All That and a Bag of Mail from Friday
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
I was traveling by the time this went up, so I didn't link it here. Enjoy.
My dance with Comcast continues. After much prompting from my wife, I called this morning to report that our phone wasn't working. After 45 minutes on my cell phone, there is still no dial-tone on the home phone. What's more, in an effort to get the phone to work, Comcast turned off my internet. So now I'm writing this mailbag from my car. Parked on a side street, using a wireless signal in my neighborhood.
Comcastic!
Our beaver pelt trader of the week is David Letterman. If only all of us who have made dumb decisions in our lives could acknowledge and sweep them away this easily. For those of you who don't know, a CBS employee attempted to extort David Letterman over his dalliances with former writers. Which led to the line that will be attached to Letterman long after he's gone. "Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would," Letterman said. "Especially for the women."
On to All That and a Bag of Mail and my contest with France.
Many of you will recall that I'm currently enmeshed in a picks battle with my family's former French exchange student, Audrey. Last week, we both went 2-4, which means we remain tied at 8 correct, 9 wrong and 1 push.
This is starting to get in my head.
Here are my picks this week. Do the opposite, and you have a greater likelihood of success.
Washington @ Notre Dame -13
LSU @ Georgia -4
Honestly, this game could end up 42-3 LSU or 42-3 Georgia and neither would surprise me.
Auburn @ UT -2.5
How is it possible that this line has moved in favor of Tennessee when I don't know a single Tennessee fan who would be willing to bet on the Vols? Where is all this mysterious money pouring in from? Do Saudi Arabian oil sheiks have an in here?
Oklahoma -7 @ Miami
USC -4.5 @ Cal
Alabama -15 @ UK
And here are Audrey's picks with her rationales.
"Georgia on my mind
Notre Dame for Esmeralda and Quasimodo
UT for Norm (that's my dad)
Miami
Cal
Kentucky Derby"
Enter the mailbag.
Bert N. writes:
You say in the starting 11 that it's a tragedy Auburn isn't ranked. The problem is that voters this year are overly reactionary with teams in the Midwest and out west ... did anyone really think Washington was the No. 24 team after upsetting USC? Does anyone really believe Iowa is the No. 13 team after beating Penn State?
Case in point: South Carolina upsets the No. 4 team in a hard-fought, tough game. Not ranked this week. Iowa upsets No. 5 team in a hard fought, tough game; No. 13 this week.
Is a road win really worth that much more? Lets not forget SC came one amazing play by a UGA 'backer from being undefeated right now.
How does Houston become so celebrated for beating one team that everyone kind of thought might not be ready for the big time? No. 12? It's hard to see.
I realize all the early upsets make the polls crazy and they will likely settle back to what they should be in a month, but i am so tired of the reactionary voting being done.
It makes no sense.
End Rant. Back to case briefs.
Bert,
You're completely correct. I've started drafting a column along these lines: why don't poll voters have to pass an accreditation test?
Think about this, you don't get a license to do other important jobs without proving that you're deserving of the responsibility, right? You can't be a lawyer, doctor, professor, Amsterdam sex worker, or anything like that without proving your credentials to an independent body. Yet, when you see some of these polls come out it's like they're being drafted by your Egyptian grandmother.
I want someone to ambush these guys with simple questions: Name a player on Houston other than Case Keenum. Who is the coach at TCU? True or false, if one team beats another team, they should be ranked higher? Think of it as a George W. Bush style ambushing from back in 2000 when he was quizzed on who the world leaders were.
We overlooked Bush's lack of knowledge back then because clearly being the leader of the free world is a much less important job than selecting who should play for the BCS/Antimatter championship. But I don't think we'd overlook these responses.
Dear Clay,
You're an idiot ... The answer to your blog re: Tim Tebow is NO!!!!!!.. He should not have been in the game. How can you write such drivel. Why do people pay you??
I didn't major in economics, but my general understanding of the capitalistic system is that we exchange labor for money or other valuable services. I believe this is why FanHouse pays me.
I've also got a new theory: The more exclamations or question marks you use the at the end of a sentence, the less intelligent you are. The only exception is if you're a teenage girl and your dad just texted that he got you Miley Cyrus tickets. Which one are you, Bill M.?
Also, why go six exclamations and then follow it up with the two periods? Does hitting the exclamation that many times erase the exclamation and then you just peter out to the periods? I'm baffled by this.
One of my favorite things is when people adopt definite opinions on questions that don't lend themselves to definite answers ... then become irate when people have the different opinion than them.
More interesting issue than Bill's question, don't you have to hold Tebow out of the LSU game if he has any lingering issues whatsoever? How far is Florida actually going to fall if they lose to LSU without Tebow? Maybe to number four? And do they even need Tebow to beat LSU?
Given three weeks from the hit, Tebow should be ready to roll for the rest of the season.
Read the rest here. Labels: claynation all that and a bag of mail
Posted by Clay Travis at 9:49 AM
 
Permalink
Digg this Post
Email this Post
0 Comments:
<< Home
Previous Posts
| |
Travis has become enamored of several objects, phrases or events which he frequenly references in the column. Among the most frequent:
'Bama Bangs - a term coined by Travis to refer to southern men's hairstyles that feature prominent bangs for no apparent reason. Brodie Croyle and John Parker Wilson are oft-cited violators of 'Bama Bangs rules.
Read More...
When Clay Travis, acclaimed author of Dixieland Delight, decided to spend the 2008 season up close and personal with UT football, he—and every other college football aficionado—thought he was in for a rollicking ride with one of the leading contenders for the national title. After all, when the Vols kicked off the season on September 1, the defending SEC East champions were ranked 18th in the country. As head coach Phillip Fulmer prepared for the game, he reflected upon a coaching career that included an astounding 147 victories, two SEC championships, and a national title. With 34 years at UT under his belt as both a player and coach, the Tennessee native had just signed a contract extension that projected to keep him at the university long enough to become the winningest coach in program history.
Read More...
There is no college ball more passionate and competitive than football in the Southeastern Conference, where seven of the twelve schools boast stadiums bigger than any in the NFL and 6.5 million fans hit the road every year to hoot and holler their teams to victory.
Read More...
The newly favored man is not really a man at all, but a hairless, effeminate, germ-fearing, non-meat-eating, exfoliating, wristband-wearing woman of the worst order. We as men are told that we must embrace the sacred feminine in ourselves, even if it doesn't actually exist, and become the very quintessence of woman, plus penises. This situation is untenable. This trend must stop.
Read More...
Clay Travis is the only former student manager in the history of college athletics to marry an NFL cheerleader. He managed to pull this off despite an irrational affinity for the television shows Dawson's Creek and My Super Sweet 16. While being raised in Nashville, Tenn., Travis developed a healthy obsession with college sports and Alyssa Milano. As a teenager his greatest accomplishment was taking a doo-rag wearing Luke Duke (balling as Tom Wopat) to the hole at the Nashville YMCA.
In the midst of a stellar legal career during which he specialized in rewarding the unjust and punishing the oppressed, Travis began writing for CBS Sports's SPiN section in September 2005...
Read More...
|