Whipped Cream Difficulties

Let us start off with one of TMQ Watch’s patented musical interludes. This one even has a small amount of relevance to this week’s TMQ:

You’ve got to love YouTube comments:

stephen scazzafavo 2 weeks ago
thumbs up for REAL COUNTRY none of this new age shiit

Yeah. About that, Steve.

Anyway, with that diversion out of the way, let’s get into this week’s TMQ, after the jump…

Never celebrate when the game isn’t over! The football gods punish that sort of thing.

At least, they do when they’re not busy chortling. Indeed, one might go so far as to say, “You never count your money while you’re sitting at the table. There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done.”

(764 words down.)

Stats of the Week No. 2: Houston has given up a pick-six in five consecutive games.

Stats of the Week No. 5: At one point, Oakland faced fourth-and-48.

We have no joke here, we just like saying “fourth and 48”.

Sweet: Carolina’s flea-flicker/screen.

Embattled coach Ron Rivera, excoriated for conservative tactics, went for it twice on fourth-and-1 on the Cats’ opening drive, including on fourth-and-goal. Touchdown, and an aggressive tempo was set.

And lots more “went for it on fourth down” items, too. Which is interesting in light of this:

It’s Armageddon for my fourth-down theories — several fourth and short attempts have failed already today.

— Gregg Easterbrook (@EasterbrookG) October 13, 2013

 

Uh-huh. Sour: Cleveland, Houston.

Houston committed 17 turnovers in the 16 games of 2012, and has 15 in six games of 2013 so far.

Mixed special teams play: Buffalo – Cincinnati.

Hey, did you know…oh, you did. Well, did you know TMQ had an op-ed piece in the NYT based on his book? We saw that over the weekend and flirted with blogging it, but life got in our way.

The article notes that Theodore Roosevelt has been treated kindly by historians for his 1905 initiative to reform football; that like Teddy, Barack Obama is a huge fan of football but also concerned with its many defects; I propose that Obama, like Roosevelt, use the bully pulpit of the White House to pressure the football establishment for reform.

The NFL fleeces taxpayers. Film at 11. (To be serious for a moment, we could get behind legislation eliminating blackouts of any NFL game that takes place in a stadium built with any public money.)

Obama is feckless. We like that word. “Feckless”.

…it’s like the whole Syria chemical arms controversy never existed — gone from total obsession to old news in a single month.

TMQ sees this as praise for Obama’s supposed “feckless” ways. We see this as a commentary on the 24-hour media cycle.

Oh, Mickey, you tweet so fine, you tweet so fine you blow TMQ’s mind! Hey, Mickey!

The football gods chortled. The football gods chortled again.

It’s nutty enough that in the movies and on TV, when lovers awake after a night of passionate sex, they’re wearing underwear. Apparently actors and actresses get out of bed, put their bras and boxers back on, then return to bed to sleep.

Really, TMQ? You pick this to pick on? It doesn’t occur to you that maybe this actually does reflect reality; that maybe some folks aren’t comfortable sleeping completely nude, so they sleep in their underwear?

Nuttier still is the Hollywood cliché scene in which, after a night of wild lovemaking with a mysterious stranger, a man or woman awakes to find the stranger gone. That mysterious bombshell with the glowing lip gloss, that mysterious hunk with the square chin, got out of bed, dressed and departed without making the slightest sound.

Doesn’t seem that nutty to us. Some folks are sound sleepers. And how much noise do you really make getting dressed?

How did mobsters slaughter a horse at the mansion, then enter the bedroom and place a large, heavy object on the bed, soaking the sleazy producer in warm blood, without making any noise?

We’re going to go with the “Jack Woltz was heavily sedated” theory. After all, if the mobsters can get into the mansion and slaughter a horse, is paying off the kitchen staff to slip something in his bedtime drink that much of a stretch?

Now back to “The Bridge.”

Man, TMQ’s got a grudge against that show, doesn’t he? Which one of the producers cut the head off of TMQ’s racehorse?

After the gorgeous widow awakes to find her lover departed without making the slightest sound, she decides to walk to the barn. Wouldn’t that be your first move after a night of wild lovemaking?

We’d probably go pee like a racehorse, first. But that’s just us. Speaking of racehorses…

In the barn, she screams in horror — the scene is shot and paced to remind of the “Godfather” scene — after finding her prize racehorse has been slaughtered and suspended from the rafters, as a warning to her from a Mexican drug cartel. The bad guys killed a horse and lifted it into the rafters — without making any noise.

They sedate racehorses, don’t they?

Hell’s Sports Bar. Do they serve hot wings? “The 5 percent satisfied with Congress — who are these crackpots?”

One of the puzzles of modern politics is the number of hard-core types who devote themselves to denouncing government — after first ensuring they personally enjoy the pay and benefits of government positions.

“Festive Halloween eggnog!” Pork chop sandwiches! More seriously, what’s wrong with Halloween eggnog? We are aware that eggnog is traditionally associated with Christmas, but why? Heck, if we thought we could get away with it, we’d mix up a batch of eggnog and pass it out in red Solo cups to trick or treaters. We’d even invite “Nathan Goodman of Austin, Texas” over to join us.

(Researching eggnog on Wikipedia led us to the discovery of soy-based “nog”. It is a shame that public flogging has gone out of style these days.)

(Thought: how would Cointreau work in eggnog?)

It continues to be a revelation to TMQ that people will boo a team that’s not playing well, no matter what that team may have done in the past.

Sure the Broncos were on a 16-1 win streak, but what have you done for us lately?

They didn’t beat the spread?

Esquire just named Scarlett Johansson its “sexiest woman alive.”

And if that’s supposed to be her on the cover…it really isn’t a great picture. (We’re not trying to sound like studman69 here. ScarJoh is a good looking woman. We just don’t think that’s a good looking photo of her.)

Chicken-(salad) kicks: Kansas State, UWashington.

Spreads are not an attempt to predict victory margins. Their purpose is to induce a roughly equal amount of betting on each team, so that no matter what happens, the house stays whole. The Denver-Jax spread was huge because that’s what bookies and casinos had to offer to get a lot of bettors to lay on Jacksonville.

Thank you, TMQ, for pointing this out once again. (We kind of wish we had put a little money down on the game. But we’re having a hard time finding a sports book we can trust.)

(Hey! TMQ has yet to mention his Baptist upbringing and being pro-nudity and against gambling this year!)

The 500 club. The 600 club. Smart play by Eddie Lacy (Green Bay). Dumb play by Oakland. (Fourth and 48. It doesn’t get old, does it?)

More “go for it on fourth down” teams: Penn State, da Bears, Texas A&M.

“Wasteful spending on bodyguards” is back, and TMQ picks up on a story we noticed earlier today: Douglas Gansler, the attorney general of Maryland, likes to be driven fast. By state troopers.

When troopers refused to activate the emergency equipment, Gansler, now a Democratic candidate for governor, often flipped the switches himself, according to the police accounts. And on occasion, he became so impatient that he insisted on driving, directing the trooper to the passenger’s seat. Gansler once ran four red lights with sirens blaring, a trooper wrote. Another account said he “brags” about driving the vehicle unaccompanied on weekends with the sirens on.

It is good to know that eight-year-olds can get jobs, like attorney general for the state of Maryland.

Wartburg 37, Buena Vista 29. And the single worst play of the season – so far: the T.J. Yates interception. Not so much for the throw itself, but for the fact that Yates was the only Texan who even tried to run down Ogletree.

The Texans had speed merchants on the field, and rather than chase Ogletree, they stood around watching. The 98-yard runback took 11 seconds, a long time by football standards, yet none of the Houston speed players chased Ogletree, who’s all alone in every camera angle of play.

And that’s a wrap. Tune in next week and remember to drink your eggnog.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Books, Clippings, Horses, Mixology, Music, NFL, Sports, TV, Wagers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.