I See It Around Me, I See It In Everything, I Could Be So Much More Than This

Congratulations to Mr. Peter Pope for correctly naming "Freedom" by David Gray as the Saturday and Sunday Song of the Day.

Somewhere Joey Halbert and Bill Simmons are holding each other. They cry in the dark in outraged response to the cruel, cruel world that is the 2008-2009 NFL regular season.
On the bright side, America's Team looked fannnnnnnnnnntastic yesterday in their 28-10 defeat of the Cleveland (Paul) Browns.

I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself with this one, but the Super Bowl is in Tampa this year, right?

I'm probably going to regret writing that last sentence at some point in the next 6 months.

Bells are Chiming for Victory

At this point, we've all read the stories about the U.S.-launched missile that destroyed a National Reconnaissance Office satellite late Wednesday night, but in the words of George Oscar Bluth II (G.O.B. to his friends), "COME ON, U.S. military."

Aren't there other uses for the munitions of the United States, such as...

• Yankee Stadium
• The studios filming any one of the thousand "CSI: (Insert American City here)"
• Old Trafford
• The headquarters of the Blahg
• Jose Canseco's house, Roger Clemens's house, Barry Bonds's house, etc.
• The source of the immortal "Don't tase me, bro" catchphrase
• People still voting for Mitt Romney weeks after he dropped (excuse me, suspended) his Presidential campaign.
• Any supporters of the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, or New England Patriots.
• The person that invented speed limits
• Charlie Finley and John Hedyler (the brain trust behind the designated hitter rule)

That's all the punishment I can dole out at this time, but feel free to add your own suggestions.

True Colors Fly in Blue and Black

Congratulations to Mr. Jeremy Masten for correctly naming "Free Fallin'" by Tom Petty as the Sunday Song of the Day.

Rest easy, everyone. We now have proof that the Sports Guy did not mix himself a Drano smoothie after last night's devastating loss by the Great Satan.

Now it all makes sense.

You bleed for your team, you follow them through thick and thin, you monitor every free-agent signing, you immerse yourself in draft day, you purchase the jerseys and caps, you plan your Sundays around the games ... and there's a little rainbow waiting at the end. You can't see it, but you know it's there. It's there. It has to be there. So you believe.

Of course, there's one catch: You might never get there. Every fan's worst fear. All that energy over the years just getting displaced, no release, no satisfaction, nothing. Season after season, no championship ... and then you die. I mean, isn't that what this is all about? Isn't that the nagging fear? That those little moral victories over the years won't make up for that big payoff at the end -- that one moment when everything comes together, when your team keeps winning, when you keep getting the breaks and you just can't lose.

And if none of this makes sense, well ... it does to me. I just watched somebody else's team win the Super Bowl. Giants 17, Patriots 14.

"Free Fallin' Out Into Nothing" by Bill Simmons.

I must confess that a small part of me hurts for the Patriots, Simmons, and the entire fanbase of the Great Satan. Set aside their former smug satisfaction, thoughts of Spygate, and Bill Belichick leaving the field last night with :01 remaning on the clock. Instead, think if you had been working towards anything monumental for months and months, only to see it taken away at the last moment by the black sheep brother of your greatest rival.

After weeks and weeks of pressure, constant questions about perfection, and tons of potshots, the Pats fell a few minutes short of immortality, and as Eli Manning knelt to the turf in Glendale, Arizona, I was reminded once again how the pursuit of perfection is an unforgiving journey.
History will not view the Pats' season as a success despite the second-ever undefeated regular season. Instead, they will be viewed as a tragic collection of figures that, by all accounts, should have finally ushered the '72 Dolphins out of the spotlight, and entered into a rareified status that only comes along every so often in this era of parity and mediocrity.

Now, everyone is undefeated once again. When the next season begins in September, we will have these inevitable discussions around the final team remaining undefeated, constantly wondering if they can make it all the way. Those conversations will be full of possibility and conjecture, but they will always contain the phrase,"Yeah, they're undefeated, but what about Super Bowl XLII...?"

I'm a Bad Boy 'Cause I Don't Even Miss Her

Congratulations to Ms. Stacy Villescas and Mr. Joseph Halbert for correctly naming "Boys of Summer" from the Don Henley album Building the Perfect Beast as the Friday Song of the Day. Thanks are also in order to my Dad and John Middleton for the Don Henley-related trivia. If a celebrity is from East Texas, he or she is going to get the 5-star treatment here at Running Down a Dream.

Speaking of "Running Down a Dream", the editorial staff would like to thank Mr. Tom Petty for the plug tonight during the Super Bowl XLII halftime show. You'll note that we did not have to pay a hefty $3 million for a halftime plug, but merely convinced Mr. Petty and The Heartbreakers to play our namesake tune in return for a YouTube plug. Here you go, Tom.

Oh, you also want to talk about that game that also occurred on either side of Mr. Petty's performance? I can do that as well. For a game that was largely forgettable through the first 3 quarters, that final quarter was probably the most intense 15 minutes of football that I have watched since the 2006 Texas-USC Rose Bowl matchup, and we're talking about a game that featured the hated New York (Football) Giants and the Great Satan.
I'm not sure what the collective reaction in your locale was to the escape by Eli "Harry Houdini" Manning from Pats' pressure and subsequent heave downfield to an obviously living right David Tyree, but everyone around me screamed things at the television that looked something like this:

"Icantbelievewhatjusthappened!!!"

"HowdidEliManningdothat?"

"WhatkindofdealdidDavidTyreecutwiththedeviltomakethatcatch?"

"Whyareweallyellingatthetvscreenoverteamswenormallyhate?"

(Yes, we were in the "talking so fast so that all of your words run together" mode.)

As 85% of you then witnessed, Eli Manning heaved a pass to the corner of the endzone into the waiting arms of Plaxico Burress, and millions of yet-to-be born children in the New York-Connecticut-New Jersey tri-state area will be saddled with names like Plaxico Wasserstein because of that famed connection.

In the end, Eli Manning stood as the Super Bowl MVP after outdueling Tom Brady, and I am currently eating a nice baked serving of crow for all of the grief that I constantly piled on the youngest Manning brother. Frankly, I'm expecting to walk outside right now and see a flock of pigs winging through the sky in a perfect "V" and cats living with dogs in perfect harmony. It's true, my friends. Hell has frozen over, Satan (not the Great Satan) has pulled out the tire chains, and everyone is stockpiling canned goods.

As someone once said, "It's not the end of the world, but I think you can see it from here."

I would write more, but I need to do little checking to make sure that the Sports Guy and Joey Halbert have not done anything rash after the Great Satan's once perfect season fell apart like a tumbleweed in the Arizona desert. In fact, Joseph summed things up well when he told me after the game, "How the mighty have fallen. Karma is a cruel, cruel mistress."

Too true, Joseph.

Too true.

We Were Born With Our Eyes Wide Open

Chuck Klosterman begins in earnest his campaign for induction into the Running Down a Dream author/writer/columnist Hall-of-Fame.

If the Patriots win, they will just become this thing that scorched the earth for five months before capturing a trophy that was never in doubt. Future historians will describe this New England team as if it were a machine. Everyone will concede the Pats' superlative greatness, but the 19 wins will be just a collection of numbers. But if they lose -- especially if they lose late -- the New England Patriots will be the most memorable collection of individuals in the history of pro football.

They will prove that nothing in this world is guaranteed, that past returns do not guarantee future results, that failure is what ultimately defines us and that Gisele will probably date a bunch of other dudes in her life, because man is eternally fallible.

Losing isn't everything. It's the only thing.

"All Too Perfect" by Chuck Klosterman.

So When Does the Plane Go Down?

5 Things You Probably Did Not Know About "The Big Game" taking place on February 3, 2008 (Note: Read this post with enough sarcasm to kill a horse, just not one named Barbaro).

1. Eli Manning, quarterback for the New York (Football) Giants, is related to another quarterback in the league, Peyton Manning, who happened to play in the "The Big Game" last year in Miami, Florida. Since Eli's aforementioned brother seems to be adverse to publicity and commercials, a large raise will go to the reporter who can scrounge up more information on this recluse.
   
2. The New England Patriots (coughTheGreatSatancough) are currently undefeated with an 18-0 record. What's that? You didn't know that well-hidden tidbit? Well, that's exactly why you're reading this post, my uninformed friend.
   
3. A man named Eric Mangini, who coaches a football team named after airplanes in New York, told on his former boss, Patriots coach Bill Belichick, after the initial game of the 2007 season. Some people got mad, some people paid large sums of money to a guy named Roger Goodell, and people keep talking about this thing called an "asterisk". There's really not enough reporting on this to forumlate an entire story, so let's just move on to the next point.
   
4. In the past 18 months, the quarterback for the Great Satan, Tom Brady, has fathered a child with a beautiful tv-star, Bridget Moynahan, broken up with Ms. Moynahan, began dating the world's most famous super-model, Gisele Bundchen, and compiled the greatest statistical year for a quarterback in the history of the NFL. At halftime of "The Big Game", Mr. Brady will receive a special present from the Make-a-Wish foundation because it seems that life has really dealt him a poor hand. No one deserves a string of bad bounces like Tom has had these past few years.
   
5. Did you know that Jerome Bettis is still from Detroit? Seriously, even though "The Big Game" was played there two years ago, you, the American viewing public, still need to know that the big, lovable, mass-transportation nicknamed lug was actually a native of the city where he won his first "Big Game". What? You didn't know that either? I'm beginning to think that you're a lost cause.

At least you're not dumb enough to believe that the Manning brothers actually have a father who played professional football, because that would just be ridiculous.

You Can't Take It With You

Perhaps it was not Shackelton's voyage to the Antarctic, and it certainly was not the FROZEN TUNDRA OF LAMBEAU FIELD, but the first annual Ninja Camping Trip this weekend to the desolate wasteland of the Cedar Ridge Campground outside Belton was by all accounts a success despite the cold.

I returned home to my comfortable abode expecting a warm welcome back to civilization, but what I received rocked me to my very core.

The madness from last week has not abated, and young Eli (Now, I'm up to 45% of Archie and Olivia's inheritance) Manning has now led to the New York (Football) Giants to that "big game" that will take place in Glendale, Arizona on February 3, 2008.

(Proper name of this "big game" removed due to a run-in with a NFL official).

The NFL can monitor me all it wants, but you know what game I'm talking about (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

In said "big game", the New York (Football) Giants will face "The Great Satan". This game is almost like cheering a matchup between AIDS and the ebola virus. In other words, no matter who wins, we all lose.

'Cause My Peers, They Criticize Me

I saw it in passing this morning on "SportsCenter", but the Jacksonville Jaguars are still using their official website for a little psychological warfare ahead of Saturday night's clash with the Great Satan known as the New England Patriots.

Specifically, the Power Rankings section of the Jags' site features an asterisk next to the Pats' perfect, yet rarely mentioned, 16-0 record with the notation at the bottom reading very simply:

"*Cheated in one game."

I have no doubt that the webmaster for the Jags will receive a series of threatening phone calls from Joey Halbert along with people in the 508, 617, 781, and 978 area codes asking him if he thinks he is "wicked smaht" for that not so subtle jab at Brady, Belichick, and the rest of the Great Satan.

(Pictured above: A bizarre ritual that took place in Jacksonville on Tuesday where Jags fans offered the requisite 12-year old, blond male to appease the Great Satan. There was no word from Jaguars team officials on whether Jonathan Lipnicki of Jerry Maguire fame was available for sacrifice.)

My Heart Can't Wait to Meet You on the Other Side

Congratulations to Mr. Jeff McCain for correctly naming "Gravity" by Coldplay as the Wednesday Song of the Day.

Current Reading

The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and Their Quest for an Olympic Gold by David Halberstam

In what will lead to the ultimate downfall of the 2007-2008 New England Patriots, ESPN has begun airing a useless series where Bill Parcells compares the Pats to great team from the NFL days of yore. If you will take a trip with me in the way-back machine to the halycon days of late 2005, you will recall that the Worldwide Leader in Sports aired a series comparing the USC team led by Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, and LenDale White to the ghosts of college football past.

There was only one tiny problem with such a programming strategy. ESPN devoted more time towards enshrining the Trojans among the all-time greats than they did breaking down the matchup between USC and the 'Horns, which, as I clairvoyantly predicted in the above-linked post, ended poorly for Leinart, Bush, White & Co.

ESPN, please continue allowing the Tuna to extol the virtues of the '07 Pats. It will make their ultimate downfall all the more enjoyable.