It's Christmas In October For Cowboy-Haters!

Following up on my previous post about the exciting NFL season, I just saw the happy happy news that the Dallas Cowboys have been dealt their fourth or fifth major setback of the week!

Cowboys cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones has been suspended by the NFL for AT LEAST four games, including Dallas' next game against the Redskins, as punishment for getting into a fight with one of his own bodyguards last week.

The Pacman drama adds to what has been a terrible time for the Cowpokes ever since they lost to the Redskins two weeks ago...

• Starting quarterback Tony Romo is going to miss the next 4 weeks with a broken pinkie.


• His replacement is former Redskin Brad Johnson. I like Johnson and I always have, ever since he was a Redskin. But Johnson is 40, and he doesn't have much of an arm anymore, which means Dallas' leading crybaby, Terrell Owens, is going to have plenty to whine about!


• Punter Mat McBriar, perhaps the best punter in football, is out for a couple of months with a broken foot.


• The Cowboys' other starting corner back, Terrence Newman, is out for another five weeks after surgery for a sports hernia, leaving two rookies to anchor a pass defense that was already shaky to begin with!

After being widely touted as the presumptive Super Bowl favorites, it looks like Dallas could be in danger of missing the playoffs altogether... As a lifelong Redskins fan, it doesn't get any better than that!

Tee Hee Hee!

Election Fatigue

I got up this morning and wrote four paragraphs with my latest take on the upcoming elections... and quickly found that I'm bored with both Obama and McCain... as I imagine much of America is. Short of a major scandal (which America doesn't need), you should know by now who you'll be voting for three weeks from today.

So let's talk about something of much more import to the American people. I am, of course, speaking about football. PRO football in general, and the NFC East to be specific. How much better can it get than this? Just as it seemed like the division was going to be anointed as the greatest ever, three of the four teams lost in week six - and to teams they were heavily favored to beat, to boot! The only team that won in week 6 were the last-place Eagles, which means all four teams are in position to beat the crap out of each other for the rest of the season!

Can life get any better than this? Yes. It's the Ides of October, for chrissakes (well, almost - it's Ides Eve)! God did not intend for football fans to be watching games when it's 85 degrees outside, except in Miami, where God did not intend any teams that wear Aqua and Orange to be taken seriously, anyway.

I prematurely made my first pot of chili of the season last week, and now it's taking up space in my freezer because God also did not intend any self-respecting chili to be consumed in weather like this.

One more football-related note in this rather scatter-brained entry (which is still more interesting by far than any election related blog I might have written)... I am dying to get to the theater to see "The Express", the movie based on Ernie Davis, the first black to win the Heisman Trophy. Davis went to Syracuse, and was set to follow his idol and fellow Orangeman Jim Brown to the Cleveland Browns, but he died of Leukemia before he ever got the chance to go to the NFL.

The film is getting mixed reviews for its accuracy, but it does include several scenes shot on the Syracuse campus that I want to see, including one in front of Hendricks Chapel, where I sang in choir. I'm especially interested to see the depiction of Syracuse's Archbold stadium, which was torn down before my freshman year to make way for the Carrier Dome. You can see the dome behind the chapel in the picture above. In the film, the old stadium has been digitally inserted to replace the Dome, and it'll be interesting to see what that looked like!