Kinetic

Oh, Christ. Tampa "hosts" New England in London next year.

At one point, they were talking about tearing down an entire side of Lexington Avenue (the side with Downtown Books & News and the new Old Europe) to build a luxury hotel for Civic Center patrons. That, to me, is really the heart of downtown Asheville, so it was fortunate that they ultimately decided against it. My ex-girlfriend worked at Segrof Video (now Rosebud Video, ugh) and also at Instant Karma for years, so if you rented a GLBT DVD or purchased an accessory for your tobacco water pipe from either of those places, chances are it was from her. Unfortunately, most of the people that I knew when I was really happy there are long gone.

When I was a dude that hung out, my primary hang outs were Vincent's Ear and the Asheville Community Resource Center (ACRC), both of which were on Lexington Avenue and neither of which is there any more. Those places being shut down, my DUI, and my nasty habit of getting completely wasted and cheating on my girlfriend conspired to take all of the nightlife out of me. I worked and ate at Cats and Dawgs in the historic Grove Arcade building. I visited Asheville not too long ago, and I admit that the place still felt very much like home to me. I chose not to move back because I'm trying to get my shit together and I didn't think I could do it there.

I happened to catch a couple of episodes of C-C-Dub for the first time last night. What was amazing to me was that no one mentioned or even seemed to notice how incredibly fucked up or strung-out Dennis Rodman looked in every scene that he was in. Just the palest-looking black guy I've ever seen and he constantly appeared to be on the verge of crying. His one animated moment came when he did the whole Hulk Hogan Superman comeback thing in his match with Butterbean. Everything else gave off the impression that he was just doing the show for drug money.

Best hit of the year? Non-Pats fans can't tell me that you haven't wanted to see someone do that to Welker at some point over the last two seasons. Polamalu's reaction clinches it for me.

Berrian! 99 yards!

I haven't watched them a lot this season, so maybe I just didn't realize how one-dimensional their offense is. It seems like they're just waiting for Peterson to will the team to victory. No one else seems in any hurry to do anything to help the team.

Anyone else get the feeling that Minnesota is going to need 200 yards and three or four touchdowns from Peterson to win this game? The rest of their offense looks bad. They're punting for the fifth time with 9:00 left in the second quarter!

Uh, I think Ogunleye might have hit him a little late there. At least the guy's okay.

Tampa probably loses today if the Saints receivers had been a little more consistent in catching the ball. Just an ugly, ugly win that the Bucs seemed determined to give away. You can't complain too much about a 9-3 team, though. It was great to see Cadillac get in the end zone and pretty fucking puzzling to see him not get another carry after that, particularly given that we had something like four consecutive 3-and-out possessions as we were trying to take some time off the clock in the second half. HUGE game next Monday. Basically decides the division.

OMG Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling fantasy booking FTW: Dustin Diamond is a battered and bloody mess, having just defeated Todd Bridges in a grueling 60 minute Iron Man match for the coveted CCW championship. He falls to his knees, overwhelmed both by emotion and exhaustion. He is showered with jeers as he clutches the belt to his chest, tears streaming down his face. Suddenly, a figure emerges from the crowd and leaps the guardrail! It's "Diamond" Dallas Page! DDP slides into the ring, grabs a mic and says "Let me tell you something. I've been sitting at home for weeks listening to Dustin 'Scum' Diamond talk about how he's the 'Diamond in the Rough' in this industry. Well, let me tell you something, scum: there's only one diamond in the rough in this business and that's me. Because some diamonds are forever and this diamond is forever and I'm back! And when I get the chance, I'm gonna take that championship belt!" And so a match is signed for the next CCW PPV, "Diamonds and Pearls." The "Diamonds" part is self-explanatory. The "Pearls" part is because Rhea Perlman will be signed by CCW and will do an in-ring interview with Brutus Beefcake, only to be attacked by Kirstie Alley.

What would everyone say to eliminating the WWE folder and replacing it with a folder dedicated to Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling? This Butterbean-Rodzilla feud is the shit.

Even though Bob Griese was talking like the guy's career was over, the injury to Percy Harvin didn't look all that serious. It'd be awfully nice to have him on the field next weekend. Georgia getting run the fuck over all day by Georgia Tech was awesome. My final regret about my stay in Athens is that I left before I could see the local reaction to that.

If the guy had dedicated himself to pushing those shopping carts a little harder and a little longer each day, he could have fought off that throng of unruly *Walmart shoppers. It's sad, is what it is.

I made that very same remark while watching the game. If Matt Millen were still the GM, you could go ahead and pre-order the jersey. And, yes, it would be a very bad pick. Wide receiver is not an area of extreme need for this team. Every other position, on the other hand...

The 2008 Lions might be the worst NFL team I've ever seen. And we've still got three more quarters of this shit! Gah.

The most anticipated Serious Rock Statement in recent memory doesn't even debut at #1? And it comes in behind an "experimental" hip hop album with an alarmingly crappy first single. I'd be sort of surprised.

Tennessee @ Detroit This one probably won't be close. Tennessee by four touchdowns. Seattle @ Dallas Ditto this game. Dallas will look like they're righting the ship until they play a real team. Cowboys by 21. Arizona @ Philly Sort of interesting, as Arizona is largely unproven and Philly is decent but in turmoil. With all that's gone on in the past two weeks, I doubt that the Eagles will be able get it together. Cards by 7. San Francisco @ Buffalo They're all must-wins for Buffalo at this point, and they shouldn't have too much of a problem at home against a nothing San Fran team. Buffalo by 13. Carolina @ Green Bay Both teams are coming off of bad losses. Green Bay's secondary will forget to cover Steve Smith a couple of times and pay dearly. Panthers by 10. Giants @ Washington The Giants are red hot! The Redskins are red skinned! Hawt NFC East Action! It's totally possible that Washington wins this game, but I wouldn't favor anyone in the league to beat New York right now. Giants by 10. Colts @ Browns Should be a pretty easy one for the Colts. Cleveland has pretty much packed it in at this point. Colts by 17. Ravens @ Bengals Same here. The Ravens have the look of a mildly dangerous wild card team. Not the sort of team that could beat a higher-seeded team in the playoffs, but probably the kind of team that could injure the quarterback of a higher-seeded team. Baltimore by 21. Miami @ St. Louis No problem for the mighty Dolphins here. They'll win by 20. Saints @ Bucs On the hallowed grounds of storied Raymond James Stadium, the noble Buccaneerss will avenge their week one loss against the hated Saints. Brees will be intercepted at least twice. Jeff Garcia will throw for over 300 yards. Bucs by 13. Atlanta @ San Diego Another opportunity for Atlanta to prove that they're "for real," albeit against a team with a losing record. I don't think they'll do it. San Diego by 3. Pittsburgh @ New England Really good matchup here. I think Cassel spend a lot of time on his ass, Pittsburgh will rediscover their running game, and the Steelers will win by 9. KC @ Oakland Oakland's miracle run to the playoffs continues! Raiders by 3. Denver @ Jets Tough game for a Denver team reeling from an embarrassing loss last week. The Jets are "for real," y'all. New York by 13. Chicago @ Minnesota Should go a long way toward deciding the NFC North, as I think Green Bay is about done. I still like the Bears to come out on top of that division, so I guess I'll have to pick them here by 6. Jacksonville @ Houston Yeesh. Another bad Monday night game. Both teams are a bit of a mess right now. Jacksonville by 10, I guess.

See, I thought Charlie Daniels. I don't think I ever would have recognized that as Randy Savage had someone else not mentioned it.

Hey, Rex is going to be another guy out there on the market. If David Carr and Joey Harrington can get chance after chance after chance, then surely someone will pick up Sexy Rexy and make him a backup. Leftwich might have earned another look, too. It's going to be a crowded free agent market at QB next year, I think.

Orton has been fine this year. The Bears have plenty of other areas to address, so giving a bunch of money to a guy like McNabb wouldn't make much sense. That's not to say that they won't do it, only that they shouldn't. Typing out that list up there has further convinced me that Tampa is going to make a run at McNabb and might not have a lot of trouble getting him.

The consensus seems to be that there's a dearth of quality quarterback play in the NFL, yet we can't seem to think of a lot of possible destinations for McNabb. The teams that currently need a QB or will soon: St. Louis, San Francisco, Minnesota, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Carolina, New York Jets. Those are probably the only teams that will be in the market for a QB this offseason. I would imagine that Matt Cassel and not Donovan McNabb will garner the most attention from potential suitors. If you assume that Derek Anderson will also be available and throw in a potential rush of college juniors trying to get into the NFL before Goodell changes the way rookies are paid, things could potentially get pretty dicey for McNabb.

I got served this weekend. Randy Moss catching three TDs was pretty much the dagger. It was another one of those odd weeks where none of my guys did anything in particular. I think Marion Barber was the best of the bunch, and even he had a down week by his standards. Oh, well. 8-4.

11-5 for the week. 110-66 on the year. Note that I was ahead of much of the media on the Jets, except for the part where I predicted that they would lose.

1. I'm in favor of blowing the whole thing up. The NFL should schedule Thanksgiving games that have the potential to be interesting. They don't need to be "marquee" games because it's a captive audience, but they should at least project to be competitive based on the previous year's results. I don't think "flex" scheduling is necessary here. 2. No, and it scares me in a lot of ways that he's so good. This guy could give the Bucs fits for the next dozen years or so. I'd rate him behind Peyton Manning, a healthy Tom Brady, Drew Brees, a healthy Palmer, Roethlishberger, Romo, Rivers, and Eli Manning. The things that he has over guys like Favre, Garcia, Delhomme, and Warner are age and upside. If he can avoid catastrophic injury and/or the rest of the team crumbling around him (and bear in mind that he plays for the Falcons), then it certainly looks like the sky is the limit for this guy. 3. I don't think I've watched an entire Raiders game in about five years, so it's tough for me to say (or spell) Asomugha. Phillip Rivers, maybe? Antonio Gates? Tony Gonzalez? I don't know, honestly. 4. I'm going to say the Vikings, but I fear that Gruden will make a run at him. I was a little conflicted about the prospect of the Bucs acquiring Favre; I'm dead-set against them acquiring McNabb. He sucks. 5. The curse of the Supersonics. Since they left, nothing has gone right with Seattle-area sports. Also, Hasselbeck was hurt, all of their receivers have been injured at one point or another, ineffective running game, terrible play in the secondary, lame-duck head coach, and on and on. The writing was on the wall for this team before the season started. And I say good, because their token playoff appearances had started getting pretty dull. I wasn't really itching to sit through another Seahawks-Redskins snoozefest in January.