Football, Radio and Football

Today's blog is coming to you courtesy of the server at Panera Bread here in Fayetteville. Unfortunately, their server is down and having "issues" so I'm stepping out on faith here that this thing will actually be published today. I've been trying for the past 15 minutes or so to get a decent connection and cannot get one for over 45 seconds at a time. Thus, I'm writing this on a WordPad page and will copy it to the blogger.com page when I get done...

or I feel lucky.

Kind of a hodge podge of things on my mind today.

First off, the soap opera that has become Razorback Football. Our team is in disarray, the coaches (apparently) are at each other's throats and can't agree on one central philosophy to get them through this season, the media is on a witch hunt, specifically our head coach Houston Nutt, and local radio talk shows have reduced themselves to insulting fans and people who post on message boards. You'd never know we have a game at Vanderbilt on Saturday. Oh yeah...I almost forgot. The media and Houston seem to be at odds and there is a perception that there are things going on behind closed doors that, of course, the media is whining about not being privvy to. Their mad about this, Houston is mad about the criticism he's been getting from the media and Marlena is possessed by the devil again.

Whoops. Wrong soap opera.

Onto other things.

I have talked about how we have XM radio in my SUV and I really love this thing. I don't find myself listening to much music on it. More talk shows and things like that that I may not have access to through normal radio outlets. A few nights ago, I stumbled across a station on XM that is broadcasting all these old time radio shows, including all kinds of radio mystery theaters at night. I was loving it as I drove home from McAllister's Deli on Monday night. They had one of these murder mysteries on, complete with sound effects, deep throated men and the ever-present cheesy organ music, complete with dramatic stings.

"Inspector, I believe I know who the murderer is...and he's right here in this room!"

(Dramatic organ music)

I laughed and screamed at the same time, only wanting to add to the moment. Yes, I can be cheesy alone or with other people. It makes no difference to me either. That's why I've often said my mind is such a fun place to be. Haha!

Hearing those mystery theater radio shows takes me back to when I was in 6th and 7th grade. I used to sneak an old AM transistor radio with earbuds into bed with me on Friday nights and at 10:30pm, I'd turn on WBBM-AM out of Chicago and listen to the CBS Mystery Theater. Man, you talk about some shows that'd creep me out. They had this old guy with one of those Dracula-butler voices who'd welcome you to the program and be your guide throughout the show. At the end, he'd offer you a less than sincere bidding of "pleasant dreams" as he'd begin to laugh sinisterly and the old creaky door would slowly slam shut.

Of course, I wouldn't look at my own closet door when this would happen 'cause I just knew something was in there, waiting for me.

Alas, I have now let out a deep secret of which many people will now laugh at me, poke fun at me and attempt to humiliate me. And that just describes my wife for starters!!

I was fortunate to have won the high score trophy in our small group's fantasy football league, scoring over 80 points. I felt like I had a good draft with several good players and team defenses. For those of you who play, here's who I've got.

QB's - Donovan McNabb & Chad Pennington (what am I, nuts? He'll be injured going to the Coke machine)
RB's - Ladanian Tomlinson, Willie Parker and Kevan Barlow
WR's - Marvin Harrison, Nate Burleson and Troy Brown
Team Def - Indianapolis and Tampa Bay
Kickers - Josh Brown and Matt Bryant

I still feel pretty confident with the majority of these guys. The only one I'm really worried about is Pennington and his injury-prone status. That and the fact both he and Donovan have the same bye weeks (Week 9). I'll need to find another QB by then but for now, I think I'm going to stick with these guys and see how far they take me.

Yes, I am now a fantasy football nerd.