7 Things to do with leftover Turkey

Well I'm sure that all of my loyal readers have had an empty hole to fill since I haven't posted in a week. I'm hoping they filled that hole in the same manner that I did, with Turkey and pie. Having the family Thanksgiving at my house this year reminded me that the leftovers, while cool at 1st, become redundant after a couple days, as every excuse for eating turkey is executed. But this doesn't qualify as one of the 7 things I learned, as I decided to use it as the intro. So lets dive into 7 other random thoughts from the last week.

1 - RIP Sean Taylor

I wish there was a funny angle here. I'm sure that had he just been injured I'd be riffing on some questionable reason that this is his own fault. But there is nothing funny here, there is a child who will never know her father, and yet another young man brought down too early. RIP Sean, those of us who only knew the player can never fathom the loss that your family is dealing with. Our thoughts are with your family.

2 - SANTA BABY

If its true that every person that goes to Hell has a personalized experience set-up based on their most disliked experiences, mine would have to do with malls/outlet malls and shopping around Christmas.

Due to the local weather yesterday (as seen in the Pittsburgh Miami game)I es hued hunting for going Christmas shopping with the wife. We headed North to the closest mega-outlet mall for a quick 5 hours of shopping, where only 1 gift was purchased. It was a Monday afternoon so the crowds weren't that bad, which is the only thing that kept me from slitting my wrists.

During the shopping experience, while I desperately clung to my sanity, the insipid song "Santa Baby" was heard no less than 4 times. Despite this being one of the worst Christmas songs ever, not once was the same version replayed. Nope, there was the Madonna version, the rap version, a Ska version, and the exceedingly gay version where some guy sang the song. Why is this song played in the 1st place? The Madonna version was bad enough, but for some reason multiple other performers have felt the need to cover it, and multiple store have decided that its catchy enough to put on their play list for the season. I am surprised that more retail personnel don't go postal this time of year as they are put through the Christmas version of the Chinese water torture through Christmas music.

3 - VICTORY FORMATION

Holy Shit, I didn't even know the Raiders had that formation in their playbook. They must practice that as often as the ever elusive triple reverse fake punt pass. Honestly I was surprised that one of the Raiders didn't jump offsides due to confusion on the field.

All in all, I'm just happy that the Raiders Finlay pulled out a win in one of the sloppy games this year. Having it come against a division rival just makes it all the sweeter. Sure this hurts draft position, but the team needs all the confidence building blocks it can get. I don't expect another win this year, but at least the Nation has a week of positive thoughts.

4 - BCS Mess clearing up

Well a couple weeks back I proposed putting me in charge of the BCS so that we would get the best game possible. I wanted to see LSU play Oregon. Well we may still get to see them play in the Dunder Mifflen bowl, but with Dennis Dixon (my Heisman choice) out the game will be as exiting as paper sales.

So it looks like we will be getting Missouri play West Virginia, provided Missouri can beat Oklahoma (not a forgone conclusion, but please win Tigers, THEO in the title game would set the college game back 50 years). I would be fine with this if the Family didn't have land in West Virginia. I predict that if West Virginia makes it to the title game the National Guard will need to be called in to quell the riots. But the war in Iraq has depleted the National Guards resources to the point that the entire state will burn before the situation can be brought under control.

I'm going to stock up on Amo and food now, since Pittsburgh is less than 2 hours from Morgantown. There is a good chance that the entire region may need to be bombed back to the stone age to bring it under control should West Virginia actualy win the total.

5 - If a tree falls in the Forest, I bet its loud as Fuck

I am new to the hunting game. I've always been interested in hunting, my old man hunted for years. But in high school I was involved in athletics, so missing school for hunting was a no-no since it would mean missing a game. Then I went away to college and lived in Connecticut for 6 misserable years, so I never bothered getting my liecence.

Now I'm in PA, I have a little disposable income to blow on gear and amo and I have taken up the sport. I've even gotten the old man to start hunting again so that we can spend some quality time together. A real Hallmark family moment.

So getting out to hunt for the 1st time in my life I learned a few things:

- Deer are much easier to find on the highway than in the woods.
- Sitting on your ass in ~30 degree weather is much colder than working in the same conditions. I was dressed for work the 1st day and froze my ass off. A trip to Walmart later and I was all set for Day 2.
- Leaves are loud, I mean realy loud. Sitting as quietly as possible listening for any sine of a dear moving in the forest. Every little gust of wind causes either the leaves to rustle. Or god forbid fall to the ground, where you can hear every branch the leaf hits until it settals to the ground with a mighty crash. I'm sure that there is something poetic that can be writen here. But instead I'll just stick with leaves are loud and any tree that falls must be a calamity.

That said, despite not even firing my gun, I'm hooked and will be back in the woods this weekend and potentialy next, avoiding falling leaves.

6 - Tom Brady Knee Watch

I have to admit, do to general exhuastion from fighting a cold, having family in for Thanksgiving, hunting and celebrating a rare Raiders win, I fell asleep on the couch shortly after kickoff of the Pats game vs. The Ealgles. According to ESPN I missed a great game, but the Pats won and Brady hasn't had his leg amputated, so I fail to see what could be considered great about it.

We can now cross the ghost of Buddy Ryan off our list of potential saviors for this season. So now the Pats head to Baltimore to ravage the Ravens (aren't alliterations fun, no they aren't). So I can finally feel confident that we are finally close to having the Patriots season ruined. I had thought that the Colts would take out Brady thanks to having the devout Dungey doing gods work. But I was off, God will have a hand in this, but it will be through God's linebacker, Ray Lewis.


Not only does Ray have God's backing, he has a knife and isn't afraid to use it. This will be the week that God shows that he is a vengeful God and Ray will be his avenging angel. Nothing more to say here, If you are rooting for the Pats you are rooting against God, fuckin heathen.

7 - Sports Talk Radio, yeah it sucks too

I have my Sirius radio on all day at work, but it is generaly background noise that I rarely pay attention to. Occasionaly something on Stern, ESPN or The NFL network catches my ear for a few moments. But getting work done so that I can waste time blogging takes presedent.

This weekend, while traveling from Pittsburgh to WV I actualy listened to the talking heads on ESPN as my old man and I bonded through akward silence. And what I heard was some truely incipid shit.

One talking head spent the majority of his show complaining about how Brett Favre got too much attention from Fox during Thursday's game. He went on and on about how Favre was the only story that the broadcast team was interested in talking about. And how he learned nothing about either the Lions or the other Packer players.

Hey Jackass, you are the media also. You want the other stories to get out there. Do some research and present the stories. Stop complaining and talking about Favre. Don't like the take everyone else has, give an original one of your own. But you couldn't do that since you are too lazy. I'm guessing that had Fox talked about the Lions and the young Packers, you would be complaining that they missed the Favre story.

Thats it for today, things should be back to somewhat normal for the rest of the week, so check back later for more Raider stuff and 1 game to watch this weekend. Maybe I'll get to both things. If not, well its not like I charge you anything to read my briliance.