Steak and Football Day Diary/Live Blog: First Half

Trying something new for the holiday. In light of there being football, the Packers playing at 9:30 and not having to go in to work today....I decided to try a live blog about the sports action today

9:19 Forgot that watching Fox Pre-Game means Frank Caliendo and his lame John Madden impersonation. Hes giving a bad name to the what i'm thankful holiday line.....with a lame plug-in for the show Strahan is on (Brothers) that will be lucky to make it out of the first season...to add insult to injury hes picking the Lions

9:22 Not football related but I'm less than one second into reading the stuff on my Google Reader List (one of the more under-rated tools of Gmail in my opinion) and Allen Iverson is already considering un-retiring. Seriously.....hes been "retired" for day. I'm not surprised about this development but c'mon even Brett Favre pretends to retire for at least a few months.

9:27 Ahh the loveliness of a Joe Buck broadcast....telling us stuff I already know....you think I don't know its key that the Packers overcome injuries to Kampman and Harris...thank you captain obvious

9:31 A bit of a discrepancy....they had some anonymous studio person briefly talking about the games that mentioned this was the 20th Thanksgiving meeting between the Packers and Lions...then they cut away to Buck and Aikman who say its the 19th Thanksgiving meeting...someone's right....someone's wrong.....this is definitely a Wikipedia moment.

9:37 Filtered through Wikipedia Packers are 12-18-2 all time on Thanksgiving and 6-11-1 against the Lions meaning this is the 19th match-up

9:37 Not the best way to start a game.....Jordy Nelson starts by fumbling the kick return and letting the Lions start at the Green Bay 20......no bueno.

9:39 Really...that passes for roughing the passer these days? C'mon Matthews barely touched Stafford

9:40 Really does anyone actually use the phrase "He went to Jared" in real life. Does this line actually work. It seemed odd to me the first time. Seriously, the first few times I had to sit through an insufferable he went to jared commercial I thought it was just a bad Subway commercial.

9:42 Not even 2 minutes in and the Lions have a touchdown. Thanks a lot Jordy.

9:46 At least this kickoff wasn't fumbled. Another minute into the game another penalty. Who do they think they are, The Oakland Raiders?

9:56 Not a good sign. The Packers had a drive for 8 minutes and all they get is a lousy missed field goal. We could be in for a long game.

9:59 Could we be seeing Mike Martz try to get a spin-off to the greatest show on turf? I've stumbled across a couple articles with rumors (mainly) about him being interested in Buffalo and one article about him possibly being the Bears coach.

10:03 The Packers actually did something good. Clutch 3 ard 4 interception by Nick Collins. The Packers need to capitalize on this and tie the game.

10:05 While I do like what i've seen out of Ryan Grant the last few weeks....It seems that the play-calling has been a bit too conservative early on....this almost cost them the game against San Francisco...don't want it to cost them today.

10:07 Just as I say that Rodgers goes downfield and BOOM....68 yard completion to Driver...inside the Detroit 10....also like to mention that I like what I see out of the O-Line so far..playing a lot better today than most of the season....Rodgers would have had all day to make that pass.

10:10 Donald Lee scores his 1st TD in epic fashion leaping over a couple of Lions defenders. Joe Buck just dropped the useful nugget of this being Rodgers 30th career red zone TD Pass (vs. 1 interception).

10:15 Packers just lucked out. Kevin Smith had plenty of room to run and trips over. They go on to convert on 3rd down so it they didn't luck out that much.

10:22 Packers stuck at their own 4.....own 6 now facing a 3 rd and 8 they need to step up again on this play.

10:23 Clutch 3rd down play Rodgers was on the ropes a little bit throws it where only Jones can get it First Down.

10:30 The Lions have now committed penalties on back-to-back plays. Last time I remember seeing that was a few years ago when the Raiders and Packers played...the Raiders had 1st downs nullified by penalties...three plays in a row

10:34 Packers fall just short of getting in end zone. Crosby actually makes field goal 10-7 Packers.

10:34 Radio Shack has gotten into the early lead for most insufferable Black Friday jingle.......it looks like i'll have let's all go to shack fridays stuck in my head...whether I want it or not.

10:39 Another third down play...another interception

10:44 Ahh...The Two Minute Warning...Packers in the Red Zone....Need to punch it in before the half

10:46 Ok, whose idea was it to put one of the Wilson brothers on an AT & T commercial and to air it every five minutes? Really, the phone coverage of Akron, Ohio and Tempe, Arizona does absolutely nothing for me.

10:50 Fox plugging American Idol and about how it's changed music (they just forget to mention that its changing music for worse)

10:51 Packers fail to capitalize inside the Lions 10 (again) time for the field goal unit to make another appearance. 13-7 Pack.

10:57 Lions in last ditch attempt before the half :09 remaining...thrown out of bounds

10:59 First Half ends with Clay Matthews chasing Stafford across the field and finally sacking him.

Hmm...time for half time and to step away from the computer a little bit.....be back with my second half observations when the teams get back on the field

The Vent: 11-25 Edition

A few days have passed.....a few more things to Vent about that bug me for one reason or another.

5- Allen Iverson Retirement

This one is more of a pre-emptive Vent If/When Iverson decides to un-retire. Based on past bitter experience (Brett Favre...cough...cough) and the less than stellar way he went out in Memphis, I have a sinking feeling we will be hearing speculation/rumors about un-retirement in the next few years.

Considering that there were teams drawing interest in him.....if the right situation comes along and a team is willing to let him be the #1 option instead of a Sixth Man......this has potential to become an over-hyped story in the next few years.

4-Dike Vitale Really Likes Duke Basketball

I made the mistake of channel surfing and leaving the TV on the ESPN broadcast of the Duke-Arizona State game. This game happened to have Dick Vitale on the broadcast team. While i'll give Vitale credit for actually being passionate about college basketball (Joe Buck could learn a lesson or two) Vitale loses said credit for falling head over hells in love with a chronically unlikeable Duke team. He wasn't on his A-Game for this stuff tonight but he was in his normal gushing mode about how impressive and classy Duke basketball is. Plus c'mon being a fan of Duke basketball is too easy.......i'd be more impressed if someone gave the same fawning treatment to their football team.

3-The Happy Gilmore Ruling

Canadian Courts + Adam Sandler Movies = Illegal

So the Canadian Courts Think that

A) I'm pretty sure the "Happy Gilmore" swing played a secondary (if any) role in the incident leading up to the lawsuit: I'm pretty sure its more related to some of the other facts such as:

they brought along 28 cans of beer, a bottle of tequila, and “some marijuana.” After nine holes, Mr. Hayter, bought more beer.

By this point, Hayter was sloshed enough to be practicing power slides in the golf cart, and “nearly drove into a pond,” according to the court documents.

On the 16th hole, Hayter sliced his tee shot into the woods. He hit a second tee shot, which “dribbled up the fairway.” At that point, his golfing buddies, not surprisingly, started to walk down the fairway toward their respective balls. But Hayter wasn’t done. He teed up a third ball and took a running start before swinging at the ball – your classic Happy Gilmore swing.

The ball struck Alan Bezanson in the wrist.

In summation, one of the few chances to apply Adam Sandler movies to real life is ruined because of a bunch of drunken idiots. Also, what are they going to do next....make golf carts illegal? I may not be a lawyer but I took the LSAT enough times (twice) to smell a frivolous lawsuit when I see one. Seriously, power slides, almost driving the cart into a pond, hard liquor plus a side of reefer....by this point anything should have been expected.....including but not limited to Adam Sandler re-enactments gone horribly wrong.

2- Charlie Weis--Talking About Stanford

This one is about missed opportunities (and for once i'm not talking about Notre Dame's on field performance). We had a golden opportunity for the college football equivalent to Jim Mora's playoffs rant. I stumbled across it on ESPNews and there were a couple YouTube clips......It's pretty epic and ranks high on the unintentional comedy scale. The thing that is bugging me is it's not getting the legendary status it deserves. Pretty much, Weis is in the press conference and everyone wants to ask him about Jimmy Clausen/State of the Union/the injuries from his bar fight and Weis is responding to everything by saying "We're talking about Stanford".....all in all an epic stone-walling of the press....it's moments like this that almost make me sad he's going to be out a head coaching gig on Monday.

Seriously the NFL has the market on press clips from Diddly Poo, To Playoffs?!, To You Play To Win The Game.........Charlie Weis could redeem himself from his mediocre stint at Notre Dame by becoming immortalized for talking about Stanford............

1-ABC

This one's not sports related but something I need to get off my chest. The last four weeks i've gotten hooked into their new show V (which takes the lead over Flash Forward in strongest Lost-replacement for ABC...Flash Forward isn't a bad show....the story is just too slow) anyways V has built itself up for a few episodes and the story is starting to get good. Then we get to the end of the episode and they're not coming back until March......c'mon if your gonna take a few months off at least give us more than a month of episodes first.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!