MARTYEWR

I don't know if it's "right" to, but at my ripe old age of 26, it's a habit to say "we" or "my (insert team nickname here)".

AFC: The Jets definitely gave the Steelers all they could handle last week. Ben Roethlisberger looked like a completely different quarterback at times than he was all season, making mistakes that, not coincidentally, a rookie would make. I was very impressed by the Patriots' performance yesterday, as they played a game that strong playoff teams normally do, running the football well, playing solid defense, and basically keeping the ball away from the Colts' offense. They'll have a more difficult time playing ball control offense in Pittsburgh against a stronger defense, but in my opinion, the Patriots reminded us yesterday why they've won two of the last three Super Bowls. My final score: Patriots 13, Steelers 6 in an incredibly tough and intense match-up. NFC: The Falcons did what I thought they would do against the Rams: run, run, and run. Their game plan was similar to the Patriots, but it happened to be far more explosive, as they had well over 200 yards in the first half. Again, much like the Patriots, they'll have a much tougher time against a tougher D this week, as the Eagles D looked strong yesterday. Randy Moss was pretty much non-existent. The Falcons have a strong D as well and with Terrell Owens likely out this week, they'll catch a break there. Bryan Westbrook of the Eagles displayed flashes of a running game that the Eagles need for the playoffs against the Vikings, but will it be enough against the Falcons? To me, this game is almost way too close to call. I think if I knew that Owens was playing, I'd side with the Eagles, but instead, I'll go with the team that I feel is underrated by everyone over the team that traditionally falls apart in the conference championship. My final score: Falcons 13, Eagles 10.

Why not? The booking is better there.

I'll catch Raw occasionally, Smackdown almost never, and I don't watch any live PPVs except for WrestleMania anymore. I'm a strange wrestling fan, though, because in spite of hardly watching the current stuff anymore, I'll watch WWE DVDs almost regularly and religiously.

In case you guys were wondering, the record low score for the NBA was the Fort Wayne Pistons defeating the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 back in 1950. And yes, the show clock wasn't implemented yet.

Thanks to HMV's "Biggest Sale Ever", I picked up Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (the first one, widescreen) for only $7.99.

I'm wondering how well a lot of the old WrestleManias will be edited. Forget the blurring, what about any verbal mention of "WWF". I just watched Austin-Rock from WrestleMania X-Seven a short while ago and I lost count of the number of times JR and Heyman said "WWF".

That's happened every year, too, in the 7 years Dr. Z has done these. I agree with him on the Buck/Aikman/Collinsworth trio. For the most part this year, Collinsworth seemed less of a tool in recent years, Aikman was solid, and Buck actually seemed to take his passable->good baseball announcing ability and convert it to equal levels of football announcing. But like Dr. Z said, it went to shit in the Minnesota-Green Bay wild card game. I'd say Z's moreless correct with the higher ranked crews. Sadly, where I live, I don't get to see/hear them enough.

I'll go with Dan Marino, Steve Young, Michael Irvin, Richard Dent, Russ Grimm, and George Young.

After their win over the Celtics last night, the Raptors are now 6-6 since the Vince Carter trade. Yes, it's nothing special, but it's much better than before the trade...

Ridiculously fawning praise for everyone on the field, bordering on verbal fellatio in many cases, particularly for Mike "Barry Sanders" Vick. Their non-stop fellatio doesn't bother me as much as their inability to actually add anything while calling a game. They're supposed to give INSIGHT into what's going on, not just remind a viewer to watch. For example, say they're showing a replay of a big sack. Instead of showing who missed their block or pin-pointing why the DE got through so quickly, McGuire will just say "Look at this play". Dickhead, I'm already watching the game, and thus will be watching the play regardless if you tell me to or not. Madden, for all his stupid comments, at least still breaks down plays. Of course, having said that, wasn't it Madden that said that a field goal was every bit as good as a touchdown sometimes? Also, whenever Joe Theismann makes a point, whether (rarely) meaningful or (often) nonsensical, he can NEVER shut up about it. Whether it's what he feels is a blown penalty call, the right penalty call, a key block, a long run, a pocket collapse, you name. The guy can't shut up.

There's also... 3. Click on the name of the poster you wish to send a message to (you may wish to do this if you see the name in the list of moderators, users online, etc.). You'll get his/her profile. Click on "Private Message". That'll also take you to the sending screen, with the recipient's name already in.

Ah, but with La Resistance, you have some continuity to work with, such as Sylvan Grenier refereeing the NWO 2003 match between Rock and Hogan, as well as Rock warring for one show with La Resistance, with Rhyno, Tajiri, and Coach also involved. Another positive is you could possibly get a decent series going between Rock and Conway, making the match possibly above average. Another possible team is Christian/Tomko. I don't know if it's enough to revive the tag division, though. Rock and Hogan working a tag match for one night versus one of the possible championship teams is nice, but it doesn't help the rest of either division, both of which is entirely heatless. Of course, if the WWE thinks that with Rock/Hogan, they'll probably wind up booking another 4-way tag, like they did last year (twice).

I've read Dames' Diatribes, Al's baseball columns, Tom's football columns, Tom's and Spree's DVD reviews, and Brandon's shoot interview recaps. Anything special that Nik writes about, such as the Foley Disc 1 review I'll definitely check out as well. I skim through the regular wrestling ones, mainly because I don't watch the shows too often anymore, and just to get some sort of sense of what's going on. Like Teke said, it's not a knock against the writers or anything. As far as Al's question goes, I used to go to the forums first and read a column, but since the forum list isn't often as up to date as the main site, I've made it a semi-regular habit to check the main site first.

I'd add Christian to your list. I can't think of many great matches he's had, aside from the TLC ones, and those are definitely debatable. At the same time, I can't think of anything actively bad from him either, unless there's an awful comedy match he had in the past that I'm forgetting. He's somewhere down the middle.

Well, Gord Ash is gone, so the recovery process is in full swing. With the Blue Jays now owning the Skydome, we'll see if they can maximize their revenue potential. They do have an opportunity to grab a larger share of Canadian baseball fans, with the Expos out. I'd say they were well into that process when the Expos had nothing in the way of any Canadian TV deals. It's definitely happening now, though, as some co-workers of mine who were Expos fans said they'll follow the Jays, albeit with less enthusiasm after the handling of the 'spos the last few seasons. In the midst of the Beltran signing, the Jays grabbed LHP Scott Schoeneweis and have reportedly completed a trade with the Diamondbacks, sending P Adam Peterson in exchange for IF Shea Hillenbrand. After the Koskie signing, aquiring Hillebrand helps solidify the Jays infield quite nicely. http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/news_story.asp?id=110862

Thanks and you're not the only one. Lots still do. The main reasons for the request is that I prefer to be called that anyway (being addressed MARTYEWR or MartyEWR or whatever is weird), plus lots of people call me that anyway, plus before I mainly just talked about EWR here and nowadays, it's a wider variety of topics. Plus, if you can go from Loss4Words to Loss and Sassquatch can go to Sass, why not me? (Yes, I'm well aware you both are a higher power!)

This has been asked quite a bit, but if anyone needs a copy of EWR 4.0 (the last version of the EWR game), as well as the patches, please PM me with your e-mail address, preferably an address with a large storage capacity. I'll send you what you need as soon as I can.

Special birthday wishes to TSM old schooler (and I do mean OLD schooler (okay, I lied about the refusal)), big Puroresu fan, MMA expert, fellow Canadian (as well as a dual citizen), and all-around great guy The Thread Killer Dave Dymond. All the best to you today, Dave, hope you have a good one.

Bah. Smarky was better. I think Eugene is the WWE's ripoff of Smarky.

Fully aware. I'd get a good laugh, however, if Lilian Garcia accidently announce Benoit and Jericho by their American locations nonetheless. I'd have an even bigger laugh over the crowd reaction if that happens.

I don't normally ask for name changes, but since EWR is almost ancient now, I'd appreciate it if my name was changed to "Marty" please. Merci beaucoup.

The booking of this match begs the question: Who the fuck books a match between two faces, one from Atlanta, the other from Manhassat, NY, in CANADA???

"Whatcha gonna do when ----amania runs wild on you???"

Steelers 20, Jets 7 Patriots 30, Colts 27 Vikings 24, Eagles 17 (OMG!111!! UPSET!!!11111!!) Falcons 27, Rams 10