Blathering Nonsense and Angry Rhetoric

NFL Thoughts Halfway Through the Year

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 21:45:00 +0000

ARISE, Blog! I command thee to rise!

So, I missed Halloween with that spooky reference, just like I missed doing my usual irreverent and mockery-filled NFL preview before the season started. I can rectify the latter by writing out some quick thoughts per team partway through this absolutely bizarre year. That's totally the same, really! I will keep myself honest and mention teams that I thought would be awful - I was hilariously wrong in a couple of cases, much like last season.

Let Mortal Kombat commence!

NFC East

I really thought that this would be a return to the halcyon days of the NFC Least division, where they received immense amounts of airtime for generally poor football. The Eagles were my lone playoff pick out of everyone, and I had both New York and Washington rated as two of the worst teams in the game. I guess 50% isn't too bad, right? RIGHT? Dallas would be mired in mediocrity.

1. Washington Commanders

Look, I was simply expecting a rebuild, okay? Look at that offensive line! YOU LOOK AT IT! Name me a receiver not named Terry McLaurin. Now explain to me how this offense is working as well as it is. It's insane. The defense has looked good, but Dan Quinn has proven to be a good teacher and great defensive coach, so that doesn't surprise me all that much. I actually liked the Quinn hire for those reasons. And it turns out that Kliff Kingsbury isn't a complete clown when you limit him to running an offense. Jayden Daniels is this year's unicorn rookie quarterback who raises the expectations of all rookie passers to largely unrealistic levels.

I guess ridding yourself of one of the worst owners in professional sports and his cadre of loyal idiots can be a good thing. Who knew?

2. Philadelphia Eagles

Putting Saquon Barkley behind an actually competent offensive line equals fireworks, which just about anyone with a pulse figured would happen. To nobody's surprise, replacing human dumpster fire Matt Patricia with Vic Fangio has also led to improvement. One could have replaced Patricia with the stupid pencil tucked behind his idiot ear and still ended up with a better defense.

The problem is that Philly succeeds in spite of not really patching obvious problems. Passing game vanishes whenever 1 of the big 2 receivers gets hurt? Let's pretend that Parris Campbell is anything good. And then pick up Jahan Dotson, who has accomplished somewhere between little and nothing. Need linebackers? I'm sure Tampa Bay cast off Devin White by mistake. And then there's professional idiot Nick Sirianni. When he's not busy shouting at fans of his own team, he's busy doing something. I actually don't know what this jackass does, since he had no input into hiring the new coordinators this past offseason. Just keep him away from sharp things and fire and they should be a lock for the playoffs.

3. Dallas Cowboys

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

All in. They're all in, guys! Apparently the definition of 'all in' which exists in the geriatric maze of Jerry Jones' brain means signing an aging linebacker and a reunion with utterly washed Ezekiel Elliott. Then we'll replace Dan Quinn with another decrepit old man in Mike Zimmer. Sure, he hasn't coached in years and everyone was piecing up his defense regularly late in his Minnesota stint, but he'll shake all of that off, right? Mike coaches defense like he's trying to let the other team score faster so he can make it to the diner before the Early Bird Special is done for the day. Mike McCarthy is inexplicably still the head coach and remains a master of looking befuddled by everything around him.

Oh hey, let's give up a 4th round pick for Jonathan Mingo! But we'll wait until after Dak goes out for the year, so that Cooper Rush and Trey Lance can maximize his potential. Brilliant! Their own goddamn stadium was built in such a way that their own receivers drop passes because they're being blinded by the sun. This team's best hope lies in the death of the owner.

4. New York Giants

Sweet merciful fuck. You mean to tell me that Devin Singletary is not a replacement for Saquon? Shocking! Evan Neal remains a terrible draft choice. They paid Daniel Jones a bajillion dollars as though doing so would be the glass slipper that transforms him into the finest quarterback at the ball. Then again, this team drafted him entirely because his college coach was previously the coach for each of the Manning brothers. This is not made up. One of the dumbest reasons to draft a player ever. They aren't noted for their judgment. At least Malik Nabers looks like a monster.

Defensively, the trade for Brian Burns has helped create one of the nastiest front lines in football. They just haven't bothered to try to put anything in place behind them that can be relied upon to cover even a stationary object for more than a second. I feel kind of bad for Brian Daboll, who seems like a good coach saddled by horrible personnel decisions by Joe Schoen and the newest batch of the Mara family.

NFC North

I wasn't too far off the mark here, as I didn't think any of these teams would be truly bad. The Bears were hilariously overrated, but they would avoid garbage fire territory. I did think the Vikings would be dead last, but it turns out their coaching staff is capable of enough witchcraft that they're getting past their many flaws.

1. Detroit Lions

Hell has officially frozen over. The Lions are good. They're really good. Jared Goff has become so crazy accurate that it's noteworthy when a pass falls incomplete. I jinxed him. He threw 5 picks after I wrote this. It's all over. Amon-Ra St. Brown has the insane production year after year to go with one of the best names in sports. Jameson Williams is actually decent when he isn't being suspended because he's dumber than fuck. The two headed running attack is showing maybe Brad Holmes wasn't mainlining pure crazy when he drafted Jahmyr Gibbs 12th overall. So many knee caps have been bitten and consumed!

And now, Aaron Glenn's defense seems to have figured out that giving up yardage isn't actually the point. The secondary is actually pretty good, but the pass rush disappeared as soon as Aiden Hutchinson shattered his leg like kindling. The linebackers exist. I'm sure their moms are proud.

2. Minnesota Vikings

Kevin O'Connell is a warlock. The guy keeps crafting credible offenses out of spare parts and castoffs. Sam Darnold? Sure, we'll turn him into reasonable facsimile of a quarterback who someone will grossly overpay in the near future. No interior line? Who needs one! He'll create a game plan where it somehow isn't a problem that his center and guards may as well be globs of old chewing gum scraped off the bottom of a desk. That's highly unrealistic. The gum would offer more resistance to defenders than Ed Ingram ever has in his short career. Brian Flores is also practicing dark magic, as he masks a complete lack of decent defensive linemen or defensive backs with any speed by BLITZING EVERYONE ALL THE TIME. Fuck coverage - just kill people!

Imagine how good this team could be with a GM who isn't an idiot. First, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah just continued the Spielman-Zimmer path of doubling down on veterans. Then he changed course without setting up the roster with succession plans at any position on the field. I don't think he knows that line play is even a thing. I can't wait for the upcoming draft, where he ignores huge needs elsewhere and drafts yet another receiver because reasons.

3. Green Bay Packers

Jordan Love is like some sort of weird football Santa. He has passes for everyone! Lots of good receivers? They all get the ball! A stack of piledriving running backs? There's plenty for them to share as well! And let's not leave the opposing defenses left out. He'll toss a football directly to every last one of them, too. His generosity is both amazing and incredibly stupid. He's Brett Favre without the fraud. Yet. As stated, the receivers are good. Unfortunately, they take turns actually showing talent. If it isn't someone's turn to go off, they instead drop everything sent their way. The line is solid except for when it feels like being a sieve. The Packers offense is insanity.

It's nice seeing their defense run by someone with competent aggression. No more sitting back in a shell all day and getting picked apart. No more ancient schemes of Dom Capers that may as well have been scrawled on cave walls somewhere. Actual defense!

4. Chicago Bears

The degree to which this team was overhyped heading into the season was insane. Sure, Caleb Williams has looked reasonable (for non-freak rookie passers), but people were talking him up for 5000 yards and 78 touchdowns. They decided to buy high on D'Andre Swift, as though his career season wasn't a product of a great line on a team that pounded the rock like dwarven miners. Keenan Allen is terrific when he's healthy, which is approximately never. We were supposed to get excited about Gerald Everett for some reason. And the line is rough. Nate Davis was cast off by THE TITANS. When the Titans don't want a lineman, that should set off very loud alarms. The tackles don't seem to understand that pass rushers are allowed to run around them.

The biggest problem is the coaching staff. Matt Eberflus still doesn't understand clock or timeout management. He's the village idiot reborn as a coach. He finally got out from under Luke Getsy bumblefucking his offense and replaced him with a guy Seattle cast off. He made this hire on purpose. Now we get to watch as Chicago hands the ball off to offensive linemen in critical situations. POWER FOOTBALL or something. UPDATE : Shane Waldron is gone, only to be replaced by one of the guys responsible for Carolina's offense last year. This is progress??

NFC South

Atlanta has done better than I expected, but the holes in the lineup aren't really a surprise. Carolina is absolute trash to the surprise of nobody. I thought New Orleans would be weak, but holy fuck did I not see it being this bad. And the Bucs have struggled in the spots that seemed obvious based on their roster flaws.

1. Atlanta Falcons

This team leads the division despite the hilarity of drafting a pro ready prospect 8th overall to sit behind Kirk Cousins for two years. Cousins has gotten back on track, slinging the rock around and engaging in his usual trash talk that tries to sound cocky and Christian wholesome all at once. It turns out that Kyle Pitts, Bijan Robinson and Darnell Mooney are actually really good players when not in offenses run by total dipshits. The line doesn't seem to understand that pass protection is a thing, but Kirk is used to being under siege right off the snap from his days in purple.

A pass rush sure would help. Or better play from the interior defensive line. Or a second corner to pair up with AJ Terrell on the outside. But hey, they really needed Michael Penix Jr.!. It all makes perfect sense! I'm sure his presence is comforting to the increasingly cadaver-like Arthur Blank on the sidelines during games. One of these days, Blank is going to die during a game and nobody will notice.

2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Watching Baker Mayfield light the league on fire while the Browns flail around incompetently is a delicious glass of the finest Schadenfreude ever, slinging it all over the field to Evans, Godwin and McMillian. Oh, but they're all hurt. Is Chris Godwin ever actually healthy? For some reason, the team decided to keep pretending that Rachaad White was a starting tailback based on his history of never once being a consistent runner. Vita Vea is the defensive version of Godwin, a terrific talent who is always out of the lineup. Lavonte David remains a ridiculously talented linebacker who nobody ever remembers. Antoine Winfield Jr is an absolute monster in the middle of the defensive backfield.

Of course, Jason Licht has to derp his way into a few highly questionable decisions. We'll replace Shaq Barrett with a small mound of magic beans! Who needs an actual linebacker next to David, when we can just construct something out of papier mache? To be fair, it isn't like Devin White was consistently any better than that. And somebody named Zyon McCollum is absolutely ready to be the #2 cornerback! Who needs offensive line depth? We have misguided hope!

3. Carolina Panthers

Holy shit, they aren't in last! That itself is a victory. It's the only victory for this congealing puddle of shit that is supposedly a football team. Coaching the puddle is Dave Canales, hired way too fast because he's supposed to be a quarterback whisperer of sorts after resurrecting the careers of both Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield. He was also likely the only person willing to deal with David Tepper's bullshit. To say that this roster is bereft of talent would be an understatement. The reign of Scott Fitterer was so egregiously awful that he should face a tribunal at The Hague.

Their big offseason additions were a new interior offensive line, Jonathan Brooks at running back (yet to play due to injury) and Diontae Johnson (possibly the single most inconsistent decent receiver in the history of the game. Also, he's now a Baltimore Raven). Miles Sanders remains as a cosmic joke. The defense was completely gutted, leaving them with perennial 'he might have a good year' candidate Jadeveon Clowney, and the approximately 7 total games that they'll get from Shaq Thompson and Jaycee Horn. This team should qualify for federal disaster relief funds.

4. New Orleans Saints

Ladies and gentlemen, we have dug ourselves a whole new circle of Hell. A team being beneath the Panthers makes so little sense that it defies the existence of logic itself. This team keeps hilariously convincing itself that it's just one more old guy away from being a surprise title contender. This might actually be rock bottom enough that even Mickey fucking Loomis and the idiotic owners realize that the jig has been up for 5 years. Hey, they finally fired Dennis Allen! Of course, the remaining coaches are all guys who he vouched for, so enjoy that.

Cam Jordan has finally gotten old and taken the pass rush with him, as Payton Turner and Isaiah Foskey are godawful wastes of draft picks. Demario Davis is on his last legs. Tyrann Mathieu has become a slow, sad version of what he used to be. Come one and all and feast your eyes on a truly stunning number of blown draft picks and bad spending choices! And now they've spent so long kicking the cap can down the road that it has become less of a road and more of an infinite loop of financial disaster. This team is going to be horrible for years. Nobody reputable is going to take the coach or GM gigs. This is what years of delusion gets you - well and truly fucked.

NFC West

I actually did think that the Cardinals would be competitive, but not to this degree. Rams and Seahawks had enough flaws that competent seemed like their cap. And I'm not overly shocked by the fall of the Niners - years of blown high picks have made this roster so top heavy that a few injuries just decimates them.

1. Arizona Cardinals

What in the actual fuck is this madness? Jonathan Gannon turned out to be another Dan Campbell - hilariously bad start to his run with a stupid sound bite, followed by actually seeming like a good motivator and coach. The departure of Kliff Kingsbury and his stark Bond villain home has returned Kyler Murray to football competence after years of listing 'Call of Duty pro' as his occupation. They actually have blockers! They actually have a pass rush! That can actually slow down the other team's running game! They were BUYERS at the trade deadline! This team's strangely successful start to the year probably foretold the return of the Trump administration.

2. San Francisco 49'ers - Brock Purdy is on the verge of being paid the GDP of the entire Caribbean per year. Christian McCaffrey is finally back after missing the first half of the season with Achilles tendons somehow rusting out of his ankles. And the rest of the skill position players remain productive even without Brandon Aiyuk. Things are looking up after some struggles while the entire offensive lineup was hurt. Unfortunately, the defense remains a pale shadow of what it once was. Fred Warner is fantastic, but has to be an entire linebacker corps by himself. Nick Bosa overpursues so aggressively that drawing him to do so has become a legit part of the offensive game plan for their opponents. They have no depth anywhere. This is what happens when you waste high draft picks on Trey Lance. And Drake Jackson. And Cameron Latu. And Jake Moody. Kyle Shanahan is here to look like a genius until he yet again forgets that you're allowed to run the ball in the playoffs.

3. Los Angeles Rams - Look what happens when this team stops fucking them picks and actually drafts players? They nail every single pick throughout the draft. It's ridiculous! Unfortunately, they possess no depth on the roster after years of going for it. Professional statue Matthew Stafford can still sling it if his patchwork line can hold their blocks for enough time that an entire eclipse eclipse cycle can begin and end. They made productive receivers of Tyler Johnson and Demarcus Robinson. They had to, because everyone else was hurt. Cooper Kupp is a rumor at this point. The defense has actually done well without Aaron Donald, though coverage breakdowns happen due to a complete lack of anybody that you've ever heard of.

4. Seattle Seahawks - They started 2-0. Then they reminded everyone that they aren't very good. Geno Smith is insistent on making reads so bad they should be censored on screen. The line can't stay healthy. They spent consecutive 2nd rounders on running backs, yet are always stuck picking up your weird uncle off waivers to carry the rock because those backs are always hurt. DK Metcalf vacillates between "OH MY GOD WHAT A TALENT" and "Oh my God, I forgot he was out here". They remade the linebacker corps and got worse. Tariq Woolen can't seem to decide if he's a great corner or the newest incarnation of Terrell Buckley. They can't tackle. Needs work. Everywhere.

AFC East

"Boy howdy, this whole division could be pretty good (besides the Patriots). So much potential."

LOL. Sure, prognosticators. Sure thing. I had Buffalo winning this, New York in the wild card mix (Never believe in the Jets, kids!), Miami struggling to keep up and the Patriots as maybe the worst team in the entire league.

1. Buffalo Bills - Let's take away Stefon Diggs and not replace him. And it won't matter at all, because Josh Allen has become Captain America. Remember when he was an inaccurate moron? That's long gone. It helps that Joe Brady actually runs the ball to keep defenses honest, something previous coordinators couldn't seem to get the hang of. Khalil Shakir is the sleeper a lot of people thought he would be. The defense is playing very well. Greg Rousseau has become a monster. They seem to be able to plug in any old pylon and receive solid corner play from it. If only they had spent their top pick last year on an actual football player rather than Dalton Kincaid. There really isn't a lot of make fun of, and I hate them for it.

2. Miami Dolphins - 3-6 record and in 2nd place in this clogged toilet of a division. I never again want to hear about Mike McDaniel being some sort of offense wunderkind. Every single game without Tua under center was a fucking war crime. This guy can't scheme up anything beyond MOAR LONG BOMB. Tua himself remains a good deep ball passer until the inevitable day when he gets knocked unconscious and awakens identifying as a tax accountant named Barry. Oh, and he throws himself head first at defenders after an interception, so he's totally smart and stuff. They keep drafting running backs as though Pete Carroll is somehow involved in the team. Their defense is horrible. Half of their offensive line could be replaced by bus drivers and nobody would notice the difference. They replaced Christian Wilkins with Benito Jones and thought it would work.

3. New York Jets - Just wait until we get a full season of Aaron! This team's going to the Super Bowl! They started horribly and justifiably fired Robert Saleh. Nope, still shit! How in the fuck is Joe Douglas still the GM?! Has he ever made a single high leverage move that rates better than 'utter disaster'? They traded for a pass rusher who was holding out for a new deal and then were then caught unawares when he continued to hold out for a new deal. Half their receiving corps were undrafted free agents, but they were surprised when the lack of depth hurt them. Every major free agent signing lists 'being injured' amongst their hobbies, yet they were caught off guard when all of them got hurt again. They didn't restock the defensive line. Aaron Rodgers is less likable than botulism. They might get a bit of a boost by a likely cabinet position for Woody Johnson in the new Trump administration. I'm not even joking. I am actually predicting this. They were buyers at the deadline due to organizational stupidity and the reunion of Aaron and Davante Adams has led to nothing. They're actually worse than they were with ZACK WILSON at quarterback.

4. New England Patriots - Jeeeeezus. They finally turned the page on the last, wheezing days of the Belichick experience. Then the owners and Jerod Mayo didn't appear to agree on anything during interviews. We're going to spend, no we're not! We're going to draft a quarterback, we might not, oh look we did! Their brilliant solution to a talent-poor roster was to just re-sign or extend everyone who was already there. What a shocker, they're still talent-poor! The secondary is actually thinner than it was a year ago. They still don't have a single receiver who should be higher in the lineup than WR3. The only addition made to one of the worst offensive lines in the entire NFL was the washed up carcass of Chukwuma Okarafor. Then, Christian Barmore was shut down with blood clots, rendering the entire defense about as tough as a sleeping baby. Speed? What's speed? We don't believe in that. Drake Maye looks legit, but this franchise is in total disarray.

AFC North

I really expected this to be the best division in the game, with no really bad teams. I had the Ravens and Bengals competing for first, but apparently someone forgot to wake up Cincinnati. Pittsburgh would be 3rd, and Cleveland a competitive 4th. Sigh.

1. Pittsburgh Steelers - So, Justin Fields will actually appear decent, but we'll still replace him with a Russell Wilson who looked like a collapsing star when we last saw him. Only, it will work out?! Mike Tomlin has sold his soul for the promise of perpetually competitive football. There is no other explanation. The offensive line continues to play well, though Broderick Jones' second year has been rough. They finally realized that Calvin Austin is garbage and picked up Mike Williams, but he will fracture every bone in his legs in about 3 games. Defensively, Cam Heyward is never going to get old and wear down. He'll remain one of the league's greatest defensive linemen in a few millennia in the Post-Apocalyptic Football League. They've rebuilt the rest of the defense. They will not be stopped. They are eternal.

2. Baltimore Ravens - Lamar Jackson is tearing teams apart on a weekly basis. Derrick Henry is stomping the carcasses of their victims into a fine paste. Zay Flowers is really good. Every tight end they touch becomes solid, though never all at once. The young line has come together. Sadly, they'll lose in the playoffs when new addition Diontae Johnson drops 5 passes. Just let it happen.

That's if their defense lets them get there, because apparently the only way for the Ravens to have a good offense is for them to possess one of the worst defenses in the entire league. Turns out that replacing Patrick Queen with nothing was a mistake. Their annual tradition of having every cornerback get hurt persists. They can't rush the quarterback. They can't stop the run. They can't do anything. John Harbaugh's decision to pass over his established defensive coaches to hand the DC reins to Zach Orr certainly looks great!

3. Cincinnati Bengals - Remember when Lou Anarumo looked like a good defensive coordinator? Remember when Logan Wilson and Germaine Pratt were productive? Remember when they had a defensive front who could stop people larger than a typical third grade student? Remember when they could rush the passer? Trey Hendrickson is having the season of his life and it doesn't remotely matter. On offense, Burrow and Chase continue to be incredible, but that's about it. The offensive line never lives up to what it's supposed to. Tee Higgins can't stay healthy and will soon be an afterthought. They don't have a consistent slot receiver, though Mike Gesicki is good for the approximately 3 games a year when he turns back the clock. At least Chase Brown seems like a good back. Zac Taylor is here to remind everyone that fully grown people shouldn't be named Zac. This team got back to 'Oh right, Mike Brown is a cheap idiot owner and scouts are important' in a hurry.

4. Cleveland Browns - Welcome to the evidence that karma exists. The retribution on this franchise has been absolute. Deshaun Watson has regressed to a degree that has never been seen before. It's weird to remember when a stud he was in Houston and then look at the smoking crater that is his Browns tenure. When your team is resting hope on the interception-prone jackassery of Jameis Winston, you are well and truly fucked. But it's okay, they're only stuck with Deshaun for least 2 more years! Andrew Berry is an awful GM who has whiffed on multiple picks and keeps trading for mediocre receivers. The offensive line fell from really good to really fucking old with impressive haste. Their secondary is great, but they're soon going to lose half of it when everyone comes up for free agency in the next year or so. They purposely picked up more veteran quarterbacks and defensive tackles than they could carry because Berry is a fucking dipshit. The franchise motto may as well be "Keep it stupid".

AFC South

AFC South football is the Texans and blinding horror. I figured Houston would win this thing in a walk. I had the Titans in 4th. Indy seemed mediocre and 3rd and Jackonville also mediocre and 2nd. I was wrong. I was so wrong. It's all so bad. People talked about how every team in the division had a young quarterback with potential, so they were all wrong as well. Wrong should be the subtitle for the division as a whole.

1. Houston Texans - They were a lock to win this thing from the start because everyone else spent the offseason desperately trying to shore up bad rosters and just ignoring problems. Bobby Slowik keeps fucking things up by running 25 times a game when they really shouldn't. Dameon Pierce remains around to make people wish for a replacement who isn't cheeks. Joe Mixon is decent, but he's a little long in the tooth and the extension for him was strange. The offensive line is horrible. Kenyon Green is vomit. Tytus Howard isn't very good, either. Both were first round picks. Luckily, the defense is incredible. They smash quarterbacks. They smash running backs. They smash receivers. They would probably smash the fans of their opponents if that weren't a felony. And they still have a beastly quarterback when Bobby remembers that 2 yards per run isn't something to pursue.

Isn't it amazing how a franchise can turn things around when the Patriots team chaplain doesn't Rasputin his way into being your President of Football Operations? Still the weirdest fucking tenure in recent memory.

2. Indianapolis Colts - A year ago, they spent the 4th pick on a quarterback so raw that he makes Steak Tartare look well done. Now they've turned the team over to a plucky 39 year old Joe Flacco, only to keep losing because this time his team isn't good enough to cover for his 2 picks per start habit. Back to Richardson! It makes sense, but he is godawful. They have a loaded receiving corps who neither quarterback can utilize effectively. The offensive line remains rock solid, but it doesn't matter. They still don't rush the passer well enough. Doubling down on problems with pass defense, they added nobody to a weak secondary and seem surprised that their coverage breakdowns haven't cleared up on their own. Chris Ballard is still the general manager and I genuinely don't understand how or why that's the case. There doesn't seem to be a plan here beyond flailing around and grabbing on to totally random player moves and ignoring years-long issues.

3. Tennessee Titans - They aren't in last place, and that's horrifying. I'm a fan and even I can't watch whatever this is anymore. The quarterback play can charitably be described as shit. The right tackle options consist of Larry, Curly or Moe. The passing game was reliant on Treylon Burks staying healthy and Calvin Ridley being consistent, which is totally smart and stuff. They spent a fortune on L'Jarius Sneed and Chidobe Awuzie only for the latter to get hurt again and the former to see his play drop off now that he no longer has a ferocious pass rush to help him out. Then he also got hurt. Now a 5th round rookie and a pickup from the Colts practice squad are the outside corners, and that's going as well as you think it is. The punter thinks hammering the ball deep every time is good and they spent the offseason unloading every special teams player worth a shit. This team is to kick coverage what Aaron Rodgers is to normalcy. They have no depth. They have no speed. They have no hope.

4. Jacksonville Jaguars - In the continuing tales of 'How the fuck is this guy still a GM?', we come to Trent Baalke. He got this job after destroying the 49'ers because the Khan family is about as competent at running a football franchise as Elon Musk is at running just about everything. Hey guys, Shad Khan insisted this was the best team they've ever had! And who wouldn't share that enthusiasm after ponying up for old and injury prone Arik Armstead, continuous drops case Gabe Davis and ancient Mitch Morse? Who needs a left guard? Who needs a receiver not named Brian Thomas? Doug Pedersen's usage of running backs has been absolutely bipolar. Travon Walker exists as a persistent troll of their own fan base as they think about what life would be like with Aidan Hutchinson opposite Josh Hines-Allen. They handed a huge extension to Tyson Campbell coming off the worst season of his career in a defensive system that he doesn't look comfortable playing in. They also handed all of the money on Earth to their supposed franchise quarterback coming off a season of struggle. This team is stupendous at striking when the iron is stone cold. Ron Darby is old. Every defensive tackle is bad. Every pick made after Brian Thomas was taken way too early. Welcome to the circus, folks!

AFC West

And finally, we arrive here. I had the Chiefs winning and the Chargers looking like an actually competent football team, though hindered by some roster gaps. The Raiders would be decent IF their questionable quarterback/offense could step up (LOL), and the Broncos as one of the worst teams in the league. Ahem.

1. Kansas City Chiefs - They just keep finding ways to win, but I don't know if there has ever been an undefeated team this late into the season that inspired less confidence that they do. It's great that they don't panic and continue to pull out close wins, but the whole thing just seems incredibly fragile. Patrick Mahomes is suddenly Captain of the good ship Interception. And still gets talked about like he's an MVP candidate because football media's Chiefs boner refuses to soften. Travis Kelce and Deandre Hopkins catch anything within a county of them but possess about as much speed and explosiveness as a hibernating bear. Xavier Worthy is really fast and refuses to get anywhere near an actual football. He runs routes like avoiding the catch is the goal of his game. The rest of the receiving corps is a weird collection of returnees. Remember JuJu? He's back! I mean, he's hurt, but someday. And Mecole Hardman is here to occasionally make something happen. The line is great and seemingly anyone can run for 90+ yards behind it. And suddenly, the defense is the star of the show. This team comes after quarterbacks like a horde of sprinting zombies seeking out brains.

2. Los Angeles Chargers - I will never get used to addressing this team with that city. It's weird and unseemly and the Spanos family should burn for it. On the field, their strategy of collecting broken down ex-Ravens running backs has been weirdly successful. The line is a collection of human bulldozers bent on the decimation of anything before them. Who needs big name wide receivers when you have a healthy Justin Herbert and the weird dark magical powers of Jim Harbaugh? Jim seems like a guy who would be awesome to hang out with. For about an hour. After that, you find yourself hoping he steps into a bear trap.

The defense is finally looking like it was supposed to for years under previous 'guru' Brandon Staley. The secondary has some holes, but every single player out there is some sort of weird quarterback seeking missile. The US Air Force will be launching Mack, Bosa and company at their next enemy. Hell, Joey seems dumb enough that he'd probably volunteer for it.

3. Denver Broncos - Wait, this team has 5 wins? HOW?! Bo Nix has actually had an impressive rookie campaign, which is even better when you look at who he's throwing to. Courtland Sutton has about 3 big games per year to convince everyone that he's really good. They moved up in the draft last year to get Marvin Mims and now refuse to let him do anything but return punts, because that totally makes sense. The committee of 17 different running backs has generally managed to forge together a decent ground game, like a mediocre football version of Voltron. And the line has actually managed to play up to their contracts for once. The defense continues to outperform their personnel under the weird second Denver appearance of Vance Joseph. I hate the fact that Sean Payton and his goddamn visor are being talked up again. I loathe this man.

4. Las Vegas Raiders - So, maybe giving Antonio Pierce the permanent job wasn't such a good move? Questions began almost at once, as he decided to actually give a job to Luke Getsy fresh off of his performance in Chicago. Then again, the team decided to give the GM gig to Tom Telesco after watching him fail miserably with the Chargers for years, so nobody involved in this organization seems capable of making sound choices. Let's pretend that Zamir White is a starting back based off a small sample size! Why that's never blown up in anyone's face before! Who needs consistent wideouts? Who needs a quarterback capable of launching a deep ball? Who needs a secondary? We don't need that when Tom Brady is a minority share owner! Of course, that's meant that his ability to be a commentary has been shot in the face, but whatever! He's handsome, goddammit! And his winning ways will somehow rub off on this moribund franchise? Or something? Good thing we spent 100 mil on a defensive tackle. That will fix the offense...

Totally Bad NFL Predictions That Are Wronger Than Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 16:38:00 +0000

Here we are, at the cusp of another season of FOOTBAW! And so I must mock and make horrible predictions that will be proven entirely wrong by about Week 3. It’s what I do!

We’ll start with the NFC, which is just as boring as last year. A handful of good teams atop a superstructure of rust and absolute failure. How fun!

NFC East

Philadelphia - The Eagles are still on top, which is as much a statement about the failings of their divisional rivals as it is one on their own quality. Completely forgetting the lesson that actually having functional linebackers is a good thing, they spent the entire offseason settling for the flotsam not deemed good enough by the rest of the league. But hey, they really needed to collect the entire Georgia Bulldogs defensive line. Seriously, this team has 13 defensive linemen and edge rushers on the roster to 4 wide receivers. Marcus Mariota is here to provide the ultimate definition of mediocrity personified, though he spent all preseason looking much worse than that. They also lost all of their safeties, which was the cost of keeping Darius Slay and James Bradberry. Corners in their thirties never fade, right? As the ultimate cherry on top, they hired Matt Patricia. On purpose! The next global pandemic will begin within his greasy filth-bucket of a beard.

Best Name on the Roster : Olamide Zaccheaus. Either a wide receiver or the patron saint of pimps.

Dallas - IT’S THEIR YEAR, Y’ALL! THIS TIME THEY GO ALL THE WAY! It’s the annual braying nonsense of the ignorant followers of America’s Team. Tony Pollard is now the lone back, fresh off of a leg snapped in half. They’ve got an offensive line in front of him, but will follow tradition and lose the entire group in a heap of fragmented ligaments by Week 3. They did not replace Ezekiel Elliott and have nobody with any power in the backfield. They gave up more for Trey Lance than they received a year ago for Amari Cooper, and Jerruh acquired Lance without asking anyone with any knowledge of football whether he fits their team at all. Brandin Cooks and Stephon Gilmore continue their respective tours through every franchise in the NFL. But there is good news : Mike McCarthy got his way and unloaded Kellen Moore. Running the offense now are he and Brian fucking Schottenheimer. Get ready for three quarters of punching themselves in the taint and then asking Dak Prescott to single-handedly bail them out of trouble. Luckily he’s GREAT under pressure.

Best Name on the Roster : Rico Dowdle. Sounds like the owner of an Italian deli who keeps making specious claims that he has mafia connections.

Washington - Because the team basically didn’t have an active owner all offseason, Ron Rivera is still here to keep the seat warm for 8 weeks until his inevitable firing for Eric Bienemy to take over. But we can all enjoy half a season of Ron constantly looking befuddled by everything he sees. Every single quarterback on the roster would be fighting to earn the backup job anywhere else in the league. They’re still hoping the tight end can repeat his one successful season, and that was three years ago. The offensive line is awful. The defensive line looks good on paper, but never lives up to the billing. Chase Young is less durable than Papyrus scrolls from 3000 BC. They spent their top pick on a cornerback who is leaner than one of the starving children in a Unicef commercial. However, let’s let Commanders fans rejoice in the fact that Dan Snyder is finally gone. And maybe sometime soon they’ll have a football stadium that doesn’t frequently leak sewage onto parts of the crowd. Dare to dream!.

Best name on the roster : Dax Milne. A private eye in a near future Cyberpunk hellscape!

New York - This team spent the entire second half of last season failing. They won three games where the opposition had a legitimate chance to win on the final play. They barely squeezed out a winning record while being outscored on the year. Daniel Jones turned 15 TD passes into a $160 million extension. The receiving corps wasn’t good, and their answer was to simply re-sign everyone anyway and to take over from the Colts in wondering “Is THIS the year that Parris Campbell accomplishes something?”. This entire mess relies on the durability of Saquon Barkley and Darren Waller, which is like relying on trickle down economics to start helping the common man. The defense is relying on stalwarts like Bobby McCain and Carlos Basham Jr. to actually accomplish something. They have two good defensive backs on the entire roster. This team has totally turned the corner!

Best name on the roster : Cor’Dale Flott. It’s a minor skin condition affecting thousands of terriers every year.

NFC North

Detroit - Nothing screams “The end times are upon us!” like choosing the Detroit fucking Lions to actually win something. But here we are, with Dan Campbell’s Association of Kneecap Chompers at the top of a fairly mediocre heap. Jared Goff managed to put up the sort of numbers he did early on for the Rams. And just like what happened there, he will now wilt under the pressure of expectation. But the weapons around him! They drafted a running back at 12th overall who hopes to one day weigh 200 pounds. They pinned all of their hopes on Jameson Williams, he of one NFL catch, to improve the passing offense only to see him suspended because he was too impatient to wait and place a bet at home. Oh, but old Marvin Jones is here, and that’s totally the same thing. While they drastically improved the back seven of the defense, the front line is still Aidan Hutchinson and the Question Marks.

Best name on the roster - Benito Jones. Mediocre rotational defensive lineman by day, nunchuck wielding blaxploitation character by night.

Green Bay - Surely we have reached the end of the Green Bay Quarterback Juggernaut, right? Haven’t we all suffered enough?! Then again, management wasn’t willing to fully capitalize on the presence of the previous two, so maybe it’s more entertaining for all if the trend continues, Jordan Love is a monster, and he leaves in 15 years as a disgruntled bridge troll of a human being because management wouldn’t cater to his every whim. Consistency! He has a whole pile of receivers who have proven nothing but an ability to drop the ball in big situations. Maybe better health for David Bakhtiari and Jaire Alexander helps the offensive line and secondary this year. Of course, the exact same sentence was also said last year, and look how that turned out. The defense looks like it could be good, but that was also a comment from last season. And nobody really needs safeties, right?

Best name on the roster - Rasul Douglas. Slot corner or Batman villain?

Chicago - Most teams would try to shore up their defense by spending assets to build a pass rush, especially when their secondary has as much potential as this one does. Not the Bears, though! No, they’ll spend enormous sums of money on off ball linebackers. That’s the ticket! And despite all of the mobility on display from Justin Fields, he still got hit more often than a heavy bag at a boxing gym. Their solution was to spend a first round pick on a tackle (good) and go sign a guard from the Titans. Did they watch any Titans games last season? That line held up about as well in pass pro as a group of elementary school crossing guards would have. They have collected a group of tight ends whose qualifications seem to consist of ‘enormous human being’. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a bit amusing. And Chase Claypool remains to half ass any route that isn’t a fly pattern and remind fans that the team gave up the 33rd pick in the draft to get him. Nathan Peterman is still here as the backup! NATHAN PETERMAN.

Best name on the team - Patrick Scales. This team is so mid that their long snapper possesses the best name.

Minnesota - This team used voodoo and flukey close game luck (those are possibly connected) to post the most fraudulent 13 win season in recorded history, then got wrecked in the playoffs by a Giants team that was possibly worse than they were. Then they spent the offseason clearing out a bunch of aging veterans, which has honestly been overdue for years, but man is this roster bad. Wanna run the ball? Alexander Mattison has been a decent change of pace back who maybe can do it somewhat, and there is no plan B. Wanna rush the passer? Well, they have Danielle Hunter. You know, until he blows apart 13 ligaments at once about 4 games into the year. They also signed Marcus Davenport, and apparently weren’t even forced to do so at gunpoint. Hiring Brian Flores to run the defense is great, but this front seven is a puddle of crap. They also have one more year of Kirk Cousins and no developmental plan behind him. Every high pick from last year already looks like a bust. They spent all of the cleared cap space on Davenport and Josh Oliver, for fuck’s sake. I don’t know what they’re doing. Clearly, neither do they.

Best name on the team - Josh Metellus. Moonlights as the bass player for a doom metal band.

NFC South

Atlanta - Because apparently someone has to win this absolute steaming dumpster of a division. It’s a requirement. A team that already ran over everyone a year ago, and that spent the 4th pick in the draft two seasons ago on a tight end, prioritized drafting a running back and acquiring a tight end this offseason. I don’t know if some other team’s GM somehow made their personnel decisions for a couple of months or if their actual GM is blind and nobody told him who is already on his roster. They signed a pile of aging defensive players, one or two of whom aren’t complete crap. Bud Dupree? On purpose? They traded for Jeff Okudah for reasons of absolute madness, and he was immediately the 2nd best cornerback on the team. They’re still limited to one decent wide receiver. The quarterback room is about as exciting as vanilla ice cream. Check that, it’s more like a null ice cream devoid of any flavor at all. This entire team is gruel. Arthur Blank constantly looking like an annoyed dad is the only fun thing here.

Best name on the team - Younghee Koo. It just carries a certain majesty. It’s also the only interesting thing about this franchise.

New Orleans - They just keep doubling down on some weird hope that they’re a real contender. It’s like hearing a kid with a terminal illness talk about what he’s going to be when he’s grown up. Son, it just ain't happening. Taking that completely misguided hope and continuing to attach it to Dennis Allen is just sad and funny at the same time. But it’s okay because DEREK CARR is here with a huge contract to make this team relevant. And that’s just what delusional Raiders fans spent the last 8+ years telling themselves. When you’re counting on Raider castoffs to lead you to glory, you fucked up. Alvin Kamara is suspended to start the year, which is just temporarily delaying his inevitable injury. Michael Thomas is more fragile than eggshells. The offensive line never plays as well as everyone seems to think it should. Every defensive lineman not named Cameron Jordan is complete garbage, which really isn’t anything new. Lucky for them, Jordan and Demario Davis apparently don’t age. Taysom Hill is still here to earn $20+ million for that one game each year that gets people excited. Jimmy Graham came back because reasons?

Best name on the team - Paulson Adebo. Anyone with two last names is alright by me.

Carolina - The Panthers have finally drafted a potential franchise quarterback! And he’s ready to save them just as soon as he’s finally tall enough to hop on any ride in the amusement park. Any day now. Nothing helps a young passer find his way like a talented group of pass catchers, and the Panthers just decided to ignore all of that and go with old Adam Thielen and ‘remember that one year where he looked like something’ DJ Chark. The interior line couldn’t pass block a year ago, and they’ve also done nothing to solve that. The defense did actually pick up some talent, and they took advantage of Sean Payton letting Ejiro Evero go because he’s not ‘his guy’ and have him running the D. Justin Houston is still playing because he found yet another team who keeps drafting edge rushers and watching them fail to pan out.

Best name on the team - Cade Mays. You just knew he’s an offensive lineman, didn’t you?

Tampa Bay - Remember last year, when they couldn’t block anybody but they had the best quarterback in the history of football to still guide them to a playoff berth? Repeat that, only replace Tom Brady with Baker Mayfield and something called a Kyle Trask. Sure, they still have all the receivers from a year ago, but it doesn’t matter because this line SUCKS. Ryan Jensen’s career is probably over because apparently he decided to treat a torn ACL with nothing. It was just going to heal on its own? They were the worst rushing team in the league and that probably won’t change. The defense features Shaq Barrett coming off an Achilles tear and a Devin White who plays linebacker with all the sense of a small child too distracted by a butterfly to pay attention to the game. They still haven’t replaced Jordan Whitehead, who left last year, and now also lack a slot corner. Todd Bowles is still the head coach because literally nobody gives a shit about this franchise. This is the first team that is going to be BAD. Really, really BAD.

Best name on the team - Yaya Diaby. Please be good so the marketing department can run with ‘Get your Yayas out!’.

NFC West

Seattle - This fucking team and their fucking neon green bullshit and their fucking gum smacking old codger of a coach and their fucking idiot 12th man fanbase. I loathe this franchise. And yet here they sit, perched atop this ‘A Tale of Two Divisions’ mess (that might make sense soon), crapping all over everything good and pure in this world. John Schneider has seemingly remembered that the draft is supposed to be used to take good players, which I find weird and unseemly. I miss the days of him spending the 25th pick on a long snapper from Tuscaloosa State. Of course, he still couldn’t help himself from spending a 2nd round pick on yet another running back. Seahawks are gonna Seahawk! Just ignore the interior lines on both sides of the ball that hold up as well as a row of wet saltine crackers. Noah Fant is around to make that one play every three games where you remember his existence and wonder how he isn’t open more often. Geno Smith had a season for the ages that was totally not just a weird blip. It’s fine that there’s nobody else behind him. Jamal Adams, who they acquired by giving up as much draft capital as they received a year ago for a starting quarterback, is still dealing with a quad tendon that may be purely theoretical at this point. He offers everything you want in a safety, except the ability to cover anything faster than a garden snail.

Best name on the team - Stone Forsythe. Is there anything better than really good offensive line names? Dude sounds like he takes out motorcycle gangs all by himself.

San Francisco - Brock Purdy is back from Tommy John surgery to be the team’s starting quarterback. Forget that he has about 8 total games worth of experience, and that MLB pitchers who have that surgery are a complete mess their first year back. It’s fine. If not, we have Sam Darnold, who will very quickly be seeing ghosts behind this offensive line. Everyone focuses on Trent Williams and ignores the rest of this Island of Misfit Toys. The entire offense is predicated on Purdy being legit and Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and Brandon Aiyuk all staying healthy, which has happened exactly once. And that was last year. They’re incredibly top heavy and shallow because they blew three first round picks on a quarterback who had no track record and who the coach didn’t even seem to want. That’s a weird theme with this franchise - John Lynch acquiring passers who Kyle Shanahan doesn’t want. Nick Bosa wants to get paid roughly the GDP of California, and is currently holding out, leaving them with Clelin Ferrell. UPDATE : Nick Bosa has been handed a contract paying him all of the money. He deserves it, but this team is even more capped out. They need depth everywhere and yet still took a kicker in the 3rd round, and he barely made the damn team. It’s all for nought anyway, as they’ll inevitably lose in the playoffs when Shanahan yet again forgets that running the ball is allowed. This despite being the one team in the league still spending millions of dollars on a fullback.

Best name on the team - Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles. It’s three names that don’t belong together, yet here they are.

Los Angeles - Remember that whole Tale of Two Divisions thing? Yeah, here’s where that comes in. This division is more top heavy than Pamela Anderson. Apparently Matt Stafford is having trouble remembering and relating to his teammates. I understand that because who the fuck are any of these people? This entire team is a collection of mid-to-late round picks built upon a foundation of Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald. Stafford is an immobile pocket passer stuck behind a line that suffered more injuries than a combat unit in an active war zone a year ago. He’s also trying to come back from serious injuries to his throwing arm and back. Not a problem, right? Kupp is already seeing specialists about a hamstring problem that won’t go away. He’s the only receiver Stafford trusts at all. Donald keeps contemplating retirement every year. Looking at this debacle, I don’t understand why he’s still here. The coach keeps doing the same thing. Literally nobody wants to be here. This city couldn’t give less of a shit about this team. Has any Super Bowl champion been forgotten faster than these guys? And they won it all two years ago! This team would be dead last anywhere else, but not this division. Oh no.

Best name on the team - Russ Yeast. By day, starting safety. By night, mascot for a bakery chain.

Arizona - Ladies and gentlemen, do not look directly at this franchise. It’s like peering into the Ark of the Covenant. You’ll just end up screaming and melting and then your head explodes. I was going to go bizarro and instead focus on good parts of the team to save time, but there literally aren’t any. Kyler Murray is too busy playing Call of Duty to learn the playbook, but he’s also out indefinitely while he recovers from a ruptured everything. That leaves Josh Dobbs and Clayton Tune under center. Literally every single wideout and tight end on the team is a question mark. Their running game lays in the hands of injury prone James Conner and nothing else. Their offensive line is a disaster area in need of UN intervention, and that’s after finally drafting a tackle with a high pick. Budda Baker is the only proven playmaker on the entire defense and he understandably wants the fuck out of here. This team not only hired the Eagles Defensive Coordinator to be their head coach, and losing him made Eagles fans HAPPY, they also lost draft picks because they managed to engage in tampering to do so. They’re also potentially facing punishment for keeping in contact via burner phones with ex-GM Steve Keim while he was suspended for DUI, and he was terrible. It isn’t impossible to imagine this being the first 0-17 team in the history of the league. Nothing is here but sadness, pain and cheap ownership. Dumb from top to bottom.

Best name on the team - Ilm Manning. Was there a misprint on the birth certificate? How did that name happen?

Playoff seeds

Philadelphia
Seattle
Detroit
Atlanta
San Francisco
Dallas
Green Bay

Conference title game

Philadelphia over San Francisco in a game where the 49’ers take a 10 point lead and then never once run the ball.

AFC Predictions

On to the better conference! Here’s where most of the power teams reside. It’s also where anyone not tippy top is going to spend the entire year getting bitch slapped until they die. Fun!

AFC East

Buffalo - Say hello to the AFC version of the Green Bay Packers! I don’t mean in terms of name recognition or being an historic franchise in the NFL. No, I’m referring to their complete unwillingness to ever push their chips into the middle of the table and take their shot. Why do that when you can contentedly coast along as ‘pretty good’ while your fans concuss themselves into drooling slowness by jumping through tables? Josh Allen is here to once again lead the team to the red zone and then throw a bad interception when he tries to play hero ball. Again. Always. It would help if anyone other than Stefon Diggs, a man who is never content and will seemingly live a joyless life of bitter complaint, could actually catch the ball. It would also help if Ken Dorsey would run the damn ball with anyone other than Josh Allen. This entire offense seems to be predicated on giving Josh an Andrew Luck career arc that the fanbase can lament for a decade of poor mediocrity to follow. The right side of the line is still garbage. The defense is completely dependent on a 33 year old Von Miller (still returning from knee surgery) to threaten the other team’s quarterback despite having about 17 other first round picks up front with him. The secondary will be lucky if they get through a quarter before half of them collapse with 26 different broken bones. And meathead Sean McDermott is still here to look confused when his far-from-brilliant schemes fail to work. Again. Always.

Best name on the team - Ryan Van Demark. He should be featured in a teen movie as the son of the villain trying to close down the town’s waterpark so that he can construct a toxic waste dump.

New York - The Lions AND the Jets look good? Look to the skies for the inevitable meteor strike or alien invasion or meteor sent careening into the planet by invading aliens! Everyone’s favorite curmudgeonly shroom advocate is here now. Aaron Rodgers isn’t the best quarterback in the league any longer, but he represents such a monumental upgrade over the useless Zach Wilson and the decrepit Joe Flacco that it scarcely matters. Still, the New York media machine will beat him into submission by about Week 11. He also might be beaten into submission by a team that ignored glaring needs at tackle in favor of drafting a third string pass rusher and signing yet another running back and Aaron’s old and broken down collection of comfort blankies at receiver. They also brought in Mecole Hardman to run really fast and completely miss his route cuts 95% of the time. I’m sure Aaron will love that. He’s so patient. To further help juice up the passing game, ex-Titans OC Todd Downing is here as Passing Game Coordinator. I’m pretty sure that Todd believes that throwing the ball is an arrestable offense.

Best name on the team - Michael Carter. Because there are literally two guys on the team with this name.

Miami - They lost draft picks this year for trying to work deals with both Sean Payton and Tom Brady while their rights were held elsewhere. They lost even more due to the trade for Bradley Chubb, who has never really lived up to his draft status and who finishes every year as ‘relatively decent’. Oh, they also swung a deal to grab Jalen Ramsey because the owner is a complete starfucker obsessed with big names over anything else. Ramsey is already hurt, and the toxic combination of himself and Xavien Howard is guaranteed to blow up the locker room by week 13. They’re stuck handing meaningful snaps to Eli Apple in the meantime. They drafted yet another fast running back, because if you aren’t a goddamn Olympic sprinter this team wants nothing to do with you. They still don’t have a right tackle, Terron Armstead is already dealing with so many injuries that he may as well be fitted for a body cast, and they struggled to protect their quarterback all year. That’s an issue when said QB is one more big hit away from having a head full of cream cheese. Every year starts off red hot and then they cool when everything collapses and the locker room disintegrates into a collection of whining children. Speaking of which, just wait until Robbie Chosen (aka Chosen Anderson aka Robbie Anderson aka Robby Anderson. There are actually more. The guy can’t decide between 5000 shitty name variations) gets left on the practice squad for more than 2 weeks!

Best name on the team - It’s a tie between Andrew Van Ginkel and Durham Smythe. Sounds like a law firm.

New England - It really says something about how dire your offensive outlook was when the hiring of Bill O’Brien is seen as a massive improvement. Joe Judge is bizarrely still the Quarterbacks coach, even though their special teams were abysmal last year and that’s actually his area of expertise. But gotta trust in Belichick, even as he continues to do completely dumb fucking things every year. They have a whole two running backs under contract and one of them is the empty husk of Ezekiel Elliott. This is quite the change of pace from Bill’s usual ‘7 different guys get a carry’ backfield. They will still avoid consistently giving the ball to Rhamondre Stevenson, even though he’s their best player on offense. The tackle situation is dire, and they’re one injury away from disaster basically across the front. JuJu Smith-Schuster is the only receiver with any consistent talent, and he has a TikTok obsession that is going to cause Belichick to murder him on the sidelines by midseason. The defense actually could be very good. 3 different cornerbacks have the last name Jones, meaning lots of two name nameplates. Despite needs all over the offense they still drafted a kicker in round 4 because ‘BELICHICKISAGENIUS’.

Best name on the team - Another copout tie due to 2 rookies : Sidy Sow and Marte Mapu.

AFC North

Cincinnati - The Bengals are nearing the end. Mike Brown has lived a life of cheapness and failure to invest in this team. Whenever they hit success, they’re described as brilliant because they don’t have enough scouts and get the coaching staff involved instead. This isn’t smart. It’s cheap as fuck. And you’re telling me that this dipshit is going to hand over the money required to resign Joe Burrow, Ja’marr Chase and Tee Higgins? HA! I have some beachfront property on the surface of Mars to sell you. They did spend to add Orlando Brown Jr. to the offensive line, yet tackle is still questionable. They kept Joe Mixon despite him coming off the worst season of his career and did nothing to improve the depth chart behind him. Irv Smith Jr. was signed after years of nothing in Minnesota. Pretty much the entire starting defensive line is up for free agency after this season as well. Nobody knows if their top corner is all the way back from knee surgery, the rest of the outside corners are unproven kids, and they let both safeties walk.

Best name on the team - Akeem Davis-Gaither. I can only assume Akeem translates roughly to ‘That guy is still here?!’

Cleveland - WHAT IS HAPPENING?! As we go through these rankings, I am increasingly convinced that the world is about to collapse into ash and doom. Cleveland and respectability go together as well as ice cream and shit. Kevin Stefanski vacillates wildly between looking like an offensive genius and looking like a guy whose game plans absolutely needed to be curtailed by Mike Zimmer. Deshaun ‘Rub n Tug’ Watson looked completely lost last year in his first game action in well over a season. Assuming he’s shaken his addiction to sexually harassing masseuses, maybe he’ll improve. They deepened the receiving corps by trading a 2nd round pick for Elijah Moore, who I honestly didn’t even remember existing until I looked him up. They also finally decided that maybe mixing Myles Garrett with three traffic cones didn’t make for a defensive line and loaded up there. It’s truly depressing that such ordinary talents as Shelby Harris and Dalvin Tomlinson represent monumental upgrades inside. Za’Darius Smith joins yet another team for whom he’ll produce for half the year before collapsing into weeks on end of bitching about his contract situation.

Best name on the team - Cameron Mitchell. Only because he makes me remember cheezy movie superstar Cameron Mitchell. Otherwise it’s Sione Takitaki.

Pittsburgh - They’re finally assembling what looks like a good offensive line just in time to block for 3 yards and nothing else from the incredibly disappointing Najee Harris. It actually baffles me that his lack of production doesn’t get more attention seeing as power running over people is supposed to be STILLER FOOTBAW. They added Allen Robinson about 3 years after he decided to stop giving the slightest of fucks. Every backup wide receiver does nothing but play special teams. Somehow they couldn’t find anyone to challenge either Mitch Trubisky or Mason Raymond for a roster spot at quarterback. They swept out the entire awful linebacker corps from last year, which is good. They then replaced them with other teams castoffs and called it a day, which is weird. They lost two of their top corners, and replaced them with the immobile statue known as Patrick Peterson, who I’m sure will hold up great while left on an island during blitz after blitz, as well as Chandon Sullivan and Desmond King. When Minnesota and Houston don’t want you on their defense, you’re truly awful. Their answer at strong safety was somehow the tandem of Keanu Neal and Damontae Kazee, last relevant and healthy about 5 years ago in Atlanta. Matt Canada stays on as offensive coordinator. The fans will probably hang him by Week 7 after another game of nothing but 3 yard dump-offs from Kenny Pickett.

Best name on the team - Gunner Olszewski. All time great name.

Baltimore - Why the fuck everyone in existence is hanging from this team’s jock, I do not know. This franchise wasted most of their offseason letting Lamar Jackson dangle in the wind because their entire negotiating strategy consisted of letting him see that the rest of the league ~~was colluding~~ ERRRR wasn’t interested in signing him. There was no step 2. They just stood there with their hand up their ass while all of their conference rivals signed up talent. Oh wait, they paid Nelson Agholor to drop the ball and Odell Beckham Jr. got money like he was not fresh off of multiple years spent injured and ineffective. John Harbaugh forced the wrong coordinator out the door a year ago. They’re finally rid of Greg Roman’s offense, only to replace him with Todd Monken, who has never impressed in the NFL. But he ran a great offense at Georgia, because that was hard! They brought back the same crew of running backs who never seem to add up to what’s expected of them. The defense has repeatedly drafted pass rushers high in the draft, yet can’t pressure the opposing quarterback. Their thinner group of cornerbacks is already in midseason form in terms of being savaged by injuries. Seemingly every key player is injury prone.

Best name on the team - Rock Ya-Sin. He’s not a very good cornerback, but his name is glorious.

AFC South

Jacksonville - It’s amazing what can happen when you rid yourselves of perhaps the worst coach in the history of the NFL. Doug Pederson won’t replicate the thrillride of failure that Urban Meyer did, but he brings actual competence to the role. Suddenly, Trevor Lawrence looks like he might actually be a worthy franchise quarterback. And maybe the team didn’t fuck up by using a first round pick on a running back two years ago, seeing as James Robinson’s career has absolutely flatlined. They add Calvin Ridley to the receiver room, which might have meant something two years ago. That was the one and only time that he’s looked like a #1 guy and he’s barely played more than a DraftKings parley since then. They handed a deal with term to Evan Engram, meaning he’ll stop trying to catch anything. The offensive line looks pretty bad. Not one of the numerous high picks at linebacker or edge rusher has any consistency at all. Tyson Campbell is their only good cornerback. Lucky for them, this division is atrocious. Nobody should subject themselves to AFC South football.

Best name on the team - Foyesade Oluokun. It just delights me..

Tennessee - Hoo boy. The entire team is returning from injury, which would make me more optimistic if the entire team hadn’t also been returning from injury last year. Jon Robinson’s weird obsession with overpaying injury prone veterans is gone, at least. Ryan Tannehill will try to show he still brings something to the table in a year where he’s inexplicably one of the highest paid players in the NFL. Thanks, Jon! The offensive line was basically swept out the door and wholly replaced and yet still looks rough. They brought in DeAndre Hopkins, because the track record of things working out when Tennessee acquires a veteran wide receiver is just exceptional. The whole offense will inevitably boil down to hoping Derrick Henry can remain ageless and truck 10 guys to gain 5 yards. Defensively, the return of Harold Landry should help juice the pass rush. That might help the defensive backfield not look like an unmitigated disaster. Otherwise, they wasted a small pile of top picks on bad cornerbacks. Good times in Nashville!

Best name on the team - Chigoziem Okonkwo. I’m looking forward to hearing this name a lot this year. “Okonkwo with another catch for 4 yards before the entire defense flattens him like a pancake!”

Houston - In yet another sign of the looming apocalypse, the Texans spent an offseason making what look like intelligent moves. I guess this is what happens when you no longer have the Patriots ex-Team Chaplain as your Director of Football Operations (this is not a joke. This was actually the case for years). And Demeco Ryans, one of the hottest coaching candidates around, actually chose to come here! He should hopefully get more rope than the two previous one-and-done old men who preceded him, but I’m not yet confident that the Texans are a competent enough football team for that. CJ Stroud is aboard as the (hopefully) franchise cornerstone at quarterback. They have helped him by putting together a group of wide receivers that should all be no higher than #3 on the depth chart. This seems ill advised. They had actually put together what they were hoping might be an improved line, but the left guard is already out for the year and the rookie center is hurt as well. Instead, Arizona castoff tackle Josh Jones and a 6th round pick will fill those spots. That seems fine. Defensively, I actually like their edge rush crew. The linebackers look decent. The secondary could be solid, although Derek Stingley Jr. is always going to be remembered as the pick that could have been Sauce Gardner. This fanbase will drive him out of town on a rail. Their defensive tackles haven’t been able to hold up at the point of attack for about half a decade, and I see no reason for that to change now.

Best name on the team - Teagan Quitoriano. Always ready to start a barfight in a spaghetti western.

Indianapolis - Remember last year when this fucking mess of a team thought they were contenders? That Matt Ryan throwing wounded ducks behind an awful line was going to get them to the promised land? That JEFF SATURDAY was an intelligent hire to be the replacement head coach? And their drunken disaster of an owner wanted to hire him permanently? They spent the 4th pick in the draft on Anthony Richardson, because the success of Josh Allen in Buffalo has made everyone forget the awful track record of quarterbacks with accuracy issues. They’re too stupid to realize that Jonathan Taylor actually has the leverage in their squabble with him, leaving a small set of waterboys and homeless people at running back. And they added absolutely nothing to try to improve that awful blocking from a year ago. Defensively, they’re okay at best when it comes to rushing the passer. This will pair nicely with a group of corners who may all be completely fictional people. Seriously, nobody has ever heard of any corner on this team not named Kenny Moore. Chris Ballard will be rightfully fired as GM and the pilled-up owner will replace him with whichever McDonaldland character first pops into his head when he next comes out of a stupor. I’m rooting for Grimace.

Best name on the team. Rigoberto Sanchez. He’s the punter and a crime fighting Mariachi.

AFC West

Kansas City - The Chiefs win the West. It’s basically a default setting by now. However, Chris Jones is holding out for a deserved extension, and his absence blows a giant hole in the middle of the defensive front. But I’m sure that Tershawn Wharton will completely replace the havoc that Jones wreaks, right? As if that wasn’t enough, expected starting defensive end Charles Omenihu is also out with a suspension, leaving Mike Danna to fill the spot. Suddenly this defensive line looks less resilient than single ply toilet paper. Travis Kelce has a hyperextended knee, and the wide receiver corps is counting on a giant leap from Kadarius Toney and his nonexistent work ethic. Marquez Valdes-Scantling is here to produce surprisingly little with his speed. Clyde Edwards-Helaire remains on the depth chart to haunt the front office for drafting him in the first place. Blaine Gabbert was acquired to give them the requisite ‘How does this guy keep getting work?’ backup quarterback. And Matt Nagy returns to the Andy Reid coaching tree to try to reclaim some shred of his reputation.

Best name on the team - L’Jarius Sneed. Kinda sounds like an evil Muppet.

Denver - Sean Payton is quite possibly the most overrated head coach of all time. Everyone bags on the Colts and Packers for only winning a single Super Bowl with Hall of Fame level quarterbacks, yet Sean and the Saints didn’t fair any better. I cannot wait for his reputation to finally be bruised by this roster. Russell Wilson has all of the mobility of a senior citizen with a walker. The team paid a small fortune to Mike McGlinchey, who never managed to put together two consecutive years of quality play in San Francisco. Lloyd Cushenberry exists to get caved in by nose tackles, but they brought in no competition for his spot. Half the overrated wide receivers are already injured. Javonte Williams and Garret Bolles will inevitably join them shortly. They replaced Ejiro Evero with Vance Joseph (who nobody in Denver ever wanted back) because Sean can’t stand to be surrounded with talented young coaches who might show him up. Randy Gregory is incapable of staying healthy and Frank Clark was washed two years ago. Patrick Surtain II is an absolute stud, but they need to clone him to replace the rest of their sorry cornerback room.

Best name on the team - Josey Jewell. It’s a focus-grouped rock star doll for girls who have a rebel streak! Unless we’re counting practice squaddies, in which case it is absolutely Lil’Jordan Humphrey. I swear that is the name of an actual human being.

Los Angeles - If Los Angelenos ignore the Rams, they seem to absolutely hate that this franchise even exists. If you can hate something without really thinking about it ever. The Chargers are the little brother to a very uninteresting older sibling. Nobody gives a fuck about this team. They have a quarterback with possibly the biggest arm in the league, yet they haven’t bothered to acquire any deep speed to take advantage of that arm. JC Jackson looked completely awful after being paid an exorbitant sum of money and will certainly be better coming back from a knee injury. Almost every highly paid player on this team is old and brittle. They were so capped out that they could only bring in old, slow Eric Kendricks. He’ll pair up beautifully with young, slow Kenneth Murray. The free safety retired and they seemed to forget to replace him. Joey Bosa is guaranteed to take at least two penalties that will cost this team the game. Brandon Staley is somehow back to coach this mess despite possessing no acumen whatsoever for the job. He shouldn’t be trusted with a lemonade stand. They brought in Kellen Moore to help, which doesn’t make any sense at all. Half the team has probably been felled by injury in the time it took to write this.

Best name on the team - It’s another tie. Will Clapp and Easton Stick are here, sounding like a pair of depth defensemen for a mid-tier hockey team.

Las Vegas - Josh McDaniels remains as coach because Mark Davis is too fucking broke to afford a haircut, much less paying two coaches to no longer work for him. Josh has brought in a gaggle of random ex-Patriots depth players to populate the locker room with a handful of guys who won’t laugh directly in his pudgy face. Greg Van Roten is the starting right guard, which is nothing less than a cry for help. Josh Jacobs has had exactly one good year, and none of the other backs did anything while he held out all of training camp and the preseason. They drafted a good tight end but they prefer to play Austin Hooper, who last had a good year four seasons ago in Cleveland. They swept out Derek Carr and replaced him with Jimmy Garoppolo, who is a handsomer and more injury prone Derek Carr. What a move! Chandler Jones has completely lost his mind and wants out, and he’s so bad these days that he isn’t worth anything. They drafted Tyree Wilson to take his spot only to see him fall to injury and basically get no time with the team in training camp or preseason. Every single defensive tackle here was tossed out the door by other teams, and they were last able to stop the run in about 1986. The linebackers are complete garbage. The secondary consists of flotsam and undeserved hope. The entire plan for this franchise seems to consist of treading water and not really doing anything.

Best name on the team - Maxx Crosby. That second x is carrying a lot of water here.

Playoff seeds

Kansas City
Cincinnati
Buffalo
Jacksonville
New York
Cleveland
Pittsburgh

Conference Title Game

Cincinnati over Kansas City. These two continue trading back and forth year to year.

Super Bowl game wrapped around overrated commercials and a ‘fabulous’ half time show

Philadelphia over Cincinnati. The Bengals cannot be allowed to actually win a title. It must remain forever out of their grasp.

My Experience in the Freedom Convoy - YEG Edition

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Sun, 30 Jan 2022 20:19:00 +0000

Let's see how many people read past that clickbait-iest of clickbait headlines.

So, yeah. I totally ended up a part of the Freedom Convoy as it meandered up Highway 2 to Edmonton. When it's filling the entire right lane of the highway, and you merge onto said highway, you're sorta stuck participating. And going 30. On a highway.

I was totally calm.

Just absolutely chill as can be.

On an unrelated note, steering wheels may or may not be delicious. Who would know? Certainly not I!

Total calm.

So there I was, stuck going slower than the average senior citizen at the hip replacement clinic, trapped in a giant column of barely sentient red neck idiots, unable to get out of my predicament because the other lanes were going 75. That's also an absolutely fucking pitiful rate of speed for a highway, but it seemed like a Formula 1 straightaway next to the average rate of travel in the Driving Miss Daisy lane. So there I sat, obscuring my face as much as possible to avoid showing up on some goddamn newscast as the 'Face of Alberta'. What an absolute moment of pride THAT would be. White pride, maybe...

Easy! It's a joke. Geez.

Finally, after crawling along to one of the Nisku turnoffs, I was able to achieve the center lane. And then the left lane! I was free of the convoy (is that ironic? I don't even know anymore)! At least for a short distance before they blocked all three lanes, then went back down to two? They could never seem to decide exactly how much of a pain in the ass they were willing to be. There was about as much thought pumped into this entire boondoggle as was put into the spelling of their ridiculous signs.

Seriously, you would think that those obsessed with Communism might learn to spell the fucking word.

Or understand that Fascist Socialists would be extremely conflicted people.

Also present were Confederate flags and that stupid Gadsden snake on a background of piss yellow. Because these empty-headed fuck bags are so incapable of coming up with a single goddamn synapse worth of thought that they just co-opt their heritage from other countries. I wouldn't have been remotely surprised if one of them had adorned their F150 with WWII propaganda posters insisting that loose lips sink ships. Or advertising for KFC, because I strongly doubt that Slackjaw Jim knows the difference between Uncle Sam and Colonel Sanders.

"He done beat dem Jermins with dem el'ven herbs n' spices!"

"Vict'ry be finger lickin' gud!"

I have to say that the supposed column of truckers featured 'surprisingly' few big rigs. Lots of pristine shiny Dodge Rams with lift kits, though. The truck of the typical Alberta outdoorsman which has never been off a paved road in 6 years of service. There were also a decent number of vehicles wearing BC plates. It seems like a significant number of the 'brave heroes' from Kamloops made it all the way to Edmonton before deciding that Ottawa is really far away and just bailed on their entire commitment. They made it ONE ENTIRE PROVINCE before giving up. Truly an impressive level of gumption. These 'truckers' will not quit for at least one whole day of driving on a highway. How grateful we are as a nation for their work ethic and resolve.

Also present were a lot of Honda Civics and Toyota Tercels. I understand that you want to be a part of something, but you're just not a trucker no matter how hard you wish upon a fucking star. You're not. Have a little dignity for once in your life before your father completely finishes off his liver in shame. It's pathetic.

Oh, and let's not forget the tractors! As in farm machinery.

There is absolutely no way that these people do not possess any other vehicle. Like, they aren't hopping on the John Deere and driving it into town when they need to drop off a package or get some fucking butter. They obviously have others means of transport. The truth is that they were likely too stupid to understand that when people mentioned tractors in the convoy, they meant semi trucks.

Imagine being one of these poor idiots. You show up more than a little bit chilly from a long cruise in an open air tractor, but feeling like you're really going to impress people when you arrive all revved up and ready to join in the fun. He's feeling all big and bad. And then he gets there and looks around and the shame fills him as he blushes red like he just pissed himself in church. He's trying to put on a brave face as he crawls down the highway but those tears are not due to the wind.

It was right around this time that the standard issue Alberta highway driver decided to enter the fray. You know the one, the guy who gets angry when he's impeded from driving faster than necessary to tear a ragged hole through existence itself and travel through time. But not this day. His dreams of heading to the past and trying to impress the Victorian age ladies with his sweet Oakleys is ruined by literal tractors on the highway. He pulls right up on them, slams on the brakes and honks angrily. The big pipes coming from his 4 cylinder engine roar adorably. A quick slice over into the center lane and he's doing the same behind a guy flying three flags

in honor of the patron saint of dipshit truck guys in a completely different country. Praise be to ye Covfefe!

But his time he gets the attention of the pack of smoothbrains directly around him. They perk up. They've had Born in the USA playing on repeat for 79 minutes because right wingers apparently can't read lyrics, but now they shut it off and act. This entire collective of Pavlovian dogs begins also laying on their own horns. "Yeah, fuck Trudeau HONK HONK!" It spreads up and down this carnival ride straight to Hell as the morons further along hear the clarion call and repeat it like good little boys. Apparently nothing shows your rage at whatever the fuck they're angry at (Again, not exactly a clear focus going on here besides 'We have tiny genitals and this makes us saucy!') like honking horns over and over again. And they don't ever stop the rest of the way. A flock of mentally deficient geese would honk less than this. Truly showing that they don't mindlessly follow the pack by doing exactly that. It's a clever subterfuge. It's also really fucking annoying.

All because of highway guy. He vanishes from sight soon after. I kind of hope that he died.

It's around this point, with the cacophonous noise of idiots filling the air, that I began flipping off everyone on the side of the road recording this mess. Did this really need to be kept for posterity? Like anyone required video evidence proving that Albertans were the only people really jumping full bore into this stupid bullshit?

"Wait, ALBERTA is all on board with this Freedom Convoy stuff? That's it, it's over. Time to cancel Canada. We never would have believed it without those recordings. The collective of Little Boy Bitch have won. Commence the Wexiteering."

Wow, you won favor in Canada's dunce cap. Truly impressive. You convinced a collection of people who respond to anything slightly difficult with the predictable halcyon cry of 'LAURENTIAN TYRANNY' to clap like good little seals. Whole families are gathered, having arrived at overpasses and turnoffs in vehicles that no doubt smell like a loaf of bologna left in the hot sun for hours. Truly incredible. Much amaze.

Oh, a suggestion for this cabal of absolute Brainiacs for future events (and we all know there are plenty of these to come in this smoldering crater of a province) : Putting a long statement on a flag is really

fucking stupid. Nobody can read it once it starts whipping in the air as flags are wont to do. I have no doubt that it was some lengthy and phonetically inaccurate version of BABY GO WAH!

Finally I was released from this nightmare at the Henday. Apparently they went downtown because hollering around the Legislature ON A SATURDAY is totally going to get noticed by the poor fucker stuck running the floor polisher over the weekend. And that guy wields some power! He alone bears full responsibility for the absolutely oppressive layer of wax he lays upon those scuffed floors.

They loudly cheered for no more mandates, and no vaccines, and immigrants taking the jobs, and we need to overthrow the government, and whatever happened to Pogs, and a moron MP did an interview in front of a Canadian flag adorned with swastikas. Isn't it funny how the goosestep contingent always

JUST HAPPENS to join in whenever the right wingers throw another one of their teddy bear picnics? Weird that. And then this clown car version of a Mad Max convoy got bored or whatever the fuck and went home, having accomplished absolutely nothing beyond pissing people off in the province most supportive of their views in the entire country. So amaze.

At least they didn't spend the day taking meals from soup kitchens, waving actual Nazi flags around and shitting in public parks. Good job. The bar was low and you managed to barely clear it. Much clap for Cletus.

Raise Your Glass, Your Horns, And The Dead

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Sat, 16 May 2020 20:55:00 +0000

Is this thing on? It exists, so I guess it isn’t off. But it sure seems dead.

No more! I bid thee RISE! RISE oh poor and neglected blog!

Fisting ourselves back to life! No, wait..

Back in times of yore when I used to be something resembling a productive human being, I blogged. Seriously! Look back and you’ll find older posts. Those weren’t here when I started. And every year and a half or so, I would write up a big blog post covering music I’d personally discovered that year, allowing me a brief glimmer of feeling important. I’m a tastemaker, goddammit! Anyway, welcome to another one of those. Nice to see that my skills in introductory text are as refined as ever.

I honestly don’t know how long ago I started cobbling together this particular list. But this time around I have since gone back through and pruned it, achieving the bare minimum of not completely wasting your time. You’re welcome! And in the interests of changing things up a bit, and because I relish the opportunity to rant and mock, I’ve added something new to the stew pot this time around : BAD SHIT. Please don't start adding shit to any stew pots. It doesn't seem like a good idea.

Now, a few ground rules. Everyone loves rules! I’ll be interspersing the bad entries throughout this post, thus regularly taking the positivity of the good finds and dragging them to Hell. Yay! I’m also avoiding some obvious dreck. For instance, there are some metalcore bands out there who are clearly trying to offend for attention. Fuck that. And some sad little garage band who made the mistake of putting out a single before learning to play their instruments, or the latest Rebecca Black-type mess, also won't appear here. All of these entries have earned their spots the traditional way : by outright failing to deliver. Some are bad albums. Most are bad songs. A few are comebacks that really should not have ever seen the light of day. So, enjoy that. Or don’t. Just read it, fuckers! With no further ado or no ado at all, really

One more little thing : Just like last time, here’s the ‘listen along’ playlist on Spotify if you can’t be bothered to read and hit some links. That shit’s hard, son! Ain't nobody got time for that! And no, the BAD SHIT entries will not be on the playlist. But they're funny and totally worth your time!

Honorable Mentions

Just like last time around, here are a few entries that don’t have enough material to merit a full mention. But because I love my own words and want to shove more of them into your eye holes, I’ll briefly talk about them anyway. Win win?

FKB - I saw these guys open for Pop Evil. They are the oddest assemblage of people that I have ever seen share a stage. The lead guitarist looks like he should be shredding in a metal band. The drummer often had his eyes closed. The bass player just looked uncomfortable with everything and everyone around him. But put it together, and they were actually a pretty decent pop rock group.

The Post I Didn't Want to Write

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 03:08:00 +0000

What a firecracker of a title I’ve got working there. Yes, I’m going right back to the “I can’t title for shit” well. Cut me a break, I have very few wells!

So, some time has gone by since I wrote a post that didn’t have anything to do with what I’ve been listening to over the previous year. Warning : A new one of those posts is beginning construction very soon. And I’ve wanted to return to this sad barren wasteland of a blog. But I had absolutely no idea what in the Hell I wanted to write about.

Yay. Wonderful. Huzzah.

And then I got laid off.

So I guess that covers the “What’s new, Cliff?” portion of things. Good. Got that out of the way. I also discovered that I’m allergic to Purex laundry soap, but that offered pretty limited options for decent writing fodder. One can only write “Holy shit, was I itchy!” in so many ways. And then this happened like so much really crappy source material. So, go me?

Anyway, yeah, got let go. The circumstances around the whole thing were frankly a little bit bizarre and a little bit nonsense, but that’s a story for in person. I’ll try to maintain some barely coherent level of semi-professionalism in the online world. Sweet mercy, he can LEARN! Anyway, it’s where I currently find myself, so I guess it’s just back to what I always do whenever I find myself in this position. Except that I actually don’t remember and don’t know what to do in this position because it’s been ten years or something like that since I’ve actually been here. Yep. A decade. I was surprised, too. I’ve achieved some basic level of relative stability. Until now.

And I have basically no clue what to actually do.

Okay, I know what to actually do in terms of basic stuff. Like looking for a job. Actually, the job search had already commenced a month or two before this went down. Again, that’s an in person kind of topic of conversation, but suffice to say that I wasn’t a happy boy. And I already put in my EI application. That’s new. Never done that before. But now I’m just left waiting. Waiting so long, in fact, that I had to call them up so that they can actually call me back at a date in the near future and finally tell me whether or not I qualify. And I’m sure that process makes sense to somebody somewhere. Good for them.

Never fear, Bureaucracy Man is here to wrap everything in seventeen layers of needless red tape!

Of course, this follows a small chunk of time wondering whether or not I would even qualify for payments, since my previous employer wouldn’t actually tell me why I was now a former employee. To be exact, I was told that they were “unable to disclose” that. Which led to panicky wondering about what insane reason they were going to gin up for all of this, only to finally get access to my Record of Employment and see the words “Was not a good fit”. That was what you couldn’t just tell me? That? What the Hell? This is ignoring the fact that I think this reason is both totally made up nonsense, and yet also totally accurate and correct, but that’s diving dangerously close to territory that would negate my status of barely semi-professional. So yeah, it has been a lovely few weeks of stress for someone who hates things being completely out of his control and who does not deal well at all with the unknown. Good times!

Getting back to the general point of all of this, I know how to do all of that stuff I just spent a paragraph sort of describing. And I know how to deal with the reality of being angry. I’ve spent too much time in the past just stewing to head back down that terrible roadway to nothing good. So now I just sort of hold it in a reserve tank that gets opened up once I’m working out or doing anything

Congratulations on such an incredibly dated reference!

physical and need a bit more oomph. I figure that way I can actually benefit from it. Congratulations. You ‘beat’ me. I’m going to get better now. I do very well with that “Oh yeah? Well, double dumb ass on you!” sort of mentality.

But then I end up getting all kinds of pissed off at myself because I’m slipping back in to really dumb habits and just generally feeling sorry for myself. And fuck, that isn’t helping anything, is it? But I can’t really pretend that it isn’t there, even though I feel like an idiot for actually feeling slapped because the job I didn’t want anymore anyway is no longer mine. Or maybe I’m angry that I left a job that I liked to get more hours at this new place and ended up completely miserable and now have nothing to show for that change except waiting. Of course, I’m not psychic, so it isn’t like I could have known that my interview was pretty much me being fed a bill of goods and that this soon-to-be employer was going to be an irresponsible bunch of WHOA, let’s just steer this bad boy back on course to utter confusion again.

So maybe I don’t know how to deal with being pissed off. And I don’t know how to deal with being stressed out. And I’m trying to walk through this mental maze of realizing that I’m not the idiot that I was ten years ago, but I’m a completely different brand of idiot now, and that idiot is just as incapable of understanding what in the world he’s doing. Like I said before, I thrive on showing other people that they were wrong. Perhaps I need to figure out how to make that work on myself, too. “Oh yeah, me? I’ll show…me.” Okay, I am now completely lost in the morass of whatever the Hell this paragraph was supposed to be getting to.

Look, dear readers! An image to reflect how you're probably feeling right now! You're welcome.

Getting back to what I REALLY don’t know how to do any more, and that’s somehow fill all of this time. Because holy mother of fuck do I find myself with a lot of goddamn time! Sure, I work out 4 days a week, I walk every day, I meditate every day, I need to eat occasionally, and I fire off applications. But that really eats up shockingly little time. That leaves a fuck ton of hours that I find myself needing to burn off. Too many of them end up expended on things so totally pointless that I couldn’t even tell you what I spent them actually doing. And that DOESN’T include stuff like playing The Division 2 for 55 hours (and counting, because that game actually is fun), or finding myself watching Baywatch episodes on E!. Side note : Holy shit, is the music on that show awful. Not just the shitty songs they commandeered to play during the weird musical interlude sections of nearly every episode, but that general background music is shockingly bad. This was the #1 show on television, and THAT was the best they could pull for music?! And I could do other things, but other things usually end up being something like this exercise in whatever exactly it is that I’m trying to accomplish here and now.

And I really don’t know what this is. I don’t know what this was supposed to be. Maybe it at least lets me knock the rust off of whatever mediocre level of writing talent I possess so that I can write more? I will try to make it better than this. That shouldn’t be a difficult goal to achieve. I don’t know what the fuck to do with my time to avoid finding myself just spinning away down another weird rabbit hole like this. Seriously, this is like the blog post equivalent of the album some artist releases when they’re at peak arrogance level. This is my own personal Fat Axl moment. At any rate, I don’t really have much of a choice. It’s not like I’m just going to sit here and do nothing. That doesn’t get me anywhere. So something it is. What will that be? I’ll tell you when I know. I guess I’m hoping that maybe if I get all of this out somewhere it might stop clogging up the interior of my skull. In the short term, it’s going to be a lot more waiting than I’d like. I’m just going to have to learn to deal with that.

FOOTBALL!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 00:47:00 +0000

So yeah, the season sort of crept up on me like a ninja and I didn't get a chance to write up my usual scathing previews of every team. But I'll put something up, dammit! Something filled with the sort of scorn and mockery that I feel is expected of me by whatever poor unfortunates actually read this thing.

NFC Thoughts

In the East, it's the Eagles and mediocrity. Philly will be just fine, even with Carson Wentz a question mark and a linebacker corps that consists of Jordan Hicks and...can't we just play dime every snap? The other three teams are completely interchangeable. New York went all in on taking one more shot at the title, meaning they're gambling that the secondary doesn't revolt against another coach and that a 37 year old quarterback looking old was entirely down to all of the receivers getting hurt at once. Dallas is hoping that getting Zeke Elliott back returns Dak Prescott to former glory, and they're helping that happen by giving him the illustrious receiver tandem of Allen Hurns and Brice Butler to throw to. And the offensive line is starting to fall apart. And they were caught off guard by their 37 year old tight end retiring, and the backup plans are a box of Shreddies and the trainer's second cousin who watched football once. Washington let Kirk Cousins go, deciding he wasn't worth all the money. Instead they traded for an older Alex Smith and then handed him just slightly less than all the money. And they traded their best young corner to get Smith, making them even more reliant on an aging Josh Norman. And their promising rookie runner got hurt, so now it's Adrian Peterson producing for one game and then 16 weeks of announcers asking what's wrong with him. Survey says : he's old as balls.

The North sees the Packers promising a whole new way of building a team! No longer will an injury to Aaron Rodgers subject us to Brett Hundley 'playing quarterback'! No, we'll now suffer through DeShone Kizer in a Packers uniform. Still no running back. Still no interior line. Yet another Packer retread trying to patch over the cornerback position (Hello, Tramon Williams!). But they signed every old tight end available in free agency. And Randall Cobb is here to fill the old AJ Hawk role of 'How is this player still on the roster?'. This all seems very familiar. Detroit is still a team. They scraped together a few retreads who won't do anything and called it an offseason. Minnesota inexplicably continues to draft cornerbacks in the first round and ignore other needs. They signed Cousins, get Dalvin Cook back, and did absolutely nothing to address an offensive line that failed them too often last season. If the defense can hold everyone to 7 points, they'll be fine. Chicago signed people who have actually been real wide receivers before! And they traded so many draft picks away for Khalil Mack that I briefly wondered if Mike Ditka had taken over the franchise. Good thing they were only one big piece away from contending, if we ignore the 6 or 7 other pieces that they still need.

The South will yet again see the Falcons, Saints and maybe the Panthers compete for the top spot. Atlanta is loaded with young talent on defense and game breakers on offense and look primed for a big season. That means they'll win 8 games and spend the entire year finding new and exciting ways to shit all over themselves while everyone tries so hard to make Matt Ryan : Elite Quarterback be real that the Earth will spontaneously combust. New Orleans weirdly decided that the best way to help keep Drew Brees on top is to let a significant portion of his receiving corps walk and go with Ted Ginn as the replacement. Who needs pass catchers who can, you know, catch? They also gave up a ton to move up in the draft in order to land a project defensive end who is nowhere near ready to compete. Carolina actually has receivers! And they have two offensive tackles who might be entirely fictional people. I honestly have no clue who these guys are. I'm also 100% certain that fictional human beings are better than Matt Kalil would have been. The defense is only counting on Julius Peppers forgetting that he's 57 years old. And Luke Kuechly staying healthy for the first time ever. And two safeties being granted by a magical genie, because they don't have any now. Let's not forget about Tampa Bay, though people usually do. The quarterback is suspended for grabbing the crotch of an Uber driver, but says that now that he's a dad he's been granted the wisdom to know that shit ain't cool. Only fatherhood can teach a man that anything rapey is generally frowned upon. Sure. The offensive line is still a train wreck. The running backs suck. Chris Conte is somehow STILL a starting safety, and I think he's been dead for 3 years. Good thing they spent all of their resources just accumulating defensive linemen.

In the West, the Rams acquired everyone. Seriously, everyone. Brandin Cooks came in and got paid, because his production has never been based on other receivers drawing the coverage away from him at all. Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters give them two top notch cover guys who are also petulant children with massive egos. Ndamakong Suh will help them improve their standing in the 'Most Curb Stompings' stats category. They signed everyone to massive contract extensions, and players always stay motivated once they get handed eight figure bonus check! After the Rams, it's a grab bag of meh. San Francisco handed Jimmy Garoppolo the GDP of Africa based on 5 games of production. The team convinced itself that Jerick McKinnon is a lead back and that Richard Sherman doesn't need Achilles tendons to play cornerback. Arizona actually drafted a legit QB prospect, then guaranteed he'll play by signing Sam Bradford. Old Larry Fitzgerald is still the entire receiver corps. Somehow, they seem to believe that old and marginal linemen like Justin Pugh and Andre Smith will fix the blocking. Seattle is convinced they're still relevant. No secondary beyond a disgruntled Earl Thomas. No pass rush, since Cliff Avril retired and they traded Michael Bennett to the Eagles for a can of kidney beans because he dared admit that the team is bored by Pete Carroll. Don't worry though, Carroll brought in Jordan Peterson to talk to the roster! An old, self important ass bag telling grown men to clean their rooms will right this ship! The offense consists of Russell Wilson trying not to die long enough for Doug Baldwin to get open against triple coverage. They overdrafted a running back and added nothing to the offensive line.

Division winners - Philly, Minnesota, New Orleans, LA Rams
Wild cards - Atlanta, Carolina

AFC

The East belongs to the Patriots while the other teams scrabble around and try to pick up enough scraps to not be total shit. New England at this point isn't even really that great a team. One Dont'a Hightower injury and the defense completely immolates again. Gronk will beast out for ten weeks before falling over, shouting "Gronk go boom!" and being lost for the year with a torn everything. This conference is so milquetoast that they'll waltz into the at least the AFC Championship Game, only to again be undone by Belichick inexplicably benching a starting defensive back for no reason. Miami was making prudent financial decisions before finally returning to normal and acquiring the massive contract of Robert Quinn. I can't imagine how it has to feel relying on Ryan Tannehill to lead you back from failure. The Jets actually drafted themselves a legitimate looking quarterback, meaning he'll somehow have thrown 23 interceptions before even stepping on the field. They have no pass rush even if they blitz everyone on the field, on the bench and in the press box. They can't block an inanimate object. The Buffalo Bills have managed to go from unlikely playoff team to the worst team in the entire NFL. They dumped out of their accurate quarterback who didn't turn the ball over and handed the reins to a man who threw 5 picks in one half of one game. He's backed up by their top draft pick, who has a cannon for an arm. He also has a cannon for a brain. His accuracy problems in the Mountain West conference led to bad turnovers and inconsistency against powerhouses like Sister Mary's School For the Blind and Chucklefuck Tech, but that will totally sort itself out at the highest level of the sport. The receiving corps is filled with the failures of other teams. The offensive line is simply offensive. Hope has been lit on fire and powerbombed through a table.

In he North, the Steelers are back with the same obnoxious bullshit that they had last year. Here's Big Ben talking about retirement, only to then whine when the media asks if he;s hanging up the cleats and proclaiming that he'll play for another 5 years. Here's Antonio Brown protesting that he doesn't want attention, then arriving to training camp in a fucking helicopter landing in the middle of the main practice field. Here's the team's NFLPA representatives grumbling out loud because Le'Veon Bell actually wants to be paid before he's left crippled for the rest of his life. Go team! The Bengals have a deep, talented defense filled with playmakers, only one of whom is a dangerous fucking idiot. They improved the blocking. They have backs. AJ Green remains one of the best receivers in the league. Andy Dalton is the poster child for mediocrity. Tyler Eifert is more of a rumor than an actual tight end at this point. Marvin Lewis will bizarrely remain the coach of this team well past the extinction of mankind. It will just be cockroaches and a confused looking Marvin wandering the Earth. Baltimore has again convinced itself that it's a dark horse team. They remain quarterbacked by a man who has to look up at Andy Dalton in the rankings. The running game is fine if all of their backs can extrapolate 2 game samples of fluke production across a whole year. The receivers are like an Island of Misfit Toys. The defense is totally reliant in injecting enough venom serum into Terrell Suggs that he can stay productive. The Browns actually managed to smartly overhaul their entire backfield and improve enormously at both quarterback and running back. Their myriad injured players are healthy once more on defense. And then they handed the entire thing over to the man who is 1-31 in the past two seasons. 1-31 is supposed to be impossible. The entire league was restructured to prevent any franchise from ever being this incompetently bad. Impressive work, Hue Jackson! He's helped in his efforts by Gregg Williams somehow remaining defensive coordinator. Colin Kaepernick is blackballed for kneeling for the anthem, yet this guy gets busted running a fucking bounty system where defenders got paid to intentionally injure opponents and he continues being employable. He isn't even any good at his job! A Gregg Williams defense largely consists of overstaying their welcome in their base set, a linebacker getting burnt when asked to cover a wide receiver, then Gregg cursing about how the players can't execute.

Welcome to the AFC South, where nobody is really atrocious (except maybe the Colts)! Sadly, nobody is really great, either. Houston's starting lineup is quite good, but their bench depth is thinner than starving children seen in United Way commercials. They're getting Deshaun Watson back from injury, and have helped shore up the blocking by doing absolutely nothing meaningful to upgrade the offensive line. Oh, and they're still coached by a supposed QB guru who believed going in to last season that TOM SAVAGE was his best option to start under center. Jacksonville's defense could be extraordinary, particularly with Myles Jack continuing to improve and Marcell Dareus being on the line from the beginning of the season this year. That's also dependent on Jalen Ramsey not being murdered by one of 73,497 people he's infuriated this offseason. Oh, and they handed a lucrative extension to Blake Bortles as a reward for managing to reach the peaks of thoroughly average quarterback. He won't be helped by a receiving crew now consisting of Austin Sefarian-Jenkins, Donte Moncrief, Keelan Cole and something called DJ Chark. Rather than upgrade that pile of filth, the team spent all of their money on a guard for a line that was already pretty good. Tennessee merely has to learn an entirely new scheme on both sides of the ball. Their receiving corps is barely out of diapers. The interior offensive line were all brought back after being more porous than sponge a year ago. And the team continues collecting ex-Patriots in some increasingly creepy clone experiment. The Colts finally get Andrew Luck back after a year and a half lost to career threatening injuries. His throwing shoulder now consists of a ball of twine held together by papier mache, and the right side of the line is still likely to guarantee that he ends up lying in a screaming heap on the field before the year is out. They have one good receiver. There is no running game. Eric Ebron was signed to provide a speedy tight end who can't catch. Defense remains a myth for other franchises to waste their time on.

Finally, we reach the West. The LA Chargers are the red headed stepchild of that particular market. Forget being outdrawn by the Rams, the city's new MLS team sold more tickets. Yes, really. They have the talent to do big things, but that talent is more fragile than Mr. Glass. They've already lost multiple players through training camp and the preseason. Half the roster is a tap on the shoulder away from dropping to the field with a shattered hip joint or exploded knee. And they continue to find new and exciting ways to shit away leads in the 4th quarter. This team is damned. Only an exorcism can save them at this point. The Kansas City Chiefs have moved on from
Alex Smith, beginning the Patrick Mahomes era. Sammy Watkins joins Tyreek Hill to give him a pair of explosive big play threats with all the reliability of a glue sniffing meth head. They finally began moving on from some veteran defenders, replacing them with castoffs from such notable defensive stalwarts as Buffalo and Dallas. They are guaranteed to lose at least three games because Andy Reid remains confused about proper clock management, time out management, and life in general. Denver remains coached by Vance Joseph so that John Elway has someone to pin the blame to when this roster yet again fails to get anywhere. Elway has proven a horrible judge of talent, but he'll be the GM forever because he's a Broncos legend and because the children of Pat Bowlen are too busy fighting for control of the team to notice what's happening to it. Let's go with Case Keenum as our latest attempt at finding a quarterback, because the one good year always becomes the new norm after a career of inconsistency beforehand. More chair shuffling on the Titanic deck known as the offensive line. Still no consistent slot receiver for the 79th consecutive year. But we'll ignore all of that and draft yet another pass rusher in the first round because the remaining quarterback prospect dares to have interests away from the fucking sport. And then, we reach the Raiders. Welcome to the basement, boys! The team traded away Khalil Mack (aka the entire goddamn defense) because they apparently couldn't find the money to pay his expected signing bonus. Of course, that lack of funds didn't prevent them from hiring Jon Gruden away from the broadcast booth for $100 million. Gruden brings his utter mediocrity in coaching and hilariously outdated offensive concepts to a team that spent the rest of the offseason collecting has-beens. Doug Martin, Jordy Nelson, Derrick Johnson, Leon Hall and Reggie Nelson join Marshawn Lynch on a team that would have been pretty damn good in 2014. They're smartly tanking just as they have to start trying to convince the people of Vegas to buy season ticket packages next year.

Division winners - New England, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Kansas City
Wild cards - LA Chargers, Cincinnati

Super Bowl - LA Rams over New England

Hark the Herald Angels Scream

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Sun, 01 Jul 2018 03:33:00 +0000

Oh hey, a blog! I should write in it and stuff!

Thanks, Rambo! Really can’t wait to see you drag your withered ass through another sequel that nobody asked for. Really…really can’t wait. Fuck.

So yeah! There were plans to write. Those plans went up in a blaze of malaise and apathy. But that fire was pretty non-committal and was easily extinguished, and now here we are. Lucky us.

This banter is absolute shit. Know what isn’t shit? Music! Thanks, Andrew W.K.! You should seriously be the theme song to everything made from now on.

Okay, a lot of music is absolute hot fucking garbage. Let’s ignore that and check out what I like to listen to, because I like to feel like a big man. I’m important, goddammit! Sweet merciful fuck, let’s just start this thing up before I continue babbling like a pompous asshole who likes to think that he’s entertaining.

Long story short : Music that was new to me in 2017, or late 2016. Doesn’t matter when it actually came out, just that I hadn’t really listened to it before last year. The list isn’t nearly as long as last year’s was, because that was utterly insane. But apparently I’m a size queen because I’m going to stack on some quick honorable mentions! EVEN MORE TIME BEFORE I GET TO THE POINT! YOU’RE WELCOME!

Bones (UK) – Just a warning for parents : watching the intro sequence of that video around little kids is going to lead to questions like “What is that man doing to that lady?” You have been warned. Apparently there was some long forgotten shitty band called Bones already, so they added the UK to their name? Or they just did it because they liked it? And/or they’re British? I don’t fucking know (Actually, they are British. I do know that part). I also have no goddamn idea what to classify this music style as. Electro-drum-sass? Who fucking cares. Genre titles mean nothing anyway, so just enjoy it. And the three other singles they have (Make that four). And that’s it. No actual album yet, hence the honorable mention. Come for the catchy beat that drills into your fucking head, stay for the cunnilingus! Okay kids, it’s time for that talk…

Greta Van Fleet – I actually really like these guys, but they have a single 8 track EP, half of which was previously released material. And that’s it. And they’re pretty much the greatest Led Zeppelin cover band of all time. Close your eyes and tell me for certain that you could definitely tell the two apart and I’ll punch you in the fucking nuts for lying to me. The goddamn kid on the mic sounds like Robert Plant. It’s uncanny! I’m curious to see (hear, I suppose) what direction they follow from here. Hopefully it’s a tad less clone-ish.

Tech N9ne – This man lives as the ultimate example that everyone needs an editor. He puts out multiple double length albums every year, splitting his time between his own stuff and Collabos collections that link him up with seemingly everyone involved in music on planet Earth. Maybe that’s the end goal? The problem with being that prolific is that you end up being very inconsistent and wobbly. So while the good stuff is REALLY DAMN GOOD, there’s too much other stuff that just…yeah.

Who am I to argue with Neo? Let’s actually get this cranked up. Oh, since a person or two asked about a playlist last year, I made one on Spotify (Though there are a few tracks that aren’t on Spotify, which is annoying). So you can listen to that as an accompaniment, or ignore this post and just enjoy that if you’re a fucking lame-ass who wants to get away from my rapier wit and keen insights. RUN! RUN, YOU FOOLS!

Once More Into the Breach

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 00:25:00 +0000

The pigskin apocalypse once more draws near! Hide your women and children, for the warriors of the gridiron might decide to beat the Hell out of them, and that’s totally cool so long as they don’t dare kneel while the national anthem plays. Sigh.

Oh, NFL.

And with a new contract in hand, Roger Goodell is in charge for the foreseeable future, or at least until the Cowboys get the hammer dropped on them again and Jerry Jones snaps and kills him with a caviar spoon. And in that moment, Roger will provide glorious entertainment and value for probably the first time in his entire life. So we all have that to look forward to.

On the field, some divisions are insanely closely matched. Others look more like dropping a pro team or two in with a couple of JV squads and a football team comprised of lemurs in helmets. I will be providing my commentary on each team in my usual manner, scorn laced with liberal doses of mockery.

You will also notice the use of asterisks scattered throughout this entire thing. See, the league narrative is that Colin Kaepernick can’t find a spot based purely on his play on the field. I will be marking the existence of quarterbacks on rosters who kind of disprove that ridiculous claim. Advance peek : there are A LOT of them.

On with the show!

Death of a Stranger

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Fri, 19 May 2017 03:06:00 +0000

I never met Chris Cornell. Obviously, I mean, I’m some random schmuck in Leduc. I’m not exactly loaded down with celebrity connections. The closest I ever came to the guy was seeing him and Audioslave live many moons ago. And yet, I find myself affected by his passing in a way that isn’t typical. Usually, someone famous dies and there’s a bit of “That’s too bad.” and then I take another sip of coffee and turn the page. Okay, obviously I’m on the Internet and not actually reading a paper but I’m making an analogy here. But this time I linger a little bit. This time there was a bit of a punch to go along with the news.
There are a few reasons why Chris Cornell’s death is a bit more of a kick to the crotch than all the rest. The guy is hands down one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time. Check out live videos from the past year or two and marvel as he continues to hit those high notes the same way that he did in the 90’s. A Soundgarden song provided the musical backdrop when two of my best friends danced for the first time after getting hitched. And Soundgarden were one of the bands of my youth. Now Chris Cornell is dead, and I’m 40 years old and much more aware of my own mortality then I was back in the day. Shit, I’m closer to 52 then I am to the age that I was when I first started hearing Soundgarden. That’s part of the reason why this one hits a bit closer to home for me. One more long tendril connecting to my younger days withers and dies off.
I was a big fan of David Bowie, James Brown, Phife Dawg and B.B. King, to list just a few of the names on the morbid ledger of musicians who have recently left this world. I was even lucky enough to see most of them (A Tribe Called Quest being an exception from that list) live before they passed. Obviously. Would have been one weird fucking show if it was post-mortem. But their passings didn’t really impact me in the same way.

The thing is, I got in to all of them later on in my life. But Soundgarden got in to my brain while I was still figuring out what in the Hell I actually liked. They were one of the building blocks in terms of music. Shit, they might have been THE building block upon which the rest of the foundation of my own personal house of musical fandom was built. Let’s hop into ye ol’ Wayback Machine and visit a time of young, dumb Cliff and his lamentable hair choices of yesteryear.

See, young and dumb Cliff was a total hair metal fan. Oh sure, he got out of that box a little bit, but only in terms of just straight up metal metal. That’s how Metallica and Pantera and the like made their way straight into his earholes. But that was it. That was all there ever would be. Grunge? Fuck that shit. Nirvana was the band that basically fucked up what he had liked before. However would Skid Row adapt and recover in a world of Nirvana? Incidentally, I’m still not the biggest Nirvana fan. They’re…okay. But if you’re the ones who plant the flag, you get to run the show. That’s how it works.

Alice in Chains (Fuck yes!) and Rollins Band (Angry guy shouting. Not really a stunner that young Cliff was all in) had made it through the firewall, but the rest of those bands could go fuck themselves. Pearl Jam? Obnoxious. Now I would best describe them as incredibly uneven. Smashing Pumpkins? What is with dude’s voice! And he seems like a douchebag. So, so true. Stone Temple Pilots? Redundant. Seriously, their first album sounded so much like Pearl Jam that everyone thought they WERE Pearl Jam. I never really got past that, even though they dumped the clone act and actually did some interesting stuff. Sonic Youth? Since when is guitar feedback and squealing music? I still kinda feel this way. Radiohead? Oh boy, whining! Sadly, just as I figured out that they were awesome, they decided to put the guitars away and fuck everything up. Soundgarden? Ugh, this is lame! With the exception of Outshined, which was pure early 90’s metal crunch that still makes me feel fired up and wanting to punch through a wall.

This went on for awhile until some evening when my musical brother-in-arms Liam suddenly told me that he had been listening to Soundgarden, and he actually kinda…you know…liked them and stuff.

But hey, Liam hadn’t really steered me wrong when it came to music (Except perhaps Mr. Bungle. I still flat out do not understand what in the fuck that was), so maybe he had retained his sanity. Maybe it was okay. Maybe I could listen to it and my world wouldn’t come crashing down. I was wrong. So wonderfully wrong.

BOOM. Young Cliff’s brain started firing in ways that it never had before. This was kinda different. This was him trying something he had previously dismissed and realizing that he liked it. And if he could be wrong about this…
Fast forward many years. Cliff is now listening to punk, funk, Motown, hip hop, gangsta rap, blues and pop. Not all of that came from one Soundgarden song, but the willingness to expand my tastes and try listening to different things started there. That song planted the seed. That song changed the way that I thought about what was good and bad music. That song encouraged me to always be seeking out something new. And I continue to live that way today.

Take that away and I might be one of those sad middle aged dudes continuing to rock out to the sounds of their past in a desperate ploy to continue believing that the past is still right now. I’d be part of the legion of damned who funnel into venues as their creaky music idols of old continue to tour in a nostalgia festival that just demeans everyone involved. To be clear, I have no problem with old bands touring or being seen live. But we’ve all encountered those sad individuals who refuse to admit that they’ve gained fifty pounds and lost thirty years and keep on keeping on like it’s 1987. So thank you, Chris Cornell. Because nobody needs to see that. And I do somewhat enjoy maintaining a shred of personal dignity.

Making Changes

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 02:15:00 +0000

Okay, I’m going to just strip away the safety net and see what falls out with this one. This is one of those times where I’m going a little bit more ‘stream of consciousness’ and then coming back around and cleaning up the mess into something that makes at least a little bit of sense…hopefully. I don’t know where exactly it’s going to end up going, and it’s probably going to jump around a bit. It’s like old school Cliff blogging, only with actual editing. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into just a huge mess. And on that optimistic note, let’s begin!

I’ve talked here before about changes that I’ve made in my life. The past year in particular has been huge. I look at a lot of things differently from how I did before, deal with things differently and react to things differently. And what I’ve learned beyond anything else is that the more things change, the more I want them to continue to change. Since it’s making me happy, let’s keep it rolling forward.

But the thing with making changes and trying to find new opportunities to adapt how I’m doing things is that I need to find new sources for that change. It’s like working out. As I find new people to follow who know what the fuck they’re talking about (And for Chrissakes people, MAKE SURE they know what they’re talking about unless you want to totally screw yourself up), I’m constantly exposed to new ideas and exercises and ways to move. I’ll try things out, some of which make the cut, and some of which don’t end up being something that I personally find interesting, but all of them are at least worth a try.

So, I have this great basis for always changing and tweaking what I’m doing in terms of workout routines. But trying to find those new ideas elsewhere is still pretty new to me. I have that same ravenous appetite for more, but I don’t have my shit nearly as figured out in terms of finding the next challenge. That means seeking out new sources for ideas and changes to possibly take on, and I’m largely flying blind here.

On a somewhat related note, I’ve decided that this year is going to see me return to the world of books. I used to be a voracious reader, but I’d gotten away from it to the point that 2016 was an absolute fucking travesty. I was really disappointed by my pitiful output and wanted to get back to reading more, so I’m going to put in a real effort this year (So far, not bad. Do board game rulebooks count? If so, I’m kicking ass). And since I already had the goal to pound through some books in 2017…

Well, that’s nice. More books. With bright covers, and lengthy descriptions and…hold the phone. Are those…

Are those self help books?!

Yes they are. Oh, but that doesn’t even cover the basics of how far down this particular rabbit hole I’ve gone (…phrasing…). At the time that I’m writing this intro, the book on the right is the only one that I’ve actually read part way through (New entry to confuse the timeline! I’ve now read two of the three!). All of those chunks of paper stuffed in there are to mark pages where something really clicked for me. I fully expect all three of these to look like a similarly chaotic mess towards the end. And that’s kind of what this post is going to be all about. Those passages, and how they relate to things I’m switching up or have already altered in some way.

Believe me, I’m also a little weirded out by all of this. Even reading stuff like this represents one drastic fucking change for me. Hell, I used to mock the shit out of this sort of thing. Then again, that mockery was largely me just trying to cover up a lot of insecurities, so let’s perhaps keep walking by those utterances of the past. It helped that the first two such books I’ve read were filled with jokes and a lot of F bombs, keeping them somewhat relatable.

Buckle up, folks. This is going to be an interesting ride through the land of honesty. It’s like the Land of Dairy Queen, just with reality in place of chocolate rivers. So…okay, yeah, it kind of sucks.

I’m Good

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Wed, 15 Mar 2017 02:57:00 +0000

So, how to follow up a massive post about 7 billion different bands that I’m into? Well, I could have just done up a clone post covering what new shit I’m already listening to in 2017. No, seriously. That’s probably coming way sooner than later. It seems that this year is picking up where the last one ended. And not just in the literal sense that one year leads directly into another. But let’s leave that for now and go a different direction. And maybe I’ll actually write something relatively short and bite sized. What? Stop laughing! It could totally happen!

Think about this : How many times a day do you find yourself engaging in the following conversation at work, on the phone, online, in an opium den, or wherever the Hell else you choose to spend your days?

OTHER PERSON : “Hey, how you doing?”

YOU : “I’m good.” Or some related version of that. Good. All good. Not bad. Decent. Hey, is that blue dragon over there giving me the eye? That last one is probably only relevant for those currently visiting an opium den.

It’s just a pointless little toss out comment. You generally don’t really mean it. Shit, nobody even gives it a second thought, it’s just what you hurl out there because it’s the expected answer to keep the pointless conversation rolling forward. You play your little part of a well oiled machine that cranks out banal nonsense like this on a daily basis, then you return to slaving away for the man, or talking business online, or lazing back on a cushion in a purple room, surrounded by cool people all getting right fucked up. My only experience with opium dens comes from cartoons, so I am probably completely out to fucking lunch on what one might have found in one.

And I’m not any different from the rest of you. I engage in the same pointless bullshit. I respond in the same way. I keep the cogs greased and the business of small talk flowing. That sounded weirdly sexual. It was not intended as such. For once.

The difference these days is that now I actually mean it. I’ve spent years just blindly spewing out the phrase to the point that it had become absolutely meaningless. Even when I was miserable I still said it because it’s just what you do. And then a short while ago, I was out driving on a nice, sunny winter’s day. Volbeat was playing. If you are in my car this summer, prepare for the Volbeat onslaught. Seriously, it’s perfect warm weather driving music. I had a smile on my face. And it occurred to me at that moment that I really am good.

Is everything perfect? Of course not. What I finally figured out is that that doesn’t matter. There are still things that I’m trying to get done, but I’ve reached a point of contentment with where I am now. I’ve finally started figuring out how to keep my brain from continuing to spin away in overdrive, so I’m a Hell of a lot calmer internally than I have been in longer than I can remember. Turns out sleep actually IS a good thing. Who knew? I mean, aside from sensible people. I’ve actually made a lot of progress in terms of figuring out how to function like something resembling a human being. Hey, it only took 40 years!

And while it would be easy to lament the fact that it took me so long to get here, I won’t do that. The important part is that I finally got here. No more time spent smashing myself over mistakes made. Now I take a moment to think about what I would say to someone else who made that error, and I go with that instead. Seriously, we routinely abuse ourselves in situations where we would show empathy to anyone else in the same space. It’s fucked up. No more passing up on things that I want to do. If I’m going solo, so be it. I’m still going. Hence this rapidly becoming the year of Cliff goes to a lot of concerts. And no more becoming frustrated when I can’t make masses of progress overnight. Okay, so it still happens from time to time. Let’s just aim for a lot less and be happy with it. Maybe it’s time to sit back and actually enjoy the whole improvement part of things instead of just racing to the end.

I’m good. And I should end this before it becomes a motivational poster.

Sweet holy mother of fuck. People actually put things like that on walls? Really? Ugh. There’s another one for the quick list. I’m not a person who would EVER hang that image anywhere. I’m just the guy who will subject you all to it here. So we can suffer together.

Because I’m a dick.

And I’m good.

2016 – A Music Extravaganza!

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 05:10:00 +0000

It’s said that as we age, we stop looking for new sounds to infiltrate the ear canal and just bathe in the nostalgic warmth of what we already enjoy. Apparently I missed the bus that goes to that particular neighborhood in Blandsville…

In years past, I’ve spent a bit of time in January looking back at books that I read over the previous year. However, my book consumption rate last year was goddamn pathetic, so that’s out for 2017. Luckily, I stepped it up big in terms of what I’m listening to.

Now, this has nothing to do with bands I was already into who released new stuff this year. So I won’t be mentioning names like Metallica, Sixx A.M., Adele, David Bowie, A Tribe Called Quest (though I thought long and hard about including them, since it’s their first new material in forever and a day) or Iggy Pop. Okay, I won’t be mentioning them from this point forward. All released really good stuff. But this is about new shit. At least, stuff that’s new to me. Some of them have been around for awhile. Hey, I’m old! It takes me awhile to find things! Be glad that I manage to find pants!

And there was A LOT of new shit in 2016. Thanks to my XM account, I typically ‘find’ about 20-25 new bands a year. This year was like that, only on a lot of steroids. XM led to a lot of them, but so did people. All kinds of people. People who I follow online, friends, acquaintances, whoever. If you have ever mentioned a musical act within earshot of me, and particularly if you’ve previously led me to something cool, there’s a good chance that I’ve listened to them. All it takes is the quickest of throwaway mentions. My ears are whores.

So consider this my attempt both to bring some eyes to my little corner of the Internet, and to also thank many of you for bringing me to some new music by trying to return the favor. There will likely be a few surprises. There is at least one MASSIVE change in opinion. Try not to be one of those sad little fuckers who skims and just looks at band names…read it, you lazy fuck! Enjoy, mock, laugh at me, I don’t give a shit. Oh, and prepare yourselves for power chords. I am a sucker for power chords.

I’ll link to a video for each group in the band name.

LET MORTAL KOMBAT COMMENCE!

Oh, and I also promise that there will be zero ‘joke’ links to Rick Astley. This is a post about good music, and therefore Rick Astley has no place here.

Scenes From the Debauched Mind of a Ne'er-do-well

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 05:34:00 +0000

As the new year dawns, it’s time to be a complete and total cliché and take a look back at my own personal 2016. Forget what happened to the world and anything of the like. It’s all about me! Though a lot less arrogant than that sounded. I may be a lot of things, but that level of self obsessed isn’t one of them. Hey, I’m a bit surprised, too!

This isn’t going to be a countdown of specific changes that I’ve made in the past year. I already updated that set of goals a short time ago here. Of course, it didn’t get read much. I like to think it was because I made the ‘brilliant’ choice of posting it before work, meaning all of you folks who might have read it were busy at jobs and stuff. I like to think that. It keeps me from being a sad heap of old tears slowly drying into obscurity. Look, please just go read it now and save us all the awkwardness of me sobbing uncontrollably again. Nobody wants that. No, this is going to be something a bit bigger and a lot less specific. That’s my way of saying that I’m pretty much making this up as I’m typing, and not even I can look into the future, even one of my own creation. Don’t worry, I’m not going to forego editing. This is just going to be a bit of a zig-zagging rollercoaster ride when it comes to subject. Riffing off the cuff is fun and terrifying all at once.

I could very easily fall into the trap of looking at 2016 as entirely bad. There’s been immense upheaval and pain in my family. Too many people close around me don’t know what’s coming next anymore. I’ve spent a lot of time this year angrily screaming out into the void in the hopes that my voice would somehow quell the maelstrom. I’m always one of those people who wants to do something. And when I can’t do something to fix whatever’s gone wrong, I flail and lash about. I can’t heal the wounds of everyone around me. I can’t change my life, or that of anyone around me, simply by wishing it to be so. All that I can do is keep striding forward. I’ll always do everything that I can for anyone around me, but I’m not a superman capable of bearing the problems of the world. And trying to take everything at once just leads to my feeling crushed underneath the mass of it all. Going it alone doesn’t work. It never did. But I’ll still bellow into the night when the need is there, because sometimes a primal scream is what you need to clear your head and chase the demons off for another night.

Revisiting the Post-Vacation Write-Up With the Long-Ass Title and Promised Life Changes

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 20:04:00 +0000

I know that I often go on about my horrific title skills, but that one is a record setter in the field of putrid. The byline for that mess should just be somebody vomiting.

Hi, I’m Troy Mcclure. You may remember me from such posts as A Road Trip, a Mountain, a Hotel, a Coffee Shop and Another Hotel , and my exciting feature film role in Bedtime for Bonzo 2 : Get This Fucking Monkey to Bed!*

Okay okay, so I’m not Troy McClure. But I AM totally the guy who wrote that earlier post that’s linked to up there. The long story short version of that one (FINE, Liam. I’ll put this bit up front this time! You’re welcome.) was me considering aspects of myself that which I felt that needed to change. This is pretty easy to do when you’re on vacation and spending a fair amount of time almost every day hiking through the wilderness and then sitting in nature and just reflecting on things, so I actually came up with a pretty solid list. But what good is coming up with a list of stuff that you want to start doing in a new way if you aren’t going to hold yourself accountable (Though not TOO accountable…oooooo, foreshadowing)? Let’s hop into the wayback machine, take a look at what I said then, and compare that to what I’m actually doing about it three months later.

Hilariously, I actually forgot to include a fair amount of content that was intended to be in there in the first place. What can I say? It wasn’t all reflection all the time. Plenty of opportunity spent on booze, food, and that waitress I spent most of the last weekend with provided ample distraction. I’m going to add in all of that, too (The missing material, not the distractions. Provide your own distractions as you see fit). Plus some BONUS NEW MATERIAL that I’ve figured out since then makes an exciting debut! Hey, I have to toss something fresh in here in a sadly transparent attempt to give you all incentive to actually read this. Think of this as the reprint of a book with the additional chapter or two. I just keep on giving of myself, you lucky, lucky bastards.

Fitness the Cliff Way

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 04:00:00 +0000

AKA Physically Wreck Yourself Until You Finally Realize You’re Not 22 Anymore. Then Learn A Few Lessons And Change Things Before Debilitating Yourself Permanently.

That is possibly the worst secondary title ever committed to digital paper.

So, let’s hop into the old time machine once more and head back to yesteryear. We’ve covered a lot of this, so let’s just do a speed run this time : Cliff depressed, Cliff not doing well, Cliff starts freelance writing, Cliff realizes he’s in awful shape, Cliff decides to do something about it. There. All caught up. Imagine that in the form of a montage with some sort of 80’s music with a pulsing beat cranked up in the background to maximize the awesomeness. May I suggest this? Holy shit, nothing says 80’s rock like multiple band members sporting perms.

Like probably everyone else who decides to get their increasingly fat ass up off the chair to do something about it, I began with little idea of what to actually do. And the weird thing is that I don’t really remember how I came up with my initial workout plans at all. I just sort of…did. It was all very basic, with different pushup variations and anything else that didn’t really require a lot of gear.

I might not have specific memories of exactly what I was doing, but I do remember that before long it started to feel like something that I wanted to make part of my new routine. My life at that point was mostly a beaten down me clawing my way out of a veritable Sarlacc Pit of my own misery, so something providing a good feeling was a solid shot in the arm. I started chasing that endorphin rush like a junkie desperately grasping for the next hit to fill his veins with a brief, fleeting feeling of fiery joy. Looking back now, I realize that working out became a bit of a lifeline. I was trying to clamber out of my own unhappy little world, and it was helping me push my way back up and out of the hole. To some degree this is still true. As I spend my time looking for a new job that will open up some opportunities to make big chunks of progress in my life, I can still look at exercise results as evidence of positive progression for myself. Hence why I become a bit of a pissy little bitch when I hurt myself doing something stupid and can’t work out for a couple of weeks. This is something I’ve been working on…I shouldn’t have so much emotional investment in one aspect of my existence. But we’re veering towards future blog post territory here, so let’s get back on the road and rejoin this one.

As I chased down my next moment of bliss, the other benefits of this particular life change started to make themselves known. It didn’t take too long for the weight to start sliding off, since that initial cut is usually pretty rapid once you start seriously moving around. The joy increased as visible results became more readily available for perusal. That was the good part. The bad part was that at the same rate that my motivation went up, so did my desire to see that progress accelerate. It’s like once that aforementioned junkie has developed a tolerance for the dragon he’s chasing and has to start shooting more and more and more. So I kept adding more and more and more to what I was doing. Not only was I trying to clamber up and over a wall, but I was building the wall up higher first. And as time went along and my enjoyment increased, I was adding more gear and more exercise options. So why not add ALL the everything at once?

See, every time I’d learn something new or a variation on something that I already liked doing, I’d just add it to the routine. I don’t mean replace something with it…no, that would make sense. I mean I’d just add it to what was becoming a sizable stack of exercises. It got to the point that I was doing 22+ different exercises per workout, then repeating that insanity in a circuit from Hell. I’d rip off 6-8 kinds of pushups alone. Did I mention the bare minimum warmup of any kind that preceded these marathon sessions? I’d perhaps do a minute of jumping jacks and maybe one other thing for another minute and then it was time to dive in to what ‘really mattered’. Yeah. Pretty far from smart.

Oh, but it gets worse. So much dumber and worse. Not only was I over-exerting myself without letting muscles warm up and stretch out to begin with, but I wasn’t really letting anything rest, either. I’d just jump from one exercise to the next with the only break being whatever amount of time it took for me to physically get from one spot to the next one. I’d hop from a push exercise to a pull exercise and back to a push and so on with no real break. Perhaps I’d get a few extra seconds of reprieve because I was sucking down a couple mouthfuls of water, but that was it.

Once these ridiculous affairs finally reached an end with me barely able to move my limbs any longer, I’d do a bare minimum of stretching and just go about my day. I’d spend perhaps five minutes stretching out with no cool down, so I was still actively sweating once that was finished. Wrap it up! Brilliant! Can’t see how this can go wrong at all!

Ah yes, the mantra of idiots. Seriously, if anyone EVER tells you this load of horseshit, they’re either a masochist or a moron. Or both. Quick aside, but one of my favorite Youtube channels is BroScienceLife. The guy lampoons the meathead gym idiots that everyone has encountered at least once in their life who regularly spew crap like that from their mouths. It amuses me greatly. But this was also how I was ‘thinking’ (and I use that term very loosely). The only smart thing I did was having rest days, but that was it. And I GUESS it was a ‘positive’ that I was working out in a balanced way and destroying all of me equally? I was physically hammering myself into the ground. And then I started working again. Did I taper my workouts down? No. I just stacked on a sometimes physical job, all without increasing my food intake. So now I’d work out, eat, go to work and consume all of an apple over the next 5 hours before coming home again. That sounds GREAT. And this is where I’d like to welcome grim reality up onto the stage!

I was already constantly suffering through aches and pains and muscle strains and not getting the hint. I’d take a few days off, then just hop right back into the maelstrom of madness that my routine was. And then, my left knee decided to flare up…well, to be fair, I decided to set it off by being dumb. I have a bit of tendonitis in my lower left patellar tendon. I can do all kinds of squats and lunges and jumps and cardio and whatever and it’s fine, but side planks equal bad. I don’t know what it is about that position, but it is GUARANTEED to set it off, and then I spend the next few days in a sleeve because every time I’m descending stairs or a ladder it feels like my knee is going to give out. Well, I got my shiny new TRX and decided that it would be totally fine to do TRX side planks, which involves both your feet being stacked one on top of the other in a stirrup. Long story short : not fine. Three weeks in the sleeve, popping ibuprofen 4 times a day as an anti-inflammatory, icing the knee every day when I got home from work until it was finally back to normal.

Lesson learned? Not really, because at the same time that this was going on, my right arm was starting to get cranky. I figured I had strained something, so I’d rest it for a week or so only to crank the whole machine back up again once it was feeling better. It kept happening and I didn’t change anything. And then one day, it stopped getting better.

“Oh good,” you’re thinking, “This is where he had that epiphany.” Um…yeah…

Kept going. I stopped doing any sort of push exercise when that kept triggering it, but I kept right on doing pullups and chinups and whatever else. I already knew when I started writing this that I was going to come off as dumb, but now that I’m actually reading these words…ugh. I think I need a drink.

As you might imagine, things kept getting worse. So I finally just stopped. And the pain didn’t. I sleep on my side with my arm tucked under the pillow, and for awhile I physically couldn’t do that without pain. I went to Kelowna on vacation a couple of summers ago stressed out that I had torn something in my arm. That FINALLY scared some fucking sense in to my head.

What had actually happened was that my biceps tendon flared up and started screaming “DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” so loudly that I simply couldn’t ignore it anymore. Months went by and it finally felt better. I could sleep normally again. And I started ever so slowly to begin working out anew, only this time things were very different.

My average workout time really hasn’t changed all that much, but the composition of what I’m doing has been altered drastically. Longer warmups and a whole Hell of a lot more cool down and stretching at the end. Now I mix in a little cardio interval after every exercise I do. I’m still working hard, but those muscle groups get a bit of time to regroup, which also makes things more effective since my next set of reps is likely to be better now that the muscles being worked aren’t already dead from the start. If I do something high intensity one day, I’m going to taper things down the next. Worn out and sore? Time for a break, or something like this, which is just a lot of warmup and stretching and some really light exercise intervals. I do a lot more circuits of half a dozen things a couple of times over, or a few exercises mixed with some high intensity cardio in quick bursts. I’ve also started doing foot/ankle stretch and strength exercises like this a couple of times a week. If your feet are fucked up, you’re fucked up. So actively trying to avoid that becoming reality seems like a good idea to me. And I own a foam roller, though using it a lot more often is something I still need to get on board with. I’ve started, though.

And if I’m hurting a bit, I alter what I’m doing. For example, right now I’m doing a program designed to help boost your pullup/chinup rep counts. It involves a lot of hanging from a pullup bar and lifting, holding or lowering myself. This morning, the middle of my back right between the tops of my shoulder blades was cranky from that program so I changed it up and passed on doing it today. Instead, I hit some upper body endurance exercises with really light weights, then did some back work with my TRX. I’ve also learned to tell if a little muscle tweak means “Okay, we’re still waking up, keep going and just bring it down a notch for a minute” or “Hey dude, STOP. Not cool today.”

I’ve started paying a lot more attention to persistent and repeated physical problems. An example : about a year ago, the plane we work with at work changed from an Airbus to a 757. That meant a downsizing of the freight containers we were able to use, but also that the containers load differently into the plane. I won’t bore you with the details. You’re welcome. Soon after, I started noticing persistent groin and quad pulls in my left leg. I wasn’t working out any differently, so I focused on how I was moving around at work. I was now basically side stepping the one end of the container into the plane, which meant up to 5,000 pounds was being shifted in a side step. That’s a lot of load being borne by a few specific muscle groups. So I changed the way I was moving and haven’t had an issue since. There have been other, smaller changes like that as well. Instead of persisting with some macho ‘grin and bear it’ crap that leads to nothing more than injuries later on, I’m now focused on dealing with problems to avoid them in the first place.

I finally decided to learn a little bit about caloric intake and the like, though I’ve never gotten to the point of calorie counting because that seems miserable and generally shitty. I just try to be a lot smarter about what I eat, and how much, and when. I actually did the basic calculation to figure out my Basal Metabolic Rate, which is how many calories you need to consume in a day when you do absolutely jack shit. Mine is right around 2,000. And I basically never spend an entire day doing absolutely jack shit, so I eat a lot more than that. I also eat a lot more during the day when I’m at work.

Net result of both of those things : more fat loss, since my body isn’t clinging to every ounce with a death grip as I’m no longer starving it for half a day every weekday. And I actually possess muscle tone, which is different and fun. I actually have lats and traps and leg definition and…whatever those muscles are where your shoulder comes down on to your arm. You know, those…hold on a second :

Those! Whatever those are. Anyway, I spent all summer rocking sleeveless t-shirts and tank tops. It felt good actually getting sun all over me (though without any real tan. I am not wired to tan). By the way, if you’re of the mistaken belief that strutting around like a toned motherfucker will bring the ladies around, allow me to set you straight. The only conversations you’ll have are with obsessed Crossfit dudes who want to blather on about their super sets and pull ups. It’s a definite downside.

And hey, it’s not all about being a showy bastard. I’m also a lot stronger. I can shift around a lot more weight at work a lot more easily than I could before. Some of that is technique and learning how to do so more efficiently, but some of it is strength improvement. My overall stamina is better, too…and I’m leaving that sitting there as a softball sex joke for anyone to jump on top of…OH LOOK, THERE’S ANOTHER ONE. You’re welcome.

Getting back to food intake, could I full-on micro-manage the Hell out of my diet and start figuring out EXACTLY how much of everything to eat every hour of every day? Sure. But I’m never going to do that, because I really don’t give that much of a shit about it. That would also suck all of the joy out of actually exercising, and I still do this because I enjoy it. I like pushing myself. I like improving myself. I like the endorphin rush once I’m done. I get enough post-workout energy that my daily coffee consumption has dropped significantly because I don’t really need it as much anymore. This need has also been reduced since I started taking cold showers. On purpose. Yep. It’s good for you for a lot of reasons, and it gives you a nice little bitch slap of wakefulness. Oh, and actually getting enough sleep helps, too.

Long story short : I finally grew a lick of sense, learned some more about what the Hell I was doing, and realized that I’m not a kid who can get away with overdoing things because he’s still a machine awash in testosterone. I know just enough to be dangerous, but no longer dangerous to myself. And that’s pretty sweet.

So How the Hell Did This Happen?

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 06:20:00 +0000

Wow, America. Wow. You really did it. You went ahead and handed the reins to a man who can’t be trusted to be in charge of his own Twitter account.

Based on the way that things seem to be leaning, Donald Trump is now the President of the United States. So how in the Hell did this happen?

First off, I guarantee you that piles of people are going to blame 3rd party candidates like Gary Johnson for ‘stealing’ millions of votes from Clinton. The people making those claims are idiots. Every candidate is a legitimate option for voters. Clearly, the two ‘big’ ones weren’t reaching those voters and they went another way. Good for them. Vote for whoever you believe in. Instead of blaming those voters for ‘wasting’ their vote, maybe try harder to actually reach them in the first place.

Really, there is one major guilty party in all of this, and that is…the Democratic Party.

For months it’s been nonstop talk about the Republicans and where do they go from here and how sad it is that this is the best choice they could nominate. And yeah, that is pretty sad. However, let’s look at the flip side. The best candidate that the Democratic Party could come up with was Hilary Clinton, someone they wanted so little to do with eight years ago that they brought up a guy named Obama and he won the nomination. They have so little in the tank that she was their best option. And where do THEY go from here? Who the Hell do they have coming along?

Again, lots of talk about schisms in the Republican Party, but what do you think is going on with the Democrats? A fair number of people in that party didn’t want anything to do with her. They wanted Bernie Sanders. They wanted to go a different way. Think they’ll be content today to just follow the party line that led them here?

The party just assumed that rust belt voters would continue to vote Democrat because that’s how things have always gone. Meanwhile, Trump actually went out there and actively campaigned. And while your local economy is getting driven into the dirt, yeah, you’re probably a little more willing to hold your nose and vote for the guy who’s claiming that he might change things and bring back the manufacturing base that you’ve been hemorrhaging for decades. Is it likely? No. But desperation breeds more desperation.

And this is maybe the most interesting part of all of this. Obama won on a platform of hope and change. Yet this time around, the Democratic platform was essentially ‘more of the same’. That didn’t resonate with people the way that the idea of changing things did. We had a sitting President with an approval rating of between 55%-57% actively campaigning for Clinton in states that he carried handily four years ago, but nobody cared. Because now the hope and change guy was just trying to talk up the establishment. They abandoned the platform that was a proven winner with voters and arrogantly assumed that everyone would just stay on board the D-train because…reasons. And we won’t even really campaign very hard in lots of those states because we’ll just assume that they’re ours again! Yeah, not so much. Arrogance is rarely pretty, and it certainly hasn’t panned out here.

Meanwhile, Trump was basically running some sort of dark and bizarro Obama-esque ‘change’ campaign. It was a Hell of a lot angrier and more repugnant, but he was the change candidate. And desperate people want change because they want to escape where they currently are. They don’t care about the awful shit you say when you promise them a better tomorrow. And popular entertainers kept doing him favors and humanizing him by bringing him in and showing people him actually possessing a sense of humor on occasion…thanks a lot, Lorne Michaels and Jimmy Fallon and others. You guys get to bear a little bit of blame for this fiasco, too.

The vast majority of the population is clearly pissed off and feeling disenfranchised. Facing that, the Democrats plugged their ears and covered their eyes and ran up a cavalcade of establishment political personalities to stump for her. That’s pretty much the absolutely worst thing you can do when people are angry at that very same establishment. And if anyone thinks that there aren’t rumblings of the same going on North of the border, you’re deluding yourselves. And people who are angry are a lot less likely to give a damn about ‘little’ things like personal morality and your platform on social issues. The Democratic campaign was a disaster. This was every bit the poorly run mess that the John Kerry debacle was. How the Hell it didn’t occur to ANYONE to perhaps stomp down on the e-mail scandal early is beyond me. Instead, we’ll just let it linger on and fester. Yeah, that was a winner of a decision. And that’s just the tip of the very big iceberg that the good ship Democrat just run into.

The worst part of all of this is that this is now going to be the tone of elections going forward. Get ready to see a lot more of this in a lot more countries, because it clearly worked. Whatever last shred of political discourse was left gasping for air and clinging to existence has been shot in the head and tossed in an open grave. It’s all going to get a lot angrier from here on in.

I clearly picked the wrong period of my life to try to be more positive…

A Road Trip, a Mountain, A Hotel, A Coffee Shop, and Another Hotel

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 00:18:00 +0000

Sounds like a horrible new sitcom starring a resurgent Jamie Kennedy, only on ABC!

What do all of those places actually have in common? They’re all spots where I’ve had opportunities to just sit down and let the ol’ brain pan burble away. You can only sing yourself hoarse to the music for so long during a lengthy drive before you find yourself sitting in silence accompanied by the hum of wheels on the road and your own subconscious spinning away. And once you start hiking and trudging your way through nature and pausing to enjoy a little green serenity (this should totally be the name of a particular strain of weed), those pesky synapses start firing because they just don’t appreciate nature like your eyes do. Your subconscious doesn’t give two shits about the view. It wants to think. And once it latches onto an idea, it clings to it with a death grip.

So, what was the idea? Not too long ago, Monique had mentioned something on Instagram or Facebook or both or something about paying attention to unconscious habits and routines. That's something which has resonated with me before, typically when I realize I'm unconsciously doing something stupid, but then I blow it off. "Oh, I'll get to it. Sometime. Eventually." And then I don't. Seeing it again pushed it back into the forefront of my mind.

We all do things without really considering the why of it. Most of the time, they’re such quick and mundane tasks that they really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But you might also find that you’re spending an inordinate amount of time or brain power on absolutely pointless bullshit. Maybe all of those claims that you don’t have time to do the things that you would like to be doing are complete crap, because you’re wasting a lot of time on nonsense that doesn’t matter without you even realizing it. Or perhaps you’ve developed some habits that really are negatively affecting your ability to get to where you want or need to be going.

I decided that this time, I wasn't going to just dismiss it for 'another day'. I’d actually go ahead and spend a while really considering what it is that I do with my time. I thought it might be something I do for a few weeks or whatever, but all of those recent opportunities for reflection and honest thought ended up kicking the floodgates open and out poured the realizations. Actually, a lot of my own bad habits are all tied into one big overarching piece of personal stupidity, so the connections between it and many other related problems dragged them all out en masse in a giant heap.

Now, this may have strayed from the beaten path that post was talking about. But I don’t tend to worry too much about particulars put in place by other people if I can expand on something to make it a positive for me moving forward. If it’s something I’m doing without consideration and it’s not good for me, it simply needs to fucking end.

And since I’m a big believer in public sharing meaning perhaps I can’t just keep doing this shit without at least facing some mockery for it, let the list ensue!

2016 AFC Picks

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Thu, 08 Sep 2016 02:48:00 +0000

Let us begin on part 2 of the season preview...and my Super Bowl pick, because everyone is all kinds of eager to know who I'm picking. After all, I'm nobody, goddammit!

East

1. New England - This team is a zombie. It just keeps coming. It can't die because it's already dead. The great sorcerer Belichick keeps them undead and running through dark magic and hoodies. You can't survive! Run now, children! Save yourselves!

Actually, they're a deeply flawed team lucky enough to play in a division filled with mouth-breathing prehistoric cavemen incapable of making good football decisions. They won't have Brady for 4 games thanks to his finally being suspended from a scandal filled with douchebags on every side and that JUST WOULDN'T FUCKING END. Again, they have gaping holes all over the place, but nobody says anything because Belichick.

This team is so bad at developing receivers that they keep overpaying the also-rans from other teams. The trouble is that they keep expecting the next Moss and Welker but keep signing guys who aren't talented. I'm sure that Chris Hogan won't just be another Danny Amendola! Half the defense is in a contract year. Malcolm Butler is the only good cornerback. And Sebastian Vollmer is already out for the year...and this line was so ghastly a year ago that they dragged Dante Scarnecchia out of a nursing home because an old coach can totally replace actually having talent, right?

2. New York Jets - They finally brought back Ryan Fitzxpatrick after an obnoxious summer of the team pretending they didn't need him and him pretending that he had options. It left everyone looking like unlikable toolbags. Considering that nobody had more dropped interceptions a year ago than Fitzpatrick, I'm sure that he won't just turn into an overpaid turnover machine this season. Their left tackle retired, and they replaced him with Ryan Clady. You might have thought Clady retired years ago, but he's just been injured on a consistent and constant basis.

Already starting to be burned by paying Darrelle Revis elite money after he left his prime years behind, the Jets learned nothing. Instead, they spent big on a running back who's even older and has a thousand times more wear on his legs.

They have a small pile of talented defensive lineman but remain wed to a 3-4 defensive front despite not having any outside linebackers worth a damn. They actually spent a 2nd round pick on Christian Hackenburg, a 'quarterback' who can't make reads and can't accurately throw a pass. This wasn't even that surprising.

3. Buffalo - Rex Ryan is an overrated loudmouth who took a great defense and used his supposed genius to make it average. Now his fatter, dumber and less talented brother is here to help Rex drop that defensive ranking all the way to crap. They have a very good chance of succeeding with this weird plan that makes no sense.

Marcell Dareus has entered rehab and might not play all year. Mario Williams is gone. Jerry Hughes will now actually face blocking attention and quickly remind everyone that he's terrible when anyone is actually available to block him. The pass rush seems nonexistent.

Offensively, Karlos Williams was released after managing to be massively overweight while also struggling with a drug problem. That's amazing. LeSean McCoy is an asshole who can't stay healthy. The #2 receiver job may as well be handed out to a different 'lucky fan' every week. EJ Manuel is somehow still on this roster.

4. Miami - Ryan Tannehill was apparently a pretty promising receiver in college. The problem is that he's the starting quarterback. Great at running, not so good at reading where his receivers will run. And that's too bad because they actually have some good receivers. What they don't have is a running back after inexplicably refusing to keep handing Lamar Miller the ball whenever he'd have success. Now they have Arian Foster. Remember when Foster was a monster running back? That was two healthy legs ago.

The defense is reliant on an old Cam Wake coming off of an Achilles tear, a fading Mario Williams still giving a damn, and Ndamakong Suh actually playing like he gives a shit while tying up so much cap space that the team can't afford to add any talent anywhere else. They have no defensive backs. Their middle linebacker is a pass rusher playing out of position. The owner is a gloryhound attention whore who keeps selling tiny shares of the franchise to has-been celebrities in a sad attempt to get someone to look at him for 5 seconds. The Everglades need to swamp this entire franchise and have it devoured by mutant gators.

North

1. Pittsburgh - Let's talk about what a hypocritical shit fuck this franchise is. Sure, the Bengals lost their minds and blew up like the angry manchildren they are in that playoff debacle last year against the Steelers. But let's not forget Pittsburgh's meathead coaching staff inexplicably on the field, pulling dreads and shit talking. And before Vontaze Burfict decided to try to kill Antonio Brown, Ryan Shazier attempted to permanently paralyze Gio Bernard but then avoided a penalty because STEELERSARECLASSY.

Then again, this same team came out very publicly in defense of James Harrison years ago when he was accused of beating and threatening his girlfriend. And they did so AFTER he had admitted to everything on the stand. Why? Because, in the words of the owner, he was fighting to try to get his kid baptized and that's a good thing. The Harrison revival tour continues. I'm sure that his amazing comeback at an advanced age is totally natural and not boosted by anything...

The quarterback finally seems to have figured out that passed out doesn't mean "yes", so yay for progress? Le'Veon Bell is yet again suspended because he can't put the bong down, and he's also coming back from a shredded knee. Antonio Brown is awesome, but the rest of the team is far too easy to hate. They keep drafting linebackers in the first round and end up disappointed. I hope that never ends. Fuck this franchise.

I also love the disgusted look of every player when they have to wear those revolting bumble bee throwback uniforms. I hope they go back to those full time.

2. Cincinnati - Was anyone surprised to see this team implode in the playoffs a year ago? Relying on Pacman Jones to remain rational is like counting on a ravenous leopard to not try to eat you. They've drafted cornerbacks in the first round of the draft for the last 23 years and yet still start the man who gifted our culture 'making it rain'. Vontaze Burfict fell in the draft because he's a bundle of rage, and now he's suspended for being a bundle of rage. Nobody but the Bengals is surprised.

AJ Green is one of the best receivers in the game, and Tyler Eifert looks like the real deal. The problem is everywhere else. Secondary receivers are all question marks. Jeremy Hill would be a tremendous running back if you don't mind a guy who secures the ball like his hands have been permanently slathered in rendered fat. Bernard might be ready to go if he can remember who he is after Shazier tried to knock his brain out of his skull.

Somehow, Marvin Lewis remains in charge of this impending disaster. It's like coaching this team is his right by blood and none can take it from him. Of course, when the alternative is any other schmuck hired by Mike Brown, Lewis might be the lesser of two evils.

3. Baltimore - Ladies and gentlemen, the Ravens remain the most easily detestable football team in existence! Never before has a roster embraced conspiracy theories about the league being out to get them like the Ravens have many times in the past. Ray Rice knocked his girlfriend unconscious and the entire team and the fans moaned about his suspension. Terrell Suggs has done much worse, but video doesn't exist of his grabbing his girlfriend by the hair through the driver's side window of his car and then stepping on the gas, so who cares right? He also looks like Sloth from the Goonies.

Let's take a look at the receiving corps : Steve Smith is ancient and coming back from a torn Achilles. Breshad Perriman has yet to play a snap and is coming back from knee surgery. Mike Wallace failed his physical, and fails to run any pass route that isn't a fly. They released and re-signed their sub 200 pound 30 year old runner within the same week even though he's had one burst of success and that happened two years ago. That's also when they had a pretty good offensive line, and the whole left side of that line is now gone. And Joe Flacco is the most overpaid unibrow in the history of sports. Dude looks positively cro magnon. He might actually be the missing link.

4. Cleveland - I don't even know what to say here. Mocking the Browns just feels cruel. Life has already done enough damage. Do I really need to pile on?

The owner was convicted of massive fraud, much like this team continues to commit fraud every time they charge fans money to watch 'competitive football'. At quarterback is an exciting choice of two different guys trying to return to a brief spurt of glory that happened years ago. The best receiver hasn't played football for approximately 73 million bong hits.

They went into the offseason talking about keeping their young core free agents, then watched all of them leave after they jerked one of them around with stupid contract tactics when they had no leverage. The only people who believe in Joe Haden's greatness are Joe and possibly his mom. There is no hope. There is nothing to build on. The Cleveland Browns are a wasteland where nothing can grow.

South

1. Jacksonville - I can't actually believe that I'm typing this, but here it is. When you spend as much money as the Jags have this offseason, you damn well better win something. Jacksonville spent money with more reckless abandon than your average Kardashian.

They actually seem to have drafted an impressive troupe of receivers. Now if Blake Bortles can start figuring out that he should try to limit his completions to the guys wearing the same uniform that he has on, things should go well. And they handed a lucrative deal to runner Chris Ivory, because pure power backs who initiate contact always have long careers and earn every cent of those deals. The shiny new left tackle blew his knee out last year, but even if he was still hobbling on one leg would represent an impressive upgrade from top draft bust Luke Joeckel.

Defensively, the Jags continue their recent run of either drafting guys recovering from knee injuries or having them blow an ACL seemingly as soon as the pick is in. Prince Amukamara was picked up on a one year deal to confuse people who think he's a member of Nigerian royalty here to deliver their promised billions in treasury dollars.

2. Houston - Oh, Texans. Finally realizing what everyone else knew...Brian Hoyer isn't a starter and Ryan Mallett has a future only as a neighborhood meth dealer...Houston went big to get Brock Osweiler. Like, crazy big. They bid against themselves like the Redskins used to do and handed 37 million guaranteed to a man whose best trait as a quarterback thus far is being tall.

Looking for a bookend for the awesome DeAndre Hopkins, they drafted a man who drew comparisons to Ted Ginn. That's like deciding that the answer to your need for a smart financial plan is hiring someone who has never seen money before.

Of course, JJ Watt is still here. He had quite the meat-head offseason. While Houston authorities were urging people to stay home during flooding this summer to avoid hindering emergency rescue efforts, there was JJ sharing photos of himself arriving at the team facility because he doesn't take a day off. He also had to have a second back surgery earlier this summer. I'm sure the issues remaining from the first one had nothing to do with his performing high stack box jumps just weeks after it was performed. Truly a fucking scholar. In the time it has taken you to read this, Brian Cushing has likely had three different joints explode.

3. Indianapolis - Hey everyone, the Colts actually spent resources on offensive linemen! They decided that putting blocking in place might be a better plan for keeping Andrew Luck on the field than just relying on his neanderthal toughness. Hallelujah, tis truly a miracle.

Of course, their only real rushing threat is still Frank Gore. Football's own version of Methuselah is hoping to put up a solid campaign for the 29th consecutive year. Frank Gore is some sort of Terminator sent back in time to consistently put up solid, not spectacular, numbers. The receiving corps comprises a wide array of fast midgets, and Dwayne Allen is always ready to collapse from injury.

Defensively, they still have a great corner in Vontae Davis and absolutely nobody else who can cover. The linebackers remain mediocre. The pass rush is still entirely dependent on a 35 year old returning from a ruptured Achilles. Chuck Pagano is still here to call gimmick plays and have them run by players who haven't been told exactly what to do. And the GM looks like one of the 'rich kid bad guy' characters from a late 80's ski movie. They both kept their jobs because the owner is a pill popping drunk. The motto of this franchise : One step forward, three hundred steps in place without moving in any direction at all.

4. Tennessee - The past few years, my loyalty has shifted from the Jags back to this team. The team that stomped all over my heart in the early 90's as the annually doomed Houston Oilers. The team that tried desperately to remove any excitement from Steve McNair's game by trapping him in the most obnoxiously boring offense ever created. The team that gave the NFL the Dullmaster himself, Jeff Fisher.

And what's not to love? They have a promising young quarterback in Marcus Mariota. They have a decent young line in front of him, and Kendall Wright has had success catching passes in previous seasons. Jurrell Casey might be the most underrated defensive lineman in football. The pass rush is decent.

Every single 2nd round pick from the previous 3 drafts is either released or traded for table scraps because they were fucking horrible. The team doubled down on plodding power runners because they employ Mike Mularkey as a head coach, and he thinks that something called 'Exotic Smashmouth' will work in 2016. The pass rush is entirely dependent on two players whose knees are held together by packing tape and hope. The average age of the coaches on this team is 93, and most of them don't seem to realize that the forward pass is actually a legal play.

Why do I hate myself?

West

1. Oakland - Someone get Darth Raider on the phone because his team of lovable outcasts is actually...good? And just in time for the franchise to attempt to move to any city that might fill the stands with people who don't seem to collect arrest warrants like they're in a competition. If you have a stadium, Mark Davis will totally fly to your city and terrify your children by making public appearances.

Derek Carr seems to have inherited all of the actual talent that his older brother had beaten out of him in the early days of the Texans franchise. Amari Cooper offers a legitimate franchise-type receiver for Carr to rely on. Michael Crabtree is here to drop passes in the most crucial of situations. Rumors of tight ends actually living on the roster have yet to be proven.

The offensive line looks potentially dominant, aside from the possibility of still starting Donald Penn in a league that isn't for senior citizens. Khalil Mack has already sacked your favorite team's quarterback 4 times and the season hasn't even started yet. And Sean Smith will try to distract you from the collection of draft flops and awful signings who fill the rest of the secondary.

2. Denver - I realize that winning a Super Bowl on the shoulders of a mummified Peyton Manning and professional tall guy Brock Osweiler can make a team cocky. But, Trevor Siemien? Really? Are the Broncos just trying to lose now? Are John Elway's front teeth now running the front office here? Oh, but he prepares as well as Manning did. So he wakes up at 5 in the morning, watches Matlock, has a nap, enjoys some Metamucil, forgets where he left his cane, and wonders aloud why his great grandchildren don't visit?

CJ Anderson is yet again being anointed a great back after managing to string together about 7 decent games in a row. I'm sure that this time he won't quickly balloon up like diners at an All You Can Eat buffet, especially not after signing an insanely lucrative deal. Demaryius Thomas seemingly forgot how to catch after his mom got out of prison (that isn't even a joke...that's just a statement of fact). They did manage to convince Russell Okung that signing for no guaranteed money is a good idea. Of course, he seems to have convinced Denver that they'll get more than 3 games out of him before his back once again falls apart.

The defense looks spectacular, Aqib Talib's firearms safety habits aside.

3. Kansas City - The starting running back isn't healthy, but every guy who took hand-offs in this offense spent the entire season racking up big yards, so it hardly matters. Dick Cheney would be a weekly hundred yard threat playing running back for the Chiefs. Jeremy Maclin and Travis Kelce remain a dangerous receiving duo. Jason Avant remains the disappointing third member if the starting corps because KC seems to have forgotten to try to improve.

They spent ginormous money ensuring that first pick disappointment Luke Fisher can continue to not live up to expectations as the starting left tackle. That, combined with inexplicably re-signing all of their old linebackers, meant that no money was left to extend Eric Berry long term. Keeping a flop and some dudes right on the precipice of losing their effectiveness makes more sense than a long term deal with probably the best strong safety in the sport, right? Every corner being counted on to replace Sean Smith failed when given chances last year. The team's best pass rusher might play this year sometime thanks to offseason injury.

Don't worry, though...Andy Reid is still here to look bewildered and astound with his horrible clock management skills. The next time that Reid calls a sensible timeout will be the first.

4. San Diego - Ladies and gentlemen, your San Diego But Really Want to be Los Angeles Chargers! Oh how they tried to move. Now they're all in on staying put...unless they can move, though every other owner in the league seems as bored of their antics as the few remaining fans do.

Professional douchebag Philip Rivers is still here. They added pure deep threat Travis Benjamin, which makes sense since they now throw short to mid range passes and let the receivers make yards after the catch...things that he doesn't do well. Melvin Gordon will be the running back until he's hurt again, which is probably happening right about now. It doesn't matter when you read this, odds are even that Melvin Gordon is injured. It's as inevitable as the day-night cycle. King Dunlap is still the starting left tackle, which is pretty much the football equivalent of waving a white flag. One of the 37 centers who played last year will start this one, or they'll sew them all together like some pigskin human centipede that might be more than the sum if its parts and manage to stay healthy.

Defensively...actually, they don't do defense. This team starts a pair of corners under 5 foot 10. These oompah loompahs are no longer backed up by Eric Weddle, since the team spent all of last season weirdly ostracizing their only good defender. Corey Liuget is paid like a great defender while totally living up to being average.

Super Bowl Pick - Honestly? I really don't know. I suppose Arizona makes the most sense on paper. But for the first time in my life, I WANT New England to win. I want Roger Goodell to be stuck handing the trophy to that team. I want him to have to pretend to be happy while awarding Tom Brady the MVP. Fuck Roger Goodell.

2016 NFC Picks

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:06:00 +0000

It's football time again, and the NFL hasn't yet driven away my love for the game (though they're really trying hard to do so), so it's time for picks! And it wouldn't be me if those picks weren't slathered in scorn and mockery!

East

1. Washington - I cannot believe that I am picking this racist, awful, garbage franchise to repeat in first. But they are the most impressive of the not at all impressive collections of flotsam that make up this putrid division. No running game, still no interior line and not a single safety who should have advanced beyond the Pop Warner level, yet they're the best. The next person who keeps alive the myth of the NFC East being awesome needs to be stabbed in the face with a broken beer bottle.

And enough about Desean Jackson. He runs really fast and occasionally catches a ball when he feels like it. He's Ted Ginn Jr., only people still think that he's good. Kirk Cousins is as likely to repeat last year's success as a nun is of contracting chlamydia, and the backup option is Colt McCoy. He sounds like a wannabe cowboy and plays about as well as one, too. Speaking of quarterbacks, Chris Neild (yes, that d really is part of his name. That's not a mistake...at least not one by me) is ready and waiting to take yours out of the game by any cheap shot necessary.

2. New York Giants - Let's fire the head coach but keep the rest of the staff of idiots who led this team into the shitter last year! Brilliant plan! It's time to realize that Steve Spagnuolo is a horrible defensive co-ordinator who rode a great defensive line to fame, but has since been proven at multiple stops to have no actual ideas for how to build a defense.

The fact that they're way too reliant on a receiver who has missed 2 years with an injured everything is pretty much the defining statement for how broken this roster is. Janoris Jenkins is an average cornerback now paid more per year than Burkina Faso makes as a nation because this team is incapable of developing anybody on defense. They spent like drunken idiots to end up at average, and they still don't seem to understand that linebackers and offensive linemen are important.

3. Dallas - It's okay that Tony Romo broke his back (again) because Dak Prescott is here. Yes, obviously a mid round pick who tore up other team's backups and early cuts in the preseason is going to lead you straight to the promised land! Nothing could possibly go wrong with that.

Do you know why teams invest in building a great offensive line? So they don't need to draft a running back 4th overall to get yards on the ground. Yet these clowns still did. They still don't have a cornerback who could cover a double amputee receiver with no legs, and half the front seven is suspended for offseason stupidity, but we'll take a running back, Roger! Jerry Jones looks more like the crypt keeper with every facial procedure, and his football acumen is about on par with a corpse.

4. Philadelphia - Holy shit is this a bad team. They somehow managed to turn Sam Bradford into meaningful picks, but I have no doubt that they'll spend those on a bag of magic beans. And they still put themselves in the position where they were paying 3 guys to be starters at a position only one can occupy in the first place. Amazingly, they did so without one of the options actually being good.

And since Carson Wentz won that starter lottery, let's take a look at his prize! A bunch of aged and injury-prone running backs, no receivers with proven consistency, and an offensive line that might well see improvement if they replaced the starters with 5 random fat dudes from Oklahoma. Defense? What's that? Should we have spent some of that QB money on help for Fletcher Cox?

North

1. Green Bay - This looked like a competitive division before Teddy Bridgewater tore his knee apart. Now the Packers are likely winning by default. Fuck knows they aren't actually trying to get better, but they'll coast to another division title before once more being lambasted in the playoffs by a team that actually assembles an entire roster.

Seemingly just now realizing that Jermichael Finley retired years ago, they signed his replacement in Jared Cook. A man who is more than capable of running very fast and getting open, then disappointing everyone and getting into disputes with his teammates over just how much he sucks. They cut their best offensive lineman because reasons. Their ground game is once again dependent on a fat guy staying in shape, and their passing game needs a receiver north of 30 to recover immediately from a knee injury because everyone else sucked when he missed last year. Again, no additions to the defense. BJ Raji stepped away because he was bored and nobody really noticed anyway because his biggest achievement the past few seasons likely revolved around winning an eating competition.

The only explanation for this annual lack of improvement is that the team hates Aaron Rodgers and wants to waste the rest of his career. So, good job?

2. Minnesota - Following the season-ending injury suffered by Teddy Bridgewater (an adult still going by Teddy...), they actually traded top picks for SAM BRADFORD. In 2016! Seriously, is he THAT much better than Shaun Hill would have been?! If so, Hill should immediately be cut for being possibly the worst quarterback of all time.

Their running back never really did understand why beating his toddler bloody with a stick was a bad thing. And he's hitting that age where one year he just won't have anything left. Their offensive line is a collection of failures and roster cuts made by other teams. The defense needs to score 21 points a game for this team to win. They might actually be capable of that, because they're awesome. Anthony Barr is a monster in the making.

3. Chicago - For every positive, there's a glaring negative to take the air out of the balloon. The front 7 has a rotation of guys at every position and should put a ton of heat on the opposing quarterback. They need to because they have one of the worst defensive backfields in the game.

The offensive line looks improved, and it was decent last year. Of course, every receiver is either coming back from an injury or is Eddie Royal. The running back corps is loaded with young guys who can get yards. The quarterback is still professional sad sack Jay Cutler. If this were a moping competition, he wins hands down. But it's football, and Adam Gase is off to Miami...he would rather coach the Dolphins for 2 years of mediocrity before getting fired than deal with Cutler for another season. I don't blame him.

4. Detroit - Hey, let's fire Matt Millen but let Millen's assistant and hand-picked successor run the show! What could go wrong? Years later, this is where we are.

Megatron got tired of having his career wasted by this garbage franchise and his health chipped away by Matt Stafford's inaccurate long bombs and hung up his cleats. For a replacement, they spent a fortune bringing in Marvin Jones. He's a great #1 receiver if you don't care about consistency or good health. The tight end is Eric Ebron who is really, totally going to break out this season for real. Or something. Stafford remains pudgy and overrated. How can anyone take a fat quarterback seriously?

Defensively...yeah. A few decent players in a roiling sea of mediocrity and worse. So many bad picks. So much awful.

South

1. Carolina - Default! Default! They win this thing because these teams are unbelievably bad. Professional whores could learn a thing or two about sucking from the teams of the NFC South.

Let's see, they have Cam. They actually have enough good receivers healthy that children should be safe from repeated exposure to Ted Ginn or Jerricho Cotchery in a starting lineup. Greg Olsen is good. Jonathan Stewart was healthy for the first time in about 6 years last season, and that's sure to repeat for a running back North of 30 who plays a physical style...right? His backup is a grown man named Fozzy.

Last year, Michael Oher looked like a legit left tackle in a schedule largely bereft of good edge rushers. This year, he'll once again be exposed as an overrated feel good story. The defensive front seven is terrifying. The secondary is terrifying to the Panthers and their fans.

2. Atlanta - How the Hell does Matt Ryan merit all of the press and the nickname? What has he ever really done? And yet every Falcons TV appearance (and there are far too many of them) is all about MATTY ICE. I am rapidly beginning to loathe him. Is anything worse than a guy who gets a nickname that makes no sense and won't go away?

Actually, there is something worse. It's called the Atlanta pass rush. What did they do about it this offseason? Nothing! Apparently they believe that improvement from their horrible existing players will get the job done. That's like deciding that the best thing to do about that sucking chest wound is to just give it time to heal on its own.

They did spend some money...on Mohammad Sanu. He was last seen being incapable of taking time from Marvin Jones in Cincy despite that team constantly trying to hand him the job. And of course, they just ignored the offensive line again. Who needs blocking when you have MATTY ICE and a tiny running back? Julio Jones is insanely talented, but every snap is another minute of stress over the fact that his feet seem to be constructed from porcelain.

3. Tampa Bay - I continue to mourn the loss of Lovie Smith. Who else can reliably deliver that expression of stupefied confusion as well as Lovie could? Jameis Winston is still a probable rapist who needs to have his legs broken. Doug Martin possesses one of the worst nicknames of all time...Muscle Hamster? What the fuck does that even mean?! What kind of idiot gets glossed with that nickname and willingly shares it with people?! He also managed to slim down enough for his contract year to get paid. I have no doubt he'll get hurt by week 5 this year and promptly be 245 pounds and slow.

Still no defensive ends. Still no defensive backs. Still 3 linebackers all best suited for the same weak side position. Another recast offensive line that somehow looks worse than the crappy group from the previous year. A new cast of also-rans with the same results.

4. New Orleans - The only people who don't get that the window of opportunity has slammed shut here are the Saints and their fans. Yet another offensive lineman has been replaced by garbage. They spent last season proving yet again that their offense is conducive to any decent tight end putting up stats, but then blew their whole cap room wad on a tight end who didn't even produce in a pass-happy offense with his college buddy throwing the ball.

And that defense is only better in terms of not setting records for futility as they did a couple of years back. So many picks have been spent on this side of the ball with absolutely nothing to show for it. Any time that all 11 guys on the field actually manage to line up properly should be rewarded because I think that's the extent of realistic expectations for this island of misfit toys.

Sean Payton, his visor, his ego and his (alleged) taste for college girls can get fucked.

West

1. Arizona - Even if Carson Palmer's confidence is nonexistent after he spent the entire playoffs actively trying to give the ball to the opposition (seriously, was dude trying to throw the games to pay off gambling debts?!), this team will still take the division. They're that good and everyone else is that bad.

I do have my doubts about David Johnson meeting expectations for the year. He'd need to rush for approximately 3,250 yards, win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and solve the Israeli/Palestinian question to even have a chance of doing so. And a supposedly good secondary looked pretty weak once Tyrann Mathieu went down (Jeff Janis got behind all of them twice in a minute? JEFF JANIS?)...but hey, recovery from a second major knee injury in three years is a sure thing, right?

2. Seattle - Fuck this team. Fuck the neon uniforms. Fuck the conspiracy-minded fans and their co-opted 12th Man horseshit. Fuck Kam Chancellor for being possibly the most overrated d-back in the league if you consider that whole pesky 'Can he cover people?' question (hint : he can't). Fuck their lack of a running back now that Marshawn has retired to a lifetime of Skittles. Oh, Thomas Rawls will be Beast Mode 2.0 based on 6 games last year? Really? Have you SEEN this offensive line?

I can only assume that they want Russell Wilson to die, and I say more power to them. He is the most disingenuous sack of pointless crap who has ever spoken to the media. This idiot actually started prattling on about the great taste of Gatorade during an interview for no reason whatsoever. He is not a human being. He's a living, breathing adbot. I also 'enjoy' his candid photos...taken by the professional photographer who he keeps on retainer to follow him around at all times. Ugh.

Jimmy Graham sucks, his knee is destroyed and he should have been released. It was a horrible trade for this team and always will be. They believed so little in the guy that they didn't even put any plays in the offense for him after surrendering a top pick and an all pro center to get him in the first place. Also, Pete Carroll is a 9/11 truther and an obnoxious douchebag. I hope he chokes to death on that gum he's constantly chewing ardently enough that I'm amazed he hasn't shattered his teeth in the process.

3. Los Angeles - Home of Jeff Fisher, the most overrated coach of all time! Come for the mediocrity, stay for the generic brand of boring football! Now foisted upon a disinterested LA market by a man who seems to be wearing a muskrat as a toupee!

Todd Gurley looks like a really good running back and he needs to be. The Rams apparently decided that after ripping off Washington for a pile of picks years ago to let the Skins get an overrated quarterback, they now needed to balance out the karma and do the same. Enter Jared Goff. Who? Exactly. Never has a #1 pick been less heralded than this over-drafted project.

They've handed him the same set of receivers as last year's guys got, who are great if you don't need your pass catchers to either catch passes or avoid getting drunk and stupid off the field. Hell, get them drunk ON the field! It can't be worse! And that line is there to once again disappoint. That should really be the Rams motto : Prepare to be disappointed!

Defensively, they decided to let their good young free safety leave and gave the same amount of money that he got elsewhere to a part time linebacker/safety hybrid. And of course they did. This is what the Rams do. They collect gimmick players who don't really have a role in a desperate attempt to create sizzle when there isn't even a steak.

4. San Francisco - It's almost impossible to believe that this team was a legit Super Bowl contender a couple of years ago. GM Trent Baalke won his power struggle with Jim Harbaugh, reshaped the roster, and proved that Harbaugh was right the whole time. Also, approximately 55 players immediately retired when Harbaugh left, and Harbaugh is a douche, so that's quite an accomplishment. And now it's time for the Chip Kelly show. He's an even more self important shitbag than Harbaugh was, so apparently Baalke is a horrible judge of character as well as an awful judge of talent. What a fantastic general manager!

They spent a fortune bringing in Torrey Smith last year to provide a one-dimensional deep threat for an offense that doesn't throw the ball deep ever. Carlos Hyde is just waiting to juice up the running game by yet again being gang tackled by the entire defense because they don't need to play the pass, before he inevitably gets hurt again. BLAINE GABBERT is the starting quarterback. Blaine Gabbert. The man who has repeatedly thrown passes with his eyes closed because 'scary pass rush' is this team's best choice at QB.

Remember that defense being great? Navorro Bowman does, too. He's the last remaining shred from that unit who still remains. Aaron Lynch looks like a good pass rusher. Eric Reid is a terrific young free safety. That's about it. They've spent 73,000 draft picks on defensive linemen and every one of them gets hurt every year.

Happy Father's Day

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 02:36:00 +0000

My dad and I don't often talk too deeply because we're not exactly wired for that to be comfortable for either one of us. Instead, we mostly stick to sports and the occasional smattering of political ranting and other typical 'guy bullshit' water cooler topics. But deep down, we respect and love each other...but it took a lot to get here.

When I moved in with Jake (he of the infamous Jake-o-nomics money plan that will never be forgotten. Seriously, if you have not yet been regaled with the tales of living with Jake, ask. It was interesting.) it was to get away from my dad. To say that we weren't fond of each other at the time would probably be something of an understatement. Too much had been said or unsaid for too long, and every little thing seemed like an attack for both of us. I had long bristled at his insane perfectionism, and I decided to respond by just not trying any more. The perfect plan! You know, if my objective was to completely screw myself over... (And now you know why I didn't graduate high school).

Anyway, I moved in with Jake. And after a couple of weeks, dad and I started talking. Every Friday he would come in after work, pick me up, and we'd go eat somewhere and talk. REALLY talk. This was rather unprecedented. My dad doesn't really open up much at all. And I definitely picked up (and fight) that trait from him. But talk we did about a lot of things. It was a series of open and brutally frank conversations that we absolutely needed to have. We started to figure out our problems and clear the air and basically just start over.

Things got better. And I don't just mean between the two of us but actually with us as individuals. I at least started figuring out a few things, though it took a lot longer than it probably should have for me to get to this point. And he changed a lot more than I often give him credit for. The perfectionism slowly dissolved away. It's still there a bit, but he no longer drives everyone crazy (or drives himself crazy, because that had to be happening as well) with a constant need for everything to be just so. I give him a lot of credit for that because recognizing flaws and actually doing something about them is an absolute motherfucker to take on.

And now we're good. We might not keep having the same talks we did before, but we also don't need to. I'd like to think that we could pull it off if we ever do find ourselves requiring something like that, but hopefully it's never needed. Finding a happy mutual respect required following a rocky, twisting pathway that really sucked, but we got there. And that's what matters.

It would help if perhaps a respite from the murder re-cap shows and cream sauces could happen, though. Seriously.

Boy it Sure is Different in Here

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Sun, 12 Jun 2016 23:34:00 +0000

So, I've spent the past few weeks sending off resumes and applications to various companies. Some are part time jobs that might fit around my existing hours (note to those seeking part time staff : maybe mention what fucking hours you're looking for someone to work. Wasting time putting together applications for something I can't take is getting really old, really fast). Others are straight up full time jobs where I'd leave where I am now and move on. Regardless of what they are, I'm quickly realizing something.

I don't really remember how in the Hell to do any of this.

I used to be a pro at looking for jobs. When you're hopping from place to place as often as I was, you sort of have to be one. I had the entire application and interview process down to a fine art. Everything was built for speed and efficiency. Not a second went to waste.

Now, I'm sending off applications for the first time in two and a half years. And that previous time was the first time I'd done so in probably two years. I'm quick about sending off applications for writing gigs, but I have totally forgotten what the Hell I'm doing with a job search. No more quick and easy copy-paste jobs from between half a dozen different cover letters as I immediately determine the best one for this particular position. No more highlighting what's important on my resume for this particular job in about 45 seconds. I'm fumbling around in an unfamiliar morass of confusion. It's sad. It's like watching my dad try to come to grips with technology.

Okay, maybe it isn't THAT bad.

In the long run, I suppose it's probably a good thing that what was once so ridiculously familiar is no longer so. People aren't supposed to be as comfortable with looking for jobs as I was. It's a strange skill to possess.

And yet, it's a skill that I find myself wishing I still had, if only for a little while.

Oh well, I suppose I'll muddle through.

One thing that I have gotten better at is having the door slammed shut. I'm not someone who has typically dealt well with rejection, mainly because I overthink everything. So when it would happen, my brain would fly into an uncontrollable spin cycle of over-analysis until I had driven myself completely insane and barely slept for three days (This really isn't an exaggeration. If any of you ever took too long to reply to an email or whatever back in the day, I was stewing about it for hours on end. Seriously. I was kind of obsessive nuts. I've moved on from that...for the most part). Now, thanks to a few years of scrabbling for every freelance dollar that I can get my hands on, it doesn't feel quite so much like a slap in the face as it used to. It isn't personal, so why take it that way? It's still a bit of a downer, but the reality is that there are a fuck ton of people looking right now. So I'll have to exhibit some level of patience.

Yeah, about that...

Now we run into another problem. I'm not patient. Not even slightly. And when there are things that I want to do, but I'm stuck until I find that other job...yeah. Not helping. So, for the sake of my own sanity and the health and well being of those stuck around me in the mean time, let's hope this doesn't end up taking too long.

Slow Down and Recharge

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Fri, 27 May 2016 04:17:00 +0000

Continuing down this recent trend of positive posts...

The last couple of weeks have been spent getting beat up.

I know, I know. I'm just following the usual trend of describing getting knocked down before climbing back up. Someday, maybe I'll just stay on my feet from the start. Probably better for me but certainly a lot less interesting in terms of things to talk about.

Anyway, yeah. The past couple of weeks at work have been demanding, largely because we're babysitting somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 packages that were supposed to be delivered to Fort Mac before that town burned down. And that number has plummeted as people have shown up to collect their stuff. That collection has meant a lot more work, as has maintaining scans on all of that crap in a system not designed for situations like this at all. And this is before we factor in picking and packing things up once Fort Mac opens for business again and wants all of this, to say nothing of the masses of added material that will be heading their way.

It has been a busy couple of weeks regardless. And for more than a few of those days, I've pretty much taken on 90% of the warehouse stuff solo (...it wasn't suppose to be solo, but let's just leave that off of easily accessible social media type stuff...look, I'm growing!) while others take care of the rest. My usual average of 150 scans a day (every package or document we put anywhere gets scanned) has tripled. This is on top of the usual 'push containers around and shove them down the length of an airplane' type stuff. Frankly, I'm a little beat up (though I have remained a good boy in terms of not trying to solo giant crates that I cannot put down without injuring myself. It's rather depressing that this represents actual progress on my part).

Add to that some previously hinted at...let's be diplomatic (I know, right?) and call them 'personnel issues' involving specific persons, and work has been rather trying. Now toss in the imminent hours cut. Now toss in my freelance site of choice (Upwork, the biggest one online) screwing everyone using their service. And finally, let's spray a dollop of family drama over the top of the whole thing. Now I'm feeling beat up across the spectrum.

And today was supposed to be a big 'town hall' meeting with a bunch of higher up executive types telling us how awesome things are. The same higher up executive types who decided to cut our hours starting next week. Yeah, that sounds like a fun meeting.

So I said fuck it.

I took a sick day. This was the first time that I've taken a sick day in over two years. The last time I took one, I actually had to take three because I had a highly contagious viral infection in my left eye and was basically quarantined at home for awhile (winter tip : when you're sneezing/blowing your nose, close your eyes. Otherwise you're getting stuff in your eyes, and you might end up with the viral equivalent of pinkeye. Trust me). But I finally decided to be honest with myself. I was tired. I was frazzled. I was exhibiting classic 'Cliff is not doing well' behavior by making massive leaps in terms of trying to do way too damn much myself. And the last thing I needed was to sit through some 'rah rah' bullshit from the very corporate level of people who just axed my hours while asking me to do more.

So, sick I was. First thing that I did after my normal morning routine : nuked my Upwork account. All that it was giving me at this point were bad reminders of just how badly the wheels had fallen off that entire enterprise. And even if they did decide to change back to the way things had been set up prior to last week, would I really be able to trust a site run by the sort of idiots who thought those changes made sense? No. So it's gone. I have hard copies of all of my work that I can use as samples for new clients elsewhere, so good riddance to the account. Incidentally, anyone have any good ideas of the best way to set up a site somewhere purely designed as a content showcase? I'm not sure which setup makes the most sense for that.

Then I signed up for a new one called Fiverr. Horrible name aside (it really does have 2 r's at the end. No, I don't know why), it's pretty neat. You set up ads for what you'll do, create a series of different levels of job packages you're offering, and toss it out there. Plus, you can search through jobs being offered to the general user base. In fact, I already scored one of those. It isn't big money, but I'm getting paid to review some dude's RPG system rules and mess around with them for a bit. Seriously, I'm GETTING PAID to do that? Fuck yeah! Besides, it's just a start point. And I feel like I'm starting fresh, away from the metric tons of baggage that had become associated with my Upwork account. Now I can get back to stretching out creatively and not being shoe-horned in to just being 'website content guy'. And it was fun to get back to doing a chat interview with someone and scoring a job while working on the 4th beer of the afternoon.

A couple of weeks ago, I did some board gaming with a couple of guys who I've met through various game transactions over the years, and we had a blast. It sounds like the follow-up night will be this Saturday. Assuming that doesn't somehow end up in tragedy, chalk one up for getting out of my social comfort zone a bit. And seeing as this endeavor was successful, what else might end up the same way? Perhaps it's time to find the fuck out.

Beyond that stuff, I just relaxed, watched some Netflix and read a book. I've always seen that cliche about 'recharging the batteries' as a bit of a hackneyed load of crap. But I was wrong, because I feel a lot more energetic right now than I have at any time in a while. I'm feeling all kinds of creative (Perhaps it's time to revisit a certain collaborative story and see if I can come up with some new ideas). Were I the subject of a cheezy rock song, I would probably be described as having 'fire in my eyes' because I'm jacked up right now. So sure, I have to go to work tomorrow. And next week. And keep looking for more jobs. And deal with everything else coming my way. Fine with me. Bring it.

Posse Up

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Mon, 23 May 2016 06:35:00 +0000

I've been going over the idea for this post for a little while now, but I wasn't totally certain quite how to go about it. And then Thursday happened. Thursday, May 19th. Not a spectacular day in Cliff history, but it certainly provided the impetus to finally get this thing hammered out.

Ever have one of those days where things happen and you just end up eating shit? That was Thursday. It was like a double-barrel shotgun blast of crap unexpectedly flying down the throat.

Yeah okay, that was gross. I'd like to retract that, but I obviously didn't because it's there. Am I lazy? Am I cruel? A little of both? Chalk it up to what you will and let's try to move on.

So, Thursday. First, the biggest (by a spectacular margin) freelance site on the Internet decided to go ahead with a host of changes that make the entire enterprise fairly close to untenable. On the first $500 I would earn from any client they are now taking a 20% cut of (up from 10%). Since most jobs are one-offs, that's a lot of green I'm handing over. The reason? They claim that short jobs cost them more money to host, which makes absolutely no sense at all. So on top of ripping me off, they're lying to me. Wonderful.

They also changed the way that applying for gigs works. See, to apply for a job, I need to spend Connects. Every month, I get 50. It now takes at least 2, and as many as 5, to apply for a gig. Those can be returned to the pool fairly fluidly, but not all the time, so you do tend to burn through them. But hey, I can get more...for a few bucks. Yes Virginia, everyone loves micro-transactions in every other aspect of their lives, so let's bring it in to this.

Freelancers are pissed. Good clients are leaving the site in droves (they ended up being ham-boned with a bunch of extra fees as well), meaning all that remains are cheapass joke clients who aren't worth my time. So there goes that side income, because I'm not wasting another moment on an enterprise being run by people who would clearly be challenged by work in a seed plant.

Okay, fine. So it's time to sink my efforts into finding another part time job. In the mean time, at least I've got my part time FedEx gig, right? And...oh...great. I still have it, but I just lost 10% of my weekly hours. Everyone did. And while the corporate types CLAIM that those hours can totally come back later on, I don't see why that would possibly happen. Large companies don't hand out more money if the people working for them have proven that they can get the work done in less time. Why would they?

So, in a matter of hours I lost a lot of money and opportunity. It wasn't a good day. The long weekend was looking bleak. I ranted and raved and got a little drunk and hit up the Facebooks and mentioned what was happening before heading off for a rather sleepless Thursday night.

And then people stepped up, helped pick me back up, and things got better. Everything isn't bad. Hell, most things are good...even though I find myself currently applying to work part time at ATS again (yes, really).

When I really slammed into rock bottom, drilled deeper, and kept wallowing in darker and bleaker recesses of the shit hole I'd made for myself years ago, I had rendered myself quite solitary. It wasn't something I was doing consciously, it just sort of happened that I enveloped myself in alone. And as has been covered a few times here already, that didn't exactly go well. If I'm being honest here, I think it had more to do with finding the need to keep up illusory airs of things being okay so exhausting that solitude was easier. Why admit things are bad when you can just...sit alone?

I'm a fairly tough person, but I'm pretty far from indestructible. And I tend to be fairly emotional. I mask that well a lot of the time by just being the guy who cracks a joke when things get serious (working on that), but that's all about armouring myself. Because when you're putting yourself in a bad position and you're being bombarded by little shots of your own creation, those wounds tend to hurt more when you're an emotional guy and you leave yourself open. You might not realize the damage is happening (even when it's catastrophic), but it is. But I do need to get better about always resorting to being 'joke guy'. Speaking of which, I'm now about to get a little...emotionally happy...

Warning. I am about to get sappy, which is certainly different for me. See, this post really isn't about me. It's about all of you who help make my life tolerable, fun and interesting. I'll be honest and admit I got a little teary writing parts of it. And yes, I've had a couple of drinks while finishing it. You've been warned.

This weekend has been a nice reminder that I don't need to be some macho idiot standing there alone trying to tough shit out by myself. I've got a small army of people who I can lean on. And those people don't need me to pretend to be bulletproof and invulnerable. I don't need to pretend to be anything different than who I am. You all don't care what I do for a living, how much money I've got, whether I actually finished high school, what shows I watch, what stuff I own or any other irrelevant bullshit along those lines.

I'm lucky enough to have a great family who have always backed me, even when I've messed up and probably haven't deserved it. And I'm even luckier to have a large collection of friends who apparently find me interesting enough to hang around with. I don't really know if I can adequately explain to you lot how much it really means to me to have all of you around. I can only hope to be enough of a friend in return that this is all ending up somewhere close to even, because I owe every one of you crazy motherfuckers more than I can ever hope to properly express, much less repay.

I've had a bad habit of going it alone when things get tough, like I believed that being some stoic action movie cliché would somehow make things easier. And it didn't, because that's not who I am. Fuck that. I want to go back to being more social. As I've been formulating how I want this post to go, I've been thinking a lot about friends over the decades. I've thought about those who I haven't seen in years, those who I've recently started to re-acquaint with, and those who I see all the time. There have been a lot of good times, a few bad times, and a lot that fluctuated between the two. And every one of you have helped me maintain my sanity.

You guys have been there for me whenever I've needed it. And you would have been there in the past if I'd been less of a stubborn idiot and allowed you to be. And look, not everyone was around this weekend, and that's fine. Everyone has stuff going on. I get that. But if you had been around, you would have been there as well. That's what matters. If any of you ever needs anything, you best believe that I will do whatever I can.

In any group of friends there's that core group. Like a war council in a mob movie.

I especially want to spend more time with you lot, even if we've scarcely seen each other for years. If we've ever spent an entire night talking about everything, where 5-10 minute silences didn't matter, you're in it (Ahoy, James & Liam). If you've shown the courage to always be totally open and honest, regardless of the subject and how much you were opening yourself up to criticism/ridicule, you're in (Pretty much all of you, but I'll single out Shaun here). If you're the one who I always know will boil down my constant over-analyzing to the basics and/or give me a needed boot in the ass, you're in (Hello, Janine). If you've put up with us bringing up awful incidents from 15 years ago with good humor and have always been there, even though we don't really 'talk serious' all that much, you're in (Kelly, of course). If you've been a basically constant presence in my corner all of the time, you're in (Yo, Vlad and Chad). And if you're someone who I once had coffee with for four hours despite getting in a minor car accident on the way to your house that left me with a bit of whiplash and a trunk that wouldn't close because I knew we'd have an awesome conversation that made it all worth it, you're in (Hi, Monique).

We might not be capable of 14 hour coffee sessions any longer (or spending all night at coffee, then going directly to work before returning to coffee again. Kelly, you were a complete maniac), but I definitely want to be better about spending time with every one of you. And if I didn't mention you, I wanna hang more with you as well because there's always room for another seat at the table. Except when we're literally out of table space, but we can always drag a second table over in total violation of fire codes or something. I need, and want, to be a lot more proactive about making things happen.

Thanks. If any of you ever needs a laugh, a shoulder to cry on, a boot in the ass, someone to listen, someone to talk, someone to overthink, someone to unburden your troubles on to, someone to help dispose of a body or anything else, you've got my number.

On the Topic of Being Happy

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Mon, 02 May 2016 01:24:00 +0000

Okay, it has occurred to me that anyone reading what I've put on this blog so far is probably coming away thinking I'm depressed. Well, depressed and obsessed with dueling construction equipment (as any sane human being should be! Come on, it's as close to Transformers as we're likely to get!). And that isn't the case at all. I am actually pretty happy. Am I frustrated that the economy is in the shitter and I can't find that second part time gig somewhere? Yes. Do I get annoyed with the inconsistency and unreliability of freelance writing? Absolutely. And I vent, and I deal with it, and I move on. But I'm still happy. And that's all relatively new in terms of the grand sweep of my life (yes, it's grand. Fuck you).

In order to talk about how things are better, I kinda need to go into when things weren't good. So yes, prepare for another round of flaying myself open and bleeding out all over the Internet. But I promise that there will actually be some lights at the end of the tunnel this time.

Let's go back 4-5 years, Mr. Peabody. Many of you probably remember sharing many laughs with myself about my constant job hopping. Oh, I was leaving this place because I didn't like the company. That place sucked because of blah de blah. That job? Nope. Some bizarrely minuscule aspect of working there apparently rendered it a no-go. Ad nauseam. But that wasn't the problem. I absolutely HATED the entire line of work I was in. Despised it. I loathed every warehouse that I trudged into. But it was comfortable, so I kept doing it.

"Oh, it'll be fine. I just need to suck it up." I kept telling myself. And the whole time, I was getting dragged under. It took a long time for me to actually look back and realize just how miserable I really was. And I don't tend to really talk about it because...I don't know. Maybe part of me is embarrassed. Well, fuck that. I was as low as I've ever been in my life, and for an incredibly long period of time I didn't even realize it. And eventually I just gave up. I wasn't getting anywhere, I couldn't gain any traction, so fuck it.

This brought me to two crutches that I have when I'm low : spending and food. The former would be why I don't have a lot of tangible stuff to point at. I was just tossing money out the door on empty purchases to get that one quick little rush of happy before it faded out and I was on to the next thing. The latter is why I eventually topped out at over 245 pounds. Because what's being depressed without adding physical ailments to the list, right? My knees hurt, my back hurt, I felt like shit all the time. Not good stuff.

Hey, there it is!

And then, I woke up. I would love to be able to say that I know what the moment was when the light bulb over my head stopped malfunctioning and actually switched on, but I legitimately don't remember. I just know that it happened. And I finally realized that I hated what I was doing, and the sheer amount of damage that I was doing to myself. And I did something about it...which was a lot harder than it seemed like it should be. Turns out that years of bad routines are brutal to get away from.

But I did it. The wife of an online buddy of mine had been doing freelance writing at the time, and kept telling me that I should give it a try. After years of saying 'Bah, nobody wants to pay me to write things!', I did it. Two years of doing nothing but that were pretty lean financially, but I didn't have a lot of bills and I regained my sanity. I also stretched out creatively in ways that I'd never done before. It was a great experience. Sure, I didn't make a lot of money, but I don't regret it for a second.

And I got my fat ass of the couch and started getting back in shape. Hopped up on the scale today (which I don't do that much, but I figured it made sense since I was going to write this post) and read 204. I've got more muscle tone than I remember ever previously having in my life, and I just flat out feel a lot better. Today, I did this. And I actually did the entire thing. 4-5 years ago, I'm probably rolling out of here on a gurney. Today, I polished it off and am about to head out for a stroll.

So yeah, I'm going to have days where I'm tired or grumpy or just having a shit day. And I've got a ways to go to get to where I want to be. But I'm in a position now that's about a thousand times better than where I was. I dug a giant hole, fell into it, then just kept digging down.

Eventually I hit some sort of bottom, bounced up and clawed my way out of the pit. And I'm pretty proud of that, actually. Sure, it would have been better to just not start digging in the first place, but whatever.

So there you go. Not miserable. Actually pretty happy. Things are good.

Huh, would you look at that. As I was tossing these skeletons out of the closet, I unearthed one more. Might as well get rid of it as well since skeletons make for really crappy house decorations. Seriously, if you're decorating with skeletons, you are creepy as fuck. It's that simple.

So here's another little tidbit that I've avoided mentioning at all because of past embarrassment : I never actually graduated high school. Nope, I've got a GED. And I didn't get that until maybe eight years ago. Again, would have been better to not be in the situation to begin with, but I'm happy about the fact that I dealt with it.

Really, most of what might come off as depressing here is me just unloading something off of my chest so that I can move on. If I express it, I get it out. Let's call this another chapter in doing that, while also (hopefully) convincing you that I'm good, because I am. And I'll work a little harder on actually talking about this stuff in person from now one rather than bleeding out all over the page down the line.

China - Manliest Nation Ever?

noreply@blogger.com (El Cliff) — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 03:34:00 +0000

So, based on my first few posts here, people could perhaps be forgiven for wondering if I was clinically depressed. And the answer is : no. I just had some shit I needed to unload out of my head. And all is not bad! Work's going okay. I've got a few other irons in fires that might be fodder for future posts (yep, still annoying everyone with mysterious mentions of things that might eventually be!). Hell, I've even started throwing my hat back in the freelance ring...although the inconsistency of it is already annoying.

And not everything her on the ol' bloggy blog is going to be serious. Sometimes, things that are just awesome will make their presence felt. This is one of those times.

This is apparently how construction companies settle their disputes in China. Frankly, I don't care what it is because it had me at HOLYAMAZEBALLSAWESOME. This is what every single male the world over imagines every single time that they glance upon a piece of heavy machinery. Hell, this video could be used to determine a male's level of development.

"Daddy, every time I watch this video I feel weird and tingly in my pants."

"That's because you're a man now, Timmy. Here's a beer. You're ready."

China is most definitely still goddamn cool. China is living the dream. While some countries can't even figure out how to transport heavy trucks across a river on a barge, China is engaging in full-on vehicular combat. And check out the dude who gets tipped! He runs over to his buddy's loader, imploring him to help tip his back upright so that he can go smash things some more! Every little boy on the face of the Earth salutes you, sir. I don't throw around words like hero...but you are one.

So here's to you, China. Keep it up.