I Can't Hide It Any Longer...

...I really like Darius Rucker's new song, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It".

Now, I do not like country music. I don't really dislike it either, though. I don't listen to it, but it does not really bother me when it's on. Usually when we go somewhere, I let Leesa control the radio and she likes country. There's a few songs that I really dislike, usually because they feature someone with such an over the top southern accent that it just sounds awful.

I also think country stations are the guiltiest of all when it comes to overplaying songs. While there isn't any country song out there that has reached the overplay proportions that Don't Speak (No Doubt) hit, there are still a few that seem to be played way too often.

That being said, I really do like the new Darius Rucker country song. It is definitely a country song, but it's not overly twangy, and he certainly does not have some ridiculous accent. Quite frankly, I've always liked his voice, back to when he was fronting Hootie and the Blowfish. It seems like it is actually very well suited to this style of music.

So, if you're brave, give it a listen because you might actually like it...



Apologies for the quality, best version I could find on the fly.

Things I Wish I Was Good At

In general, I think I am pretty good at most things. I've always been good in sports, school, work, etc. But the two things I absolutely suck at that I wish I was good at are dancing and singing. Most of my good friends are very musically inclined people, so even if they're not good at dancing, they're good singers, or at the very least they are very good musicians. I am absolutely horrible at all of those things.

I remember friends once tried to convince me to learn to the play the bass because they needed a bass player for their band. It never materialized and I think in the end, we are all much better for it. Thankfully, I don't think it has ever even occurred to anyone to ask me to sing.

Of course, give me enough free booze and I somehow believe that I turn into the guys shown here. Not as bad as those douche bags who insist that they are fluent in Spanish when they're drunk, despite the fact that they speak little to no Spanish when sober. I'm pretty sure that drunkenly stumbling into the La Bamba's and hollering slurred gibberish at the poor guy taking orders does not qualify you as "fluent". I think it just makes you a patronizing asshole.

Doctor Disappointments

So, to start out with, I should point out that it's a very bad idea to scratch insect bites. I normally don't, but I got one right in the crook of my elbow and it drove me nuts, so I scratched the bejesus out of it. And of course, it got infected. Normally not too big a deal, a little Neosporin and on your way, right? Well, by yesterday afternoon, it was pretty swollen, there was a red spot around 4" in diameter surrounding it, and, most concerning, a 1/2" wide red streak extending about 4" up my arm from it. Needless to say, I decided I should go see the doctor.

I had to go to the Urgent Care center, as it was after 5 (side note: doctor's office hours blow), which means I had to pay extra, but whatever. I sat in a waiting room for about 45 minutes, then after that, I sat in an exam room for another 30 minutes. In the end, it was diagnosed as an infection, the very conclusion I came to myself, and I was prescribed some anti-biotics, as I anticipated. I'm not saying I can do a doctor's job, but it's always frustrating to go to the doctor to get a diagnosis you already made, just because you can't prescribe your own medicine. I suppose in the end, it's ALWAYS a good idea to go to the doctor just to be on the safe side, especially with things like infections. I trust the internet for a lot of things - advice on video games, directions to places, movie reviews, etc. But I don't trust it for my health.

However, the biggest disappointment wasn't the $65 I had to dish out because I am a dumbass and couldn't not scratch a bug bite. The disappointment was Doctor Bhatt.

Now, Doctor Bhatt was a fine doctor - she was friendly, competent, informative, etc. However, when they told me I would be seeing "Doctor Bhatt", I heard it as "Doctor Bot". So, I immediately began thinking to myself how awesome it would be if my doctor was, in fact, a Transformer. This of course led me to the question, what is the better name for said Transformer doctor? I boiled it down to Optimus Doc, or Doctormus Prime. Right now, I am leaning toward Doctormus Prime, but I am always open to input.

I guess maybe it is a bit arrogant of me to automatically assume that I would be getting the Autobot leader as my doctor. I mean, if Optimus Prime was a doctor, you know he'd be some sort of super neuro-surgeon or something like that. Not someone moonlighting at an urgent care center to look at bug bites. But really, I would have even settled for this:


This could also be the nerdiest thing I have ever written.

Workout Underoos

I'm a boxer guy, but I've found that boxers just don't work well for working out in. Especially if they don't have a button on the fly. There's nothing worse than being on a cardio machine trying to inconspicuously adjust your drawers.

So yesterday I went to Kohl's to check out some boxer alternatives, and what I found has astounded me. I wound up buying some Hanes boxer-briefs, which isn't anything revolutionary, but they're made of a new "wicking" material that breathes but wicks away moisture. Basically, it's like those fancy expensive workout shirts, but instead it's underwear.

I guess I had never really thought there was anywhere else that underwear was really going to go. I mean, underwear had been underwear for as long as I can remember. I guess it's only logical to assume that clothing developments outside of the underwear field would eventually find their way into the underoo department, but I just had never thought of it before.

Long story short, I now own workout underwear.

The BCS - It Works

So, I wanted to go ahead and get this out of the way right now, before the college football season starts, so that we can all finish this discussion now and move on: I think the BCS works. Or, to put it more accurately, I think that a playoff system isn't a better solution.

In practice, the playoff system is glorious - it puts the outcome solely on the results of direct competition. I am not against this system, per se, but it seems to me like the implementation of a legit playoff system is virtually impossible.

Some people argue that it extends the season too long, etc. I don't buy that excuse in any way, because I think anyone who still believes in the misguided pretense that college football players at big-time universities are "student athletes" is simply being naive. Now, if you are adding 4 or 5 games, I can see it as a problem. But 1 or 2 is not a big deal.

I think there are simply TWO prohibitive problems with the playoff system.

1) The current system already puts teams in a "win or go home" mentality. For this upcoming season, the Ohio State v. USC game is already being hailed as the game that will decide 1 of the 2 teams that will play for the national championship. The fact that there was a 2-loss national champion last year was an aberration - and even then, their destiny was out of their hands.

The only reason LSU made the title game was that other teams choked. So, while having one loss will not completely ruin your chances, it will make the outcome dependent on other teams. If you go through your regular season undefeated, you will get to play for the national title. If you lose even a single game, you may lose your shot. The exceptions are teams like undefeated Utah/Hawaii/Boise State, who played nobody, and undefeated Auburn, who lost their shot to 2 other undefeated teams. But in reality, that is not the normal case - there are very rarely 3 worthy teams that have all run the table until the last game of the season. (More on the small-time undefeateds in another post).

If you move to a playoff, it immediately removes the imperative nature of winning EVERY game. I'm not suggesting that teams will thus not try to win every game, but it will take the pressure off. This coming season, with a playoff, it wouldn't matter who won the USC-Ohio State game because in the end, both schools will make the playoff. So, right away, what could potentially be the best and most important game of the season has lost 90% of its importance.

As it stands right now, every week matters. A playoff system would create a ton of excitement at the end of the season, but do we want to trade a full season of nail-biting excitement for 2 or 3 weeks of it? I certainly don't.

2) There is simply no good way to lay out the playoff system that will not, in some way, snub somebody somewhere. It is as simple at that. The logical numbers for a playoff are 4 or 8 teams (potentially 6 - the top 2 get byes, or 16). With the 4 team playoffs, teams 5-8 will complain of snubs. With the 8 team playoff, teams 9-12 will complain of snubs. And with a 16 team playoff, not only will it KILL The regular season, but it will place potential 3 or even 4 loss teams with a shot at the title against un-and-one-defeateds.

Last season, the 4 team playoff would have been: Ohio State, LSU, Virginia Tech, and Oklahoma - or maybe swap VT for Georgia, depending on what poll you use. Which leads us back to polls. The polls can't agree on the Top 4, so which poll do you use?

Also notice this would have excluded: Georgia, USC, Missouri and Kansas (again VT-GA swap). That's right, Georgia, who many claimed was the best team in the country at the end of the season, would not be there. And USC, who most others claimed was the best team in the country at the end of the season, would not be there.

Even with a 6-team playoff, giving OSU and LSU byes, we're still missing USC or Mizzou (depending on polls, AGAIN).

However, if we decide to up it again to 16 teams, not only do we add 4 games, we include 3 and 4 loss teams. So, if Tennessee wins the title, they're a FOUR loss national champion. In the end, where is the motivation to be anywhere but 16th or better in this system? Why wouldn't Ohio State mail it in against Penn State in the last game of the season? Where does this leave 3 loss Texas (or Wisconsin), who is actually ranked below 4 loss Tennessee?

If you take fewer teams, you snub too many. If you take more teams, you give some a shot that don't deserve it. People will say, "Pick a number and stick with it. Tell the other teams to deal with it." A grand solution - and EXACTLY what we do now!

The whole reason people want to get rid of the BCS is because they will argue that it doesn't match up the best teams, but neither does a playoff. The best solution we have is to create the problem another way?

In the end, I simply don't see any logical way to put together a playoff that actually satisfies the dependency on polls without just giving everyone a shot that can still provide the week-in week-out urgency of college football. It's not a perfect system, but it works better than anything else I have seen anyone suggest.