Viking Woes

Aggravating.

I'll always remember back to 1998 when the Vikings, behind the explosive offense of Randall Cunningham, Cris Carter, and a rookie named Randy Moss, set the NFL record for the most points scored in a season.

Now, it's a bit different. Two head coaches later, the Vikings are still trying to find their offense.

Are they going to find it in a 38-year old arm? Nope. Don't let Brad Johnson's performance against the Arizona Cardinals fool you ... that was a fluke! The Brad Johnson we saw today against the Chicago Bears (4 interceptions), now that was the real deal.

Obviously, my opinion with the Vikes sticking with Johnson as their quarterback is not good. Hell, even back-up Brooks Bollinger looked decent, and third-string QB Tavaris Jackson (the next big hope) looked good.

It doesn't surprise me that running back Chester Taylor is listed on the injury report as being "sore all over," (by the way, congrats on the 1000-yard season). He's the only player who seems to me that comes out to play during game time.

The Vikes have no right side of the offensive line, no wide receiver corps, no defensive backs. The Vikes simply cannot depend on the running of Taylor all game long ... it's just not going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, I like what new head coach Brad Childress is doing, but it's going to be a 2 to 3 year rebuilding process. As a fan, am I willing to wait that long?

Also: is Tony Siragusa on the field during those FOX football broadcasts the gayest thing ever? What a fucking idiot.

Saddle Up!

I've ignored TonyTimes for too long -- maybe it's time to blog once again.

To tell you all the truth, there really hasn't been much to talk about. I'm just down-right bored here in P-Town, with teaching in full-force along with the coaching, by the end of the day I'm just simply so tired to do much of anything.

As far as football goes, we've got 2 games left -- Thursday and Monday. Then, I'll have a little bit more time to recover and hopefully I've got something worth noting.

But again, I'm just dead. I just got done watching Ortiz-Shamrock 3 and well ... Tits Ortiz beat Ken Shamrock. Surprising? Not really. I'll tell you what: Shamrock had a lot of class to give it up to Ortiz after that beat-down, especially have Ortiz gave him the ol' "double-barrel" middle-finger salute to Ken after they picked him up from the canvas. What a jerk-off.

With UFC 64 on this Saturday, I'm still indecisive on which way I should go towards an interest in UFC.

A quick Fantasy Football update: In the MN League, I've won 2 straight, including a tough win over Cory -- but in the SD League, I've dropped two straight (close losses, btw).

Oh, well.

Much Alive ... Barely

I'm still here ... no worries, please.

I've just been God-awful busy as of late, concentrating on school-related things, plus a little football on the side. It's been a cruddy-ass past couple of weeks, in which there are very few things going on.

Some a few of the highlights:

• Fantasy Football: In the SD League, I'm a perfect 3-0. In the MN League, I'm 0-3. Go figure. So far in my 3 losses in the MN League, I've lost by a total of 12 points. I'm there and I'm competitive, but just not quite there yet.
• UFC 63: I got good and drunk at Mike's place last weekend to watch a little pay-per-view along with Sean. Who knew that UFC could be so ... ahh ... entertaining?
• Homecoming in P-Town: Well, the school-folk hit my house up something fierce this year, dumping straw bales all over my lawn (spread out, mind you), then on Friday night during the Homecoming dance (which really wasn't a success), I got toliet papered, saran wrapped, baby powdered, and Vaselined. Happy? Not really. And the varsity football team didn't fare too well, either.
• 8th Grade Football: We dominated a conference rival yesterday afternoon, although the scoreboard read 12 to 6 in our favor. We kicked ass in every aspect of the game, and it was the first instance in which I really didn't get all too caught up in the game itself -- I actually COACHED.
• It's Official...: I'm a single male, once again. Satisfied? Yes and no.

Flippin' Cold

Take Saturday, for example. Humid, sticky.

It was absolutely crazy last weekend. I had some fun watching softball back near home, although I didn't "go all out" like I usually did back in August. I just took 'er easy, kicked back, and laughed at the antics of the other drunks who were sipping from a keg (which was nearly empty, when I showed up).

Later that night, there was a little cook-out on the west edge of town -- then things got a little hairy concerning the weather. It got so freakin' dark outside, the air cooled down, and the clouds were beginning to swirl. Here we all were, standing out in the middle of the street, looking up at the clouds, listening to the town's siren blare away -- a good indicator that there were some funnel clouds spotted.

Did we care? Not really! The county cops yelled at a few people through his PA to tell them to get some shelter, plus Mike got pegged pretty well from some dime-sized hail.

I retired early that night, tired from the morning's football jamboree in South Dakota (we didn't fare too well) and I decided to get out of there before the cop situation got any worse.

Then, Sunday. Cold. Just a tick windy.

It was almost unbearable, considering the contrasts between the weather on Saturday and Sunday. I didn't stay long -- my body simply was not adjusting too well for the cold weather -- and I drove back to my folk's house and enjoyed a little hot-tubbin', which was pretty nice in the cool weather.

My parents finally got their new addition done, with the deck finally completed with railings and all (who won't see it in this picture). Overall, pretty sharp!

But the week goes on with Homecoming Week here in P-Town. I'm in the process of shutting the house up (putting the storms down) and even had to fire up the ol' furnance today (thermo' read: 58 degrees). Also, I gotta watch out for those sneaky seniors as I'm sure they'll come around and toliet paper my house in the wee hours of Friday morning.

Another 8th grade game tomorrow ... which I'll admit, I'm not looking forward to. We didn't have practice last Friday (due to lightning) and didn't have practice today (rain and unbearable wind), so we'd better be ready. I'm planning on Wednesday to be a conditioning day, which I'm sure the players will love.

By the end of the week, I'm probably heading Back Home for another some-what crazy weekend -- UFC 62 is on. I'm still not sold on it, but I'll give it a chance.

Just Shoot Me Now

Cripes ... I just found out that I have to chaperone the high school's Homecoming dance.

Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in!

I cannot even remember the last dance that I had attended -- one when I was sober!

I remember my last high school dance of my senior year, somewhat vividly. All of us guys were all set to camp at the river that night near Mike's house, so I "stole" a 12-pack of beer from the cafe that I worked at and decided to have a little pre-dance party before we rolled in and crashed the joint.

Again, my life is complete drama. At that time, I was "dating" an extremely high-maintenance girl during a part of my senior year. During school that day, prior to the dance itself, I had asked her if she was going.

Tony: Are you going to the dance tonight?

Her: No, I'm visiting friends in a nearby town instead. Why? Are you going?

Tony: Yeah, probably.

But, of course, during that period of time in between the conversation and the dance itself, we decided to finish off a 12-pack of whatever-it-was and I had decided not to go to the dance because the ol' "battle-axe" wasn't going to be there anyway.

With enough liquid courage, we decided to make the trip into town anyways -- arriving around 11:00 in the evening with an hour left to go. We snuck into a side door into the gym and I was immediately gang-raped by a group of people telling me that so-and-so was looking for me. Well, about a second after recovering from the swarm-fest, I was literally yanked off my feet and dragged out onto the dance floor and was blasted by questions about where I was at.

Her: Where the hell were you? You said you were going to be here!

Tony (barely breathing): You said you weren't going to be here!

Her: Yeah, well ... I changed my mind!

Being half-drunk, I did the best I could. Her and I finished out the dance the best we could and I extended the invitation for her to come to the campsite that night. Stories were afloat about what had actually happened in the tent that night, but mind you, I was a gentleman and did not do a thing. Hopefully after 10 years, I can finally quash that rumor!

But for now, being an old fart at 28 years of age, I get to be one of those old fogeys who stands back along the wall in the gym, making sure that the teenagers don't "bump-n-grind" and do all that. Will I stop them? Hell, no. If they want to do it, be my guest. I'm not getting in between all that.

But, man! A dance ... I just might have to make a stop at the bar before I hit that dance up, just to take the edge off! Who am I kidding? ... I'd better settle down -- I'm not my brother!

I'll pull the "Nick Lachey" and keep a counter on me and see how many of these high school ladies ask me to dance ... now this'll be interesting!

You Know It's September When...

1. ...60 degrees is considered to be cold.
2. ...there's college football on all day on Saturdays.
3. ...you're bored as all-hell during the weekends.
4. ...you simply cannot sleep in any longer due to your job.
5. ...you constantly check your Fantasy Football teams on-line.

I'm just really struggling right now to find something to do. The Michigan - Central Michigan game is not on TV today and the Notre Dame - Penn State game doesn't start until 2:30 p.m.

How about that Ohio State - Texas match-up tonight? #1 vs. #2 ... can't get better than that.

NASCAR at Richmond International Raceway tonight -- Newman's far from making the Chase as he's mathematically eliminated for the first time since the inception of the Chase for the Cup. I'll dabble in that tonight to watch the excitment as there's a handful of teams trying to make that final roster.

Tomorrow will be a huge day in terms of Week 1 of the NFL. With two fantasy drafts again this year, I will once again be busy.

Next weekend will probably be the last great party weekend of the year (with the exception of New Year's) and I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I can hold out for a while, since I have to get up pretty early next Saturday as we take our 8th graders across the border to Mad-Town for a football jamboree.

There's no way that I will be playing softball -- my knee ... good Lord, I should get it looked at. It just ain't right. I tweaked it yesterday during conditioning practice and it's pretty sore today, although I can still walk around without a limp.

Other notes:

• P-Town varsity lost last evening, 31-28. They pissed away the first half pretty bad, then gave up the opening kick-off for a touchdown in the second half.
• Home Town high school shut out their opponent for their first win of the season, 28 to 0.

Milkin' It -- Labor Day Weekend

One word to finish up the last true weekend of summer: Wow.

It was simply a great weekend -- a true Labor Day weekend -- to hang out and relax one final time before I'm back to teaching. I made the most of it with a little football, a little beer, some great grilling, a little hot-tubbin', and a little super-late night party action.

It all started on Saturday at Sean's house, where I participated in my 2nd annual Minnesota Fantasy Football League Draft. It was all pressure-cooked, stress-filled strategy as we all picked our players (it really got thin towards the end, but by then, there were several Miller Lite cans on the floor and we really didn't care who we picked -- or so it seemed).

I wish I had my draft picks -- in order -- but I left my copy behind at Sean's so he could put them in our ESPN Fantasy Football tracker this season. My overall #1 pick was Rudi Johnson, a running back from the Cincinnati Bengals. Again, just like the South Dakota Fantasy Football League, I think I have a pretty stout team within one of the toughest "divisions" of the league. I'm matched up with Sean, Sean's brother Troy, and Sean's brother-in-law Matthew. As far as pure raw talent, our division is probably the toughest. If there was a team to make the championship this season ... it'll be from our division.

After chasing little kids around the house for a while, it was time to retire. It got later than usual with a quick stop at Woody's, then on Sunday, it was "lay-low-for-a-while-time" as I quickly recovered when Mike called and said that we were going to a garage party.

Seriously, when I think back on it, I should have brought my camera. There was so much shit going down (the good kind) that made my sides split. I hadn't been to a "garage party" in a such a while, but when it comes to partying with the boys from C-Wood, that's all they do.

Mike, Lacey, and myself probably took the world's longest road trip to get out there -- it was dark, it was foggy, and we were running into some-what familiar lake territory that it made for us to get a little lost. Our destination, Shane and Megan's place (Megan is Lacey's sister) and once we finally got there after travelling on gravel for about 20 miles, we immediately started hitting 'er up.

Since the rain was continually on-and-off for that evening, it was considerably tough to get a campfire started. Every once in a while, people would douse the fire with kerosene, which made things brighter and hotter just for a slight few seconds, then would slowly die away. But most of the time, I was around folks who I really didn't know a whole lot about, but I made the most of it, just continually drinking beer and laughing at the antics of other people -- and oh, there were antics.

After watching Mike and Shane go 1 and 1 in some ping-pong drinking game, everybody huddled around the small-ish fire since it had gotten so cold. Somebody started dumping isopropyl on the fire (yes, the stuff you put into your vehicle during the cold months to prevent fuel lines from freezing over) and we'd get these mini-fire balls -- nothing too dangerous.

Then, the thing that made the night worth it.

There's this guy -- the same guy who tried to get Lacey to drop the charges on her stolen car; I call him "Numb-Nuts" -- decided to make his own fireball with isopropyl. He would put it into his mouth, take a lighter, blow it out so there would be this giant fireball (watch "Revenge of the Nerds" for an example). Sure enough, he did it -- fireball and all, isopropyl dripping off his chin.

But I would also like to say that prior before that, Shane got a fire extinguisher -- just in case if things got out of hand (by this time, everybody was feeling "pretty good"). So Numb-Nuts stood there, looking like he was going to be sick.

Lacey: "Oh, my God. I think he swallowed some."

For a split second, there was actually some kind of worrying going on, and then ...

A blast from the fire extinguisher, directly into the face.

There was no fire to speak of, but all you saw was the white powder spewing forth from the extinguisher, directly into Numb-Nut's face. He immediately hit the ground, rolling around and yelling, "It's in my eyes!"

After it was all said and done, the kid popped back up and just laughed. It was like something from "Jackass." I myself could not stop laughing so frickin' hard -- it was possibly the best thing that I had seen in a long time. Plus, it happened to a guy who I already don't think too kindly of, so that made it all much better.

We decided to leave around 2:30 that morning, as an eerie fog seemed to drift across the place. We all had plenty to talk about -- one of the more memorable moments this summer.

On Labor Day, it was simply a day of rest. I "paid back my debts," so to speak, and helped out my parents with a little yard work and other small tasks (getting sunburned in the meantime). I even jumped into their new hot tub that they had just installed. Nice! Hot tubs now day have pretty much a water-jet for any muscle group.

But in the end, I had to get back to P-Town get things going, as far as the teaching goes. I was extremely tired from the weekend, but there's always more fun on the horizon!

Domination

On a cool and misty night in P-Town, the boys in green literally rushed the ball down the opponent's throats and won their first game of the season 39 to 8.

Surprisingly enough, we started out against a conference opponent, something that I haven't seen in a while. It was a team that was somewhat of a conference rival, a larger school in a higher class, a team that we didn't even get to play against last year due to several of their ballplayers being ineligible.

Worrying about the offensive and defensive lines, they came up huge and backed up their performance from the scrimmage the previous weekend. Things just seemed to run flawlessly, especially behind two different halfbacks (which both were over 100 yards) and a pretty decent passing game, despite it raining all day here and the mist really made the ball fairly slick.

This just might a decent football season, another team that should go deep into the section playoffs, but might again come up short of state. Hopefully they can prove me wrong -- and there will be stronger tests than this game tonight.

Two-A-Days

After I got back from the varsity scrimmage, there was a new TV show on MTV called "Two-A-Days" which chronicles the season of the Hoover High School football team in Hoover, Alabama.

I love this high school football stuff in which the cameras go deep into the team itself, watching how practices are run, how tough the coaches are, how the emotions of the players can effect the game itself. What I don't like is the extra-curricular stuff -- the relationships between the players and their girlfriends, the night life, and so on. I like watching the relationships between the players and their families, and that's about it. But I completely understand why they do things like that, it's the only way to get high school-aged students to watch, and it's on MTV of all cable stations.

This is very similar to Go Tigers!, the movie about the Massillon, Ohio football team that was released in 2001.

The Hoover Bucs have won the last 5 out of the last 6 state titles in their class. If the head coach is getting paid $94,000/year, you'd better win some state championships! His record since taking over program in 1999: 91 wins, 8 defeats.

Just sick.

The Advice Giver

My, the tables have turned.

After the past couple of months where I had turned to friends and family about understanding and acceptance, now I have already been approached by high schoolers for advice about their relationship problems.

In this certain situation, I have to be extra careful. I was dealing with a female who is a senior this year. She dated a guy who is at college now and they just recently broke up earlier this summer. But she is still carrying the torch for this guy, even though she again just recently dated (and broken up) with another guy just this past month.

Now, how in the hell am I supposed to approach this? Tell her of my past experiences? That wouldn't work, because I can only give her a man's point-of-view. Instead, I took the safe route: I told her to follow her own instincts. In my opinion, she'll be hurt by this situation, but I refrained to tell her that. She's young (only 17) and she simply needs the experience. Instead of cutting corners, she simply needs to go through those situations herself -- and that's what I told her.

Although I appreciate the fact that there are some students out there that can see me as a person who can be trusted, I'm the last person to come to about relationship advice, especially at the high school level. One reason why I became a teacher/coach is to pass on "words of wisdom" regarding morals and knowing the difference between right and wrong. With relationships ... well, that's a whole new ballgame and they should figure that one out for themselves.

Dreaming

I've decided to sit back and take it easy today, since I figured spending the past couple of days at school working is enough for me now.

I'm still having a bugger of a time sleeping. It's not that bad, really -- but for the first few hours of the night, it's good. After about a good 4 hours, then things take a turn. I'm literally trying to find that comfortable position, I'm hot, getting up to adjust the fan, closing the windows if it rains, etc. Then the dreams.

I learned in college that when a person sleeps, for the first few hours a person does not dream. Your brain is in R.E.M. mode and it's trying to get things sorted out from the day's previous events. When you realize in your subconscious that you are dreaming, that means that your brain is somewhat refreshed. Then the past events, people, other random situations come together to form the dreams, and according to your brain, it should make sense, because they're your thoughts! Sometimes you wake up and then think about the dream and say, "what the fuck was that?!"

That happened to me twice last night. After getting my sound 4 hours of sleep, after that it was dotted with small 45 minute snoozes accompanied by these fucked up dreams. It was a disaster. The dreams have been progressively gotten better since the whole break-up thing, but still, there's just some things that seem to dig themselves up in my dreams and it takes me the longest time in mornings to think about it, trying to determine whether or not it was real.

If I had a particularly bad dream, it just ruins my day because I simply cannot get it out of my head. It's just strange how that works -- I know it's not real, but my mood completely plays off it.

Last night, I had one of each. The great one came first, the bad one came later on. Thankfully now, the thoughts of those dreams are starting to fade away. Tonight will be another adventure.