Orange and Blue (Really, Really Blue)

While there is still hope for my Browns to find a decent new coach in the off season, all hope is lost for my Auburn Tigers. Talk about a blue Christmas for us.

Our esteemed athletic director Jay Jacobs (the man who built the Olympic-size swimming pool a foot too short so Auburn can't host any events in the sport in which we hold the most national titles) and our dear old meddlesome asshole booster Bobby Lowder have given us a new coach. Gene Chizik, a man who managed to make Iowa State worse in his two years there, ending with a 5-19 record as a head coach.

Now, in fairness, Chizik was Auburn's defensive coordinator during the 2004 undefeated season. But he was also the defensive coordinator in the previous 3-9 season. He left Auburn and went to Texas where he also was defensive coordinator on an undefeated regular season. I don't discount his knowledge of defense. However, both Auburn and Texas continued to thrive after Chizik's departures, while Iowa State got worse the second he arrived. It begs the question: how much of the success at Auburn and Texas should Chizik be credited with? Or should most of the credit go to the head coach and the rest of the coaching staff as well as Chizik? And does being pretty good on the defensive side of things make you a head coach? Ask Romeo Crennel.

The most disturbing and disappointing thing about our coaching search is that our leaders passed over Turner Gil, for whom the Auburn Family was salivating. The rumor is that it was partially because Gil, a black man, is married to a white woman. If there is any truth to that rumor--and many sources close to Jacobs and the Board of Trustees believe there is--then how can one in good conscience continue to support the program? Even if Jacobs worried that some backward members of the fanbase might not like it, a university is supposed to be above such things. It is supposed to bring enlightenment and broaden the culture. It is supposed to be a community leader. And from my view, in reading fan forums and listening to sports radio, the majority of the fanbase was screaming for Gil, didn't care about his or his wife's race, and never even mentioned Chizik. I'll withhold judgment because there is yet no proof, but should anyone reveal that racial issues were part of the reasoning behind this ridiculous hire, I will turn Tide faster than you can say "Hail Saban."

And speaking of Saban, his arrival in this state caused an immediate and catastrophic change in the demeanor of Auburn. Here we were, having beaten Bama five straight and on the way to the sixth, and having an undefeated season under our belts with a real argument for a national championship, and yet our leaders panicked. How else can you explain the ousting of a coach who averaged 9 wins a year during his tenure at Auburn and the hiring of a man who has to this point been a failure as a head coach? Jacobs will insist that Tommy Tuberville resigned, but then explain why Tommy got a $5.1 million payoff? Jacobs is either a liar or an idiot. Neither is good.

I'll be blunt. I don't like Gene Chizik. I listened to his press conference Monday when he was introduced as coach, hoping that my initial reaction of shock and dispair would be changed to one of hope and happiness. It did not happen. I have never heard such rambling arrogance from a coach before, not to mention that he used the phrase, "at the end of the day," about a dozen times. Well, Gene, at the end of the damn day that kind of swagger is best worn by people who have proven they can do the job of head coach. You haven't.

I predict that Gene Chizik will last no longer than two years at Auburn. My Tigers will be playing musical coaches for the next decade, and there will not be a Saban to pull us up and turn us a around. Thank you Jay Jacobs and Bobby Lowder. Your influences on the Auburn program can not end soon enough.

Being Brown

I couldn't have picked a better two years to become a Browns fan. I've learned so much, not just about the team's history and the NFL in general, but I've actually scraped the tip of the iceberg on what it's like to be a fan of this team.

2007 was my first season as a fan. It was great! We were 10-6 when nobody thought we'd win more than four. Young players had breakout years. Old players showed they still had the goods to compete. I followed every play as best I could, which is pretty hard in Alabama where the Browns were almost never shown in my television market. I relied on horrible bootleg video streams and the NFL Gamecenter graphics on NFL.com. When I was lucky, a game would be replayed on NFL Network and I'd get to see it after the fact. But it was all good. It filled me with hope for this season.

Longtime fans told me not to get excited, but I did anyway. They warned me I was destined for a fall, but I didn't listen. They knew, but I'm new. So I got more and more excited as the 2008 season approached.

But I wasn't the only one. The NFL was hopeful too. I was overjoyed when it was announced that the Browns would have FIVE nationally-televised, prime time games this season, including three regular season games on Monday Night Football. This was going to be a great year. We could win the AFC North. Everyone said it was possible and a few brave souls even predicted it outright. And we'd definitely make the playoffs.

With only three games left this year, playoff hopes long dead, and the organization in a dramatic shambles from top to bottom, we'll be lucky for real this time to win more than four. Our coach and maybe even our GM will be fired when the season mercifully comes to an end. Players who thrilled me last year and disappointed me this year may be traded, making way for new guys who may or may not produce. There is an awful lot of uncertainty in the air in Cleveland, and the sign on the door is about to say, "closed until next year."

It leaves me asking, "WTF happened? How did I get involved in this?" Well, that's neither here nor there. I am involved now. I've caught the Next Year Virus, a highly communicable disease spread by other fans who have been sticking it out with this team for decades. But it's OK. There are worse things to be sick with, and the treatment for this illness is actually pretty sweet. You get a dose of Free Agency, followed by seven rounds of Draft, a little physical therapy in the spring, and then you'll be fully renewed come August.

So I'm closing the door on this season. Not all the way. I'll peek through the crack to see if we pull out a win over Cinci, and peek again at the inevitable train wreck that will be the season finale in Pittsburgh. Oh, who am I kidding? I'll watch every second of this week's Monday night game and hope for an improbable victory. I'm fully contaminated at this point, readying myself for years and years of manic-depressive fandom. Others have survived it, and I can too.

Speaking of Connected

Not to diminish tangible, physical things, I had an interesting experience the other day resulting from an eBay transaction.

I ordered a pashmina shawl. Silk and wool blend in the loveliest shades of pink and lavender, it was a great deal for about $18 including shipping. It came from India, naturally. Just to make note, it was far better than the pictures suggested, with scattered beading and tiny jingling bells on the fringe. And so soft! But that wasn't the cool part.

The mail carrier brought my package to the door because I had to sign for it. It was in a large, white envelope which looked slightly unusual and when I touched it I knew why. It was linen. The envelope itself was linen. Upon close examination, it had been stitched together by hand, and the corners tacked with wax for extra durability. If you click the picture you can see it in more detail.

I sat on the sofa looking at it, and just became amazed. Someone I don't even know took time to create it so meticulously. My little purchase of less than $20 warranted this care. I felt a strange connection to this unknown person because I was holding in my hands something that had been created just for me by their hands.

Practically speaking, I know that it was a business transaction and the envelope was merely the way that seller packages his goods. It probably didn't give them a second thought. But for me, that extra work and care made an otherwise ordinary purchase into something more like a gift. It was a very interesting surprise.

Connected

We aren't connected to people the way we once were. Electronic communication via email, cell phones, text messages and the like keep us seconds away from contact with each other, yet often over vast distances. It also opens us to the possibility of new friends we would never have met otherwise.

Some people haven't yet embraced this phenomenon. They think it's downright weird to have friends you have never met person-to-person. They distinguish between "internet friends" and "real friends." I have come to make no distinction in value. Just this week an "internet friend" helped me begin solving a problem that not a single one of my "real friends" had the experience or empathy to address. If I didn't value that connection I would have missed out on his gift, and I am very grateful that I did not.

It's actually very old fashioned. In the days before planes, trains and automobiles, many a great and enduring friendship was conducted primarily through letters. Couples would court, fall in love, become betrothed, often before ever laying eyes on each other. It wasn't considered strange then because there wasn't a more efficient option. Just because there are options now does not diminish the power of written words to forge true connections with others. To limit the value of a friend merely due to lack of a physical presence is to limit the capacity of the heart and mind. If what we think and how we feel are the true essence of who we are as people, and those things can be experienced by whatever means available, the ability to split a plate of nachos becomes entirely inconsequential.

My White Christmas

About a year ago the day after Christmas my mother rang the house and said, "Your father is at Lowe's and he's found a sale. He wants to know if you would like a white Christmas tree."

She had to ask? I'm the person with pink flamingos in the yard and season-appropriate window clings on the car. I am the Queen of Tacky. Of course I wanted a white Christmas tree. Maybe she was asking rhetorically. In any event, the tree was purchased. Regular price was $48, and I think he gave six bucks for it. A true bargain.

The fact is, I like unorthodox Christmas decorations. The orange and black of my beloved pagan Halloween is being manhandled by red and green in the stores by mid-October these days. Enough!

Before anyone gasps, I did put up a perfectly ordinary green Christmas tree too, but it is hardly worth mentioning compared to the gloriousness of my white tree! Just look at it, shimmering in blue ornaments! I may forsake green trees altogether.

If only they made pink plastic Christmas trees. Then I'd really be in business.

Following...what?

Lo and behold, I click onto my blog and discover that I have followers. Three of 'em! That's one follower for every week that has passed since I last wrote anything.

I am shamed. The very idea, that there are people kind enough to declare themselves a follower, which is a very thoughtful affirmation for me, and yet I give them nothing.

This will not stand. I promise no brilliance, as I have been experiencing a distinct lack of inspiration and some writer's block, but I will forge ahead bravely. We'll see how it turns out.

Scooter and Mommy Watch Football (And Do Homework)

My son doesn't care for sports. I don't usually inflict it on him, but since the television has been on the blink in my room, sometimes he has to suffer. And since his mother chose to be fan of a football team that is not in the local television market and can only been seen by purchasing NFL Sunday Ticket (not gonna happen) or when they appear in a nationally-televised prime time game, he has no choice but to suffer on those nights. Such was the case this week when the Browns took on the Bills on Monday Night Football.

There was compromise, of course. I cooked his favorite supper in advance, and endured a screening of Kung Fu Panda, all with the understanding that when the game started Scooter would do his homework while Mommy watched ball. Win/win all around. The game plan was simple: Between snaps, I'd help with the homework. So wearing my jersey and football in hand, we began watching the Browns while working on our pronouns and antecedents and then math.

Those who saw the game know how it went. The Browns were up early, and then sat on the verge of blowing a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter for the third straight game, an NFL record for suckage. The evening went something like this:

"Tackle somebody you worthless idiot! Arrgh!" (Deep breath.) "OK, where are we? To whom does 'he' refer? Raul or Tomas? It isn't clear."

"So it's A."

"Correct." (Looking at TV...) "DO ANY OF YOU KNOW HOW TO TACKLE?!? And will you just shut up, Kornheiser!"

"We're still winning, Mommy."

"I know, baby, but this is the Browns. We will find a way to lose."

As the game progressed I gave up sitting altogether and stood in front of the television attempting to choke the life out of my Official PeeWee League NFL football. But I was still doing my duty as a parent.

"So what is the formula for the circumference of a circle?"

"Pi times the diameter?"

"Yes. No...no, no no!" and Buffalo took the lead. I sat down and closed my eyes. At this point, Scooter began to pray. I told him that God didn't concern Himself with such matters as football, but he insisted. Then we finished the last math problem and waited helplessly for the outcome. For the second week in a row, Phil Dawson kicked his career-long field goal (56 yards this time) to give the Browns the lead. I squealed. Scooter jumped up and gave me a hug. "We're gonna win!" he said.

Alas, I had to explain to him, that we had just completed a 28-yard drive in only about 45 seconds, passing into a constant blitz, instead of letting Jerome Harrison grind out a couple first downs for us and use up some clock. That meant the Bills had all day--1:44--to score, and probably would, because our defense sucks wind by half time, and they sure do in the fourth quarter. The game wasn't over yet. We had to wait for the Bills to go wide right on a 47-yard field goal attempt before we could finally rejoice.

And we did! We jumped up and down. We did the football bugaloo. We had a good night.

Cinematic Plagiarism!

OK, I watched The Strangers a couple weeks ago, and tonight I watched Ils, a French film with the English title Them. The premise of both of these films, without getting into spoilers yet, is that a couple in an isolated home are terrorized by anonymous strangers. Although IMDB FAQs say that The Strangers (2008) was NOT a remake of Ils (2006) and was written two years before the release of Ils, I cannot buy this. They are the same film. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Most of the tension in both is created by sounds. The antagonists are masked in TS and hooded in Ils. In Ils, the TV keeps coming back on. In TS, it's the record player. And while TS is longer and has a bit more superflous plot to it, you have to account for the fact that it is an Amerian film with a well-known actress (Liv Tyler), and we demand a longer running time than the 77-minute French film. Both claim to be inspired by true events, but one rings more true than the other. The DVD of TS says that the true event which inspired the film is: "based on a real event that occured during director Brian Bertino's childhood in which a stranger came to his home in the middle of the night asking several times for a person who did not exist. The following day, his family was informed by police that several houses had been ransacked and burglarized the previous night by an unknown assailant." I can see that inspiring a creative mind to a scary story. What if you were mangled rather than burgled? The fabricated ending of Ils says the couple was murdered by young teenagers just having a game basically. A Variety review at the time of the film's release says the "true event" which inspired the film was the murder of an Austrian couple by young teenagers in their isolated vacation home, though it fails to cite a source. Still, Variety is a reputable publication. I would tend to think that statement was fact-checked. And even if it isn't true, so what? TS is still a ripoff IMHMFO.

Though skepticism or cynicism are not my natural tendencies, this really pisses me off. I had no idea that the plot of Ils was the same as TS by reading the DVD box, but it was evident it was the same story very quickly. If I believe the Bertino story of the stranger knocking, I still can't see how he could use that as inspiration and write the basically identical screenplay and claim it is original. And how would a couple of young screenwriters in France know of some young screenwriter in Texas's screenplay to rip it off in time to have a completed and released film two years in advance? And how can we even know if it was written two years before? Because he says so? It doesn't wash. Probability and common sense say it was the other way around. The people who made The Ring gave no pretense that it wasn't a remake of a popular Japanese film, and it was well received. I don't know why this one would pretend, and I just can't buy it. I do realize that very little in the horror genre hasn't been regurgitated a million times, but c'mon. It's the same fucking movie.

If you care to watch either of these films, I recommend them for people who like scary. Both do the job of creating tension very well. But if you only want to watch one, guess which one I suggest? Ils dispenses with the final minutes of gore that TS cheapens itself with just a bit. It's not a ripoff that claims it isn't. And foreign films with subtitles make you feel worldly and sophisticated.

Game Balls

By my count, this photo contains 44 gigantic balls. That's enough for 11 offensive starters and 11 defensive starters. We actually have some spares, since guys like Jamal Lewis, Josh Cribbs, Brady Quinn and Shaun Rogers seem to have their sets intact. For the rest...grab a pair.

Lewis and Cribbs made public comments over the past week about the Browns' loss to Denver, in which a substantial lead was squandered in the fourth quarter for the second week in a row. They called out unnamed fellow players for ego, and said others simply quit. This was clearly a challenge to teammates to bring their best game for all four quarters, in spite of the rocky season, the quarterback change and the prospects of playoffs all but completely gone.

The first Brown to respond to those comments was Coach Romeo Crennel. RAC, clearly displaying the most glaring lack of a man-sack in the entire organization, said,

"It seems like the word 'quit' has taken a life of its own and grown a little bit bigger, and now the Browns are quitters and the coach has lost control of the team and there's division in the locker room, and that's not the case," Crennel said. "These guys are going to play and play together. Whether we play good enough remains to be seen."

Crennel also said that he talked to Lewis and Cribbs, and that they basically recanted their accusations. For his part, Lewis doesn't seem to be backing down at all.

"Everybody wondered, 'Who you talking about, who you talking about?' It doesn't matter. I will address it. I address everybody, that's just the type of person I am," Lewis said. "I don't bite my tongue and I just tell it like it is. At the same time, I talk to everybody and just try to keep everybody on the same page."

The collapse of the Browns this year can be put on lack of balls at every level, and Jamal is right. Phil Savage didn't have the balls to answer staph infection questions, so he let Kellen Winslow endure nasty rumors for 10 days about an "undisclosed illness." Neither Savage nor RAC had the balls to start Quinn sooner. Owner Randy Lerner didn't have the balls to take control of his foundering organization until Staphgate and yet another divisional loss. Braylon Edwards doesn't have the balls to confront the media and his own demons regarding his league-leading drops.

Grow a pair, gentlemen. This is professional football.

Pick-me-up

I was feeling a little glum this week, so I got a new lipstick. It's pink. It made me smile.

A new lipstick is one of my stand-by items for a glum week. Cheap earrings are good too, and since I like to write, a new, really cool ink pen is also a winner. Sometimes it's serious enough that a haircut is in order.

It's pretty typical for women to do this sort of thing, and my choices are very typical too. You look a little different or you have a fresh notebook and good pen, so everything is new again. Perspective. It's a cheap psychological trick, but it's usually effective.

I wondered what men do, or if they do the same thing, so naturally I consulted a few men I know and the Browns forum. I asked, "What do you treat yourself to when you're feeling sad that always makes you feel better?" I got a half dozen responses that were either "hookers" or "beer" or both.

While beer is probably a legit answer for many, one good response was "something for my 1989 Bonneville." That makes sense. It's stereotypical but true that guys love their cars, and fresh Armor All on the tires is probably a guy's equivalent to fresh gloss on the lips.

Another great answer was playing a round of golf. "I like being able to distill all my problems into getting a ball into a hole in the most efficient way possible." This one makes a lot of sense. Golf requires focus and concentration, and in the end, provides a sense of accomplishment. Too bad I don't play. Seems like good therapy.