Six Feet Under can get emotional over "Sunglasses at Night", I can have this one.

It may be TV Turnoff week, but you won't see me anywhere near that for a variety reasons (with work actually being a primary reason). But it does provide a nice segue into some interesting observations:

-- Crossfire has moved to the afternoon, and in the process, it has turned into Pardon the Interruption, complete with a clock. It even had a SportsCenter ad (the bizarre one with Paul Konerko and Tim Hudson and a bunch of people walking around in a circle).

-- As I await the next absurd turns on 24, it was interesting to read this Washington Post homage to Kim Bauer -- one of the most ridiculous characters in TV history. However, it seems like the ambivalence of many (mostly male) fans toward her can be summed up best this way:

"Without meaning to, she has come to represent the vapidity and naive innocence of a Britney Nation caught up in something deadly serious, with only her wits and the occasional visibility of her nipples to save her."

The Breakfast Club + Joy Luck Club + Reservoir Dogs
Time for a shameless plug: Go see Better Luck Tomorrow when you can. It opened in NY, LA, SF and Chicago last week and it opened here in Atlanta as well as a few other cities today (DC, Dallas, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, Toronto) I was told there were a few changes to the ending compared to when I saw it at the AAJA convention last summer, but I didn't see anything really drastic. Someone hit it on the head when he compared the ending to The Graduate.

The movie was just as sharp as I remembered it, and it really is something you don't see too much in the movies today. The film definitely shatters some of the stereotypes of the overachieving Asian-American kids (hell, I definitely fit into the stereotype they try to break down). Something that a number of people mentioned about this movie is that we're "finally seeing people like us" on the screen. Scarily enough, I can say the same thing about this film. I swear I could pass for a couple of the extras. I'm almost surprised Justin Lin didn't do some double takes when I saw him in Dallas last year promoting the film.

Beer: It's what's on after wrestling
I don't think this move is a bad idea, given there are three distaff-focused channels. It'll be curious what else gets added to the schedule. I would think that the hunting and fishing shows that still remained from the original incarnation would be a good fit. However, I think this channel will likely serve a more narrow male demographic than people might expect.

I'm still trying to recover a bit physically and mentally from last weekend. Tournaments like this can drain sleep time and just about everything else from you.

What made things worse this week was the fact that we had another round of layoffs as soon as I got back. (I got a call about a staff meeting and the related cuts just an hour after getting back to my apartment Monday afternoon.) While I could debate the merits of the people being let go, all of this makes us that much leaner and casts more doubt as to what our future will be. I am often full of self-doubt and insecurity about what I do, but maybe because I set high (maybe too much so) expectations for myself. But I just wonder if the people seemingly responsible for some our problems (the same that just about every Web site has, mind you), don't seem to be held to higher standards than my co-workers. In fact, while we cut our staff, other areas are getting more people. We all need the money, but it doesn't help things when the people trying to sell us seem to have no idea what they're selling.

Then again, have more ads for products like this, maybe everyone will be back on track soon. It might've been one of the first pop-ups I actually clicked on in a long time. Then again, the utter shock of it was the primary reason for it, and well, that wore out quickly.

Back in blog

I guess I can breathe a little bit now that the latest edition of TRASHionals has come and gone. Not only was there plenty of work to do on the tournament – including serving as the bracketeer (now only if Jennifer Connelly could’ve joined me on the mission), and writing questions sometimes based on links/articles I would’ve normally used here. I can’t give that type of advantage to those competitors who usually read these things.

The tournament went over very well, I think, as it seemed like a bunch of us knew what to do and/or took control of the situation. Other than some problems with figuring out the main entrance that wasn’t locked on Saturday, the BU facility worked well – everyone in the same building is a good thing, even if it is spread out over five floors. A bunch of the BU folks were really helpful and made our jobs easier.

As Craig did last week, here were our brackets:
Saturday’s Round Robin: (Peter) Gammons, (Will) McDonough, (Bob) Ryan – homage to Boston sports writers; sorry, no Bill Simmons here – at least not for now
Sunday’s Playoffs: Williams, Yaz, Rice, Manny, Greenwell, O’Leary – Red Sox left fielders; however, there was some debate whether Greenwell or O’Leary deserved to be last. I thought Greenwell was better for a longer period of time to deserve not being last.

It was a load of fun seeing everyone again, although I did wish I could’ve spent more time with my friends on a bunch of the teams. But sometimes you’ve got to sacrifice some of that to make sure the tournament goes over well.

I hope questions went over well. I saw a decent amount of points scored in all of the matches I read, so I don’t think the tournament was overly difficult, but I guess everyone will have their different opinions.

The entertainment value seemed to be higher than last year. Part of it can be attributed to the questions. Part of it can be traced to some decent organization. Part of it has to do with the players. Having Charlie around really upped the fun level of the tournament, especially reading for the top playoff bracket Sunday. The match against the eventual champion Keenans was one of the most light-hearted playoff matches I’ve been part of ever. (The dictionaraoke question helped with that, as did some funny negs.)

Of course, the pinnacle of entertainment value came from Dave Murphy’s playing Dance Dance Revolution as a bonus question. I think we did well in putting that in there to make for a fun question and great theater for the finals.

Congrats to the Mike Keenan Employment Agency, LLC for becoming three-time, three-time, three-time TRASH champions by beating Battleplanet in a rematch of last year’s finals. I wonder if we’ll keep on seeing that matchup in the next couple of years. However, I was impressed by much of the field. My alma mater made an impressive run to qualify for the top playoff bracket and finish fifth overall (I also loved the Sports Night-themed team name). The Rutgers team (featuring one of my brother’s high school teammates who’s really good) pulled off upsets of both NU and Battleplanet.

To any regular readers of this blog, feel free to add some comments about your favorite questions from the weekend. Maybe I can take credit for some of them, maybe I can’t. Maybe I’ll just steal some of the credit.

I sometimes wonder who is really reading this blog. I say that because just days after this entry, my friend Rodney sort of follows up in the AJC. It serves me right for not reading the Billboard charts as often as before (when we both did a fantasy game on that site). The thing debuted at No. 17? Yikes!