Cheeky's Hideaway

Live-Blogging the BlogPound Fantasy Football Draft

It's that time of year again, when the synthetic smell of astroturf mingles with the stale beer and burned hot dogs wafting in from the parking lot.  That's right, kids...it's football season!

For the second year in row, a dozen bloggers are coming together to give me their money compete in that most hallowed of autumn rituals: fantasy football.  The cast of characters range from well-respected member of the community (MetroDad, Child’s Play x2, Sarah & the Goon Squad) to the effectively retired (BIYF, More Diapers), with appearances from the royal family (Kaiser & Queen of Spain), four-letter words (Bump & Kemp), a quote from my high school report card (Marginally Clever) and a rookie (LA Daddy).  And of course there's me, whose superiority at fantasy football is of such staggering proportions that no adjective in the English language has yet been invented to describe it.

The draft is tonight, and if possible I plan to live-blog the proceedings.  Last year I live-blogged a different league's draft, which I went on to almost win (lost by two points in the championship, thanks to Andy Reid sitting Westbrook & Garcia in week 17 without telling anyone...dickhead) but since my tonights draft is populated by characters most of you already know it should be entertaining. 

So tune in here around 8:30 Eastern, 5:30 Pacific for expert (and one-sided) commentary, as well as whatever choice smack-talk I can snatch between glances at my cheat sheet.

8:42 - Late start tonight, as More Diapers has inexplicably not shown up.  Top picks went as expected, except for LA Daddy who got a jump on his 2005 draft by picking Shaun Alexander. 

8:44 - If anyone want to take that pussy More Diapers' place leave a comment...I'm drafting for him and if you've got the cash you're in.

8:47 - The Queen of Spain takes Tom Brady in a futile attempt to have his next baby.  Drew Brees fall to me.  Aw shucks.

9:00 - The first Buccaneers joke of the night.  We all wait patiently while Sarah struggles for a comeback...

9:02 - "Suck it."  It took Sarah two minutes to come up with that.

9:13 - Things start to get boring.  All the good trash talk happened before the draft started, and with only a putrid reference to BIYF's "tight end" to keep us going.  zzzzzzz

9:19 - Kemp drafts Vincent Jackson in the fourth round.  The sound you hear is papers being flipped as everyone else tries to find him on their draft sheets.

9:22 - Inexplicable Defending Champion Child's Play x2 takes the Ravens D as his first pick in the fifth round.  This of course triggers LA Daddy to panic and pick the Bears.  Everyone breathes a sigh of relief that these guys are in our league.

9:33 - MetroDad sums it up: "multitasking's a bitch--put kid down, pour scotch, watch Mets, smoke bowl, read CroutonBoy's blog, & wait for you bitches to make picks"

9:45 - A brief discussion commences as to whether there is anyone on the Washington Redskins worth drafting at all.  I'm reminded of a song by Atom & His Package.  It sucks to be a D.C. football fan...

9:51 - After MetroDad picks Jon Kitna, the Queen of Spain admits she once painted her bedroom Honolulu Blue in honor of the Lions.  It later turns out that her first high school boyfriend looked exactly like Wayne Fontes.  I quietly commit to forming a foundation to help her with her illness.

10:05 - I've been drafting for More Diapers this whole time.  His team has Peyton Manning, Clinton Portis, and T.J Ahmandinejad.  Let me know if anyone wants in to take the coward's place.

10:13 - I draft Lamont Jordan as my #3 RB in the 8th round.  The crappy middle of the draft is definitely upon us.

10:29 - Things are slow, and I'm distracted by Oodgie watching a show in which a man is demonstrating how to give yourself an enema.  My wife, ladies and gentlemen.

10:44 - Lots of "DAMMIT"  We're in round 10 and everybody seems to have the same sleeper picks.  Everybody also seems to have the same spouse, as at least a quarter of the participants admit their spouses are watching the same cancer show Oodgie is watching.

10:49 - For those of you who've never experienced the sublime joy of fantasy football, you've also never experienced the tedious boredom of the final rounds.  These are the rounds where you either pick up unexpected gems or schlubs you can dump at a moment's notice.  I'm staring at the list of the remaining players and it's as interesting as the closing credits of Muriel's Wedding.  I still have five more people (well, four and a kicker) to pick from this list.  The names are starting to blur, although that could be the scotch.

11:05 - Queen of Spain drafts Chad Pennington, which immediately reminds me of a GREAT quote from Vince Young, QB of the Tennessee Titans, who is also a fantasy football player.  In an interview Young confesses he plans to pick his No. 1 fantasy QB at or around the 6th round, "before somebody starts a run and I get stuck with Chad Pennington or some shit."  New York Jets fans all nod in agreement.

11:12 - It's the 11th round, and BIYF is still treating every pick like he's on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and he's all out of lifelines.  Our children are aging and he's trying to pick a kicker, which you could effectively do alphabetically.

11:14 - And to prove me wrong he picks Steve McNair, the man who spends more time in hospitals than the cast of ER.  Definitely worth the wait.

11:19 - I'm not sure, but I think Sarah just said that Najeh Davenport, backup RB for the Pittsburgh Steelers, "pooped in a laundry basket."  Or maybe she just did.  Either way, someone needs some Shout.

11:32 - I usually wait until near the end of the draft to pick up a defense.  Unless you're an elite defense (i.e. Chicago and Baltimore) there's rarely a huge difference between them.  So here I am, round 13, and everyone's picked a defense but me and Bump.  I get the sinking feeling that this might not have been the year for this strategy, and I close my eyes and pick the Vikings, because I'm stupid and I hate myself.  At this point, I'm just trying to pick someone I haven't picked in the past to let me down.  I wonder if this is what single people in their 40's feel like...

11:50 - Finally, the home stretch.  People are getting their last picks in and dropping off with farewell messages like, "Goodnight, asshats!" and "I'm outta hear, bitches!" as if we're all leaving the high school cafeteria.  Which is how I like it.  The end of this draft felt like some wounded water buffalo stumbling towards shore to die.  The promise of good smack-talk for the next four months redeemed it.

The Morning After:  The mystery of More Diapers' disappearance has been resolved!  Somewhere in the tubes of the internet all the updates and abusive behavior leading up the draft were lost and he was unaware we were drafting.  I have to withdraw my reference to him as a "coward" and a "pussy," although I reserve the right to use them again later in the season.

From the Department of "I Can't Avert My Eyes"

Q:  How do you make "YMCA" even more gay?

A:  Record it in Finnish

Yo Daddy So Old When I Asked For His ID He Gave Me a Rock

I creaked and snapped my way out of bed this morning to find myself yet another year older.  Not that I ever bounded out of bed or anything, but the significance of the day made me notice the strain in the joints a little more than normal.

I'm a prime number again.   I'm Cool Hand Luke's prisoner number.  I'm rubidium.   I'm the amount of weeks Thriller was #1 on the pop charts.  And then there's Dante's girlfriend (NSFW)....

You're as young as you feel, right?  By that standard I'm still in my late 20's, largely because I was just as out of shape and irresponsible then as I am now.  Hell, if Cheeky keeps demanding I launch her into the air like a rocket I may end up in better shape than I was then.

We're keepin' it pretty low-key, I think, since I don't like making a big fuss about birthdays (he says, as he posts this information on the internet for public consumption).  There's nothing I want that isn't expensive, impractical, or an unnecessary exercise in personal vanity.  And until Congress gets off its ass and declares my birthday a national holiday (call your congressman!) I'd prefer to celebrate by kicking back and enjoying the day in peace rather than being serenaded by Benihana waiters with "Happy Birthday" in Japanese.  Yo, tanjoubi omedetou!

They say that growing old is like climbing a mountain; you get more tired and short of breath, but your view of the world improves.  Here's to another year of spectacular views.

To Be Or Not to Be. That is the Question.

I try to avoid product reviews of any kind on this blog, because I think it's obnoxious and stupid when blogs other than Engadget or Daddytypes comment on things to buy.  You shouldn't normally trust my opinion anyway, at least not while I'm under such heavy sedation.  But something I've been waiting for for a decade is finally available, and the world needs to know.

No, it's not a new video game, Chinese Democracy, or a remote control that brings you beers from the fridge, despite what my Amazon wish list might imply.

It's Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet on DVD.

Despite my infantile love for movies with big explosions, butts getting kicked, or cheesy production values, I also enjoy heady explorations of internal struggles for vengeance and sanity, set against a backdrop of castle intrigue with oedipal overtones, particularly if spoken in iambic pentameter.  (See also:  Strange Brew) 

When I parked my ass at the Lagoon Theater for four hours of the Bard back in 1996, I expected a good show.  Branagh rocked the house with Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing, and Dead Again remains one of the best movies no one saw.  Plus, I'd taken an entire class just on Hamlet in college, so you could say I had some familiarity with the play. 

As I would soon be reminded by George Lucas, lofty expectations tend to result in disappointment.

Not this time.  I was blown away.  It ruled.

And for some reason Warner Brothers--the same company that managed to get Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever and Kangaroo Jack out on DVD lickity-split--have been dragging their feet releasing it.  Something was rotten in the state of Denmark.  Maybe they were too busy prepping for Oscar season.

The wait is over.  I'm psyched to fire up Excalibur and bathe in the warm glow of madness and revenge, sex and love, politics and treachery, and ghosts, both real and figurative.  After all, to thine own self be true!*

* Ok, that last quote doesn't exactly make a ton of sense in context, but I wanted to end on a quote, and  neither "frailty, thy name is woman" nor "Alas, poor Yorick.  I knew him, Horatio" seemed to fit the bill.  So sue me.

So Much for That Time Capsule

Last night during one of our periodic "let's move the furniture around and see if we can't make this place a little more tolerable" moments we came across an old baby handprint kit someone gave us as a gift.  Being the poor parents we are, we didn't get around to using it until last January, when Cheeky was already well past "baby" and more closely resembled a perpetual motion machine.  But we at least did manage to strap her down and get a handprint before she started contributing to her 401k.

Oodgie opened it and let out a startled-goat noise.  "Oh my god, that's disgusting!"

Our precious child's fossil-record was moldy.

How this happened I have no idea.  We stored it in a dry place, and it's not like it's made of bread.  It's cement!  Why would the tin look like a freakin' petri-dish?

I scrubbed it with a brush and poured bleach in it, hoping the gray fuzz and black stains would disappear, but after 10 minutes the handprint still looked bruised and scabbed. 

"Should we throw it out?" asked Oodgie, who throws away more than a rookie QB at the scouting combine. 

"How can we?  It's not like we can go back and get her one year-old handprint again."

Now, it's not like we were going to prominently display a tin of concrete anywhere, regardless of any imprints inside.  Nor are we particularly obsessed with cutesy mementos of Cheeky's early days.  ("Look, honey, it's Cheeky's first soiled diaper! Her meconium was so adorable!")  But we did go through the effort of getting the prints.

What do you think?  Is it worth keeping a bowl of fungus so we can show Cheeky how tiny her hand once was?

The Heat is On

Cheeky has spent much of the last two weeks at ECG's pad on the North Fork.  While I was in the city splitting time between trying to sound smart with PowerPoint and mastering "Carry On My Wayward Son" on hard level (curse my useless pinky finger!) Cheeky and Oodgie were basking in the summer sun, riding carousels, and calling to tell me how "hard" it is to be there.  I could tell that poolside drinks and boating were really strenuous for everyone, so I went out there this weekend to help.

The first thing I was struck by was Cheeky's skin.  When I take off my shirt I can give the sun a tan, but Cheeky inherited her mother's pigmentation.  Outdoor activities suit her.  She was also sporting a new bathing suit with flotation devices built into it (safety first!), creating the illusion of six-pack abs.   Hey, if I can't have them at least someone in the family should.

At one point Cheeky lost her favorite sunglasses.  By "lost" I mean "threw," and I should add the word "overboard" for qualification.  They were "climbing" a pole on the boat (a little known hobby of sunglasses) and chose that moment to explore the sludgy depths off the dock, so four of us spent half an hour with a kayak paddle and barbecue tongs sifting the muck looking for them.  No luck...some crab is probably sporting really cool shades to his buddies right now.  But the obvious question is, "If they're your favorites, then why did you throw them into the ocean?" but such logic is lost on a two year old, particularly one who only wants the food you're eating, but not once you give it to her, and on the blue plate, but not the blue plate, the other blue plate, which was actually the original blue plate.

Did you catch all that?  Neither did we. 

I once again made the mistake of trying to exercise, thinking that access to shaded tree-lined streets would be sufficient to block the blazing August sun.  It felt like I was running inside a kiln.  Wearing a diving suit.  In Africa.  Or Dune.  My flabby body can't handle such punishment, despite having the nutritional reserves of an overfed walrus.  I thought a dip in the pool would help, but we'd inadvertently heated it to the temperature of molten lava, so I opted to huddle under the air-conditioner vent until I stopped showing symptoms of hyperthermia (and by "symptoms" I mean "excessive complaining").  I followed the Blue Point Brewing Company's strict regimen for combating summer heat, and it seemed to work just fine.

But we're back in the city now.  Cheeky was beginning to call the NoFo pad "my house," which would be a shocking disappointment for her in January.  She regaled us the way home with her rendition of Regina Spektor's "Fidelity" until she found some month-old Cheerios in her car seat to eat.  She finally passed out, and eventually we did, too, having absorbed enough surf and sun to fuel a renewable energy plant. 

As hot as it was, though, we can't wait to get back.  If nothing else, I still need to work on my routine...

This n' That

As I write this, I'm sitting at our dining room table, waiting for my sweat-soaked shirt to dry.  I should be at work right now, but I arrived at the subway station to find a crowd of people surrounding an MTA officer with torches and pitchforks.  He was trying to explain to them that the nearest operational subway station was in suburban Philadelphia, and the best way to get to Manhattan was to swim.

New York had a bit of a rough morning, and with a target heat index somewhere in an empty box on my chart it doesn't look like it's going to get better.  So while I'm waiting let's catch up on a couple things...

OWNED!

A week and a half ago my company was acquired by another.  Rumors had been flying around for a while, and there was some understandable anxiety about what might happen to us if it happened.  Personally, I've had a pretty positive outlook on the whole thing.  Our company wasn't exactly dominating the industry, and I think there's a much better chance that I'll actually be doing something I'm good at under the new regime.  They're consolidating offices in New York, so in a few months I'll replace my near instantaneous commute with a longer trip to one of the city's less desirable neighborhoods.  But since the new office will actually have windows I consider it an upgrade.

Better yet, I met some of the new guys last night, and I noticed that (a) they can drink, (b) they host poker night every Tuesday and play fantasy football, (c) they can drink a lot, and (d) did I mention they can drink?  That's what we call a "cultural fit."

Regardless, it should be an interesting ride...

57 Channels and Nothing On

When Excalibur joined the family, we needed to upgrade our cable box so Drew Carey's pores can be seen in all they're shimmering glory.  Unfortunately, the box they gave us had some operational issues, so they sent a cable guy over to take care of it.

Two and a half hours later, the cable guy gives up.  We're staring at the screen, wondering why I now have Cinemax but can't get ESPN.  He has recut every wire, replaced every splitter, and tested the signal until it qualified for college credits.  I have to admit the guy seemed to know what he was doing, unlike some other people Time Warner Cable hires, but it wasn't a good sign when the supervisor, over speakerphone, says "it may take 48 hours" to resolve the issue. 

All this for baseball and reruns?  It hardly seems worth it.  If it weren't for Flight of the Conchords and the obligatory reruns of Dora I'd unplug the damn thing.

OK, it's getting late, and I really need to get into the office.  Time to find some alternate transportation.

A Tribute to Open-Shirt Crazy-Dancin' Super-Fan

I see you baby.  Shakin' that ass.

I obviously don't get out to concerts nearly as often as you do.  And I almost never pay for reunion tours.  But this one was a special case*. 

You were soooo excited to be at Fenway, watching what must have been your favoritist band evah.  You probably took the adorable little toy train to the park, and may have taken some vitamins before you left.

You bounced in your seat like a Happy Fun Ball on speed.  Your dancing closely resembled a blend of aboriginal mating rituals and a two hour-long seizure.  And when you threw open your shirt so your chest-sweat sprayed your neighbors as you twirled, the stage lights reflected off your pale skin like a hairy disco-ball.

I've seen you before.  Maybe not you specifically, but a version of you.  Of all the characters I see at concerts, you are my favorite.  More than Motörhead T-Shirt Soundboard Guy.  More than Smuggled Lighter "Free Bird" Yeller.  Even more than Overweight Big Hair Air-Guitar Fist-Pumper.

I love you, Open-Shirt Crazy-Dancin' Super-Fan!  Thanks for projecting your enthusiasm (in wet little rivulets) into the crowd, and making an already awesome concert that much better with your antics.

You are the BIGGEST POLICE FAN EVAH!!  Rock on, Open-Shirt Crazy-Dancin' Super-Fan!

* There is one other special case.  So Robert, Jimmy, and John, if you're reading this I want you to know that money is no object.  I'll be in the front row, and Open-Shirt Crazy-Dancin' Super-Fan will be right there with me.